Natasha was back in New York City less than twenty-four hours after her extraction. A taxi took her straight from the airport to De Witt Clinton Park on Eleventh Avenue. She made her way towards one of the many trees and put her hand into the narrow hole of the oak tree that was the farthest to the left. She patted until she felt the object she was looking for. She picked a little silver key between her fingers and pulled it out.
She then went to Grand central and used the key to open the locker she had rented less than three days before. Inside was Thor's chip, the device that would make her travel through time again, and that she never would have allowed in the hands of Nazis if she had perished or been captured during her mission.
She held the chip in her palm and smiled at the prospect of going back where she belonged.
She made her way to Central Park, down the same isolated trail and sat on the same bench she had traveled on the first time. The feeling of a joyful déjà vu took over her as she yet realized how different this one was. The first time she sat on this bench, she was full of grief, anguish, and uncertainties while now she was sitting again filled with relief, pride and in peace with feelings she had accepted to embrace. Uncertainties were still there as she kept wondering whether she would find Steve in the future she had created and hoped fate would take it from there.
She pressed the chip onto her temple which 'magically' fixed itself to her skin like it had the first time around. According to Thor, Stark and Banner, her consciousness would combine with her other future self to make one unique person, meaning she should, in theory, keep memories from her two selves: Natasha who had traveled to the past and Natasha who wasn't born yet in this current timeline but would be in about forty years' time.
She took a long breath in and thought of the future. She visualized the day on the calendar that the one she had time traveled to 1942. She opened her eyes, the landscape around her was brighter and enhanced, indicating the device was on. She raised her hands up and pushed the whole setting on the left to move forward into the future.
Meanwhile, in South Germany, numerous questions were raised. And none that Steve could answer. After Zola's capture, Steve asked to have all the security footage taken in order to identify the mysterious third party.
"Do you think he's with the enemy?" Bucky asked while Steve was standing on the edge of the train, inspecting the big hole that had been blown on the wall and from which the intruder had escaped after killing the German soldier.
"What I know is whoever he works for he wasn't after either of us," he answered, folding his arms across his chest.
The intruder's work had been impeccable as there was no security footage to exploit and therefore proved he had made sure to destroy all the cameras before stepping in their sights.
"So, he's just a ghost?" Bucky asked, raising an eyebrow. He pouted with a reluctant look. "Call me sentimental but I kinda wanted to put a face on the guy who knocked me out."
"It's like he knew exactly how many cameras and where they would be," Peggy spoke.
"I thought the plans of this train were confidential," Steve said.
"They are," Colonel Philips said, openly showing how irritating he found the whole thing. "This guy clearly had access to information our own services couldn't dream of having." Yes, this whole thing really was irritating. "I don't like it," the colonel eventually stated aloud to the surprise of no one.
Steve turned his head as an object reflecting sunray and slightly shining on the floor caught his attention. He crouched down and pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket to pick it up. He lifted it up to the level of his face and eyed it closely.
"You found something?" Bucky asked.
"I might have," he said and stood up to show them what he had found.
Peggy, Bucky and the colonel frowned in confusion.
"A hairpin?" Bucky asked looking at the long pin stained with blood.
Steve was more impressed with the intruder than he was ten seconds ago, and so was Peggy – who would have had a smug smirk if she knew the female agent's intentions weren't hostile.
"I think our guy is a she," he said.
Weeks then months went by and the train female agent mystery remained unresolved in the files.
Weeks and months went by and Steve kept his promise.
He forgot about Natalie. Or let's say, he never mentioned her name again. Bucky followed the tacit deal that was never officially voiced out loud and never brought her up again either. As the days and the weeks passed by, one day arrived when she stopped haunting his thoughts, not unless he willingly thought of her. It somewhat comforted him to think he had moved on as he realized that Nat would probably never come back.
