Title: You could drown in those eyes, I said
Fandom: Highlander/Marvel movies
Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Richard Siken
Warnings: post-Cap2 and Highlander. Talk of violence.
Pairings: Natasha/Clint
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 1065
Point of view: third
Prompt: Any, any, keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Natasha's phone starts playing 'The Star Spangled Banner' as she steps out of the elevator to meet Pepper for breakfast. "Jarvis, track the location now," she orders, "and let everyone know someone is using Steve's phone to call me." She then hits [accept] and answers. "Hello?" she asks neutrally.
"Hey, Natasha," Steve says. He sounds a little sheepish, but not like he's in any sort of distress and trying to hide it. "How're things going?"
Steve has been missing for 98 days. None of Natasha's contacts could find him. Stark and Jarvis couldn't find him. They found where Matthew Ash had been under previous identities but not where he currently is. There hasn't been a single trace of Barnes since a month after Project Insight went down except for the footage from that last Hydra base.
"Steve," she says gently. "Where are you?" She steps back onto the elevator and it immediately goes to Stark's floor, where all of their intel has been deposited.
"I'm sorry I left without telling anyone," Steve says sincerely.
"You got a message from Ash that night, didn't you?" Of course he did. "Did he threaten Barnes?" It wouldn't fit with what he'd said about his 'brother' but that doesn't matter at the moment.
"No, he didn't," Steve says. "And he didn't threaten anyone else, either. And it was Benjamin who texted me."
She blinks in disbelief as the doors open. Steve called Barnes 'Benjamin' and didn't trip over it. During his entire search, he never once called Barnes anything but 'Bucky,' and he beat the shit out of multiple operatives who called him 'asset' or 'Winter Soldier.' He also raged at Sam, Stark, and Natasha when they used 'Winter Soldier,' so everyone who wasn't Steve eventually settled on 'Barnes.'
"Steve," she says as the wall flashes, [two more minutes] and everyone gathers around. "Are you going to come home?"
Steve sighs. "Put me on speaker, Natasha." The seconds count down on the wall as Natasha does, and then Steve says, "Hydra's been burnt to ash and ground into the dirt. I wouldn't be part of something like that, and I'd have gotten Bucky out for the third time. So you can trust me when I say what Matthew's going to do, it's not like Hydra."
"Trust you, Rogers?" Stark scoffs. "You're compromised six ways to Sunday."
"Cap," Clint says, "ask Ash if he remembers a kid he once helped at Carson's circus."
"One second," Steve tells them, and there's muffled talking that Jarvis will clean up for them later, and the timer is counting down down down, and then Steve says, "Matthew is still impressed with your skill on horseback."
Clint laughs, bringing a hand up to rub his forehead. "Fuck."
"Anyway," Steve says, "I just… wanted to let you all know that I'm safe. I'm well." He pauses. "I'm happy."
"You waited three months to let us know?" Sam asks. "Thanks." He'd taken Steve leaving the hardest, spent days combing through everything they had on the Ash brothers, trying to work it all out.
"I'm sorry," Steve says again. "But we don't have to be at odds."
Stark laughs. "Cap, I don't know where you've been, but people wanting to rule the world? We're always gonna be against that."
[45 44 43] goes the countdown, and Steve sighs loudly. "We don't want to rule the world." We. He's gone beyond compromised and Natasha actually feels disappointed, saddened. She truly did like Steve Rogers. He was a good man.
But she knows well that every man has a breaking point.
"Steve," Banner says. "Please. Tell us what the plan is, then, if it's not to rule the world?"
[28 27 26] "I've got to go," Steve says. "I'll call back later."
"Fuck!" Stark shouts as the call ends.
"I ascertained that Captain Rogers is currently in France," Jarvis announces.
"He'll be gone by the time we get there," Clint mutters, leaning against the wall.
"I have cleaned up the tape, if you would like to hear what Captain Rogers' companions said during the call," Jarvis says.
"Play it," Stark orders.
Natasha closes her eyes and listens.
["Matthew, you helped a kid at Carson's circus?" Steve. Bewildered.
"Ah, yes." Laughter. Matthew Ash. Accentless. "He was quite impressive on horseback. Let him know I've met few who equal him."
"Got a minute left. Don't waste it." Barnes. Soft.]
The room is quiet for a few minutes, then Banner asks Natasha, "Was that enough data to begin analyzing?"
Natasha hasn't wanted to cry since she thought Fury died. Not till now. "Yes," she says. "It's enough to begin."
She doesn't want to have to kill Steve. She liked him. She liked him a lot.
"Well, Widow?" Stark demands. He's angry. Sam's furious, too, but Natasha doesn't have it in her.
She looks at Clint. "I need more information before I begin speculating," she says. "Now, I'm late for breakfast with Pepper."
There's no point in calling the number back. In the elevator, she sends a text anyway.
[Steve. Don't do this.]
No one has seen Captain America in over three months and everyone's getting antsy.
She gets a reply as she's stepping off the elevator.
[Natasha, it's already done.]
.
They track the phone to the trunk of a rental car in Paris. It's locked but Natasha guesses the passcode (Barnes' birthday) and it's been cleaned except for one message on the notepad:
[Ruling the world is a foolish dream, Avengers. Here, there shall be nothing to avenge. I am not a fool, and neither are my brother or his dear captain.
Be warned, though. I protect what is mine most viciously. Leave us in peace and stand aside.]
It isn't signed, but it doesn't need to be.
.
Tucked into Clint's arms, Natasha murmurs, "Tell me about the Horse Master."
Clint describes a friendly man, who was kind to the animals, who protected them. A man who stepped in when he could've kept walking and saved a no-account kid's life, paid off thousands of dollars of medical bills, and disappeared.
He's the kind of man Natasha would not have believed in, before the man sent to kill her spared her life and offered her another way.
"I really don't think we should make ourselves into his enemies, Tash," Clint whispers into her hair. "But it's up to you. I'll follow you."
And that's the most terrifying thing of all.