Summary: She wished more than anything she'd followed Steve onto that quinjet instead of burning her bridges at both ends, leaving herself stranded in the middle.
The street running alongside the river was dark and deserted. Natasha cut into it, never slowing her pace, the black water flowing silently past her on her left, a long row of ugly, squat apartments to her right. Her lungs burned in her chest but she dared not slow down. She looked two blocks ahead to the bridge that cut over the street she was on, arching from one side of the river to the other. Her feet hit the ground too loudly; her racing figure echoed and reverberated through the shadows like a drum.
The street was lined with cars, permit stickers in the bottom corner of their windshields, fallen yellow leaves caught in the curves of their wipers. She jumped at a silver sedan, one foot on the hood, which buckled loudly under her weight, the other on the roof, and she jumped and caught the ledge of the bridge in her hands. She hauled herself up, scraping her knees and her shins on the ugly pebble-dashed sides, and started running again, away from the river, the city lights blurred and dancing on the water's rippling surface.
If he hadn't seen her, this was where she would lose him. If he hadn't seen her jump onto the bridge; if he hadn't seen her sprinting back into the shadowy, narrow streets between the apartment buildings. She could lose him in the maze of the alleyways and dead ends; keep her head low until they'd lost her scent. This part of town was a pretzel of bends and curves and arches, streets curving over and under themselves.
She kept running. She had to assume he had see her cut alongside the river; he had made the bridge; he had seen the wet footprint of her shoe on the hood of the parked car and predicted what direction she'd try to take. Part of chasing down a mark was predicting the best way for them to escape, and beating them there.
She cut right again, crossed over the route she had taken five minutes earlier with the shadow chasing her, and kept running north. Her adrenaline kept threatening to stumble her, trip her over her own feet. When she finally stopped, there was a sharp pain hooked in her side, and her lungs burned with the cold night air.
She waited, listening for following footsteps. Then she cautiously doubled back for a couple of blocks, until she was satisfied.
She had lost him.
Natasha slept late, the sun intruding through the plastic venetian blinds and warming the tiny room. Sounds from the street drifted up to the apartment — delivery vans reversing and doors slamming, the jolt and thud of hand trucks carelessly hitting the curb and the edges of doorways, men shouting and laughing.
She pulled the quilt up to her chin and listened to it all, dozing in an effort to catch up on the sleep she'd lost the previous night. She let her mind drift between memories and dreams, trivial little things coming up to the surface to make her heart ache — Tony hijacking the music system at a party, Bruce rubbing the red marks from his glasses off his nose, Steve bent over his sketch book.
She rolled over and rubbed her eyes, staring up at the ceiling. She could feel the aches and scrapes from her narrow escape the night before, and her chest tightened for a moment. Her circle of freedom was getting ever-smaller. The bounty on her head had turned everybody into a potential enemy quickly.
The sad truth of it was, there was little use relying on your status as a superhero when the government had a reward out for your capture. Money talked in ways nothing else did.
She listened to the street outside and wondered if it was safer to stay where she was, or try to get out and establish herself somewhere else. She had fewer safe-houses now than she'd used to, thanks to SHIELD's secrets no longer being secrets.
But Natasha had never been stupid enough to tell everyone everything. She'd had a safety net. Experience had taught her that nothing lasted, and eventually you'd be on your own again. When it happened, you'd only have yourself to rely on.
She hated being right.
She kept the blinds closed and moved into the tiny kitchen and living space. The apartment was small but clean, sitting above an old bookstore with a Closed sign permanently taped to the glass of the front door. It was as comfortable as she could make it, with beige chipboard laminate on the kitchen cupboards and mismatched secondhand furniture in the living room.
She made herself some tea, and some toast with stale bread, and sat on the couch to watch the news headlines.
She was still the leading story.
Citizens urged to remain vigilant. Information regarding the Black Widow can be contributed anonymously via the hotline. Increased reward for information leading to the successful capture of rogue Avengers.
She stared at the ticker running across the bottom of the screen. Rogue Avengers.
For a moment she was back in the hangar, standing between the quinjet and Steve Rogers and his mission, whatever it had become. She could see the anxiety in his eyes; she could read what he was thinking. It was what she had been thinking, too.
I'll fight the others, but I can't fight you.
Natasha wiped the fog from the mirror and stared at her reflection. Her face was thinner, and the shadows under her eyes never seemed to fade. She ran a comb through her wet hair, dark with water, darker again with the brown rinse of color she'd put through it.
She was weighing up the risk of leaving the apartment to buy groceries in the mess of evening peak hour, when a noise from the bookstore beneath her made her blood turn cold.
She pulled her clothes on over her damp skin and wrapped her wet hair into a bun at the top of her head as she moved silently through to the bedroom. It had been the bell above the bookstore door — cut short and muffled by a hand. A few seconds later there was another noise, louder this time — shelves collapsing, books falling to the floor as someone knocked one of her trip wires.
An order was barked, heavy footsteps thudded up the stairs towards her apartment door.
Calmly, Natasha pulled her shoes on, grabbed her gun and her knife, used the end of the bed to climb onto the top of the cheap flatpack closet, and carefully pushed up one of the large, rectangular ceiling tiles.
She was setting it back into place when the apartment door gave way and her safe-house was breached.
