Author's note: Thanks to Spidershadow5, Nimrodel 101, dissatisfieduser, and all my readers!

Chapter 25

The rooftop was packed with chatting, laughing people, most of whom Steve knew from working with them at S.H.I.E.L.D. in some capacity. As the birthday party host, Clint Barton looked to be in his element as he flipped burgers over a grill and served them up to the guests with good spirits as well as aplomb, dressed in an apron emblazoned with the words "I never miss" in bright purple letters.

"This is one of the best cheeseburgers I've ever had," Tony was telling him between bites as he watched Clint cook. "And I've had a lot of cheeseburgers in my day."

"Yeah, well, practice makes perfect," Clint said modestly as he slid a patty onto Agent Klein's outstretched plate. "And I've had a lot of practice."

"Let me guess," Tony said, waving the last few bites of his burger meaningfully. "You were working at Burger King when S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited you to be a master assassin."

Clint smiled broadly, blue eyes glinting. "No way."

"What, then? McDonald's? Wendy's?"

Clint just laughed and shook his head as he flipped a whole row of burgers over, one after another, with a sure hand, and Steve wondered, as he had several times before, how on earth an agent who was at the peak of his game, working for 15 years in a job that was so high-pressure that many new agents burned out within six months, managed to be so strangely... normal.

As Clint and Tony continued to verbally spar, Steve glanced over to see Agent Klein standing by the condiment table, struggling to open a pickle jar. Silently Steve held out his hand, and after a second Klein handed it to him with a sheepish grin. Steve opened it with ease and handed it back.

"That's putting your taxpayer dollars to work, Klein," Clint quipped, looking at Steve with a grin.

"His tax dollars didn't pay for all that muscle," Tony said.

"Well, my grandfather's did," Klein put in, although it took him some time to get through the stammer, and Tony looked visibly impatient by the time he did.

Steve followed Klein over to the table once his own plate was loaded, and drew him out into a conversation about his grandfather, which turned out to be pretty interesting, and before long a couple of other agents were listening in with active interest, too. As usual, Klein's stammer got less noticeable as the conversation went on; Steve had noticed that his level of ease really did make a difference in how well he communicated.

"So how'd we do?" Clint asked Steve much later as he turned off the grill and started scraping it clean. It was getting dark; the fireworks would start soon. "Having a good time?"

"I think this may be the best birthday I've ever had," Steve admitted.

Clint pumped his fist into the air in a triumphant gesture, looking self-satisfied. "The only thing we forgot was the apple pie."

"Apple pie?"

"Would've fit in well with the evening's Americana theme. Didn't think of it 'til now, though."

"I'm not really a fan of apple pie," Steve admitted.

"You don't..." Clint stared at him, stunned. "You don't like apple pie?"

"Apples really shouldn't be cooked-" Steve started to explain.

"Ladies and gentleman!" Clint shouted, and all the little groups of people standing around stopped their chatting and turned to look. "I'd like to announce that Captain America does not like apple pie!" he proclaimed at top volume, "which is not only un-American but also completely wrong, and as a result we'll be asking him to turn in his uniform and his shield, and also to choose another name!"

He got a lot of laughs, the loudest one of all from Brock Rumlow, who left his group of STRIKE guys and came over to them, staggering a little.

"Hey Cap," Rumlow said as he came closer to Steve with beer bottle in hand — uncomfortably close, actually. As usual, he had gone a day or two without shaving, leaving a short scruff on his chin and cheeks. "Just think. If your parents hadn't come to America... you would have been Captain Ireland."

He slurred the last word atrociously, and then laughed riotously. Clint laughed too, although he seemed to be laughing at the state Rumlow was in more than Rumlow's joke.

"You know what this party's missing? We need a drinking song!" Rumlow suddenly burst out. "Hey, Cap... teach us a good Irish drinking song."

"What makes you think he knows a drinking song?" Clint asked.

"Oh come on..." Rumlow drawled. "I bet the Howling Cadammos... Cadam... Commandos had a drinking song."

