Okey Dokey - here's another little Avengers number written to tide things over until the Age of Ultron comes out. I still haven't really got over my Steve Rogers crush, and buying The Winter Soldier on Blu-Ray hasn't really helped - more like throwing fuel on a fire :-)

So this is set somewhere in-between Avengers Assemble and The Winter Soldier. I loved the way Cap & Widow bonded in that movie, and I guess that inspired this little bit of fluff.

Hope you enjoy this - I don't have any new ideas floating around in my noggin at the moment, so this is probably going to be the last story of the year, but feel free to send me some suggestions to get things going again.

TTFN x

24th Sept 2014

Close Quarters

By Supernoodle

-o-

The safe house is Spartan, to say the least. It's barely more than a concrete box behind its façade, a windowless, lead-lined, bombproof bunker. But it has actual pillows on the triple metal bunk beds that are pushed up against the left hand side of the room, there's a locker full of emergency rations – nothing anyone would choose to eat, but enough to keep them going for a while, and there's even a small metal bookshelf lined with half a dozen yellowing novels, a stack of years old National Geographic magazines, and a dusty old box containing a plastic chess-set with a picture of two nerdy looking teenagers wearing huge wire-framed glasses and turtle-neck sweaters of the front.

Natasha has been holed up in worse places. Much worse. This place is a palace compared to some of S.H.I.E.L.D's lesser used facilities. It smells a little funky, damp and fusty like a thrift shop coat or an old ladies closet, but it's clean, there's no spiders - because despite her code name, Natasha Romanoff does not do spiders – and best of all, much better than its selection of 1970s entertainment, it actually has a shower.

With hot water.

And soap.

And despite everything else that had gone wrong that day, she was going to take that as a win.

-o-

The mission hadn't exactly gone to plan. It was meant to be a quick extraction and Steve, still new to the world of black ops and the way the S.T.R.I.K.E teams worked, was with her purely for back-up. She knew that pretty soon Steve would be leading the S.T.R.I.K.E missions, he learned quickly, and was a Captain in more than just name after all, but for now, he was mostly just the team rookie. And while she was more used to working alongside Barton, she was quickly realising that she didn't actually mind having a rookie like Cap at her back – if you could call a Super-Powered, WW2 veteran like Captain America a rookie.

Steve's strategic and tactical skills were near faultless, and had been invaluable during the Battle of New York all those months ago, but like her, he had survived the invasion mostly on sheer grit and determination. Since then, maybe realising that he wasn't the biggest kid in the neighbourhood anymore, not by a long shot, Steve had thrown himself headlong into every bit of training S.H.I.E.L.D had to offer. Advancing in his fighting techniques and stepping up his game to a level of badass she had rarely seen before. So working with Steve Rogers was fine by her. She just wishes he would loosen up a bit.

"I'm gonna take a shower, Rogers." She says, pushing past him into the bathroom. She feels disgusting - dirty, sweaty and covered in a layer of something that smells so bad she can't even wait until she's out of Steve's sight before she begins to peel off her suit. Once she's in her underwear she has a quick rummage around in the steel cabinets and to her delight, her search yields two dozen or so toiletry kits, complete with a disposable toothbrush, a miniature tube of toothpaste, a comb – the kind of little kits that you got on long haul plane journeys, which is another win seeing as they were meant to be in and out in a matter of hours and didn't have any gear with them, and now they were going to be stuck in the safe house at least overnight, maybe longer, while they waited for an extraction. Taking a quick peek out the door, she sees Steve browsing the yellowing paperbacks on the bookshelf and she closes the bathroom door, strips off and steps into the shower.

Conscious that she's not the only one who's in a bit of a mess and that the hot water may not last, she quickly scrubs off the layer of dust, grime and blood, inspecting the damage as she goes – she doesn't seem to have suffered anything more than a few scrapes and bruises – and she tries her hardest to ignore how good the hot water feels. She could happily stay in there all night, and had it been Clint instead of Steve waiting out in the other room, she may have even got him to join her to share the water while it lasted, but Steve was not Clint - Steve was really not Clint - and reluctantly shutting off the tap, she picks up a couple of the thin, rough towels from the side, wraps up her wet hair and covers her modesty as much as she can.

Poking her head out the door, she sees that Steve hasn't really moved much from his spot by the bookshelf, as if he'd purposely put as much distance as he could between himself and the bathroom, and when he turns to look at her, he immediately averts his gaze.

