HEY GUYS! BLACK WIDOW SPOILERS IN THE UPCOMING CHAPTERS! If you haven't watched Black Widow/ don't want anything spoiled, don't read on until you have. You've been warned!
Steve returned to the trailer after about an hour to find Denver sound asleep on Natasha's lap while she watched a movie on her laptop. When he entered, she patted the seat next to her, but didn't look up, instead focusing on her film.
Grunting as he slowly sat beside her, Steve stretched out his arms above his head, silently wondering how long Natasha would be up. He was ready for a good night's rest after traveling so far, and he had every intention of sending her to the bed and he could take the couch. Perhaps she'd let Denver go with her, and he'd guard the door while knowing they slept soundly at the front of the trailer.
"You think any more about what I said?" She finally asked without looking away from her screen. Steve sighed and placed his large palm over Denver's shoulder, causing her to shift but not wake. The truth was, Steve had thought of nothing else. He'd considered every angle, every option set before him. He felt a closeness to Natasha that rivaled even what he had with Brooklyn. He trusted her deeply and knew he could trust her to be whatever he needed. Perhaps, although he knew she'd never admit it, she was lonely, too.
When he didn't answer, Natasha sighed, "Let's start simply. Do you want to share the bed tonight? It's big enough for the three of us."
"Yes." Steve whispered, and Nat finally looked up into his eyes. He swallowed hard, knowing if he kissed her now, Denver would never know, and tomorrow they could decide what to do from there. He started to lean down, centimeters from touching her lips when the generator rumbled and the lights flickered off.
"Great." Natasha mumbled as she shifted, closing her laptop and setting it to the side. "I'll go see if I can get it restarted. You wanna get her ready for bed?"
"Yeah- of course. Let me know if you need any help." Steve stammered, hopping to his feet and carefully scooping up Denver so as not to wake her. He bent down to grab her stuffed dog, holding her tightly against his chest with his other arm. She instinctively curled her arms around his neck and shifted a little, murmuring 'Daddy' as he carried her to the bed. He laid her down and stroked her hair before pulling the covers up and over her shoulders, "Goodnight. Catch the moon, Sweetheart."
She curled into her stuffed dog and Steve doubled back for her duffle to set it on the couch and rummage through it in the darkness. Finding her blanket, he took that to her to tuck her in some more but was distracted by Natasha's frustrated groan from outside.
Sparing one last look at Denver who was still sound asleep, Steve quietly opened the door and leaned around the doorframe to see Natasha struggling, "Won't start?"
"Nope. It's a bad generator." Natasha grumbled, shoving back some loose strands of red, "We got a couple of options. We head into town, try and get a new one. We make up a campfire or we just deal with it."
Steve considered this for a moment, looking up at the dark night sky. It wasn't snowing, so it wasn't about to get dangerously cold. There were plenty of blankets and they'd already established they'd share the bed, "If we do a campfire without Denny, she'll be furious. Maybe it's easier to just deal with it until morning."
Nat bobbed her head a little, sighing as she kicked her boot against the generator, "Sounds like a plan to me. You aren't going to be a baby about it being cold, are you?" Her smile was cheeky as she led Steve back into the trailer. With all the lights off, and the heat unable to run, it was peaceful. The only sound they could hear were the crickets outside and each other's breathing.
Steve sat on the edge of the bed to untie his boots. He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept barefoot; he'd been on the run for a while now. The idea of cuddling up to Denver and sleeping until he naturally woke up, without any time constraints or worries, was enough to lull Steve into a sense of calm. Having Natasha beside them helped, too. Steve may have the power of brute force and heightened senses, but Natasha knew how to hide. She'd done it before, and she'd do it again, and now she was teaching Steve how to live beyond the rules and regulations that had governed him almost his whole life. He'd finally run away the way Brooklyn had asked him to, he was just too late to do it with her.