Peggy became his biggest support and his listening ear again as he came to conclude she was the choice of reason; the kind that would last. He treasured every moment he spent with her and still felt that flutter in his stomach every time she walked into a room. It nearly felt like old time, except that it was all different now. The flutter was accompanied by a feeling of guilt and uneasiness he couldn't shake off.
On March 4 1945, Steve shared his first kiss with Peggy. And the same day, they shared their final goodbye.
The kiss was very much tender and definitely agreeable, and yet lacked the consuming passion he had once felt and couldn't forget the taste of.
The final goodbye was gut-wrenching and cruel, and yet again a feeling he wasn't unfamiliar with. He had had painful goodbye before, the kind that had had his heart broken.
Steve put his compass on the command board and looked at the photo of her he kept in it.
Death was a strange thing. It brought every feeling you didn't suspect and memories you thought you had gotten over to the surface. It was in his last minutes that Steve yearned to see the face of the woman who had walked into his life and turned it upside down in the most pleasant way possible before walking out of it just as quickly. He opened the zip of his thigh pocket and reached for the paper folded in four that was in it.
His fingers delicately unfolded it as he held back his breath. In the turmoil of the alarms squealing endlessly, the engine roaring and the inevitability of his upcoming death, his ears shut everything down as he looked at the portrait he had drawn of Natalie.
He smiled to himself, stroked the spot where he had drawn a lock of her hair – he had always longed to brush that curly lock of hair that constantly fell on her temple and grazed her eyelashes – then down to her face. He relished the memory of their kiss that was playing in his head again. His whole being hoped she would never find her way back to him as she promised. Not so long ago, he feared she wouldn't keep her word, and here he was afraid she would actually return to find he had perished on a mission.
He put the paper on the control board, right next to Peggy's picture and looked at the two women who had put their entire faith in him, who had taught him love in the two different shapes it could take and who had made him feel like a man.
He carried with him the regret of waiting too long and not disclosing his deepest feelings to either of them when he still could as he steered the quinjet down towards the ice of Greenland.
That day, he lost them both.
After he woke up sixty-four years later, when he was given back his compass only and asked for the missing drawing, he was told no such thing had been found and that it was most likely the paper had dissolved in the water. These words stabbed him in the heart.
That day, he lost Natalie forever.
The landscape in front of her eventually stood still and the chip fell off her temple like it did the first time. Natasha looked around her. It was too early to tell if it had worked.
The frightening part was that, unlike what her teammates had told her, she didn't have any other memories than the one she already possessed. Her brain, no matter how hard she tried to recall, seemed to carry no memory of her second self's life whatsoever.
"Damn it," she whispered to herself, panic slowly creeping its way up.
A detail suddenly caught her attention. The lock of hair that always had the knack to fall right beside her eye glowed with a coppery nuance under the sunlight. She held it in her hand and looked at it. She had her red hair back.
She got up the bench and made her way out of Central Park. As she passed the exit, relief took over her as she saw the familiar urban settings of her time again. She looked up at an electronic display and read the date. She was back on the date she wanted: the day she had traveled to the past, two weeks after Steve's death.
But she still couldn't recall any memory from this new timeline. She ran up the streets, all the way to Manhattan. She halted and smiled in relief when she found the imposing Avengers Towers standing in front of her. Who knew she would ever be so thrilled to see Tony Stark's delusion of grandeur architecture.
She ran to the building and the security guards all stared at her curiously when she stepped into the hall. She eyed them carefully, suspiciously. The question was: was she an Avenger in this future? She squeezed her hands into fists in the eventuality the answer was no and she would, therefore, need to resort to force to reach the floor where her friends were.
'Is everything alright, agent Romanoff?' one of them finally asked.
Now, she was. She nodded and the guards opened the security gates for her.
She stepped in the elevator and anguish took hold of her all the way up to the top floors. She had so many questions, nearly all of which involved Steve, that she dreaded wouldn't be the ones she wanted to hear.
The doors of the elevator opened and she sheepishly stepped out of it into the main reception hall. Everything looked the same so far. The furniture, the details, it seemed like the future had gone the same way as the original one.
