A/N: Hi guys, sorry for the huge delay in posting. But I am back with a new chapter from Natasha and more to come. Let me know what you think of the new chapter! Hope you enjoy -Cat PS. Translations are thanks to google translate, I am hoping they make conversational sense, if not I apologize.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Natasha

Joy is a strange thing. It kind of creeps up on you. It settles in your chest and at first it is almost like a pressure and you kinda think you are having a heart attack, but then, ya know... you're fine. You just keep on breathing, so you figure it can't be that.

I am not used to it. So, it was odd when I realized that...joy... was what I felt.

Even stranger that that should be the situation while we were all on the run. But we made a little family. Sam, Wanda, Steve and I. We had each other's back and stayed under the radar. Helping where we could.

We are on a much needed break. After living twenty-four seven on the jet for a couple of weeks a break is much needed for the sack of sanity. Wanda liked to go off on her own, get away for as long as we could let her. Sam usually stayed with us for a couple of days then he would go off on his own as well. Then it would be just me and Steve...

Right now we are sitting in a small, hole in the wall bar in the heart of Paris. We only allowed ourselves so many nights out in public so as to be careful to not break cover, but even I had to still admit, it was nice. I sit across the small table from Steve and watch him. He has on a well worn dark blue baseball hat, pulled low over his brow. He had on a brown leather jacket over a crew neck long sleeve t-shirt. His stubble is no longer a shadow, it's thickening into a beard. I had to admit, I liked it. Ok, more than liked.

I look across the bar at Sam who is sitting in a booth with two young women who were fawning over him, thinking he was an American baseball player or something.

"He's fine," Steve's voice pulls my attention back to him. He is smirking at me, with an amused look in his eye.

I raise an eyebrow at him, and smirk into my drink, "I didn't say anything."

He shakes his head, he is leaning heavily on the table, his arms crossed on the table top. He is able to watch the front of the club and the entire bar from his position. I alternately am sitting parallel to the table, leaning back in my seat, able to see the small but packed dance floor and the back of the club and washrooms. "I know what you are thinking," He says to me his voice deep and even as he teases me.

I look at him, "Tu ne sais pas tout ce qui se passe dans ma tête." [You do not know everything that goes on in my head].

He smirks at me, "Je sais plus que tu ne penses." [I know more than you think].

I smile over the table at him, loving the sound of French on his voice. It has slipped my mind that he could speak French, and I can't help but smile across the table at him before shaking my head. I lick my lips and look away from him, "All right, what was I thinking?"

"You were tensing up, watching Sam talk to those girls. You're wondering if he was giving enough details to his cover, whether he was getting to detailed and sounding outlandish. Whether the girls are spending to much time studying his face? Are any of the men around them watching, paying too much attention to the girls and getting jealous of Sam? Cause of possible conflict?" I look back at Steve, he smirks and shrugged, "Told you,"

I opened my mouth to argue with him but I ended up just glaring at him, "No one likes a smart ass, Rogers,"

He smiled at me, "Lucky for both of us, that isn't true." I couldn't help but laugh.

But I stop, as Steve and I both look up to see Sam, all of a sudden coming across the bar towards us, phone in hand. He comes up to our table and pulls up a seat, he doesn't bother with niceties leaning into us. I sit up, getting closer to the boys, "I just got a hit." Sam says quietly to Steve and I, "Our good friend was just got spotted. In transit, direct from Helsinki to Brussels."

I look across at Steve as he continues to watch Sam. For the past month and a half we have been tracking a gun and drug smuggler across Europe. It was a decommissioned lieutenant from Serbia who evidently didn't feel their pension was enough to keep them in the life style they were accustomed to.

Steve looks from Sam to me, and I look back at Sam, who meets my eyes, "Confirmed report?" I ask quietly.

Sam simply nods. Steve sits back and rubs a hand over his beard. Sam looks from me to Steve and so do I. "We haven't ever had a chance like this before, Steve." I say across the table to him. And it's true. This lieutenant was as good at staying off the radar... as good as we were. This was our first confirmed report of his presence anywhere.

Steve takes a deep breath and both Sam and I can sense his hesitation. He shakes his head, "This was never how we planned this out. I don't like not having Wanda with us."

Sam shrugs, "Let's give her a call, bring her back."

I shake my head, "No," Both men look at me, "She needs her breaks from this." I say and Steve meets my eyes and I simply know he is leaning more towards Sam's suggestion than mine. I lean on the table, "Berlin was hard for her." Steve's eyes look sad, and just as he knew what I was thinking, I know what he is thinking. Of course he is still blaming himself for Berlin. I take a deep breath, "Besides, it's hard enough being us, let alone being us on..." I look around us to make sure no one is eavesdropping, "Vacation," Our code for on the run, "She needs her time," I feel the weight of her age on my shoulders. I don't want her to be completely hardened by our lives. She still has this light in her. I don't want to see it extinguished. I refuse to let it. I blink, "After all, it wouldn't take a genius to connect us to apprehensions of Interpol's most wanted, especially when the perps all start describing odd happenings that transpire with an odd red glow."

Sam looked at Steve, nodding his agreement with me, "Could be good to go old school,"

Steve looked down at his hand on the table. I know he is worried about what we were coming up against. But he meets my eye and nods, "Let's go, we will discuss our plan when we get back."

Sam nods and we all stand. Steve meets my eye before we turn to leave and I see the hesitation in his eyes.

I sit in the window seat of the shabby run down, old apartment that has obviously been vacant for years, watching through the window at the warehouse across the street. We are in a small town just on the French side of the Belgium border, upon the reports Sam had received. Steve comes up behind me and puts his hands on my shoulders.

"Any movement?" He asks. I look up at him, shaking my head.

"No, not yet." He nods and moves to sit beside me. He lifts my feet from the seat and slips underneath them before he gently places them on his lap. "Sam sleeping?"

Steve nods, craning his neck to look out the window. As I am about to sass him about brooding, Steve beats me to the punch saying, "I don't like this Nat." He keeps focused on the street below us.

I roll my eyes, "And when do we ever get to set the terms?"

He looks at me and I am caught off guard by how serious his eyes are. In our time away Steve has gotten quieter, darker, and I worry about him. I see him loosing the idealism he had when we first met and I wish there was something I can do to stop it all. "This isn't the same thing Nat. Every report we have on this guy is that he prepares. Does this feel like a planned rendezvous point for a military veteran?" I glance out the window... he isn't wrong, "Best case scenario, we walk into a battalion in that warehouse. And we don't have our ace in the hole."

I sit up and scoot closer to Steve, he looks at me and his eyes are heavy, "We've had worse odds." I reach up and put a hand on the side of his face. Figures, only Rogers would have me playing the optimist. "We know how to do this Steve. And if it isn't what we plan," I shrug, "We will retreat and regroup."

He met my eyes, "Never known you to turn and run from a fight," He said his mouth pulling into a smile as he looks at me.

There it is again, straining against my rib cage. Making me feel like I was going to burst. Joy, overwhelming and all consuming. Just from him smiling at me. I look from his lips, his smile back up to his eyes, "I have a vested interest in keeping someone safe."

He holds my gaze and I feel his hand resting on the back of my neck, his thumb tracing up and down my neck, "Seems easier than doing it for just yourself..." He says looking at me his eyes looking like a whirlwind of emotion that I am getting pulled into.

"Always."