#year four

Wakanda always wears sunlight differently in your dreams. It drips gold over everything, rich and warm, catching on the tall grass and the edges of stone, painting the world in something too gentle to be real. The breeze carries the scent of earth, flowers, and something sweet you can't quite name, and for one fragile, treacherous moment, your chest loosens.

You are happy here.

Your gaze drifts toward the open stretch of grass ahead, and that is when you see her.

She can't be more than four. Small and bright as a sunbeam, all quick little feet and wild laughter, darting through the grass in a dress patterned with Wakandan embroidery. Her hair is gathered up in little braided puffs, beads clicking softly when she runs, and even from this distance, there is something so achingly familiar about her that it roots you where you stand.

You know her. Your heart knows her before your mind can catch up.

A few yards away, Bucky sits in the grass, one knee raised, the other stretched out, looking more at peace than you think you have ever seen him. The hard lines of him are gone here. No tension in his shoulders. No shadow in his eyes. Just sunlight, soft laughter, and the kind of ease he wears like he was always meant for it.

He looks up just in time to see her charging at him.

"Papa!"

The word rings through the air like a bell inside your ribs.

She launches herself at his back without warning, and Bucky lets out a surprised grunt before laughing, rich and unguarded, as he catches her with effortless practice. He rises to his feet with her clinging to him, then reaches back and hooks an arm under her legs.

"You trying to tackle me, little doll?" he asks, glancing over his shoulder.

Her giggle is the cutest thing you have ever heard. Bright, breathless, endless.

"You're too slow," she declares.

"Too slow?" Bucky repeats, mock offended. "That so?"

Then he spins her.

The sound that leaves her is pure delight, shrieking laughter spilling into the breeze as he turns her around and around until both of them are dizzy with it. He finally stops only long enough to toss her higher against his back, her little arms tightening around his neck as she dissolves into another fit of giggles.

You stand there, watching them, feeling your entire heart ache with something too big to name. You don't even notice Shuri approach until her shoulder bumps lightly against yours.

"You are staring," she says, all smug amusement.

You laugh under your breath, unable to tear your eyes away. "Can you blame me?"

"No," she says, following your gaze. "I am glad you decided to stay in Wakanda to raise her."

That pulls your attention to her.

Shuri stands beside you with her hands folded behind her back, looking unbearably pleased with herself, like she has personally orchestrated the sun, the breeze, the laughter, all of it.

Your smile softens. "I'm glad Wakanda welcomed us." You glance back toward Bucky and the little girl. "I couldn't imagine a better place to raise our daughter."

The words settle deep in you, warm and easy, like they have always belonged there.

Shuri hums, satisfied. "Who would have thought? The White Wolf with a family."

You snort softly. "All thanks to your meddling."

She places a hand over her chest in false offense. "Meddling?" she repeats. "No. Scientific intervention."

That makes you laugh, a real laugh, light enough to float. "In the name of science?" you ask.

"In the name of science," she confirms solemnly, though the grin tugging at her mouth ruins the effect.

Before you can answer, a blur of motion barrels toward you.

"Mama!"

You barely have time to brace before she launches herself into your arms, and instinct takes over so quickly it almost hurts. You catch her with a little gasp, holding her close against your chest as her momentum makes you stumble half a step back.

There she is. Warm, solid, real.

Her little hands curl into your shoulders, and she smells like sunshine and grass and sugar. You pull her in tighter without even thinking, pressing a kiss to the side of her head as emotion swells so suddenly inside you it leaves you breathless.

"Hi, my love," you murmur.

She draws back just enough to cup your face in both tiny hands, serious in the way only children can be. "Papa promised he'd take me to the market," she tells you, as if this is the most important matter in the world, "for something sweet."

"Did he now?" you ask, glancing over her shoulder.

Bucky is already walking toward you, still smiling, his hair falling into his face, the grass brushing against his boots. There is something so unfairly beautiful about him like this that it almost makes your eyes sting.

"He did," he says when he reaches you. "And I fully intend to keep my promise."

Your daughter beams. "See?"

"I see," you say gravely, adjusting her in your arms. "Sounds very serious."

