Later, Steve cradled his soulmate in his lap, her head resting on his shoulder as he drew lazy abstract patterns on her back with his fingertips.

Skye purred under his touch, and he'd thought he was spent, but that low thrumming noise traveled straight to his groin, and he tensed with the wanting. He'd never wanted anyone as much, as thoroughly, as he wanted Skye, and he could only hope he hadn't been too rough for her.

Not that she'd complained - quite the opposite, and Steve felt heat rising to his face again at the memory of just how enthusiastic Skye had been - but he was aware of his strength in ways most other people weren't, and there was a chance he'd lost control at least once while they were entwined.

Still, there was only one way to be sure.

"You okay?" he murmured against her hair.

"Mm-hm," she answered, a contented sound. Then she looked up at him. "You good with this? With what we did?"

"As long as I don't find out you're wrong about what the Pope said." Steve tried to keep his tone light, not wanting to taint what they'd shared with any hint of the guilt that had been part of his life for so long, but this was his soulmate, the person who would know him best, sometimes even better than he knew himself, and of course she sensed his concern.

"I wouldn't," she told him, her expression serious. "I would never manipulate you like that. No matter how much I want you."

"I believe you," he told her.

"Do you?" Skye searched his eyes. "Something made you say that."

Steve tried for a smile. "Just experience with others."

"Tell me?"

"I said before, I'm Steve Rogers. Not everybody understands that." Steve pulled her closer, her body soft and warm against his chest. "Some people see only Captain America, the symbol, and they want that symbol to represent what they believe is right."

"Regardless of what you think," Skye murmured.

"Sometimes."

He'd only thought he'd been a performing monkey during the war. Since he'd awakened in this new century, he'd found new depths of depravity called "celebrity culture." Oh, sure, people had always been interested in the doings of celebrities, but these days it seemed that everyone felt entitled to everyone else's time and attention, especially when those "everyone elses" were celebrities.

Thanks to Captain America, he was one of those celebrity everyone elses, and he'd gotten his share of fan mail. At first, he'd read it all, answering those letters from veterans or families of veterans who'd served with him or those who'd seen him at those truly horrible USO shows. Those letters, the ones that reminded him he had done what he set out to do – fight the bullies who were intent on remaking the world in their image – brought him an odd comfort.

It was the other letters that got to him, the ones from people who not only wanted something from him, but demanded it, whatever it was - an autograph or his presence at some event or other or his endorsement of a cause, charity, or political candidate he'd never heard of - without offering anything in return. Those were the letters that filled him with anger, an anger that lingered despite his best efforts and now made him suspicious of his soulmate.

"I'm sorry," he said, and she looked up at him, clearly confused, so he explained, "That I lumped you with them."

"I might deserve to be, sometimes," Skye said. "I'm only human."

"Fair enough," Steve said. "I still shouldn't have assumed, and I'm sorry I did."

Before Skye could respond, Steve's phone rang. Wrapping one arm more securely around Skye's waist, he leaned sideways to fish it from where it had fallen among their discarded clothes. A glance at the display had him straightening as he answered it.

"Nat?"

"Sorry to interrupt," Natasha said. "But Brock's made contact a lot sooner than we expected."

"What happened?"

"Chatted up an old bartender - maybe even as old as you."

"You're hilarious."

"I don't know the story Brock told him, but it wasn't long before the bartender gave a signal to some others in the bar, and it looks like Brock's got a job with Ten Rings. It's not permanent yet, that kind of organization tests potential recruits, but I'm sending photos for Skye through now."

"Check your phone," Steve said to Skye, and she nodded.

"Obviously he's starting small," Natasha continued. "But they need bodies – escorts for a fairly large caravan heading into Belarus and then Latvia."

"Any idea what they're carrying?"

"In this part of the world, probably drugs. Let me know what Skye finds out."

Then she ended the call and his phone as well as Skye's dinged to announce the arrival of the photos she'd sent. Steve glanced at the photos, didn't recognize any of the people in them, and sent Skye a questioning glance.

"I'll get started … as soon as I get dressed."

#

Getting started was really all she did, Skye thought, before the next call from Natasha. "No sense hanging around while Brock lays all the groundwork," she told them. "Go on back to the States, and I'll call when we have something solid."

Steve stared at the phone for a long time after Natasha ended the call. His expression edged between thoughtful and grim, which didn't suit him at all.

"What's wrong?" Skye asked when it looked like Steve wasn't going to move of his own accord. He looked up, and she must've read the answer in his eyes, somehow, because before she thought about it, she added, "You're concerned about Rumlow."

"Yes." Steve put his phone away. "I agreed to let him get this done because he likes Pepper. I just don't know how I'll face Bucky if this falls apart and Pepper's hurt as a result."

"Trusting him even though you don't."

"Something like that."

"I should tell you to have faith that it will all work out," Skye said, "but I'll point out that it's already done. You've made your decision, and now you have to live with it."

Steve blinked at her, clearly startled by her plain speaking. Then he gave her a rueful smile. "Is that what they call tough love?"

"More like Skye being bluntly honest. It doesn't always go over well."

"Don't ever stop." Steve sounded sincere, and Skye chuckled.

"Not likely," she said. Then, "Are we going back to the States?"

