Amelia settled down on the pew, pulling her dress down her thighs as she looked to the coffin in front of her. Folding one leg over the other, she took a moment to compose herself as Helmut sat down next to her. He knew that it looked odd. He was well aware how strange it appeared to people in the chapel. The majority of them only knew that he was Amelia's former fiancé's best friend. Why was he sat next to her? But the truth was that he was the one who had been there over the past week, helping her to make decisions.

"Are you alright?" he asked from her and she turned her gaze up to him, nodding her head.

He adjusted the black tie he wore over his white shirt and sat up straight, seeing her play with the engagement ring that sat proudly on her finger. There weren't that many people in the church. There were the nurses who had looked after her grandmother alongside some of her grandmother's friends from the home. Amelia had even recognised some of her parent's friends who she vaguely knew. She had smiled to them as she saw them stood outside the church.

She had walked in front with Helmut considering she was her grandmother's only family. The front pew they occupied was only for them and Amelia had to confess that, despite Helmut being there, she had never felt so alone. Her parent's funeral had been hard. She had broken down in tears and been unable to speak through the speech she delivered. But her grandmother had been there. She had held her hand through it all and thrown her nods of encouragement. She had been a rock and then Amelia had abandoned her because she was scared that she would resent her for what happened.

Looking to the coffin, Amelia let her eyes flicker over the large swathes of white and pink flowers. There were carnations interwoven as well. They had been her grandmother's favourite flower. Amelia sat still as the vicar spoke and people sniffed and coughed behind her, but she paid them no attention.

Helmut also had to confess that he was feeling out of place. He had known Amelia's grandmother for a few weeks and somehow he found himself sat by her side, watching her intently for any sign of her about to break down. But, apart from the odd tear, she had been resilient. She listened as the vicar spoke of Margaret Jones' life, recalling how she was the youngest of three children who had passed away before her. Amelia knew she had distant great-cousins, but she had no idea who they were. That happened when you grew up. Families drifted apart. They started their own families. She wondered if any of them knew that their great-aunt had died.

The vicar called for Amelia to go up and deliver her speech. Helmut watched her as she took the stand in his place and he squeezed her shoulder encouragingly. Clasping his hands together, Helmut leant forwards and watched her with intent, hoping that she would be alright as she began speaking, her voice shaking slightly as she took hold of the wooden podium in front of her.

"I remember my grandmother as nothing but a fun and loving woman," Amelia began. "She would always be there for me through thick and thin. There was this one time when I was a little girl and I fell off my bike. I had such a big cut, but I thought that I might actually lose a leg. She told me it wasn't that bad and that when I was a big girl, I'd have much more pain than that," Amelia continued. "It turned out she was right and had a point, but at the time I thought that she was being cruel. I was six, after all," Amelia took a deep breath. "But I saw that she was preparing me for what was to come because adult life…it does get much harder than dealing with a cut on your knee…but there was one thing that was always a constant in my life: my grandmother. She always helped me to see that I was strong enough to cope with anything…whether that was being dumped by my first boyfriend…getting over the disappointment of not going to the university I wanted to go to…it was everything," Amelia paused.

Helmut watched her intently and saw that her hands were shaking before she continued talking and he silently urged to keep going in his head, knowing that she wanted to do this more than anything.

"It turned out we faced the greatest hardship together," Amelia said, ignoring the lump in her throat. "When my parents died…and my fiancé…we didn't know what to do. Grandma insisted that it was wrong. It was wrong that her daughter had gone before her and I suffered with a lot of guilt that my parents had been in Sokovia when I insisted they come. I thought that because of that she might resent me."

Amelia looked down for a second before her lips arched into a soft smile. "But she simply called me a silly mare for thinking that, as I'm sure most of you can imagine. She wasn't a woman who minced her words."

Helmut chuckled along with the rest of the people in the crowd.

"There had been a time after that when I didn't quite understand the point of anything. I struggled to laugh…to smile…to want to continue on, but she was always there, despite her knowing that her time was limited. She always put me first and constantly reminded me that life was for living…life was precious…she told me that I would be happy again. She told me that she wanted me to live my life and not mourn for hers. She had been content. She'd loved. She'd had children. She lived life to the full and she wanted me to do the same," Amelia said. "And I want to do that for her to make her proud…that's all I ever wanted…was to make her proud."

Amelia took another sharp intake of breath before nodding her head.

"But I can't promise her that I won't mourn her because I loved her. I will miss her, just as I miss my mum and dad…Lukas…but I can promise her that I will try to live with no regret, just as she did," Amelia concluded. "I just hope that she's up there, still with no regrets."

