When Steve came out of the room, he didn't look any different than when he had walked in it. Nothing on his face divulged the breakdown he had just had a few minutes ago. Or if he indeed was different, then he had grown stronger. Sometimes you had to let the pain overcome you to defeat it. And now that he had just let it submerge him entirely, he had taken full control of it.
When he came out, he no longer was this man with a broken heart and a tortured mind. He was a man who had embraced and was now ready to grow from a broken heart, and this put his mind at rest somehow.
After his sobs had ended and once he had silenced his pain, he had turned to where his new uniform had been waiting. It was even more old-fashioned than it looked in the picture agent Coulson had showed him, but it indeed carry a lot of nostalgia as he had said. Seeing his shield, gently reflecting the rays from the warm light hanging above, raised an excitement within he had thought long gone. He also realized how he had missed it; not only for what it was, but for the memories it carried and what it meant to him.
Fully changed, he clutched his shield tight, ready to fight this Loki, ready to step back into the world, ready to face agent Romanoff (so far, the hardest part).
The officer was already waiting for him outside the door, as she had promised, and led him along the corridors. He met halfway with Bucky, who was just stepping out of a room, now dressed into a SHIELD navy stealth outfit. His friend shot him a concerned look.
"Are you okay?" he asked Steve, seeking the truth into his eyes before he would dare to blurt out a lie to his face.
"Yeah," he answered simply. It wasn't really a lie –he felt better than twenty minutes ago—and Bucky couldn't technically call him out on it. He nodded, not fully satisfied, suspecting an omission he had no evidence about to carry on with his investigation.
After a pause, he added. "Good, cause I didn't want to feel any guilt when I'd start making fun of your uniform. Enlighten me, are you on your way to fight an Asgardian or meet up with your bob-sleigh team?"
Steve rolled his eyes. At least he didn't treat him like someone whose feelings needed to be handled gently.
Also, ever since they had stumbled upon this sports on a newspaper, Bucky had been dying to use it as a joke. At least, it was a fulfilled quest. Now the matter was to know if it were to be his new running joke.
"Glad to see you didn't forget your humor in the ice."
Bucky went on, totally ignoring his friend's comment.
"I'm sorry, I'll try not to make you laugh from now on. I wouldn't want you to let a snort slip and accidentally cause the fabric to burst open at every stitch."
"The fabric won't stretch one bit when I kick your ass," Steve commented matter-of-factly, a playful smirk on the lips.
"As if you'd take the risk," Bucky puffed.
On their way to Berlin, Steve and Bucky were sat at the back of the jet, staring at agent Romanoff who was inside the cockpit with another SHIELD agent.
"But seriously, how is it possible?" Bucky mused aloud, his chin pressed on his fist, leaned over to get an even clearer view than he already had.
Steve observed her, as she swiftly and confidently pressed buttons, handling the control stick.
"I don't know," he murmured slowly. There was something peaceful in watching her.
Although he knew she wasn't Natalie, seeing her face like he remembered it, seeing her move like he could recall it, put his mind at rest. It was as if he wasn't as tormented wondering where Natalie was and whether she was fine as he was before. His eyes saw her before him and somehow it did the trick: it soothed the knot he had had in his stomach ever since he had been told Natalie was nowhere to be found.
Agent Romanoff took a break from flying after a couple of hours, handing the command over to her peer, unfastened her seatbelt and stepped out of the cockpit. She came face to face with Steve and Bucky gazing at her in awe and utter fascination.
She paused a second, no longer surprised but still inquisitive. She walked past them to the equipment area.
"Would you like to have a look at the front, Sergeant?" she asked. It took Bucky out of his compelling staring. "I read you were a good pilot."
He didn't need to be asked twice. He jumped out of his seat – with an almost believable composure— to the command board.
"So what do you think about our time?" she turned to Steve, taking some parachutes away and prepping them for use. "Sure people are resigned, the politicians are nearly all corrupted, the line C subway is always smelly, but sprinkle donuts are still the best creation we've ever come up with."
She sounded so nonchalant about it all, like she had seen and experienced worse to quit taking a serious look at the world and its imperfections. Natalie kind of did that, too; holding a sarcastic and fairly rare, distant eye on their society. It was like she saw the 1940s beyond what it was with a detached interest. He had always found her vision of their time quite fascinating, and shall he say, ground-breaking and had always thought she was uncommonly ahead of her time.
He smiled. "That's one way to see it," he conceded quite amused and revelled by her oh so familiar sense of humor as he watched her untie some security ropes.
"Do you do that a lot?" she asked casually not glancing in his direction but putting her earpiece on instead. "Stare at people with so much intensity?"
He tensed, taken by surprise by her frankness and embarrassed to realize he wasn't exactly good at toning his emotions down.
She pushed him out of his comfort zone, to the edge of the cliff and she enjoyed it thoroughly he could tell.
"And so does he," she continued, moving her head in Bucky's direction. "Except he gawks, you on the other hand…," she turned and looked him straight in the eye, defying him to deny what she was about to say next. "You stare like you're seeking every last bit of my very soul."
A playful smirk rose to her lips, as she seemed to be utterly amused by a very entertaining thought; perhaps the satisfaction he would never succeed.
"I…," he started, babbling, looking for his words. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be intrusive or cross you."
