How Much He Means

A/N- Watching all the great trailer clips of CACW has me so excited but mostly after Natasha gasps out "Don't you recognize me?" Here is a ficlet based on that one phrase (and some backstory from the comics/CAWS.) BTW- sorry… I love me some WinterWidow.

"Steve, I know how much he means to you. Don't do this. You'll only make it worse." She warned carefully into the phone glancing around herself as if looking unsure of her own thoughts.

"Or what? Are you going to arrest me?" Steve quipped angrily from his location.

Sighing inwardly, she knew there was no win for this. She hung up the phone.

Sitting on the patio, the crowds milled around her oblivious to her conflict. Natasha knew better than to dwell in the past. That only gets you killed but she couldn't help but indulge herself in some reflection as if it might give her an inkling of how to make this whole mess right or at least better, for her.

Nick 'died', wounding her deeply. Death was always in Natasha's line of work but it shocked her how she was completely unprepared for him to depart her. He was her rock, which was ironic because of how mysterious he was to everyone else. To her, he was always forthcoming and his decision to fake his death so convincingly showed that perhaps he just didn't trust her as much as she thought he did. That stung.

Was she always forthright? No. Not really. Recalling the conversation with Steve in the truck, being a chameleon was a great way not to die. He couldn't argue with that, even if he didn't agree with it. In the end, they had worked out a relationship where he knew she wouldn't desert him yet was comfortable with, as Nick called it, "everything." Bitterness filled her mouth. Apparently she was comfortable taking sides against her friends.

She sipped on her iced coffee. A man in a green shirt passed by. Banner. His warmth and compassion. His sense of knowing nothing was right with him yet trying to hold it together to make the world a better place. Her secret. He was the only one she felt she could tell it to. Why did she? Was she looking for forgiveness? Absolution? What had she been thinking?

The answer to her question hit her like a hammer.

It was summer in Russia. The only reason Natalia knew that was because Madame had fresh flowers on her office desk. The windows were kept frosted to allow light but no scenery. Less for the girls to be distracted by as they were trained. The blooms lightly perfumed the rooms as the Widows in training passed silently in the hallways.

Romanova was recovering from her graduation ceremony. There was no scar on her skin but the procedure made her belly ache when she moved her torso. A few more days of rest; the only rest she would ever get in the Red Room. Madame said she 'earned' it. That thought made a Natalia's gorge rise. She earned death. How poignant.

The Winter Soldier leaned on the door frame to her room, silently like a black ghost. She looked up at him from her empty clasped hands in her lap. Her nose told her he had just come back from a mission; ordinance and blood was pungent on him. His eyes were dark, almost drugged looking, but he was there a little. Bits of blood splatter covered his left arm like drops of rubies on the chrome. He had a wound on his right thigh leaving a dark trail down his pants.

Natalia was no fool. It was clear what HYDRA was doing to him, or had been doing for years to him. Somewhere in the bits of her heart, she knew it was wrong and genuinely pitied him his fate. It was always amazing that they let him come see her at all so that his conditioning was not compromised.

"You're hurt." she said softly to him.

A tiny spark of life lifted his eyes to hers as he limped in, "It's not bad."

"You should go get that seen. If you die in here, I'm not taking credit." Natalia tried to make the joke.

He didn't smile at her, his face a pale blank slate beneath stubble and scraggly hair but his eyes were conflicted as if he was having a great internal battle. Finally, he grit out with great effort, "If I could undo your hurt, I would."

Romanova stared at this man who wasn't even in control of himself to have such compassion for her. She reached out and touched his right hand. It was cold and made no effort to hold hers.

"You are a brave man." she managed as tears pricked her eyes.

She saw the light of recognition fade in his eyes to return to their near-dead state. He took his hand out of hers and limped methodically to the door and down the hall. The Soldier had won.

Natalia felt a little piece of her shattered heart go with him.

Chaos reigned as she drove wildly down the mountain path. The nuclear scientist screamed in the passenger seat next to her but she didn't have time to reprimand him to be quiet; the Winter Soldier was on their tail.

The gravel spit angrily out from under the car tires as she could hear the roar of the motorcycle coming up behind. A sharp bend was ahead where the road was slightly wider and the cliff drop off not as steep. "When I say jump, jump!" she yelled at the petrified scientist.

"Are you insane!?" he screamed back, the whites of his eyes huge.

"Do you want to live?" she shot back, yanking the steering wheel hard. "Jump!"

He didn't so she pushed him out as she jumped of of the passenger side. The car flew over the edge of the cliff side landing in a fiery explosion. Widow pressed the scientist up against the rough rock wall of the shoulder. The pungent scent of burning rubber and gas ascended from the fire below. "Stay absolutely still and say nothing." she hissed at him and ne nodded mutely, clearly terrified.

The motorbike was close then slowed. Natasha was blinded by the curve in the road but she heard him dismount from the bike. Calculated, measured steps brought him closer. She found herself holding her breath in anticipation. A frightened whimper came from the scientists' mouth. She cut him a look to be quiet. He swallowed nervously, clutching his hands to his chest.

Romanov saw the black boot of the Winter Soldier at the edge of the curve looking in the direction of the crashed car. She had limited ammunition so wasn't going to waste it on a crippling shot. The Soldier was more dangerous wounded than not, in her opinion.

He stayed there for a long time. Romanov began to wonder if he was having a psychological short circuit of some type?

With the speed of a striking snake, he turned around the corner, gun drawn. Natasha threw herself in front of her charge. A single gunshot cracked off from the Soldier's weapon. A wave of pressure hit her, shoving her back on top of the scientist and into the rock wall. Time slowed as she heard his breath gasp out of him in a great gust of noise behind her ear. Heat set her on fire from the inside like an animal clawing its way out of her belly.

A wetness moistened her skin inside her cat suit. It was the first time Natasha had been shot. Her eyes were wide in disbelief; the man who visited her in the Red Room, who tried to make her feel better about her fate, who trained her in ever deadly move she ever made, just shot her.

The Winter Solider was going to kill her now.

Everything comes full circle, her practical self said in her head.

Sliding down the wall, the scientist almost cushioning her, she breathed in short, painful gasps.

The Soldier approached. Natasha waited for death from behind the mask.

Instead he reached out a hand and felt the neck pulse of the scientist behind her, his arm just inches from her face as if she didn't exist at all. Satisfied that his mission was complete, he turned and walked away.

Natasha sat stunned. In a blurt of sound she called, "Bucky!"

The Soldier paused. His body trembled violently but then resumed the careful walk to the motorcycle around the bend. He left her to die.

Shaking her head to clear the cobwebs of memory, Natasha got up from her seat to reconvene with Stark. He would not like to hear what she had to say.

The table shattered beneath Agent 13 in a shower of splinters. With an expert leap Widow was upon him legs wrapped in a choke hold around Barnes's neck. Pummeling him repeatedly in the head, he walked forward resolutely, slamming her back painfully into the table below.

A cold metallic hand gripped her throat.

"Don't you even recognize me?" she choked to the furious face of the Winter Soldier.

It was that moment she knew how much she didn't mean to him. Instead of her throat crushing, her heart broke even more.