Chapter 3

After "the incident," Steve pulled back from spending as much time with Natalie. He hung out with Clint more and learned how to cook most his own meals and went on missions and generally lived as he was expected to live. SHIELD put a few agents in the diner and Natalie's apartment building, and although Nick Fury didn't actually apologize, he did tell Steve he was glad she was alright. There was apparently no information to be gotten from the prisoners: they said nothing, which seemed to be because they knew nothing.

Natalie seemed increasingly unwilling to buy his excuses for not hanging out, and Steve was afraid he was going to hurt her feelings. Maybe he already had. It was just that he couldn't keep pursuing a relationship that so endangered her.

In actuality, Steve was scared to death of really growing to love again. He couldn't stand the idea of risking his heart again, of actually daring to invest in something he could lose. He didn't want to let someone into his life only to scare them off with the deepest, darkest parts of himself. He didn't want to feel secure and then see her run away when she realized how deep the water over her head was.

But of course, Steve wasn't aware of most of these truths and so successfully managed to lie to himself on a regular basis. As usual, this self-deception just made him miserable, and he found that if anything, his thoughts were drawn more and more back to Natalie, wondering how she was, if she was safe, what she was doing, how soon he could see her again without putting her in danger.

Because he did keep seeing her. Not often, and certainly not enough, but he saw her at the diner, met up with her at the movies, walked with her in the park. He told her he had a lot of extended missions. It was easy to lie about that because he couldn't talk about his missions anyway.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. It's an old adage, and perhaps it's fair to say that no one knew its accuracy as well as Steve. This new foray into such territory proved to be no different. He wanted to tell Clint sometimes, but he was pretty sure Clint would just laugh at him. The archer was a good guy and a better friend, that was true, but Steve wasn't going to open that can of worms with him.

Clint had a "family" now. They'd moved in a while after Clint did, and he explained to Steve that his story was that he had had to move east before they could because he was trying to get back on his feet after losing his job and he had to make enough money to get them all there. Joe's wife was named Hannah, his children Lily and Charles. Steve didn't know their real names, and he was a little worried about the kids. Weren't they a little young for something like this? But he didn't ask about it – sometimes he thought the less he knew about SHIELD the better.

Seeing Clint with his family, getting to know Hannah and the kids, made Steve acutely aware of something that he'd been trying to avoid – this was what he wanted. It always had been. He hadn't told anyone, except his mom, but he'd never wanted to end up like this. He had wanted the American dream as he used to know it, a chance to make something of himself, a stable home for a wife and some kids. If he was lucky he'd get to move them out of the city and into the country, because he loved Brooklyn but he knew it wasn't healthy. But the war had turned that on its head, and his "death" had ground it to dust. It wasn't that he hated fighting – he was good at it, and it was how he protected what he cared about. What he hated was that it was his future now. Somewhere through it all he'd become very little more than a front-line soldier, a high-caliber weapon. Steve Rogers didn't take priority anymore, his duty did.

There's nothing to make a man hate power like the responsibility that comes with it.

Clint's fiction was the life Steve had always wanted. And it hurt him that he could be so captivated by a lie.

Dream or no dream, he wasn't going to risk anything with Natalie, not in that quarter and not in general. He wondered if avoiding her was too cautious and too rude, but for a long time he went with that plan anyway.

He half expected Natalie to show up some day and give him a lecture – that seemed in character for her. But she never did. She kept trying to make plans, and when they spent time together she seemed to be analyzing him for some kind of explanation, but she never actually asked about his avoidance of her. He knew she noticed – she was smart, and the way she responded when he said he was too busy to hang out was irritated and knowing.

In the end he gave up on the self-imposed restriction himself. He found it was too hard to do without Natalie's company and too hard to lose the reassurance of having someone to talk to. He wasn't sure he loved her or anything near that, but he definitely liked her, admired her, respected her, needed her. He didn't want to analyze those feelings too much, and he didn't want to risk anything, so he left it there.

He stopped making excuses to her. There was no point.

