Summary: Steve is there for her during The Bruce Fiasco. From start to finish. Slight AoU AU. Platonic Romanogers, canonical HulkWidow.
1: On the Jet
Clint is secured, and as stable as they can get him. Still snarking, which is a good sign. Thor is hovering, unhappily aware of how little he can do for wounds, outside of emergency electrocution. Tony's at the controls of the jet – for now, anyway. And Bruce is sitting in the corner, recovering and dealing with what Steve guesses to be a truly immense degree of self-loathing.
Natasha frowns, and crosses the room to sit in front of him, taking the headphones off for him.
Steve raises an eyebrow with interest, and watches the show.
It's going reasonably well. Natasha starts with the facts, which is good. Bruce is a scientist, he appreciates facts like "had this not happened, there would have been double casualties" more than he appreciates the fact that watching himself self-flagellate is painful for everyone around him as well as him. Steve's chest hurts a bit at the pain he knows underlies Tasha's question of "How long before you trust me?"
But it's going reasonably well. As well as can be expected – until she turns to Thor. He knows why she does it, of course. Thor, wielder of Mjolnir, works best as the character endorser. But she's also forgotten–
"The gates of Hel are filled with the screams of his victims," Thor says, with a clenched fist, and an approving smile twined into his voice.
– forgotten that he's Thor, a guy who can make Steve look pacifistic.
Bruce buries his head in his hands, and Natasha pins Thor with a death glare. Thor winces; even he is not immune. (Steve doesn't blame him.)
Thor attempts to dig himself out of the hole (key word: attempts) and Steve has to stare at the wall and then the ceiling to hide his smile.
He doesn't talk to Tasha about it until she's in another room, taking off her Widow's Bites and putting them away.
"So, you and Bruce?"
And Steve watches as the very faintest shades of pink crawl over Natasha's cheeks.
"Rogers," she says, a warning note in her voice.
And if that doesn't tell him everything, then Steve would be forced to call himself an idiot.
He grins at her, bright, warm, and a little smug. OK, very smug.
"So, what's your play? And can I be your – what's that phrase – wingman?"
Natasha sighs.
"You know, playing matchmaker is supposed to be my thing."
Steve shrugs and keeps smiling at her. "There's a saying for that – oh, yeah, I remember now! Payback's a bitch." Another modern phrase he's mastered.
2: At the Party
Steve hushes Sam next to him, and the man shoots him a quizzical look.
"Sorry," Steve whispers, "but the show's about to start."
Sam's eyebrows hike up further on his face.
"What show?"
Steve glances at the bar, where Bruce is approaching Natasha. He's never been quite so thankful for serum-enhanced hearing, as he filters out the rest of the party and zeroes in on that conversation.
"You got lousy taste in men, kid," Bruce says, wryly.
She hasn't exactly had a lot of chances to develop good taste.
Truth be told, Steve has a few reservations. Bruce has been running for so long, and so has Nat. It could either go very well, or very poorly. He doesn't think it'll be anything in between.
Natasha gives a little smile at that. "He's not so bad. Well, he has a temper. Deep down, he's all fluff." She hesitates, and Steve can see her gathering her courage. "Fact is, he's not like anybody I've ever known."
The bright pink cocktail pauses halfway to Banner's lips.
"All my friends are fighters," she elaborates. "And here comes this guy, who spends his life avoiding the fight–" oh good, that's much more tactful than running away –"because he knows he'll win." And cause a mountain of collateral damage into the bargain, but yes.
"Sounds amazing," Bruce murmurs, looking down into his glass.
"He's also a huge dork," Natasha says. Then adding hastily, "Chicks dig that."
Steve hops up onto his feet, and murmurs to Sam, "I promise, I'll recap in a bit," before crossing the floor to the other end of the bar.
"So what do you think?" Natasha asks Bruce, as Steve passes one of the couches. "Should I fight this, or run with it?"
Bruce is hilariously flustered by the question, and Natasha is biting back a grin.
"Never say never," she says, turning on her heel, just as Steve leans against the bar. Showtime, Rogers.
Steve grins. "It's nice," he says to Bruce.
