Alloy

Late Night Comforts [MCU Steve x Natasha]

For Scarlet,

Natasha rarely slept on the nights she spent in the Avengers Tower; many a nightmare threw her from her slumber and she daren't return for fear of the terror creeping back. When she found herself lost in the vicious cycle of her nightmares she struggled to discern her reality from the horrors her brain managed to conjure up to torture her with. She felt as though she were buried in the depths of a well with a rope lay frayed by her side, all hopes of an escape rotting with the days she lay there moping. She was the forgotten bucket filled to the brim with murky water that hung in mid air begging to be lifted out of the dark. Yet no one came for her; no one extended their hand out to pull her from her mind. No, she had to do that for herself. This night was very similar to the others, she had been called up to the Tower to help with some form of planning stage, the planning lead to drinks and it became too late and she had drank too much to drive home to her apartment. The alcohol mingled with her toxic brain and poisoned her tongue as she swallowed it down, though it numbed the pain she felt for a short while.

Her room at the Tower wasn't anything too extravagant, Tony had told her she may furnish the room in any manner she wished, he had the money for her to do so. She never felt the desire, this place wasn't her home so there was no need to make it look any grander than it was. It was a place where she slept if she was too inebriated or tired to get behind the wheel, all it needed was a bed and a bottle of complimentary aspirin for when her brain fought back against that one last drink. Her bed was comfortable enough that she would awake with only the aches she had the day prior, that was a positive she supposed. With the racket of Banner's snores echoing from the room adjacent Nat settled down onto the soft mattress, keeping the light on next to her as she stared up at the cream ceiling. In her days there she had kept a tally on the wall since she had last thought about her sister in pencil. The tally was rather redundant as the act of sketching a mark into the wall reminded her of the lost blonde. If nothing else it gave her something to do. If she was still blonde, Natasha often mused, she had wondered whether telling Rogers about Yelena was a wise move. The pair could theorise together what befell their lost loved ones. Nat knew Bucky was a rough spot for Steve so she had never brought her sister up, she knew that Steve would feel compelled to share a story on his friend to make her feel better. He was like that, Steve, forever putting the needs of others on a higher shelf, his needs lay forgotten under the aisle a few stores down. That was until that night.

That night Nat had been struggling to drift off herself, memories replaying themselves over and over again in her skull, as though someone had implanted a video camera in the back of her head to record and replay her worst moments to her when she least wanted to remember them. Though for all she knew there may well have been something similar at least once. Tonight a splotch on the wall had vaguely resembled a human face and all she could think about through dinner was the charred remains of a young girl with pigtails. She muttered the word 'please' what must have been a million times into her pillow as she writhed, hoping the memory would sweat off of her. She had been caught before by Bruce to be scratching at the back of her neck violently in one of these episodes, he had to hold her arms flat against the table and press her face into his chest for her to calm down, much like she did for him when the green guy wanted to make him buy new clothes. It helped but she hated being restrained like that, to be kept from doing what she pleases, even if it did hurt her. But Bruce was asleep and she didn't feel selfish tonight. Tony had left the Tower a while ago, not held back by his intoxication, Jarvis controlled his car whenever he pleased and the pair were back to Pepper by the end of the hour.

Nat knew no good would come about from tearing her hair out at the memories of people lost, she managed to peel herself from the damp sheets and threw herself into the cool hallway. The busy New York streets lived on through the night, Owl people bustling through their nightly lives to the soundtrack of honking drivers. Nat walked briskly past Banner's bedroom, the door rattling lightly with the sheer might of the man's snores. It seemed while he slept the Green Guy bled through into his unconcious form, forcing him to emit a sound that made the foundations of his home shake, to the point that Tony had to invite the man into the Tower. From then on more and more Avengers made their way into the tall structure, heaving night gear with them.

Natasha mused to herself as she wandered past the living room and saw a teen boy draped across the couch, his pale face illuminated by the television screen that remained on in front of him. She stepped over to the coffee table where the remote lay, surrounded by an array of snacks enough to feed perhaps a small army. This kid is insane, the ginger thought to herself turning the blaring screen off with a click and tossing the plastic back to the table not caring if this woke the boy up. She wasn't truly sure how he even got in, maybe Stark was feeling charitable and offered to home him. She thought on it no longer and crossed the kitchen to stare into the large fridge that remained barren no matter how many times she reopened it. She groaned and began to make her way back to her room, she'd make due without anything to eat and watch something dumb on her phone. Maybe then would her mind stop trying to drag back troubling memories. She started the short walk back to her bedroom when she remembered the sleeping boy on the couch, she approached him slowly. Once she was close enough she grabbed a bag of chips from the table and smiled, pleased with her conquest.

Snacking on the now frankly stale chips, Natasha wandered back over to the large window she had been gazing into earlier, the large pane radiated a soft coolness. The bitter air of the outside world trapped by the layers of glass, a barrier between the ginger-haired woman and the icy winter's night. She stood there a while, rather peacefully, breaking the silence occasionally to rustle the chip packet. People watching was a skill of hers, picked up on countless missions where she had nothing else to do but wish she was somewhere else. So she would rest herself close to her post and observe people going about their daily life, playing out conversations in her head of what she pictured them rattling on about. She began to do the same here, she sank to the floor and just watched the roads below, followed strangers with her eyes as they walked and walked. Never ceasing, just one foot then another. Or just one if you were an amputee, perhaps two wheels. One woman clutched her scarf as she plodded along, Nat imagined it was her lovers, that their smell still remained and she wanted its comfort. Who wouldn't want comforting at gone two in the morning and you remain awake and roaming the streets.

On that thought Nat's concentration on one particularly compelling argument between two women on the crosswalk below was shattered by a sharp yell from a bedroom down the hall. Steve's room was a boundary that Nat hadn't yet crossed. She hadn't been invited in yet and felt it rude to impose herself where she was unwanted so never ventured in during her nights at the Tower, even on nights like these where she did nothing but wander about aimlessly. Nat heaved herself off of the laminate flooring and tossed the half empty chip packet back at the kid in the red hoodie, it landed smack bang in the middle of his forehead yet he miraculously remained asleep. Maybe he was dead? Should she check for a pulse? Nah that takes effort, she'd wait for the morning for someone else to come across him.