She cocked an eyebrow, looking him up and down; he could nearly see the rush of thoughts flashing by on her face although he couldn't read even one. Overall she looked intrigued, but she also definitely let the moment linger, enjoying the feeling of having reversed the roles between them. And she had succeeded, he felt exposed and self-conscious. It seemed she had managed to drill a hole into his head and plucked every single thought that had ever cross his mind. He nearly expected her to voice aloud the whole issue any second.
No doubt, she was good, and certainly Colonel Fury's best agent. She had this natural ability to take control and compel her victim into doing anything she wished. Perhaps, he would have even let some truth slip out if she had asked.
She didn't ask, to his surprise.
Something told him she had grasped the stake of it (to a certain extent) and had deliberately chosen to put it off for later, to make him hold his breath until when she would have decided the right time had come.
"You're a man of secret," she said with a slick voice, her dark pupils slightly dilated. "There's more to it than the war hero everyone talks about."
It could have sounded like an insult but to her it was a compliment.
He should have been scared about the promise she had just tacitly made. He should have apprehended her succeeding to let his secret out to the open; but there was just a magnetism, a shameless confidence exuding from her gaze, a sudden burst of interest that made her eyes sparkle the same way Natalie's eyes sparkled in his company. It felt like a glimpse of late 1942 all over again.
He should have been scared at the prospect of her trying to expose him, but he looked forward to it.
The capture of Loki turned out to be easier than any one of them had expected. Bucky had been a great help, firing the Asgardian enemy from the rooftop and unsettling him long enough to allow Steve to take the upper hand again.
Eventually, Tony Stark literally flew in the fight, accompanied by loud rock music.
"I don't like him," Bucky had muttered to Steve when they had got a moment of privacy on the jet. "The guy shows up playing AC/DC and that's supposed to prove he's the coolest."
Steve frowned.
"What bothers me the most in this whole situation is that you know who AC/DC are and I don't."
Bucky smirked. "Look like I've got one step ahead of you. As always."
"In your dreams."
A thunderbolt struck upon their heads. It made Loki wince, his eyes inspecting the ceiling.
"What's the matter, scared of a little lightning?" Steve asked suspiciously.
"I'm not overly fond of what follows…," Loki stated with a visibly amused expression.
They suddenly heard the loud noise of something landing over them which made the whole jet shake roughly.
Steve looked behind at agent Romanoff, yielding to his first instinct to protect her from the upcoming menace. She was holding her control stick, trying to stabilize the airplane.
Stark suited up, walking determinedly toward the exit. He pressed the button to open the back door.
Steve didn't like the billionaire's initiative as it jeopardized the safety of everyone on board (and who was kidding, mostly Romanoff's). Bucky stood aside, reaching for his rifle.
A tall, square man, dressed in the most old-fashioned way even Steve thought, barged in, looking quite belligerent. Steve stepped away, putting himself in the way into the cockpit, ready to attack in case the Asgardian would move down to the front of the aircraft. Agent Romanoff didn't notice Steve's close protection being too busy keeping the jet steady.
It put Stark on the front line, who got smacked down by the intruder's hammer and fell to the ground. The intruder then grabbed the prisoner by the throat and flew away with him.
"Now there's that guy," Tony muttered under his helmet.
"Another Asgardian?" agent Romanoff.
"Think this guy's a friendly?" Steve asked. He didn't know anymore. The file said he was. Which was why Bucky had also hold his fire but now he looked just as confused, wondering whether he had been right to.
"Doesn't matter," Stark replied, sounding like he was ready to duke it out. "If he frees Loki or kills him, the Tesseract's lost."
"Stark, we need a plan of attack," Steve cried out through the loud wind.
"I have a plan. Attack."
And he was gone, too.
Steve turned to Bucky. His friend had that pout that meant Stark had just gotten more in his nerves (not that he needed that much).
He reached for a parachute and started putting it on.
Bucky's expression turned into one of discontentment. He stepped forward, trying to stop him before shooting him a disapproving look.
"I'd sit this one out, Cap" agent Romanoff said from her cockpit, taking him pleasantly by surprise by addressing him directly for once and with such an expected ease and familiarity. Deep down, his heart flustered at the thought she cared about his well-being. He knew he shouldn't have let his heart feel this way (especially at the current agitated time), but it did. And most importantly, he enjoyed the feeling.
Unfortunately, the actual situation didn't allow him to dwell on the moment.
"I don't see how I can?" his instinct kicked in. He appreciated her 'caring' but her suggestion didn't go accordingly with his old habits.
"These guys come from legends, they're basically gods," she said.
Bucky nodded, openly siding with her.
"There's only one God," he pointed out. He would have normally added 'madam' at the end of his sentence, but she was already more than just a stranger to him. And calling her agent Romanoff would have felt cold after she had called just him Cap and it may have shut off any chance at further bonding. He rolled his eyes at himself internally. And here he had started putting too much thought into it. "And I'm pretty sure He doesn't dress like that."
He turned to Bucky.
"Stay here," he told his reluctant friend. He then threw a discreet glance at agent Romanoff, wordlessly asking Bucky to keep an eye on her. It wasn't like he trusted someone else more with such a personal request.
Bucky still looked reluctant, but at a lesser degree, cautious not to hurt his feelings regarding the whole situation with agent Romanoff. He nodded, agreeing to his demand but still disapproving of his friend's recklessness.
"Seventy years in the ice and it still wasn't long enough to develop for your brain gray matter," he muttered under his breath.
Steve smirked.
"Jealous punk."
Bucky didn't object. He smirked a little then watched him jump out of the aircraft before turning to keep Romanoff in his line of sight.