…

"Can't I introduce you two?" Steve asked Clint one day. He eyed the distance between the ball and the flag fluttering a short distance away, golf club resting lightly on the turf of the fairway. Golf could occasionally go quite well for him – if he managed to properly channel it, his strength got the ball pretty far. If not, he never saw that ball again. "I wouldn't tell her you were an agent."

Clint sighed, also analyzing the hit Steve had to make. "I don't know, man. I'd like to – I want to decide for myself what kind of woman she is. That being said, the goal here is for me to stay low-profile, and meeting Captain America's almost-girlfriend might make me a bit more of a target than I hoped for."

"She isn't-" Steve trailed off, grumbling. "Why." He practiced his swing. "I guess I get that. But it's not like I spend lots more time with her than with you – your apartment is safe, I'm sure. We could just stay in and do a movie or something." He made a decision and knocked the ball a few dozen yards to land on the green and roll a foot or so.

Clint nodded slowly. "I know. I just have to think about it a little – I can't endanger Lily and Charles more than I already have." His eyes were remorseful at that.

Steve latched onto the opportunity to ask, "Why did SHIELD give you a family? Wouldn't it have been safer to say you were single, or just had no kids?"

Clint's expression actually faltered for a moment, his jaw softening, his eyes blinking shut like he was flinching. Then he coughed and started walking to where his last hit had landed his ball. "It's… They… Nothing is less threatening than a suburban dad with two kids. There's an extraction plan for them. Hannah knows what to do if anything goes wrong."

Steve frowned. Of course Hannah would know what to do, she was an agent like Clint. The archer's head was down, shoulders back and confident but muscles tense. Steve walked a little faster to keep up. He didn't trust SHIELD, but thinking about it, he didn't think SHIELD would actually send two kids into danger to gain such a slight advantage. Clint's shirt, the stained "Best Dad Ever" shirt… Steve had assumed, naturally, that the little handprints and the faded ketchup stains were just to add to the look. That Clint's knowledge of baseball and delicious mac'n'cheese was just another part of his disguise. It had regularly seemed strange to him, too, how well those two kids could act… it seemed second nature to them to treat Hannah and Clint like their parents.

Steve cleared his throat, trying to figure out what to say. "I still don't think it's a good idea. This is a long mission, and they're more of a liability than an advantage."

"I know!" Clint snarled, then he stopped and closed his eyes. "I know, Steve."

"They aren't agents, are they," Steve stated. "None of them."

His friend sighed and shook his head, trying for a laugh. "You're smarter than anyone else gives you credit for, Rogers. No, no they aren't. I didn't really want them along. I mean… I did. But not Lila and Cooper." He chuckled a little. "I've been married to Laura for almost fourteen years. And after the whole Loki thing, I went back to the farm on paid leave. Fury offered me this mission and I didn't feel like I could do it, but he and Laura decided she should come along. And, well… there's no one for the kids to stay with, really, and Laura got this idea in her head it might be easier for me and better for my disguise if they came along." He gave a long-suffering sigh as he resumed walking. "I shouldn't have let them, any of them, but… well, Fury went a little crazy and put about a dozen agents in the building. And I needed them still." He looked at Steve, eyes worried. "You think I'm terrible for putting them in danger."

Actually, for the moment Steve wasn't thinking about the situation in a moral light at all but a hopeful one. Clint had family. A wife and two kids. It didn't seem like he got to see them much, but… he had a family. A family that he kept safe, that supported him, that he loved.

Could Steve have the same?

"I… I don't know." Steve's thoughts were twisting end over end like tumbleweeds. "I understand, I think. But… A family, Clint! You're really married? How do you make it work?"

The archer blinked, surprised, then smiled. "Yeah. I am. And if you tell anyone, Steve…"

"I wouldn't," he promised.

Clint stopped next to his ball and started planning his swing. "It's hard, trying to manage family and the job. It's not safe… Sometimes I hate that I ever tried to make it work. But then I go home and I remember why it's worth it."

Steve nodded. The idea was intoxicating. Clint had a family. He lived on a farm, for Heaven's sake. That had been his dream, for years. Sure, Clint wasn't as famous as he was, but the danger probably wouldn't be any greater if handled properly.

