no, there's nothing sadder (closed)

[vdova]

Who: Natasha Romanoff, Steve Rogers
Where: The Baromanogernesons
When: May 15th
What: Discussing the phone call.
Warnings: Googly eyes. L words like liberation. Vague allusions to non-consensual medical trauma.



[ She'll look back later on the irony of this happening so soon after Steve's (first) arrest and probably laugh softly to herself, like it was inevitable or something. But for now, she's hanging up the phone, pressing a hand to her forehead — memories come boiling up from her subconscious, and she'd think Wanda had something to do with it except Wanda's not here at her house, and hasn't been for a while. It's a mix. Some of it she knows is the Red Room, but the others she's not so sure (though it reminds her of that place, in it's own clinical, sterile, way). Certainly the memories of her youth were brought to her mind by the sudden memory of waking up in a daze with people poking and prodding her, a needle in her arm.

But she goes about her day like normal. Natasha is good at acting like things are normal. She puts on a show for the cameras — laundry, grocery shopping, dusting. She even takes some time to read in the living room, curled up in the arm chair. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

She plays nice as her housemates get home, and as she eats dinner with the boys, and even as she does the dishes, although there's a little hesitation there, enough that someone who knows her well could pick up on it. Certainly the people behind the cameras won't. She dries the last plate and sets it back into the cupboard, her hand lingering as she considers.

She should tell him. And then she should tell him that she was wrong. But not where anyone else can hear. ]

Comments

[paragon]

[ Steve's never been totally unconscious of the attention he has for Natasha. Even when he didn't make it something she didn't want it to be, part of him was aware he was making a deliberate choice for her friendship rather than the potential for something else. It still didn't shift his focus much, in the end. He seeks her out, finds her eyes before anyone else's; he has from the beginning. And he's worked hard to understand what he sees.

He sees her now, despite his own preoccupation. Maybe even more so because of it. What's in his own head— he's been a scientific experiment before, but that was something he'd signed off on, known the risks of (more or less, in the sense of knowing he couldn't know all the risks). He's been hoping they came here of their own volition, to right a wrong. He's less certain of that now, and that's unsettling enough even without the memory. With it, he's not sure he can play by the rules anymore. Not even for her.

Between the five of them they can hold odd hours and rarely all sit down to the same meal. Regardless, Bucky's absence is marked, though he doesn't presume it's the same for all of them. Just hopes, he supposes, that Bucky's come to mean something to them aside from a headache. He'd been by the station before coming home, but he hadn't been able to bring Bucky home with him, and that alone is plenty to account for his own silence through dinner. If Sam or Clint had given him questioning expressions, he'd only shaken his head: later. He needs to talk to Natasha.

So he watches her as she cleans up, notes all of her hesitations, and then stands up from the table after a few minutes, heading into the bedroom. Changes out of his work clothes, into his t-shirt and sweats. Brushes his teeth and then sits on the edge of the bed, elbows resting on his knees as he thinks and waits for her to come in. ]

[vdova]

[ She glances over her shoulder as he goes, only releasing the sigh she's been holding when she's finally all alone in the kitchen. Pulling the plug from the sink, she watches it drain for a moment, flicking on the disposal to clear it out. She's stalling, and she knows it, finally drying her hands on the dishtowel. Deciding to do something and actually doing it? Well, one of those is significantly harder than the other. She takes another moment to feed the cat, scratching him behind the ears as he trots into the laundry room at the sound of kibble being poured into his bowl, ignoring her once he's got his face shoved into it. Once she's out of excuses to be on her own, she heads for the bedroom, closing the door quietly behind her.

She is grateful that he knows her so well that he can tell when she wants to talk, but not out in the 'open'. She stays in front of the door, watching him for a moment, the curve of his jaw, the slope of his back, and she presses her lips together into a thin line. He's anxious and he's planning something, and the part of her that is irrevocably attached to him is terrified for it, but the part of her that's his partner knows that now they don't have a choice. They have to do something. ]

What did you see?

