Christmas Eve
When Natasha woke up the next morning her body was sore and her head was pounding. She could have easily gone back to sleep, but the curtains along the window seemed to be on some kind of timer. They moved up another inch as she watched. Steve lay next to her, face buried in the pillow and arm flung over Natasha’s back haphazardly. He groaned as she rolled over.
“What time is it?”
She lifted her head and glanced at the alarm clock next to their bed. “Nine AM.”
“This may be the latest I’ve slept in since joining the army,” he mumbled, his voice muffled by the pillow. Natasha pulled herself out of bed, instantly cold as her naked skin met the air.
They had finished out their night upstairs, laughing and sloppy. If she bruised, Natasha would have no doubt she’d have marks where he had held her hips when her legs had given out. They had pulled their clothes back on and Steve had carried her bridal style back to their room. Despite her hangover, Natasha couldn’t help but smile.
“I’m going to shower,” she said. Steve lifted his head.
“Do you want company?”
“I require it.”
They showered quickly, still taking time to lavish in Tony’s wealth, but were ever aware of their teammates and what might happen if they decided to knock on Steve’s door and find his room empty.
The secrecy was fun. It reminded Natasha of those few weeks with James where they were sneaking around and there was no real threat of discovery. Before everything went south.
When they made it upstairs to the main floor-- staggered--, everyone was in the kitchen. Tony looked up as Nat walked in, eating what looked to be a bowl of fruit loops out of a pasta pot. He squinted against the dim light coming through the window. Steve grabbed a glass of orange juice.
“Did you two finish off the last bottle of Pappy?” Stark asked, holding up an empty bottle that Natasha and Steve had definitely finished off after he ate her out over the bar. “And by you two, I mean Natasha.”
Natasha looked confused. “What are you talking about?”
“That was a thousand dollar bottle of bourbon,” he replied, unamused. Steve choked on his OJ.
“I stand by my original statement.”
“You know—,”
“So what do you have in store for us today, Tony?” Bruce interrupted, breaking up what was sure to be an endless and pointless argument.
“Cookie decorating and a charity ball,” Pepper said quickly. She shot Banner an approving look. “Tony’s going to put a beard on the suit and fly around to all the hospitals in the city.”
“And then we’re going to do a few stunts and drink with the mayor,” Rhodes said.
“And wear the pajamas I brought!” Thor added, walking into the kitchen with Jane by his side. She waved to everyone.
“Hey, guys!”
“Jane!” Pepper exclaimed, hugging the other woman before she could sit down. It was a rare display of emotion from the blonde. “What time did you get in last night?”
“Oh, late,” she said. “I was giving a special lecture at Purdue’s new aerospace building for select students. Probably got in around two.”
Natasha did a mental check, thinking back to when her and Steve had gone to bed. It must have been around the same time. She prayed Jane hadn’t seen them. When she glanced to her left, Steve had a similar look of concern on his face.
“How was the flight?”
“Private jet,” she said, shrugging. “Can’t complain.”
“I offered to pick her up,” Thor said, putting an arm around her shoulders. “But she refused. It would have been so much faster—,”
“And I probably would have yacked,” Jane interrupted. “Like the last four times.”
Tony grinned and put a hand over his stomach. “Something you two want to share with the class?”
“Go to hell, Tony.”
“Two minutes,” Rhodes announced. “Two minutes before you pissed her off. That’s gotta be a new record.”
———————
Cookie decorating started and ended rather quickly, which was good for Natasha. She had never been one for sugar cookies. It was almost funny how predictable they all were while they were doing it. Banner and Steve cared way too much. Steve had once told her that he had been a painter and it was apparent in the amount of care he put into each one. Banner had the hands of a surgeon and the anxiety level to match. She thought he was going to turn green when Thor accidentally bumped the table.
Pepper went about it all in a very orderly fashion, Jane shooed her boyfriend away from trying to help her the whole time, and Tony drew a penis. It was all very homely and— if Natasha had to admit it to herself— rather boring. Still, she’d prefer boring.
