Disclaimer: The Avengers, its characters and The Marvel Cinematic Universe belong to Marvel Studios and The Walt Disney Company, among many others. I'm only a fan, writing this for love of this film franchise and personal pleasure.

A.N.: This is set after AoU, I imagine right after they start working with the new team at the compound in upstate New York.


To Build a Home

9. Choices

It was late afternoon and Steve Rogers was training by himself in the official Avengers gym at their new facility in upstate New York, thinking about how in the past couple of months the compound had started to feel more like home to him as he settled into a routine with his new family of comrades in arms.

He'd been impressed with how quickly Tony and Pepper had set this up once they decided the Avengers Initiative needed new headquarters. They'd been too exposed living and working in Manhattan, especially after Ultron had attacked them in their own home with so many civilians being around and potentially in danger. As they were quickly becoming even more notorious after what happened in Sokovia, there was no guarantee other enemies wouldn't seek them out in the future (the fate of Tony's Malibu mansion serving as a cautionary tale), so the more remote location in upstate New York had been rather perfect for what they wanted. Luckily Stark Industries had an old storage facility there, so they could improve on what already existed and make the necessary adjustments. The complete move would take a while yet, as the former Avengers Tower was in the process of being changed back to Stark Industries Tower, but at least they got the compound up and running fast enough so that the team could move in and start working together.

With Clint heading home to welcome his new son and be with his family, Bruce disappearing in the wayward Quinjet, Thor gone to seek more information regarding the Infinity Stones and what he'd seen about the destruction of Asgard, and Tony tapping out, as the man had said so himself, it naturally fell on Steve's shoulders the responsibility to oversee and train the new Avengers. Thankfully he had Natasha working by his side once more as they rose to the challenge to lead this new team.

Rhodey and Sam adjusted to their new routines quite well, as it was expected since both had military backgrounds. Each man was in charge of training a group of recruits in addition to their Avengers responsibilities. Sam had also taken upon himself to teach a class on "Modern Life in the 21st Century" as a gag to Steve and Vision, but both the super soldier and the android had actually enjoyed it and they kept the arrangement at least once a week. Pretty soon the other Avengers got wind of it and started crashing these lessons, adding topics of their own and this morphed into some Friday night team-building thing where they would all just hang out together watching movies and other whatnot while occasionally educating Steve and Vision on points they might still have doubts on, or Wanda on life in America.

While dealing with Vision was certainly interesting and even funny at times, Steve wasn't too concerned about the android. He was sure that in time he'd get a better grasp of human interactions and social conventions, and of course he was a formidable ally when it came to fighting, even if for some missions they couldn't take him out with them as the android stood out like a sore thumb. He would still accompany them and remain with the Quinjet when they needed to blend in for the stealthier ops.

What concerned the Captain the most nowadays was the addition of the young Wanda Maximoff to their lives. At eighteen years old, the girl was technically still a teenager and she already had such great powers yet frankly at times it still felt like they'd only scratched at the surface of her true abilities. Add to it the fact that she was living in a facility owned by Tony Stark, a man she'd spent years hating and it wasn't exactly the easiest of transitions. Even if the billionaire didn't reside at the compound with them and was no longer in active combat duty, he was still very much involved with their activities, at the very least funding and providing equipment for them. Steve had made the two of them talk about their issues once they'd agreed to give Wanda a place with them, and it had helped smooth things over, but he thought it would still take time for the two of them to grow comfortable with each other.

There was also the fact that Wanda was terribly missing her brother and going through a grief process not only for the loss of Pietro but of Sokovia itself. It'd already been a handful of times now that they'd woken up to the Scarlet Witch fairly destroying her bedroom in a telekinetic maelstrom during a nightmare and even with small earthquakes racking the compound. On such occasions usually Steve or Vision managed to calm her down and contain the damage. She was always terribly embarrassed and apologetic when this happened, and in general Wanda was very sweet and easy to handle. But there were some occasions when her mood would do a complete 180 and she became very difficult indeed.

Another thing that worried Steve at the moment was his partner. Natasha had always been rather quiet, but she'd been very withdrawn for the past couple of months. He wasn't the most talkative person either, so he tried to give her space and be there for her in case she needed him. He knew Sam would sometimes talk with her, as he had experience getting people to open up to him and Steve was glad they could be there for each other, but he wished there was more he could do for her.

