Work Text:
I can't tell you what it really is
I can only tell you what it feels like
And right now there's a steel knife, in my windpipe
I can't breathe, but I still fight, while I can fight
As long as the wrong feels right, it's like I'm in flight
_____
“What?” Nat barks as she opens the door. Her eyes choose that moment to start watering again. The gust of cold air from outside isn’t helping things. She catches the tears with a swipe of her sleeve, but not before she catches a glimpse of Steve’s smiling face. Nat changes her focus to the thread unraveling from her cuff. She’s not going to watch his expression falter.
“Merry Christmas,” he says, opening his arms like he wants to hug her.
Nat grips the door frame and clenches her teeth. She tries looking daggers at him without actually making eye contact.
Steve drops his hands to his sides a second before it gets awkward.
“Says who?” Nat coughs. She may as well keep her throat moving before it gums up permanently. Every time Steve turns up, Nat seems to be stuck with him for a few hours at least.
“Come on,” Steve wheedles. “You can’t spend Christmas alone.”
“Who says I celebrate Christmas?”
Steve looks taken aback. “Well, it’s not a Christian holiday necessarily. It’s an American holiday now.”
“Yeah, good ol’ materialism.” Nat laughs, and it squeezes more tears from the corners of her eyes. “I’m not American, Steve. Remember? I grew up Soviet. No religion. Definitely none of this…” She waves her hand vaguely at him before taking another swipe at her cheeks. “Friendliness.”
“I mean, it’s a federal holiday.” Steve goes pink. “No mail. No work.”
“Nah, that part you’re just lucky,” Nat says. “They’ll still call you in if someone tries to take over the world. Or me, actually,” she amends. “Since it’s a sacred day to you, and all.”
“Nat, come on.” Steve tips his head to the side. It could be a casual movement, but Nat’s leery. She’s not keen on the idea of him getting a good look into the apartment behind her. “I just wanted to come say hello. And make sure you’re ok.”
“Well, hello,” Nat replies, her voice dripping in sarcasm. “I’m fine. We done?”
“What, you don’t want to invite me in?” Steve’s toeing a dangerous line. His posture shifts minutely again, and Nat knows he knows what she’s been up to. Or the idea of it, at least.
“Oh, so you want to come in?” Nat puts on a hard face and tries not to think about the vodka and xanax on the kitchen counter. “If you’re so into hospitality, why didn’t you ask me over to your place?”
“Because you wouldn’t’ve come.”
Nat meant her words to be a dig, not an actual question. But it’s turning into one of the rare occasions where Steve drops his polite pretenses and throws down a hard truth. Nat would be fascinated if she wasn’t on the receiving end. It’s still such a righteous thing to say, and that’s what hits her nerve.
“You’re right. Goodbye.” Nat makes to shut the door. “Merry fucking Christmas.”
“Hey, wait.” Steve takes a step forward, but Nat gives the door a shove, throwing her shoulder into it for good measure.
“Fuck you,” she mumbles. She turns the dead bolt and fastens the chain, even though Steve’s still knocking on the other side.
“Nat, come on. Open up,” He calls. Nat can see his shadow moving back and forth across the narrow line of sunlight that comes in through the gap where there ought to be weather stripping.
“Nope.” Nat says it for her own benefit, though Steve’s hearing is good enough that he probably gets an earful. And his ego is big enough that he likely thinks it’s meant for him.
“I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m just worried about you.”
“Sucks to be you, don’t it?” Nat grumbles in a butchered Brooklyn accent. She turns her back on the door and reaches for the substances she’d left in the kitchen. If she was sober, she might have enough gratitude left at the bottom of her soul to thank Steve for the distraction. Anger is easier to manage than sadness. But she’s already had a couple pills and a couple shots, and it’s just enough to breathe fog onto the surface of her thoughts. Nowhere near the numbing effect she needs.