"More than one," Steve admitted.

"See?" Rumlow waved his hand dramatically. "Take it away, Cap!"

Instantly, the joyous tune for "Whiskey in the Jar" popped into Steve's head, followed rapidly by the more wistful melody of "Back Home in Derry," but this hardly seemed the time and place for either one of them. The first one reminded him too much of Bucky, and the second too much of his mother.

And so he held his tongue. Fortunately, Rumlow was too drunk to focus on an idea for more than a few seconds.

"I gotta take a leak," he said suddenly. "Cap, your place unlocked?"

Steve fished his keys out of his pants pocket — he'd changed into civvies as soon as he'd gotten home — and handed them to Rumlow, who turned and headed for the stairs, followed by a couple of guys from STRIKE and then, after a beat, one of Tony's bodyguards, the taller one. Unusually tall for a Chinese man — or maybe he was Vietnamese? Apparently lots of people needed the bathroom.

"Okay, now I'm sorry I invited him," Clint said as soon as they were gone. "I didn't know he got like that when he drinks."

"It's okay," Steve said. He was surprised, too; Rumlow had never gotten himself in that kind of state during those after-work sports bar gatherings.

"Yeah, well, if he pukes on your floor, I'm gonna make him clean it up with his own shirt," Clint said.

Just then, the first of the fireworks went off, sending a bloom of red sparks across the sky. There were exclamations from several people, and the chatter died down for a while as everyone moved to where they could get a good view of the show.

Steve found himself standing behind Nat, and glanced back to make sure he wasn't blocking anyone's view. That was when he noticed that Tony was still sitting at a card table, face lit up by the high-end tablet he was looking down at. Come to think of it, he'd retreated into silence behind that tablet quite a while ago. Steve was surprised he wasn't still mingling, given he seemed every bit the extrovert Howard had been. Pepper was bending over him, one hand on his shoulder.

"Put it away, Tony," Steve heard her urge. "Come and watch the fireworks."

"Just a minute," Tony said, waving her away without looking up. "I'm trying to work out a bug with Mark 10's guidance system."

"Come on, Tony, this is supposed to be a party," she urged. "You love parties, remember? That can wait until tomorrow." She tried to take the tablet out of his hands, but he pulled it in close to his chest.

"No, it can't," he said irritably. "I might need that suit before then."

"What are the odds that before tomorrow morning-" she started skeptically.

"I don't know," Tony shot back, "probably the same odds that the Chitauri would attack on May 4, 2012."

"You have nine other suits," she pointed out. "Tony, you promised me you wouldn't do this today. You have to take breaks sometimes. This is getting ridiculous."

"I said I'll be there in just a minute," he insisted. "Look, you're missing it. Go watch the show. Go."

Pepper made an exasperated gesture with her hands, but finally she reluctantly left him and went over by the others to watch the fireworks.

Suddenly, everything seemed to click in place for Steve: Tony's visible exhaustion, his wild mood swings all day, Pepper's seeming overreaction to Tony wanting a drink... and now this fixation on work in the middle of a party, when his reputation suggested his preference was in the other direction.

It was all just a little too familiar.

Steve slipped away from the other guests who were watching the fireworks show, and sat down at the card table across from Tony. Tony glanced up, red light from the fireworks and blue light from his tablet reflecting off opposite sides of his face.

"How are you doing, Tony?" Steve asked him.

Tony's eyes flicked back down to his screen. "Never better."

"You sleeping okay?"

Tony paused in the act of rubbing his eyes with his knuckles. "What?"

"You look tired," Steve said. "Are you sleeping okay at night?"

Tony shot him an odd look. "Who are you, Dr. Spock? I run a little company — you might have heard of it, it's called Stark Industries — and I don't always get to log in eight hours in the sack. The whole world wants a piece of me." He swiped at his screen with a flourish. "I've seen you on a few magazine covers yourself," he went on, his eyes on the screen. "Looking very handsome, in a squeaky-clean gee-whiz kind of way. Do chicks dig that? I've heard your fan club is just raking in new memberships. Before New York it was all 90-year-old women... at least, that was the rumor."

