𝐑𝐔𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐀𝐍 𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄━︎━︎ N. Romanoff ✓︎

𝐓𝐰𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐲-𝐎𝐧𝐞

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE:
DEVIL'S ADVOCATE

IT HAD BEEN ALMOST FIVE years since he had last spoken to her. He had laid down on doing lots of jobs, accepting only the ones he thought were necessary. He wasn't sure why he had a sudden change, but he liked to believe it was because of Natasha Romanoff. So when she had appeared on his front door, asking for a place to hideout, he had gladly welcomed her with open arms. He had moved since they'd last seen each other. Taking a home in the middle of nowhere that was smaller seeing as it was just him. There was still a spare bedroom for her to sleep in, and he had to assure her multiple times no one knew of it.

He watched her from where he stood in the small kitchen, watching as she sat on the couch with her eyes focused on the television though it seemed she was more distracted with her thoughts. Alec turned back towards the stove, stirring the eggs as they sizzled. When they were good and scrambled he scrapped the eggs onto two separate plates where bacon was already sitting. Steam rose from the plate as he grabbed it and a cup of coffee, walking over to Natasha and handing it to her. She thanked him, watching as he went back to get his own before taking a seat beside of her.

They said nothing to one another. What was he supposed to say? He hadn't talked to her almost five years, and the last they saw one another he found out that his sister wasn't really dead. He still had yet to come around to believing that. If Aurora Grant was still alive, why had he yet to find her? He was good at hunting people down. He even managed to hunt Natasha Romanoff down. So why couldn't he hunt down the one person that meant the entire world to him? Why hadn't he been able to find a single lead on Aurora's whereabouts?

The only thing that could be heard in the small home was the sound of the television program that was playing, as well as the scraping of their forks as the silently ate their food and drank their cups of coffee. Their was a tension there, one that he couldn't quite decipher or figure out how to defuse. All Alec knew was that one second he was sleeping, the next he was forcing himself out of bed when the sound of someone knocking could be heard.

She had looked off. Alec had never see Natasha so rough looking in his entire life―︎and that was saying a lot. She wore baggy clothes, her usually vibrant red hair was dull and covered with dirt and soot. Her face had marks of healing scars on them, the dirt having mostly been washed away by water. She had no phone, no weapons. Alec wanted to know what had happened to the woman he used to call his lover. Not only that, but he wanted to know why she had come running to him of all people.

     He sat his plate of food down on the table, taking another sip of his coffee before sitting the cup down and rubbing his hands together, leaning forwards with his hands clasped together on his legs. "So, are we going to talk, or just continue to sit here in silence that is filled with this odd tension?" Natasha didn't speak. "Alright, I'll start. You look like shit, Romanoff. What the hell happened to you? The last we talked you were thriving. Now. . . you look like you haven't slept in days."

     "The last we talked was five years ago." Natasha finally spoke. She sat her empty plate down on the table, moving the red hair that had fallen in her face. "To be fair, I have somewhere."

     "And yet, you still came running to me."

     "I didn't come running―︎"

     "You are on the run, are you not?" He cut her off, tired of the bullshit she was trying. He knew. He just wanted to see if she would tell him straight up or if he would have to tell her what she already knew. Natasha didn't look at him, clenching her jaw for a moment before unclenching her jaw and pursing her lips. "Are we going to keep playing this unhelpful game of twenty questions or are we going to actually talk like we used to?"

     Natasha didn't speak for a moment. If he already knew, there was no point in hiding it. Alec was one of the only other people she had at the moment. She knew that she could trust him. Just as he could trust her. Taking a deep breath, she nodded. "The Avengers, the team that I'm apart of―︎was apart of, we had this fight. People were taking sides, it ended badly."

     "And let me guess, you played devil's advocate?" Alec wasn't surprised.

     "I didn't play devil's advocate," she argued. "I chose my side, but then. . . realized how badly all of it was going and just helped my friend escape. Now Ross and the entire government is after me." She scoffed. "What's new about that."

     "This team. . . they're your family." Alec watched her. "Except, it's not the side choosing that really messed you up. It was something else. Someone else. You wanna tell me who that someone was?"

     She hated that he could read her like an open book. She was almost regretting coming here to confide in him. It made guilt form in her stomach. She pushed back the tears that so desperately wanted to escape, clearing her throat as she messed with her hands. "Her name's Willow. She's my. . . she was my significant other. We chose the opposite sides. She wouldn't talk to me. She was just so angry and upset about the whole ordeal. I'm not sure what we are anymore."

     "I'm sorry, Natasha." His voice was sincere. "Listen, go take a shower. I'm sure I have some clothes for you somewhere."

     She smirked in amusement. "You still have my clothes?"

     "Really?"

     She shrugged. "What? I'm not the one that kept my ex's clothes."

     "Would you like me to burn them? Or would you like to stop being a pain in the ass and wear them?" She only smirked again before walking away. Alec watched her go, shaking his head with a sigh. "I've just gotten myself into something I shouldn't have, didn't I?" He muttered to himself before forcing himself to stand up, placing the dishes in the sink, and searching for the clothes that he had kept hidden in a box in the back of his closet.