She didn't bother hanging around to see if she could hear any familiar voices. The roof space wasn't divided — it was low and narrow and ran the entire length of the adjoining businesses crammed into the block. She grabbed the backpack she had stashed above her closet four weeks earlier, and walked silently along the ceiling beams and between the support joists, until she was above the apartments of the adjoining real estate office; the bookkeeper; the private solicitor.
There were no windows, but ambient streetlight pushed its way in through the cheap roofing tiles and along the edges of the walls. Natasha could hear her apartment being torn apart as she carefully made her way to the end of the block.
If they were smart, there'd be roadblocks and police everywhere. If they were smart, they'd be searching the adjoining apartments too.
She silently dropped into the empty, dust-covered bedroom above the butcher, the sharp smell of meat and blood filtering up from below.
She hadn't met a smart vigilante group yet.
Natasha stole a car from a parking garage. It was an old hatchback, dusty and covered in pigeon shit, but the battery was good and when she managed to spark the wires beneath the dashboard, it coughed and turned over, the engine only spluttering once or twice. She had an old decoder in her backpack, one she kept from an old mission with Tony, and she used it to lift the boom gate without a credit card, driving past the unmanned booth and into the street.
She drove west, learning it was better to skip third gear altogether, and that the glove compartment was better left open or it would rattle so much it got into her bones. She let the mix CD in the player run — a random assortment of songs from fifteen or twenty years ago, and she let herself feel surprise and sheepish embarrassment at how many lyrics she could remember. They reminded her of her first years in America, of strip malls and huge department stores — places she'd go to so she could practice tailing and fitting in, where she could hear different accents and learn the shapes of peoples words.
She'd had Clint then, and Fury, and Coulson. She grit her teeth and blinked her aching eyes against the headlights of an oncoming car.
The CD cycled to the beginning again.
One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do, Aimee Mann sang.
Natasha flicked to the radio to find static. She cycled through the stations, trying to find something clear. She felt empty and alone, and she wished more than anything she'd followed Steve onto that quinjet instead of burning her bridges at both ends, leaving herself stranded in the middle.
She found a clear signal and waited for the five o'clock news to come on.
Secretary Ross met with the press again today, urging the public not to approach the rogue Avengers alone.
"These people are highly dangerous. Under no circumstances should the public approach Steve Rogers or his known allies. I can confirm that it appears that a valuable chance of bringing Black Widow into custody has been lost, thanks to a group of well-meaning citizens who attempted to expose her whereabouts. If you have any information regarding the Widow, please call the hotline —"
Natasha clicked the radio off. She had never heard Ross call her Natasha. She was always Widow, or Black Widow. The name that conjured fear and mistrust — the name tied to her past, before she was an Avenger, before little girls started dressing like her at Halloween, before she was publicly good and valuable.
Tony's words cut through her like a knife. Boy, it must be hard to shake the whole double agent thing, huh?
She swallowed sharply at the memory, and tightened her hands on the wheel. She wasn't sure she could blame Tony for it, but the world sure seemed to be thinking that way again. Double agent. Ruski. Black Widow.
Steve, on the other hand, was always Steve. Don't call him Captain America. We don't want the symbol inspiring people to hide him for us.
He's just a man.
Years ago, being on the run had never seemed as exhausting as it did now. Natasha remembered the angry, lonely days between the Red Room and SHIELD with bitterness. But, comparatively speaking, there were so few people chasing her then. Now it seemed like the world was against her — she couldn't slip into a crowd like she used to; she couldn't assume nobody would know her.
Hiding was the thing she was best at, but she was being chipped away at, piece by piece, until there was nowhere left to put herself except the places Ross wanted her to be.
She'd thought she was past this. She'd known there was no such thing as a safety net unless you wove it yourself, but she'd still hoped the Avengers would be there, if nothing else was. She'd thought she'd finally found her place in the world.
But time was a circle, and money talked. Money talked, and the price on her head was making everyone listen.
Years ago, at Clint's kitchen table, while Laura was miserable in the final weeks of a heavy pregnancy and sleeping restlessly upstairs, Natasha had carefully laid one of her safety lines in front of him.
"Apparently there are eighty-eight towns and cities called Washington in America. Did you know that?"
Clint had looked back at her, the expression on his face indicating he very much was not in the mood for a lesson in history or random trivia.
"There's one in particular," Natasha had said.
Natasha knew Clint was taking a deal with the government. They'd dangled deals and offers through the media. Clint and Scott had eventually surrendered to the inevitable — they had families, and Secretary Ross had the advantage.
But Natasha also knew, if he'd had a chance at all, a single whisper of time to stop and leave her a sign or a lifeline, Clint would have done so.
She'd lost the key long ago, but it didn't matter. The lock was easily picked.
It was raining as she reached into the locker and closed her fingers around a padded envelope. She tucked it into her jacket, so relieved she wanted to cry, and hurried back to the car.
The gas light was on — she'd soon have to stop for more, or maybe ditch the car for another, in case this one was compromised. She hadn't heard anything over the radio, and given the state of the car when she'd found it, she'd be surprised if someone had even reported it missing yet.
But above all else, it was late, and she was tired and overcome. She wanted to stop. She wanted a hot shower, and a bed to sleep in.
She found a roadside motel and paid for a room in cash, the rain a convenient excuse to leave her hood over her head, a cheap pair of dark-framed reading glasses the only other disguise she could rely on at such short notice.
The man behind the desk was distracted by the wavering television reception and barely looked at her as he handed her a key. He slammed his palm down on top of the old television and tweaked the rabbit-ear antenna irritably.
