Chapter Text
It was Rhodey’s idea — or maybe it was Sam’s. Steve wasn’t actually sure — to have a drinking night. Team bonding, Rhodey had said, and Sam had agreed enthusiastically.
Wanda didn’t seem so sure about the whole idea at first, but she showed up, and after one of Sam’s mojitos (Steve didn’t even ask where he had learned his bartending skills), she seemed happy, even if there was more red light circling around her than Steve was entirely comfortable with.
Vision seemed happy, too, and a few hours later, when he and Wanda disappeared down the hall together, hand in hand, Steve decided he didn’t even want to know.
Sam, however, poked him in the side and grinned. “Team bonding!” he declared, as if this whole evening had been about matchmaking and he was now going to revel in its success.
The reveling didn’t last too long, though, because there were more important matters at hand. Like the fact that five minutes later, Rhodey was challenging Sam to some sort of “fly-off” off the roof, and although Steve really wanted to tell them he didn’t think that was such a good idea, he instead just waved off the pleas to be the judge and made them promise not to kill themselves or each other. They raced from the room, half-drunk and shouting, and Steve seriously hoped he didn’t regret allowing this team bonding night in the morning.
(It seemed like something Tony would have encouraged had he been around, which made Steve doubly doubt the whole plan. But he had agreed, and before everyone had gone their separate ways, there had at least been bonding. Hopefully some of it people would remember in the morning.)
Steve watched Sam and Rhodey race each other down the hall, shouts of “Team Falcon!” “No, Team War Machine!” echoing through the base that was now their home sweet home, then he turned around to survey the room.
He started in surprise when his eyes swept the far corner and he realized Natasha was still there. She’d been so quiet the whole evening, he’d almost forgotten, but there she was, sitting on the couch, an almost empty bottle of vodka in her hand, her knees pulled to her chest.
Steve walked over to where she sat, waited till she shifted her eyes to look at him. He realized with another shock of surprise that her normally sharp green eyes were glazed over and hazy. Her cheeks were flushed, and her fingers wrapped around the bottle were shaking just so.
Steve couldn’t remember ever even seeing her tipsy before, let alone drunk. He’d begun to think it was part of her Russian DNA that she could drink as much as she wanted without being affected.
Now, though, he could see her struggle to focus on him, and he smiled at her gently.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Fine,” she said, but the word came out slurred, and she blinked a couple times, as if trying to adjust her vision.
“Mind if I sit?” He gestured to the empty space beside her.
She shook her head, then winced slightly at the movement. He dropped down beside her. She gave him a sidelong gaze. “It’s not fair if you’re not drinking too.”
“Oh.” Steve reached into his pocket, pulled out a silver flask. “Asgardian liquor,” he told her. “Thor left me quite the stash as a farewell present. I promise it’s very effective.” He smiled at her again. “The world has quite a happy buzz going, I can assure you. Though not as much as yours.”
She snorted, lifting the vodka to her mouth to take another swallow. Steve thought she looked sad. Not that she had looked happy since Ultron had been defeated, but she usually hid it better. Tonight, though …
“You thinking about Bruce?” he asked her.
She shot him a look that he thought was probably supposed to be a glare, but it was far less effective than normal.
“It’s okay if you are.”
Another attempt at a glare, but this time she sighed and took another drink. Then she tilted her head so she could focus on Steve. He could actually see her struggle to pull words together.
“He dumped me via Quinjet,” she finally managed. “I didn’t even get a breakup text. ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’ Isn’t that what people are supposed to say?”
Steve frowned at that. “I didn’t even know you two were …”
“We weren’t.”
“And didn’t you push him off a cliff?”
“I did.”
Steve nudged her in the side with his elbow. “Maybe he thought that was you dumping him from your non-actually existent relationship?” He tried to smile at her, to show her he was teasing, but she turned her head away from him. Even though he knew she had to be incredibly drunk by this point, he could still see the lines of tension in her body.
“I asked him to go away with me.” Her voice was quiet, her words still slurring a bit, but he could understand her. “I asked him to be with me, and he said no. He didn’t want me.”
“He’s an idiot,” Steve said automatically.
“Don’t say that,” she returned, and Steve realized he had forgotten for a second who he was talking to. Natasha didn’t want words of comfort like other people in this situation would want. Though he wasn’t actually sure what she did want, if she even knew what she wanted. He wasn’t sure she’d ever been in this situation before. Not that she gave him many personal details, but they had shared a lot over the past few years, and he had spent more days with her than apart from her, and she had never mentioned anyone special at any point.
“I’m sorry,” he said instead. “I just meant …”
He didn’t finish. Natasha was shaking her head.
“I get it,” she said. She took another swig of her vodka. “They didn’t … in the Red Room, I mean … they didn’t raise us to love people. They told us love was for children, and we weren’t children.” She took another drink. “I was never supposed to have friends … have someone … Bruce is a good guy.” She turned her head again to stare at Steve, and for a moment, her eyes almost looked clear, but Steve knew without a doubt she wouldn’t be telling him this if the alcohol wasn’t somewhat lowering her inhibitions.
“He’s a good guy,” she repeated. “If he knew what I’ve done … who I am … no one should love me. I’m not made to be loved.”
She stopped then. Steve stared at her. The way she said that, so matter-of-fact, so calm, like it didn’t bother her, like it just was, like it was just something she had accepted so many years ago ….
Maybe it was the Asgardian alcohol. Maybe it was the way she said that. Steve wasn’t sure — he probably would never be sure — but the words just seemed to slip out before he could think them through. “That’s not true.”
“Rogers …”
“That someone could love you. That’s not true.”
“Rogers …”
There was a warning in her tone. He could hear it, but the words were still coming, flowing like the alcohol through his system.
“I know that’s not true. Because I love you.”
And there it was. The secret he had been carrying for months now, released into the open. He stopped as he realized what he’d said. Beside him, Natasha’s eyes widened. If he hadn’t been already panicking about the words he’d left hanging in the air, he would have prided himself on actually doing something to surprise her. He hadn’t thought Natasha was ever really surprised by anything.
But she was by this. She just continued to stare at him, her mouth open in a small circle. The vodka bottle slipped from her fingers and clanged on the ground, and he thought she maybe went a little pale.
And then suddenly she was standing, her head shaking back and forth.
“No,” she said, and he wasn’t sure if she was issuing a command or just disagreeing. “No. You can’t. You can’t. You can’t.”
And then she was flying past him, a blur of black clothes and red hair. He stared after her, then back at the vodka bottle seeping the last few drops of alcohol on to the floor.
Well, shit.