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The dreams started the night the world ended. Though, really, it was surprising she slept long enough to be able to dream. She had been consciously avoiding it since she had come to under the branches of a tree, only to watch two Wakandan warriors, inches away from her, literally turn to dust before her eyes.
It was a moment she was never going to forget, no matter how long she lived or how hard she tried not to remember. Actually, she was sure the whole awful chain of events was seared into her mind for the rest of her life.
It replayed behind her eyes every time she closed them. It replayed in front of her eyes, almost like an awful hallucination, every time she stopped moving, stopped talking, stopping trying to figure how to fix it, because there had to be a way to fix it, everyone couldn’t just be gone, they couldn’t just be dead.
The silence of that whole moment had been eerie. She had slipped back into consciousness, lying face down on the ground, the branches of the tree Thanos had thrown her under when she tried to attack him scraping against her head and her face and her body. As she lay there, she could hear the cries of battle through the fog in her head as she tried to make the world stop spinning long enough so she could just get up and go back out there.
But before she could even attempt to sit up, the roar of the battle was suddenly gone. In a moment, it was like the world had gone deathly silent.
She lifted her head, looking around, confused. Her gaze landed on two Wakandan warriors less than half a foot away from her. They were turned toward the main battlefield, looking away from where she lay.
And then, as she stared at them, she saw one turn slightly and it looked as if a layer of dust suddenly came up from his arm. Her eyes flickered to the man’s face, and she saw a look she would never forget — a combination of fear and panic mixed with horror and confusion.
And that was when she realized it wasn’t dust coming off of his arm but his actual arm was turning into dust.
She felt her own mouth drop open in panic and horror as she watched, unable to turn away, as the man’s whole body turned to dust. For one last second, his face hovered in the air, surrounded by bits of his own being, and then he was gone. And a second later, the other warrior underwent the same fate.
She wanted to scream, to cry, but all she could do was lay there on the ground and stare out at the Wakandan battlefield, watching as one by one, so many faceless warriors in the horizon just disappeared. For a moment, she had the crazy thought that she was dreaming, or hallucinating, but the silence … no one was fighting, no one was screaming. Everyone was watching, just watching, as one by one they fell.
And she knew. Because Bruce had warned them.
Thanos had snapped. He had ended half of life on earth.
They had lost. She had lost.
Somehow she managed to climb to her feet, to stagger from where she had fallen into a clearing where a few people were still standing. The world was spinning. She thought she was going to be sick.
And then one of them turned around, almost like he sensed her there.
She met his eyes.
Steve.
Steve was alive.
Her Steve was alive.
She was in his arms before she could think, his arms wrapped her, like he could protect her from what had happened. She clung to him, holding on to him like a scared child wanting her daddy to chase away the monsters.
And still it was silent. As she and Steve stood there, in each other’s arms, nobody spoke. Not her. Not Steve. Not Thor nor Bruce nor the little raccoon, all of whom she realized with a small sense of relief were still alive. No one. Just silence. The same eerie silence that had been there from the start.
And then it hit her — more than watching the Wakandan warriors disappear, more than seeing the pain on Steve’s face, more than when her brain had finally pieced together what had happened.
They had lost. Thanos had done what he promised them he would do. Half the universe was gone. Their friends were gone. And somehow, some unfortunate way, they were the half that survived.
She fell to her knees, even as Steve tried to hold her against him, her thoughts screaming in her head but the sound being unable to pass her lips.
It wasn’t fair! This wasn’t supposed to happen! It should have been her. She should be gone, they should be here. It wasn’t fair. They were the good ones, she wasn’t.
She buried her head in Steve’s chest, wanting to scream, to cry, to rage, but instead she just clung to him, because it was the only thing she could think to do.
---
The denial came next.
“There has to be a way to fix this,” she said stubbornly. Somehow, they had managed to make their way off the battlefield and back to the Wakandan palace. As far as they could tell, every member of the royal family was gone — T’Challa, Shuri, their mother. Okoye looked as lost as they did as she told them to use anything they needed, as though she thought that maybe they had the solution to this problem in one of the weapons they clenched in their hands.
They kept waiting, for hours, for someone else they knew to come through the door. They had found Vision’s body. Steve had seen Sam and Bucky cease to exist. The little raccoon kept saying something about a tree.
But still they waited. Maybe Wanda was still out there. Maybe Steve hadn’t seen what he thought he’d seen. Maybe T’Challa was helping the injured. Maybe Shuri was hiding.