Steve dared to imagine it. A cozy, peaceful farmhouse with blue curtains to go home to after missions. A dog running around, tripping him up, with three or four little girls following closely after. No one nearby to bother them or question him about his past, but no shirking his responsibility either. There was a woman too, in the kitchen, outside on the porch, in the garden, playing with the girls, watching TV, laughing at him. She had Natalie's red hair. The fantasy was so real Steve could almost smell the fresh air and new paint.

He stopped himself there. It was a tantalizing future, but also a nearly impossible one. And, in all honesty, he was embarrassed to be thinking like that. Natalie was a friend. It wasn't doing him any favors to keep hoping otherwise.

"Hey, Rogers?" Clint was chuckling. Oops.

"Nice hit," he said automatically.

"Steve, I overshot the green pretty badly."

Oops again. Steve winced. "Sorry, I was-"

His friend grinned, shook his head, and pointed with his club. "Let's just play, man. I'm not gonna tease you this time. Although I fully expect to be the first to hear about it once you're engaged."

Steve sighed and looked away, trying not to grin too broadly. Strange how sometimes it felt like he had Bucky back when he was with Clint. Probably because Clint was also an insufferable little shit.

…

"Who do you work for?"

Steve could never quite make himself watch while Ward questioned people. It wasn't that he hadn't seen or experienced worse, it was just that Ward was a hard, brutal man sometimes and Steve couldn't condone everything he did in search of answers.

He didn't hear what was said in response, but he did hear the low threat Ward murmured, vicious and heavy with warning. Steve closed his eyes, his back turned on the investigation behind him so they couldn't see his disapproval.

They'd raided a dull, dingy basement underneath a bank in pursuit of a group of internationally known hackers. The group had a worrying tendency to pull security camera footage and files from places they shouldn't have been able to, so it was determined that they needed to be shut down. Ward had found them the lead and got them here, Steve was just along for the trip. As Ward himself put it, "a little hired muscle never hurts."

Nothing degrading about that.

The man suddenly screeched in pain and Steve stiffened, gritting his teeth and turning around. Ward lowered a knife, a new line of blood tracing around their prisoner's eye and down his face. "Let's try that again, shall we? Who do you work for?"

The prisoner just whimpered, eyes closed. Then he responded with a short string of Russian syllables that Steve couldn't quite understand. "Krasnaya komnata. Ya rabotayu na krasnaya komnata."

"In English," Ward said softly, threateningly. "My Russian's a little rusty."

So was Steve's.

"The Red Room. I work for the Red Room. We were watching the widow. That was our mission here."

Ward frowned, then quickly stood. "Good enough. We're taking you into custody."

Steve stepped forward. "Hang on. What widow? Who's that? Why would you dedicate so many resources to watching one person?"

The prisoner grinned brokenly. "Razve vy ne znayete, kapitan?" He laughed a little. "Malen'kaya chernaya vdova, kotoruyu ty derzhish' tak blizko k sebe. Ona unichtozhit tebya. Nadeyus' vy gotovy."

Steve didn't understand a word of the mocking, guttural sentences, but Ward seemed to, because he scowled darkly and kicked the prisoner in the chin with a sharp, fierce movement. "Wait." Steve crossed his arms. "What was that? Who's the widow? What'd he say?"

"It doesn't matter. I've heard all I need. We can go now."

Steve waited for Ward to explain further, but true to form, the agent went about his business without paying any more attention to Steve. The Captain felt a sudden rush of frustration. He'd earned better than Ward's contempt, time and again. He was tired of feeling like a burden when he did so much work to get them the information they needed.

"Maybe you heard everything you needed to, Agent Ward, but I still don't know what's going on or why we even raided this place. What did we just find out?" Steve spoke louder than he typically did, letting himself be frustrated. He let Ward take the lead because Ward was the more experienced agent, but when had that entitled him to keep Steve in the dark and on unequal footing?

Ward turned, looking irritated. "They've been spying on our agents for a while. We think 'the widow' is a codephrase for the group of people they watch, but we couldn't figure out who they worked for. We've got them now though, so we'll figure it out. Nothing left to worry about."