"I saved you some water, Rogers." She tells him, heading to the small locker at the end of the nearest bunk and chalks down another win when she finds what she hoped would be in there. There's a dozen or so T-shirts and matching S.H.I.E.L.D branded sweats and she pulls out a set that look like they might fit, and the biggest set she can see, and throws them on the bunk beside Steve. "Get in there while it's still hot and let me get decent. I can't have you standing in the corner all night."

Steve pulls his shield from his back and places it under the bottom bunk, grabs the t-shirt and sweats and limps past her towards the bathroom.

"Let me know if you want me to wash your back." She tells him and she swears that Steve actually blushes. She knows she shouldn't tease him like that, but she's so used to Clint's filthy sense of humour that she finds it hard to stop herself.

"Why don't you just stick to watching it?" Steve murmurs in reply and before she knows it, the door is shut tight and she hears the shower go on. A moment later Natasha drops her towel and pulls on the sweats, then settles herself onto the top bunk, hoping that he'll lighten up a little after showering off the day, otherwise it was going to be a long, long night.

-o-

Steve wipes the small metal mirror that was bolted to the concrete above the sink free of steam and twists to see the damage to his side as best he can. There's a couple of bullet grazes across his flank. They've bled a little and have left the flesh around them mottled and bruised, but those scrapes will heal before he knows it. They aren't really what's bothering him. There's a much deeper wound - a straight through gouge just below his hip that is stinging like a son of a gun and had bled a fair bit when he got under the water.

Then there's the bona fide bullet hole deep in the meat of his right ass cheek.

He knows that he's not going to be able to get that out himself and he doesn't really want to let it start healing with the bullet still inside him.

Natasha is a consummate professional. He has no doubt of that. They have been working together on and off for the past nine months or so, and while he trusts her abilities unreservedly when it comes to getting the job done, he doesn't exactly trust her yet. She's a spy, not a soldier. She lies and manipulates and does whatever she needs to do to complete a mission, and while he trusts her loyalties and respects her unique skills, he just doesn't feel entirely comfortable around her. Not comfortable enough to ask her to do what he needs her to do.

He dries off, pulls a t-shirt over his head and wraps a towel around his waist, hesitating at the door for what seems to be forever. He can feel the heat burning in his cheeks and he sighs, hating himself for it.

He's not scared of women. Barton likes to loudly suggest otherwise to try and get a rise out of him, but it's not true. Especially not of strong women. They're the gals he can relate to the most. Strong women like Peggy, resilient women like his Ma. But Natasha is not like most women, she's not like most people, period, and it's not fear that has him hesitating at the door, it's good, old fashioned embarrassment.

It's hard to ignore the way you were raised, and Steve was raised up to be god-fearing and modest – two things that seemed to have gone by the wayside since the War.

"Come out here, Rogers. I can see your feet under the door." Natasha's voice calls from the other room, and Steve silently curses himself. Now he's coming off as some sort of fat-head creep and taking a deep breath, he opens the door and sticks his head out.

"Whatcha doing there, Cap." Natasha coos. "Spying on me through the keyhole?"

"No... I-I… " Steve stammers, getting even more exasperated with himself by the second. He knows that Natasha is just teasing him, her and Barton seem to delight in it when they're all working together, and for the most part, once he's figured out what they're talking about, he can give as good as he gets. But it's different when it's just the two of them, stuck in such close quarters for the foreseeable future, especially as he's dressed in only a t-shirt and a towel and about to ask her to take a good long look as his Keister.

Getting down off the bunk, Natasha's playful demeanour changes as she realises that Steve's not just being shy and she eyes him warily. "You okay, Rogers?"

Deciding that it's easier just to show rather than tell, Steve steps fully through the door and turns so she can see the bullet grazes down his flank and the blood seeping through the towel from his hip and the bullet hole.

Natasha sighs and looks up at Steve who is blushing furiously and she gives him a sympathetic smile. She knows he can take a lot of damage without it being a big deal, so the usual feelings of concern that she would have if it was Barton standing there bleeding from half a dozen bullet wounds is quickly put away and replaced with more practical thoughts. "Did they all go through?"

Steve shakes his head and points to the bullet hole. "There's one still in me."

"Need me to take a look at it?"

Steve nods and looks so abashed that Natasha can't help but laugh. "C'mon, Rogers. Relax. I've seen my fair share of asses."

Steve gives her the tiniest smile back. "Well, you've not seen mine."

