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WHO: Steve Rogers
WHERE: The Fountain
WHEN: September 17th
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: Will add if necessary.
STATUS: Closed

Even if Wakanda weren't as historically reclusive as it's been until more immediately recent memory, Steve wouldn't pretend he knows enough about it to say whether the fountain belongs there. He's hardly even been outdoors, for all that he's had quite a view from inside; as a guy who draws things in a notebook on occasion he doesn't really think it comes from the same school as the giant panther carved out of the side of a mountain, but what does he know? He and Bucky arrived bloody and exhausted, in no mood for sightseeing, no matter how much the hospitality of Wakanda might be considered a rare privilege. Hard to see it that way, after sleeping it off for a day or so only to wake up to Bucky having already made up his mind.

He's had a lot on his own mind.

Still, the fountain seems out of place with what he's managed to glimpse of a ferocious sort of beauty, in the midst of buildings that Tony would be more comfortable calling home. This is— well, this looks more like something from his time. And he'll just as surely end up calling the bottom of this fountain his home, if he can't get out of here, since he apparently has enough clothes to get him through a cold winter. At least mulling over architecture is as good a way as any to keep from thinking too hard on how much trouble it's giving him.

He hadn't made the first jump. He puts the sides at about fifteen feet, too high for a straight jump for the edge, but manageable with the help of one of the more horizontal cracks in the wall and a running start. He'd taken a few steps backward, used the momentum to jam the toe of one of his new boots into the crevice and launch himself upward. It'd been no good, the tips of his fingers reaching far below the edge. He'd felt it in his body before that, though, the unexpected effort of the maneuver, when it ought to be so much going through the motions. The second try hadn't gone any better, after trying it from farther back, and he'd looked around at the scattered debris in here with him, determining that the leaves and sticks and dirt weren't exactly enough to make anything of. Gives him an idea though.

Climbing up the centerpiece is easier, even if he can still feel the strain in his calves, his arms and shoulders. Steve ignores it as best he can for now, figures he'll get the answer to why his heart's beating harder in his chest to keep up with his exertion when he finds whoever brought him here. Pretty effective, whatever they gave him, to keep him unconscious long enough to move him, and to weaken him even longer — though he can't help but wonder why, then, he doesn't feel the least bit groggy. He reaches the top of the centerpiece and braces himself there, somewhat unsteadily — which he also ignores — and grabs for a branch hanging from the tree overhead. He's just able to reach the nearest one, though it's by no means the strongest, and it bows toward him. He sighs, mutters, "This part would've been a lot easier seventy years ago," and takes a look at his surroundings.

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She's tired of being cooped up. The same four walls, day in and day out, with very little for her to do except head into the forest to check snares or forage for edibles. The water situation changed it up — but only slightly, and while she has faith that the people who fixed the water actually did so, she's with Frank. Better the devil you know won't poison you, than the one you're not sure about. Water can look and smell fine and still require a boil order.

It's not a bad day outside, not too hot, and Natasha takes to it, first on the path towards the spring to grab herself some drinking water, and then back outside again to sit near the blacksmith's under a tree in the shade. In her hands are her scrubs top, a needle and thread; she'd torn a hole in the sleeve a few days ago and has only just now found the time to be able to repair it. It's small, but if these are the only clothes she's going to get while she's here, she wants to try and keep them in good repair for as long as she can.

Natasha doesn't make it as far as the tree, however, coming to stand square in the middle of the road, staring at a tall figure with broad shoulders and blonde hair. The fountain had brought her Clint and Thor, and Sam and Barnes were already here (even if Barnes remembered nothing simply because it hadn't happened for him yet). It stood to reason that Steve would show up eventually, because she was being forced to confront every single other demon. Why not this one, too? There was a time in her life that Natasha would have turned tail and ran upon seeing him, but that time was so long ago as to be a distant memory, clouded with snow and the sound of other girls her age. She made her bed when she sided with Tony, and again when she let Steve and Barnes go.

"Did you make it?"

To wherever it was he was going, that they'd needed the quinjet for.

He's hardly one of her demons, and might resent the comparison if he knew. He doesn't deserve it, as far as he knows; he never argued with her decision. Even apologized for not being able to budge from his own, though he knows what it meant to her as much as she claimed to know what Bucky means to him.

