So I'm a little late with this post-AoU piece, but I had to collect all my thoughts and feelings about the movie and these two until I could write something coherent.
So, I did enjoy Age of Ultron. There were some really great things, and there were definitely some things that could've been changed. And being complete Romanogers trash, Steve and Natasha's relationship definitely could've been improved. Like we don't even know if they saw each other over that year in between CATWS and AoU. (In this story I'm assuming they didn't).
Anyway! So, this is the first part as well as the "breaking them even more than they already are" part. The next part is the fixing it part. So prepare for angst either way!
Title is taken from Homesick by Sleeping At Last. See end notes for chapter soundtrack.
I don't own Avengers.
Enjoy!
-:-
Steve struck the punching bag again and again, the sand-filled leather trembling under the force. He'd been going at it for a while now, already having broken open another punching bag in his anger. He didn't do this often, but ever since the events of Ultron's brief reign…well, he had a lot of emotions bubbling right under the surface, and they felt like they would rupture any second, opening up the fault lines in his usually carefully controlled shell. Tonight though, had been bad. He had nightmares practically every night, but that night had been the worst in a long time. Ultron's words, Wanda's vision…it all twisted around inside his skull until it was a big knotted mess that he had no hopes of untangling.
So, there he was, at three in the morning in the training center of the new Avengers facility, where he, Natasha, and the others were staying for the time being. It's not like he found a place in Brooklyn to go home to anyway.
Sweat dripped down his face, lined the collar of his t-shirt, the veins in his arms standing out and he swung out at the bag again, his fists connecting with the solid material and his own breathing the only sounds in the gym. Captain America…pretending like he can live without a war…Ultron's harsh metallic words rung in his ears, accompanied by the pop of an old camera that sounded too much like gunfire, and the image of red wine, spilled like blood across white.
Steve caught the bag in his hands, steadying it, stopping before he broke this one too. He leaned his forehead against the material, breathing hard, screwing his eyes shut in an attempt to block it all out. It didn't work too well, though. Ever since Ultron had voiced that harsh but undeniable truth about him, about the fact that he was still trying to fight a war that had ended over seventy years before, those words had haunted him. They were at the back of his mind constantly, came to him in dreams that turned into nightmares. It was all too much sometimes. He bottled all his troubles up, locked them away nice and tight, but the second his defenses were down—which was mostly at night when he tried to sleep—they crawled back out, tearing him apart from the inside. It wasn't just Ultron or Wanda Maximoff's vision either—it was Bucky and the ice and the fact that he hadn't felt truly at home in a long, long time.
We can go home, Steve.
And he could see it. Peggy and him. Their dance (the one they never got). The home they could've had together (but he died and she lived on and home was nothing but a big empty room).
It was somewhat better now. He was doing what he loved, what he was good at—leading a team of people and preparing them for the next war. The war that seemed to swim in his veins and live in his heart. The war's over. We can go home. Having friends here helped make things better as well. Sam, of course, he had a close bond with. And, despite the vision she had inflicted upon him, Steve found himself quickly taking a liking to Wanda Maximoff. Rhodey was easy to like, and Vision was still so innocent and naïve in his thinking sometimes—not unlike him at times—that it was hard not to be drawn to the JARVIS-sounding android.
Then, of course, there was Natasha.
Natasha who, despite how frustrating and vague and closed-off she could be, he missed like crazy over the past year they'd been separated. He didn't even realize how close they'd gotten, how much he enjoyed working with her and the newfound friendship they'd formed while on the run, until she was walking away from him in that cemetery. He'd watched her walk away as the word stay trembled on his tongue but didn't make it past his lips. Because even though he would call them friends—which they were—friends didn't always seem like a strong enough word. And he'd thought maybe, maybe, she'd felt the same way, what with the way her kiss had been burning on his cheek for the past twelve months every time he thought of her.
But then they'd regrouped as the Avengers once again and discovered that Banner had become the object of her affections.
So he distanced himself.
They'd already spent a year apart, a little more time would be nothing.
At least, that's what he told himself.
