A/n: So this chapter came out shorter than I expected. I will make it up to you with another update next week. Till then, stay tune! At the meantime, anyone seen Thor 2 yet? I think I have the hots for Loki now...Sorry, Cap...

Chapter 11

Stale and cold.

She stared in distain at the blood bag in her hand, a Sippy straw sticking out of it like a child's drink. Upon returning to Stark's tower with Clint and Natasha, she had headed immediately to her room, retrieving several bags of blood that Tony had been so kind to provide. It seemed that world travelling had taken its toll on her body as well, vampire or not. She was ravenous and although her natural instincts screamed for a good hunt, she settled for curbing the hunger and stirring bloodlust.

Right now, she stood on the balcony of Stark's tower, slowly sipping at her blood as she got lost in her thoughts.

"You'll pay for your insolence, demon. You can't run forever. Your bloodline will suffer for your actions today."

She would have to leave once this whole mess was cleaned up. Run once more or go back to where it all begun, she didn't know. Yet.

"Miss Pierce, would you like another pint of blood?" JARVIS asked. Unlike when Fury addressed her, she felt no annoyance when the AI called her by her surname.

"No thanks, JARVIS." she muttered, realising that she had just about finished her fourth bag. "But some whiskey would be great."

"Right away, miss."

The quiet whirling sound alerted her of a knee-high robot rolling over to her. On its flat head was a glass of whiskey. She replaced it with the empty blood bag and watched in interest as the robot rolled away. Tony Stark was indeed a genius but having said that, he relied too heavily on his technology for everything, be that fighting aliens or daily tasks.

"Mister Rogers and Doctor Banner have just entered the elevator, Miss Pierce."

"This will be fun." Good thing she ordered the whiskey, she thought as she tossed back the entire glass in one go. The alcohol gave her a nice warm buzz in her stomach and chest where the cold blood had failed to provide. She glanced at the bracelet, wondering if she had to attack in self-defense, would it electrocute her as well?

The elevator doors opened with a ping, announcing Steve's entrance as he slowly walked into the living room with Bruce acting as his support. The ipad Tony gave him was tucked in between the debriefing package he received upon discharge.

"I still think you should have stayed at the SHIELD headquarters for a night. Just for observation." Bruce was saying, displeasure in his voice. "Fury may be a nagging mom but he does have the best facilities in the world."

"Bruce, I'll be fine." Steve assured him. "No internal injuries, no head trauma. I am just a bit lethargic, that's all."

"If you say so." Bruce casted him a knowing look as Steve's gaze travelled across the living room.

To lock with Katherine's dark brown eyes, a look of expectant in them as she leaned against the balcony railings, an empty glass dangling loosely between her fingers.

Bruce gave him a gentle nudge. "Go. Talk it out." he said. "I'll be in my lab if you need me."

Slowly Steve made his way to the balcony, suddenly recalling a familiar situation like this just the previous night where it had been Katherine and Thor who stood on the balcony while he had mauled over his thoughts in the dark.

She watched him cautiously, her body relaxed but ready. "So…" she began carefully, biting her lower lip. "On a scale of one to ten, how pissed are you right now?"

Steve shook his head. "I am not pissed. Honestly, I am just tired…"

"Then shouldn't you be in bed?" she raised an eyebrow.

"This is more important." he said simply, staring at her intensely. "Katherine…why?"

She tilted her head at the simple question. One word and she was momentarily tongue-tied. Oddly enough, Thor had posed the same question just the night before and yet she wondered why she couldn't answer him immediately.

Because Steve reminds you of…him.

She shoved aside memories of forest green eyes and concentrated on blue ones instead. "I wanted to tell you yesterday, after that attack in the park and the bank. But Thor interrupted and as you can recall, his reaction was less than…inviting. Vampires have a bad history in Asgard."

"You two seemed chummy last night." he said, eyes narrowing.

Confusion flickered across her face before she realized that he must have seen them and she had to suppress a smile. "Your friend was just looking out for you. He asked me the same thing too, you know. Why didn't I tell you that I was one of those bloodsucking fiends Fury has the Avengers hunting down. Why indeed."

He flinched from the callous way she had re-phased his question. "It wouldn't have changed anything!" he began to protest.

"I've live and walked in this world for a long time, Steve." she said quietly, a certainty fueled by centuries of knowledge in her voice and eyes. "Longer than Fury thinks. And believe me, had you known what I was from the start, you won't have trusted me that easily."

He glimpsed a flicker of pain in her eyes as she spoke. A brief flicker and it was gone. He thought back to what he knew of her, of how she got Loki to spill. Experience. She spoke from experience.

"Everything you told me, about World War Two, the Stork Club…" he drifted off. He had to know. "About helping me, was all of that a trick to get me to trust you?"

Her dark eyes stared at him, reading his turmoil. "I never once lied to you, Steve. I may have sugar-coated a few things about myself but never when it came to you and the past. I swear."

That was the truth and she was surprised by the desperation within for him to believe her words.

Steve was silent for a while before he looked up at her again. "And Klaus?"

She sighed. "Didn't lie about that either. Klaus…is a very vindictive Old One. Right now, he doesn't know where I am or that I am even alive but if Amanda sends word to him that I am in New York, then…let's just say there aren't enough continents on the planet for me to hide from him."

