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Chapter Text

When the last snowflake had fallen on her first Christmas Eve morning, she was twenty-one days, six hours, and fifty-four minutes old, precisely. Her mother knew this with certainty, just as she knew that the sprouting down on the crown of her head was tinged with a decidedly copper hue, and that behind her left ear was a strawberry birthmark that the delivering midwife had promised would fade with time. She had memorised this and every other minute detail by heart because - to Alina - her daughter was the definition of perfection. Everything she had never known she had wished for, yet had been granted regardless: her joy, her treasure, and the one good thing to come from the mockery that was her marriage.

To be bought and sold like a heifer at market had been Alina’s cross to bear. As the eldest of five daughters, she had little choice in the matter. Ivan was deemed a suitable match by her parents, whose financial hardship was eased by the monthly allowance her husband awarded them from his military pay check. Father assured her that soldiers were brave men - loyal to the motherland - whilst mama warned that a pretty face was only as good as the years that lay ahead of it. Despite their combined wisdom, neither prepared Alina for the drinking, nor for how rapidly a soft touch can turn into something demanding and cruel.

Still, from the darkness there was her, and she was all that mattered: little Natalia Romanova.

The fire crackled in the grate and Alina cuddled the babe closer as the pop of the flames disturbed their peace. She did not wake but her tiny nose crinkled, lips pursing into a pout, and Alina smiled to think of how determined her daughter might one day grow to become. If it proved to be the very last thing she did in her life, Alina would ensure that Natalia would never suffer the indignities or the humiliations that she had. Things would be better for her daughter. She would have choices and agency. She would be safe and loved, always. Alina may not have been brave enough to fight Ivan on anything else, but for this she would tear the whole Russian army apart with her bare hands.

Natalia blinked open her eyes to regard her mother. Flecks of green already speckled her irises - emerald ready to usurp the natural royal blue present in all children at birth. Alina couldn’t wait to watch this and so many other changes sweep over her daughter as the years unfolded. There was great excitement to be found in the passage of time, if only one knew where to look. Alina was certain that she did, now, as she peered down into the face of her child.

When Alina began to hum, Natalia’s lids fluttered closed once more. Her mouse-quiet yawn was lost underneath the strains of a lullaby that had been passed down from generation to generation in her maternal family. Perhaps, one day, Alina dared to hope, she would listen as Natalia recalled the song for her own children.

‘Perhaps’ and ‘one day’ suddenly held so very many more promises than they had before.

They both startled when the front door slammed, though Alina recovered more quickly than Natalia, who began to squawk, wide-eyed with her arms flung apart. Ivan was rarely a discreet man, and so Alina had accustomed herself to the exaggerated clomp of his boots when he walked and the boom of his voice when it echoed his orders throughout their apartment. Given time, so would Natalia. For the moment, however, she was innocent to it all.

“Shhh, my love, my heart,” cooed Alina, pressing a kiss to Natalia’s forehead. The scent of brand new life clung to her skin, still so heady and intoxicating, and showing no signs of fading yet.

“Alina? We must talk. I have news.”

With a roll of her eyes, Alina brushed a second kiss against Natalia’s skin before she settled her, swaddled, into the Moses basket set beside the fire. Russian winters were notoriously frigid, and her mother had warned her to watch closely for signs that the baby’s fingers or toes were becoming cold. There were many things to be mindful of when you became a mama.

“Let me see what that great oaf wants then I will be back. I will tell you the story of The Little Matchstick Girl. You will like that.”

The pad of her thumb smoothed against Natalia’s cheek, which was rosy and speckled with milk spots.

“Woman, where are you? This cannot wait!”

Ivan’s agitation grew and Alina dared not put off the inevitable any longer. Whilst he had been gentle as a lamb with her those last nine months, she doubted the restraint would last much longer. She couldn’t afford to push her luck with Natalia to consider.

“Here, here. I was putting the baby down,” she called out, forcing cheerfulness into her voice. She stole a glance at the sleeping Natalia to see her through the minutes that they might be parted.

“I have exciting news! Come, come! Our family has been chosen!”

When the last snowflake had fallen on her first Christmas Eve morning, she was twenty-one days, six hours, and fifty-four minutes old. She was the greatest gift her mother had ever received, and the only thing in Alina’s world worth dying for.

Chapter Text

There was no such thing as Christmas in the Red Room - at least, not for its students. Whilst other children laboured over their list to Ded Moroz, rehearsed for their school concert, and helped their family to adorn the tree with shiny baubles, Dreykov’s girls kept their own constant: train, fight, kill and - if they were truly fortunate - survive. Tiny mice, forever running on the great wheel.

The brutality of life did not cease for a moment. Certainly not for a concept as improvident as Christmas. There would be no such frivolity in Dreykov’s domain, where children were neither seen nor heard until the moment they stole out of hiding to slash their mark’s throat.

Of course, the same rules did not apply to those higher up in the pecking order. The guards, the instructors, the doctors, the scientists, were all permitted to make themselves as merry as they wished when the season was upon them. General Dreykov himself routinely stopped by the facility on Christmas Eve to distribute cigars and bottles of fine vodka to his workforce. He decreed it to be a ‘show of his gratitude’ and his minions lapped up the display of faux-generosity as though they had been gifted treasures by Santa Claus himself. Few of the Red Room staff had families of their own, having surrendered the concept of a personal life to the service of their country. Thus, festivities were often limited to smoking, drinking, and fucking their way through the holiday, which suited most of them fine.

Even Madame B. herself had been known to let down her hair, if the gossip was to be believed. A particularly nosey girl from class nine claimed to have once spotted Madame imbibing with the senior staff in her office, laughing and chatting whilst carols played on the record player she kept hidden in a box beneath her desk, as if it were a dirtier secret than training little girls to kill on command. Even at the ripe age of five years old, Natalia wasn’t so sure of the validity of such rumours. Young as she was, she simply couldn’t reconcile the image of the woman who routinely abused them with the thought of such joyful celebration. For, although she was quite sure she had never truly experienced a Christmas for herself, she knew that it was intended to be joyful.

They told her that she had been born near Christmastime, though nobody seemed willing to reveal the true date of her birth. Her mother, they said, was a drunkard who had abandoned her in the streets with the garbage. Then General Dreykov had swooped in to rescue her. They never mentioned her father, however, Natalia was sure that she must have had one at some point. After all, it required both a mama and a papa to make a baby - Vanka had told her so and, at ten and a half years old, Vanka was very clever. In fact, it was Vanka who had taught Natalia how to push her own thumb just so, to enable her to slip free of the handcuffs that bound her to the bedrail. It wasn’t a move to be executed lightly, the older girl had warned, but a useful trick if holding one’s bladder became an impossible feat. Such deceptions often proved necessary considering that Red Room girls had been beaten to within an inch of their life for far less than bed wetting.

It was on one such evening – when the frosty air and a tall glass of water minutes before bed were counted among her greatest adversaries – that Natalia first made use of Vanka’s lesson. It might have hurt when her thumb made the pop that would release her hand, but Natalia swallowed her moan of pain resolutely. From experience, she knew that it would hurt more to have her face rubbed into the patch of urine staining her sheet, though perhaps that was a different kind of pain from the physical. Regardless, Natalia found herself free and stoically determined to steal to the lavatory without being detected.

Her skills not being quite up to par, she had barely crossed the dormitory before a voice surprised her from the darkness.

“Get back to bed!” Vanka. Natalia heaved a sigh of relief. Vanka was her friend. She would never tell, unlike some of the other girls.

“I have to go,” replied Natalia in a whisper, crossing her legs at the knees and squirming from side to side to illustrate her point. She realised, too late, that Vanka could not make out her desperation for the darkness. She seemed to understand regardless.

“No, not tonight. You must hold it. If they catch you tonight then Madame will be furious!”

