Beside her, the bed dipped as Steve rolled over, lazily throwing his arm around her waist.  The desire to crawl back under the blankets and cuddle up to Steve was overwhelming, but previous experience had taught Y/N that her only option was to respond to Wade as soon as she could.  Sliding out of bed, she made her way to the kitchen and started to make coffee as she dialled the annoying assassin’s number.  For someone that was so desperate to hear from her, it took a surprisingly long time for Wade to actually answer the call.  

“Mrs America!  Do you have any idea how important my messages were?  I am trying to report a crime to one of the only people with the resources to deal with it, and you’ve probably been playing at baby making with the Captain!”

“Jesus Christ Wade.  It’s only just past seven in the morning.  Do you have to be your obnoxious self so goddamn early?!”

Hearing him to start to rant, Y/N switched to speaker mode and put the phone down on the bench before taking a long drink of black coffee, the only substance that stood a chance of getting her through this conversation and the rest of the day.  She offered up a silent prayer of thanks to Tony and his insistence on importing the best quality coffee that he could lay his hands on, and began to tune out Wade’s voice.  After a few minutes, there seemed to be nothing but silence emanating from the phone. Y/N dared to pick it up, hoping Wade had rung off.  She had no such luck and no sooner than she had put the device to her ear, the conversation started up again.  

“Hello?  Are you still there, Y/N?  My god……you call yourself an Avenger and you are doing absolutely nothing to avenge the awful tragedy that has taken place!!”

Realising that the only way to shut him up was to hear him out, Y/N asked Wade to explain exactly what had happened.  Again, he launched into an over-elaborate and complex tale.  Finally her patience snapped.

“Wade!  For the love of all things holy, just tell me what was stolen.  So far all you’ve done is complain and whine like a baby.”

“They……they took my katanas.  That stupid metal giant and the angriest emo child I’ve ever met took my swords and won’t give them back until I’ve agreed to join their stupid mutant group!  I don’t play well with others, Y/N!  Now can you please do something to help me?  Wake up the scary lady assassin and get both your asses down here.”

That was the final straw.  Y/N just shook her head and pressed the button to end the call.  There was no use in continuing the conversation any longer. She quickly drank down the remainder of her coffee before addressing the AI system that was ever present throughout the Tower.

“FRIDAY?  I’m going back to bed until a more reasonable hour.  Please screen my calls for the rest of the day.  Oh and could you send out a group message telling everyone to ignore that red-suited idiot!”

  ****************************************************************************************

“You wanna sit together? I spoke to Parker last night anyway, so we can chat now instead if you want?” Tanya offered and you smiled gratefully at her, knowing that she really would forgo the excitement of chatting to Parker just to make your own Friday better. She was the only one at school that knew of your ‘predicament’ and she had never been anything but amazing about it. You couldn’t have asked for a better best friend.

“No, Tan, it’s fine, go talk to him,” you insisted and when Tanya only raised an eyebrow at you, you shook your head and pushed her away from you, “Go!”

She thanked you with a quick hug and quickly ran off to a bench and sat down and you saw her giggle. There he was. He was always there when she needed him.

You had to breathe steadily through your nose to keep the tears at bay.

You went found a free bench on the grass and sat down, swinging your legs up beside you as you leaned back against it. Silently, you willed yourself not to try again, not to disappoint yourself, not to ruin your day.

But you couldn’t help yourself.

You tapped into your soul, as you’d been taught so many years ago. Nothing. Just as always. And after so many trips to the doctor and to the psych and to the hypnotherapist, there was only one explanation.

You didn’t have a soulmate.

But instead of sharing that with people and seeing your friends’ looks of pity, risking the sad smiles of your teachers and the taunting looks of the resident bullies, you plastered a smile on your face and laughed at 30 second intervals, acting as if you were having the conversation in your head that you’d always wanted to have.

---

Tanya had found Parker. Properly, now.

You’d all ended up at the same high school, despite the two of them saying they wouldn’t force a meeting, that they’d let fate decide and wait as long as they had to. Turns out they didn’t have to wait all that long.

And you were so happy for them. Really. Parker was wonderful; cute and a little awkward but overwhelmingly endearing and you couldn’t meet a better match. But sitting with them every lunch time stung more than you’d ever let on.

“Oh my god, Parker!” you heard Tanya exclaim from the other end of the table while you were lost in your thoughts and you snapped back to reality, your head turning to see what the commotion was all about.

You saw the box of donuts on the table, the fact that they spelt out the word PROM with a silly little question mark éclair on the end and you felt the churning in the pit of your stomach instantly. It made you feel horrible.