"Fury insisted I do some interviews," Steve said briefly, refusing to let Tony sidetrack him in such a blatantly transparent way. "And speaking of New York-"

"We weren't speaking of New York."

"Tony... everything that happened there?" Steve began carefully. "Most people never experience anything like it in their lifetime. And you took a worse hit than any of us. It's really not surprising if-"

"It was hardly my first rumble," Tony interrupted. "I was taking down all kinds of idiots while you were kicking back having a nice nap in the ice, Mr. Rip Van Winkle."

Steve ignored the jab; he was starting to realize Tony didn't mean anything by them. "I know, but that doesn't make you immune to the effects. Believe me, I know."

Tony stared at him for a long moment, slowly sitting up a little straighter. "Are you telling me you're having trouble sleeping?"

"Now? No, but-"

"No, of course you aren't," Tony said with a hint of bitterness. "Of course not you."

"-but I did before the battle," Steve finished bluntly.

A confused look wandered across Tony's face. "Before?"

"Yeah. Because of what happened to me, waking up the way I did," he said softly. It was terrifying to admit it, especially considering who he was talking to, but if Tony was having the same problem, he had a responsibility to help if he could. The way Maria Hill had helped him.

Tony turned his body toward Steve more fully, looking incredulous. "And you're telling me you got better after the battle?"

"Everyone's different, Tony," he explained gently. "I needed a purpose. After the battle, I felt like I'd found one. I'm not completely out of the woods yet, but... it's been better, now that I've gone back to work."

Tony looked away again, staring toward the fireworks but not really seeing them. "Work, huh?"

"Have you spoken to someone?" Steve asked. "About the insomnia?"

"I never said I had insomnia," Tony said shortly. "We were talking about you. Jeez, Steve, you talk about yourself as much as a Kardashian. And don't even think about Googling that name," he added in an aside. "You'll regret it. Probably give yourself a coronary... if your heart wasn't so perfect." He rubbed the glowing circle in his chest absent-mindedly as he spoke, and then he turned back to his tablet in a clear dismissal.

After a long hesitation, Steve left him to his work, knowing there was only so much he could do; he and Tony just hadn't known each other long enough to build up that kind of trust. But he took comfort in the fact that Tony had someone like Pepper looking after him. He would be all right. Steve knew now that time could heal as well as destroy.

When the fireworks show was over, the party began to slowly break up. Clint ushered Rumlow and a few of the drunker STRIKE guys down the stairs to give them a ride home, and Pepper took Tony away, followed by their two bodyguards, one of whom glanced back as he left. He was probably just doing a last-minute security check — Steve knew from experience that it was difficult to break that habit, once you were in it — yet the man had a hint of a smile on his face as his eyes swept over Steve and Nat. And then he was gone.

HARRISON CARTER: Heading out. Everyone's gone but Rogers and Romanoff.

SHARON CARTER: Thanks. Saw you come down to his apartment with Rumlow earlier. Why?

HARRISON CARTER: Just keeping an eye on things.

HARRISON CARTER: At the risk of sticking my nose in your business...

HARRISON CARTER: From the roof I could see several clear lines of sight to his apartment windows from other buildings nearby.

HARRISON CARTER: Have you checked that out?

SHARON CARTER: Trust me, no one's spying on Rogers but me.

HARRISON CARTER: More worried about snipers than spies.

SHARON CARTER: You're paranoid.

HARRISON CARTER: It's my job.

SHARON CARTER: If you're so paranoid, why did you just leave my guy alone on a roof with an ex-KGB agent?

HARRISON CARTER: Romanoff's okay. I've checked her out.

SHARON CARTER: You? When? Why?

HARRISON CARTER: She applied for a job at Stark Industries, remember? I ran the background check.

SHARON CARTER: You missed something.

HARRISON CARTER: Ha, ha. I knew she was S.H.I.E.L.D., even if Stark didn't. Like I said, she checked out.

