Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It feels almost easy now. Normal. There is a routine, one that is familiar and safe but different enough that she isn’t reminded every morning of her old life. Even the dreams — and the nightmares — have faded. Not gone away. She doubts they ever really will. But they don’t come as often.

She wakes up in the morning and heads down to the training gym, finding the one room with the Occupied sign. She asked him once what time he gets up, and he smiled at her and asked if she thought he actually slept. It had reminded her a lot of her world’s Steve.

When she enters after a quick knock (she never waits for an answer, the same way she would never wait for an answer from her world’s Steve, though this world’s Steve seems to find her more charming than the other Steve did at first), she finds him working up a sweating on the punching bag, the same way he does every morning.

She puts her stuff down and sweeps her hair into a ponytail and watches him for the few moments she gets until he turns to her and grins — that same grin that lights up his face and makes his eyes sparkle (she doesn’t let herself think about the fact that he never grins like that for anyone else; she isn’t sure she’s ready to think about what it might mean or, more importantly, she isn’t ready to think about the way her stomach sometimes does flipflops at that look).

“Morning, sleepyhead,” he says, as he does every morning, and just like every morning, she shakes her head and rolls her eyes.

“It’s five in the morning.”

“Exactly,” he says, and his grin grows even wider as she rolls her eyes again and pulls herself off the ground to walk over next to him.

“You’re not going to be so cocky in a few minutes,” she says.

“Is that right?”

“You know it is,” she says, and they take their spots.

He moves just like her world’s Steve, the same go-tos, the same tells. But like her world’s Steve, he’s a lot stronger than her. He beats her most of the time — he, like her world’s Steve — is also a quick learner when it comes to figuring her out, but the times she wins, she always takes a moment to relish in the victory.

She gets one of those this morning, and it’s her turn to grin.

“Maybe you should have stayed in bed longer,” she suggests innocently, and he’s the one now rolling his eyes at her.

They spar together for close to an hour before they are both sweating and panting. And as happens more mornings than not, he looks over at her as he wipes his brow.

“Coffee and an omelet?” he says. “My treat.”

“I’d love to.”

Most mornings they eat in the cafeteria located on one of the lower floors of the Avengers Tower. It’s a huge place, taking up at least two-thirds of the space, with professional chefs dishing up delicacies. It’s fancier than any sort of SHIELD cafeteria that existed on her old world, but it’s still a cafeteria, and sometimes it’s nice to get out, to see city they live in.

This morning, Steve hails them a cab with a driver who couldn’t care less who they are (much to her relief) and has the driver drop them off in Brooklyn. They find a small, crowded diner and find a table in the corner. Almost nothing that was here when Steve was first alive is the same, but he likes being in the same place that shaped who he came to be, and she can understand that. Plus she likes the side of him that comes out when they venture to this part of New York — he seems more relaxed, more at ease, more at peace.

They order coffee and omelets and a pancake that could probably serve five people for the both of them to share. There’s strawberries and whipped cream, and it’s sweet and delicious, and they are chatting and laughing and teasing each other and their fingers on the table are creeping closer and closer together (not that she notices. She definitely doesn’t notice), and the Avengers and SHIELD and an Ultron that destroyed her world and a Watcher who brought her here are all billions of miles away and maybe could even be a faraway life that only existed for other people, and then her phone beeps and Steve’s phone beeps at the same time, and they both know what that means.

She picks up her phone, to see what today’s mission is going to be, and just like that, the sweetness and deliciousness and the carefree laughter of the morning are gone, and the world is scary and hard and something twists deep in her gut, and a fear she hasn’t felt since she was the only survivor in a destroyed world returns so fast and so strong it’s like it never left.

Emergency. Lemurian Star hijacked. Report ASAP.

She feels the blood drain from her face. Her hand holding her fork shakes just slightly. Not enough, but enough that Steve notices.

“Natasha? Are you okay?”

She looks up and meets his eyes, and for a moment she feels like the proverbial deer in headlights. Does she tell him? What’s going to happen — what’s probably going to happen? Does she warn him? Does she tell him about Hydra and Bucky Barnes and the end of everything they’ve worked so hard for?

She decides in an instant.

No.

Not yet anyway.

Not until she knows for sure that it’s the same. This is a new world, a different world, and it’s years later than it was on her world when this happened. Plus, there’s been no indication that Hydra is here (she ignores the voice in her head pointing out that she never had any indication that Hydra was in her original world either until they were taking over), and she needs to be absolutely positive before she says something.

Not just because it will change everything, but she can’t put Steve in danger. Hydra would kill him in an instant; she needs to keep him safe.

Steve is still looking at her. Still waiting on an answer.

She forces a smile she doesn’t feel and tries to call on the person she once was — a spy, an assassin, a liar.

“I’m fine,” she says. “We just had a similar mission on my world.”

Steve’s hand moves, covers her owns for a slight second. “Then this should be no problem,” he says gently.

“Yeah,” she says, and is immediately flooded with guilt.

After they save the hostages, after they are away from the ship, after she’s determined the truth. She’ll tell him everything. She swears.

--

It’s all too familiar. This strike team that they are part of is almost identical to the strike team on her world. The original Avengers may have died, but most SHIELD agents have stayed the same. She watches Brock Rumlow carefully as everyone works to get ready, trying to suss out if this version is also secretly hiding an allegiance with Hydra.

She almost doesn’t realize she’s staring a little too hard until Steve’s hand lands on her shoulder and her first instinct has her tightening her fist. She catches herself before she can aim at him.

“Hey,” he says softly, so no one else can hear. “You okay? I know you said …”

“Yeah,” she says. “I’m good.”

But Steve doesn’t look convinced. He’s watching her carefully.

“Nat, what happens on this mission?”

It’s the first time this world’s Steve has ever called her Nat, and her breath catches in her throat. She wants to tell him. She needs to tell him.

