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"You never did take any of my suggestions," Natasha said, sipping her coffee.
Steve laughed, surprised. "Yeah, well, things got very complicated very fast. I got busy."
"We're never not busy." Natasha quirked an eyebrow as she set her cup down. "Not even Sharon?"
His slight headshake resulted in a groan.
"Come on, she's great. You should see her working. Girl's got aim."
Steve gestured with one hand holding his cup as he spoke. "It's not that she's not great, it's just… complicated. She's Peggy's niece, you know."
Natasha sat quiet for a moment.
"No, Steve. I did not know that," she said finally, with composure only she could muster.
When it came to Steve and time, things got funny. The man was biologically thirty, chronologically ninety-five, physically twenty-five, and mentally anywhere between five and a thousand. Everyone he'd known from before the crash was either dead or dying. Nearly seventy years had passed in what had amounted to a power nap for him. So yeah, of course the hot nurse slash secret agent across the hall was a couple generations removed from his old flame.
It hurt Natasha's brain to think about it, and she wasn't the one living it. Sometimes she thought about what she would do if she woke up a hundred years in the future. Who she'd leave behind. A few years ago, there wouldn't have been much. Now, though? She might have to take the time to mourn what could have been.
Had Steve had that time? Between SHIELD missions, and the Avengers, and— And what else did he really do?
"Scratch Sharon, then. Things have calmed down a little. No one striking your fancy?"
"Things have calmed down for you. You've been laying low, doing… what is it again?" Steve feigned ignorance.
Natasha felt the smirk form on her face. "Finding myself."
The double entendre was not lost on either of them.
"Right, right." Steve nodded, taking a swig of his drink. "You've been finding yourself, I've had work to do."
Natasha blinked. The Avengers hadn't officially gotten together since SHIELD collapsed. Stark was working something out, he assured them, but it was difficult in the best of circumstances to get six people together in the same place at one time. Nevermind all of their schedules, between CEOs, barely-not-criminals, and the actual god of thunder. But without SHIELD, what other work did Steve do?
As Steve's gaze became distant, the answer dawned on her.
"Barnes," she said.
Steve nodded, lips pursed.
Natasha stared, cocking her head to the side.
Natasha was good at reading people, or so she liked to think. It was one of her biggest strengths. Why SHIELD had considered her in the first place. She was constantly studying them, their faces, their bodies. How they reacted to her. Even light conversation could turn into an interrogation if she wasn't paying attention.
Steve seemed like an open book. The man couldn't lie to save his life. He had an almost admirable naivety, the trust that every honorable person could see the world the way he could see it. He inspired truth and justice by being truth and justice incarnate. He was the kind of person that made you want to be better just by being around him.
And yet, the more Natasha got to know him, the more incomplete she realized that picture was. The line between Steve and Captain America was thin, but it was there. The image didn't capture his dry sense of humor, nor his willingness to disobey. She was fairly certain she was one of a few who knew that the Captain could swear like a sailor. The biggest thing, what she only caught glimpses of when he truly let his guard down, was the deep sadness in his eyes.
Steve couldn't lie, but he sure as hell could perform.
Right now, she wondered how much of the real Rogers she was getting. If when she was reading between the lines, she was seeing what he was or who he wanted her to see. She'd been off base with him before.
It frightened her. Her own teammate, one of her closest friends, and she didn't have a clue about what was going on in his mind.
At least he was on her team.
"Have you found anything yet?" she asked. She needed more information before she could come up with a better response.
"Not yet," Steve admitted. "The physical file is pretty bare bones. And almost all of Hydra's digital files are encrypted. It's gonna take more than me and Sam's computer knowledge to get anything out of there. Any trail we could've gotten for him got washed away when I was in the hospital. For now, it's dead end among dead end."
"So what have you been working on?"
Steve smiled. There was a slight glint in his eye as he said "Surveillance."
Natasha let her face contort into one of slightly judgemental confusion. Eyebrows raised, eyes wide open, lips stretched into a grimace. Steve was never not going to surprise her, was he?