He started calling her Romanoff again, though it sounded odd and foreign on his lips. When the Avengers started raiding Hydra bases in search of Loki's scepter, he started working more with Thor. He watched Natasha—who was seemingly unaffected or oblivious, which was unlikely for her—as she worked with Clint. At some point the lullaby for the Hulk came into existence. The lullaby which, at first, had seemed like nothing more than a platonic way of taming Banner when he went green. And then he'd started to notice all her glances towards Banner, the whispered conversations they had on the Helicarrier. He tried not to notice, but it was hard. Natasha, with her fiery hair and even more fiery spirit, was pretty hard not to notice. Especially given how he felt about her.
He tried to convince himself that he wasn't jealous but that was pretty useless. He knew he was jealous. He probably didn't need to anyway. Natasha had told him enough times that he wore his heart on his sleeve. Or his face. "You're a terrible liar" she would tell him. As readable as a book, though he was getting better. And yet, for apparently being as transparent as he was, why couldn't she see how much this was hurting him? And then he pushed that away because it was incredibly selfish, and despite how very selfish he wanted to be for Natasha, he cared about her and her happiness far too much for that.
Too late, he thought. Too late he'd figured out how he felt for Natasha, just like with Peggy. So he'd told Bruce to go for it. As long as Natasha was happy, he was all right. And since Bruce seemed to make her happy…well, he was still working on the all right part, but she was still in his life, even if it was more distantly than before, and that was supposed to be all that mattered.
Steve took a breath and started hitting the bag again. Not quite as powerfully as before, but enough that the chains holding the bag to the ceiling shook dangerously.
His thoughts came more forcefully, in time with his fists as they struck the punching bag.
Distance yourself, he would think, even after Scarlet Witch toyed with Natasha's mind, her green eyes haunted, gazing back into a past that left her sweaty, dazed, and afraid. He wanted to go to her then, sit with her, in silence if she wanted. He had just wanted to be there if she did feel like talking, or simply to give her the reassuring presence of a friend. But he'd let Clint take care of her, let Clint lead her into the home Steve didn't know the archer had. The war's over. We can go home. We can go home, Steve. Home. Which Steve didn't have, didn't know if he would ever find again. Watched Natasha, who was just about the closest thing he'd felt to home since coming out of the ice, blend seamlessly into her best friend's family. "Auntie Nat?" he could've teased her, but instead he turned away, trying not to think of Natasha or Peggy or home or the wine that looked like blood or the war that he sometimes felt he was nothing without.
There was the banter at the table, her teasing him about bad language, and it nearly felt like old times. And to make it better, he'd gotten to work with her and Clint—Strike Team Delta and Captain America, a nearly unstoppable force. He'd fought Ultron, she'd held his shield like a natural. And yet, he had to remind, distance yourself. He repeated it over and over in his head when she was taken by Ultron himself, reminding himself that he was the leader, he was the Captain. He had to make the tough calls, even when he wanted to tear the world apart in search of her, though he knew full well she could take care of herself. He'd let Clint take point on locating her, let Bruce find her in Sokovia.
And yet, when it came down to it and they thought they were going to die, it was him and Natasha standing on the edge of the earth. The two of them against the world just like when SHIELD fell. She'd told him there were worse ways to go, and he had to agree.
Where else am I gonna get a view like this?
She was looking out over the clouds but he was looking at her.
And then, despite the distance between them, despite her and Bruce and whatever else, he was content. Maybe not quite happy, but content. It was him and her and that was all that mattered. Of course, Fury showed up with a damn Helicarrier and they didn't end up dying after all, but the feeling of that moment didn't go away, and he bottled that up too, locking it up tight for whenever he would need it later.
-:-
Natasha woke with her fists clenched in the blankets, a scream dying in her throat as she let out a muffled gasp into her pillow. Her fingers stayed curled in the bedspread as she took deep breaths, blinking the sleep from her eyes, and tried to banish the last cobwebs of her nightmare. There was always nightmares. Every once in a while she would have a night where no images—good or bad—disturbed her sleep. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd had an honest to god good dream. But there were always the nightmares. Her steady companion in the dead of night when her defenses were down and the nightmares could creep in, pulling memories from the dark recesses of her conscience, burying her in the terrifying images and sounds and smells and the feeling of blood between her fingers until she was six feet under.
