I Can Take You Home (A Romanogers Fanfic) COMPLETED

Natasha

Natasha gave Yelena a tour around Sam's house. Yelena had criticised almost every single thing she saw until Sam threatened to throw a couch at her from his place at the living room. Yelena had gone to the kitchen just to retrieve a huge knife, then almost made a hole in the couch beside Sam if Natasha had not stopped her.

  As the quartet sat squash on the couch,  going through Netflix (Steve still didn't understand why there were so many movie choices) and passing back and forth a bowl of popcorn, Yelena suddenly stood up and went away.

  "Yelena?" Natasha called, worried. When her sister didn't answer, she called louder. "Yelena!"

  "I'm tired," came the grumpy response.

  "Is she plotting to kill us all?" Sam asked after a while. "Natasha, did you see any knives? Or maybe, specifically, butter knives? 'Cause they be missing day by day when I check my drawers."

  "Nope. No butter knives." Natasha grabbed a handful of popcorn. With a grin, she added, "Yelena probably would've stuffed them all up your asshole by now if she has them."

  Sam snorted. "My asshole ain't that big. Right, Rogers?"

  "What- I don't even get the point of this conversation." Steve rubbed his face. "Are you sure she can be trusted, Nat?"

  "I wouldn't mean it if I said yes, but she's my sister. She may be dangerous, but she's not a monster." Natasha looked down hard at her wrists. An image of a little girl on fire flooded her mind. You're the monster they should be afraid of.

  "Natasha?"

  Steve's concerned voice brought Natasha from her reverie. She blinked and forced a smile on her face when she met Steve's eyes. "Oh, uh, nothing."

  Steve looked at her, the troubled look in his eyes held a thousand questions, though he didn't voice them. He just placed his hand on her shoulder and rubbed it slowly, an unspoken sign that told Natasha he would listen whenever she wanted to talk. But she never did.

  Natasha still wasn't used to his caring touch, but it felt less foreign now. She had slowly come to appreciate it, and gave Steve a grateful smile. When Steve smiled back at her, she felt the weird feeling again. Something tickling her stomach. The sensation traveled to her chest, and it prompted her heart to beat faster.

  "Ey, it seems that Rogers has taken a liking to Miss Romanoff over here. Oh, we couldn't blame him, of course. Miss Romanoff does have the looks that old men would like!"

  Both turned around to see Sam holding an invisible microphone, with one arm opened to encompass Steve and Natasha to an imaginary audience.

  Steve immediately went red in the face. "I-that isn't-I mean-Natasha's-she's very-what I'm trying to say is, uh, she's-she's very, uh, b-beautiful. I mean, uh, in a friendly way, like, nothing special at all, um-" He dropped his head. "All I'm trying to say is I do not like her that way and um, she's too gorgeous for old men. I mean, too gorgeous for an old man's taste."

  "You don't make sense, Steve." Natasha laughed at his adorable reaction. He used the word gorgeous. She shook that disturbingly happy thought away.

  "I mean, you really are gorgeous, Nat," Steve said, the sincerity in his voice surprising Natasha.

  Natasha's eyes locked with his, green and blue, and she searched for the lie in those puppy eyes but found nothing. Heat rushed to her cheeks when she felt him touch her knee. She was used to seducing men and even women to get what she wanted in a mission, and she knew it didn't take long for them break. But with Steve, she was always nervous, always sweating, always wondering what he may think of her if her past secrets came out. With Steve, she didn't feel the need to manipulate him with her appearance. With Steve, she could be herself. Natasha Romanoff.

  "Oh, God, I'm going to my room." Sam threw a wink at Steve as he got up and left the living room. "I can't stand you lovebirds on my couch. It's probably contaminated with your lovey dovey shit and I don't wanna get poisoned by that. Now off."

  "For the last time, Sam-"

  A butter knife landed on the wall just above the television. It embedded itself deep into the concrete, its handle trembling from the force of it.

  All three turned to see Yelena at the hallway.

  "Told you she's been stealing my butter knives," Sam piped up after a long moment of tense silence.

  "No one touches my sister. Least of all you." Yelena brandished four more knives gripped in between each finger. Her fiery gaze turned to Natasha. "Shame on you."

  Natasha leaped over the couch and seized Yelena's wrist, holding it up. The knives clattered onto the floor. "Sestra, not again."

  Yelena yanked her hand out of Natasha's vise-like grip and looked at the finger marks on her skin. "What happened to you?" she said finally.

  Natasha didn't know the answer either. She didn't know what happened that made her feel a certain way toward Steve. The person who killed Melina. She could understand Yelena's anger, but she couldn't understand herself. "I want to change for the better," she whispered quietly.

  "Change," Yelena scoffed. "Change, change, change. That's all people seem to talk about these days. But do they really mean it?" She ran her fingers through her hair and took a deep breath. "You're fooling yourself. In the end, we're still both trained killers. We're never trained to save people. We trained to fight. To spy. To assassinate without being seen." She jerked her head at Steve and Sam. "They are the victims, and we are the weapons."

  Natasha shook her head. "But unlike you, I was given a chance." She glanced at Steve. He was her chance. To show that there were more ways to put her skills in use for the better than for the worse. "And I've taken it."

  Yelena laughed mirthlessly. "I remember. You are still the same. But I don't like that you have gone softer. Softer for him."

  "Why do you care?" Natasha asked.

  Yelena's smile didn't reach her empty eyes. "I'm going to bed."

  "Yelena!"

  Yelena slid into Natasha's room and locked the door.