Thump. Thump. Thump.
The punching bag shook violently under Steve's punches, with nothing but the sound of his hits echoing into S.H.I.E.L.D's gym.
"Easy there," he heard a husky voice call from a distance. His muscles froze at the familiarity of it.
Natasha walked across the room, dressed in civilian clothes, the shadow of a smirk already playing on her lips. Steve paused, taking on the sight coming toward him. He hadn't seen her in nearly a week, since she had popped into his office to give him the address of the little German boy in the picture, and in all honesty it felt she had been gone for longer than what it really was. His eyes lingered on every feature of her face and memorized every detail, trying to quiet down this irrational fear that he might have forgotten the perfection of them. And, as he did so, he felt progressively enveloped by an inexplicable wave of quietude at the realization she was back in his vicinity.
"How was your mission?" he asked to make conversation. They both knew it was just an informal question that would not get a real answer.
"Nothing thrilling," she answered evasively with a shrug.
He nodded softly then resumed hitting the bag.
"How'd you find me?" he asked between two punches.
"Bucky told me what happened earlier so I assumed you'd feel like taking it out on a harmless punching bag," she answered as she approached. She stopped and stood next to the bag, facing him. She then leaned forward, turned her head and peeked at the punching bag hanging before him. "Oh," she said teasingly, keeping her gaze on it. "I was expecting to find a colored picture of Fury pinned to it."
She shifted back to her initial position and smiled.
"I'm visualizing it just as fine in my mind. Call me eco-friendly."
It raised a mischievous smirk to her lips.
"Fury has his good days. I guess today wasn't one of them."
Her comment irked him more that it would normally have in other circumstances. He paused and looked at her inquisitively.
"Was it you?" he asked as he recalled that Natasha was and remained one of Fury's agents, if not one of his closest. "Did you tell him I was working on this old investigation?"
Her smirk didn't fade but it took a different shade.
"Uh-uh," she shook her head. "You know I'm on your side on this one. I want to find out who that spy nearly just as bad as you."
He looked at her silently.
"And I'm going to give this blow a pass. I reckon my Black Widow reputation always precedes me." She said it matter-of-factly, without a hint of reproach, although it seemed he caught sight of a formless, hardly noticeable bitterness.
This was enough to make him angry at himself.
"Sorry," he said as he felt the urge to blow off more steam than before and punched the bag hard. "It wasn't intended."
"I know," she answered quietly. "And besides, you are wise not to fully trust me."
She smirked playfully again unaware that these simple words crushed him deep inside. He wanted to tell her that all of him wanted to trust her fully and blindingly in spite of her job, of her persona and of her reputation, that he yearned to put all prejudices and facts aside and see her as Natasha only. Not Black Widow, not the S.H.I.E.L.D agent, not the spy. Just Natasha.
But he kept all these words in and let out a sigh heavy with regret instead.
"So how did it go with the German?" she asked. "Was he any helpful?"
He stepped away from the bag and began to remove his boxing bandages.
"He confirmed pretty much what we suspected," he said, looking down at the fabric he was untying. "She left the civilian carriage from the bathroom window so her absence would go unnoticed then she waited for the right moment to strike."
Natasha leaned her back against the ropes of the boxing ring nearby.
"And anything about her?"
"He says she was German. Probably from the high class."
Nastaha nodded. "I guess it makes sense. She kind of has an Eastern European style."
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Methodical, neat, rapid. She was a killing machine. She didn't try to neutralize the soldiers or avoid them because it would have meant taking the risk of jeopardizing her mission. She took them all down because she had one clear mission –or target – and they were standing on the way of it ."
She trailed off though and frowned.
He knew exactly what she was thinking. "But it doesn't make sense that she would just knock Bucky out and leave us both alive," he finished, putting her thought into words.
"It doesn't add up, no." She said. "Because your presence on this train was unexpected she should have treated you both like the most jeopardous factor to achieving her mission. She should have killed you just as she did everybody else."
He agreed with a nod. He had thought exactly seventy years ago when they had been searching for clues on the HYDRA train.
"So what's your theory?" he asked.
Natasha shrugged. "More than one, actually. Maybe she had been specified to kill Nazis only, maybe her agency was collaborating with the American Service –but in that case the chances of her being German are getting slim. A German killing other Germans? Unless she was part of the Resistance. But then, what was her mission? Zola? Then why abort the operation and flee before reaching the head of the train? Why did she not start from there in the first place instead of going through numerous wagons filled with Nazis beginning from the tail?"
Natasha paused and smiled. "The more I think, the less sense it makes. We have already established she is a driven, attention-detailed spy so why did it get messy near the end? Why get sloppy halfway and take the risk of leaving two possible witnesses alive? Let's say your being there made her abort the mission, then why not just leave right away? Why did she stick around to kill that one last HYDRA soldier that was in the wagon with Bucky? What was so important in that wagon that she couldn't just head back and leave her presence unknown?"