"It is," she whispers, like she is sharing classified intel.

Bucky steps in close, close enough that the warmth of him curls around you before he even touches you. His hand settles at the small of your back, steady and familiar, and for a second all you can do is look at him.

There is so much tenderness in his face it nearly undoes you.

Then he leans in and kisses you.

It is soft, easy, practiced in the way that speaks of years instead of moments. A kiss shared in daylight, with your daughter in your arms and laughter still lingering in the air. Domestic and ordinary and everything your soul has been starving for.

A tiny groan of disgust interrupts the moment.

You pull back just enough to see your daughter twisting dramatically in your hold to look at Shuri.

"Eww, auntie," she complains, throwing one little hand over her eyes. "Close your eyes."

Shuri lets out the most offended sound you have ever heard. "Why must I close my eyes? They are your parents."

"They're being gross," your daughter says with absolute conviction.

Bucky huffs a laugh against your temple. "Gross, huh?"

"So gross," she mutters, peeking through her fingers.

You laugh then, helpless and full, and Bucky's forehead falls lightly against yours as his hand slides more securely around your waist. Shuri is still muttering something about ungrateful children and scientific excellence, but it all blurs around the edges, because this, this is the center of it.

Your daughter in your arms. Bucky at your side. Wakanda all around you.

A life so beautiful your heart doesn't know what to do with it except hold still and pray the moment never ends. Because this is what home was supposed to feel like.

You wake with a violent jerk.

Your breath catches hard in your throat as your eyes snap open, instinct dragging your hand toward the knife at your thigh before your mind catches up. The warm grass is gone. The golden Wakandan sun is gone. The weight of little arms around your neck has vanished so completely it leaves behind a kind of ache that feels physical.

For one disorienting second, you don't know where you are.

Then the stink of the docks settles in. Rotting wood, oil, brine, old blood hidden beneath the river stink.

Your pulse pounds as you force yourself upright from where you had been crouched in the shadows above the warehouse rafters, one hand braced against the cold steel beam beneath you. Below, the dock stretches out in jagged patches of moonlight and shadow, quiet except for the distant slap of water against pylons and the occasional groan of metal shifting with the wind.

You fell asleep.

The realization makes your jaw tighten.

Not for long, judging by the angle of the moon and the fact that your target has only just arrived, but long enough. Long enough to dream. Long enough to let your guard down.

You swallow hard, shoving the remnants of it away before they can root themselves in your chest. The little girl's laugh still echoes somewhere cruel and soft in the back of your mind. You kill it the only way you know how.

Focus.

Below you, the woman steps into the warehouse with all the confidence of someone who still thinks she is untouchable.

She looks harmless, that is the point.

Mid thirties maybe. Clean coat, neat hair, soft voice. The kind of face girls are meant to trust. The kind of face frightened runaways might follow without a second thought if she smiled at them and said, 'sweetheart, let me help you.'

Your stomach turns. You would think women would protect girls. Turns out evil doesn't care what face it wears. Turns out there are witches in this operation too.

You have spent weeks tracking her. Listening, following, learning the pattern. The way she lingered near shelters and bus stations. The way she knew exactly how to speak to desperate girls, exactly how to make herself look safe. By the time they realized they had been handed off to monsters, it was already too late.

Not tonight.

Your fingers tighten around the hilt of your blade as you watch her cross the warehouse floor, heels clicking softly against the concrete.

You have been extra careful this past year, you had to be.

The military got involved months ago, sniffing around the same filth you have been carving through in the dark. Official task forces, sweeps, raids. Cleanup crews arriving just late enough to find bodies and blood but never the hand that left them there. Every time, you are gone before they can lock the place down. Every time, they are left staring at another corpse and another mystery.

You make it a point to keep it that way. No witnesses, no mistakes, no trails.

The woman checks her watch, annoyed and impatient. Waiting for someone.

Not happening.

You drop from the rafters without a sound.

She barely gets half a breath to turn before your hand clamps over her mouth and drives her forward into the nearest support beam. Her muffled scream dies against your palm as the impact rattles through the metal.

