A/N Hey all! It's been awhile... I've been busy playing in other fandom sandboxes lately, but I haven't forgotten about this one, I promise... I want to give a shout outs to cheekylady who was my cheerleader when I first decided to take a crack at finishing this chapter and to Alexandra926 for helping make sure it was subitable for public consumption...

I hope you enjoy it!

"Hey Cap, I think Nat is trying to steal your girl again," Tony said when he and Steve walked into the common room to find Darcy curled up on the couch with her head in Natasha's lap, while they watched a Great British Bake Off marathon on TV.

It had been a month since Natasha had arrived at the tower, and three weeks since the she had reconnected with Darcy. Since then the social status quo had shifted within the tower, much to the general surprise and curious confusion of the other residents of the tower.

All they knew was that Darcy and Natasha had been thick as thieves since the moment they'd first met, and by all outward appearances, immediately decided to be best friends. The two women could almost always be found together in their down time. And while Darcy had a reputation for being able to befriend everyone she met, Nat most definitely did not. In fact, those who knew her best were the most surprised at their fast friendship. Clint had even wondered if Darcy knew some kind of witchcraft, because it had taken Natasha six months before she had so much as smiled in his direction, and yet in a matter of weeks the two women were here sharing inside jokes and bowls of popcorn, while having Netflix marathons.

Choosing not to respond to Tony's jibe verbally, both women simultaneously raised a middle finger in Tony's direction.

"See now, that's just wrong," Tony said in a not-so-quiet aside to an amused Steve. "Don't tell me you're comfortable with this. Because I don't think I'm comfortable with this."

"It's going to be under-proved and under-baked if he doesn't hurry up," Darcy critiqued one of the bakers in Russian.

"Paul's going to crucify him for it," Natasha agreed in the same language.

"Yeah, he's got a real sadistic streak when it's his turn for the technical challenge."

"You know it's rude to speak in a language not everyone in the room understands," Tony announced from where he was getting one of his green smoothies out of the fridge.

"He just thinks we're talking about him again," Natasha smirked, as she continued to run her fingers through Darcy's curls, who was enjoying it just as much as she had when she was a little girl. Reminding Natasha why they'd started calling her kotyonok in the first place.

"So we should make it worse by turning around to look at him and laughing, right?" Darcy replied.

"Obviously," Natasha agreed, as both women did just that.

"No, I don't like this at all," Tony said as he took his drink and headed towards the elevator. "And under my own roof, too. Never should have let you two meet. Bad news from the start."

"Considering he's supposed to be one of the smartest men in the world, you'd think he'd realize you two only do that because he's so easy to rile," Steve grinned, as he came over to sit down on the chair next to the couch the women were spread out across.

"Which is exactly why we don't do it to you," Darcy smirked, switching back to English.

"How'd the meetings go?" Natasha asked curiously, since she was currently on vacation and hadn't gone into SHIELD with Steve that day. Fury had been surprised when she'd told him she was taking personal leave, since she almost never took her mandatory downtime let alone voluntary vacation time, but she had so much time off accrued he certainly couldn't tell her no.

"Long and boring," Steve groaned, glad to be out of there. "You didn't miss much. What did you guys do with your day?"

"You're looking at it," Darcy said with a shrug.

"Really? All day?"

"We had a training session this morning," Natasha added. "This is her reward for keeping the bitching to a minimum."

"I require bribery and copious positive reinforcement," Darcy admitted with an unrepentant grin.

Natasha chuckled but didn't disagree, only nudging at the younger woman's shoulder so she'd sit up so she could slide out from under her. "More coffee, kotyonok?" she asked Darcy as she picked up the mugs which were sitting empty on the coffee table.

"Yes please," Darcy replied happily, never one to turn down good caffeine.

"Steve, you want anything?" Natasha asked over her shoulder as she walked towards the kitchen.

"I'll take a bottle of water if you don't mind," he requested.

"You got it," she replied, as she busied herself with the coffee maker.

"I missed you today," Darcy told Steve as she leaned over to give him a proper greeting.

"I was only gone for five hours," he replied against her her lips, a bemused smile on his face.

"What can I say, I like your face, and I miss it when it's not around to look at," she shrugged shamelessly as she kissed him again.

"Just my face, huh?" he asked, as he reached out to pull her onto his lap.

"I suppose the rest of ya ain't a chore to look at either," Darcy replied with a smirk, before playfully nipping at his bottom lip.