She parked her car in front of the room she'd been given, went in and turned the bedside lamp on, then went back into the rain and picked the lock on a room two doors down. The parking lot was empty and other than the lamp she'd just turned on in the other room, the motel windows were dark.
She drew the curtains, shut herself in the bathroom, and ripped open the envelope. A burner phone fell out, wrapped untidily in its charger.
Just 86 Washingtons left, the note said, and she gave a soft laugh that sounded more like a sob.
She turned the phone over in her hands, tracing her fingers around the smooth silver edges before she flipped it open and turned it on. There was only one number, saved under a familiar name — the lifeline Clint had left her. She felt it pull in her chest, taut as a bowstring, as she pressed dial.
He answered on the third ring. "Hi, Nat."
She swallowed back the ache in her throat. "Hi, Steve."
Natasha left before the sun had come up, frost pinching at her nose and her fingertips as she crossed the empty parking lot, leaving the old green hatchback behind. She assumed the worst would happen and therefore took as many precautions as she could without slowing herself down — crossed the brook, the water numbing her to her knees, and cut through the fields of the dairy farm on the edge of town, where the morning routine was well underway and there was a mess of movement and smells she knew would help to hide her trail.
She'd timed it well, only having to walk ten minutes beside the rail line before a freight train rumbled and groaned towards her, crawling its way up the incline out of town. She hitched herself with relative ease onto one of the flatbed trucks loaded with lumber, and let it carry her away, just as the sun broke the horizon.
She kept a sharp eye on the mile markers and the changing countryside. The morning sun was pale and thin, and did little to warm her against the wind sweeping over the open carriage. She wished now she'd chosen one of the others — something with walls — but she didn't want to risk missing the rendezvous point.
Anticipation kept her focused. They were winding north, into the mountains and, as the day drew out, she caught glimpses of snow here and there between the red and yellow trees. They passed another marker, and Natasha drew another line on the back of the business card for the motel she'd left behind. She was getting close.
The change in the train's pace alerted her before anything else. They were climbing again, which meant they'd be getting close to where she needed to abandon the train. When she saw the bridge, they were going slowly enough she could jump with relative safety, tumbling and rolling on the damp, soft earth, the train still groaning its way onward.
She walked parallel to the track, keeping under the shelter of the trees, bright and beautiful in fiery foliage. She wondered what everything had looked like when Clint had come through here, mapping future escapes for her to follow.
The bridge was beautiful — arches of stone curving gracefully over the wide, rocky riverbed, which was frothing white with icy water. She tucked herself beneath a sheltering clump of chokecherry and took a granola bar and a bottle of water from her backpack, watching the shallow river run past and the shadows shrink and stretch again under the passing sun.
Her anticipation kept building, and instead of sharpening her senses, it was now making her fidgety and restless. She shredded small piles of leaves and rolled stones in her hands, impatient for a reunion the world had kept from her for so long.
She was sick of being alone. She was sick of looking over her shoulder. She hated having her goodness stripped away again, labelled a criminal and a traitor.
Boy, it must be hard to shake the whole double agent thing, huh?
She tossed a stone furiously towards the river, which roared and tumbled past her in a fury, the water gleaming and sparkling in the afternoon sun.
She frowned and tilted her head. There was something else — another noise, a shadow...
She shrank back in horror as the dark angles of a quinjet sank into the valley, the landing gear lowering and planting carefully on the wide, shallow riverbed.
They intercepted my message with Steve.
She froze, suddenly unsure of what to do. It would be easy to disappear into the woods and lose them before they had a chance to spot her. She had a gun, but they'd have to get closer to her before she could use it to any fatal advantage, she wasn't sure how many of them there would be... And Steve was coming. Steve was coming; she couldn't leave the rendezvous point without him; couldn't leave him at risk of walking into a trap.
The door lowered, and she squinted past the sun on the dancing water. She recognized him immediately, and her heart skipped a beat, her fear disappearing as quickly as it had come.
She had to pick her way down the slope towards the river with infuriating slowness. He strolled through the shallow water with an alarming amount of confidence, she thought, for someone who had just landed a fucking quinjet in the woods.
Her mouth was dry as she tried to hurry towards him, certain that there was no way he'd come to her unknown, certain that this, too, would be pulled out from beneath her and she'd be free-falling and alone again.
Please don't take this from me, she thought desperately, her breath hot and hard in her lungs, her heart thudding uncomfortably in her chest. Please let me have this, please let this be mine, please —
She dumped her backpack when Steve held out his arms, and she flung herself the last two paces and collided with him hard, laughing helplessly against his shoulder, clutching him tightly.
"You made it," she croaked, hardly able to believe it.
"I'm always on time." He pulled her in, wrapping his arms around her and holding her against him. "Nat," he sighed, and she closed her eyes and let herself hope, for a moment, that there was only this, and time would stretch out long enough to allow her to enjoy it.
"I didn't want it to end like that," he said, his face buried against her shoulder. "I'm sorry."
She shook her head. "It's not your fault."
He squeezed his arms around her waist, his voice low and warm. "Still," he said. "I didn't want you to be alone."
There was a carpet of cloud beneath them, tinged orange and yellow by the setting sun. Steve looked over at Natasha, and she had a flash of déjà vu — Where did Captain America learn how to steal a car?
She grinned at the memory, and he grinned back at her.
"So is this borrowed, too?" she asked.
"No, this is stolen."
She laughed. "I like the beard," she said.
He scratched at his cheek. "Thanks. I like your hair."