"After everything?" she asked.
"It's not ideal." Steve paused, taking a sip of coffee. "But the information's all already out there. We've been looking through facial recognition, trying to get a match. Only false positives so far. Aside from that, people have already archived some of the data dump. Every day there's more that's been decrypted. Nothing about him yet, we figure that's buried pretty deep and there's still mountains of data, SHIELD and Hydra, that needs to be worked through. And then there's the civilian aspect, combing through social media, journals, conspiracy boards, anything—"
"From the guy who doesn't use a cell phone." Natasha held her cup gingerly with two hands. "What's gotten into you, Rogers? I've never seen you this excited over anything."
"Natasha, we have leads." Steve's voice was feverish, barely contained. His eyes glimmered, wider than they were supposed to be. She identified the feeling permeating their conversation. Desperation.
No, desperation wasn't the right word. Busy, Steve had said. Natasha noticed the signs she had missed earlier in the conversation.
Bags under his eyes. Not entirely out of the ordinary, unless you were one of the few who knew how little Captain America needed to sleep. How much it took for him to look unkempt.
He was sweating. It was no secret Steve ran like a furnace, so Natasha hadn't considered it could be a sign of anything else.
As he picked up his cup, she watched as, almost imperceptibly, it shook. Caffeine jitters, maybe. except caffeine didn't affect Steve Rogers. Almost nothing did.
"You've been sleeping alright?" she asked, a little too brazen. She didn't care if Rogers knew she cared, though. She just needed to avoid him shutting down.
Steve shook his head. "Don't need to. Can't, when there's so much to do."
Mania. Maybe not clinical, but Natasha struggled to come up with a better description.
"Sam know?"
Steve paused.
He shrugged. "What he doesn't know won't hurt him."
Natasha placed her hand over Steve's. He looked up, surprised.
"Please don't tell me you've been spending all your time in front of a computer screen staring at CCTV footage and conspiracy blogs."
Steve rolled his eyes. "Well, obviously not, a guy's gotta eat."
"Steve, I'm serious."
Steve looked at her, blue eyes big and pleading, and once again she understood why people went to war for this guy. Why she went to war for this guy. She wondered if he even knew he did that. If he even knew the way his gaze could make even the most collected's insides contort into something unrecognizable. The way Steve spoke to everyone as if he'd known them his whole life. The way he'd managed to chip away at her so carefully she didn't even notice until it was too late. The careful hands of a sculptor, slowly revealing the full picture.
"I haven't felt this alive in years," Steve whispered, and Natasha realized with a start she'd never heard his voice shake before. "Not since— Not since before—"
"I know." Natasha rubbed her thumb in circles on the back of Steve's hand, in a way she guessed was supposed to be calming.
Steve breathed, hard and fast, chest heaving. His eyes went distant again, and Natasha knew he wasn't there. Not really.
She sipped her coffee, watching him, letting him experience whatever he was experiencing.
After a minute, his breathing slowed, and he looked up.
"Sorry," he said as he reoriented. "Sorry, I didn't— I'm not—"
"It's okay." Natasha looked into his eyes. "You with me, Rogers?"
Steve nodded. "Yeah. I'm here. I'm good."
"You're not good," she said softly.
Steve smiled sadly, breaking eye contact. "I don't expect you to understand it. Hell, I'd think I was crazy if I was watching myself from the outside."
"Try to explain it."
Steve nodded. He took a deep breath.
"I think a part of me died when I thought he did. Back in 1945. It's like— You're not gonna make fun of me for this, are you?"
Natasha shook her head. "Never. Not this."
Steve nodded again, continuing with renewed confidence. "It's like pieces of your soul. You leave them places. With people. There's a part of me that's still in Brooklyn, always. There's a part of me I left at my mother's grave. There's a part of me that never left Peggy's side. There's a part of me that got on that train and never got off."