But no one came.
Natasha called Clint, over and over and over. She called Laura, too. Neither answered. She didn’t want to think what that meant.
They tried contacting Fury, Maria. Nothing there either.
Bruce got hold of Pepper late that night. She was panicking about Tony, telling them he had gone into space, but at least she was alive.
“You can use any tech of Tony’s that you need,” she told them desperately, almost in tears.
“We’ll meet you at the Avengers headquarters tomorrow,” Steve said. “We’re coming home.”
None of them argued with that. They all just nodded, like that was the answer. And Natasha repeated what she had been saying since she could talk again. “There has to be a way to fix this.”
Steve squeezed her hand. He had barely let go of her since she had thrown herself into his arms. Normally, she would have complained, teased him that he was getting soft, poked him in the side and told him she wasn’t that type of girl, but after watching so many disappear, she said nothing. The weight of his hand in hers was comforting in a way she didn’t expect. It reminded her he was still here, that as awful as this was — and as awful as it might be forever — she wasn’t alone.
“We’ll fix this,” Steve said, and Natasha wasn’t sure if he was trying to comfort her or the others or himself. He didn’t sound like he believed it, but he didn’t add any more and no one challenged him, so she leaned her head against his shoulder and just said, “We have to,” and everyone else murmured.
---
She followed Steve to bed that night.
“I don’t want to be alone,” she said, and she felt like it was one of the most painfully honest things she’d ever admitted, which was saying something because ever since SHIELD fell, she had been much more truthful with Steve than she had ever been with anyone else in her life, except maybe Clint, but this was true in a way that hurt her to say.
Steve must have sensed that, though, because he just opened his arms and let her curl up against his chest, and he whispered gently into her ear, “Neither do I.”
She tried not to sleep. They didn’t talk. They didn’t even have sex, although she thought about asking him for it. It wouldn’t have been the first time. They’d been together on and off that way for years, most of the time when one of them needed to relieve stress. Other times it was for comfort or when one of them was feeling out of sorts. Sometimes it was just for fun.
They never talked about it after. Most of the time one of them was up and out before the other woke up — usually her the first few years but lately it had been Steve. It also never changed their relationship. Besides Clint, Steve was her best friend, and although she knew she would never be Bucky, nor maybe even Sam, she also knew that Steve cared about her and appreciated her being in his life.
But that night didn’t feel right, even if she knew it might have helped them forget for at least a few minutes. It felt wrong, somehow, to have even a moment of pleasure when people they cared about would never have any moments again, so instead she lay in Steve’s arms, staring into the dark and trying not to think.
But at some point, her eyes must have closed and she must have drifted off, because the next thing she knew she was in a dance studio. She didn’t recognize the room but it felt familiar all the same — mirrors covered all four sides, from floor to ceiling, and running around the room was a bar of solid mahogany. The lights were on but dim, casting shadows around the room, and she could hear soft notes of indecipherable music playing in the background.
She was the only one in there. She turned all around, taking herself in via the mirrors. She was wearing a white ballet leotard with a satin white skirt. Her legs were covered in white tights, and she wore pink pointe shoes on her feet, but the laces were undone, lying messily on the floor beside her.
She took a few steps toward the closest mirror wall, almost stumbling over her undone shoes. The music in the room seemed to change as she did so, becoming louder and more ominous.
She felt nervous, afraid, casting looks toward the far corner as if she expected someone to come in.
She walked closer toward the mirrors, finally reaching the bar. She lifted a hand, raised it in front of her. Blood was dripping off her fingers, on to the bar before her.
She started to touch the bar, but before she could, something gripped her wrist. Hard. Painful. She looked down.
A metal arm.
Her eyes opened, a gasp on her lips in the darkened room. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest. She glanced down. She could barely make out Steve’s hand wrapped around her waist. Her own hands were clutching her pillow.
She let go of it, held her arms slowly out in front of her in the dark. She couldn’t really see much, but she knew her hands were fine. No blood. No metal.
But no. The metal arm hadn’t been hers. Someone else was there. Someone else grabbed her.
She shuddered slightly, struggling to remember. She was used to nightmares, to vivid dreams, but there was something about this that felt different, that felt more real that she was used to.
But that was impossible. It was a nightmare. Just a nightmare. A horrible nightmare after a horrible nightmare of a day.
