#widowshield

.-.-.-.

Steve and Bucky were a few years older than Natasha, so they were given jobs when they turned ten. Bucky was approved to become a Tinkerer. Steve became a Tinkers Guard.

Natasha twisted wool into yarn for the Weavers and wondered what she wanted to do. Jobs were limited for women. She thought maybe she could be a Weaver. She liked seeing the yarn she made getting turned into blankets and clothes. But Sarah had also mentioned taking her as an apprentice and teaching her medicine, and she liked the idea of healing the people hurt by Hydra, like Sarah had done for her. And if it came down to it, if she didn’t test well anywhere else, she thought she could be one of the Nannies.

And then one day they were at the Market getting their weekly allotment of produce, and a man shouted, “Hail Hydra!” and then opened fire on the shopping crowd.

Natasha felt blood splatter against her cheek and turned her eyes away from the man to look up at Sarah. Sarah was clutching a wound on her side, and she grabbed Natasha with a shout, shoving her behind the squash stall they’d been picking from.

Sarah shouted, “Stay down, Natasha!” just before she was knocked down by another shot through her stomach.

Sarah gave directions through blood-coated lips, and Natasha managed to follow them long enough for other Medics to come after the Hydra soldier was brought down. The Medics brushed her off when she tried to tell them what Sarah had told her, barked at her to just let them work, so she watched as they got Sarah stable, and then carried her away for more treatment.

Natasha stayed behind the squash stall like she’d been told, until Steve found her there.

“They think Ma’s gonna be okay,” Steve said as he gently took her hand in his like he had just a few years ago. “Ma says it’s all thanks to you. Thinks you’ll be a good Medic.”

Natasha remembered the hate on the man’s face as he’d shouted allegiance to Hydra before opening fire on a helpless, civilian crowd and knew that she wouldn’t be following in Sarah’s footsteps.

.-.-.-.

When Natasha was ten, she quietly went to the testing center and approached a woman with her hair pulled into a tight bun and a black outfit. There was an hourglass tattooed on the inside of her left pointer finger. “I want to be a Black Widow,” she informed the woman.

“You have to take the test just like everyone else,” the woman said flippantly, not even looking at her.

Natasha tipped her head back to make eye contact with her, determined. “I want to be a Black Widow.”

“Only a select few from each year are selected for the Black Widow program,” the woman said, clearly dismissing her. “If you score well on your test, perhaps you’ll be considered.”

Natasha set her jaw angrily, but swallowed that anger back down. Black Widows were unflappable. Cold. Calculating. “I will be a Black Widow,” she told the woman firmly.

The woman finally deigned to drop her attention to her instead of the crowd. She took a moment to consider her, head tilted thoughtfully, before the corner of her mouth tipped up just-so. “Even I had to take the test before I was accepted, little one.”

Natasha sat through the aptitude test, doing nothing but writing her name at the top. She did not answer any questions, instead staring at the clock, waiting for the hour to be up.

As soon as the proctor said to put down their pencils, the woman Natasha had talked to came in, took her by the hand, and pulled her aside to take her to the Widows’ Matron.

Sarah cried when she found out, but Natasha was determined. Hydra had stolen her parents. Hydra had tried to steal Sarah right in front of her. Bucky was a Tinkerer, and Steve protected him, so it was only a matter of time before Hydra tried to steal them too.

So she would jam as many cogs in the Hydra machine as she could to try and keep them safe.

She quietly endured grueling training, strict diets and unforgiving exercise regimens. She let Sarah ice her aching muscles, and she let Steve feed her dinner when she was too tired to feed herself, and she watched with quiet, questioning eyes every time Bucky showed her something new that he’d made, like a clockwork toy to prove he knew cogs and wheels or a model of a possible armored vehicle to go between boroughs. She slept when she could and practiced when she couldn’t, bloody blisters healing over into hard calluses until she finally got her skills on point, and then she practiced some more.

When she finally came home with the Black Widows’ hourglass emblem tattooed on the inside of her left pointer finger, skin still raised and feverish, Sarah and Steve scrimped together enough sugar and flour to make her a cupcake. It didn’t have icing, but Steve made a glaze with orange juice.

It was better than anything she’d ever eaten before.

.-.-.-.

Natasha was out on a mission when Hydra converged en masse on their borough. When she finally got back to Brooklyn, the survivors were rebuilding the walls and burying the dead. Others were packing to go to other, safer boroughs. Natasha couldn’t blame them.

“Sarah?” she asked, voice cracking, when she finally found Steve. It had been a trial, figuring out where he was. Tinkerers were guarded more stubbornly than anyone else, and their guards were just a step below that.

Steve didn’t look up from digging. “She didn’t die in the attack. She was sick before you left.”

“Why didn’t she tell me?” Natasha asked, hurt. “They would have given my assignment to someone else. If I’d said she was sick, they wouldn’t have made me go.”

“Ma wanted you to go,” Steve said. “She didn’t want you to see her suffer. That second gunshot wound she got when we were kids never quite healed right. She hid it as long as she could, but eventually she had to tell me what was wrong.” He finally lifted his head. His eyes were red and swollen. “Natasha, they had inside information. They went for the Tinkerers first, and then they went for the Black Widows. If you’d been here, you would have been one of the first wiped out. I was so angry with Ma when she died, because I knew you’d want to be here. But Natasha, she saved your life by letting you go.”

“Steve,” Natasha whispered, eyes filling with tears.

Steve dropped the shovel to approach her, wrapping his arms around her tight enough that she knew she’d have bruises, but she didn’t care, clutching back just as tight. “She saved your life, Natasha,” he whispered back, voice cracking. “And I’m… I’m so glad she passed before this happened, so she didn’t have to see this.”

“What about Bucky?” Natasha asked softly. “Is he―did he―”

“He and a few of the other younger Tinkerers escaped while the older guys held Hydra back,” Steve answered. “They’re being held at a second location as the Council decides whether to relocate them or not.” He leaned back, hands going to her shoulders, and swallowed thickly. “You should. You should go check on the other Widows. I wasn’t… I’m not part of that unit, so they wouldn’t tell me anything. I don’t know what happened to the Black Widows.”

Natasha leaned in to press her forehead to his chest. “Don’t make me go yet. Please.”

Steve swallowed thickly and pulled her back into a hug. He hadn’t just been angry at his ma for a while―he’d been angry at Natasha, too, for leaving. It had only been the shock of learning so many Black Widows had been killed that he’d become grateful for her mission, even though it wasn’t guaranteed that she’d survive the mission itself, either. Seeing her here, now, all the anger and fear melted away, and he’d hold her as long as she’d let him.

.-.-.-.

They’d wiped out a majority of the Black Widows. Natasha found Yelena, Nadia, and Ling, and Dr. Kudrin quietly praying over the graves of their fallen sisters. Apparently they’d come for Dr. Kudrin, and the rest of the Black Widows had laid down their lives to protect her.

“Fools,” Dr. Kudrin spat, running her thumb over the tattoo on the inside of her left pointer finger. “The Widows needed young bodies, not an old matron.”

“Should we accept more students this year?” Yelena asked.

Dr. Kudrin shook her head, looking furious, filled with rage and hate and disgust. “Brooklyn has fallen, and soon the Council will see it. The Tinkerers will be sent to other Boroughs. It is up to you to decide what you will do,” she added, voice softening. “We were one of the few Boroughs with a Widow unit. I’m sure any other Black Widow unit would take you with my letter of recommendation. However, if you don’t want to continue on, any guard would be glad to have your skills.”

“What are you guys going to do?” Nadia asked after Dr. Kudrin had limped away, looking much older than any of them ever remembered.

“I think I’ll transfer to another Black Widow unit,” Yelena said, crossing her arms and leaning against the fence to the graveyard. “It’s what I know best.”

“I think I’ll try at being a Tinkerer,” Ying replied thoughtfully. “I was capable in both areas but chose the Black Widows. I think… I think I’d like to try being a Tinkerer, and if I don’t like it, I’ll always have the option of transferring back. It’s easier to transfer out of Tinkering than in.”