Slowly, Natasha pulled herself from the suddenly cold feeling of her bed, rubbing at her temples as she made her way to the small bathroom connected to her bedroom of the New Avengers facility. She turned on the faucet, splashing cold water on her face. It cooled her heated skin but didn't do much for the images of her past stuck behind her eyes. Dreaming about her past wasn't anything new for her; the Red Room dominated her dreams far more than she would like.
Lately, though, she'd been seeing the ballerinas.
He's going to break them.
Only the breakable ones.
He's going to break them.
They broke. She didn't.
They would dance to the sound of Tchaikovsky and sometimes Russian lullabies, gunfire and the sound of blood dripping onto the floor. In her nightmares Natasha would watch the dancers before it shifted to the cold weight of guns in her palms. She executed men without faces, still to the sound of piano keys and gunfire, then the dropping of shells onto the smooth floor. Metal guns in her hands, cold metal against her skin, metal around her wrists, chaining her up at night like the monster she was…is…
She's not sure which one it is anymore.
Natasha shut off the water and slowly padded back into her room, sitting down on the bed, hands braced against the edge of the mattress.
As always with these dreams of late, too, there was a red haze around the edges. It could've been blood, or it could've been Wanda Maximoff's magic. She wasn't sure about that either.
Natasha had pretty much forgiven Wanda the memories she'd brought back. Natasha knew the girl had only been doing what she thought was right at the time. Natasha was not so different at that age. She hadn't known any other way in the Red Room, so she killed without mercy, without remorse, all to the music of gunfire and blood singing (screaming) in her veins. The glowing red tendrils of Wanda's magic still made her wary every so often, but Wanda had apologized—profusely—and she liked the kid too much to continue to blame her.
It's not like the memories weren't already there. Yes, they were not ones that Natasha particularity liked to revisit, so she'd locked them up tight, but she was slowly trying to face her memories, the ghosts of her past, and not just the ones Wanda had brought to the surface. Slowly, Natasha was figuring out who she was in this new reality of theirs, where people with powers were becoming more common, and Hydra was a constant threat. Where SHIELD, her tether for so long, had snapped and crumbled, and was now struggling to rebuild itself and redeem its tarnished name. A reality where everything about her was out in the world, leaving her to figure out who she was under all the covers and lies.
And about the only thing she'd concluded was that she was Natalia and Natasha and Black Widow and an Avenger and a killer and she didn't know where she fit it.
We have no place in this world.
For a year she'd been trying to figure things out…ever since she walked away from Steve in that cemetery.
Steve…
Steve, who she hadn't seen in a year and had only shared a dozen or so phone calls with. He'd called her a lot at the beginning, but it had taken her a long time to actually start picking up the phone. She didn't know why she didn't pick up. She had been…nervous? Scared? A coward. You are made of marble. You will not break. She didn't. Then she did.
And when they did talk, she really only called to see how his search for Bucky was going, and he only asked to see how she was doing in general, to which she'd always responded with "fine". She knew he probably didn't believe her most of the time when she said that, but there was no way in hell she was going to tell him that she wanted him, needed him. That she'd wanted him, so desperately, to chase after her in that cemetery. Because she had been about to embark on soul-searching journey and that terrified her. The thought of shining a flashlight on all the darkest corners of her heart, pulling down all the cobwebs from the nooks and crannies of her mind, well, she'd rather fight a Chitauri army. At least if he had been there, his presence alone would have helped. He'd always seen exactly who she was under all her masks.
But she hadn't looked back at him in that cemetery, just kept taking one painful step at a time, hoping, praying, that his footsteps would follow and he would ask her to stay.
He didn't.
She left.
We have no place in this world.
The feeling of missing him and wanting him and needing him and hating him and realizing that she maybe sort of loved him stayed with her the whole year. It all twisted and tangled and knotted inside of her like a mass of Christmas lights. It ached and burned until there was a hole she know only Steve could fill.
