Private jets, despite their name, don’t actually give someone much privacy, especially if you’re in one with Steve ‘Concerned Parent 24/7’ Rogers.
On the way to Vienna, I sat with Sam, my lips pressed together silently because I knew that if I opened them, I’d spill everything.
When Sam found me in the bathroom, I had told him everything. How King T’Chaka had been the one to take me in, and had raised me alongside Prince T’Challa and later, Princess Shuri as his own flesh and blood. How I had to lie, and how it had gone on too long, but I was in so deep I couldn’t climb out of the deception.
He had been angry. And rightly so. But he had also forgiven me, which I hadn’t expected. He had stroked my hair and told me it would all be alright.
So, I climbed aboard that jet, and I sat with Sam, and I pretended it was all ok.
Steve watched me carefully as Sam talked to me, his interest apparent. He didn’t act on his curiosity though, instead opted to flicker his eyes between Sam and I as we talked, or rather, as Sam talked, and I nodded. His blue eyes desperately searched to catch mine, but I just couldn’t look at him. The guilt of my lies was almost too much to bear, and now another person knew and the most important one didn’t.
When we touched down in Vienna, I hastily exited the jet before Steve could catch me. Dressed like a regular person in jeans, my denim jacket, my worn down Doc Martens and a Supernatural Season Nine t-shirt, we made our base of operations a coffee shop down the road from the UN building. Sharon donned her CIA jacket, and we laid low in the outside of the cafe. Peering out from under my sunglasses, I glimpsed a dark skinned man, his tight curls scattered with dust and a cut on his forehead.
My heart pounded at the sight of my brother.
“I’m calling Nat,” Steve said, whipping out his phone. I didn’t look at him, but instead focused on the chaos around us. A cigarette hung from my lips, smoke drifting aimlessly around my face.
“You alright?” Steve said into his phone. A woman walked past, and the way she stood, the way she squared her shoulders reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“Are you saying you’ll arrest me?” Steve said with a smirk. “If he’s this far gone, Nat, I should be the one to being him in.” His tone turned sombre.
Sam caught my eye from inside the cafe and smiled at me. I couldn’t bring myself to smile back.
“Because I’m the one least likely to die trying,” Steve was saying. He ended the call abruptly and motioned for me to get up and follow him. I did so silently, stamping out of cigarette and following him inside where we met Sam at the counter of the café.
“She tell you to stay out of it? She might have a point,” he said, his eyes hidden under his glasses.
“He’d do it for me,” Steve said firmly.
“1945, maybe. I just want to make sure we’ve considered all out options. The people that shoot at you, usually wind up shooting at me,” Sam said matter-of-factly.
Beside me, Sharon arrived, carrying a file in brown card.
“Tips have been pouring in since that footage went public. Everyone thinks the Winter Soldier goes to their gym. Most of its noise. Except for this.” She slid the file over to Steve without making eye contact. “My boss expects a briefing pretty much now, so that’s all the head start you’re gonna get.”
“Thank you,” Steve said gratefully.
“And you’re gonna have to hurry. We have orders to shoot on sight.”
Sharon slipped away from the counter, and Steve nodded at me and Sam. As we began to leave, Sam gripped my arm.
“What side are you on?” Sam hissed. I recoiled.
“What do you mean?” I replied. Sam glanced over at Steve, who hadn’t noticed we weren’t following him yet.
“If Bucky really did set off that bomb, then we have a problem. Because that means Bucky killed your father, and if I know anything you’ll want revenge. Badly.”
He was right. But I was of two minds at this point. My father was dead, and someone was to blame. But whether or not it was Bucky was yet to be determined. I trusted Steve enough that when he said Bucky didn’t do it, I believed him. But a part of me knew that if Bucky did it, I would not hesitate to kill him.
And if Steve were faced with a choice between me or Bucky, I knew it wouldn’t be me he chose.
“I don’t know. We can’t be sure it was him,” I whispered, and when I looked over at Steve he was waiting by the door, a hard and cold look on his face.
“And if it was? What then?” Sam said harshly, his face inches from mine.
“Then you better not get in my way.” I wrenched my arm out of his grip and stormed away, past Steve in the doorway and out into the bright sunlight, my hands trembling and my heart aching.