Finally, Steve crawled into the bed and pulled his daughter tight against his chest, resting his head over hers protectively. Natasha slid in on the other side of Denver, watching Steve as his eyes fluttered closed. Unbeknownst to him, Natasha was thinking about their almost kiss, and what Captain America wanted from her. She didn't like to let herself drift into those thoughts, but as the father and daughter beside her slept, she couldn't help it. Her imagination eventually lulled her to sleep too, and she didn't even realize Steve draped his arm over her side in his sleep.
Around four in the morning, the undeniable sound of a lock being snapped broke Steve and Natasha from their slumber. She reached for a gun stowed beside the bed, raising it as she crept forward while Steve tried to throw his boots back on. Before he could even consider tying his shoes, the door was ripped off its hinges and discarded away from the trailer.
Natasha's chest rose and fell as the man entered the trailer, dressed in heavy armor with a faceplate vaguely looking like a skull. Steve quickly stood, ignoring his untied boots in favor of protecting his family, "What do you want?"
The man tilted his head, seeming to watch Nat and Steve before looking down at the box beside the door. Natasha lunged forward, firing several shots that the intruder blocked with a round shield. Steve closed the gap in an instant as Denver woke up screaming, grabbing the man's wrist holding the shield before he could bring it down on Natasha. She kicked the intruder hard against the chest, but not before he got a good hit against Steve with the shield, knocking the super soldier back. Steve's loose shoes weren't enough to keep his balance and he fell as the masked man kicked Nat's gun away.
Denver's broken called of "Daddy!" caused everyone in the room to freeze, but Steve's blood boiled as he got his wits about him.
"Stay back!" Steve ordered his daughter, looking up long enough to warn her away. She'd crawled from the bed and was hugging her red blanket around the corner, peeking out to see what was happening. When the intruder's gaze slide towards Denver, Steve sprung on his wrists to stand, ramming himself into the man as Natasha grabbed the box of mail to figure out what they were here for.
Steve kicked off his boots in favor of fighting barefoot if it meant getting this monster away from his daughter. As the man strode towards the trailer once more, Steve barreled towards him and kicked him straight in the chest, but as he wound up to swing, the man raised his shield to block Steve's hit. Changing his tactic, Steve raised his knee, but they swept Steve's legs and knocked him to the ground, kneeling over him with the shield raised to decapitate him.
"Is this what you want?"
Steve and the man turned at the sound of Natasha's shaky voice, holding out the box of mail. "Take it. Leave us. We don't want any trouble. I don't know what any of this is."
The intruder stood and placed their heavy boot on Steve's chest, holding him down as he desperately tried to squirm his way up. They tilted their head as Natasha dropped the box out the front door, but their gaze dropped to the little blonde girl who quivered behind her legs.
They slowly began walking away, but Steve grabbed the boot and pulled, causing their attacker to fall. As Steve scrambled to his feet, the man bounded back and pelted Steve in the back with a knife. He gasped as he reached the steps, knees trembling as he reached behind himself and pulled the knife from his spine. Natasha knelt as he stumbled, grabbing his face between her hands as the intruder grabbed what he came for, but not before smashing the black case against the back of Steve's neck to make sure he stayed down.
Unfortunately, they were too smart to leave before checking the box. Realizing the black case was empty, they turned to Natasha, reaching over Steve, and grabbing her by the neck. She squirmed as he raised her up and over Steve, but she managed to swing her legs around his neck in an attempt to pull him down. To her surprise, instead of falling, they performed a perfect mirror of her signature move, pulling them both to the ground.
"Shh, baby, it's okay. Go hide, okay." Steve whispered to Denver as she quivered in the doorway, watching Natasha fight the man with tears streaming from her eyes. Her sobs had turned silent from fear as she clung to Steve's shirt, but Natasha could see that every time he moved, pain radiated down his spine. Even Captain America couldn't take a knife to the spinal column and jump back to his feet.
