The Ghost [Marvel | Steve Rogers]

Chapter 41

"It's not the right time," she finished softly. Steve sighed heavily, his feelings difficult to decipher as his hand rose to massage the bridge of his nose.

"He deserves to know, Nadine," he insisted, his voice betraying a frustration that easily mirrored hers. Nadine couldn't help it. She bristled, her eyes narrowing on him in disbelief.

"You think I disagree?" It came out far sharper than she intended, forcing Nadine to rein herself in...not realizing the way her features grew impassive as old instincts took over in doing so; to say is was a tender topic was putting it mildly indeed. "You think I don't want him to know?" His hand fell from his face as he froze, a concerned frown creasing his brow as his gaze slid back to her. "Don't think I haven't thought about it every day since the day she was born, or every time I see him looking out at me from my daughter's face. Don't think it doesn't physically hurt to keep it from him when he's right there," she said coolly, gesturing tersely toward the couches where she and Barnes had been sitting mere minutes before, her guilt and regret surging up to catch in her throat and wake that damned prickle behind her eyes. She forced it ruthlessly away, sucking in a slow breath in a futile effort to banish the tight knot of conflicting emotions tremoring deep in her chest.

"Steve, I—" she faltered then, the impassive front she'd instinctively been trying to maintain cracking. It hurt how helpless she felt, stinging in a mirror to the feel of her nails cutting into her palms. She sighed heavily, deflating as she stared, sightless, at the unremarkable tiles next to his left boot. "I couldn't," she finally whispered. She looked up to him, needing him to understand. "Steve, it nearly overwhelmed him just talking about what happened between us all those years ago. I could see it. To drop that on him too? Now? With what we're facing? I couldn't do that to him. I couldn't...hurt him like that. Not...not now."

Steve's jaw clenched and his gaze fell to where his arms had crossed over his chest, unable to hold hers. Only for his broad shoulders to sag a moment later, his arms loosening.

"Nadine—" he started, a hand lifting toward her, but a breathless, humourless laugh that sounded far more like a sob than she was willing to admit escaped her, cutting him off just as effectively as the hand she absently raised, as though warding of whatever he intended to say. Whether she wanted to be or not, she wasn't finished.

She needed to get this out. To make sure he...that he understood...

"I—Steve, you know that I..." Nadine's breath hitched, the tension slowly beginning to leech from her body as her hand rose to cradle her forehead, "...that I need him to know," she said, an edge seeping into her brittle tone as the weariness resurfaced to overtake her frustration, composure slowly returning thanks to the catharsis of her unintended outburst, "that she's why I've been tracking him for so long. You know that." Her head rose, but she couldn't quite bring herself to look at him, gaze once more fixing, sightless, on the door to the empty storefront below, her voice beginning to slip from hollow to cool once more as her training reflexively began to reassert itself. "It's haunted me since the day she was born that he didn't...that he couldn't know. And now that he's got his mind back? That he's free of HYDRA? I barely dared to believe any of that was even possible. That there was any of him left in there to be freed from underneath the Winter Soldier programming." She sighed, arms crossing over her chest in a small concession against the sudden urge to curl defensively around the hollow feeling the surge of emotion had left in its wake as it bled from her with every word she'd said. After a moment, she finally managed to look up at him. "So no, it's not an easy decision to keep it from him."

"But Steve," she continued, her voice lowering further as she grew grim, "if we're going up against an even more violent and unstable mix between what they made me and what they made him?" She nodded in the direction of the door Barnes had disappeared through, her expression grave and distant before she turned back to him, silently hoping he understood. "None of us can afford to be even the slightest bit distracted. And if keeping it from him a little longer keeps someone from getting killed? It's a fair price."