SHARON CARTER: Are you kidding me?

HARRISON CARTER: It's my job to keep him safe. That doesn't always mean telling him everything.

SHARON CARTER: What else don't you tell him?

HARRISON CARTER: Who I'm related to. I know you understand that.

SHARON CARTER: Tell me the truth. Do you work for Tony Stark, or for your Grandma Peggy?

HARRISON CARTER: Answer me first. Do you work for Nick Fury, or for your Great-Aunt Peggy?

SHARON CARTER: Touche.

Steve and Nat sat together at the card table, not talking much. There were other, smaller, fireworks exploding in the distance all around the city, and long lines of headlights and taillights visible on the streets below as everyone headed home after the celebrations at the National Mall, but here on the roof they seemed to be above it all. The temperature was perfect, warm but with a bit of a breeze.

After a long silence, Nat stirred and looked over at him. "Steve?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm glad you're not Captain Ireland."

A smile spread across his face. "Doesn't have the same ring, does it?"

Nat smiled, too. "So why did your parents come here?" she asked curiously.

"Well... my dad worked at an iron smelting facility in County Down," he said.

"That sounds unpleasant."

Steve shrugged. "The work, he could deal with. It was the management that was a problem. They were English and Protestant — and they didn't like anyone who was Irish or Catholic. Which was most of the workers. There was a lot of..." He trailed off.

"Harassment?" Nat filled in.

"Yeah," Steve admitted. "And it wasn't just there, either... it was everywhere. Not much recourse from the government, either. When my dad married my mom, he promised her a better life than that. So they packed up and came here. Settled down in Brooklyn."

"And then what?"

"There weren't a lot of good jobs around, not in those days, but my dad did some work on the subway lines, and some brick-laying. They got by okay, but then the war broke out, and dad felt it was his duty to go. My mom didn't know she was expecting until after he'd gone overseas."

"Oh, Steve-"

"Don't worry. She had the Irish grit. I'm sure it was a shock when she lost him, but she never despaired. It wasn't in her character."

"What did she do?"

"She scrimped and saved to get some training as a nurse, and then went looking for jobs at hospitals. She was a real hard worker, my mom, and nurses were in demand even during the Depression, but she couldn't get hired right away. Finally she figured out what the problem was." He shrugged a little. "She taught herself to sound more American, and after that she had more luck getting hired."

"It was because of her accent?" Romanoff asked, frowning a little.

"New Yorkers... let's just say they didn't love the Irish back in the day," Steve said.

He could remember it all too vividly: one of his earliest childhood memories. The kids in the neighborhood who had mocked his soft brogue, who had called him "bog-trotter" and "Paddy." And then they had started pushing him around, and in terror he had run down the street, just wanting to get away from them. But to his dismay, they hadn't left him alone. They'd chased him all the way down the street, laughing and teasing him the whole way, and he couldn't run fast enough to get away from them. He had never forgotten that horrible feeling of helplessness. The humiliation of it. And when he finally made it home and stumbled through the front door in the throes of a bad asthma attack, his mother had sat up with him for hours, helping him inhale the steam from the steeped herbs until he finally stopped wheezing. By then, he had set his jaw and come to a simple decision.

No more running.

He'd learned to stand up, push back. He never started a fight, and he rarely ended them, but he could make himself so much trouble for the bullies to deal with that they eventually gave up and left him alone. That was a kind of victory, too.

"How is that both you and your dad ended up fighting in a world war on behalf of a country that didn't even like you?" Nat asked, wrinkling her nose.

"There was nothing wrong with the country," Steve said calmly. "Only some of the people in it. And you'll find that anywhere; it's human nature. It's the ideals that set America apart, ideals like freedom and responsibility and fairness for everyone. Even if we don't always manage to live up to them, we're always trying to do better." He raised his eyebrows at her. "Isn't that why you came here?"