Realizing she had to draw the attacker away, Natasha sprung to her feet and took off in the opposite direction, "You want 'em, come and get 'em." She taunted, trying to draw the man away from Steve and Denver. It worked well, and they strode forward without looking back as Natasha sprinted towards the car. Before she could reach it though, the shield was embedded through the driver's window, shattering the console, and destroying any chance of escape. Natasha whipped open the door, reaching for a gun, but before she could, the man freed his shield from the car and smashed it against her skull. She stumbled a step, but didn't fall, attempting to run until they swept her legs, causing her to fall. She reached into her belt, but before her fingers could reach her knife, they knocked her out with their shield.
The sound of birds chirping was the first thing Natasha heard as she started to come to, followed immediately by the pounding of her own heart. She bolted upright with her hand to her head, looking around to try and remember what brought her outside in the middle of the night. The man. The case. The vials. She'd left the vials with Steve.
Bounding to her feet, Natasha sprinted towards the trailer, finding Steve on his hands and knees just inside the doorway, trying to stand. Even from a distance, Natasha could see the blood caked onto his back from the knife wound, and a faint bruise at the base of his neck where he'd been hit with the case. Sitting on the floor in front of him though, were the glowing red vials.
"Steve?" Natasha climbed the stairs and knelt beside the super soldier, lightly running her fingertips over his spine as he shook, "This looks really bad."
"He took her." Steve growled, clenching his hands into fists as he carefully raised his head to glare forward, "He took Denver when he couldn't find the vials."
Natasha stood quickly, looking around the trailer, but there was no sign of scuffle aside from the door being ripped away. Denver was taken without a trace. "Shit."
"I'm going to find him, and I'm going to kill him, and nothing is going to stand in my way." Steve's whole body shook as he tried to move, but he let out a pained yell as he forced himself back onto his knees.
Nat quickly moved around him to the trailer's bathroom, opening a cabinet and pulling out a first aid kit. She popped open a bottle of peroxide and knelt behind Steve as he shifted himself onto his ass, "Take your shirt off. We gotta get you cleaned up so this'll heal faster."
"I'm fine."
"Stop lying to yourself, Rogers. We don't have time for it." Natasha argued as she grabbed at the hem of his t-shirt and started pulling it up over his abs. He tentatively lifted his arms and allowed her to pull off his shirt and discard it before dumping the peroxide over the gash in his pale skin, "He got you right in the spinal cord. You should be dead."
Steve grunted, whether from annoyance or the sting Natasha didn't know, but he didn't say anything else about the matter. Once the bubbling stopped, Nat popped open a sewing kit to give him stitches. She studied his rigid back before realizing his gaze was locked on the vials, "Why didn't you give them up?"
"If they're worth killing us for, I didn't want him to have them." Steve mumbled, "And he might have taken Denver anyway. If he had the vials and Denver, he'd have no reason to keep her alive. Now he does."
Natasha finished stitching Steve up and rubbed her hand against the back of his neck, "We'll find her."
"I should have never taken her from Dallas, I knew it was a mistake."
"You don't mean that." Nat argued, shifting to sit beside Steve and grab the vials. She studied them for a moment, then noticed something sticking out from the middle. She tugged on the old piece of paper, revealing half a photo strip. "Yelena?"
At that, Steve turned to Natasha with raised brows and the saddest, most hopeless blue eyes she'd ever seen, "Your sister?"
"Another widow. She sent these to me." Natasha turned over the strip, then studied the vials. Whatever helplessness Steve was feeling over losing Denver was tenfold in Natasha as she realized who had the child. "We gotta go to Budapest."
The elevator creaked as it rose higher in the Hungarian complex. Steve shifted uneasily as Natasha looked up, smiling to herself. The super soldier hadn't slept on the train but being forced to sit still did wonders for his back. Even still, Nat didn't want to risk putting him out of commission before they faced whoever took Denver.