Natasha shrugs. "Well, you can believe that, or you can take some time to think about which Agents oversaw your recovery from the ice, Steve..."

-o-

"So how do you want to do this?" Natasha asks, casually swinging the first-aid kid that had been sitting at the bottom of the small locker where the t-shirts and sweats had been stashed around her knees. "On the bunk or standing by the sink?"

Steve shrugs. "Whatever's easiest for you."

"It's going to be awkward as hell either way, Rogers." Natasha replies, giving him a sympathetic smile. "Bunk's probably easier though and you can always hide your head under a pillow and pretend this isn't happening."

Steve gives her a withering look and trying his hardest to keep the towel wrapped around himself, he lowers himself face first onto the bottom bunk.

Dragging the pillow off the middle bunk, Natasha kneels on it and pulls out a small torch from the kit. "The doctor will see you now," she says, undoing the towel so that she can see the full extent of the damage, and Steve groans and buries his face into the thin pillow.

Natasha's first aid skills are somewhat limited – she's more about putting bullets

into people than removing them, but she has seen and dealt with worse, and she's somewhat comforted by the fact that she doesn't really have to worry about infection with Steve, or stitching anything up. She knows he heals super-fast, that he doesn't get sick, that he can take a hit and just walk it off like no-other human on earth, but at the same time, he still has a bullet in him and that's still gotta hurt. And even though she gets the distinct feeling that he doesn't really approve of her, or anything she says or does, she likes the guy, and respects him more than he'll probably ever realise, and she doesn't want to see him suffering.

"You sure you want me to dig this out?"

Steve turns his head to look at her, confused. "Of course I want it out."

Natasha shrugs. "It's just that doctors tend to leave bullet wounds alone these days. They just let it heal up. Best not to poke around too much... Although to be fair, it's not in very deep. Your suit must have slowed it down."

"Natasha, please, for the love of god just dig that slug outta my ass."

Natasha suppresses a grin and roots around in the kit for the things she'll need, finding a pair of long surgical tweezers, some dressings, some little vials of iodine and best of all, half a dozen morphine auto-injectors.

"Look what I found." She says, waving the morphine under Steve's nose and he shakes his head.

"I don't need that. Won't work anyway."

"Fine." She replies, and picking up the tweezers, she takes a deep breath and begins to dig around for the bullet.

Steve gasps and goes rigid, she can see his toes curling with pain and she puts the tweezers down and picks up the morphine again.

"It might work for a few minutes." She says, popping off two of the caps and sticking the tiny needles into his glute before Steve can argue, and when he looks up at her again, he seems decidedly more relaxed.

"You feel this?" She asks, slapping his ass hard, and Steve gives her a crooked, slightly dopey smile. "Nope."

"Good." She replies, and goes for the bullet in earnest.

-o-

It's pitch dark when Steve opens his eyes and he struggles upright, fighting the wave of panic that always threatens to drown him every time he wakes somewhere unfamiliar. Only there's no room for him to be upright and his head hits the bunk above him and he scrambles onto the hard concrete floor in a tangle of blankets, struggling to draw breath as his heart hammers wildly against his ribs.

"You alright there, Rogers?" Natasha asks in the darkness. "Still having nightmares? You know, it's been almost a year since the ice. Maybe you should talk to someone about that?"

"I don't have nightmares." Steve replies, dragging a hand down his face, and he takes a few deep breaths to calm himself. He feels weird, the room is spinning around him and his mouth and head feel like they're full of cotton wool. If he didn't know better, he'd swear he was hung over, but he assumes it's just the leftover effects of the painkiller Natasha dosed him with. Turns out it did work after all.

"How much morphine did you stick me with?"

Natasha reaches down from her bunk and switches on the small lamp that's sitting on top of the locker and shrugs. "Two doses. Give or take..."

"Two?... Really?"

Okay, five. I wanted to make sure I wasn't hurting you."

"By putting me in a coma?" Steve asks, untangling himself from the blankets, relieved to find that he's actually wearing some clothes once again and he picks through foggy memories of Natasha helping him pull on the sweats that she found for him in the locker.

"You're still breathing, aren't you?"

Steve gathers the blankets and throws them back on the bunk, then pulls himself to his feet. He's so thirsty, his skin is weirdly itchy, and his side is throbbing like a son of a gun and it's at time like these that he desperately wishes he'd turned Fury down when he'd asked him to join S.H.I.E.L.D. Not that he'd had many other career choices. Maybe he could have re-enlisted, but what good would he have been to the Army when he barely even knew how to use a cell phone? Before the taking the serum he was no good to anyone, and now because of the serum, it felt like he'd become only good for one thing. Combat.

