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Steve lay quietly in bed, tracing the patterns of scars on Natasha’s bare back as she snuggled against his side. They played this game together sometimes, caressing each other’s scars in exchange for the stories that accompanied them. Or he would find her scars by feel and she would scrutinize his skin as she looked for the very slight discolorations where his scars would have been if they lasted. It was one of their odd intimacies, learning each other through past injuries and trying to kiss them away. He liked to think it took the place of the ‘I love you’ s they had yet to speak.
He suspected the origins of their little ritual lay with her explanation of the through and through above her left hip, a product of her first encounter with Bucky. Or the Winter Soldier. Steve had still been covered in fresh marks from his own fight with his old friend the first time he and Natasha had been together like this. She had stopped by to say goodbye again before leaving to establish her new covers and ended up staying. He remembered the gentle press of her lips against the scars that were nearly gone two weeks later, though she could still find them easily. His hand covered her left shoulder for a moment, hiding the largest mark she still bore from the fight in the DC streets before the helicarrier battle. He didn’t need to ask about that one. Seeing it still gave him a pang of guilt – not for the wound itself (those were practically inevitable) but for his response, not even realizing she was hurt until Sam said something in the van after their arrest.
“Stop,” she murmured, kissing the spot over his heart where he’d once borne the gouge of a bullet graze. They’d covered this scar on her shoulder and the exit wound above her own heart extensively. Every single time she told him to stop feeling bad about it and every single time he promised to try. He was going to have to keep trying. For now, he moved his hand.
He circled a particularly nasty three inch long crescent between her right shoulder blade and her spine, faded with time but with a slightly velvety texture beneath his fingertip. It was wider than her knife slashes and less defined than one of her spidery bullet wounds. He’d known about this odd scar of hers even before they’d begun their physical relationship – working long missions sometimes led to the need to treat wounds or wash up, among other things – but he had yet to ask about it. He had no idea what could have caused it, but he imagined something frighteningly violent. Whatever its cause, it had to have been deep, potentially fatal without prompt and aggressive treatment. He watched his finger trace the backwards ‘C’ top to bottom and back again.
“It’s strange. I know you’re touching it, but I can’t really feel it. There’s some pressure but…it’s like you’re touching me through a silk scarf, but I can’t feel the silk either. I don’t know how to describe it.” Her breath was warm against his chest as she breathed, “Are you going to ask?”
“Remember when we were at the opera in Italy?” he asked instead.
“Rigoletto at La Scala,” she added with a slightly dreamy expression. Steve had thought everyone at SHIELD had a ridiculous number of missions that sent them to symphonies, ballets and opera houses until he had brought it up with Director Fury, who grudgingly explained it was related to Natasha’s linguistic skills and ability to blend in with high society. Fury had been exceedingly unambiguous that it was not personal and her genuine love and appreciation of theater arts never entered the equation. Natasha had explained that transparency was actually Fury’s tell and Steve hadn’t told her the lie he’d apparently caught the director in.
Pulling himself out of that memory and dropping into another, he continued, “You were wearing a long green dress. You were so beautiful. It was the same color as your eyes. Or it looked like it was.”
“I don’t think most men were looking at the color.”
“Oh, I remember everything about it. Believe me.” He could clearly picture her in their hotel suite before the mission, asking him if she looked alright as she touched up her lipstick and he tried to pick up his jaw off the floor. They’d been partners for five months at the time and tempting a mark back to a private location for interrogation and arrest was already old hat. The guy in Milan was a money launderer for a larger criminal enterprise, if Steve recalled correctly. His overriding memories of that mission involved Natasha in her green dress. The slimy creep had put his hand on her back when she’d agreed to leave with him. “I remember when that jerk touched you, he put his hand here.” Steve reverently ran his fingertips along the scar again. “He asked what it was and you told him you were in a bad car accident.”
“I remember that. He asked me if I was a princess, like Grace Kelly or Diana. Can you imagine?”
“Um…” Steve wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be thinking about the comparison. He thought real princesses were supposed to be glamourous, but Natasha’s tone screamed sarcasm. He decided to stick with honesty. “I can see it. You could be a princess.”
She looked up at him, but her smirk shifted to a tenderer smile when she saw the confusion surely written on his face. “Princess Grace and Princess Diana both died in car accidents. He was definitely too stupid to make an innuendo about me being dead, so it means he tried to give me a compliment and failed spectacularly.”