Nat shakes tablet out of the orange bottle. It doesn’t even have a label, since since this particular order isn’t received over a pristine counter in exchange for a doctor’s prescription. She throws it back and unscrews the top on the vodka bottle to wash it down, but the sound of the deadbolt snapping jars her before she can swallow.
Nat doesn’t startle easily. But sometimes instinct and the workings of the human body can’t be overrun. She breathes in even though her mouth is full, and Nat feels the sharp edge of the pill ricochet down her windpipe with a rush of burning alcohol.
She would curse if she had the breath, but all she can do is narrow her streaming eyes at Steve. He drops the doorknob onto the dusty carpet, then rushes to Nat’s side.
“Don’t,” she hacks, doubling over to spit up clear liquid and ropes of mucous.
“Alright.” Steve holds his hand an inch or so over Nat’s shoulder. The hairs on the back of her neck prickle to attention, just waiting for him to touch her so she can flinch and give him a good shove. But he doesn’t. He stands still. Once Nat’s diaphragm ceases its spasms, she can feel the body heat coming off him.
“Fuck.” Nat wipes her mouth on her sleeve. It hasn’t yet dried from being used as a mop for her tears. She has a wet stain down her chest, too, and it smells of bile as much as it does of vodka. She yanks the limp dish towel from the hook beside the sink with shaking hands. Nat buries her face in it for a moment, then drops it onto the spitty puddle on the floor.
“You ok?” Steve asks, finally pulling his hand back.
Nat chooses not to answer. She clears her throat and feels around in her mouth with her tongue, but the pill is lost. Probably dissolving into the gritty floor tiles. If Steve wasn’t here, she’d kneel down and look for it. But all she can do now is stare at the shiny label on the bottle of vodka.
“You’re breaking and entering,” Nat rasps, still not looking at him.
“What?” It’s one of Steve’s best parlor tricks, being selfless on command. In a hundred years, no one’s written a newspaper article calling him anything other than a true American hero. But no one’s realized that he holds the rest of the world to his own impossible standards. He’s really kind of a jerk.
“I could call the cops.” Nat imagines him being forced into a police car in cuffs.
“I--no,” Steve stammers. “I had good faith.”
“You were going to put your hands on me, in my home, after I asked you to leave,” Nat says. She’s going for volume, but her throat still stings. Maybe it sounds more threatening as a hiss.
“I was afraid you were hurting yourself.” Steve looks from Nat to the alcohol to the pill bottle to the floor and back again. “And I was right.”
“Breaking and entering, refusing to leave, touching without permission. Where the perpetrator is known to the victim?” Nat shrugs. “Sounds like a domestic violence case. Open and shut.”
“Hey, I didn’t touch you.” Steve lifts both hands to shoulder height. Nat doesn’t have a gun on her, but his rendition of hands-up-don’t-shoot makes her want to pull one out of the crack between the couch cushions. She mentally calculates the distance, wondering if the one in her underwear drawer is closer. It’s probably not. The studio apartment is already over-fortified, but she ought to place a weapon in the kitchen, too.
“You sure about that?” Nat leers at him.
“I’m...credible.” Steve falters.
“What, and I’m not?” Nat laughs, which makes her cough again. She thumps herself on the chest with her fist. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those.”
“I’m not.”
“I don’t know. Conservative. Christian. Defensive.”
Steve looks a second away from abject panic. He opens his mouth, his Adam’s apple bobbing silently.
“Geez, I’m kidding.” Nat throws her shoulders back and wipes the floor with her foot. She straightens the few objects on the counter, using her actions to tell Steve it’s about time for him to get lost. “Mostly.”
“I thought that didn’t really happen. That people just use it as a talking point.” Steve folds his arms over his stomach like he’s hugging himself. Protecting himself.
“Huh?” Nat doesn’t follow. But she isn’t trying too hard.
“False accusations. Women making stuff up,” Steve clarifies.
“They don’t,” Nat says firmly, now very sorry she brought it up. “I was fucking with you, and I thought you could take it.” She can’t keep from loosing another jab, even though she already has the upper hand. She just wants to make sure it stays that way. “Apparently I was wrong.”