But she didn't go to him.
He didn't come to her.
And she missed him so much it hurt. Those kind of feelings were so unfamiliar. She hadn't felt anything that strong in such a long time that she'd forgotten what it was like. As a child of the Red Room she had been taught that feelings, emotions, love, it would only get her killed. She had to be absolutely ruthless, unfeeling, cruel, and that meant there was no room inside of her for feelings like the ones Steve gave her. The perfect weapon. You are made of marble. But now, rediscovering who she was, figuring out how to fit the Black Widow and Natalia Romanova in with Natasha Romanoff, she was finding out that she wasn't so much incapable of love or feelings, but rather that she felt and loved so deeply. They had seen it, too, in the Red Room. That she loved with every fiber of her being, with everything she had, cared so strongly for others. And with that, they'd seen that she could also tear anyone apart with enough hatred to blacken even the devil's soul. So they'd ripped out the love and honed the hate, filling her with it, perfecting it. Black Widow.
For the longest time all she thought herself capable of was hate. Then Clint found her. He gave her a second chance when no one else would and started to remind her what it was like to be human again. She hadn't been human in so long…Clint taught her that she didn't need handcuffs to hold herself down, she could do it herself. He taught her that she wasn't theirs anymore. He helped her let go of Natalia and become Natasha, the better version of herself. Clint helped stitch her up, gave her first an intimacy she'd long forgotten about, and then a friend she could tell her deepest, darkest secrets to and know that he would take them to the grave.
Then Steve, the last person she would've expected to come into her life and completely flip it upside down, gave her trust, something only a handful of people had given her since being christened as Natasha Romanoff. Steve reminded her, without any words that she was a good person, she was doing the right thing, that she was a hero even if she didn't believe it. He reminded her of who she was, what she had worked so hard to do, guiding her through the dark of her past even if he didn't realize it. He saved her. She couldn't pinpoint an exact moment, but he'd given her the strength to let go of her past in some ways, and embrace it as a part of her in others. She'd put her life in his hands long before he did the same just because she knew, she knew he could be trusted with that weight. Only, she didn't realize at the time that it was the weight of her heavy, battered heart she was giving him.
And she'd walked away while leaving it with him.
Sometime during their year apart Natasha thought that maybe that was for the best. She still wasn't sure what to do with the feelings she had for him. She didn't know if it was just a deep friendship or actually love, but until then, she wanted to keep him safe from whatever it was she felt. Not that he needed to be protected from her, but she didn't want to hurt him, especially if she wasn't completely sure about her feelings. She knew how much he'd been through, and even from just the files she'd read and what he'd told her, he carried a heavy burden, nearly a hundred years' worth.
She didn't want to add to that weight, so she kept what she felt locked up tight.
Steve felt like a secret. Her own little wish-upon-a-star that she kept close to her heart and didn't tell anyone about, not even Clint. Because of this, she realized sometime during their year apart, that she needed to distance herself from him. Initially she told herself it was to protect him, make sure she didn't hurt him, and give him some space. But then that reasoning got mixed up with protecting her own heart, and now she couldn't tell the difference.
All the more reason to distance herself.
Their reunion when the band got back together was brief, and she immediately chose to work more closely with Clint. If Steve was bothered by her choice, he was sure as hell getting a lot better at hiding it.
Then came the lullaby. It sort of just…happened. The Hulk had needed calming down after a mission, so she went, even though there was still a part of her that couldn't forget the terror she'd felt when the Hulk had chased her through that Helicarrier and nearly crushed her to death. But the lullaby had worked and they soon perfected it. And during that time, she grew closer to Bruce too.
At first she noticed it helped her take her mind of Steve, and then she really started to like Bruce. The lullaby gave her a connection with the Hulk (and Bruce) no one, not even Tony, had. She found herself relating to Bruce. Not only because they were the same in many ways, but also because Bruce was so entirely different. Despite the monster inside of him, he didn't want to fight. He'd never wanted to fight. Natasha had always fought. She couldn't remember a time when she didn't have a gun in her hand, a knife in her belt, blood on her fingers. But, differences aside, they were both monsters. Him because of a science project gone sideways, turning his human anger into something much more physical and real. She was a monster because of the killer in her that was brought (beaten) out of her when she was a child.
