Chapter 10
Absolute chaos.
It was the only way Nat could describe it. Thor brought what felt like the entirety of New Asgard up to their headquarters for a party that lasted three days and included not one, but two separate explosions. Valkyrie rode in drunk on an honest-to-god Pegasus, already trashed before the party had even started. The Guardians joined in with no qualms, with the exception of Nebula, who Nat repeatedly found lurking in the corner, watching the party intensely without ever fully participating. Gamora and Peter often disappeared for hours at a time, and Nat tried as hard as she could to not think about what they were doing or, more importantly, where they were doing it (the base was big, but it wasn’t that big).
By the time the Asgardians crashed, finally feeling the limitations of their otherworldly tolerance after 72 hours, Nat had already accepted that worrying about the structural damage done to the base was useless. She left the stressing to Rhodey; instead, she found herself on the roof, staring out at the world in front of her. She kept staring at the lake, at the way the early sunrise seemed to grow out of the water. It lit the sky in pinks and oranges, a beautiful mess that only Earth could make.
“Never thought I’d see you up early enough to catch a sunrise,” a deep voice called out from behind her, and had it not been for her lifetime of training, she would have jumped in surprise.
“You haven’t been around in a while,” she said in response, keeping her eyes on the sky. “Things have changed.”
“Doesn’t matter how long I’m gone — if Natasha Romanoff is watching sunrises, then we really are in a screwed up timeline.”
She turned at that point, looked back at him. Fury stood a few feet behind her, his long coat waving slightly in the morning breeze. “Still a fan of dramatic entrances, I see.” She couldn’t help but smile at the words, even if her gut churned and her mind felt like it was getting pulled in a million directions.
He just chuckled in response, stepping closer toward the ledge where she sat, her feet dangling over the side of the building. Something about the way he stopped just behind her — his refusal to come next to her, to get down on her level — reminded her of why she didn’t feel overwhelming joy at the sight of him.
“You need something?” She asked, her tone sharper than she intended.
“What, I have to need something to come see you now?”
“I don’t know, you ask me. You’re the one who’s been MIA for two weeks.”
“I wasn’t—“
“You know, the first week I could understand. It was sudden, and it’s not like our job gives us much vacation time. But eighteen days? It took you eighteen days to get back here?”
“I came as soon as I could, Nat.”
She shrugged. “I don’t care — it wasn’t soon enough.” She stood up and turned towards him. “You know, I don’t ask for much, Nick, but I came back from the dead. It’s a bit of a big deal. Maybe not for you, but it is for me. I don’t get to do that a lot. And you were nowhere to be found.”
“If you would just let me explain, I—“
She shook her head. “Sorry, I’m all out of time to listen to explanations. That window closed about a week ago.”
“You’re being unreasonable.”
“Yep!” She said, and maybe it was because she was exhausted, maybe it was because she hadn’t quite gotten over the insanity that she’d thrown herself off a cliff and managed to wake up, but for the first time in the however-many-years they’d known each other, she refused to hold back with him. “I am being unreasonable. Reasonable Nat was a limited time offer, and you missed it. Now you get Bitter Nat, and she’s not feeling very forgiving this morning.”
“You got more words you wanna throw at me?” He asked, and a whisper in her mind told her to stop, told her that every complaint against him was just more reason for him to leave her, but her years-old insecurity wasn’t as strong as it used to be, and the fire in her gut kept burning.
“You know, now that you mention it,” she said, her words dripping in sarcasm as she pretended to think deeply, “we never did talk about that time Hydra killed you, and you failed to tell me you weren’t actually dead. Loved learning that one of the only people I trusted whole-heartedly couldn’t put the same faith in me. Oh, and there’s the time you had a secret connection with a space goddess that you decided to never mention to anyone else. It was so much fun when Carol almost killed me trying to find you, and I had to tell everyone else that I had no idea who she was. Thanks for that one.”
“You done?”
