The park is beautiful this time of year, decorated with all the lights and and blanketed with a fresh coat of pristine white snow, but the hot coffee in my hands and good friend at my side is what really makes it magical. I keep my steps purposely slow, knowing that Natasha still only has so much energy for this type of thing. She looks better than I've seen her since before her attack; her long red hair curled, emerald eyes bright and cheery, and her cheeks rosy as she strolls beside me at my right. She's in a good mood today, a coy smile gracing her lips that seems to carry some sort of happy secret.
I begin to wonder if she knows that Pepper is with child. I didn't think anyone else noticed her pull Tony aside to the kitchen area during the movie last night, but then if anyone else noticed it would be Natasha. I smile at the recent memory. Tony's face when he opened up the small box Pepper had been hiding under the tree skirt...the one that contained a tiny onsie with the words "My Daddy is a superhero" isn't one that I think I'll ever forget. At first it was simple shock, then uncomprehending disbelief, followed by the future father grabbing up his fiancee and swinging her around in glee. I quit watching when they started kissing.
I can hardly wait for the baby to be born. I've already made up my mind that I'm going to request the child call me uncle. I hope Tony and Pepper will allow it. As much as I long to raise a family of my own, this is probably the closest I'll ever get having my own child. It's not 1943 anymore and Peggy had to move on a long time ago.
"So what do you want to draw today?" The beautiful dame on my right asks, bringing my out of my own melancholy thoughts. Whatever she's thinking about certainly isn't anything depressing, the coy smile of hers never leaves her lips even as she speaks.
I look around to see some kids not far off about halfway though the process of building a snowman and decide to lead Natasha over the bench in front of the scene. It will be a good place for her to rest and for me to sketch. The boy is about eight and blond and the girl about six and brunette with little pigtails and red ribbons in her hair. My friend follows my gaze and, wordlessly, we head over to the wooden bench coated with about an inch or so of snow. I bend down and knock all of the white powder off with my gloved hand so she can sit down and she waits patiently for me to finish before smiling at me wider and sitting in a relaxed pose.
"I loved playing out in the snow as a child." I state, smiling fondly at the memory. Bucky and me used to go out and make snowmen and forts all the time, even if my mother did try to keep me inside as much as possible. The cold air wasn't the best for my lungs, but the memories of getting to simply be a kid and play with my friend is more than worth the others of being in bed sick as an after result.
I notice Natasha's smile drop somewhat out of the corner of my eye and take another sip of my coffee as I realize my mistake. Natasha never had the opportunity to do anything like that as child, despite having grown up in Russia where there is almost always an abundance of snow. Well, I may not know how to do a lot of common activities nowadays, but I do know how to make a snowman. Immediately, I put down my sketch pad and coffee and take hers from her hands gently before pulling her up from her place.
"Come on. Let's build a snowman." I tug her too light body up from the bench without any cooperation on her part and more or less drag her over a few yards to an untouched patch of snow.
"What?" Her green eyes bug out a little at me and I laugh in delight when I realize I've managed to surprise even the Black Widow.
Wasting no time, I bend down and begin gathering snow, rolling the fresh powder into a ball to build into the bottom third of the snowman. I focus on the cold snow, the moisture soaking a little through my red knit gloves, and purposely don't look up at my companion. Her boots stay stubbornly glued in their place and I get the feeling that she's gaping at me even though I can't see her from my bent over kneeling position.
I hope this works. The white ball grows in size and I keep rolling it until it's a good two feet in diameter. Still, the black boots standing beside the ball don't move. I'm beginning to think she's just going to stand there and watch me the entire time until her knees give from all the locked up standing and I look over just in time to see her bottom make contact with the pillowy soft snow behind her. It couldn't have hurt, so I take the opportunity to try to encourage her to participate once more by pulling her up into a sitting position beside me as I chuckle and hand her a freshly made snowball.