"No you don't," she said, pulling the dark strands through her fingers.
He only grinned again. "So," he said. "What do you want to know first?"
She was hungry for information. She tried to structure her questions in a way that would let him tell his story in a linear pattern, but it was too hard. Clint, Bucky, Wanda... Tony. She had to know everything.
Steve was good at relaying what she wanted to know without getting too bogged down in the details, but sometimes she'd hear a particular strain in his voice, or note the way his body tension would change, and she knew it had been a lot harder than he was trying to let on.
"How did you — how did you come so far without being spotted?" Natasha asked, still prickly with the idea their movement was being traced.
"You'll understand when we get to Wakanda," Steve said. "They know how to hide."
She tried to be satisfied with this, and reminded herself she could trust him.
"How about you?" Steve asked quietly. "It seems like you've been playing a lot of shadow games."
"Not by choice," Natasha said, a little too defensively.
He waited patiently.
She told him as much as she could — starting with Tony accusing her of being a double agent, but leaving out exactly how much it had stung. When she told her story it seemed stupid, how hard it had been for her to disappear this time. Like she hadn't done things right, somehow.
"They knew roughly where I was," she said. "It's easier to hide in a crowd, and in the early days there were roadblocks everywhere, so I went to a safe-house I'd been keeping since SHIELD fell, and I tried to lay low."
She told him about the reward money, and how the announcement had changed the atmosphere of everything — suddenly everyone had a chance of becoming an instant millionaire if they helped bring an Avenger in. She told him about how, on the day she'd gone out to buy hair dye, she'd felt the weight of another shadow behind her, someone mirroring her movements, and she'd led them on foot across the city, trying to lose them casually until the streets were too empty and he'd started chasing her.
"Sometimes they'd call the hotline, and then there'd be police and SWAT everywhere," she said. "The confusion was almost always an advantage. But most of the time, when someone was following me, it was just a civilian trying to be a hero. I didn't want to hurt anyone. So I just ran, and I tried to hide."
"What changed?"
"They found my safe-house. I don't know how. But they struck at a stupid time of day. Thinking about it now, I don't think they actually believed they'd find me there, they were just taking a chance or following half a lead. I slipped out and stole a car, and got to Washington. The 88th Washington," she clarified.
Steve smiled. "Clint told me about the 88th Washington. He made me swear not to tell anyone else."
"He knows who to trust," Natasha answered quietly.
They flew on in silence for a while, the sky darkening and the clouds thinning, the stars coming out.
"You should get some rest," Steve said eventually, as Natasha smothered another yawn. "There's a cot in the back you can stretch out on." He hesitated. "It might still have some blood on it, I'm not sure."
"I'm fine," she insisted, not wanting to be alone, even if 'alone' was a mere distance of a few feet.
"Okay," he said, sounding like he didn't quite believe her.
She shuffled around in her seat a little, and stretched her legs out, bracing her feet against the edge of the control panel until another memory flashed into her head. She curled her legs up again.
"Put 'em back," Steve said with a grin. "This one's stolen, remember? You can put your feet on the dash."
Natasha was too well trained to make any noise, even when she woke suddenly from deep sleep, but she still clapped one hand tightly on Steve's wrist, ready to break it until she realized who exactly was trying to gently wake her.
He looked amused. "We're almost there," he said. "You'll want to see this."
She rubbed a hand over her face and squinted through the windshield. It was dark, but everything ahead of them looked uneven and patchy. She leaned forward a little, trying to make out the shapes, and by the time she recognized the view as moonlight reflecting on the jungle canopy, it was too late.
She grabbed the arm of Steve's chair, wanted to scream at him to pull up, but then there was a ripple, and a flash, and everything had changed. Artificial lights, wide streets, tall buildings. Open space, neatly organized.
She looked over at Steve, who appeared to be almost bursting with smug satisfaction.
"You're an asshole," she told him, and he erupted into laughter.
The night air was warm and balmy. Natasha shrugged off her jacket and drew in a deep breath. She could smell sun-warmed concrete and damp greenery. For the first time in a long time, she felt the invisible veil she'd pulled over herself shift a little, like maybe it was ready to slip away.
Steve led her through various doorways and enormous hallways, most of which had wide windows looking out over lush canopy.
"You didn't have to wait up," he said suddenly, and she felt her heart jump into her throat when T'Challa stepped forward to greet them.
"I leave tomorrow," T'Challa said in response. "It did not feel right to go without offering my apologies to Ms Romanoff."
"I should be apologizing to you," she insisted. "I mean, I electrocuted you."
"It was a strange day," T'Challa said, his dark eyes sparkling at her. "But had it not been for you, I would never have learned the truth about who killed my father. And things would be very different now. So I must thank you." He clasped her hand and looked at her earnestly.
"Let's call it even," she suggested, hoping her smile looked as sincere as she felt. Loneliness still tugged inside her; she missed being part of a team; she missed having friends.
"A welcome suggestion," T'Challa said, smiling back at her. He turned to walk alongside her and Steve. "I hope you will be comfortable here. I am sorry for leaving so soon after your arrival."
"Where are you going?" Natasha asked.
"Not far," he assured her. "Sometimes things look a little clearer from a distance. My kingdom is in turmoil since my father's passing. There are many people I need to speak with, and many things to consider."
Natasha didn't press for more, understanding he was being purposely evasive.
"I think," Steve said quietly, once T'Challa had politely left them, "he leaves to stop drawing attention to the fact that we're here."