"Heads up, Rogers!"

It was only his super soldier reflexes that had Steve pulling away in time to catch the water bottle that Natasha had sent hurtling at his head from across the room.

"Was that entirely necessary?" Darcy asked unamused, switching back to Russian.

Natasha just grinned as she walked back towards the couple with two cups of steaming coffee in her hands. "I knew he would catch it," she replied in the same language.

It wasn't that she disapproved of the relationship. Quite the opposite, actually. Steve Rogers was probably the only man in the world that she considered good enough for her daughter. But as she'd already told Darcy, it was her god-given right to give him a hard time and make sure he stayed on his toes.

Darcy just rolled her eyes at her mother, as she took the mug she handed her and went back to her own seat on the couch.

"You've never told me where you learned Russian," Steve asked, curious, aware that it wasn't one of the more common second languages to learn.

"It's my first language actually," Darcy told him honestly, ignoring the way Natasha froze for just a split second as she was bringing her coffee to her lips. "Well, sort of. I think I learned English and Russian pretty much at the same time."

"Really?" Steve asked, his interest piqued. "How come?"

"Yeah," she nodded, telling him as close to the real story as she could. "My mother was a Russian ballerina and my father was an American soldier, so they taught me both."

Steve thought back to what he'd learned about US-Russian relations in the eighties. "That must have been…"

"It wasn't exactly sanctioned, what with the Cold War and all," she shrugged, finishing his train of thought. "So for my own safety my father brought me back to the States when I was little."

"What about your mother?" Steve asked.

"She had to stay behind," Darcy sighed. "My father barely got me out of the country. There's no way all three of us could have escaped undetected. We might have all been killed if we'd been caught. So it was just me and my dad until I lost him when I as a teenager."

"Well, what about your mother now?"

"What do you mean?" Darcy asked, it taking all her will power not to glance over at Natasha sitting next to her.

"I mean, have you tried tracking her down recently?" he asked. "The Cold War is over, and by all odds she should still be alive, right?" Before he could go on, his phone let off its text alert in his pocket, and he pulled it out to look at the message. "Tony wants to show me something, but we'll talk about this later okay? We're still on for dinner tonight, right?"

"Yeah," she nodded, looking forward to their date. "I'll be ready to go by six?"

"Perfect, I'll see you at six," he said as he stood, smiling at his girlfriend as he leaned down to press a kiss to her temple. "Nat, I'll see you later," he nodded at the redhead. "Enjoy the rest of your Bake Off marathon," he told them both, before heading for the elevator.

"What the hell was that?" Natasha whispered harshly as soon as the elevator doors closed behind him.

"What was what?" Darcy asked, taken aback by the fire in Natasha's eyes.

"What happened to you being Canadian? What happened to Gerald and Renee Lewis, the writer and music teacher?" she asked angrily. "Steve has an eidetic memory, he will catch the inconsistencies in your already established backstory."

"Oh, that," Darcy shrugged, unconcerned. "We've never really talked about my childhood before. I just implied that I don't really like talking about my past, and since Steve doesn't really like talking about his either, he's respected that and left it alone. In fact no one knows about my 'background', because if there's one thing I've learned over the years, is if you mention being an orphan most people just get uncomfortable and leave you alone about it."

"It doesn't matter what you have or haven't told Steve or anyone else, the fact is that you already have a personal history on file at SHIELD," Natasha snapped.

"Steve respects me too much to go digging into my personnel file," Darcy snapped right back. "You're the only one that's done that. And nobody else cares about the background of the assistant that tagged along with Jane when she started working here. Are you seriously mad at me about this?" she asked, incredulous.

"Yes, I am!" Natasha told her, setting her coffee down on the table with more force than necessary. "Because that was incredibly sloppy and you should know better than that."

"Where are you going?" Darcy asked, as Natasha stood.

"I'm going to go clean up your mess," she told her sharply. "I have to go change your file and kill off a Russian ballerina."

"What-?"

"There needs to be a paper trail to follow in case Rogers tries to find your 'mother' for you," she said pointedly, as she stood and headed for the elevator.

"You're overreacting!" Darcy exclaimed to Natasha's retreating back. "I didn't get this far on my own by being stupid," she pointed out, but it was no use as her mother was already gone. She huffed and turned back to the TV with her arms crossed over her chest. "See if I tell you who gets Star Baker this week," she grumbled under her breath to no one.