Demons aren't the problem here. He doesn't know what he'd call it; ghosts, maybe, but he hates to think of either of the two he's got in mind that way — can't think of them that way, for all that he's been left shaken by seeing them. There's something relieving about finding Natasha here now, wearing nothing but an undershirt and holding a scrub top in one hand. It reminds him of looking at her in Sam's bathroom mirror, hair damp and towel in hand — reminds him that the last few years haven't just been a fevered dream of the future. His attempts to find allies, friends, some semblance of an existence — they haven't been completely in vain.

He stops in front of her, and his brow furrows because he doesn't know what she's asking. He'd gotten the information about the raft she'd sent to him, but she would've heard about it one way or another if he'd made it there yet. If she means Siberia — she should've heard it all from Tony. Tony had at least come as a friend, if they hadn't left him as one; in the same spirit, Steve assumes, that Natasha had let them go. He says, "It wasn't what we thought," the question still heavy in his voice before he presses his lips together.

"Tony didn't tell you."

He should've seen that writing on the wall. Whatever had changed Tony's mind — and Steve assumes it was some proof of Zemo's involvement where Steve's word alone hadn't been sufficient — it had come too long after Natasha let them get away. And after — Tony still wouldn't have been in a forgiving mood. Especially if he'd figured out that what Steve knew, Natasha was likely to as well.

Edited 2016-09-25 06:57 (UTC)

"He didn't have to," she admits, lifting a shoulder in a shrug, the corner of her mouth in a small ghost of one of her usual teasing smiles. There's a canyon between them, she thinks, even if it's not visible. She feels every inch of the space in between them, knows that even a month ago it wouldn't nearly feel as wide as it does now. It had been easier being confronted with Sam and Clint, Sam because while they were friends, her actions had never been directly against him, so to speak, and Clint because they've been friends for years. It would take a lot more than a pissing contest between Steve Rogers and the government to break them up. But Steve—

Steve is someone she sees herself in, in a few ways. Someone she sees straying down a path that she's already walked, and it's something she doesn't want for him. He's someone she trusts, fully and utterly, and she can count on one hand the amount of people that she can say that about. Piecing something like that back together will take time, and Natasha can't be certain it's something Steve will even want from her. Letting them go may not have been enough, and she knows it.

"I found out on my own," Natasha continues, crossing her arms. "If you had told me that's where you wanted to go, I could have helped."

Edited 2016-09-25 07:49 (UTC)

Of course she found out; he shouldn't have expected any less. It's not a bitter thought, not exactly, and he doesn't really want it to be. They moved past that a long time ago. He can never quite seem to build the callouses over the hurt that he'd need for it anyway. Maybe it makes it a little harder not to bleed on those around him, but it's better than the alternative anyway, better than forgetting what he's had. That's the last thing he wants.

(Not that it's even that easy, of course, when the people he's loved keep managing to come back into his life, though God only knows for how long.)

Steve wouldn't have thought he'd have to count Natasha among his losses, at least not by choice. By both of their choices, he's willing to admit, but if that's to remain raw and uncalloused, then the rest of her words can sure as hell still rub him the wrong way.

"I must've missed that offer. Guess you weren't standing close enough for me to hear it."

His jaw is fixed so tight it actually aches, and Steve looks away where he normally wouldn't because it's Natasha. "Just— don't, alright? You did enough."

He doesn't mean for it to sound accusing — the words are sincere — but thinks he may have fallen a little short of the mark. She says he's a bad liar, but sometimes he thinks he's even worse at it with Natasha, the truth inside of him somehow rising that much easier to the surface with her, just under his skin. An open book. So it's the best he can do, as far as olive branches go.

She sucks in a soft breath through her nose, because she knows that particular set of his jaw. At least he's not slamming her into a wall this time (small favors and all that), but the fact he won't even look at her makes it worse. Like he can't even stand to see her standing here trying to make amends. Because, of course, why would he? The line had been drawn, and they are clearly standing on two sides, even as she's tried her hardest to keep that from happening.

It's an olive branch, but it's not much of one, and it's one (she thinks) is reluctantly given. She's not even sure at first how to respond, staring at the tense of his jaw, the grit of his teeth. And then it unfurls within her, a smoldering anger that matches his own.

