Hello everybody!

Thanks for being patient with me, and thank you for all the wonderful reviews and support. You guys are the best :)

I don't own Captain America.

Enjoy!

-:-

A few months later…

April, 1944

Natasha was beginning to think that saving Steve Rogers life was impossible.

In all the months she'd been on base now, all the missions they'd run together, all the bad guys they'd gone up against, and her debt still remained unfulfilled. And yet, if she was being completely honest with herself, she wasn't in a rush to pay that debt anymore. All she could think about, all those months ago when she'd first bee brought to the SSR base, was how she was going to get out, how quickly she could save Captain America's life in order to gain her freedom. But what was the point of earning her freedom when she no longer felt like a prisoner?

Natasha knew that the first month or so working with Rogers and the Commandos had been rough. She hadn't wanted to be there, so making a good impression wasn't really her priority. But these past months, she'd learned to like being there. Enjoy it, even. She got along really well with the Commandos and with Peggy. She, Jones, and Dernier had become pretty close, and she enjoyed conversing with them in French. They would pick words at random to string together, laughing at the confusion on the other Commandos faces as they tried to decipher what they were saying. Steve had picked up on some of the French, slowly learning, and pretty soon he was laughing with them too, much to the others frustration. Another night—after a particularly long and cold mission—they'd gone out for celebratory drinks and Dum Dum was convinced he could hold out longer than Natasha could. He learned the hard way after Natasha had drunk him under the table.

She and Peggy had gotten rather close in the past months as well. Peggy didn't expect Natasha to suddenly open up and spill everything about her past and what had happened to her that turned her into a killer, and Natasha appreciated that fact more than she could ever express in words. Instead Peggy told her about herself, how she'd ended up working for the SSR, and so on. Peggy talked about Project Rebirth, about Steve when he was small, skinny, and sickly, about how no matter the laundry list of physical ailments he had, his heart remained true and pure.

Even Barnes was better than before. Natasha couldn't say that he was exactly friendly towards her, but he was polite, and he was trying. She assumed that Steve had had some kind of talk with him, but she didn't know for sure. There had been no more outbursts, though, like the one after she'd gotten shot on one of their earlier missions, and she had to think the best of Barnes, that he was really making the effort to try and get along with her better.

And then, of course, there was Steve Rogers himself.

She had pondered, many nights, as to why he'd decided to give her a second chance, and her mind, over and over, had come up with one simple solution: it was because he was, put simply, a good man. Yes, he could be naïve, could be too trusting, especially when he wanted to see the best in people. He was loyal. So loyal that she knew he would do just about anything to protect someone, especially someone he cared about. And he had a pure heart, just like Peggy had said. But when it came down to it—after she stripped him down in her mind, took away the red, white, and blue, and examined every piece of what made Steve Steve—he simply wanted to do the right thing. He was good to a point where it was his fatal flaw.

Natasha decided the world needed more people like Steve Rogers. There was too much evil in the world, too many people who wanted to do bad things just for the sake of doing bad things. Rogers fought against that, so hard, everyday, just to make the world—the messy, bloody, fucked up world they lived in—a better place. He didn't do it for the fame or the glory, but simply for the fact that it was the right thing to do. And he always did what he thought was right, no matter the consequence, no matter the price.

She had realized by now that he was all for giving people second chances—even when they didn't deserve them—but the fact that he'd decided to give her a second chance still astounded her. He'd seen something in her that night, something Natasha didn't realize she still had in her. She had lost sight of her humanity a long time ago. For so, so long she'd been nothing but an assassin, nothing but a bloodied pair of hands, silent as the grave in the harsh Russian winters. She was infamous, known only by the name of a spider with a splash of red upon her deadly black body. For the longest time, that's all there was to her. There was no longer any trace left of the little girl they'd taken off the streets. Only the killer they'd turned her into.