Natasha nodded. "That makes sense, in a way."
"People talk a lot about soulmates, or twin flames, or whatever people call them nowadays. Someone you're entwined with. Strings of fate and shared souls. Other halves. I don't know if it's fate, or it's just because we spent so much time together, but he was a part of me. Sometimes I thought there was more of me in him than in myself. When I saw him, during that fight, I felt a part of me I hadn't felt since… since that day. I didn't know I could feel that way again.
"Almost everything I've done has been for Bucky. I joined the war for him. I fought for him. And then he was gone, and there was nothing I could do. So I died for him. And then I was alive again, and he wasn't, and I had to figure out who I was without him, except it wasn't only without him. Everything that had defined my existence was either gone, or changed until it was unrecognizable. Him included. But it's something. He's alive, and he's here, and maybe he needs me."
"Maybe he doesn't," Natasha pressed gently.
Steve shook his head. "Maybe I need him. He's broken, and hurting, and goddammit, if I let him go again, I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive myself. I can't keep doing this, keep having him within reach only to get pulled away again."
Natasha was quiet. Steve was either more unwell than she originally considered, or she really had managed to work her way into a position of trust. Maybe both.
It was hard to reconcile the man sitting in front of her with Captain America. Tired, shaky, broken, desperate, clinging onto the only thing he had left of his past. But, hey, she'd helped him blow up a building a few months ago.
She was glad she knew Steve, not Captain America, no matter how irrational he could be.
"You're thinking," Steve observed.
"I'm always thinking," Natasha replied cryptically.
Steve leaned closer. "Penny for your thoughts?"
Natasha took a moment to collect herself.
"I don't know if I entirely understand you," Natasha started. "I don't know if there's any way I could. You've certainly had unique experiences."
Steve furrowed his brow.
Natasha thought for a second. Hell, Steve had just bared his soul to her. She couldn't give him this bullshit about understanding or not understanding.
She'd learned a lot about connection in the last few years. About the push and pull of human relations.
"I wish I could love the way you loved, Steve," she tried again.
Steve looked surprised, his mouth open. "It's not—"
"I don't just mean romantic love," she interrupted. "Although I don't know the exact nature of your relationship. And it's not just you and Barnes. It's you and Peggy, you and Sam, you and… well, me. The way you love, it's all consuming. It's selfless, and stupid, and I don't know how you do it. And I think it's incredible."
Steve pursed his lips.
"You're this force of nature, this atom bomb, this— I don't even know what you are. You don't stop, even when anyone else would, and you do it for love. Because you could help someone. It's beautiful, Steve, and I don't understand it, but I wish I could."
Steve laughed darkly. "You make it sound so noble."
"You think it isn't?"
"It's horrible. Soul crushing. Blinding. I've done horrible, unforgivable things in the service of one person. I nearly got myself killed trying to save him. Multiple times. I hurt people. I put people in danger. You think love is selfless? It's deeply selfish. I don't do the things I do because I care. I do it because I'd rather rip out my own organs one by one than lose someone again."
"It's gotta be nice to love someone that much, though," Natasha sighed.
Steve smiled. "When you're with them— When I was with him, it was like the world was complete. It was sunshine. It was the ocean. It was the first warm day of the spring, when dandelions start shooting out of the concrete. And you think it's going to be like that forever. It's not, things change. And things always change. You change, he changes, your feelings change, and it feels wrong, but it never doesn't feel right. And sometimes its sunshine, and sometimes its a cold breeze, and sometimes its just hoping you don't get frostbite. But at least its always him. Because no matter how much he thinks he changes, its still him. I see it. He'll tell me it's not, but I know. I don't care if the only thing he ever remembered was my name. I'd tell him everything he needed to know. And I'd learn to love him as he was. The way I did during the war. Because as long as it's him, it's there."
They were quiet for a long moment, neither daring to move.
"I've never felt that way before," Natasha admitted.
"Well, that's okay."
