“I didn´t want you to be alone”
As they broke the hug she prepared to leave. Even if part of her didn’t want to, the UN was waiting for her, and she was certain that her signing of the accords was the only way the avengers could possibly get out of this situation intact. That was getting harder to believe in though.
The differences between Tony and Steve were many, and went further back then the accords. To a trained eye like hers, the split in the team was always visible, she had just been naively foolish enough to believe that with some glue, that split might stick together a little longer. How wrong she had been.
Still, signing the accords still felt like a good idea in the long haul. Flatter them. Obey them. Get their trust back. Then try to go back to some semblance of normal. It had always worked and it would be a good plan. Even if not all of the avengers agreed with her, she was still hoping it would work.
However, she knew that that wasn’t the sole reason why she was signing the accords. Something else was there too. Something that she wasn’t fully ready to admit to herself yet.
As if sensing her thoughts Steve stopped her as she was about to leave.
“Nat wait!”
“What?”
“You said you were going to sign them to win the government´s trust back right? To keep the avengers together.” A pause “That´s not the only reason though... Is it?”
She froze. Unable to think or say anything at all.
She really was getting softer and easier to read.
“Nat?”
Should she tell him? She trusted him, right?
What difference would it make?
To hell with it, share your burdens with someone else for once.
“You know how the accords were signed by numerous countries right? One of them was Russia.” She stopped, assessing his reaction before she continued. “Because I have double nationality, if I violate the accords by not signing them, I will be in violation of Russian and American laws, meaning that Russia could file for extradition.”
Steve, always the open book, looked shocked and surprised. He’d never even considered that possibility. How could he have forgotten that. He knew how her past was always something she never talked about. He knew how much she ran from it. So he knew what this meant.
If she went back there then the chances she would end up in the hands of russian secret services were high. Going back to that place, to those people… it couldn’t be something she would ever look forward to.
Then he thought about the American government, would they ever actually let her go back? They couldn’t right? If not for sympathy - which was something he now didn’t believe his government ever had - then for fear she would tell them the information she had on them.
“Hold on” he started. “The US knows you know to much about them for them to be comfortable letting you fall into their hands right? Of all of us you are the one who knows the most about our intelligence agencies, politicians, security, all that. Do you think they would let them have that?” He asked, concern evident in his voice. Not for the government though. For her. For her safety. As much as she didn’t want to she would have to admit it warmed her heart to know she had people who still cared for her.
“You’re right, Russia and the US didn’t even have extradition treaties up until recently when the air between them and the remnants of the cold war cleared. However, what I knew regarded S.H.I.E.L.D. and S.H.I.E.L.D. is now gone, so most of that information is useless now. All those things you think I know? “ she paused “I never really knew anything they didn’t want me to know. The American government, the DOD, even S.H.I.E.L.D., they don’t tell much to their top level employees and to me they told even less, because they always feared I was a double agent. They never really trusted me. Not even after all these years… I can’t really say I blame them though.” I wouldn’t trust myself either. “So basically they know I don’t know anything to serious and they know I wasn’t snooping behind their backs either because they made it painfully aware what would happen if I did such a thing.”
Steve looked absolutely stunned. Petrified even. How could she so lightly take that the government and the people she had lied, killed and almost died for didn’t ever trust her.
“Doesn’t that anger you? How they never trusted you?”
“I’m used to people not trusting me.” She replied, and in that moment she swore if she could she would’ve gone back and answered something else because the look on Steve’s face was one filled with sadness. What? You think I don’t deserve their distrust and hate after everything I’ve done? She chose not to say those words though, the pep talk that would surely await her afterwards was really not something she wanted to hear.
“Look” she said instead. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll sign the accords and even if something goes wrong afterwards and I end up falling in the SVR’s hands its ok. I can handle it.”
“You shouldn’t have to though. Not alone.”
“We have what we have when we have it Steve”
And she decided that that was the end of that conversation. There was only so much of emotions and feelings she could take in a day. She had work to do.
Steve however, seemed to disagree with her
“Natasha what-” he hesitated “What could they do to you?”
Now that was a question she didn’t want to have to answer to. Not even to herself. She would never admit it out loud but she was fucking terrified.
She knew the Red Room was gone. She had made sure of it. But still… Some of its employees were still alive, working for the SVR. She knew the old part of the KGB that remained active under a new acronym wanted revenge for her defection. She knew they hated her. Knew they wanted her back. The constant attempts at kidnapping her over the tears were prove enough. So what would they do to her?
It was still clear in her mind. Everything.
The Red Room. The ballet. The hours practising and training until her feet were bleeding and her whole body was screaming at her to stop.
She did stop once. Collapsed into the floor. She woke up next day to a dislocated shoulder that hadn’t been there before and orders to go though “how to not crack under severe torture” class for the second time that week.
She never stopped again.
She still remembered everything.
The smell of blood and sweat mixed together. The crackling sound the handcuffs made every night as they hit the bedposts, creating a nightmarish lullaby. The sight of little girls killing each other. The sight of her killing several of them. The noise they made when they begged her to let them live and she never did. She never did because she knew what madame would do to her if she listened to them.
Yelena.
How she missed her.
How she knew that the innocence she had once loved and envied in the girl had probably now been ripped apart by some other branch of the Red Room.
She remembered all that but she remembered who she was too. She was Natasha Romanoff. And Natasha Romanoff was smart and she was brave and she was strong enough to face everything life threw at her, head on. Natasha Romanoff was a survivor. So she put on her mask as well as she could and she finally replied.
“It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it because it won’t come down to that.”
And as Steve heard her reply, after years of working with her he could see the barely hidden glint of fear in her eyes, and he wondered whether she was assuring him or herself. He was reminded once again how cruel the world was to have made someone suffer so much and he marvelled too, at her strength and courage.
Sometimes he wished she could see herself the way he did. The way he knew Clint and Wanda, Fury and Sam and even Tony did. He wished he could tell her just how good of a person she was. But he knew how she would deny it so instead he told her “Be careful Nat. And remember that no matter how this whole thing turns out, you’re not alone either.”
“I know that now.”
And as she went out of the church he knew in that moment that Natasha Romanoff might be mysterious, secretive and distant, but she was a good friend and a good person. And no matter what happened, she would always single-handedly take on the entire world.