because I remembered there was a deleted scene in AoU where Rhodey tells Nat to watch her six, and then he repeats that in Endgame.

and because I remembered they'd known each other a long time by the time Endgame rolled around...

"Welcome back, Colonel Rhodes."

"Afternoon, Friday," Rhodey says as he heads toward the kitchen, his duffel bag slung over his shoulder and briefcase in his hand.

"I trust your trip was successful?"

"As successful as anything can be these days," he answers truthfully. Thanos' actions had thrown multiple wrenches into the already fragile web of relationships between countries. Losing half of the world's living things had left things in a state of chaos that they were still trying to balance out. It had been years now, and yes some progress had been made, but everyone was still trying to grapple with how to handle things.

Tony had stepped back, citing the lost fight and the fact that there was nothing they could do to fix it. He'd survived the battle against Thanos and then being stranded in space, and told them he was taking his second chance with Pepper with both hands. Nobody held it against him.

But that left a sizable hole to fill on the team in terms of who dealt with the government officials and overall politics. At first he, Nat, and Steve had shared most of it. But slowly that burden came to rest mostly on his own shoulders as Steve slowly stepped back to split his time between the Compound and his support group in the city, and Nat focused on handling team operations and the initiative for the orphaned kids. Of course it helped helped that the government officials who were left tended to trust him, a military man, over two former fugitives...one of whom was also a former Russian spy.

"Anyone around today?" he asks.

"Ms. Romanoff is in the dance studio." Right, dumb question. Nat's always here. "Do you need me to-"

"No," he replies quickly. "It's not urgent. I'll catch her later. Thanks though."

"Any analyses to be done?" Friday asks, well used to the routines he followed when he returned from long stretches of meetings.

"Some," he answers as he puts down his briefcase, drops his keys onto the coffee table, and lets the bag slide off his shoulder to the ground, "but nothing that can't wait until tomorrow. Right now I just want to watch some football, drink some beer, and not move for a couple hours."

"Any preferences?" Friday asks. The league had long since folded, but Friday had a library of games to pull from, most of which he hadn't actually seen. It doesn't beat watching live football, but these days people took what they could get.

"Surprise me," he says as he heads into the kitchen to grab a beer and some snacks. The sounds of commentary and a boisterous crowd fill the room almost immediately and he blows out a breath of relief. Damn, it's good to be home.

A couple hours later the game is wrapping up and Rhodey stands up to stretch his legs, which have gotten a bit stiff and sore from being seated for too long.

"Colonel Rhodes?" Friday's voice fills the room unexpectedly.

"Yeah?"

There's a slight pause before Friday answers and suddenly Rhodey's a bit worried. Maybe something happened with Tony?

"Ms. Romanoff is still in the studio…"

He frowns. "Okay…"

"And has been for some time now."

He glances at his watch and finds it's been a couple hours since he got back. He's not worried yet since it wasn't unusual for her workouts to last a few hours, depending on her exercise of choice. Unless... "How long has she been there?"

"5 hours, 23 minutes."

"What's she doing in there?"

"Dancing."

Rhodey blows out a breath. Nat's workouts had always put everyone but Cap's to shame. He vividly remembered being impressed and a bit terrified after seeing her do a real workout for the first time. He'd mentally upped his reps immediately. But since Thanos...her workouts were more intense and more frequent. He supposed it was a way for her to gain back some control, and maybe to be ready if her constant searches and extensive research ever came back with a tangible lead on how to bring everybody back.

"Has she been dancing the whole time?"

"Yes."

"For five and a half hours?" he clarifies, not quite believing it. Even for Nat that was a bit much.

"Yes. I believe it may be prudent to check on her."

"Shit," he mutters before blowing out a heavy exhale. "I'll check on her. Thanks, Friday."

"Thank you, Colonel."

With Tony gone and Steve no longer desiring to fill the team leader role, Nat had stepped up to cobble together and lead what was left of the team. And she'd done well at it all, even in the face of everything they'd gone through and were up against. But the strain of not finding any answers to the hard questions she kept asking herself had been wearing on her. Apparently more than he'd thought. He thinks back to his last call with Nat and remembers how he'd noticed that she had looked just a bit more worn out than usual.

He makes his way out of the kitchen and over to the training area where the studio is. It hadn't really been used much that he knew of, but then again he hadn't really known Nat danced either, so…

He hears the music before he reaches the studio, and it tugs at his mind as being familiar, but he can't place it. It's loud though, and he supposes it's to drown anything and everything else out. He gets it - it's not that strange for him to crank his music when he's lifting weights.

