Natasha never quite understood what Steve had meant when he told her the way she had been living her life was a tough way to live. It certainly didn't feel tough to her. Contrary to what Steve might think, Natasha actually enjoyed a fairly full life before the fall of SHIELD. She lived in a nice, cushy apartment building, enjoyed a good friendship with her next-door neighbour slash bff , Jenny, and had plenty of healthy, fulfilling relationships with men. Of course, she did all this under the guise of Natalie Rushman, financial consultant in an anonymous investment company. But that was just context.
For example, when Jenny knocked on her door all teary-eyed and heartbroken and they spent the whole night trashing the idiot of a boyfriend that cheated on her, she was all in. Or when her Wall Street ex-boyfriend Adam took her for drinks to meet his friends, she hit it off with each and every one of them. Her life, regardless of what Steve Rogers seemed to believe, felt very far from empty.
So she did have to craftily make up some intricate lies about how she spend most of her days at work when she curled up in bed with current relationship of the month. And Jenny probably towards the end must have felt sick at hearing Natasha utter the phrase, "sorry, Jen, crisis at work," every time she received a mission detail from Fury in the middle of movie night/ shopping session/ 'hangover-recovery brunch session'. But that is just the price you pay for being an adult paying your own bills, right?
And anyway when things start to get a little dicey, there was always Barton's family to run to. And there, she could be free to be Nat, Hawkeye's sidekick, Laura's bff and Aunt Nat to Cooper and Lila.
Except as soon as Steve said what he said on that drive to New Jersey, he's put a whole new light on her life outside of SHIELD and the view came out less fulfilling as she previously thought.
"The truth is a matter of circumstances, it's not all things to all people all the time. And neither am I."
"That's a tough way to live."
Damn Steve Rogers. And she's had a long time to reevaluate her life after Washington. So when the call came from Stark to bring up the gang together and go on a scavenger hunt for SHIELD 'lost-and-found' artifacts, she saw an opportunity to maybe try and make some changes in her life. Try and forge more honest and substantial relationships.
Enter Bruce Banner. In retrospect, maybe it wasn't the smartest idea to assume that having the past that she had, only a man who brought anger management issues to a whole other level could measure up. Plus, at what point did she think it was a turn-on to basically call a man a monster right to his face? To say the whole thing blew up in her face was an understatement.
And it pissed her off even more to have Steve Rogers the only one sticking around to help her pick up the pieces after. The impetus for her elaborate attempt to forge a "meaningful life" then became the very person to talk her away from staring at blank walls; to make sure to feed her breakfasts, lunches and dinners; to distract her with mock missions 'to introduce Steve Rogers to 21st century cinematography'. And the worst thing that could happen happened. The biggest joke of all was that she started to fall for the idiot.
It was beyond anything that she could possibly want. Steve Rogers was the opposite to the guys she normally get hot for. Sure, physically, the man was Apollo incarnated. It must be a crime for a man's upper body to be as chiseled as his. And yes, to Natasha's everlasting frustration, she was continuously exposed to this said upper body because not a week go by without Steve popping his head into her room with his cheerfully "Nat, want to spar?" invitation. But physical attributes aside, Steve was so not his type. Natasha usually go for the bad boys, the one with the wicked gleam in their eyes as they smoothly charm their way into her panties.
The man preferred Star Trek to Star Wars and referred to Natasha's choice of music as noise.
And then three things happenened to top off the suck-face that was to become Natasha's life. First, Sokovia Accords splitting the aye and nay-sayers in the Avengers. This placed her in the uncomfortable position of causing hurt and disappointment in Steve's eyes when she became one of the aye-sayers. Secondly, the Winter Soldier resurfaced like a bad dream, accused of bombing the Geneva building where the signing of the Sokovia Accords was taking place. This severed the split between the Avengers and led to half of them labeled as criminal fugitives. And then when things were winding down, largely based on Tony Stark and Tchalla's combined clean-up job and the fugitives including the Winter Soldier were cleared of directly intentional wrong-doing, Steve dropped the bombshell that he and Sharon Carter were currently dating.
That was the time when Natasha decided that she needed some time away. Loki with his magic stick himself wouldn't be able to make her stay and watch Steve and Sharon Carter holding hands and kissing up a storm in the Avengers facility. So she packed up her bag, left a cryptic note all Black Widow style and sneaked out in the middle of the night, destination unknown that later ended up becoming the Siberian outpost (because damn if Nick Fury wasn't the best spy in the world and can track her anywhere). It turned out that 'Natasha's time away' needed to wait until she cleaned up some kind of situation cropping up at the 'new-SHIELD' to-do list.
Situation turned out to be one James Buchanan Barnes trying to obliterate the whole place up. She barely had one foot in the facility before sprinting; he grabbed her in her metal arm as if she weighed nothing heavier than a football then a huge force propelled them out into the deep snow. Breathing heavily, Natasha looked up with one arm covering her face as one explosion after another destroyed the building completely.
"Interior design not to your liking?" Natasha asked, drily standing up and sweeping snow off her custom Black Widow get-up.
The Winter Soldier, never the best conversationalist in the room, snorted but Natasha could see the haunted look in his eyes. For a minute she wondered if she looked exactly like this not long after her defection to SHIELD. It was probably this momentary sense of empathy that induced her to ask him if he had anywhere to go. He didn't. Steve had welcomed him to join him at the Avengers Facility but Natasha understood his wariness to be anywhere around Howard Stark's son. There it was again. That sense that she understood him. That must be another reason why she ended up inviting him to stay with her for the time being.
"Why aren't you with the rest of the Avengers?" – was the first question he asked her, in between acts of towel-drying his shoulder-length hair.
She shrugged, deftly cutting up onions and garlics in preparation for that night's dinner. "Wasn't in a mood to celebrate, I guess."
He didn't look like he understood what she was saying but it wasn't as if she was going to say that she wanted to be at least a continent away from watching Steve's Courting of Sharon Carter. Except she did later after they finished dinner and a bottle of Russian vodka. She even threw in the pathetic piece about her being in love with Steve Rogers. And then fought the urge to murder The Winter Soldier who upon hearing this burst out laughing. To be fair, it wasn't a sinister or even mocking laugh. In fact, it was a laugh Natasha never would have associated with Hydra's formerly top lethal weapon. The man was sincerely, honest-to-goodness amused and for a moment Natasha wondered if she was finally seeing the 'Bucky' Steve was always going on about.
"I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. I just… it b.., I was just picturing it in my head." And he went on laughing for another minute or two before Natasha walked off in a huff and slammed the door to her bedroom.
And without her knowing it, that would be the start of the next phase of her life.