When Steve stepped out of the elevator, he found an usual agitation in the medical aisle with agents and nurses hastily going up and down the hallway.
One of the military nurses who was often present at Bucky's side and regularly came to check on him while he was in the room walked past him, so drawn into the work she had been assigned she didn't notice him.
"What's…going on?" he asked as he looked above her shoulder to assess the situation.
She sighed in relief, glanced behind where people were gathered then back at him. She tucked a stray of her behind her ear.
"Sergeant Barnes turned out to be more difficult to handle than we thought. He keeps asking for you and doesn't understand why we won't let him out of his room," she explained.
Steve's brows furrowed.
"You didn't tell him anything, did you?" he asked warily with a concerned expression.
"No, no. The Colonel's orders were very clear," she assured him.
Steve had indeed made a point to be the one to talk to Bucky about the whole new situation.
He made his way along the corridor, getting curious and mildly hopeful glances from the staff. As he got closer to the room, his chest tightened, excitement and stress taking hold of him. The sound of Bucky's voice coming from inside the room made his heart race. There was a mass of people inside and they all stood in a thick circle.
"WHERE IS STEVE? YOU KEEP TELLING ME HE'S CLOSE BUT I DON'T SEE ANY TRACE OF HIM. AND WHY ARE YOU SO MANY PEOPLE GUARDING THIS DAMN DOOR? WHAT IS IT YOU DON'T WANT ME TO SEE?"
"Sergeant Barnes, we need you to calm down."
"NOT UNTIL YOU TELL ME WHAT YOU'VE DONE TO STEVE," Bucky's voice was plain raging now.
"I'm here, Bucky," Steve's soft voice resonated in the room, making everyone freeze.
The agents, doctors and nurses stepped aside, revealing Bucky's figure standing tall with a stunned expression.
They looked at each other and both seemed to replay simultaneously their last moments on the quinjet. They shouldn't have survived and they both knew it – and their eyes showed it. Steve was still dumbfounded about it and Bucky sure as hell was dumbfounded at this second.
"I'm here," he repeated again with a broken voice, his eyes gleaming slightly. Bucky was still mute, unsure whether to drop his guard down. Steve's mouth slightly rose into a soothing and comforting smile to reassure him all this was real.
"You can leave us, now," he said, nearly murmuring, glancing at the staff. "I'll take it from here."
They all complied with a nod and walked out of the room, the last one closing the door behind them. When the sound of footsteps finally faded away, Steve took a step closer to his friend.
"You…," Bucky started clumsily, "you survived."
Steve nodded and a vague smile came to his lips. "So did you."
They looked at each other again, one full of questions, the other with few answers to provide, but it could wait for now.
Bucky's features softened as he cracked a beaming smile and started towards him. Steve did the same and quickly ran up to him, they met in the middle of the room, their arms clutching to each other like to a buoy they both desperately needed amid this foreign sea, ensuring it was all very real.
They were back together and the universe seemed to go back to place in the most perfect way.
When they eventually pulled apart, Bucky put his hands on each side of Steve's neck – a habit he had taken since they were teenagers and that he couldn't seem to break even after he had grown taller and thicker than him – and laughed wholeheartedly.
"How?" he asked unable to suppress neither the laugh nor the grin on his face.
Steve squeezed his shoulder, mirroring the same facial expression.
"You must have many questions," he said.
"You bet!" he exclaimed. "I gotta say when I saw you I was torn between saying hi and asking what the hell you are wearing!"
He took one step back, stretching his arms to keep a physical hold of him and looked down at his outfit. "What are these clothes?"
Steve laughed. "I can explain everything but you may want to sit first. It's weird."
Bucky nodded. "Indeed, it is." He said, throwing one last glimpse at his outfit to let him know what he was commenting on.
Steve led him to the bed and sat next to him; he took a deep breath and started. Somehow, it didn't sound as scary as he had imagined it to be. Bucky had a knack for making any situation and topic less difficult to address.
The nurse had been standing behind the door for over twenty minutes, trying to catch a glimpse of the conversation that was taking place inside the room, curious and concerned not to have heard any noise or clamor since they had stepped out into the hallway.
