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Tony is unconscious when Natasha arrives in Siberia to haul him out of the base. His lips are blue, his cheeks are streaked with frozen tears, and part of her wants to curl up next to him and not move until he wakes. Perhaps, when his eyes open, all will be forgiven and forgotten.
But it is impossible to forget that the Avengers are irreparably broken, regardless of what needs to be mended between her and Tony.
So instead, she lets the rational, good little spy take over. She retracts the suit, throws him over her shoulder with a grunt, and hauls him to one of her safe houses in Switzerland. She tucks him into bed and executes her exit strategy, but not before brushing a gentle kiss over his now-warmed lips.
Regimes fall every day, she tells herself.
But it’s the last, most important member of her second family that she leaves in that tiny mountain house blanketed in snow, ignoring how her heart breaks a little more with every step she takes away from him.
-
Her romance with Tony has never made sense. Anyone who knows them would agree, except Rhodey, who took one look at Tony’s arm around her after Ultron and declared he’d always known it would happen this way. And instead of an interrogation, laughter had ensued at Tony’s best friend’s proclamation, Rhodey giving her an encouraging smile at her grateful look when everyone’s backs were turned.
She has always liked Rhodey.
Sure, Tony and she both have strong personalities, severe PTSD, and hero complexes, but the tension had been building for months until they snapped in the helicarrier after Sokovia. She’s always had a soft spot for him from the moment their eyes caught across the room back when she was Natalie, and it goes without saying that he’s her type: dark-eyed, sardonic, clever. She hates to admit that she likes taking care of him, holding him after nightmares, teaching him to fight without the suit, quietly removing alcohol from the vicinity when he sees the faces of every victim he thinks he’s responsible for not saving. She doesn’t try to change his mind. She knows quite a bit about that kind of guilt.
In return, he gives her a home, listens to her opinions when she offers them, and takes to Russian and her love of operas and old Bond movies like a duck to water. When she decides the penthouse of Avengers Tower is home, she pins up one of the aging, tattered photos of her and Yelena next to the picture of his mom on the fireplace mantle in their bedroom. The rest are secured in separate locations.
He doesn’t ask, and she doesn’t tell. Some things are too sacred for words, but he wraps his arms around her tightly from behind whenever he finds her frozen in front of the photograph.
When she saves Steve and Bucky, he tells her to go. She’s not sure whether he’s afraid of Ross locking her up, or if he genuinely doesn’t want to see her face ever again, or if it’s some uneven combination of the two. She doesn’t stick around to find out.
-
When she sees her sister again, the first person she wants to call is Tony. She shoves that urge deep down inside her heart, right inside of the locked box that has only opened when he called her a traitor and told her to run.
-
Yelena makes her soft. That’s the only reason she has to explain her decision, fingers that never tremble shaking as she dials the private number that only ten people in the world have.
They’re in Budapest at a rest stop, Yelena in the bathroom, when he picks up the line.
“How did you get this number?” He opens with, cold and accusatory. She can hear him asking FRIDAY to trace the call, and she can’t have that.
“Tony,” she greets, simple and short. She doesn’t want him to hear the way her breath hitches at the sound of his voice, but he lets her hear his loud exhale. She wants to believe it's from relief, but she can’t be sure. After she put herself on the line emotionally back at the compound, and he turned her away, she refuses to be vulnerable.
“Nat,” he breathes over the line, calling for FRIDAY to stop the trace and shut down all recording devices. There’s a moment of soft noises and a thump; he’s sitting down. “Where are you?” He asks. She’s sure he meant for his words to be more demanding, but instead, they come out as a plea.
“Unimportant,” she responds, regulating her voice to a tightly controlled monotone. It’s only years of training that keeps her tone steady.
Tony has had no such luxury, and he groans at her answer. “Where are you?” He repeats tightly. She can imagine him, sitting hunched over, clutching his chair because he has no physical phone on which to take out his frustrations.
She closes her eyes at the image before she forces them to reopen. “So you can report to Ross?” She accuses, watching the bathroom door. It would be bad for Yelena to see this, to hear him affecting her so. She can’t face the questioning or the teasing.
There is a long silence over the line as he digests her words. “Is that what you really think?” He asks finally, the anger palatable in his voice. “After everything?”
She has no response to this assertion. She could tell him how hurt she was after he turned her away, how happy she was with him, how regretful she is despite knowing her actions prevented the death or capture of their friends. She can feel her heart cracking open again despite how she just stitched it up; she can’t face both Tony and Yelena’s feelings, their censure. The two people she loves more than anyone else. So she pivots.
“I found my sister,” she says. She tries not to think about the way her voice wobbles, but Tony can obviously hear it, if his next words are any indication.
