Through, Together (A Romanogers Fanfiction)

Bad News

"I don't like it, Nat..."

Steve's face was a stern mask, impenetrable if it weren't for his eyes. His brow was furrowed, lips pressed into a firm line, but it was those eyes, those impossibly blue eyes, that told the truth. They were scared. They dropped from Natasha's face, down to her midsection, and back up again. Natasha instinctively placed her hand where Steve's gaze had fallen.

"I know..." she said, quietly at first, but then a little more firmly. "I know. I don't like it either, but," she gestured to the television. "What choice do we have?"

Both of their gazes moved to the image being shown on the large screen. A strange, circular and clearly-alien spacecraft was ascending back into the sky, leaving havoc where it had landed in the streets below. A message ticked by at the bottom of the screen, in all capital leaders:

IRON MAN, TONY STARK BELIEVED TO BE ON BOARD.

Nat pulled her gaze back to Steve's troubled face. "Vision's missing. Tony's... I don't even know what. Steve... we have to find out what's going on." She said, as if he needed reminding.

Vision had gone off the grid about twelve hours ago. His last known location, according to Natasha, had been Edinburgh. It hadn't been all that alarming at first, but now that it was coupled with news of an attack in New York and Tony Stark's mysterious trip to outer space, things were considerably more concerning.

Steve Rogers released a sigh that sounded every bit the age people had a hard time believing he was. He remembered the vow he had taken, to always do the right thing, even when it was the hard thing to do. To save lives, no matter what. Natasha had been by his side for three years now, helping him see to that code. Despite their differences, despite that "red in her ledger" she had been there. She could've been anywhere else, but, instead, she'd stayed. Whatever they faced, they faced together. Still, that didn't mean he didn't have concerns. Something about all this felt... big. That worried him. There was a lot more at stake here than just popping back up on the wrong people's radars.

Steve turned toward Nat and took a few steps toward her. His arms circled around her and pulled her to him. She rested her cheek against his chest; he rested his chin atop her head.

"We'll be careful." He said, and he wasn't sure who he was trying to convince, Natasha or himself.

Nat said nothing, but there was understanding in her eyes when she looked up at him. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, and for a second, just a second, Natasha closed her eyes and allowed herself to feel the comfort of that gesture. It wasn't often she let her walls down. In her experience, Natasha had found that bad things happened when she did that. It was habit to stay guarded. She was the Black Widow, one of the deadliest women, no, people, on the planet. She didn't need protecting. Steve knew that, but he made her feel safe, anyway, and Natasha allowed herself to feel that.

But safety, like any feeling, was fleeting. The quicker one moved away from it, the less disappointed they were when it moved away from them. It wasn't a feeling to get too comfortable with, especially not in situations like these. So, Natalia opened her eyes, patted Steve's chest, and took a step back. "Come on," she said. "We've got work to do."

......

"So, what, Iron Man's just... peacing out on Earth?!" Sam Wilson, AKA Falcon, exclaimed from the pilot seat of the Quinjet. "I mean, he better have a damn good reason for jumpin' on board that flying donut and leavin' us here to handle this mess."

"I'm sure he has his reasons," Steve said, a somewhat unlikely defender in Stark's corner. "He wouldn't have just left."

Cap's gaze moved over to Nat. He wondered what he would find there. Would it be the indignancy that Sam shared? Would it be the worry that Steve, himself, was feeling? Surprisingly, there were...neither of those things. There wasn't much of anything, really. Her gaze, her whole expression, was rather vacant. She got like that sometimes, he knew, when she crawled so deeply into that mantle of Black Widow there was scarcely room for anything else. He thought it was just years of training that did that, and, partly, it was... but now he knew better. Now, he knew that it was also a defense mechanism, because despite her strength, Natasha Romanoff had been hurt many, many times in her life. She had seen many, awful things. She got angry, and she got scared like the rest of them. This... was just her way of protecting herself, and she needed it. Tony had been just as close a friend to her as he had everyone else. If something had happened to him, Natasha would surely be affected by it.