Steve blew out a breath. "We probably should. Nat's right, there's nothing we can do here until Rumlow gets into the organization deep enough that he can find the Mandarin. And you need to get back to your team."

That last was true, even though Skye wished it weren't. She'd questioned Ciprian Mitrea about Centipede and passed that information on to May. The next step would be to disrupt or destroy the Mandarin's supply of the serum, but they couldn't do that until said supply was found, and that was another part of the mission Rumlow had gone on with the Black Widow.

And Skye had to admit that even the regulation bunks at the Playground were more comfortable than the glorified cots on the quinjet. Still…

"What about us?"

Steve took her hand, met her gaze. "You sound like you don't expect more than what we've already had - which isn't much."

"I don't expect much," Skye admitted. "I learned not to, because every time I did, I was disappointed."

"Skye." Just her name, but so much sympathy in one syllable almost broke her.

She took a breath and looked up at him. "I even hoped I wouldn't meet my soulmate, because losing him, or having him reject me the way all those foster families did - I didn't think I could take that disappointment. I still don't."

Then his arms were around her, and she was snug in his arms. "I'm sorry you've hurt so much. And I'm sorry that I can't promise you'll never lose me. I might not come back from a mission someday, and that's just a fact of what I do."

"And what I do, too." Skye tilted her head back to look up at him. "Unless you think I should give it up?"

"Give it up? Why?" He frowned down at her, then his expression cleared. "Please don't tell me you think I'm stuck in a 1940's way of thinking?"

Skye had to laugh. "Not after what we did earlier, no. I just - we haven't really had a chance to talk or get to know each other. Neither one of us can know what the other expects or hopes for." She took a breath, and then added in a rush, "And now we're going to be separated and maybe not talk about it, and -"

"Even back in my day, they had telephones," Steve said. "We'll talk. I promise."

Skye believed him - if she couldn't believe Captain America, she couldn't believe anyone. As much as life had dealt her harsh blows, she didn't want to live however much she had left in constant suspicion and distrust.

"And maybe I can come to see you, sometime, when we're not on assignment," Skye offered tentatively.

Steve was quiet for a minute, and Skye feared she'd offended his sensibilities.

"I guess that's common now?" he asked finally.

"At least not uncommon," Skye said. "And the only people whose opinions I care about besides yours are your team and my team. I don't think any of them will have a problem with it."

Steve laughed - no, he actually snorted. "It's hard to imagine Tony Stark having a problem with much of anything."

"But you don't? Have a problem with meeting, sometimes?"

"I don't know if I'll ever be comfortable with all of the changes, and maybe I'll feel a little awkward doing things that wouldn't have been acceptable back then, but you're my soulmate, and I want to get to know you and build a life with you, whatever that takes. If anybody has a problem with that, they can go fly a kite."

It wasn't a declaration of love, more a promise to see what built between them, but still warmth spread through her, and Skye stretched up to kiss him.

The kiss was sweet and lingering, and when she had to pull back to breathe, Skye said, "Do you think we could put off heading back just a little longer?"

Steve groaned as she pressed her body against his. "Maybe a lot longer."

#

Bucky was waiting on the flight deck when Steve brought the quinjet in for a landing. The cockpit felt empty without Skye's presence next to him, and it was strange that he missed her so much when he barely knew her.

She's my soulmate. Maybe that explains it. Steve shut off the engine and lowered the hatch as Bucky came around to meet him.

"Shouldn't you be with your soulmate?" Steve asked.

"Pepper's in a videoconference for a while. Figured it'd give you the chance to tell me what you didn't want to say in front of her."

"Am I that easy to read?" He still felt the need to ask even though he already knew the answer.

"Always have been," Bucky answered easily. "What's going on?"

"I met my soulmate."

Bucky made a show of peering into the quinjet. "And she's not with you? She on the other side?"

"No, she's with SHIELD. Or what's left of it. I dropped her off at her base."

"And you didn't want to say that in front of Pepper. Why?"

"Not Pepper," Steve said. "Tony."

"He's not gonna give you a shovel talk like he did me."

"No, but he'll go digging into her background, even if I tell him not to."

"You don't want to know?"

"I already do. It's not bad - we don't think it's bad," he corrected himself as they stepped onto the elevator. "It's just nothing."

"Nothing?"

"All she's found so far is one letter from SHIELD, heavily redacted. It basically says she was a healthy female baby when she was dropped off at an orphanage."

"Makes sense, I guess. Everybody knows everything about you, so nobody knows anything about her."

"That's about what I said." The elevator opened onto the common floor and Steve headed for the refrigerator. He wasn't jet-lagged, thanks to the super-soldier serum, but even a flight on the quinjet could be dehydrating.

"You can't keep it from the others forever," Bucky pointed out.

"I don't intend to." On the flight back from Ukraine, they'd talked about how to handle the Avengers meeting the remains of SHIELD. The only thing Skye had asked was that Steve introduce her to his team properly. Of course he'd agreed. Fortunately, they had a built-in reason for delaying it.

"Right now our focus has to be on taking down the Mandarin," Steve continued, and Bucky gave a short nod.

"Thanks," Bucky said. "For all of it."

"What are friends for?"