“Will you go to prom with me?” Parker asked, a hand rubbing the back of his neck but she practically pounced on him, kissing all over his face, saying yes over and over. Your friends clapped and cheered. You clapped. Mind numb.

Maybe you weren’t as happy for them as you thought.

Tanya came up to you, giggling and showing you the donuts and you laughed and smiled and nodded along in the right places, making sure not to speak in case you betrayed any of your unhappiness. You knew your friend wouldn’t hesitate to bring her mood right down and look after you if you showed the slightest hint of discomfort, as would Parker who was now the second person at school who knew about your...condition. You hated that word. But apparently that’s what it was.

Lack of soulmate. ‘Disanam’. It even had a fancy name. A fancy name that was firmly branded on every medical record, every school file, every document that detailed your existence. A fancy name that you spat out every time you had to say it at annual appointments.

There was no one to blame. To direct your anger towards. Not your parents, nor your friends, nor your non-existent soulmate.

At least there was no Friday break time at high school, you reasoned, as you sat at the table, surrounded by your friends and feeling utterly and completely alone.

---

You pushed open the door to the bar gingerly, making your way inside with darting eyes and an already elevated heart rate. You were so out of your comfort zone that you weren’t sure of the way back to it anymore. Nearly all of your friends had suggested you come here, very lovingly, and you’d refused multiple times, on the grounds that you were over love and that you were focusing on your career. To which they had, rightly, called bullshit. So here you were. In a bar for people with no soulmates.

It was aptly and rather bluntly named Disanam, and whether that was irony or just good branding, you didn’t know.

A few eyes turned your way as you pushed through towards the bar, surprised at how busy it was. Having been the only one at your school growing up with this problem, you’d always vaguely thought that you were the only person in the world without their own person. You knew, logically, that you weren’t but you felt like you were and that had been enough.

Although, you thought, if you hadn’t told practically anyone about what made you special in the worst way, you wondered if there were others who kept it to themselves too.

“Haven’t seen you in here before,” the bartender said as you sat yourself in a free bar stool and you half-smiled at him.

“Haven’t been in here before,” you countered, “I’ll have a beer please.”

“Coming right up, darling,” he said and you just about stopped yourself from grimacing at the nickname. He turned to get your drink and then turned back, leaning in a little too close to whisper, “I’m pretty sure you’ll get snapped up in here.”

He turned away and you tried to calm yourself down. This was all a lot to take it. Too much to take in. You’d never been hit on before. Or called darling. Everyone you’d ever known had soulmates. It was so strange interacting with people who didn’t have that constant everlasting commitment.

“Haven’t seen you around here before,” a man behind you said and you turned on your stool to face him, at least to half face him, your legs perpendicular to his body.

“He already tried that one,” you said with a little chuckle, indicating towards the bartender and the man laughed too, hitting his head with his palm lightly.

“Shoulda known,” he said with a kind smile, holding out his hand for you to shake, “I’m Brock. Nice to meet you.”

You shook it tentatively, and not with the usual firm grip that you sported at work.

“You too,” you said truthfully and in what must have been a panic you added, “So how long have you known that you didn’t have a soulmate?”

His face fell. Hardened. You cursed yourself, closing your eyes as you processed exactly what you’d just said.

Idiot.

“We don’t talk like that here,” he said suddenly, his voice different, angry almost and in the back of your mind you thought that was slightly unfair, “In here, we have soulmates, we just can’t talk to them in our heads. This is where people like us find our soulmates.”

You narrowed your eyes, brow furrowed.

“But that’s not true. We don’t have soulmates, that’s the whole-”

You trailed off as his face slowly morphed into a sinister scowl and he reached over you to take the beer that you’d paid for as you shrank back away from him. He opened it and took a long swig, wiping his mouth with his sleeve when he’d finished.

“Bartender was wrong,” he said, a cutting edge overtaking what had been such an open and friendly face and you could help but feel overwhelmingly guilty, “You won’t get snapped up in here.”

He sauntered off without another word, without a second glance. You looked around you, eyes wide and shocked. There were a few people staring, some with pitying glances and some that also looked offended at what you’d said.

“Word of advice,” the bartender’s voice rang clear behind you and you grimaced, already annoyed by his patronising tone, “Maybe don’t mention the lack of soulmate thing here?”

You whirled to face him.

“Word of advice to you, darling,” you said and he reared back away from the bar at the venom in your words as you spat them out, “Close down this bar. The only thing you’re serving is delusion.”

