Just inside the door, Jameson paused. The smile on his mouth faded and his wide eyes widened further and he demurred around the strange woman he'd never seen in person before. Tiny pale hands fluttered anxiously. Natasha tried to look inviting with her leg propped on the sofa and a black cast on her arm. Jamie's lips had just begun to curl upward when Sharon ran in after him.
"Jamie, what did I-? Hi, Natasha, I hope this is okay, he's just wanted to meet you for so long and it seemed like you could use a little pick-me-up after the past few days, so I figured, 'Hey, why not?' right? He's really a good kid despite all I say about him, honest. Aren't you, Squirt?" Sharon's hands snaked from around her son's shoulders to tickle his middle, making him squirm and laugh and run to hide behind the couch. "Sweetie, show Auntie Spider your new backpack."
"No!"
Natasha craned her neck to look at him over the back of the couch. He giggled and scuttled to the other end. "I would really like to see it," she said, uncertain of how to talk to a four-year-old. Should she over-enunciate? Or talk more like him, with a little mush-mouth?
Slowly, diving back and laughing every time Natasha made direct eye contact, Jamie was coaxed out from behind the couch. Rather than taking off his backpack he simply spun to stick it in Natasha's face. He mumbled something incoherent and toddlerish, yanking on the red straps to make the pack bounce.
"Captain America," Natasha nodded, trying to sound approving while staring at a cartoonified version of her teammate. "Who gave you that, your mommy?"
Jamie shook his head. "No!" he laughed like it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. Sharon rolled her eyes.
"Then who?" asked Natasha. With a few pokes and prods Sharon got her son to turn around, smiling shyly at his Auntie Spider. "Was it...Santa?"
That got her another belly laugh. "No ess not!"
She found herself grinning. Instead of actually trying to figure out where the backpack came from, she asked after the Easter Bunny, the Boogeyman, Thumbelina, and the Jolly Green Giant. Every time Jamie laughed, working himself up until he was laying on the floor, kicking his feet and snorting. She met Sharon's eyes and smiled, feeling as though her chest was stuffed with cotton. "Okay, I give up. Who gave you your backpack?" she asked.
Still breathless with laughter, Jamie grinned up at her. "Nana."
"My Nana," Sharon corrected, picking her son off the floor. "Your Great Nana."
"Greynana."
"She just loves Captain America," smiled Sharon. She pulled off Jamie's pack for him and unzipped it, taking out a coloring book and some crayons. "Why don't you go color while I talk to Auntie Spider about her leg, okay Munchkin? Sit right there so I can see you. Thanks, love."
The next twenty minutes of Natasha's life were zeroed around the pain in her knee. It was like there was a black hole there, stretching and twisting her down into that one point until nothing else existed or mattered at all. Sharon carefully flexed and straightened her knee, moving her leg into different positions, evaluating how bad the damage was by feel alone. Natasha stared at the high ceiling and tried not to swear with Jamie nearby.
Finally, blessedly, Sharon finished her exam and helped Natasha strap up her leg again. "Well, I don't think you'll need surgery," she decided. "With your healing ability it should be about three weeks with the brace, five before you're back to low-level work, probably eight before you're at a hundred percent again. That's not bad at all, Natasha."
"Isn't it?" Natasha asked, sitting up and taking a drink from the water bottle Sharon offered. "Your boy's been awfully quiet."
As if on cue, the elevator dinged and Jamie's squealing laughter came pealing toward them. "Uh, hi there," Steve said from the door, a tiny blonde boy slung over his shoulder like a sack of flour. "Did somebody lose this?" He was laughing a little to himself, which was at least a good sign.
"Jameson Eric Carter, what have you been up to?!" sighed Sharon, getting up to pull her son from Steve's arms. "I'm so sorry if he was bothering you, he's so quiet we didn't even hear him run off! You, little Munchkin, have some 'splainin' to do."
"Mommy, no!" protested Jamie as Sharon slung him over her own shoulder and started tickling him. He screamed and kicked and Steve laughed. "Mommy, ess Capamerica!"
Natasha watched, sipping contentedly on her water, as the puzzle pieces fell into place in Sharon's head. Her eyes widened and she grinned at Steve, but there was something strangely familiar to her gestures when she set Jamie down and he dove behind the couch again. She shoved her flyaway hair behind an ear and offered her hand. "Hello."
"That's quite the boy you have, ma'am," Steve said with a nod to the couch. "I'm Steve Rogers."
"So you are." Sharon blushed and shook her head. "Sorry. Wow, that probably sounded terrible. I'm sorry. It's just... Yeah, he's quite the handful." She shook her head again, smiling breathlessly.
A long moment stretched out. Natasha shifted into a more comfortable position and made a face at Jamie over the back of the couch so it wouldn't look like she was eavesdropping. At the same time, Steve was staring a little too intently at Sharon, his brow furrowing, to the point where she touched her cheek in the worry that there was something smeared across her nose. "This is going to sound very strange, considering that I've been out of commission for seventy years or so, but...have we met?" Steve asked. "You look awfully familiar."