"Are you sure we are actually in 2011?" Bucky asked. "Besides what you're wearing, I don't notice anything different."
He pointed to the furniture in the room.
"And look at that," he exclaimed, now pointing to the bedside table. "Seventy years have apparently gone by and they are still using those crappy, unreliable record players."
Steve felt a sudden rush of embarrassment.
"Actually, I brought that one. It took me ages to find it."
Bucky frowned and looked at him, an amused smile coming across his face. "Damn it, Steve."
Steve laughed. He had to admit, he wasn't exactly embracing this time.
"You haven't aged a day, though," Bucky murmured, looking at him quite amazed.
It made Steve smirk.
"Well then I've got some breaking news for you. Neither have you."
Bucky's face lit up with joy. He would soon be asking for a mirror. It was a matter of minutes.
"I'll ask Colonel Fury to let you come live at the apartment with me as soon as possible. There's no way you're staying in this cold room."
Bucky looked at him and the smile he had on since the beginning finally faded for the first time. He seemed collected though.
"So this is it?" he asked, prepping his palms on his lap, his head turned toward him. "This is our new adventure?"
Steve looked back at him, and for a moment, a silence fell upon them. There were not many words to describe their situation yet Bucky had just used the best one. "Yeah," he murmured softly. "This is our new adventure."
Bucky got his permission to leave the next day, the Colonel finally convinced by Steve's effective pressuring.
They walked down the hallway, Steve carrying the record player and all the records into a box.
"You know," Bucky started. "You could have brought some modern songs for me to listen to while I was asleep. Did you even try to catch up on their music?"
Steve smiled. "Actually, I really enjoy The Beatles."
Bucky frowned hard. "The Beatles?" he repeated. He seemed to frown upon it already.
"It's an English band that broke all records in the 1960s."
Bucky snorted and shook his head. "Congrats, Steve. Only fifty years to go."
"Well, if you insist on getting up to date, there's still Beyoncé."
"Beyon-who?"
Stepping out of the building was a big moment and the one when Bucky finally put a picture on Steve's words. He gasped in surprise, swallowing the massive and continuous information that was shoved onto his face.
"I know. It was the same for me," Steve told him with a smirk, patting his back before stepping into the crowd.
Bucky was amazed the whole journey home. Positively amazed. He seemed to find entertainment in every new detail he depicted. He regularly pointed at a thing and whispered a comment into Steve's ear, making him laugh or smile about things he had failed to see since he had woken up two weeks earlier.
Bucky probed every male and female pedestrian and commuter he met. Probing men to analyse and even assess their outfits, taking notes of the new fashion; and probing women…well, for the sake of science he would probably answer.
"I'm liking this time, already," he said with a smirk as he glanced at the tall brunette who had just stepped onto the train, wearing those trendy skinny jeans, so tight they would have been judged indecent back in the 1940s.
Bucky flashed his most seductive smile to the lady who responded with a shy, but definitely smitten smile.
"Glad to see I was right all those times I told you my charm is timeless," he murmured to Steve with an unhidden content expression, still looking at the girl.
"But you need a haircut," Steve commented nonchalantly. He had already brought his friend a razor so he would shave but scissors had had to wait to be handled by a professional.
Bucky twitched and turned to look at him.
"You know what? So do you," he remarked. "I've only been outside for 15 minutes and I can already tell your do is way out of time."
Steve rolled his eyes. It wasn't like fashion was on his top list of concerns.
"Fine," he conceded with a smirk. "We'll go together."
And indeed, they did the next day.
The following week went by peacefully. Bucky and Steve alternated at suggesting an outdoor activity for the day, both curious and eager to discover this new world. When they were not out, they would try to fill their seventy-year long gap in History, science, music, art, society, cinema and culture. And the list was long. Their new routine was pretty peaceful and tame, a lot different than the one they had left behind. One they would have to accustom themselves to with time and patience (although neither of them would admit it out loud).