Steve clamps his lips between his teeth. “Nat, I’m worried about you.”
“Not this again.” Nat’s out of things to straighten. She’d pick up the towel, but she doesn’t want to grovel at his feet. Then he might start thinking she’s begging for forgiveness. “I’m fine. You need to go.”
Steve backs up respectfully, but then he pauses and asks, “What are you going to do when I leave?”
“I don’t know.” Nat looks away from the bottles lined up on the counter. It’s a stupid move, and in hindsight, a very obvious tell. “Fix the door. Maybe.”
“I’m really sorry about that.” Steve picks up the broken knob and holds it experimentally against the hole in the door. “I’ll fix it.”
“I’ll take a payout.” Nat slowly walks toward him, grips his shoulder with purpose, and forces him to step down onto the cracked concrete patio. “For the property damage.” She’s kidding again, but she’s not going to let him in on it.
Steve looks at her with a mixture of shock and confusion. “Ok, ok, I’ll go, I promise.” He turns his head side to side, probably checking to see if any of Nat’s neighbors are about. “I just...I’m sorry. I’m sorry I thought maybe you’d like some company.” He takes another step back and lifts his hands again. “I’m sorry I care.”
He says it with such deadpan that Nat can’t tell if he’s serious. She hopes he isn’t, for the sake of his intelligence. But it would make things a lot simpler if he was. She should mutter a half-assed apology and shut him out, salvaging what she can of the door and setting a chair against it until she’s in the mood to wield a screwdriver. But Nat’s always been one to push buttons, to keep picking at wounds. Other people’s and her own.
“I’m gonna drink,” she says to Steve’s retreating back.
He looks over his shoulder.
“You want some?” Nat asks, though she can’t fathom why. “Vodka?”
Steve’s back on the doorstep in an instant. “I can’t get drunk,” he says.
“Neither can I.” Nat grins maniacally.
“But you said--”
“I said drink, Rogers. Not get drunk. There’s a difference.” Nat heads toward the kitchen. She expects Steve to follow, but he remains just outside the door.
“Is it serum? Or enhancements?” he asks.
“Nope. Just tolerance.” Nat opens a cupboard to look for glasses. She sips straight from the bottle when she’s alone. “When you make as many bad decisions as I have, sometimes your body begs for a break. Makes the fun stuff less fun in hopes it’ll slow you down.”
Why is she telling him this? What does she want from him? A minute ago, Nat wanted Steve to leave her alone. Now she’s completely unsure.
Steve sighs. It’s a sad sound, and not what Nat’s expecting. “You’re right,” he says. “You’re completely right.”
“Ok…” Of course Nat thinks she is. She said it, after all.
“I mean, about...everything.” Steve shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I should’ve… Do you want to come out? Like, go somewhere? I’ll buy you a drink.”
Nat busts out laughing. She’s getting drunker by the second even though she hasn’t swallowed a drop of vodka in...she doesn’t know how long. Half an hour? An hour? That would explain why the buzz is petering out to a plateau well below her desired high. She’s not angry anymore. She’s almost sad again. Better to keep laughing. She doesn’t want to cry.
“You’re crazy,” Nat says breathlessly. She pulls on logic to back herself up. “And everywhere’s closed for Christmas.”
“Starbucks is open.” Steve starts off serious, but he seems to realize how frivolous he sounds, and a grin splits his face. “You want some coffee? Caffeine’s probably not as good as what you’ve got in there, but it’s still a...you know.”
A drug. He doesn’t say it. Maybe out of respect for Nat. Or more likely, to save himself from slinging accusations. Or discussing unsavory activities.
“Hm.” Nat blinks slowly, squinting through the fog on the windshield of her thoughts and trying to suss out possible outcomes. She could shut him out again. Probably cry. Drink herself sick before she drinks herself happy. Or she could take the mystery. At least if she goes with him, Nat won’t have to while away the next few hours feeling guilty for blowing him off. She tries not to let her sense of morality flare up, but she’s solidly on the losing end today. Maybe it’s because of the holidays. All the better reason to hate this time of year.