When the elevator stopped and Natasha got out, she made a bee line for a grate near a door, popping it open and retrieving a gun. She looked up at Steve, seeing him breathing through his lips as he prepared to break down the door, "Easy soldier, I got this. Just stay out here until I tell you it's safe." He narrowed his eyes at her and she chuckled, "I got this. Just stay put, okay?"
He huffed and crossed his arms, leaning against the wall as Natasha went to work picking the lock. Before she could get the door open though, a muffled, accented voice said, "I know you're out there."
Steve raised his brow and Natasha mouthed 'Yelena' before calling back, "I know you know I'm out here." The door popped open and Steve grabbed Nat's wrist tightly, but she just shook her head and pulled away to hold her gun with both hands. He watched as she slammed the door closed with her foot, not realizing it was inches from knocking into his nose.
While Natasha dealt with her adopted sister, Steve pulled a photo of himself and Denver out of his back jeans pocket. Rubbing his thumb over it slowly, he whispered, "I'm gonna get you back. I promise."
The sound of glass breaking, and two women grunting wafted to Steve's ears through the closed door, so he sighed and pushed the photo back into his pocket. He shoved his hands into the pockets of the brown leather jacket Natasha had gotten for him. Budapest wasn't cold by any means, but he felt better with the jacket than in just a t-shirt.
The two women continued to fight, at least Steve assumed they were fighting based on the gasps and yells that continued beyond the double doors. He chewed the inside of his cheek, wondering how long this would take. The idea of calling for backup crossed his mind, but then he and Natasha would be arrested, and he'd probably never see Denver again. Steve decided it would be best to just try on their own, and only call for backup if they really couldn't handle it.
After a moment, the sounds from behind the door quieted, and Steve shifted to lean against it, trying to make out Natasha. He could hear the unfamiliar voice gasping, but not Nat. Having enough of waiting, Steve rolled his shoulders and used his boot to bash in the door, finding the two women laying on the ground in the foyer.
The blonde popped up, staring at him in disbelief before grumbling down at Natasha, "I thought Captain America would have better manners than to break down the door. Now I'm gonna have to pay to have it fixed."
As she wandered away, Natasha smirked, sitting up and panting as Steve walked over to her to help her up, "You okay?"
"I'm fine." She answered, turning away from Steve to follow Yelena into the kitchen, "This is Yelena. Yelena, this is Steve."
"I know who he is, I have eyes." Yelena called as she stuck her head into the fridge and pulled out a bottle of vodka and three shot glasses. She sat them down, then poured the drink into two of them before addressing the man, "Do you drink? Or does it go against your American ideals?"
Steve steeled his jaw as Natasha ignored Yelena's question, instead prodding her about why she was in Budapest. The blonde tossed back her shot, then poured another before filling Steve's glass, "I came here because I thought you wouldn't. Since you're here though, what kind of bullet does that?" She gestured to three triangular marks above the microwave on the far wall.
"Not bullets. Arrows." Natasha explained before looking up at Steve, "This is where Clint and I met."
"Not that I don't find this fascinating, but we're kind of in a hurry." Steve pulled the vials from inside his jacket and placed them firmly on the table. "What are these, and why did you send them to Nat?"
"Nat? Like a bug? Is that what your Avengers friends call you?" Yelena sneered as she rolled her eyes and stormed into the other room, "I can't believe you brought it back here. I was hoping you'd take it to one of your super-scientist friends, like Tony Stark. Instead, you come into my home, have Captain America break down my door, and not help me at all. I shouldn't have expected so much from you."
Natasha followed Yelena as Steve hung back in the kitchen, grabbing his shot glass and tossing it back before eyeing Natasha's wearily. He heard the women bickering in Russian and decided to throw back hers too, seeing as she wasn't planning on drinking it.
"I kept checking the news, expecting to see Captain America bringing down the Red Room." Yelena drawled as she slung a bag over her shoulder, walking back into the hallway and shooting Steve a pointed look. He pushed away from the table to follow her, finding Natasha chasing the other widow down.