When was Madame not furious? Natalia almost asked, but chose to remain quiet. The burning between her legs grew more and more obscene by the moment, and so Natalia continued her course to the door, executing a shuffling sort of hop that allowed her to keep her thighs squeezed together.

“I must. Or I will burst!” she decried – quietly – with the kind of dramaticism that comes naturally to most small children. Vanka huffed in protest, clearly displeased.

“When Madame catches you, if you tell her it was me that taught you to break loose, I’ll kill you.”

Where normal children spoke figuratively of such things, Vanka meant every last syllable of her threat. Understandable, Natalia thought, as she shuffle-hopped closer to her goal, but she had no intention of being caught. Widows were never caught.

“I won’t be,” she insisted, even though her voice wobbled.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” came the reply – the warning, judging by Vanka’s solemn tone.

They all knew what that would mean: more people - soldiers and mercenaries and assassins alike - haunting the corridors of the Red Room, drunk and listless, looking for a distraction. Her breath hitched at the thought. For the briefest of moments, Natalia considered scuttling back to bed, testing the strength of her own bladder, and risking the resultant punishment when it undoubtedly failed her. The idea was rapidly shoved aside when she felt a warm trickle ooze down the inside of her right leg. With the situation becoming more urgent, Natalia made her decision.

“I will be fast,” she declared, and was gone out the door of the junior dormitory before she had a chance to hear Vanka curse after her.

Despite Vanka’s lack of faith, she made it to the bathroom with fractions of a second to spare. Emptying her bladder had never felt so good, and Natalia idled a moment with her bare feet touching the tile and her nightgown bunched at her waist. When she was done, she didn’t dare to linger even to wash her hands. Germs were a far less scary prospect than a raging Madam or – if she were truly unlucky – the possibility of coming face to face with General Dreykov himself. That had happened to Natalia only once before, and she doubted she would forget it for all the days she had left to live - which might be many or just as likely few.

Natalia had assumed that sneaking back into the dorm would be an easier feat than sneaking out of it. In reflection, that was crooked thinking, and there was no logical nor sound reason for it. Some might call it ‘wishful thinking’, whilst the children of the Red Room would call it what it was. Simple stupidity.

Her foot had barely touched down on the floorboard in the corridor when the sound of hasty steps coming her way reached her ears. It was followed by a gust of laughter, then a kind of persistent slurping sound that was completely alien. Natalia thought of ducking back into the bathroom as panic turned her heart into a little jackrabbit in her chest. Unfortunately, if the footsteps belonged to a guard who had been tasked with checking the dorms, Natalia’s empty bed would soon be discovered and the jig would be up anyway. There was no way of knowing which choice might damn her most, and so Natalia forced her body to make one whilst her mind floundered in terror. She sprinted for the corridor after a moment’s hesitation. This was not her first mistake of the evening. That had been deciding that she was indeed thirsty right before lights out.

Somehow, senses dulled by the dark, Natalia had managed to misjudge the direction from which the footsteps were coming. She kept her head down as she bolted, arms pumping to spur her, and that was how she managed to run so hard into the legs of the man that she actually bounced off his body to land on her rear on the carpet. Had she still been holding her bladder, Natalia would have surely released it then and there.

The nameless soldier stared down at her over an imperiously long nose, which flared at the nostrils as though the child before him was a particularly bad smell. Natalia had no idea who the man was, but she didn’t have to be a spy in training to tell that he was displeased; it was all there in the curl of his lip and the crease of his brow. Worse yet, he was not alone.

Pushed up against the corridor wall, head half tipped back and dark hair cascading freely past her shoulders, was Madame. The man’s knee was wedged between her legs, keeping them open, and one arm circled her narrow waste. The other was attached to the hand that was hopelessly lost inside the bodice of Madame’s dress. She caught a flash of creamy pale skin as he withdrew haphazardly and jammed his hand into his pocket instead. It was then that Natalia noted that the man had what looked to be lipstick smeared across his lips and upper chin. Another child would have giggled at the absurdity of it, however, Natalia didn’t have a death wish. She had just wanted to go to the toilet.

Her breath caught and she debated whether to offer an apology, though she didn’t trust either her brain or voice to make a decent job of it. In the end, she decided against the move. Madame wasn’t a fan of pleading or weakness, and no amount of ‘sorry’ would crack the walls of the fortress erected around her heart. Besides which, she didn’t merely look angry like the man with the wandering hand: she was positively incandescent.

Natalia closed her eyes and prepared for death. What came next was perhaps a crueller fate.

With Madame B. gripping one arm hard enough to bruise, and the man grasping the other in scarcely more gentle fingers, Natalia was marched downstairs. The strains of merry music mingled with raucous voices and the clink of glass against glass, but all Natalia really heard with any clarity was the thump of her heart in her ears. They paraded her into the dining hall, where the Christmas party was in full swing, judging by the throng of people gathered and the sheer amount of tinsel that had been strung from the rafters.
Someone had managed to obtain a dwarf Christmas tree, which had been decorated with ornaments and set in the centre of the table. Around it was more delicious food than Natalia – who survived on a diet of porridge, vegetable soup, and potato stew – had seen in one place in her entire life. Some of the delicacies she could not even name, and most certainly had never tasted.

If I die tonight, she thought almost idly as she was tossed into the centre of the crowd on her knees, at least I got to see this.

Madame raged as she paced, working the crowd, who needed not much encouragement towards excitement given their varying states of intoxication. They chuckled and hissed and called out lewd words as Natalia curled her knees into her chest, not daring to move from the spot she had found herself sprawled in. Instead, whilst Madame screeched - her battle cry serving as the overture to The Little Drummer Boy - Natalia fixed her eyes on the biggest, shiniest bauble she could find nestled right in the middle of that pretty table top tree. It was red, striped with white, suspended from a blue string, and it was surely the most beautiful thing that Natalia had seen in a long time. This, she decided, must be Christmas. She did not look away.

She didn’t feel the first lash. The second was where it began to smart. By the third, tears welled in her eyes. When the fourth landed, she was weeping. Her fist found its way into her mouth on the fifth as she attempted to silence herself before one of the men surrounding her made good on their promise to do it themselves. They all took a turn – every adult in that room, gathered in Dreykov’s palace for the festivities, dealt her a blow with the whip that Madame had retrieved from her office. Natalia could only count to fifteen, but she made it there almost three times over before her punishment ended and she was dragged back to bed in the gown soaked through at the back with her own blood. As she lay on her belly in the darkness, stifling her sobs in her pillow and unable to sleep for the pain, she deduced that she should have just peed the bed.

When Christmas morning dawned, it was Vanka that bathed her wounds with cool water and wrapped strips of an old shirt around her body to serve as bandages. It was Vanka, also, who whispered stories into her ear to soothe her and stroked the back of her head as she cried. Presumably all too delicate from the libations of the night before, the adults of the Red Room allowed them these moments of tenderness, if only because they could not be bothered to prevent them.

By the following Christmas, Vanka was dead and another girl who snored like a dreadful wild pig was occupying her bed. Natalia never forgot her first friend, though, or the kindness she had displayed one chilly morning whilst tending to a broken five year old. She didn’t forget how to escape a pair of cuffs, either, and this she went on to teach others so that they too might not be subjected to indignity whenever nature called at an inopportune moment. She was careful to always warn them, however, that it was better to simply pee the bed on Christmas Eve.

The one thing from that night that Natalia kept to herself – guarded like it was secret treasure - was the memory of her very first Christmas tree, and the bauble that had hung from it, spinning so enticingly beside the lights. The bauble that had gotten her through the worst punishment Madame had dealt her since her arrival. Red, white, and blue.

Through the decades, those colours would save her life more than she cared to count, each time making her feel once again like a helpless five year old shivering on the floor of a dining hall.

One day, vibrant red, purest white, and the richest blue would come to mean more to her than she could ever have guessed. Until then, there would be many more Christmases at the Red Room.

Chapter Text

She tried so hard to remember Melina’s lesson…

Five things she could see.