[ She asks quietly, not moving from her position in front of the door. ]

[paragon]

[ The lines of his body will shift even as she observes them, because she will never enter a room without him looking to her, whatever he's planning, whether she'll like it or not. There's already some apology in his eyes, but he seeks hers out and doesn't look away. ]

A lab. People around me— doctors or scientists, I couldn't tell. There was a door, but I don't know what was on the other side. It was too dark to see anything past it.

[ He doesn't mention the foreboding he'd felt when remembering that last part, figures it's all ominous enough without his imagination muddying what they now know for a fact. He wants to tell her that she doesn't have to stand so far away from him, but Steve's not sure that's his call to make. He's not unaware of how little they've talked about the past, even here in this room when they're alone, where it's safe to do so. He'd hoped they could just move past it, find another way to build back whatever trust was lost that doesn't rely on dwelling over things they can't change. But he can't do what she's asked of him anymore, so it looks like that was a wrongheaded choice that's about to catch up to them.

He's got even more to lose with her now, though, and that's a truth that makes his throat ache even as he parts his lips to speak, brow furrowed. ] Nat.

[ He doesn't know what he's asking. For her to come closer or stay by his side. He'll take either. ]

[vdova]

[ She nods once, a little distantly — not because of him, but because her own thoughts are pre-occupied with what she saw. There was never any question that he hadn't experienced the same thing she had after that phone call. Bucky's burst of rage alone told Natasha that she hadn't been the only person to get a vision of something, whatever that was.

So it wasn't a flash of the Red Room. It's not as comforting as she had hoped it would be, but then, when it came to that place, nothing ever was. She doesn't really register that he's said her name until a few seconds after he's said it, and she looks up at him, thoughts returning from their wandering. She opens her mouth to answer, closes it again, suddenly aches with the need to touch him but she has to take her makeup off and get ready for bed. She starts to move towards the bathroom, thinks better of it about halfway there and turns towards him, searching his face for... something. An answer to a question she doesn't know to ask. ]

I won't stop you.

[ She says it finally, with a finality, because this is what he's dreading, isn't it? That she'll try to stop him from this. But this isn't the Accords. True, that and this are both threats to their livelihood, but in entirely separate ways. The Accords put them at one another's throats. But this... this is nothing they've never handled before. It'd be foolish to not at least try to follow up on whatever this is. He's made up his mind. And so has she. ]

Just tell me what needs to be done.

[paragon]

I will.

[ As soon as he has it. He won't tell her he's got it all worked out; he doesn't even know if it would solidify her faith in him to have a plan at the ready, or if it'd just have the opposite effect. He's been following her lead as much as he's been capable, and she knows everything he knows. She's his— partner, and if he'd thought there was a better way than her way, he would've said so. More than that, he would've acted on it.

He also wouldn't be opposed to her input — has grown used to it over the last couple years and felt its loss keenly after the Accords — but that can come later. There's more here than just a memory, just like there had been for Bucky, he knows, even though Steve hadn't been able to ask him. Natasha doesn't need to tell him anything about her past. He's never required that from her, whatever he may have wondered. He's found a kind of happiness with her that he'd never really expected to come by again, not because of their pasts or even because he has any grand plans for the future — hell, he's got no idea how this will fit with the situation back home — but because she gives him a present that he can be grateful for. Glad to be alive for. Even in this place.

Besides, he'd be the worst kind of hypocrite to ask her for something he's only just begun to figure out how to offer, all those pieces of himself he holds close to the chest for one reason or another. But he does need to know if she's only saying it because she feels like she's out of options, or if she actually trusts him to lead them to the right place.