She stepped away from the podium and went to sit back down. Her legs felt like jelly as she made it back to the seat and sank down. Helmut noticed her shaking hands and he reached out to place one of his over both of hers. He squeezed them tightly, trying to keep her calm and soothe her. She nodded at him and he let go of her hands as she saw the curtains close around the coffin and the service ended.

She left first and thanked the vicar before standing outside. She knew it was polite to thank everyone for coming and she did it with a forced smile as Helmut placed his hands into his pocket and gave her time to do that. He wandered over to the car park in the crematorium, looking over the graveyards beyond it and he knew that Amelia's parents were somewhere in the open ground, their ashes scattered and a tree planted in their name. She was going to do the same for her grandma when the time was right.

"Can we go home?"

Amelia's voice sounded in his ear and he turned around, diverting his attention away from the graves and memorial plaques in front of him. She was tucking her hair behind her ear and pulling her black winter coat tight around her body. Her heels clicked on the pavement as she finally stood before Helmut.

"Whatever you want," he told her.

He picked the car key out of the pocket of his own black winter coat and they moved over to the vehicle. Unlocking the car, he opened the passenger door for her.

"You know that she would be proud of you, don't you?" Helmut said to Amelia and she stood by the door, watching him for a moment. Shaking her head, she climbed into the car.

"I don't know how she could be," she whispered and Helmut wondered what she meant by that. He didn't push her, however, closing the door and knowing it wasn't the best time to discuss it any further.

Amelia stood in the apartment with a glass of whiskey in her hands. She had kicked her heels off her feet and they lay haphazardly in the corner. She was stood on her tight covered feet, looking over the sea from her living room window. Helmut was perched on the couch, leaning forwards with his tie loosed and his top button undone. He watched Amelia with wonder, longing to know what was going on in her mind. He didn't have to wait long to find out, however.

"I don't think she'd be proud of me," Amelia declared and Helmut glanced across to her as she sipped on the whiskey and kept her gaze focused out of the window.

"Why would you say that?"

"Because look at what I've done," Amelia said. "I've…I've killed people…how could she be proud of me for that?"

"You did what you had to do to survive," Helmut responded and moved to his feet. "And more importantly, you helped save me in Madripoor, Amelia."

"You said yourself that you'd have gotten out of there without me."

"Perhaps, perhaps not," he humoured her on that point, not wanting to see her dwell in any self-pity. It wasn't her style and he most certainly wasn't going to let her start now. "And what we are doing, stopping the serum, ending the possibility of there being anymore super soldiers…we both agreed it was necessary. Think about what could happen if there were more enhanced individuals being controlled by those with extremist views. I have no intention of seeing anything like Sokovia happen again, Amelia. They are too dangerous to exist."

"I agree," Amelia said to him. "And I don't regret what I've done, not really. If I had to pull the trigger again then I would, but I just…I just know that the choices I have made mean that I have to live without her being proud of me…of my parents being proud…but then again, what does it matter? They're all dead now."

Amelia sighed and drained the liquid from her glass. Shaking her head firmly, she moved back to the kitchen and spoke in a harsh tone. "So, what's going on with the serum?"

"Do you want to talk about it today?" Helmut questioned.

She moved back into the living area, carrying the bottle of whiskey with her glass. She nodded and knelt down in between the sofa and the coffee table, looking at the papers that Helmut had spread out there. She placed the bottle and glass next to them.

"Yeah," she said to him. "If not then I'm just going to get involved in a pity party and I don't want that."

"Certain?"

"Certain," she echoed back to Helmut. "So go on, tell me."

"Well, there have been some things that look coincidental, but might not be," Helmut told her and he moved to pick at the papers, pointing down to them as Amelia sat near his leg and peered at the papers in his grip.

"The date, December 16th, 1991."

Amelia nodded her head. "What about it?"

"It's the same date that Howard and Maria Stark were killed."

Amelia's eyes widened as she saw the news report that he had printed out. "Really?" she asked from him. "That's so weird…do you think that HYDRA had something to do with their killing? I guess that seems like a link to make, right? Stark worked for S.H.I.E.L.D.? didn't he?"

"He did," Helmut confirmed to her. "But I can find no other detail on the mission report."

"So how…wait…"

Amelia stood up and Helmut watched her move over to the dining table. She picked the files with all the documents in that they had printed off and finally found the one she had been looking for. Pulling it off the table, she moved back to the couch and knelt back on the ground. Pulling the wallet open, she reached for the piece of paper that she had studied a few weeks ago.