But she couldn’t stop thinking about. And she didn’t sleep another second that night.
--
They left Wakanda the day after their world ended. Okoye let them take a look around Shuri’s lab before they headed out.
“Take whatever can help,” she said.
No one actually knew what could help. If anything could help. Natasha thought about asking if Shuri had a time machine hidden somewhere, but she bit her tongue and called Clint for the millionth time again, only to get his voicemail again.
She shoved the panic brewing in the pit of her stomach back down and shook her head at Steve when she saw his raised eyebrows. So many other people were gone — so many people she cared about — but the thought of all the Bartons vanishing into nothingness … She couldn’t think about that right now.
She helped Bruce pack up a bunch of equipment instead.
“You never know,” he said to her softly, and she nodded in understanding. They were all clinging to any type of hope they could find.
The flight home was mostly silent, even though the plane was full of people — her, Steve, Bruce, Thor, the raccoon, and Rhodey. She sat by Steve in the back, letting Rhodey fly them home, and stared blankly out the window, seeing nothing but the scene at the battlefield
She watched the Wakandan warriors turn to dust, but this time she reached out her hand to touch the floating particles. But it wasn’t particles that landed on her hand. Instead she stared down at the drops of blood streaming off her hand. She looked even further down, to see the blood pooling at her feet. Feet that were clad in pale pink ballet slippers with the laces undone.
The grass she had been standing on was gone too. Instead she was in a ballet studio. She lifted her head and realized the rest of the room was pitch black. The only light was below her, illuminating the blood by her shoes.
A voice sounded in her ear.
“This is how it must be, Natalia.”
She tried to turn her head, but something grabbed her arm. Tight enough to leave bruises. Something cold and hard. Her arm ached.
She glanced down, saw the fingers wrapped around her.
Metal fingers. Attached to a metal arm.
She sat up with a gasp for air. Beside her, Steve started, opening his eyes to look at her, worry instantly appearing on his face.
“Natasha?” he asked.
Her mind was spinning. Why did she keep dreaming about a metal arm? And why were the dreams so vivid? Again, it felt more real than a dream should feel.
She knew — had always known — there were pieces of her past she didn’t remember. Memories that would filter in here and there. But this didn’t make sense. Because she had seen that metal arm that was in her dream before. And not just in her sleep the night before. But wrapped around her neck when he was just a ghost. And choking the life out of her on top of a table in Germany.
She realized Steve was waiting for an answer.
“Bad dream,” she managed, and Steve nodded sympathetically, reaching over to take her hand. She felt a wave of guilt settle over her as he took her hand, held it in his lap, rubbing it with his fingers.
“Me too,” he said to her. “All of us probably.”
She looked away, back out the window. It felt wrong somehow to not tell him about her dream, like she was keeping secrets from him, when the one thing he asked of her — had always asked of her, ever since SHIELD fell — was to not keep secrets from him that could affect him.
But, she told herself, this didn’t affect him. It was just a dream. A vivid dream, but a dream. It had to be.
She didn’t have time to think about it more.
“Guys,” came Rhodey’s voice from the front of the plane. “Something’s happening.”
Natasha, Steve and the rest of the plane’s occupants were out of their seats and up in front with Rhodey almost instantly. The stared at one of the plane’s radars now beeping wildly.
“FRIDAY?” Rhodey called out. “What’s going on?”
“I have detected a device issuing a signal to somewhere not in our galaxy,” FRIDAY answered.
“Where is this device?” Steve asked.
“In the middle of New York City,” FRIDAY replied.
Steve looked at Rhodey. “Take us there.”
“Already on it.”
---
It turned out the mysterious device was a pager Natasha had seen before.
“That’s Fury’s!” she said, picking it up. She knew it without question. She had seen it a few times in his pocket or on his desk at SHIELD. She had asked once what it was, but Fury had deposited it in his pocket and fixed her with a stern look.
“My business does not concern you, Agent Romanoff,” he had said, and she had never asked again.
Now, though, she stared at it intently. When she had seen it before, it had always been off, but now it was on, a symbol she didn’t recognize flashing on it.
“Can you track this signal, FRIDAY?” Natasha asked.
“I’m afraid that is beyond my capabilities, Agent Romanoff,” FRIDAY answered.
Natasha cast a look at Steve. “We need to get this back to HQ and figure out where this signal is coming from. Or going to. There may be something on the other side that can help.” At the rest of the disbelieving looks on everyone else’s face, she snapped, “Fury sent this out before he disappeared for a reason!” she said. “It’s all we have.”