With that, you hopped off the stool and walked out of the bar without turning back, only just managing not to cry until you were in the street walking home. There were only a few tears to be shed as you hurriedly speed walked home and you wiped them away as soon as they came, trying to hold your head as high as you could.

Maybe you really were over love.

---

You were walking along the street, heels clacking on the pavement at a steady rhythm, skirt rubbing against your knees a little uncomfortably, folders in one hand and a Starbucks cup in the other. You felt good. Confident, even. You hadn’t felt confident in...well you couldn’t quite remember the last time.

You were three months in to a total shutdown of the soul section of your brain. You hadn’t tapped into it. Hadn’t even tried to, wanted to. After all this time, you had sought the help you needed to be happy on your own and it had worked.

You didn’t have a soulmate. And that was okay. More than okay.

But life has a funny way of working things out. And it was as you were smiling to yourself about this fact that it happened. That everything changed.

All at once. A torrent of thoughts slamming into your brain with the weight of ten thousand buses. Your eyes were blinded with the brightest light you had ever seen, your body crumpling with pain that you didn’t know was possible.

You screamed. People around you covered their ears. Jumped out of their skin.

But before you could notice any of that, you were already on the ground, passed out from the sheer force of whatever the hell had just happened.

---

Your head killed. The kind of throbbing headache that felt like it would last a lifetime, that it would never go away. You grimaced as you opened your eyes, slowly, blinking like a newborn kitten, face scrunched up. When you could finally open your eyes properly and see that you were in a hospital bed, a thousand (or maybe three) tubes poking out of you, you sat up suddenly and clutched your head at the motion.

There was a doctor by your bedside and you could hear the words they were saying but your brain wasn’t processing them. You read the doctor’s lips. What they were saying didn’t match up with the voice you could hear. A voice you could hear in your head.

“How did this happen? Where am I? What’s going on? Who? What? Where?”

There were desperate questions ricocheting inside your mind and it didn’t take you long to realise that you must have tapped into your soul whilst you were asleep.

But there was someone there.

“He-hello?”

You attempted to say, not really knowing how to talk to someone in your soul seeing as you’d never had anyone there before. Your heart was beating faster than it ever had before and the doctor was yelling something about ‘cardiac’ but you weren’t listening. You let your eyes fall closed. Focused.

“Hello?”

“Is- Is someone there?”

A reply. Your heart leaped. You choked on your own breath. And then suddenly the doctor was injecting you with something and you were desperately clawing at him to get the hell away from you and the darkness took over once again.

---

“You there?”

You weren’t sure you’d ever get used to it. The fact that a soulmate had been thrust upon you. It was like a death, as your fancy diagnosis was suddenly ripped out from under your feet. The fancy diagnosis that you had always hated but that had always been your safe cocoon to retreat into whenever you desired.

Just like a death, you’d gone through the five stages of grief.

Denial. You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. You shut your soulmate out for a week, trying not to his voice in your head whenever he checked on you. He was ecstatic at your presence. But just for a while, you refused to handle it.

Anger. When you finally spoke to him, it was all questioning, accusatory and furious. You asked him where he’d been and screamed at him in your head when he wouldn’t answer you. Told him that it was too late for you to suddenly have a soulmate, after a lifetime of dealing with the fact that you didn’t have one.

Bargaining. Asked him to move on. Told him it wasn’t going to happen. That you didn’t want a soulmate, that you never did. That phase only lasted for one day before-

Depression. Deep and never-ending. Overwhelming and overpowering. You talked to him seldom and when you did it was morose ramblings on the time you’d missed out on, the years wasted mourning something you thought you’d never had. He caught some of your sadness, held it himself, talked about how much he felt like he’d missed out on, reminded you that he hadn’t had a soulmate during his childhood either, that he knew how you felt exactly. You had some arguments here and there, him accusing you of being self absorbed and you accusing him of not being there for you when you needed him more than anything. But somehow, along the way, you helped each other through it in a strange way.

Acceptance. Your current state. Only a few weeks in to this one. But hearing his voice pop up at random moments during your day now brought a smile to your face that nobody throughout your life so far had done.

“I’m here. What’s up?” you replied readily, continuing your typing on your computer.

“I just-”

He trailed off, not knowing how to continue and you began to get worried. This was too good to be true, you knew it, you always had and now he was going to leave again and you’d be left all on your-

“I just wanted to say thank you.”

...That wasn’t what you’d been expecting.

“Thank you? For what?”

A pause. You could almost hear him taking a heavy breath. The pause became too long and you filled the silence in your head, because already silence in your head had become unbearable.