"What? Taking down the Red Room? It's been gone for years…" Natasha looked to Steve and for the first time in his life, he saw Natasha's hard exterior crumble, "Dreykov's dead. I killed him."
"You don't actually believe that, do you?" Yelena asked, studying Natasha and seeing what Steve did: uncertainty. She softened a little, "You do, don't you?"
Natasha swallowed hard, having an internal battle that Steve wanted to press her about, but he didn't want her to shut him out. She looked at Yelena, then Steve, before turning and storming back into the kitchen to pour herself a drink. She spoke to Yelena in Russian, eyeing Steve occasionally before murmuring, "У них есть его дочь." They have his daughter.
"Ahh, so that's why you're here. You aren't here to help the other widows, you're here to help the Avengers." Yelena shook her head, staring out the window, "I should have known. If you cared about any of us, you would have come back."
Suddenly, the sound of heavy footsteps caught their attention, and Steve grabbed Natasha's forearm lightly. "We have to go."
The ceiling broke through and several women with guns fell into the living room, looking around as their lasers tried to find Natasha, Steve, and Yelena. Yelena sprinted from her hiding spot across the hall, being shot at until Natasha grabbed her and flung her against the wall, covering her mouth to keep her quiet. Yelena reached over and flipped a switch, causing all the lights in the hallway to spark and explode, giving them the cover of smoke as well as dust to attempt to escape.
"Follow me." Yelena ordered as she burst through the hallway, knocking two widows into each other before sprinting away. Natasha kicked one's calf, causing her to groan and go down as Steve brought up the rear, ducking his head as they tried to shoot at them. When they got to the stairwell, Yelena stared at him, panting, "Where's your shield?"
He stared back, looking from her to the approaching assassins until Yelena threw a grenade at them, "I don't have it."
Yelena turned to Natasha, "At least tell me we can reach your jet?"
"We don't have a jet, we took the train." Natasha barked back, grabbing Yelena's wrist and tugging her up the stairs.
"So you have no shield, no jet, no Tony Stark... are the Avengers good for anything?!" Yelena snapped as she passed Natasha in an effort to reach the roof, "I have a motorbike on the east side of the building."
"That's not going to help the three of us." Natasha argued, but continued following Yelena out the window to the roof anyway.
Without looking back, Yelena yelled, "Well then I guess somebody's getting left behind."
They reached a metal silo attached the roof, looking back to see another widow hot on their trail. Steve grabbed Natasha's shoulder as Yelena pulled the pin and got her footing, "She's right. You two go. I'll hold them off."
"What? No, I'm not gonna leave you here to fight them off alone!" Natasha argued, but Steve just put his boot on the silo to push.
"Do they have Denver in the Red Room?" He asked fearfully, looking over his shoulder to see the woman almost there, "If she's there, you're the only one who can save her." He shoved Natasha and Yelena away before she could protest, causing them to fall across the alleyway into a window across.
The widow who had been chasing them whipped out her knife and attempted to stab Steve, but he ducked out of the way, punching her in the face and causing her to stumble back a step. He spared a quick look over his shoulder to make sure Nat and Yelena had gotten to safety, only to see Natasha hanging preciously from the window's ledge. His distraction was enough for the widow to tackle him from the side, sending both of them over the roof's edge into the alleyway below.
They crashed against a series of pipes until finally landing in the dirty water of the street. Steve rolled over, groaning loudly as he heard Natasha calling his name in the distance. He turned his head to look at the woman who had chased them, seeing her leg snapped at an unnatural angle as she trembled with her hand across her chest. Steve stood and stumbled over to her, only looking up when Natasha came running his way.
"Are you okay?" She gasped as she grabbed his jaw, looking him over nervously while he nodded. She turned to the widow, seeing her raising her widow's bites towards them, "Hey… You're hurt. Let us help you. We can get you somewhere safe."