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

"UGG!" Darcy exclaimed as she hit the ground hard, her head bouncing against the mats.

"Up. Again."

Darcy blew the hair that escaped from her ponytail out of her face as she rolled onto her hands and knees and pushed herself upright. She hardly thought that she'd have any more success with the takedown Natasha was making her learn this time around, but she tried anyways.

Less than a minute later, she was flat on her back again.

"Up. Again."

"Come on, Nat," Clint said from where where he'd stopped his own workout to watch the two women train from the sidelines. "I think you're being a little rough on her this morning."

"She needs to learn," Natasha responded sharply.

"I agree with Clint," Darcy groaned from her place on the floor.

Natasha ignored her. "Up. Again."

Darcy sighed, but once again climbed to her feet. She'd been getting her ass kicked all morning. Natasha was obviously still mad at her for the day before, and was taking it out on her now. It probably didn't help that she'd gotten in late from her date last night with Steve and had forgotten to set an alarm, so she'd still been in bed when Natasha had called her up asking why she wasn't in the gym yet.

"Seriously though, I don't think Cap is gonna be happy if you break his girlfriend," Clint interjected, when Darcy went sprawling across the mat again. "Maybe take it a little easier on her."

"I can confirm that it would definitely make him unhappy," Darcy agreed, not moving. "And personally I'm not thrilled about it either."

"She can take it," Natasha insisted. "And anyone who is gonna come after her, isn't gonna take it easy on her, either."

"Look, I get that you've adopted Lewis," Clint continued, ignoring the death glare Natasha sent him at that statement. Having no idea how close to the mark his off-handed statement hit. "But you don't need to turn her into a Baby Widow." He'd been more surprised than anyone that Nat had taken to Darcy so quickly. She might be rusty at making friends, but this was hardly the way to go about it.

"Stay out of it, Clint," she snapped in English before switching to Ukrainian. "I said up, Darya. We will go again until you get it right."

"I don't know what you want from me," Darcy snapped back in the same language, sitting up, but refusing to climb back to her feet.

"I want you to be better!"

"I'm doing the best I can!" Darcy exclaimed, at the end of her rope as much as Natasha was at the end of hers.

"I doubt that," Natasha scoffed. "I refuse to believe that your father did not teach you better than this."

"No, he didn't teach me this," Darcy spat, "because he didn't want me to end up a killer like you!"

Natasha's face went stony, completely wiping clear of any previous emotion. Clint pushed away from where he was leaning against the wall, in case he had to intervene. Usually when Natasha got that look on her face, someone was going to end up bleeding. Or worse. But instead she just looked at Darcy for a long moment, before turning and leaving the gym without a word.

"Are you alright?" Clint asked, genuinely concerned, as he crossed over to where Darcy had flopped backwards onto the map and was staring at the ceiling. "I don't know what's gotten into her."

Darcy groaned and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. She knew exactly what had gotten into Natasha, but she wasn't about to explain it. "I'll live."

"What the hell was that about?" Clint wondered, the echo of the gym door slamming shut behind Natasha still reverberating through the room. He'd been watching the last exchange like it was a tennis match, but hadn't understood it since Nat had specifically chosen a language he didn't know.

"That was me putting my foot in my mouth," Darcy sighed, letting her arms drop to her sides."Shit. Now I'm going to have to go apologize."

Clint held out an arm to give her a hand up. "Good luck with that, Lewis."

She took his extended hand and let him pull her to her feet. "Thanks, Barton, I think I'm gonna need it."

Darcy had fully planned on going to find Natasha straight off, but despite her intentions, she ended up back at her own place instead. She walked through the door and was happy to find Steve right where she'd left him, lounging on her couch with his feet up while he reviewed the latest STRIKE reports.

"You're back early," he said, clearly surprised to see her, as she wordlessly wedged herself between him and the back of the couch.

Darcy just made a noncommittal noise as she burrowed underneath his arm, paying no mind to the paperwork he was attempting to read, until she had wrapped herself around his middle. She rested her head on his chest, taking comfort in the slow and steady beat of his heart.

"I take it training didn't go well this morning?" he asked leadingly, as he set aside his reports so he could give her his full attention.

"That's an understatement," she muttered into the soft jersey knit of his tee-shirt.

"What happened?"

"Nat and I are in a fight," she sighed.

Steve was genuinely surprised to hear that. "Really? It wasn't because you were late this morning, was it?" he asked, with a frown. "Because that was as much my fault as yours."

