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She let Steve find her four months after everything went down at the airport in Germany. She was holed up in a small, non-descript apartment that looked like every other apartment in the South American city she had been staying in for six weeks.
He knocked on the door, ever so polite, and she let him in because she knew he would find her and knew he would come.
“It’s nice in Wakanda,” he said to her later that evening. “As nice as it can be since we can’t go home. You should come.”
She smiled wryly. “I doubt I’m invited.”
“T’Challa said to tell you he’s saved you a very nice room.”
Natasha raised an eyebrow. “I shot him with my Widow’s bite.”
“He thinks you’re a ferocious fighter.”
“He tried to have me arrested.”
“Things change, Nat. You know that.”
She did know that. Only too well.
“Come back with me, Natasha,” Steve said now, imploringly. “It’s safe there. You and T’Challa can work things out.”
“I’m fine on my own. I like it here.”
“If that was true, you wouldn’t have let me find you.”
Natasha pressed her lips together. Sometimes she hated how much people had grown to know her, after she had spent so much of her life making sure no one ever did. Yes, she had let Steve find her — she’d almost made it easy for him to do so — but that didn’t mean she liked that he knew she let him. But more than that, she didn’t like the way she was feeling now that he was here, looking at her like he had missed her, telling her the others missed her too.
She didn’t want to have missed him. She didn’t want to have missed any of them. She had wanted him to find her so she could hear straight from him how everyone was doing, to make sure they were really okay. And maybe she had wanted a moment of her old life back. But that was it. Just a moment.
At least that’s what she had told herself, as she had waited for Steve to show up.
Don’t get attached, her handlers used to tell when she was a child, over and over and over. Don’t make friends. Don’t ever care about anyone. It had been drilled into her head since she was small.
It was still hard to not think of herself as a failure because she had.
“I suppose I could come.” She let the words slip out, made it seem like she didn’t really have a choice. She didn’t miss the satisfied expression that flickered on Steve’s face, though.
“Everyone would like that.” He grinned at her. “T’Challa would like that, too.”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t push it, Steve. I’m not going to believe everything you tell me.”
•••
King T’Challa was waiting for her, sitting on a throne at the end of a long room. She felt like she had been called in front of a headmaster to be scolded.
She wasn’t sure what she had imagined it would be like when she saw him again, but it wasn’t this. He had seemed so un-regal to her when she’d met him. So down-to-earth. But she had not really known the side of the man who was king.
She walked toward him now, her head held high, stopping a few feet in front of him.
“King T’Challa,” she greeted him.
“Miss Romanoff.”
She gestured to the throne. “Am I supposed to bow?”
“Only if you want to, but I don’t recommend it.” T’Challa stood up, walked toward her. A small smile played on his lips. “Formalities,” he said. “I do not like them, but I must keep up my duties.”
Natasha nodded. “I understand that,” she said.
“I know that you do.”
His eyes were almost boring into hers. She had the urge to look down, away from him, except she wouldn’t. She wasn’t intimidated by anyone. But she knew she did owe him something.
She took a quick breath, steeled herself. “I’m not going to apologize,” she started, “for making the choice I made.” She lifted her chin a little higher, almost daring him to disagree with her. “But I am sorry for attacking you. I’m sorry for hurting you.”
“You did not hurt me.”
“I still should not have done it.”
“And I should not have turned you in.” T’Challa nodded his head slightly at that. “I know these past months must have been hard for you.”
“You did what you had to do.”
“So did you.”
“Yes,” she allowed, then, “Thank you for inviting me here.”
“It is the least I could do.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“Perhaps,” T’Challa said. “But I have gotten to know your friends. And if I can help protect them, I can help protect you.”
“I don’t need protection.” The words were out of her mouth before she could think them through.
“Maybe not,” he allowed, “But you also don’t need to play cat-and-mouse from the United Nations. They will not touch you here.”
She wasn’t sure what to say to that. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, she had wanted to stop running. And as much as she really didn’t want to admit it, she was happier being back with everyone else. But she was not about to tell anyone, let alone the man who had helped send her on the run, that.
She settled on a simple, “Thank you.”
T’Challa was still looking at her, his eyes still boring into her, almost like he was studying her. “You are a very talented fighter,” he said, after a few moments. “I would like to engage in a more fair fight one of these days.”
Natasha blinked. “You want to fight me?”
“I won’t hurt you. I’ve been sparring with the rest of the team.”
She let a smile form on her lips. “Oh, it’s not me you should worry about getting hurt.”
•••
Two days later, Natasha desperately wished she could take her words back. The only thing saving her from total humiliation was the fact that when she showed up for dinner on crutches and with her ankle wrapped in a bandage, a very chagrined looking T’Challa following along behind her as though he thought she might break, no one — not even Clint — said anything.