They called it after Thor slammed his hand too aggressively against the table and sent a tray of frosted cookies flying directly into a pot of poinsettias.
“Should we order lunch?” Stark suggested while Pepper wiped confection off the walls.
“I was actually going to head out for lunch,” Steve said, standing up. “There’s a few places I wanted to stop by while I’m in the city.”
“I have lunch plans, too, I fear,” Nat said. Tony raised an eyebrow and she hastily added, “Separate plans. I have a few friends in the city that wanted to meet up for a bite.”
“You have friends?” Stark asked. She stuck her tongue out at him.
They both changed quickly, donning clothing quite similar to what they wore when they were undercover in DC. The last thing either of them needed was to be on the cover of any newspapers, boasting photos of two Avengers spending Christmas Eve wandering around Manhattan. They met behind Tony’s building and Natasha hailed a cab, batting away Steve’s protests over using the subway.
“It’s faster,” he said.
“It absolutely is not.”
“You’re such a tourist.”
They worked their way through all the trashy things that Natasha had always wanted to see: Times Square, the tree at Rockefeller, the Statue of Liberty. Then Steve dragged her down to Brooklyn and they spent the rest of the day hunting down his old haunts, trying to figure out which ones were still around and which ones had been turned into Starbucks.
“When I was a kid, I got beat up so badly in that alleyway that I couldn’t stand up straight for a week,” Steve said, pointing to a dark alley across the street from them. They were sitting on the curb outside of a deli, eating what was claimed to be the best pastrami in New York.
It wasn’t.
“It’s hard to imagine anyone beating you up,” she said.
“I was a lot smaller back then.”
“What was it like?” she asked. “When you got the serum, when you became the Captain?”
He stared at the brick of the building across the street, not blinking as a car barreled past them. “Painful. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I knew I was doing it for the right reasons. So I had to do it. Even if it meant giving up everything else.”
“I understand,” she said. And it was the truth. “That’s how I felt when I left the Red Room.”
“Didn’t you want to get out?” he asked.
She sighed. “Of course I did, but it was still hard. Nadia was still there, Yelena was still there. And others. I just— I knew that I wanted out, but I wanted to bring them with me. Taking Clint’s hand in Budapest, it was something I knew I wouldn’t be able to take back.”
“I understand.”
She believed him. If anyone knew sacrifice it was the man beside her.
She rested her head on his shoulder while he took another bite of his sandwich. “I think you’re one of the few people I know who actually gets me.”
She felt his hand against her hair and he leaned over to kiss the top of her head. “I feel the same about you.”
———————
When they got back, the only thing Natasha wanted to do was sleep. Preferably, with Steve’s arms wrapped around her and a Christmas movie playing in the background. She wanted Hallmark.
What she got was a Stark specialty. The entire top floor of his building had been cleared of lab equipment and fitted with Christmas decorations that extended out to the balcony and a tree that rivaled the one in his living room. She went to her room immediately, planning to wait out the chaos of the setup in her room. The caterers were busy running around, laying out platters of spectacular finger food and preparing trays of champagne and hors d'oeuvres.
When she got to her room she found a dress hanging on her closet, a long red number that looked expensive. Stark.
“You’re going to look amazing in that,” Steve said, exiting her— their— bathroom. She smiled and leaned up to press a kiss to his lips.
He walked over to their bed, laying down and patting the mattress next to him. She rolled her eyes.
“Steve, we don’t have time—,”
He waved a hand in front of his face and reached out to take her hand. She let him pull her down on top of him.
“You need to get your mind out of the gutter,” he said. “What if I just want to hold you?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Is that all you want?”
“Well, now that you’re here…”
She giggled as he kissed her, a girlish laugh that surprised her in the moment. She hadn’t felt like this, not ever. Not even with James, which had always been tinged with the feeling that they were running out of time, that they were doing something wrong. That they were going to get caught. Even when it was good, it was nothing compared to this.