Steps broke the silence and she spun her head towards the door in the back. A blissful warmth wrapped her entirely when she recognized the person coming in.
She ran up to him. 'Clint,' she murmured in relief. Her best friend lowered the file he was holding and looked at her in surprise. She held him tight in her arms before he could say a word.
She closed her eyes and drew comfort in the moment, the unspeakable happiness of having kept her word and come back to him like he had made her promise.
Clint first froze, briefly, and then wrapped his arms around her too.
"Tasha, are you OK?" he asked.
She pulled back and looked at him. 'I am, now,' she said softly. His frown and his relaxed features indicated her he had no memories of the other timeline, just as expected. And it made sense, although, she couldn't help but wish he could have appreciated their reunion the same way she was.
She smiled to him and stepped back, although she kept one hand on his arm.
Her heart pounded in her chest.
"Where is he?" she asked with an anguish she couldn't conceal. "Where is Steve?"
Clint saw her distress immediately, heard it in her voice. It seemed he knew her here just as well here as he knew her in the other reality. "What's wrong?" he asked, furrowing his brows.
Her heart pounded harder. "Clint, I don't have time for this. Just tell me if Steve is here."
She could feel all the effort, all the sacrifices, all the struggles and pain of the past two months, all the joy and the relief of her successful mission threatening to crumble into dust.
"Barton. I asked for this file two hours ago. What's taking so long?" somebody said.
She gasped in silence as the voice coming from behind her turned all this crumbling dust into a solid edifice. She turned and she felt her eyes fill with water as she saw Steve, in the flesh, standing right in front of her.
"Steve?" she whispered softly, not totally believing that this sight was true.
He stood ten feet across from her, wearing jeans and a dark blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up under his elbows.
Somehow, she knew she couldn't let herself run into his arms as she did with Clint. It was so different. With Clint, she didn't wait for anything in return, she didn't have any expectations; there was no disappointment possible. With Steve, it could all go perfectly well, or all go wrong.
He looked in her direction and smiled fondly at her. His smile. There was something in his smile she couldn't quite grasp. It definitely wasn't romantic – he didn't smile at her as he did in 1942 every time she walked in, but it wasn't solely friendly either. Fondly was the only word that fitted.
Evidently, Steve had never figured out she was Natalie. And really, how could he? Even if he had looked over the different hair colour, there was no way his brain could have come to the conclusion that it was the same person who, either didn't age, or time traveled. It went beyond reason. Even for a man who had slept for sixty-five years in the ice and hadn't aged a day.
"Steve," she repeated, this time to herself. It was like a liberating chanting that healed the wound of his death and their goodbyes.
Steve frowned and glanced over at Clint.
"Don't look at me. She's acting like she's seeing us all for the first time, apparently," Clint said with a shrug.
Her gaze was fixed on Steve and he soon noticed it. It made him comfortable and she soon noticed. She glanced away, saddened and uneasy.
"Because I am," she retorted to Clint, preferring to turn her attention back on her best friend. "Sort of."
Clint raised an eyebrow.
"I need to talk to you guys about something. Is...," she trailed off in apprehension the name she was going to drop would shock them, "...Thor here?"
Clint and Steve looked at each other wondering if they should start worrying about her.
"Of course, he is," Clint said dully. 'Duh' was the word obviously missing at the end of his sentence and you could feel it.
She sighed in relief.
"Emergency meeting now, then. Everybody needs to hear what I'm about to say," she said with a determined look. She stood, determined and prepared. "I made a promise to Stark."
Steve frowned. "Can it wait until...?"
The dramatic look on her face made him stop midway. "I guess it can't," he corrected himself.
Her teammates –her original teammates – all gathered in the living room around her, sitting on the big sofas around the coffee table.
"It better be important, Romanoff," Tony said casually as he fell on the couch. "Bruce and I were working on a revolutionary concept."
"I'll give you revolutionary," she assured with a smirk.
