A/N: Just a short little post-AOU thing, dealing with where Sharon and Natasha are at this point. It mostly focuses on Natasha's mindset after the film. Sequel to 'The Guest is a Menace'.

Natasha pressed her shaking palms into her thighs, gritting her teeth together. She was all too aware of the broken wrist that needed to be attended, but right now she was prioritizing her mind over her body— probably a stupid mistake after a battle of this magnitude (especially because she was going to be needed again, and soon).

The lower levels of the helicarrier were occupied by the evacuees, but the control room near engine three was deserted. There were a few screens with footage of various areas nearby; she could use them as an excuse to stay here as opposed to being up on the bridge or in the medbay. Not that she needed to be joining the massive queue of people already in the medbay— people who were in far more desperate need of medical treatment than she was. Natasha had rummaged around for an anesthetic injector before heading down to her little hiding spot.

It all came down to the same question: how did she cope?

Natasha leaned back in her chair, propping her feet up on the console. It seemed like she was asking herself this question a lot these days. After S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, she'd diverted her emotional turmoil into destroying the demons of her past once and for all. By the time that was over and done with, she realized that it wasn't necessarily the best course of action to take and instead took a more… laid-back stance. She talked through her insecurities on the matter (to Sharon and Bruce), and focused on strengthening her relationships with other people.

The subject of Bruce was difficult (painful) to think about right now, but Natasha could admit that feelings had grown out of her initial understanding of him. Were they expected? Hell no. But then, her friendship with Sharon hadn't been expected either— she had never been able to imagine the two of them ever being more than business associates.

It wasn't that hard to figure out, but once she did, she was surprised by the strength of her anger. Anger that, ultimately, resulted in an enraged yell and the shattered pieces of her coffee mug falling to the floor on the opposite side of the room.

"Okay then," came a quiet voice from the door.

Sharon was leaning against the doorframe, wearing a coat of dirt over her black uniform. Strands of hair had escaped her messy ponytail and were framing her face; the frazzled look was only highlighted by the bags under her eyes. Natasha realized that Sharon wasn't just leaning on the door frame for show— she needed the support

"You helped with the evacuation," she deduced.

Sharon let out a raspy chuckle. "Yeah, that. Didn't get to quite play the role that you did, though. Guess we can't all have a serum that lets us fight longer."

Those words impacted Natasha, but she refused to let it show. Sharon slouched further into the room; there were no extra chairs, so she sank to the floor next to Natasha's right knee, leaning back against the console. As though thinking the same thing, they both turned their heads to look at the remains of the mug, drowned in a puddle of cold coffee.

Natasha dimly realized that the mug had a S.H.I.E.L.D. logo on it. How ironic.

"Who're you hiding from?" she asked.

Sharon didn't question how she knew that Sharon was hiding. It wasn't that hard to figure out, since Natasha was doing the same thing anyway. Instead, she closed her eyes and leaned her head back, a small hiss escaping from her as her scalp brushed against the cold surface.

Natasha leaned forward before she could stop herself. "Let me see." Her fingers gently grazed the back of Sharon's head, coming away with red. Sharon's exhaustion suddenly seemed a bit more alarming than before.

"I'm hiding from Stark," Sharon said, while Natasha peeled off her uniform and started ripping up the hem of the white tank she wore underneath. It wasn't much, but it would at least stop the bleeding. "And Fury. They both keep asking me… they think that I know something that I don't know. And I've tried to tell them that I don't know the answer, but I don't think that they believe me."

There was a pregnant pause. Natasha kept silent, pressing her makeshift bandage a little harder against the back of Sharon's head.

"They wanted to know if you were going to leave. They wanted me to stop you."

"Stark is your boss," Natasha pointed out.

"Maybe, but I'm not an idiot. I know that I can't stop you if you want to go, and I don't even know if you want to. They wouldn't tell me why you would in the first place. I think that Fury wrote it off as something to not worry about when I explained that to him, but Stark kept pestering me about it. If you ask me, it's almost like he wants to keep you around."

"Of course," Natasha deadpanned. "Stark couldn't possibly survive without our love-hate relationship."

(She knew exactly why Fury and Stark might suspect she would leave. They needn't have worried— she wasn't going to— but right after the fact, she had been tempted. She'd pictured herself hijacking a quinjet of her own and flying out after him, getting him back before he went off the radar. It was rash, and she had no way of knowing what would happen, which was why she'd stayed glued in her seat at the comms station until calls for damage control started happening. It was easier to slip away after that.)

"That's a nice, sarcastic way of putting it," Sharon said. "I told him to fuck off."

"Thanks."

"He doesn't take a hint very well."

"That wasn't a hint."

"Semantics," Sharon replied, waving a hand. "So I'm guessing that your rage wasn't really directed at the coffee mug?"

Natasha laughed; it came out bitter. "No," she replied. "No, I… I've learned that when your anger is directed inwards, it's better to let it out instead of bottling it up."

Those words hit hard, too.

Sharon was looking at her like she'd grown two heads. "Natasha, I don't know if you know this… you saved so many people today. The evacuation— hell, the warning of it all was because of you. I've talked to Barton about it, I know the whole story."

Not the whole story, Natasha thought.

Sharon looked up at her, in a way that almost made Natasha want to look away. She held her gaze, though, mostly because she was too tired to move her head. She knew that Sharon deserved an explanation from her, but she also realized that her hands were shaking again and the pain in her wrist suddenly seemed amplified and and and—

"Banner isn't coming back."

The words tumbled out of her mouth without her permission. The only part of that sentence that was deliberate was the first word. She wasn't going to address him by his first name anymore. She made her choice, and he made his. She was choosing not to dwell on that anymore.

Except she clearly was, because she kept talking.

"I keep wondering what I could've done to make him stay."

"From what I hear, not much," Sharon pointed out. "Stark said that he was pretty torn up after Johannesburg. Then again, he said that all of you were. I'm, um… okay with not knowing what all went down there."

Natasha looked down at her hands. She clenched her fists so tightly that she thought her nails might draw blood. The action amplified the ache from her wrist, but she continued to ignore it. She found herself slipping off of the chair so that she could sit on the floor next to Sharon, brushing their shoulders together.

"How do you stop yourself from fucking caring about someone so much?" she asked lowly.

An odd expression passed over Sharon's face. "Sometimes I wonder."

Natasha heard the undercurrent in Sharon's tone and scrutinized her face, trying to decipher it, but Sharon had already looked away and was, instead, watching the camera feeds. For a moment, Natasha was tempted to dig deeper into whatever was going on with her friend, but she silently acknowledged that doing so would only be an attempt to distract herself from her own turmoil, and let the matter drop.

Without warning, Sharon's hand snaked out, loosely grabbing Natasha's. "Nice wrist," she commented. "Is it always this lopsided?"

Natasha rolled her eyes. "Like you're one to talk right now."

"I need a drink."

"You really don't. You probably have a concussion."

"Probably," Sharon agreed. "How long should we hide in here for?" She hadn't let go of Natasha's hand until now, when she slowly drew it away. Natasha felt a wave of gratitude for having Sharon Carter in her life, and almost wanted to curl in on herself to stop the onslaught of emotion. Damn, she was not having a good day.

"Not long," she admitted reluctantly. "Duty calls, and all that. At least, for me it does. You need to get to the medbay. Come on."

Natasha helped Sharon to her feet, allowing her to lean heavily on her as the left the room. Her thoughts went to the shattered mug on the floor, debating on whether that was something that she should worry about now, but she quickly dismissed it.

She'd clean it up later. Right now, she had work to do.