Notes:

lmao remember when I said I was gonna update every Sunday? that bitch is faker than joss whedon's feminism (and by that bitch I mean me from like a month ago)

Natasha Romanoff has never been on a real first date.

She is no stranger to fake ones, of course. There have been plenty of fancy dresses, plenty of dark and romantic restaurants, plenty of men, but it's always been for work. Natasha is more than accustomed to using her body and her femininity to get information from men who cannot see her as more than a temptation, an enticing conquest they have yet to take for their enjoyment. But when it comes to real romance, unhindered by the need to get something, she is utterly without experience.

As she zips the back of her sleek, black dress with one well-practiced movement, she wonders, briefly, what Steve is doing for Thanksgiving.

She double-checks her makeup in the bathroom mirror before grabbing her purse off the table and stepping into the brisk autumn air. Matt is already waiting for her, tossing his keys up and down with a slight smile on his face.

"You ready?"

"Yeah. Thanks again for giving me a ride, I just didn't want him to know where I live, you know—"

"Mhm. Good call. Never trust a mobster, y'know."

They pull up to a small seafood restaurant fifteen minutes later, and she steps out the door with a promise to have fun and be careful. When she enters the restaurant, she sees Damien seated alone at a table in the corner and makes her way over, weaving through an assortment of empty tables and chairs.

He's wearing a leather jacket and black jeans, and when he sees her his eyes light up with equal parts awe and hunger. "You look amazing."

"Thank you," she says coolly, slipping into her chair. "Hope I didn't keep you waiting for too long."

"Nah, I'm friendly with the staff here. I came early just to talk to them, catch up. I eat here every Thanksgiving—they're always open, and the food's not bad, either."

She nods, but before she can say anything a waitress is approaching their table with a bottle of wine and basket of biscuits that smells heavenly. They order, and as the waitress retreats Damien leans in.

"Girl like you, with a body like that, must have driven the boys crazy back in your old gang, huh?

Natasha side-eyes him as she grabs a biscuit. "Not really. Dating opportunities were pretty thin on the ground, to be honest."

"I mean, sure, but there must have been something."

"There wasn't. I had more important things to do. Like trying not to get caught by the Feds."

There's still a skeptical look on his face, and Natasha can feel her hackles start to rise.

"Listen," she snaps. "I'm an international criminal. I just handed your gang more weapons than most of those guys have probably seen in their entire lives. I'm wanted by seven different governments with the power to blow Antarctica off the face of the earth and none of them have any idea I'm here right now. I had more important things to do than entertain men who just wanted to get in my pants, and I have more important things to do now. So we can talk about something else, or I can leave and you can take my shrimp scampi home to eat for lunch tomorrow."

It's a risk, going with the badass, take-no-shit personality instead of the simpering, weak-willed female so many mobsters are used to seeing, but Natasha reasons that it's more in line with what she's shown him so far. Plus, she's hungry and frustrated and she's tired of men treating her like this, especially after she's spent a decade with men who recognize her strengths and respect her as an equal. So, whatever.

Damien's eyes flash with shock and anger, and a thrill of dread runs down Natasha's spine. He slowly leans back and a malicious grin starts spreading over his face. "Okay, babygirl. You wanna be treated like one of the guys, huh? I can do that, for sure. You've gotta be able to hold your own, though." His voice is carefully light, but there's a warning behind it that Natasha hears loud and clear.

"Won't be a problem," she says, holding his gaze. She's already in too deep, anyway, and he's looking at her like she's a shrew to be tamed and she's sick of it.

They clink glasses, and as he drains his glass Damien looks perfectly content and at ease, but Natasha sees a gleam of something dark and dangerous beneath his eyes and her gut twitches uncomfortably because she knows. She has worked with too many criminals not to know.

She is going to pay for the choice she has made tonight.

Everyone goes bar hopping for Bruce's birthday.

