Disclaimer: The Avengers, its characters and The Marvel Cinematic Universe belong to Marvel Studios and The Walt Disney Company, among many others. I'm only a fan, writing this for love of this film franchise and personal pleasure.
A.N.: Set right after the end of CA:TWS. This became a way longer chapter than usual, as I wanted to sum up everything Nat went through in that movie and I couldn't resist bringing Clint back in to give her a hard time. Also, Sam ships Romanogers and you know it.
To Build a Home
6. Aftermath
It was early morning and Natasha sat perched on top of the back of the sofa-bed in Clint's office, her elbow supported against her knee and her chin poised against her palm as she looked out the window at the landscape surrounding the Barton family farm yet her green eyes were not really seeing anything before her. Her mind was far away, thinking back on the events of the past week. Her whole world had been turned upside down, more than once, and she'd barely stopped to actually think about anything and process it all until now.
The first blow had been Nick Fury's assassination. Getting Steve's message that Fury had been shot and she should come to the hospital had left her reeling and gasping for breath. In addition to being the closest thing she had to a father figure, in her mind, Nick Fury had been near invincible. Who would be able to take him out? Then hearing Steve talking about a fast, strong shooter with a metal arm was another shock. The Winter Soldier was back in her life.
Steve not trusting her even after two years of the two of them partnering up had also thrown her, but in a way it was understandable. SHIELD had been compromised, Fury had told him not to trust anybody and it wasn't like she hadn't given him cause for suspicion as she had been the one to retrieve the intel from the Lemurian Star that was on that drive. Learning HYDRA had been hiding and working from inside SHIELD all this time had been much harder to process. The past eight years had been about turning her life around and doing the right thing, trying to make amends and wipe the red off her ledger. How many of the operations she'd run had actually been done for HYDRA instead of SHIELD? How many innocent lives had she taken out with her bullets? How much red would be back on her ledger?
She couldn't explain what it had meant to her when Steve had said with all the words that he'd trust her with his life. This was Captain America and the Black Widow, which was already as opposing a juxtaposition as there ever would be. But more importantly this was Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff. In her world of black ops and espionage, he'd stood out as someone who was genuinely good and just trying to do what's right, not out of some guilty consciousness and debt that was owed like her, not because there was something in it for him or ego and some personal sense of glory, like so many people she knew who worked in the trade. But simply because it was the right thing to do. His trust meant something to her, and she'd forever strive to keep it and be better for that.
She'd also almost died, twice. Natasha was no stranger to danger, of course. Every op and every mission came with its risks, but she was usually too good at her job to be anywhere near death, yet this was the closest she'd been to in years. And both times, Steve had been the one to save her. She supposed that was part of the hero in him. But the way he'd fought against the Winter Soldier (before they'd learned he was actually Bucky) and the words he'd said about how he thought they'd keep saving each other's lives for years to come had caused a strange fluttering inside her chest that she hadn't had time to properly analyze.
Finding out Fury was alive and hadn't actually trusted her enough to be in on the plan had been considerably jarring. She'd just been confronted by her own mortality, and here she was learning that one of the few people she most trusted in life didn't actually extend her the same courtesy. All of that and the fact that they needed to bring down SHIELD was enough to make her want to reevaluate how she'd been living her life.
As if all of this wasn't already enough, she'd then had to deal with the heart-stopping moment when she'd asked Hill her location on Rogers and the older agent reluctantly told her he was still inside the helicarrier when she'd opened fire. Natasha had felt like her heart was ready to explode out of her mouth as she watched the destruction raining down on the Potomac. It was only thanks to her training ingrained deep in her brain that she'd been able to keep her head as they'd searched through the area and she was finally able to see him way down the river by the rocky shore.
The flight to the hospital and the wait during his surgery had been enough to make her sick to the stomach. She'd wanted to cry in relief when they'd learned Steve would live and make a full recovery, but thankfully she managed to keep an impassive mask on. Natasha had never been more terrified before than when she'd thought Steve would die, and that was especially troubling considering the last few days she'd had. Realizing just how much she cared for him had made her want to get out and run as far away as possible, so she was actually relieved when she'd been served with papers to appear before the DOD for the official hearing following the fallout of SHIELD.