One day at a coffee house in Manhattan, Steve allowed himself to draw the high skyscraper standing before him. An old habit his fingers couldn't seem to let go of. He couldn't draw people, though. Ever since he had given up drawing her again the other night, he couldn't resolve himself to draw any person else. Perhaps as a pledge to honor her memory with the little means he possessed. It wasn't really a sacrifice; he had simply lost the yearning to sketch people.
A shadow fell on his sketch and he looked up to find the waitress filling his cup of coffee.
"Waiting on the big guy?" she asked, throwing a glance at the building he was drawing.
"Ma'am?" he asked, looking quizzical.
"Iron man," she said matter-of-factly. It was her turn to look confused. "A lot of people come here to see him fly by."
Howard Stark's son. His name and picture had shown up very early –and repeatedly— during his Google searching. The only intel he had gathered so far was that he was his father's son, although he couldn't frown upon his weapons manufacturing past career.
"You came alone?" she eventually asked, breaking the silence. "Your girlfriend?"
He held his pen tighter and frowned, wordlessly showing his confusion. She pointed at the second cup of coffee on the table. "Actually, I'm waiting for my roommate. He went to the bathroom."
"Oh, I see," she spoke softly, disappointment showing on her face. "I better get going, then."
He watched her rush away without giving him a second glance, pink flushing to her cheeks.
"Way to kill the mood, buddy," the old man sitting at the table next to him commented, making Steve even more clueless.
Bucky came out of the coffee just then, flashed a smile at the waitress then sat next to Steve.
The waitress took a couple of glimpses in their direction with a look of mild curiosity.
"Bucky," Steve started as he figured out what was the sudden awkwardness in the air all about. "I think I just found out what other meaning the word roommate has in this time."
Bucky drank his sip of coffee then cocked an eyebrow at him. The waitress casted one last glance, smiled sheepishly at them two before walking back into the coffee place.
Steve was the one to suggest going to the old boxing gym down the street. He said his body could use some stamina. Bucky agreed with as much enthusiasm as if he had come up with the idea himself.
The next day they were exercising in the gym. They couldn't call it 'training' as it implied they had to keep fit for their job, and they had lost that job long ago. The war was over and the soldiers were back home. The last thing this country needed was veterans from an ancient time.
They spent hours working out but Steve was relentless, punching the bag like there was no tomorrow. As the punching bag kept wiggling under Steve's hits, Bucky took a break and came up to hold it steady for him. Steve's rhythm quickened as he unrestrainedly struck the bag over and over again with a growing aggressiveness.
"Wanna talk about it?" Bucky asked gently, holding the bag still and watching his friend wrestling with his own feelings.
"About what?" Steve panted out between two punches.
"About whatever it is that makes you want to murder this punching bag with your bare hands," Bucky answered half-amused, half-annoyed. He hated it when Steve put up his walls to brood on his own.
"There's nothing wrong," he answered with a shrug before punching the bag again.
"Fine, then I'll push the buttons myself," Bucky said with a pout. He feigned to take a pause although he already what to ask. "Do you plan on paying a visit to Peggy?"
The punching bag quivered harder in his arms. It looked like Bucky knew which buttons to push.
"I think you should. It's what you both need," he commented further. Steve kept his head down, sweat dripping down his temples, his fingers twitching at each new contact with the leather of the bag.
"And what should I tell her when I get there?" he finally muttered. "'Surprise. I've been defrosted.'"
Bucky shrugged. "Sounds like a good start to me."
Steve shot him a hard look then resumed hitting the bag.
"Steve. There are no good words for such a situation, but I know you will pick just the right ones when you see her."
The chain to which the sand bag was attached grated above them.
"What's the point? It's lost. Everything's lost," he spoke harder as the words came out.
"It's not! Quite the contrary!" Bucky exclaimed." You're given a second chance with her. Make it count."
Bucky had also asked to have his family files sent to him and was now waiting. But the chances of his older brothers still being alive were pretty slim.
Somehow, Bucky's words weren't enough to slow down the punching bag trashing and the mental turmoil in Steve's head.
"Unless…," Bucky trailed off. "We're not just talking about Peggy, here."