She began with the story, which Tony mocked immediately with one of his sarcastic remarks. So she took the chip out of her pocket, making Thor freeze when he recognized it and asked if the Asgardian legend was true.
"Oh, it is very true," she confirmed.
They all listened, first dubious, questioning, then more and more riveted by her story; what started it all, Steve's death, the Winter Soldier, their decision to travel to the past.
Steve listened in silence, not because of negative feelings but because he couldn't think of any word to say. She looked at him for almost the entire time, trying to depict the sea of feelings that was passing by in his eyes. His look widened as he opened new eyes on his old memories – both their memories.
She smiled tenderly at him when she paused after concluding her story. His expression was now too difficult o read. He seemed to understand better and yet looked more clueless than before.
"I have nothing to prove what I'm saying. Nothing but Thor's device and my story," she finished.
The Avengers were numb. As soon as she was done, they all turned to Steve, who felt the pressure of their gazes on him.
Steve swallowed hard, trying to figure out the words he was supposed but unable to find any that would be telling enough. So many words in the English language and yet he couldn't think of one that would fit the situation.
Her teammates had their own questions, though.
"So fundamentally, I was right. Right?" Thor spoke first, seeming to clarify an unresolved situation and eager to get the credits he felt all the others owed him although he had no memory whatsoever of it.
"You're saying we actually had a time travel device in our possession," Stark chimed in, "an invention that fundamentally haunts the dreams and the fantasies of every scientist, and we used it to save Cap's ass?" He furrowed his eyebrows in disarray, making Bruce, seated next to him, roll his eyes.
Tony pouted to express how unimpressed he was about all this. Steve shot him a look out of the corner of his eyes for an only response. It appeared Tony and Steve's bickering was to be a thing in this reality and every other reality and parallel universe.
"I let you go?" Clint commented, arching an eyebrow at her, surprised by the decision of his other reality self. She smiled at him as a silent yes. Clint was incredulous.
"I don't like this guy. Glad to know this new timeline made me less stupid," Stark said as a statement.
"You were the first to approve of the idea and go for it," Natasha said, turning to Stark. A devious smirk rose to her lips. "You even warned me not to mess it up."
Steve looked at him again with a triumphant expression. Tony stared with big eyes then shook his head. "Totally. out. of. character," he retorted nonchalantly with a lie that lacked his usual...panache.
"Come on Stark, we all know and have accepted that you have the hots for Steve. When are you finally going to admit it to yourself?" someone called out from the other side of the room.
Natasha turned and froze at the sight of the person standing by the door. Froze even harder than when it was Steve. James Buchanan Barnes was standing in the middle of the room, looking very much alive and young, looking just like the way she had last seen him except he was dressed in casual modern clothes (and seemed to have picked on modern fashion more easily than Steve ) and had his hair brushed in a fairly messy hairstyle, barely longer than what he had in 1942.
James seemed totally oblivious of her presence, or more like, didn't perceive it as something unusual.
"I can break the news to Pepper if you like," he continued, walking past her towards the empty space on the couch – which she now realized always belonged to him – with the smug expression he always had every time he was being snarky.
This new reality suddenly appeared completely blurry. She now was the one who had many questions.
"Bucky?" she murmured feebly. "How are you here?"
He looked at her like she had just spoken nonsense. He stood in the middle and looked around the table noticing the stern and confused expressions on everyone's face, starting with Steve.
"Why does it look like I missed a major twist?" he asked, watching them all.
"Because you missed a major twist," Clint answered coolly.
Bucky assessed the conversation as somewhat important although he didn't perceive any gravity either.
He shrugged and fell on the couch, folding one leg up on his other knee. 'I guess Pepper can wait twenty more minutes,' he stated and paid close attention.
She told her story again, then Bucky told his.
Bucky was shot in the leg during an attack against Hydra a few days before the jet had been found, and when the opportunity came to take down Red Skull, Steve was the obvious choice for the mission. Bucky obviously volunteered to join. In spite of his protests, Steve categorically refused to risk his best friend's life and made him swear (on his mother) to stay in the hospital until full recovery.