“Approaching!” comes a voice from the front, and there is no time.

Instead, she forces a smile she is sure he can see through.

“Nothing,” she says, and something flashes over his face. Disappointment maybe? She doesn’t have time to figure it out because he’s turning around and picking up his shield.

He looks back at her as he scoots to the edge of the plane.

“I’m trusting you,” he says, and then he jumps.

She hears someone move a step closer to toward her and a warm breath tickles the hairs on her neck.

“Did he just jump without a parachute?” Rumlaw laughs like he has no qualms at all about what he is doing. (If he is actually doing anything, she reminds herself. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know.)

“Yeah,” she says, and she has to glance down at her feet for a moment to center herself, the sense of déjà vu threatening to knock her off balance.

In her pocket, she feels her phone buzz against her thigh. Another message from Fury, she is sure, checking to make sure she got his other messages, the ones containing her real assignment on this mission. The ones she didn’t tell Steve about even though she knows now without a doubt that it’s the wrong choice.

But until they get off that ship down there, the best thing she can do is keep him safe, and the best way to keep him safe is to keep him in the dark until she can take him somewhere private and let him in on the truth. Or what might be the truth.

“Natasha? You coming?”

She glances up, realizes that everyone else is ready and staring at her.

“Yeah,” she says. “Let’s do this.”

--

Steve looks at her the same way the Steve on her world did — hurt and angry and, most of all, betrayed. But this time it hurts more. It shouldn’t — that’s what the rational part of her brain says. After all, she knew it was coming. And she willingly chose not to tell him even though she knew it was coming. But the look in his eyes when he meets hers might as well be a slap across the face.

She opens her mouth to say something snarky, the same way she did to the other Steve.

“You're saving SHIELD Intel.”

“Whatever I can get my hands on.”

“Our mission is to rescue hostages.”

“No. That's your mission. … And you've done it beautifully.”

But this time she closes her mouth and rethinks. She needs to be smarter this time, more strategic. But she also can’t let Hydra — because is there really any way that this isn’t Hydra? — know that she knows about them.

“He made me promise not to say a word,” she says to Steve instead. It’s not exactly the truth, but it’s not exactly a lie either. This world’s Fury, like her world’s Fury, trusts her because she goes in, does her job and keeps her mouth shut. (Well, this world’s Fury might also trust her because she helped saved the multiverse, but that’s not really the point, is it?)

Steve is still looking at her in the hurt and betrayed way. The corners of his lips are turned down. But he’s not yelling or storming off. At least not yet.

“I can’t lead a mission if I don’t know what everyone is doing on the mission,” he says in a voice so filled with ice she almost doesn’t recognize it.

It makes her shiver and she wonders, for another time, if she’s doing the right thing. (Somewhere inside her she knows she’s not, but she’s also not sure how to change it. The secrets she holds are like weights, pressing her down, suffocating her with their meaning. Secrets she’s never shared with anyone, not even Clint. Secrets that could destroy everything she has found in this world that is not hers but is becoming a little bit more hers by the day.)

“I would never compromise the mission,” she says, and she tries to make her voice sound as genuine as she can. She wants him to believe her, to trust her, but she can’t say that. Not here. Not when someone could be listening.

He stares at her, opens his mouth to say something, but she never finds out what, because just like on her world, she sees a bomb thrown toward them out of the corner of her eye.

They move in perfect synchronization, like they’ve been practicing it for years when in reality they’ve never practiced it at all. But he turns, grabs her and she positions herself beneath his arm, gun out, firing straight ahead and breaking the glass window dividing the control room. And Steve jumps them both through it.

And just like the first time around they hit the floor hard. A rush of air leaves her lungs and her mouth, but she rolls herself over.

“That one’s on me.”

“Damn right it is.”

She closes her eyes as the encounter from her world rushes through her mind, but when she opens them, this Steve is still looking at her.

“Trust me. Please,” she mouths at him.

He stares at her for so long she can’t decide whether he is angry or frustrated or just trying to figure things out. But finally,, he gets to his feet and holds a hand out to her. She takes and his warm fingers wrap around hers.

For a moment she forgets to breathe, and then he pulls her to her feet.

“Don’t ever do that again,” he says, and his voice is hard, rough, but there’s something in his eyes, something sincere, and she realizes he is doing what she asked. He is trusting her.

She doesn’t say anything in return, and he turns around and heads out of the control room. She waits a beat before she follows. She knows now she is going to need to talk to him, soon, but for the moment if people think they are fighting, that’s probably the best thing she can ask for.

Chapter Text

He disappears as soon as the Quinjet touches down on the roof of Avengers Tower, slipping through the agents offloading from the jet, congratulating themselves on another mission accomplished. No one else seems to think there was anything strange about their rescue of the SHIELD hostages, but then none of them seemed to think there was anything strange back when this happened in her world either. But at the same time, most of those people turned out to be Hydra.

A part of Natasha wants to follow Steve, but she also doesn’t want to be conspicuous, and she also needs to plan this right. The Steve on her world went to confront Fury right after they had returned from the mission, and she hadn’t seen him again until they stood together in a hospital watching what they thought was Fury’s death.

Natasha closes her eyes for a moment as the last of the other agents make their way to the elevator, none of them seeming to notice or care that she isn’t following. She takes her time, letting that awful memory of what she thought was Fury’s demise pass through her, followed immediately after by the memory that he is gone for real, along with everyone else she ever knew. But she forces those thoughts from her mind because she is here now, and she needs to save this planet from whatever is about to happen.

She opens her eyes and looks around the roof, where she is now alone, stuck in an indecision that is as unfamiliar as it is uncomfortable. She thinks back, again, to when this all went down on her world. Steve confronting Fury, Steve going home, Fury arriving at his apartment and being shot by the Winter Soldier.