“For what, Steve?”

“For giving me something to fight for.”

The words floored you and you stopped your typing instantly. You leaned back into your chair. Tried to keep yourself under control, calm and collected.

“Fight for?”

Another pause and you felt your annoyance begin to rise until-

“...Metaphorically, of course.”

You breathed a sigh of pure relief. And then began to wonder just how important Steve had already become to you. You knew he would be, of course, he was your soulmate, but to suddenly understand that instant connection that everybody raved about, that attraction, that love…

Love?

You’d never thought that before. You hoped he couldn’t hear you.

“Well, you’re welcome, I suppose. I should be the one thanking you. You saved me from a life I didn’t want to live,” you replied, a little timidly, but the words came through nonetheless.

It was honest. More honest than you were with anyone else really. Even Tanya.

He felt the honesty in your words. And unbeknownst to you, it made him fall even more in love with you, because he was already fully aware of the fact that he loved you more than anything, more than anyone. He was all in.

“You’re welcome too, Y/N.”

---

“Y/N are you there? Talk to me, Y/N. Tell me that, for some miraculous reason, you’re not in New York.”

You heard his voice almost exactly the same time as something ripped a hole in the sky above Stark Tower and you dropped the cup you’d been holding with a splash onto the pavement. You felt the boiling hot contents seeping into the skin of your feet and calves through your tights and you pressed your lips together tightly, eyes focused on the scene before you.

And then, things started flying out of it. One of them fired something that looked like light and you heard a crash and suddenly a building was on fire.

Your scalded feet were long forgotten.

You ran, as fast as you could away from the Tower, hearing the whizzing sound of whatever those things were over your head. A burst of light send a car into flames next to you and you yelped as you dived the other way, breathing heavily as your back hit the wall of shop front, eyes trained on the fire right there, feeling the heat radiating from it.

Your mind tuned back into Steve who now sounded as if he were shouting right into your ear. You cursed yourself for not replying to him sooner.

“I’m okay, God, I’m sorry, Steve, I’m okay.”

“Jesus, sweetheart, you had me worried there.”

He sounded breathless and you didn’t know that soul voices could sound breathless.

“Are you okay? Are you seeing this?”

“I am. Where are you, let me come and find you.”

“We can’t, Steve,” you said forcefully, knowing that he was just worried and didn’t know what he was saying, “You know it’s bad luck.”

He sighed. Deeply.

“I know. But I-” he was gone, fully gone for a good few seconds and you held your breath, still pressed against a wall and wincing every time an explosion set off nearby, “I can’t talk now. I’m sorry. Get somewhere safe.”

“What do you mean you can’t talk now? Are you safe?”

A pause. Over the past year you’d come to hate it when Steve paused during your conversations.

“I love you.”

Your heart dropped. He’d never said that before. You’d never said that before. Why was he saying it now.

“Steve? What’s happening?”

No reply. A loud bang. You had to run.

“I love you too.”

---

You hadn’t heard from Steve in four years.

Four. Years.

After a year of bliss with a soulmate in your head and a lightness in your heart, you’d finally gotten over the feeling that it was all going to slip through your fingers at any moment. But that’s exactly what had happened. You’d lost your soulmate.

You didn’t know where to direct your anger. It was like your childhood all over again. Whether to be angry at Steve; whether he had simply abandoned you, if he could hear you every time you tried to talk to him and just decided to ignore you. Since the last words he said to you were that he loved you, somehow you doubted that could possibly be the case. But it was possible.

Or maybe your anger needed to be directed at someone else. He’d disappeared from your mind, from your soul, during the Battle of New York. There were plenty of ‘Steve’s on the list of the dead. Not that you had the mental capacity to consider that. You couldn’t.

Because you’d loved him too. Truly. Completely. With your entire soul.

So now you were taking matters into your own hands. This fucking sucked. And you wouldn’t stand it anymore. Bad luck be damned.

You’d been practicing the illegal art of soul reading for months and you were finally ready to carry out what you’d needed to do for years. You were going to delve into Steve’s thoughts, the ones that he didn’t offer up to you. If you found nothing then...well you’d know his fate. And if you heard something then...well then you just might be able to find him.

You cleared your own thoughts. Sat down on your mat, crossed your legs one over the other. Closed your eyes. Furrowed your brow. Concentrated. Concentrated. Concentrated. There was a dull pain in the very middle of your forehead but you ignored it and pressed on.

You began to hear the faint remnants of another’s thoughts. It was all you could do not to lose it right then and there. But you couldn’t. You had to press on. On and on.