“She’s right,” Steve said. “It’s the best thing we have. So let’s get back and see what we can find.”
Natasha sat back down, the pager gripped tightly in her hand. She watched the symbol flashing, studying every detail. She pulled out her phone and started scrolling through some of the important SHIELD files she kept with her at all times.
She didn’t find anything, but it kept her mind focused on her friends, and her dream of the metal arm was forgotten for now.
---
They arrived back at the Avengers HQ in the dead of night. No one wanted to sleep, least of all Natasha. The last thing she needed were dreams of metal arms.
Bruce and Rhodey went off to work on the pager. Steve went to work tracking the amount of people across the universe that were lost. Natasha went to work trying to find any trace of Clint or Laura or the Barton kids that she could.
She came up empty. So did Bruce and Rhodey.
But then Carol Danvers showed up their second day back, and with her came hope. A day later she brought back Tony and Nebula, and with them came more hope. A week later everything was worse than it had been when they were still in Wakanda. The stones were gone. Destroyed. Thanos was dead. The Avengers were irreparably broken.
Tony left with Pepper, muttering something about maybe inviting them to a wedding. Thor disappeared one night after dinner, getting up and walking outside and never coming back. Rhodey left to go be nearer to Tony and Pepper. Rocket and Nebula took the ship to go home — or somewhere close to home — to see what damage had been done to other areas of the universe. Carol went off to save another planet or ten. Neither Clint nor Laura answered their phone, and Natasha reduced her calls to once a day.
And then Steve sat down beside her on the couch, now just the two of them in a huge empty building, and said in the most timid voice she had ever heard him use, “I’ve been thinking about moving to Brooklyn.”
Her heart shattered in two. It was so loud she wondered why he couldn’t hear it. But he was just looking at her like he was petrified of her reaction, and she knew what she had to do.
She forced her face into the most neutral expression she could. “Yeah?” she said, using all her will power to keep her voice calm and level.
“I can’t do this, Nat,” he said. “I can’t see their faces every time I walk through these halls. I can’t hear their laughter. It’s too much.”
Natasha nodded. She kept her expression under control, but she couldn’t keep the question from exploding out of her mouth. “But what about the Avengers?”
“There are no Avengers.”
“But the world …”
“Needs people who aren’t us,” Steve said. He turned now, to look at her more fully than he had since he had sat down. “We don’t deserve to be the Avengers.”
“So you’re just going to quit?”
Steve shrugged. “I just need a break.”
Natasha wanted to cry, to scream, to break things. But she didn’t. She was supposed to be the emotionless one, she knew that. So she just nodded and again forced herself to remain steady.
“Okay,” she said.
“Okay?”
“Whatever you need to do.”
She had a feeling Steve wasn’t totally buying her acceptance. He stared at her a little too closely. She kept her gaze focused across the room and reminded herself that she was once a cold-blooded assassin and emotions were not something she needed. Nor were friends. Or teammates.
Maybe the Red Room had been right. If she had never cared, she wouldn’t be hurting right now. She wouldn’t feel like Steve was personally betraying her.
Steve finally stood up. “I’ll leave in the morning,” he said.
She didn’t watch him walk out, but she waited until his steps faded away before she let herself cry.
---
It was freezing. The wind felt like daggers through her pink tights and her thin leotard. But she kept her chin up and focused on making sure she stayed still. True fighters weren’t bothered by simple little things like the weather, and she was not weak like the girls around her, shivering miserably in the same exact outfit as to her.
There was a noise to the left of them, and all heads swiveled around to look. Madame stepped out into the yard, taking all of them in with one glance of her cold, hard eyes.
“Today, you have a new instructor,” she spoke in perfect English. They had been told just a day ago that they were no longer allowed to speak in Russian until they were proficient in English. “You will show him your skills.”
Madame looked to her right, and all the girls followed her gaze as the door to the yard opened once more and a man they had never seen before entered. He was bigger than most of their instructors — taller, more muscular — and Natalia noticed right away that he was missing an arm. Instead, a metal fabrication replaced it. But it was not the arm that bothered her; it was the cold, dead look in his eyes as he stared at them all.
The first girl stepped up. A few seconds later she hit the ground hard, unmoving. Girls all around Natalia gasped, but she did not. The child had deserved it for not being prepared.