The bag convulsed abruptly. Bucky closed his eyes a couple of seconds and sighed. The puzzle was now again.
"Steve…," he started softly, biting his bottom lip. He didn't know what her file read, but it was bad, no doubt.
Steve hit the bag hard, feeling his knuckles crack under his skin.
"I lost it," he eventually muttered with anger. Anger against himself. The drawing had never been made official in a conversation but Bucky knew about it; and Steve knew he knew about it.
"And they say they can't. find. her. file," he continued, hammering the bag at the same pace as he voiced out the words.
Bucky looked speechless. He seemed to realize how bad the situation was.
"What do they mean they can't find her file?" he said with a frown.
"No ID, no social security number, and the address I gave them was a dead-end," he panted out, his arm muscles growing sore. "It's like she didn't exist."
Bucky shook his head. "It's ridiculous. It doesn't make any sense."
Steve was now completely ruthless with the bag as he recalled his conversation with Colonel Fury.
"They think the reason they can't find her is because…," he felt a bitter taste in his mouth. "…it's not her real name."
A heavy silence followed. His arms had just fallen to his sides out of exhaustion. Mental exhaustion. He lifted his head up to look at Bucky who was staring with the most annoying expression. He guessed what his best friend's words were going to be.
"Steve," he started gently.
"No."
"Maybe-"
"No," he snapped even more hardly
"Maybe they're not wrong," Bucky finished reluctantly. This conversation was as annoying to one as it was to the other.
Steve shook his head. It was a hypothesis he couldn't tolerate and it was why he had cut the Colonel short before he could even voice it out loud. Admitting she had lied about her name opened the door completely to the possibility she had been lying all along and that was what made this simple conjecture insufferable.
"Steve, maybe she had her reasons," Bucky defended. He seemed to have read his mind perfectly. "Maybe it wasn't even about you. It doesn't mean she wasn't honest with you."
Maybe he was right. Maybe he was wrong. And here lied the whole problem: maybe. He wasn't mad because it was likely she had given him a fake name; he was mad – furious –because he would never find out why. Because time had taken away any chance for her to explain herself, because time had taken away the chance he still had back in 1943 to see her again as she had promised. Because time had taken her away from him.
His hands tightened into fists as he felt a new rush of stamina and the burning urge to let it all out. He wished he could take it out on his fate, but only the sand bag was available.
"I don't want to talk about it anymore," he said it like a final sentence and went on to hit the bag.
Bucky pursed his lips together, unsatisfied by the answer. He suddenly moved the bag away and kept it an unreachable distance for Steve.
"You can't keep it in," Bucky whispered, taking a step up toward him and squeezing the muscle between his neck and his shoulder, encouraging him with a little nod of the head.
Steve gazed at his friend for a few seconds but the words didn't seem to want to come out.
"Let's go. I'm done here," he said, pulling away from Bucky's grip then he made his way to the changing room, his chin down.
Twenty minutes later, as Bucky came out of the shower, he found his friend sitting on the bench, staring in silence at the red tiles on the floor. He came to sit next to him and the silence went on for a few more seconds.
"I loved her," Steve murmured, his gaze still fixed on the floor. The truth was out, but only half of it. And the second half was what made the whole situation unbearable. He raised his head and tilted it to look at his friend. Bucky heard his next words before he said them. "I love her."
Past. Present. It was all the same in his case. Moreover, he could have felt a hundred years go by and his feelings would have still remained unchanged. The love he felt was of the type neither distance nor time could change. He knew it well for having tried both.
Part of him feared Bucky would not understand. He had always wondered whether his friend's mutism regarding Natalie after she had gone was to respect his wish not to bring her up again or because he silently resented her. He feared his confession would put his friend in a state of puzzled perplexity.
Judging by Bucky's expression, it was exactly what he wanted to hear him say. He found nothing but compassion and understanding in return.
"And I lost her."
Perhaps Bucky was right. Letting it out could be the first step to letting her go.
"So which pill would you take?" Bucky asked while he and Steve were training on the boxing ring. "Let me guess. You would take the red one."
It made Steve smile.
