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Steve felt dirty. Physically, emotionally and mentally. The sweat from the workout he had gotten splitting wood had stained his tank top, and he felt like his hair had a layer of grime on top of it. His mood, too, was stained by annoyance at teammates who didn’t feel the need to share things with him and who kept secrets by the truckload, who didn’t seem to understand that in order to work together, they needed to trust each other, and in order to trust each other, they needed to stop hiding things like wives and killer robots they just happened to build.
Honestly, Steve just needed to shower, to get in under the spray and wash this whole entire mess off of him. He wished he could shower off this whole situation and wake up clean in his warm bed back in D.C., back when he could spend his days with people he actually trusted, but he’d start with just getting clean.
He opened the door of his room, clothes and towel in hand, and trudged down the hall. Of course the bathroom nearest his room was locked, the light under the door on. Probably Tony using up all the hot water on purpose just to spite him.
Steve glowered and headed to the other bathroom on the opposite side of the house, the one connected to the bedroom Bruce was staying in.
The door was open. He leaned his head in and looked around.
Perfect. No one in the room, no light under the door, no noise of water running. He knocked just in case, but only silence answered.
Thank goodness. It was about time something went right for him.
He opened the door and walked in, making sure to lock it behind him, then placing his stuff down on the counter. He turned around to face the shower, intending to head over and turn the spray on.
Instead, he practically leapt out of his skin.
“Jesus Christ, Nat! How did you get there?” He pressed his hand over his chest, his heart still thumping a little wildly. “You could have said something, you kno--”
The words died on his lips as he looked at her. Really looked at her. He felt the quick flash of anger and annoyance fade away like water down the drain.
She was sitting in the corner of the shower, naked and shivering, knees pulled to her chest. Her hair was still dripping water, and her arms and legs were covered in remnants of moisture, like she hadn’t turned the water off all that long ago. But it was her face that he couldn’t look away from. She was staring at him, eyes wide, and there were tears — actual real tears — on her cheeks.
He had never seen Natasha cry before. At least not really. He’d seen her eyes glisten a couple of times, and he’d seen her shaken when Fury died, but he had never seen her really cry. Especially not after a mission. He’d seen her punch a training bag a little harder than normal, he’d seen her disappear for hours to do whatever it was she needed to do, he’d even seen her practically bite the heads off of people who looked at her the wrong way when she was having a bad day. He’d seen her upset and frustrated, and he’d seen those quiet moments, like in Sam’s guest room when they were on the run, when she actually let her guard down and let herself be vulnerable, but he had never seen her do anything that was close to crying. He had started to think she didn’t cry at all, like maybe it was also something the Red Room had trained out of her.
He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Nat?” She didn’t look like she was moving any time soon. He took a step toward her, dropped down to a crouch so he’d be more level with her. “Are you okay? Are you hurt? Do you need me to get someone for you?”
He wasn’t actually sure she was going to answer, and his mind was already starting to race. Maybe it was some kind of shock from the witch’s powers earlier. She was shaking pretty hard. Or maybe she had gotten injured and hadn’t told anyone. It wouldn’t have been the first time that happened. Or maybe it was …. Well, he didn’t know what it maybe was. Maybe he should get Clint. Or Laura. She was a woman. Maybe Natasha would feel more comfortable with her. Or Bruce. Natasha liked Bruce, right?
But then she moved. She shook her head, water droplets flinging off her damp hair and on to him as her lips curved up into a tiny smile that didn’t go anywhere past her lips.
“I’m just peachy,” she said, and for as awful as she looked, he could hear a bit of her normal smirk in her voice. “Thanks for dropping by, Rogers.”
“Yeahhhhh,” he said, letting out a whoosh of breath. “I’m not going to buy that. You want to tell me what’s going on, or do you want me to go get Clint?”
Natasha’s eyes narrowed instantly, lips pursed, but her glare didn’t have nearly as much force to it as normal. It probably had something to do with the fact that curled up into herself as she was, she looked a whole lot smaller and more fragile than he’d ever seen her.
He waited for her to make a decision, eyes on her eyes, his head titled slightly, not moving at all. Finally, she stopped glaring. Instead, she sighed and leaned her head back against the shower wall, her eyes flickering close.
“Just a hard day,” she whispered, her voice hitching — just barely — on the last word.
He spoke slowly in answer. “Yeah. I get that. But we have a lot of hard days.”