"Time check, Friday."

"5 hours and 28 minutes."

He sighs as he pushes open the door. It didn't take a shrink to figure out that she was probably punishing herself. There'd been a lot of that going around after Wakanda, and Nat's particular brand of guilt had apparently stuck around more stubbornly than most.

He's impressed that after nearly five and a half hours she's still going. He's never seen her dance before, but he's seen a couple ballet performances and it's clear to him that her pirouettes, leaps, and movements are not those of a novice. Suddenly her unrivalled flexibility, agility, and strength as a fighter make perfect sense to him. There'd always been a sort of grace to the way Nat moved from one enemy to the next, and clearly it stemmed from her dancing background. He can see the sweat dripping off her, and he's pretty sure she's bled through her pointe shoes, but it's the expression on her face that worries him. It flashes between anguish and a sort of blank neutral that's actually arguably worse than the pain in her eyes.

"Friday, cut the music," Rhodey says as he leans against the door frame. The very fact that she hadn't noticed he'd been watching was concerning in and of itself considering her generally paranoid nature.

The music stops abruptly and she finishes a spin before turning around to face him. She's breathing heavily but not out of control, and he didn't doubt for a second that she probably could have kept going for another five and a half hours if she had to.

"You always interrupt people's workouts?" she snaps.

"Only when Friday gets concerned," he retorts easily. Years of being on the receiving end of Tony's snarky comments had rendered him nearly immune to that particular brand of verbal barbs.

Nat glares at a camera in the corner. "Snitch," she mutters under her breath.

"Don't take it out on Friday," he chastises. "You wanna tell me what all of this," he gestures to her and the room vaguely, "is about?"

"I'm working out," she answers, tone all business. "I thought that was pretty clear."

"To be the lead in the next production of the Nutcracker?"

"Rhodes," she warns. Rhodes, huh? Someone's cranky… "I'm just getting a workout in. Dance happens to be a pretty common way for-"

"Yeah, last I checked a five and a half hour ballet routine isn't in your or anyone's regular workouts." She glares at him, but he presses on, this time a little more gently. "You've bled through your shoes, Nat," he says softly.

She glances down and for an instant he sees her expression falter before her mask snaps back into place. "Not the first time," she murmurs.

"Won't be the last?" he guesses, and she glares at him again. "C'mon, Nat. I'll cook you dinner."

"Rhodey," she tries, tone soft and a contrast to her previous snarkiness. Oh, so we're back to Rhodey now? "I'm fine."

But he's undaunted. "Keep saying that. Maybe it'll mean something one of these days."

Her expression hardens once more, and he can see the mask snap into place.

"Go ahead and glare at me. I handled Tony Stark for years. And that was before he had his 'I'm going to save the world and be a better person' epiphany. This?" he waves his hand at her vaguely again. "This is nothing."

She seems to consider his words for a moment before turning abruptly and walking over to the bench where her gym bag is. Rhodey eyes her carefully as she begins to unwrap and remove her shoes. Nat is one of the most capable and even-keeled people he's ever known, but this behaviour...this definitely falls into the 'not okay' category.

His eyes drop to her bruised and bleeding toes and he frowns. "You gonna take care of those feet, or do I have to use up some of my blackmail material?"

She glances up and holds his gaze. He finds her eyes steely, but with a familiar glimmer of mischief somewhere in them. " As if you have anything," she drawls as she looks back down to her feet to appraise them, wiggling her toes and wincing slightly.

"You want to test that, Romanoff?" It's a bit of a teasing jab because he's hoping to loosen the mother of all knots that's apparently taken up residence somewhere deep inside her.

She glances up again and eyes him for a moment before she laughs and her posture relaxes a bit. "You haven't got shit," she accuses knowingly, arching an eyebrow that punctuates her certainty in her read of him.

"Guilty as charged," he shrugs with a little grin. He'd gotten what he wanted - a little bit of the Nat he knows back. "But seriously, take care of those feet. I'm not dealing with having to take you to medical. You're worse than Tony with doctors."

She chuckles again as she gets up and walks over to him, towel around her neck and gym bag slung over her shoulder. She's hiding it, but he can see she's stepping gingerly and there's the slightest limp in her gait. "You know there's a reason you've never beaten me at poker, Rhodes."

"Yeah, yeah, rub it in. Contrary to what you're implying, I do have a poker face. You're just freakishly good at reading people," he retorts as they begin walking out of the studio together. "But I wasn't ever in it to win."

"No?"

