On the S.H.I.E.L.D. jet flying somewhere above the Indian ocean, Rumlow pitched the team on the situation. A ship belonging to the organization had been taken by French pirates and crew on board, including a high-ranked S.H.I.E.L.D officer, were held hostages.
Steve sighed. It was not the first time he was sent to fix those types of situations where the big lines were blurred. Fury always gave a portion of the information only.
"I'm getting a little tired of being Fury's janitor," he muttered softly, in which 'a little' actually meant 'a lot'.
"Isn't it more like, tired of Fury? Period." Bucky teased with a little grin in the corner of his mouth.
Was he still mad at Fury blocking access to the lab tests? Most definitely. And was it the reason why he blurted out being tired of doing this type of job? For the most part. But not only, fact remained he had a feeling he was being used like a puppet, sent wherever Fury needed him to be, to do his dirty work. And that was the other reason why he had complained aloud.
"Relax, " Natasha said casually, seeming to memorize every bit of data shown on the computer screen. "It's not that complicated."
Steve didn't argue for the simple reason he was driven by the need to save people, and the crew held hostage on that ship fell into that category. Regardless of the sketchy circumstances surrounding this attack and of Fury's secrets and eerie schemes and methods, he would go and be his janitor once again as he simply couldn't walk out knowing there were people out there putting up with bullies.
"Alright," Steve gave the instructions. "I'm gonna sweep the deck and find Batroc. Nat, you kill the engines and wait for instructions. Buck in lead, you sweep aft, find the hostages, get them to the life-pods, get them out. Rumlow in support. Let's move."
"S.T.R.I.K.E., you heard the Cap. Gear up," Rumlow commanded his team.
Steve, Bucky and Natasha made their way to the tail of the jet, getting prepared before reaching Drop Zone.
"Did you do anything fun, Saturday night?" Natasha asked with a smirk.
He understood her question actually meant 'Did you do anything fun Saturday night, without me?'
"Well, all the guys from my barbershop quartet are dead, so no, not really."
He smiled back the same playful way she was. "I guess we could fix that next weekend," she commented implicitly. "Movie night?"
"Are you gonna be there Bucky, or do you have a rendezvous scheduled already?"
"Actually, I'll be in Europe," Bucky grinned smugly.
James was bound to fly in two days to meet his other brother's family who had emigrated to years ago. He was just as excited and nervous as the day Steve had accompanied to visit his living brother and nieces and nephews.
"Means you two will get the apartment all for yourselves," Bucky trailed off with a teasing undertone. Steve rolled his eyes but with an amused grin on. "What could you possibly do with all that free space?"
"I'm sure we'll figure out something without you there. As we always do." Natasha replied mischievously, thrown into a game she was always pleased to play along. She turned to Steve. "I'm open to suggestions."
She looked him in the eye long enough to know when it would make him shy away; just as he was well aware she didn't expect a proper answer to her question.
"I guess we'll see," he said, stepping away both literally and metaphorically.
Natasha and Bucky glanced at each other and smiled.
"What is it, Steve?" she called loudly so he would hear her over the wind blowing in now that the jet back door had been opened. "Too shy or too scared?"
He turned to look at her as he attached his helmet.
"Too enticed," he teased back with a grin. Natasha seemed surprisingly pleased he had pushed their banter even further. He then jumped off the aircraft.
"Was he wearing a parachute?" an agent asked, stunned.
"No, he wasn't." Rumlow smirked, obviously used to the sight.
"What about you, Sergeant?" the agent stared.
Bucky was putting on his parachute. Even if HYDRA's experiments on him had enabled him to survive the plane crash and the seventy-year-old coma in the ice, even if he was faster and stronger than the average trained agent, he suspected jumping without a parachute wasn't an option. It looked thrilling, though.
"I never took the chance," he answered. He made his way toward the tail, leading the S.T.R.I.K.E. team. "And they call me the reckless one."
He smirked and jumped, followed by the rest of the tactic team.
When they grew close to landing on the ship, Steve had a gun pointed at him while standing above unconscious pirates. Rumlow aimed at the man and shot him.
"Thanks," Steve said.