Nat thought for a moment. "You know, in Russia... the KGB didn't trust their own operatives," she said slowly. "It didn't matter where I went or what I did, they were always restricting me or watching me or tracking me in some way. S.H.I.E.L.D. did that too, for a while, but once I had proven myself to Fury, he eventually took the leash off. Do you know the first thing I did as soon as I realized I was free, really free, to do whatever I wanted, with whoever I wanted to do it with?"

He shook his head.

Nat smiled in remembrance. "I dragged Clint to a Beastie Boys concert. Went to the front, right up by the stage, and danced my brains out for three solid hours. Best day of my life."

Steve smiled, too. "God bless America."

"God bless America," she agreed, and they laughed together.

They fell silent for a few minutes. Fireworks popped in the distance, and the breeze ruffled their hair.

"You know what you need, Steve?" Nat said thoughtfully, out of the blue.

"What's that?"

"You need a girlfriend."

Steve paused a long moment. "Wow. Thanks, Nat."

"It isn't so much that you need a girlfriend," she quickly amended. "It's that a girlfriend needs you. Do you have any idea how many women are out there looking for a nice guy? You could make someone's day. You could make someone's life."

"Well," he said slowly, not sure how to react or how much to say. How could anyone from this time understand just how much the traditions around courtship and marriage had changed since his time? How could they ever appreciate what had been lost? The innocence, the gentility, the slow burning romance... as far as he could tell, they had been largely jettisoned from society in favor of other, faster ways to get pleasure. Even some of the church-going women had different expectations now, he'd discovered to his shock. And he knew without being told that no one, but no one, would want to hear a lecture from him on this particular subject. So what could he do? He couldn't bend to the ways of the world, and they wouldn't bend to his.

And yet even that wasn't the reason, although it was a reason. There was a part of him that wanted to tell Nat what he had told Clint — that there just wasn't enough shared life experience for him to make a connection with anyone from this time — but over the last few weeks a suspicion had been growing in the back of his mind that maybe he wasn't being completely honest with himself about that. Maybe he was just making excuses.

Maybe the truth was simpler: He couldn't forgive any of them for not being Peggy.

"It's complicated," he said simply.

"Not that complicated," Nat said, tipping her chair back against the wall and putting her feet casually up on the table. "I mean, what's the story with your neighbor?"

He frowned. "Who, Kate?"

"Yeah. She seems nice. I think she's into you."

"She doesn't know me," Steve said. "We've never done anything but make small talk."

"Well, whose fault is that?" Nat teased.

He smiled a little, but didn't answer.

"You are such a mystery, Steve," Nat said softly after a long pause. "You only ever say a tenth of what you think."

"Isn't that true of everyone?"

Nat shook her head. "Plenty of people say ten times more than what's in their head," she said wryly. Then her eyes softened. "Seriously. Tell me why it's complicated. You'll feel better if you get it off your chest."

He almost did it. He almost opened his mouth and let it all spill out. It had been a relief to talk to Rumlow about Bucky. Maybe it would help if he told Nat about Peggy.

But as he tried to sort his thoughts into words orderly enough to say out loud...

It was like a slow-motion explosion of pain inside him, made all the worse because he'd already been thinking of Peggy earlier that day in the limo. Ever since then, he'd been replaying in the back of his mind the conversation he'd had with her in the cab on the way to the SSR's hidden facility in Brooklyn, the first time he had realized that far from being too high above him, Peggy was actually like him. An underdog. A fighter. She'd found her place in the world a little quicker than he had found his, that was all. She'd cultivated a serene confidence in her own abilities that no detractor could take away from her, and she'd given him the courage to find that same peace for himself. Bucky had been right about him all along — he had been desperate to prove himself — but it was Peggy who had showed him how it was done.

And now she was gone. Peggy was gone. He could never get her back.

Steve shook his head silently.

Nat studied his face closely. "You can trust me, you know," she said. "You're always holding me at arm's length. You didn't think I noticed. But I'm very good at keeping confidences. Just ask Clint."

"I know," he said. But he pressed his lips together, determined to say nothing more, and after a few moments Nat turned away from him slightly, hugging her arms against her chest although the night breeze was still warm.

