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Professionalism is a wonderful thing.

A flash of light and Natasha is standing in her office. She's wearing different than when she left, different shoes, different earrings; she's missing her gauntlets.

She's also missing a few hours.

Shit.

-- --

It's hours before she manages to get home. She calls Clint's phone first (and he's back, he's back, thank god, he's back), she calls Steve's phone (no answer, damn) she calls Fury and her SO, she rouses Dr Ishikawa. There are tests to be run.

She calls Clint, again, once she locks her front door. He sounds...strained. But he's in a different city, and tells her to go have a shower and stop being a mother hen. There's nothing she can do here, so she agrees, and then leaves another message on Steve's phone.

Then she has a shower.

(And if she ends up sitting in the tub, clutching her knees to her chest and just letting the hot water hit her back, well.

No one's watching.)

-- --

After, she tries to put herself back together. She pulls on comfort-clothes and carefully, deliberately straightens her hair like nothing is wrong. Dinner is a reheated soup pulled from her massive freezer (she leaves another message on Steve's phone while the microwave hums) and if she was sensible, this is where she'd put on some DVDs. A history on the English language, maybe. A ridiculous b-grade sci-fi show from the '90s which she could play on her laptop while she cooks, but she'd been on the Enterprise.

She finishes her soup. She puts the bowl in the sink to soak. Then she goes to her bedroom, lifts up the secret trap door at the bottom of her closet, unlocks the safe, and pulls out the only photograph she'd been able to find of her husband. Moving over to her couch, Natasha tucks her feet up underneath her, and traces the side of Alexei's face with her finger. She has other people and things that she uses almost as totems to help ground her, but they'd taken Alexei away from her once. If she can remember him, she's fine.

She's in her right mind.

She's fine.

(She'd thank Steve for the nostalgia trip, except their argument is too close at hand and he's not answering his phone and she was on the Enterprise, and she cannot quip about it, even in her head.)

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His brows knit together.

"Would you take him at his word if he did?" he counters, finishing off his kvass. Men like Q aren't to be trusted, as much as Steve wants to believe there's some honor between opponents. "It could be any minute. Personally, I'm hoping it's not."

He sets his empty glass on the coffee table, and leans into the back of the couch. "We're not the only ones from S.H.I.E.L.D. who have been on that ship. Q plays the part of the typical villain, talking in riddles and trying to keep his intentions secret, but it feels like he's got some agenda. Like what happened -- it wasn't just random. Maybe I'm wrong, but I've seen that look on other faces before. Like something's about to happen, but only he knows what it is."

Then again, Q could be bluffing. Toying with him. Steve's usually good at reading people, but he hasn't had enough time to figure Q out.

"Oh, I wouldn't believe him. But lies can be useful." Then she makes a slight face, mulling what Steve said over.

"Did you get a sense of what he felt about this? Expectation, amusement...?"

His eyes flick back to her face, and hold there for a moment. He may not be the consummate boy scout the American public likes to paint him as, but he still can't toy with lies using the same catlike ease Natasha does.

"Both," he nods, eyebrows arched. "The confusion gives him some kind of pleasure. It's obvious he likes pulling everyone's strings, and not telling them why. But, considering the kind of people he's messing with, I think he wants to see them figure it out for themselves."

He rubs his hands together in thought, absently picking at his nails to remove paint and charcoal that isn't there, a nervous tic he's carried with him all his life. He looks down. "But I need you there too, Nat. No matter what the end game is-- you're my partner."

Those three words are as close to vulnerable as Steve ever gets, both an apology for the way he acted and reassurance that he's still on her side, no matter what. He half-cocks a smirk.

"I might need someone there to tell me when I'm crazy," he adds, to lighten the mood.

Natasha doesn't say thank you for the same reason that he doesn't actually say I'm sorry: it'd both say too much and not enough, and they are both good - most of the time - at reading what the other doesn't say.

Partners.

Still, she gives him one of her flickering, slightly wry smiles and laughs a little breathlessly.

"Well. I can't exactly let you run around on a spaceship by yourself, Rogers. Where's the fun in that?"

Amusement reaches his eyes at last.

"You are the one who told me I needed to catch up on my science fiction," he returns, absently patting his pocket to make sure his notebook is still there. There are a few more entries in it now than there were six months ago. "How will I manage without you there to show me the ropes?"

They both know he'll manage just fine, but the camaraderie is good. It's easy, and calming; something like a salve on what have been frayed nerves for too many months now. "How's Barton readjusting?"

Steve checked in on him, too, but Natasha knows him better than anyone else save for maybe Fury and Hill -- and Coulson, when he was alive.

"Hard to tell over the phone," Natasha says, slowly.

"But I...worry. About him."

Steve nods.

"It's not easy coming back from having someone else in your head," he remarks, keeping his voice carefully neutral while not shying away from eye contact.