He'd just been thinking about all of this as he went mechanically through his training regimen when Natasha suddenly walked into the gym dressed in a sports bra with a loose top over it and leggings, her usual training clothes, and with a thunderous expression on her face, which was not so usual.

"Something wrong?" Steve stopped mid sit-up and raised an eyebrow at her.

"Wanda." She barely looked his way as she said the one word and carried on her way, marching across the room towards the punching bags, then she sat on the bench and proceeded to tightly wrap her hands in gauze.

"Uh-oh. What happened now?" He asked, getting swiftly up to his feet and leisurely crossing the room after her. As Natasha kept silent, he raised a teasing eyebrow at her. "Did she take another one of your jackets?"

She stopped wrapping her hand and leveled a glare at him. "Is it too much to ask that she just follows what I tell her to do? I don't fucking care if she is a telepath with telekinetic abilities! I'm trying to teach her skills that will keep her alive out there, even if something happens and she can't rely on her powers, for whatever reason!"

Steve sighed quietly to himself. Well, he had asked. "I know." He said in what he hoped was a placating and understanding tone as he watched her finish wrapping her hand and walking over to the punching bag.

He'd been the one who put Natasha working with Wanda, as it made sense. The Black Widow was the best in the business, and even if Wanda had telepathic and telekinetic powers, she needed to learn how to fight and use all the tools at her disposal, as Natasha had so colorful and eloquently put just then. The former Russian spy also knew the dialect spoken in Sokovia and could converse with Wanda in her native tongue and help her adapt to life in the US. For the most part, that arrangement worked quite well.

And then there were moments when it could backfire spectacularly, if both women happened to have a training session on one of their off days, and Steve was irrevocably reminded of this now as he watched his partner fairly plummet the punching bag as if it'd offended her personally.

"God, this is just─argh!" She roared, followed by a particularly ferocious punch.

Steve furrowed his brow as he watched her for a moment, then he walked over, caught her hand mid-swing and pulled her away, heading towards the wrestling ring. "Okay, sparring time. Come on."

Natasha yanked her arm back out of his grasp and rolled her eyes at him. "I'm not using you as a punching bag, Steve."

"You're not." He turned around, raising his eyebrows at her. "You get fierce and focused when you're frustrated. It's good practice for me, going up against someone who could actually beat me up." He finished by giving her a teasing smile.

"Fine." The corners of her lips twitched up for a moment then she narrowed her eyes at him. "Just remember, you asked for it."

"Bring it on, Romanoff." He wiggled his eyebrows up at her in a challenge.

They stepped up to the ring and she really made him work for it. Natasha kept him on his toes as she moved around and struck at him, almost as if she were dancing around his moves, taking his hits and flowing into the movements, using his strength against himself, taking an opening as soon as she could to push herself up and wrap her legs around his head in her signature move, bringing him down to the mat. He managed to wrestle free of her grip and pin her under him, but she somehow twisted and swung her legs around, getting him on a chokehold until he slapped his hand down on the mat and yielded.

"You're not going easy on me, are you?" She raised a suspicious eyebrow at him as they both got back up to their feet.

"Never." He grinned at her in response, and this time he was the one to make the first move.

They went on like this for a while with each winning a handful of rounds until Steve got distracted, thinking she looked better and more relaxed than when she'd been going at that punching bag by herself, and Natasha actually managed to get a jab in and split his lip open.

"Oh shit," she grimaced and stopped fighting at once, taking note of the blood on his lips. "I'm sorry! What the hell, Steve?!" She apologized and cursed at him at the same time, feeling flustered as it had been such a basic move, she was sure he was going to block it before she connected with his face.

"Hey, don't worry about it," he shook his head lightly at her, bringing his hand up to his lips and seeing his fingers stained red as he brought them back out then he grinned at her. "See what I mean? Fierce and focused."

"Yeah, now where the hell was your focus?" She furrowed her eyebrows in concern at him.

He didn't have any good response to that, so he merely shrugged back at her and they left the ring and sat down on a bench. Natasha turned to him and continued frowning in concern even as she pressed a towel against his lip to stave off the bleeding.

"You know, I understand your frustration and I appreciate all the effort you've put into training Wanda," Steve said then conversationally, noting she seemed less wound up after their sparring and judging now was a better moment to talk to her about it. Her eyes snapped from his injured lip up to his eyes. "I'm the one who asked you to do that, after all."

Her expression softened somewhat, but there was still a frown present between her eyebrows. "I'm not doing that just because you asked, Steve. She needs to learn all of this."