The hand on her face dropped, replaced by a beaming smile and an embarrassed blush. When Sharon spoke, it was with the deliberately casual air of someone who had practiced that particular line a thousand times in front of a mirror. "Well, this will probably sound even stranger as a response, but I've been told I look a lot like my grandmother. Except the hair. I'm blonde and she was brunette. I mean before she went gray! She's still, uh, around. I mean, not around here, around, but she's still, um, alive, you know?"
Both made painfully embarrassed faces and flushed red. Sharon rubbed the back of her neck and blurted, "My name's Sharon! Sharon...Sharon Carter. Steve, my grandma's Peggy Carter." She bit her lip.
And the penny dropped. Steve's eyes flickered to the couch where Jamie - the great-grandchild of Steve's long lost love - was still hidden. He breathed out, "Golly," before making an odd sort of laughing sound and wrapping Sharon in a hug. They were both a little misty-eyed when they drew away. "You really do look just like her. Except the hair," he nodded in agreement, and Sharon reached up to pat her frazzled bun. "Not that that's bad! I-I think you're lovely!"
"Thank you!" Sharon practically shouted back at him. They stared at each other, petrified into near-offensive embarrassment.
Her eyes flicking between them, Natasha had to school her expression and fight not to laugh. "Hey Jamie, will you tell me a story?" she asked, giving Steve and Sharon a chance to talk in private if they wanted to.
Jamie stuck one eye out from behind the end of the sofa. "No."
"Aw, please?" she pleaded, stretching out one hand. "Your mommy told me that you have the best stories."
Sharon suddenly snapped out of the nebulous void of embarrassment to look at Natasha. "Oh, don't, he'll talk your ear right off, Natasha," she warned, but Natasha shook her head.
"I don't mind. I'm tired and I could use a bedtime story. What do you say, Jamie? Come sit by me?" She scooted up on the couch until there was a little space for Jamie to sit, then patted on the cushion until he crept closer. "Will you tell me a story if Mommy and Steve go be silly somewhere else?"
"Hey!" they both protested.
Natasha waved them off, never tearing her eyes off of Jamie, who nodded. His lower lip stuck out.
"Well, I can see we aren't needed here," Sharon shrugged, and with a gesture led Steve to the hall.
"Wossapon' time spaceship wif' colors an' tees. Mommy sess 'no no go way!' Inden a dinasow! Dinasow was big, big, big! An' he had claws and pony teef! An' a nose wif googy booguhs an'-an'-an' pianos. An' the pianos were scawy! Budena monster come an' he has graybig ears an' a billion billion eyes, and he stink like poop! Budena tree! An' the tree sess 'rawrawrawrawr!' and east 'em..."
The child's nonsensical story washed over her and she shut her eyes. Jamie trailed off. "Aunnie Spyer sleeping?" he whispered.
"No, no, I'm just listening," Natasha replied. "Come closer, I can't hear you."
There was a beat of silence, two, then Jamie's warmth and weight rocked up onto the cushions. He curled against her front and slung over an arm to keep from falling, and after a few seconds Natasha carefully wrapped her casted arm around his back for extra security. She could feel his tiny heart fluttering against her own. He was soft and smelled like crayon wax.
"Tell me another story," she whispered imploringly. Jamie started to mumble a new string of unrelated words and events and she shut her eyes to listen. While he recited his story she allowed herself the brief fantasy that the child in her arms was her own, a child of four with waxy clean skin and salty hair and wide, sweet eyes above rosebud lips.
They will drop from you, one by one, bloody blue lumps of silent flesh, until your own innards fall out with them.
When she shivered, Jamie patted her arm.
"Do you think I could see her again?" Steve asked, hands buried deep in his pockets. Cautious hope shone from him like a beacon.
"Oh, yeah, Steve, totally! Gran would love that."
He smiled. "A-and I'd really like to meet the rest of your family too, of course! Your parents, and your-and your husband, I'm sure they're all fine folks," he added. If gentlemen still carried hats he would have been twisting his between anxious hands, especially when something stiff and trembling crossed Sharon's face.
"Uh! I-I'm not...I'm not married," she said almost apologetically, briefly flashing her ringless hand. "Jamie's dad, uh-"
"I'm sorry," Steve gushed at once, face burning bright. "Really, I'm sorry, that's my fault, I shouldn't have assumed-"
"Well, I mean, it's an understandable mistake-"
"It's just that things are so-"
"You're from a totally different time, things are-"
"Different."
"Yeah."
They smiled tremulously at each other in the silence that yawned between them. It was broken by the trill of her phone ringing, and she sighed. "Sorry, sorry, that's work...hello?" She frowned. "Already? That was fa-...are you sure" Dark eyes flickered to look at Steve. They both forced smiles. "Okay. I'll be in first thing tomorrow... No, I'm out with my kid today. Yeah. Okay, thank you. Bye."
"Everything okay?" asked Steve.
Sharon, tucking her phone away, looked up with unconvincing surprise. "Hm? Oh, yeah, yeah, fine," she dismissed. "Just work stuff. They've ID'd the Winter Soldier."
