Rekindled
Steve laid in a secure holding cell, not yet awake after being knocked out by Clint. Bruce observed him closely, trying to understand what possible force would make him do such a monstrous thing. Or maybe he just didn’t know Steve well enough. Once he opened his eyes, he jumped to his feet, searching the confined space.
“Steve?” Bruce said.
“Let me out, Banner. I have to see Natasha. I have to tell her I’m sorry. What I did-” his sentence broke off.
“Not gonna happen, Steve. Fury’s orders.” Bruce said, scribbling something on his notepad. He moved over to a small machine making a soft whirring noise.
Pressing a few buttons, the machine opened, revealing a vile of red liquid. “I didn’t imagine you’d be too cooperative now that you’re awake so I went ahead and took a sample of your bleed while you slept.” Bruce informed, staring at a long paper that was ejected from the machine. His eyes slowly got wider and wider as he read the sheet.
“What’s wrong?” Steve asked.
Bruce quickly looked up, putting the paper behind his back. “Oh, it’s nothing. Just...a standard toxin screen. Everything is totally...normal. Nothing to be worried about.” But after he said that, he sped off to Fury. Bruce rushed up to Fury, informing, “it’s not Steve.”
“What the hell do you mean ‘it’s not Steve’?” Fury responded, confused.
“Well, Steve...he’s not Steve.” Bruce told.
“Banner, start making sense.” Fury ordered.
“You know the guy who’s in that cell who we all think is Steve. Well it is Steve, his body at least. But I found these toxins in his blood and classically they are known to...indoctrinate people. So it’s Steve, but he is not behaving as Steve.” Bruce rapidly explained.
“How long has he been that way?” Fury asked.
“I’d say a few weeks based on the dwindling activity of substance. But the important thing is that I can come up with a cure. It’ll take half a day at most.” Bruce said.
“Good. Get to it.” Fury turned away, he started to question how this could have happened in the first place.
Bruce rushed off back to his lab. On his way he called Clint and informed him of the situation, ending the call saying, “I don’t know if you should tell Natasha. Just wanted to run it by you in case.”
“Ok thanks, Bruce.” Clint hung up the phone, placing it on the floor beside him. He continued to sit with Natasha in the same place on the floor. She laid in his lap, occasionally falling asleep, but always waking up to a nightmare mere minutes later. Clint comforted her as much as she could but she seemed to be on another planet, alone with her thoughts.
It took her a while, but she eventually snapped out of it. It took a lot of compartmentalization, but she managed to push aside her feelings aside once more in order to find the strength to keep going. She stood up as Clint looked at her with worried eyes. “Let’s go do something.” she said.
Clint was confused, but went along with it. He wanted to make her feel better and if that meant following her to go shopping or something, he’d do it. He followed her all the way down the hall before asking, “where are we going?”
“I want to kill something.” she remarked, keeping stride.
“Oh. I don’t think that’s too healthy for emotion management.” he said.
“Don’t care.” she replied.
Natasha and Clint arrived back at Stark tower almost 12 hours later, laughing. They just took out a whole platoon of boys in another “super secret” Hydra base. On top of that, they also saw a movie, grabbed some chinese food and they did some other mundane things. She already felt better. Clint threw his arm around her as they entered the building.
Natasha’s head was down as she giggled at the really awful jokes Clint was telling her. When she looked up, she noticed Steve sitting on one of the black leather couches in the lobby. She paused, staring at him. But he soon noticed her and approached slowly, making sure to stand a good distance away. He said, “I’m sorry.”
Natasha sped up to him and slapped him in the face with fortitude. Backing off after to see what he’d do.
All he said was, “I deserved that.”
Clint turned to Natasha and whispered to her, “there may have been a few things I wasn’t telling you. Bruce found out that Steve was...brainwashed I guess. He has been for a few weeks. Better now I guess.”
Natasha flashed back to the Hydra base a couple weeks ago. She left Steve alone while she went and found that info for Fury. Is it possible that they did something to him in that 10 minute span that she wasn’t with him. But then she thought about her relationship with Steve. Was that just the indoctrination too? She didn’t know what to believe anymore. She wasn’t sure how to react. He didn’t really hurt her and yet it was her fault that he did. If she had just been there for him instead of finding that data. Tentatively, she walked towards him. Before he could say anything, she wrapped her arms around him, pulling him in for a hug. But it didn’t last long before Natasha released him and sped away, leaving them both behind.
Natasha laid on her bed, wondering why she was the way she was. Why was she so ready to give up everything she cared about? And so she sat alone, silently pondering to herself. Outside her door, Steve stood. He wanted to talk to her more, to be with her and help her. But he knew it would only lead to more trouble. And so he just stood.
A week passed and Steve continued to keep his distance. The guilt was eating away at him every single minute of every single day yet he understood the importance of wanting to be alone. The least he could do at that point was respect her wishes. He couldn’t help but notice her sometimes though. Occasionally, he would just see her standing or talking to someone, and he would just look at her, but always he moved on.
All the Avengers were paged into a meeting room with Fury standing at the window, his hands behind his back as he stared out at the city below. Once everyone took a seat at the large wooden table in the center of the room, he spoke, “We recently heard word that Loki’s scepter is located in a Hydra facility remotely situated in northern Canada.” Fury observed Natasha looking towards Steve. He said, “I understand there may be some lingering tensions between you guys as individuals. But you are a team, a unit. It’s time to act like it. Dismissed.”
The team split up, each going to get ready for the mission. Natasha walked to her room. Steve, heading in the same direction, made sure to keep well behind her. They each got their uniforms on, armed and ready for a tough fight. Natasha approached Tony, who was not yet in his suit, and said, “how are we getting to Canada?”
Tony chuckled. “I have my ways.” He led the team up the tower. There was a vast room that led out to a huge balcony type structure. Except this balcony held the Quinjet. “Here’s our ride.”
“Perfect. I’ll drive” Clint said.
The team waited quietly in the Quinjet. Clint was flying as Tony listened to some AC/DC in one corner and Bruce sat with his head down in another. Natasha and Steve sat on polar opposite sides of the jet, their gazes cast downward. Natasha looked up at him. She wanted to know more about what had happened and what had been happening. She slowly approached, saying, “Can you tell me something?”
“Always.” he replied, directing his stare at her.
“When exactly did that whole body taken over, mind repressed thing happen to you?”
He hesitated, not really wanting to go back to that memory, but he knew he owed Natasha answers. “Back at the Hydra facility, after I told you I found the hostages. Some guy...snuck up on me. I thought it was you at first, the way you sneak. But when he came into the light…” he trailed off. “I don’t really know what happened next. I just remember waking up and you were there and yet I couldn’t do anything.”
She looked down, her fears confirmed. Clint, from the pilot seat, said “landing in half a minute.”
But there was more she longed to know, “The relationship we had. That I had with...whatever was controlling you. Was any of it real?” she asked.
“Landing now.” Clint informed as the Quinjet touched the ground with a small tremble. The whole team unloaded save for Natasha and Steve.
“Nat, I’m not gonna lie to you. I couldn’t control anything, I could only watch as my body acted on its own. So I guess it was kinda fake in that regard. But the feelings...that love we had...that was very, unmistakably real.” he winked as he walked out with the rest of the team.