They both hated their own beasts, but she found herself fascinated, drawn in by Bruce's "other guy". And as she they grew closer, she (foolishly) thought that by relating to Bruce's monster, by dancing with the beast, she could somehow ignore her own.
She was so very wrong in her thinking.
But that didn't matter, didn't even cross her mind, until later. In the moment, all that mattered was that she and Bruce were similar. And she'd wanted to explore that.
But Bruce didn't.
Part of her knew that, given their age difference, he thought of her as a child. Not adult enough to make her own decisions on who she wanted to be with. He didn't understand until she told him that he made her feel like she could give up the war she'd been waging her whole life. With him, she could learn to put down her guns, give up the fight. He only saw this as needing to give her a life worth living with him, not understanding that just being with him would be enough.
But, god, she was still so tempted to run away with him, even if he didn't think he was right for her. She had been so ready, for a moment, to drop everything and run until she couldn't even see the sunset they were running into.
But she hadn't given up. She'd picked up her guns and fought because that's who she was: a fighter. She thought he would understand. They had to finish the fight against Ultron and then she was his. They could figure out their monsters together once they'd finished their duty as Avengers. He had to know, she'd told herself. Bruce had to understand why she couldn't just leave. She would never have forgiven herself if she'd just walked away like that, not when the team needed her. Not when those civilians and the world needed her. Because if Steve had taught her one thing, it was that she was a hero, and that meant they had to do what others could not, even if that meant risking their own lives.
And she'd been willing to die, too, when it seemed like they wouldn't succeed in saving everyone. And, as fate would have it, it had been Steve at her side as the earth rose into the sky, higher and higher until there wasn't enough air in her lungs to breathe, much less tell him how grateful she was that he was the one by her side. And god she'd wanted to tell him, too. A whole year and nothing but a couple of phone calls and suddenly he was right there at her side and she'd never missed him more. She wanted to tell him that she hated when he called her Romanoff, wanted to tell him that though she cared about Bruce, she hadn't spent a whole fucking year missing Bruce, wanted to tell him that she couldn't bear the thought of him dying, even if it was by her side, because the world needed Captain America just as much as she needed Steve Rogers.
But they hadn't died. Not all of them. They mourned for Pietro, but at the end of the day, the world only saw that the Avengers had saved the day once again. And still, Natasha said nothing to Steve. Clint went home, Tony went off to maybe find his own slice of paradise with Pepper, and Bruce was gone.
Bruce was gone. She'd thought he'd understood…they had to put the world first, because they were Avengers. It wasn't always fair, but that's what they'd signed up for. If they weren't going to protect innocent people from the threats they couldn't understand, who would? They could have died, sure, but they didn't. They could run away for a little while. Maybe find some island somewhere that Tony didn't own. Tame their monsters while soaking up some sun.
But he'd left. He'd shut her out and left her with barely a word, barely a warning.
It hurt like a bitch.
Natasha had thought that with Bruce, she could try and move on from Steve, try and figure out who she was with someone who understood what it was like to have a monster inside of them they couldn't control. But, god, she was a fool, a goddamn fool for thinking that she and Bruce would work out. They were on different paths, different points in their lives, but she thought they could have made it work. She was pretty sure he cared about her, but clearly not enough to stay with her.
She certainly didn't feel like marble. She was sand, slipping and sliding through her own fingers faster than she could try and stop it.
She missed Bruce. She cared for him a lot. She'd given him her heart, confessed to him things that she hadn't even confessed to Clint or Steve. He'd taken it gingerly into his hand and then dropped it somewhere in the ocean when he was flying over it in that Quinjet.
He left and she was drowning.
-:-
Steve was so focused on the punching bag in front of him that he didn't notice Natasha was in the room until she spoke.
