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S.H.I.E.L.D. has reproduced the muted-green hospital room that he wakes up in. The game on the radio is their first mistake. The size of the room. The woman’s… attire. Things are off. But Steve recognizes that it is a failed attempt at a smooth transition. The twenty-first century isn’t easy to wake up to.
He tries to adjust.
A couple of months later, Fury enlists him and he finds a debriefing package in his apartment. The Avengers Initiative. The first time he hears of her, she is a name among five others. Natasha Romanoff.
Agent.
That word gives him pause, and he thinks of Peggy. An involuntary muscle contraction, one that’s become sore since he’s been readjusting. He shuts the file, pushing both the women’s names out of his mind, and packs a bag.
***
When Steve is introduced to Agent Romanoff, he doesn’t shake her hand. The association his mind makes is unfair and undeserved, but he can’t shake the feeling. She stands erect, shoulders straight, and when they walk, her movements are fluid. A contradiction he discerned even when the sun impedes his sight.
She’s good at smalltalk, escorting everyone into their designated roles with a smile on her face. The way he’d seen his mother do it countless times before when his father had visitors over for dinner.
Directing men with a soft voice and feigned compliance.
***
After being talked into making discomfiting videos for the Department of Education, which gives him flashbacks to his days at the USO, he needs something solid, something far away from all his memories in Brooklyn. He is assigned to co-operations with Agent Romanoff, to help him transition to his new role.
Her hair is different, but her composure unchanged.
That smile still ever-present as she introduces him to the bureaucratic world of S.H.I.E.L.D, and it unnerves him. What intent lies behind it? Had he not read in the Avengers debriefing package that she is an active spy, he may not have been so weary.
The next time Fury checks in with him, he requests her file. It’s thicker than the one he has received back in New York City, when he read about the lives of his friends, about what he has missed out on. Most of her background is classified, but he got the gist of it.
Black Widow. Former assassin. A Russian operative. A defector.
Now one of the most skilled secret agents, one with a beautiful covering, and dangerous contents.
***
She isn’t the first woman he has met since his reawakening nor is she the last, but she is the most brazen one. And one he can’t figure out. Not that he has ever been any good at that, but he is improving. Twenty-first century women are more… direct.
In the two years that they have worked together on operations, he has learned very little about her outside of her work ethic. Natasha completes their missions with ease. In the beginning, she is way ahead of him, but she never boasts when he’s still learning the ropes. The teasing comes later. And… there’s a certain diligence to her, but he can’t put his finger on it.
A calm and playful temper, yet she’s never not reading the room.
***
The truth is a matter of circumstances, she says, and it’s the most Nat has revealed to him so far. She averts her gaze to somewhere on the dashboard, a blank stare. A shift in her memories, from fabricated to genuine ones.
Steve wonders about her truth, the one she buries deep inside of herself, underneath her smiles and teasing, underneath her brutality and skill. There is another layer there, possibly more than one, and the longer he knows her… the more he is itching to peel it off.
Maybe he would finally reach her core.
***
Steve is always learning. When it comes to Natasha, he always is.
After they reach their safe house, Sam’s home, he cleans himself in front of the sink and catches her absentminded stare through the mirror. There it is. The submersion into her hidden layers. The shift in her memories. And she pats her hair dry through the process of coping, a mechanized function, never truly forgetting her programming.
When she discloses her feelings, tells him about the lies, there is a vulnerability in her soft, green eyes. No feigned compliance to steer him in a certain direction. No mischievous remark to divert the attention. No masks to conceal herself.
Simple, unadulterated honesty. An assurance between new friends.
***
Where else am I going to get a view like this? She asks the question, and he’s caught off guard. Like always… he doesn’t have the answer. Not when it comes to her.
He doesn’t know when it exactly happened. Somewhere after the kiss, after the conversation in Sam’s guest room, but something is different. He presses his lips together, momentarily in a world of his own, as she takes in her view with a smile of acceptance.
Soft smudges on her cheek from the vapor of rubble. Her short red tresses swaying along with the wind. He discerns a maturity in her smile, one she doesn’t reveal often, not playful like all the others, and he has his answer.
Nowhere, he thinks to himself.
***
The church pews have cleared out, the hall has grown silent. Nothing to keep him company in the house of prayers, except for the glaring stares of the figures of saints in the stained glasses. Nothing but… her soft footfall. Even when they’re at odds, she comes through.
Staying together is more important than how we stay together, she says as she steps closer to him, and he really wants to believe that, he wants to lean on her comfort and confidence, but Nat can’t answer his question. And he can’t do it.
I didn’t want you to be alone, she tells him, and his heart sinks to the pit of his stomach. She pulls him between her arms, and allows him to lean on her without having to compromise. He needs to readjust his outdated appraisal.
The contents of Natasha are as beautiful as her coverings, silken and tender.
***
Hope. Faith. Liberty.
The ideals he died for. Was it for nothing? The world keeps on spinning and unnatural forces of power keep landing in hands of corrupted minds, sometimes even by their doing. They are far from perfect, but the safest hands are still their own.
He’s losing friends. Old ones. New ones. And through it all, it’s difficult for Steve to have confidence in the country he has fought for, when it is showing its hand in their game of dominance. And just when he thinks all hope is gone, Natasha steps aside… and lets him and Bucky pass.
Caught between two allies, between family, she is forced to choose. He doesn’t know how to thank her. His unwavering friend, restoring the little faith he has left.
***
You and me, we’re the same, she murmurs as her head lowers from his earlobe to the nape of his neck. He closes his eyes with a sigh, welcoming her words alongside her caress, both more requisite than he could admit. She straddles his lap, her arms curling around him, and she stares into his eyes.
A shift in her memories, and he wonders once more.
Still peeling back her layers, still trying to find her core.
But then her gaze lowers to his lips, and he pulls her mouth back on his as his own realization hits him. The ideals he has died for. The country he has fought for. They have changed. But with all the changes he has gone through these last few years, some that were disastrous, she remains his constant.
Always by his side.
Assassin. Agent. Partner. Friend. Family.
His spark of hope.