"As if you wouldn't take the red pill. You're more curious and stubborn than I am."
Bucky made his best outraged expression.
"First of all, your argument is debatable. I've got plenty of examples proving I can be the more sensible one. Secondly, would I trade chicken for that disgusting stew?"
"Fake chicken," Steve corrected.
Bucky shrugged. "Whatever. The blue pill has its silver linings."
"Haven't we sort of taken the red pill ourselves, though?" Steve remarked, his eyes roaming across the room to show what he was talking about.
Bucky paused, looked around too, then back at his friend. "Did we really choose to?" he answered with a smirk.
Steve slightly shook his head, a snort slipping out between his lips.
"Glad to see you're catching up quick," a voice said behind them.
They both turned and found Colonel Fury standing with his wrists clasped together behind his back, dressed in a black suit and turtleneck sweater.
"Well, well, well. If this isn't Morpheus," Bucky commented under his breath.
It made Steve smile. Now that he mentioned it, the similarity was definitely there.
"Sort of, Sergeant. Except I wear the leather coat better than he does," the Colonel said.
Bucky's features tensed. "Sorry, sir."
The Colonel eventually cracked a little smirk. "But I am indeed here to put you back in the real world."
He slowly revealed the file he was holding, marked with SHIELD emblem in its center.
Steve took a glimpse of it then proceeded to untie his boxing hand wraps.
"You're here for a mission, sir?" he asked.
"I am," the Colonel answered.
He felt the excitement run through his veins. He glanced at Bucky and noticed he felt the same.
The Colonel opened the file and showed him a picture which he knew would catch his interest for good. Steve, and Bucky standing right behind, recognized the blue cube. TESSERACT, they had named it.
"Howard Stark fished that out of the ocean when he was looking for you." He said. Steve didn't show it but hearing that Howard Stark had tried to find them all those years back made the respect he always had for him grow bigger. "He thought what we think: the Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy. That's something the world sorely needs."
"Who took it from you?" Steve asked.
"He's called Loki. He's not from around here. There's a lot we'll have to bring you up to speed on if you're in. The world has gotten even stranger than you already know."
"At this point, I doubt anything would surprise me," he commented.
Bucky backed him up with a slight nod of the head.
"Ten bucks says you're wrong," the Colonel replied with a daring look." There's a debriefing packet waiting for you at your apartment."
Steve turned to look at Bucky. They didn't say a word but they both thought the same thing: here was their chance to break their dull routine and leave their shapeless purgatory of theirs. The second thought they had was that they were right to think SHIELD had open access to their apartment.
"We're in," Steve said.
The Colonel's bottom lip twitched a bit.
"I'm sorry, Captain, but Sergeant Barnes can't take part in the mission."
Steve shot a look at Bucky, who remained emotionless as if he had seen it coming from the beginning.
"On what motive?" Steve asked with a sharp voice.
"SHIELD is assembling a team of highly-skilled agents that will fit the great scope of the missions they will have to achieve. I would never dare to question or minimize Sergeant Barnes' resume but what you're about to fight is bigger than what we've ever known."
Steve didn't even try to understand his point of view. It sounded all like pure gibberish to him.
It was also funny to see he looked the more outraged between him and Bucky.
"His very presence here with us proves he's not just a soldier," Steve pointed out. "He is the best sniper I know and I trust him with my life implicitly. I know nothing about your highly-skilled team but I know Bucky is the best teammate I could have."
He paused and after glancing behind at Bucky, looked at Colonel Fury with a defiant look.
"I'm sorry, sir. But either he's in or we're not."
Colonel Fury kept a firm and steady look, assessing Steve's level of determination. He found it to be very high. He pivoted his head slightly to look at Bucky.
"You sure you want to get back in the field?" he asked him.
Bucky stood firm and tall like a soldier in a regiment.
"I've never been more ready, sir."
The corner of Fury's mouth rose visibly. "And you said the blue pill has its silver linings."
And that was the Colonel let Bucky come on the mission.
The next day, Steve and Bucky were on a jet taking them to SHIELD's special headquarter. Steve had no idea what could be so special about it that it made the Colonel smile with such a smug expression.