"No," he shakes his head, "I just liked to watch Tony's slow but steady downward spiral as you beat him every single hand, even when he was certain he had you."

"It was fun to watch his desperation grow…" she says as another chuckle slips out. "You mentioned dinner?"

"Preferences?"

She thinks for a moment. "Chili?"

She always did have a soft spot for my chili… he thinks.

"If we have what we need…" he trails off and looks toward the camera in the corner of the room.

"All ingredients in stock," Friday confirms.

"Then chili it is."

Nat smiles, but he can't help but notice it doesn't reach her eyes. Then again, none of them have really had much to be happy about over the past few years… Morgan's birth had buoyed their spirits for awhile, but life outside that bubble had gone on being as bleak as it was before.

"Go shower and take care of those feet. Then get your ass in the kitchen because I'm not making it alone."

"Yes sir," she replies with a little smirk and a half-hearted mock salute.

He can't help but roll his eyes, but at least she's out of her head.

With the chili now simmering on the stove and at least an hour out from being ready to eat, he'd grabbed himself another beer and a bag of chips to munch on, and then tossed Nat a sports drink and a protein bar because he was pretty sure she hadn't eaten anything yet that day.

She rolls her eyes. "Thanks, Mom."

"You're welcome," he answers, not rising to the bait.

They both sit down in the common area adjacent to the kitchen, him on the couch and her across from him on a chair. He's relieved to see her sipping the drink and eating the bar, and decides that she's back to being herself enough for him to broach the topic he needs to discuss with her.

"I'm gonna ask you something, Nat, and because we've known each other a long time and gone through a lot of shit together, I want you to do me the courtesy of not giving me a bullshit answer."

She stays quiet and nods to prompt him to continue.

"What was the extended and excessive dancing about?"

"You're really not going to let that go, are you?"

Rhodey just stares back at her, making his answer very clear silently. She finishes off the protein bar and takes another sip of her drink before she begins to explain.

"Dancing was a big part of my training growing up. It was useful for developing strength, flexibility, endurance, focus, and obedience."

Obedience?

"We'd dance for hours sometimes, just so they could find the ones that weren't worth their time or effort. Weed out the weak ones."

Oh.

"If it was a part of…" he trails off, unsure of the exact descriptor he's looking for to properly encapsulate the horrors she'd survived. "All that . Why do it now?"

"Because I love it," she answers simply.

Rhodey finds himself a bit confused. An upbringing like hers meant that they'd used ballet in the worst way possible…and yet she loves it? "Even though it was a part of your training?"

"I've always loved it. I used it as an escape when I was in the Red Room. When I was dancing it was just me and the music because everything else - the pain, the anger, the horrors - they faded away. Even when they kept us dancing for hours on end, I relished that time. And I decided after I joined SHIELD that it wasn't going to be something else that they got to take away from me."

Ah. Now we're getting somewhere. "So you dance because you love it?"

She offers a weak smile. "I used to. Now I dance to get out of my head. Sometimes it helps to fall back into those routines and just...exist without having to think."

To escape , he concludes. "Why'd you need to get out of your head?"

She sighs. "Friday, can you bring up the Ronin file?"

Ronin?

"Of course, Ms. Romanoff."

She enlarges it, picks out a couple screens and then flicks them over to him. His eyes scan the text that describes a string of murders in the midwest, and then another on the west coast, all the victims identified as members of violent gangs. He opens the images and immediately wishes he hadn't. They're brutal.

"Jesus. Who is this Ronin guy? And why haven't we done something about him?"

She sighs and then hesitates. "I think it's Clint."

Rhodey blinks a few times because he's not sure he heard her correctly. "Barton? I thought he was a bow and arrow guy. This is...slicing and dicing," he says as he makes a slicing motion with his hand.

"Before he joined SHIELD he freelanced and his skillset was a bit more varied than just the bow and arrow you saw him use with the Avengers. As far as I know he hadn't touched a sword or a blade like that since before he got recruited to SHIELD."

"You're sure it's him?"

She shakes her head. "No. I think it's him, but I don't have enough information to know definitively. I'm working off the information I can get, but a lot of it is bound to be on paper rather than digital what with the staff shortages everywhere."

Barton's gone on a killing spree? Rhodey shakes his head in disbelief. The Clint he knew was a pretty easy going guy. A master assassin, sure, but generally a nice guy. It doesn't track that he just switched to mindless killing… "So you think he what… Had a psychotic break?"

He knows immediately it was the wrong thing to say because she stiffens and gets defensive. "He lost everything, Rhodey. His whole family."

"That's not an excuse, Nat."