"You had plenty of time to tell us. You chose to fight instead. Don't blame that on me."

Natasha drops her arms, and starts to move towards the blacksmith's towards the tree she'd initially singled out. He doesn't want to talk and he doesn't want to see her. Fine. She'll respect that.

Steve looks back up in surprise when she moves, staring after her for a second, but it's not really out of any sort of plan that he catches up to her in two quick paces, grabbing her arm and pulling her around to face him. If she wants him to look her in the eye, well, now she's got it.

"I tried," he grits out, voice low maybe more out of habit with her than anything, or maybe because he doesn't want to shout it in her face. "Tony didn't want to hear it, and you stood with him, and you knew what it would mean." Imprisonment for all of them who'd refused to abide by the Accords. Extradition and nothing else good for Bucky. "That was your choice, that's not on me."

He wants to shake some sense into her, or the truth out of her, something. He doesn't, not because they're past that — or he thought they were — but because he truly doesn't know his own strength here. As it is he's not sure he isn't holding her too hard, but he doesn't want to let go if she's gonna talk about wanting to hear him out and then not do it. If she's trying to make amends, she could've fooled him.

His grasp is hard enough to jerk her around, and Natasha stumbles for a second, dropping her shirt and threaded needle to the ground as she turns, staring up at him in confused anger. She spares one glance to the hand on her bicep, raises her gaze to his own in a manner that can only be translated as 'remove it, or I remove it for you', but she knows Steve, and knows he won't, not until he gets the answer he wants. He's not hurting her (he never has, not even before), but he isn't treating her like she's made of some kind of spun glass, either, and the echo of a time before isn't lost on her. So it's back to this. Not trusting, a friendship broken, possibly beyond repair.

There's a knife in her gut, twisting, and it only gets worse at his accusations, because she thought — she had thought — he'd understand. That he knew why she'd signed it as much as she understood why he couldn't. That it had fuck all to do with Tony Stark or Steve Rogers and everything with keeping the people she cared about together and safe. Like she and Tony wouldn't have done their best to protect Barnes— like she wouldn't have, considering her past, the things she'd done, the leaps and bounds she had taken to trust SHIELD and the leaps and bounds they'd done in return to trust her. Like she wanted this infighting and childish rhetoric of 'you' 'no you'. If his jaw is set, then so is hers, angry and hurt.

And yet. She still grasps for those broken pieces. She still wants to put them together.

"Tony may not have listened but I would have, and I assumed you would know that. I never wanted any of this, and I said that from the start— All I wanted was for all of us to stay together, as a team. The fighting, the arguing, the bitterness—" And she laughs at that, a broken, bitter sound, a sarcastic smile tugging at her lips.

"I even gave you the way into the Raft to rescue everyone, and you still don't believe that I believe in you. You're never going to forgive me, are you?"

Edited 2016-10-05 03:38 (UTC)

The furrow in Steve's brow deepens momentarily at the question, more wounded than confused, because it's so close but still strikes out in the end. He parts his lips to say something to it, but it's another second of casting about for the words before he does. "I never said that." He wants to let go of her now, now that the hurt's outweighing the anger and it makes his hand on the bare skin of her arm too intimate without the latter to buffer it. It would feel a little too much like admitting something if he did though — that she's right, maybe — so he leaves it. He saw the look she'd given it; let her push him away if she really thinks it's what he wants.

"Stop, please," he says, the tightness of the words briefly emphasized in the grip of his fingers on her bicep. "You keep— you don't know everything I'm gonna do, Nat." He doesn't mind that she knows him well enough to get it right most of the time. He just wishes it were because she's had to work as hard to understand him as he has her. Then maybe she would've gotten this part right too. He's quiet for a moment, because what he has to say he doesn't want to say, to have confirmed, a part of this he'd rather set aside and move past than acknowledge as truth. But he can't really just let it stand there, either, now that she's said it.

"You trusted that I'd get the message. And that I'd punch my way out of it, right?" He matches her smile with a smaller one of his own, less bitter, but just in case there's any mistaking that he's echoing her words to him. "But you didn't believe that I'd see us through the Accords. I would've. You know I'd have stood behind us all. And you could've been my ace in the hole. But you lent that to Tony," he says, deliberately. "I get it, Natasha, but after that— it wasn't my job to reach out when I was just trying like hell to keep Bucky alive."