She was blood and death. She was a name that was whispered, not shouted. A name that made them afraid. Black Widow. And yet, despite their fear, despite the knowledge that she held their lives' in her hands whether they liked it or not, they still decided to play. They didn't run. She would have caught them. They didn't try and kill her. Try being the operative word. No, they decided to dance with the devil. They tested her, touched her, called her pretty as she watched the fear and exhilaration light up their beady, soulless eyes. She would laugh as she watched them make the decision to try and tame the beast inside of her. Too late would they realize that decision was a poor one.

Somehow…somehow Rogers saw past all of that. Or rather, instead of trying to ignore her past, he took everything—her past, her present—and saw them as parts to the whole. She wasn't who she was without her past, and he seemed to understand that. He didn't try to rein in the beast, didn't try to change her. Instead he was beginning to show her that she was more than the monster inside of her, even if she herself couldn't see that.

He had risked a lot to give her a second chance. And because of that, because of all that he'd done for her, it didn't feel like enough to just save his life. She owed him far more than that. He was pulling her from the shadows she'd for so long been wrapped and tangled in, choking her, cutting off her air supply. He had this unwavering faith, belief, that she was more than Natalia Romanova, the monster he'd met all those months ago in a room covered in chains and dried blood.

The trust he put in her was far more than she ever could have asked for. And, truth be told, she was afraid that when she fulfilled her debt, when she left…it terrified her to think about what she might become, that she would go back to being the monster she'd been learning to let go of. And she knew it would happen, too. The monster would resurface and Natasha Romanoff—the better version of herself that she was desperately trying to become, the person that had long ago been buried under secrets and lies and blood—would be dragged back down into the shadows. And she didn't know if she could go to those lengths again, didn't know if she had the strength or the will to recover that part of her again, the part that Rogers saw when they first met, the part of her he was so intent on saving.

Natasha didn't know if she could be saved. Rogers was trying, and she had to give him credit for that. And she was trying to be better because of him, but there was still a large part of her that thought it to be in vain. She'd been poisoned in the Red Room, pulled out of herself, corrupted, her insides corroded from the acidity of lies and tortures they'd fed her, all to make her feel like she belonged. They'd taken a little girl and stripped her of everything that made her such. They'd taken away the dresses and scuffed shoes, trading them for clothes the color of night. Lullabies sung softly in Russian were traded for screams and the accompanying sound of her fingers being snapped. She learned not to scream. Screaming meant death. She did not want to die.

They taught her how to lie; her tongue spinning tales to catch her target inside her web. They taught her how to kill; with blades, with guns, with her bare hands. They taught her how to be strong, how to fight. They taught her to not feel, taught her not to love. "Love is a weakness, Natalia. If you are weak, you will die. You are not weak, are you, Natalia?" No, she was not weak. She was strong. Black Widow. Black Widow took orders. Black Widow killed. She did not feel. She did not wish or dream or want things for herself. She did not love. She did not love. Because love was a weakness she could not afford to have.

She would always be Black Widow, no matter what she changed her name to, no matter what mask she put on. She did not believe she could be saved. But she could save Steve Rogers, and maybe by doing so, show him that he'd had some kind of impact on her, at least for the time that she was here. Because no matter if she wanted to stay—even a little bit—she couldn't be that selfish. She didn't know how to be. She'd never had anything for herself, and this—this team she'd become a part of—was something uniquely her own. But she could not keep it. Natasha knew that leaving was the best option. To keep them safe, to keep Rogers safe.

She had to save Steve's life first, though. Which was turning out to be a lot damn harder than she thought.

-:-

Natasha had discovered that even when things were supposed to be serious, the Howling Commandos tended to keep it light. They were currently camped a safe distance away from a large Hydra facility. They planned to infiltrate the base tomorrow, and it was one of the largest ones they'd taken on yet. Most of the Hydra bases they'd gone after thus far had been of a smaller scale, nothing more than middleman posts between the larger facilities. Given such the daunting mission ahead of them, the mood around the campfire should have been a tad more serious, but the Commandos were anything but that.