"Been a while since you've done that," her voice echoed in the otherwise quiet gym. He spun around and then followed her gaze to the far wall where she was looking at the punching bag he'd split open earlier. He hadn't cleaned it up yet and sand still littered the floor like a pathetic, half-hearted indoor beach.
Still breathing hard, Steve looked back at Natasha, giving her a quick once-over before meeting her gaze. She was wearing a plain gray zip-up hoodie (that might have actually been his) and a pair of plaid sleep shorts. Her hair—which had grown out to just brush the tops of her shoulders in the two months since they'd defeated Ultron—was slightly mussed from sleep. There was still a little bit of yesterday's make-up smudged around her eyes. Damn, she was beautiful. He blushed and was glad she wouldn't be able to tell under the already pink flush to his cheeks from working out.
Natasha padded forward, her bare feet quiet on the floor, and she handed him a damp towel.
"Thanks," he breathed, toweling the sweat off his face. "So, what are you doing down here?"
She raised an eyebrow at him, a smirk lifting up the corners of her mouth. "I could ask you the same thing."
He exhaled, realizing just how ridiculous his question had been. He tried to smile, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "I couldn't sleep," he told her. "Got a lot on my mind."
Natasha nodded towards the broken punching bag. "I can tell."
"What about you?" he asked quickly, turning the attention off himself.
"Same as you," she replied quietly, still with a small hint of a smile on her face, but the amusement had faded from her eyes. "Couldn't sleep."
"Nightmares," he stated, not needing to ask. He knew. Nightmares were just as familiar to him and he recognized the haunted look in her eyes.
Natasha nodded in response, dragging her gaze downward.
"You wanna talk about it?" he asked her softly.
She shifted her feet, still looking sway from him. "Not really."
"Fair enough."
There was a pause and Steve ducked his head for a moment. When he looked back up he found that she was looking at him too. Steve held her gaze for what felt like forever. He knew that it was almost four in the morning, but he couldn't get over how quiet it was. He swore he could almost hear her heart beating. His own heart thudded with a dozen different emotions, and he suddenly couldn't remember why he'd ever let her walk away from him.
"What about you?" she asked suddenly, breaking the thick silence. "You said you had a lot on your mind…" she trailed off, looking at him expectantly.
He shook his head, brushing her off. "It's nothing, really."
She smirked. "Tell that to the punching bag on the floor."
Steve gave a little chuckle. He didn't know if he could—or even really wanted to—share all the thoughts swirling around in his head, but if it meant he could spend a little more time with her, just the two of them, he would tell her anything. He'd missed her company so badly, missed the friendship and comradery they'd had a year ago. They were starting to regain that, a little more each day, but there was still something off between them. That year of time they'd spent separated a constant elephant in the room.
He exhaled slowly. "Look, uh, you seem like you could blow off a little steam," he said, tilting his head towards the boxing ring, "you wanna go a few rounds?"
If Natasha was put-off by his rapid change in subject, she didn't show it. She nodded and a grin slowly spread across her face. "Sure. Bring it on, old man."
He chuckled and shook his head. "Yeah, yeah, shut up."
She just laughed. "I'm gonna go change. Be right back."
Steve nodded and watched her head off to the locker rooms. He grabbed his water bottle and took a drink before climbing into the ring to wait for Natasha.
She came out a few minutes later, dressed in gray and blue Nikes, plain black athletic shorts, and a loose-fitting tank-top. Her hair was up in a ponytail. She normally wore it down, but as she grew it out she would put it up every once in a while, which Steve liked more than he thought he would. As she climbed into the boxing ring with him, he noticed her hands were wrapped like his.
"Ready?" she asked, smile on her face. "Need to grab your cane or anything before we get started?"
He smiled broadly at her in response, lifting his hands as he crouched into a fighting position.
They started off slow. They exchanged punches and a few kicks, blocking or ducking underneath the other's blows, staying pretty evenly matched the whole time.
"So," Natasha said breathily, pressing a little harder, moving a little faster in her attacks. "You gonna tell me what's on your mind?"