He doesn't point out that Tony wasn't even really part of the team when she'd thrown her lot in with him, because it would be petty, and he's telling the truth. He does understand. She was doing what she thought she had to do, and that's the problem. "You should've told me. If you thought we were doing it wrong. You had plenty of time to tell me that, too. I know the people we haven't been able to save are on me, I just thought . . . if you really thought we were making mistakes, you were the one I trusted to tell me."

When he tells her that she doesn't know everything he's gonna do— She looks at him, eyebrow raised, skeptical. He's an open book test, easily read, even for the amount of chapters in it. Most people stop at the first one and don't look any further. But she has always been intrigued by him from that first moment they met on the helicarrier, and she has done her best to peruse his depths, when he lets her. She understands why he couldn't sign the Accords. The issue is that he doesn't seem to understand that.

(She doesn't think about how he's used her nickname, a nickname only two people get to use without her feeling like she wants to cave their face in with her fist, because they're the only two people in the world who use it and don't make it sound like they're patronizing her. Thinking about it would just bring attention to it and the fact that, despite all of this, despite the anger and the heartbreak, he still considers her a friend. It would only make it worse. But then, he's good at that, isn't he?)

"It wasn't my job, either. It was no one's job Steve, because asking for help and being friends isn't a job. Saving people isn't a job, it's what we do. I never once thought we were doing it wrong, and I still don't, but when it comes to the people we're saving? What I think doesn't matter. What you think doesn't matter. The path to saving people meant gaining their trust back, and you can't do that if you're running off half cocked." She presses her lips together.

"It had nothing to do with believing you couldn't see us through it. It had everything to do with keeping us all alive without targets on our back. Or in your case, your head. Ross gave us 36 hours to bring you in before he sent someone to kill you, Steve. I did what I had to do to keep you alive, including signing the Accords."

(She has made no indication that she's going to make good on her non-verbal warning for him to remove his hand. She doesn't think about that, either.)

If she's expecting the information about Ross to come as a revelation, she's going to be disappointed. It's not the first time a man like Ross has wanted him dead, and if he's being honest and self-aware — and he supposes Natasha's got him dead to rights here — it's unlikely to be the last. He says, "All the more reason not to sign, if those were the terms." He's not sure he buys her reasoning anyway, his own skepticism plain on his face after he says it. The threat would've come after she'd already agreed to the Accords, and if she didn't think he could survive Ross, she really doesn't believe in him. He doesn't want to accept that just yet.

He's dropped his hand from her arm, though, because of the rest of it. Not because he isn't in the mood for the fight — he is. If nothing else, it's a real problem that he can wrap his head and his heart around, and he can admit at least to himself that it's not entirely unwelcome right now. And he doesn't like having his own words thrown back at him, like she didn't know perfectly well he'd been using it as a shorthand. For what they do, despite the cost, because it needs to be done, and they can and will. It's gotten him out of bed on more mornings than Steve cares to count — if not with joy then at least with purpose.

But it's still, he thinks, the heart of the matter, because if it's all of those things, it's also not enough. Grief teaches nothing of value except to hold on to what you've got. He knows Natasha gets it, but he doesn't think she gets this, where it hurts the most to be misunderstood: that he'd known exactly what he was doing and would do it all over again. He'll always find a way to save people, but there's only so many ways he can keep the people he loves by his side, and he'll fight tooth and nail for it every time. Or he really won't have a reason to wake up anymore.

So it's what he says, looking down at her shirt on the ground without really seeing it.

"I'd do the same thing for you."

Whether that's something she'd be grateful for, he doesn't know. Maybe not, if it's only a half-cocked sentiment to her.

Edited (typo) 2016-10-29 22:23 (UTC)

She wants to retort that the reason she signed had nothing to do with threats from the US Government, because she's dealt with threats from men far more dangerous than any suit sitting on Capitol Hill. Ross doesn't frighten her, he never has; what does frighten her is the loss of the people she cares about. What does frighten her enough to sign the Accords was the dissolution of the team she had started to call home, the idea that what she'd learned in the Red Room ('You have no place in the world') was true. That everything, once again, was a lie. The safest hands are there own, and she knows that, lives it and breathes it, but when your hands are cut off — well, the optimal option there is to at least have one hand left, right?