Natasha was seated between Peggy and Steve, Bucky on Steve's other side. Dugan had gotten his hands on a couple bottles of bourbon. One bottle was still being passed around the campfire while Dugan tried to balance the empty one on his forehead. Considering how much he'd had to drink already, he was failing miserably. As soon as Dugan started swaying dangerously, the bottle toppled. Peggy reached out a hand and caught it before it hit the ground, as the rest of them laughed as Dugan regained his balance.

"Well, your nickname isn't Dum Dum for nothing," Morita joked.

"Fuck off, Morita," Dugan shot back. " Like any of you could do better."

"Oh, I'll take you up on that," Natasha smirked.

"All right, let's see what you got, Red," Dugan grinned.

Natasha held out her hand, and Peggy smiled, giving her the empty bottle. She stood up, glancing over at Steve, who coked an eyebrow at her, a smile playing on his lips, all as if to say "Let's see what you've got". Natasha started off by doing what Dugan had been attempting: leaning back and easily balancing the bottle on her forehead. The Commandos gave encouraging whoops.

"Yeah, yeah," Dugan waved them off, "it's only 'cause she's sober."

"That's because bourbon is awful," Natasha retorted.

"And let's be honest, Natasha could do this drunk off her arse," Peggy added.

"You got anything fancier?" Jones asked.

Natasha grabbed the bottle and straightened, looking at Gabe. "Glad you asked."

She started to pull off her boots, as most of them looked on like she was crazy.

"Your toes are gonna freeze," Morita said. "They'll fall right off. We'll have to glue 'em back on."

Natasha rolled her eyes. "I'm Russian, remember? They trained us out in the cold when we were wearing nothing more than a pair of shorts and a shirt. This is nothing."

She finished pulling off her boots, and then grabbed the bottle and balanced it on top of her head. Once she made sure it was steady, she moved into her first ballet position. Something inside her clicked, and she was back training, dancing till her feet bled and her lungs burned. She moved through the first five positons, her toes aching from not having done it in so long. She went through several more positions, a little quicker, all while keeping the bottle balanced atop her head. When she finished, she gave a little bow, catching the bottle as it dropped. Most of the Commandos' eyes were wide. Dugan had a big grin on his face.

"Damn, girl," Happy Sam commented, nodding his head appreciatively.

Natasha set the bottle down and took a seat next to Peggy and Steve again, tugging her boots back on.

"That was impressive," Steve told her once the rest of the Commandos had started up their chatter again.

"Mm, it's nothing," she shrugged off the comment. She didn't want to spoil the mood by telling him it was just another thing her trainers had beat into her. As she and the other girls moved up in their training—the numbers dwindling from the dozens of little girls recruited, to the top worthy of fighting for the title of Black Widow—they had taught them different skills, including something as mundane as ballet, which just happened to provide an adequate cover when needed. But they taught them that it was about control, over their bodies and their movements. And Natasha had been good. But that was in the past. And Steve seemed to sense that she didn't want to talk about it and let it drop.

Not long after that, Bucky stole the other bottle of bourbon and downed the rest, right before challenging Dugan to a drunken push up contest, with Steve acting as referee.

"Oh, bloody hell, not again," Peggy muttered.

Natasha looked over at her. "I take it this has happened before?"

"Oh, yes," Peggy chuckled. "Several times. The first time it happened, they were all drunk and decided to participate. Since then the numbers have dwindled down to Bucky and Dugan. Steve being disqualified from it all for obvious reasons."

Natasha smiled, glancing over at the guys on the other side of the campfire. Bucky, who was slightly less drunk than Dugan, seemed to be ahead, but Dugan was holding his own. Steve was laughing, a big smile on his face, that made Natasha's own smile grow bigger.

"Infectious, isn't it? Watching him?" Peggy mused quietly.

Natasha paused for a moment. "Yes, it is," she agreed finally. Then she decided to voice a question that had been on her mind for a while, that she hadn't quite managed to deduce the answer of on her own. "What's the story with you two anyway?"

Peggy shook her head. "Oh, there's no story."