After dealing with the suits at Capitol Hill in her typical brazen fashion, she'd then used her time to move things along, getting rid of her apartment and her car and any ties she had to D.C. Fury said he was headed for Europe and wanted her to come with him, but she wasn't ready for that yet. She pulled some strings with her old contacts and got some information for Steve on the Winter Soldier. She thought he wanted to ask her to go with him, but she needed to put some distance between them. They'd gotten close, too close, and she didn't know what to do with that. So she'd handed him the file, kissed him goodbye and left.
It was true that Natasha had loved to flirt with Steve and tease him mercilessly, partially because it was just so easy to get to him and make him blush or squirm uncomfortably before her provocations. But a part of her had also been gauging just how much he'd been adapting to his new life in the 21st century versus how attached to the past he still was. She knew exactly who Peggy Carter had been, after all that woman was a legend and she'd been the longest and most famous Director of SHIELD. But Steve's reluctance to even talk about her or to accept any of her suggestions on women to date only proved to her that he still carried a torch for his old flame and wasn't ready to move on.
That and when she'd shown him just a little bit of her vulnerability and tried to test her theory by asking him who he'd like her to be, his answer had been quite clear: how about a friend? So whatever it was that she realized she felt for him─what was it, a crush? Some Infatuation? Mere attraction or something deeper and altogether more complicated?─whatever it was, she had to squash it down and keep away from him until it passed.
After leaving the cemetery, she'd driven straight over to Clint's farm (taking alternating routes and switching vehicles a couple of times, obviously) and she'd arrived late the night before. They'd only exchanged a few pleasantries then she'd promptly passed out from exhaustion on the sofa-bed in his office as soon as he set it up for her.
She'd still been thinking about all of this when she saw out of the corner of her eye how Clint suddenly appeared at the doorway, crossing his arms and leaning back against the threshold. "So are you going to tell me what actually happened with you and Cap?"
Natasha kept looking out the window and the corners of her mouth barely flickered up before she answered him. "If you want to know about it, read it online. Everything is out there now."
"Oh I'm not talking about the mission gone wrong, we're way past that now," he shook his head and pushed off the doorway, walking towards her and then throwing himself on the sofa-bed, leaning his shoulder against the back as he poked a finger obnoxiously at her leg. "I'm talking about what made you bring down SHIELD with him and dump everything on the internet. Or why you're staying here with us and not with him. Not that I mind, you know we love the company." He added with a sincere smile up at her.
She looked down and raised a sardonic eyebrow at him. "Sorry for bringing down your employer, but you did say you were thinking about retirement."
"Hey, not complaining here, I'm just curious." Clint raised his hands in a peaceful gesture, then furrowed his eyebrows slightly at her. "It did seem a pretty drastic route to take, though."
"Come on, once we found out HYDRA had been operating secretly inside SHIELD from the start, we couldn't let it go," she said, staring back at him. "Making everything public was the only way to end this."
"You could've saved your files before dumping everything online," he argued, as he tilted his head slightly and kept looking up at her. "You know you could have."
She avoided his eyes and looked out the window once more. "There was no time to do that."
"Natasha." Clint said pointedly, his tone of voice conveying what he was thinking. As if she wouldn't have been able to destroy a few documents before dumping everything else online.
She let out a small sigh, but still kept looking out the window. "It didn't feel right, that everything else would be out there and only my secrets would be kept safe."
"Right," Clint said, rolling his eyes and adjusting his position so that he was leaning his back and head against the back of the sofa-bed now and continued in a conversational tone. "I'm sure this had nothing to do with whatever happened with you and Steve and you trying to sabotage anything good that happens in your life."
"What are you talking about?" She turned with a frown to look down at him. "Nothing happened with Steve."
"Uh-huh," he countered in a disbelieving tone as he looked upside down up at her and twiddled his thumbs, his hands poised over his stomach. "So this kissing incident on an escalator at the mall was what, exactly?"
"You know what that was," she said automatically before she could actually think about what he said, then she narrowed her eyes at him. "And how do you even know about that?"
"SHIELD got into the mall security system, that's how they figured out you were helping Cap," he said, making a casual hand gesture. "I was actually called in to track you down, but I refused and went off the grid, of course. And don't give me that bullshit about diversion techniques." He added, making a backhanded tap against her leg.