“Sure. Fine.” Nat steps into a pair of clogs and closes the door behind her. She can’t lock it, but it hardly matters. She doesn’t have many worldly belongings. “But it’s not a date,” she adds defensively.
“As long as it’s not kidnapping.” Steve steals a glance at her as he leads the way to his car.
“Fair enough,” Nat agrees. “I’m going willingly.” She looks sideways back at him. “Barely.”
He holds the door for her like a gentleman, then waits an inordinate amount of time for the light to change before he turns out of the parking lot. He doesn’t seem to understand that it’s legal to turn right on red. Nat thinks about telling him, but decides it’s not worth it. Sobriety gives her more control over her tongue. Maybe too much control.
Nat expects Steve to park and take her inside, maybe hold a couple more doors for her before he buys her coffee, but he swings the car toward the drive-thru instead.
“Hm. I wouldn’t’ve guessed,” Nat says, watching Steve watch digital snow pile up at the bottom of the electronic menu screen.
“Well, the convenience is nice,” Steve replies. “So is the...not having everybody watching.”
“Hm,” Nat hums. It’s almost a sound of agreement, but not quite.
“A juniper latte?” Steve reads from the seasonal menu. “What is that?”
“Ugh, skip it,” Nat says, wrinkling her nose. “It tastes like dish soap. But I thought you’d be a black coffee kind of guy. Not a try-everything-on-the-menu type.”
“I am, when people are watching,” Steve says, still looking out the window. He turns to Nat. “I had you pegged for black coffee, too.”
“Yeah,” Nat replies. “When people are watching.” Which means, when there’s no privacy to forcibly vomit up the calories and the regret.
“So…” Steve cocks his head a little again, looking at Nat, looking through her. Looking into her. “Vanilla latte?”
“Nonfat. No whip. Sugar free.” Nat smiles.
Steve places the order, and they pick up the steaming red cups at the next window. Nat wraps both hands around hers, and Steve holds his between his knees as he parks the car at the far end of the lot.
“That’s a little creepy, you know,” Nat says. “Taking me out, then refusing to get out of the car.”
“I just...want to talk.” Steve cuts the engine and takes up his coffee. His tone is almost disappointed, like he’s reminding her that they’re past it, the veiled references to assaults and all numbers of bad things. Things they try to keep from happening to other people, because god knows they’ve both experienced enough themselves. Nat knows she shouldn’t push him around. But Steve should know not to expect anything else from her.
“So talk.” The front of Nat’s shirt is dry now, and slightly crusty, sticking to her skin. She scratches at it with one finger while she waits for him to get on with it.
“How do you know what dish soap tastes like?”
It’s not what Nat’s expecting. “You want the real answer, or the one that’ll probably make sense to you?” she asks in return.
“Whichever you want to give.” Steve takes the lid off his cup and sips directly from it, then wipes a moustache of foam from his upper lip.
“How do you not know what it tastes like?” Rude, probably, but it’s what Nat’s in the mood to give.
“Well.” Steve scrubs his hand down the side of his face. “I didn’t have chores as a kid, ‘cause I was too sick. Buck wouldn’t let me to them when I was an adult, ‘cause I was still too sick. And we didn’t wash dishes during the war. We didn’t really wash anything.”
It could be too much information if Nat squints, but now she’s actually interested in the answer to the original question. “But you do dishes now, right?”
“Well, yeah,” Steve says. “But I do dishes. I don’t drink the soap or anything.” He looks at her, puzzled. Like maybe he wants to laugh, but knows there’s something dark below the surface, something he knows he needs to coax out gently, lest he scare it away.
“It’s...like a mind trick,” Nat sighs. “Like Pavlov, you know?” She doesn’t wait for Steve’s nod of vague recognition. “If you put something, it doesn’t have to be soap, but something like that on your food, it tastes bad. You’ll stop liking whatever it is. So you won’t want it anymore.”