Reluctantly she takes it, only to stare at it for a long moment as though it were something totally foreign to her, but then she smiles devilishly and smashes it into my hair with gleeful enthusiasm. I laugh at the cold sensation and grab up another handful of snow, flinging it at her. Her eyes light up once more and a playful smirk forms on her lips as this quickly escalates into an all out snowball fight. She doesn't stand up; she probably can't at the moment, so I stay in my crouched down position too and we both just keep flinging snow at each other from our places only three or four feet away from each other. I have no idea who it is that wins, probably neither of us. When we finally stop, both of us covered in snow and her eyes a light in a childish sort of delight that I don't think I've ever seen on Natasha Romanoff/Barton before.
I lay back, content to be spending time in such simple pleasure with my friend. Natasha and I really are good therapy for each other in that way. She keeps me from getting lost and explains whatever I need to face the new outside world and I point out all the beauty in how it was before and how it is now. From my new position I start to move my outstretched arms back and forth to create a snow angel and then stand up carefully away from it to show her.
"It's called a snow angel. I used to make them all the time."
Her eyes travel from me to the indentions in the snow I just made. It isn't perfect, but it's still beautiful in it's own right. Then, to my surprise, she lays back and mimics me, making her own.
I walk over and pull her up when she finishes so that she doesn't mess it up with any accidental footprints.
"Ангел в снегу." An angel in the snow. "Thank you for this."
I shrug. "Anytime. Let's finish our snowman. I sketch it all when we're finished."
Her eyes glance down at the time on her watch and me eyes follow along. 11:23 A.M. We've still got two hours before I need to get her back to the tower to prep for the surgery. I want to make that time pass by as quickly and worry free for her as possible. It's still Christmas, after all, and if one of my best friends and family members is going to have a major operation on the Lord's birthday, well I want her to have some good old fashioned holiday fun first.
"Steve, I need you to deliver a message for me. Can you do that?" I look up to meet her eyes over the half built snowman we're working on from opposite sides. She doesn't look up from what she's doing.
"A message to who?" Is she worried about the surgery? Is this for incase she doesn't wake up?
"Hill." Comes her confident response. "There is an envelope waiting back at the tower. I need you to take it to her at six o'clock exactly tonight. Do you mind?"
Her tone is casual enough. It must just be some employment paperwork. Maybe she's trying to get things ready early so she can go back to work. I smile.
"Sure. What should I tell her?"
"Just give her the envelope and and follow the directions inside. They're for you both."
I frown at the cryptic nature of her request. I want to press for more information, but then I realize that for all the closer our relationship has gotten over the past few weeks, especially during these little outings, the woman in front of me is still a spy.
We finish building our lopsided snowman in comfortable silence and once the snow structure is complete, I begin looking around for sticks to use as arms and pebbles to make the eyes and buttons.
Natasha quickly finds a pinecone only a couple feet from where she sits and begins quietly pulling off the tabs, one by one, to use instead for the eyes. I find two mostly even sized twigs and insert them into place on either side of the torso.
"Can you draw this?" Natasha asks in a hurried whisper once we're done and then her expression becomes alarmed as though she hadn't realized she was actually going to ask me until she already had. Something about her eyes looks wistful. "I want to keep this."
I nod. Of course I will. Didn't I already tell her I planned to?
I sketch the snowman with her sitting next to it in her coat and boots with black shades and charcoal. I sketch the two snow angel impressions in the snow on a second page and then go to help her upright.
"You always know how to make the most mundane things special Steve."
"It's easy to have a good time when you're in good company." I reply easily gathering up our now cold coffees and depositing them both into a nearby trashcan on our way out of the park back towards the tower. This time I'm walking just slightly slower than her, as I'm a little reluctant to leave the laughing children and twinkling lights for my lonely apartment in the Avenger's Tower. The different perspective of my friend's stride worries me. She's walking a little stiffly. Did I make her over do it? Did she hurt herself tripping down earlier? I don't know how she could have with the ground as soft as it is.
"Are you okay?" I ask even though I know her well enough now to know that she hates being asked that.
"Yeah. Great. Why?" She doesn't bother looking at me as she responds nonchalantly.
"It's just that you're walking kind of funny." I tell her and her head immediately jerks around to look at me with a strange mixture of slight embarrassment and amusement written all through her features.