It's a nice distraction, and Steve finds himself relaxing and enjoying himself for the first time since that terrible day three months ago. Tony's managed to get them private rooms at every bar they've been to, the cold December air sobers them up enough as they walk from bar to bar that their cognizant abilities are still relatively intact, he's surrounded by people he likes, the atmosphere is joyous, and as he laughs with the rest of the crew at Clint's tipsy attempt to perform the single ladies dance, he thinks, this is good. I deserve this.

He's needed this break for a long time. Everyone else has too. So they dance, they talk, they laugh, and by the time they end up at the last bar of the night, his brain is surrounded by a pleasant layer of alcohol-induced haziness and there's a slight incoherence to his thoughts that is not entirely unwelcome.

"I'm gonna get us more drinks," he yells to the room at large, and everyone cheers and points at him before ushering him out the door. He descends the staircase with minimal swaying and approaches the bar, beckoning the bartender over. He asks for a round of shots and is dimly aware that his words are starting to slur.

"Uh-huh," the bartender says, shaking her head and sliding a gigantic glass of water across the bar. "Drink this first."

Steve chugs it. The bartender, satisfied, turns around to prepare his shots, and he can feel some of his wits returning, so he takes a seat on the stool and surveys the rest of the bar. His eyes sweep the floor, taking everything in, and then they land on something that makes him freeze in his chair and sober up immediately.

He's staring directly into a pair of eyes he hasn't seen since September.

Natasha's sprawled across the lap of one of five men sitting in a roped-off corner, dressed in a skin-tight blue number that Steve has never seen before. Surprise flashes through her eyes for a millisecond when their gazes meet, quickly replaced by the lazy indifference that was there before. She looks away, and then leans into the guy who can't seem to stop staring at her breasts and whispers something into his ear. He gulps in the way Steve has seen dozens of men do in Nat's presence, and Steve smiles slightly despite himself because he knows Nat has this guy wrapped around his finger. He's seen her play this game more times than he can count, seen her win it every time. It's a bit of a reassurance, the familiar sight of her playing with a man to get what she needs; it means she has things under control. The knowledge helps him breathe a little more easily.

She stretches lazily, gets up, and says something to the group, and everyone laughs and waves as she makes her way around the table littered with beer bottles and cigarette butts and enters the crowd, vanishing from Steve's line of vision. He barely has time to wonder where she's gone before a shock of blonde hair appears in front of him, seemingly from nowhere.

"I don't have long. You shouldn't be here," she says, sliding into the stool beside him. He jumps at the sight of her, rattling the tray of shot glasses the bartender is sliding onto the bar in front of him. Nat steadies it, smiles apologetically at the bartender, and asks for five beers. The bartender glares at her and mutters something under her breath but turns to grab them all the same. She turns to face him and tilts her head so that it obscures his face from the view of her companions. "I don't know if they can read lips and I'd rather not find out tonight, but if I keep my head in this position for a long time they're going to get suspicious. You need to leave, Rogers."

Steve stares at her for a moment before remembering with a jolt that he's supposed to say something. "We're here for Bruce's birthday. Everyone else is upstairs."

"Great," she says, voiced raised so he can just hear it over the loud rock song currently blaring from the speakers. "You still need to leave. Tell Bruce I said happy birthday, and get out. Don't tell anyone you saw me until you leave; I don't trust any of the gang drunk."

He's listening, he really is, but he's also almost hungrily drinking in the details of her face, and beneath her makeup he can see the ghost of dark circles under her eyes and the way her skin has tightened around her hollowed-out cheekbones. She looks at him expectantly, and he's struck by the sudden realization that he really, really, does not want her to go back to those men right now.

"Loki told me you dyed your hair," he manages. "It looks nice."

She snorts. "Thanks. He's been surprisingly cooperative. I've started taking him to some of my drop-offs, just so the gang can start to get used to the sight of him. It's a lot easier for them to think he's a friend; I don't have to sneak around trying to meet with him."