Steve wasn't totally satisfied with that answer, but it was good enough. For now.

"Look, Cap, why don't you head home," Ward said lightly. "I can take care of the rest of this and you can have the rest of the day off."

Steve would have disagreed but he had plans to hang out with the Bartons and Natalie that evening, and he wanted time to get cleaned up beforehand. Anyway, he was tired of dealing with Ward. "Alright," he said, nodding. He turned and walked out of the basement.

…

Clint made sure to arrive at Steve's apartment early that night with his family, before Natalie did. He told his kids to remember that his job was a secret and to not tease Natalie or Steve. Then he and Laura helped Steve finish arranging the simple dinner on the table while the two kids sat awkwardly on his couch whispering to each other.

Natalie showed up not much later, smiling shyly. Steve introduced her to Clint and Laura by their aliases, and then Laura gently introduced her shy children to Nat.

In a moment, both Nat and the kids were at ease with each other as they gossiped about Captain America and the other Avengers. Natalie explained that Steve was her favorite Avenger, which gave him a strange feeling of warmth.

Stranger still was the hopeful fluttering in his chest at the sight of Nat engaging with Charles and Lily so easily, as if she had never done anything else. It sharpened the dream that he'd been trying to force out of his mind for a long time, the image of him and Nat happy, far away from wars and crowds.

"Hey, Steve, you good?" Clint asked him quietly. Steve realized he'd been standing in silence for some time staring at Nat and the kids. He would've expected Clint to tease him, but his friend seemed to have noticed that Steve was feeling lost.

"Yeah," he managed, smiling. "Yeah, I'm alright. We should go ahead and eat; I'm starved."

He'd made spaghetti, because it was pretty easy to make and delicious, and he felt self-conscious as he sat down with everyone else. He didn't know what they'd think of the food or whether it was really any good.

"Dig in," he said cheerfully, privately saying grace, then he watched Laura serving Lily and Charles with a higher level of anxiety than he'd previously thought himself capable of. The kids started eating and, although they didn't seem thrilled by the food, they did seem to be enjoying it. Good enough.

Steve focused on eating his own food at that point. He needed to stop overthinking this kind of thing – it was food, not rocket science. And it was pretty good, anyway.

Natasha confirmed that a moment later with a small smile and the comment, "You've been practicing. No wonder you haven't been coming to the diner as often." Steve felt himself blushing, both from the compliment and from embarrassment over his attempts to avoid her.

"Thanks. Figured I oughta start listening to you more often."

Nat winked at him and he had to look down at his food real fast.

Clint and Laura managed to distract him with small talk about their lives, most of which he suspected was untrue, but the way they looked at each other and the way the kids acted made him jealous nonetheless.

"Lily is a tremendous dancer," Laura said, smiling fondly at her daughter, who was quick to look down and fiddle with her fork, blushing. "Her teacher says she can go on pointe soon, too, if you know what that is."

"Yes." Steve looked over at Natalie, surprised by the strained quality to her voice. She looked a excited, but her eyes had glazed over a bit. "Yeah, I used to do ballet."

"Really?" Lily leaned forward, suddenly thrilled and eager to talk. "Were you good?"

"One of the best," Nat said cheekily, but Steve still didn't like the look on her face. He couldn't understand what about dance could make her so tense.

Lily's eyes were wide as saucers. "Really?"

"Yeah, I got to dance in Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, all the classics," Nat said.

"Can you show me?"

"It's… it's been a while."

Clint seemed to finally catch onto the fact that Nat didn't love the topic, because he gently told Lily to finish her food and changed the topic to a recent action movie he'd seen. The rest of their evening together passed smoothly, until Laura and Clint said they probably needed to put the kids to bed and said their goodbyes. Natalie lingered after they left, comfortable on his couch with a glass of wine. Steve wasn't sure what to do with himself, suddenly.

"You've been busy lately," she said nonchalantly.

"Um. Yeah." Steve nodded and tried not to look too awkward.

"Did I do something?" She looked down, sounding worried. "I mean, come on, Steve, you were definitely avoiding me. Why?"