Nadia nodded thoughtfully. “I think I’ll go into the Defenders. I don’t think I could do something that didn’t include physical exertion.” She turned to Natasha. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Natasha admitted. She mostly just wanted to follow Steve wherever he went, but she didn’t know if that was a decent answer or not.

Ying put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed, giving her a sad smile. “Well, you better think on it. If Dr. Kudrin is right… we don’t have a lot of time to actually decide.”

.-.-.-.

They didn’t. Hydra attacked again while they were still reeling with the carnage that had happened only a few weeks previously. The only choice most people had were to fight or to flee, because Hydra was killing anyone in their paths. They weren’t taking any prisoners this time. Natasha found Steve and Bucky, but barely, would have just missed them if Steve hadn’t stopped to beat a stray Hydra soldier to death with his bare hands.

“Steve, we need to go,” Bucky begged, pulling at him. “We need to go! Before more of them come!”

“Steve,” Natasha said sharply. “We need to go.”

“You two go on ahead,” Steve ordered.

“Steve!” Natasha snapped, and Steve seemed to shake himself, head clearing as he let them pull him away.

But as they traveled, it became clear that something in Steve had changed, edges sharper, anger quicker to flare. He took on anyone who wanted to be part of the group regardless of whether it would slow him down. And then when they were outside one of the Boroughs, he said wasn’t going inside.

“What do you mean you’re not going inside?!” Bucky sputtered.

“You all can go,” Steve said calmly. “But I’m going after Hydra.”

“As a Nomad?!” Natasha exclaimed angrily. “Steve! You know how quickly they get picked off by Hydra!”

Steve’s shoulders straightened and his jaw tightened the way they always had when he’d seen someone getting bullied. “I can’t go in there. Not yet.”

“Steve!” Natasha exclaimed again, grabbing his arm. “You know Sarah wouldn’t want this for you! She’d want you to be safe!”

“Well Ma isn’t here to want anything, is she?!” Steve spat.

Natasha took a step back, stunned, his arm slipping through her fingers. It occurred to her that their roles had suddenly reversed, and she had no idea what to do about it.

When she’d been younger, Natasha had wanted nothing more than to leave their Borough to hunt down Hydra, take them out whenever she could. She’d wanted to hurt Hydra for taking away her family. Steve had wanted to stay and protect them. Now Steve was the one full of rage and hurt, he was the one wanting revenge, and all Natasha wanted to do was hold the fraying edges of her family together.

Steve wanted to take from Hydra, and Natasha wanted to keep her family close, and she realized, heart breaking, that nothing she could say would make Steve change his mind. Not with the hurt so fresh.

So she leaned in, pressed a kiss to his lips, and then turned her back on him to go to the Borough, unwilling to watch anyone else she loved die. At least she could rest easy knowing that Bucky was with Steve to try and temper some of that rage. Besides, it would be safer for Steve to have a Tinkerer nearby.

And it had been childish of them to ever think that they’d always be together, anyway.

.-.-.-.

The new Borough was run much differently than Brooklyn had been.

There were no tests, no assigned roles. People helped where they could, filling any empty spaces. Hydra rarely attacked them because the push-back they got was so immense, and Natasha realized with a jolt that it wasn’t because anyone had a duty to anyone else, but because these people genuinely liked each other and didn’t want them to get hurt.

She was told to stand back and observe the next time Hydra attacked, and she watched in awe as groups banded together to face them like her people never had.

“We’re worse in some ways,” a woman with kind eyes said. “We’re larger than most Boroughs, which spreads our Defenders thin, so small skirmishes can really hurt our numbers more than if we were smaller and more compact. But when one of us falls, we’re all the more vicious. No one Borough is better than the other,” she added thoughtfully. “We all have our strengths and weaknesses. But one thing we have on our side is that we’re loyal to each other in times of need. Hydra knows nothing but survival of the fittest, and in the end, it will be their downfall.”

Natasha wondered if she’d ever get to see it, the downfall of Hydra. Her parents hadn’t. Her grandparents hadn’t. Her great and greater grandparents hadn’t. Maybe her children wouldn’t either. But she hoped to leave behind a legacy they could at least be proud of.

They didn’t have Black Widows in this Borough. She was sort of lost, drifting along to see if there might be something similar she could do, or a hole that she’d be comfortable filling like everyone else there. She felt useless, but everyone met her with kind eyes, gave her small jobs to earn her keep instead of just giving to her.

“Brooklyn’s loss is felt across every Borough. They were one of the oldest Boroughs we had, and to know it’s fallen is horrible. But we can’t let our losses hold us back. We mourn, but we move forward,” an old man had told her grimly one day, hand on his heart, and something eased in her at the words. Her home had fallen, but it wasn’t forgotten.

It made it easier to find a hole to fill.

“Oh,” a man said when she stopped to pick up some oranges that had fallen from his basket. “You didn’t need to do that. My mother would have helped me.”

“I thought it would be kinder to help than walk by,” Natasha replied, because she’d seen him struggling to keep up with his mother and juggle two baskets for food. He had a limp, but he didn’t seem self-conscious about it. Still, he’d looked so dismayed when the fruit had fallen, it had been clear that bending to pick them up would have been a chore.

“Oh!” the man said again when she placed the oranges back in his basket and he saw the hourglass tattooed on her finger. “A Black Widow! I’ve heard about you! You were part of the elite guard back in Brooklyn, right?”

Natasha was about to tell him no, but stopped herself. Perhaps, to outsiders, they really looked like that. It was kind of nice to hear, after hearing the whispers behind hands about how they were cruel, and heartless, and too secretive to be trusted, and how could they know it hadn’t been the Black Widows who had betrayed them to Hydra in the first place. “Something like that,” she finally managed.

“Neat!” the man exclaimed, and Natasha couldn’t help but smile. “I’m Tony!” he added, and when he realized he didn’t have a hand free to shake, just nudged shoulders with her. “I’m a Tinkerer, if it makes any difference to you. I know a lot of Boroughs have very strict lines they can’t cross, but here we’re different.”

“I can tell,” Natasha replied, amused, and then held a hand out. “May I take one of your baskets?”

“Sure, if you want to,” Tony answered guilelessly. “Do you have an allowance yet? I know refugees are still trickling in from Brooklyn so supplies are a bit scant. You’re welcome to come eat with us tonight!”

Natasha looked at the food filling the baskets and marveled at it being considered scant. Still, Tony was looking up at her with no expectations of what she should be doing or how she should act. So she nodded once, sharply, and said, “It would be my privilege.”

Tony beamed at her and opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off by his mother calling, “Tony! I’m so sorry, did I leave you behind again?”

“No, I stopped to talk to someone!” Tony called back, and then turned back to Natasha, still smiling. “Mama sometimes forgets I can’t move as fast in crowds.”

“We’d better catch up then,” Natasha replied, and Tony nudged shoulders with her again before he turned to follow his mother further into the market.

Tinkerers didn’t have dedicated guards in this Borough. Natasha sort of became Tony’s anyway.

.-.-.-.

It shouldn’t have surprised her, years later, that Tony decided they were going to take back the Brooklyn Borough.

“It was one of the oldest Boroughs,” he explained as Natasha tried to wipe all of the juice she’d spit on herself in shock off with a napkin. He was staring up at a diagram he’d drawn, lips pursed, hands on his hips, chalk smudged over his left eyebrow. “It used to be about the size of our Borough until Hydra carved pieces out of it. The winters are cold enough that Hydra goes dormant up here, or retreat down to the peninsula. If we waited until the first cold snap and worked until the first thaw, we could get Brooklyn defensible again.”

“This sounds like the worst idea,” Natasha said after some thought. “Your parents would allow you to carry this out?”

“We’re getting spread thin here with the population boom and the refugees,” Tony said grimly. “My dad and I have done the math. We either need to expand or we need to transplant. An expansion that would be as defensible as our walls right now is unfeasible. We presented our findings to the Council. They said they’d put out the word to the population for volunteers to go to resettle Brooklyn.

“Those who stay will have to tighten their belts so that those of us going to Brooklyn will have all the supplies they need to rebuild. But once we have Brooklyn back and thriving, we could work on uniting our Boroughs so we’re a stronger Mega Borough, like they have over on the west coast and up north. Once that’s done, we can focus on taking territory back from Hydra and push them out once and for all.”