Steve hums. "I haven't seen him in a while. There are gigantic gaps between our meetings because Fury's been up our asses trying to keep us from contacting you."

"Well," she smirks, "here I am. And I'm fine. But you really should leave, and I have to get back to work." She grabs the beers in front of her, flips her hair back, flings an arm over his shoulder, and winks at him. "Pay for these, will you? I told the guys I was going to get some lonely old man to buy us all drinks, and I can't have them thinking I failed."

He wants nothing more than to ask her to stay; he wants to stay in her company and to joke around with her for the rest of his life, starting now. He wants to curse the gods that have given him the sensibility to know that this is impossible. Instead, he rolls his eyes and forces a note of humor into his voice. "You got it. Have fun with your victim. Seems like this one's coming along nicely, too."

A shadow passes over Natasha's face as she turns back toward her table. "Yeah," she says wryly. "This one might take a lot out of me, though."

He opens his mouth to ask what she means, but she's already gone, weaving her way back through the crowd towards the group of men. When she gets closer, she lets out a whoop and raises the beer bottles like a trophy.

Their responding catcalls ring in Steve's ears the entire way home.

Anna Vanko likes pizza.

It's a discovery that surprises Matthew at first; how could someone with such an extensive criminal record and such an infamous last name who is probably wanted by the governments of more countries than he's ever even been to (he hasn't asked—he doesn't want to know) like something as ordinary and mundane and, well, human, as pizza?

(Later, after the initial shock wears off, he reasons that international arms dealers need to eat too. And there isn't anything quite as cheap, filling, and satisfying as a good pepperoni).

Anna likes pizza, so every Sunday, he heads over to her apartment and they demolish a few boxes of Little Caesars as they watch a movie or TV show on her couch. He's not entirely sure how this little tradition started, but he is not keen for it to end. They've worked their way through a considerable portion of Netflix's catalogue, binging comedies, dramas, and crime shows indiscriminately. (They never watch spy movies, though. She says they hit too close to home, and he never pushes it).

Loki and Charlie join them, sometimes, but it's mostly just the two of them.

Sometimes, they talk, too; he tells her about the girl who lives across the street he has a crush on, and reluctantly entering into the drug game to support himself, and how he wants to get out some day. She tells him about her dates with Damien, about her latest weapons deals, and about her plans for the future.

She never talks about her past. Every time he asks her about it, she shakes her head, gives an unsatisfyingly cryptic answer, and then changes the subject. He doesn't press the subject, but he does wonder. All the time.

One evening, as the snow falls lightly outside and the fire crackles comfortably in the fireplace, he makes a breakthrough.

Anna's been quiet the entire evening, like she usually is, but this is a different type of quiet—there's a restlessness, a distracted air about her that is a drastic departure from her usual focused, intense demeanor. It's unlike her, and in the three months Matt has known her he's never seen her be anything but strong and stoic.

"Hey," he says as she appears in her bedroom door, arms laden with some of the softest blankets he's ever seen. "Are you okay?"

He can practically see her guard go up as her eyes narrow. "Yeah. Why?"

He shrugs as casually as possible. "You've been quiet."

"I'm just tired," she says evasively. "I was out pretty late with the guys last night."

It's the obvious transparency of the lie that makes him push; she's a master liar and he knows that if she'd put any effort at all into the story he'd have believed it. "You were out much later last week but you were fine the day after."

Anna tosses him a blanket and sits down next to him, suddenly looking much more exhausted. "I…saw someone from my past last night, while I was at the bar with the guys. It was just a little jarring, that's all. I'm fine."

"The night after you delivered a truckload of deadly weapons to a gang of men fully willing to kill you and agreed to a date with a mob boss, you sat in my apartment and played Monopoly with me for five hours. But seeing someone from your past has you this rattled?"

"He was a big part of my past," she says simply, and Matthew can tell from her tone that the conversation is over. He casts desperately around his head for another, lighter, topic as she leans forward to pick up a slice of pizza, and then it comes to him.