She's scared, Steve realized as she looked away, her features softening with weariness. All this while, she has been running and hiding for god knows how long and because of SHIELD, the Avengers and him, all her efforts might soon be for nothing. "So why hasn't Amanda told him yet that you're here?"

"Amanda can't stand the thought of competing for Klaus's attention. While Klaus would prefer to prolong…his revenge, Amanda would sooner drive a stake through my heart." Katherine said, an amused smirk at her lips. "And if he finds out that she knew about me and didn't tell him, well, she's definitely going to need the Chitauri's help."

His eyebrows shot up. If Klaus was as bad as she made him out to be, it was no wonder she agreed to play tutor to a war veteran shoved into the future in exchange for SHIELD's protection.

She saw the expression on his face and nodded. "Yeah, that bad."

"How long have you been running from him?" he asked her that question the day she was officially introduced to the team. Then she had given them a vague answer but now…

She smiled enigmatically. "It's rude to ask a lady for her age."

"But I wasn't-oh." it dawned upon him as she gave him that look Peggy always gave him whenever his mouth got ahead of him.

"I've been running from him even since I was a human…" she remembered the fear coursing through her mortal body as she stumbled through the woods of England so long ago. "I thought by becoming a vampire, he would forget about me." she shrugged. "Obviously I underestimated his desire for vengeance."

"And you've been running ever since." he concluded.

"Yup."

Odd, how life saw fit to place them both in this moment. He, a former frail kid from Brooklyn who never ran from a fight and she, a centuries old vampire constantly on the run.

Steve managed a tired half smile. "Funny thing about running. Once you start, they'll never let you stop."

"You speak from experience, I am guessing." Katherine was smart enough to know experience when she heard it.

"Got beat up a lot as a kid." he said shortly, reflecting on what he said to Peggy before he and his whole world changed. "But if you stand up, push back…Katherine, don't you think it's time to stop running and starting fighting back instead?"

"Perhaps, once Amanda has been dealt with." she said, noticing again the exhaustion in his body language. "Steve, you should rest. We can resume this conversation in the morning."

"Actually I'd like it if you could tell me about the 50s." he said with a small smile. "I mean if you're still up to teaching me." She gave him an incredulous look, making him shrug as he admitted reluctantly. "Fury benched me for a couple of days on Banner's recommendation. Said I need to recover in light of discovering what you are."

Her eyes narrowed. That was a poorly constructed excuse to get Steve to rest. Honestly, she had expected more from the director. But she guessed they wanted the leader of the Avengers to be at his best when the full moon came.

"I think Fury expected you to throw a tantrum like he did." she muttered, remembering the sound lecturing she got earlier. How was it possible that a man much younger than her and at human at that, could still make her feel inferior?

Steve grimaced. "He chewed you out, didn't he."

"Like tobacco." she grumbled. "But he's right you know. You need your rest. Maybe I'll go easy on you tomorrow, Cap. Wouldn't want Fury's best man to have a mental breakdown before the big day."

Just like that it was as though nothing had changed between them. She marveled at how easily he had forgiven her and wondered that if he knew of all the things she had done over the years to stay alive, would his forgiveness had come as easily? Probably not.

But she wasn't keen to find out, not when she just regained his trust in her.

"I'd like that. Oh, and here." he held out Stark's computer pad. "This is everything Tony has on you. I didn't read it."

She blinked as she stared at the screen then at him. "Why?"

"Because I rather hear it from you." he said, a ghost smile at his lips. With that, he turned and left her to her thoughts once more.

She stared at the information on the pad and flicked it for the next page, bemused by the amount of information Tony found on her. Most were images and video footage from over the past one hundred year or so from almost every country she has been to.

Finally one particular picture made her stop, her fingers trembling as she reached out to caress the gentle strokes of black charcoal that formed the life-like image of an older woman. Despite being forever immortalized on paper, the artist was still able to capture the warmth in her eyes that Katherine will always remember her for. She sucked in a deep breath to elevate the crushing sensation in her chest as her gaze drifted to the face of a stern-looking man next to the woman and finally to her own portrait, a much younger and innocent girl then.

Had anyone seen her then, they would have seen tears glistening in her eyes, grieving for the family she lost 500 hundred years ago.

~.~

There it was.

A faint slimmer of…tears in her eyes as she stared at the scanned image of a very old sketch that JARVIS found from the database of a university in North Carolina. That was all he needed.

"Sir, perhaps if you could tell me what you're looking for, I could help." JARVIS offered.

Tony sipped at his coffee, his fifth cup, as he continued to watch the video feed of the balcony from his lab. He was relieved when Steve and Katherine seemed to resolve their issue peacefully, annoyed when Steve gave her the pad and…surprised to see the forlorn look on her face.

"Don't worry about it, JARVIS. I got everything I need." he said to the ceiling. "Now let's get back to work. We have an alien mother ship to track down and destroy."

Emotion. One tiny shred of emotion was all he was looking for. It was all he needed to trust her, to know that a part of her, the human part has not died.

A/n: Actually even before last week's episode, I suspected Katherine still had a strand of humanity within her. She never shuts it off and that's what makes her awesome. Now that she's human in the latest season of VD, I am toying with the idea of bringing human her back for a one-shot with Steve. Thoughts?