...if we stay here then they’ll find us, no problem. But if we move, then we’ll have to stick to the shadows with every trick in the book. Every trick not in the book. It still won’t work. Someone will find us. But for now we just have to…

It was Steve. Unmistakably. There were tears rolling down your cheeks that you had to ignore.

...Wakanda is no place for me to stay…

Your eyes snapped open and you gasped for breath, clutching at your throat.

It took you no longer than 48 hours to set foot in Wakanda.

You’d had to threaten some shady looking people, with a kitchen knife that you’d have no idea how to really use and a strength that seemed to solely come from the need to find your soulmate. A strength you didn’t realise you even had. Eventually a man with a funny sounding name had offered to take you there, sneak you in, for a price. A price you had paid. All of your life’s savings.

All you wanted was Steve. That feeling hadn’t dwindled over four years. It had only grown stronger.

Along with the feeling of wanting to punch him in the face as soon as you found him.

As you were dropped at the outskirts of the city and you gazed on at the gorgeous landscape up ahead of you, wondering how on earth they had managed to keep such beauty hidden, you saw a figure walking towards you over the hill and you stood frozen still. As if that meant they couldn’t see you.

Your plan hadn’t gone any further than just getting here. Go figure.

“Who the hell are you?” the man said loudly as he continued getting closer and closer to you and you forced yourself to stay planted, not to run away. There was no turning back from this now.

“I’m looking for my soulmate,” you said bluntly, folding your arms, “A man named Steve. Do you know a Steve?”

The man laughed. It wasn’t a kind sound.

“There are not many Steves here.”

“Not many,” you repeated, staying brave even though your legs were jelly. You had come too far, “But any?”

The man looked distant. In thought. He came closer and in one sudden movement had your arms pinned behind your back with his hand, making you cry out in pain.

“I must take you to the king. You do not belong here.”

You didn’t struggle. The man had a look in his eye that told you not to, that it wasn’t in your best interests. But not in a threatening way. Somehow, you knew that wherever you were going, you were being lead towards Steve. You allowed yourself to be marched through the streets.

As you’d already realised: you had come too far to give up now. Or ever.

---

“Sir? I’ve brought an intruder to you.”

Your captor pushed you forward and you stumbled into the room. The door slammed behind you and you jumped at the sound. There was a man in the corner of the room, staring out of the window and you could only make out a shadow of his profile from here. You walked forwards.

“Are you...the king?”

The man laughed, only a little. This one was kinder.

“I am no king.”

You blinked at his voice. It sounded familiar, almost like…

The man turned around and at once it was obvious. Why he sounded familiar. Your eyes widened and you took a step back in shock as the man walked over to you from the window, his face hard and unforgiving and yet, you could see the remnants of soft lines within it that he hadn’t quite managed to rid himself of yet.

It was Captain America himself. The fugitive. Though you weren’t sure you could ever see such a hero as a fugitive yourself.

“Captain America?”

He had a little scruff going on that wasn’t at all unappealing and his hair was longer and less perfectly golden than it had looked on TV so many times. He was wearing a button down and slacks and the whole look of him was surreal.

“Not anymore,” he said, a hint of sadness there but you could only tell that because you were listening for it. Because it was already written into the lines of his face, of his frown, “Just Steve now.”

Your heart stopped beating. But started again just as quickly. You’d forgotten that he was called Steve. He was just...Captain America. America’s Sweetheart. Golden Boy. Hearing the name Steve out loud was enough to bring you to the verge of tears but you swallowed them right down. This was no place to cry.

“Well…” you were going to say his name but you found that you couldn’t. You opted to avoid it, “Well, I know I’m here to be...punished or whatever but please, hear me out first. I’m here to meet my soulmate. I tapped into his thoughts, you see, and I know that’s a crime but surely not one worth Captain America’s time, and I only did it because I haven’t spoken to him since the Battle of New York, well done there, by the way, and so I probed his mind and found he was in Wakanda so I pulled a few strings, paid out my life’s savings, held out a kitchen knife and here I am! But then that guy, the one that brought me here, the grumpy one, I asked him if he knew any Steves, because my soulmate’s name is Steve and he brought me-”

You stopped. Blinked.

“He brought me-”

The man in front of you wasn’t speaking. His mouth was slightly open and his face was as white as a sheet and his eyes were glassy. You blinked.

“He brought me to you.”

Your voice was so quiet you weren’t sure he’d even heard what you said. But he had. You blinked again, not knowing what else to do, as the pieces slowly slotted together in your head, all coming together to make a beautiful, albeit messy, puzzle.

