[closed]

[neverdanced]

Characters: Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff
Date: 6 January
Location: EA-1B
Situation: Steve confronting Natasha about things
Warnings/Rating: Probable manpain

Steve at least waited until he was sober and not hungover before going to talk to Natasha in person. He was angry, yes, but he wasn't sure if it was more directed at himself or at her. Bucky told him not to be mad at her for it, but at the moment Steve wasn't capable of anything else. Avoiding this conversation wasn't an option, either.

It was mid-morning when he walked over and knocked on the door. Steve assumed it was the best time to show up unannounced, if she was home, anyway. For now, he had to wait and see.

Comments

[vdova]

It's obvious to her that this is something serious, something big, and her conversation with Bucky comes to the fore of her mind and settles there. Natasha had a very good idea what this was about, and she pressed her lips together and nods, stepping aside so he can come inside.

After closing the door behind him, she strode over to the table, cleaning up her mess of papers. "Is this about Sergeant Barnes?"

She kept her tone clipped and neutral, stacking the papers by tapping the edge of them against the top of the table.

[neverdanced]

Steve offered a polite nod as he stepped inside, stopping about halfway into the room. Even if this was a social call, he wouldn't have made himself comfortable without an invitation. This was anything but, and likely to get unpleasant. The result was posture that was a little too stiff as he glanced around.

When Natasha spoke, however, she had Steve's full attention and he didn't bother beating around the bush. She knew, which helped as well. "It is. You knew what the Russians did to him, when we first met."

He remembered the conversation with Bucky in detail, and from that he could understand why he wasn't told, but he didn't have to like it or accept it.

[vdova]

"I didn't," she replies, and it's clipped; she was doing a good job of hiding her anger, but only just. She looked back at Steve, over her shoulder.

"I still don't know that I do."

[neverdanced]

Perhaps there was a better way to approach this, but any other way than this wouldn't be Steve's style. "Can you elaborate on that? You knew what he looked like, and you would've had to have seen his file at some point when working with SHIELD."

He was jumping to conclusions, and he really shouldn't have been.

[vdova]

No, he shouldn't have been. Natasha stills, and then slowly turns to look at him over her shoulder, expression coldly neutral.

"I'm failing to see your point, Captain," and her tone matched her expression perfectly: cold, efficient. She's mad. Not because Steve doesn't trust her; that's something she has to earn, and she knows that and takes no issue with it. He's asking about things, though, that Natasha had long thought dead and buried, left in the past. Sure, Steve's Bucky looked like him, but he wasn't him.

Natasha turns fully, tucking her papers underneath her arm.

"Sergeant Barnes was registered Missing in Action by the SSR, and his name was left on the memorial wall. The Winter Soldier was a ruthless Soviet killer, active long after Sergeant Barnes was presumed missing." Her voiced gets harder as she continues, taking slow steps towards Steve.

"I barely remember his face at all, because he always wore a mask, and even when he didn't, the glimpses I got were fleeting. Tell me, Captain Rogers, what good would it have done to dredge up the ghosts of Soviet Past, to open old wounds for you, when you yourself were barely coping in the world as it was? Especially when I had no reason to believe that Sergeant Barnes and the Winter Soldier were one and the same?"

[neverdanced]

This is what happens when he lets his anger get the best of him. This might have turned out differently if he'd listened to Bucky a little more intently. His focus held onto the part that Bucky had survived and that Natasha knew what was left of him.

Ultimately, there was no one Steve could blame but himself. He was the one who couldn't reach Bucky in time. If he'd been a couple seconds sooner, if he'd had time to go back and look for him- everything would be different. This is more than survivor's guilt. It's knowing that he's responsible for everything. Everything that Bucky did as him, that's on Steve. The blood's on his hands.

Combine that with the anger and guilt that's festered since the day Bucky fell from the train and Steve's just left with... this.

He's at least aware that he shouldn't take this out on Natasha. It's really obvious that he should have approached this in a different manner to begin with. Because she's right.

"No, it wouldn't have." Now he just sounds exhausted. "Natasha, I'm sorry. I just-" Steve rubs at his face. "I need to know what you know about it. He didn't say much." And Steve has to know all that he's accountable for.

[vdova]

She relaxes the moment he apologizes, face falling into quiet contemplation. So, maybe, she over reacted a little, too. He just wanted to know, and if she were in that kind of situation, she couldn't say that she wouldn't do the same. Still, though, she had hoped that they'd learned to at least trust one another somewhat during the battle for Manhattan. Now she's wondering if that's the case at all.

Natasha sighs, and gestures for him to sit with a hand, turning and putting the file away in a nearby drawer. When she turns back to him, she leans against the desk, arms folded, gaze cast anywhere but at him.

"There was... a theory back during the Cold War. That one man, in the right place, at the right time, could be better than an army. The Red Room was part of Department X," she says, not quite frowning. "The Hydra to the KGB's Nazi, if you will. They were especially interested in the concept of the Super Soldier." She raises a brow at him, continuing.

"So they began experimenting. At first, the Winter Soldier was a ghost, a boogeyman, meant to scare us into behaving. I certainly didn't believe in him; a man, programmed only to kill, only to serve the motherland and destroy our enemies? A noble thought, but not one that was likely." She shrugs. "I was wrong. When I was... accepted into the Black Widow program, I was suddenly privy to information that, until that moment, had been classified. And the Winter Soldier was the most classified of them all. He taught me everything I know. Anything more than that, and I can't tell you because I don't know." She raises her hands in a shrug, dropping them to her sides. "Why they chose him, how they found him, how they kept him alive all those years. I'm not even sure he's alive now, back home."