To his credit, Tony says nothing about her having a sister he’s never heard of. She can almost hear his brilliant mind whirling, knows he’s probably already fixating on that little polaroid on the fireplace. “Oh Nat,” he murmurs, and her heart cracks a little more. “How can I help?” Any trace in his tone of their argument is gone at her confession, and she has to fight back tears. Some ex-Russian assassin.
“Barton and I failed when we tried to destroy the Red Room,” she tells him, as even as she can manage. “We failed, and there are more Widows because of it.” She pauses. “We’re going after it, Tony. All those girls.”
“I’m coming with you,” he says, fiercely and without hesitation.
Her heart stops. This is a response she had not expected, could not expect. “The Accords-”
Tony scoffs. She can hear the faint murmur of FRIDAY’s voice, already performing a mission checklist. “Fuck the Accords. These men are trafficking young girls, right? Girls like you? I don’t give a rat’s ass about jurisdiction, Romanoff.” He stops only to inhale. “If you thought I might, you don’t know me at all,” he adds, clear hurt in his voice.
And he’s right. She’s smarter than that, if she thought Tony’s ego would get in the way of him helping such obvious victims. She smiles despite herself. “We’re still gathering intel,” she tells him, her voice noticeably warmer. She doesn’t apologize, but from the way she hears him exhale over the line, she knows he’s heard one in her tone. “I’ll call if I need the firepower.”
She can hear some fumbling in the background. “Swear to me, Nat,” he says, serious and low.
“I promise,” she says. It might be a lie, this is her fight, but then again, he knows that. Is probably preparing to help her anyways. “And Tony?”
“Yeah?”
There is a long silence before she can find her voice again. “Rhodey…?” She asks quietly, hoping against hope.
He doesn’t make her wait for news, for which she is grateful. A lesser man might hold the fight at the airport over her head. Tony is not a lesser man. “Okay. He’s okay, Natasha. And I know we’re on shaky ground, probably seismic-level shaky, but I was wrong about his… about that being even remotely your fault, ‘kay?”
Natasha closes her eyes for a long moment, relieved that there is no one around to see her small break of composure. Rhodey is Tony’s best friend, but he’s her friend too. To hear that he’s okay is more than she could’ve hoped for, after all the people she’s lost. “Thanks, Tony,” she replies.
Tony is silent for a moment, then: “Kick some Russian ass for me.”
“No can do.”
“Is that right?” He asks. She can hear his smile over the phone.
“No,” she agrees, eyes finding Yelena as she exits the restroom, waving her over. “I’ll kick it for me.”
She hangs up.
“Who was that?” Yelena asks, eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Natasha smirks. “One of the big ones.”
-
Events scale rapidly until Natasha is sitting around a table with her first fake family. She blinks and sees the Avengers, seated around a table eating shawarma in the wake of Loki’s attack. Both fractured, both hurting, both traumatized. Yelena had been right when she said that the Avengers weren’t her family, no matter how much she cared about them. Alexei had been right when he asked her where they are now. Maybe Tony had offered to help, but only after she told him about the human trafficking. Clint, Steve, and Sam are in hiding, and she hasn’t seen Bruce and Thor in a long time.
She wonders if it’s her.
And then Yelena takes one look at her when she tells her nothing was real, and everything shifts.
“Don’t say that,” she begs, broken down, much like Natasha herself. A young girl, still, in a world of powerful, terrible people. “Please don’t say that. It was real. It was real to me.”
How many more girls, Natasha wonders, will live in a world where nothing is real?
Her world is painful, definitely, but it is real. Tony is real. Clint is real. Steve, Bruce, and Thor… all real. Angry at her, maybe, scattered across the universe, definitely, but real.
Yelena… these other Widows… none of their worlds are real. Reality has been stolen from them.
Natasha watches Yelena disappear with her heart in her throat, ignoring Melina as she approaches, apologizing for aiding in their inevitable capture. She stays deep in thought even while strategizing with her fake mother, planning the switch.
“The Red Room is located on a structure not unlike one of your helicarriers,” Melina tells Natasha as she fits a wig over her head. “When I bring it down, a crash is not unlikely.”
“I’m tired of fighting hundreds of feet off the ground,” Natasha says, an uncharacteristic note of whine to her voice, thinking of New York and Sokovia and how at least Sam and Steve were the ones taking care of the helicarriers in DC. Still, that suit Tony keeps trying to push on her is sounding more and more attractive every day.
“Too bad we cannot fly,” Melina snarks in reply, and they share a small moment of commiseration. Natasha can’t help the smile that flickers over her face, thinking of what Tony would quip in response.