His lips found her neck and she was pulled back into the moment, arching almost involuntarily as his teeth found her skin. She yelped and let out a laugh as he flipped them over, pressing her into the mattress.
“You know I could kiss you forever,” he whispered against her body. She grinned.
“So you’ve said.”
“I’ll say it again.”
They both jumped when they heard a knock at the door. “Natasha, are you almost ready?”
It was Pepper, her voice clipped with stress. Natasha pushed Steve off of her and called back, “Just doing my hair!”
“Does the dress fit?” she asked. “I took Tony’s word on measurements.”
Natasha wrinkled her nose. “Gross.”
“I didn’t have a whole lot to go off of,” she said. “And if you see Steve will you let him know that Tony left a suit for him in his room?”
“Will do.”
She heard Pepper’s footsteps recede and felt Steve creep up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and sighing into her hair. “I should probably go get dressed.”
“Yes, you probably should,” she replied, leaning up to kiss his cheek. “I’ll see you at the party.”
He left with another dramatic sigh and she laughed to herself before going to get ready.
Natasha was no stranger to these kinds of events. She had been a government employee for ten years and an assassin for longer. Much of her work involved targeting the types of men that frequented these places. So she knew what to do, how to look, how to act.
She left her hair down, tousled and curly. When she was in the Red Room, they would straighten her hair or curl it for her. It was only really natural when it got wet. There were so many things that place had tried to take from her, her smile, her livelihood. Even her hair.
The dress was gorgeous, of course, Pepper had incredible taste. It fit her like a glove, which made her question how Tony could know her measurements so well. To her knowledge she had never given them to him. It was low in the front and hugged her curves all the way to the ground, where it ruffled out over her ass and just barely covered her feet.
She glanced herself up and down. Not too bad.
The top floor of Stark tower had been completely transformed in the last hour. Garland ran the length of the ceiling trim, golden lights were draped across walls, the Christmas tree was like a beacon for passing planes. The room was abuzz with people when she got upstairs, looking around for any of her teammates. She recognized a few people-- various ex-SHIELD agents that Tony assured them all had been properly vetted, New York’s premiere government officials, and a few of Tony’s staff that had remained since she worked for him. Most of the people were unfamiliar.
“Wow,” Bruce said as she walked up to him. He was sipping a glass of water and leaning against the bar. She smiled and put a hand on her hip.
“Wow yourself,” she replied. “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen you in a suit.”
“I don’t like to wear expensive clothes,” he said. “You know… just in case.”
“I’m sure that would get pretty pricey pretty quickly,” she said. They looked out at the crowd. “I’m surprised you haven’t figured something out yet. Something that could expand with you.”
“Tony’s working on it, or so he claims.” He took a sip of his drink. “I have it under control though, I hardly transform any more without wanting to.”
“Just when you fall through the floor of a helicarrier?” she asked, her voice teasing. He pursed his lips, looking at the ground.
“I never really apologized for that,” he said. “I’m so sorry you were put in that situation, Natasha.”
He said her name with a weight to it, as if to drive home the sincerity. She smiled, protected. “It’s okay, Bruce.”
“To give you credit, you almost talked me out of it,” he said. “I was almost able to stop it.”
“I’m glad I was of some use, then,” she said. “Do you ever have problems coming back?”
“Sometimes. Stark’s working on that, too.” He was still looking at his feet, clearly embarrassed about his situation.
She smiled, trying to ease his mind. “Well let me know if you ever need any help.”
He grinned. She enjoyed the moment with him, another one of her friends, looking back over the crowd and enjoying the ambience of Tony’s party. There was a band playing in the corner, a jazz quartet, riffing White Christmas while people danced on a tiled floor that had been installed for the night. Natasha looked around, wondering if she and Steve could get away with dancing in the crowd, or if they had already aroused enough suspicion.