The gauntlet around the woman's wrist began to whir and she sobbed desperately, "I don't wanna do this."
"What are you doing?" Natasha asked worriedly, reaching forward as Steve grabbed onto her waist to keep her a safe distance away.
"He's making me." The woman cried before firing the gauntlet at her own head and killing herself.
Steve let go of Natasha and walked around the woman, kneeling down to study the charred marks on her face. He fell to his knees in the water, staring at the woman before asking Natasha, "They're being controlled? They have my baby. Are they gonna do this to her?"
"No. We're going to stop them." Natasha answered shakily as Yelena appeared with one of the red vials in her hand. When she saw the widow was already dead, she slid it back into its casing.
"Do you believe me now?"
Yelena started jogging away and Steve and Natasha sprinted after her, catching her on the street side of the building. The sound of sirens approaching caused them to run until several motorcycles came into view. Natasha produced the keys as Yelena swore at her in Russian, and Steve looked back towards the street as the two women mounted the bike.
"I don't even know where to tell you to meet us." Natasha said breathlessly, grabbing the collar of Steve's jacket. She looked from his eyes to his lips, then back to his eyes, but before either of them could make a move, a car was sent flying through the air beside them before being crushed by a tank. "We'll find you later!"
Steve dove out of the way as the tank smashed through the other motorcycles in an effort to catch Yelena and Natasha. He stood there pushing his hair back, realizing this may have been the first time since 1943 that the bad guy wasn't after him. He took off running as fast as he could, following the sound of squealing tires and crunching metal in hopes of meeting up with his best friend again.
Meanwhile, as Natasha tried to evade the massive tank attempting to run them over, Yelena took this opportunity to grill her sister about her life choices.
"So, you and Captain America, huh?"
"What?" Nat snapped, hitting the brakes and skidding down an alley moments before the tank smashed into a van, "There's nothing with Steve and me."
"I mean, sure he's handsome, but he's kinda useless. He hasn't done anything helpful since we left. Like, sure, he tried to hold off that one widow while we got away, but she ended up dead and it wasn't even by his hand, so-"
"Yelena, I really don't think this is the time." Natasha swerved back into traffic, going the wrong way down the road as another motorbike chased them, "Besides, he's kind of out of his element. He gave up the shield, and his daughter's been taken."
She weaved around several cars, but the person chasing them chose to go right over them, "Is it like, his actual daughter? Or like our family where it's not blood family?"
Natasha sped down some stairs in front of a bus moments before the widow chasing them shot out their back tire, sending Yelena and Natasha tumbling over a railing into the street below. "She's his actual daughter. Her mother is dead, so he's all she has." Natasha groaned as she pushed herself to her feet as cars skidded to a stop around them. Yelena pulled out a gun on a man whose car they'd tumbled over, and she pulled him out of the way before crawling through the driver's door into the passenger's seat. "You can't just steal a guy's car!"
"So, you want me to chase him down and un-steal it?" Yelena asked as Natasha begrudgingly climbed into the driver's seat. The sound of revving was immediately followed by screeching before Natasha started trying to bash her way out of the traffic they'd gotten stuck in. Yelena threw her hands up, "Okay, any time now!"
"Shut up!" Natasha barked back, finally finagling out of the spot to speed away. Yelena looked over her shoulder, then started patting Natasha rapidly until the redhead snapped, "What?"
"Nothing, just thought you'd want to know your boyfriend caught up with us."
"He's not my boyfriend." Natasha answered as she looked in the rearview mirror, realizing it was Steve on the motorcycle following them. She slowed down a little bit, allowing him to catch up and pull beside them. Yelena waved and Natasha just shook her head, focusing on where she was going until the sound of crashing cars caused both women to look behind them.
Yelena turned her whole body as a car smashed into their back end, breaking their rear windshield, "Shit, he's back."