A hole in her left sock, out of which poked her big toe. (She should throw them in the garbage but they were the first purchase she had made with her allowance and she was loathed to let them go.)

The hem of the tablecloth, hanging over the side, concealing her from view. (Melina insisted on the cloth to protect the oak finish. She had probably never owned such a fine piece of furniture before. Probably never owned much of anything before.)

Chips in her pink polish, which Melina had applied in a bid to encourage her not to bite her fingernails whenever anxiety took hold. (It was one of the few bad habits she had developed during her childhood – arguably, the most severe of the bunch. Often, she would nibble them right past the quick until they bled.)

A snag in the carpet, near her heel. (The Ohio home was a fixer-upper by Western standards, yet it was a palace fit for a Tsarina as far as Natasha was concerned.)

The fine hairs on her knees, which were pulled into her chest as she tried her hardest to make herself small and invisible. (Small and invisible was key to survival.)

“Natasha?”

His tone was jovial, pitched higher than she believed its natural timbre to be. His voice more often rumbled from his chest, deep and booming, and so much gruffer when he allowed his true accent to bleed through. Now, he was making an attempt at sounding concerned by her absence. She would not fall for it.

“Where she go, Daddy?” Lena’s voice. Sweet. Unassuming. Painfully innocent. At three years old, she had adapted to the change well. Like a duck to water, Melina observed, when she didn’t think that Natasha was listening. Natasha was always listening, though.

She squeezed her hands into fists, digging the bitten down crescents of her nails into her palms. Closing her eyes, she clenched her lids tight to shutter the world from view.

Four things she could feel.

Pins and needles, working their way from her toes to the soles of her feet and into her ankles. (She had been sitting here for the better part of an hour. Melina had come looking first but hadn’t thought to check under the furniture. Why would she? Children simply did not behave this way in the Red Room.)

Faint hunger pangs, since she had hardly eaten her cereal at breakfast and refused lunch altogether. (They had looked mildly concerned but had wisely chosen not to push the issue.)

Fear. Wiggling inside her gut violently, like she was full of vipers. (This was as familiar to her as the hunger, and perhaps the more unpleasant sensation of the two.)

That snag in the carpet, which she ran her finger over then tugged on experimentally, hoping it might begin to unravel. (She thought that picking apart at least something of this elaborate lie might be satisfying.)

“Natty! Come out, come out, where’ver you are!” Lena, again. More excited for the events that lay ahead than Natasha could stand to witness. This, in part, was why she had taken refuge underneath the dining suite.

“Lena, why don’t you go help Mommy with the cookies? I’ll find Natty, don’t you worry.”

Three things she could hear.

The dramatic sigh that Yelena huffed as she struggled to process her own irritation. The stomp of her little feet as she exited the room, doing as she was bid regardless of her reluctance. The squeal she let out when Melina intercepted her in the hallway and swung her up into the air.

Two things she could smell.

The scent of baking gingerbread – sweet and enticing – wafting through the house. And… his aftershave, growing more pungent by the second as he got to his knees in front of the table and lifted the edge of the cloth with one of his enormous hands.

Natasha recoiled so fast that both her back and her head struck the leg of the table. He surveyed her, eyes darkened by some sort of emotion that she couldn’t quite comprehend.

“Easy, Natasha.” He sat back on his heels, leaning slightly away from the girl to allow her the space she seemed to so desperately need.

One thing she could taste.

Iron, sharp on the tip of her tongue, as the blood seeped from the wound she had chewed into the inside of her cheek.

She said nothing, only eyed him with a healthy amount of respectful unease.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding, huh?” He didn’t drop his feigned American drawl, as she had expected. “What’s the matter? Aren’t you excited for Santa to come?”

Shuddering deeply, Natasha shook her head, just a fraction. Alexei frowned.

“Santa isn’t real,” Natasha finally hissed. The rest was implied; none of this – Mom or Dad or sister or home or Christmas – was real.

She looked away quickly, lest her dissent earn her a slap, like it surely would have done had Madame been present. Alexei didn’t flinch. Instead, he nodded his understanding. Natasha thought that even if he walked the earth for a thousand years with that great, hulking body of his, he would never truly understand.

“You’re right,” he said, quietly and carefully, probably so that Yelena would not overhear. He and Melina seemed to enjoy doting on the toddler for the moment, allowing her all the frivolity of a typical Western childhood as they played along with the Red Room’s game of make-believe. They had even taken the girls to see Santa – an old, overweight mall worker in a smelly rental costume – and delighted in the pictures they’d snapped of the occasion. Melina had pinned the Polaroid to the fridge, using the ‘World’s Best Mom’ magnet that had come with the house and the lie. Alexei would surely be reticent to take a sledgehammer to all that with such revelations about jolly old St. Nick.

“But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy playing pretend.”

Natasha had never played pretend in her life. There had been no call for it in all of her eight years. Pretend didn’t put food on the table or a roof over her head or protect her from the evil that existed in the Red Room. She scoffed at the idea – an audible, throaty noise that quirked Alexei’s lips up into a smirk.

“You’re a real spitfire, aren’t you?” She didn’t know what that meant. It was so American, like everything Alexei said or did these days, and Natasha was tired of it all. America was jungle gyms in the yard, catching fireflies on warm summer nights, and trips to the bowling alley at the weekend: fun and laughter and silliness. Nothing that the Red Room allowed or stood for. At least in Madame’s domain Natasha had known the score.

“I do not like America. I do not like this house. I do not like you!” said Natasha, sullenly and entirely in Russian. Their mother tongue had been banned, as had all mentions of where they had come from. Lena was so young that she scarcely remembered anyway but, for Natasha, it was all ingrained deeply in her mind and her soul.

Rather than retaliate, or rebuke, Alexei hefted a sigh. They had taken charge of the girls three months prior and – despite the photographs stuffed into the album that Melina took out to pore over daily when she thought nobody was looking – this was their first official Christmas as a family. He had expected some teething problems; for Melina to burn the turkey, and for Yelena to eat too much candy and barf in her bed, and for he to bash his thumb with the hammer as he assembled the dollhouse they had bought for the girls. He had not expected this, though. Not from Natasha. The girl was reserved, understandably withdrawn, anxious, damaged, a thousand things, but nothing if not obedient. Tonight, on Christmas Eve, it seemed that the worm had turned.

“English, Natasha,” he reminded her, gently, and she bit back without missing a beat, “Natalia! I am Natalia.”

“Not anymore.”

That brought her up short. She froze, like a hare in a trap, gawking at him with those big, green eyes that perpetually shone with tears she was too stubborn to shed. He couldn’t blame her much for that. The kid’s life had been a horror-show up until this point. At least Alexei had experienced childhood, parents who had loved him, and the joy of freedom, before he had monumentally fucked his life up. Melina, Natasha, and Yelena had none of that, and so he was as patient with them as a loutish, boorish, dumb brute of a man could be. One day, it would all come crashing to an end, and they would have only the memories to hold onto instead of each other.

“I…” she said, and closed her mouth when nothing worth saying sprung to mind. Alexei could respect that.

Crouching down low, almost so that his stomach scraped the carpet, Alexei managed to shuffle himself under the table, although he bashed his forehead on the overhang in the process. Immediately, Natasha slid aside to make room for him, her head cocked like a small bird as she watched him in confusion. Everything about her was delicate – skinny frame, pale skin, wispy curls – and sometimes Alexei was deathly afraid that he would break her with a look. Even if he did not, one day the Red Room would.

“Are you scared, Natasha?” he asked. As expected, she shook her head with vehemence.

“Widows are never…”

“Are you scared… Natalia?” he repeated, and she deflated like a balloon.

Had he not been a super soldier, with hearing enhanced enough to hear a mouse fart from a hundred miles away, he would have missed her affirmation.

“Yes.” She hissed it into her hand whilst she chewed on her thumbnail, and Alexei did stop her then when he saw blood beginning to bead from the tear she had bitten into her own flesh.