"I'm not saying it is," she replies quickly. "But it's not like he's taking out innocent people."

He eyes her critically, because the Nat he knew was the one who made the hard calls. The ones in that nasty grey area that everyone tended to avoid. She was calm and logical about anything and everything, and could separate emotions out of decisions better than anyone he'd ever known. But that Nat and the one sitting in front of him are two very people. Barton's sudden disappearance after she'd found out he survived Thanos' fingers snapping had wrecked her. She'd held it together for them when they needed a pillar of strength, and she'd thrown her efforts into everything else they needed her to focus on, but losing him that way had devastated her.

"Look," he begins carefully, "I know you and him go way back but this… If it is him...then maybe he's beyond help."

"It's no worse than what I'd done before SHIELD," she counters, clearly undeterred.

He holds in the sigh that forms because he understands her desire to defend him. Despite the ugliness and brutality of the crimes, he really does understand, because if it were Tony he knows he would try to move heaven and earth to help him. "Nat-"

"You asked me why I was dancing, this is why. We've had basically the best resources in the world at our fingertips and I can't do shit to help him get back what he lost. I keep looking and searching for something that we can do but…"

There's nothing to do he thinks sadly. He'd been in the room when Nat, Steve, Nebula, Rocket, and Danvers were spit-balling anything and everything they could think of to fix it. They'd thought of everything they could, but nothing could undo what was done.

She shakes her head. "I've been trying to keep tabs on him, but…"

"Have you tried contacting him?"

"Of course I've tried," she snaps before she relaxes and looks apologetic for her outburst. "He ditched his cell phone months ago and he's not checking our other usual channels."

"He doesn't wanna be found," he surmises.

She pauses before she responds. "He's my best friend," she explains, her tone wavering just enough to let him know that this has well and truly rattled her. "He saved me from this exact same life back then, except I'd been killing innocent people. He didn't have to spare my life, but he did. They ordered him to kill me and instead he offered me a chance to try for redemption. I can't- I can't let him just…" she trails off, uncertain of what to say. "He's a good person and I refuse to judge him on this. He didn't judge me when he probably should have. I owe him, Rhodey. I owe him everything ."

Rhodey's quiet as he lets her words settle between them. They're filled with pain and regret, and he all at once understands why she had turned to dancing. But these crimes spanned several months, so it probably wasn't the first time she'd nearly danced herself to exhaustion...

"How long has this been going on?"

"Awhile," she answers vaguely.

"So that little workout earlier today wasn't a one-off, was it?"

"No," she admits, and he's a little surprised by her honesty.

"Jesus, Nat. Does Steve know about him?"

She shakes her head. "He doesn't want to know. He's stepped back almost entirely. He's moving back to Brooklyn."

Rhodey's eyes widen slightly in surprise. To Brooklyn? He's giving up on the Avengers entirely? And then he feels a bit bad, because she'd been in this giant facility all alone for probably the entire duration of his trip, with this growing file tormenting her.

"Shit, Nat. I'm sorry."

She shakes her head. "It's not your-"

"Let's put together some more search parameters and have Friday keep scanning," he interrupts. "And I can put some feelers out to some solid contacts I have on the west coast to see if we can get some more info from their investigations. Maybe get enough to actually find out if it's him."

"Rhodey, I'm not asking you to help with this. I know your plate is already full with the liaison stuff. And I'm not going to put you into a position where-"

"You didn't ask. I offered. I know things between you and Tony are still...weird, but you and me are okay, and that means that if my friend needs help and I'm in a position to give it, I'm gonna make it happen."

She holds his gaze and he can see the relief swimming in her eyes. "Thank you," she says finally.

He smiles. "Someone's gotta watch your six."

She smiles back at him. "How were your meetings?"

"Long and mind-numbing, but productive."

She nods. "Good."

"How're the kids doing?" he asks.

When she'd told him about her idea to put together some services for the kids who'd been orphaned by Thanos' actions, he'd encouraged her to reach out to Tony. She'd shaken her head and told him that she and Tony weren't exactly on speaking terms. He'd shrugged and told her to talk to Pepper then, since she'd be the one handling it anyway. She'd looked thoughtful and then nodded.

"Paperwork is paperwork," she says with a shrug. "But the reports say the kids are doing well."

"Good."

"Yeah."

They're silent for a beat. "Hey Nat?"

She turns to look at him again. "Yeah?"

"You good?"

"No," she answers honestly. "But I'm better than I was this morning."

"That's all I can ask for," he replies.

thoughts? comments? Let me know...