Chapter Text
Chapter 1 - Buenos Aires
Shown often are the defenses around your heart
Anyone trying to climb
Will fall from high
-Dot Hacker, Inhibition
Moonlight glistens over the rich dark colour of her wine as she stares into her glass, absentmindedly petting the back of the black cat purring next to her on the balcony. She stirs the wine gently, watching the light blur over the whirling liquid.
‘’And so that’s how it went, Liho.’’ she tells the cat. ‘’It was an easy mission, although it did pay very well. Or so Isaiah said, I wouldn’t know.’’
Liho doesn’t acknowledge that she’s said anything, just nudges its nose against her hand lightly to indicate that it’d like to be petted on the head too. Natasha complies. She does not know where this stray comes from, but it’s been roaming near her apartment for a while, and it’s probably her fault that it keeps coming back. She had started feeding it, unable to stand how scrawny and lost and hungry it looked. And now it tries to be let inside all the time, even though Natasha tells it to go look somewhere else. She can’t take care of a cat, not with the kind of life that she leads. Liho is a stubborn animal, though, and it waits on Natasha’s porch every evening, asking to be fed, petted, cared for. It joins her on the balcony when she sits there and Natasha does not really know why she lets it or why she always want to scratch that warm spot behind its ears, or talks to it all the time.
Talking helped her feel better. But it was hard, talking to other people. It took so much effort to get close to someone, to navigate the finely woven threads of debt and hurt, trust and loyalty. The cat was a great alternative because it had no clue what she even said, and because a relationship with a stray cat in New York City was non-committal in a reassuring way. She did not owe this cat anything. And it was a cat: it would manage, with or without her. Liho was neutral in a way that people could not be: it had no opinion, no moral standards, no preconceived idea of how she was supposed to be and did not give a damn of who she was. She was comfortable with that, and so this thing she had with this stray black cat was perhaps as close as friendship as she could ever hope to get with anyone else than Clint.
It was best that she suppressed the thought of Steve, whenever she thought about friendship. His words kept echoing in her mind like a haunting ghost call. How about a friend?
‘’Do you think Steve has found him, by now?’’ she murmurs almost inaudibly, only for Liho. The stray yawns, stretching lazily.
Natasha takes another sip of wine. She’s leaving tomorrow morning for a mission in Argentina and she knows she should try to get some sleep: it’s well past one already, and needs the rest, if she is to infiltrate a high security prison and help escape a wrongfully incarcerated prisoner through a subtropical forest. So she finishes her glass and rises to her feet. She’s about to get inside when Liho lets out a small, heart-wrenching miaowl and starts weaving around her legs, rubbing itself on her ankles, begging to be let in.
‘’I’m sorry, Liho’’ she says, suppressing the poignant ache in her chest as she goes on ‘’but you know the rules: we can hang out, sure, and I will feed you when I’m home, but I will not adopt you. And you can’t lick me.’’
Natasha lets herself in her apartment, avoiding to look at Liho’s miserable expression at being turned down again.
‘’I’m sorry’’ she says again to herself ‘’but I can’t let you in. Even if you're just a cat.’’
***
The mission in Argentina goes well, until she realises just who she’s been freeing. Her client turns out not to be who he claimed to, and so she makes sure he disappears for good. She won’t get paid and she’s forfeited her extraction and Isaiah will complain again about her being broke, but she’s done the right thing, she’s sure. She knows, because Steve would probably have done the same, and Steve is the standard she uses to gauge her actions now. It’s a demanding standard - the highest - but if she is to atone for her past, then it should be on Steve’s terms (not that she would ever admit it to him).
It’s a long walk through the forest until she reaches a city big enough for there to offer transportation to the capital. She catches a night bus for Buenos Aires and tries to sleep despite the noise and the bumpy roads. The Black Widow reaches the city by morning and promptly retreats into her web.
She sleeps for the most part of the day and then wakes up to tend to her wounds properly. They’re superficial, all scratches and cuts, and her ankle might be slightly sprained. Mostly she needs a shower. But she’s also extremely hungry and for a moment she hesitates: should she eat first and then shower? Or shower and then eat? But the only food she keeps here is dehydrated army stuff that keeps forever and tastes like crap and she can’t go out smelling like she does. So the shower wins.