The Winter Soldier.

If he’s out there — and Natasha knows deep in her gut that he is — he might be heading this way now. But Avengers Tower is harder to get into than her Steve’s D.C. apartment.

And then she realizes. Steve’s run. The one he goes on every night before dinner. It’s not a secret and neither is the route he takes. Nor is it protected in any way. Why wouldn’t Fury want to meet him there, pass on the flash drive? Why wouldn’t the Winter Soldier be watching?

But then she thinks again. Would this Fury give the flash drive to Steve? Or would he give it to one of the others? To Carol perhaps, who is arguably the person he trusts most. Or even to Pepper, who has access to more technology than the rest of them and could probably protect it the best.

Her head is spinning. She’s not sure how to protect all of them without knowing what this Fury would do.

Unless she finds Fury first. Would he believe her? More important, would he trust her? She steels her shoulders and takes off toward to the elevators that lead down to his private floor.

There is only one way to find out.

--

“Director Fury is out,” his young administrative assistant tells her cheerfully, before asking her if she wants to make an appointment.

“Do you know if he’s out with anyone?” she asks, quickly adding, “It’s important.”

She wavers between trying to appear friendly yet worried or going back to the Natasha she was at her SHIELD, all those years ago, the one who could scare anyone with just a quick glance. But the people here don’t know her like that, so she ends up smiling sweetly at the young woman.

“I’m not supposed to tell anyone private information on Director Fury’s affairs,” the young woman says, but Natasha can tell she is wavering.

“Okay,” Natasha says. “Can you just tell me if Steve Rogers was here then? Director Fury wanted us to report immediately after the mission to let him know how it went, and now I can’t find either of them. But I don’t want to not report in if it hasn’t been done.”

She pauses, trying to look anxious, and somehow it works, because the young woman nods at her.

“He was,” she says, in a way that tells Natasha everything she needs to know. Steve did go to confront Fury over her secret assignment, and now they are off somewhere, and if it is what she suspects, Fury is taking him to see Project Insight in action. Then Steve will come back, Fury will get in his accident and the Winter Soldier might come after them both on Steve’s run.

If she is right.

But she knows that she is, and she knows she needs to do something. Starting with finding Fury and Steve. But where to find them? In her world, the Triskelion housed Project Insight, but that was in D.C. In this world, the Triskelion is a small office building used only by agents passing through.

For a quick moment, she thinks about trying to hack into the SHIELD files to find out, but she doesn’t have near the clearance level and Hydra would know within an instant what she was looking for. No, she’s going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.

She slips into the hallway, thanking the assistant as she goes, and then pulls her cell phone from her pocket. She sends Steve a quick text and prays he’s not mad enough at her to ignore it.

Where are you? It’s important. Please trust me.

It’s some of the longest minutes of her life, standing in the hallway, trying to figure out another way to find out where Project Insight is being kept. But then her phone vibrates in her hand.

She looks down and a tidal wave of relief floods through her.

He’s sent her an address.

She pulls up her map and types it in. Long Island. She recognizes it from a map that hangs in Fury’s office. It’s marked on there as a small warehouse for SHIELD office supplies. That is apparently a lie.

She stuffs her phone back into her pocket and heads for the basement garage. There are motorbikes down there she can take. Officially, she needs to check them out, but that’s never stopped her before, and it won’t stop her today.

--

Fury’s car is parked on a side street when she arrives. She knows there are cameras and audio equipment and codes and visual identification markers all around so she chooses to wait until they come out.

The place looks abandoned other than Fury and Steve, but she knows that’s probably not true, and even if it were true, she knows Hydra is watching. And if they aren’t already getting worried, they probably will be soon.

Natasha feels her palms start to sweat over what is probably about to happen, but she survived this once, and she is determined to survive it here — perhaps with slightly less fallout, though that seems impossible.

Eight minutes after she arrives, Fury and Steve come out. She is leaning against the rail on the stairs that go to a side door.

“Agent Romanoff,” Fury says. He doesn’t look surprised to see her. “This is an unexpected pleasure.”

She smiles at him. “I thought we could all take a walk. It’s a nice day.”

It is a nice day — sunny and blue skies. The pathway she points to is strewn with rocks and branches and trash. Fury eyes her, and then she sees it. A quick flash in his eyes, but she knows in that instant that he knows that she knows what is coming. What is happening.

“Why don’t you two goes?” he says. “I have to get back to headquarters.”

He looks directly at her as he says this. For a moment she’s tempted to say, “No!”, to argue and protest. She does know what is about to happen, but she knows that Fury knows too. And then she remembers that the Fury on her world wanted it to happen. Or at least was prepared. She has to believe this one is too.

But she can be more prepared this time.

“Do you trust us to get back on our own?” she says, and she smiles when she does.

Steve looks at her oddly, but Fury says, “I think you can figure it out.”

“We could always call for backup if we get lost.” She’s still smiling. Fury is still looking at her. She hopes he understands what she’s asking, but this Fury is still more of a mystery to her than her Fury ever was.

A beat passes, but then Fury pauses. “You could call Carol,” he says. “I’d trust her with my life. Now if you’ll excuse me …” He gestures to his car.

She steps out of his path,, while he turns to Steve and does something unexpected. Fury holds out his hand to Steve, who looks at him oddly but then holds out his own. They shake, and Fury turns to her. She starts to hold out her hand, but he pulls her into a tight hug instead.

“Good seeing you, Agent Romanoff,” he says, then he lets go and disappears down the path to his car. A few moments later he’s gone.

She turns to Steve. She can see everything on his face — confusion, anger, maybe even fear — but she just slips her arm through his and points to the debris covered path that leads behind the building and next to the water.

“It is a nice day,” she says. “We should go for that walk.”

