verb.
To come or go back to a place or person.
noun.
The firing of a weapon to counter a shooter's shot.
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They recoiled from their pasts, and in doing so found each other.
But the universe isn't kind enough to let a moment of peace last.
It took se...
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They couldn't stay – of course they couldn't. It was too much of a risk to remain in one place for any length of time. No matter how safe Amsterdam had felt, after two weeks of sheltering in the city, the time had come to move on. They were needed elsewhere, and if they wanted to keep this place a secret, if they wanted this little refuge to remain in their catalogue of escape options, then they had to go.
Kat had explained as much to Markus, as they slipped out in the grey light of dawn, clasping her old friend in a tight hug that he returned only a little stiffly. She couldn't thank him enough for sheltering them, but she tried – and she was sure he felt how grateful they were, as he shook hands with Steve in the doorway of the bar, exchanging silent, respectful nods.
Before they had set off, she had paused to press the apartment keys back into the hands of the gruff bartender, ignoring his protests that she should hold onto them.
"Out of the two of us, I'm more likely to lose them, Markus." She smiled fondly, shouldering her backpack as the others headed for the street outside. "Keep them safe for me?"
"You know where they'll be." He had finally relented, tucking them into the pocket of his jeans; "Look after yourself, kid. And-" He hesitated, his lips pressing into a tight line as he looked down at her, clearly wrestling with the expression of sentimentality; "Make sure you come back, alright? Bring James along, if you can."
Raising one hand to rub the back of her neck to distract herself from the itch in her nose, Kat nodded her promise with a fond smile. "I'll do my best."
She couldn't promise for certain, after all. The path before them was clouded with doubt, no one knew what would come next, but she would try. Somewhere in the future, there might be room for her and Bucky to find their way back here.
That is, if she ever managed to get Bucky back. Over the week since Shuri had put her new plan into action, she had watched as every day, he was raised from his cryosleep just enough for the Wakandan princess to begin mending his fractured memories. Just enough for his brain activity levels to flicker on Kat's readouts. Enough for him to dream – but it never lasted. Shuri was lucky to even get an hour to work with, before those flickers of activity turned to panicked spikes, a sure sign Bucky's mind was slipping into the depths of a nightmare. The sight of those readouts slowly sinking back to the flat line of deep stasis was enough to make Kat's heart sink in tandem every time, but she knew that the slow progress was still a step in the right direction.
She watched that pattern continue, over the following weeks and months – between missions and raids, she found time to glance at the beads on her wrist, checking in on him in the only way she could. In the evenings, she waited half-heartedly for contact from Shuri, but when it came, it was never with any real news. There was so little Kat could contribute to the conversation anyway, anything she suggested that might ease the nightmares seemed futile, even if Shuri did promise to humour her idea that playing the music he had loved might help. She wondered if Bucky was aware of any of this, in those fleeting moments when he wasn't floating in dreamless sleep. She wondered if he understood just how hard people were working to give him his mind back. She wondered if he knew how much she missed him.