"It's an honor to meet you. Officially," said the agent who had welcomed them on board. His gaze fixed on Steve revealed which one he was more honoured to meet. "I watched you while you were sleeping."
It was very subtle, but Steve heard the snort that vibrated in Bucky's throat.
"I mean, I was there while you were unconscious," agent Coulson carried on clumsily.
At the end of the conversation, when the agent stepped away to supervise the landing, Bucky didn't resist the urge to go with his personal comment.
"Wild thought, here. Do you think Phil would volunteer to become your roommate?"
Steve snorted then rolled his eyes. Bucky could tease as much as he wanted, his good mood was unbendable. Actually, with the mission waiting ahead and with Bucky's remarks, it actually felt like 1943 all over again. He revelled in this reassuring feeling of déjà vu.
The jet soon landed and Steve felt a rush of adrenaline and excitement tickle in the stomach.
"Sergeant," an officer saluted Bucky. "If you would like to follow me, please."
Bucky shared an interrogative look with Steve then walked away with the officer after giving him a nod.
Agent Coulson invited Steve to accompany him with a motion of the hand. Before he stepped outside, Steve was struck by the warm and blinding sunrays. When his eyes adapted to the sudden change of brightness, he took in the sight of the scenery before him.
"Let me introduce you to the person who will show you the surroundings," he heard agent Coulson say as his eyes kept sweeping the area, observing the soldiers move about on the runway, viewing the military aircrafts and equipment and analyzing how they had evolved.
When he finally turned his attention back to agent Coulson, he was turned on the other side. Steve turned in the same direction and looked at the silhouette slowly approaching. A feminine silhouette.
Steve suddenly felt uneasy as the demeanor of the person coming to them looked strangely familiar. He squeezed his eyes and frowned, taking a vivid interest for the stranger.
His face, his body tensed and his heart raced as the outlines of her facial features started to show behind the sunrays. His heart pounded harder and harder in his chest as he was unable to pick up one fault in the similarity of this woman's traits with her.
When she finally stood before him, barely a few feet apart, the confusion was no longer possible. He froze in an outpouring mix of bewilderment, amazement and terror. This woman standing in front of him looked exactly like his Natalie to the tiniest detail. His body's instinctive reaction was to reach over to touch her – to feel her, his mind's response was to hold himself back.
His pupils roamed her perfect features, desperately absorbing every bit of information they revealed and beyond, taken by the irrational fear she would disappear any second. He couldn't tell if it was all a hallucination, if she was just the product of his craving (and clearly deranged) mind, but God, he wanted to enjoy the sight of it fully as long as it would last before he would snap back to reality. As terrifying as it was to think he had fallen into madness, he couldn't focus on anything else but the bliss of having her standing before him, even if it came with the price of his own sanity. Oh how badly he wished Bucky was here right now. He never felt more lost and lonely.
When it seemed that the vision before him wouldn't fade away or alter, he came to the realization she was very much real. The woman was the spitting image of Natalie with the exception of her hair, colored in the brightest shade of red he'd ever seen. His hand craved to touch the stray of hair near her face and brush it away like it used to for he didn't doubt his eyes –nor his mind— were failing him now.
"Agent Romanoff," agent Coulson said. She turned and looked at him. His heart skipped a beat. He swallowed the lump in his throat as his eyes desperately sought any sign of recognition from her part. But she remained indifferent to his internal plea. Tragically indifferent. "Captain Rogers."
After glancing at agent Coulson she looked back at him while he gazed into her eyes. It lasted an instant but for him it felt like an eternity during which every moment he ever spent with Natalie flashed into his head, in a frantic loop.
"Hi," she said with a nonchalant voice and a dispassionate expression. A disheartening end to a deceitful reunion.
Not a single word could come out of his mouth. He broke the awkward silence with a nod of the head.
Agent Coulson walked off at some point apparently and soon it was only the two of them. Well, the two of them and two dozen soldiers and agents on the tarmac; but all he saw was her.
"It was quite the buzz around here when they found you in the ice," she said to him.