Rumlow grinned. "Yeah, you seemed pretty helpless without me," he said ironically then walked off to take his position.
Natasha landed soon after and swiftly slipped the parachute off of her like it was a jacket. She walked alongside him.
"How about a pool night?" she asked. "Are you decent at pool or is it going to be boring for me?"
He fought off the urge to smile.
"Secure the engine room, then arrange us some plans."
She slowed down and headed towards the rails. "I'm multi-tasking," she retorted, jumping over and vanishing in the dark.
The rest of the mission went smoothly, everybody made it to their positions and the hostages were released. That was until Steve was informed Natasha had missed the rendezvous point and had gone silent.
He left his position, searching along the deck for Natasha, progressively taken by the fear she might be in danger.
"Natasha, where are you?" he whispered into the transmitter as he worked on repressing the anguish that was rising inside. His mind started to play a hundred scenarios of how things could have turned badly for her while he had been too busy doing his job –being Fury's janitor – to realize something had gone wrong.
"Bucky. Can you see Nat?" he called. James had gone to the upper deck to secure a sniper backup after releasing the hostages.
"Negative," he answered, his grave voice betraying his concern.
"Natasha," he called again, sounding more pressing this time.
He found Batroc on his way at the worst timing possible and a fight ensued.
When he knocked him down through a door, he heard a familiar voice.
"Well, this is awkward," Natasha said lightly.
He rose to his feet and found her leaning over a computer, typing on the keyboard.
"What are you doing?" he frowned.
"Backing up the hard drive. It's a good habit to get into," she answered coolly, keeping her eyes locked on the screen, seeming unaffected by the concern in his voice.
The relief of seeing her standing and fine passed quicker than he would have ever thought, being filled instead with the irking realization he was being played. And not by anybody he couldn't care less about. By her.
"Bucky and Rumlow needed your help," he hissed slightly. "What the hell are you doing here?"
He finally got himself to take his eyes off of her and took a proper look at the screen.
"You're saving S.H.I.E.L.D. intel," he spoke quietly, stunned and quizzical. What could Natasha possibly want her own agency's data for? It went against every agent's work and personal ethics. Any member of the team catching her doing that would accuse her of treason. Torn between confusion and reprobation, he worried for her and that someone might walk in on her any second.
"Whatever I can get my hands on," she said matter-of-factly, still leaning over the command desk, looking adamant and placid. He realized he was dealing with the Black Widow and couldn't get a glimpse of Natasha. She was determined and her emotionless, uncompromising tone of voice suggested nothing could possibly divert her from completing her task.
It threw him off to see that side of her personality.
"Our mission is to rescue the hostages."
She unplugged the flash drive and walked away with a nonchalance that irked him greatly at this moment.
"No, that's your mission," she answered with a light tone that fitted neither the situation nor his mood. "And you've done it beautifully."
Good news was Natasha wasn't a traitor –she was following orders – and probably from the very person who had sent them on this operation in the first place. Director Fury. And it hit him. Right there and at this very moment. Natasha was his agent, and according to his definition, was one his puppets whose strings he was pulling. Steve had been so blinded by her appearance and features, then by their growing friendship that he had let himself overlook who she was while, he realized now, she had never really lost sight of it in his company.
He wouldn't have taken it so personally if she was just a co-worker. But she had grown to become much more than that. And the thought that she had not been reciprocating it, that she had just been pretending and playing a role, hurt him physically like he had just been punched hard in the guts.
No matter the connection he thought they had, she had always remained the Black Widow and the spy. He began to wonder whether she had been snitching on him to Fury, always keeping him updated on his and Bucky's evolution. He started to question every little thing and to what extent her honesty with him had gone. He wondered if it had also been her mission to grow close to him and Bucky, spying on them up close.
Natasha didn't suspect anything, but Steve felt betrayed at a deeper level than a simple side mission he had not been made aware of.
She smirked, oblivious of what she had just triggered, and started off again. This attitude was the last thing he needed from her as he expected –yearned for – at least an explanation. Honesty had always been a thing they had. Or only for his part, he realized now. He instinctively held her arm to stop her from walking away from an explanation he considered he earned. Natasha remained calm, not to the least startled by this sudden invasion of her personal space. She glanced down at his hand and he immediately let go of her when he processed what he had just done.