"It was a diversion technique and it worked wonderfully," she maintained, her tone airy and her face quite impassive.
"Right. So you spent two years flirting with him and trying to fix him up on dates with basically every woman at SHIELD, even though he never took you up on any of those suggestions, for no reason?" He argued back with a rather knowing smile up at her.
"What are you, spying on me or something?" She countered, crossing her arms over her chest and raising an eyebrow at him.
"I'm looking out for you and I got ears everywhere," he replied with a casual, unapologetic shrug. "Also Rumlow liked to run his mouth about the two of you and how you were probably cheating on me with Cap." He added with a smirk and upwards motion of his eyebrows at her.
"That's hilarious," she deadpanned back at him. "Did you tell Laura about that?" She added with a smirk of her own.
"Yeah, she got a good laugh out of it," he said, still with that smirk. "But most importantly, you're not denying anything."
She rolled her eyes at him. "Nothing happened."
"Nice try, but not convincing enough." Clint countered in a light tone.
"Leave it, Clint," Natasha said, narrowing her eyes dangerously at him and her voice suddenly becoming cold as ice.
He sighed heavily and sat up, turning around so he was properly facing her. "Nat, you deserve to be happy."
She shook her head at him. "This is not─this is Steve Rogers we're talking about here," she said harshly as she also turned to him, and something inside her seemed to snap on her resolve to not talk about it as Clint kept pushing her on the subject. "Captain freaking America!" She made a helpless hand gesture, throwing them up in frustration for a moment. "He would never want anything to do with me, not really."
"Oh my God, you are so blind." He shook his head at her, with both a smile on his lips and a frown between his eyebrows as he looked at her. "You know, for a super spy I would've expected you to be more observant."
"Look, I just…" She trailed off, and some of the fight seemed to go out of her as she sighed heavily. "I can't. Steve and I, it's not you and Laura." She countered, making an emphatic hand gesture at him. "I'm not some princess that gets rescued by the white knight. I'm an assassin. This is not a fairytale that gets a happy ever after. It's real life and it's hard and tragic and it would only end up in heartache." She paused then, swallowed hard and struggled to keep her emotions in check. "You didn't see him there, on that bank on the Potomac then in that hospital room, all bloodied and broken and…" She trailed off as her eyes glazed over and she was no longer sitting with Clint in his office, but back in that hospital room.
"Hey," Clint said softly, reaching over and taking her hand. "He got back up to his feet. In record time, even." He raised his eyebrows reassuringly at her.
"It doesn't matter," she shook her head, pushing away from the window, away from him and moving to stand up instead. "I can't do something like this. I've never been trained for this."
"There's no training for this." Clint followed her movements with his eyes as he continued to frown at her. "This is real life, Nat. And things happen whether you want to or not."
"Not if I can help it." Natasha crossed her arms firmly over her chest. "You're right, maybe I am sabotaging things, because I don't want to go through this." As she said this, she grew frustrated and started pacing the room, her hands gesturing at him as she spoke. "Don't I get to choose? Am I just supposed to be a victim of circumstances? I refuse to go back to this place where I don't have any control over what happens to me, and Steve…" She trailed off, taking a shuddering breath in and turning to face Clint once more. "He has the ability to fucking break me. So no, I can't let that happen." She finished, setting her mouth into a serious line.
Clint looked at her with a mixture of amazement and sadness as she finally opened up to him and let it out all out. "God, you are so messed up." He said, shaking his head slightly at her.
"You knew that already." She said quietly, looking at him through her lashes and shrugging her shoulders rather despondently.
"I did." Clint merely sighed in reply and gave her a soft smile. "C'mon, Laura is making breakfast." He got up to his feet then and pulled at her hand.
"You're going to drop this then?" She raised an eyebrow at him as he steered her towards the door.
"Not a chance." He gave her a half smile as he threw one arm over her shoulder and they walked out of his office together. "I'm always going to bug you about this. But for now I'm done." Clint knew dealing with all of this with Natasha would be a work in progress and there was only so much he could push her before she shut him down for good. Besides, his stomach was growling in protest now and his wife's cooking was calling out to him.