Natasha frowned up at the diagram. She didn’t understand most of what went on in Tony’s head. Hadn’t really understood what went on in Bucky’s head, either, but she got the notion that few Tinkerers were actually as smart as Tony and Howard Stark. But if they thought it could work, they were probably right. She wasn’t going to naysay their hard work, especially after watching them spend night after night together, bent over a table, sometimes openly weeping as they realized they would no longer be able to provide for anymore people and would either have to start turning refugees away or start rationing more heavily.

“In Brooklyn, we had a role called the Tinkerers Guard,” Natasha said slowly, calculating.

Tony turned to face her, silent, because she so rarely talked about her time there. It obviously hurt her to remember.

“...I will be your Guard,” she finally decided. She turned toward him. “If you believe it’s possible, then I believe in you. So I will protect you so that you can see the project through.”

“Natasha,” Tony said, looking like he wanted to deny her.

“You’ve said that the Borough depends on this,” Natasha said, tone brooking no argument. “And I saw that the Borough depends on you to see it through. So I will make sure that you can.”

Tony ducked his head, looking humbled and upset, but finally he managed a soft, “Okay.”

Natasha grabbed his shoulders and squeezed. She was not going to let any more her friends wander into Hydra territory and lose them. She would protect what she had to her dying breath.

.-.-.-.

Brooklyn hadn’t been quite finished by the time Hydra had returned, but they hadn’t been expecting the number of occupants in the Borough as had been there, so they hadn’t fought long, just pressing in, testing, before retreating to regroup.

Hydra still managed to kidnap two Tinkerers and steal an entire wagon of seedlings.

Natasha would have gone after just the seedlings, because Tony said they were imperative to Brooklyn becoming self-sufficient. But when she’d learned that one of the Tinkerers taken had been Tony, no one would have been able to stop her from chasing Hydra down anyway. Tony wasn’t just her friend―if his ideas fell into Hydra’s hands, she was certain it would turn the tide in Hydra’s favor. Tony was aware of that, too; he had made her swear to kill him if rescue wasn’t possible, after all.

She almost ran straight into Steve as she approached the Hydra encampment.

“Oh,” Natasha said, surprised, and then fell silent.

Steve looked older. He had longer hair. A beard. These were not… horrible on him. However, the tired eyes, the general downturn of his mouth as if he had not smiled in the years since Brooklyn fell, the dejected fall of his shoulders… this was not the same Steve she’d left behind. This was not the same Steve who had taken her hand when she was six and led her to her new home, her new family.

“What are you doing here?” Steve asked gruffly.

“None of your business,” Natasha snapped back.

Steve drew himself up, then winced and sagged onto the ground with a wounded noise.

And Natasha resented him, but she also still loved him, so she immediately went to his side to brace him before he fell over.

“Surprised to see you out here so close to Hydra,” Steve said, obviously an attempt at trying to be mean, to wound her. “Thought you’d rather hide behind walls like a coward.”

Natasha ignored it, because she was honestly surprised to see he was still alive at all. “You’re wounded,” was all she replied.

Steve grit his teeth, then gave up, falling back into her arms. “They took Bucky,” he explained miserably. “I had to try and get him back.”

“Mm,” Natasha replied, pulling out the spray Tony had invented to close wounds in an emergency. It wouldn’t last long, but it would numb the pain and stop the bleeding long enough for him to retreat. “‘Til the end of the line, right?”

“He begged me to kill him before they took him and I failed him,” Steve whispered, tears in his eyes.

Natasha set her jaw grimly. Steve was a lot of things, but able to kill one of his oldest friends when he thought he had a chance to save him? He would never have been able to pull that trigger. “Brooklyn is being rebuilt,” she began.

“I know,” Steve whispered, wincing as the spray spread over his abraded skin like ice. “We’d heard, and we were coming to see if we could help in any way when Hydra attacked us. I sent the rest of the group on ahead.”

“Well, if nothing else, they can help to defend the Borough in case Hydra comes back while I’m gone,” Natasha figured.

“I was hoping you would be there,” Steve added.

Natasha jerked her hands back, and Steve let out a soft, agonized sound as he fell to the ground, clutching his wound. “You don’t get to do that,” she said, and she hated herself for the way her voice shook. “You made your choice. Revenge was more important than safety.”

“I wanted to tell you that I was sorry, and maybe you were right,” Steve whispered, curled up on the ground.

“Of course I was right,” Natasha spat, even as her mind raced with the thought that she wasn’t, not entirely. She’d expected Steve to be dead, but here it was a decade later and he was still here, still fighting.

Their roles were reversed again, she realized. Steve was giving up, protecting his heart from anymore hurt, and she was the one about to sneak into a Hydra camp to either steal back or kill her Tinkerer and any Hydra soldier who got in her way. She wondered if they’d ever be on the same side, or if they were doomed to this, opposite sides of a coin that flipped for whatever suited them at the moment.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said.

Natasha turned her back on him again. “Get to Brooklyn. The spray won’t last long,” she snapped, not looking back at him.

.-.-.-.

It must have been a necessity of being a Tinkerer to be infuriatingly stubborn, Natasha thought uncharitably.

Even down one arm and pale with blood loss, Bucky had seen Tony struggling to limp after Natasha and had simply scooped him up with his remaining arm to carry him. “You don’t need two arms to run,” he’d said when Natasha had hissed at him to focus on himself.

One thing we have on our side is that we’re loyal to each other in times of need, Natasha suddenly remembered a woman with kind eyes saying. Brooklyn had been all about rigid roles and not stepping out of them unless it was an emergency. Maybe that was what Hydra had taken advantage of that caused Brooklyn to fall.

She yelped when the encampment behind them exploded, a plume of smoke billowing up into the sky. Her feet failed her, and she only barely saved herself from eating dirt, turning quickly to watch, aghast, as the Hydra soldiers in the distance rushed to put out the fire while the Tinkerer who had remained behind, insisting she make a distraction, drove the wagon full of saplings back toward Brooklyn.

“It worked!” Bucky exclaimed, giddy, and Tony giggled against his throat, relieved.

Natasha stared at them, then huffed and got back to her feet. “Let’s not lose the advantage this gave us,” she said sharply, but something in her softened at the smug smiles on both of their faces as they obediently turned to keep running.

.-.-.-.

Steve’s group of Nomads had been larger than Natasha thought. “We called ourselves the Howling Commandos,” Bucky explained as Bruce stitched up the cleaned remains of his arm.

“You would,” Natasha said, rolling her eyes.

“You look good,” Bucky added, giving her a long up-and-down. “Way better ‘n me.”

“It’s not hard to look better than someone who is missing an arm and a pint of blood, Bucky,” she informed him sternly.

“Yeah but my hair’s better,” Bucky insisted.

“Looks like the medicine is working,” Bruce said fondly, rolling his eyes. “You should let him rest. He’s clearly the type to keep chattering away if he knows you.”

“He’s the type to keep chattering away if he doesn’t,” Natasha replied, amused, but reached out to squeeze his uninjured shoulder. “Heal up fast, okay? Tony might need some more clever ideas to go with his own.”

Bucky nodded, made a face, then flopped backward. “Sleeping now.”

“Fuck!” Bruce exclaimed angrily. “Idiot! I’m still stitching your fucking arm!”

Natasha quickly left Bucky to his scolding because you only needed to be scolded by Bruce once to know you never wanted it to happen again. She went to find Tony instead, now that she knew Bucky would be alright, scolding from Bruce notwithstanding.

To say that she was upset when she found Steve rubbing up and down Tony’s scarred thigh would be an understatement, but she had been trained not to react with emotions, so she swallowed down her protective rage to observe instead.

“A man who called himself Dr. Erskine taught me this,” Steve was explaining quietly. “It’s supposed to help stretch the scar tissue so it’s not so painful to walk. One of my Commandos got injured and we had to rub his leg like this every morning and evening for three months to make sure he got a full range of motion back.”

“Are you sure you should be doing this?” Tony asked, uncertain. “You’re injured, too―”

Steve shrugged it off. “Doesn’t hurt much.”

Tony looked like he wasn’t certain he believed him.

