Chapter Text
It’s a cold Friday morning when it all goes to hell. Friday the 13th, to be exact. Natasha is hardly superstitious, but she supposes she should have expected it, her record considering: the last Friday the 13th, she’d ended up with a pair of broken ribs and a nice stab wound to match. The time before that, her cover identity had been blown and she’d been forced to sprint through Prague with nothing but a butter knife and a shaving razor. So all things considered, this isn’t a huge leap, and when Clint corners her before their mission she’s not wholly surprised.
“What did you do?” she asks with an affectionate sigh, readying herself. He's set something on fire again, in all likelihood.
“Listen. Don’t freak out.” He is the picture of calm and collected, but she knows his tells intimately by now, the miniscule twitch of his index finger betraying his nerves.
“What?” she asks again, this time with significantly more suspicion, because Clint is nothing if not calm under duress and for him to be this worried to tell her means it’s bad, and they (because she's an accessory after the fact now, at the very least) are potentially facing Coulson's wrath in the near future.
“Don’t freak out,” the switch repeats.
“No promises.”
“So you know how I’ve been getting you your monthly Substop?” he hedges.
Natasha inclines her head stiffly, suddenly not at all liking the direction of this.
“And you know it’s very illegal.”
“You don’t want to get it anymore.” Her tone is flat. This is… unexpected, from Clint, but already her mind is rerouting to problem-solving.
Clint sighs, exasperated. “No. I can’t get it anymore.” As her eyes widen minutely, he adds hastily, “Not for the time being.”
Natasha’s forehead creases as she searches his face for signs of a joke. “What does that mean?” It's not like she doesn't have her own sources she can tap into, but Clint's circus buddy's been getting the pure stuff, cheap, for over a decade. Tracking down her own supply on this short of a notice will be a pain and a half, if not nearly impossible and exorbitantly expensive. "What do you mean, you can’t?”
“Nat, listen to me.” Clint grasps her arms just below her shoulders and squeezes gently. “I’m trying, okay? The crackdown’s been crazy. SHIELD just shut down the only remaining supplier this side of the Atlantic. There’s basically not a gram of the stuff left in the Americas.”
If Clint's source is busted, any of her own would-be suppliers are undoubtedly dead in the water.
“Then we go to Europe.” She shrugs out of his grip. “You can cover for me." She nods decisively. "That’ll work. I’ll go. Today. I can leave now.”
His hands are back on her arms. She notices raised goose-bumps on her own arm, which is odd, because she doesn’t feel cold.
Clint’s speaking softly, soothing, and she wants to slap him for it. “It’s okay, I’ve got this. Just give me a couple of weeks, alright? I can dig up an alternate stream from my guys in New Mexico… a few small shipments’ll probably start coming in after the weekend.”
She does some quick mental calculations. It won’t work. There's a thug-for-hire in Dallas who's enmeshed in every drug cartel under the sun and happens to owe her a favor, but that won't be on time either. “It's not…”
“I’ll have it in less than two weeks. And you must that have that extra from last time left over?” His fingers skim over her hair as she nods, concern radiating from the gesture. “Okay? Can you go ten days or so?”
She nods again, side-stepping him neatly as she catches sight of Tony entering the room. The sub is too nosy for his own good, and the position they’d been in was decidedly too dom-sub for him not to ask questions. Clint follows her gaze, draws back from her and greets Tony with an easy grin, starting up a conversation about his new upgraded bow. Natasha’s heart is racing too fast for her to be able to hear much more than the roar in her ears.
She lied. She doesn’t have the extra he’d given her last month. It finished last night in a dose that she can already feel wearing off. She’d used it up, because they’d gone on more missions this month and she’d been wearing thin, and she thought she’d be getting more in a few days, she hadn’t known….
She straightens her shoulders, annoyed at herself for spiraling. She can go ten days. Less than two weeks without dropping. It’s possible. Maybe. If she doesn’t get agitated between now and next weekend.