She’s eating take-out in front of her laptop, waiting for the application to load so she can call Isaiah and ask for extraction. The web browser is open on the other half of her screen as she checks the local news, curious to know if her target’s body has been found or if his escape from prison has even been announced. Suddenly a headline catches her eye. ¿Esta Captain America in Buenos Aires? The article speculates over whether or not the fighter that had been captured on blurry cell phone shots the previous day was Captain America. The man on the pictures wore standard fighting gear and was not using a shield. From the angle, one couldn't see much of his face, but Natasha could recognize those strong shoulders and the curve of that jaw among thousands, even on blurry, crappy enlarged shots like those attached to the article. Steve was in Buenos Aires, and that could only mean one thing: the Winter Soldier was there, too.
Her first reaction is a strong desire to call Steve. But this is not her fight, and she knows better than get involved in that whole situation. There is a lot that she has not told Steve, a lot that she's not ready to tell him, feelings, also, that shouldn't be there between them, that are best left ignored. Better just to call Isaiah and go home. She closes the web browser and turns to the phone application that's finished loading by now. For a long time her cursor hovers on Isaiah's name, but she's distracted by the name that, per alphabetical order, comes just before her lawyer's in her contact list. Rogers, Steve. She stares and stares at it. And then a new window opens and suddenly half his face pops up on screen. He is holding his phone at a weird angle, and she can only see his nose, mouth and chin.
"Hey Natasha! It's Natasha" she hears him tell Sam before he turns back to her. "How're you doing? It's been a while" He sounds surprised.
"Rogers, please hold your phone so I can see your face."
"Really? Already scolding? You've not even said hello." His tone sounds chipper, though, and he moves to hold his phone a bit higher.
"Hi, Steve. You look good" she says with a smile when she finally sees his eyes.
"I’m good, or at least better than I was back in DC. You?"
"I heard you're in Buenos Aires."
"News get around fast, I see."
"Some asshole with a cell phone caught some pictures of you fighting yesterday. You made the local news."
"Ah crap, I knew that fight would probably get me into trouble. Is there trouble? Is that why you're calling?"
"Well that depends, I know a lot of people who would certainly call me trouble." she pauses for dramatic effect. "I'm in Buenos Aires too."
"On a mission?"
"Well, I was. Went sour, though. What about you, got any lead on the Winter Soldier?"
"Yeah, yeah actually. Hey, about that, Nat, I could really use another teammate. Since you're here and all, why don’t you join us tomorrow?"
"Hey, admit it, Rogers, you just miss me." she winks, tone playful and just a tiny bit flirty.
Steve just smiles and looks at her in the eyes with that unnerving earnest look and says: "Yeah, that too."
It takes all of Natasha's self-control not to let herself blush at his words. The fact that Steve Rogers can make the Black Widow blush is a secret she intends to take into her grave.
"How about you join us in the morning at our hotel? I'll text you the address."
"Sounds fine."
"Alright, Nat. See you tomorrow."
"Good night, Rogers."
She calls Isaiah to announce that she'll stay in Buenos Aires for a couple of days.
***
Mornings are cool in Buenos Aires this time of year and Natasha is glad that it doesn’t take her long to walk to Sam and Steve's hotel. She keeps one hand in the pocket of her black leather coat to keep it warm, but the other is out in the cold, holding a bag of fresh croissants she bought from a local bakery. The hotel, similar to all hotels of its kind, is located in a straight and narrow street flanked with high, white-grayish buildings. It’s non-descript and sober, and the surroundings feel a bit lifeless, but maybe that’s just because it’s still early.
Sam greets her at the door with a warm embrace, says he's glad to see her and welcomes her inside, locking the door behind. She steps into a small living room with a blue leather couch that looks like it's seen better days. There is a small coffee table and an old TV set; a couple of books line an otherwise empty bookshelf in the corner. She sets her coat on the couch and her bag on the coffee table, then turns just as Steve appears from one of the rooms, hair damp and looking like he's fresh out of the shower, white towel in hand.
"Hey, soldier." she greets, lips slightly curling in a teasing smirk.