"You just jeopardized this whole operation," he said coldly, looking at the stranger standing just in front of him. He wondered who she really was and if he would ever find out.
"I think that's overstating things," she commented funnily enough as if she had read his mind.
A noise coming from the door took them both by surprise and they watched as Batroc ran through the door after throwing a grenade in their direction.
Steve deflected it with his shield and ran the opposite way along with Natasha. She pulled her gun out and shot at the windows of the room on the side to break in. Focused on nothing more but keeping her safe, he slid his arm around her waist and scooped her up as they both plunged through the window. The grenade went off just when they passed the frame and fell to the ground behind the wall while he used his shield to cover them both from the debris.
Leaning against the wall, dust floating in the air, they both panted hard and he swiftly glanced in her direction to check she wasn't hurt. When his mind found rest from the sight of her looking fine, he looked away.
"Ok," she breathed out. "That one's on me."
He was angry, he was disappointed, he felt deceived but overall he wasn't that surprised. He recalled her words in the gym 'You are right not to trust me fully'. He also was aware that Natasha hadn't earned Fury's best agent status for nothing. She excelled at her job, and as an agent, she appreciated how important it was to follow orders. No matter what. No matter who.
"You damn right," he muttered, unwilling to look straight at her. He got up and walked away, unable to stay in her presence.
"Steve," he heard her call with earnest worry.
He brushed it off and left the room without glancing behind, fuming internally against the very person who was responsible for pitting them against each other.
The flight back home was silent. Steve sat far from Natasha although he felt her glimpses of concern in his direction throughout the flight, Bucky going back and forth between the two of them to keep them company.
"Steve," James eventually said. "You know she was just doing her job. Nothing personal."
Deeply, he really wanted to believe that but it wasn't in his nature to move past such things.
The face-to-face with Director Fury quickly turned into a heated conversation, Steve fuelled by the latest twist of events. Fury didn't deny giving Natasha a mission, but again, it was the canny way to go to admit it upfront. Obviously, he wouldn't explain his motives and it was why Steve didn't even bother to ask.
"Agent Romanoff is comfortable with everything," Fury said and these words echoed into Steve like the daunting ringing of a bell. It was still difficult for him to accept that Natasha's moral spectrum was so easily malleable. In his definition, that made her unreliable and untrustworthy. A truth he could never come to terms with.
Being pressed for a brief moment of truthfulness, Fury took him down to see Project Insight with his own eyes. What was supposed to bring them closer only managed to draw them further apart.
Steve paid Peggy a visit which was something that happened every fortnight or so. He mentioned the whole Fury and Natasha topic in vague words. Peggy's response was very clear.
"You're always so dramatic," she commented with an amused smile that looked just the same as in 1942. He snorted quietly. He knew he had this tendency to see the world and people in black or white. Peggy, although she had always shared the same vision and hopes for the future as him, had always been aware that they were almost always a mix of the two.
"The world has changed, and none of us can go back. All we can do is our best. And sometimes the best we can do is to start over."
He listened to her wise words silently and took them into consideration.
"I saw her," Peggy said softly. He looked at her and frowned. "Fury is kind enough to pitch me on S.H.I.E.L.D. from time to time and I saw a picture. Agent Romanoff. It's startling."
Steve nodded quietly, looking away. When he looked back at Peggy, he found her eyes staring right at him with love and compassion.
"It must be unbearable," she said and it hit him how deep his connection with Peggy was that she would know exactly how he felt. "How do you cope with it?"
Part of him refused to talk about such a sensitive topic with her but another part yearned to confide in.
"I got used to it," he said, choosing option A.
"You know you don't have to do this with me."
And he considered it for a few seconds. Peggy was one of his oldest friends and she knew about Natalie, which made her the best confident he could ever ask for, Bucky being out since he didn't want his personal grieves and failures to make his best friend feel bad or uncomfortable about his happy and fulfilling romantic life.
Peggy watched him closely, dissatisfied with the answer he had given her. But suddenly her look morphed into something else, she stared at him differently, her eyes filling with tears.