“This one was just harder.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She opened her eyes to meet his again. “Do you?”
Steve frowned. She tilted her head toward him and smiled again, this one a little more real than the last one. He could still see the tears glistening on her cheeks, though, and her eyes were still watery. She continued: “The last time I saw you looking so unkempt, Captain Rogers, we were running for our lives from Hydra, and I think we had just survived a bomb blast.”
Steve snorted. “Oh, the good ol’ days,” he said sarcastically. “I miss them.” Then he added. “You do realize I was coming to take a shower, right?”
“Well, don’t worry, Rogers, the hot water has been long gone.”
“By you?”
A beat passed. Then she shook her head again, spraying him once more with water droplets. He opened his mouth to tell her that wasn’t funny, but she had turned her head to look away from him.
“No,” she said softy, and he couldn’t tell if she sounded sad or bitter. “Not me at all.” Another pause. “It’s definitely not me.”
Her voice sounded oddly hollow. And then she did something horrible.
She made a choked sort of sound in the back of her throat and pressed a hand to her face. Steve stared at her, trying to figure out what the heck was happening, and then he noticed the slight trembling in her shoulders that was more than the shivering she had been doing since he spotted her.
Damn it.
“Natasha?” He reached out a hand to touch her, but centimeters away from her shoulder, he stopped, his hand wavering in the air, undecided if making physical contact would actually hurt or help. It wasn’t like they had ever had that type of relationship, and he didn’t think she actually wanted him to touch her, but she wasn’t looking at him, and he had never seen her more vulnerable.
It occurred to him then just how awkward this situation was. With her hand to her face, she had shifted in such a way that he found his eyes drifting down to her bare breasts, still slightly damp from her shower, her pink nipples half hard in the cold air.
But no … this was so wrong. He couldn’t look at her like that.
He sprang to his feet, face flushed. If Natasha noticed — well, of course Natasha noticed. She noticed everything — she didn’t show it. He looked around to see if she had left a towel anywhere, finally noticing a blue one folded neatly on top of the toilet.
He grabbed it quickly, snapping it open, and headed back over to her. He bent down again and paused, then, “Natasha?” he said. “Come here.”
She pulled her hand away from her face, turning to him. He watched as water continued to drip off the bottoms of her hair and slide down her shoulders and her chest.
“I can dry myself, you know,” she said wryly. “I’ve taken showers on my own for years. Or did you think I suddenly forgot how?”
“Ha ha,” he said. “We’re not done talking.”
“We weren’t talking.”
“Romanoff …”
“Rogers …”
He sighed. “Natasha,” he said. “Come on. Just take the towel. I’m not going to let you just sit in the shower all day. If anything, I need to take one, and I’m not going to do it with you sitting there.”
“Why not, Captain? Got something you don’t want me to see?” Her lips curved up again, but like before, the effect was lost when there were remnants of tears on her face.
He waved the towel in her direction. “You want to take this? Or do I have to come get you?”
“I’d like to see you try.”
Steve closed his eyes for a second, pressing one hand to the bridge of his nose. Part of him just wanted to walk away, to leave her to deal with whatever it was she was dealing with in her own way. She was a master at not letting people in and taking care of herself, so he didn’t doubt she’d be fine. And Clint was around. Or Laura. Or Bruce. If she needed someone, she could talk to them.
He could just drop the towel, walk away, go yell at Tony to stop hogging the bathroom and deal with his own shit so they could deal with this huge Ultron mess they found themselves in. He could spend his time trying to figure out what he needed, not what a stubborn assassin who lies more easily than she breathes needed.
Except he couldn’t. Not because she was his teammate. Not because he was in charge and the leader of this team, and he couldn’t walk away from any of them. Not because she was, maybe, something sort of akin to a friend. Not because she had once been his partner. Not because they had shared something no one else could ever understand on those few days when they had been on the run. Not even because she obviously was upset and hurting, and he couldn’t walk away from anyone like that.
But because she was Natasha. Because even in her defiance, there was something in the way she was looking at him that made him not able to turn away. Because behind the lies and the incredible confidence and her steely resolve, there was still a woman who sometimes didn’t think she was good enough, and it hurt Steve’s heart every time she even hinted that she felt that way.
And also because when he looked at her, and talked to her, and laughed with her, something inside him stirred that he didn’t want to think about right now, or maybe ever, but it also meant he couldn’t walk away, he couldn’t go take a shower and forget, no matter how much he wanted to.