He lets her pull him along, for which she is grateful. They start walking, keeping it slow and casual for anyone who may be watching them on the cameras. When they’ve gone about a mile — and the SHIELD warehouse is no longer visible to them — Steve finally breaks the silence.

“Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?”

“Yes,” she says immediately. “But you’re not going to like it.”

“Yeah,” he says. “That’s obvious. Tell me anyway.”

--

They stop a little way off the trail, sitting back under the cover of a mass of trees. There doesn’t seem to be anyone around for miles, but she keeps her voice low anyway as she starts from the beginning, giving him the shortened version of what happened the first time around on her world.

She tells him about how it all started with the Lemurian Star and how that led to them being on the run and how they discovered that Hydra had taken over SHILED. She tells him about the true intent of Project Insight and she tells him a brief version of how they stopped it.

When she’s done, he doesn’t speak, and neither does she. She lets him take this all in, this massive event that happened in some other world that is so different, but also so much the same, as this one.

After a while he raises his head and peers at her. His eyes look sad, shocked. Disappointed. She’s not quite sure if it’s with the situation or with her. After all, she has known this for six months and she hasn’t said a world.

“And you think this is all happening here? Now?” he says slowly. His voice shakes a little as he speaks. “Even though it’s years later here.”

She shrugs. “You all had other things to worry about. Loki was a common enemy.”

“Yeah,” Steve says, and there is that sad and disappointment in his tone again.

“I wasn’t sure,” she says, suddenly feeling the need to explain, to make him understand. “I hoped it wasn’t true. Like you just said, this is years later here. It’s 2016, and this happened back in 2014 in my world.”

“But?” Steve says when she pauses.

“But then we got the call today about the Lemurian Star, and I had a bad feeling.”

“I asked you what was wrong,” Steve says, and she doesn’t miss it, the slight accusation in his voice.

“I still wasn’t sure,” she says, and she almost feels like pleading. She realizes just how badly she needs him to understand, and for a moment she hates herself for that. She struggles to keep her cool. “Maybe there was a legitimate reason for it.”

“But now you’re sure.” It’s not a question.

She reaches into the pocket of her Black Widow uniform that she still has on and pulls out what she finds there. She shows it to Steve — a flash drive nestled on her palm. The same flash drive she downloaded information on to this morning aboard the Lemurian Star. An almost identical looking flash drive to the one that changed her life forever back on her world.

“Fury slipped it into my pocket when he hugged me goodbye,” she says.

“I knew that was weird.” The edges of Steve’s mouth turn up. “But what is it?”

“Well,” Natasha says, “I think it contains encrypted date about Hydra. On my world, it led us to Hydra’s base.”

“Which is?”

She stares him straight in the eye as she says, “Camp Lehigh.”

He starts a little at that, then reaches out and fingers the drive like it can give him all the answers just by its presence. Finally he looks back up.

“So we go back to the Tower, plug it in and see if it takes us to the same place?”

Natasha shakes her head. “As soon as we plug it in, they’ll know where we are and what we’re doing.”

“But you think they might already know what we’re doing?”

“I doubt they think I really rode out to Long Island to take a walk with you on this trail,” she says, and he actually chuckles a little. It makes her smile despite the situation.

“But they might not know how much you really know,” he says, and she nods.

“That’s the hope.”

He looks around them, and back down the path they came up. “If we already know what’s on there, and you already know what we’re going to find if we get to Camp Lehigh, why don’t we just skip that part and go straight to destroying Project Insight?”

She smiles at that. “There are probably hundreds of armed guards around that warehouse,” she says. “They’ll kill us before we can do anything. We need help.”

She seems him ponder the situation. Then he says, “Carol. That’s what you and Fury were talking about.”

“I needed to see who he trusted.”

“Well, I guess we can’t just go back to the Tower and ask her to come with us,” Steve says.

Natasha shakes her head, and then it hits her. “Fury,” she says.

Steve raises an eyebrow.

“He’s going to be in an accident on the way back to the Tower. And when it doesn’t work, they’re going to send a hit man after him.”

“What?!?!” Steve says.

“But Carol is his most trusted friend. They’ll call her. She’ll be at the hospital.”

Steve nods. “We tell her there.”

“We slip her a note,” Natasha says. “Tell her where we’re going.”

“And where exactly are we going?”

“Camp Lehigh,” she says.

“But we already know what’s there.” Steve rubs a hand over his face.

“It needs to be destroyed,” Natasha says. “Hydra will do that for us when they try to kill us.”

“This doesn’t seem like a good plan,” Steve says.

“We just have to hope Carol gets to us first. And then we go to Fury.”

“You know where he’ll be?”

She shakes her head. “But I know where he was on my world. We have to hope it’s the same.”

“And then we go destroy Project Insight and reveal Hydra to the world.”

“Yeah,” Natasha says. “Hoepfully.”

“Sounds like a fun day,” Steve says, and he smiles just a little. It makes her laugh, until she remembers something else, and it dies away.

“There’s one more thing,” she says.

He looks at her.

“I don’t know if it’s true here,” she says. “But on my world … well, it’s about your friend Bucky.”

“Bucky?” Steve says in surprise.

“Yeah,” Natasha says, and pauses while she gathers her courage. “He’s still alive.”

Chapter Text

This time she tells Steve everything, even things she never told a single soul on her own earth.

“I know him too,” she says, after she tells Steve about The Winter Soldier, about what Hydra on her world did to his Bucky, about what Hydra on this world is probably doing to his Bucky.

“You know Bucky?” Steve asks. He blinks at her.

She shakes her head. “Not Bucky,” she says. “I know him as The Winter Soldier.” She pauses. “I know him as James.”

His face scrunches up in confusion. “Because you fought him,” he finally says. “On your world.”

“Because I was trained by him,” she says, and she feels the words hang there as his mouth falls slightly open. The words she was never brave enough to say to her own Steve, so desperately afraid of how much he would hate her if she had.

