Stoic Natasha getting patched up by Steve after a mission goes wrong. She was nabbed and roughed up by Hydra agents at some point during the proceedings, and she hides the extent of her injuries until they get to safety and then collapses. Steve has to take care of the first aid Because Reasons (maybe she's got hand or wrist injuries making it hard to stitch herself up with any kind of dexterity?), and while he's sewing up a nasty wound on her upper thigh, he sees smears of blood and semen everywhere and realizes she's also been raped. Trying to conceal it/spare him the knowledge was one of the reasons she was downplaying her injuries.
Steve is aghast, Natasha is just disgusted and horribly, revealingly weary of the whole thing--it's not the first time and it probably won't be the last. But it is the first time she's had someone there trying to comfort her afterwards. She's not sure what to do with that or what she wants, she's extra-cautious about letting any of her walls down, and it hurts to allow any cracks in her unemotional "well, that sucked, but I'm fine and I can handle it" approach. Eventually she and Steve just cuddle the crap out of each other, because it turns out she's long-term starved for friendly touch with no ulterior motives.
+ Natasha is matter-of-fact about the slightly gross physical exposure and all the obvious aspects of what happened to her, but eventually she lets Steve glimpse her complicated guilt/shame over something unexpected or even counterintuitive. ++ She used the rapists' gloating and power-tripping to extract priceless intel from them along the way, and has conflicted feelings about to what extent she actually had power over the situation. +++ This is weirdly specific and unbearably fluffy, but when Natasha finally hits the shower, she invites Steve along, and he soaps her back for her and rubs her shoulders and listens to her mutter incoherently about how done she is with everything.
Natasha & Steve, h/c
Steve is aghast, Natasha is just disgusted and horribly, revealingly weary of the whole thing--it's not the first time and it probably won't be the last. But it is the first time she's had someone there trying to comfort her afterwards. She's not sure what to do with that or what she wants, she's extra-cautious about letting any of her walls down, and it hurts to allow any cracks in her unemotional "well, that sucked, but I'm fine and I can handle it" approach. Eventually she and Steve just cuddle the crap out of each other, because it turns out she's long-term starved for friendly touch with no ulterior motives.
+ Natasha is matter-of-fact about the slightly gross physical exposure and all the obvious aspects of what happened to her, but eventually she lets Steve glimpse her complicated guilt/shame over something unexpected or even counterintuitive.
++ She used the rapists' gloating and power-tripping to extract priceless intel from them along the way, and has conflicted feelings about to what extent she actually had power over the situation.
+++ This is weirdly specific and unbearably fluffy, but when Natasha finally hits the shower, she invites Steve along, and he soaps her back for her and rubs her shoulders and listens to her mutter incoherently about how done she is with everything.