Steve ducked under a kick of hers, twisting around behind her. He moved to catch her from behind and bring her down onto the mat, but she was fast, spinning around and blocking his blow with her forearm.
"Well?" she asked, their faces only six inches apart.
He grunted and stepped out of her grasp, getting back into his original fighting stance as they started circling each other again. "It's nothing," he repeated from earlier.
"Come on," she said disbelievingly, moving to attack him again.
After blocking her, Steve rapidly threw a few punches her way. She dodged two of them, but didn't move quite fast enough on the third one and his fist grazed her side. He knew better than to apologize. She brushed it off like it was nothing anyway.
He exhaled. "It's kind of…everything." He admitted finally.
"That's vague," she replied, trying to take advantage of his momentary pause by swinging out fast with her foot. He just barely jumped back, the sole of her shoe skimming across his abdomen.
He pressed forward and their fighting picked up speed again, their attacks coming faster and getting more elaborate.
"Well," he said quickly, leaning back from a punch of hers, "it's Bucky and Ultron and…" he went on to explain how he felt like he'd failed Bucky, how he couldn't save Bucky from the train and he couldn't even save him now. He talked about how bad some of his nightmares had been. He puffed out a breath, "it was just a long past year, is all." He finished as they sparred.
Natasha was quiet a long time, her fighting only getting more intense. Given how hard they were both sparring, they were both sweating at this point. A couple of strands of hair that had flown free from her ponytail stuck to Natasha's forehead.
"It was a long year for all of us," Natasha said finally, almost under her breath.
Steve stepped back for a moment and they both paused, sweaty and breathing hard. He looked at her, the firm line of her mouth, the hardness in her green eyes. She was almost looking at him accusingly. He frowned, brow furrowing.
"That's vague," he said, quoting her from earlier.
She scoffed, clearly unamused. "It's nothing, never mind."
Steve shook his head, now his turn to scoff. "No, you don't get to do that. I try to tell you what's going on with me and then you just turn around and shut me out. That's not fair."
She shrugged, wiping the back of her hand across her forehead. "Yeah, well, there's a lot of things in life that aren't fair, Steve."
"Come on, you know what I meant," he shot back, taking a step towards her. She crossed her arms over her chest, watching him, standing firm. "I thought we trusted each other? What happened to that?"
Natasha clenched her jaw, looked away for a moment. When she turned her gaze back to him, her eyes were shiny, but hard with anger and sadness and hurt. "You left."
The words were quiet, accusatory, and there were only two of them, but they sent Steve's heart plummeting straight to the floor. She stared at him, surely watching his face fall as he processed her words.
And then he got angry, gritting his teeth. He wasn't the only one to blame here. He took another step forward so they were just over a foot apart.
"You're the one who walked away, Natasha," he said, barely noticing that it was the first time in a long time that he'd used her first name. He wasn't even surprised at how hurt he sounded because this had been burning a hole inside of him for a year. "Don't start blaming me for all of this because you walked away, remember?"
"You could have come after me!" she shot back, raising her voice, hands falling into fists at her sides. "Why didn't you ask me to come with you?"
"I was giving you space! That's what you wanted! You said you had things to figure out, a new cover to find, and I was letting you do that. I didn't want to interfere," he told her, trying to rein in his anger a little bit. "Besides…didn't seem like you wanted the company anyway since you told me to ask Sharon out."
If possible, Natasha clenched her jaw even harder. Her eyes were like stone, but then she ducked her head for a moment, exhaling, and he knew he'd hit a spot with that last comment. Which, of course, she then chose to ignore.
"You still could have asked me to come with you," she pointed out, slowly lifting her eyes to meet his again. "You could have come after me," she repeated.
"And you could have asked to come with me!" he raised his voice again, frustrated. "Dammit, I mean are we seriously going to do this all night? Point fingers and see which one of us is most guilty?"
"Well, it takes two, Steve," Natasha said, suddenly very calm. "Like you said, we're both to blame."