She looks down at the leaves and dirt beneath where they are sitting. She knows they need to hurry this up, that they need to go back to the city and wait for the call about Fury. She knows it could happen at any moment.

But she also needs to confess. She needs him to know just who she is before they get too far. Before she gets too far. Because the way this Steve looks at her makes her feel things she never thought were possible.

And so she tells him.

“I’m not a good person, Steve,” she starts. “I’m not like you. I’m a killer. I was trained to be one, ever since I was a little girl. And where I was trained … they brought people in sometimes. And he, the Winter Soldier, he was one. He trained us. He trained me. And when I was older, they sent me on missions with him.” She closes her eyes at the next part. She doesn’t want to see Steve’s face. “We killed people. We hurt people. We did so many things I’m not proud. But I did them and I didn’t think twice.”

She opens her eyes, sees Steve studying her.

“He was nice to me. Your Bucky. He told me once his name was James. And he saved me once. I remember that. During a mission, I messed up. The target almost killed me. Almost snapped my neck. But he saved me.” She tries to smile, but it feels like her facial muscles won’t work. “He’s a good man, your Bucky,” she says. “It’s not his fault what they are doing to him. But underneath, he’s still good. He’s not like me.”

She finally stops. Steve still studies her. And then he reaches out, pulls her hand into his, clasps his other one over it.

“You are a good person,” he says, which surprises her. She thought he would want to focus on his friend.

“I’m a trained killer,” she says.

“Who grew up to be a hero,” he says.

She tries to pull her hand away, but he holds tighter.

“I read about you,” he says.

She’s the one who blinks in surprise this time.

“Not you exactly,” he says. “But the other Natasha. The one who died. I read articles on her when I first came to SHIELD. I know who she was, how she was raised, what they did to her.” Steve’s eyes bore into her as he speaks. “And I know when she was given a choice, she chose to be good. She chose to be a hero. And I know you did too.”

Natasha doesn’t know what to say, so she doesn’t say anything.

Steve doesn’t let go of her hand. “Thank you for telling me,” he says. “For trusting me.”

She shakes her head. “Thank you for trusting me.”

They sit there a moment longer, staring at each other. She remembers his offer, from a few months ago, to take her on a date if she ever would say the word. Suddenly there is nothing she wants more.

“If we get out of this alive,” she says before she has a chance to change her mind, “I want to take you up on your offer to take me out on a date.”

The surprise is back on his face, but just for a moment. Then he grins, a full-faced grin that lights him up. “I am going to hold you to that,” he says, and he sounds so excited it makes her smile.

But in the distance, they hear a crack of thunder, and immediately they are brought back to reality. A reality where they are hiding in trees because Hydra wants to kill them, if not now then soon enough.

She pulls herself to her feet, and Steve clambers up too.

“Come on,” she says. “We have work to do.”

--

They stop at a boutique clothing store out on Long Island to buy civilian clothes. They go to a place full of rich women and men with their eyes on their phones — people who couldn’t care less who she and Steve are. They leave their uniforms in a bag behind a dumpster. They can always get new ones when the time comes.

They head back into the city and find a café down the street from Avengers Tower and order coffees to sip on and sandwiches to munch on. Hydra might suspect something, but even they aren’t going to attack them in the middle of a public restaurant.

Besides, Natasha knows they might not get a chance to eat again for a while so they might as well take advantage.

They hear the sirens while they are being served their second cups. They hear sirens all the time in Manhattan, but these ones are going toward the Tower, and they both know this is it. And sure enough, half hour later, Steve’s phone rings, with Carol on the other end.

Natasha fingers the note she has written that is stuffed in her pocket. She’s counting on the fact that Hydra won’t have infiltrated the hospital and that Carol will find their note in time. It’s risky, but they need help. And Carol is the best help they could possibly ask for.

They rush to the hospital, letting the nerves and fear show on their faces. They push through the doors and are directed to an operating suite. It’s oddly similar to what happened on her own world, and that in itself makes Natasha feel queasy.

She knows it’s not real, but she finds herself trembling anyway. Steve takes her hand as they watch the doctors futilely attempt to save Fury, and he pulls her into his arms when the alarm beeps.

Carol watches the whole thing, her face almost expressionless. It’s what Natasha imagines she looked like back when this happened in her own world.

“Do you know what happened?” she asks Carol softly as the doctors work, turning off machines, covering up the body.

“He came out of nowhere,” Carol says, and her expression still doesn’t change. “I only saw him from afar. He was fast. And strong.”

“Metal arm?” Natasha asks, and for the first time something flashes across Carol’s face. Surprise.

“Yeah,” she says. “How did you know?”

“Lucky guess,” Natasha answers.

She turns back to the window to watch the doctors. Carol doesn’t say anything else, but Natasha can hear her questions. Can hear her wondering about Natasha and the world she came from. They’ve been teammates for six months now, but they barely know each other. But Fury told Natasha he trusts Carol, and for that, Natasha trusts her too.

They wait until Fury’s body is wheeled out of the room before the three of them turn around.

“I want to go see him,” Carol says, and this time her face twists with grief. “To say goodbye.”

“We’ll be right behind you,” Natasha says, although they really won’t. But she moves forward, and before Carol can refuse her, she draws the other woman into a tight hold with one arm. With her other, she finds Carol’s hand and slips the note she wrote while she and Steve were at the café into it.

She lets go of Carol and backs away.

“We’ll see you soon,” she says.

Carol stares at her for a moment, and then nods. As she brushes through the door out into the hall, Natasha sees her slip the note upside her sleeve. Natasha just hopes Carol will read it, believe it and come for them.

She turns her head to meet Steve’s gaze, and he nods at her.

It’s time to go.

--

They slip down a back staircase, stopping by the hospital laundry room to steal a couple of jackets and hats.