"Did I tell you I finally took Karen on a date?"

The change is immediate; she looks up, eyes bright, excitement flooding her features. "No! Karen from across the street? Matty, that's amazing, I know you've liked her for ages, how'd it go?"

"Really, really, well," he says, positively beaming, "we're going out again next Wednesday."

"That's amazing," she says again, genuine enthusiasm in her voice. "I'm really, really, happy for you. It can be so hard to date in this business, I'm so glad you're getting the chance."

"Thanks," he grins, biting into his pizza. "What about you and Damien, though? You guys seem to be going pretty steady."

She shakes her head. "Yeah, but it's nothing serious. We're just having fun, playing around, you know."

"Oh," Matt says, and some of his questions must show on his face, because she smiles wistfully and tucks her legs underneath her blanket.

"When you do what I do, when you have to move around as much as I do, you try not to get into anything real, anything you care too much about. Because you always have to leave, eventually. No matter how good you think things are now, how long you think they can last, you always have to leave. Everyone is temporary, just a brief presence passing through your life. And it—it sucks, when you have to leave someone you kind of want to stay for. So I guess—I guess it's just easier, keeping everyone out, not getting too close to people. That way, when you inevitably leave, they don't get hurt as badly. You don't get hurt as badly."

She's not looking at him anymore; she's staring at the ground, and she doesn't move when Matthew puts a hand on her shoulder.

"The guy you saw at the bar?" he guesses softly.

She's silent, and he's fully prepared for her to brush the question off like she usually does and start talking about the next Kate Winslet film they should watch, but then she takes a deep, shuddering breath and he feels a jolt of shock run through his body. Anna Vanko, tough as nails, is trying not to cry.

He really has no idea what to do, except maybe get her to talk through it, because all that repression cannot be good for her, so he says, "What was he like?"

She stares at the ground in silence for another moment before answering, and when she does her words are so quiet Matthew has to strain his ears to hear them.

"He was bold, strong, a big presence," she almost whispers. "You'd know whenever he walked into a room. He was, like, steady. Would do whatever it took to do the right thing, even if he was the only one willing to do it. He's stubborn, but he's smart, and he knew—he knew me better than anyone else, I think. Somehow. He was the type of person you'd want on your side." She chokes out a sad, slightly bitter laugh. "We were nothing alike, and yet—"

Her voice trails off, and the silence that hangs off of her words is heavy with words unspoken, with a life unlived.

"I want you on my side," Matthew says gently.

She gives him another wistful smile. "You shouldn't."

"But I do," he insists. He tries to imagine the life she's had and puts everything he has into making his next words not sound empty. "And it's gonna be okay."

"Yeah," she sighs, dropping her head back into the sofa. "I hope so."

Tony Stark is getting frustrated.

He's a restless person by nature, always moving, never happy with the status quo. It's what's made him so good at what he does.

It's also what is making him so goddamn irritated at the moment, because he hasn't heard from Loki in almost two months and the last news he's gotten about Romanoff was that Rogers saw her briefly in a bar on Bruce's birthday three weeks ago. He'd track the guy down himself, but Loki is practically impossible to find; he changes numbers every time he texts, so that nobody from SHIELD can trace their calls or conversations.

What makes it worse is the way it's affecting Steve.

He'd known, objectively, that there was probably something between them, that their dynamic had changed during their many years working together. He'd known that Steve would change once she'd gone undercover, that he'd probably be mopey once in a while and be a little quieter, a little less lively.

He hadn't known that he'd be, well, like this.

Tony hesitates to use the word depressed, but the truth is that he isn't sure what else can describe it. Some days are better than others; some days, he comes in looking at least partly like his old self, semi-talkative, sarcastic, righteous, and ready to fight.

Today is not one of those days.

Steve is in the basement storage room, which is where he spends most of his bad days, and Tony is perched on the edge of Sam Wilson's desk, watching him polish his wings.