The attack on Red Skull went exactly the same than it did the first time in Natasha's original reality and when Steve finally accepted his upcoming death, he asked Peggy to say farewell to Bucky for him.
He put both Peggy and Natalie's pictures on his control board and aimed down towards the ground when a noise coming from the door behind him startled him.
"Ugh. Are we seriously nosediving? Steve, you're so dramatic,'" Bucky said, leaning onto the door, trying to keep his balance on his good leg.
"What are you doing, here!?" Steve shouted. "I told you to stay in the camp!"
"Like hell!" Bucky yelled back. "And you said you wouldn't be reckless! And now you're diving straight into the ocean, you punk."
Followed a heated argument that led to the undisputable conclusion that there was nothing Steve could possibly do to change the course of events without jeopardizing the civilians' life on the ground.
Bucky sat in the co-pilot chair and looked at Steve.
"We're doing this together, Steve, or we're not doing it at all," he said, with a determined look. "Till the end of the line, remember?"
Steve felt tears come up to his eyes, mirroring Bucky's watery gaze. As much as it hurt him to know his best friend would perish too, he also knew he wouldn't hesitate once again to do the same if the tables were turned. Didn't mean that didn't make him angry.
"You swore on your mother," Steve groaned with a lump in his throat.
"Mother, God rest her soul, was a beautiful person but also a hopeless liar," Bucky commented nonchalantly. "Hopefully, she'll forgive me for taking from her side."
They went down together that evening, with a light heart, not carrying once ounce of regret, drawing pride in saving countless New Yorkers and sticking together until the end of the line.
And they did stick together. More than both could have ever imagined. Steve woke up in 2011, and so did Bucky, to everyone's surprise. The tests later revealed that Zola's experiments on him back in 1942 had affected his metabolism in a way that had been copied from Steve's serum and therefore preserved him in the ice. Both had then been recruited by Nick Fury to join his Avengers initiative.
Natasha was speechless. From assassin to an Avenger; that was one dazzling change. Things had changed for the better, and she couldn't miss the fact that Steve wasn't the same than the one from her former reality. He was more serene, less tormented, taking his strength from living a new life in the future with Bucky in his side. She had thought of leaving him to stay in the past so he wouldn't have to mourn the loss of his best friend, but never had she considered the possibility of bringing Bucky over with him to spare him what would have been Steve's greatest loss in life.
"You're the one who saved us on Zola's train," Steve spoke for the first time. He looked at her with so much intensity, a mix of realization, gratitude and other emotions she couldn't quite identify.
"It seemed pretty clear to me she rescued Barnes, actually," Stark commented with a teasing smirk. "Am I the only one who paid attention to the bedtime story?"
"Nope," Clint chimed in. "I heard it too. Loud and clear."
She hadn't spent an hour yet in this new reality but she could already tell who the snark circulated between. Not that it surprised her.
"I knew you had a connection with Natalie Rushman," Bucky said, brushing his teammates' teasing away. "It was unmissable for the two of us," he continued pointing to Steve and himself, "Steve sort of dropped the idea but I personally concluded you two were related but that you just didn't want to share any information about your personal life...Although, now I understand better why you genuinely seemed to believe your own lie."
Natasha wished she could remember but the memories from this new reality were still non-existent.
"I was not supposed to alter the past more than what I already planned to do. Thor, Bruce, and Tony were very clear on that point," she said.
The three men mentioned nodded, approving this opinion was indeed one they shared with their alternate selves.
Technical questions followed.
"What was the time travel like?" Bruce asked.
"Like watching a film moving backward and in high speed," she answered.
"How did you know how to access and move the HYDRA train without leaving any clues behind?" Tony asked.
"Please," she answered with a smirk. The question nearly hurt her ego. "I studied all the plans and data that I needed to know before traveling to 1942."
"How did you financially sustain yourself there for two months?" Clint inquired.
"Fury gave me an address where I would get money and a place to stay in."