"They woke the Winter Soldier up the night before," Amelia said, pointing at the date. "Look? It says here: 'Asset Responsive'. I assume that's the Winter Soldier, right? He was a HYDRA assassin."

"I would also assume so," Helmut said and the two of them began to put the pieces together. Amelia looked at the paper and then the image of Howard Stark as she did her best not to feel like this was a big breakthrough because they had no hard core evidence as of yet. But it seemed like there was a link. And if there was a link then that had to mean something.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Amelia wondered from him and she met his gaze. "The Winter Soldier killed Tony Stark's parents."

"Captain America's best friend," he confirmed with a nod of his head. "This is how we do it, Amelia."

She nodded her head and, despite everything, she felt a sense of relief. After months of searching, they finally had something. She fell back against the sofa, her legs curling underneath her as she draped an arm over his lap, her chin holding her hand as Helmut moved a hand to her shoulder.

"We can never fight them," Helmut said to her. "We can never beat them, but this is how we make them crumble from the inside. This is how we use them…defeat them…"

"We make them fight each other," Amelia said with a nod of her head. "But there's one thing we need to think about. We have no solid evidence."

"There has to be solid evidence somewhere," Helmut responded and she turned her head up to look at him, her wide eyes set on his face as she twisted her head awkwardly, keeping her arm over his thighs. "Someone in HYDRA has to know what happened and will tell us…either willingly or unwillingly."

"And who would that be?"

"I don't know yet," Helmut confessed. "But there will be someone who does know."

"Who do you think that will be? I guess there has to be someone from HYDRA who gave him the orders. Do you think that we'll be able to find them?"

"I think if we keep digging then we just might," Helmut assured her. "But we just need more time. Plus, there is something else that I found as well."

"What is that?"

"Another scientist," Helmut said to her. "He is working for someone who wasn't part of HYDRA, but who is a tyrant in Brazil. The scientist was part of HYDRA, but he had been laying low underground until most recently. He's been spotted in Belgium working in a private laboratory."

"How do you know all of this?" Amelia wondered and then moved so that she was back kneeling on the ground, her arms folding over her chest. "And why did you not tell me any of this?"

"Because you have been busy for the past week," Helmut said. "You had enough on your plate and I had no intention of burdening you with any of this information until it was the right time."

"You need to stop doing that. I can cope," she said to him. "And that still doesn't answer where you got this information from?"

"I have sources," Helmut said.

The truth was he kept on keeping things from her because he knew there might come a time when the less she knew then the better it would be for her. She was silent for a moment, lips pursed and forehead creased as she studied him and he had to refrain from telling her that her pouting was doing nothing more than making him want to drag her back to his bedroom. They hadn't been intimate since New Years Eve, both of them not exactly keeping their distance, but not initiating anything.

Helmut didn't want to be the one to make the first move. He had hoped that after that night he would be fine. He wondered if it could have just been a one-time thing because they hadn't exactly talked about making it a permanent arrangement, despite the fact he wondered if she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

"You have sources?" she repeated back to him. "Alright, then what's the plan?"

"We go to Belgium and speak with this man and see what he knows," Helmut said. "His name is Jason Dunn. The chances are that he might know more than we think if he worked on recreating the serum."

"You think he might know something to link the Winter Soldier to the Starks?"

"Worth asking him," Helmut shrugged. "I'll have a look into flights tomorrow."

"Why not tonight?"

"Because you've just buried your grandmother, Amelia. Now is not the time to think about running off…take today…just…just give yourself time to grieve because I know you've hardly done that today. You've been putting on a brave face."

"I'm fine," Amelia assured him, reaching for the bottle and pouring herself another glass, downing it in one and moving to her feet. "I guess I've accepted it. It's weird. You cry so much when they die and then you have to wait for the funeral and in that time you start to accept that they're gone…not coming back…but the funeral comes and it is like a fresh wave hits you again, isn't it? Brings everything to the surface."

"I know," he said.

And he did know. He agreed with her very much on what she was saying.

"I mean, it hit me at the funeral. I felt as though I wouldn't be able to go in there or to speak, but I did. I got through it and now…I won't forget her…I won't forget any of them, but I need to do something. I don't want to sit and mope around this apartment, so the sooner we get back to work the better."

"You're certain?" Helmut asked.

"I need something to distract me," Amelia responded with a shrug.

She took another shot of whiskey as Helmut also filled his own glass up. She moved over to the window and ran a hand through her hair as she looked out of it again. She knew what she wanted to bring up with him, but she didn't know if she was brave enough, worried that she would look like a fool. She was usually so brash when it came to this sort of thing, but she was finding herself feeling increasingly unsure around Helmut.

