Steve closed his eyes as the line disconnected in his ear and stuffed the phone back into his pocket. His heart was heavy.
"What's the matter with you?" Natasha rasped over Steve's shoulder. "That was her wasn't it?"
He said nothing.
They were standing behind a ruined wall about a mile from their target and Nat was onto him.
"You didn't tell me how you felt about her." She had a grin on her face.
With a sigh, he ignored her very accurate observation, "come on, let's get this done" and walked out of her gaze.
Sam pursed his lips and shot Natasha a high browed, knowing look.
Jane walked briskly away from the gym with Okoye keeping pace next to her.
"How did you do that?"
"I do not know," replied Jane. She didn't know the answer to Okoye's question and needed to get some fresh air. She began to make her way to her breakfast spot.
"Li liweyo, wait! We need to discuss this."
Jane stopped and turned to face Okoye. "What does this mean - 'Li liweyo'?"
Okoye paused for a moment with a slight defensive look on her face. "It means, 'forgotten one'."
Okoye's voice washed over her, her eyes dropping to the floor as she felt the words begin to sting. She looked up, her face a little harder, "there is nothing to discuss." She turned on her heel and headed outside. Okoye did not follow.
She sat down on the top step for a short while, angry, confused and alone before her canine friend made his appearance. As if sensing what she was feeling, he made his way up the steps and sat down next to her.
The two sat, staring at the view for a while before Jane slowly reached out and placed her hand gently on his shoulders. He winced at her touch but did not retreat. His eyes rolled nervously over her as his tail caught some dry leaves with its small wagging movement and he licked his lips.
She rose to her feet slowly, and he leaned slightly away from her, flattening his ears.
"Come." She said to him, slowly turning and making her way back to the doorway.
He stood and watched her go for a moment before he looked around and proceeded to follow her tentatively.
Once inside, he stuck close to her, putting her between him and any other people around. Jane asked for an extra blanket and watched Shuri as she watched the lab tech handing her a soft tan blanket, her eyes darting to the dog. Jane could tell she wanted to say something but chose to stay quiet.
In the days that followed, Jane began referring to her friend simply as 'Dog', at a bit of a loss for what to call him. He came and went as he pleased, but preferred to spend nights in Jane's room on the warm blanket on the floor she'd put next to her bed for him. He lay next to the couch in the doctor's lounge when, on occasion, she watched TV.
Jane met Okoye in the afternoons for training; there was an uneasy tension between them. Jane had asked why she could no longer train with the Dora Milaje, but Okoye avoided all her questions. They didn't speak much while they worked through the rigorous schedule of a five-mile run, followed by a different routine with weights and other heavy objects. Ayo was nowhere to be seen.
Jane spoke to Steve on the phone every couple of days, and he didn't say it, but she could hear in his voice that he was becoming increasingly frustrated with whatever was going on where he was.
It was nearing the end of November when he called her one night with the news that they should be returning soon. He didn't want to say much over the phone for security reasons, which left Jane frustrated and wondering what he meant by 'we'.
She had become fit and strong in a very short space of time and was starting to have to slow herself down to not outpace Okoye, who had heated discussions with Shuri after a few of their latest training sessions.
Hendrik put in extra effort to comfort Jane after what happened with Ayo and had taken her for coffee in the cafeteria a few times. He asked if he could stay for dinner one afternoon to which Jane responded that he didn't need her permission to dine at the Design Institute. He seemed strangely disappointed by that.
Hendrik had covered a lot in the time that Steve was gone, both from a historical and a life skills perspective, when the morning after his dinner request, he stated that she knew enough of all preceding wars and that he would start World War II.
Jane was listening intently as usual.
"One of the most prominent figures from the second World War is Captain Steve Rogers," began Hendrik, "or Captain America as he is widely known."
He pressed a button on the remote control to the large flat screen in the study room, and it started to play a series of short films about Captain America. Jane thought something was immediately familiar about the masked man when the clip cut to a shot of him without his mask. He was examining a map with his compass open on the hood of a car; there was a picture of a woman in it. He snapped it shut and began walking away from the vehicle.
It was him alright, just without the beard she had come to know him with.
"Stop stop stop stop stop!" Both her hands had lifted from the surface of her desk, and her eyes were wide.
"What's the matter my dear?" asked Hendrik.
"That is Steve? Our Steve?" her voice was higher than usual.
"It is indeed" smiled Hendrik "though I thought he would have told you about this."
"He has not" replied Jane. Stunned.
"Well, there is a lot to learn, perhaps it's best if we start at the beginning?" Hendrik seemed delighted to be the one to tell her this particular story.
He started with a slideshow of pictures showing Steve before Dr Erskine's Serum, with all his health issues and after. There were short, grainy black and white films of Steve campaigning for war bonds as the star-spangled man with a plan, followed by his heroic rescue of the captured men of the hundred and seventh regiment from one of Hydra's bases. Clips were depicting him and best friend, Bucky Barnes and many reels of them in the midst of battle.
She couldn't remember ever seeing him looking that happy. Finally, they came to the news headlines of how he had crashed the Valkyrie, saving countless lives at the sacrifice of his own.
Jane felt her eyes burn with tears as she listened to the recording of him and Peggy right before he crashed.
