A/N: Thank you for such lovely reviews! Longer chapter to come shortly.
"You think I'm wrong?"
He disliked how well she could read him. Sometimes it felt like his innermost thoughts were on display, no matter how hard he tried to hide them.
"I think you're kind."
"Then you're a terrible judge of character."
"No. I'm not."
"Neither am I." She looked up at him for a long moment. "I know you. If you weren't a good man, you wouldn't care who you were fighting. But you do. If you were just a soldier chasing conflict, you wouldn't care what the conflict was or what it was for. Stop selling yourself short."
He started to say something but stopped as she kept walking. She had a way of brushing him off that ended conversations. It was one of the most frustrating things about her.
"Hang on," he reached out to stop her. She looked up at him, daring him to contradict her. "Both things can be true. I can want conflict and care what the conflict is about. Those things don't cancel. One doesn't justify the other."
"So you have a little darkness in you. Welcome to the club." She shrugged. "It's okay to enjoy your work."
He let out a long sigh.
"What do you want to hear? That you're an asshole?"
He bristled. "I don't want you to rationalize it away."
"Okay." She watched him steadily for a moment. "I hate being a Widow, but I love being an Avenger. There's a difference."
He frowned, not sure what she was getting at.
She let out a breath. "Being a Widow was lonely. Even when I was working for SHIELD. It was… soulless." She shrugged. "This might be bold of me, but I think you found the same thing that I did in the Avengers. A home. A family. I think you got a taste of it with your unit in forty five, but you found your real home here. With us. Maybe it's not the fight you actually want. Maybe you only get what you want when there's a fight."
He stared at her.
"Or maybe you really are, deep down, a very disturbed person."