The tone of her voice didn't have any trace of emotion. She stated the words in the most sober way possible. Clearly, she didn't know him and moreover she didn't bother to show any real interest. It was just small talks; a way for her to interrupt the awkward silence that came from his part.
It took a few seconds for Steve to process what she had just said, mostly because his brain was too busy drawing up the list of plausible explanations – too busy trying to rationalize a situation that bent and crushed all logic. What he was sure about was that she wasn't Natalie, for the simple fact that it was impossible for her to be standing here, seventy years later, at the same age she was in and Bucky had broken this elementary rule but they still remained an exception.
Even if the explanation was that agent Romanoff simply shared astoundingly similar features with Natalie, it still didn't make sense he would cross path with her. It broke all the odds. And yet, here they were. Clearly, the universe was purely having pleasure torturing him by making him work with his lost love's doppelganger.
"I thought Coulson was gonna swoon," she said, unapologetically mocking her colleague.
He closed his eyes for a second, taking in her voice. His heart pounded idiotically at the illusion of hearing Natalie talking to him. Reminding himself it wasn't was another stab.
'She's not Natalie. She can't be Natalie,' his brain chanted like a mantra. It didn't slow down the pace of his heartbeat for all that.
He also tried to ignore the fact her teasing was akin to Natalie's.
He hadn't detached his gaze from her face for even one second, still contemplating and admiring the similarity of her features and expressions.
She spoke like Natalie. She walked like Natalie. She moved like Natalie.
Except she wasn't.
His reunion with Natalie's doppelganger was interrupted when they found Doctor Bruce Banner looking astray on the tarmac. Steve greeted him politely, and although he genuinely wanted to know him better ever since agent Coulson had showed them the video of him turning into the Hulk, he was too distracted by agent Romanoff to show him further interest at this exact moment.
After she invited them to step inside, an irrational panic took him over when he watched her walk away from him. He had just got her back, he couldn't lose her again.
"She is not Natalie," he scolded himself internally.
He barely took a look at the facilities and other high-tech equipment –that were certainly the source of Colonel Fury's pride, his eyes simply couldn't resolve to let her out of their sight. He caught a glimpse of agent Hill supervising all the officers. She gave him a friendly smile as a discreet greeting then turned to her computer again. It surprised him to find more warmth coming from a barely familiar face than from the face that had given his most beautiful memories and his greatest sorrows.
"So?" Fury asked, unable to hold it anymore.
Steve gazed at the breath-taking sight in front of him, but not the one the Colonel was referring to. He slid a hand into his pocket and took bills out.
"Twenty bucks, huh?" Fury said with a smug look. "When you woke up this morning you certainly didn't expect to be so umbfounded."
Agent Romanoff was now giving instructions to an officer. Steve briefly detached his look to glance at Colonel Fury. He had no idea.
Fury smirked then left to go about his business. Steve wandered around unconsciously following her from a distance, cautious to keep her in his line of sight always.
He studied her meticulously and his fascination for her grew bigger at every new second that went by. Despite the undisputable fact she was similar to Natalie, he soon came to realize that agent Romanoff was different. Everything in her demeanor, her manners exuded a confidence differently shaded than Natalie's. While Natalie showed assurance and determination, agent Romanoff oozed boldness and audacity. Natalie had always let a sensitivity appear when she was with him that agent Romanoff seemed to keep guarded behind a straight expression. Natalie knew how to play with her femininity while agent Romanoff perfectly blended in this man's world.
And for the first time as he looked at her, he didn't see Natalie; he saw Peggy.
Bucky walking into the room took his attention away from her for a short moment. His friend walked straight up to him, rubbing his jaw.
He stood beside him and looked up, admiring the high and large glass windows.
"This place is great, I'll give him that," he commented then smirked. "Not that I'll say it out loud in front of Colonel Fury."
"Look again," Steve said. Bucky furrowed his brows and slowly followed the direction Steve's eyes couldn't seem to drift away from. As he turned, he came face to face with agent Romanoff, who was now standing a couple of feet away from them.