Tony can’t do it. He drops after basically every mission, leaving Steve or Clint or Banner or Thor to deal with him (never Natasha, although she’s tried. The Substop doesn’t give her dom biology, it only inhibits her sub impulses.)
Natasha takes a short breath. Tony may drop after every mission, but she’s not Tony. She’s been trained for this, raised to push down her base instincts and project whatever she wants. Clint hadn’t even realized she was a sub until fifteen weeks into her acquisition by SHIELD. This is hardly out of the range of things she’s had to do before. She can do this. Ten days, no dropping.
She steels her shoulders and moves forward to join Clint and Tony. Both men shift a little to open into a semi-circle. Clint brushes against her shoulder and gives her a small reassuring smile, which she returns, hoping it doesn’t look as shaky as she feels.
It’s fine.
She ignores the little pit of guilt weighing in her stomach from lying to Clint.
===
The mission goes to hell, doing an excellent job of keeping to its preceding Friday the 13th’s traditions. Guards with more advanced weaponry than they’d been prepared for, incorrect information, out-dated maps with doors that should be there but weren’t. To top it off, the hired guns somehow knew they were coming and managed to ambush Clint and Thor, giving both a healthy amount of injuries.
By the time Natasha and Steve manage to bust through the inner chambers— only a split lip, couple of cracked ribs, a sprained wrist and a spattering of cuts and bruises between them, meagre worry compared to the state of Clint and Thor— they’re both just about done with this mission, ready to retrieve the papers and get out. Intel, shitty as it is, says there’s one safe in the room in front of them containing the papers, which should be a quick enough job.
So when Steve smashes his shield against the lock and she kicks open the door, neither are prepared for the hinges to swing back and reveal a dreary, dimly-lit, dormitory-style room.
Six rickety dressing tables. Six half-open, filmy windows. Six wrought-iron beds. And six little girls dressed in lace nightgowns huddled against the far end of the room, eyes wide and frightened.
“Shit.” Steve jerks to a stop, taking in the scene.
“What?” Banner’s voice pipes up immediately over the comms. “I just changed back, do you need the Hulk again?”
Neither answer him.
Steve edges closer to the girls while Natasha stands stock-still, staring at the children, tasting bile. She can’t deal with this today. She can feel the flashes of memories curling at the edges of her consciousness, and she’s not willing to let this take her down, today of all days.
Steve’s already at the far end with the girls. He glances back, his expression urgent. “Natasha, I need you to help me with this!”
“Cap, do you need backup?” Tony, over comms.
“No, we’re fine,” Natasha answers for him, willing her vision to clear as she strides over to the girls. The mission comes first. The mission always comes first. “We have a situation. Are the guards all taken care of?”
“Reports!” Steve orders, grabbing two of the girls and swinging two others onto his back. Natasha lets one more climb onto her back, then hefts the last girl onto her hip.
“Barton is injured worse than I first reported,” comes Thor’s voice. Natasha panics— “He’s fine. He is in stable condition, but we will be of little help.”
“External security?” Steve presses.
“All out,” the god replies grimly.
“Good. Stark, Banner?”
“All clear from my standpoint, Cap.”
“Yeah, the big guy took care of the last of them.”
Steve nods, satisfied. “Alright. Meet you at the extraction point. We have a few extra young passengers today.” The meaning of his last statement is not lost on anyone, if the silence over comms is anything to judge by. “Nat, you good?”
“Peachy.” Her head pounds, her stomach heavy. “Take care of yourself, dinosaur bones.”
“Okay, really?” he snipes as they make their way through the halls, both on high alert for any remaining security. “Dinosaur bones? That’s the best you can do?”
“Extenuating circumstances,” she replies, setting the girl in her arms down so she can quickly knock out a guard that’s woken up. “All clear. Ask me again after mission, I’ll come up with something better.” In one move, she picks up the child again, patting the knee of the other one on her back to make sure she’s okay.
“Don’t listen to him, Romanoff.” Tony’s voice is gleeful. “Dinosaur bones is pitiful, but given the current situation I’d give it a B+ at least.”