"How's Steve?" Sam asks, swiping a cloth over a metal feather.

"Not great," Tony mutters. "He's in the storage room again."

"Oh, boy."

"Yeah."

"I really didn't expect him to take it this hard, you know. Guess he fell harder for her than we knew."

"Yeah," Tony says, "And it's like, I know he'd be better if he could work the case, help her, but—" He cuts his sentence short, remembering that Sam doesn't know about Loki. Nobody else does. They'd decided to keep it between the three of them, just for safety's sake. For everyone's sake.

"But Fury won't let him," Sam says, nodding, and Tony ignores the way his stomach squirms. "Yeah. It sucks, too, because we don't get any information about how she's doing. Hill is too damn loyal to Fury sometimes. I hate it, so I can't even imagine what it's like for him, going almost four months without any news."

The guilt is definitely making its way up Tony's abdomen, now, as he tries to imagine what it would be like if he'd gone all this time with zero knowledge of Romanoff's well-being.

"I'm gonna go talk to him," he says suddenly.

He bangs into the storage room and Steve looks up, mild surprise in his eyes.

"I think we need to tell the others about Loki," Tony says without preamble.

"Are you insane?" Steve asks, disbelief etched in every corner of his face, "Is this some kind of prank to make me feel better?"

"No, of course not," Tony says impatiently. "I really think we need to tell them."

"I thought we decided that the fewer people who knew, the better—"

"We did, but that was before I realized that nobody else here has had any news about how Romanoff is doing for the last four months. Four months."

Steve is silent for a few seconds, and when he speaks his voice is much quieter. "I hadn't thought of that."

"Yeah. Me either."

Tony's phone buzzes in his pocket, and as he takes it out his eyes widen. "It's Loki."

Steve is by his side in half a second, reading the text over Tony's shoulder.

Call me now. Need to meet.

"Can we tell them after this?" he asks.

Tony nods.

Sam Wilson owes a lot to Steve Rogers.

That's not to say he didn't have a good life before he met Steve; he definitely did. But working with Steve has given him a new one, a fresh start, a higher purpose that serving in the military could never have. It's breathed a new life into him, and he's very, very grateful.

It's also thanks to Steve that he knows Natasha Romanoff.

He'd noticed, from the very beginning, the unique dynamic the two of them had; even when there was never even a hint of romantic interest between them, they'd been more than friends, more than partners. He's served enough combat missions, been in enough life-or-death situations with people he trusted implicitly (and some he didn't) to know the rarity and the importance of a bond like that. He had her six. And maybe more importantly, she had his, no matter the situation. It doesn't escape his notice how rare that is for her.

Sam, also, has lost the person that did that for him.

So he understands Steve's anguish. He understands that some days are easier than others, that sometimes even putting on a brave face feels like an impossible task that requires an obscene amount of energy. He understands that he needs to hide away in a basement room isolated from any and all company once in a while. He'd anticipated it, even. But his blood had still run cold when Steve had trudged in 90 minutes late that first day, looking like he had just been dragged out of a prison cell. His heart still clenches every time he sees Steve's ragged, grief-stricken face, and he prays every day for Nat to come home.

He wonders what Steve will look like by the time she does.

His cell phone rings, loud and harsh against the silence. He starts and, in his alarmed state, answers without looking at the ID.

"Sam Wilson."

"Hi, Sam," a cool female voice says.

"Sha—Agent Carter?"

"Yep. I thought you might like to know that I'm taking a walk through a nice little Brooklyn neighborhood and two of your colleagues seem to be meeting with a god who is definitely on SHIELD's wanted list, and it doesn't seem likely that anyone's going to arrest him."

"I-excuse me?"

"Steve and Tony are currently talking to Loki on a bench in Brooklyn," she says, a touch of impatience in her voice. "Did you know about this?"

"No—no, are you serious?"

