"Damn, if I'd known how good the view here was, I would've come by earlier."
The voice was all toying drawl. Full of confidence. Bold, considering the speaker shouldn't even be there.
The fact that Steve chose preserving his dignity over preserving his life - grabbing a tight hold of the towel around his waist rather than reaching for the nearest weapon - probably said something about him.
Fortunately for his safety, Natasha was more amused than lethal.
She sat perched on the arm of the chair rather than the seat, plain manila folder in hand, the professional document at odds with the casual smirk on her face. However she'd got into his apartment, she'd left no trace but she looked pleased as hell at having caught 'Captain America' out. And in just his bath towel no less.
Recovering his composure if not entirely his pride, Steve nodded in greeting.
"So I guess no one in SHIELD ever learned how to knock, huh?"
Just a few weeks ago it'd been Fury here, hiding in the dark. Bleeding and silently asking for Steve's help. Steve guessed he could be forgiven for eyeing Natasha with suspicion in the circumstances, regardless of their newfound trust.
Besides, she said she'd be getting out of town for the foreseeable future and he hadn't seen since the graveyard. She hadn't replied to any of his messages either. Natasha didn't seem like the kind who'd drop by on a whim.
"Now where would be the fun in that?"
She continued to smile as she stood up and started to casually inspect his bland apartment.
"So this is where Steve Rogers calls home, huh?"
He didn't bother to correct her. At least she hadn't said 'Captain America'.
Her expression was all but inscrutable - a well honed skill - as she passed the bookshelf, looking at the few personal items on displays like she was weighing him up. A scrutiny he wasn't entirely comfortable with.
Pausing at a picture of old, long gone friends - he and the Howling Commandos in a bombed out bar in Reims - her smile returned, softer this time. It struck Steve then that maybe he should have offered her somewhere to stay after things had gone down with SHIELD. That she'd needed a friend and he'd been too distracted by other issues to realise.
Now - clearer head, more attentive - he could at least see that behind the teasing there was something uneasy about her manner. A hesitance hidden in each step. He frowned.
"What brings you here; business or pleasure?"
"Well it was gonna be business but…"
She waggled her eyebrows in a manner just short of obscene.
"Natasha…"
She waved a dismissive hand that was as close to an apology as he was ever likely to get.
"Go put some pants on. This is the sort of news you'll wanna hear whilst fully dressed."
By the time he returned a few minutes later - dressed in tee shirt and sweats, hair still damp - she'd sat herself on the floor next to the coffee table, the contents of the folder she'd brought with her now spread out across the surface. There were photos mainly (black and white, some of people, some building reconnaissance) along with print outs that looked like official reports and memos.
"Been going through all the SHIELD intel you put out there?" he guessed, nodding at the documents as he joined her on the floor.
"Like I said, I wanted to know who I was really working for. I don't like being lied to."
Her gaze stayed fully fixed on the papers but there was a tension in the set of her jaw, reflected in the way she flicked her hair back. Steve hadn't looked it up (and never would) but he knew Natasha had done some pretty terrible stuff when she'd been part of the Red Room program. SHIELD was meant to be her fresh start. Now he figured that'd been replaced by the task of tearing down whatever parts of HYDRA she could lay her hands on, fuelled by a simmering resentment at being manipulated once more.
He laid a hand on her shoulder; almost too briefly, he felt.
"So you found something interesting."
"Mostly junk. A lot of failed side projects before Insight. Then I started looking in to people."
He looked up so fast there was almost an audible snap from his neck muscles.
"Bucky?"
The tight hope in that one word said way too much.
Nat had handed over all she could find on the Winter Soldier program but most of it had been about confirmed and possible kills rather than anything regarding the 'subject' himself. Wherever he was and whatever had happened to him, it seemed that they'd either destroyed all evidence of it or hidden it incredibly well. Steve and Sam had hit nothing but dead ends in their search so far and, yes, it was early days but Steve was already starting to get frustrated. New leads could mean the difference between finding him and not.
"No."
He tried not to look disappointed.
Natasha picked up a photo, sliding it out from under the pile where she'd carefully concealed it. Holding it to her chest with something like hesitance on her face before she relented and placed it down in front of him.
"But there was this."
It was black and white; a still from a surveillance camera maybe? The room depicted was stark and bare, furnished with only a single metal table and a couple of uncomfortable looking chairs. A two way mirror lined one wall. Standard interrogation room.
There were two people in the photograph. One, a nondescript man in a plain coloured suit. He had his back to the camera, palms resting on the table as he leaned over to the talk to the seated woman. Like he was trying to intimidate her.
It didn't seem to be working.
She looked more pissed off than scared, dark hair pulled into a plait although some curls still escaped to frame her face. She looked ragged but defiant.
It was never a look he'd seen on her before - always so composed - but not for a moment did Steve try to argue himself out of the realisation. He just knew this was no mind trick.
He didn't need reassurance but Nat gave it anyway.
"It's her, isn't it? The girl from the photo. I looked her up; Margaret Carter. Helped found SHIELD with Howard Stark and Colonel Chester Phillips. Declared MIA in 1950 after she failed to return from a field mission. "
She repeated the facts like she was reading them directly from a personnel file. Detached. Clinical. Everything that Steve wasn't.
Carefully he took the photo, staring at it, trying to swallow into a dry throat as he looked into her life, into a past that he should have belonged to. Seeing a woman who seemed somehow more real here than she ever had when he'd looked at the SHIELD file photo of her (the only one he possessed).
"Did she… did HYDRA get her?"
The words stuck hard in his throat. It would explain her disappearance.
Nat eyed him cautiously, like he was something volatile, like she had no idea what he'd do next. Hand reaching across and pointing to the faint text in the bottom right corner.
"Steve, look here…"
The timestamp on the photo marked it as 4 weeks ago.