It's a prompt, in a way. They've made headway tonight, and he wouldn't push her to say more than she already has, but when there's still so much about her he doesn't understand it's natural to wonder, before they go back into an unfamiliar territory, how much she'll let him in. "He's lucky to have you. I think we all needed some rest after New York."

Not that all of them did, but that's another story altogether.

"You should probably know -- Stark's on that boat," he says, lips twitching. "And a guy I think I'm supposed to meet. He knows us. From here."

He hesitates, something unreadable flickering through his eyes. "And Peggy Carter."

"May you never know what it's like, to have someone in your head," she says, and then almost visibly keeps moving onto another topic.

It's not as if Steve hasn't been a nice boy and not provided her with other targets, after all.

She quickly arranges the people into reverse order of importance.

Director Carter and her doomed love affair with Steve.

Tony Stark and just...Tony Stark.

And-

"A guy you're supposed to meet." Natasha arches her eyebrows. "Who also knows me."

He can take a cue easily enough, and right now prying into her past isn't priority one. He does look momentarily sympathetic, though.

"That's the story," he says, nodding almost imperceptibly. "And it's a pretty convincing one."

The situation he had been in with Sam was embarrassing enough he can't imagine the guy would cop to knowing him when he didn't, if he could spare himself that impression. Steve clears his throat, the tips of his ears just turning this side of rosy.

Natasha eyes him.

"You," she says, "are very lucky I value security over your lack of a dating life."

Yeah, she sees your red ears, Steve.

"On the other hand, I really value security and not being arrested, so care to explain?"

His brow beetles, and for as sharp as Steve can be on a lot of things, it takes him an embarrassingly long time to put together what the two statements have to do with each other. His eyes widen.

"What? No, it isn't like -- it's more like we're partners..." Fudge, that was the wrong choice of words. He pinches the bridge of his nose. "Not like-- OK, listen. I think this guy helps us on a mission. I don't know when, I just know he's from here, and he's Air Force."

But like hell is he going to mention the Air Force booty shorts and skimpy top the guy was in, or the USO getup Steve was in, when Natasha is looking at him like that. He swallows, wondering if this is what he looked like to his teachers in Catholic school when he did something wrong.

True to her word, Natasha stares at him as he fumbles, the almost sisterly rapport having switched abruptly back to professional, agent.

"Do you trust him?" she asks then.

Steve, despite his ridiculous tendency to believe the best in people, is hardly a newcomer to street-smarts.

To be frank, Steve's glad to have Romanoff rather than Nat in this moment. It makes it a hell of a lot easier to pretend his ears aren't on fire.

He tilts his head from shoulder to shoulder, looking unsure if not pragmatic. She isn't far off the mark; Steve did believe Sam, found that he even liked the guy, wouldn't be opposed to the idea of having him at his back, but.

"I don't know," he answers honestly, shaking his head. "But he's given me no reason not to."

"All right," she says. "Your call. Do we tell SHIELD about him, or let it wait for now?"

He nods almost as if to himself. He asked himself that question through the entire eval he just went through, time and again, Natasha's words echoing soon after. 'I'll help game pretty much any system you need. But not the psych evals. Not these tests. If you ever need help in trying to work out what is real, and what's a trick, then it helps not having gamed this.'

"Considering I don't even know if he's real?" he begins, eyebrows arched. "I already told them about our interactions -- you, me, Barton. I described the kinds of encounters I had. But no names. I want to see if this guy shows up, and I want to see if the Enterprise is really there. If it turns out that was all real, I think they're the only ones on this Earth who will have any idea what to do."

But for the time being? Steve still doesn't know who he can trust. He wants to believe in the system, but the way Fury operates tests his faith. One thing he knows for sure is he can't work as long as SHIELD has him locked in a box or monitored 24/7. If he starts talking about Director Carter and some pigeon without clearance flying missions with Steve, he knows exactly what will happen. "Right now, Natasha, you're the only one I trust with this."

Natasha's advice would be: never trust the system, just work with it.

(But then, she's always maintained she's one of the worst people to show the ropes to.)

"Okay. If things turn up, I'm mentioning it. But until then..." She zips her mouth shut with her finger.

"So. Hit me with Stark and Carter, and then, my vote is for cupcakes and Get Smart. How does that sound?"

He nods.

"I appreciate it," he says. He means it, too. The one thing Steve could always count on during the war was his team. No matter what happened, the trust between them was rock solid. Steve will back Natasha up, and it's good to know, even after how they left things, she'll do the same for him.

He chuckles, leaning back against the couch cushions in a much more comfortable position, head propped back so his line of sight is on the corner of her ceiling. "I'm thinking maybe cupcakes first, then Stark and Carter. And definitely Get Smart."

