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. ]