Captain America: Professional Best Friend

Sisters

One day Emma heads to the Compound to talk with Natasha in person about something that Rocket told her in an email the day before. When she arrives, Emma doesn't find Natasha in any of her usual spots. As she begins to wander trying to find Natasha, she hears piano music playing faintly from somewhere in the distance.

Inclined to see who is playing the piano, Emma goes to investigate and follows the sound to the gym where she sees Natasha dancing ballet beautifully. She silently enters the room to watch but is caught quickly by Natasha and her instinctual awareness of her surroundings. Natasha quickly turns off the music and says, "I'm sorry, I didn't expect you for a little while longer."

"No need to apologize. I didn't mean to interrupt," Emma tells her. She pauses and adds, "Your dancing is beautiful by the way."

Natasha smiles weakly and replies, "Beauty and grace in dance were instilled in me from a young age. Dance was one of the only things that made me happy in the Red Room though so I still do it when... well when things get to be too much for me." She takes off her ballet shoes and continues with a quiet laugh, "When things got hard, Steve had the punching bags, you had music you blasted, Sam cooked, but me? I've always danced when things got rough. Up until now, it was a secret I kept to myself."

"Well it can still be a secret if you want," Emma replies and pretends to zip her lips closed and tosses away the fake key.

"Thanks," Nat nods.

As Natasha stands up after taking off her gear and disconnecting her phone from the speaker, Emma asks, "If you don't mind my asking what got to you? You know what made you need to...dance it out and all."

Natasha sighs. She contemplates not saying anything at all but knows that keeping it in isn't helping anyone so she asks, "Can you make some of that famous tea of yours and we can talk?"

"You've got yourself a deal," Emma replies with a smile. After Emma makes the tea she sits down across from Natasha and asks, "So what's on your mind?"

Natasha takes a sip of the hot tea and admits, "There are just some days where I can't handle it all. I miss everyone so much and I feel useless because I can't find a way to bring them back..."

"I know how you feel..." Emma tells her with a sigh. "I didn't leave the lodge for the longest time because I got in such a bad headspace in blaming myself and trying to figure out something to bring them back."

Natasha wipes the tears from her eye and asks, "And you're doing fine now, how'd you get out of that mental space?"

"I couldn't have done it without Steve," she replies. "He finally got me in a place where I could start talking about my feelings instead of holding everything in and that really helped. Being away from all of this probably also helped to separate me from it all. Why don't you try that? You can come live with us again if you want so you don't have to be here reliving what happened all the time."

"Someone has to be here in case something happens, you know that."

"But just sitting around here the past three years hasn't helped your mental health at all, Nat," Emma tells her sadly. She studies Natasha for a few seconds and asks, "It's not just waiting around for the possibility of saving everyone is it?"

"Maybe you're good at this whole reading people thing, Baker," Natasha tries to joke. "But yeah, it's not just waiting around for that. It's also been trying to track down Clint."

"Track him down? Didn't he survive though?"

"Yeah, he did. And that's the thing. Out of his whole family, he's the only one who survived and it broke him. Lately, he's been operating under the name Ronin and killing crime bosses around the world. While that is good for controlling crime and all, obviously there are other more ethical ways that he could be doing that," she tells her.

"Oh God Clint..." Emma whispers. "And you haven't been able to reach out to him?"

"Nope. Phone always goes straight to voicemail and texts are left on read," Nat replies quietly. "I've tried tracking him down but he's my best friend, he's always one step ahead of me because he knows how I operate in and out on these kinds of things."

"I could help if you wanted," Emma offers.

Natasha shakes her head, "While I appreciate the offer, I couldn't take you away from your calm life with Steve. I also don't want you back in the headspace of blaming yourself like before. I can't have anyone else end up like him."

"Well, what about Rhodey? Can he help track Clint down?"

"He's been all over the world trying to help get things back and running. Even after three years, there are still some places in disarray and chaos. He doesn't know about Clint as far as I know and I don't plan on telling him."

"Banner?"

"He's...he's been MIA," Natasha sighs. "The last thing he told me was that he was trying to figure out the whole Hulk situation."

"Damn..." Emma whispers. "And Thor still isn't doing great?"

Nat shakes her head, "Hell I think you've talked with him more recently than I have."

"Well, the only time I can get ahold of him is when he's playing that dumb video game that just came out, and every time I try and get him to talk things out he kills my character and blocks me," Emma tells her. "I can only come up with so many usernames before I run out of ideas."

"Damn..." Natasha whispers. The two sit in silence for a minute in sadness about the disorder all of their friends are in.

As Emma finishes off her tea, she asks Natasha, "Hey, how about to keep your mind off of things, once a week I can drive up here and we can spend quality time together? I play the piano, you dance, and we get all the bad feelings out so things aren't so sad all the time. I can tell you're lonely and I want to be here with you when I can."

Natasha smiles and nods, "I would really, really like that. Thank you, Emma."

So that's what they did. Every week, when Natasha was feeling lonely she would call Emma up for a dance session. Emma would play the piano in the living room area of the compound and Natasha would dance until her feet bled. The freedom of dancing liberated her from the confines of her thoughts so she didn't care about the pain. During this time, the pair strengthened their bond into one that could never be broken, from a bond of friendship to a bond of sisterhood and love.

Well there you have it, folks, the double upload of two tiny chapters, whoops. I'll try and stay on top of uploading, but like I said, between school, two jobs, and writing two other stories I sometimes forget to make time to upload. Anyway, I hope everyone is doing well and I will hopefully be back next weekend with another update!

Whoops I didn't press upload ast night lmao now here ya go!