"Oh. Who is h-?"
"I should probably get the kid home," she interrupted, hands braced on her hips, "before he talks poor Natasha to death. She needs to rest anyway. Um, I'll talk to my grandma about having you over, okay? She'll be thrilled, seriously. I'll call you? Or-shoot, um. Okay. Here's my phone number, call me in the next few days and we'll set something up when I don't have work. It was really, really nice to meet you, Steve. Seriously." She grasped Steve's hand and shook it, warm and firm and completely honest, before vanishing into the apartment again.
Steve stared down at the line of blue numbers inked out on his palm, a strange sensation in the pit of his stomach. He shook it off and went to the elevator.
Natasha was roused from her light doze by her own voice, gasping and jerking on the couch with Sharon's hands on her shoulders. Jamie was a few feet behind her, wearing his backpack again and shuffling as he watched her. "You were talking in your sleep," Sharon said, looking worried. Natasha didn't need to touch to know there were tears mingling with the sweat on her face. "Natasha?"
"Hm?"
"Who's Rose?"
It felt like a slap in the face, yet despite her disorientation Natasha kept herself composed. "Why?" she asked.
There was a long quiet moment. Sharon seemed to be thinking very hard, an arm around Jamie's shoulders. "No reason," Sharon finally decided. "Jamie, kiss Auntie Spider bye-bye."
Tiny arms looped around Natasha's neck and she awkwardly hugged Jameson back, smelling his waxy skin and salty hair and yearning for a life she never even had the chance to lose. "Sowwy you so sad, Aunnie Spyer," he mumbled. It took a few moments to decipher, but when Natasha understood she hugged him a little tighter. A tiny rosebud mouth pushed against her jaw and then Jamie was gone. His backpack bounced as he ran to his mother's side.
"I'll be back to check on you in a few days, try to get some rest, alright? You look terrible. And lay off the oxycodone, the last thing I need is to take care of your withdrawing bee-hind along with the Winter Soldier mess. They've got him on the Helicarrier! Of all places! Because that worked out so well with the last psychopath they brought on board; I'm telling you, there's something in the water up there, like a-a stupid potion or something. Seriously. Okay, Munchkin, got everything? You sure? Crayons, book, paper, your left shoe, all of it? Alright, let's head out then. Bye, Natasha."
"Goodbye."
For lack of anything better to do once Sharon was gone, Natasha slept on and off until the late afternoon, then woke up to Clint shuffling around in the bedroom. "I got sunshine, on a cloudy day," he sang when she stirred and sat up. "When it's cold outside, I got the month of May... How you feeling, sugar?"
She rolled her eyes. "Like shit on a silver platter. How do you think?" It was an uphill battle, trying not to remember how much she liked his voice when he sang to her at the most inappropriate moments. During sex. Into her earpiece on a job when smiling was certainly unacceptable. During faked sex with marks. Filing paperwork. Training. Always he sang songs that he knew she hated, and she found herself not hating them anymore.
Clint sat with his side leaned against her back, pressing his face into her shoulder. "Talking 'bout my girl!" He rumbled. It tickled all the way down to her bones and she squirmed.
"Get off of me, Barton! God!" she laughed. She hit him with her cast.
"Very cute, Romanov. Scoot over."
Scooting over ended with Natasha lying on top of Clint's chest, arms around his middle and braced leg carefully snaked between his. He ran his hands smoothly up and down her sides. She loved him like the summer sky. "You are a strange man," she mumbled into his chest. He was warm and scratchy against her cheek.
"Is that what you know?"
"Well, you willingly choose to spend time with me, for one."
His laughter shook her slightly against his chest. It slowly faded as he lost himself to thought. "Tash, can I ask you something?"
"Hm?"
"The Winter Soldier. I thought he was before your time. Before all of us. I mean, that's some Capsicle-era shit, y'know?"
Her fingers curled against his sides, holding him tight and close. "I know," she agreed in a low voice.
Taking a deep breath, Clint was clearly steeling himself for either a great shock or embarrassment. "So...that means you must be older than you look. Or-or. You mentioned being in cryo?" he ventured.
Before it could go on longer, before it could get painful, she dug her forehead into his sternum and admitted, "I was born in 1928, Clint. Six years after the Captain. I don't remember my birthday, but I remember watching years of war drag by. Like a stranger. Like a graceless god of destruction. They did freeze me, a fair few times, but only as punishment. Waking me for a mission in a strange new world. They didn't seem to realize that being awake, watching everything grow old while I stayed the same, was the real torture. Don't tell the others."
Clint's fingers dug into her back like blunted knives. She braced herself, waiting for the curses, the utterations of terror or disgust, but they never came. Instead, after a moment, he resumed running his hands up and down and across her, firmer if not a little tighter. "I'm sorry, Natasha," he whispered. "I'm so sorry that happened to you."
"It's still happening," she said, her own voice faint in her ears. "I still have to watch you grow old. I'll outlive any child we might have. I'll outlive everyone."
The taste of roses choked her and he held her close.