Just sometimes though, he thinks, it would be nice to be treated like more than just a blunt instrument.

Natasha scoots back on her bunk and sits crossed legged as he makes it to the rations locker and grabs a bottle of water. "Why so grumpy, Rogers?"

Steve downs half the water in two huge gulps, wipes his lips with the back of his hand then turns to look at her. "I'm not grumpy."

Natasha motions towards the locker and Steve throws her up a bottle of water. "You sound grumpy. Is your ass hurting?"

"My ass is fine, thank you."

"So what's your beef then, Cap? And I don't mean just now… "

He feels indignation flare hot inside him, but he swallows it. It's not Natasha fault - none of this is Natasha's fault. The bullet wound in his ass, the failed mission, or the fact that these days he feels like he's barely more than a mercenary. A disposable weapon. A tool.

"You gave me five vials of morphine, Natasha. You could have killed me. I'm not... I'm not indestructible."

"Six actually... Sorry."

Steve closes his eyes, takes a breath and pushes the urge to smash a hole through the wall as far down inside himself as he can, except there's not much room left inside him for that kind of thing. It's still full up from the war, from Bucky, from everything…

"It's okay to be angry, you know. Not at me so much, I prefer it when my comrades don't want to kill me…"

"I don't want to kill you, Natasha." Steve replies, sighing heavily, and when he looks up at her, and Natasha's heart squeezes painfully in her chest. He looks so young, far too young to be so broken – but then again, that's something she knows about first hand too.

"I just- I-"

"Spit it out, Rogers. Before you choke on it."

Steve finishes the remainder of his water and smiles bitterly and it's an expression that somehow looks so wrong on Steve's guileless face. " I guess I feel kinda used sometimes..."

Natasha nods. "I've been doing this - this job – since I was four years old, Steve. I know a little something about being used. And you know what? I was angry too, for the longest time. Angry at Clint, angry at S.H.I.E.L.D. At myself for letting myself be used like that. Then I realised who I should really be angry at, and that actually, they didn't really care how I felt about things. So I had two choices, let the anger eat me alive, or use it."

The bitter smile returns to Steve's lips. "I'm trying to use it, Natasha, that why I joined S.H.I.E.L.D. I hoped that something good could come from what happened. All I've ever wanted to do was to do my part. All I wanted was to help people, to save people... During the war, we fought so hard, and for so long, and it was worth every minute, you know? We were fighting for a reason, fighting to save lives, fighting for our freedom, but now, since I woke up, it feels like… It feels like I'm not really helping to save anyone."

"Times have changed, Steve. Wars are not fought in trenches anymore. And maybe if you got out a little more, did something other than train all the damn day, got out and had some fun, you might not feel so down about things? I know this great bar in Krakow, a hundred different vodkas. If you had one of each, you might even get drunk... We should go - you know, if they ever get us out of this damn box."

He grunts noncommittally, not really wanting to hear what she was saying. It's one thing to know a truth, another thing entirely to hear it said out loud.

"You're here now, for better or worse," she continues, a little more gently. "You gotta let the rest of it go. You can't go back, Steve, and you can't mourn forever."

Steve doesn't reply, the lump in his throat won't let him, instead he sits back down on the lower bunk, wincing at the ache in his injured side. He can't see Natasha from where he is and he's glad. He's never really been one for talking about his feelings – back in his day, people never used to "share", they just got on with things, and that's what he's been doing since the ice – just trying his hardest to get on with things. Sure, it was tough sometimes, there were days when he was barely able to drag himself out of bed in the morning, but there was always someone who had it tougher. And anyway, if he did ever feel like pouring his heart out to someone, he wouldn't choose Natasha Romanoff - a spy. A woman who could take everything you were, everything you didn't even know you had inside you, and use it to gut you with.

Although he's already said far much more than he intended.

"You're good at your job, aren't you, Natasha."

"You bet your lily-white ass I am."Natasha replies, and she leans right over the edge of the bunk, her face inches from Steve's and when he looks up at her with his sad blue eyes, she kisses him on the forehead. " Now, how about a few games of chess? Just to pass the time until the cavalry arrives... Although bear in mind that I'm Russian, or at least I used to be. I will beat you."

Steve smiles, the first genuine smile she's seen on his face in well, forever.

"Yeah, we'll see about that."