“Your standards are dropping,” Steve shoots back, tapping Natasha on the shoulder. He gestures down the hallway to their right. Understanding immediately, she shrugs off both girls clinging to her and springs into the hallway.
It’s one punch to incapacitate the first guard, a flying kick to send the second into a wall, and she darts back and gets the girls. One, two, three.
“Clear. So what is it, Rogers, do you prefer Capsicle?”
“Hey,” Tony objects immediately. “That’s mine.”
“You can share,” Natasha says smoothly. “Not like you have a copyright on it.” A telling pause. “Stark. You didn’t.”
“What?” He has the grace to sound defensive as beside her, Steve bristles indignantly. “It played well with the focus group, we were thinking of merchandising.”
Natasha's going for a scoff, but a hysterical, almost choked laugh bubbles out of her instead.
It draws Steve's attention instantly. “Are you okay?” His voice is knowing.
“You never saw the Red Room, did you?” she murmurs as they continue through the winding building. Almost to the jet, nearly there…
“No.”
“Mmm.” She knows exactly how to manipulate her voice so it conveys equal parts tolerance and amused condescension. “That back there? Pretty much a five-star hotel compared to what I got. Trust me, this isn’t dredging up anything.”
Lies.
There were hand-cuffs attached to the bedposts. The girl on her hip has cracked lips. The ankles of the one clutching her neck have been chafed with rope, and her wrists are red and raw. But most of all, it’s their eyes: frightened, full of unbridled terror.
“There’s a med-jet coming in for the… young passengers,” Tony announces over comms. “Drop them to the right of our jet.”
Steve and Natasha respond with the affirmative. From there it’s quick work to unload the girls into the arms of SHIELD medical agents, fearful and compliant as they are. Natasha almost can’t tear herself away, but she forces herself to follow Steve without so much as a glance backwards. She’s fine.
Back on their own jet, she pushes past Cap; the man’s walking too goddamn slowly. The mission’s over and she wants desperately to see Clint.
“Clint?” she calls out, moving swiftly to the back of the jet. She knows, logically, that he’s okay, he’s fine, his injuries aren’t that severe, but it’s a struggle to force herself not to devolve into a panic.
To his credit, Steve’s just a few steps behind her. “Clint!”
“He’s fine, you over-protective dominants.” Tony’s smirk is a little too cheeky. “He’s on the med-jet. You must’ve walked right by him in your apparent haste to get back here.” He’s loving the irony.
Natasha’s eyes fly to the window— and perfect, there goes the med-jet.
Steve notices her expression, giving Tony a reproaching look that’s met with a blinding grin. For once, Natasha realizes with a start, Tony doesn’t seem to be dropping. It makes sense, she supposes. This mission wasn’t particularly difficult for him. He’d been their eyes on the roof, taken out a few goons, and let out Banner. Practically a Level One task.
Still, Steve casts his gaze critically over the sub. “You okay?” He lays a hand on Tony’s shoulder, and the man leans into his touch with a quiet sigh and a nod. Natasha tears her eyes away from the scene, but not before she feels a stab of pure, unadulterated longing swelling up from deep within her.
She’s not going to do this. She won’t. Natasha wrenches open the door at the back of the plane where they keep the supplies, slinks down into the furthest seat, and rests her head against the cool metal, the vibrations from the plane taking off thrumming uncomfortably into her skull. Deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out.
She’s gotten through drops before, with the Red Room. It was a necessary skill, although one she hasn’t used in a good ten years or so. She’s going to drop no matter what, no sense in deluding herself that she won’t, but at least she can put up a front until she can get back to her room in the tower.
Maybe she’ll get through this after all.
===
She's not going to make it.
There’s a current of distress running through her veins, leaving her miserable and tired. She’s so sore, and the weight in her stomach hasn’t settled— if anything, it's worsened, and the teasing conversation she can barely make out coming from the main compartment of the jet isn’t helping anything. Her head hurts, her eyes sting. She digs the heels of her palms into her eyelids, willing herself to calm down.