He didn’t bother to ask why. It would have been a redundant question. Alexei was no genius but neither was he so mentally stunted that he couldn’t comprehend what might scare a kid like Natasha. A child of the Red Room, who had been thrust into a deception, ordered to play a part, and expected to sift through the emotional baggage that might come with it. Hell, he could probably list a hundred things she was afraid of: him, Melina, Dreykov, the Alsation on the corner that barked at all the neighbourhood kids, the creepy McDonalds clown that the Americans seemed to love. Maybe even the possibility of growing to like it here, where she was allowed to attend school and ride her bike and climb trees and play. Where she had a mother and a father and a sister – people she may grow to appreciate rather than tolerate. How much harder that would make it when the curtain was closed on Ohio.

Eventually, Alexei whispered back, “Me too, kid. Me too.”

Though he was admittedly startled when she took his offered hand, he did his best not to show it outwardly. Rather, he formed the softest, smallest smile that an asshole like him could possibly muster. Natasha didn’t return the gesture but she did seem to relax – shoulders dropping from around her ears and the muscles in her calves uncoiling.

“When we took the pictures…” said Natasha, hesitantly. At Alexei’s nod, she stumbled on, all pretences at an American accent forgotten. “The boxes were empty. Nichego.”

Gaze ticking to the Christmas tree, barely visible from their position beneath the table, Alexei’s eyes widened in understanding.

“Yeah. They were. I’m sorry about that.”

Natasha hummed, though if she doubted his sincerity on the matter then she chose not to remark upon it.

“Are those empty, too?”

Her own eyes were on the presents – wrapped in paper patterned with puddings and nutcrackers, and festooned with the gaudiest bows – fanned out under the bottom branches. Melina had gone overboard, definitely. Most of the packages were for the girls, and she had wrapped each one personally then written the tags in her beautiful cursive. They were signed ‘Mama & Papa’, and Alexei had never seen someone overuse exes and ohs the way that Melina had. All for pretence, she claimed. Alexei wasn’t so sure of that.

“No, those aren’t empty. Your mo… Melina really wanted to pick out some gifts for you both.”

Accepting, Natasha bobbed her head again and leaned back against the wall. She made no move to withdraw her hand from Alexei’s grasp, and he held his breath lest he upset the apple cart. The next move was Natasha’s.

“I think that opening them won’t be so bad, then,” she said, finally, in a tone that managed to sound at once both imperious and relieved.

His heart swelled then almost immediately stuttered as he realised that neither of the girls had likely ever received a gift before in their lives. Melina, too. There was much that was beyond Alexei’s control, but perhaps this was a wrong that was not beyond his powers to right. When the idea overtook the last of his reason, he grinned and waggled his eyebrows playfully in the manner that never failed to illicit shrieks of laughter from Yelena. Though Natasha was an infinitely tougher audience, she did offer him a tiny smile.

“Since nobody else is watching, what do you say we get to that a little earlier than planned?”

Though Natasha seemed wary, her eyes shone with the light of undeniable eagerness, and Alexei was at once warmed by the progress. She was slow to crawl out from under the table but Alexei held the cloth up for her, like a bouncer pulling back the rope for a celebrity, and waited as Natasha gathered the necessary courage.

“Just one and don’t tell…” he trailed off, jerking a thumb towards the kitchen, where they could hear Yelena babbling to Melina as they iced their cookies. Somehow, despite his woeful lack of experience with children, Alexei managed to hold onto the twinkle in his eye that reassured Natasha of his pure intentions. Sinking her teeth slightly into her bottom lip, Natasha nodded, the excitement of receiving her very first present somewhat eclipsing this latest bout of anxiety.

“Do me a favour though, huh?” Alexei said, as he rested a palm on the girl’s shoulder and steered her carefully towards the tree. “Lay off the ‘Santa’s a lie’ line. For Yelena. She should get to experience things like that. Just for a while.”

Solemn as ever, Natasha surveyed the man with misgiving. “But one day, she will know we lied.”

He couldn’t counter that argument and so he rubbed the back of his neck with one hand as he wracked his brain for a suitable response with which to reassure Natasha that this was one lie that little Yelena would recover from. When he happened upon it, Alexei expected to feel proud of himself, and maybe also that urge to puff out his chest that so often overcame him. Instead, he found that he felt a great sadness that penetrated every layer – from skin down to DNA - just like the serum that had forever altered the fundamentals of him.

“Nah, kid. One day, she’ll know that we have what we have when we have it. Sometimes that has to be enough.”

Natasha said no more and neither did Alexei, but the understanding and acceptance was there on her face when she gazed up at him for several seconds. The one thing absent in that look was trust. Perhaps that could come with time, like so much else.

Much to Alexei’s surprise, Natasha stuck out her hand and waited for him to latch onto it, which he did as carefully and as tenderly as though her fingers were porcelain. Her lips twitched at the contact. Still, she held on and allowed herself to be held, more to the point. It was progress, even if it was a mere baby step in the right direction that she had been nudged into with a bribe. Alexei had done far worse things in his life to secure the aims of the Red Room and his country. He had no doubt that – in the years to come – he would commit many more sins in Dreykov’s name and laud those too as tremendous achievements, because his own vanity and desperate need to be necessary demanded it. No matter the weight on his soul, he could handle it. He always had, he realised, with a bitterness that snuck up on him.

No cost was too great for the Red Guardian.

Chapter Text

All things considered, Clint thought she was doing remarkably well – this skittish, half-feral, definitely somewhat psychotic, displaced Soviet spy that he had invited into his home for the festive period. Laura had been understandably reluctant, bordering on furious if Clint was entirely honest, but one look into Natasha’s doleful green eyes had cracked her armour, and his wife had pushed away from the doorframe with a shoulder-shaking sigh to allow their guest inside. Clint hadn’t missed the warning she had issued, though, entirely with a long, stern look as opposed to words: it had been a promise rather than a threat to boot. Harm her family in any way at all and no amount of scary Russian child-soldier training would save Natasha from Laura Barton’s wrath.

It wouldn’t come to that, Clint was certain. The only person Natasha seemed hellbent on hurting of late was herself, and the idea of bringing her by the farm for her first post-defection holiday had come up out of necessity more than desire. It was this or sedatives and suicide watch in a S.H.I.E.L.D. med facility, by decree of Fury and Hill. Clint just hadn’t felt like he could enjoy his turkey and trimmings whilst his thoughts were occupied by a scared kid who woke screaming more times a night than a newborn and couldn’t decide between two breakfast cereals without suffering an existential crisis. And so, he had brought Natasha home, because that had actually seemed like the marginally easier option. Of course, he had issued his own warnings and debriefs and rules and desperate pleas for her to behave herself, and Natasha had listened to them all with that stoic mask locked in place. He only hoped she had fully digested them and decided she liked the taste. If not, they were all screwed, and that wasn’t an outcome he liked to contemplate. He wasn’t above manipulating her with vodka, if it came down to it. Clint Barton was many things but never let it be said that he was above casual bribery. Still though, the fact remained that he personally felt that Natasha was exceeding expectations on the houseguest front, not in part due to the fact that she hadn’t attempted to bolt once or shot up a single lamp. Sure, there’d been a small incident with the DPD guy and a knife, but they’d been able to mostly laugh that off between the four of them. Especially after Clint had produced his chequebook. Cash usually had that effect on people.

Truthfully, Clint was semi-impressed, and he must have allowed this feeling to seep into his expression as he watched Natasha through a chink in the lounge door, because it was the first thing that Laura remarked upon when she crept up behind him and tried to kick his ankles out. She failed – just barely. Hanging onto the doorframe in case she repeated the move, Clint glared at his wife.

“You look like the cat who got the canary,” she observed, arms crossed. She was obviously still less than impressed by Clint turning up with one of America’s formerly most wanted. Unfortunately, this was one dispute he doubted his chequebook could resolve.