“Do you want to dance?” Bruce asked suddenly. She must have looked confused, because he turned slightly red. “I mean, as friends of course. I’ve just never been to one of these things really, and--,”
“I’d love to,” she said. He smiled and she added, “As friends.”
They took to the floor, his arms placed politely around her waist and hers wrapped around his shoulders, trying their best not to bump into anyone. Natasha was happy, she noted for the second time that day. Banner was becoming an unlikely friend, something she desperately wanted more of.
She looked between the dancers and saw Steve looking over at her, his face blank as he watched her with Bruce. He was holding two glasses of champagne in his hands. As she watched, he downed them both. His eyes stayed on her the whole time. Her eyes stayed on him.
He was mad.
“Did you give any thought to coming back to the team?” Banner asked. She glanced back over at him, only having to look up slightly.
“I have some things I need to do first,” she said, her generic answer. He gave her a skeptical look and spun her.
“That’s a bit vague.”
“I had a life before SHIELD, with some HYDRA associates. I need to clean up some of the mess I left back there.”
His eyes met hers. “What if we need you here?”
There was a deeper meaning to his words, she could tell. Politely, she stepped away from him. She knew what he was getting at. All of the sudden she wanted to find Steve.
“I’m sorry, Bruce, I think I’m going to grab a drink. Thank you for the dance.”
“Natasha, I--,”
“I’ll see you in a bit.”
She hurried away, pushing through the crowd with as much haste as she could without causing a scene. She wanted to find Steve, wanted to explain to him what he had seen. She felt dirty, the way he had looked at her.
From across the room, she caught sight of him. He was talking to a blonde woman in a low-backed black dress. As she got closer, her breath caught in her throat.
It was Sharon Carter.
Of course she would be here. She had been an integral part in taking down HYDRA, even if she only got her job because of who her aunt was. Natasha didn’t count her abilities, but in that moment, it was hard to think positively about her.
As she watched, the woman laughed at something he said, putting a hand on his arm. He smiled back at her, continuing what appeared to be a riveting conversation. Natasha felt a spark of envy, an ugly emotion that she had not felt in some time. She had never felt this way before, had never had to swallow back bile as she watched him exchange laughs with another woman. Perhaps that meant something, or perhaps she was just angry that he was mad about Bruce, when there he was with Sharon Carter.
Without really thinking, she walked up to the two of them.
“Good to see you, Agent Carter,” she said, setting a radiant smile on her face. Steve looked up at the sound of her voice, his face registering surprise at the sight of her.
“I thought you were occupied with ‘Bruce’,” he muttered, so low only she could hear it.
“Or, can I call you ‘agent’?” Natasha asked, ignoring Steve. It was a hidden jab at the other woman, a former low-level peon for an intelligence agency that no longer existed.
“I’m actually working with the CIA now,” Sharon replied, the insult not overlooked. “So ‘agent’ is still the correct term.”
“Great to hear,” Nat replied. She glanced at Steve, who was clearly still upset. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to steal the Captain from you for a moment, Stark needed to see us.”
“Oh, well,” she said, putting her hand on his arm once again. “Don’t take him for too long.”
It took everything in Natasha’s body not to tackle the woman where she stood.
“Of course,” she laughed instead. “We’ll only be a moment.”
She led him through the crowd, making towards the elevator before suddenly turning and pushing him into the coatroom.
Her lips crashed into his before he could say anything, foot groping blindly behind her to push the door shut. His hands found her waist, pulling her into him as they blindly searched for the wall through the sea of coats.
“I don’t ever want to see her touching you again,” Natasha managed to get out in between kisses. “Ever.”
“As long as I don’t have to watch Banner feel you up on the dance floor,” he growled in reply. He was rough as he pulled her around, pressing her into the wall. “Christ, Romanoff, he was all over you.”
“We were dancing,” she replied, angling her neck up so he had better access. “As friends.”
“You might be his friend, but he most certainly wants more than that.”
He pulled the front of her dress down and hoisted her up, her thighs wrapping around his waist as her dress fell to the side.