This is biology. Mind over matter. Come on, Romanoff.
Romanova.
Natalia Alianovna Romanova.
Red Room.
She’d looked exactly like those girls. She could tell herself she’d never been that afraid, but that would be yet another lie to herself.
Her breathing begins to speed up as the memories flash before her unsought: the handcuffs. The dormitory-style beds. Killing Rita. Killing Valya. The church. The college. The children’s hospital. Наталья. Молодцы, Наталья. Well done, Natalia. New mission, Natalia.
New mission, kill two. New mission, kill five. New mission, kill four. New mission new mission new mission new mission new-
Natasha’s heart is beating rapidly, the unsteady thump-thump-thump slamming against her rib-cage almost painfully. She’s not only dropping, she’s crashing, the result of ten years of no drops reaching a crescendo and pouring over her.
Her muscles tense as Tony drops into the seat beside her. She hadn’t even heard him open the door.
“Tut, tut, no seatbelt?”
She doesn’t point out his obvious lack of one. He’s close, but she wants touch. The relief she feels when he shifts so their shoulders rub sickens her.
“So all in all, what a fuck-truck of a mission.”
“Yeah,” she manages, glad that her voice remains solid and unwavering.
“Fuck-truck of epic proportions.”
“Don’t need to convince me.” Natasha lets out a small laugh, which she’s surprised she can do because she can’t fucking breathe.
Tony gets up and stretches, but then he stills suddenly. There’s a rigid tension as he takes her in. “Romanoff…”
“Yes, Stark?” she asks sweetly, deliberately meeting his gaze, firm and steady even though she’s anything but.
Without warning, he reaches down and grabs her hand, letting go just as quickly. “You’re cold.” It’s a statement.
“That a crime?” she manages. If he wants to keep talking, she’s not going to be able to. The effort it’s taking for her voice not to tremble is immense.
“Why are you shaking?”
No answer, just what she hopes manages to be an intimidating glare back. She can’t muster up the presence of mind to keep talking.
It doesn’t work. Tony crouches down in front of her, his head at the same height as her chest. “What’s up, hot stuff?” He’s looking up at her with concern, and she knows he’s crouching because he sees her as a distressed dom. He’s trying to give her comfort in the way a sub would, but all she wants is the touch and she gives in and grabs onto his shoulders, loathing herself.
It only concerns him more. “Romanoff. Hate to say this, but you’re kind of worrying me here. What’s wrong?”
She lets out a shuddering breath, forcing herself to let him go.
“Are you okay?”
Natasha nods, unable to speak. The world around her is spinning on its axis, leaving her dizzy and off-kilter. The blood roars in her ears. She wants to go home. She wants Clint. Even though Clint probably won’t even want to see her after she lied to him…
“Are you- oh my god…” Tony’s voice is barely above a whisper. “Fuck, are you dropping?”
In response, Natasha closes her eyes and turns into the wall, too far down to care about composing a response.
“Natasha, what the hell?” Tony breathes. Then, in a moment that deserves way more credit than she usually gives him, he climbs back into the seat next to her and pulls her into him, his fingers rubbing at her shoulder.
She doesn’t fight the movement.
“How is this happening?” Tony’s confused, but he’s smart, so she doesn't bother croaking out an answer. “Okay, okay, that doesn’t matter. Easy, just breathe it out. You’re fine, just breathe.”
The touch is helping but the voice is all wrong, and it’s only adding to her splintered mind. Everything aches. He’s not a dom, his voice is just something else she has to listen to, has to force herself to pick her way through, heavy and leaden.
Tony’s still speaking, doing his best to speak as low as possible. “Just hang in there, alright, I’ll-”
“Tony? Everything good back there?” Steve’s voice crackles in over the intercom. He likely saw them on the cockpit camera and thought Tony was dropping. Natasha’s never helped Tony through a drop before, reason enough to care. “Nat, is he alright?”