There is no doubt in her mind that Steve would do it all over again if given half the chance. He'd make the same choices, move on the same paths, and hold his head just as high as he was now, because he's right. But so was Tony. And that's the rub.

But she doesn't get to say any of that, the words dying in her throat as he follows up, and he won't even look at her as he says it. She's not sure if that makes it better or worse. Part of her wants to ask him what gives him the right to even say something like that, another part of her wants to walk away, but what she does is stare at him, mouth slightly open in shock, brow furrowed in almost horrified confusion. It takes her a moment to find the words (and she doesn't even try to hide the fact that she's floundering for them; it'd be disrespectful to be anything other than entirely herself around him, even if they weren't in the middle of an argument), and when she does, she's quiet.

"I know."

The spot where his hand was on her skin burns.

Edited (typo) 2016-10-30 19:54 (UTC)

Maybe he's got no right to say it at all, and that's part of the problem. From the look on her face it's about as welcome as he expected, and that she didn't need him to say it but still seems plenty appalled that he has— he's at a loss. He doesn't know what to make of it. He hadn't looked away from her for any reason but to gather the thought to mind, but now that he's spoken he holds her confused gaze, his own deeply furrowed. Part of him wants to say that if she knows so damn much about him, then he's got nothing left to tell her. A better part of him knows that he's been grateful for it before — in very recent memory, in fact — and if he can put aside that he's also feeling petty and confused, he's grateful for it now, too. He doesn't take being known for granted anymore.

(He doesn't think— being here— That doesn't make it any less true.)

"Okay," he says, also quiet, and after a couple seconds looks away again, this time to take half a step back and bend down to pick up her shirt and needle and thread, holding them out to her as he straightens. His other hand still hangs awkwardly at his side, and if her skin burns where he held on to her, his feels cold.

An olive branch. Perhaps not literal, but it is what it is. There's also no hesitation as she accepts it with both hands, gathering the pile of cloth and thread to her. She checks briefly for the needle, and satisfied that it's still tucked into the fabric where she'd stuck it before vacating the inn, she drops her hands to rest in front of her, looking up at him. Then there's hesitation, wondering if she should even be asking at all.

"Come sit with me?"

She assumes it will be a no, and he's well within his right. The hurt he feels now started when she said Tony was right, and he clearly hasn't stopped feeling that way, despite her best efforts and intentions to rectify it. They've been like this before, she thinks, tentative and wary of one another. Trust, she thinks, is fragile and easily broken, and she knows this. She's still surprised by it.

Steve nods, waits for her to lead the way. It'd never be a no, to hell with the hurt: he has, at every juncture, always tried his damnedest to have Natasha in his corner. He's not too stupid or stubborn to see that she was, in her own way, trying to do just that, and he'd meant it when he told her he was sorry he couldn't take the same path. The point — maybe not the entire point, but enough if it — is that he can't afford not to hold on to what he's got. He's not willing to sacrifice his own path for it, to stave off the loss, but that's always been his choice and his cross to bear.

"What happened to it?" he asks, subdued after taking a fortifying breath into his lungs, an unconscious digging in for the long haul, whether it's for Natasha or this place.

Edited 2016-11-18 08:21 (UTC)

It takes her a second to realize what he's talking about, mostly because of her surprise that he said yes. Natasha watches him for a moment, studying his face but whatever she's thinking, it's gone by the time she turns to head towards her tree.

“I was out in the woods looking for mushrooms, nuts… anything edible I could get my hands on. I saw some berries in a thicket, but apparently the thorns didn't like me, and ripped a hole in my shirt.” She settles onto the ground as she says it, unfolding the cloth and sticking her finger through the rip in the sleeve.

“It's an easy fix,” she continues, shrugging one shoulder. “It's probably won't take me longer than a minute but I like to sit outside. At least while it's nice out.”

While she speaks, she grabs the already threaded needle and starts the process. Her stitches are simple and nothing to write home about but they'll hold, and that's what matters. There is (what feels like) a long moment of silence, and she wants to thank him for sitting with her but they're beyond that, even if it doesn't feel like it. For one of the few times in her life, Natasha doesn't know what to say, and that, too, is a testament to everything that's happened to them. What is there to say? The ice under her feet feels thin and she's afraid to step on it.

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