"Hey yourself. C'mere Natasha, I haven't seen you in ten months." he gestures for her to come to him, arms open, and takes a few steps in her direction.
His unrestrained friendliness surprises her and she hesitates slightly. Old instinct warns her that this is wrong, that she should block him while she can; yet another part of her yearns to dive into his arms, inhale his clean, masculine scent and to hide her face into his chest. Indulge, says the voice. Yielding, she closes the distance between them, presses her body against his and lets herself be enveloped in his strong, gentle embrace. It's been forever since she last let herself be held like this, since she enjoyed it so much, and suddenly her memories seem like they're from a lifetime ago, like they're someone else's.
"It’s good to see you" says Steve as they break apart, and she finds she echoes the feeling.
She saw him last in the graveyard in front of Nick Fury’s fake tombstone, when she handed him the Winter Soldier’s file she had worked so hard to obtain. She was on the verge of breaking down, then, tangled in so many lies and interlacing identities, crushed under the weight of her past and of her paradoxical, conflicted ways; she’d almost taken his offer at a new definition for herself. A friend. With S.H.I.E.L.D. gone, everything she relied on went to ground and Steve Rogers alone, then, appeared worthy of trust to her. But she couldn’t do it, couldn’t go with him, not on this new quest of his that would unfailingly bring forward secrets and memories since long locked away in the darkest corners of her mind.
"You, too." she replies truthfully. "So let’s get started, tell me about your big plan."
"Well...there’s no plan yet" Steve says, scratching the back of his neck. "I thought it best to wait for you, actually."
"Well aren’t I flattered. But first things first: do you guys have a kettle in there?"
"Oh yeah, there’s an electric kettle in the kitchenette over there" answers Sam, pointing to the room. ‘’But there is no tea.’’
‘’Don’t worry, I brought my own.’’
***
The three of them sit together in the living room, Sam and Natasha on the couch while Steve sits in a small wooden chair he’s taken from his room. He briefs her short and sweet between sips of coffee; at intervals Sam stops himself from devouring the croissants long enough to add a detail or confirm a fact. Natasha blows on her hot tea, the warmth of the mug diffusing into her fingers.
According to the intel they’ve gathered, the Winter Soldier - Bucky, as Steve calls him - is in Buenos Aires seeking after Dr. Tomas Delgado Vargas, a fairly renowned Argentinian neuroscientist who, 8 years ago, upon the Winter Soldier’s acquisition by Hydra from the KGB, had accepted a rather large sum of money to reprogram the Asset to his new masters’ needs. However, nothing indicated that the scientist had joined Hydra then: if the information they had collected was reliable, Dr. Delgado Vargas had simply performed his task, and then stepped out.
"It seems weird to me, though" opines Sam, "that Hydra would leave such a witness alive. Either the man was Hydra or they had a sure way to buy his silence."
"Or they could have wiped his memories and the doctor would never know that he’d done it."
"I don’t think so" Natasha chimes in. "If you know that Delgado Vargas was paid a lot of money, that’s because whoever provided you with this intel was able to trace back the deposit. If they were going to wipe the doctor’s memories, why bother paying him, then? I’m willing to bet Hydra kept him alive in case they needed his expertise again."
"That’s plausible" declares Steve. "Anyhow, Delgado Vargas is alive and Bucky is after him. I’m not quite sure why yet. Revenge? Questioning? All I know is that Bucky will probably make his move tomorrow."
"What makes you so sure?"
"We’ve been monitoring the doctor’s mansion for the past few days" answers Sam, "that’s how we ran into a Hydra squad, and those pictures you saw on the news were taken. Those guys wanted to recapture Bucky and they were doing the same thing as we were."
Picking up Sam’s explanation, Steve adds that from what they were able to find out, the doctor’s family would be leaving for a countryside property and that most of the employees would be accompanying the wife and children there. The doctor would be at his most vulnerable and if Bucky meant to kill him, then there was a minimum risk of collateral damage.