Natasha felt an immediate pang of guilt.
"And I don't think he's being quite honest about what exactly is going on, but until he asks for help, I think we have to stay out of it."
Natasha felt an odd sense of foreboding, like she'd merely gone from one disaster to another — but then Steve's arm brushed against hers and she felt anchored again. Everything would be okay now. She wasn't alone anymore.
"We have a — I guess it's a suite," Steve said, sounding mildly uncomfortable with the level of comfort at his fingertips. "We're not confined in here, exactly, but with everything else T'Challa has going on, the less visible we are, the better. For now, at least."
"I don't mind laying low," Natasha said truthfully. She didn't. Because it would be easier this time.
Steve led her into a dimly-lit living space. Everything was wide and open, windows taking advantage of the views which, even in the moonlight, were spectacular. A screen flickered against the wall, muted, showing NBA highlights. A shadowed figure was stretched out on the couch, one arm tucked behind his head, eyes closed.
Steve glanced at Natasha and raised his eyebrows slightly. "This way," he whispered, leading her to the other side of the room.
"Hi Sam," Natasha said softly, and he opened his eyes and smiled at her.
"Good to see you, Romanoff." His voice followed her, warm and teasing. "Always good to see you."
"You can sleep in here," Steve said. "Uh, I think Wanda has left you a few things..." He waved at a pair of dark pajamas folded neatly on one of the crisp pillows. A bright bouquet of tropical flowers sat on the dressing table.
Welcome home! read the note propped against the vase, and Natasha felt another ache in her throat.
"Get some rest," Steve said. "We'll talk more tomorrow."
"Steve..." She touched his arm so he turned to her again. "Thank you," she said.
He shook his head. "Any time."
She wanted to say more to him, she just couldn't put it into words. She took his hand and he squeezed her fingers gently and smiled at her again before he left, closing the door quietly behind him.
Natasha was tempted to fall straight into bed, but she felt grimy and travel-worn. The bathroom was all dark tiles and stone, and lush plants and flowers pressed up against window, their petals open to the moon.
She stood under a torrent of hot water, letting the sweat and dirt run down her skin. She washed her hair with something that smelled vaguely peppery, and scrubbed herself with a stiff loofah sponge until she felt raw and new again.
She brushed her teeth and looked at her fog-blurred reflection in the mirror. Her cheekbones seemed sharper again, the shadows under her eyes twice as dark as she remembered. She touched a blue bruise on her shoulder, suddenly remembering the jolt of landing after she'd jumped from the flatbed train carriage. She trailed her fingertips gently over the shadow on her skin, and remembered the way Steve had gently squeezed her hand before he'd left. The hollowness inside her suddenly yawned again, open and hungry, and she longed for another touch, something soft and affectionate and real.
She sat on the edge of the bed, dressed in new pajamas, and tried to count back the days since she'd managed a shower or a full night's sleep without the fear of someone kicking her door down and taking her into custody. She glanced at her backpack, which Steve had left by the door.
She took her knife out of the side pocket and slipped it under her pillow. She crawled into bed and curled her fingers around the handle before she closed her eyes.
She always had a safety net.
It wasn't a noise that woke Natasha — it was the knowledge that the air in the room had changed; something had altered the atmosphere and it felt wrong. She sat up, knife clenched in her hand beneath the crisp sheets.
Wanda gave her a timid sort of wave. "I don't want to intrude," she said softly.
Natasha dropped her knife on the nightstand and raked her fingers through her hair. "No, it's okay. What time is it?"
"Almost ten. If you wanted to keep sleeping —"
"No," Natasha said. She slid out of bed and smiled at Wanda. "Hi. Thanks for the flowers. And pajamas. Everything."
Wanda smiled back at her. "I'm glad you're here," she said simply. When she made a hesitant gesture for a hug, Natasha wrapped her arms around her readily.
Wanda squeezed her tightly. "We've missed you," she said, and there was something in the tone of her voice that made Natasha wait for something else. It didn't come.
"I've missed you, too," Natasha said truthfully.
"Steve and Sam are in a disagreement over whether to wake you or not," she said, raising her eyebrows a little, her eyes sparkling. "Steve said to let you sleep, Sam said you would be hungry. I came in to ask you which of them is right."
Natasha laughed and shrugged. "Sam, I guess. This time." She reached for her backpack. "Give me five minutes and I'll be right out."
She dressed in jeans and a loose green t-shirt, brushed her teeth and raked her darkened hair up into a ponytail. When she joined the others in the kitchen, Sam said she looked good, and she grinned at him, because she felt good.
Steve was making pancakes.
"No frilly apron?" Natasha asked him.
Sam pointed at him. "Dude, I told you."
Wanda fluttered her fingers and rubbed her temples. "Please, let's not have another chambermaid discussion."
"Do I want to know?" Natasha asked.
Steve flipped a pancake onto a plate and held it out to her. "Probably not."
Natasha felt euphoric. She kept telling herself to calm down, to snap out of it, but there was a strange sense of safe domesticity in their little suite, and it was easy to forget about the world outside.
Habits were not so easy to forget. Natasha quickly memorized the palace layout, the guards, the geography, the security measures at her fingertips — for help or hindrance. And she quickly figured out where, depending on the time of day, she could find Sam, Wanda or Steve, should she need to.
On her third morning in Wakanda, she took a fresh cup of coffee out to the sunlit balcony off the dining area. Steve was sitting alone, barefoot and relaxed, with a sketchbook open against his knee.