"That's okay," she said quietly, her words coming out strangely choppy. "I can understand why someone like you... wouldn't trust someone like me."

He was so floored by Nat's response, and the apparent offense she had taken at something he had said, that his anguish over Peggy was stopped cold in its tracks, and he found himself fumbling for words. "Someone like me... someone like you...?" he asked, bewildered. Why did women have to be so opaque all the time? "What is that supposed to mean?"

Nat laughed humorlessly, still turned partly away from him. "It means that one of us has made a lot of terrible mistakes in her life. And one of us hasn't made any."

For a moment there was a flash of real pain in her eyes, but then she glanced back up at Steve, and suddenly her face changed.

"Wow," she said, looking startled. "I just really ticked you off. What did I say?"

He didn't trust himself to speak, so he didn't. Instead he got up and went over to the edge of the roof, bracing his hands against the wall and staring at the D.C. traffic going by. Without hesitation Nat followed him.

"Don't do that," she burst out, a sudden anger coloring her voice. "Damn it, Steve, just say it. Whatever it is, I can handle it!"

"You are the second person to call me perfect tonight," Steve said, fighting to get his anger under control. "The next person who says it is going to get drop-kicked off a roof."

Nat looked bewildered. "I can't call you perfect?" she demanded. "Why not?"

"Because I'm not."

Nat laughed in disbelief. "How are you not? Name one flaw. Go ahead. I'll wait."

He was angry enough now that he couldn't resist taking the bait. "I know what people say about me. Mr. Nice Guy. Life magazine put it on their cover in big block letters right next to my face. The truth is... I'm not a nice person, Natasha, and anyone who thinks I am is going to end up disappointed."

"Bull-" she started, and then quickly bit off the word before she finished it. "Bullcrap," she hastily amended. "You are nice."

"I'm polite. There's a difference."

"Well, you're going to have to explain that one, because you've lost me."

"Nice people don't hurt people's feelings. I have, and chances are good I'll do it again." He took a quick breath. "I'm nice when I can be, but sometimes I can't. Do you know why?"

Nat's eyes were intent on his. "Tell me."

"It's because some things are more important to me. Things like being honest. Making sure justice is done. Protecting people's lives... or their rights. If you pin me into a corner, if you force me to choose between doing what I think is right or sparing your feelings... I'll hurt you. Every time. And then I get to live with the look of betrayal on your face, because you didn't understand that about me until it was too late."

Nat was quiet for a moment. "That happened to you?" she asked at last.

"Why do you think I got beat up so much, back in Brooklyn? I can't turn a blind eye. I can't let things slide. And nobody likes a goody two-shoes. Once I embarrassed a man in front of a theater full of people because he was heckling the employees to show the movie instead of war reels. There was a woman crying — probably had a father or a brother or a lover overseas — and the guy wouldn't shut up. Everyone else in the room was just tolerating it. I couldn't. And that guy was a stranger, but you know what? I would have done the same thing if he had been my best friend."

"You're going to think this is crazy," Nat said slowly, "but given how much of my life was spent being lied to and having my emotions toyed with by people who just wanted to manipulate me into doing things... the thought of having a friend who does the right thing even when it hurts me is actually-" She met his eyes with a hint of a smile on her lips. "-strangely appealing." She scrutinized him a little skeptically. "Are you sure that's a flaw, Steve?"

"Considering how much trouble it's caused me," he said grimly, "I'd have to say yes."

She frowned. "What kind of trouble?"

"It's why I never really fit in anywhere. Not in Brooklyn, not in the Army, not anywhere. I've been this way for as long as I can remember." He looked down. "Sometimes I think I was born on the wrong planet. I've had people I cared about. People who cared about me. But no one ever really got me, except-" He cut himself off.

"-except that one person who we are definitely not talking about tonight," Nat finished matter-of-factly.

Steve took a deep breath and let it out. "Please don't think that has anything to do with trusting or not trusting you. There are some things I'm not ready to talk about yet."

"Okay. I'm sorry I pushed you." Nat was genuinely contrite. "And I'm sorry I called you perfect."

