I don't believe I've failed you
She wasn't sure what was worse, being in a room full of people that she should've been able to trust while she told all of them why she'd lied to them and let them believe she was dead for almost 9 years or telling them that though she'd done all of that she really needed their help. Tony - just as he'd promised - had her back through all of it assuring her that no matter what happened he'd be there for her and he'd protect her. He promised her that he'd help her daughter and that he'd protect them both and she appreciated that more than she could begin to explain.
Carol hadn't been anywhere near as shocked as she thought she would be, Carol Danvers knew a whole hell of a lot about Natasha and for the most part Natasha was fine with that. Carol had been ecstatic to learn that she had a child but she wasn't surprised by the news; Emiliya had been beyond excited to learn that her mother's "Family" were all superheroes. The two of them had bonded immediately just like she had with Tony; Natasha wasn't sure she'd ever stop being impressed and a little worried about the way her daughter seemed to have with people. Aunt Laura and Aunt Bobbi both got huge hugs and were informed that now she lived in New York too they had to come and visit more.
Both of them were happy to oblige but then much like Clint and Logan they weren't good at saying No to Emiliya at all. It was something that it seemed everyone else who met her shared too, she was quite the charismatic child and she had a way of charming people. Everyone that she'd met had absolutely adored her and each person had sworn to protect her and be there for her mother and that was something that Natasha - despite her apprehension - was thankful for.
Bucky had gotten quite the hard time off of just about everyone and there had been more than a few threats especially off of Logan, Clint, Laura, and Carol. Bobbi had thwacked him upside the head and told him he was an idiot and he'd accepted that but then the two of them had been friends prior to his whole faked death so he was quite thankful that she didn't hate him either.
Emiliya had made a point of telling everyone that would listen to her that she didn't want to be stuck in SHIELD and that she found it boring. Natasha had tried her best not to make it too obvious that she agreed wholeheartedly with the assessment and Clint had been amused as hell as told her that it reminded him of her when she'd first started working with SHIELD, she'd maintained for quite a while that it felt like a prison but then that was her inherent distrust for any and all government organizations but after what she'd been through at the hands of those kinds of things, no one could blame her.
Things with her daughter were different from things with her though. She hadn't been 8 at the time and her daughter was never supposed to have to turn to an organization like that to help keep her alive. At this point, she wasn't sure she'd ever forgiven herself for how much her history and her past were starting to blur with her child's life now. She had tried so hard not to let those lines ever cross and that was why she'd stayed as far away as she possibly could. The only person that seemed to know what was really going on with her here was Logan.
Maybe though it was because he was the person watching her closest, everything else here was a distraction. She'd pulled everyone in one place and put a child there in what she'd said was an effort to see who she could or couldn't trust and an effort to catch everyone up in one move rather than having to deal with each person separately which would've usually been her play. She didn't like to be around large crowds with a few rare exceptions. This could've gone badly yet she'd done it anyway...
Why?
"Whatever it is you're planning, I'm gonna ask you not to do it." Logan leaned against the wall and he glanced sideways at her.
He watched her roll her eyes and huff out a sigh before she turned to look at him and he shook his head at her. He knew her well enough by now to know when she was trying to defect and she was now. She was trying to make him think that he was overreacting and that was exactly why he knew he wasn't.
"Don't give me that look, kid. I know you well enough to know when you're running a play without making it too obvious you are. I've run ops with you before, I knew you when you were just a kid under orders to kill me so don't stand there and tell me you ain't doing anything when we both know better." He sounded like the scornful father.
That seemed to amuse her because she smirked. He held his frown.
"You're not going after this asshole on your own, Natasha. Don't even think about it," he warned carefully.
She just rolled her eyes and huffed out a sigh. She had her arms folded across her chest and she couldn't meet his gaze which told him he was right and she was considering doing something utterly dumb. He cared too much about her to let her do that. He'd protect her as much as he could because he wasn't going to let her end up killing herself trying to end every damn issue she had on her own.
He knew she'd try too. Stubborn that one, she always had been.
"It isn't any of you he wants," she replied through gritted teeth.
"No, but it's all of us he's gonna get. I ain't gonna let you do this and you know it. You look at her right now, you look at your baby and tell me honestly that you wanna run off half-cocked and risk getting yourself killed."
He knew the moment she'd gotten everyone into one place it was because she was trying to distract from something, Natasha was smart and she could play with people better than anyone else that he'd ever met. She was the best most highly trained person he knew and Natasha Romanoff was a force to be reckoned with and now that someone was threatening her baby he didn't want to think about what she might be capable of.