“She seems to be doing well. Fitting right in. I’m happy for her,” he said. He only flinched when Laura shot him a scowl that soured the milk in the coffee he clutched.

“Hmm, but that wasn’t a guarantee, was it, Birdbrain? What was your plan if she flipped out and tried to kill us?”

Wincing, Clint took a sip from his mug, largely to avoid answering the question. Laura kicked at his ankles once more and he retreated a few paces.

“Would you quit that, please?”

“Would you not bring home teenaged murderers on our son’s first Christmas, please?” she shot back, and Clint actually found himself hunching over in order to make his body smaller. He recognised it as a self-preservation tactic and wondered if perhaps Natasha was rubbing off on him, rather than the reverse.

“I’m sorry, Laura,” said Clint, having the decency to inject more sincerity and remorse into his tone this time. “I really am. You and Coop are the most important things in the world to me, you know that, right?”

Laura huffed a noise down her nose that wasn’t at all assuring. However, when Clint stepped forward and reached out with his free hand to tug her into his chest, she didn’t resist. Her frown never wavered, though.

“You are, and – again - I’m sorry if my actions have made you doubt that.” He paused, pressing a kiss to the crease between her brows in an effort to smooth it away. “It’s because you’re both so important to me that I did this. I know that sounds crazy but… every time I look at that kid in there, I think of Cooper. What if he was in the same situation… scared, alone, nobody to trust or turn to? I know I’d want someone to step in and help him. You would, too.”

There was a pause in which Laura swiped at her moist eyes, evidently contemplating the dreadful picture Clint had painted. She would die a thousand deaths and burn in all nine circles of Hell before she’d allow it. Perhaps Natasha’s mother had felt the same, once.

As if reading Laura’s thoughts, Clint added, “She’s someone’s child, too. Doesn’t matter that we don’t know whose.”

The silence endured as Clint awaited Laura’s forgiveness, or her verdict – not entirely sure which one he would receive. Natasha had been with them only three days, and she had spent the majority of that time hiding in the barn or up in the guest room, but Clint would respect whatever decree his wife issued. It pained him to admit it yet he was forced to contemplate that maybe he’d finally overstepped the mark; Coop was still only five months old, Clint was away far too often on missions, Laura was in recovery from a nasty brush with PND, and the last thing their little family needed over the holiday season was to play babysitter to a mentally unstable nineteen year old who knew of a hundred different ways to kill a man with a spoon. If Laura said that Natasha had to go, then – as much as it would break him in half to do it – Clint would deliver her back to S.H.I.E.L.D. himself. Ultimately, though, Laura sighed and looked down at her feet before she nodded almost imperceptibly. Clint understood the subtlety in her body language: he’d been reading it long enough, after all. His heart fluttered, given wings by his gratitude, and a wide smile of relief quirked his lips. The matter was settled and Natasha would stay – provided she managed not to backflip her way onto Laura’s bad side before the New Year, although he was about sixty percent confident she wouldn’t do that. Okay, maybe forty.

“Did those bastards really have her since she was baby?” asked Laura, drawing Clint from his musings. His eyes flashed to her face, finding empathy and sadness chiselled into her features. Knowing Natasha’s story was a heavy weight to bear, and not one he had chosen lightly to inflict upon his wife. Laura was his partner in everything and it would have been wrong to keep such information from her. He told enough lies for a living without allowing that behaviour to spill over into his home.

“They did. It’s not like my childhood was any damn picnic but I don’t think even I can imagine what she went through,” he said, and Laura nibbled on her lip as she peeked through the door, the same way Clint had been doing when she had surprised him. She found Natasha seated on the edge of the couch, hands wedged under her thighs, and a faraway look on her face. She was so young and so out of her depth. Laura’s stomach clenched. A few feet away, Cooper napped in his baby chair, his little mouth open as he snored.

Whilst a deadly assassin sitting a stone’s throw away from her son should have given her pause – or possibly a heart attack – Laura realised that it didn’t. Although she didn’t know much of anything about Natasha, who seemed to not know much of anything even about herself, she was sure and certain of exactly one thing: the girl would throw herself out a second story window before she’d hurt the baby. Laura saw it in the way her steel gaze weakened when it passed over Cooper, and in how her perpetual grimace seemed to loosen just a fraction whenever the child attempted to reach out to her. Not once had Natasha elected to reach back, and Laura had yet to work out why. Certainly the longing for human contact was there, if the way she clung fiercely to Clint’s shoulders when she awoke from a nightmare was anything to go by.

“I guess it’s okay… if you want to bring her around… every once in a while.”

Clint offered his wife a smile, full of understanding and gratitude, then leaned forwards to steal another kiss. This one, Laura reciprocated, all the anger that had simmered beneath the surface of her skin just fizzing away like steam rising off hot asphalt.

“I’m sure she’d like that, even if she can’t say it yet.”

“One day,” said Laura, with confidence, and Clint bobbed his head to convey that he didn’t doubt it for a second. There was nothing his wife couldn’t do when she put her mind to it, including taming a wild-eyed redhead with over a decade of trauma staining her psyche.

“But no more strays,” she added, punching Clint in the arm with just enough force to deaden the limb entirely. As he gawked, she snagged the coffee from his grasp, chugged down the remainder of the drink, then shoved the empty mug back into his still functioning hand - all too quickly for her husband to even process the brutality of it.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see if our guest wants to decorate a gingerbread house with me,” she said, reaching out to pat Clint’s cheek. “You’re watching the baby. Oh, and there’s a tonne of presents under the stairs that still need wrapping so… best get on that before you have to muck out the horses later.”

With her parting shot executed, Laura Barton sashayed towards her lounge, where one traumatised teenager with anger issues, and an as-of-yet-uncovered heart of gold, awaited her and her newfound maternal skills. Laura had a feeling that they had a lot of Christmases to catch up on.

Chapter Text

They had been friends for a while – well over two years and counting – but it was the first Christmas they had opted to spend together. The Bartons would be out of state, with Laura’s family for the holidays, thus Natasha had feared she would be left at something of a loose end, which was never a good thing when one was in perpetual recovery from having spent their formative years as a mindless killer. It would be the first Christmas since defecting that she would find herself truly alone, and Nat wasn’t too proud to admit that she had actively been on the hunt for ulterior plans to ease her distress at the thought. Steve had seemed reluctant to commit to anything, claiming that Christmas hadn’t been a big deal for him before the ice and so he had no desire to turn it into one after the fact. However, once Natasha had discovered that his holiday itinerary consisted of watching reruns of Starsky and Hutch in his boxers whilst chowing down on cold Chinese food, she had made it her mission to intervene. Operation Give Steve Rogers A Perfect Modern Christmas was go!

She should have called Laura and begged for help. God-damn it, she should have called a caterer. She realised both of these things the moment she dragged the charred carcass of their turkey out of her oven whilst the fire alarm mocked her from overhead. She resisted the urge to shoot it. Thank every deity in existence that she’d opted for an apartment that didn’t come fitted with a sprinkler system or else she’d be adding ‘uncontrollably frizzy hair’ to her ever-growing list of problems, too. Man, fuck Christmas.

Nat slammed the roasting tin on the counter, frustration getting the better of her, and kicked the oven door closed with the toe of her sneaker. She used a dishcloth to waft the smoke away from the shrieking alarm and hopped up onto the drainer to open the window for good measure. She forced herself to suck in a series of steadying breaths as the smog cleared from her kitchen, but the motions did nothing to dampen her irritation. It was her first real Christmas as a grown up and she had ruined it already. To make matters worse, she had dragged poor Steve along for the ride. She should have let him alone with his underwear, his leftovers, and his police procedurals. Everything she touched inevitably turned to ash, just like the turkey smouldering in ruins in her sink. The poor beast had died for nothing in the end because, whilst a guy with a super soldier appetite could digest most things, Nat wasn’t about to inflict this particular atrocity upon him. Man, fuck Christmas. Fuck it right up the a…

“Do you need the fire extinguisher?”