After a few seconds, moments, minutes, you didn’t know, didn’t fucking care, you walked a couple of steps forwards and he didn’t move. You weren’t sure he could. There were tears in his eyes and on his lashes and on his cheeks and a couple that dropped onto his shirt and left blotchy marks in their wake. You reached up, the pace agonisingly laboured, until your hand gently came into contact with his chest and you pressed into it, feeling the unmoving muscle underneath. Your hand became a fist as you gripped him, your eyes flicking between both of his rapidly.

“...Steve?”

He let out a shaky breath.

“Hi sweetheart.”

You broke down, a breakdown 35 years in the making as both hands got a grip on his shirt and you choked out a sob, a broken sob that you couldn’t hold in. Your eyes locked closed, face becoming wrinkled and puffy and you leaned forward, resting your forehead against his chest as you cried and cried and cried. All the tears from the last four years, the year before that, the years and years before even that where you kept them to yourself. A lifetime of tears bubbling, frothing over in bursting, uneven sobs.

Steve hesitated but not for long. He took you in his arms like he was always meant to, even as your hands hit and punched his chest, he held you, encircling your shoulders and your waist with both arms, clutching on tight as he cried too, less animalistic but with the same raw emotion that poured from you in waves.

He was whispering apologies into your mind, your soul, your ear, both out loud and silently, choked and firm, along with a host of promises that you couldn’t make any sense of.

After a few minutes, moments, hours, you didn’t have a clue, your sobs began to subside, Steve’s shirt drenched and your eyes void of tears to cry. Your hands were again laid flat against his chest, their assault finished, the fight having left them long ago. You pulled back and felt his arms tighten for a moment, the reluctance to give you any breathing room, but he obliged with your silent request.

“Where did you go, Steve? I needed you and you knew that and-” you wiped your nose on your sleeve and hiccuped a little, “Where did you go?”

“I had to stop talking to you, sweetheart. It was dangerous. For you. I am- I was Captain America. It wasn’t safe.”

You nodded. You got the feeling there was more to it than that, that it had come about from a wealth of insecurities and fears and doubts on his part and not the mere fact that he deemed it unsafe but you’d let that go for now. It was a conversation for another time.

Steve was here. In front of you. So late and yet right on time. You wouldn’t waste another moment of having him here.

“Are you still in?”

“I’m sorry?” he said and you let your hands travel from his chest up to the sides of his neck, cradling his face in your hands like he was made of fragile glass.

“What you said to me, that last day. Is that still...Do you still-”

“Always. I am always in. I was just scared. Y/N, I was just so scared. But I love you, I love you so goddamn much and-”

“Shh,” you said soothingly, pulling him in closer and the two of you instinctively closed your eyes as your foreheads touched together, gentle, testing, “I love you too. Always have. Even before I had you.”

“Thank you for coming to get me,” he whispered, his arms winding around your waist, one reaching up into your hair and playing with the strands, carefully, with the loving touch you’d only ever dreamed about.

“Thank you for coming to get me,” you retorted and then, with a small chuckle, “Out of the ice, I presume.”

“Makes sense now, huh?”

“You could’ve told me.”

“I know. I’m an idiot.”

You shook your head and he felt the vibrations against his forehead, your breath against his lips and the tingle that remained there. He could feel your grin. He never wanted to move again.

“My idiot.”

He surged forward at those words, caution to the wind, his desire overriding the overwhelming fear that he’d held towards you for so very long, the paralysing fear that had stopped him from reaching out, from answering when you called. The fear of you being used against him, used as bait, used in order to get to him.

That fear vanished as soon as he saw you.

And now he was kissing you. With every ounce of passion that had been missing in both your lives, with the messiness that came with no practice, with the perfection that came from a first kiss. Your arms were flung haphazardly around his neck and shoulders, gripping and pulling him closer, closer, closer and his own roamed your body, never settling, moving from your face to your hair to your back to your waist. Your tears mingled together on your cheeks.

You kissed until you were smiling too much to kiss anymore.

“We’ve got some catching up to do,” Steve said, loud and clear in your mind and you’d forgotten just how much you’d missed this. You leaned in and kissed him again, hand tugging at the hair at the nape of his neck.

“Later,” you promised silently as you kissed him, knowing that your heart had finally found its home.

---

“...and that is how you calculate the mass of a triangular prism!”

You grinned at your class and the blank looks you received in return only made you chuckle fondly. You looked at them pointedly before placing a hand next to your mouth as if you were telling them a secret.