"I used to think it meant I was broken. That it was another thing they took from me. Another obstacle between me and being human."
"Nat—" Steve started.
"Wait," she requested. He obliged. "And then for a while, I thought maybe it was better that way. Love complicates things. You were saying before, about it being blinding."
Steve nodded.
"And hearing you describe it, it sounds," she laughed, a light and soft sound, like wind chimes, "it sounds overwhelming. And as much as I'd like to feel it one day, if I don't, I think I'll be alright."
"Tell me how you love," Steve asked. "If that's okay."
"I don't," Natasha said. "I have no concept for it. There's people I care about, and people I enjoy the company of, and I'm sure I've told someone I've loved them before. I've kissed a few people. I haven't gone a lot farther than that. There's lots of important people to me. You, Barton, Fury, Wilson to some extent. Banner. Stark, even. But I don't think it's because I love them. That seems too farfetched, too metaphysical. No, it's reciprocal."
"I don't think I can begin to understand that," Steve admitted. "Not that it's bad or anything! It's just so different to the way I feel things."
"And how's that?"
"I just… do. I've always been passionate, I guess. I feel things before I think them. Anger. Love. Happiness. Pain. My body reacts before I do. It's gotten me into a hell of a lot of trouble, actually."
"Your file described you as reckless," Natasha remembered.
"Really?" Steve seemed oddly charmed by that fact.
Natasha couldn't help but smile. Damn you, Rogers.
Steve continued. "I mean, there's not much that I regret. My response is almost exactly the same after thinking it through. I think I just got good reflexes. What about you?"
"I'm never not thinking. Calculating, is how most people would describe it. Manipulative, even. I don't even notice I'm doing it most of the time. I think I did it even before spy work, but that started so young, I can't be sure. I know people better than they know themselves. That makes it hard sometimes."
Steve nodded. "Yeah. I'm surprised you've told me this much today."
Natasha waved her hand dismissively. "If there's one person in this world I can be someone different around, it's Steve Rogers. Besides, you probably won't remember this conversation anyway."
"What do you mean?"
"You look like you're about to keel over. I wasn't asking you about sleep to make small talk. I know you care about Barnes, but if he wants to, he'll turn up eventually. You're not any use to him if you're sleep deprived.
Steve considered her words.
"Maybe," he said, "You're right. It's just… hard, knowing he's out there. I had nightmares, flashback, even before D.C. It's worse now, knowing everything I do."
"I can't help you there, but Sam might have something to say. He's nice."
"Thank you, Nat. For everything."
Natasha smiled. "Don't even worry about it."
"I want to talk to you more about this kind of stuff. I like hearing what you have to say."
"Alright, Grandpa, let's get you to bed—"
"Nat, I'm serious," Steve said, and he was. His eyes went intense, eyebrows blocked. "You are such a beautiful, kind, smart individual. You think we're so different, but we're the same. You and me, we're the same."
"Okay, now you're starting to sound delirious for real," Natasha said, attempting to hide her concern.
"I want you to help me," he said. "Come by when you can."
"I will."
He locked eyes with her, holding out his hand in invitation. She placed one of hers in his palm, and he covered it.
"You've got part of me with you too, now. Keep it safe."
"I will," she said, slightly strangled.
Natasha didn't love Steve Rogers. Not in any traditional sense. She cared about him. She enjoyed spending time with him. In many ways, she was devoted to him. Maybe love was just another name for devotion.
Natasha didn't love Steve Rogers, but he'd told her how he thought the world works. He'd told her how he thought his mind worked. He'd left her a piece of his soul. He'd told her so much, and she didn't know if he knew even half of it.
Natasha didn't love Steve Rogers, but somehow he'd managed to love her. And she'd be lying if she said love wasn't the only thing in the universe that still confused her. But maybe tomorrow she'd ask him to explain a little more. If she could see the world even a little like Steve did, that would be nice.
As he left the room, she wondered if part of her soul was in his hands.
If there was anyone it was safe with, it was with Steve.