Chapter Text
-2016-
“Where are you gonna go?” Rick asked curiously.
She shook her head, a small, almost disbelieving smile forming. “It’s funny. My whole life, I didn’t think I had any family.” She paused, the weight of that truth settling for just a second before she continued, softer now. “Turns out I have two. So… one of them is a bit of a mess right now. I’m gonna go break a few of them out of prison. See if I can help patch things up.”
She didn’t wait for a response. She turned, making her way toward the quinjet like the decision had already been made long before this conversation ever happened.
Rick watched her go. He knew better than anyone that nothing would stop her once she set her mind on something. Still.
“Wait!” he called out.
Natasha turned, one eyebrow lifting slightly.
“Don’t you want, like… help? Your sister, maybe? Or-” he hesitated, “-me?”
A quiet chuckle slipped past her lips. It wasn’t mocking, just familiar. Predictable. Almost… comforting.
“No, thanks!” she called back. “They’re on a well-deserved break.”
And before he could say anything else, she disappeared into the quinjet. The ramp closed, sealing off the moment before it could turn into something heavier than she was willing to carry.
⸻
The hum of the engines filled the silence almost immediately.
Natasha leaned back in the pilot’s seat, hands steady on the controls, eyes fixed ahead but her mind was already somewhere else.
The coordinates were set. The path was clear. The mission… simple, in theory.
Break them out. Fix what she could.
If it were anyone else, that might’ve been enough. But this was them.
Her jaw tightened slightly. For a long time, Natasha Romanoff had lived with the certainty that attachment was a liability. Something to control, to suppress, to use when necessary but never to rely on…
Her fingers flexed slightly against the controls. Somewhere along the way, that had changed. Not all at once. Not in a way she could pinpoint. It had happened in fragments- shared glances across battlefields, quiet conversations after missions, the unspoken understanding that no matter how bad things got, they would handle it together.
They were a team. A family.
She exhaled slowly.
And then she chose a side. The memory still sat heavy in her chest.
At the time, it had made sense. It always made sense on paper. Gaining the government’s trust again, stabilizing the situation, keeping some version of control. That was how she survived. How she functioned.
People made mistakes. She knew that better than anyone. God, she had a lifetime of them.
But this... This hadn’t just been a mistake, it had cost her them. Her grip on the controls tightened just a fraction. She could already imagine it.
The looks. The silence. The distance.
Maybe resentment.
She would take it. She deserved it.
What she couldn’t accept- what she wouldn’t accept was walking away and leaving it broken.
Not this time. Not them. Not him.
Her gaze flickered briefly, unfocused, as his name surfaced in her thoughts without permission.
Steve Rogers.
Steve had always been… steady. Unmoving in the ways that mattered. Where she adapted, he held the line. Where she calculated, he believed. And somehow, over the years, those differences had stopped clashing and started fitting.
Mission after mission. Shoulder to shoulder.
Trust wasn’t something Natasha gave easily. But with him… It was so natural.
And that was the problem.
Because if there was anyone whose opinion could cut deeper than the rest... was his.
Her expression hardened slightly, though there was no one there to see it. She didn’t know how he would look at her. Didn’t know if it would be disappointment… or something worse.
Indifference.
The quinjet cut through the clouds, steady and relentless. Natasha straightened slightly in her seat, her focus snapping back into place as the destination drew closer.
No more overthinking.
⸻
The landing was quiet.
Too quiet.
Natasha stepped out of the quinjet, boots hitting the ground with a soft, controlled sound. Her posture was composed, her expression neutral, every inch of her the trained, unshakable agent she had always been.
But underneath… Her pulse had picked up, just slightly. She moved forward, each step deliberate, her eyes scanning the area out of instinct more than necessity.
And then, she saw him.
For a second, everything else faded. There was no plan. No strategy. No carefully constructed words.
Just distance.
And the man standing on the other side of it.
Steve.
Natasha stopped. Not abruptly, just enough to betray that something in her had shifted. Her expression didn’t change much. It never did. But her eyes softened, just slightly. Enough that, if anyone knew her well enough, they’d notice.
And there it was.
Relief.
Unspoken. Unwanted.
And something quieter. Something she wouldn’t name.
She tilted her head just a fraction, masking everything she wasn’t ready to say.
“…Hey, Rogers.”
She blurred out like no time had passed at all. Like everything between them wasn’t fractured and fragile. Like this was just another mission. But the way she held his gaze… That was new.