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 immediately after the last chapter and early on after CA:CW when Steve, Nat, Sam and Wanda are going on the run.
To Build a Home
14. Safe House
The Quinjet took off as soon as Natasha returned and assured them that everything had gone as planned. Taking the co-pilot seat next to Sam once more, she gave him the coordinates for a safe house she had up north outside of Toronto, which was the closest one she had that wasn't on American soil. She'd actually wanted them heading somewhere farther away, like Central America or Southeast Asia where there were lots of islands and places less populated, but it was getting late and they all could use the rest for now before making any sort of long term plans.
It was a short flight and they were soon touching down on the field next to a house in a transition area between suburban and rural just outside of Toronto. It was a simple place, more of a cottage really, with two bedrooms and all the normal makings of a house. It was meant to be nondescript and quiet, to be used only for a short while and it was exactly what they needed.
Nondescript and quiet, of course, yet still with all the security equipment Natasha could think of for protection. She ushered them in through the deceptively reinforced front door and activated the systems, turning on an array of monitors mounted on the wall next to the door that kept visuals around the house and surrounding roads.
After this was done, they took Wanda into one of the rooms and settled her on the bed. She'd fallen asleep again after they left New York and hadn't woken up yet. They took it as a good sign for now. At the very least she needed to rest and recover from the experience that had been their stay at the Raft.
Natasha, Steve and Sam then searched through the pantry and managed to prepare an actual decent meal for them, making small talk as they ate and enjoyed each other's company. It almost felt like just another night at the compound, having dinner together in the common kitchen and unwinding after a day of training or missions.
"Well seeing as I'm not a super soldier or a super spy, my regular man ass is tired as hell so I'll get some shuteye now," Sam quipped, getting up from his seat and heading out of the kitchen.
Steve chuckled at him and Natasha smiled and waved as he disappeared into the second bedroom, closing the door behind him.
The remaining pair was in silence for a few moments as Natasha watched her partner attentively. "Steve?" He looked up at her, something about her tone putting him on guard. "What happened with Tony?"
When they'd broken everyone out of the Raft, Steve had only mentioned that the threat with the Winter Soldiers was handled, without going into any details, and they'd all taken one look at his face to leave it well alone. Natasha knew something had happened involving Tony, but she wasn't sure what exactly. As she had been leaving the compound heading fast for Newark, she'd seen Tony getting into the chopper and heading out as well so she'd tried to find out through her back channels what was going on. She found the priority upload from Berlin police about the body of the psychiatrist that was supposed to have interviewed Barnes and figured out the man that had met with him was actually behind this. Even as she set her plan in motion to infiltrate the Raft, she heard about how Ross's team had uncovered a secret HYDRA base in Siberia with five Winter Soldiers, all dead. T'Challa had also turned in one Helmut Zemo, the man responsible for the bombing at the UN, who was now in CIA custody. Then Tony had turned up back at the compound, apparently badly beaten up, worse than after Leipzig.
Steve sighed heavily now, running one hand tiredly through his hair. "He found out about Bucky," he said, looking down at the table rather than directly at her. "About his parents."
She tightened her hands into fists, barely feeling her nails digging into her palms or noticing her knuckles turning white. They'd never talked about what Zola's AI had showed and implied to them in that secret base in New Jersey two years ago concerning the deaths of Howard and Maria Stark. It had been just one more of the many shocking things they'd uncovered in the course of those days, from finding out HYDRA had been secretly operating inside SHIELD from the start to the fact that Bucky Barnes was actually the Winter Soldier.
To be honest, she'd forgotten about it in the immediate aftermath of that whole mess with the Insight helicarriers and taking down SHIELD. Months later, when Tony had called and asked her to join them with his new version of the Avengers Initiative, it had come reeling back to her. She'd thought about telling him, but ultimately she decided against it, thinking it would only upset him and possibly cause a rift between him and Steve and throw off the whole team dynamics. She also figured that if Steve hadn't told him so far then it wasn't her place to do so.
How ironic that not telling him then was exactly what had caused the biggest rift between them now.
Natasha listened as Steve quietly told her everything that had gone down in Siberia, how Tony had come after him to help, about meeting Zemo and seeing the actual footage of Howard and Maria's assassination. How Tony had seen red and how Steve had done everything he could to stop him from killing Bucky. How he'd left his shield behind.
At some point ─ she wasn't sure when ─ she'd reached across the table, gripping his hands tightly in hers as he told her all of this. "I screwed up, Nat." He finished with a despondent shrug, looking up into her eyes then.
"We both did," she sighed heavily in reply. She and Steve had screwed up when they lied to Tony by omission. When they'd failed to reach a middle ground with the Accords. When they hadn't managed to protect everyone. When they hadn't been the leaders they were supposed to be.
"You didn't," he protested and frowned a little at her. "You were only trying to keep everyone safe."
"So were you," she raised her eyebrows at him.
"I think I was only protecting myself, actually." He huffed out softly, looking up in thought for a moment, as he remembered the words on the letter he'd sent Tony just before he'd gone out to break into the Raft.