Natasha winced as Steve’s voice intruded on her pity party. The fire alarm finally quietened, apparently deciding that now was the time for discretion.

“No, I’m fine. Turkey’s… fine. Everything’s… fine.”

Silence. Likely, disbelieving. Natasha didn’t have the energy to fill it with a quip. In the end, she didn’t have to.

“Good, ‘cos… well… the tree isn’t.”

Like she said; fuck Christmas.

Throwing down the cloth in her hand, Natasha stormed from the kitchen to confront whatever disaster awaited her in her lounge. As it happened, she was woefully unprepared for the sight that met her wide eyes.

Admittedly, the tree had come from some dollar store wannabe on the corner of the street, not because Natasha didn’t have the cash to splash on ostentatious decorations, but because the idea of doing so brought an uncomfortable lump to her throat. One look at the price tags on the bauble decked behemoths that dominated department store windows had made Nat’s eyes water, and not in the good way like a shot of espresso or an orgasm. No. She just couldn’t do it. There was no way she could justify spending hundreds of dollars on some plastic totem when there were kids worldwide going to bed without food in their bellies; kids who understood that childhood could be painful as opposed to magical. So, Natasha had instead made a sizeable donation to several New York based charities, cut her losses, and purchased a tree from Marty’s Bargain Basement. The latter, as it so happened, was the mistake.

“What did you do?” she demanded, her voice high and tight with shock. Perhaps a little bit of awe, too.

Shattered decorations and strings of tinsel were scattered across her lounge, suggesting that some sort of calamity had befallen the room in her absence. Once her eyes had finished sweeping the carnage, they came to rest upon Steve, who stood off to the side of the window looking sheepish and somewhat embarrassed. The reason for this was clutched tightly in both his hands; Nat’s tree, snapped completely in half, as though some errant lumberjack had stormed into the apartment and cleaved it in two.

“You broke my tree?” Nat spluttered. Truth be told, she was uncertain if she was closer to angry or impressed. “Why? How?”

Maintaining his grip on the evidence of his crime, Steve shamelessly attempted to shift the blame. He scowled, jerking his head towards the armchair. Nat followed his gaze, more confused than ever.

“It wasn’t my fault. Liho did it!”

The feline in question yawned before curling herself into the tiniest ball imaginable and nestling into the cushions. She was the picture of innocence, especially when her heart shaped nose twitched and she let out the cutest sneeze that Natasha had ever heard in her life. There was no way.

“My seven pound cat snapped the Christmas tree in half?” checked Natasha, shooting a dubious look from Steve to the cat and back again. Cheeks colouring, Steve nodded and - seeming to finally realise that he still brandished the devastated fir - he laid both pieces down in the centre of the mayhem. Suddenly, Natasha was reminded of New York, flying aliens, and a rather hefty clean-up bill that had given the president an angina attack.

“She climbed right up it! Decorations started falling off and I reached out to stop her then suddenly…”

“Hulk smash?” supplied Nat, planting her hands on her hips and glaring at the incredibly guilty-looking Captain.

For a moment, Steve chose to say nothing. Then, inexplicably, he chose death.

“Sounded like dinner’s going well, Romanoff. What time do we eat?”

The plush reindeer flew at his head with speed and accuracy, leaving Steve little time to step out of its path. It struck him square on the forehead before plopping onto the floor to lay amongst the glittering rubble. He glanced down at it, lips twitching in amusement as he noted the toothy smile on the cross-eyed creature’s face. Rather than mocking him, the toy appeared to be conspiring with him to piss Natasha off further.

“I’m glad this is funny to you, Rogers,” Natasha snapped, folding her arms. “I invite you over to celebrate the holiday and you repay me by making my lounge look like Tony’s college dorm room.”

Steve honestly couldn’t help the fact that his improperly caged smirk morphed into a full blown grin when he realised that Nat’s cheeks had flushed as red as her hair. The snicker that followed was absolutely a mistake, though. This time, he managed to catch the item that hurtled towards his face before it actually made contact. Setting the gingerbread man pillow aside, Steve offered his friend the most repentant look he could muster.

“Nat, you’re right, and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to break your tree or ruin your Christmas. I understand if you want me to leave.”

“I just wanted to have a nice Christmas,” Nat muttered, raking a hand through her hair. She felt more than slightly awkward when she found herself adding, “It’s the first Christmas since I defected that I’m not spending with Clint. I wanted it to be… good. Prove to myself that I can do all of this without my buddy holding my hand. Turns out I can’t, so I guess I’ll add this to the list of Natasha Romanoff’s epic failures.”

Now, Steve looked positively stricken. He took several steps towards Nat, plastic and glass crunching beneath his shoes, and reached out a hand to rest on her shoulder. He was relieved when she didn’t recoil from the touch but more than slightly devastated when he noticed the tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. She sniffled once, then twice, and Steve felt like the biggest piece of shit to walk the earth. He had never seen her cry before, and they had taken on literal gods and monsters together. Here she was, welcoming him into her home, trusting him with her friendship and vulnerability, and he repaid her by destroying her property and mocking her admittedly questionable cooking skills.

“Nat, I really am sorry,” he said gently as he tugged the spy into his arms to wrap her in a comforting embrace. “I’m grateful that you included me in your plans. It means a lot to me and… well, I should have made sure that you knew that.”

“I ruined everything,” sniffled Natasha, face buried in Steve’s chest. He felt her fingers curl into the fabric of his shirt and Steve’s heart skipped a few beats entirely. Despite the situation, her touch was electric to him, and he wondered if he should be checking that she hadn’t jabbed him with her Widow’s Bites as an act of retribution.

“You didn’t ruin a thing. Who says Christmas has to be turkey with trimmings and decorations and…”

“Family?” Nat said, softly, refusing to pull her face away from the warmth of Steve’s body. He let out a shuddering sigh and, hesitantly, raised a hand to stroke the back of her head. He took it as a good sign when she didn’t knee him in the crotch immediately. If there was one thing he’d learned from experience, it was that the Black Widow could be as skittish as the damn cat that had scaled a Christmas tree and wrought this whole mess.

Swallowing hard, Steve said, “Family isn’t always about blood. Sometimes, you get to pick your family for yourself. It’s not better or worse… it’s just different.”

They stood like that for a while; pressed together, silent, Steve caressing Natasha’s hair, and she burrowed into the solid mass of his chest like she might never emerge again. When Liho finally yowled loudly, several minutes or so later, the spell was broken and the couple drew apart with an undercurrent of reluctance surging between them.

“What should I do about dinner?” Natasha asked, peering up into Steve’s face with wet eyes as she nibbled on her lower lip. His heart clenched and he found himself shaking his head.

“I’ll clean up the kitchen and the lounge. You go take a bath and change into something comfortable. We can still do Christmas, just our way.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to be…”

Silencing her with a look, Steve pointed in the direction of the bathroom. With a smile dancing upon her lips, Natasha stood on her tiptoes and brushed a small, tender kiss against the apple of Steve’s cheek.

“Thanks, Rogers,” she breathed, then she turned on her heel and sauntered away, Liho’s eyes following her every move keenly.

It was only an hour later, as they sat side by side on the couch, wearing sweats, watching reruns, and eating the Chinese food that Steve had paid for, that Captain America finally realised he had been played like a violin. It was Natasha’s self-satisfied smirk that first tipped him off.

“That whole ‘I ruined Christmas’ thing…” he began, scowling at the Widow as she shovelled a second helping of chow mein into her cereal bowl. She shot him an almost pitying look.

“Don’t feel bad, Steve. Better men than you have been manipulated by the Black Widow,” she purred. She and the damn cat were probably in on it together.

