Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
The guy always gets the girl in the end. That's what everyone says, and to him, it's just so hilarious. Because he never got the girl. No amount of super-soldier serum and talk about 'what's on the inside counts,' got him the the girl in the end. His first chance, he blew it because he had a duty to his country. He missed the girl by seventy years because he was just so damn selfless. Then the second time around, he really thought that it would work. She was nice and pretty...oh who was he kidding, she was amazing. She was strong and independent, confident in who she was. They connected instantly, he could feel it. And when they started to flirt, dancing around each other, he thought that he was finally given a real shot at love.
But then his country came first again, and in the time that they spent apart, she had found a new dance partner. He, being the nice guy that he was, stepped back and watched what could have been his unfold. He saw the connection that sparked every time they were in the same room. He saw how delusional he was thinking that they could have been something. Because these two people in front of him, they were perfect for each other. And no matter how many flaws or cracks he saw in their relationship, he never stepped in to intervene.
He had deluded himself into thinking that Bruce was better for Natasha, so much so that he never saw the strains, the tears, the regrets. He had stepped back and just watched. Watched as the love that could have been his blossomed, and turned into a charming little family. He was too tired of the games with his heart, so he didn't give love another try. Instead he became Uncle Steve to the kids that he had so carelessly thrown away. Because in the end, Captain America never gets the girl.
...
You get what you deserve. That was the motto that she lived, breathed, fought by. She always got what she deserved. And if it ever happened that she got less or more than she deserved, she had a little chat with Fate and in the end got what she wanted, what she thought she wanted. So when he came into her life, a beacon of light in her world of darkness, she just couldn't believe it. Here was Captain America, the epitome of all that was good and proper in the world, and he was standing right in front of her.
He, like every man that she had encountered so far, fell for her charms. So she played along, still not believing that anyone could be so innocent and pure. But when she learned that he was indeed incorruptible and he had fallen a bit too far for her charms, she had to step away for a while. Especially when she discovered that he had somehow wormed a way into her frozen heart. The opportunity presented itself after the whole Winter Soldier fiasco; she made up an excuse to go off the radar for a while, when she was really trying to get the blue-eyed soldier out of her head. By the time that she had to go back, she had already planned how it was going to go. She was going to get what she deserved, and there was no way in hell that she deserved the perfect Captain America.
So she pursued the broken monster instead. He just got what it was like to hate yourself, hate the monster that you could become. So she ignored the hurt look in the Captain's eyes and masked the regret in hers. She soon found herself genuinely liking the scientist, but he would never be able to fill the hole in her heart that a certain Steve Rogers had left behind. Over the years, she grew content with her life and even started the family that she never believed would one day be hers. The pang of what was lost only returned sometimes, especially when she saw him playing with her children. But every time, she would remind herself that he deserved someone better, someone who wasn't a monster. She had fooled herself into thinking that by leaving him, she saved him from the pain that she would bring...when in actuality, she had been the one to leave the biggest wound in his heart. So the Black Widow died, believing that she finally got what she deserved.
Their love was the greatest story never told.