He wasn't scared of many things but even he knew right now she was dangerous.
He watched her carefully, her body language shifted and changed as she raced through different thoughts and the emotions that came along with them. Natasha stood with a defensive posture for several moments, her eyes scanned the room as she watched everyone but never taking her eyes off of her baby, she was hyper-aware of everything around her, and while she was in a room full of people she knew and that she should be able to trust she just couldn't relax.
Logan's words rung in her mind and she analyzed her situation carefully trying to find something - anything really - that she could say to him that'd throw him off balance enough to make him believe she wasn't going to do anything stupid before slipping out of here alone. He was right and she hated that he was. She couldn't run off, she couldn't risk Liya growing up without her mother not when she'd already spent too much time without her father too.
Natasha sighed and rolled her eyes.
"You're an ass." She glared sideways at Logan as she spoke. "You're right but you're an ass."
He reached out and pulled her into a hug as he chuckled. "Rather be an ass than see you die, kid."
Not many people could call Natasha a kid, not many people she knew were older than she was. Bucky and Steve both were by mere years but Logan had a hell of a lot more than a few years on her. She loved Logan, he was pretty much the closest thing she had to an actual family member.
"I wasn't going to die," she replied stubbornly.
He pulled back and studied her with a raised brow. "You can't know that. You can't know anything." He wished she'd see she was being dumb.
He wished she'd seen how dangerous it all was but she was adamant that she knew best when in fact she didn't, not this time around. He understood better than she thought what it was to want to put everything on the line for the people you loved. He didn't allow himself to get too close to many people but the ones he did were people he'd risk everything for whether they knew it or not. He was always so fierce on the outside just like she was.
Both of them were so much more human than anyone around them thought half the time. Natasha's eyes fell to the floor and he squeezed her shoulder gently.
"We're all here for you and her, we aren't gonna let anything happen to any of you but you have to trust people for once. You have to actually let us help," he sounded earnest.
The tone of this voice made her feel terrible, she closed her eyes and sighed before she shook her head. She knew he was right and that was the worst of it. She'd invited everyone she trusted to one place to trick them and lie to them again and she knew that was probably the wrong thing to do. She didn't want him to be right. She wanted to slip out of here to deal with this on her own. She didn't want there to be a conversation much less one that actually talked her around.
She opened her eyes and glared at him.
"This is my fight," she answered with a determination in her voice that only made him laugh. Logan shook his head.
"If you believed that you wouldn't have asked anyone in this room here tonight, kid. If you believed that you wouldn't have took Steve's offer to let SHIELD protect you. You wouldn't have forgiven asshat over there for walking out on you. If you believe this is your fight you wouldn't have told any of 'em you had a kid and you'd be off halfway to God knows where dealing with this shit on your own but you aren't. You're here." He shrugged then.
"Fine. You're right," Natasha never did like to concede. "Maybe I should've just done it on my own."
Ah, he knew she'd twist it somehow. He just looked at her before he rolled his eyes.
"You ain't that stupid." He still seemed to believe that.
"I should've made sure I put him so deep in the ground last time that he'd never be able to claw his way out of whatever hell he was in." She did not sound happy.
There were few people she hates more than she hated him, after what he'd done to her it was no wonder. He had been another captor, another handler but the only difference was the son of a bitch had programmed her to marry him. He was a special kind of twisted.
He still believed all these years later that she should be his dutiful little wife, she'd never loved him, it had all been programming and lies.
"I know how much you hate him and I'm worried that's gonna get the better of you and affect your judgement just like this, you gotta treat this like just another op, Natasha. You gotta treat it like he's another target or you're gonna lose it and he's not worth that."
Logan was right. Again.
"Stop doing that." She shot him a glare.
"Stop doing what?" He sounded confused. What the hell had he done?
"Being right," she sounded like a sullen child.
He burst out laughing at her and squeezed her shoulder. "Go see loverboy and your kid and stop being a dumb ass."
She smiled as he spoke and turned to look at him over her shoulder as she started to walk and she mouthed a thank you. Logan merely nodded and she couldn't help but thinking how glad she was to have him in her life still after all these years.
Bucky turned to look at her as she walked over wordlessly and she wrapped her arms around him before burying her head in his chest.
"Thank you," she murmured softly. "For being here for me and Liya, thank you." Of course after all of these years if she allowed herself to admit it, wasn't that what she'd wanted?
"Always," he promised. "I'll never leave you again."
His arms closed around her as he spoke and for the first time all day she found peace.