This happens just after the final battle of the movie Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

English is not my first language, so please excuse any grammar mistakes :) I usually spellcheck everything I write twenty times, but it takes a lot of time and effort to do that. In order for me to post more often I ask you kindly to ignore any mistakes in the next chapters.

Sadly I don`t own the Avengers or any other Marvel character.

Natasha let out a deep breath as the doors to the small elevator closed. She pressed the button to the top floor and rested her head on the metallic wall. With a quick glance at the mirror inside the elevator she confirmed her suspicions: she looked terrible. Her hair was a mess, her skin tone was too pale and she had dark circles under emerald her eyes. Oh, and she could see a nasty bruise starting to form on her chin where her head hit the floor as a result of electrocuting herself to allow Fury to kill Pierce. 'Well, that is the price for saving the world, Natasha' she sarcastically reassured herself in her mind.

She looked horrible and felt even worst. She had a splitting headache, her whole body was stiff and the gunshot wound on her shoulder was hurting as hell. 'Thanks again Winter Soldier for yet another beautiful scar'.

The elevator announced its arrival with a 'ding' and Natasha was pulled away from her thoughts. She exited to the corridor and swiftly made her way to the last door on the right praying to avoid any neighbor. When she dumped all of SHIELDs files on the Internet she bought an instant ticket to stardom. Wanting it or not, she was now a celebrity and, after living her whole life in the shadows, that terrified her far more than aliens or even the Hulk.

Yesterday she and Sam Wilson had rescued Steve from the side of the Potomac River and took him to the hospital. As they waited for news on him she could already feel the tension on the air. Of course the release of the SHIELDs files would be covered worldwide. It was everywhere: TVs, newspaper, the Internet. Everyone was talking about it and everyone was recognizing her. Even after NY, she was able to keep her true identity on the shadows. Everybody knew about the Black Widow, she was an Avenger after all. They even made Black Widow action figures to sell on the stores. But nobody knew that the Black Widow was actually the SHIELD agent Natasha Romanoff: Red Room trained spy, ex-KGB, assassin… murderer. Before all they knew was that the Black Widow was a woman with red hair who could kick-ass and that she was an Avenger. Now they had her file with her American name, her Russian name, all of her missions, all of the people she murdered for SHIELD and… oh God, some intel on her dark past with KGB and the Red Room. Thank God her whole file – the one with all of her past - was never on the system, Fury had deleted it when she had joined SHIELD: a kind of "new start = blank sheet" thing. Right now she was VERY grateful for it.

As she waited for the update on Steve she could see everyone looking at her direction with fear, curiosity, suspicion, indecision. Every single doctor, nurse or patient. She even saw some teenagers trying to take a photo of her with their phones. Sam didn`t seem to notice this, he was too worried about Captain America.

After she had made sure that Steve was going to be ok and that Sam was protecting him, she left the hospital in a hurry and went directly to her safe house. Well, her and Clint`s safe house, technically. They had bought the small apartment with cash, no ties to SHIELD or their real identities. Nobody knew about it besides her or him. It was the only safe place right now.

As she closed the door behind her and disarmed the super secure alarm system, she let out another deep breath and felt a wave o distress overwhelm her. 'What will Steve think of me when he awakes up and read my file? What is the world already thinking? You are a cold murderer. You`ve done things, bad things. You are a bad person, an evil person. Everyone is going to hate you… No. I can`t think of that. Breath… slowly. Keep cool. Don`t you dare panic' her mind kept telling her. A reminder of the Red Room training: don`t show emotions, don`t feel anything.

After calming herself and distancing her mind of that line of thoughts, she went straight to the bedroom to check if her belongings were there. It was not decorated, only two single beds stood on the middle of the room. Under her bed she found her duffle bag: guns, ammunition, change of clothes, disposable cell phone, money and documents for an alias not known by SHIELD or anyone. It was all there.

She took one of her guns and some clean clothes and walked to the bathroom. She needed a long, steamy hot shower to drown her erratic thoughts and take away all the remains of the fight.

While in the shower, it took her almost ten minutes to wash away all the blood on her hands… Steve`s blood. As she cleaned it her mind went to the super soldier and how close he got to death. 'Oh Steve…'. They had become somewhat friends after being partnered together and after the last events she considered him one of the only true friends she had.

That thought led her to think about her other true friend, Clint. When she was posting SHIELDs data base on the Internet she had time to delete only one thing from it: Clint`s file. She knew he was on a dangerous undercover mission and getting his identity out right now could risk his life. She contemplated using the time to delete her file, but she was safe in Washington and he wasn`t, so the contemplation didn`t last longer than a second.