Tony pulls back from her slightly. “Should I tell him?” he whispers. When she doesn’t answer— no, you can’t tell him, nobody can know— he runs a hand over her hair. “Natasha, can Cap know?”
For the love of all that is holy, she nods. What’s the point, anyways? Stark can’t keep a secret to save his life, and they’re all going to find out soon enough. More than that, she needs— she needs the balm of a soothing dom to ease her aching, fractured mind.
Tony’s hit the intercom button. “Cap, Natasha’s dropping.”
There’s a few beats of dead-silence. They both wait, Natasha’s breaths coming ragged and gasping, before the intercom crackles again. This time he’s projecting to the entire jet: they can hear the faint echoes of the noise coming through in the main compartment. “Banner, I need one of you up here to fly the plane.” His voice is emotionless, and Natasha wonders dimly if he’s going to be pissed at her.
Half a minute later, the door to the cabin opens and closes almost silently, and then Steve is beside them.
“You’re sure?” he asks Tony, who replies with a see-for-yourself gesture. “Thank you for helping.” Tony flushes with pride at the simple appreciation, even more so when Cap gives him a quick squeeze. The sub always was too easy around praise. “Go sit with Thor.”
“Aw, come on,” Tony whines.
“This isn’t a zoo exhibit. Go.” His tone brooks no argument.
Tony pulls away from her and Natasha loathes herself but she wants to cry because even his arm around her had been keeping her poised on the edge of the precipice, and now she feels like she’s suffocating, and she just wants Clint…
Then there’s a warm body next to her; another, heavier arm over her shoulders and curling around her back. Steve pulls her close, his second arm resting gently on her neck, keeping her hot forehead tucked into his shoulder. She lets out a long, shuddering breath as her muscles sink into him.
“Hey, Nat. It’s okay, I got you. Easy, you’re okay, I got you.” He’s whispering soft assurances into her ear, and with every tremble of her limbs she can feel the distress seeping out of her, leaving her in the darkness with Steve’s soothing presence.
“There you go,” Steve’s hands gently brush over her matted hair. “I’m here, you’re okay. I want you to keep breathing for me, alright? Just how you’re doing. That’s it, just like that.”
The tightness in Natasha’s chest slowly begins to untangle itself, twisting into a new sensation that it takes her a while to realize is security. For the first time in her life, the person with her during a drop is comforting her, and a warm feeling of safety begins to envelope her.
Steve’s hand rubs soothing circles on her lower back, his other hand still carding through her hair. “There you go… I’m not going anywhere. We can stay as long as you like.”
She buries her face into him, self-loathing and mortification warring with the pure instinctual want.
Steve gives her an analyzing look. “You dropped pretty hard, didn’t you?”
She can't conjure up words, so she settles for a nod.
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
She shakes her head, her eyes hot.
“Does Clint know?”
Natasha pauses, then nods again. Shakes her head. Nods. Unsure what he’s asking, and panic begins to well up because that means—
“Hey, hey, calm down.” Steve’s pitched his voice low. “I’m not angry at you.” An edge of steel to his tone. “Clint, I can’t guarantee.”
“He didn’t know!” she interjects, because Clint’s already going to be pissed as hell about lying to him, and if she gets him in trouble with Cap, he’ll kill her. “He didn’t know I would drop, I— I didn’t—”
“But he knew you’re a…” Steve looks at her, calculating. “Are you a switch? Or a sub?”
“Sub.” She regrets it even as she says it, her mind a crucial half-second behind her mouth. If she had claimed to be a switch, he might have believed that she simply doesn’t drop much, and that the team’s missed every single one by mere coincidence and some well-placed stealth. Her eyes flutter shut briefly in annoyance, and when she opens them, the ghost of a smirk on Steve's face tells her he knows exactly what she was thinking.
“Clint knows you’re a sub?" he asks again.
“A little. Kind of…” she hedges.
“Coulson?”
“No.”
Steve makes an exasperated noise, but when her eyes fly up to his, he shakes his head and drops a light kiss onto her forehead. A look of surprise flits across his face, as if he wasn’t expecting her to let him, but she’s so starved of touch that she can't make herself care. “We’re going to have to figure out a plan to deal with this,” he says.