Hendrik then explained how he had been thought dead for nearly seventy years, when the Valkyrie was discovered, with Steve inside, frozen. He had woken from a state of suspended animation to a world much changed as was evident in the difference in the footage she was now seeing. She watched snippets of him at the battle of New York as part of a group known as the Avengers and watched as Bucky reappeared as the Winter Soldier. Hydra was back too. Steve seemed to abandon his law-abiding image when Bucky entered the picture, risking everything for his friend until it all seemed to come to a crescendo with a divide forming in the Avengers because of the Sokovia Accords and the death of king T'Chaka, first thought to have been killed by Bucky.
The half of the Avengers that sided with Steve had escaped from the undersea prison they were being held in and disappeared, along with Steve and Bucky. That is where Hendrik stopped.
"That concludes our session for today about the war criminal, Steve Rogers." Jane shot him a look, she didn't believe that Steve could be a criminal, but what she had just learned... It left her reeling.
She got dressed in a daze for training and meeting Okoye went by her in a blur, until she was running. Their regular route was lush with vegetation through the hillside, providing plenty of steep inclines to work up.
She was pacing herself to remain beside Okoye. Their feet beat intermittent synchronicity into the earth. Jane's mind was racing with all she had learned about Steve. At first, she felt immense relief at the knowledge that he had lived through a similar experience as her. Relief soon turned into hurt as she thought of how much it would have helped her if he'd told her. How he had said, he wasn't ready to share that story yet. Why would he keep it from her? He knew more about her than she did, yet he hadn't shared anything about who he was with her.
She felt a flare of anger and sped up, pulling away from Okoye easily, running faster and faster, until it felt like her lungs would explode. She was back at the Design Institute in half the time it usually took. She slowed to a walk as she entered the building and soon caught her breath. As she rounded the corner, she saw Steve standing in front of his door, pulling keys from his pocket. A thrill shot through her at the sight of him followed directly by the cold stab of hurt she'd been running from a few moments ago.
He was wearing a dark combat suit that looked worse for wear. She caught his eye, a look of surprise rinsing his features.
She had changed again. Her hair was darker, much darker, a dark brown like in his dream and pulled into a high ponytail. Her workout clothes revealed how her body had changed with the training she'd been doing. She looked... strong. He abandoned the door and took two steps toward her as she approached, but stopped when the angry look on her face didn't change, his growing grin turning to a frown.
"Jane," he almost whispered.
She strode past him with a sidelong glance, stopping to turn at her door.
"Captain Rogers," she said flatly, before opening the door and disappearing into her room.
Realisation hit Steve like a cold wave. She had learned about him. She knew who he was, who he used to be. His eyes closed as a sigh escaped him. He put his keys back in his pocket and walked over to her door. With another sigh, as if to prepare himself, he knocked.
"Jane, please, talk to me."
She was leaning with her back against the door, feeling his knocks in her chest. Part of her recoiled at the hurt in her heart. Another part was just thrilled that he was back. She pushed herself off the door and turned, opening it a crack, through which she glared at him.
"Hey," he said softly.
"May I come in?"
She looked at the ground for a moment before stepping back, opening the door to let him in.
She watched him walk to the small table by the window before he turned, one hand running over his mouth, while the other came to rest on his hip. He was dirty and dusty, and there was dried blood on him in patches.
"Why could you not tell me?" She asked, letting the door click shut.
His other hand came to rest on his hip before he let them both drop, taking a step closer to her.
"Jane, I..." he stumbled over his words "it's not easy for me to talk about that."
The pained expression on his face disarmed her a little.
"Part of me liked that you didn't know who I was. It meant that you could get to know me, not as Captain Rogers, or Captain America, but as Steve. You have no idea how much it meant to me to have someone who just knew... and didn't know... me. I can't be Captain America to anyone anymore, not after..."
She could see that this was hard for him.
"Steve, I don't need you to be anything or anyone else." Her tone had softened.
"What hurt me was realising that you could have made it so much easier for me, just to know that you had been through the same, that there was someone else. To not... feel so very alone."
Her eyes welled with tears, and she looked down, folding her arms across her chest. She was fighting back the massive lump in her throat along with the desire to run at him and throw her arms around him.
Her words hit him hard; he'd never seen her break down. "I'm so sorry, Jane... I didn't realise... or I... I'm... sorry." He took another step closer to her. His heart was pounding in his ears, and his palms were tingling. She looked up into his eyes, wiping a stray tear from her cheek quickly.
"I missed you." She said, almost inaudibly. Her heart was aching for him, even though he was standing right in front of her.
His breath caught in his throat at her words, getting lost in those strangely beautiful eyes that held the secrets of the universe. A wave of heat washed over him from his core.
"I missed you too..."
There was a measured knock on the door.
Okoye's breathless voice came slightly muffled through it.
"Jane, are you here? We need to finish our routine."
"I am here," she said loud enough for Okoye to hear, not taking her eyes off Steve's.
"Come." Came Okoye's response.
Jane turned to leave.
As she put her hand on the door handle, she turned and gave him the promise of a smile, albeit a small one. On the other side of the door stood a tired looking Okoye.
"Welcome back, Captain Rogers," she panted.
"Come, Caster Semenya," she ordered Jane.