Natasha could hear the sound of muffled fast footsteps thumping along the halls. The footsteps stopped when it got to her door, and was continued with a series of impatient knocks.

She opened the door, found Wanda staring at her exuberantly. "Steve's back."

The redhead hid her excitement well. "Yeah? Tell him I said hi."

When Natasha moved to close the door, Wanda used her telekinesis to keep the door from shutting. "You're not going to see him? Talk to him?"

"Things are− complicated between us. I don't think he wants to talk to me."

Wanda frowned. "But do you want to talk to him?"

"Not really." She answered coldly.

Wanda simply gave her a disbelief look. "Well, see you around then."

Natasha shut the door and didn't come out the rest of that day. She focused herself on her paperwork, filling in mission reports. Convinced herself that she's too busy to step outside even for a brief moment. She acknowledges the actual reason though; she simply doesn't feel like she wants to see Steve. It's just going to be super awkward and weird as hell. Besides, she has enough food supply in her personal stash to stay alive here, at least for the next two days.

She abruptly woke up from her sleep a few hours later when she heard knocks on the door.

"Go away." She wholeheartedly yelled out.

"It's Steve."

She lifted her head just to squint at the digital alarm on her nightstand. "Fuck. It's two in the morning, Steve."

"I can't sleep." He sighed, running his fingers through his hair. He knew this was a bad idea. She would probably never open it.

To his surprise, she did. Only wearing underpants and a baggy old t-shirt. She looked incredibly tired, so it didn't surprise him that she jumped right back onto bed right after he came in.

He crawled next to her, listening to the indistinct sound of her breathing to help him drift back to sleep.

It worked.

She woke up first, and spent the next couple minutes watching him sleep before deciding that it's too creepy so she got up from bed and decided to wash her face and brush her teeth.

What happened between them? That last night, fourteen days ago, was the night they knew would be their last with the chemical inside their blood system− so they had sex like there's no tomorrow. In the morning they woke up, stared onto each other's eyes, and without a word she got dressed and left his room. That was it. The next day he set off with Sam on another quest to find Bucky. Natasha busied herself with smaller missions Fury gave her.

And Steve hasn't returned until yesterday. Things are weird and it's even weirder now that she knows they spent the night on one same bed again, only this time with clothes on.

When she returned from the bathroom, he shifted to his side and blinked a few times to adjust his eyes to the morning light. He curved up an innocent smile.

"How'd you sleep?" His voice was sleepy and raspy.

"Good. You?" She leaned on the door frame, unsure of what to do.

"Better." He then groaned, shifting again to lie flat, facing the ceiling and rubbing on the bridge of his nose. "I have the weekend off."

"So do I."

"Yeah? How do you plan to spend it?"

She scoffed. "Sleep."

"Great. I got the same idea too." He tapped on the empty pillow next to him.

She doesn't know where this is going; she doesn't know what he's trying to do. And whatever it is, it's dangerous.

But the hell with it.

She crawled back to her bed, next to him. He put an arm around her, his body curling and sheltering around hers.

"I miss Thor." Steve muttered under his breath as he took another bite of the s'mores flavored pop tart she gave him.

"You two did bond pretty well." She shrugged, munching on a snicker bar.

He turned to look at her, and found her looking back at him.

"Is he−"she cleared her throat, turning away quickly before he noticed her blushing. "Is he coming back anytime soon?"

"Unless more extraterrestrial beings start hitting earth again, my guess would be no."

"Right. Well, you can spend your time with the other guys. Keep yourself occupied. What's Stark up to these days?"

He sighed heavily. "I don't know. Some more wacky inventions. Maybe."

"Hopefully not too wacky."

The statement managed to crack him a smile. "Yeah."

She looked down to her food, not even finding herself hungry anymore. "Steve?"

He turned and looked at her.

"Why are you here?"

"I live here−"

"No, not the base." She rolled her eyes. "You know what I'm talking about."