One by one, more girls moved forward, and one by one, more girls fell, some in tears, some holding broken wrists or arms, some just crumpled on to the ground, until Natalia was the only one left standing.
She stepped forward in front of the man with the metal arm and gazed up at him, unperturbed. She had watched all the other girls, knew they had moved too fast. The man could counter every move they made when they made the first move.
She widened her stance, crouched down a little, but she did not move. Instead she stared at the man, daring him silently to go first.
He stared back at her, those dead eyes looking straight through her, but still she did not move. They had trained them to stay still for long periods of time. She could do this for hours if she had to.
It was not hours but it was a long time before the man grew frustrated. He took a heavy step toward her, reached out an arm, and she took her opportunity, darting forward. She leaped as high as she could, using the man’s outstretched arm as leverage, propelling herself upward and landing on the man’s neck.
He had not expected that. He snapped his head back with a slight groan. She wrapped her small legs around his throat, used the wire she’d had tucked inside her leotard to wrap around his neck.
She tightened her grip, concentrating. Concentrating too hard. She missed his hand coming up until she felt something cold and metal against her leg. And then it was too late. She was being pulled through the air. She hit the ground with a loud crash. She made a move to jump back to her feet, but the metal hand was around her neck, squeezing hard, squeezing harder.
She couldn’t breathe. She stared up at the man with the cold dead eyes.
“Not good enough,” he said, and his fingers tightened more.
---
She screamed. Or tried to.
She couldn’t breathe.
Hands were around her neck, but there were other hands now too. On her arms, wrapped around her, holding her tight.
She tried to scream again.
In the distance, she heard shouting.
“Natasha! Natasha!”
But she couldn’t breathe and she couldn’t see and she couldn’t move, and she needed to get away, she needed to get up …
“Natasha! Natasha!”
Her eyes snapped open. The hands around her neck — her hands — fell away. She stared in horror at the blue eyes in front of her.
Steve.
Steve was in front of her, holding her arms, her hands. He was talking to her, calling her name.
She stared at him. Her throat hurt. The memory of the dead-eyed man played in her head. The dead-eyed man with the metal arm that she recognized. The metal arm that grabbed her when she practiced ballet with blood dripping off her hands.
“It’s just a dream,” she heard Steve say, as if he were somewhere in the distance and not right in front of her. “It’s just a dream. You’re okay.”
But it wasn’t just a dream. It wasn’t. She knew that now. It was too real, too vivid. It wasn’t a dream. And it all made sense. Why she kept dreaming about a metal arm. Why it haunted her every time she closed her eyes.
It wasn’t a dream; it was a memory.
She shook her head.
“Not a dream,” she gasped.
Steve was still holding her, still looking at her so tenderly. “Tell me what’s wrong,” he said.
She opened her mouth, but then froze. The metal arm. The dead eyes. The girls he had hurt, had killed.
She stared at Steve. Steve. Her Steve. Bucky’s Steve. Bucky’s friend. Bucky’s best friend. Bucky who was dead, gone. Bucky who wouldn’t remember anyway even if he was here. Bucky who had been brainwashed, wiped.
Bucky who she had been dreaming about since Wakanda and hadn’t said anything about.
Because it was Bucky. And Steve loved Bucky. Steve believed Bucky. Steve wouldn’t believe her. He’d think she was lying. Or that she had been lying before. Or worse, he would think she kept this from him. That she had known, that she had always know. That she had stood by his side and watched him agonize over everything that had happened with his best friend and hadn’t told him.
She hadn’t known she had known Bucky. She knew that. But Steve didn’t know that. Steve didn’t trust her. Steve wouldn’t trust her. Steve would hate her. Steve would blame her.
Steve would leave her. Steve was leaving her. Steve was going away and not coming back.
She was going to be alone. Everyone was gone. Steve was gone. She was alone. No one wanted her. No one needed her. No one believed her. No one trusted her.
And if she told him …
No, she couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t. She couldn’t tell him ….
Her thoughts whirled in her head, but something was wrong. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t think. She felt numb. Her throat ached. Her chest ached, like someone was sitting on it.
Someone was sucking all the oxygen out of the room. There was none left. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move ….
“Natasha!”
Steve was yelling at her, like he could breathe. Something was touching her face, something strong and warm.
“Look at me. Look at me.”
Steve was still talking to her, giving orders.
Orders. She could follow orders.