So instead he met her dare. He stood up a little and darted forward, draping the towel around her and scooping her up into his arms, bridal style, before she even had a chance to protest. She gave a surprised sort of gasp as he settled her close to his chest, but she didn’t fight him.
Instead she let him carry her out of the bathroom, back down the hall and into the room Clint and Laura had given her — the room he actually suspected she normally stayed in when she came to visit them because some of the clothes he could see hanging in the closet were definitely hers and none of the rest of them had come with luggage.
He was glad no one else had been upstairs to see them, although he wasn’t really sure if that was more for her sake or for his. He shook his head to get the thought from his mind and set her down on the bed, making sure the towel kept her covered. She looked up at him, smirking, still a little half-heartedly, but there was affection showing on her face this time. “If you wanted to get me naked in bed, there were other ways you could have tried.”
Steve prayed his face didn’t reflect the flush he thought he could feel turning his face red. “Romanoff …”
“I’m kidding, Rogers.” And the humor was gone just like that, like a switch that had been turned off. “Apparently me, naked, isn’t something anyone around here wants to see.”
He frowned. “What?”
“Nothing.” She adjusted the towel around her, even though it had been fine to start with. “You can go shower now. The bathroom’s free.”
“You haven’t told me what’s wrong.”
“I’m not going to. And I think you know that.”
“Natasha.” He stared at her. She stared back. An unspoken challenge. He could almost see the walls going up behind her eyes, the guards she usually had locking back in place. He wasn’t sure what exactly he had said wrong, or what he done, and he knew — knew — she wasn’t okay, but he could read the signs, could see the tension in her body, and he wasn’t looking for a fight. Not with her. Not now.
“Okay,” he softly. “But come find me if you need me.” He tried to smile. “You know where I am.” He turned and headed toward the door, but before he slipped back into the hall, he glanced back over his shoulder.
“I just want you to be okay,” he told her. “Whatever you’re upset about, whoever hurt you … I just want you to be okay.”
He didn’t wait for her answer — not that he thought she was going to answer — just turned and walked back down the hall to finally take that shower he really, really needed.
•••
He thought at first he was still dreaming. It had been an uneasy sleep ever since he got in bed — dreams mixed with memories. Of Peggy. Of Bucky. Of lips touching, hands caressing. Of laughing. Of crying. Bucky falling, Peggy calling for him, of running down the street because he needed to get to the dance. Of Peggy beside him. “It’s over,” she kept saying. “It’s time to go home now.”
And then the scene shifted. And he was in the Barton farmhouse. Arms around him, lips against his neck, a warm body against him.
He blinked in the dark and almost started, his body jerking with the realization that the dreams had stopped.
She lifted her head, her face catching the glow of the moonlight pouring through the window behind them. She looked tired, sad. It was too dark to tell if the signs of her tears, or of new tears, were still there.
She had clothes on this time, at least, flannel pajamas that looked like they were probably Clint’s from the way they were hanging off of her.
“Nat?” he said softly. He wasn’t sure if he should move, even though her one arm was still wrapped around his chest and she was partially on top of him. “What are you doing here?”
“You said I could come find you,” she answered, then a pause. “Did you not mean now?”
He wasn’t sure if she was joking or not, if she would disappear in an instant if he said the wrong thing. Heck, he wasn’t really even sure why she was actually here. She’d never chosen to talk to him before, especially not when Clint was just a room away.
He decided to err on the side of caution. “No, I meant exactly now,” he told her. “Wasn’t doing anything else important.”
A small laugh escaped her, and she settled back down beside him, her head against his shoulder, making it so he couldn’t really see her face. “I figured as much,” she said.
He waited a few moments to see if she was going to say more, but she just breathed softly beside him, her fingers aimlessly drawing patterns on his chest. He’d never been quite so close to her — at least like this — before. He tried not to think about how nice it felt.
He focused instead on her. She wouldn’t be here if she was okay. That was for sure. “You want to talk about it?”
“Tell me about yours.”
He didn’t ask her what she meant. He knew she was referring to the visions from the Scarlett Witch. He lifted the arm she wasn’t lying against and placed it on her back, rubbing her gently. She didn’t protest, just seemed to be waiting, so he didn’t stop.
“It was before,” he started. “Before now. There was a dance. Peggy was there. We were going to have that dance …” He trailed off for a second, the vision suddenly clear and alive again in his head. Natasha shifted, her arm wrapping tighter across his chest, her head burying just a little deeper into his shoulder. He almost had a feeling it was her way of hugging him.
