Well, This Is Embarrassing
This scene, for me, occurs during Captain America: The Winter Soldier, right after the battle on the Lemuria Star. Steve catches Natasha hacking the computers, and she admits to him that she had her own set of orders.
After all they've become to each other during the events of Through A Glass Darkly, Steve felt utterly betrayed that Natasha didn't tell him the truth.
"Not now," Steve said crisply as he strode up the quinjet's ramp, Natasha slumped in his arms.
Brock Rumlow raised a dark eyebrow at him. "The Director's on the com, sir. Asking for your action report."
"All the terrorists are dead, hostages are rescued, Romanoff is injured but she fulfilled her mission. There. Now go away. And stop calling me sir!" Steve shouted after the STRIKE leader, who just shook his head and walked towards the cockpit.
Steve laid Natasha gently down on the medical bay stretcher as the jet lifted off. "You'll be okay, Tasha," he murmured softly as he began to check her wounds. Nothing severe, but that last explosion had been a doozy and she'd smacked her head hard on the console they'd taken shelter under. She blinked up at him now, her green eyes unfocussed.
"Steve," she mumbled. "Love…"
"Not here!" he hissed, flushing. Their relationship was a secret within SHIELD; only Fury and Hill knew, and both of them had agreed to keep silent.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, tears welling in her eyes, and he frowned.
"For what?" He assumed she meant for almost revealing their relationship.
"Not telling you. Orders. Won't do it any more. I've disobeyed orders often enough – would do it a thousand times more for you. So sorry, Steve…"
He brought his hand to her hair, caressing the long red strands gently. "It's all right, Natasha. I understand. I forgive you."
She smiled at him before her eyes drifted shut.
Steve sighed and reached for the medical kit, a rueful smile twisting his lips as he extracted the supplies he would need to treat Natasha's minor wounds. He couldn't stay angry with her for long. At the end of the day, the slender Russian assassin held his heart in the palm of her deceptively delicate hand. And she always would.
Brock Rumlow stood in the shadows, watching silently, unobserved, as Captain America treated the Black Widow's wounds. He'd thought that they might be able to recruit Romanoff back to their side – she was nothing if not a pragmatist – but he'd known as soon as it was certain Steve Rogers was alive, that he would have to be eliminated. And considering the way she'd just looked at Rogers – well. Rumlow sighed and mentally noted that they'd have to come up with a plan to cross the Widow off too. When the time came. He smiled, a little sadistically. Perhaps they'd let him do it. He'd always wanted to find out just what it was that made Romanoff so damn special. He could chain her to a wall and find out.
Author's Note: That turned suddenly dark on me there at the end. Well, we all know Rumlow's sick little fantasy didn't come true.
Yet. He didn't die in CA:TWS, after all. Hehe.
And here's my little confession: of all the bad guys in the MCU, Brock Rumlow is the one who I'd willingly let chain me to a wall and have his wicked way with me. Grrr. That man is sex on legs.
One more one-shot to come in this little group (Fury and Maria, during and after the staging of his death) and then I will start posting the sequel to Through A Glass Darkly. And (drum-roll) hopefully that will be by this time next week!