Steve hit the brakes and swung into the lane behind the women, putting himself between the tank that plowed closer and closer, taking out everything in its path. Looking back, Steve realized he was about to be run over if he didn't get out of the way, so he swung back around to the left side of the car, "Nat!"
"Put your seatbelt on." She ordered and Yelena whined as she did what Natasha said as Nat looked to Steve, "Get out of here, we'll find you after."
Steve looked over his shoulder in time to see the masked man rise from the center of the tank, causing his jaw to clench as he snarled, "It's him. The man who took Denver."
Steve watched them pull the quiver and launch the arrow, not at him or Natasha, who would have been an easy hit, but the undercarriage of the vehicle. The moment it hit the van, it exploded from underneath, flipping into the air before landing upside down on the tank. The explosion was enough to knock Steve off his motorcycle as Nat's vehicle flipped over two other cars before skidding down the stairs into the metro station.
He sputtered as he leaned on his arm, taking a moment to assess the situation before realizing the man had exited the tank and was stalking Natasha and Yelena. He scrambled to his feet and took the stairs several at a time, pushing people out of the way in an effort to keep their attacker in his sights. When Steve ran out of people to shield him, he paused, looking around in an effort to find a place to hide himself. He watched the man follow a trail of blood toward a grate in the ground before ripping it up and discarding it against a trash can.
They jumped in to follow Natasha and Yelena, and Steve slowly followed, until the sound of rustling overhead caught his attention. He narrowed his eyes, seeing slight movement in the vents. They couldn't come out now. If they did, he'd find them. Steve turned to head towards the little hole in the wall store, looking at what little food and drinks they had casually. He pointed at a wrapped sandwich, then pulled out several dollars from his wallet and handed them to the cashier. "Köszönöm." Steve mumbled before unwrapping his dinner, taking a massive bite out of it as he leaned against the wall, watching, waiting to see who would emerge first. If it was Natasha and Yelena, they'd hop on the next train out of here, but if it was him… Steve might just pummel him into the tracks until there was nothing left of him.
Unfortunately for Steve, it was Natasha who leaped from the upper vent, followed by Yelena. When they saw him, she nodded towards the train pulling to a stop, and he met up with them as the doors opened.
"Useless. Absolutely useless." Yelena teased, gesturing to her injured arm, "You know what could have stopped this from happening? Captain America's shield. Would have been nice, but no, I almost bleed to death and exploded."
"Shut up." Natasha laughed, leading them onto the train before heading to the very back. She bobbed her neck back and forth before massaging her shoulder, then looked back at Steve, "You alright?"
He watched the doors close, keeping his eyes trained on the open grate where their attacker had escaped. "I'm more worried about you." As they began to move, he sighed, "And Denver. God, how could I be so stupid?"
Steve collapsed onto a seat and Yelena looked between the man and her sister with an unimpressed expression, "Why is he so emotional? Is it an American thing? Like, sure, I bet his daughter's crying wondering where she is and why there's all these scary adults ordering her around, but why is he all upset?"
"I feel like you answered your own question." Natasha bit back, sitting beside Steve and rubbing his back, "It's been a rough couple of weeks, okay."
"I'm just saying, Captain America is kind of a pussy."
Steve raised his narrowed eyes at the blonde, simmering silently as he glared up at her. After not dignifying her claim with a response, Yelena laughed, "I'm sorry. I just thought, when I finally met the Avengers, you'd be more cool."
"We're on the run, Yelena. Why do you think we're here alone? This isn't some fun mission, we're just trying to survive, and this disaster is making it difficult." Natasha explained under her breath, catching her sister's attention. Leaning her cheek against the leather of Steve's jacket, Natasha whispered, "Let's regroup. I'll make a few calls." When Steve didn't answer, she elbowed him gently, "Get some rest. We're going to need you at your best when we see him again. Next time, it'll be to save Denver, and take down the Red Room."