Work Text:
She leaves for a while, because it's safer for her to do so.
With all these conspiracies and her constant revolving role in them, it's dangerous to be out in the open. Her past is a tangled mess of lies and not even she knows what's true anymore, which could put her in a difficult position. She needs to get her head straight if she's going to stay on top. She can't be around the others until she gets her feet back on the ground.
So she says goodbye to Steve and she turns her back on him. Sometimes she finds it hard to breathe; she sucks the air in but it doesn't seem to go anywhere. It can't sustain her.
She leaves for a while because it's safer for her to do so, but that is not the reason.
**
She wonders, sometimes, where he is or what he is doing.
Well, no, she doesn't. She doesn't wonder what he is doing because she knows exactly what he is doing: he's looking for Winter Soldier. Bucky. She pictures that earnest look on his face, the one he gets when he has a mission on his plate and he's so determined to complete it, to do the right thing. He'll get his old friend back, somehow. If anyone can, Steve can.
No, she doesn't wonder what he's doing, when she's curled up in some safe house, in some dark corner of the world, exhausted from another day of escape. She wonders who he is doing, whether he's yet given in to the charms of some sweet young girl with the same sort of earnest look on her face.
He doesn't have time, he claims, but really she thinks he must be frightened of something. She won't give herself the luxury of wondering what he's frightened of.
Instead, she makes mental lists of women to set him up with, should she ever see him again. Not that she thinks about seeing him again much. That's something else she can't linger on.
**
She wears blonde wigs and silver daggers, cutting smiles and clever accents, worming her way into whichever society is necessary to cover her true self. Most days she doesn't even have a true self, cannot remember who she really is underneath all the disguises. Can a person live a thousand lives and still have their own true self? Or is she nothing but an amalgam of falsities?
Whichever it is, it's impossible to be Natasha Romanov right now, with the world breathing down her neck, and so she slips in and out of character, in and out of seedy rundown bars and gleaming nightclubs. She does what's necessary and she accepts that the reality of the situation is such that she may never be Natasha Romanov again.
"Who do you want me to be?" she asked once, and it was the only time she truly yearned to be some genuine self, to stop shape-shifting for just one moment, to lay herself bare to another human being. It was all he wanted her to be.
But they were both in the wrong line of work for that. Or perhaps only Natasha was.
Either way, he isn't around now, and so she is friend to no one, mystery to many. Including herself.
**
The ceiling crashes down around her and she ducks, rolling away from the shattering glass and the large dark weight that comes down with it.
There is a clang of metal on steel and the booming flashes of gunfire and she is up and running before she realizes what is happening, what's literally crashed back down into her life.
But then they're side by side and it's just like it was before, covering and bracing and fighting in tandem without words, without even glances, as though they can read one another simply by standing in the same room together.
Natasha's blood is on fire and she tells herself it's the rush of battle, the thrill of victory as the enemy spies go down. She tells herself that but she still has trouble breathing once it's over, once they stand alone in the warehouse.
"Hey," Steve says, with that same old earnest look on his face, and Natasha feels as though she is melting. She kind of hates herself for that feeling, so overwhelming after so much time apart, and yet at the same time it thrills her, like she might have uncovered some clue to her secret self, some piece of a puzzle that even she cannot see.
"Hey, yourself," she replies, with a smirk that can never be as earnest as she wishes it to be. "Come here often?"
He smiles and it is as though time has never pulled them apart, as though she never turned her back on him. There is blood on his cheek and dirt on his forehead but he looks stronger than ever. "I got a tip," he says. "There've been some mysterious deaths in the area. I thought...." He doesn't have to finish the statement. I thought it was Bucky. He gets that faraway look in his eyes, the determination. Natasha can't judge him for that, can't feel disappointment that he was expecting someone other than her. She can't, but she does.
She pulls a playful half-shrug and grins at him. "It's just little old me," she tells him, then gets serious. "It was a Hydra outpost. They were slowly infiltrating the military here with intentions of getting into government, wiping out anyone who wouldn't join the ranks. I thought I'd slip in, get some information. It didn't exactly go as planned." She smirks again. "Good thing you came along, soldier." She nudges him. "You ever ask out that cute nurse from down the hall?"
Steve laughs and shakes his head. "I told you, I don't have time for that sort of thing. I'm kind of busy saving the world, if you hadn't noticed."
"Well, what a coincidence," Natasha tells him, drawing in closer, thinking fuck it and stop lying to yourself, Natasha. She touches his arm. "That's also what I've been doing. And you know how good I am at multitasking."
He doesn't say I've missed you and she doesn't say I didn't know who I was without you but neither of them needs to; it bleeds into their kiss. They fight in tandem as though they never need to speak, and for a moment they will love the same way.
Of course they'll talk later; they'll have plenty of time for talking. But they've already done so much talking and some things are better said through action than words, anyway. And when Natasha makes up her mind to do something, she'll overcome anything to get it done. Even herself.