"Will you let me see your drawings if I bribe you with fresh coffee?" she asked, holding it out enticingly.
He smiled at her. "I don't need a bribe. You can see." He handed the sketchbook over. "But I'm a little rusty. I haven't had much time until now."
She started at the back, with his most recent sketches. It was mostly Wakanda— tiny red and green birds; giant orange flowers with spiky stems; a narrow silver waterfall. She went back further and saw the stone bridge with its four arches, the one Clint had found and decided it would make a good pick up point. Further again, and it was the rough surface of the ocean, dark and angry. She flipped through the pages slowly, and out of the corner of her eye she noticed Steve trying to ignore her, but spinning a pencil nervously in his fingers.
"These are beautiful," she said, running her thumb down the middle of two pages spread with the fanning of Sam's wings.
"Thanks," Steve said, sounding embarrassed. "There's one of you near the front. I'm just warning you."
She grinned, instantly curiously, but kept up her slow ticking of the pages. The glinting windows of the Avengers base; the sharp clean circles of his shield. Bucky's arm.
"Have you been down there?" she asked.
Steve glanced at her, and then down at the page. "Yeah." He looked back over the swaying treetops. "He's still under. But they're making progress."
"I'm sure he'll be fine."
"I know. It's just hard, knowing that... Knowing that someone got inside his head like that, and made him so different."
Natasha thought back to the Red Room, and the days after, and trying to fight her own mind about what she wanted, and what she needed. "It doesn't last," she said. "He'll be okay."
Steve looked at her, and she looked back at the sketchbook again to avoid the soft look in his eyes. The Brooklyn Bridge, pigeons sitting on a window ledge, black umbrellas open under the rain.
And then there she was. In a dark suit, standing in a mess of blurred silhouettes, bright smudges of flashing emergency lights all around her. Her red hair was caught in an invisible breeze and her eyes were wide, and prettier than they ought to be. She was holding a phone to her ear. The conversation came back to her like it was yesterday.
If he's this far gone, Nat, I should be the one to bring him in.
"Why'd you draw this?" Natasha asked. She hovered her fingertips over her own face; remembered the taste of blood and dirt.
"It's burned into my memory," he admitted. "I knew I was going after Bucky, and I knew you'd try and tell me not to. But I had to call you. I had to say goodbye. I thought I might not see you again."
She looked down at the page. "This was never going to be the last time."
"No," he agreed, giving her a small smile. "I know that now."
Sometimes, the outside world found its way in. The news showed the latest updates on the 'Rogue Avengers' — Natasha had apparently been spotted in London, and there were rumors circulating about a new Captain America movie, which were often preceded by the words the dark truth.
Wanda found it hardest to be inside. She paced a lot, and was restless and fidgety.
"You can go out," Steve said, but there was a sense of anxiety and wrongness about it. They weren't blind to the fact T'Challa had a lot on his plate — having the world's most wanted criminals freely wandering around his kingdom seemed another step entirely.
Wanda seemed embarrassed by the attention. "It's fine," she said. "I understand."
"People must know we're here," Natasha reasoned. "Don't they see the quinjet coming and going?"
"We've had some additional help with the cloaking," Steve said.
"Is this like a Wonder Woman invisible jet situation?"
Steve hesitated. "She's not real, right?"
Sam made a soft noise in his throat. "Real enough. She's badass."
Steve looked at him a moment longer before he turned back to Wanda. "You're not a prisoner here," he said.
"I know," Wanda insisted. She gave him a smile. "It's not the Raft, and that is enough."
Sam shuddered.
Natasha took one look at the expression on Wanda's face — the memory — and took her hand. "Come on," she said. "I know where we can get some fresh air."
The palace was enormous, and Natasha had quickly determined where she would be free to wander. The views outside were rugged and expansive — Wakanda was an efficient, well-planned city in the middle of a dense, tangled wilderness, and Natasha found herself drawn to the greenery more than the glass and metal.
There were numerous paths and trails leading away from the palace. Most them looped around on themselves after winding through picturesque tunnels of trees and vines. But some of them ended in balconies and viewing platforms.
Natasha led Wanda to a ledge which overlooked a waterfall, roaring and thundering to itself in complete isolation, the mist catching the sunlight and drifting lazily in rainbow colors through the air.
"I didn't know this place was here," Wanda said in amazement. "How did you find it? You have only been here a few days."
"I like to know my surroundings," Natasha said.
I like to know how I can get away.
"Sometimes you remind me how little I know," Wanda said, wrapping her arms around herself. "I was never trained for these things, I was just... kept in a box."
Natasha watched quietly as a series of emotions and memories flitted over her face.
Wanda's voice was calm and quiet. "I know why we are here. But it just feels like a bigger box. It reminds me I'm not free. I don't think I will ever be free."
"Freedom is a lie," Natasha said. She'd meant it to be comforting, but now that it was out it sounded blunt and uncaring. "I mean," she said hastily, "everyone is bound by something. Sometimes you have to choose your prison."
"I just want to be with people," Wanda said softly. "I just want to be normal."
"You're better than normal," Natasha said. "But I'm sorry it feels like a box." She watched the water thundering over the waterfall, not sure how to fix what was wrong.
"It's not so bad," Wanda said. "I know it could be worse. I don't want to seem ungrateful."
"I know."
"Steve has done a lot for me."