“That’s… I can’t believe you… I…” he attempted to protest, although he was forced to give up when his shoulders started shaking with his quiet laughter. Natasha pressed the back of her free hand to her head and collapsed dramatically back against the couch cushions, somehow managing to hold onto her food at the same time.

“Oh woe is me, whatever shall I do? Some brute has destroyed my Christmas tree and I have burned the dinner! This is surely a catastrophe like no other!”

Abruptly, she straightened, rolled her eyes, and dug her fork with gusto into her bowl. From her position in the centre of the rug, Liho let out a noise that resembled a laugh. Steve only stared at the two of them askance.

“Guess I deserved it,” he sighed, once their mutual amusement had subsided.

However, taking pity on the captain, Natasha reached over and patted his knee, which was inclined so close to her own that they were almost touching. She realised, with a jolt of surprise, that she wouldn’t have thought it so bad if they were.

“I was just having fun with you, Rogers. It’s kind of my thing. Means I like you.”

Brightening somewhat, Steve fixed Nat with a probing stare and an arched brow.

“You like me, huh?” he teased, suggestively waggling a brow, which only succeeded in making Natasha choke on the forkful of food she had crammed into her mouth. She always ate like she had never seen food before and might never again, which Steve supposed was a symptom of her time in the infamous Red Room.

“Don’t make me take it back,” she countered once she had managed to clear the obstruction from her throat. Steve chuckled. “For what it’s worth, your way of spending the holidays isn’t actually so bad.”

The grin Steve flashed her was nothing short of triumphant. Bowl in his lap, fork in his hand, he propped his feet up on the coffee table and settled back to continue eating with an irrefutable air of smugness about him.

“Next time, maybe we can even try it in our underwear.”

It was Steve’s turn to choke.

Chapter Text

They were on the run. Had been for too long, with no end in sight. America’s – and the rest of the world’s – most wanted. Their crime was a farce. It was seeking the truth that had brought them to this.

Steve was hardly aware it was even close to Christmas until Natasha crawled into their shared bed in their latest slum of a safe house, pressed her icy feet to his ankles, and whispered a husky ‘merry Christmas, soldier’ that made him shudder with so many repressed feelings. There were no decorations this year. There would be no presents, either. Certainly, a huge dinner they could share with their found family was totally out of the question. There was only each other and the secrets they shared when the nightmares, the guilt, the breath taking cold, or a combination of all three chased sleep away. It was beyond hard and yet, in its own way, it was kind of beautiful, too. Whatever state of despair or anguish or suffering they were in, they had managed to finally make their way into each other’s arms. Worth it, Steve thought, selfishly but unashamedly, as he tugged Natasha’s body closer to his own and buried his nose into her hair. It smelled strongly of peroxide, reminding him anew of just some of the agency his girlfriend had lost, which was perhaps his biggest regret about the whole thing. Natasha had lived over half her life under someone else’s thumb, unable to make her own choices or navigate her own course, and Steve had never wanted to be responsible for bringing her back to that state. Yet here they were.

The same as he did every night, Steve sighed an apology into the shell of her ear for his sins, which were innumerable. Whether she was awake or not to hear it, it was important to him. One day, he wanted to be the guy who gave Nat everything she could wish for, as opposed to the one who had taken the wrecking ball to all she had managed to build atop the pile of Dreykov’s rubble.

“I’ve had worse Christmases, y’know,” Natasha murmured, sleepily, as she rolled over to nuzzle her nose against the underside of Steve’s jaw. His beard was thick and scratchy but she refrained from complaint because it sure did have its good points, too.

“Not really as comforting as you think it is,” Steve replied, before he pressed his lips against the crown of her head. With a shiver that had nothing to do with the frigid air, Natasha tried not to think of the past.

“But it’s true,” she countered, cracking one eye open and squinting through it at her boyfriend. He looked perpetually tortured these days, and Nat wished with all her heart that she possessed the power to do something about that; time travel, maybe, or perhaps the ability to rewrite their reality as she saw fit. Of course, both of those things were improbable, and there was no merit to be found in contemplating the impossible.

“Doesn’t mean I’m not sorry,” he whispered back, and Natasha forced both eyes open then so that she could caress his jaw with her thumb as she peered up into his drawn features. “I’ve made so many mistakes.”

“Preaching to the choir there, soldier.”

They both smiled wanly at that.

“Go to sleep, Steve, moya lyubov’. It’ll still be tragic in the morning.”

She was warm and pliant in his arms as she relaxed into him. Sleep came for her quickly, and Steve was glad because constantly having to look over their shoulders – hefting the lion’s share of the responsibility for their safety – was wearing on her even more so than on him. It was all so unfair yet he also couldn’t help but think he deserved it. He had been arrogant, and foolhardy, and impetuous, and so full of rage. Those weren’t the qualities of a leader, and certainly not the best tools with which to make any kind of positive decision. Nat had tried to warn him but he’d been too pig-headed to listen, then it had been too late.

Not anymore, though. He would do better – had to – was determined to, if he truly meant to make a difference to Natasha’s life in the ways she deserved. She had worn pain like a second skin for nearly three decades: it was time to help her shed it. She was the best thing to happen to him, both in this modern world and the one he’d left behind, and Steve was determined to do his best going forward to honour that with every breath left in his body.

He kissed her again, for good measure, and, though she wasn’t awake to note it, he liked to think that she felt his love anyway. She was perceptive like that.

“Merry Christmas, sweetheart,” he murmured, skimming his palm down her side to rest in the cradle of her hip. “Next year it’ll all be different.”

Steve closed his eyes, hopeful that - this time – it was true.

Chapter Text

All talk of Christmas was banned at the new compound. All talk in general that was directed at Steve was banned at the new compound, too.

No amount of conversation could or would bring her back; ergo, Steve craved only silence and copious quantities of alcohol. His preferred methods of self-flagellation since his youth.

Being the stand-up god that he was, Thor had obliged Steve with a few barrels of Asgardian ale. It seemed he knew first-hand what the broken heart truly wanted. Sam had tried to object, Rhodey had attempted to intervene, even Buck had mouthed off some, but Steve had it rolled into the cellar before they could do much of anything about it. The rest – as they so famously say – was history, and if there was one thing that a ‘man out of time’ knew anything about, it was history.

“Steve, are you joining us?” The captain broke free of his thoughts, turning misty eyes to the bottom of his tankard instead of to the visitor in his doorway.

“Steve, did you hear what I said?” Again, Clint’s voice. It grated on him these days, like everything else about the guy. They’d been allies once – colleagues – friends. Common ground was hard to come by, now. Tasha had been the glue that had held them together under the worst of duress.

He must have said so – out loud – because when Steve turned to glance at Clint, the archer was frowning at him in concern. Laura hovered behind in the corridor, Nate’s hand clutched tight in her own. Nathaniel. That made Steve feel something and, since he’d been working hard not to do that, he took another pull from his tankard to rectify the issue. He wished they’d just go away. He didn’t need their pity or their guilt. Didn’t want it, more to the point. If they could leave him alone with his grief and his rapid descent into alcoholism then everyone would be so much happier, not least the antsy child pulling on his mother’s hand and whining about presents.

“Do you need coffee?” Clint attempted, shifting his weight and eyeing his captain as if he feared some sort of intervention was necessary. Laura shushed her son, firmly but gently, and pressed closer to her husband’s back. She didn’t want to be here, at the compound. The pain in her eyes spoke volumes for her. Steve could hardly blame her when the halls echoed with the reminders of everything they’d lost. Even full of people, it was a desolate place to be.

“Nope. Got everything I need right here,” Steve slurred, wincing. They all tried their best to ignore the lie.

“We’re having a team dinner, we thought…” Laura began, deciding the time was right to wade into the fray.

“No, thank you.” Steve cut her dead, using every last ounce of gentlemanly decency he possessed to iron his tone out to something that resembled politeness.