“We’re just borrowing,” Steve says, and he sounds so much like her Steve that she can’t help but smile.

They head back to the stairs and down to the underground levels of the hospital. From there, it’s a couple back alleyways and they are heading down into the subway, intermixing with the late night city crowd.

They sit in the back of a subway car, racing north, pretending to be engrossed in their phones. Steve keeps an arm over her shoulder, and their heads are pressed together. No one pays them any attention.

They get off on the second to last stop and grab a cab to a rundown apartment building that no one would look twice at. It’s been six years since this world’s Natasha died, but she’s hoping against hope that she had the same safe houses and that no one else knew about them and thus were never able to clean them out.

Luck is in their favor, and they are awarded with an old dusty apartment that was clearly broken into. There is barely anything left, but Natasha could care less about furniture and possessions.

Instead, she hauls Steve down into the basement, and there in the corner, definitely having seen better days, is an old motorcycle.

“You think that thing is really going to turn on?” Steve says. He flashes her a look that clearly says they should have gone with his plan to keep taking the trains.

But she smiles.

“Tony created this,” she says. “Before he died.”

“And he gave it to you?”

“Of course not,” Natasha says. “He created it for SHIELD. Fury gave it to me. I kept it here in my world, until Fury asked for it back. But I was banking on that not happening here since this Natasha died before that could happen.”

“And he didn’t come looking for it,” Steve says.

“I had my secrets,” Natasha says. “I’m guessing she did too.”

Steve almost looks impressed as Natasha moves over to the motorcycle and pulls it into the middle of the basement. Steve goes to her, and together they get it up the stairs and down the hall and out the front door.

Then she turns to Steve.

“I don’t have the key anymore,” she says.

He blinks at her. “You what?”

But she’s smiling and gesturing. “I know you know how to hotwire, Steve Rogers. So get to work.”

“I don’t!” Steve starts to protest, but then he stops and shrugs. “You know,” he says, as he bends down next to the bike. “It’s really disconcerting that you know things about me that I myself have never told you. It’s a little unfair, if you think about it.”

She almost protests — almost blurts out that it’s a little unfair she had to watch her entire world die in front of her eyes — but then she sees the small smirk on his face and she knows he’s messing with her. She rolls her eyes.

“Maybe someday I’ll tell you what else I know,” she says, and he glares at her, but there is no malice behind it and she laughs, then gestures to the bike.

“Come on,” she says. “We need to actually get there before Carol does.”

It’s his turn to roll his eyes, but he gets to work.

Chapter Text

They leave the motorcycle a mile down the road from Camp Lehigh, tucked underneath some high bushes. If Carol doesn’t end up coming for them, Natasha knows they might need to use it for an escape. Not that a motorbike is going to save them from Quinjets and long-range missiles but it’s all they’ve got.

They stick to the side of the road as they walk. The night is dark and chilly, the moon nowhere to be found. Steve’s eyes trace over every part of the base they can see, and she can practically see the memories replaying in his head. She remembers her own trip to this place — the night her and Steve’s relationship changed forever. Even if she hadn’t wanted to admit it at the time.

Part of her wants to take his hand as they walk, to feel the heat of his body against hers, but she keeps her distance, letting him have his memories.

“Are you okay?” she asks him as they approach the entrance.

He looks at her, almost like he forgot she was there. “Yeah,” he says. “I just … never expected to be back here again.”

She nods. “You were here with James … I mean, with Bucky.”

He nods. “You think he’s really alive?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “But he was alive in my world, and so far a lot of this is turning out to be the same.”

“I saw him die,” he says quietly. “Right in front of me.” He takes a long deep breath. “And then I came back and I’ve been living it up in luxury at Avengers Tower, and he’s being tortured and brainwashed maybe every god damn day.”

Natasha has never heard this Steve curse before. She looks carefully at him.

“There was no way you could have known,” she says, and a voice in her head reminds her that maybe she could have told him. Six months ago. But what would that have accomplished if they didn’t know where he was, or even if he was in this world? “I should have told you what I knew. From the beginning.”

He actually stops walking at that. “You had enough to deal with. You didn’t need to be trying to make sure you told me every possible secret.”

“He’s your best friend,” she says.

Steve takes a step toward her, so they are standing barely a foot apart.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Natasha. You told me now, when it matters.”

She shrugs. “And you didn’t do anything wrong either,” she says.

“I know,” he says quietly. “But guilt doesn’t always make sense.”

She knew that only too well.

They are still standing on the side of the road. Still standing so close together. Once again, she is tempted to take his hand. Or throw her arms around his neck.

Instead she turns back to the road in front of them. “We need to keep going,” she says. “Are you ready for what we’re about to learn?”

“No,” he says. “Not even a little.”

But he walks beside her every step of the way.

--

As they walk through the abandoned army base, it’s almost like they are walking back through time. Steve to his younger days, before SHIELD, before the ice, before the serum. For her, it’s like walking back into another world, another time, another Steve.

She leads him to the same building she and her Steve found the first time around. And they take the elevator down. She lets him look around at everything for a few minutes before she plugs in the flash drive and activates Arnin Zola’s head.

He greets them, just as he did years before in her world. It sends chills down her spine.

“Roger, Steven. Born 1918. Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna. Born 1984 on another world.”

She blinks. She didn’t expect that.

“How does it know that?” she says, but she knows she needs to play along. He might know who she is, but there is no way he can know what she knows. “Is this some kind of a recording?”

“I am not a recording, Fräulein,” Zola’s head says. “I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945, but I am.”

She watches his photo flash on the screen before she turns to Steve. “Do you know this thing?”

“Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull. He's been dead for years,” Steve says.

“First correction, I am Swiss,” Zola says. “Second, look around you. I have never been more alive. In 1972 I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body. My mind, however, that was worth saving on two hundred thousand feet of data banks. You are standing in my brain.”