"I don't mean about Barnes." She clarified, still holding onto his hands. "The Accords and everything you did, it was all because you were trying to protect everyone in the only way you knew how. You were standing up to what you believe. That's what we were all doing. You, me, Tony. There was no easy solution here, Steve."
Natasha had tried to be the bridge between them, to keep everyone together. The way to go about this would've been if they had managed to compromise a little, on both sides. Amending the Accords so that the Avengers could retain some of their independence, like having the final say on which missions to take, while still remaining accountable to the UN Panel, who would oversee their activities and act as an advisory board. But there had been no time for that. Tony was dealing with the guilt of the consequences of his past actions, the backlash of the world judging on their failures and how they needed oversight, plus the strain of his break with Pepper and had wanted someone to take that weight from his hands. And Steve was still suffering from learning all the work they'd done for SHIELD had actually been tainted by HYDRA and how they'd been so close to almost allowing millions of innocent people to be wiped out in seconds, so he knew how letting someone else run them could have serious, devastating consequences, while he'd also been dealing with Peggy's death. Everything added up to put them in quite an impossible situation.
They lapsed into silence for a while as Steve seemed to take in her words and she also let her thoughts wander away. She focused back on him, noticing she was still holding his hands, so she gave them a final squeeze and let go. He looked back at her then. "So where's Barnes now?" She asked quietly.
"Safe." Steve sighed in reply and attempted a smile. "We're trying to find a way to remove his programming so that he will no longer be at risk of being used by others like Zemo."
"Let me guess: T'Challa?" She said, smile also pulling at the corners of her lips and an eyebrow raised at him.
"Yeah." He said, not bothering asking how she knew that, but she heard the unspoken question anyway.
"I've had my suspicions that Wakanda isn't all it seems for a while now." She said, shrugging her shoulders easily, then smiled a little back at him. "I hope he gets the help he needs there."
"Me, too." Steve said, the corners of his mouth pulling up for a moment, but then he grew serious again. "They both said they're sorry, by the way. Bucky, for attacking you in Berlin and T'Challa, for telling Ross that you attacked him."
"Tell them not to worry." Natasha said easily. "Barnes wasn't himself and I know all about what that's like. And as for T'Challa, it was my decision and despite what I said back then, I don't regret letting you go."
He paused as he looked at her for a moment. "Why did you do it?" He asked, curiosity lilting his voice.
Why had she done it? She'd never meant to be on opposite sides of a conflict with Steve, of all people. He was her friend and her partner, he'd told her he trusted her with his life and that meant she would always strive to be better, to keep earning his trust. But the situation with the Sokovia Accords changed everything. They weren't given any other option. Either they signed it and could continue doing something to help the world or they wouldn't be allowed to act anymore. She still had so much red on her ledger, she couldn't stop. And she doubted Steve would ever be able to stop either. She'd tried to make him see that, and she'd been terrified at the thought of what Ross would try to do if he didn't sign the Accords and kept Avenging. How he would go about trying to use him, how he'd once tried to use Bruce and the Hulk, how the Russians had once used her.
So when they went to Leipzig to intercept him, she had hoped they would be able to convince him, somehow, and keep Ross from going after him with guns blazing. That she would be able to get to him. But she'd failed and suddenly it had all come to blows, literally. That had never been the plan, she'd never wanted to battle anyone. So when she'd found herself in that hangar facing him, there was really only one thing that she could do.
Keeping most of these thoughts to herself, Natasha gave him a small smile and shrugged her shoulders. "It was the right thing to do."
She wondered if Steve could read her as easily as she could read him at times. If he could sense what was behind her words and her actions. The way he'd look deep into her eyes sometimes gave her the idea that he did know. "Thank you, Nat." He told her sincerely then, and smiled a little. "I know I shouldn't be, as you've always been prepared for just about everything, but I'm impressed with what you managed to do here, infiltrating the Raft and arranging all of that for Barton and Lang."
She smiled slightly back at that. "As soon as I let you go in Leipzig, I knew my time was up, so I started moving things along." She said, launching into her own explanations, even if he hadn't directly asked about it.
Natasha found herself telling him almost everything, of how she'd talked to a lot of people to get the right leverage before she stopped by Hell's Kitchen to see Matt and work out the details for the deal for Clint and Scott. How the Director of the FBI owed her a favor and how he'd step in to take their cases from the CIA Joint Anti-Terrorism Task Force once Clint and Scott surrendered themselves to the feds, and considering how Ross hadn't followed due process and simply thrown them into the Raft without any rights for a defense attorney or anything else, the feds should have just the right leverage, especially since Ant-Man and Hawkeye were considered heroes in the eyes of most of the public and after the mess they had done in Bucharest and Berlin by going after the wrong guy. She'd also gotten dirt on Ross (mostly about his unsanctioned, illegal human experimentation that had resulted in the Hulk and the Abomination) and was pressuring the DOS to have him removed from the liaison office with the UN and possibly even from the post of Secretary of State, but that part was turning out trickier than she expected ─ she figured he probably had something on someone high up in the government as well, since he'd managed to rise from the ashes of his military career to get that post in the first place.