"That's okay."

"But no matter what you say, Steve," she added then, her eyes dancing with a hint of mischief, "I still think you're pretty nice."

"Well, you can think what you want," Steve said with resignation. "It's a free country."

"God bless America," Nat quipped again. "Hey, Steve. Did I just give you your first fight-with-a-friend since 1945?"

Steve thought for a moment. "You know what? I think you did."

"Ooo, this is a moment for the history books!" Nat said, breaking out into a wide smile. "I'm gonna call the Smithsonian right now." She jokingly pulled out her phone, but Steve put one hand gently over hers and made her lower the phone.

"Nat," he said, still stuck on what she had said earlier.

"What?"

"Do you-" He hesitated. "Do you look down on yourself? Because of your past?"

The smile faded from her face. "Of course," she said after a beat. Her tone was quiet, but matter-of-fact. "Wouldn't you?"

Steve frowned. "But what you did all those years... it wasn't you. The people who controlled you, they're the ones who're responsible."

"Yes," Nat said. "And no." She took a deep breath. "You weren't there, Steve. You don't know the things I did. It's not like- It's not like someone was holding a gun to my head every moment of every day. Some of the things I did... I did choose them. At least partly. Some days I don't even know myself how much of it was me and how much of it wasn't, but... My hands aren't as clean as you think." She paused. "To borrow a phrase from you... it's complicated."

"Well, I don't judge people by their worst mistakes," Steve said. "You shouldn't either."

Nat shot him a startled look.

"What?" he asked.

She took a quick breath. "That's pretty much what Clint said to me. When... when he spared me." She shook her head and scowled. "It's ridiculously naive. You know that, right?"

"I would say merciful."

"Thought you were all about justice."

"They go together. You know that, right?" He imitated her inflections, and almost against her will she smiled slightly.

"Besides," Steve continued, "I'm not sure how much you did or didn't choose your actions matters in the way you think it does. Don't you believe in repentance?"

Nat shot him a look of grim disbelief. "You really think a couple of Hail Marys can wash away the things I've done?"

"That isn't what repentance is," Steve said mildly.

"Oh, really? Enlighten me."

"It just means becoming a different person. Once, you were the kind of person who could do those things. Now you're not."

The breeze flared up, stirring Nat's hair. "I don't think it's that simple."

Steve acknowledged that with a nod. "Yeah. Maybe the good things you're doing now can't undo the things you did in the past. But they're not nothing, either. That remorse you feel, that guilt... It's there to make you want to be a better person. You've already started to do that. I think someday, when you're ready, you could let go of the guilt."

Nat exhaled explosively. "Let go of it? Just like that?"

"Just like that." And then he added — with a smile to show he was teasing — "And saying a couple of Hail Marys couldn't hurt."

She smiled a little in return. "Well then, you better say them for me."

"I already do."

She closed her eyes, hesitating for a long moment, and then suddenly blurted out: "So does that mean you forgive me?"

"Forgive you?" Steve repeated.

Nat locked her eyes on his, an uncharacteristically naked expression on her face. "For what I did," she said. Her eyes seemed to be pleading with him.

Sensing that this question was more important to Nat than he could know, Steve answered carefully.

"I think maybe you're asking the wrong person," he said at last. "You haven't done anything to me."

She looked at him steadily, lips parting slightly in surprise.

"As far as I'm concerned, you and I have a blank slate," Steve said firmly.

Nat's eyes unexpectedly moistened. "Never had one of those before," she said, trying to smile. "I'll... try not to mess it up."

"I don't believe you will."

"I hate you, Steve Rogers," she said, smudging away a tear impatiently. "I was trying to pry into your business tonight."

He lifted his eyebrows, not feeling particularly sorry. "Well, it's about time someone gave you a taste of your own medicine."

TO BE CONTINUED

Author's note: This is one of those scenes I had to rewrite multiple times to get it right, and it's always hard for me to stay objective about it after a lot of back-and-forth. Let me know what you think!