"I hope you didn't get hurt falling earlier. Clint would kill me if I let you get hurt." I kick at some snow on the ground in front of me with my shoe.
Her eyes are alight with internal laughter now. "Oh, don't worry. Clint already knows all about it."
"He does? So it happened with him there?" I persist, wanting to make absolutely sure there isn't anything I should be telling her surgeon about before the procedure.
"Mmmh-hmm."
I frown. There's something she's not telling me here. Clint better not have hurt her. My mind flashes back to his death grip on her arm aboard the plane to Russia. Her long sleeves covered it, but she must have had bruises there. Did he hit her? How could I find out if she won't tell me? Would Jarvis know? Would Clint Barton do that? He would cut off a man's...man parts. Could he? He could squeeze her arm tightly enough that I felt the need to intervene. Would she let him? She did on the plane...
"What happened?" I half ask, half demand as I stop in my tracks.
She takes another couple steps on the icy sidewalk before also slowing down and turning around, raising her eyebrows at me like she's surprised I'd ask.
"What do you think?"
"I think that there is no good reason that a lady should be walking like that...you're practically limping."
I'm shocked to see her actually snort and then chuckle at me as she puts two and two together and gets what I'm implying. Her arm finds mine and loops around my elbow as we start back up the street again. "Oh Cap. Do me a favor and make sure you do exactly what those directions say tonight, okay?"
"Does it explain this?" I ask, gesturing toward her hips and the way she's walking.
A rare carefree laugh escapes her throat and it sounds like bells. It's honestly a little hard to reconcile the fact that the dame I'm with today has killed hundreds of people, even though I've seen her do it in person several times. Right now she's couldn't be pegged as anymore dangerous than any Betty or Estelle out on the street. "Not right away it won't, but I promise you'll understand when you need to."
"But do I need to have a conversation with Clint about this?" I keep my tone serious, wanting her to understand the gravity of his possible transgression. I won't live with a wife abuser. Maybe I should tell Tony and Bruce about this...maybe we should do an intervention? Would that work?
Natasha's face is a bit red by now. "Just read the directions Steve. Clint would sever his own shooting arm off before hurting me with it."
"Alright." I agree, relieved at her reassurance as to her husband's treatment of her but still perplexed at what could possibly be making her walk strangely, even if the difference is only slight.
We get back into the tower and Natasha retrieves the packet for me out of her apartment. It's just a simple sealed brown envelope. The words To Agent Hill. Open in case of security breach are printed neatly in black sharpie across the front.
Before I can ask anything else about it Bruce walks into the room in his lab coat and new silk Christmas tie from Darcy (Darcy got everyone except me and the gals matching Christmas ties) and heads straight for us. "The surgeon's almost ready. We have an operating room set up downstairs in the basement. I have no idea since when or how or why we have one, but apparently we do according to Tony."
Natasha nods, rolling her eyes at Tony even though he isn't here to see her do it. "Why doesn't that surprise me?" She turns to Bruce and places a hand at his upper arm, giving him a genuine smile. "Thank you for doing all of this Bruce. It means a lot to me."
"Well, let's not forget that I did try to kill you once, so maybe this will make it an even draw?" He didn't try to kill her. The Hulk did. But I think he's only saying that to try to let her off the hook from feeling indebted to him anyway. It's a nice thing for him to do on both counts- the medicine and the white lie. I smile at him and nod my head a little. I always did like Dr. Banner. He's a man of character.
"We need to go ahead and be heading down there now. Where's Clint?"
"On an errand." Natasha casually replies, waving off the question and already walking in the direction of the elevator. I shoot Dr. Banner a pointed look and he raises his eyebrows.
Once Natasha gets into the elevator, I motion for Bruce to hang back. Natasha must notice, but if she thinks its odd we aren't riding down with her she does nothing to indicate it. When the doors close I turn to the scientist.
"What kind of errand would be more important than his wife's surgery?"
Dr. Banner simply shrugs and rubs his eyelids with his fingers. "Steve, I've learned that with those two the less questions you ask the better. Trust me. Whatever it is, you probably don't want to know."