Steve felt the anger tighten in his chest as it had that night and every time he’d seen her disrespected by some idiot who thought she was just a pretty face. Not that any woman deserved to be judged solely by her looks…
“You’re overthinking.”
“I…” He blinked and glanced back at Natasha. The glance became a stare as their eyes locked. “I hate it when people look at you and aren’t afraid.”
Her eyebrow lifted the way he loved, like Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind. He was glad that movie had been deemed a classic. “Makes it easier to do my job when the bar is set lower.”
“Not afraid, but…” He searched around for words to express his annoyance with the world in general. “I don’t like when people don’t respect you until they see you hit someone. You’re worth so much more than that.”
“Steve…” She leaned up to kiss him on the lips. It was sweet and hot and wonderful and so amazing that she could put so much feeling in such a simple gesture. He very nearly chased her lips when she backed up, but then she said, “I don’t care what anyone but you thinks of me. Well, you and some select other people, but mostly you.”
He ran his hand up and down her back. “Nat…”
“Shh. I owe you a story about that scar.”
“You don’t have to…” He continued stroking her back, though the mark stood out enough that he could feel it acutely against his palm, his fingers. He found himself unconsciously tracing over it again.
“I do.” In spite of that, she was quiet for so long that he thought she had fallen asleep. She finally started speaking again, “Clint thinks the first time we met was when SHIELD sent him to kill me. It wasn’t really.”
Steve fought his emotions down and forced himself not to hold Natasha tighter. “Clint was…”
“This isn’t about him, not really. I was in Minsk. It was 2006 or so. Belarus is a damn hellhole and has been for years because Lukashenko is… That’s not really important. I was there on an assignment, and this is before I worked for SHIELD. I was supposed to be assassinating an opposition candidate because the KGB…or FSK, FSB, I forget who they were at the time, not that anything ever really changed…whoever tasked me wanted someone dead because, well, whatever. Anyway, I was in Minsk and I wasn’t properly aware of my surroundings because I was betrayed by the dickhead lookout who was trying to get in with Interpol. So I wasn’t the only spy there.”
“Nat…” He was asking for a reprieve from his curiosity. He didn’t like where this was going.
She didn’t give it. “You asked. So I completed my mission and I was escaping across the rooftops when the first shot hit just behind me. Clint was trying out a new type of arrow and…”
“Clint did this to you?” Steve filled in, appalled that Clint had an arrow that could do so much damage.
“He didn’t realize it was me and even if he had…things were different then. Anyway, this arrow was tipped with something like a frag grenade. He has a more streamlined version now, but this one packed more of a punch. I saw the first one hit behind me. It disintegrated a brick chimney and decided I wouldn’t enjoy taking one to the chest, so I jumped off the roof into a dumpster in the alley. I thought it was just filled with insulation but that was covering the pipes really well.”
“Jesus, Nat.”
“It was my own fault. I shouldn’t have assumed it was safe to land there. It’s funny, I remember thinking it would feel like landing on a cloud and I think I relaxed just before I hit.” Her tone abruptly changed from almost nostalgic to coldly clinical. “The pipe had been cut on a bias and got me at an angle. It went between my spine and shoulder. A few millimeters in any direction and it would have killed me or paralyzed me, but it just ripped up my right lung and caused some serious bleeding. It didn’t manage to poke through my ribs. I was pretty lucky.”
Steve’s breath was caught in his chest, as if was suffering massive lung trauma. “Lucky?”
“Hey, I’d jumped off a four-story building into a dumpster.” Natasha raised her head to peck his lips. “I couldn’t pull the pipe out, so I had to run to my safehouse with the damn thing poking out of my back. I had to stick to the dark the whole way. Might have been for the best, because I think SHIELD was monitoring public transportation. Anyway, they yanked it out and fixed me up to fight another day. So that’s the story of that scar.”
“That…” He had heard a lot about her experiences prior to joining SHIELD, but nothing to rival this. Not yet, anyway. He caressed the scar again with the lightest touch he could, feeling its slight rise and imperfections as compared with the surrounding skin. He wanted to ask how she could be friends with Clint after that encounter, but he already knew the answer. Steve shifted out from under her and leaned over to kiss along the crescent. He couldn’t even imagine seeing it as an open wound, offending implement still inside. This was the moment, then, the moment he’d say it out loud, like a story about another scar. “I…”
Her voice was almost swallowed by the pillow as she interrupted, “It was a long time ago.”