"Maybe she was here to steal something," he conjectured. "But what exactly? The train was just carrying weapons. What technology could she possibly want to take from there?"
"Maybe. After all you said you concluded at the times she had gotten hands on the plans of the train. Maybe there was something valuable on this train that you didn't know about and she was here for it."
"Wouldn't it be safely stored at the head of the train with Zola, though?"
She pouted slightly. "I don't know. We don't have enough intel. Hard to tell what her intention was and hard to understand why she didn't treat you as hostiles."
"Whatever her mission was, it seemed that Bucky and I were not part of it," he said.
The room went silent.
"Or maybe you were," she said pensively.
He furrowed his brows. "Think about it. Why did she wait so long before breaking in the train?"
"Maybe because she had to wait to be close to her extraction point," Steve said.
"And this happened to be practically at the same time you jumped on the train roof? Talk of an unfortunate timing."
He shook his head, mouth slightly agape, having a hard time processing where this conversation was heading. "That's impossible. Our mission was top secret. We worked weeks on it."
He still remembered all the weeks of preparation leading to it. Hours of planning with the Howling Commando, the Colonel and Peggy under the most strict secrecy, both of them always insisting on how crucial to the mission success it was to keep it quiet. The idea somewhere that at another place, another team was preparing a similar operation in parallel and with even more secrecy sounded left him stunned.
"I'm just thinking that the whole thing is starting to sound an awful lot sloppy for a spy as meticulous as her."
He frowned. "What are you saying?"
Natasha arched an eyebrow. "I'm saying maybe you weren't the only ones who knew about your top secret mission."
And proud of having dropped this staggering twist, she smirked long at him.
This new theory raised a whole lot of questions, many of which he knew he would never get answers to. Who was she working for? Who were these people? What were their true motives? But again, the more he thought about it, the more sense it began to make. After all, it would explain why the agent had, not only not killed them, but also made sure to keep them alive (as it seemed their safety had mattered to her to some extent). But more importantly, it shed a new light on this mysterious passenger. They had all been calling her an intruder but now, if Natasha's theory were to be correct, it appeared that her very presence on the train was legitimate. Maybe who he thought was a foe might turn out to be an ally working in the dark. If that were indeed the case, he considered it was his duty to find the truth and let it be known and clear her name. Either way, never would have thought that this old investigation, this cold case as Fury called it, would wind up being even more fascinating than it already was seventy years before.
He felt a new kind of excitement take over him and he couldn't wait to share all these new conclusions with Bucky, although he wished his best friend was more invested in it. In spite of this, he took great satisfaction in having Natasha as a co-investigator whose views and deduction skills were a real blessing to the solving of the case.
"For what it's worth," he said, looking at her with a smile. "I'm glad you're back."
Her eyes slightly squinting, she probed him closely. "Oh, I know that," she purred.
Maria Hill emerged from her self-cloaking the day after and allowed herself to walk in the same hallway as he did.
"Captain Rogers," she started, glancing at the floor then back at him. She clasped her hands together before her chest and closed her eyes. "I am sorry for what happened the other day. This is the last way I wanted you to find out about this. It was unprofessional and I regret that."
"You don't need to apologize," he shook his head. "Someday, we'll laugh about it. Actually, would it bad to admit I already do?"
She eyed him for a few seconds before she cracked a little smile.
"I think I'm going to need a bit more time before I can," she snorted.
He smiled back. "The breakfast invitation still holds. Doesn't have to be breakfast, obviously," he added amusingly.
She looked pleased with the idea.
"Yeah. I'd like that."
"And so she forgave you just like that?" Bucky grumbled for the tenth time the next morning during their jogging.
"I don't think there was really something I had to be forgiven for," Steve answered. "All I did was turn up unexpectedly."
Bucky rolled his eyes. "Details. I mean, how unfair is that? You're just a co-worker. She's still giving me a hard time for it and I'm the boyfriend."
"Which is exactly why she's giving you a hard time," Steve smirked. "You're the boyfriend."
"And so you say she was open to the invitation?" Bucky continued. "As in, me included? or just the two of you so you can bash me together?"
"Please," he huffed. "You know it would be the second option if it was up to me."
Bucky looked at him and snorted.
A few minutes later, they reached the Capitol where they saw a running silhouette down the path.
They soon caught up with him and as Steve ran past first, he said:
"On your left."
The jogging man slightly turned his head in his direction and frowned quizzically. It was until Bucky came around, following slowly behind.
"On your right," he said to the jogger as he ran past him on the opposite side.
Once their first lap completed, the two friends went on and found themselves running toward the same jogger as some minutes before. What had started as a simple, polite warning turned into the entertaining moment of their jogging.
"On your left," Steve said again as he jogged past the stranger.