Natasha definitely didn’t believe him, so he came up and pinched his side just so, enough to make him hurt but not enough to render him useless. “Sit down and shut up,” she said sternly, and Steve sighed but obediently let her sit him down on the chair next to Tony. “Idiot. Still as reckless as ever.”

Steve sighed, shoulders sagging, and opened his mouth.

“You wanna talk reckless?!” Tony exclaimed, offended. “You went to take on a Hydra base alone!”

“Yes, but I’m not injured,” Natasha reasoned, and then gave him a sharp look. “I’d like to speak to Steve. Privately.”

“Fine, but you’re gonna tell me all the details later,” Tony mumbled petulantly, taking her hand so she could tug him to his feet. He gave her a dirty look over his shoulder as he limped away.

Natasha waved after him, unperturbed. “Take a nap, Tony.”

“I’m not sleepy,” Tony muttered, and stalked off to go tell some of the Commandos what they could do to help hurry along the rebuilding of the walls before Hydra could regroup and come back.

“Spunky,” Steve commented, trying and failing not to sound exhausted.

Natasha turned back to him, frowning in concern, and reached out to run her fingers through his hair before she could stop herself. He tipped his head to lean into it, eyes drifting closed, and let out the softest sound of pleasure. Natasha sighed softly. “Don’t know if the hair and beard suits you,” she said mildly. She remembered all those years ago, when he’d been young and clean-cut and ready to swing. He’d changed a lot since then.

Then again, she thought, so had she.

“You were right,” Steve said after a minute.

Natasha sighed again. “So were you.”

“I wish we could have been right together,” Steve whispered miserably. “I missed you.”

“Leaving you behind to become a Nomad was like having to cut off my right arm,” Natasha admitted quietly. “And I still wonder if it was the right choice.”

Steve looked up at her, smiling sadly. “At the time, it definitely was. I was too angry to see it, but you know me. I’m an idiot.”

“It’s part of your charm,” Natasha teased. “All heart, no brain.” She took the sting out of the statement by running her fingers through his hair again, playing with the bristles at his nape. “You always did have a head for battle,” she mused when he said nothing, instead letting his eyes drift closed to just enjoy her fingers in his hair. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you lasted so long. I bet you’re Hydra’s boogeyman.”

“Might get mentioned around their campfires on full moons,” Steve replied, smirking up at her. “But then, not as much as the Black Widows.”

Natasha tilted her head, conceding. There was a reason Hydra had gone after the Black Widows in the initial surge―they were dangerous because they melted into the shadows and waited for the right moment to strike, sometimes even heedless of their own safety. Natasha had heard that a Black Widow had waited in place for three hours just for the chance to take out a high-ranking general at the cost of her own life. It made sense to take them out first.

“I missed you,” Steve said again, face softening. “The years have been really good to you.”

“In some ways,” Natasha agreed, thinking of the meals she’d gotten that were much larger than in Brooklyn, and the way the Starks had welcomed her in with open arms. “In other ways, they were bad,” she allowed, remembering all the times she’d felt useless, like she was wasting their resources because she didn’t know what to do to earn her keep, or the dark nights when she thought about Steve, so full of anger and hate for Hydra, and how she’d turned her back on him.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said when she finally met his eyes. “That I couldn’t be who you needed me to be all those years ago.”

Natasha nodded. “I’m sorry too,” she replied quietly. But just like she’d never change for him, he’d never change for her, either. It was just the way things were. She brought her hand down to rub her thumb over his beard thoughtfully. “What are you going to do now?”

Steve sighed like a weight had been taken off his shoulders, as if he’d just been waiting for her to ask. To his merit, he mulled the question over a long time. “I wandered because Hydra had stolen my home,” he finally answered. “I couldn’t stand to make a home in a Borough that also might get taken away. I guess that’s selfish, but I couldn’t stand the thought of being a refugee when my home was miles away, cracked open by Hydra. And now that they’re rebuilding… I guess I want to stay. Make sure it’s done right. But better. Tony has all these good ideas to make it safer, more resilient, and I… I want to make Brooklyn my home again.”

“It’s not selfish,” Natasha replied quietly. “You lost so much to protect our Borough, I’m sure it hurt to even think of leaving it behind.”

“You lost so much, too,” Steve said, dropping his head to look down at his clasped hands. “But you still moved on. You could have been happy there.”

“Happy enough, I suppose,” Natasha agreed. “But never as happy as I was when I was with you.”

Steve looked up at her, so mournful that she nearly took a step back in surprise. “I’m sorry that I made you wait.”

Natasha stared down at him for a moment, then reached out to take his hands, running her thumbs over his knuckles, the bruised and battered and wind-scarred skin. “One way or another, we would have made the other wait. I think… I think this way was the best. Neither of us had to sit idly at home, wondering, waiting. You went out and did what you had to do to get back at Hydra, and I found someone else to take care of. Who would take care of me, too.”

“Are… are you and Tony-?” Steve began, swallowing the lump in his throat.

Despite his obvious anguish, Natasha had to snort. “No. Well, we maybe kissed once or twice,” she added, wanting to be upfront with him. “But that was mostly loneliness. It’s hard being the smartest Tinkerer in the Borough,” she explained. “Or the only Black Widow some of those people would ever see.”

Steve managed a half-smile. “I know the feeling.”

Natasha wondered at who Steve might have kissed, but decided it didn’t matter. She didn’t think she would have liked a kiss with anger and anguish biting at its heels. “I think you’d be a great captain of the Defenders,” she said after a moment.

“And you?” Steve asked. “What will you do? Become a Widows Matron?”

Natasha thought about it. “I’m going to garden,” she said.

“...Huh?” Steve said after a minute. “You’re going―what?”

“One good thing Tony’s Borough taught me was to help where it was needed, assigned role be damned,” Natasha explained, smiling a little. “The other Boroughs can have the Black Widows. Brooklyn doesn’t need them anymore. So I’ll go where I’m needed most. But mostly, I’m going to garden.”

Steve stared up at her, wondering, quiet. Finally, though, his lips spread into a familiar smile that she’d missed so much she ached with this one. “Bet you look good with dirt on your hands.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Natasha asked him coyly, and finally bent down to press a kiss to his lips.

It was better, this time. Steve had the chance to kiss her back now, and he took it, rough hands cradling her face, pulling her close and leaning in to meet her with so much emotion that it was hard to believe they’d only ever shared a few kisses before. Those hadn’t been their roles growing up, to soften for each other and care as much as they had.

They didn’t have those roles now, though, and she couldn’t help a soft whimper as he finally broke the kiss to lean back and stare up at her as if he’d never seen anything as beautiful as the sight of her after he’d kissed her.

“Steve,” Natasha said softly.

“Yes,” Steve answered, thumbs stroking over her cheeks.

Natasha leaned in so that her lips brushed his when she spoke. “You’re going to have to shave that beard off if you want more.”

It took a moment, but then Steve leaned back with a bark of laughter hard enough that he immediately had to grab his stitches with a wince. “Ow fuck. Really?” he asked, amusement dancing in his eyes despite the pain.

“You can keep the hair though,” Natasha mused. “I guess that’s okay.”

“You guess?” Steve repeated, laughing again, and then wrapped an arm around her waist to tug her down into his lap.

Natasha yelped, and for a moment she felt utterly embarrassed, like she should jab him in the ribs and flee. But no one was looking at them askance, and the few looks they did get before people moved their gazes away out of respect were fond, not like the looks they would have received before, if not a downright scolding.

They had new roles now, and those roles allowed for this, Natasha told herself sternly. It might take a while for her to believe it though.

Steve’s face was soft and open and with no remorse on it as he whispered, one last time, “I missed you.”

Natasha cupped his cheeks and leaned down for another soft kiss before she whispered back, “‘We mourn, but we move forward.’ Don’t dwell on what-ifs, Steve. Focus on me now, here, in your arms. That’s how it’s going to be from now on.”

Steve leaned back a little to peer up at her through heavy-lidded eyes before he let out a soft, mournful sob and buried his face in her chest.

Natasha wondered if he’d ever really gotten to mourn under the onslaught of all his rage and hate. Perhaps Tony’s Borough had been good for that, too―no one had ever told her not to be angry, not be sad, but they’d taught her the gift of moving on, too.