Shit. Steve had never meant to make her feel like she'd made him mad, but… what was he supposed to do? He didn't know what to do anymore, that was all he could think of. "No, um… You didn't do anything. You just almost died, is all."

"Oh."

Steve didn't like how she said that. "Look, I just couldn't think of anything to do," he said anxiously, sitting down on the couch next to her. "I'm not… I didn't want people targeting you because you knew me, I didn't want anyone to hurt you again. I mean… You've had enough problems in your life, you don't need me adding to them."

Natalie smiled wryly, eyes somewhat bitter. "Of course you thought that. How are you this good, Steve, no one else is this good to me. Also how are you this stupid?"

Steve laughed, not sure whether to be offended or saddened or flattered or all three. "Thanks?"

She shook her head at him. "I can't pretend I'm not mad you avoided me, Steve, but I get it. I'm going to be fine though, okay?"

"I know, I just, worried," he said, lamely, awkwardly. Nat grinned at him, a happy, teasing little grin, and like an idiot, he blurted, "Why didn't you like it when Lily started asking about ballet?"

She shut down in the blink of an eye, smile going all shiny, laughing tilted up in too much amusement, shaking her head, sipping her wine, and Steve knew as she started answering that she was lying, that she was just acting. "I did ballet for a while, like I said, and I was really good at it. Then I got injured and had to stop dancing, that's all. It sucked, but it isn't a big deal, I just get sensitive, I guess."

"I don't-" Steve hesitated. "Don't get me wrong, but I don't think you're being very honest with me. Which is okay!" he hastened to add, "but-"

She kissed him. She was looking at him like he'd surprised her and then suddenly her hand was on his neck and she was almost in his lap and she was kissing him like no one had, not in his two other experiences (and this felt like a betrayal somehow, like it had the first time a woman kissed him), and she tasted like wine and he wanted it but also. He recognized a distraction when he saw one and he was quick (but not as quick as he should have been) to take her by the shoulders and push her gently away from him. It wasn't hard, she was small and she didn't fight him.

"Why-" he started, searching for words, trying to express how he wished she hadn't done that, how he wished she'd do it again. He couldn't find any, so he trailed off and looked down, not letting go of her shoulders, as if he was afraid she'd disappear.

"I'm sorry, I thought..." Nat sounded so tentative, so scared. "I thought maybe you felt like I did, I thought... I thought you wanted that too?"

"Hell, Natalie." Steve looked up again, running a hand through his hair. What to even say. "I did- I do, but... Hell. Not like that."

"Oh." Natalie shrugged her shoulders, and he reluctantly let go. "I just... It seemed right."

"No," Steve said. "You kissed me because I was making you uncomfortable. You wanted me to shut up." He didn't try to keep the accusation out of his voice. He felt as if Natalie had cheated him, somehow. His last kiss had been with Peggy, and he was hardly prepared to go around as people did now, kissing just anyone for just any reason.

And what the hell. Natalie just kissed him.

"So what if I did?" she asked sharply.

"That's not- I don't want you kissing me just because you don't want me talking!"

Nat recoiled, then turned away. "Well, what do you want then?"

"I… I don't know." Something special, Steve thought. Hell, he hadn't even been sure he wanted this with her. "I wanted you to be honest with me. I don't even know what I want anymore, Nat, you can't- I don't-"

"Oh."

Shit, he was doing this all wrong. How could he fix this? He sort of wanted this, her, whatever they would be, but it scared him and it felt like forgetting Peggy's memory and he wasn't sure how to say all that.

She stood up from the couch, clutching her wine glass still. Sighing, she shook her head. "I can't do this, Steve. I can't just-"

"Okay, no, you stop." Steve stood too, grabbed her free hand. "I didn't do anything to you. You kiss me to stop me asking about you, then expect me to be okay with it and just go with the flow?"

"Nothing can be simple with you, can it?" she snapped, eyes blazing. "I just don't want to talk about my ballet experience, okay? That's all!"

"Why didn't you just say that? Instead of kissing me as a, a distraction. That wasn't fair, Natalie!" Steve felt irrationally furious. Why was she getting angry? She was the one who tried to distract him with the one thing he'd been unknowingly dreaming about for the past month.