"After that, Fury and Hill helped me infiltrate the Raft." She finished her explanation, shrugging her shoulders as if that had been nothing and, really, with the amount of undercover assignments she'd done in the past, it hadn't been too complicated. "I knew it was only a matter of time before you went down there to break out everyone so I waited until you showed up."
Steve raised his eyebrows in admiration after hearing everything. "I'm glad you found us."
She gave him a small smile in return. "Me, too." She sat back on the chair and took a sip of the vodka martini she'd fixed herself as she talked about all she'd done.
("You keep all your safe houses stocked for vodka martini?" Steve had raised an eyebrow teasingly at her.
"It's called essentials, Rogers." Natasha had smirked back at him and gone back to fixing her cocktail.)
"So what do you have planned for us now?" Steve asked, leaning back in his chair and looking at her with a smile.
"That I'm leaving up to you." Natasha raised an eyebrow and took another sip of her drink. "By the way, I also cleared things out for Sharon."
He simply stopped and stared at her for a moment, as he had no idea what she meant by that. "What do you mean?"
"Before leaving Germany, I deleted the footage and I switched out the records so that it looks like I am the one who took out your shield and Sam's wings from the evidence vault." Natasha clarified, casually twirling her cocktail glass in her hand.
Once more, Steve could only stare at her. "Why would you do that?"
"I figured I was already out with Ross and I felt bad for using her." She shrugged her shoulders in that easy and careless manner of hers, as if what she'd done had no consequences to her. "When she took your gear out, I followed her and she led me to you, that's how we knew you were at the airport." She paused, thinking of how she'd felt indebted to Sharon, somehow. She'd stood by Steve when Natasha couldn't do so and she was grateful for that. "Besides, I thought it was my duty to protect your girl." She raised an eyebrow and smirked at him then. "I see you finally took my advice to go after her."
Steve could feel himself blushing at that, unable to do anything to stop it. "Ah you saw that?" He gave her an embarrassed smile, resisting the urge to fidget before her intense eyes.
"Yep." She purposefully popped her lips out at the syllable, smirking slyly at him. "Captain America has got moves." She wiggled her eyebrows up provocatively then.
She was teasing him now ─ because of course she would tease, when did she not tease him? ─ but Natasha had actually been very shocked when she saw, from a distance, how Steve had brought his hands up to frame Sharon's face and had just kissed her, out of the blue. She didn't know what they had been talking about, so maybe it was just because she was out of context, but she had definitely not expected that development just then. Steve had never given any signs to taking any of her dating suggestions (alright, she'd been downright pushing him to go out with Sharon, really), but she didn't know if anything had happened between them before. They did seem close when they'd all been at the CIA facility in Berlin, so much that she'd picked up that if Steve would ask anyone for help, it would be Sharon.
She was glad Steve was finally showing signs of moving on and attempting to get a life of his own, even if he could have worked on his timing, really. She could honestly not think of anyone more deserving of happiness or even just a little reprieve in life than Steve Rogers. While she may not know what it was like to be a man out of time, she knew vividly what it was to have no place in the world and the thought that Steve may know even a tenth of that desolating feeling made her heart ache. So she was happy for him, and she'd keep reminding herself of that and ignoring the strange twinge she'd felt in the pit of her stomach when she'd seen him kiss Sharon.
"I actually don't know what I was thinking." Steve found himself confessing to this, one hand going up to rub in embarrassment at the back of his neck. "It was so…"
"Terribly timed?" She drawled out and raised an eyebrow at him.
He gave her a rueful smile. "Yes, that." And awkward, Steve thought about that now. Not only because he'd just attended Peggy's funeral and his thoughts and feelings had been frankly all over the place, but thinking that Natasha had actually seen him kiss Sharon felt wrong, somehow. Even if she had been on his case to ask out Sharon for almost two years now. He'd always hesitated to do so, even if he liked Sharon and thought she was attractive.
"Complicated, with you being on the run now and with her working for the law." She commented, before taking a sip of her drink. "But she's already proven she can get past that for you. We could stay close by in Europe, if you wanted to try to work it out with her." She suggested, watching attentively for his reaction to that.
"Nah, I don't think so." He shook his head and gave her a half smile. "It was never gonna work out with us." He thought it was better like this. If they actually tried being together, they'd never know if he was with her because he really liked her or because she was his last link to Peggy.
"Why do you say that?" She frowned a little at him then.
"Just wasn't meant to be, I guess." He gave her a slight shrug of his shoulders along his words. Just like me and Peggy, he thought sadly to himself. "Besides, I need to take care of other things now. Like you and these guys." He gave her a small smile and motioned with his head to the bedrooms where Sam and Wanda were sound asleep.
"You don't need to keep sacrificing your life for us, Steve." She rolled her eyes a little at him. He played the sacrificing hero role too much for her liking, sometimes.
"I'm not." He told her earnestly. "I'm choosing to live my life with you."
Natasha merely blinked her green eyes at this and gave him a small smile as she continued sipping her drink and the two of them started outlining a plan for living on the run.