Bruce stammers, and it's even more hilarious. Steve suddenly gets a flash of insight into why Natasha tries so hard to matchmake him. A shame for her that he's only flustered around women he really, really likes.
"You and Romanoff," he clarifies. Not Natasha, or Nat. Don't give the idea that you're already close to her like that, or he won't give it a shot.
"No, we haven't – that wasn't–" Bruce keeps stammering, and Steve can't stop himself from letting out a chuckle.
"It's OK, nobody's breaking any bylaws. She's not the most…open person in the world," he says. Then smiling, "But with you, she seems very relaxed."
Bruce is still stammering denials. "No, Natasha, she – she just, she likes to flirt."
Steve quirks a brow at that, reaches for a beer. "I've seen her flirt. Up close. This ain't that."
Because it's really not, and OK, Banner hasn't had the experience of being undercover with Natasha, but it's really not. It's a little too honest, a little too awkward, a little too real. And it's taken all of Natasha's courage to do that, instead of her usual flirtations.
Bruce scoffs, and Steve bites back a sigh. Is he really that obtuse when it comes to life outside the lab?
Nat, he'd better make you happy.
"Look, as maybe the world's leading authority on waiting too long? Don't." He holds the other man's gaze, not permitting any lapse of eye contact, so Bruce can get exactly how sincere he is. "You both deserve a win."
Because they do, honestly, despite his personal reservations, and on a very deep level that Steve knows is probably reserved for schoolgirls, he just wants his team to be happy.
On that note, he starts making his way back to Sam, pretending not to hear when Bruce calls after him,
"What d'you mean, up close?"
And yes, that is definitely jealousy in the other man's tone.
Steve grins. Huh. Nat, you might have a chance after all.
3: That Conversation. Remixed.
"I'll double with you," Natasha says to Steve. "It won't be the first time."
He looks at her, puzzled. "Not with Banner?"
She shakes her head, swallowing hard. His eyes soften, and he sets the shield down, just inside the door of the room that Clint had showed them.
"Nat."
He raises his arms, like he has so many times with the shield in hand, so many times to cover them. She takes the invitation. Her head burrows into his chest, and he rubs at her back.
"Hey, hey," he whispers, one hand closing the door. The least he can do for Natasha is offer her some privacy to fall apart. "C'm're."
She makes it as far as the bed, sitting down heavily. They're both still in their battle gear. He pulls her into his side, offering silent comfort. Natasha's not the most tactile person, but Steve is, and this is always how he's comforted emotional girls, and she knows that. She's not crying, but…he can offer this much, at least.
He doesn't ask you okay? because they both know she's not.
"I didn't want to double up with Bruce," she says, softly. "It's not fair on him, not when he's accusing himself of being a monster, for him to have to deal with someone who really is."
Steve stiffens. "What?" He pulls back from the hug a little, looking at her. She refuses to look back.
"Natasha. What did she do to you?"
"Nothing. I – she –"
"Bullshit," he says. "Natasha. Tell me."
This is a conversation between Steve and Natasha, as equals, as friends. However, he's worried about her, and therefore, he has no qualms with injecting Captain America Command™ into his voice.
It works again now, and he knows that the only reason it works is because Natasha consents to it working on her.
"In the Red Room. I was trained there for assassination. Trained so that death didn't matter to me, it was just a job. Taught to keep my emotions to myself, to form no human attachments. Taught to to kill on orders, without qualms." She draws in a deep, shuddering breath. "I wasn't born that way. I was raised that way. And as if unmaking me from the child I once was wasn't enough…there's a graduation ceremony. They sterilise you."
Steve's breath catches in his throat; he saw the way Natasha's eyes lit up, when little Lila Barton asked, did you bring Auntie Nat? Saw the tenderness in the way she picked the child up and set her on her hip.
"Oh, Nat," he whispers, gathering her close, all but pulling her into his lap. She buries her face in his shoulder.
"Makes everything easier. It's just more efficient," she says, her voice wavering. "But making me a monster wasn't enough. They had to seal it."
Wanting, and knowing that you could never. Knowing that your agency had been stripped away. The dignity of her choice, forcibly taken from her.