"I know." He said, nodding his head slightly. "But try to remember, she's going through something here. Her whole life got changed all of a sudden, she's in a place she doesn't recognize surrounded by people she was at one time trying to kill. Sounds familiar?" He raised his eyebrows pointedly at her.

She removed the towel from his face, as the bleeding had already stopped and rolled her eyes a little at him then. "Okay, I get it. But I was never this bitchy." She added, glaring at him out of the corner of her eyes.

"I'll remember to ask Clint about that the next time he drops by." He smirked in reply.

"You wouldn't dare." She narrowed her eyes at him, but he could see a teasing gleam in her green eyes that told him it was just playful banter.

His lips twitched up for a moment, then the smirk melted into a softer smile, and his voice also got lower and softer. "Also she's going through something else. She's just lost someone who was so important to her. You can understand that as well."

"A little." She furrowed her eyebrows once more and let out a small sigh. "I mean, when I thought Nick had died, I felt like the floor was taken from under me. I don't know how I would've dealt with that if I hadn't been so worried about you and keeping us alive back then."

Now Steve was the one furrowing his eyebrows at her. "Actually, I wasn't talking about Fury." He paused for a moment, unsure how to put into words what he was trying to tell her. "In a way, you lost someone. Recently."

"Bruce?" She raised both eyebrows at him in surprise, her voice also pitching higher than normal. "I'm sure he's still alive, somewhere out there." She said unconcernedly.

"I know, I'm not saying he isn't." He said quickly, raising his hands in a placating gesture. "But I know you felt his absence, all the same."

Natasha sighed heavily and looked away from him before replying. "I did. But it was my own fault that he left, anyway." She said, one of her eyebrows quirking up for a moment.

"What do you mean?" Steve tilted his head to get a better look at her face, his eyebrows furrowed in concern.

She avoided his eyes, looking out at the other side of the room as she spoke, her eyes drawn to the scenery out the window. "He wanted to go away. He said he couldn't be in a fight near civilians after what happened in South Africa, but I ignored that." She paused and swallowed visibly for a moment, unsure if she should say the next words before she did so anyway. "I─I betrayed him and forced the Hulk out. So that one's on me."

"I didn't realize that." He told her softly, his voice devoid of any sort of judgement, and she glanced back appreciatively at him. "You know, I told him to take you out and disappear, to get away from this, when we got to Sokovia." Steve had felt so guilty that he'd jeopardized her safety when he put the mission first, telling Clint to take the cradle back to Tony when Ultron had taken her, that he'd really wanted Bruce to take her as far away from that fight as possible.

"I know." She gave him a small smile at that. Natasha had already figured out that Bruce wouldn't have wanted to take her away without clearing it with the others, or at the very least with Steve. They'd all accepted him as their Captain and stuck to his orders on the battlefield, after all.

"But you came back." He noted, his voice impossibly low and soft as he stared back at her. "You joined the fight."

"Of course." She said, shaking her head a little and answering his unspoken question. "The city was flying, I couldn't just go away and leave you all behind. I'm an Avenger."

They stared at each other for a moment, until Natasha broke away from his gaze, looking down at the towel that was still in her hands, stained red from his blood. "I'm not gonna lie, the way he left all of a sudden, it hurt." She said, her words coming out as a mere whisper now, then she was shaking her head. "But it can't compare to what I would've felt if, say, you or Clint had died. Which is why I chose to stay and fight."

Steve felt his breath hitching in his throat at what she said. They'd been friends and partners for a long while now, so he knew they cared for each other, even if they rarely used words to explicitly convey this, so hearing her equate his relationship with her to what she had with Clint had thrown him a little. He felt touched that she cared so much about him, apparently more so than what she'd felt for Banner as she'd been willing to betray him and throw away her chance at a life with him to come back for them. To keep on fighting and avenging. And she was still here, by his side.

Natasha turned to him, apparently oblivious to the surprise he'd felt, reaching for his hand that was resting on the bench between them. "And I guess that's what Wanda is going through right now. You're right, I'll work on it with her." She lightly squeezed his hand and gave him a small smile. "Thanks, Steve."

He stared at her for a moment longer, before he also gave her a smile in return. "Of course, Nat. I'm here whenever you need to talk about anything." He squeezed her hand back then added in a gently teasing tone. "Or maybe just use me as a punching bag."

Her lips twitched for a moment, then she narrowed her eyes at him and shoved his shoulder rather roughly, but he took in stride and just chuckled softly back at her.