Steve had been completely supportive of the idea of Nat training Darcy, liking the idea of his girlfriend being able to handle herself if she got into trouble when he or one of the other Avengers weren't around. But if it was causing problems, he'd go talk to Natasha. Remind her that Darcy was a civilian, not an agent.

"No, it wasn't that," she sighed. "Although it probably didn't help."

"Do you want to talk about it?" he offered.

"No," she said morosely. "I just want to lay here."

"Alright, you don't have to," he assured her, rubbing a soothing hand up and down her back.

She lasted all of thirty seconds before she started talking. "She was already mad at me from something that happened yesterday, which she totally shouldn't have been mad about, by the way. So she was punishing me by being a total hard ass during training this morning. So obviously it wasn't going well, and she was frustrated with me and I was frustrated with her, so she said something and I said something worse back, and then…"

"And then what?" he prompted when she trailed off.

"She walked away," Darcy said miserably.

"What?"

"She just walked away," she repeated. "She just left without a word. I think I really hurt her feelings."

"I didn't know that was possible," Steve quipped, before he could stop himself.

"Yeah, well, I managed it," Darcy said with a humorless little laugh. "I am a garbage human being. Nobody should talk to me ever."

"You are not," Steve quickly refuted. "Besides, it doesn't sound like Nat is completely blameless," he added. Darcy may not have told him what their fight was about, but he knew her well enough to know that she didn't just senselessly attack people.

"She may have started it, but I finished it," she mumbled into his chest. "And I feel terrible about it."

"So, you'll fix it," he reassured her, having complete faith that she could smooth things over.

"I need to apologize," she said, clearly not enthusiastic at the prospect.

"That sounds like an excellent start," he agreed.

"I should probably go now," she sighed, burrowing further into his embrace, "before it has a chance to fester."

"You're probably right."

"Can I stay here for a few more minutes first?"

Steve tightened his arms around her, holding her close. "Of course you can."

It took almost forty minutes of intensive snuggling before Darcy steeled herself enough to go face her angry mother.

"Well," Darcy said, as she extricated herself from Steve's embrace, "if Nat doesn't accept my apology and kills me instead, it was nice knowing you, Rogers. Please remember me fondly. And don't forget to water my plants."

"Godspeed, Lewis," Steve replied with a smart ass salute.

Darcy returned his salute with a lazy one of her own, and turned to leave until Steve caught her wrist.

"It's gonna be okay," he said with quiet confidence, when she turned back to see why he stopped her. He let his hand slide down her wrist to give her fingers a gentle squeeze. "I have complete faith in you."

Darcy smiled and nodded, before walking out the door.

It didn't take her as long as she would have liked before she was standing at Natasha's door.

"So J, you gonna let me in?" Darcy asked JARVIS, wondering if Natasha had preemptively barred her entrance. When the door slid open with a soft pneumatic hiss, she was relieved that her mother wasn't so angry that she had revoked her unrestricted access.

Darcy spotted Natasha immediately. Not that the other woman was hiding, sitting in plain sight in the corner of her sofa, her legs tucked underneath her, a cup of tea cradled between her hands. She didn't give any indication that she was aware of her presence as she crossed over to the couch, but Darcy knew better than that.

She remained silent, not even so much as glancing over as Darcy settled down into the opposite corner of the sofa, just continuing to placidly sip at her tea.

"I didn't mean it," Darcy finally said, speaking first since she knew that Natasha wouldn't.

"Yes, you did," Natasha replied, finally breaking her silence. "You meant exactly what you said. It was written all over your face."

Darcy sighed, wishing, not for the first time, that her parents weren't human lie detectors. Of course it had been decades since she had cause for such thoughts to cross her mind, which just reinforced how much she wanted things set back to rights between them.

"Okay, fine," she conceded. "I was telling the truth, but it came out all wrong. What I should have said, was that Papa didn't want me to have to be like you," Darcy amended. When Natasha finally looked at her, her expression still guarded, but listening, she continued. "He didn't want me to be made into a weapon. He especially didn't want to do that to me himself. So instead, he taught me to defend myself, to get away, how to blend in, and how to hide. He never wanted me to be made into a weapon," she repeated, "because he hated that both of you were forced to be. So he didn't teach me to be a soldier like him, or a spy like you. He taught me to be a survivor."