“How did you get here?” Steve demands.

“Invited.”

It’s Natasha’s turn. “It was Operation Paperclip after World War II,” she says. “SHIELD recruited German scientists with strategic value.”

“They thought I could help their cause,” Zola says. “I also helped my own.”

“HYDRA died with the Red Skull.”

“Cut off one head, two more shall take its place.”

Steve frowns. “Prove it.”

And there it is, flashing on the screen, images of the Red Skull, of the original SHIELD founders.

“HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom,” Zola says. “What we did not realize, was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist. The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war, SHIELD was founded, and I was recruited. The new HYDRA grew. A beautiful parasite inside SHIELD. For seventy years HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war. And when history did not cooperate, history was changed.”

“That's impossible,” Natasha says, even though she knows just how possible it actually is. “SHIELD would have stopped you.”

“Accidents will happen,” Zola says, and the images change. Tony’s parents’ car accident. Fury’s death. “HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once the purification process is complete, HYDRA's new world order will arise. We won, Captain. Your death amounts to the same as your life; a zero sum.”

Natasha watches as anger seeps through Steve’s body. Her Steve smashed the computer screen in anger. This one merely clenches his fists, his knuckles turning white.

“What's on this drive?” he demands.

“Project Insight requires insight,” Zola says. “So I wrote an algorithm.”

“What kind of algorithm?” Natasha asks. “What does it do?”

“The answer to your question is fascinating,” Zola says, as Natasha feels her phone vibrating. “Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it.”

A noise sounds. Behind them the doors start to close. Steve whirls around, tossing his shield at them, but it’s too late. Natasha tries to listen for the sound of a flying superhero approaching, but her phone is still vibrating in her pocket. She pulls it out.

“It’s coming, Steve,” she says. “We have maybe thirty seconds.”

Behind them, Zola starts again. “I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain. Admit it, it's better this way. We're both of us ... out of time.”

“Except we’re not,” Natasha says to him as Steve hurries to the bars over the opening on the ground. He rips them out, the way she told him too if the bogie arrived before Carol did. He gestures to her.

“Nat!”

She runs to him, throwing herself into his arms, and they are already falling as the building explodes behind them in a sea of rock and heat.

--

She wakes to a pain in her head and aches in her entire body and the sound of someone calling her name. She forces her eyes open and blinks up into the night sky, trying to remember where she is and what just happened.

She’s lying on the hard ground, except her head is cradled in something soft. She makes to sit up but a firm hand on her shoulder keeps her down.

“Don’t move,” Steve says to her.

“It’s okay. I don’t have a concussion,” she says.

“Because you didn’t have one last time?”

“Something like that,” she says, but Steve keeps his hand on her shoulder, and she knows he’s not going to take her word for it.

“Where are we?” she asks instead. “And why aren’t we running?”

“We haven’t moved much,” Steve answers. “By the time I crawled out of the hole with you, Carol was making quick work of all the Hydra goons.”

Natasha lets out a rush of air. “She came,” she says.

“She has questions,” Steve says. “She let me know that.”

“But she believes us,” Natasha says.

“Yeah, she does.”

As he finishes speaking, a light flashes somewhere above them. And then another. Natasha watches as it comes closer, circling around, until it lands right beside them. She has to close her eyes at the brightness.

Through her lids she sees the light dim and she opens her eyes back up. Carol walks toward them and bends down, taking her in.

“She okay?” she says to Steve.

“She’s okay,” Natasha replies, and Carol doesn’t even have the decency to look ashamed. She keeps looking at Steve.

“A lot of bruises,” Steve says. “A few scrapes. But I don’t think anything is broken. She says she doesn’t have a concussion.”

“I don’t,” Natasha says. She struggles to sit up, and this time Steve lets go of her enough so that she can. She looks at Carol. “Thank you for coming.”

“I have questions,” she says.

“Steve said you mentioned.”

“But first let’s get somewhere safe.” Carol looks around. “I took care of all the ones I could, but if this is Hydra …”

“It is,” Natasha interrupts.

“Then they aren’t going to let me stop them. They’re just going to come back more prepared.”

“You have any ideas of someplace safe?” Natasha asks, and Carol actually grins.

“Yeah,” she says. “I do.”

She glances at Steve. “You want to stay here out of the way, while I take her? Then I’ll come back for you.”

“I can just follow you,” Steve says.

“Not where we’re going you can’t.”

--

It turns out Carol’s safehouse is on a small, unnamed island somewhere off the coast of South America. Natasha isn’t even sure where, and Carol doesn’t say. But she leaves her in the two-bedroom house with strict orders to drink the tea she made and eat the sandwich and stay in bed.

Natasha wants to be offended, but she can’t summon the energy so she just nods her agreement as Carol takes back off. Natasha wonders vaguely how SHIELD tracks Carol — because she can’t believe that Hydra hasn’t come up with a way to track her whereabouts — but even if they can, Carol is faster than they could ever hope to be and they have time. Plus, they would have to come with an army if they hope to defeat Carol, and right now Hydra has other important business. Like getting those ships into the air.

So Natasha figures that she and Steve and Carol are safe for the night. And in the morning, they will go to Fury. They’ll just have to figure out a less conspicuous way to get there in case Hydra really can track Carol’s whereabouts.

Natasha falls asleep pondering this, and it’s not until Carol and Steve stomp inside the small house that she wakes up. Her head is still pounding and her body still aches, but she drags herself from the bedroom to the tiny living room that is attached to the kitchen.

Steve insists on checking her over before they debrief, and Carol nods her assent, so Steve takes Natasha into the bathroom and has her undress.

It’s almost disconcerting to be sitting in a tiny bathroom on a small island in the middle of the Atlantic, half naked in front of this man who just saved her life. But she knows that isn’t what is making her feel so vulnerable — it’s the touch of his fingers on her skin as he applies salves and antiseptics and bandages. It’s the way his hands heat her from the inside just by his touch, and it’s the way she can feel his breath on the back of her neck.