“Oh.” Nat can practically see the arithmetic solving iself in Steve’s brain. He’s simple, sure. But he’s not stupid. “I haven’t heard that one.”
“I went to ballet school,” Nat says. “I know all the tricks. We count on the fact that people don’t know them. That’s why they work.”
“Huh.” Steve takes a long sip of his drink. Nat wonders if he’ll finish the whole thing in one draught. “Why do you…” he falters. “Why do you hurt yourself, Nat?”
Nat plays with the lid of her own cup. She takes a sip of her latte, but it tastes like chemicals and bitterness cloaked in saccharine. It’s a lie, just like she is. “I don’t know,” she says quietly. Overall, it’s the truth. She has theories, a lot of them. But she pinpoint the cause when all she can see is the effect. “Why do you want to know?”
“You really want me to tell you?” Steve looks at her, eyebrows raised, lines playing across his forehead. “Or you want me to make up something that makes sense?”
“I told you the real thing.” It’s hard not to throw in attitude. Especially since Nat knows that if she drops the sharp edge, her voice will bottom out completely. She already feels the burn behind her eyes.
“Because it’s easier to talk about other people’s problems,” Steve says to the steering wheel. He flattens his empty cup between his hands, then turns to the window. Nat watches his reflection in the glare, but she looks away when he passes his knuckles across the diamond droplets clinging to his lashes.
“Yeah,” Nat whispers. “I know.” She stays quiet for a moment. Then, “Because I hurt other people first.”
“You know that’s what I was made for?” Steve barely pauses for a breath. “Erksine didn’t want me to be violent if I didn’t have to be, but that was the intent behind the whole project. To make a killing machine. I don’t even know how many now…” He trails off.
“I don’t, either.” Nat keeps a ballpark estimate, a mental image of tally marks scratched into weathered wood. But she doesn’t know exactly, doesn’t scour the records for whether there were three or four people in that car she fixed to run off the road, or if the pregnant suicide bomber she’d neutralized in Kandahar counts as one or two. She stopped caring when the count surpassed a hundred. That was the year she started drinking, she realizes. The year she graduated from marijuana to cocaine. Getting off crack was hell, but it was still easier than losing the guilt. She’s still failing at that.
“I’m just...I’m sorry I came over. I wasn’t thinking about you.” Steve forces a laugh. “I wasn’t thinking at all.”
Nat’s thoughts settle into disturbing clarity for a second, like drunken vision focusing before it blurs and crosses over again. Steve knows his mistakes like Nat does. He’s dark like she is. He’s guilty. He suffers. He feels bad for her because he thinks he deserves what he’s gotten. For the first time, Nat feels bad for him.
“You didn’t want to be alone for Christmas.” Nat sets her drink down in the cupholder. She pulls her legs up on the seat and rests her chin on her knees. “That’s not a crime.”
“No, it’s worse,” Steve says morosely. “Can’t file a police report on that.”
He’s right, now that Nat thinks about it. Sure, people pay for their crimes, at least in theory. But the things that have been taken from her, the things she really misses, aren’t so easily quantified. The blissful ignorance of childhood, for instance. Her adolescent metabolism. The time with Clint before he got married. Dwelling on any of them is like being angry that paper tears.
And what now? Captain America is human? And so is she? Scandalous. They’re sitting in a car, drinking Starbucks like two kids escaping the festivities for an illicit date. He smells like aftershave, and she smells like puke. It’s so perfectly high school that it’s sickening. Nat hates it.
But what else, if not this? A sense of numbness grows in Nat’s chest, spreading into her shoulders and down her arms. It isn’t cold, though. It’s not uncomfortable. She doesn’t want to be here, but the longer she is here, the less she wants to go back home.
“Nope,” Nat finally says. “No harm in talking.”
_____
Just gonna stand there and watch me burn
But that's alright, because I like the way it hurts
Just gonna stand there and hear me cry
But that's alright, because I love the way you lie