Bruce, Clint and Tony watched from a window far up the tower as Steve drove away from Natasha. Her back was to them but they could see the pain on her. After she stood there for nearly an hour Clint debated going down to meet her. Natasha sharply turned around and walked back into the building, in a matter of minutes she was walking into the living area. The cold radiated off her, Tony began to speak but the look Natasha sent his way silenced him. She stormed into her own room.
"That wasn't Natasha."
Tony and Bruce looked at Clint in confusion.
"that was Natalia…the black widow."
Some shuffling could be heard coming from Natasha's room. She came out of her room a few minutes later wearing jeans and a leather jacket, bag in hand.
"Nat, where are you going?"
"Mission, I talked to S.H.I.E.L.D. I'll be gone for some time."
Bruce stood up.
"you're not cleared. Natasha you're still not completely healed."
Natasha simply turned away and took the elevator to the garage. She sped out of the building. Tony looked at the two men.
"This is gonna be messy isn't it? I'll go hack S.H.I.E.L.D to find out where she's going. Care to join me Brucie?"
Bruce rolled his eyes but followed Tony into his lab anyways. Clint walked into his room and prepared his bag before joining the others in the lab.
Steve was mindlessly driving around. It dint take so much as an hour of driving before he realized how idiotic his actions had been. Natasha loved him and he knew that, she didn't keep the information about Bucky from him on purpose. After only 5 hours of driving he stopped at a café for food and to figure out how he could possibly apologize to Natasha. A young woman asked for his order, the smile on her face made it obvious that she found Steve attractive.
"What can I start you off with handsome?"
"Coffee, black. Excuse me ma'am, exactly where am i?"
"Charlottesville, Virgina. You been traveling?"
"Yeah, I stopped looking at road signs a while back."
She smiled and walked away, bringing his coffee back in record time.
"Where are you planning on going?"
"I didn't really have a set destination before, but I think I better head back home."
"Where is home?"
"New York City. I shouldn't have left in the place."
"So why did you?"
"Because I'm an idiot."
"I'm sure youre not an idiot….i didn't catch your name."
"Its Steve."
"Well Steve, I'm Samantha. It's really nice to meet you. Tell you what, why don't you stay in Charlottesville a little longer. I'll show you around myself. Maybe we can go get a few drinks and enjoy being young."
It dawned on Steve fairly quickly that the woman was practically throwing herself at him.
"Uh…I'm sorry ma'am. I should get back home. My fiancée probably wont be happy when I get home."
"You don't seem like the kind of guy that would be engaged at such a young age."
"Trust me, I'm much older than I look. I'll be going now."
Steve threw some money on the table and smiled at the young woman as he got back on his bike and sped away. He was fully expecting on finding Natasha when he got home and apologizing. Little did he know that by this time Natasha was long gone.
Natasha was gone. The black widow was back and in full action. This seemed to happen whenever Natasha was in too much pain, she shuts down. It happened after Alexei, and Bucky and Barton. It was happening now. Its weird how love is the one thing that can bring Natasha down. She considered herself to be strong, to have no weaknesses. She was obviously wrong because at this very moment she had never felt so weak.
She sat in the back of the jet, speeding off to her destination with a look of determination on her eyes.
"This is what happens when you let yourself love, you get hurt."
She whispered to herself before she began to prepare for drop off.
"love is for children. I am no child, I never was."