"How come we've got no record of you in the forties?" Thor asked.
"I made sure to stay under the radar. I avoided cameras like plague," she explained. She did, actually, so many times. She had underestimated the number of cameras you could find in the music and dance venues of a Captain America show.
"Was Captain's USO costume as ludicrous as it looked?" Stark asked.
She snorted. "About that," she started with a playful look.
They all smiled and the conversation went on for a good part of the night.
Later that night, Natasha was standing by the large windows of her bedroom, watching over the city of lights spreading over to the horizon. She was familiar with every detail of it and felt calm fall over her as she progressively realized she was back home, finally acknowledging the fact that her mission was complete and a full success. Not only had she saved Steve and Bucky but she had improved the future by not influencing Steve's personal journey.
She found out there were things that couldn't be changed, though. Howard Stark passed away nearly a year after the false car accident that should have originally killed him but never happened since there was no Winter Soldier. A heart attack, Tony had mentioned. His wife died a couple of years later from undiagnosed cancer.
As for her new memories, the situation started to shift, as she slowly began to remember details from her new reality. The memories were still foggy, blurry, but she could tell it was a matter of time before she would know all about this new reality as if it was hers. And it was. It was still a complex concept but she knew she would have to come to realize that this new future she had actively taken part in changing, was now just as hers as the former one.
Soon she would have to let go of the latter and let I drift into oblivion, where it truly belonged now.
She was taken out of her daydream by a knock at her door and invited the person to come in.
"I thought you would be asleep," she heard a voice say softly behind as Steve's standing figure reflected on the window in front of her.
"I couldn't sleep," she answered, still looking through the window then eventually turned to look at him. The truth was she wouldn't have been able to find sleep until this conversation happened.
"You were so quiet, there," she said, standing across the room, dreading what the outcome of the talk would be.
He looked at her closely, quietly but looking understanding.
"All the pieces were coming together," he started with a gentle voice, stepping up towards her. "And to be honest, all the things that came to my mind were things that had to wait until we were alone."
She looked at him, hopeful and uncertain.
He stepped forwards again until they were only one foot apart.
He raised his hand and brushed the red lock of hair that near her eye with his fingers.
"Is it really you?" he asked, eager to make sure all this was true before going further in the discussion.
She closed her eyes and nodded.
"And you did all this to save Bucky?" he whispered.
She looked up into his eyes and found a storm of emotions in them.
"I did all this for you," she murmured back. Saving him, saving Bucky so his mind would find peace; it all served the same unique purpose (although she found great pride in saving the life of someone who had become a friend).
A genuine, happy smile burst out to his lips.
"I thought I would never see you again," he whispered, stroking her cheek. "When they told me they had lost the drawing, I thought I had lost you forever. No photograph, no portrait, no data, you only existed in my memory. It crushed me. And then I met Natasha," he started. "She looked just like you: the same features, the same laugh, the same humor and determination, the same strength. Every time I looked at her, I saw you. It was both a gift and a curse."
He paused as his thumb traced circles on her cheekbone.
"And now I realize...I never lost you," he murmured. "You were there all along. You were there for me at the moments of my life I needed someone the most."
"It was not supposed to happen that way, though. I was supposed to remain a replaceable acquaintance..." she said. "Just a blast from the past that you would forget about just as quickly."
It made him laugh. "Well, good luck with that," he uttered with a smirk. "You turned my world upside down the minute you walked in it."
She smiled and stepped closer until she felt his racing heart resonate against her chest.
"I told you I would find my way back to you," she reminded him, reaching for his face.
He nodded. "It was so long ago," he murmured.
She smiled.
"For me, it was barely five days ago," she whispered back.
He leaned in, dove his blue eyes into hers until she felt like they reached her soul, then he kissed her. First a simple kiss, then a lingering and eager one. His kiss said everything, it thanked her infinitely for her boundless dedication, asked for forgiveness for doubting she would ever come back, burst out his happiness to having her back, confessed feelings he had been carrying in silence for seventy years.