Neither of them should get in my way.
***
Back in the jet, Steve dumped the file on the middle table and opened it. I stood off to one side, my arms folded over my chest defensively while Sam helped Steve look through the papers.
“He was sighted in Romania a few hours ago,” Steve concluded, chucking the file across the table.
“It takes at least nine hours to get from Vienna to Romania, and that’s just the one way. There’s no way he could drive to Vienna, set off the bomb and get back in time to be seen in Romania,” I said, relief flooding through my body. That was proof enough for me that Bucky hadn’t killed my father.
The question was, who did?
“Surely that’s proof that he didn’t do it. Why are the CIA still hunting him down?” Sam asked, folding his arms.
“There’s still the issue of the footage. It looks, pretty convincing,” I added, and when Steve glared at me I shrugged my shoulders. “What? It is.”
“So, we get to Romania. We get Bucky, and we protect him,” Steve decided. Sam nodded, and began typing the location into the jet’s interface. I leaned against the wall of the jet, scanning its contents. Random pieces of Tony’s clothing scattered across the edges, and spare parts and other miscellaneous items.
“What’s up with you?” Steve said suddenly. He had inched closer to me while I was distracted, and now I turned to face him, scowling.
“What do you mean? Nothing’s up,” I replied, standing with my feet apart, a classic defensive movement.
“You’ve been acting weird ever since London. What’s wrong?” Steve said curiously, leaning down to my height so I could look into his concerned blue eyes more closely.
“Nothing. Nothing is wrong,” I slipped my hands down so they rested on my stomach. His eyes flicked down and widened.
“Oh. Are you…?” he trailed off. I raised my eyebrows.
“Am I what?”
“On your…period?” He didn’t have any trouble saying the word like the other guys, but he said it cautiously, like he was afraid of being wrong. I sighed with relief.
“Uh, yeah. When I ran off to the bathroom, that was it,” I said, feigning a wince an rubbing my lower stomach. “It’s, uh, really sore.”
“Do you need anything? We can get some stuff before we leave, if you want,” Steve put his hand on my arm, smiling gently at me. Wanda, Natasha and I had come to rely heavily on Steve for our monthly needs, mostly because he was the only guy on the team that didn’t find it weird or uncomfortable. It even got to the point when we could send him to the store for our ‘lady things’ and he’d know just what to get us and add in some chocolate for good measure.
“Um, yeah, that would be good,” I said awkwardly, looking at the ground. He smiled, satisfied that he thought he knew what was wrong, and how to fix it. But there wasn’t any way to fix how I felt, empty and hollow, like a piece of myself had been ripped out and torn apart, and nothing could ever fill that hole again.
“Sit down. I’ll go. Don’t worry,” he sat me down on a seat near the table, hands on my shoulders like I was made of glass, and quickly stepped out of the jet, disappearing around the corner.
“You’re not gonna tell him?” I jumped at Sam’s voice, and when I looked at him he was leaning against the wall, glaring at me.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I snapped, my stomach twisting. I ran my tongue over the scars on my inner lower lip, their meaning clear as day in my head.
“Well, I am looking at you like this and I’m asking you; when are you going to tell him?” Sam moved away from the wall and sat down opposite me, his chocolate eyes hard and cold. I couldn’t look him in the eyes, so my gaze dropped.
“I’m, not telling him,” I said quietly.
“You’re not- how can you not tell him? How can you not tell anyone?” Sam exclaimed. “Your father just died, and you’re not going to tell anyone? Surely, it’s time to tell them the truth.”
“I can’t. Tony will never trust me again, which means neither will Rhodey or Vision. Wanda will freak, and Steve? Steve will never want to speak to me again.”
“You don’t know that. Steve cares about you a lot more than he realizes. Look, you gotta tell him,” Sam leaned forward, and placed one of his hands gently on mine. I didn’t pull away.
“I can’t. I’m sorry. I just, I can’t do it,” I hung my head with shame. For all my strength, in the end I was always going to be weak.
Sam swore under his breath and shook his head, as if in defeat.
“If you don’t, someone else will. Secrets don’t stay secret forever. Sooner or later, he’s gonna find out. And if it ain’t you telling him, it might be worse than you thought.”