His metabolism may keep him from feeling the effects of alcohol, but chocolate is almost as good. He's quiet for a second, in part because it's some ungodly hour of the morning and he's exhausted, and in part because he's thinking about Peggy, and Bucky, and everything that's happened since Natasha vanished. He tilts his head to one shoulder, and arches an eyebrow at her.

"You think you baked enough for the both of us?" he says. The sarcasm in his voice makes it obvious it's not a real question.

Natasha answers to higher authorities than Steve (namely, Fury), but there is no work, no partnership, no intelligence and no security operation without trust somewhere. You just have to choose that trust (and the degree of it) carefully.

By now, backing Steve up is as natural as backing up agents and friends she's worked with for years.

So, she grins at him.

"Let's go and see."

Edited 2015-01-10 09:54 (UTC)

He returns the smile, getting up without needing any further prompting and gathering both of their dirty dishes.

The least he can do is help.

"I'm still not used to chocolate not being rationed," he remarks offhandedly, setting their dirty dishes in the sink and running water over them. He towels off his hands and turns to face her, clearly looking for something to do. "Which reminds me, if we get back to the Enterprise you might want to keep some rations in your room. Q made the replicators produce nothing but candy for three days during Halloween. I can't quite bring myself to trust them since then."

While he gathers the dishes, Natasha takes her photograph and vanishes into her bedroom. She has a copy - she has a few copies - but even still, it's the only photograph of Alexei Andreyevitch she has. It goes back in the safe.

She comes back quickly enough, after some thumps as she moves things around her room, and then arches her eyebrows at him.

"I always do," she says. With some people, there'd be a trace of embarrassment there, some hint that she's frustrated she can't shake off the effect of food deprivation.

But, Steve?

Depression, war - he'd understand.

"You're okay, though?"

He nods once. It's a good answer, and she won't find an ounce of judgement from him.

"Yeah, I always seem to bounce back," he says, lips twitching. He can't say the experience was a pleasant one, but once the replicators were fixed and he got some real food in him, all of the ill-effects were reversed with a little time and healing. "There isn't always a lot taxing my reserves when the ship is in motion, so I can get more rest than I do here."

And Natasha knows how much Steve loves sitting back and doing nothing.

"Now that's a state that just won't do. We gotta have you something to do."

Or someone.

(She wonders if Sam's cute.)

"I wonder, if we go back, if we'll find a job or something. I hate sitting around."

Steve is watching you flatly, Natasha.

He's a quick guy, and he's known you long enough to guess at what you're thinking.

"At least I managed to cross some things off my list," he says, referencing the little notebook he carries with him. That started about 15 minutes after a mission in Tibet that had Natasha quoting somebody called Buzz Lightyear ("Years of academy training," she opined. "Wasted!"); he walked into a bodega in full uniform, hands still black with soot, and paid cash for a pocket notebook which he immediately filled with the words: TOY STORY - CHARIOTS OF FIRE - MEN WITHOUT HATS - PUNKY BREWSTER. Back to the present, he half-shrugs and continues. "And then I added more than I started with back to it."

He ponders what she says for a moment, reaching for one of the Tupperware filled with cupcakes. "It could happen. I think as long as Q is bothering the ship, they're going to need people like us. People who are good with emergencies."

Edited 2015-01-11 08:56 (UTC)

This is the grin of a geek who is finally, finally, getting her friend to embrace the wonderful world in which she lives.

It's a triumphant grin.

(And she's always felt a special kinship with Buzz Lightyear.)

"Good in emergencies. That's us. I wonder if they'll let me have a phaser," she muses, dipping into the container Steve is moving and pulling out a cupcake.

"We're also good at landing on our feet," she adds. "We'll work it out." She lifts her cupcake as if in a toast.

Here's to us.

Don't get too ahead of yourself, Nat. He just didn't have anything else to distract himself with.

But OK, Popism: The Warhol Sixties was a really good book, she was right.

"If they let you have a phaser, I'm getting off the ship," Steve fires back, carrying the container of cupcakes back out to the living room. This should last them about an hour.

It's her last remark -- we're also good at landing on our feet -- that makes him pause before he settles back into the couch, smiling faintly, crookedly, looking at Natasha with eyes full of respect, kinship, and yeah, maybe a touch of mocking disbelief. She's missed a lot. But nothing Stark or Q can throw at them will knock them down. It's untangling all of his complicated relationships he's really concerned about. "Yeah. We'll work it out."

He lifts his own cupcake out of the Tupperware, and slings his arm across the back of the couch after he's pulled back the wrapper and started to eat it. This is Steve at his most comfortable in months, the cares of the universe gone in favor of one night with his partner.

"I think we were up to Stakeout on Blue Mist Mountain, right? And no hints. If you elbow me during the season finale, I'm moving to the chair."

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fallaces_sunt - 2015-01-11 11:14 (UTC) - Expand

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