He offered, after all. If all it takes is Natasha putting her heart on the line to save the Widows, she can do it. If Yelena can open her heart and tell them their family was real, she can do this.
“Do you have a private line?” She asks.
Melina frowns, but she easily produces a phone. “Of course. Why?”
With a smirk, Natasha flips open the phone, dialing a familiar number. “You said you wanted to fly, and well… I know a guy.”
How many girls? She’s not sure, can’t save them all, but she can save these girls, give them back their choices. And she will.
-
A long time ago, before Sokovia, when this whole thing growing between them was still a secret, he brings her to the roof of the still-being-built Compound, into the small outdoor space that would eventually be set aside for Wanda’s use as a garden. If only plants were enough to heal her years of trauma and the recent loss of her brother, but at the time, they had hoped.
After handing her a beer, Tony sits next to her on the newly installed bench, which is really just a few extra planks of wood nailed together. “So what do you think?” He asks, gesturing to the surrounding buildings.
“It’ll do,” she agrees, before looking over at him. She’s wanted to bring something up for a while, ever since Tony agreed with Steve to build out the Avengers’ resources, and she thinks now is the time. “I know you feel compelled to fund all of this,” she adds, careful, watching his face, “and it will make us stronger.” He makes a noise of assent, and she continues. “But gear and labs and state of the art equipment aside, we’d need Iron Man anyways.”
Tony studies her. “Hm,” he agrees, though he’s clearly also watching for cues from her. She concedes that it’s possible he hadn’t even thought of what she’s concerned about, that throwing money at things he cares about is normal for him. “Iron Man did save your asses in New York, didn’t he?” Natasha’s lips quirk into a smile, but she says nothing. “It’s not thermonuclear astrophysics, Nat,” he adds, nudging her, and her smile widens at his throwback. “Iron Man for the fight, Tony Stark for the money. We need my resources.”
He knows she sees right through him. It’s probably intentional. “Billionaires are a dime a dozen,” she says finally, “for women like me. If I thought you were a liability, we’d be funded by someone else.” She turns to face him in earnest, holding the beer he gave her in both of her hands in her lap. “We need you, Tony. For you.”
“Tony Stark: Not recommended,” he shoots back, and he can’t hide the pain in his voice. Natasha notices and does what she does best: press the bruise.
“And you believe Nick Fury?” she replies easily. “He’s a professional liar.”
“So are you,” he retorts. She can tell he wanted it to come out like a tease, but instead, it’s wrapped in barbed wire.
Natasha shrugs. “Not about this. This matters.” She leans back. “I saw what you were capable of, back then. Even when you thought you were going to die. Did you know I was sent to observe Steve and Bruce too?”
He sits up straighter. He hadn’t known that.
“Believe me when I say that out of all of them, you were the easiest recommendation.” She leans forward again, pressing a gentle kiss to his cheek. “We need you, Tony. I need you. Not your money, not your company, not your suit. They don’t mean anything without you. I hope, one day, you realize I’m telling the truth.”
Then she leaves, and he watches her go, deep in thought.
-
She needs him. It has taken him a long time to realize, but she needs him.
“FRIDAY, let’s suit up.”
“You got it, Boss.”
-
When Yelena goes over the side of the craft, Natasha scoops up a parachute and doesn’t think twice before diving after her. Especially after she sees a flash of red and gold hurtling toward her, in a scenario that they’ve played out many times in training. She’s right, of course, that they always seem to be in the air.
Iron Man catches her around the waist with ease, ignoring her when she tries to squirm free and follow her sister. Luckily, after he lightly touches a familiar weight to her ear, giving her a comm unit, she can easily yell at him.
“She doesn't have a parachute!” She shouts, and after he scans the area below him, he shifts her onto his back.
“Hold on,” he instructs, and his confidence and capable tone through the comms, even through the suit’s filter, is like a balm on her soul after dealing with Dreykov and her Russian family. Tony is a lot, but he’s more familiar than any of it. More competent than anyone else. He’s been the most constant thing for her in the last decade, maybe even her whole life. “FRIDAY, lock in on Yelena.”
“Got it, Boss,” FRIDAY sounds in both of their ears, and Natasha clings to Tony as he’s off like a rocket towards the ground. Natasha closes her eyes against the rush of wind. “Catching target in 3 - 2 -”
Tony’s arms lock around Yelena, who immediately attempts to kick him off.
“Whoa, whoa, Nat, tell your sister I’m cool!”
“Yelena, stop fighting him,” Natasha calls as Tony swerves to avoid falling debris.
“Iron Man?” Yelena calls in shock. “I thought Tony Stark was mad at you!”