"Steve," she called.
"Yeah."
"You're alive. You came back." Her mouth twitched and she closed her heavy lids for a couple of seconds. "It's been so long," she cried, tearing his heart apart in the process like all the other many times it had happened during his visits. "So long."
"Well," he forced a smile. "I couldn't leave my best girl. Not when she owes me a dance."
He put aside the idea of sharing his burdens with Peggy who deserved to have her mind in peace.
And conversations went back to 1942 for the time it lasted.
The next day, Steve accompanied Bucky at the airport.
"Maria is not coming?" he asked.
"She said she doesn't want to be third-wheeling for our goodbyes," Bucky snorted, rolling his eyes.
Steve smiled. They paused when they reached Security. Bucky flipped around to look at him. Steve put his hand on his friend's shoulder who felt just as stiff as he looked. "You got this. They're going to love you just like the rest of your family here."
Bucky closed his eyes and let out a heavy sigh. "You're right. I got this."
Steve smiled. "See you in a week."
"Don't do anything stupid while I'm away," he warned.
They both got a throwback to 1942.
"How could I? You're taking all the stupid with you," he repeated word by word.
It made them both smile then they hugged in the middle of the Terminal. It was the first time they were separated for real since they had woken up in this new century. They were each other's bearings and letting go turned out to be harder than they could have suspected.
"Oh boy," Bucky coughed when they pulled away. "She would have been third-wheeling."
They both laughed and Bucky made his way to the security gate, Steve watching him with a quiet mix of emotions. Bucky paused and turned around.
"Tasha," he said softly with a grin. "Don't be stubborn. Give her a call."
Steve pursed his lips together and dug his hands into his pockets. Bucky passed the security gate, and for the first time since he had been waiting for his best friend to wake up from his coma, he realized how heavy loneliness felt.
Anxious to fill the boring day ahead, he decided to pay Sam Wilson a visit at the VA as he had suggested.
After what seemed to look and feel like an AA meeting came to an end, Wilson came up to him.
"Where is the other running man?" he joked with a wide smile.
"Visiting family abroad. He says hi, by the way," he answered then looked at the people leaving. "It's pretty intense," he said.
"Yeah brother, we all got the same problem. Guilt, regret."
"You lose someone?" he asked.
"My wingman, Riley." Wilson said sternly. "Flying a night mission. Standard PJ rescue op. Nothing we hadn't done a thousand times before. Until an RPG knocked Riley's dumb ass out of the sky. It was like I was up there to watch."
Steve looked at him quietly.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I can't imagine what it feels like."
He felt thankful he still had Bucky by his side. He didn't want to imagine what his life here would have been like without him.
Wilson asked if he considered getting out, he answered he didn't know. With Fury as his chief, he didn't feel like tagging along forever, even if he had promised Peggy to look after S.H.I.E.L.D. for her.
Wilson asked if he had any idea what he would like to do if he did get out. He realized he had absolutely no clue. His life seemed suddenly like a rough draft pending completion.
Heading back home, it seemed that the hallway was quieter than usual. He didn't have any plans for the night, not that any particular activity sounded appealing right now.
The adjacent door to his and Bucky's apartment opened and the nurse neighbour stepped out, whilst speaking on the phone, carrying a basket of clothes for the laundry he reckoned.
"My aunt," she said with a smile after she hung up. "She's kind of an insomniac."
He smiled back politely.
"Any plans for tonight?" she asked as he was walking to his door.
"I don't know. I don't think so," he said, sheepishly.
"Shame," she said lightly. "A guy like you shouldn't be alone."
He didn't quite understand what she meant or implied exactly but he realized what she said made sense. She was right; he didn't want to be alone tonight and he shouldn't have to be, and he knew exactly who he wanted by his side to make it through the end of this lingering day. He nodded and took his phone out, sliding down the screen to Natasha's number. He stood in the hallway, thinking of what words to type in his text.
"And I think you left your stereo on," the nurse said.
"Right. Thank you." He waited till she had gone down the stairs then he put his phone in his pocket and proceeded to enter his own apartment, Natasha style, through the window.
What he found in there and the consequences it would have exceeded all his expectations.