We'll Fight Together (Romanogers / Steve X Natasha)

Confusing Conundrums

"Oh my God," Natasha's voice cut through the heavy air like a razor blade as she looked at the tragedy before them. Steve slid into the crater, catering to the fallen victim. As soon as he placed a hand on the teen's shoulder, she awoke with a start.

She was a pretty young thing: her curly platinum blonde hair, though tangled and full of knots, just barely brushed past her shoulders. Her skin was pale and her crystal blue eyes were radiant, however, the only thing Natasha saw in them was fear. An intangible, unrecognizable fear. Natasha began to notice that, although the girl was plastered in dirt, she appeared to be almost unharmed by the fall. But how? She had just dropped from what only could've been at least a thousand feet.

The teen drifted away from Steve in an instant, abruptly shaking his hand from her shoulder. She tried to stand, to run, but she fell down in the same place she had landed and winced.

"Woah, calm down! We're only here to help," Steve calmly clarified.

"We" seemed to act as some sort of safe word. Her wide eyes traveled towards Natasha and her shoulders immediately went slack as she blew out a hot breath. Despite this, the air around them seemed to get a lot colder.

Natasha hopped inside the crater and knelt down to Steve's level. She looked up at the sky, searching for a trail of smoke. There was none. Wherever the plane had landed, they wouldn't be finding it anytime soon. Well, not without S.H.I.E.L.D. technology, of course. She looked at Steve and noticed him staring back at her. What was he looking for, advice? Luckily, she had some.

Zipping the front of her black khaki jacket, she announced, "Steve, it's getting cold. Let's take her back to the cabin." He nodded as Natasha turned back towards the disheveled teen. "It's very warm. You'll love it there." It might have been a lie, as she had never been inside Steve's new place, but it seemed to do the trick. Slowly, she helped the girl to her unsteady feet and the three of them began the walk towards Steve's home-away-from-home.

Once they got there, Steve motioned the girls inside and followed their lead. Before he closed the door, he checked to make sure nobody was around. When he was sure that the coast was clear, he locked the door and closed the all of the curtains, heading towards the bedroom. The room became a darker shade and Natasha, who was sitting on the bed with the teen beside her, reached over to turn on a lamp. Steve approached the bed and in the light she saw a concerned expression on his unshaven face. He sat down slowly, the springs creaking under his added weight.

"What's you're name, kid?" His blue eyes turned soft as he slouched forward, his large hands folded in his lap.

She hesitated to speak, but when she did it was with a thick Russian accent. "Clea."

"Are you Russian, Clea?" Natasha took notice of the teen's attempt to untangle her mangled hair. She motioned for Steve to pass her the comb, which was sitting on the nightstand closest to him. He handed it to Natasha and she began to comb through Clea's hair. This was something she often helped Lila, Clint's daughter, with whenever she stayed at their farmhouse.

"Sokovian," Clea replied, carefully taking the comb out of Natasha's palm and beginning to sort through a particularly annoying knot on the opposite side of her face. Steve looked at Natasha and silently asked her to follow him. They stood up and headed into the kitchen, leaving Clea alone.

Natasha went straight to the fridge, muttering, "The poor thing must be starving. Do you have any bread?"

"Yeah, it's in the cupboard," Steve replied, heading further into the kitchen to fulfill Natasha's request. As he opened the little wooden door and shuffled around for the bread, he spoke up again, his voice muffling against the wood. "Think she could be a victim of abuse?"

Natasha, a jar of grape jelly in her hand, pondered his speculation. "Well, it makes sense. She's skittish and seems reluctant to speak, which are definitely red flags." She brought everything to the counter where Steve was standing with the bread. Together, they started making a PB&J sandwich. "That doesn't explain her lack of injuries though."

Steve had begun to make an extra sandwich for Natasha, not sure of when she had had her last meal. "It doesn't explain how she fell out of a plane, either."

Natasha turned around, crossing her arms and leaning her back against the counter. "You think she's on the run?"

Steve placed the freshly crafted sandwiches onto some plates and held them up. "There's only one way to find out."

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Okay, this probably looks like some sort of family fanfiction where they're going to adopt Clea or something, but it's not. Clea is modeled after her comic book counterpart. The differences here are that, in my version, she's human, she's a kid, and her backstory isn't the same (I'll uncover some aspects of that in Chapter 4). And no, she does not have the *same* powers as Doctor Strange... yet. I'll let your imagination juggle with that little spoiler for now.