Tony only realized he might have made a mistake when he was the only boy that turned up to class, and all the girls were looking at him curiously. He didn’t have a chance to bail, though, because Jarvis was already sitting down with his things, and the teacher had welcomed him in warmly. She seemed to sense his hesitancy and said, “Ladies, if you’re good and help Anthony, maybe we can celebrate the end of class with lifts.”

All of the girls were excited for lifts, so they welcomed Tony with open arms.

It was exhausting, but fun, and probably the best thing that had ever happened to Tony, because suddenly he had friends—tiny ones, but fierce: Natasha pushed Tony technically, and Jan insisted that he have fun, and Jane talked about the stars with him, and Sharon helped him practice whenever they were both visiting Aunt Peggy, and Darcy showed him how to close his fist so he wouldn’t break his thumb if he ever had to punch someone. Even after some of the girls left ballet, either growing out of it or finding other interests, they kept in contact.

Howard pitched a fit when Tony decided to become a professional ballerino, but at that point, Tony didn’t care what Howard thought. He only went to school because Maria had asked him to get a degree to fall back on when he could no longer perform. He thought Maria’s request was more reasonable than his father’s.

Tony joined a troupe with Natasha, and they debuted in The Firebird together, and the rest was history.

.-.-.-.

I saw you in The Sleeping Beauty. You were perfect. I enjoyed seeing you as Prince Désiré. I haven’t been so enchanted since I saw you play Solor in La Bayadere. It’s always a pleasure to see my art help you with yours. ⭐

Tony smiled and ran his thumb over the little red star that served as a signature. He hadn’t thought that the man who made his shoes would actually go see his performances. Then again, he clearly loved ballet, at least to the point that it was his livelihood. Perhaps he liked seeing his product in use.

“You gonna kiss your love note or not?” Natasha asked, snapping her gum at him obnoxiously.

“Rude,” Tony answered immediately. “You’re rude.” But he did press a kiss to the note anyway.

Natasha wrinkled her nose at him. “Gross. Why don’t you kiss your shoes, too?”

“Don’t pretend you’re not jealous,” Tony scoffed.

Natasha remained unmoved. “I’m not jealous. You’ve been pining after this guy since your mother got him to make your shoes. You know he makes quality shoes for other people, right?”

“I—know that,” Tony answered defensively. Because he did know that, despite what his friends might think. Hell, the guy made Natasha’s pointes, so it’s not like he could even pretend he didn’t. “Of course I know that.”

“You should let me set you up on a date,” Natasha suggested. “Have some fun. Date an actual person instead of a scrap of paper and some shoes. Maybe get a dick up your ass instead of that massive stick—”

Tony gasped, scandalized. “I’ll have you know I have exactly zero sticks up my ass, you absolutely horrible friend!”

“Hmmm, seems fake,” Natasha replied, and snapped her gum again. “Whatever. I’ll just set up Steve again.”

Tony turned back to her, interested now. “Can I sit behind a potted plant with you and watch him crash and burn again?”

“I don’t know why he’s so bad at dating,” Natasha complained, spinning slowly in her chair as she thought about it. “He never has this much trouble on our practice dates.”

“I have no idea why that might be,” Tony lied, straight-faced, and watched her huff in annoyance as she tried to figure out why Steve could go on dates with her and not anyone else. When he gave his Man of Honor speech at their wedding, he was going to cite these incidents viciously.

Instead of telling her that, though, he turned back to his desk and penned off a quick response before he got wrapped up in sneaking after Steve on another Bad Date.

I’m so glad you got to see my performance! Your shoes never fail to impress me. Next time I’ll definitely be thinking of you when I take the stage. :) I only wish I could wear pointes more often. Your work is even lovelier on them and I wish I could truly appreciate it as much as the ballerinas. I look forward to the next pair, tesoro mio.

.-.-.-.

Of course I go to your shows, Tony. I go to as many as I can. One of my favorite techniques to watch you perform is the saut de basque. Cabrioles are beautiful to watch as well. It helps that your legs go on for miles. I’ve said before that I didn’t really choose this job, the job chose me, and sounded pretty bitter about it. I’m not bitter anymore, not after watching you fly across that stage wearing shoes I made. Thank you for that, Tony. I appreciate it more than you’ll ever know. ⭐

“Your face is on fire,” Natasha said, leaning in very close to his face.

Tony screeched and jerked away from her, falling out of his chair. “Nat!”

Natasha smirked, raising an eyebrow. “What did your ‘tesoro’ say? Did he tell you something racy? Have you guys progressed to lurid correspondence? Did he send you a picture of his dick?”

“Don’t be gross!” Tony exclaimed, flushing darker, and yelped when she snatched the note from his hands. “Natasha!”

“What did he say that turned you into a tomato?” Natasha asked, grinning wickedly, and used her foot to hold him down so she could read it. “Did he proposition you? Did he give you a place to meet?”

“Give it back!” Tony whined, reaching up weakly.

“Ooh, your legs go on for miles,” she said gleefully. “How brazen.” She was going to continue teasing him, but then she got to the end. “Oh,” she whispered, and dropped her hand to return the note to him. “Sorry.”

Tony snatched it back and held it to his chest, blushing. He waited for her to leave before he got up off the floor and climbed back into his seat.

Yes, his shoemaker had told him how he’d mostly been forced into the role, when he’d been young and poor and had needed to help feed his younger sisters back in his home country. He’d been bitter about it for years--he’d wanted to go to school, be an engineer, or a mechanic, or something like that. He’d done as asked (he adored his little sisters, after all) and had done well for himself, and he was mostly happy with how his life had turned out. He’d always been resentful for his beginning though.

And Tony had made him forget all that, if only for a moment.

Tony clutched the note to his chest, hands shaking, and wondered if he was reading into it too much. He couldn’t be though, could he? He’d been as much as told that he’d been the one to make him feel better about his art. He couldn’t be misconstruing that. Could he? What if he was only seeing what he wanted to see because he was pining?

Tony got up so he could pull the box full of notes out from under his bed, each of them carefully dated and filed from years of correspondence. He started from the beginning, a simple note jotted down like an afterthought, a quick Hope you like the shoes. The second note had come with a handful or Russian toffees, just as brusque but softened with the sweets. The notes had gotten warmer the more Tony had replied, until finally they had accumulated in him being told that his dancing had kept his shoemaker from feeling so bitter about the job that had been forced on him. Tony didn’t think he was overreaching for thinking that there was something more there.

He went through the notes one more time before going back to his desk to write his response.

I appreciate that, tesoro mio. I was so flattered to read that my performance could make you forget your bitterness that it about knocked the breath out of me. At this point, it’s not a new pair of shoes that excites me anymore--it’s your notes that come with them. I love hearing from you, even if it’s just a sentence or two. It always brightens my day.

Tony was pretty sure he would have continued on and embarrassed himself (would his tesoro still make his shoes if he confessed his undying love to him?) except then the door to his room opened again and a styrofoam cup was set just inside.

Tony recognized the red nail polish. “You can come in, you know. I’m only a little mad at you still.”

“I am still too ashamed to show my face.”

“Natasha.”

“Leave me to wallow in my misery,” Natasha said and shut the door again.

Tony rolled his eyes and got up to go over to the door. He pulled it open and leaned out. “Natasha.”

Natasha hissed and disappeared back into her own room. “Wallow, I said.”

“I will let you wallow for fifteen minutes,” Tony sighed. “And then we’re going to binge-watch The Land Before Time. You only made it through half of the first one.”

“Never,” Natasha said, muffled by her door. “You won’t trick me with that sad nonsense.”

“It has a happy ending, Natasha.”

“My wallowing doesn’t start until you leave me alone.”

Tony bit back a retort and instead started the timer on his phone, because he was still mad enough to be petty about this. He leaned down to pick up the cup and took a sip.

When he realized it wasn’t a green smoothie, like he’d thought, and was actually a mocha milkshake from his favorite diner, he figured he could cut Natasha a little slack.

.-.-.-.