She blinked, tried to focus on Steve’s face. It was so blurry. Air was disappearing fast.
“You’re having a panic attack. I need you to breathe with me.”
He was still talking, but his words sounded far away.
“Come on, Natasha. Breathe with me. In. Out. In. Out.”
Orders. More orders. She could do that. She could follow them.
She did. She took a breath. In. She took another one. Out.
She waited for the oxygen to disappear but it didn’t.
She did it again. Breathed in, breathed out.
Steve was still talking to her, still giving orders. She nodded as he spoke, tried to follow them. In. Out. In. Out.
And then she was enveloped in something warm. Steve’s arms. Her head was against his chest. He was rocking her.
“You’re okay,” he whispered into her hair. “You’re okay. It was just a dream.”
But it wasn’t just a dream. She was sure of that. And she should tell him. She had to tell him. But it was warm in Steve’s arms and she was so tired and he was going to hate her when she told him, so maybe, just maybe …
She closed her eyes as Steve rocked her. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she knew she should pull away. Because this wasn’t her. She didn’t need comfort.
But he was so warm, so safe.
She kept her eyes closed and let herself drift away.
--
When Natasha’s eyes fluttered open, she was lying in a dark room on top of something soft. A familiar, musky scent hung in the air. She sucked in a mouthful of air and felt her lungs burn. There was a slight pounding in her head. Her body ached like she’d just had an intense workout.
And then she remembered, and in the dark of the room, her face flushed.
She wasn’t a crier. She never had been. Crying was for weak little girls. She hadn’t even cried when she’d watched people snapped out of existence. She hadn’t cried the day they arrived back at Avengers HQ and she had found herself walking from room to room of those who were no longer with them — Wanda and Sam and Vision. But listening to Steve walk away, knowing that come morning he wasn’t going to be around either, realizing that for the first time in longer than she could remember, she was going to be completely and utterly by herself — not just in geography, because she had gone off on her own after SHIELD fell and after the airport fight in Germany, but in both of those cases, she knew people who cared about her were on the other end of the phone and they were just waiting for her to come to them, but the last remaining Avenger, the last one who seemed to care that people might still need them, that there might still be people they could help — it was more than she could handle.
Not then. Not on top of losing everyone to Thanos. Not on top of failing and adding so much more red to her ledger. Not on top of the nightmares that felt so real that she had barely slept more than an hour in a week, too afraid of what she might see if she did.
She had laid down on the couch once she was sure Steve wasn’t coming back, buried her face in the pillows at the end — pillows that still smelled an odd combination of Wanda’s perfume and Steve’s body wash, even though she knew it was impossible that the smells had lingered so long — and had let the tears come, and for once, she didn’t try to stop them. She just cried — long, shuddering sobs — into the pillow, as her head screamed that this was what she deserved for not finding a way earlier to prevent all this.
If only she had convinced Steve not to be so reckless in Germany, if she had convinced the others that if none of them signed the Accords that they could find another way, if she had gone to Tony after everything went to hell and tried to reconcile with him then …. Maybe if they had all been together, they would have noticed what Thanos was doing earlier. Maybe they could have fought him sooner. Maybe they could have stopped him. Maybe they could have won.
Maybe, maybe, maybe …
Natasha’s fists had tightened around the pillow and she had cried harder, until suddenly she wasn’t crying at all. She was just lying there, staring out at a common room that once held so many wonderful memories but now only served to remind them all how much they lost.
Soon she would be the only one here. The only one who could help prevent even more tragedies from occurring.
The weight of that thought seemed to settle over her whole body, and she felt exhausted beyond measure. For a moment, she wished again that she had been the one to be snapped and someone else — someone who could handle this — was here instead.
Sometime after that, she must have fallen asleep, still curled up on the couch downstairs in the common area. And that was when she had the nightmare, more vivid than any of the already-too-vivid ones before. And worse — here Natasha felt her face flush more as she thought about it — that was when she’d had the panic attack.
The last time she’d had a panic attack, she’d been a new SHIELD agent. She and Clint had been sent to investigate a warehouse that was the subject of some irregular activity. They expected weapons trafficking; instead they found children handcuffed to walls in the basement. It had not gone well, but she had never let herself lose control like that again.
Until now. Under Steve’s touch.
Natasha sucked in another mouthful of air. Her face felt puffy, probably thanks to the sobbing she had been doing. She ran her tongue around her mouth and tasted blood on her lip. Probably she had bitten herself while she was panicking.