“Not that long,” he muttered into her back as he continued trying to heal the scar with his still unspoken love.
Steve sat in a rocking chair on the back porch of the Barton farm, smiling as he watched Natasha kick a soccer ball around with Cooper and Lila. He’d been invited out for the first time only a month ago and he had been intending to ask Clint about the Minsk incident before he’d been welcomed by a family with kids who immediately wanted to know if they could call him Uncle Steve. He hadn’t been able to do anything but grin over Laura’s kitchen table set with a home-cooked meal the first night.
The ensuing three days had been similar, an oddly comforting medley of family activities, including an outdoor barbeque at the local Unitarian church (he vaguely remembered the priest at his local parish giving a homily about the evils of Unitarians in the 1920s, but all the people Steve met at the barbeque were wonderful and accepting), a trip to the mall to buy clothing for the kids’ upcoming school year (Steve had managed to kiss Natasha on the escalator and she had actually blushed) and a minor league baseball game (Steve still wasn’t sure of the team affiliations or professional level, just that baseball was just as great as he remembered, which hadn’t been evident when he’d watched games on TV). Even if beer didn’t affect Steve, he still appreciated the cold, hoppy taste as he drained the bottle Laura had given him a few minutes ago. He had been running around with the kids for most of the day and decided he was due for a quick break. He couldn’t help but appreciate the atmosphere here. No wonder Clint guarded his secret so closely. Steve could see himself here, visiting with his own family someday. Maybe. Possibly. Those thoughts were still awfully premature when he hadn’t even told Natasha how he felt about her yet.
He jumped as Clint plopped into the chair beside him, setting a fresh beer on the table. “Looked like you could use another, Cap. I swear those little monsters have their own super serum some days.”
“Thanks.” Steve clinked his bottle against Clint’s as the latter held his up. “Have I thanked you for having us? Or me, I guess, because Nat obviously…”
“They’re already calling you Uncle Steve. You’re good, provided you never break Auntie Nat’s heart.”
“Right. Thanks.” Steve sipped from the beer bottle. Clint was probably just being nice about the heart thing, but he did like to brag about being able to see everything. He was also the only one Steve hadn’t been completely comfortable around since arriving. Laura and the kids had never caused Natasha to… Steve took a deep breath and a long sip. “So, I’ve been wanting to ask you something.”
“About six months after I recruited her to SHIELD,” Clint replied, apparently expecting a different question. “Lila was still in diapers and we caught Nat singing her songs from The Sound of Music to get her to go back to sleep in the middle of the night. To this day, nothing helps the kid relax like Auntie Nat’s rendition of ‘My Favorite Things.’ I’ve got a secret recording of it I save for thunderstorms.”
“That’s not…” Steve had seen and enjoyed the movie (mostly because Natasha had been so pleased when he agreed to watch it in spite of its three-hour running time, of which she spent two and a half hours smiling), but that hadn’t been what he was asking. It was nice to think of her as a member of a family. The image of Natasha singing lullabies, though… “I mean, that’s adorable, but not what…” he took another long drink before blurting out, “Minsk!”
He was fairly certain that Natasha shot him a dirty look from the lawn before turning back to the kids, but Clint calmly sipped his beer. “2006, huh?”
“Yeah,” Steve managed to choke out. “Do you, uh, remember Minsk?”
“Yep. Knew something about it.” Clint raised an eyebrow while finishing off his beer. Neither Natasha nor Vivian Leigh couldn’t have done it better. “I definitely shot twice and missed both times trying to hit a professional assassin. Never found a body, even though I found a blood trail away from the scene. 50-foot drop into a dumpster, give or take a few inches. There’s only so many people who could walk that off. Suspected it was her after we’d been properly introduced.”
“So you knew that Natasha…”
“Not til I was answering some questions on my own. Those SHIELD files on the internet covered a lot of stuff.” Clint finished his beer. “If it helps, remember that I didn’t hit her. And I’m glad. Too bad she got hurt. Nothing permanent, at least.”
“You’ve seen that crescent shaped scar on her back?”
“Sure. Hard to miss. Er, in some contexts, I mean. She get that in Minsk?”
“She landed on a pipe.”
“Ouch. You want another beer?”
