Chapter Text
—
Nat approaches the stolen quinjet, the summer breeze teasing her freshly dyed platinum bob as she says her goodbyes to Mason.
“Where are you gonna go?”
Nat has been pondering that question for a few days herself. She knows that she’s still a fugitive and she has to lay low for a while, and let the uproar sparked by the events of the past two weeks blow over a bit. She smiles and looks back at the jet.
“It’s funny, my whole life I didn’t think I had any family. Turns out, I’ve got two, so…” Over the past few weeks, Nat’s felt a sort of emptiness. She hadn’t realized just how much the Avengers really meant to her until she didn’t have them anymore. “One of them’s a bit of a mess right now, I’m gonna go break a few of them out of prison, see if I can’t help patch things up.”
She sighs, giving a last nod to her friend before turning and walking away.
—
A few hours later, Nat’s sitting thoughtfully in the pilot seat, feet propped up next to the controls. After setting course and putting the jet on autopilot, she’s had a lot of time to think, and she’s beginning to feel her nerves about seeing her former teammates again to the fullest extent. After all, she’d chosen a different side when it came to the whole accords situation and fought them in Leipzig. She’s not sure if they’ll accept her again when she comes crawling back. Wanda, Clint, Sam – they’re some of her closest – her only – friends, and she doesn’t know if they’ve forgiven her yet, or if they ever will.
But if she’s being honest, the person she’s most worried to see again is Steve. The two of them had grown close after working together as SHIELD operatives for two years, and then subsequently taking down HYDRA and the Winter Soldier largely on their own, nearly losing their lives in the process (multiple times) . An unlikely pairing – the cynical, morally-grey former KGB operative and America’s golden boy, who still saw the world as black and white. No one would’ve ever thought they’d become what they were, but he challenged her, taught her how to trust and open up to people, and now he means more to her than probably anyone on Earth. She doesn’t know what she would do if he rejected her efforts to make amends. The one person she never wanted to disappoint, but she’d seen it on his face when he realized that she wasn’t siding with him like he’d come to expect. It’d hurt to choose Tony’s side over Steve’s when it came to the accords, as she of all people knows how corrupt a government can be, but she’d made the best choice she could at the time to keep her family together. Of course, that wasn’t the outcome, and now she’d maybe lost the few people she’d ever called friends. And yes, she’d ultimately let Steve and Bucky go in the end, but would it be enough for him to forgive her?
Suddenly, the faint outline of the Raft prison comes into view. “Good God”, she mutters. “this is a bit overkill, don’t you think, Ross?” It hits her then that she hadn’t really formulated a plan before taking off. This is going to be a lot harder than she’d thought.
—
Activating the reflective panels, circles the perimeter and concludes that there aren’t any guards in the immediate area. She touches down as softly as she can near the edge of the floating structure.She’s thankful for the cloak offered by the midnight sky as she makes her way to the nearest window. On her way she spots the glimmer of another cloaked quinjet a few hundred feet away. Someone’s already here… she thinks, and her brain is already starting to put the pieces together.
Of course the window’s locked. Why wouldn’t it be? Natasha kicks the glass hard with the heel of her boot a few times, and once the glass is cleared away, (really, she thinks, you put millions of dollars into this place and you couldn’t afford to install stronger windows?) she slowly squeezes her way through the small opening. She lands on her feet at the end of a dimly lit hallway, and she sees what she assumes was the main control room at the opposite end. Perfect.
—
She cautiously makes her way towards the center of the floor, glancing down each branching hallway and sneaking past a few guards before they can see her. She halts – her breath catching in her throat as she sees her former leader and friend hunched over what appears to be the surveillance system, surrounded by unconscious men – those unlucky enough to have been on duty when he arrived.
As if on cue, Steve whips around, his super-soldier hearing probably picking up on her barely-audible footsteps, and trains his gun on her. Nat, caught off guard, immediately raises both hands above her head. “Steve, it's me.”
“Nat?” He looks confused as he slowly lowers his weapon, which she attributes to the combination of her new hair-do and the fact that she’s shown up here unannounced after being MIA to the world – to him – for almost three weeks. “Hey.”
For the first time in a long time, she’s at a loss for words. After years of working together, her and Steve had developed an easy rapport, but whatever had once made conversation effortless between them was failing her now.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Nat returns her hands to her sides and begins to narrow the gap between them. “I figured you’d be hiding out with Bucky in Siberia or something.” Steve seems to suddenly remember that he has feet, too, and starts towards her, an anguished look on his face. “Steve, I’m so-”
The rest of her sentence disappears on her lips as she’s pulled into a crushing hug. She hesitates only briefly before returning the embrace, sliding her arms around the broad expanse of his back and burying her face in his shirt as she lets out a shaky breath, the tension leaving her shoulders in the way it only ever does with him.
“I thought you were dead. It was all over the news, I-” Steve pauses, his emotions – threatening to spill over as he takes a slow breath to ground himself.
“-I’m okay, I promise.”
Steve pulls back, his eyes scanning her body from her head to her feet– presumably checking for visible injuries – before returning to her face, giving her an incredulous look before dropping it (for now). “We’ll see.”
“Look, we probably don’t have much time before Ross figures out we’re here and sends in reinforcements, so we should hurry this up.” Nat moves by Steve back into the control room, gesturing for him to follow her, and looks up at the wall of screens, where she sees that a number of them are static. Steve’s been busy, she thinks. “Have you figured out where he’s keeping them?”
Steve appears at her side a second later. “Well, three of them are together in the main cell area – that's a floor down from here. Shouldn’t be too hard to handle. But with Wanda’s powers, he must’ve taken extra precautions. She’s…” He gestures up to the top right corner of the wall, and a lump forms in Nat’s throat as she follows the line of his finger. “Jesus Christ,” she mutters on an exhale. “that’s gonna complicate things.”
“They’re keeping her on the bottom level, sublevel 3. It’s probably gonna be the most heavily guarded. We should split up. Nat, if you’ll handle the other three, I can get Wanda.”
“Nonsense, Cap. We both know I’m better at getting in and out of places undetected, subtle isn’t exactly your mode.” She retorts, one corner of her mouth curling upward as she peeks at him. He turns fully to look at her with an uneasy expression.
“I don’t know if that's such a good idea, Nat. You have no clue what you might be walking into,” Before she can defend herself, Steve continues “but,” – he sucks in a breath – “if you think you can handle yourself, I trust you.”
Nat nods, ignoring the way his last words send a jolt through her stomach. “I can.”
“Okay.”
He digs in his jacket pocket and hands her an earpiece. “I figured I should have a set, just in case.” She takes it and secures it in her right ear. “You should be live.” He places the other in his own ear and taps it once. “Secure channel 3?”
“3 secure.” She smiles at him briefly. She’d forgotten how much she’s missed going on missions with just him. This, in a way, brings back old memories of their time as partners, before everything with SHIELD (and HYDRA) went to shit.
“Call it in if anything goes wrong.” He emphasizes. “If I don’t hear anything before I’m finished, I’ll assume everything’s fine, and I’ll meet you at the quinjet.”
“Roger.” She moves to leave, then pauses, placing a steady hand on his shoulder. “Be careful.” She urges, meeting his eyes. He holds her gaze with equal intensity.
“You too.”
—