“I did not mean to hurt you,” T’Challa apologized for the tenth time, as he helped her into her chair. She shrugged it off.
“It’s my own fault.”
It had been. She had lost focus, gotten too close to the edge. She should never have been in a position to fall in the first place. It was mortifying really. An amateur mistake.
She didn’t even remember toppling over the edge of the balcony they had been fighting on nor did she remember hitting the ground. She remembered perching on the railing, out of the way of T’Challa’s reach, a proud smile on her face that so far he couldn’t touch her. And then she remembered her foot slipping, she remembered seeing a split second of horror on T’Challa’s face and then she remembered him carrying her, rushing through the halls of the palace as she weakly protested that she was fine.
She also, much to her dismay, couldn’t stop remembering the feel of his arms around her as he held her against him, couldn’t stop thinking about the feel of his hard chest muscles beneath her cheek as she leaned against him. If it hadn’t been for throbbing pain in her ankle, it might actually have been nice. The fact that she couldn’t stop thinking that made her hate herself just a little more.
She hadn’t come to Wakanda, come back to the rest of the Avengers, to cozy up to a king. She didn’t need a boyfriend; it hadn’t gone so well for her the last time she tried.
She tried to focus on T’Challa, who was still fussing over her like she was an invalid.
“I will make it up to you,” he was saying to her now. She noticed everyone else at the dinner table was listening in, although they were all trying hard to pretend they weren’t.
“You don’t have to.”
“I always repay my debts.”
She tilted her head. So they had that in common then. “I think I owe you a lot more than you owe me.”
“I also do not keep track.”
“I do.”
“Then that is the difference between us.”
•••
She woke up the next morning to a knock on the door to her room, only to find T’Challa carrying in a large tray that he placed next to her on the bed. She blinked down at the plates of eggs and sausage, pancakes, fruit, coffee and orange juice.
“I was not sure what you liked,” he said.
She glanced up at him. “Do you serve all your guests breakfast in bed?”
“Only the ones I like.”
“I didn’t think you liked me.”
“I have never met anyone quite like you,” he said. “You intrigue me.”
“Or maybe you just feel guilty.” She smiled, pointing at her ankle, still wrapped tightly in a white bandage.
He laughed. “I thought you said that was not my fault?”
“I did say that. I just don’t think you believed me.”
“Are you always so confident that what you think about people is correct?”
“I’ve spent my life learning to read people.”
“Ahh.” T’Challa nodded his head. “And I have spent mine making sure no one can read me that easily.”
“Is that a challenge?” Natasha let her lips curve up into a slight smirk.
She didn’t expect the smirk she got back in return.
“Only if you want it to be,” he said.
•••
He kissed her two weeks later, when they were out strolling the grounds hand in hand. They had been spending a lot of time together since her ankle accident. She had thought at first it was his guilt, him wanting to make sure she was really okay, but as time went on, she began to suspect it was something more. She also began to suspect there was something more on her end, too.
He was different than the other Avengers, more reserved, more like her in that sense. But his life — of duty and sacrifice and huge expectations — was nothing like hers had been. He told her about it sometimes, as they sat outside when the sun dipped low in the sky or during the day when they took a break from watching the others train.
He told her about it now as they walked, until he stopped, tugging her hand to get her to turn toward him. He tucked a stray piece of her hair behind her ear, stared down into her eyes, his gaze firm and unrelenting, and then he bent his head to touch his lips to hers.
She didn’t even get a moment to sort out how she felt about it before a shriek sounded behind her.
She and T’Challa both turned their heads, both stared impassively at Wanda as the girl turned red and stuttered out an apology, trying to stammer out how she didn’t mean to spy and to please not tell anyone. They watched her hurry away, almost tripping over herself, and then T’Challa kissed her again, harder and more meaningful.
This time she kissed him back.
“You know everyone is going to know before lunch,” she said.
“I do know,” he said. “I am okay with it. Are you?”
Was she? She wasn’t sure. Everyone had known when she’d thought she had feelings for Bruce. They’d teased her relentlessly about it at the time, and then they spent the weeks after he disappeared staring at her like they thought she might break. It wasn’t something she was eager to have repeated.
But T’Challa was looking at her in a way no one had ever really looked at her before, like he could see the real her, the part of her that she tried to keep locked away from all prying eyes so no one could take advantage. And part of her wanted to see where he would take it if she let him in.
It unnerved her to feel like this. She wasn’t sure she was ready to say yes, but at the same time, saying no would end it, and she wasn’t ready for that either. Besides, what else did she have to do now that being an Avenger was off the table, at least for a while?
She decided to be honest.
“I’m not,” she said. “But I think I will be.”