Steve took a breath. "I wanted to ask you to come. I did. But I let you go. I gave you your space. And when I worked up the courage to actually ask you…well, you wouldn't even pick up the damn phone." His voice grew softer and softer, finally breaking at the end. She met his gaze, unshed tears burning in her eyes. Looking at her, he could feel all his anger and his hurt from the past year building up inside of him. All his unsaid words, everything he hadn't done, it made him furious. He was mad at himself, mad at her, and he suddenly had no control over what came out of his mouth.
"I was looking for Bucky, Nat, but I had time. You could have come seen me if you didn't want to talk over the phone. I would've gone to you if you had bothered to pick up the damn phone in the first place," he accused angrily. "So don't keep making me the bad guy here. I was there, I was reaching out to you. Where the hell were you?"
"I was right here!" Natasha exploded, and for a minute Steve thought they were going to start fighting each other again, but not in the friendly, sparring way. "I was right here trying to figure out who the hell I am! SHIELD was gone, you were gone. Every goddamn thing about me was on the internet and I had no clue what to do. Like I said, this last year was hard. You wouldn't understand. You're Captain America. Mr. Golden Boy. You have no idea what it's like to be a monster, to be hunted. To be hated."
A few defiant tears had slipped down her cheeks but she seemed to not notice them. The venom in her voice would have been enough to make anyone else cower and crawl into the corner with their tail tucked between their legs. Steve stood his ground though, meeting her head-on.
"Is that where Banner comes in?" Steve asked before he could even think about the words. "Another monster to help you figure out who you are?"
God, he hated it. The words burned like acid as they rolled off his tongue, but he couldn't help it. All his self-control had gone out the window long before.
"Don't," Natasha warned, all trace of tears gone, her voice icy hard and scary quiet. "That is none of your goddamn business—!"
"It is my business!" Steve shouted back. "It's my business when a member of my team is distracted because her boyfriend is AWOL!"
He hated the words the second they were out of his mouth. He wished he could take them back, swallow them down. God, this was so unlike him. He was being petty, jealous, and angry. He hated himself for it. Natasha had recoiled like he'd slapped her. She composed herself quickly, though. Pure, fiery anger twisted her features. She struck out with a fist, connecting with his jaw hard enough to send his head snapping sideways. Then she lunged at him, kicking his feet out from under him, pinning him down to the mat, knee against his chest, her forearm against his throat. Steve did nothing to stop her. They were both breathing hard and Natasha looked like she was debating whether or not to punch him in the face again. She pressed down a little harder on his throat, the pressure quickly becoming uncomfortable.
"Fuck you, Rogers," she finally said, voice dangerously soft and low, but close to breaking, liked cracked glass. She slowly pulled herself off of him, never pulling her eyes off him as he stood. "You have no right to say that. And don't be a fucking hypocrite! If anyone's distracted, it's you! Half your mind here, the other half wherever the hell your so-called best friend is."
Steve clenched his jaw at that, but kept quiet, turning the words he wanted to say into fists at his sides.
Natasha turned halfway to leave, but changed her mind, pivoting back towards him. "And it actually isn't your business. About me and Bruce. I can see whoever I damn well please. You don't own me, Rogers. I can make my own damn decisions."
Steve stepped forward angrily. "Right," he scoffed. "I'd almost forgotten. You're Natasha Romanoff. You don't need anyone. You've got it all covered, right? Well, I will just stay out of your way then. Strictly professional between us. Shouldn't be too hard."
She glared at him but didn't say anything.
He tipped her head politely at her. "Goodnight then, Ms. Romanoff."
Steve turned and stepped out of the ring. He grabbed his bag and headed out of the gym, without even a second look back in her direction.
-:-
Soundtrack for this chapter:
-Homesick by Sleeping At Last (general song for chapter)
-Here With Me by Susie Suh and Robert Koch (that year apart and then coming back together, both Steve and Nat's POV)
-This Love by Taylor Swift (basically their feelings/relationship at this point, Steve's POV)
-Say Something by A Great Big World (Steve/Nat fight, both POVs)
I will get the second part of this up within the next week! And this is also on ao3!
Thanks for reading!
-DaughterOfPoseidon333