"Yeah. Got it," the man replied ironically. "And let me guess…"
"On your right," Bucky chimed in as he followed shortly after.
"Yep. Just as I thought," he said coolly behind them, oozing sarcasm.
Bucky and Steve glanced at each other and shared a conniving smirk. Without a word, they both had the idea to speed up the pace to make three a charm. And thus, some minutes later, wound up behind the jogger, getting dangerously close to running past him yet again.
Hearing them approaching, he threw a wary glimpse above his shoulder and sped up too.
"Don't say it," he shouted out daringly as Steve grew closer.
"On your left," Steve said, dashing past.
Bucky came running on the side.
"No, no, no," the jogger grumbled flipping his head to the right side, gathering the last strength he had gotten to not let himself be outrun.
"On your right," Bucky announced triumphantly, before grinning smugly and running away.
"Come on!" they heard him growl then panting hard as he tried to catch up.
When they reached their four laps, they found the jogger sitting on the grass, leaning against a tree, catching his breath.
"Need a medic?" Steve asked jokingly.
Bucky nudged him. "Don't joke. He looks like he might die on us any second," he smirked.
"I need a new set of lungs, dudes. You two just ran like 13 miles in 30 minutes."
"Ouch," Buck winced before shaking his head with a disappointed look.
Steve mirrored the feeling. "Yeah, looks like we had a late start."
"Uh really? You should be ashamed of yourselves. You should take another lap," the jogger said in a sarcastic, reproving voice. Then after a brief pause, he gawked at them. "Did you just take it? I assumed you just took it."
Bucky smiled the kind of smile that meant he was already fond of the guy and of his humor. Steve smiled the kind of smile that meant he agreed.
Introductions were made.
"Sam Wilson," he raised his hand. Bucky leaned over and took it.
"Steve Rogers," he said while Bucky helped Sam up.
"Yeah, I kind of put that together," he breathed out as he rose to his feet. "And James Buchanan," he added, looking at him.
"Bucky," James said with a friendly smile.
"Must have freaked you out coming home after the whole defrosting thing?"
"Things aren't so bad," Steve said. "Food is better, we used to boil everything. No polio is good."
"But men's skinny jeans were definitely the downfall of humanity," Bucky retorted.
Sam smirked.
"Internet. So helpful," Steve continued.
"So helpful," Bucky repeated with more feelings.
Sam Wilson smiled then raised his hand. "Marvin Gaye. 1972. Troubleman soundtrack."
Steve nodded and took his pocket notepad out. "I'll put that on the list."
His and Bucky's phones rang up.
MISSION ALERT. EXTRACTION IMMINENT. MEET AT THE CURB :)
"Hmm interesting," Bucky mused aloud while peeking at Steve's screen. "She put a winking emoji on mine. Sounds naughtier."
Steve rolled his eyes but with an amused smile on.
"Alright Sam, duty calls." He told Wilson. "Thanks for the run, if you want to call that running."
They shook hands.
"Oh, that's how it is."
"That's how it is," Steve and Bucky answered at once. Sam smiled and invited them to come and meet anytime at the V.A.
Natasha's black Corvet pulled over behind them.
The passenger tinted window went down.
"Hey, fellas," Natasha called huskily. "Either of you knows where the Simthsonian is? I'm here to pick up two fossils."
"That's hilarious," Steve commented flatly, walking up to the car.
"Laughing so hard, right now," Bucky chimed in with the most placid face and a dead look. "Inside."
"Smart move," Natasha answered back almost instantly. "Better not have that skin of yours rip up like paper."
Bucky ignored the barb as he was too busy gawking at the car. He rushed to the passenger door and opened it.
"Don't get your hopes high," she said. "You're sitting in the back."
Bucky let out a growl. "I thought I was your favorite. What was that winking emoji for, then?"
"That was at the prospect of this very moment." She grinned wickedly at her comeback.
They both got in the car.
"Can I drive it someday?" Bucky asked.
"When I die and my bones have turned to dust, even then you can't have it."
Then she slightly leaned forward to catch sight of that stranger who was staring from the sidewalk.
"How you doing?" he purred the words with a smile. Steve stiffed a bit in his seat, watching the scene.
"Hey," she answered back with a smirk that suggested a lot but didn't promise a thing. It was Natasha's way of approaching any male she knew she could have in the palm of her hand, like a spider with its prey. Her instinct told her to capture any person who had been reckless enough to tread on her web. She kept her eyes on Sam, compelling him from the distance. Obviously, it was working. Nobody could escape the Black Widow.
"Can't run everywhere," Steve said with a content expression.
"No, you can't," Sam smirked back taking on the pleasant sight of the sports car and the femme fatale sitting behind the wheel. His eyes seemed to scream 'Captain America is living the life'.
And for a minute, Steve let himself think the same.