She nods miserably.
They stay like that for the rest of the flight, Natasha folded into Steve and cursing herself for her inability to pull away.
===
When the wheels touch down, Steve lets her make the first move to uncurl away from him. She’s embarrassed, not meeting his reassuring gaze. Tony’s obviously told Thor and Banner, from the way the two doms are giving her space. Natasha walks ahead of them all, refusing to look at either Steve or Tony as they step off the plane. She stops abruptly once they get inside the tower.
Clint’s standing there, a few bandages circling his arm and his head and a little pale, but otherwise appearing no worse for the wear. Standing next to him is Coulson. Natasha shoots Steve a glare, knowing he must have called him, which the soldier steadfastly ignores.
She can tell from the way Clint’s bouncing on the balls of his feet that he’s been briefed on the mission details, including what they found in the dorm room. He's concerned that she dropped, from the apprehensive glances he keeps shooting her and Coulson.
Well, too late to be worried about that.
“So, I take it we need to have a little discussion,” Coulson says.
Natasha feels a well of guilt bubble up in the pit of her stomach. She quashes it down. Clint’s entire body sags, his fear confirmed.
Thor nods happily, seemingly uncaring about the somber mood in the room. “I agree! Natasha’s Bearing has changed. Shall we discuss now, perhaps, over drinks?”
“Uh, why don’t you and Tony come with me…” Banner pushes the god into the next room, and practically has to drag Tony along with them.
When they're gone, Coulson doesn’t beat around the bush. “You’re a sub, Natasha? Is that true?”
She nods. Goddamn it, she’s non-verbal today. “Yes,” she bites out.
Coulson’s normally-calm demeanor is crumbling, his jaw clenched. “Why would you not tell any of us?”
“Sorry,” Natasha replies automatically, moving on auto-pilot to take a step behind Steve. She’s still in the final jittery stages of a drop, and she can’t take him yelling at her. Clint glares at Coulson.
“I don’t even— how?” The switch turns to Clint. “Why has she never dropped on the jet after a mission? Have you been helping her through drops?”
“No,” Clint stammers. Natasha wants to strangle him, knowing he’s just gotten them both in significantly hotter water. He hastens to cover it up: “I mean, she’s never dropped before. On the jet, I mean.”
“I gathered. I’m asking why.”
“I don’t know, maybe try asking her?” Clint can convincingly spin webs of lies with a pint of blood loss and a knife in his back, but ask him to bullshit when it comes to Coulson and he's dead on arrival.
“Natasha?”
“I don’t know,” she lies smoothly. “I usually have it under control.” She pauses, weighing her words. “Red Room taught me techniques.”
“Funny.” Coulson’s voice is icy, and it takes effort to avoid shrinking back involuntarily. “I would’ve thought a simple-enough evacuation, albeit a surprise one, couldn’t have ruined that excelled control, then.”
Steve glances between her and Coulson, then lays a calming hand on her arm. She wrenches away from him.
“Okay, okay," Steve says. "This obviously isn’t going anywhere. Clint, we know she hasn’t been dropping. There’s no way Coulson would have missed every single one in the last ten years.”
Clint shrugs sullenly.
“How’s she been doing it?” Coulson barks. Probably sensing that Clint will be the easier one to break, he rounds on his switch. “I need an answer, now.”
“I already told you I don’t know!”
“Barton, you’re only making it worse for yourself.”
A pause.
“Substop,” Clint admits through gritted teeth.
The room is silent. Then—
“Substop?” Steve explodes. “You’ve been getting Substop?”
Clint rushes to defend them. “It wasn’t so bad when we first—”
“You started this charade ten years ago.” Coulson is furious. “Substop was definitely still illegal.”
“Yeah, but it was just considered a soft drug, so—”
“The crackdown started six years ago because of all the risks, you know that.” While he’s not yelling, Coulson’s voice still somehow rips whip-like through them.