"Me too." Natasha glanced at her. "How are Sam and Steve dealing with their cabin fever?"
"Drills," Wanda said. "They spar sometimes, but Sam likes running on the treadmill more than he likes pretending to fight Steve. Steve will help me train sometimes, but I think he worries about it. Like he's not sure if I like it." She held out her hand, and Natasha watched as the colored mist floating in front of the waterfall gently rounded itself like a crystal ball, and then burst like a bubble, drifting back into the wind.
Wanda lowered her hand again.
"I can spar with you," Natasha offered. "I mean, it doesn't have to be sparring like Steve spars. If using your abilities helps you feel a little less caged, I can help."
Wanda tucked her hair behind her ears. "It doesn't have to be about this," she said, letting trails of red light swing between her fingers like glowing strings.
"If we had freedom to roam the kingdom, I'd take you through the market and see if we could get out again without anyone recognizing us."
"I think that is above even your abilities."
"You're talking to the woman who got Steve Rogers past a scout team of HYDRA agents," Natasha said confidently. "Just don't expect me to kiss you as a distraction."
Wanda laughed. "He told us about that."
Natasha looked at her with a surprised smile. "He did?"
Her voice was suspiciously light. "He talks about you a lot."
Natasha wasn't sure what to do with that information.
"What else did you have in mind?" Wanda asked.
Natasha eyed the deep pool of foaming water below them. "How about a game of catch?"
"And," Natasha added, "she now has several very important skills under her belt. Like the first rule —"
"Don't run, walk." Steve looked amused. "I'm not mad."
"You looked a little mad. Impatient, maybe." She nudged him. "Like a dad whose kids were out past curfew."
He made a winded noise of disgust. "I don't have tabs on you, Natasha." But he folded his arms and leaned against the kitchen counter. "I just don't want to cause trouble here. We're all feeling cabin fever, but..." He shook his head.
"I wasn't really going to climb the wall and trigger an emergency intruder drill," Natasha said. "It was just a game."
"Like getting her to fly you over a waterfall?"
Natasha grinned with remembered adrenaline. "I guess."
Steve smiled and shook his head. "They said you jumped off a cliff."
"She was always going to catch me." She lowered her voice, not wanting Wanda to overhear. "The look on her face, Steve... it was breaking my heart. She needed a distraction."
Steve glanced through into the living room where Wanda and Sam were in a heated discussion over whatever was on television. Wanda's eyes were bright and her cheeks were flushed. She waved her hand and, in a red flash, the remote slid out of Sam's grasp and across the room.
"No magic tricks!" he cried, and she tipped her head back and laughed.
Steve looked back at Natasha, and there was a warmth in his eyes that seemed to reach inside her. "You know what you're doing," he said. "You always do."
He touched her shoulder briefly, steering himself around her as he went to join Wanda and Sam. She watched him go, and she thought about how lost she had felt recently, and how her place in the world only seemed assured when she was with him.
"Oh, so you'll use it when you want to steal the remote, but putting a bag of popcorn in the microwave is too much?"
"It's your turn for popcorn duty," Wanda said, shrugging at Sam, her blue eyes wide.
"You're playing with fire," Sam muttered, heaving himself up. Wanda laughed and burrowed herself deeper into the plump couch cushions.
Natasha propped her feet up on the ottoman next to Steve's, and let herself for bask for a moment in the atmosphere of laughter and contentment. Wanda's newfound happiness had wrapped around all of them like a blanket — there had been a heaviness previously, something they weren't fully aware of.
But tonight there was warmth and teasing, and it felt normal. Like it used to.
Memories of Stark Tower and the Avengers base suddenly hit Natasha with full force. Movie nights and board games, salty-sweet cocktails and cold beer, grilling burgers on the roof with the sun lowering behind the New York skyline. Clint, Tony, Pepper, Rhodey, Thor...
She got up and slipped into the bathroom, her heart hammering, her mouth dry. "Why'd you do that?" she asked herself pitifully. She gave herself a hard stare in the mirror. "Be happy with this. This is good. This is great. Think about where you were two weeks ago, and how out of reach this felt."
But her fingers trembled because no matter what she'd managed to gain back, she'd lost even more, and suddenly it was too hard to forget that.
"Nat."
She'd just pushed her bedroom door open. It was still early, but she'd excused herself with the desire for a hot shower and an early night. Steve had watched her go, but it hadn't taken him long to follow her.
She put the question to him before he could put it to her. "Everything okay?"
"You tell me." He looked uncomfortable. "I'm really not — I don't want you to think you need my approval for anything. What you did for Wanda today... I wish I'd seen that's what she needed."
"No, I'm not... I don't think that." She shifted her weight. "I know why we have to be careful."
"She's a lot happier."
"For now," Natasha said, too world-weary to pretend that good things last. "She's still a butterfly in a glass box."
There was an ache in her throat and behind her eyes that wasn't going away. The words 'we need a new plan' kept coming into her head, but she couldn't bring herself to voice them.
"You don't think this is sustainable," Steve said.
"Do you?" Her voice cracked and she shook her head and grit her teeth, trying to get herself under control.
"No," he said simply. "But I don't know what else to do. Maybe when Bucky wakes up..." He trailed off. He sounded tired, and upset, and Natasha hated herself for ruining what had been such a light-hearted evening for everyone else.
"Sorry," she said helplessly.
"No, you're right. I think it's time we made a better plan."
But I don't want to. The thought was pitiful, and her eyes burned with unshed tears.