“Are you sure?” Laura asked, not to be deterred. “I made…”

“I said no.” The harshness of his own voice shocked him and Steve startled, his hand swiping the tankard and splashing a measure of the ale onto the desk. He looked down at the pooling liquid; amber, like the stone that nestled at the bottom of his sock drawer. A tear slid down his cheek before he could swipe it away with his shaking fist.

“Hey!” Clint objected, eyes sharp and posture tense. “Watch your tone.”

Once, Steve would have admired the man for leaping to the defence of his wife. Chivalry and the societal rules of Steve’s time all but demanded it. Now, the captain couldn’t help but dwell on the hypocrisy of it, especially when Hawkeye had been happy enough to let Nat die for him.

He didn’t bother with an apology, however, Laura’s watery yet understanding smile suggested that she wasn’t in the market for one. She nodded at him then steered her son down the hall, back towards the common room where the others were assembling for the agreed upon Christmas meal. Nobody could bear to call it a party this year, what with Tony and Nat.

Steve turned back to his beer.

“You know, she wouldn’t want…”

He had rounded on the archer before he’d realised what he was doing. The first few buttons on Clint’s shirt popped as Steve seized a fistful of material and used it to propel his body around. His back struck the wall. Clint made no move to retaliate, even when Steve lifted and he found his feet dangling off the floor.

“Don’t tell me what she would want,” Steve hissed through a tightly clenched jaw. He leaned in closer, hot and pungent breath ghosting Clint’s cheek. The archer frowned. “You don’t get to do that. She’s dead. She doesn’t want anything, thanks to…”

He stepped back with a pained groan, releasing Clint to clutch at his own chest with both hands. Remorse flickered in his eyes, right on the heels of realisation: painful and plain to see. Clint didn’t meet the captain’s gaze to take it in.

“Thanks to me, right, Steve?” he asked, not quite a challenge. “That’s what you were gonna say.”

The silence was damning.

Clint ducked his head, taking a moment to readjust the collar of his ruined shirt before he pushed off from the wall and headed for the door. Steve didn’t move from his spot in the centre of the room.

For a moment, Clint paused in the hall, head bowed and shoulders tight. When he turned to regard Steve, his expression was schooled into a careful neutrality that was so reminiscent of Natasha that it was as good as any retaliatory punch he could have landed.

“You should take a shower, at least. Wanda will leave you a plate in the refrigerator.”

He had disappeared before Steve could gather enough of his wits to consider responding. Truthfully, the captain was kind of glad of that. There was nothing much he could say to the man who had watched his future sail over the side of a cliff and done little to stop it.

Steve closed his eyes tight against the unwelcome image, gripping the desk at his side to steady himself. The fake wood splintered and cracked under the intensity, and a hunk of IKEA’s finest broke off in his hand. The sound brought him round like a gunshot. He and Natasha had assembled that desk together during the Snap. It was one of his few fond memories of the time. They’d laughed and teased and flirted, then fucked on the finished product when the sexual tension in the room had climbed too high. And now he had ruined it, just like he had ruined her.

Whatever it takes. God, he’d been such a fool. He had swallowed those words a million times over in his head, imagined biting his own tongue bloody so that they couldn’t escape.

Whatever it takes. An order that had carried more weight than he had ever imagined it might.

Whatever. It. Takes. It never should have taken her.

Chapter Text

The fire crackled in the hearth and, though he wasn’t cold, Steve leaned closer to the flames. A hiss, a pop, a spark hitting the brickwork: Steve lost himself in the captivating beauty of it, muted amber and wild orange reflected in his irises. The more he watched, the heavier his lids grew, and it wasn’t long before he felt his eyes slipping closed of their own volition. Sleep beckoned him and – given the heat and quiet and the weariness making his bones heavy – Steve was want to give in to it. Five minutes couldn’t hurt, he told himself, and allowed the back of his head to touch the couch cushion. The reprieve was short lived.

“Getting tired, old man?”

That voice broke the bonds of impending sleep, snapping them clean in half so that Steve could pull free without effort.

“And here I thought I was the one who got to call dibs on exhaustion these days.”

Steve was out of his seat in an instant, arms wide and ready to welcome the redhead into his embrace, where they had discovered she fit so perfectly against the plane of his chest. Like they were always meant to be. It shouldn’t have been so, what with the decades that had separated their births, the nations that had waged war against them, gods and monsters and aliens, plus a tiny stone that had brought them both crashing to the ground from freefall. It shouldn’t have been yet it was. A miracle. The thing that had finally cemented Steve’s faith in the existence of a higher power. Dr. Strange had helped somewhat, but Steve liked to award the lion’s share of the credit to their maker. Of course He had seen fit to return her – a soul for a soul, whole and perfect – after the sacrifice she had so willingly made, because the one thing He understood above all was sacrifice.

“Can I get you anything? Hot chocolate? Blanket? Back rub?” Offers tumbled from Steve’s lips, past the adoring smile that lit up his features every time he glanced in the direction of his wife. It had been almost three years since her return - since he had slipped his mother’s engagement band onto her finger - but he had yet to become accustomed to calling her his wife.

“Nah, I’m good, Rogers. Don’t bust a gut.”

She reciprocated his gentle hug and together they returned to the couch, where she seemed content to watch the flames sizzle, just as Steve had moments before. Now, though, the fire had lost its allure for the captain, and so he instead stared at his partner. The shadows caressed her profile, accentuating full lips and the subtle slope of her nose, and Steve was struck once more by how lucky he was. How lucky they all were. Natasha didn’t belong solely to him, after all, and her resurrection had brought joy to the lives of so many of their found family. She was no longer a ghost, in the more ways than one that she had existed as such throughout her life then subsequent death. Now, Natasha was present, solid, theirs to love limitlessly – and Steve had never been happier.

She shifted her position, mouth contorted into a grimace, and Steve pressed to her side before she had fully figured out the cause of her own discomfort.

“Relax,” she soothed him with a singsong tone, “junior is practicing her pirouettes.”

Her wide smile turned to her belly, mildly but obviously swollen beneath the fabric of her robe. She rested a hand atop the mound, as she had taken to doing recently, and Steve found his concern giving way to excitement. The best Christmas present they could ever receive. Just four months and their child would join the world, not as the legacy of Captain America and the Black Widow, but simply of Steve and Natasha Rogers. There was no more perfect summation of their love.

“You’re pretty set on a girl,” observed Steve, eyes narrowing as he focussed on her stomach, which he skimmed the crest of with a broad palm. Natasha leaned into the contact, smirking when a foot or an elbow or some other such appendage struck out in response to the pressure.

“Mother’s intuition,” she replied, shrugging. Truthfully, it didn’t matter to her either way, as long as their child was healthy. As long as they would grow up safe and loved. She imagined her mother had wished the same for her, once upon a time, before the cruelty of Dreykov and the world had parted them.

“I hope you’re right,” said Steve, pecking the tip of Natasha’s nose with a kiss that drew a chuckle from her. “I want a fiery little redhead with green eyes.”

“One not enough for you?” Nat quipped, opening her arms out in invitation so that Steve could cuddle into her side. He accepted without hesitation and his head was soon rested on her shoulder whilst his hand relaxed into residency upon her stomach.

“Nope. Happy to make a whole soccer team of ‘em,” he teased, hiding his grin in his wife’s shoulder. Though she swatted at him, she didn’t protest. At least not aloud.

“I don’t think you could handle us,” was her final response, along with a scoff.

They sat for a while, enjoying the fire and watching the light reflect off the tinsel they had strung around the mantle. Nat had well and truly decked the halls this year, and Steve wondered if she was viewing the whole thing as a kind of warm up for the following December, when the requirement to make Christmas all the more magical would be upon them. Not that she would ever admit as much.

All things considered, it might be a tall order, given that the pair of them had hardly two normal holidays between them to speak of. Still, Steve was certain they would muddle through this as they had all other things.

It didn’t need to be perfect, as long as they were together - beneath the glow of the fairy lights, in front of the roaring fire, and inside each other’s arms.