He went on. “And then it was over. Everyone was gone. My chance was gone. Peggy was still there, though, telling me we could go home. But I knew — knew — that we couldn’t. That I couldn’t. There’s no home for me now.”
He took a deep breath. “It wasn’t real, though. It was more like a dream.”
“Mine was real.” She said it so simply, so plainly. He found himself subconsciously pressing her tighter against him.
“Tell me,” he whispered. His fingers moved to her head, tangled in her curls. “If you want. It’s okay.”
“None of it is okay,” Natasha whispered into his chest.
“I know.” He twirled a strand of hair around his finger. “You were in the Red Room.” He was careful not to phrase it as a question. He’d learned it was better most times to not give her a chance to deny it, and this way she wouldn’t have to tell him that was what it was about. Natasha’s past haunted her as much as his haunted him.
“Yeah,” she breathed, her voice a faint wisp in the dark.
“Training?” This time it was a question.
“Something like that.” She let go of her grip on his chest, moved to place her hand flat against him instead. He felt her start to draw lines down his abs. “I tried to fail.”
“In your vision?” As soon as the words left his lips, he remembered what she’d said about it being real. “Oh.”
“They didn’t let me.”
“How didn’t they let you?” His voice tightened.
“They have a graduation ceremony.”
“I’m guessing they don’t let you wear caps and gowns and walk down an aisle to some orchestral music?”
She laughed, but there was no mirth in it. “They sterilized me.”
His fingers tightened in her hair. The air got stuck in his lungs. Natasha continued to trace a line down his chest. His mind spun. What do you even say to that? Say to her? He tightened his hold around her.
She kept talking. “They wanted to make it easier to kill. They wanted to make us monsters.”
Now he knew what to say. “Too bad they failed.”
Her fingers stopped moving. “Did they?” Her voice came out steady, but he could hear something behind it.
“Absolutely.” He turned his head, shifted a little, pressed a kiss to her temple. “You, Natalia Romanova, are the best person I know.”
She snorted against him. “You, Steve Rogers, need to meet more people.”
He went back to rubbing her back. “No, I don’t. I’ve met plenty.” He paused for a second, just feeling her against him. “And you know I’m always honest.”
She was quiet. Her fingers resumed their journey up and down his body. Finally, she sighed. “You don’t know what I’ve done.”
“I don’t need to know what you’ve done. I know who you are.”
“That’s funny coming from you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He kept his tone level, keeping it as a genuine question, not an accusation.
He felt her shrug. “Aren’t you always saying your past is what helped make you who you are?”
“It helped make you, Natasha, not define you.”
“Rogers …”
“I’m serious.” He slid his hands to her hips before using the strength in his arms to shift her more over him until she was lying on his chest. She quirked a brow at him, but he just smiled, tucking a finger under her chin and tilting it up so she would keep looking at him. “You know what defines you?”
“The fact that I’m a killer?”
“The fact that you’re not.”
“Rogers, I kill people all the time. You’re with me for most of them.”
“And I’ve never seen you hurt someone who doesn’t deserve it.” He moved his finger away from her chin, reached up and pushed her hair out of her eyes. “You’re not responsible for who they tried to make you be. But you are responsible for the girl who got out. And that girl? She’s pretty damn awesome.”
Natasha rolled her eyes. “Language, Rogers.”
“She’s pretty fucking awesome?”
Natasha gasped, widening her eyes in mock horror. “Rogers! How scandalous!”
He leaned up and pecked her quickly on the forehead. “I know you don’t believe me,” he told her.
“You’re an idealistic sap,” she said, but for the first time all day, her smile actually reached her eyes. “What would you say if I said it was too far to go back to my room?”
“Are you really giving me a choice?”
“Of course not.”
“Then I’d say you better not kick me. I might heal fast, but it still hurts.”
“You know I can’t help what I do in my sleep.”
“I don’t know. I’ve seen you wake up because someone breathed your name wrong.”
She smirked, a real smirk this time. “Scoot over, Rogers, I need some room.”
He shifted to the side, letting her slide off him. She didn’t go far, though. She curled up next to him, her head once more against his shoulder. Too close to her foot for comfort, but somehow he realized he didn’t mind.
He placed his hand on top of hers that was still on top of his chest.
“Night, Rogers,” she murmured softly.
“Night, Romanoff.”