She turned her head. Steve was asleep next to her, lying close but not touching her, probably trying to give her space so as not to scare her. He thought she was having nightmares about Thanos’ snap, but he had no idea.
Tears stung the edges of her eyes again, and Natasha cursed herself in the dark. She thought about slipping out of bed and going back to her room, but she couldn’t manage to make herself move. Steve was going to move out in the morning and probably never come back. She had no idea when she would see him again, if she would see him again.
A tear dripped down her cheek. She had to tell him about Bucky before he went, she knew she did. It didn’t matter that Bucky was gone. If she didn’t tell him, it would be going against everything she had promised — to not keep secrets that affected him.
She had to tell him, even if he hated her for it, even if he blamed her, even if he thought she had been lying to him all these years.
She turned her head in the dark room to look at him, to take in the comforting sight of him.
He was already leaving her, she whispered to herself. If he hated her when he left, maybe it would make it easier.
---
Natasha tried not to sleep. She was terrified of having more nightmares about Bucky and unintentionally saying something about him to Steve in her sleep. Instead, when her eyes closed on their own accord, no matter how much she tried to keep them open, she had horrible dreams of Steve screaming at her and her chasing him down a gravel road as she sped off faster than she could ever hope to be.
She woke up hours later — or at least she assumed it was hours later, as sunlight was now filtering through the huge windows in Steve’s room, turning the small space into something light and cozy and completely opposite of how she was feeling — to find herself completely alone in Steve’s bed.
Panic welled up inside her as she sat straight upright, her eyes darting around the room. Nothing looked different than she remembered, but then she knew Steve had already packed the day before. But now he was gone.
She turned her head to see if he had maybe left a note, but there was nothing there.
Her breath seemed to get stuck in her throat, and for a moment, she worried she might have another panic attack.
“Natasha,” she whispered to herself, using her harshest tone, “Pull yourself together.”
But the thought that Steve had just left, without even a goodbye … she felt oddly like her heart was literally splitting in two inside her body. She knew he was taking everything that happened personally. She knew he blamed himself for everyone disappearing. She knew that he probably did need to get away. But she had never thought that he would need to get away from her so desperately that he wouldn’t even have the courtesy to tell her that to her face.
She felt tears well up in her eyes again, and she pounded her fist in frustration against the bed sheets — for crying, for letting herself care, for getting attached in the first place, for believing anyone owed her anything.
But the tears didn’t stop, and she shoved her fist into her mouth, biting down on her fingers, the pain momentarily distracted her from the thoughts in her head.
And then the door swung open and Steve Rogers, still dressed in pajamas, stood in front of her, a large breakfast tray in his hands.
She froze, her fist in her mouth, a trail of blood now coming off her fingers, tears down her cheeks, her eyes probably red and puff, still dressed in the uniform she fell asleep in because someone might need the Avengers so she needed to wear it every day.
Steve looked at her, and any thought that he might not notice what a mess she was, disappeared immediately as his eyes grew sad. He walked over to the desk and put the breakfast tray down and then made his way back to the bed, taking a seat on the edge of it.
“You want to tell me what’s going on,” he said gently.
She really didn’t. She really, really didn’t. But she knew she had to.
She reached a hand up, scrubbed at her eyes to rid herself of the tears, and then took a steadying breath. Steve’s eyes didn’t move off of her. She decided it was best to just jump right in.
“I’ve been having nightmares,” she started.
“About the Snap?”
“No,” she said. “About Bucky.”
Steve’s brows furrowed just a bit. He had not expected that. “Okay,” he said slowly. “That’s understandable.”
“No,” Natasha interrupted. “Not about Germany or Odessa or when we thought he was just the Winter Soldier. About something else. About the Red Room.”
“The Red Room?” Steve repeated.
“I think I knew him.” The words came out a little too fast. She waited. Steve just looked at her.
“Bucky,” she said again. “I think I knew him. Before. In the Red Room.”
“You’re having nightmares about Bucky in the Red Room?”
“They’re not nightmares,” Natasha said. “They’re memories.”
Steve blinked. “What?” he said.
“I think he might have been one of my instructors.”
Steve looked like she had punched him. She braced herself for what would come next.
“Are you sure?” He didn’t sound mad. Or upset. She hadn’t expected that.
“Not one hundred percent,” she admitted. “But close to it.”
