It had become night in New York when Steve Rogers arrived back at headquarters, Abigail had already left before him to keep Nat company at the meeting. Accordingly, it was even quieter than usual in the huge building. Only in the office there, as in previous years, the light was still on even at this late hour. Natasha Romanoff was tired, but this did not keep her from her self-imposed task of keeping everything going. For the past five years, without Nat, there would have been no Avengers as a functioning group, and it was only through her that their work of rebuilding humanity was fulfilled day after day. In front of her was a peanut butter sandwich with a bite but something forbade her to take another bite. She had just learned about the terrible things her best friend did to people to get revenge for his family. She didn't want to say she didn't understand him, one look at her sleeping girl would disprove that, but revenge could never be the right way.
Natasha was in a daze. She pushed the plate away from her, closed her eyes and pressed her hands in front of her face. Tears were coming, but she couldn't let them. Not now. "I'd offer to cook you dinner, but you seem pretty miserable already," a friendly voice teased her. Natasha lowered her hands and saw Steve Rogers standing in the doorway. "Are you here to do your laundry?" she shot back, trying to sound as informal as possible. "And to see a friend." In his voice resonated compassion and shared sorrow. "Your friend is fine," Natasha lied, knowing full well she wasn't going to convince Steve with that.
She hadn't been able to lie in front of him for a long time; she had let him get too close for that. She had been all the more hurt when he had announced that he was moving out. Because of Abigail's rediscovered father-daughter connection to Steve, he had come by often enough, but it wasn't enough to ease her pain. Everyone had left. Thor to his people, Bruce to the lab, Steve started a new life, and Tony went to Pepper. But she had no one to go to. The only one who had stayed was Abigail.
Steve looked down at his hands and played with his car keys. "I saw some whales when I was driving over the bridge." "In the Hudson?" She tried hard to feign interest, or at least astonishment. But it was clear to both of them that Steve just wanted to avoid the awkward silence between them. In the past, silence between them was never a bad thing, awkward or even bad. It was much more the nonverbal understandings between the two of them. But something had changed between them. Only she could not estimate it whether into the positive or negative.
"Fewer ships. Cleaner water." Steve obviously wanted to sound optimistic. "If you're about to tell me to look on the bright side, um, I'm gonna hit your head with a peanut butter sandwich," Natasha threatened him playfully, pointing to the sandwich on the plate. Steve slowly approached Natasha. "Sorry. Force of habit." He hung his jacket over the back of a
chair, pulled the blanket over Abigail a little higher, and put the car keys on the table.
Then he pulled up a chair and sat with Natasha. She slid the plate with the peanut butter sandwich on it over to offer it to him. Now there was that old familiar silence between them again as they just looked into each other's eyes. Maybe they hadn't changed as much as they thought.
YOU ARE READING
The closest thing to a daughter
Adventure❝ she is the closest thing I ever had to a daughter ❝ - english version Abigail a thief on the run from her past, with extraordinary uncontrolled powers and an unhealthy amount of self-confidence, meets the famous Russian spy Black Widow. Not a g...