Devising a plan to infiltrate the doctor’s mansion is no hard task, but as the preparations take a more concrete turn, Natasha becomes increasingly nervous. The whole morning she has been questioning her own motives and contradictory actions. Any confrontation with the Winter Soldier is best to be avoided, doubly so when there's a chance he might be able to recognize her now, and she doesn't want that. Not in Steve's presence, anyway. The possibility of it happening makes her apprehensive and edgy. She’s choking, cowardly so. But she cannot turn back now, cannot sabotage Steve’s effort. She grows distant, distressed; it takes her a lot of concentration and self-control just to prevent her hands from shaking. She conceals it well, and Sam is clueless, but Steve, observant as ever, notices.
''What's wrong, Nat? You look shaken.''
She needs to distract him, she thinks, alerted. It is harder than most believe to fool Captain America, but the Black Widows knows of most his weaknesses and appealing to his caring side should be no trouble.
"It's alright,''' she says in weak voice, I am cold and I haven't slept much, is all. I feel kind of sick.''
Steve's worried expression fades to gentle concern and he offers to get a blanket from his room. As he rises to retrieve it, Sam gets up and takes his seat, addressing her a caring smile.
''Just get him to sit by you. The guy should be called Human Radiator, man.''
Soon Natasha finds herself half-curled in Steve's lap, wrapped in a checkered blanket that faintly carries his smell. He's warm and she revels in the feeling, faking exhaustion. His scent invades her senses and for a while she completely forgets about the Winter Soldier. Steve holds her firmly against him, visibly enjoying the physical contact, and she doesn't misses the quick, tender glances he turns to her while she's hacking through Delgado Vargas' security system on her cell phone. They make her stomach clench with guilt for playing him like that but she can handle the loving glances better than she could his questioning, and Natasha's always been the selfish kind.
In the evening Steve goes out to buy dinner and Sam makes her realizes just how much she's been playing with fire.
"So you and the Cap, huh?"
"Uh... No, nothing like that."
"C'mon, Natasha, don't deny it. I'm not blind, you know? And between you and me, I'm glad you're feeling the same, 'cause he's been talking about you non-stop for the past 10 months. I mean, when he wasn't talking about Bucky."
''I don't...''
''Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me. Hey, should I make myself scarce tonight?''
"Oh, no, thank you, Sam, but that won’t be necessary. I'm not, I mean, I'm not looking for that.''
Shit.
***
After dinner, Steve asks her to accompany him on a walk and she's kind of forced to accept by Sam, who seems to be taking his role as Steve's wingman extremely seriously. The autumn wind carries the smells of the city, cold against her exposed skin. They walk around the streets aimlessly, unhurried. Natasha feels at peace, a welcome feeling after the skittishness and unease that the prospect of going after the Winter Soldier caused her earlier. They’re mostly silent, until Steve asks her about what she’s been up to since the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D.. In vague terms, she tells him about the missions she’s been taking on her own account.
"I realised that I had to take responsibility, you know... instead of always deferring to a higher authority. I wanted to control who I worked for, wanted to set my own terms, so that I’d never be caught working for the bad guys again. Ignorance is no excuse.’’
Steve tells her that he’s worried she’s trying to carry a load far too heavy for her shoulders - for anyone’s shoulders - he corrects quickly after she shots him a deadly glare.
They buy churros from a street vendor and she laughs at him for accidentally dropping some dulce de leche on his chin. The sun has almost set when they cross a small park and suddenly it occurs to her that this feels exactly like a date. Steve has even reached for her hand at some point, and she’d let him hold it. Swiftly she untangles her fingers from his, mentally beating herself up for her recklessness. She’s been playing with fire, cruelly playing with his heart for her own selfish reasons. Heartbeat uneven, she nonetheless manages to thank him politely for the walk and the churros.
"It’s getting late. I better go back… I’ll join you and Sam in the morning."
Steve, of course, insists to walk her to her place.
"Cap," she says rolling her eyes, "you know I don’t need an escort."
"I know, but it would make me feel better."
"Sorry. No one is supposed to know about the Black Widow’s web."
"Your web?"
"My network of safehouses. Their location is classified, and you, Captain Rogers, don’t have clearance."
He laughs. "Okay, okay. I won’t insist. See you tomorrow, Nat."
He looks at her and for a brief moment she fears that he will be bold enough to kiss her. But ultimately he opts for her hand, lifting it to his lips.
"Good night, Steve."