Tony had always known that being the son of Howard Stark could be dangerous. He just hadn’t thought he’d be a target after he went toward ballet instead of explosives. He didn’t know why he’d thought otherwise, though. He and Janet were from two very influential families. Of course they’d still be targets.

“Tony,” Jan whispered, tears in her eyes, as she clasped his hand in both of hers and rocked back and forth beside him where he was lying on the ground. “Tony, Tony, Tony.”

“Don’t look at it,” Tony said, gripping her hand tight.

“Tony, your leg.”

“Don’t look at it,” Tony repeated sharply.

Jan let out a sob. “You should have let them do it to me.”

Tony glared up at her, knowing his anger was misplaced but feeling too helpless to do anything about it. “Don’t be stupid, Janet. DO NOT. Look at it. Just keep your eyes on my face.”

Jan nodded helplessly, sobbing again, then dipped to instead bury her face in his chest. Tony held her there so she couldn’t turn her head, instead stroking a hand up and down her back. He never would have let their kidnappers torture her, and he knew she knew that. He wouldn’t change anything for the world.

But he didn’t look at his leg either.

.-.-.-.

Tony heard Natasha screaming and opened his eyes, even though it was hard, because he felt floaty and far away. He didn’t know a lot of Russian--he hadn’t had a lot of time to learn around ballet and his school work, and by the time he’d graduated he’d lost interest--but he knew the swears. Natasha’s screams were of anger. ‘Those bastards’ and ‘who would dare’ and ‘I will murder them’ and ‘how could they.’ Tony managed to turn his head to look at his mother.

“Yes, dear,” Maria said gently, and stood to go calm Natasha down without him having to say a word.

Maria brought Natasha in fifteen minutes later, and it was the worst he’d ever seen her--her mascara had run down her flushed cheeks, and her eyes were red and puffy. Her hands were red as if they’d been hitting something. Maybe the floor or the wall? Maria led Natasha to a seat and helped her take Tony’s hand, then excused herself so they could be alone.

Natasha whispered some more threats under her breath before letting out a little sob. “Tony.”

“Hi, Natasha,” Tony whispered.

Natasha pressed her forehead to the back of his hand. “Who will be my Prince Siegfried now, Tony?”

Tony smiled. “You made Odette? Natasha, I’m so happy for you. I knew you could do it.”

Natasha managed a smile for all of two seconds before sobbing again. When they’d realized they were the only two from their classes who planned on pursuing ballet as a career, they’d dreamt of playing Odette and Prince Siegfried together. Tony had played Prince Siegfried a couple times, but Natasha was always passed over for Odette. And now that she got to be Odette… Tony couldn’t be her partner. It wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair.

“Natasha,” Tony said gently. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” she answered immediately, and then bit her bottom lip. It wasn’t okay. But if Tony wanted to pretend it was, it would be selfish of her to say otherwise. Then she gasped, jerking back in her seat. “Tony, your tesoro!”

Tony’s smile faded, and he was glad for the painkillers. He was too floaty to get too distressed about it. “Natasha, they broke my knee,” he said, voice wobbling. “Shattered it into five pieces.”

Natasha bit her bottom lip to keep from sobbing again and just held his hand tightly.

Tony’s fibula and tibia would heal, and he might have been able to go back to ballet after about six months and some muscle building exercises. But his knee… God, his knee. He’d known he was ruined as soon as that crowbar had hit his kneecap. He might be able to dance again, for fun, but he wouldn’t be able to do the harder moves, the long extensions, the quick leaps. He wouldn’t be able to safely do lifts without the threat of collapsing under the extra weight, of hurting his partner.

He wouldn’t go through shoes, wouldn’t be able to show them off. It would be a long time before he could even put the shoes on. His shoe-maker would surely lose interest in him in that time. After all, he’d said Tony’s performances had made him less bitter. What use was Tony to him now, when he might never dance again?

“...Natasha,” Tony said after a moment.

She sniffed and lifted a hand to dry her eyes quickly. “Yeah?”

“I can eat all the junk food I want,” Tony breathed. “I’ve eaten seven bowls of ice-cream.”

Natasha stared at him, aghast, before letting out an ugly braying sound of laughter. She was immediately mortified.

“I wish Steve had been here to hear the noise you just made,” Tony lamented. He let his eyes drift closed, forced them open again. “Natasha? I am going back to sleep now.”

“Okay,” Natasha answered quietly, stroking her thumb over his knuckles. “Okay, Tony. Go back to sleep.”

“Natasha,” Tony said sleepily.

She leaned in a little. “Yeah, Tony?”

His eyes drifted open a little, and his expression when stern. “Don’t look at my leg. Don’t. It’ll only upset you.”

Natasha couldn’t help a little jerk of surprise, but nodded resolutely. “Alright, Tony.”

Tony narrowed his eyes at her, but mostly just looked like he was squinting. “Promise.”

“I promise,” Natasha agreed easily. She wouldn’t look. She’d already seen it when she came in. She was secretly glad it was Jan with Tony and not her. She’s pretty sure she would have died the moment she saw the crowbar come down on Tony’s knee.

Tony looked at her a little longer, then promptly passed out, nearly rolling off his pillow.

Natasha laughed again, then clapped a hand over her mouth, embarrassed. God, she was so glad Steve wasn’t here to hear her laughing like an idiot.

.-.-.-.

On the fourth week of bed rest, Tony handed Natasha a note and asked her to send it to their shoemaker. Natasha agreed quietly and took it from his shaking hand.

She peeked before she put it in the envelope and immediately wished she hadn’t, tears rolling down her cheeks as she took in Tony’s looping cursive.

I’m sorry, tesoro mio. I’m so sorry. I hope you’ll find someone else to watch. Goodbye.

.-.-.-.

“Am I a cyborg now? I feel like I should get to be called a cyborg if I set off security detectors when I go through them now,” Tony said, tipping his head back to look up at Steve. “You’re not wearing your uniform, Steven.”

“Maybe I’d be wearing the slutty nurse costume if you’d gotten it in any color other than pink,” Steve replied with good humor. “Also! I’m your physical therapist, not your nurse.”

Tony frowned. “What do you have against pink? Too girly for you?”

“Nah, pink just washes me out,” Steve said, shrugging. “Makes me look sickly. Or like a vampire. And you had your patella wired back together, Tony, not given an entirely new knee, so you can’t be a cyborg, sorry.”

“Mean. I’ll tell Natasha you were mean,” Tony whined. “Also if you’re my physical therapist why do I have to stay in the wheelchair? Why can’t I have my crutches?”

Steve scowled down at him. “Because you tried to fucking escape when you finally had crutches, Tony.”

Tony opened his mouth, then shut it with a pout. He had tried to escape. The only reason he hadn’t made it was because Steve had caught him and carried him back into the tiny gym.

“Anyway, if you behave, I’ll let you use your crutches in here next week,” Steve said, ruffling his hair. “Come on. We’ll start with ankle pumps today. Sooner you get done, sooner you can meet Natasha for lunch.”

“TONY,” Natasha shouted, bolting into the room. She looked harried, wild-eyed and cheeks flushed from running.

“Or you can meet Natasha now,” Steve joked, only to let out a startled noise when she shoved him aside. “Nat!”

“You’re in my way,” Natasha snapped, then pressed a kiss to his cheek to take some of the sting out of it. She turned to Tony, shoving an envelope in his face. “Here.”

Tony took the envelope because he was afraid if he didn’t, Natasha might slap him with it. He turned it over in his hands before looking up at her in confusion. “Natasha, what--”

“We’ll leave you alone to read it,” Natasha told him, and tried to surreptitiously push Steve away. When he didn’t move at all, she turned to glare at him. “Oh my God. Steve.”

“We’re in the middle of an appointment,” Steve pointed out, putting his hands on his hips. “Just because you guys are my friends--or because you’re my girlfriend--doesn’t mean I can push back all of the appointments after Tony’s because you think he needs to read a letter. Fun fact! We are actually in my place of business and this is my job. Tony, ankle pumps.”

“Steve,” Natasha hissed, and then wrapped her hands around the back of his neck so she could drag him down and whisper in his ear.

Tony watched Steve’s expression go from annoyance, to confusion, realization, honest joy, and then annoyance again. He had really good facial expressions. Tony didn’t understand why Steve was so bad at playing charades when they hung out.

