A/N: So...update, anyone?

The song she's listening to here is "Born to Die" by Lana Del Rey. Enjoy Steve...or try to. I sometimes have trouble with that :)

Natasha

Steve, or "Super-Assassin-Spy-Messed-Up-People"

Steve had a hard time dealing with the Avengers, truth be told. He was still a little out of it and woke up every morning to "Oh my God I'm in the future." Pepper was the only one who appeared to really try to explain things to him and Bruce the only one who seemed sympathetic. Tony…Tony was a little hard to get over. Although he regretted the harsh things he'd said to him before the battle, he couldn't deny he had trouble bringing together the memory of Howard Stark, the arrogant, sarcastic playboy on the Helicarrier and the raw gravity of the sacrifice he'd been prepared to make for them into one person – one person who seemed content to leave him hanging forever. If he could have approached Stark and asked him to tell him about his father's death, as he was tempted to do, maybe they would have gotten closer. But when he asked Pepper – his touchstone in these matters – whether or not to, she had told him in no uncertain terms to never, under any circumstances, bring up Howard. She left him confused, with yet another thing to take into consideration when trying to understand Tony Stark.

Thor was in the most similar situation to him. Bruce was mild-mannered and sweet, as well as a great cook when Health/Pepper took over and decreed no fast food the rest of the week, but had the best time in the lab with Tony, where Steve was, as he saw it, Not Allowed.

That left two super-assassin-spy-messed-up-people.

Clint and Natasha.

They unnerved him, and the part of him that was, dare he admit it, proud and so righteous unconsciously believed that had he been tortured, trained from childhood, and brainwashed, he would still have a conscience. That he would be able to stop himself from killing innocents, that he would realize his true enemies and stand up to them.

It was the same part of him that had been, and still was a little, disgusted by Tony Stark.

Clint he could get over. He was, after all, mind controlled by Loki – something he really had trouble getting over, but could, eventually.

Natasha, though…

Natasha scared him.

At first glance she seemed the Black Widow, a master assassin proud of the talent she had, rock-hard and immensely powerful, something honed into a sharp, unbeatable tool. The sound of Tony's voice in his earpiece should have taught him that everyone had a conscience.

But it hadn't.

It was Natasha's birthday. Clint had insisted it was her birthday, anyway – the first of November, he said. When asked, Natasha just shrugged and said, in that cold I-can-manipulate-Loki voice: "It was in November."

So of course Tony and Clint – Clint because it was his idea, Tony because he wanted to avoid the Glare of Doom – decided to throw a party. Steve, for his part, just tried to live in the soundproofed training room for a week. (Tony had the unfortunate habit of blasting Black Sabbath "Iron Man" from all the speakers in the house whenever he was doing anything semi-productive. Clint, of course, bought earplugs and found the whole situation hilarious.)

The evening after the party Steve woke up from a nightmare. The "Oh my God, I'm in the future" stage was lasting awfully long. He couldn't sleep, and he went downstairs to relieve his stress the only way he knew how.

The door to the training room was closed.

Glancing around, he opened it. There was no creaking – it was Tony's house after all. What he did hear was very, very loud music and the occasional gunshot.

Is it by mistake or design?

Natasha was…above the punching bags, climbing the chains. Never touching the ground, spinning, flipping, hitting targets dead center.

Can you make it feel like home if I tell you you're mine?

Bang.

Tony's targets would be gone by the time she finished with them.

It's like I told you honey

Eyes traveling down the room, he saw the bottle of vodka – next to it, a bar of 98% dark chocolate and a glass bowl of the smooth raspberry sorbet – who was it? – Clint had bought for the occasion.

Louder

Natasha twisted on the steel beams supporting the high ceiling – twenty-three feet above the ground – to release a volley of darts with a flick of her fingers, landing in a circle of poisonous needles in the middle of a dummy's chest. Steve was vaguely reminded of the arc reactor, and only a little disturbed.

What kind of person practiced killing people for stress relief?

Don't make me sad, don't make me cry

"Are you drunk?" he called up, fairly nervous.

Sometimes love is not enough and the road gets tough, I don't know why

Swinging down to crouch on the nearest punching bag, the Black Widow rolled her eyes, voice crisp and professional. "What do you think?"

"Um…"

"I don't get drunk, Rogers." Her chin is up, ready for a fight. "I have more control than that. Do you think the Russians would let a weakling survive?"

Keep making me laugh

And of course the only thing he can think of to say is "Why are you drinking then?"

She fixes him with a look he can only describe as intense. "To pretend to get drunk."

Come take a walk on the wild side

Let me kiss you hard in the pouring rain

You like your girls insane

The more he watches, the more it seems like a dance. That's how she fights, he realizes, like she's dancing.

And right now, whether it be the music or the knives in the dummies' eyes, the room is so sad, upset, and almost disgusted, that he can feel the…emotion rushing by him.

Choose your last words, this is the last time

'Cause you and I

We were born to die

He hadn't thought the Black Widow could even have emotions.

Then again, to the rest of them, she didn't. Natasha was training in a soundproof room half-underground, to songs she was blasting at top volume but couldn't be heard, with raspberry sorbet and quality vodka and razor-sharp control.

Slowly, he leaves. After all, it is her birthday.