And it's still not really why he reaches for her. He does that because he's crazy about her, because she's his girl — not something he'd say aloud anymore, not in those terms, but still something in his vocabulary and his heart — and her pain is inevitably his own. He reaches for her hand, a silent request to talk to him, not to disappear into the bathroom like the routine is what matters. ]

[vdova]

[ She nods at his response, and would continue her nightly routine — the normalcy is something she needs right now, a distraction — but he reaches for her hand, and she doesn't even hesitate. She takes it, squeezes his fingers gently. She's been distracting herself all day, and it hasn't helped. She keeps seeing it, in her mind, feels the stretcher on her back, and she feels herself tense before she can really stop it. The silent request from him isn't lost on her, and she thinks, maybe, it might help. What's the worst that could happen? He jumps on a plane and runs? She's lived through that before (even if she hadn't felt this way about him), she can do it again.

And even if he has his doubts (which she wonders — has wondered ever since their split over the Accords — does he?) about whether or not she trusts him, she doesn't. Wanting to keep her found family together had no basis on whether or not she felt like he was a good man or a good leader. He is. Period. No question. There's a reason people follow Steve Rogers into the jaws of death, and Natasha understands that. But Natasha also sees herself as his equal. She doesn't follow Steve, she walks with him. Even when they disagree. Or maybe even especially when they do. She knows Steve is no stranger to disagreements, but she wonders, sometimes, if he's a stranger to the people he cares about doing so and still staying with him. But then, that assumes she disagrees with him at all, and in her mind, she doesn't.

So she takes his hand and goes when he tugs her close, laying her hands where his neck meets his shoulders, watching his face with an inscrutable expression on her face, unsure, really, of where to even begin. ] I'm sorry.

[ She's not even sure what she's apologizing for, but it feels like it needs to be said. ]

[paragon]

[ It sounds more like a prelude than an apology, maybe something he ought to be battening down the hatches for, if the look on her face is any indication. But even if he has doubts on that count — and would tell her as much if she asked, though mostly he just tries to get them closer to a point where it won't matter anymore — he can't bring himself to doubt her. There was a reason he hadn't raised the shield against her. There's really no point, if he's asking the people he cares about the most to choose him. Why would he be worth it, if he can't give them that much? ]

You don't have anything to be sorry for.

[ Not with him, though he understands there's got to be plenty here that has nothing to do with him. Her hands feel good on the skin above his collar, but he doesn't look down. Refuses, again, to defend himself from her. ]

[vdova]

[ She huffs out a soft, just barely bitter, laugh at that, closing her eyes, but otherwise unmoved. ] Yes, I do.

[ She opens them again, and there's something resolved in them — like she's made a choice that's hard — she has gone from marble to steel, and she won't go back. Natasha brushes the pads of her thumbs across the skin of his neck, works her jaw as she tries to find the words to even begin. ]

I was raised in a place called the Red Room. The story was that it was a school for girls, orphans of the cold war, and many other wars that came before it, but the truth was — [ And here, she hesitates. Thinking. ]

The idea was that one person in the right place, at the right time, could be more effective than an army. And if that person was a woman, then even more so — after all, who suspects a woman? So they trained us. Twenty-eight of us. They let us grow together, forge alliances and friendships we thought were secret, and when they were ready, they took a group of us, dropped us off in the tundra two weeks from 'home' with two days worth of supplies and told us to come back alive. They only expected one of us to return, but I brought home three of us, including myself.

[ Yelena. Anya. ]

They punished me for that. That's the kind of place it was. You fought to get to the top, watched as the other girls around you became broken and battered and culled until you rose to the top where you graduated.

[ As she speaks, she stops looking at him, her head remaining still, but her eyes lowering, looking away, anywhere but at him. ] And when they'd taken everything from you, your mind, your individuality, your loyalty to anything but Glorious Mother Russia, they took one more thing. You can't have your secret weapon having attachments. That creates weakness.

[ She grows quiet. And from somewhere inside of her, something broken comes out, her grip on him tightening, because if she lets go, she'll drown. ]

And that's what I saw.