“Good thing I’m spoken for,” she snapped back. He pulled away momentarily, eyes dark with arousal, a grin spreading across his face.
“You are?”
“As long as he stops flirting with other women,” she replied. He kissed her briefly, pressing his forehead to hers.
“She’s nothing compared to you.”
-----------------------
“Tony can never find out about this,” Natasha said, fixing her dress back down. Steve leaned over and fixed her hair to hide the bruise he had left on her neck.
“I don’t give a flying fuck what Tony thinks.”
“Such a dirty mouth, you have,” she scolded teasingly.
She kissed him again, properly, and his arm wrapped around her waist to support her as her hips pressed against his.
“We should rejoin the party,” he said finally. She reached up and rubbed his mouth, ridding it of the stray lipstick marks she had left behind.
“If we must.”
Steve opened the door and followed Natasha out, glancing around with what he hoped wasn’t guilt painted across his face. She gripped his hand in his and he followed closely behind her. No one seemed to notice them, or at least no one said anything. Her nerves were on fire, she was almost giddy.
“Would you like me to grab you a drink?” he asked. She nodded up at him and made her way over to the wall that had congregated Stark, Pepper, and Rhodes.
“There you are!” Tony exclaimed, setting his glass down on a passing waiter’s tray. “Hill was looking for you.”
“Do you know what for?”
“Couldn’t tell you,” he replied, distracted. He reached over and brushed her hair away from her shoulder. “Romanoff, is that—,”
“It’s nothing,” she said, batting his arm away and fixing her hair back over her neck. “Must have bumped into something.”
Pepper gave her a knowing look while a shit eating grin spread across Tony’s face.
“We saw you dancing with the doctor.”
“Banner and I are friends,” she said. “I would never go there, not with a teammate. Wouldn’t want to make the family reunions awkward.”
Tony looked unconvinced, but at that moment Steve returned with their drinks, so he dropped the subject. “Rogers, are you enjoying the party? Feel like I haven’t seen either of you all night.”
“It’s very nice, Tony. Though I fail to see how this is raising awareness for pediatric cancer.”
“The tickets were ten thousand a piece.”
Steve choked on his champagne, sputtering slightly as Nat stifled laughter.
“All of yours are comped, of course,” he continued. “VIP access, and the option to bring a plus one. Though it appears that Thor is the only one of us with any game.”
They all looked over to where Thor appeared to be egging on a group of elderly men on the dance floor, Jane at his side. They looked happy. Natasha wished she could be that open with Steve, instead of stealing moments in secret coat rooms.
“Although Maria brought someone,” Pepper said. “Some girl that she’s been seeing.”
“Oh?” Nat asked. “How’d they meet?”
“Work, I think. She was taller, eastern european. Maybe Slovakian?”
The group continued to make small talk, mostly Tony poking at Steve over his age, suit, etc. Natasha looked over the floor from their position in the corner, enjoying the taste of the wine Steve had brought her and leaning slightly into his warmth, just enough that no one would say anything. The feeling of his hands on her still lingered. As she scanned the room, her eyes landed on Banner, who appeared to be talking rather intensely with one of Tony’s lab techs.
He had a worried expression on his face, his eyebrows crinkled together as he asked the tech a question. The answer seemed to trouble him further. Natasha felt a tension in the air, stealing away any hopes of a carefree evening.
“Tony,” she said, tapping his shoulder with the back of her hand and keeping her eyes on Bruce, “I think something’s going on.”
The smile fell from his face as his eyes followed her’s to where Banner was now searching the room for Tony. When he saw them, he nodded towards the balcony. Natasha’s nerves lit up. She reached behind her and gripped Steve’s arm for a moment, signaling to him that something was wrong. He followed her and Tony outside.
Bruce was pacing the balcony when they got out there, wringing his hands. It was inexplicably warm, void of the chill that had encompassed New York with the coming of winter, no doubt the result of some StarkLabs tech. Still, Natasha shivered.