Tony laughs. “I’m always a little mad at her, but nah. She made a tough call.” Something tight in Natasha unwinds at how circumspect he’s being, but then, Tony always surprises her with his capacity for hope and forgiveness. Sometimes it’s too easy to forget that the fact he is a good man extends to her. “Plus,” he adds, “it’s bad form to let your girlfriend and her sister fall to their deaths because you’re a little pissed off.”
Oh shit, Natasha thinks. Here we go.
“You’re dating Iron Man?” Yelena exclaims after a shocked pause.
Natasha rolls her eyes. “Is this really the best time for this discussion?” She calls back.
“Who knows when you’re going to disappear for another twenty years?” Yelena snarks in return, ignoring Natasha’s sigh and Tony hum of delight.
“Oh, I like you!” He says, as he slows to hover for a moment so both Widows can reattach themselves to him more safely.
Yelena wraps her arm around Tony’s neck, but she fixes him with a familiar glare. “Watch it, metal man. I’m not sure if I like you yet.” Belying her tone, she clasps her hand over Natasha’s, squeezing tightly.
Natasha wraps her pinky finger around Yelena’s and they share a genuine smile as Tony continues to joke between them. Natasha opens her mouth to reply, but FRIDAY interrupts their party.
“Boss, Agent, there is a hostile heading our way. ETA thirty seconds.”
Tony continues to make for the ground, slow and controlled to keep watch for anything FRIDAY can’t see, but the ground is more than thirty seconds away. “Okay, Widow, what’s the plan?”
“You didn’t happen to bring my prototype, did you?”
She knows if she could see his face, his eyes would be wide. “Oh, this is gonna be so hot.”
“Ew!” Yelena huffs.
“Get used to it,” Tony snarks back, and Natasha wonders if introducing these two is the worst or funniest thing she’s ever done.
-
With her prototype suit, white with red highlights, helmet off so she can make eye contact with a traumatized Antonia, it takes about a minute to subdue Taskmaster and use the Red Dust. When Antonia asks if Dreykov is dead, Natasha presses her forehead to hers and promises that he is. The words are half statement, half apology.
She hears the soft thud of Iron Man landing behind her. Tony’s never been the most thoughtful when she’s busy and he wants to talk to her, but he hangs back while she embraces Yelena and swears not to leave her again, nearly crumbling when tears well in Yelena’s eyes. She makes eye contact with Tony, who has retracted his helmet, over her sister’s shoulder, and she thinks it is that which keeps her standing.
It makes sense for Tony to be her strength.
Yelena gives her a knowing look when they separate, turning to help Antonia to her feet. Sirens sound in the distance, but the Widows land close enough to them in the field that Ross won’t be a problem.
They probably have less than five minutes, she thinks, stepping toward Tony. “Dreykov is dead, then?” He asks, moving until they’re so close she can feel his breath on her face.
She nods with a dark sense of satisfaction, waiting for him to look away from the knowledge of the blood she has happily split. Instead, he steps closer, covering the nape of her neck with his armor-covered hand, pressing his forehead to hers. “I’m proud of you, Natasha,” he murmurs. “You did the right thing.”
She breathes, and maybe he can sense that it’s all becoming too much, so he steps back. “So, star-crossed lovers, huh?” He redirects, smirking. When she raises an eyebrow, he clarifies. “Me, a law abiding citizen. You, an international criminal. Five minutes to figure it all out before the feds roll in.”
She doesn’t tease back. “Thank you,” she says, looking down then back up. As exposed as she feels right now, she wants to look into his eyes until she can’t anymore. “I never told you about any of this, and you still came.”
“It was the right thing to do,” he says. She looks away; that’s true, but not exactly what she hoped to hear. “No,” he corrects himself. “Fuck that. I love you, Natasha Romanoff. It could’ve been the wrong thing, but I wouldn’t have cared because it’s you, and you saved me when we met and - I suspect - saved me in Siberia too, and every day in between.”
“Tony-” She pleads. She’s not sure what she’s pleading for, but she feels her heart overflowing. It’s not fair that he gets this power over her, the power to make her feel too much. She has survived Antonia and Yelena, but now, with Tony, she wants to collapse and let him take care of the rest of it.
“Do you remember, on that roof, when you told me that you needed me, not my money, not the suit?” He asks. She nods. “It’s the same for you. I need you, Natasha, body and soul. I’m sorry about how I reacted,” he cuts her off, eyes open with honesty, reaching for her hands. “You’re not a double agent. You’re a hero, and I don’t care how many times we choose different sides or how long I have to wait for you to come home. I’ll love you through it all.”