"Holy sh-," he blurted out but Steve cut him short with a nudge.
"Sergeant Barnes," she spoke formally, looking at him with the same level of interest she had shown for Steve . "Agent Romanoff."
Bucky remained mute. She threw him a suspicious look from behind her long lashes, seemed to label him as weird as his best friend then she walked away, followed by Bucky's wide eyes.
"Holy crispy crap!" he eventually exclaimed with a whispering voice as soon as she was far enough. "Am I hallucinating?"
"Trust me, you're not," Steve said. Whether it was a good or a bad thing, he couldn't tell yet; all he felt right now was the acute pain that started creeping up through the fading confusion.
"How is that even possible?" Bucky asked out loud.
That was the question he had kept asking himself for the last fifteen minutes.
He had a thousand questions for her actually but there was none he could possibly ask now without sounding invasive.
His first and strongest hypothesis was that she was related to Natalie. The name was obviously Russian and he started to wonder how Rushman had changed to Romanoff. His curiosity was boiling to the highest temperatures, eager to get all the answers and explanations he needed. Maybe agent Romanoff could be the key to finding Natalie. Until then, he'd have to suffer through the unspeakable pain of looking at her face and seeing nothing but a blank in return.
Bucky didn't say any thing more after that. It seemed even seventy years hadnt manage to alter his ability to know when to quit discussing a sensitive subject. He had done it back in 1943, after Steve and Natalie had parted outside the cinema, never mentioning her name again; and he was doing it again now.
He kept staring at agent Romanoff though, trying to keep his bafflement to a moderate level. He introduced himself to Banner, keeping an eye on both Steve and the source of his silent torment as he greeted the scientist.
As she finally came to stand next to them and Fury, listening to her superior's words and chiming in with her own strategic comments, she barely acknowledged his presence, or only after a while out of politeness. Her eyes looked in his direction with a tragic emptiness when he had been so used to see them filled with tenderness and playfulness. Natalie would look at him like she knew him for a long while, with a warmth and a closeness it took years and a shared-life experience to gather. Agent Romanoff looked at him like a stranger who still had to earn her respect and her trust.
This void in her look was what hurt him the most. Looking at Natalie but seeing a stranger. It was like being hit again by the realization that the woman he loved was gone, and that he couldn't dare to hope to find some kind of substitute in agent Romanoff. The trap was to make her a substitute. He couldn't allow his heart to do that, out of respect for Natalie, but moreover out of respect for the woman standing in front of him.
He probed her again –one last time he promised himself— before moving on.
When Colonel Fury gave them the order to fly to Germany, he swallowed the lump in his throat and turned to agent Romanoff.
"Where is your changing room?" he asked as neutrally as possible, trying to suppress the outpouring level of adoration and hurt that were probably showing in his eyes.
She looked at him and paused, taking the time to probe him for the first time. He dare to be hopeful, only to be disappointed again. Her expression remained as detached as before.
"Follow me," she said. She took him out of the command center, walking ahead of
him, turning right and left into areas she easily oriented herself in as she knew it like the back of her hand.
She halted in front of a metal door and entered a digital code. She then stepped aside to let him in.
"I'll send someone to take you to the runway in twenty minutes," she spoke coolly.
He nodded and stepped inside. He turned to look at her until the metal door closed on her face. It wasn't until he heard her walk away that he let the pain choking him come out. He pressed the palm of his hand on the cold wall and bent over, hiding behind his stretched arm.
That raging pain, he would let it overcome him all for a minute only, and then he would gag it, choke it mercilessly and bury it deep down forever. He'd let it overpower him now then he would crush it for good, never allowing it back again.
A whimper burst out of his throat that he muffled with his fist, pressing his forehead against the iron wall, his chest shaking under the uncontrollable sobs. They seemed to hold it all: waking up in this new century far away from Natalie, the search for her, the frustration of failing, the acceptance of his feelings and of her being gone, and finally, her impromptu return into the shape of a perfect stranger.
He had lost Natalie and agent Romanoff would be there to remind him of it every day; but he would survive it. He would learn to live with what was both a blessing and a curse.