After the long shower she put on some old shorts and a grey t-shirt she had stolen from Clint years ago. She ate a granola bar she had stocked at the apartment for any emergency and drank a whole bottle of water. After, she sent a text to Sam using her new burner phone:

"Hi Sam. How is he doing? N."

"Better. They r taking him out of induced coma tmmrw"

"I`ll be at the hospital 11am tmmrw"

"Ok. Do u need anything?"

"No thanks. Call me in case of an emergency"

"Sure"

She checked every lock on the apartment and the alarm system for precaution and took her battered body to bed.

After a sleepless night filled with worried thoughts Natasha got up early in the morning and put on some clean clothes from her emergency bag. The thought of going out and being recognized was enough to make her stomach swirl so she skipped breakfast. She put on her sunglasses and tied her hair back, trying to change her appearance as much as possible with little to none resources. 'It would be much simpler if the face changing device I used to infiltrate as a Council member earlier was still working'. With a quick check on the mirror, she left the safe house to meet Maria Hill and discuss their next steps.

Natasha arrived early at the meeting point they had designated the day before, a public bench at a park close to the Capitol Hill. She had used some of her best blending technics and nobody had recognized her on the way over, not even the taxi driver.

Natasha waited and not five minutes after a black sedan approached and parked close by. Maria Hill exited the car wearing plain civilian clothes and bringing with her two Starbucks cups. Natasha smiled and gladly took one of the cups.

"Good morning, Natasha". Hill seated beside her on the bench.

"Good morning, Maria".

That was the first time the two women referred to each other by their first names - in SHIELD it was always Agent Hill and Agent Romanoff. Maria seemed to enjoy the view of the small park in the morning light before speaking.

"We need to do some damage control".

"I don`t see how that would work. Everything is out there, Maria. Everything" she took a glance at the other woman. Hill was a good spy, one of the best even and she did a good job seeming distant and emotionless most of the time – her job required it. But Natasha could read her like an open book that morning; she seemed tense and exhausted, probably just like Natasha herself.

"I`m not talking about Shield, that is over. I`m talking about you" she took a sip of her coffee.

"Me? What about yourself? You were second on command after Fury".

"I`ll find another job, maybe even for Stark Industries, who knows. Trust me, nobody is paying attention to me when the true identity of the infamous Black Widow, member of the Avengers, just hit the Internet. Well, of course they are talking about Hydra too, but you are the superstar now… it`s you that everyone is talking about".

Natasha visibly flinched. "I wouldn`t know as I`m not watching the news. And I don`t plan to start". After a moment she asked out of curiosity. "Is it too bad?".

"Some of it is, some of it not so much, and some people are even defending you. So, it depends". Hill responded cryptically, not wanting to be the one to tell Natasha Romanoff the bad things people were saying about her on the TV.

Natasha stood still for a few moments considering her next moves. "I think the toy industry will loose a lot of money as there are a lot of Black Widow action figures at the stores and no one will buy them anymore".

Maria smiled a little at the other woman dark sense of humor. "I`m serious, Romanoff. I`ve been talking to Fury and we are not going to let you take all the heat alone. The Congress is going to need a scapegoat to blame and everything indicates that it`s going to be you".

"I can handle the Congress. Besides, now that there is no SHIELD there`s nothing you can do, Maria… Or Fury".

"Well, maybe not us but Tony Stark can help you. Have you talked to him? Or Steve. Everyone loves Captain America, his support could be good for your image".

Natasha scoffed at the suggestion. "I`m not going to ask Stark for help and Steve needs to worry only about his recovery". If Natasha was being really honest she wasn`t avoiding the help of the other Avengers out of pride or concern, she was afraid. Afraid of what they would think after reading her file and seeing all the atrocities she had done. 'Tony might get over it someday but Steve is a good man, an honorable man… he will despise you'.

"You should" was Maria`s only response.

Minutes passed and Maria Hill finished her coffee. She gave Natasha a small white paper with her cellphone number written on it. "Do you have a secure number so I can contact you?".

Natasha got Hill`s cellphone and typed in the number of her burner phone. "Have you heard anything about Clint?" she asked as she returned the phone.

"No, nothing yet. If I hear something you`ll be the first one to know. Oh, and by the way, nicely done to delete his file. You might have saved his life".

"Thank you, Maria. For everything".

The other woman smiled to her briefly and walked away to her car. Natasha took another fifteen minutes to finish her coffee, collect her somber thoughts and walk away from the park in the direction of the hospital.

Thank you for reading! I really hope you liked it. Should I continue? Please leave a review :D