Steve fell silent. The words were on top of his head but he just couldn't say them. Not out loud. Not to her.

"How's everything with Sharon?"

"Fine, I guess." His said quietly. "Haven't seen her in a while."

"You should."

"What if I don't want to?"

She gave him a look. "Don't do this to me."

"I'm not doing anything."

"Get out."

"Look, I'm not doing−"

"GET OUT."

She rose from the bed and opened the door for him to leave. He walked up to her and shut it close, his strength against hers. In the end she just stared up at him with frustration but gives up, letting go of the door.

"I'm not leaving, Nat. I don't want to. We have to settle this, right here, right now."

"We fucked, Steve. We fucked. Several times and those were really good times, but it's over! What the fuck do you want from me now?"

His lips formed a thin line and the crease on his forehead deepened. "STOP IT. Stop lying to me−"

"Fuck you for calling me a liar!"

"And for heaven's sake would you PLEASE stop swearing?"

"I can say whatever the HELL I want. I can do whatever the FUCK I want and you're not going to stop me. You can't. And you definitely don't have the right to barge in to someone's room, sleep there, and wake up yelling at them to bend over for your wishes. That's just not how it works."

"You make it sound like I'm trying to control you."

"Well aren't y−"

"I'M NOT!" He interjected harshly. "I just want us to have a normal conversation!" His eyes followed her movements, she was pacing back and forth around the room with her hands placed on her waist, looking as frustrated as he was. "There are a lot of things we have to talk about. And I'm not leaving until I get answers, Nat. Please." His voice softened. He was tired. Tired of being in this mess−tired of being confused all the time over his own feelings, about what he should do and what would happen next.

Natasha stopped walking, stopping right next to the bed, arms folding across herself as a desperate gesture. She knew herself well enough to know her own body language, and she hates feeling like this; to be this−emotional about something or, someone. She doesn't know what she wants. She wants to be left alone but at the same time, the temptation to ask for his company seems to scream at her just as strong. And for that she feels like a mess, as if she's running a maze and got lost with no map or the slightest idea on how to get out. When she looked up, she immediately found his blue eyes, reflecting the color of the sun and the skies that shone through the window.

Her lips trembled. "You can't do this to me."

"You mean caring about you? What is so wrong with that? What happened to you that was so bad that it made you like this?" Then he stopped, realizing what he had just said. He knew she had a dark past. He didn't know the half of it; but vaguely, he knows.

"Captain America." She scowled. "Always thinks that he can solve everything."

"I didn't mean to say that. I'm sorry−"

"He died." She abruptly said, still looking to his eyes.

"Who?"

Her words shudder when she finally said, "Alexi. Alexi Shostakov. He was my husband."

"I didn't know that."

She forced a smile. "Of course you didn't. Nobody does. Well, no one alive. Except for Clint."

Steve couldn't help but feel jealous for her personal ties with Hawkeye. "Of course."

"No, it wasn't like that." She bit her lip. It feels almost as if she's tearing apart an old wound, dissecting it to relive the pain. It's not a good feeling and she felt air trapped itself in the cavity of her chest− she hates this. But she has to come clear. Maybe it's time to let go. Maybe it's time to get rid of her very last mask, once and for all. "I didn't plan on telling him. It's just that one day I figured out Alexi wasn't dead and all of the sudden I had to confront him. I was in this mental breakdown and Clint was the only one there to help me."

"I'm so sorry to hear that."

"He wasn't himself. Not the one I used to know, at least. So I killed him."

Steve started to take steps forward to hold her, but she shook her head and backed away.

"I burned children. It was in a children hospital in Sao Paolo. I heard screams and cries but I just turn away and leave." When Steve was about to say something she quickly cut him off. "No. There's more."

"You got more to tell me?" He asked rhetorically.

"Plenty." It was pain in her eyes. Pain that she has to bear every day, nightmares she always have to face every night. " You know, there was this guy− I threw him into a river full of crocodiles that tore him to pieces."

