"You don't owe me anything," Natasha said, flatly. "I didn't do it for you. This was for him." She jerked her head in the direction of her bedroom, as though Steve wouldn't have already known who she meant. It was hardly enough to bring them entirely square, but still, Steve was someone who meant a lot to Bucky, it was obvious to anyone with a pair of eyes, and the first time he'd asked her for help directing the world's attention away from Steve, she'd turned him down flatly. James asked for help for someone else; she only ever asked for herself.
"Even a Capitol whore knows better than to leave her debts unpaid," she added. Which was maybe a little unfair. Steve hadn't said the word, not outright, and if it had been hinted at, it had only been in broadest strokes. She was exhausted tonight, too exhausted to put a pretty face on it, made more tired still when she imagined Clint looking around the room, hopeful.
Though that was probably far-fetched, too. More likely, he was already drunk. He'd let her have her gesture and then gone and told her, almost immediately, that it was just a gesture, that it wouldn't last. That was all this amounted to, wasn't it, a long list of ways she'd tried to help him and it had always just made things worse. The party, emptying his booze, hell, even all the times she'd tried to save Steve's ass as a favor to Clint, and it never meant shit. It never stuck.
The pot was full. She reached up for the cabinet closest to her and took down a mug, pouring some for herself without offering Steve any. It would keep him awake and she wanted, very badly, to be the only awake person in this apartment for awhile. "Anyway, you don't owe me anything," she repeated. "Not an apology and not a favor. So forget about this. It doesn't matter."