Natasha opens her mouth to respond or maybe jump into his arms, who knows, when a grating voice comes from behind her. “Whoa, whoa, who is this?” Alexei says, tone vaguely threatening.
Tony raises a repulsor, his suit powering up with a faint whining sound, and he winds his arm around Natasha’s waist and pulls her to his side. His eyes clock Antonia and Yelena, and Natasha smiles at how instantly protective he is of them both. “Widow-” he begins, entering a familiar fight mode.
She pulls his arm down to his side, and he powers down quickly with her nonverbal guidance. “Tony, these are two ex-Russian agents that pretended to be my parents for three years. They helped take down Dreykov.”
Tony doesn’t move his arm from her waist. “Nice to meet you,” he says evenly. He’s too old to fear meeting the parents, even if the parents are Russian assassins.
“Tony Stark is in love with you?” Melina accuses. “He can fly! Is this who you called? Where the hell has he been this whole time?”
“Melina,” Natasha warns.
“Oh, so it’s you I have to thank for her trust issues and difficulty expressing her emotions?” Tony deadpans.
“Tony!”
Scoffing, Tony turns and raises an eyebrow at her warning expression. “What, like if you had a chance to meet my dad I wouldn’t have to hold you back? Get real.”
“We’ve… settled our differences,” she says, nodding at Melina.
“If you hurt my daughter, I will end you,” Alexei says, but Tony’s eyes are fixed on Melina, whose expression is more threatening than Alexei’s words could ever be.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he replies, but he’s still looking at Melina. “Now, you all need to get out of here. Somewhere without an extradition treaty with either America or Russia.”
“Does he really think those are the only countries we’ve pissed off?” Yelena murmurs under her breath.
“I’m calling T’Challa,” Tony says, acting like he couldn’t hear her. “He can help you disseminate the serum to the rest of the Widows; I’ll also work on it from my lab. Maybe something atmospheric… Anyways, I’ll take care of old Ross here. I’m calling this an Avengers’ operation; I’ll need to call in Vision-”
Natasha cuts him off in the best way she knows how: by pressing up on her tiptoes and kissing him. He kisses her back, short and infinitely sweet, before pulling back to fix her with a worried expression. “Keep the suit on until you reach Wakanda,” he demands. “Promise me. My heart can’t take it for at least the next twenty-four hours. Maybe years.”
“She will!” Alexei calls.
“I will,” Natasha repeats with a smile. “I’ll see you soon.”
Tony hums, embracing her once more before he has to let her go. He swears to himself that the next time she’s in his arms, it’ll be for keeps.
-
Days later, they meet on the roof of Avengers Tower. With the help of a terrifyingly good PR team headed by Pepper Potts, T’Challa’s vouch, and a neat signature, Natasha’s name is cleared, if not with the entire United Nations - Russia, for obvious reasons, is not happy - then at least with the United States - that for other obvious reasons, is happy that she’s taken down a pro-Russian spy program.
Melina and Alexei had parted with them days ago, happy to return to their lives now that the former is free of Dreykov and the latter is free of prison. Yelena, determined to free the rest of the Widows, had to be convinced to join Tony and Natasha in the US to continue to work out a plan. Shuri is also on it, helping the Widows recuperate in Wakanda, many of whom have pledged to stay in the country that has aided them and protect it with their lives. The two of them can be found frequently video conferencing, and Natasha is relieved to see her sister befriend someone new.
The roof isn’t as private as the roof at the Compound, Natasha thinks, but it’ll do. Tony holds out a beer, and she takes it, clinking her bottle with his. “Can this be the end, for a while? For us?” Tony teases. “I’m too old for spontaneous trips abroad.”
She smiles faintly at his jokes, just happy to be here with him, listening to his familiar rambling. “I know what you mean,” she says, tucking her head in the space between his neck and shoulder.
“I’m serious, Nat. I’ll sell all my shit, give Pep the company, ditch the world saving, just for a year where the only thing we have to fight about is who sleeps on the right side of the bed.”
“That’s impossible,” she says, tone direct and emotionless.
He looks taken aback. She can tell he is hurt, even though he characteristically presented his yearning as a joke. “Nat…”
“Obviously I get the right side of the bed,” she says, cracking a smile. “You’re the one that sneaks out of our room in the middle of the night to build robots. You should be near the door.”
Tony relaxes and laughs, pressing a kiss to her temple. “You got me. Okay, we’re not even fighting about the bed. Then what do we fight about?”
“Nothing,” she says, soft and vulnerable, reaching up and kissing him on the cheek. They might never be done fighting for the safety of the world, she thinks, but she’s done pretending this man is not the end of all her endings. Whatever happens, they will be together. “Absolutely nothing.”