“I know, I know, but she didn’t have any side effects and we both thought—”
“Enough.” Coulson swings around to Natasha. “And I presume you ran out?”
She nods.
Clint glowers at her. “Seriously? You lied to me?”
Natasha’s head is spinning. Coming out of a major stress-induced drop to have a dom and two pissed off switches in her face is making it difficult to think.
“Sorry,” she tries, a steady mantra of they’re mad they’re mad they’re mad pulsing in her mind. “I didn’t want— I thought…”
“Don’t even try, Barton,” Coulson snaps. “Her lying to you about being out of Substop is not the main issue here. In fact, it’s not even a minor issue. It’s not even an issue.”
“I’m sorry.” Clint rubs at his jaw, the characteristic hunched posture of a sub in hot water overtaking him. Natasha knows exactly how he’s feeling, the guilt and the acute disappointment swirling in her own gut along with the hard lump in her throat.
Coulson sighs, laying a hand on the back of Clint’s neck. “Okay.” He steels his shoulders. “You want to deal with this now?”
And when Clint nods miserably, Coulson gestures to the elevator. “Go on. Your apartment. I’ll meet you in five.”
“Yes, sir”.
It’s widely considered an abusive practice to leave a guilty sub, the pain and self-flagellation a facet of emotional abuse as laid out in ‘Sub Rights’ volume II. The Red Room had done that to Natasha, as punishment… she clearly remembers the anger over minor occurrences, with no respite for weeks, until the sub in question was practically insane from the guilt.
The picture frame on the coffee table is vibrating— earthquake, she thinks, until she realizes it’s her own trembling obscuring her vision. She’s shaking, when had she started shaking?
“Natasha,” comes Steve’s low soothing voice, and she’s trembling so much she’s making the two of them shake. “Try to calm down.”
Coulson glances at his watch. “I have to get to Clint. Can you deal with Natasha?” He motions to the elevator. “If she needs it, you can send her up to me once I’m done with Clint.”
Steve replies, she knows he does because she sees his mouth move, but she’s too busy trying to ground herself to hear him.
When Coulson’s gone, Steve takes one look at her face and leads them to the couch, curling his arm back around her and beginning his reassurances again. “It's okay, you’re okay… Just relax, you’re here with me…”
It’s a clear voice in her head to cut through all the sharp pieces.
It’s a while before she calms down, and the first thing out of her mouth is “I’m sorry” because she feels like she has to make up for it.
He shushes her. “You don’t need to apologize. I understand.”
“Are you angry?” She hates how needy the question makes her sound. She feels like Tony.
He hesitates. “I’m disappointed in both of you. Not mad.”
“I’m sorry,” she repeats.
Steve nods this time. “How do you feel?”
“Like shit,” she mumbles, and he barks out a short laugh.
“You look it.” He strokes over her shoulder. “Do you feel bad, though?”
Her breath catches in her throat, because what he’s really asking is, do you need me to punish you? It’s not like subs like being disciplined, but the alleviation of the guilt is what matters. If they were feeling merciful in the Red Room when she fucked up, she was thrown unceremoniously over her trainer’s knee, his hand came down a dozen times and she was up again, back into the ring, face streaked with tears. Or more often, she had an arm or a finger broken for screwing up. Among other things.
Steve takes her silence as the affirmative, and makes to stand up, but Natasha puts a hand on his arm. “No.”
He’s taken aback, she can tell.
She does feel 'bad', in a manner of speaking, but it's that hungover feeling that comes after a stress-induced drop. She feels awful about lying to Clint. The Substop… not so much. In her mind, it was a necessary evil. She never had any orders not to take it, and isn’t everything they do illegal and dangerous? So she shakes her head. Clint’s upset, but her moral compass just swings further south than his, she supposes.
Steve wraps his arm around her again and they just sit there. Natasha knows this is a new complication. She hasn’t dropped in ten years, and now she’ll be like Tony. Weak. Pathetic. Her emotions are already all over the place, and it’s been one day.
Fuck being a sub.