“I don’t need you to blow me for this,” Steve hissed, then blushed when he noticed Tony was watching. “Okay! Sometimes having emotional workouts are good therapy too! So, you do that, and I’m going to go explain to Natasha that I’ve been waiting for her for years so she doesn’t need to use sexual favors when I’m actually wrapped around her little finger and she can just tell me what she wants.”

“Good luck,” Tony called out after them as Steve dragged Natasha away, already ranting about all the shitty dates he went on to make her happy and do you think he’d do that for anyone else.

Tony waited until they were on the other side of the room, then looked back down at the envelope with a frown. It had no return address on it, so it couldn’t be from one of the places he’d sent an application to, and the front only had his name on it, no actual address. Who could it possibly be from? He was almost afraid to open it. It had to be important, though, for Natasha to have run it in to him, especially since she’d been planning on a quiet yoga session to decompress before she had to return to practice the next day.

So he opened it, no matter how nervous he was. And then covered his mouth with one hand so Steve and Natasha wouldn’t hear his surprised sob.

Tony, I heard about what happened. I’m so very sorry. I fretted for days, thinking about how scared and angry you must have been. Part of why I loved watching you was because you clearly loved to dance. Your passion for it was in every step you took, every turn, every smile and wink you gave to the audience. Someone stole that from you. And I know it’s selfish, but they stole it from me, too. They stole the opportunity to watch you leap across the stage, to watch you lift your partners and move them around like they weigh nothing, to watch you bow at the end of the performance and blow kisses to the audience. I always used to pretend that one of those kisses was specifically for me. Now you’ll never be able to do it again, and it kills me, knowing that you wanted to keep dancing and someone put an end to that. I cried when I saw your last note. It seemed to hit home then that you might never dance again, even for fun. You wouldn’t need my shoes. I wouldn’t have an excuse to send you notes. You wouldn’t have a reason to send me any notes back. I hadn’t realized how much I’d loved receiving them, how much I loved to send my own. I realized that I don’t want to live a life without you in it, Tony, even if it’s only through notes. You called me your treasure. Don’t throw me away because you think you’re not what I want anymore. Don’t cut me out of your life. I know so much has happened to you recently. You’re still healing physically, and you’re probably still dealing with the trauma of being kidnapped and tortured, and the fact that you might not ever be able to dance again. I have no right to ask for anything from you while you heal. But I want you to have time to think about my request, so I figured I’d put it all down on the line right now and you can do with it what you wish. I care about you, and I still want to be in your life. Will you meet me, Tony? Can we meet face-to-face? Can we be more than just notes and letters to each other? Can I kiss you? Reading back, this entire letter is selfish, and I’m sorry. If you don’t want to meet me, you can just ignore the entire thing. Throw it in the trash, or burn it. You can forget about me if you want, if it’ll make you feel better, help you heal. But I hope you’ll give me a chance. We’ve been through so much together, Tony, from when you were just one of the soldiers in the Nutcracker all the way up to when you made Solor in La Bayadere. I know I was just a nameless pair of hands making your shoes, but you were the a bright spot in a very dark part of my life to me. If you decide you don’t want to meet, that’s fine. I just couldn’t live with myself knowing I didn’t try to reach out at least once more. I hope you’re doing well, Tony. I hope you’ll continue to do well, regardless of whether we meet or not. You deserve it. ⭐

Tony stared down at the letter for a long moment before setting it down on his lap and wrapping his arms around himself. He was broken. He couldn’t even walk at this point. And he--his shoemaker still wanted to talk to him? Wanted to see him? (...Wanted to… to kiss him?) Tony couldn’t even stand up for a kiss to be comfortable. But maybe… maybe his tesoro wouldn’t care.

He didn’t seem like the type to care, anyway. Tony didn’t know him that well outside of the notes and letters, though. Maybe once they met in person, his shoemaker would realize the extent of his injury, see that he was truly never going to get back on the stage. Tony didn’t think he had the strength to handle that, after losing his ability to practice his passion for the last twenty years. He’d been telling himself ‘you would have had to retire soon, anyway,’ and it had helped a little. But on his darkest nights when he was alone and in pain, he thought about how at least he would have had a choice then, to retire; not been savagely beaten and then had his leg broken and his knee shattered.

Tony got the feeling that those dark nights would now be accompanied with thoughts of what he would do if his shoemaker turned his back on him.

“Steve?” Tony called out, voice cracking.

Steve turned from where he was very patiently pointing out that every single bad date he’d been on had been bad because he chose for them to be immediately, frowning. “Everything alright?”

Natasha turned too, concerned. If she’d known the letter was going to make Tony cry, she wouldn’t have brought it to him so quickly.

Tony stared down at the floor for a while, then looked back up, voice weak as he said, “I want to do ankle pumps.”

Steve let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding as he began toward him. “Okay. Okay, yeah, let’s do ankle pumps to warm you up and then practice walking so you don’t run over. You can do all the other laying-down exercises at home, okay?”

“Okay,” Tony said, setting the letter aside and reaching out for his hands so that Steve could help pull him up out of the wheelchair. He paused in confusion when Steve just held his arms instead of helping him over to the bench to lie down. “...Steve?”

“Everything’s going to be okay. You know that, right?” Steve said after another moment. “I know people have told you that, but I’m saying it now too. Things might not be great, they might not even be good for a while. But everything is going to be okay, and okay is a very fine thing to be until it can get better, Tony.”

Tony swallowed thickly as he was finally eased down onto the bench, blinking back tears. Yes, everyone had been telling him that things would be okay. But hearing Steve say it like that… it made him feel a lot better. He didn’t have to be doing well. He just had to be doing okay.

.-.-.-.

“I want to be able to walk without help before I meet him,” Tony explained over an extremely decadent lunch of nothing but noodles and meat. “So I might need your help with some of my home exercises.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow and tried not to be jealous of the amount of carbs he could eat now that he no longer had a dancer’s diet. “You mean like telling you to do them?”

“Haha,” Tony deadpanned. “No, I need you to help me stretch my hamstring.”

“I can do that,” Natasha agreed easily. She tried to sneak a noodle off his plate and sighed when he smashed it with his fork and gave her a dirty look. “But you are going to meet him then?”

Tony was silent for a moment, stirring his noodles in circles, before looking back up at her. “I thought about saying no, but there’s this annoying little voice in the back of my head that kept chanting ‘but what if.’ Sounded annoyingly like you.”

Natasha was affronted for a moment but then she was just pleased. “Nice to know I was rubbing off on you at least a little.”

“Ngh,” Tony groaned, rolling his eyes. “We’ve lived together for a decade, Natasha. Something had to rub off on me.”

“Well it clearly wasn’t my common sense, otherwise you’d have had more sex,” Natasha said. “When was the last time for you? Six years ago with Pepper? If this doesn’t work out, I’m setting you up on dates again.”

Tony stared at her for a long time before waving down a passing waitress. “Miss, could I get the sweetest, fattest dessert you have?”

Natasha gasped, mortally offended. How dare he taunt her with food she couldn’t eat like this.

.-.-.-.

It took six months for Tony to finally gain enough strength in his leg that he didn’t limp. The screws still hurt, sometimes, but the break (shattering) had been so bad that the doctors were hesitant to remove them so soon, if they ever did at all. Tony was only slightly upset about it. It might suck in the winter, when things got cold, but he was honestly a little scared to go back into surgery.

He didn’t have to think about that for a while, though. He had other things to focus on. He had a job now, at a high school, teaching science. It wasn’t what his parents had wanted (even Maria had wanted him to go into business) but he was… happy. Happy enough, anyway. He’d always planned on going into teaching, just… not so soon.

Luckily his students were great. He’d still been on crutches when he’d gotten the job, but the students had been so kind, opening doors and carrying his things for him until he’d been able to carry them himself. The other teachers were nice, too. The principal, Mr. Fury, was kind of a hardass, but he only wanted the kids to do their best, so Tony could put up with it. He’d struggled his first few months of the job, still depressed from his injury and loss of his career, and having to figure out how to actually teach, but he was pretty settled finally, and it helped that he could carry his own things now.