She feels shaky and out of sorts and her heart is thumping harder than it should be.

“Thank you for saving me,” she says as Steve works, going over the bruises and scrapes on her back.

“You’re the one saving all of us,” he says.

“You didn’t have to risk your life for me,” she says.

His hands still for a moment. “It was never a choice,” he says, and his words send another shiver through her body because she understands what he is trying to say, and it’s not something that anyone has ever said to her before.

Her voice shakes a little as she forces out the words. “Still,” she says. “Thank you.”

His hand rests against her. “You’re welcome,” he says, and she has to clench her hands in order not to turn around right there and throw her arms around him. Because as much as she wants to, now is not the time.

It’s just not.

Is it?

Chapter Text

They sit around the small kitchen table, drinking tea and munching on sandwiches, and Steve and Natasha tell Carol everything. Natasha tells her about what happened on her world and what made her realize it was happening here, and Steve tells her about what they found at Camp Lehigh and what Zola told them.

“Fury’s not dead?” Carol repeats for the fifth time. She keeps going back to that, and Natasha can’t blame her. “Are you sure?”

“Not a hundred percent,” Natasha says, “but as close to that as I can be.”

“Because he wasn’t dead in your world?”

“Because he knew this was happening — Hydra — and he knew they were going to come after him, and this was his way out. His way of stopping them.”

“It seems a pretty risky plan.”

“It is a risky plan.”

“But you think it worked?”

Natasha nods. “Yes,” she says. “I do.”

“And you know where he is?”

“I know where he was on my world.”

“And you think it’s the same?”

“I’m hoping it’s the same,” Natasha says, and that really is what it comes down to. But Carol seems to understand she nods.

“Then tomorrow morning we go,” she says. “And then what?”

“And then we make a plan to destroy the Project Insight helicarriers before Hydra can start taking out the world’s population.”

“Are we going to need more help?”

“I’m hoping Fury has already thought that far ahead,” Natasha says, and she does hope that. That maybe he’s brought in Pepper. Or Rhodey. But even if he hasn’t, she feels okay with their chances with her and Steve and Carol. Carol evens the odds in a way no one else could back on her world.

Carol seems satisfied with that answer. She stands up.

“I’m going to go to bed,” she says. “I need to …” She doesn’t continue but Natasha understands. She needs to process what they just told her. She also needs to process that Fury isn’t dead. And that Fury didn’t tell her what he was planning.

It’s something Natasha understands only too well. The hurt from her Fury not trusting her enough to loop her in still stings slightly all these years later. Hurt that she never really had a chance to get closure on because her world was destroyed before she and Fury ever sat down and talked about it.

“Carol,” she says instinctively, and Carol turns around to look at her. “When this is over,” Natasha says. “You should talk to him about it. Really talk to him.”

She doesn’t say anything more, but Carol nods.

“Goodnight,” she says, and heads into one of the bedrooms.

Natasha and Steve watch her go.

“I’ll take the couch,” Steve says once the door has closed.

“No,” Natasha says immediately. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Well, you’re certainly not taking the couch.”

“No one’s taking the couch,” Natasha says. “The bed is plenty big for the both of us.”

Steve looks like he’s about to protest, but Natasha cuts him off.

“I’m not going to bite if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Well, what if I want you to bite?”

He’s teasing her, a smirk on his lips and a sparkle in his eyes, but for a moment she forgets how to breath. It’s like all the air in the room has been sucked out of it.

And she remembers a conversation from months ago.

“Are you asking me on a date, Steve Rogers?”

“Maybe. Not now, though. I know you need time. But maybe … maybe someday. Would that be okay?”

“I think I would like that.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Okay, then. It’s a future date.”

“Steve,” she says quietly. “Remember back when we first started getting to know each other and you said you might want to take me on a date?”

Steve freezes, almost the way he did when she told him about Hydra and Bucky being alive.

“Yes,” he says, and it sounds like he’s barely breathing.

“When we make it out of this mess,” she says. “When we destroy Project Insight and we reveal Hydra to the world and we are safe to go back to Avengers Tower …”

She trails off. He’s still frozen in place.

“Yes?” he says again, but this time it’s a question.

“When all that happens,” she says, and she has to reach down deep inside to summon every last ounce of courage she has. Because somehow this is harder than any fight she’s ever been in. But she remembers the hurt from Fury’s betrayal and she remembers the greater hurt of never being able to talk to him about it before it was too late. Never being able to talk to any of them, except Clint, before it was too late.

Never saying what she really wanted to say. Never telling them how she really felt about them — about the people who changed her life, the people who gave her a life.

And if there is anything she knows it’s that she doesn’t want to do that again in this world.

So she continues, says what she needs to say.

“When this is over, will you take me out on a date?”

And her heart is pounding in her chest so hard that it’s echoing in her ears, blocking out every other sound, but then Steve is beaming — practically literally beaming — and she feels a smile crossing her face too, and he’s nodding at her.

“I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” he says. “I will happily take you out on a date, Natasha Romanoff.”

And in that moment, she feels her world shift, something clicking into place that she never realized wasn’t right.

They have a lot to get through, she knows that. They have to stop Project Insight. They have to defeat Hydra. Steve has to face Bucky and deal with everything that’s going to bring up. They are also going to have to figure out a way to maybe save Bucky.

And then they are going to have to figure out a way forward. As former SHIELD agents. As Avengers. As a team.

But Steve is still beaming at her, and suddenly the world beyond tonight is a lot brighter than Natasha ever thought it could be.

She stands up for her chair, and Steve reaches out a hand. She takes it, letting their fingers entwine.

Then together they start toward the bedroom and toward the future they both desperately want to have.