"Nat," Steve said softly.
"I don't know what's wrong with me." She tried to laugh but it came out as a sob instead. She smeared away a sudden wave of hot tears with the palm of her hand.
Steve stepped closer to her.
"I'm just tired," she said.
He rubbed the pad of his thumb over her wet cheek. "Get some sleep."
"No, I mean..." There was a desperation rising inside her — a boiling mix of exhaustion and fear and anticipation of another hurdle to overcome. It never stopped, any of it, and she was tired.
She closed her eyes and leaned her cheek into Steve's open palm. "I always have to look over my shoulder," she said. "For as long as I can remember, I've been waiting for someone to come up behind me. I've had to watch everything, all the time, expecting the worst. But not here. I don't have to do that here."
Steve stepped closer again, and she let him guide her head against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and stood with her quietly.
"Wanda deserves to be happy," Natasha added, her voice muffled and hot against Steve's t-shirt. "We all do. I don't want to stay here if it means she can't — she can't feel what she needs to."
"Well, maybe there's another way," Steve said thoughtfully. His fingers combed gently through her hair. "There's someone else I can call."
"A wildcard?" she asked. She thought tiredly of Tony, and where he was, and how much she missed him and his blunt problem-solving.
"Vision," Steve said. There was a slight edge in his voice, like he was suggesting it rather than stating it, and he wanted her approval.
Natasha was surprised, but it made sense. "Do you know how to reach him?"
"I'll think of something." He rocked her a little. "I don't want you to worry anymore, okay?"
She didn't answer him, but she leaned into him a little, not wanting him to leave. He held her close, and she felt his breath warm against the top of her head.
"We'll figure it out," Steve assured her quietly. "We always do, Nat."
She tipped her head back to look at him. "It's easier with you."
"What is?"
"Everything." She looked up at him, suddenly understanding that the reason she didn't have to look over her shoulder here was because of Steve. It had always been that way — if he was with her on a mission, he had her back. He'd always had her back.
She cupped his face in her hands. His beard was short and soft, and she stroked her thumbs against the grain of it and watched his lashes flutter.
"Natasha," he said.
She hushed him. She could still feel her tears drying on her skin, but the ache in her throat was gone. Her pulse was steady, the trembling in her fingers had withdrawn. She grazed her thumb over his bottom lip, trailed the backs of her fingers over the edge of his jaw and down his throat.
He followed her movement and bowed his head, closing his eyes. She still had to stand on her toes to kiss him.
This wasn't like their first kiss — a pantomime, a disguise. It felt like she was falling this time; her heart raced and her blood rushed. She felt opened, and raw and vulnerable. His hands tightened on her waist and he bent further to meet her, pulling her in. She let her teeth graze over his lower lip and she heard her own breath escape in a whimper of longing.
When they broke apart, all around them was silence. Her bedroom was dark, and when Steve closed the door it was darker still.
"We probably shouldn't," he whispered, but he wasn't trying to hide the fact he wanted to.
"I know," she agreed. Her skin felt taut; her heart beat like a drum.
"It might complicate things."
"Maybe," she whispered. But it immediately felt like she'd told a lie. She chased the feeling down and tried to examine it. "But, I mean," she said helplessly, "maybe it wouldn't."
"We have enough complications as it is," he said. "And I'm the cause of most of them."
"No," Natasha said. "Not for me."
It all happened carefully, bit by bit, like they were unpacking something explosive. Without careful consideration of everything — Steve's bare shoulders in the moonlight, his fingertips traveling the arch of her spine, his eyelashes kissing the rise of her cheekbones — it would all disappear in a moment, like it had never existed at all.
He sat on the bed and she knelt over him and kissed him, holding his face in her hands, arching her hips when he ran tickling fingertips over her naked waist. He kissed her neck and her breasts and steadied her when she shivered and sank down upon him, hips flush with his, waiting a long moment to feel as much of it as she could, overwhelmed and breathless with how much she wanted more of this, always.
It seemed important to be quiet — the rest of their lives depended so much on secrecy, and now there was this, and it had become what Natasha wanted to protect most. She wanted to hold it close and quiet against her heart, where it would be safe, and nobody could take it away.
"It's okay," Steve whispered in her ear, and she wrapped her arms around him tighter still, and kissed his shoulder and the pulse in his neck and his warm mouth, and let herself fall free into the dizziness of it all, Steve's hands on her, keeping her where she needed to be.
Steve's fingers traced lazy, looping patterns across Natasha's ribs, down her spine, beneath the hollows of her shoulder blades.
"Nowhere else will be like this," Natasha said, her eyes closed. His touch was hypnotic; she felt on the edge of sleep. "We'll have to look over our shoulders all the time. We can't afford to be complacent."
"I'll have your back," Steve promised. "You'll have mine."
"I know," she said. She'd be lying to herself if she didn't think she was longing to be part of a team again, being part of something good again.
"I just feel like we should make ourselves useful somewhere," Steve said. "I hate sitting around doing nothing, and seeing things on the news I could be helping with. Instead I'm hiding here. It feels cowardly."
She blinked at him. "It's not cowardly," she said. "Just sensible."
He smiled at her and pulled the bedsheets up over her shoulder. "Go to sleep," he said. "We'll figure it out tomorrow."
"We always do," she murmured. She closed her eyes again, and trailed her fingers along his arm until she found his hand.
No matter what happened next, she knew she wasn't alone anymore.
She had hold of a lifeline.