"Yeah, right," Natasha scoffed. She nudged Peggy's shoulder with her own, watching as Peggy blushed and tried to fight off a grin. "There's some kind of story. Even if it isn't a long one."

"Oh, all right," Peggy huffed. "There's not too much to tell…we met when Dr. Erskine—the lead scientist of Project Rebirth—brought him onto base. And, well, I suppose I fell in love with him, before he was the Steve you see now. Well, he's still the same Steve. Except now he's not quite as skinny." Peggy smiled fondly, glancing over at Steve.

Natasha knew about Project Rebirth, of course. It was hard to even think of Steve as anything but the tall, muscular, all clad in red, white, and blue man that he was now. But she could easily see how Peggy had fallen for him, the man with the good heart that had been chosen for the serum.

"Well, you care for him, and I know he cares for you too, so what happened?" Natasha asked.

"Nothing, really." Peggy shrugged. "I think we both sort of came to the conclusion that it wasn't a very good time to start anything. We both need to focus on our work, our duties. Now I think we have an unspoken agreement that, after all this is over, we might give it a shot if that's what we both feel."

"And if not?"

Peggy smiled. "Then I want whatever he wants. I just want him to be happy."

"He's very lucky to have you, then," Natasha told her quietly.

"No, no, it's really the other way around," Peggy disagreed with a laugh.

"Not from what I've seen," Natasha said. "Personally I think he'd be a little lost without you."

Peggy shook her head, fighting off another smile, but she didn't try to argue. Natasha would have said more, too, but just then Bucky came over and swung an arm around her shoulders, smelling of bourbon. Natasha was a little surprised, considering this was the closest he'd been to her physically since her time at the SSR, apart form that time when he'd shoved her into a wall.

"I just kicked Dugan's ass," he boasted proudly.

"Barely!" Dugan shouted.

"Aw, don't be such a baby, Dugan," Pinky Pinkerton laughed, after which Dugan proceeded to hit him with his bowler hat.

"Wanna try your hand, Red? See if I can beat you, too?" Bucky asked.

Natasha glanced up at Steve, who had come over to observe. Steve just shrugged, looking mildly bemused at Bucky's behavior, if not a little annoyed, which Natasha found odd. But she shrugged it off and turned back to Bucky, who was looking at her expectantly. She pressed a kiss to his cheek, and patted his other as she stood. "Sure thing, soldier. Let's see what you've got left in you."

Natasha won when, two minutes in, Bucky puked, and Steve had to catch his friend around the waist so he didn't face-plant into his own vomit. After that, the Commandos retired to their tents for the night, and Natasha helped Steve get Bucky back to their tent. Bucky promptly collapsed onto his sleeping bag. Steve helped turn him onto his side, in case he threw up again. Seconds later, Bucky was snoring.

"Is he usually like this after he drinks?" Natasha asked him. "Because I think that's the most fun I've seen him had since I've been here."

Steve chuckled. "No. Only sometimes. And he usually only does stupid stuff like this to impress a girl."

"And he decided that girl was going to be me tonight?" she asked incredulously.

"Well, it was either you or Peggy. And he knows Peggy would've scolded him for being an idiot, so."

"Well, he's gonna be the one paying for it in the morning. He'll have one bitch of a hangover."

Steve laughed again. "Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure they've gone into battle after crazier nights than this. Once Hydra starts shooting at him, he'll forget all about that headache he's gonna have."

"That's for sure." She smiled, before taking a step back. "I better go. I have first watch."

Steve nodded. "I'll join you."

"You really don't have to do that. I think I can handle it myself."

"Well," Steve grinned. "I wasn't looking for your permission."

And even Natasha couldn't argue with that.

-:-

All right, so next chapter will pick up right after this one. I will try to get it up next week, but honestly, I've been busy and it's kind of put me in a writing slump. I have spring break after this upcoming week, though, so I will definitely have some quality writing time. Seriously, though, you guys are great, and thank you for being so patient. Much more Steve/Nat stuff is coming soon, so hang in there!

Thanks for reading! I seriously couldn't do this without you guys.

-DaughterOfPoseidon333