A few days later and thousands of miles away, Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson sat at the table by the window of their hotel room in Kiev, once more going over the documents on the file on the Winter Soldier. They'd just been back up from dinner after spending the whole day checking out the places mapped out in the documents and Steve had wanted to compare notes once more before they called it a night.
Sam watched as Steve read through one of the post-it notes that Natasha had left with some translation comments or info she'd added to the file herself, and he decided to ask the question that had been bugging him ever since they'd left D.C. "So I know it's none of my business, but why didn't you ask her to come with us?"
Steve then raised his eyes from the file to look at him. "Who? Nat?"
"Well, yeah." Sam raised an eyebrow pointedly back at him. "You guys seemed pretty close, I was surprised you went your separate ways."
"She had her reasons," Steve said quietly, shrugging one shoulder casually. "It didn't seem fair to ask her to do this with me." As Sam kept looking at him with raised eyebrows, he added in an even quieter voice. "Bucky almost killed her, you know."
"Well he almost killed both of us, yet here we are," he couldn't help but quip back at him with a smile.
"I know," Steve said quickly, and a grimace seemed to form on his face then. "I told you, you didn't have to do this."
"No, that's not the point, Steve." He raised his hands, quick to reassure him. "I'm here and I'm glad to be helping you with this, alright. Stop trying to make me leave." Steve smiled gratefully back at him and Sam continued. "I get what you're saying, but I just think that if you'd asked, she would've come with us, y'know? And don't tell me you don't miss her, 'cause I can tell." He raised an eyebrow at him once more.
The super soldier sighed in that quiet and earnest manner of his. "I do."
"So. Call her." Sam countered, shrugging his shoulders easily. "What's stopping you?"
Steve furrowed his eyebrows slightly and opened his mouth to say something, then he closed it again for a moment before he finally answered him. "He was my best friend, Sam."
"I know that. What…?" Sam trailed off, shaking his head and frowning in confusion at him and this apparent non-sequitur.
"He was my best friend and he almost killed her. Twice." Steve sat back on his chair and sighed heavily. "He shot her once before, when she was on a mission five years ago. He shot her to get to the target she was protecting. I don't know what he's going to be like when we find him, but I can't risk him shooting her again." He finished, shaking his head despondently.
Sam almost wanted to make a quip about how he didn't mind risking him on this mission to track down the rogue Winter Soldier, but the haunted look in Steve's clear blue eyes was enough to still his words before they came out of his mouth.
"You really care about her." Sam commented with some wonderment in his voice.
"Well, yeah." Steve frowned a little at him, as if this observation should've been obvious. "She was my partner."
Sam quickly shook his head back at him. "No, that's not what I'm saying here. I mean, you care about her." He sat back and eyed his friend for a moment as if appraising him. "Remind me again why the two of you are not together?"
Steve was quick to roll his eyes at him. "It's not like that with us."
"Uh-huh. But it could be." Sam countered, once more raising an eyebrow at him. "Don't tell me you never thought about it. I could see it in your face, the way you looked at her when she walked away!"
Steve's eyes went back to the file in his hands even as he replied to him. "She's not interested in me like that."
"Sure." Sam's tone of voice indicated just how disbelieving he was of that notion.
"I mean it." Steve said, raising his eyes back at him. "She spent the last two years trying to set me up with nearly every woman we knew. She only sees me as a friend."
The black man threw a smirk at him. "That's not what it looked like from where I was standing."
Steve gave up the pretense of going through the documents and focused back on his friend. "Really?"
"Yeah," Sam told him earnestly, and then grinned back at him. "In fact, my bad, I think she was about to jump you if I hadn't called you two for breakfast back when you were at my house. But then I was sure the two of you were together, so I didn't think too much about it." He finished with a casual shrug.
"Huh." Steve merely said, raising an eyebrow back at him as he got lost in his thoughts.
Could it be there was more to her flirting and teasing than he'd thought? He'd been so sure that was just how she was, she liked to provoke people, to have the upper hand. But that moment they'd shared in Sam's bedroom had been real. The words she'd said had resonated so much with him and the ones he'd said earlier to Peggy about how he didn't know what was right anymore. And he could feel that having his trust had meant something to her, far more than he'd thought at first.
After a moment, Steve shook his head and got back to going through the files before him. He'd have time to think about all of this later. Right now they had a job to do.
