A/N: Hi Everyone! Big shout out to bubbasmom for the awesome reviews! Super glad to hear feedback! Hope you enjoy this chapter, it is a short one but more is coming soon! Thanks -Cat
Chapter Twenty-Two
Steve
How did we end up here?
I had to call. I had to. It was like a compulsion. We watched the building explode on the television screen. The UN meeting in Vienna, obliterated in the middle of proceeding... the supposed evidence of Bucky's guilt in the form of security footage. And even though I stood in the room with Sharon on the phone behind me, after spending a surprising afternoon with her, all I can think about is Natasha.
The flames burst out of the windows in my mind over and over again. All I can do is wonder where she was sitting. As a special guest and representative of the Avengers she would be close to the podium. Too close.
I remember hearing the bullet as it tore through her flesh back in Washington as Bucky shot her. I remember pushing my body to run faster, to make it too her, before the final shot rang out. I made it that time. This time I was a country away from her. I couldn't run and save her. I didn't even know if she was alive for two hours before Sharon got a run down of casualties through the CIA.
Still, I had to call.
"Yeah?" was her brisk answer.
"You alright?" I find myself asking. I can see her, she had been talking to T'challa. She looks beautiful in her navy blue suit, even in the middle of this wreckage.
"Uh, yeah, thanks... I... I got lucky." She sounds shaken up and I find myself looking down at my feet, thoughts of how much worse this could have been flashing through my mind, "I... I know how much Barnes means to you...I really do. Stay home. You'll only make this worse. For all of us. Please," At her words I am instantly reminded of our new reality, how things are now. Her on one side, and me on the other... and I wonder how this happened. I don't know how she ended up there...
"You saying you'll arrest me?" I say trying to joke, but I didn't miss the desperation in her voice, I heard the worry.
"No," She says instantly, like there is no question, and I feel something in my chest at her words. A hope, maybe? "Someone will," She adds and I feel deflated, reminded of my new situation, feeling foolish to even think about hope, "If you interfere, that is how it works now."
"If he's this far gone Nat," I look over at her, standing in the middle of this chaos, covered in dust. And again I think of the bullet, how close he came to killing her, if I hadn't been there. I see her in my minds eye, standing in front of Bucky, facing off against him and my heart constricts. "I should be the one to bring him in."
"Why?" She demands. Like it isn't obvious.
"Because I am the one least likely to die trying," And I hang up the phone. Because there is nothing else for me to say. Nothing else I can say. Because I need her to understand, I can't sacrifice anyone's life, not Tony's, not her's, and not Bucky's.