"We've all done things we're not proud of." His jaw tensed.

"But I wanted to, Steve." She gave him an expressionless stare. "I wanted to kill Every. Single. One. of them."

"What are you trying to prove here?" He threw his head down, not sure of what to feel about this.

"I found a gun once and hid it. Few days later a guy came after me and I shot him dead. I was…say, about… twelve at that time."

"Natasha, stop." He gritted his teeth.

"Have you ever smashed someone's skull? You know the sound it makes? It's this−squashing noise, and the blood just gets everywhere and you actually get to feel how warm the blood feels in your hand−"

"THAT'S ENOUGH." He scolds. "Why are you telling me all this? To get me to leave? To just back out and never come back? I don't care about who you were. It's who you are now that makes who you...you. And that's enough for me. Whatever burden lies behind you can either let it stay with you or you can share it with me. But not like this. Not when you say it as if it's something to scare me away. And I know that you want this too; so what the hell are you waiting for?"

"It's not as easy as it sounds, Steve."

"Do enlighten me then. What makes it so hard?"

"You're just too good−damn it, too good for some fucked up mess like me."

"Language."

"Whatever." She can't believe he corrected her. "I can't make you stay with someone like me."

"You don't have to make me!"

She exhaled a long breath. "Would you stop it? PLEASE, stop it−"

"STOP WHAT?"

"EVERYTHING!" She threw her arms down, screaming on top of her lungs. "YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!"

"And you do? You do? What makes you so superior, huh? Who gets to decide who's right and who's wrong?"

"You're captain fricking America. What do you know about being wrong?"

"WOMAN, I AM SICK OF YOUR ACT!" When she tried to interrupt him he went ahead, "First of all, STOP THINKING SO HIGHLY of me. I was a scrawny lad, gets beat up, weak, made fun of and was born with so many birth defects it would take a day to say all of them. Nobody WANTED me. Then this bottle of serum was given and I became the luckiest man alive. Stark was right. It all came from a bottle. Without it I'm nothing but a skinny boy with hopeless dreams. SECOND OF ALL, I know what Helen Cho lied to us about−"

"Did you just call me, 'woman'?" She tried to sound serious but failed miserably. She bursts to laughter.

"I'm trying to have an argument here." He groaned, but only lasts for a couple seconds before he smiled with her. "What, you kids don't say that anymore?" He stepped in closer, pulling her by the waist. She didn't fight it but didn't look too happy either. Silence passed. She looked down to her feet while he spent quite some time searching for her eyes to meet his.

"I'm still not changing my mind about this, Steve." She purse her lips closed, back to all her seriousness in a blink of an eye. She removed his grip from her and stepped back. "You're not in love with me."

"You don't get to say that."

She ignored him. "It was your first time. You get attached. But it won't last long, trust me. You'll be happier with someone else. Not with me."

"And what about you? Do I get a say of what makes you happy?"

"I know what you're gonna say."

"No, you−"

"Just get out. Please. Just leave me alone."

He stared down at her sternly. His blue eyes hard like opal stones piercing into her emeralds. "I know what Doctor Cho lied to us about."

"So do I, but that doesn't change anything." She looked away, ignoring the betrayal he portrayed on his face. "Now would you please, go away?"

"You know what? What they said is true. You don't have a heart." Steve angrily paced away from her room, to the hallways with a weight of the world on his shoulders. It hurts. His chest hurts; it hurts to be rejected like that. He cares about her; he wants to be with her. The sound of her voice haunts him every night, in his dreams begging for him to sleep by her side. When he wakes up he would be alone, sweaty and feeling uneasy. He's in love with her and he hasn't got a clue of what to do with it. Well, one thing is for sure now; she doesn't want him back. Even after she found out the truth from Doctor Cho. How could she? How could she be so cold?

Steve took a deep breath, entered his room, and took one really cold shower in attempt to cool down the pain in the cavity of his chest.