"Quite. And I don't think I'm reaching for straws when I say that this is probably about Agent Romanoff."

"Do they—do they know you're there?"

"Not yet. Should I deal with this or do you want to come do it yourself?"

"I'm coming," he says, determined. "Send me your location."

She agrees, and as he hangs up, still reeling, he beckons Clint and Bruce over.

(After all, he reasons, if Steve and Tony know something about Nat, her oldest friend and trusted colleague of almost ten years deserve to know too).

They're shocked and upset, to put it lightly, and Sam can't help but be, too. Steve has never been an open book, exactly, but he's also never really kept a secret from Sam since he joined SHIELD. He spends the car ride there rehearsing his angry tirade in his head, and when they step out, join Sharon, and start walking toward the three figures he can seated on the bench, he is more than ready to let it fly.

As he draws closer and gets a better look at them, though, the words die in his chest.

Loki looks grim, the familiar ghost of a smile that is usually hovering around his lips nowhere to be found. Tony is pacing, muttering to himself and running his hands through his hair, and Steve—

Steve looks like he has just been told he has two weeks left to live.

"I know you want to tell them off right now," Loki says quietly, before any one of them can say anything, "but trust me, now is not a good time."

There's a skepticism on Bruce's face that clearly says he does not trust the god in front of him, and Clint looks downright murderous, but they can both clearly see the distress their friends are in so they both stay quiet.

Sharon looks directly at Tony. "Is this about Nat?"

"Of course it's about Nat," he says, voice tinged with panic. "You think we would be in this godforsaken neighborhood, sneaking around Fury's ass for anyone else?"

"As part of her attempt to infiltrate and take down Ammo," Loki interrupts, perhaps seeing that Sharon was about to say 'well, yes', "Agent Romanoff has started a—well, for lack of a better term—relationship with a man named Damien Chetwynd."

"Bless you," says Sam.

Loki rolls his eyes. "He's a mob boss who's in Ammo's inner circle, or at least close to it. He took an early interest in her, so I guess she just went with it."

"Okay," Bruce says slowly, looking at Steve's rigid, motionless body, "so is this about Cap being jealous, or...?"

"I had FRIDAY pull his police records," Tony says, and the frantic edge in his voice has only escalated, "Wanna hear his priors?" Then, as if he's reading off a list, "assault and battery, public intoxication, DUI, DUI, domestic battery, domestic battery, domestic battery."

A heavy, shocked silence follows his words, punctured only by Bruce's quiet, "oh, shit."

"I saw him," Steve says hoarsely, finally looking up. "At the bar, on Bruce's birthday. I didn't know. If I had—"

"You couldn't have done anything," Clint says firmly. "She would've kicked your ass before you'd even moved two feet. This isn't your fault. Besides, she's survived much worse."

"Yeah," Steve whispers. "But she's always been allowed to fight back before."

"They were about to tell the rest of you," says Loki, looking directly at Sam and giving him the peculiar feeling that he can read minds, "But I contacted them before they could. They told me they were going to tell you as soon as they got back."

"It's totally fine," Sam says dismissively. "Not important."

"And you've been working with Loki this whole time? You trust him?" Clint asks skeptically. "After what he's done to us?"

Steve nods tiredly, but Tony looks straight at Clint when he answers. "We have to. If we don't, we're out of options."

Sam takes a good look at Tony. Tony, who almost died to save the world from the god he is now standing next to. Tony, whose nightmares featured Loki for years, who had panic attacks because of what Loki put him through. Tony, who is now standing before him with a determined and almost defiant look on his face.

"Okay," he hears Sharon say, "I'm in."

"Yeah," he says, "Me too."

All eyes turn to Clint and Bruce, who lock eyes and have a silent conversation that everyone can guess the contents of.

"Fine," Clint says, turning back towards Loki, "But this is for Nat and Nat only."

"Great," Loki says, the corner of his mouth quirking up. "Then let's do this."