Chapter Five

Steve

She was complicated.

More complicated than anyone I had ever known. More complicated than anyone I had ever met. That's not an easy accomplishment.

She was irritatingly stubborn, and arrogant and cavalier. She made jokes at inappropriate times. She flaunted authority. She was devastatingly deadly. She was all I could think about.

But it never seemed right. There never seemed to be the right fit, the right play. I didn't feel like she even saw me. Not really. Not the real me, certainly not the Steve from Brooklyn. I felt like I could barely hold her attention. Like trying to hold water in your bare hands. She kept trying to set me up like a lost puppy that needed a home so you could stop worrying about it.

And I thought I knew her...

It wasn't until Washington though, that was when I saw the real her. Before that, I was attracted to her, sure. You would have to be blind deaf mute to not be attracted to her. Even then… But that was it. Superficial.

At least that was all I could think of it as.

Until it was too late.

She was unlike any woman I had ever known. I mean, sure most women are different from my day, but that isn't the same. She is unique. I saw how pained she was when we thought Fury died. To be honest I wasn't even sure if she had real emotions in her, up until that point. Before, she was so closed off in New York. I came away from the fight for her best friend, our lives, for the world, by her side, not knowing her at all.

Then came Washington. She knew the Winter Soldier, she wanted to help me. She didn't even hesitate. Actually wasn't really an option of asking her for help so much as her just appearing when I needed her, even though I didn't know I needed her so much.

I wanted to ask her for her help to find Bucky. But how could I do that after I had already put her life in such danger to help me? Turned her world inside out and upside down. She stood up to Capitol Hill for me. I couldn't ask any more from her. Even if it meant I didn't get to see her everyday. But as usual, without asking she helped me, handed me the file on Bucky. Hadn't even needed to ask.

I didn't see her for a year. Didn't hear from her for a year. It was like she just... vanished. But she never really left. Not really. I could still remember what it felt like to have my arm around her shoulder. I remember her perfume, it was complex, undefinable. I remember her lips on mine, no that wasn't right, I was haunted by her lips on mine. Just for a moment, on an escalator...

How green her eyes had been in the truck on the way to New Jersey...

"Where did Captain America learn how to steal a car?" She asked nonchalantly.

"Nazi Germany; and we are borrowing, take your feet off the dash." I answer without really looking at her.

I can feel her eyes on me as she slowly pulls her legs back. For such a compact woman, her legs seemed to go on for days in those jeans. I blink, shifting in the drivers seat.

Suddenly she locks her eyes on me, and I know she is going to speak. "Alright, I have a question for you. Oh, which you do not have to answer… but I feel if you don't answer it though you are kinda answering it, ya know?—"

She's rambling? Really? Natasha? "What?!"

"Was that your first kiss since 1945?" Instantly my throat closes. Not what I was expecting.

I feel the blush burning on the back of my neck, "That bad, huh?"

"I didn't say that!"

"Well, it kinda sounds like that is what you were saying." God, I just want to throw myself out of the truck.

"No, I didn't - I mean" I glance at her, she's stuttering? "-I just wondered how much practise you had…"

"You don't need practise!" I shake my head. Only Natasha would come up with something like that.

"Everybody needs practise." I can see her roll her eyes at me. Why does she have to be so casual about everything?

"It was not my first kiss since nineteen forty-five I'm ninety-five not dead." I can feel the heat in my face and pray the blush isn't visible. That was all I needed. And no, it wasn't my first kiss, but I didn't think that on closer inspection, Natasha would count hysterical fans running up to me and catching me off guard as real kisses. No, hers had been real. I had felt it through my whole body. I hadn't felt a kiss like that since-

Instantly my mind freezes. The one person I try to actively not think about unless I am with her. Then I open that box. I glance at Natasha who is watching me closely. It's hard to think of what Peg would think of Natasha. They are too opposite, like trying to fit them in the same world was impossible. Like they couldn't share the same space.

"No body special then?" She asks, her voice is light, but her eyes look…. Something is different about them, they are closed off or something. I don't know her well enough to recognize it.

"Ha! Believe it or not it's hard to find someone with shared life experience," I say in an effort to lighten the mood.

"Aw, that's alright," She shrugs, "ya just make something up," Then she is back to being cavalier Natasha in a blink of an eye. Pretending like she isn't a person or something.

"What, like you?" It comes out harsher than I mean for it to.

She looks away from me, out the windshield, out her window, anywhere but at me. Her words sound hollow, haunted. "Oh, I dunno, truth is a matter of circumstance. It's not all things, to all people, all the time." Her voice is hypnotic as she speaks. I glance at her from the corner of my eye. She shrugs a small cocky smile on her lips, "Neither am I,"

I feel sad for her, a deep heart ache kind of sad. I may not know her intimately, but I just seem to know she deserves better. "That's a tough way to live."

"It's a good way to not die though," I want to shake my head but I don't. How is it that this is her reality? Someone who only an hour ago could pass as an excited twenty-something year old fiancé.

"Ya know it's kinda hard to trust someone, when you don't know who that someone really is." I am throwing out an olive branch, I can't help but feel my breath catch in my throat as I wait for her answer.

"Yeah," She looks at me, her big beautiful green eyes huge. "Who do you want me to be?" She asks, and her voice. It sounds vulnerable to me, but that could be my mind just playing tricks. Hearing what it wants to.

"How 'bout a friend?" I ask her lightly. Start small right?

Her voice goes hard, hollow, like armour has come up around her suddenly, "Well, there is a chance you might be in the wrong business, Rogers."