She kissed him back with the same passion as she relished the undeniable truth that Steve was alive and completely, willingly hers.
He held her waist between his strong hands and scooped her up, grunting against her mouth as she wrapped her legs around him. He carried her towards the bed and swiftly laid her down on the mattress, lying on top of her.
She chuckled lightly and broke the kiss.
"What happened to the Steve I knew?" she asked amusingly.
He eyed her longingly, his pupils dilated, lusting after her and every inch of her body.
"He met you," he whispered with a hoarse voice then captured her lips again. His mouth then trailed heated kisses down her neck, devouring her skin ardently and unapologetically as she felt her whole body set on fire under his touch.
Later that night, as they lied naked in the bed next to each other, they chatted for long hours, catching up with time. She listened to the rest of his adventures with the Howling Commandos like she used to back in 1942 and giggled together as he mentioned all the funny details of the dragging investigation on the mysterious intruder of the train.
She found Steve was now somewhere between naïve and innocent Steve from 1942 and Steve from her original future. He was just...happy, whole. And it only hit her now that when Steve had told her he felt whole, he hadn't meant as being Captain America and having Bucky, he had meant as Captain America, having Bucky and having her. Now that the puzzle was complete, Steve felt he was in the right place again.
"You made the right choice," he spoke softly, looking her deep in the eye. "Waking up in this new century was the right thing for everyone."
Her pupils trembled. 'Do you mean that?' she asked. 'It was one of the hardest decisions I ever had to take.'
He slid his fingertips up her naked arm to her face.
"It was a rough transition but now I understand why it was worth it," he paused, staring at her skin. He then looked at her and smiled. 'And somebody once said that the price of freedom was high.'
She smiled. "Actually, you said that."
They laughed together then he leaned closer to kiss her.
She slipped her arm out from under the sheet to hold the back of his neck when a detail caught her attention. She pushed the sheet away and looked at her stomach, gawping.
"What is it?" Steve asked.
She brushed her fingertips on the spot above her hipbone.
"I used to have a scar here," she commented, staring at her immaculate skin.
Steve was completely oblivious of it, and how could he know not?
"Tell me about it," he asked.
"A bullet wound during one of my missions. The shooter 's job was to eliminate the man I was protecting. He shot him down right through me."
She kept staring in awe at the absence of a gunshot on her stomach. 'I had it for so long. It became part of me.'
"Who was the shooter?" Steve asked although he seemed to have already figured it out.
She diverted her gaze from her bare skin and glanced at him.
"The Winter Soldier," she answered. He acknowledged her answer gravely and she saw the hurt in his eye just the thought of his best friend being the ruthless assassin she described. He then appreciated the fact she had not called him by his name. It had taken her some time to understand it, but she now knew Bucky and this killer were two different people. 'It's officially a ghost story, now,' she added as a reminder, smiling at him to comfort him. The scar was gone with the Winter Soldier, forever.
Steve smiled and pecked her mouth with a brief, tender kiss. He then went down and gently pressed his lips on the empty spot on her stomach. She reached and squeezed one tuff of his hair between her fingers as she felt something akin to a rush of electricity go through her entire body, and closed her eyes, relishing the moment. His full lips pulled apart and she felt his hot breath brush against her skin, making it rise with goosebumps.
"Now I have all the time in the world to thank you for it," he said, resting his chin on her stomach and looking at her. His eyes seemed to make the solemn promise to worship her the way every fiber in his body told him she deserved.
"Steve Rogers, you are so dramatic," she said with a playful smirk on.
Captain America had always been the Avenger and the hero she had the deepest respect for, Steve the person she esteemed the most and who had helped her reignite the heroic spark within she thought had been snuffed out for good years ago. And here this man, whom she had always held in high regard, was looking up to her unconditionally.
He laughed with her then went on to express all his gratitude and the whole of his adamant admiration for her for the rest of the night.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
And it's over!!
Sequel on the way ;)