And so she just blurted it out, knowing that she'd had enough glasses of whiskey to make it look like she was tipsy. Turning back around to face him, she flapped her arms by her side.

"Do you want to have sex again?"

Helmut almost spat out the whiskey he had drank; coughing into his palm at the bluntness of her question. She remained stood where she was, crossing one leg over the other as he patted his chest and finally regained his breath, tears forming in his eyes as he sat up straight and tilted his head to the side.

"That was very direct," he said to her.

She shrugged, trying to act nonchalant. "Better than beating around it, surely?"

"Indeed," he drawled lowly and then arched a brow. "Do you want to have sex again?"

"No, you don't answer my question by turning it back onto me," Amelia said, pointing at him with her empty glass. She moved back to the coffee table and filled her glass up once more as Helmut placed his down on the surface. Lacing his hands together, he leant forwards and observed her keenly.

"I know we discussed our concerns about sleeping together, but I confess that I did not know if you wanted it to be a one time thing," Helmut said to her.

"I mean, I thought about it," Amelia said to him. "I thought that I might feel really guilty and not be able to go through with it again…but…I didn't. I didn't feel guilty because we both know that it is just sex. We are friends who sleep together. We're both alone and single, we're not breaking any rules."

Helmut leant back, hands moving to sit on his thighs. "You've changed your tune," he said to her, slightly intrigued as to what was going on.

And she knew she had. She knew that it sounded hypocritical after her weeks of going back and forth, but the fact was that it had been good. It had been better than good. It had felt nice to feel wanted and she knew that she shouldn't feel guilty about that. She told herself that it didn't have to go any further. She kept telling herself that she wouldn't fall for him. She wouldn't fall for him and he wouldn't fall for her. Surely they could control that?

But even as she looked at him sat on the couch after her proposition, telling herself that it was just sex, she knew she was lying to herself. She knew she might get hurt eventually, but she would deal with that if and when it happened. All she knew right then was that her longing for Helmut was more than her ability to think rationally.

"So you don't want to?" Amelia asked.

"I never said that," Helmut said, wondering if he had said it slightly too quickly as he saw her lips arch upwards for a brief moment at his comment. He had to confess that he was finding her fascinating.

"I think so long as there are boundaries then we will be fine," she said to him. "Like not falling asleep together…or engaging in any PDA…we just have sex at night and that's it."

She told herself that might be one way to avoid the complications of feelings, hoping she was right. There would be no inclination of romance. There would be nothing that would make her find him charming or flirty.

"You make it sound so functional."

"Is that not what we both want?" Amelia asked. "So, what do you say?"

"Well…technically it isn't night," Helmut said, picking up on her previous point and being pedantic. He was testing her and he knew he was doing that. He had a tendency to see how far he could push her. But he knew that she gave as good as he got. And, in this instance, she seemed to be rising to the challenge.

He watched her as she remained silent and her hands pulled at the zip at the back of her dress. She said nothing, keeping her gaze on him as she slipped the sleeveless fitted material down her waist and pushed it over her legs, taking her tights with it. She stepped out of the scraps of black material and pushed them off to the side as she stood before him in a matching black set of underwear. She wondered if she was making a fool of herself, but she had heard the tone in his voice. He was pushing her and teasing her. Well, she could do exactly the same thing back to him.

"Then I'll just go and leave you to it."

Amelia knew she wasn't playing fair. She didn't care. If he was going to test her then she would fight dirty. She didn't even get to the hallway before he had pulled her back to him and pushed her against the wall, his lips meeting hers once more.

Amelia finished packing last minute before their flight to Belgium. Helmut had taken care of everything, as per usual, and Amelia was just leaving it to him. She shrugged into her red winter coat as he picked up her small suitcase alongside his, leaving her to lock the apartment. They were heading to Norwich airport after discovering that the local airport did flights to Brussels and it was only just under two hours to the city. Helmut hadn't even complained about there being no first class seats on the flight.

Parking her car at the airport, Amelia made sure the ticket for the car park was firmly placed in her purse before they left. They didn't need to check on their cases considering they were small enough to be classed as hand luggage. Helmut found that they had gone through security fairly quickly and only had a two-hour wait before their flight.

He moved over to find some seats out of the way of everyone else, down a long corridor where the gates were empty but he could still see an information screen for when the time came for their flight to be called. Amelia had gone to grab them a couple of coffees in the meantime. She came walking back to him, holding the two cups in her hand as her satchel bashed against her hip.

"Here you go," she said, handing him the espresso.