He doesn't think he's ever hated the Red Room so much in his life as in that very second.
He slips off the bed and kneels in front of her, tipping her chin up with a couple of fingers, holding her gaze.
"Natasha. Listen to me," he says, softly.
Her gaze tries to slip away, and he readjusts his grip, thumbs under her chin, pointer and middle finger bracing against her cheek so that she has to look at him.
"Yes, you've done stuff. You've killed people." And he hates the way she flinches at the words, but if he doesn't address that, the wound will just fester, and she'll always think, if you knew what I've done, you'd hate me.
But he's read the file, and more importantly, he knows her. He knows sweet, dorky Natasha, who match makes, likes karaoke, has a crush on a man who turns into a giant green rage monster, uses emoticons in work texts, and who took down SHIELDRA with him.
"You've got red in your ledger. But you're not a monster."
Green eyes snap up to meet his, and there's a flicker of doubt, and hope against hope.
"Y'know why?" he asks her, and she shakes her head.
"Monsters don't doubt their orders. They don't choose to take a chance on changing. They don't keep at the changing when it gets hard. Monsters don't fight for their redemption."
Surprise, now, joining doubt, and the maybe, just maybe written in large print on her face. If you know Nat, that is.
He squeezes her hands. "You're not a monster. You're my friend," he says, before standing. "Do you want the first shower, or will I take it?"
She smiles at him, a little tentatively, then rises, and gives him a quick kiss on the cheek. "Thanks. I'll take the shower."
He nods, and then drops down on the bed, as she collects her toiletries.
4: After Bruce Leaves
He's exhausted from the fight, and covered in seven layers of grime. When he finds his old room on the Helicarrier, he just wants to grab a towel, hit the showers, and then sleep for eight hours. He doesn't usually need that much, but it's a special treat. A yay-we-saved-the-world-again treat, as Tony might put it. And he should probably eat, at some point, too, from the way his stomach's been growling, but he's so tired.
He's a little surprised when he sees a flash of red curls, Widow's Bites and a black cat-suited form curled up on his bed.
"Nat? What's…?"
Because he's really not on his game. He's starving, dirty, exhausted, and crashing hard from the adrenaline rush that had carried him through the past few days. Natasha should be cuddled up with Bruce somewhere.
"He left," she says, into his pillow. "He left, and this is such a cliché, and I feel more like a schoolgirl than Black Widow. And it hurts, Rogers. He left."
Steve lets his head thump against his door with a sigh.
I'm going to kill Banner, he decides. Hulked out or no.
"Where's Barton?" he asks, letting his eyes close briefly.
"With Maximoff," she says. "I told him to go to her. Kid's going to need somebody."
Steve's heart twists a bit of that, in sympathy and in remembrance of his own brother. Bucky.
"Yeah, she is," he says, coming to sit beside her on the bed. He rubs at her back, and he feels a tremor down her spine. "Y'know, it's OK to not be Widow around me."
"You're still Cap," she says, with a little chuckle. "Still the Team Dad, otherwise I wouldn't have come. I feel like both of us should stay in persona."
He shakes his head. "I'm not Cap right now, and you know it. I just haven't gotten out of the suit yet. You came because I'm Steve, and you're Natasha. And we're friends. Friends are there for each other when their hearts get–" he avoids the word 'broken', because honestly, he's not sure that Bruce and Natasha ever got that far, but– "bruised," he finishes.
He stands. Because yes, friends are there for each other, and part of that is not letting each other wallow. "C'mon. Go get your things, hit the showers, I'll meet you in the cafeteria."
"Why?" the question is petulant. He sighs, and rolls his eyes.
"Because you're Natasha Romanoff," he says, as if it's obvious. "And you've never let the bastards get you down. You gonna start now?"
At that, she uncurls from her foetal position.
"Give me fifteen minutes. I'll see you there."
And he knows that later that night, she'll wake him up from nightmares and talk him down from his martyr complex, and he'll either a) hold her if she wants to cry about Bruce or b) volunteer if she needs to hit something.
Because what are friends for?
Written because Brutasha needed a remix, and I love Steve as Natasha's wingman.