Natasha didn't respond immediately and Darcy didn't have anything more to say, so the two women simply sat in silence for several long moments.

"You terrify me," Natasha finally said.

Darcy said up straight in alarm. "What?!" That was the absolute last thing she had expected her to say.

Natasha leaned forward so she could put her mug down on the coffee table. "You terrify me," she repeated. "In a way I didn't even know I could still feel fear."

"Why?!"

"Because I could lose you all over again," Natasha admitted painfully, "and I just got you back."

"Oh," Darcy said softly, all the wind knocked out of her sails. She hadn't really considered that. "I've made it a long time on my own, I know how to take care of myself," she pointed out.

"And you've also never been in this much danger since your father faked your death," Natasha countered.

"What-"

"You're important to me, you're important to Steve. Hell, you're important to the whole team, and that puts a target on your back. We have a lot of dangerous enemies, and I hate that you could be used to get to us," she explained. "And it kills me that simply having you back in my life puts you in danger. But I'm too selfish to give you up again."

"Well that's good, since I'm not going anywhere," Darcy said, "even if you wanted me to."

"I don't," Natasha reiterated. "As much as it scares me, I could never regret it. I just hate that you'd be safer if I still thought you were dead."

"To be fair, Thor was the one that dragged me back into the world of supers," Darcy pointed out. "And I was the one that persuaded Jane to take the job with Stark which cemented my place here, and I had already been dating Steve for like six months before you found out I was here."

Natasha just gave her a look.

"Okay, I get what you mean though," Darcy conceded. "But I'm not ignorant to the dangers either. There's a reason Steve and I have kept our relationship out of the public eye. He doesn't want me getting used to get to him any more than you do. And this," she pulled the necklace she always wore out from inside her shirt, "is from Tony, it has a tracker that he can trace in case I ever do get nabbed. Jane has one too."

Natasha didn't look reassured.

Darcy sighed. "Look, I know deviating from my established backstory was sloppy," she admitted. "You were right about that, and I shouldn't have be so blasé about it. But I don't like lying to Steve more than I have to. It wasn't hard at the beginning because lying about my past is what I do, but the more serious we get the worse I feel about not being up front with him."

"You want to tell Steve the truth." It was a statement, not a question.

"I love him," Darcy said unrepentantly. "But, it's not just my secret to tell." She knew without asking that even if she was prepared to tell Steve the truth about her origins, Natasha was not ready to have the secrets she'd guarded so carefully for the past ten years exposed. "So that was as close to the truth as I could get without outing us completely."

The two women sat in silence for several long moments, each caught up in their own thoughts.

"I fixed your SHIELD file," Natasha finally said, sounding conciliatory for her part in their argument. "And I checked the access records. It appears that I was the only person to read your file since Coulson originally created it."

"I told you, I'm just little ol' Darcy Lewis, the Political Science major who was in the wrong place at the right time and tagged along for the ride," she said with a self-deprecating smirk. "No one is pulling my file."

"Just stick to your new story from here on out and you should be fine."

"If it makes you feel any better, when Steve brought the topic up again at dinner last night, I told him that I couldn't remember my father ever using my mother's real name in front of me, which is technically the truth," Darcy mentioned. "I also told him that I'd tried to hunt my mother down years ago and couldn't find anything, which is also technically the truth, so there's nowhere for him to even start looking if he wanted to. I asked him to just leave it alone, and he said he would."

"Fine."

"Alright."

They both fell silent once again.

"I'm not going to apologize for worrying about you."

"I'm not asking you to," Darcy replied.

"But I'm sorry about this morning." Natasha was very rarely wrong and admitted it even less.

"I'm sorry too."

"Come here," Natasha opened up her arms, and Darcy quickly closed the gap between them to hug her mother, everything forgiven between them. "I just need you to be safe," she said into her hair.

"I'll do everything I can to stay that way," Darcy promised.

But Natasha knew it wasn't that simple. Darya had been her greatest weakness from the moment the nurse had laid the baby girl in her arms. Her unavoidable love for her daughter was something that could be exploited by anyone who knew enough to use it against her. They'd both been safer in the years that they were apart. But while she hated having such an obvious vulnerability, she'd destroy anyone or anything that tried to take Darcy away from her.

"I know you will," she said, squeezing her tighter. "I'll make sure of it."

She'd burn the whole world down if it meant keeping her safe.

A/N Well there it is! I hope you enjoyed it! I'd love to know what you thought :D