Tony looked down at the box of chocolates in his lap, feeling like an idiot. He was meeting his shoemaker, not going on a date. (Maybe? His tesoro had scratched out the kissing part. He probably shouldn’t put too much stock into it.) He felt a little lost. It felt like this meeting was going to be a turning point in his life, but he couldn’t imagine his life turning anymore than it had when his knee had been shattered.

He turned and looked over at Natasha and Steve, who were hiding in plain sight by having a picnic underneath a tree nearby. Natasha rolled her eyes fondly, and Steve waved, and Tony felt himself relax a little. If anything went wrong, they would come help him. He tried not to think about how things might go wrong, instead smoothing his hands over the top of the box. He hoped his shoemaker liked it. He’d never really asked about his favorite foods or anything, but his tesoro had always thanked him whenever he sent him chocolates from his favorite shop. He hoped he hadn’t jumped the gun, buying champagne truffles. (And if he had, he could probably get drunk on them.)

He wondered if his response had been too late, if he’d given his shoemaker enough time to come. But he’d feared that if he gave his tesoro too much time, he’d overthink it and back out. He closed his eyes and tried to remember what he’d said in his letter to his shoemaker, written in fevered excitement when he’d made it an entire day without having to use his crutches.

Tesoro mio, I’m sorry to have made you wait so long, but I figured if you could be a little selfish in your letter, I could be a little selfish in mine. I wanted to be able to walk without help when I saw you. I wanted to show you that I’m more than my injury. I wanted to not be broken anymore. Now that I can walk, I’d love to meet you. I’ll be waiting for you in Central Park at one o’clock in the afternoon.

He’d given the letter a week and a half. He’d included a map of the park and details of where he’d be waiting. He’d picked a spot where it was quiet but not too secluded, where he could sit on a bench on the sidewalk because he could walk without crutches but it exhausted him, knee throbbing at the end of the day, and walking in the grass was harder on his knee than the cement. There was a coffee cart nearby in case they wanted drinks, and he’d stuffed a couple extra sandwiches into Steve and Natasha’s picnic basket. (He had maybe omitted that he would have Steve and Natasha waiting in the wings in case his shoemaker turned out to be a serial killer in his spare time.)

Had a week and a half been enough? Tony checked his watch. It was still ten minutes to one. His shoemaker still had time. Tony had gotten there early so his knee would have time to rest in case his shoemaker wanted to walk, and so Steve and Natasha could get set up and look like they were just picnicking and not lurking nearby in case things went south. His shoemaker had time.

But what if he’d changed his mind? What if he didn’t come?

Tony smoothed his hands over the box in his lap again and let out a shuddering breath. He’d healed from his injury. Surely, if his shoemaker decided not to show up, he could heal from this too.

It took a moment for him to realize a shadow had fallen over him. He looked up, blinking against the light, to find a man leaning over him. The man was tall, and handsome, with a jaw that could probably cut him, and eyes so beautifully gray that he wanted to drown in them. Tony stared up at him, eyes wide, frantically trying to find something to say that wasn’t ‘hng muscles.’

“Tony?” the man said hopefully.

Tony opened his mouth, then shut it again helplessly. All these years, and he’d never thought to ask for his shoemaker’s name. He swallowed thickly before trying again, choking out, “Tesoro mio?”

The man’s lips spread into a wide smile and oh, God, he was even more beautiful now. “Hi, sweetheart,” he said quietly, leaning in toward him.

“Hi,” Tony replied dumbly, remembered the box of chocolates he was holding, and shoved them at the man quickly. “These are for you!”

“I was wo--oh, uh, thanks.” The man stood up straight and took the box from him, staring at it for a moment. Then he looked back at up him, smiling a little. “Thank you.”

Tony tried not to fidget and mostly failed. “You’re welcome. I, um--I can walk. If you want to take one.”

“Okay,” the man said. “I’d rather just sit. My knees have been knocking the whole walk here.”

Tony wondered if he looked as relieved as he felt. He hoped not. “Okay.” He stared up at the man a little longer before awkwardly patting the seat beside him. The man smiled, amused, and sat down beside him.

God. How mortifying. Natasha was going to make fun of him forever. His game was so bad. But did he even need game? This wasn’t a date. He was just meeting the man who’d been making his dancing shoes for the last decade. He wondered if Natasha would consider murdering him when they got home.

Tony’s breath hitched when the man reached out and grabbed his chin, tipping his head back so he had to meet his eye. “Oh-!”

“Can I kiss you?” the man asked softly.

Tony blushed and bit his bottom lip, gasping again softly when the other man’s eyes darted down to look at his mouth before returning to meet his gaze again. “Okay,” he whispered, and was glad for the grip on his chin, otherwise he would have swooned forward like a total dweeb.

The kiss followed as soon as the word passed his lips, and the man was gentle for all that he was desperate, only pressing in as far as Tony allowed, nipping his bottom lip softly, tongue dipping teasingly between his parted lips. Tony reached up for his shoulders, unable to help a needy whimper.

But then the man was leaning back, licking his lips before smiling down at him. “I’ve been wanting to do that for years, doll.”

“Doll?” Tony repeated softly once his brain caught up with what was happening. “Oh, I like that.”

“Yeah?” The man leaned in to press another, chaster kiss to his lips. “Guess I’ll have to keep calling you that, then.”

“And--” Tony began, then bit his bottom lip. But he couldn’t hide the fact that all he knew the man by was a star for a signature or his own pet name for him. “And what should I call you?”

The man leaned back in surprise, then snorted. “Guess I can’t be called ‘Star’ or something like that. My name’s Bucky.”

“Bucky,” Tony repeated, feeling the name on his tongue. He thought about it for a while before looking up at him in disgruntlement. “Bucky isn’t a name.”

“Hey,” Bucky said, laughing a little. “I didn’t make fun of your name.”

“How could you? Tony is an actual name. Bucky is what you would call a dog,” Tony replied immediately. “I’m not going to call you that.”

Bucky rolled his eyes, but thankfully he looked amused. “My full name is James Buchanan Barnes.”

Tony thought about that for a moment before very seriously telling him, “Somehow, that makes it worse.”

“Hey!” Bucky exclaimed, but then he laughed. “Okay, I was named after an American president that literally no one remembers. My mother had high hopes for me, I guess. If not any of the names I’ve offered you, what are you going to call me?”

Tony tilted his head, frowning up at him thoughtfully, before his lips spread into a shy smile. “I could keep calling you ‘tesoro mio.’”

Bucky smiled back. “I like the sound of that.”

“Guess I’ll just have to keep calling you that,” Tony offered shyly.

“Stealing my lines and giving them back to me even better,” Bucky mused. “Guess I’ll have to get used to being one-upped constantly.”

“I am pretty competitive,” Tony agreed, and wondered if he could get away with stealing another kiss.

“He is!” Natasha called out from the picnic blanket. “I don’t know how I’ve managed to stand him for almost twenty years!”

Tony blushed, mortified all over again. Oh God. Steve and Natasha were still here. They’d probably seen them kiss. He did not turn to look at them. He would not give Natasha the satisfaction of seeing him blush.

Bucky glanced over his shoulder at Natasha, amused, before looking back down at Tony and curling an arm around his hunched shoulders. “Honestly, I’m just glad to see you’re okay,” he admitted after a pause. “Hope that doesn’t sound dumb. I was really worried about you.”

Tony looked down at his hands, twiddling his thumbs. He really was okay, wasn’t he? Just like Steve had said he would be. Finally, he looked back up at Bucky, managing a soft smile. “I think I’m going to start getting better than okay, tesoro mio. Starting today.”

Bucky raised his eyebrows but smiled back at him gamely before looking down at the box he’d set in his lap. “Think we should have one of these truffles to celebrate, doll?”

Tony sighed. He really did like being called ‘doll.’ “Okay,” he agreed, taking one from the box after Bucky offered it to him. He nibbled on it, smiling. He hoped they had more things to celebrate in the future. Bucky made him think they would.

“...This is real champagne,” Bucky said after chewing on the truffle thoughtfully for a moment. “What the fuck and you were going to just let me eat a whole box of booze? Did you want me drunk?”