She sat down with her own coffee on the seat besides him. Shrugging out of her coat, she held her cup in between her jean covered thighs and rolled up her grey sweatshirt. Taking her cup back into her hands, she sipped on the coffee as Helmut did the same, wondering how to raise the point that he wanted to raise.

"I never asked…and you never said…but last night when you told me it was fine-"

"-I'm on birth control," she interrupted him, sensing that he was being delicate around the topic. She looked across to him and arched her brow. "Don't worry about it."

"Okay," he said, agreeing with her weakly and chuckling to himself. "I apologise. That was quite an intimate question to ask in an airport."

"Well, it's not like you announced it over the tannoy, is it?" Amelia responded and he continued to smirk. "Besides, that would be the last thing we need."

"I agree," he said to her and she sank back in the seat, folding one leg over the other. They lapsed into silence for a few brief moments before Amelia spoke, needing to do something to break the silence and, for some reason, she found herself spilling everything to Helmut.

"I never wanted children."

He wondered where that had come from as she held the coffee cup tightly, twirling it around in her hands. She shrugged and looked down to her lap. "I told Lukas and he…well…he told me that maybe I just hadn't found the right partner to have children with. I didn't know how to tell him that my mind never changed. When he proposed, I thought that maybe I would think differently. I thought that maybe once we were married then I would change my mind…but I didn't. It was always at the back of my mind, knowing that I didn't want what he wanted in the end. He really wanted the family life with me and I…I was never convinced."

Helmut let his gaze roam over her and she sat further back on the seat once more, taking a sip of her drink.

"Is there a reason why?" Helmut wondered.

"I don't think so," Amelia said to him. "They were just never something I wanted. I never wanted to be a mother. I'd have been happy just growing old with Lukas…I just…I don't feel that I would have that maternal instinct. I don't see children and long for one of my own."

"Everyone is different," Helmut said to her with a nod of his head. "There are plenty of couples who decide not to have children."

"Sorry," Amelia suddenly said and shot him a sheepish look. "I don't know why I told you any of that."

"Perhaps because he's gone and you finally feel you can open up?" Helmut suggested. "I think it might be easier…and…well…there are some things we keep bottled up. I think you need an outlet."

"And you've been more than that outlet, Helmut," Amelia said to him with a scoff. "I mean, I'm leaning on you emotionally…mentally…heck, I'm even taking out my sexual frustration on you."

"That last one I don't mind so much," he told her and she saw the smirk of his lips as she nudged him the ribs and he chuckled at the motion as she shook her head. "No, in all seriousness, Amelia, I don't mind. You're a talker. You wear your heart on your sleeve."

"And you?" Amelia wondered from him. "You hardly ever really open up about anything."

"Not true," Helmut denied. "I told you how I felt about us sleeping together."

"Yeah, apart from that you don't talk about…the past…you don't tell me how you feel…what's going on in your head…and you know that you can, right? I won't judge you for anything you say."

"I know you won't," Helmut promised her. "I just deal with grief in my own way. I prefer not to think of the past or talk about it often. I just…I just keep going because that is the only thing driving me, knowing that we're going to have justice one day."

Amelia nodded, understanding what he meant. She wondered what it was he wanted after they had gotten justice. He seemed to think that she would be able to return to her normal life, but she wasn't so sure. She didn't push it with him, however, knowing full well that it was a conversation for another day.

They sat and drank their coffee over more light-hearted conversation before it was announced that their flight was boarding. Amelia placed the empty cups into the bin and stood up, wheeling her case alongside her and letting her coat flow open around her. She was dressed in her comfiest travel clothes while Helmut had dark jeans and a black turtleneck on, looking like more stylish than she could hope for. She almost felt misplaced queuing up with him to board the flight.

"This is my first time in economy," Helmut said to her.

"Then prepare for an experience you'll never forget," Amelia said. "Oh, and I'm taking the window seat so enjoy people bumping against you in the aisle."

"Seriously?"

"Oh yeah," Amelia said, throwing him a teasing look. "Your Baron title affords you no privileges from me, buddy."

He chuckled at her as she handed her boarding pass to the woman at the front of the gate who scanned it with her passport. She walked forward as Helmut watched her go while the attendant scanned his own documents. She turned her head over her shoulder as she moved down the tunnel towards the plane to make sure he was coming and smiled to him. He watched her and almost felt his stomach jump at the sight of her, knowing that he was starting to flounder in what it was he felt for her.

...

A/N: He's going to open up eventually! In the meantime, I have a lot planned for what is to come for these two but as always I love your thoughts/ideas. It isn't going to be a smooth journey that's for sure. I also have started thinking more about continuing into the TV series - what do you think? Let me know!