“How about we finish early for Friday break time?”

The children cheered and had run out of your classroom before you could say another word. You laughed again. They all looked forward to Friday break time. Taking the board eraser from the desk and wiping down all that remained of your maths lesson, you shook your head.

You’d need to work harder to get them interested in this nonsense. You made a mental note to yourself to come up with some sort of game later for them to play tomorrow, because it was the only way you’d get them to take this in.

You strolled outside the watch the kids, standing beside the steps into the school and leaning against the railings. It was a sunny day, with just enough clouds for the air to be light and airy but the most gorgeous and bluest of blue skies in between. It was a good day.

You looked at your watch. 10:30 exactly.

“Hey sweetheart.”

There he was. Right on time.

“Hi honey.”

“Not a bother,” he says. “And you don’t need to call me professor. Bucky’ll do fine.”

“Alright.” You smile and edge the rest of the way in, glancing around.

“Ah, shoot, let me just…” Bucky jumps up and clears the chair across from his desk, setting his stack of books on top of his laptop. You settle in, he sits back down, and for a moment you just smile at each other before both starting to speak at once.

“So what did you—”

“I just wanted—”

Bucky chuckles. “After you,” he says with a flourish of his hand.

“I just wanted to ask if you could recommend a book.” You hunch your shoulders a bit, peek up at him from under your eyelashes. “I like physics, but textbooks…” You shudder. “Nyeh.”

He turns the pile of books on top of his laptop, skims the titles. “What did the others recommend?”

You shift in your seat. “I, uh, haven’t asked them yet.” A swallow.

“Why not?” Bucky stands up and slides on his glasses, heart beating a little faster as he scans the shelves lining the wall. So many textbooks…

“You just had office hours,” you say, as if it’s obvious.

He glances over his shoulder, eyebrows raised.

“I mean,” you add, cheeks darker than before, “you had a lot of students to visit.”

“Yeah, the finals rush,” he jokes.

“Not all of them.” You rest your elbow on your knee, chin in your hand, and smile wistfully. “Your office is pretty darn near mine, y’know. Some of them were just here to chat.”

It’s true enough—there are a few, juniors and seniors mostly, who come by every so often to catch up, talk. But he still doesn’t get the connection.

“So?”

“So,” you say patiently, “it means they like you enough to come visit. Which means you presumably know how to connect with them. Which means you might know some good books.”

Logic.

Messy logic, not particularly articulate either, but logic nonetheless.

And god help him, it’s logic he likes, coming out of your pretty mouth. He can’t help his smile.

“Fair,” he tells you. He holds out a couple books, which you take with wide, excited eyes. “Try these.”

“Thank you! Let me just take a picture of them, so I can—”

“They’re yours,” Bucky interrupts.

“I can’t…” You shake your head, stunned.

“To borrow,” he amends. “If it makes you feel better.”

“It does.” You stand up, tuck the books under your arm, and smooth down your skirt. “Thank you, Professor.”

“Bucky,” he reminds you, smiling. He holds out his hand, and you take it. A nice hand, a gentle hand, one he wants to hold just a little bit longer.

But he makes himself let go.

You grip your books tightly and turn to go. Are your hands trembling from his touch, or is he imagining things?

If nothing else, he’s not imagining your sweet smile as you glance back at him over your shoulder.

“Thank you, Bucky.”

He slumps back into his chair, twisting his hand through his hair, fighting hard to bite back his broad grin.

“You’re welcome, doll,” he murmurs.

You crossed your arms over your chest, sparing a glance at the men in the room you had left expecting. “Kinda late to ask” you swivel your hips to half face the blue eyed man next to you as the doors come to a close, the robotic voice taking you down so many levels “I’m already here” your voice is monotone and uncaring. Bucky remembers what it sounds like when you’re acting extra tough. “I’d get you back home, and you know it” he battles your logic and a small smirk creeps up your features. If there’s anything you and Bucky had said before going your separate ways, was that you both should have a choice. A choice in whether to go back or not. It didn’t matter how from how many miles away he got you from, he’d return you safe and sound and act like none of this had happened if you so much as asked, and vice versa. It was a silent agreement you knew the two of you had.

The elevator dings open and you both exit it, footsteps falling in sync, much like they used to. The hallway is fairly empty, just a handful of people at a distance, busy and unassuming. The high tech equipment decorates every floor it seems, computers, engineers, labs, like straight out of a movie and you didn’t expect any less from anything Stark slapped his name on. Lavish furniture ranging from torture like uncomfortable looking, to things you couldn’t wait to take a nap on, and the A/C blasting, had you not been trained to be unfazed by most climates you would have reached for a hoodie long ago.