“No, actually, I’m not,” she said, and she didn’t know where the words were coming from, where she’d buried them for all these years, but now she couldn’t stop it. “I’ve spent years defending you. Trusting you. Telling everyone that you had a plan, that you would always be there to help. To lead. I lied to a lot of people for you — Steve, Tony, Bruce — because I believed that you could be trusted. That you could be relied on. And I let myself follow you to the ends of the earth, even when you didn’t show me the same. Because for a long-ass time, you were the only family I had, and I held onto that like my life depended on it. But I just spent five years without you, without anyone, and you know what I realized? I’m a damn good leader myself, and I don’t need you to feel like someone cares about me. I don’t need you to protect me.” She shrugged. “I don’t need you anymore.”
They stood in the silence that followed. Nat stared at him, and he at her, and neither revealed a single emotion.
He broke first. “How long have you been holding onto that?”
“I don’t know,” she said, quieter than she’d have liked, “a while, I guess.”
He sighed. “I’m sorry. I should have made it work, should have come sooner. I know I’ve failed in a lot of ways, Nat, especially when it comes to you, but never think it comes from a lack of care.”
“Then where does it come from?”
“I—“ He stammered, “I learned a long time ago that the only way to protect yourself is to never let anyone truly see you. To give yourself away in pieces, always holding on to the most important parts. When others know who you are, what makes you tick, what you care about more than anything — that makes you vulnerable. It makes the people closest to you vulnerable. And I don’t know how else to protect the people I love.”
“Are you in danger?” She asked, and even though she was pissed at him, her heart still skipped a beat at the thought.
“I’m always in danger,” he answered. “Nothing new there.”
“Then what took you so long?” She asked, and she hated how pathetic she sounded, how desperate, how sad.
“I didn’t want the world to know how much I care,” he said. “I woke up to find that five years had passed and you were dead. When I heard you were back, the only thing I could think about was getting back to you.”
“But?”
“But,” He said, “I also saw how much attention it got. The world was watching you, watching the Avengers. I didn’t want it watching me, not when I knew I wouldn’t be able to hide how much you mean to me, Nat.”
“That’s a weak excuse.”
“You’re right,” he said, “but it’s the truth. It’s all I got.”
She stared at him for a minute, let the seconds pass as slowly as they pleased. This was why she’d avoided forming connections with people for so long — whenever feelings were involved, everything always got complicated. He was the closest thing to a father she’d ever had. He was family, she knew that, but no one had ever taught her how much family is allowed to mess up, how much leeway you give the people you love. How to come back from pain and build something better, when to create distance and move on. She didn’t know.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me,” he said. “I know that whatever reasons I had, why I did what I did, that doesn’t take away from the fact that I hurt you by staying away. I just need you to know that I’m sorry.”
“Haven’t heard those words out of your mouth too often,” she said, keeping her face expressionless and her tone steady.
“And if anyone asks, I’ll deny ever saying it,” he said with a smile, and she knew he was trying, knew that his words were a form of trust to him, a vulnerability that she knew few had ever seen. But was it enough?
She didn’t say anything, and he turned to leave. She watched as he walked away, content to take her silence. Content to wait for her.
“Nick,” she called out to him as he grabbed the door handle, and he turned back toward her. “It was good seeing you.”
He nodded, and a minute later he was gone. She sat back down, somehow more exhausted than she had been before. She wished, in moments like these, that she’d grown up normal, that she didn’t have to work to create a family she didn’t know how to hold onto. She wished that she knew when to fight, knew when to push herself, knew when to quit. She never seemed to get her timing right, always jumping ship too early or refusing to leave even as she sunk into the sea.
She stared back out at the lake. It was harder, she decided, when someone else was at fault. When she had to wait on someone else’s actions, figure out how to feel based on what they gave her. She supposed that was the downside to relying on people — there was an element of control that she no longer possessed.
As the sun kept rising over the lake, dragging the blue sky up with it, she decided she didn’t want to wait anymore. She didn’t want to let others decide what she had to feel, what she had to do, not if she could help it. And as she pulled out her phone, she decided she didn’t want anyone else to have to feel the way she did. She sent out a text, and smiled as she read the response. She was done being a coward.