"I-" She stopped. "I just… I don't know."

Steve sighed, let go of her hand, and rubbed his forehead. "Just… I'm sorry."

He didn't know what else to say, and apparently neither did she. When he glanced at her, he was confused to see a pained, almost tearful look on her face.

"I didn't know what to do," she said softly, honestly. "I just wanted… I don't know. You care so much, Steve. People don't… people haven't cared that much."

"Oh." He looked down.

She touched his hands, wine glass set down somewhere. "Can I… Can we try again?"

Steve laughed nervously and shrugged, unsure what else to do. So Natalie stepped in closer, tilted her face and smiled at him. "Come on, I don't bite. Usually."

That was not helping his sudden nerves, but he nodded a little. "Right." He made himself move, set one hand on her shoulder and stroked her soft hair with the other. The second kiss was much gentler, Natalie surprisingly tentative, still tasting of wine. Her hands were gentle on his biceps, and he watched her eyes, watched her smile at him and then close them. She had on silvery eye makeup.

Suddenly she backed away, and Steve didn't know what to do with that any more than he had with the original kiss. "Steve, I- Shit. I should go, I just remembered, there's a- I have to give Liho supper, and I- Shit. If I- Can you-?" She shook her head, hard, turned, and almost ran to the door, stuffing her feet into her shoes.

"Wait, Nat, what-?" Steve pushed himself to move, to go to her, to reach for her arm – which she yanked out of his reach. "I'm sorry! What did I do? What's wrong?"

She laughed, short, angry, harsh, and shook her head. "It's not you, Rogers. It's fine. We're fine. Talk to you later, okay?"

"Nat!" He grabbed for her again, but she opened the door, smiled mockingly at him, and darted outside, closing it again in his face.

He yanked it open, saw her disappearing down the hall, and charged after her. He stopped, though, at the top of the stairs, and slammed the heel of his hand into the wall. What had he done this time? Why couldn't just one thing go right for him, just one thing? Pathetically, he couldn't help but wonder if he was really that bad a kisser. He went back to his apartment and slammed the door, wanting to scream and shout and hit something. She couldn't just talk to him, she couldn't just stay and kiss him again, she couldn't just be honest?

This was his fault. He just had to ask her about something she clearly didn't want to talk about, had to get angry at her. Why didn't he just let things go, just leave her alone, just enjoy it when one thing went right.

Because she'd been distracting him. And maybe she never would have kissed him if she hadn't wanted him to be quiet. He couldn't stand that.

But he couldn't understand why she'd so suddenly decided to leave. Maybe it had reminded her too much of her ex-husband? Maybe she really didn't care that much about him? Maybe he'd somehow crossed some line.

He didn't know what to think except that he wanted her to come back so he could apologize her. So he texted her.

Nat, I'm sorry. Whatever happened, I want to fix it.

Come on, Nat, what's wrong?

Just talk to me, I'm not gonna judge

Natalie I didn't mean to ask about the ballet thing like that. I just wanted to help.

Okay really though, am I that bad of a kisser

Chill out, babe, it's fine. ;) It was a good kiss, wanna meet up tomorrow for coffee?

Um

Sure?

Why so uncertain?

You're giving me whiplash tonight

I know, I'm sorry

I just don't know what to do with all this, it's been a long time. It's hard.

I'm sorry

Don't be, this is my problem. It'll be okay.

Steve sighed and said he had to go to bed. He did. Because tomorrow. Tomorrow he had a date with the most beautiful woman in 21st century America. That thought was exciting enough to make him smile, despite how he suddenly wondered how good this whole situation was.

However wonderful Nat's kisses and smiles were, he wasn't sure he wanted it like this. Why, he couldn't quite say, but something about this evening left him feeling off-balance and lost.

A/N: So it's been like six months? Or more? Since I last posted? I am so sorry. I have a lot of stories, I'm in college, Idk. I got writer's block. Anyway, here's this. Nat is super confused, so is Steve, everything is just a litttttttle bit strange.

Let me know what you think?