“How would that be possible?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bucky was with Hydra.”
“I know.”
Steve studied her. “How much do you know about the Red Room?” he said finally.
This time, she frowned at him. How much did she know? About the place that raised her? That turned her into this monster? That made her who she wished she’d never been?
But before she could answer, Steve clarified. “Could the Red Room be connected to Hydra?”
Oh.
Natasha’s shoulders sagged, the fight she didn’t have to have with Steve ebbing away. She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
They stared at each other, Steve still sitting at the end of the bed, Natasha backed up against the headboard.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I know you’re mad. But I’m not lying. I do lie, but not about this. I wouldn’t …”
“Natasha.” Steve’s hand had settled on her thigh. “I believe you.”
“You do?”
“Of course.”
She looked into his eyes, peering into the depths. He waited while she did so. She could see the sympathy in his eyes, the trust. He didn’t look angry or betrayed. He looked sad. Worried. Probably about Bucky.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, and then she was crying like a fool again, and then her head was leaning against Steve’s shoulder as he rubbed her back.
“Never be sorry about something you had no control over,” he told her.
She pulled back, but Steve kept his arms around her. She tried not to think about how nice it felt.
“Bucky was your friend,” she whispered.
“So are you.”
“I don’t even know if they’re real.”
“But you think they are?” Steve pressed.
“Yes.”
“And you want to know for sure?”
Natasha hesitated. Did she? She had thought she had access to the worst memories of her childhood. She thought she knew everything she had done and been. She thought she remembered all the moments that defined her, for good or bad, but now she wasn’t sure. She didn’t have any other memories of Bucky, except for the ones in her dreams, and she wasn’t even sure how accurate those were. What if things were worse than she could even imagine?
But how could she know there were pieces of her life missing and not want the truth? The one thing she had always wanted was information — on targets, on assets, on missions. How could she not want it on herself?
She found herself nodding.
“Okay,” Steve said. “Then we go find out for sure.”
Natasha frowned. She felt like Steve had just started speaking a language she had never heard before. None of this made sense.
“Why aren’t you mad?” she finally asked.
Steve chortled, a sound that seemed to echo around the room. “Oh, I’m furious,” he said. Natasha must have unconsciously drawn back because Steve quickly amended, “Not at you. Not at Bucky. Not really. But at what happened to both of you. At the position you were put in.” He paused then, as if trying to gather his thoughts.
“Look, Nat,” he finally said. “I know if we do this, if we go digging into the Red Room, we might find out a lot of things neither of us are prepared for. If Bucky really trained you, if Bucky hurt you, I don’t know how to reconcile that, but …. last night, when I heard you scream and when I saw the terror on your face at whatever it was you were seeing, the only thing in the world I wanted to do was protect you, even though I knew you’d kick my ass for doing so, and I realized right then how selfish I was being. I was running away so I didn’t have to face my own failures, but I was leaving you alone to deal with all of ours, and that’s not fair.”
“I don’t understand.”
Steve let a soft smile spread across his face. “I’m saying,” he said softly, “that I was an idiot for wanting to leave. Because I love you Natasha Romanoff, and if you want to go investigate the Red Room, then we’re going to go investigate the Red Room.”
Now Natasha was sure he was speaking a foreign language. Or that he had been replaced by a robot.
She had expected him to be furious at her, to ask her why she never told him, to make her tell him in detail everything she remembered. She expected him to walk out the door and never come back.
She had not, in her wildest fantasies, expected him to tell her he loved her and offer to go figure out the truth with her.
“You love me,” she repeated, because it really made no sense.
“I love you,” he told her.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t need to say anything,” Steve said. He let go of her and stood up. She watched as he walked over to desk and grabbed the breakfast tray and carried it back to where she sat on the bed. He put it down next to her. “All you have to do,” Steve said, “is eat this cold breakfast I made you, go take a shower and then sit with me while we figure out a plan of what to do next. Can you do that?”
Natasha felt a warm feeling start to spread across her chest. “You’re not leaving?” she said, because she needed to be sure. “You’re not going to Brooklyn.”
“I’m not going to Brooklyn.”
She grinned for real now — the first genuine smile she’d had since Wakanda — and something akin to hope stirred deep inside her. Steve wasn’t leaving. Steve didn’t hate her. Steve was going to help her figure this out.
“Yes,” she said. “I can do that. Now hand me my cold eggs and let’s get going.”