“What is it?” Steve asked. He was using his ‘Captain’ voice, his persona settling over him as he took in the nerves of the doctor. It was happening to all of them, a tangible shift. Natasha settled back into the widow’s mindset.
“They found traces of the scepter,” he said. “In a warehouse in Sokovia.”
“Sokovia?” Steve asked. The name sounded familiar, but he couldn’t seem to place where from. “Is that a country?”
“A small one, in eastern europe. Used to be a KGB hub way back when,” Natasha said. Her face had fallen stony.
“So the scepter is there?” Tony asked. Banner shook his head.
“Was there. As far as we can tell it no longer is. Probably cleared out and were careless with their protections during the move. It’s pretty easy to block the radiation that thing puts off.”
“So where is it?”
“We don’t know, yet, but we need to get down to the lab and take a look. One of your night guys picked it up.”
Tony glanced out over the party, then over the city. It was clear he was weighing his priorities.
“Alright, let’s go,” he finally said. He was agitated as he headed back inside with Bruce on his heels. The rest followed him, slightly behind, leaving Pepper out on the balcony.
“Tony!” she called, looking angry. “Did you forget about your fly-along with the children’s hospital? Dr. Arnold will have my ass if you don’t show up.”
“No, he’ll have your ass if Iron Man doesn’t show up,” he corrected, tossing her his wrist cuffs. “The beard’s in my nightstand.”
Pepper looked like she wanted to say more, but he was already through the door. Natasha shared a look with Steve, It seemed like their vacation was coming to an early end.
They made their way down to Tony’s personal lab, a few floors down, which was a mess of stray parts and discarded paper. JARVIS’s voice greeted them immediately as they walked in, his smooth British accent a calming constant amidst the unease.
“Enjoying your party, sir?”
“I was before I found out about this radiation surge,” Stark said briskly, pulling up a barrage of holographic screens and spinning to the one he was looking for. “What can you tell me about it?”
“The surge was detected at eleven thirty-seven EST by our GM drones in a warehouse seventy miles outside of the Sokovian capital. The surge lasted approximately fifteen seconds before it was obscured. The warehouse is titled under one Vaugn Walter Golfrock-Bronns and has remained in his possession since 2011, soon after the Chitauri attacked.”
“Do we know anything about the guy?” he asked, running a quick search across what was surely supposed to be a secure government database.
“Only that he doesn’t exist, sir,” JARVIS said. “However, the name is an anagram for Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, a prolific weapons developer working as an enemy of SHIELD for the past several years.”
“So, what?” Bruce asked, joining Tony on the catwalk. “This guy was fiddling around with the scepter, messed something up, and leveled the place? Set off our GMs?”
“That is the running theory, Dr. Banner,” JARVIS confirmed.
“But what does Strucker want with the scepter?” Stark asked, blowing up a screen of a severe looking European man with a shaved head and a monocle.
“He’s developing a series of bio weapons,” came a voice from the lab door. They all turned around to see Hill, her hair pulled back and a black blazer plunging down nearly to her navel. “Running human experiments on radicalists that have volunteered to be a part of his new world order. He hasn’t succeeded yet, not to our knowledge, but if he has the scepter it’s anyone’s game.”
She walked into the room fully and Natasha froze, not at the sight of Hill, but at the sight of the woman next to her.
The girl had long blonde hair, nearly platinum, lighter even then Yelena’s had been. She was glad in a blue satin dress that pooled around her hips and began with a strappy halter, showing off well muscled arms from years of gymnastics and sparring. When she met Natasha’s eyes, a familiar smile twisted onto her lips, the same coy grin that Natasha typically donned. The smile they had picked up from their second-in-command, Madame B.
When she spoke, her accent was thick. Despite all that the Red Room had done to take it out of her.
“Hello, Natalia.”
Natasha swallowed, set a smile on her face at the sight of her old friend. “Hello, Nadia.”