Winter's Soulmate | Winter Soldier ✔

Chapter Twenty Two

And waiting.

I glanced at the time on the little clock, wondering if I should wait for him, or call JARVIS. That would only make Winter worry though.

The minutes ticked by, and as the minute hand rolled up to the five minutes mark, I stood up.

I hadn't reached the door when Winter opened it, a crinkled piece of paper tucked into his palm. "I promised five minutes."

"You did." I relaxed as he smiled, and held the sheet of paper out. "Got the recipe?"

"There's a lot of sugar..."

I glanced up at his pause, waiting for him to expand on it. When he didn't, I said, "we can just cut it into smaller pieces."

He shook his head softly, a strand of hair falling across his forehead, "sugar is expensive."

I looked back at the recipe. "It really isn't, a few dollars, at most."

I caught the confusion in his eyes, the way his mouth parted as his eyes skittered across the wall. His shoulders tensed slightly as he looked back down at the recipe in my hands. "Really? Sugar was... sugar is expensive. That's why..."

I watched as he tried to process his thought, before he slumped his shoulders and a pained expression flitted across his face. He looked forlorn, a look that clenched my stomach.

"It used to be pretty expensive," I murmured. I wasn't sure if he had connected this thought to the past. Sugar was rare back during the war. A very real reality that Winter would have lived through as James Barnes.

"So it's cheap?" He asked. His voice was lower now, deeper, monotonous. The gleeful smile he had worn when he accomplished his solo errand was gone, replaced by something darker.

"Yeah." I stayed quiet. He handed me the list, and sunk onto the end of the bed, hand scratching the top of his trousers.

I copied the ingredients guiltily, the clench in my stomach tightening. If I had just told him we were making brownies that was one thing. But pushing him like this was the wrong idea. I'd made a massive mistake.

I was about to apologise, and suggest we do something else, when a phone rang. I wasn't used to this one - Tony had given Winter and myself new phones as a 'house warming' gift. I only used it to text Eve. It's not like I'm unpopular, but after everything I'd been through with HYDRA, I didn't want to talk to anyone else. Winter didn't leave me alone for us to ring each other.

Hence why I hadn't changed the phone ring.

I glanced at it, sat on the arm of the chair, and picked it up. "Pete?"

"Have you met Thor yet?" He sounded, breathless and giddy on the other end of the phone.

"I've served him whiskey at the bar about a year ago? Why?"

His voice hushed to a whisper, "because he is here, right now, I swear he's flirting with Aunt May too, you should see her?"

I looked at Winter, who was looking at me curiously. "Where are you?"

"Shared floor - someone taught him how to play music... just come?" The phone cut off a second later, after a loud booming laugh filled the speaker.

"Is Peter okay?"

I added the phone to a small bag, along with the shopping list and my purse. "He's okay. Thor, a friend of the others, is here and he wants us to meet him. But if you're not ready we can stay here. We don't have to go shopping either."

He looked a little surprised at that, strands of his hair falling into his eyes as he whipped his head up to look at me. "If I'm not ready?"

I paused, "if meeting new people is too much."