But what you like the most is that there’s some sense of privacy, one you didn’t think you’d get. So far you’d only spotted several cameras in different corners and calculated their blind spots. Either Stark was lacking or he trusted his team. For the moment you’d believe the latter.

You make an abrupt stop at the beginning of a narrower hallway, Bucky trekking back to be in earshot.

“Your intel is wrong” you say, barely above a whisper. “What?” “I read what you hand me” there’s an attentive look in his features now as he softly swifts balance from one foot to the other, and this is strangely familiar. Debriefing with Bucky. “it seems fake. Stark mentioned English intelligence, your papers, the photos, they scream Russian spies. It’s messy, and I know avengers don’t do messy”

Bucky pauses his movement, crossing his arms and pursing his lips deep in thought. He hadn’t seen it like that. Something was amiss.

“Why… why are you telling me this?” The shock is evident in his voice, and you’re slightly offended he’d think you’d tell anyone else before him. You scoff. “You don’t just go around telling everyone when you have contradicting intel” it takes Bucky a second to read your defensive stance and how you’re avoiding his eyes, looking around almost frantically, down the hallway, inside rooms, keeping your voice down… You’re doubtful. Oh… “Wait, you don’t trust Steve? You don’t trust Captain America?” He’s amused and you scoff again. “All I’m saying is I didn’t go on the run with Captain America for three years” you state nonchalantly, and immediately things make sense to him. Of course you trust Bucky more than anyone in that meeting room.

You know Bucky. You really, really know him.

He chuckles and nods.

“Ok. We’ll look into it” you give him a pointed look when he says that and he laughs out loud. “I’ll look into it” this makes you smile, feeling more at ease. “I take it you’re in then…?” There’s the hopeful Bucky you hadn’t realized you missed until now. A pointed index finger shows up in his line of vision “One condition” he nods for you to continue “If this starts to turn into anything like our first time in Italy, I’m out”

This time he bursts out laughing, again another thing you didn’t realize you had missed. “Trust me, even I’d be out if that were the case”

You’re shaking hands before going your separate ways and the resemblances don’t go over your head, how easy it is to run confusing details with Bucky, to iron out plans and feel confident about a mission. How he’d asked you if you were in every single time there was a suspicious case you’d be going into. The pair of you made a good team that no amount of years off the grid could erase.

She nodded absently to the refreshed ensign, a young fellow who obtained the position through his father’s influence. He busied himself with greeting the woman seated behind her, a flirtatious greeting that ensured another fifteen seconds.

Eyes flashed upwards through the glass to the elevated command center where Marcus continued to argue with his head of security. A conflict she secured to buy this time. And plant the seed of mistrust between them.

“Lieutenant, I wasn’t aware you were working this shift.” The young ensign approached. The aroma of fresh coffee and cinnamon was immediately at her nose.

Seamlessly pulling the thumb drive from the console, she cleared the screen as she turned. With her stare alone she pushed the ensign three feet back.

“I don’t particularly enjoy caffeine at the end of my shifts but seeing as you are ten minutes late to yours, I will accept the beverage as repayment. Also, thank Ensign Vasquez as she covered for your ass.”

His eyes widened but he said nothing as she grabbed the paper cup from his hands and promptly exited the room.

The stoic mask remained as she strode down brightly lit halls and rode the lift to the lower levels of the ship where only the highest of security clearances could enter. Her mind roared within her skull. Information she had firmly believed to be false truths spread by conspiracy theorists and the weak minded was now grasped firmly within her fingers. Undeniable proof of another horror of humanity.

The lift doors slid open, revealing a darkened room. As she stepped off the lift, floor lights along the walls snapped to life, revealing an open space and a glass prison. Within the prison, an empty white table built into the floor and a single cot.

Sat upright within the cot, facing her, waiting – Khan.

Eyes of blue steel pierced through her armor, calculating her every breath, the tremor of her bottom lip as she exhaled, the heavy gloss of moisture over her eyes.

“You have learned the truth, Lieutenant Laxely. And what a truth it is.”

Her back straightened at his taunting, her shoulders pushed back.

“Although the action is absolutely telling, as you came directly to me instead of your contact within Starfleet, I still must ask. Are you in?”

Her first instinct was retaliation. Her first instinct was to say yes. And wasn’t that the horror of it all? The desire to destroy more and more. He dissected it all. The hard set of her jaw. The blazing fire behind her eyes as she met his icy blue.

Could she do it? Would she do it?