He knocks on Kat's door and opens it without waiting for a response. The girl simply turns over in her bed so that her back is facing her father, and Steve lets out a small sigh.
"Katie. We really need to talk."
"Fine. Talk." She doesn't turn over and he can hear the hard edge in her voice clear as day. He crosses his arms and leans against the wall slightly.
"You were late for curfew again." No answer. "I know you're seventeen and you want to hang out with your friends, but I have my reasons for setting a curfew. And when you break my rules I feel as if you don't respect me. I think it's past time we talk about whatever issue is causing this behavior."
Kat snorts and sits upright at that. "Oh, you want to talk about respect and talking? Okay. Let's talk about the fact that we never talk. Every day I come home and you ask how my day was and I ask what you did at SHIELD and that's it. The only time you ever want to talk about something else is when I'm in trouble. For Christ's sake, it took you eight years to tell me what happened to my mother! Because, you know, it's not like I was missing her too. You're not the only one who lost her that day."
He can feel the tears burning his eyes and he crosses to sit on the edge of Katie's bed. "Katie-"
"Don't call me that," she snaps. She scoots as far away as she can get from him on her bed.
"-I was hurting so much in those months after your mom's death. Most of the time I didn't even want to get out of bed, but I did because I knew you needed me. I stopped going on missions so you wouldn't have to worry about losing me, too. All I ever wanted was to protect you and give you all the best things in the world."
"But Dad, all I wanted was for us to talk about Mom. I just wanted to know what she was like. I don't even have a picture of her. I know we have them, because I remember seeing them, but then you took them all down and put them away. It felt like you were trying to erase her."
"I definitely didn't want to erase your mom. But Katie, you were so young. I didn't know how to explain to you what was going on and I didn't want to upset you even more." Katie swipes at the tears that are now running freely down her face.
"And meanwhile I didn't know anything about what happened. For the longest time I didn't know what to tell people when they asked what happened to my mom. Yeah, when you told me she was killed it hurt. But at the same time it was almost relieving because I finally knew what happened to her. You only told me that she had to leave. You never said she died. Not till I was eleven, anyway. And to this day I don't know where you buried her."
"I know, and I am sorry about that. If I could go back and change it all, I would." Steve opens his arms to Katie and she curls into his embrace.
"Tell me about her. Please. I want to know her."
Steve pulls out his wallet and takes a worn photo out. He looks at it for a second before handing it to his daughter. "That's my favorite picture of her. Your uncle Clint took it and caught her off guard. Actually, this was before we even started dating."
"She was beautiful."
"Yeah. Yeah she was. You look so much like her that it stuns me from time to time."
"I do?" Steve nods and Katie's hair tickles his cheek.
"Obviously you got your hair from her," he says, tugging on a lock of Katie's bright red hair. "But your nose and smile are hers too." Kat touches the tips of her fingers to her lips and Steve isn't sure she's completely aware that she moved her hand at all.
"You were the center of her entire world," he continues. He smiles as he recalls those first few days after Katie was born, how Natasha had insisted he drop everything and come look at what their daughter was doing because it was so damn cute. "She used to call you Katya."
"Katya?" Steve nods.
"It's a Russian derivative of your name. Sort of like a nickname."
"Katya…" She says again, trying it out on her tongue. It makes her wonder about another life she could have had, one where she grew up listening to her mother calling her that.
"After you were born, I tried to convince her to retire from the team. She refused, saying that now she had all the more reason to stay. She remained an Avenger because she wanted to make the world safer for you. We both knew that she couldn't eliminate every single threat on the planet, but she gave it her best shot."
Steve pulls another picture out of his wallet and offers it to Katie. As soon as she glanced at it, she could feel the tears welling up in her eyes. Her mother was holding a much younger version of herself; Katie couldn't have been much older than two in the picture. Natasha wasn't even looking at the camera in the picture, she only had eyes for her daughter in her arms.
"Can I keep this?" She asks, her voice wavering. She barely sees Steve nod out of the corner of her eye. "I miss her so much."
"Me too, Katie."