“No. Thanks.” Steve bit the inside of his cheek, reminding himself that just because Clint was acting casual didn’t mean he didn’t care. He dropped the subject when Clint returned, turning the conversation toward TV show that Tony Stark had appeared on the week before in which he had agreed with the interviewer when she implied that Black Widow and Hawkeye weren’t ‘real’ Avengers.
Clint’s theory turned out to be the same as Natasha’s – Stark was trying to get them to visit via public goading. “I gotta say, there was a time she wouldn’t’ve let it go and Tony’d be hanging by his ankles from the top of the Tower right about now. You’re good for her, Cap.”
Steve looked searchingly at Clint. He was the closest thing Natasha had to family. Was he giving his approval? Not that Steve needed outside approval of his relationship with Natasha, but…well, he was Uncle Steve, now. That seemed to indicate he was expected to stick around and that circumstance was fine with everyone. He stood and trotted back out onto the lawn to join Natasha and the kids in their soccer game, where Cooper immediately called him for handball. Steve decided it would help to learn the rules.
“Goodnight, Uncle Steve,” Lila said through a yawn as Steve clicked out the lights after reading her a story, at her insistence. Natasha had told him the previous night that Lila had wanted to know if she could ask him to read to her, so he had been expecting the request if not the little girl’s excitement. He was eager to find Natasha and tell her about it but paused as he descended the stairs when he overheard her talking with Clint in the kitchen.
“…gonna be answering questions about Budapest next time you and Cap visit?”
“I don’t have any scars from Budapest, unlike you.”
“That’s cold, Nat. But what do scars have to do with it?”
“Sorry. We have this thing where we tell each other the stories behind our scars and…it’s just something we do.” There was a clink of glass against glass, so they had probably opened one of the vodka bottles Natasha had brought as a gift. “I shouldn’t have mentioned you when I told him about the Minsk thing.”
“Why did you?”
“Steve is so honest. It’s…it doesn’t feel right not telling him the truth.” Steve felt his stomach lurch at her words, as he stood eavesdropping on the staircase. He still didn’t reveal himself. “He’d been avoiding that one scar for so long and when he finally asked…I just told him.”
Clint’s voice was soft as he suggested, “You could have just said you were fleeing someone and jumped into the dumpster.”
“Yeah, but if it came out later that it was you…that stuff is all out on the internet now, but even if it wasn’t…I don’t want to let him down.”
“Y’know, I don’t think this is what the expression means, but Steve seems to be making an honest woman of you.” Clint chuckled. “Of course, it’s natural. You love him.”
“Why else would I be telling him anything about myself?” Steve nearly lost his balance with the admission and it was only with a Herculean effort that he stopped himself from falling down the stairs and into the kitchen. He had been waiting so long to tell her, waiting for her to let him know she was ready to hear it, and the whole time… He forced himself to breathe and listen as she continued, “That doesn’t mean I have to tell him everything.”
“Sure it does,” Clint replied. “Besides, he already knows. Right, Cap?”
There was a scrape of chairs on the tile and Steve was suddenly acutely aware that he was casting a shadow on the floor below. He took a deep breath and plunged headlong into the breach, finding himself on his knees a moment later as he clutched Natasha’s thighs. “I wasn’t…I didn’t mean to…Natasha, I love you. And I’m sorry for being an idiot and not understanding that you were telling me with every story about your past and…”
“But you were being honest with me. I should have appreciated what that really meant.” Steve was vaguely aware that Clint had slipped away. “I didn’t understand how important the truth was to…please forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive. Honesty is your thing and I always knew that. I never expected you to, um, expect anything less from me and…I love you, Steve.” Her lips pressed against his, confirming what he’d already known. From the knife slash on her left foot to the bullet gouge on her scalp, she had told him she loved him with every story about the marks on her body. He was the only one who knew the secret language of her scars. “Steve…”
“I love you,” he replied. “I will always love you.”
Steve dragged his nose over Natasha’s back, knowing each and every imperfection on her skin as he made the familiar journey, stopping at the appropriate places to kiss the scars. She flinched as he reached one on her left flank. “Stop!”
“Nope.” He hesitated only for a moment, his tongue tracing over a pink line on her pale skin. “I like to. You taste amazing.”
“Mmm,” she groaned as he moved up and nipped at the crescent to the right of her spine near her shoulder. “I know you love me.”
“’Course I love you.” He continued kissing his way up her back to her neck. “I love every inch of you.”
He heard her sigh happily. “Love you, too.”