Panic floods her eyes.

You press in close, voice low and lethal against her ear. "How many?"

She thrashes, nails clawing uselessly at your wrist.

You slam her harder into the beam. "How many girls?"

Her answer comes out broken and wet against your hand, not words, just terrified pleading.

Your lip curls. "That always comes at the end, doesn't it? The begging. The tears. As if fear somehow makes you human again."

You drag the blade lightly across her throat, just enough to let her feel the promise of it. "You wore kindness like a mask," you whisper. "Do you know what they probably thought when they saw you? Relief."

Her whole body shakes.

"And all you did was lead them straight to hell."

She tries to wrench free, but you don't let her.

By the time your hand leaves her mouth, it is only so she can gasp once before you bury the blade deep.

Her eyes go wide, a wet choke escapes her lips as her body jerks in your grip.

You hold her there, face blank, steady, letting her feel exactly what she gave others. Fear, helplessness, the certainty that no one is coming. Then you rip the blade free.

The woman crumples, blood darkening the concrete in a quick, ugly bloom.

For a moment, the warehouse goes still.

Your breathing is even. Your pulse no longer racing. Dream and grief and ache all folded back into the cold place where you keep them caged. You crouch, wiping the blade on the woman's coat, already calculating your exit. Rear door, north fence. Gone before anyone hears a damn thing.

Then a voice cuts clean through the dark behind you.

"So you're the one leaving me messes to clean up?"

Every muscle in your body locks. You spin just as the woman's lifeless body hits the floor with a heavy thud.

A man in military uniform stands a few yards away, half in shadow, half in the pale spill of dock light pouring through the warehouse opening. Tall, broad, built like someone the government made in a lab and then handed a flag to. His posture is sharp, controlled, but there is something almost lazy in the way he stands there, like he knows he already has your attention and doesn't need to fight for it.

You never heard him coming. That alone is enough to put your nerves on a knife edge.

His gaze flicks once to the body, then back to you. Not shocked, not horrified, assessing.

Your grip tightens on the knife. "You should've stayed out of it."

One corner of his mouth twitches, but it is not amusement. Not quite. "Funny," he says, voice dry as old gunpowder. "I was about to say the same thing."

The patch on his sleeve catches the light. U.S. military.

Your eyes narrow, so this is one of them. One of the uniforms who keeps showing up after the blood dries. One of the men meant to contain the rot instead of rip it out by the root.

He takes one slow step forward, eyes dropping briefly to the body at your feet. "I've been following this trail for months," he says. "Traffickers. dealers. corrupt cops. Every time we get close, somebody beats us to it."

Another step.

"Fast." His eyes lift to yours. "Efficient. Angry as hell."

His gaze slides over your stance, your blade, the blood on your hands, like he is piecing together a puzzle he's been itching to solve. Then he says, almost to himself, "Didn't expect you."

You shift your weight, ready to bolt or strike, whichever comes first. "That sounds like a you problem."

This time, his mouth does curve, sharp and brief. "You always this friendly?"

"Only with men who sneak up on me in dark warehouses."

He glances around at the corpse, then back at you. "Hard not to notice the dead body."

"She deserved worse."

Something in his expression changes at that. Not disagreement, not approval either. Recognition, maybe. The kind that comes from someone who has seen ugly things and still has not decided what that makes him.

"You don't get to decide that," he says.

A bitter laugh slips out before you can stop it. "Funny. Looks like I already did."

Silence stretches between you, taut as wire.

Somewhere in the distance, a siren wails. Too far to matter yet, but not for long.

The man's gaze flicks briefly toward the warehouse entrance, then back to you, steady and measuring. He does not look rattled by the body at your feet. If anything, he looks annoyed that he got here after the fact.

"You've got maybe two minutes," he says.

"I know."

His eyes drag over you again, taking in the blade, the blood, the stance that says you will bolt or fight depending on what breath comes next.

Then he asks, "What's your name?"

You let out a short, humorless laugh. "That's on a need to know basis."

Something in his expression shifts, not quite amusement, not quite irritation. "I'd like to know the name of the person whose messes I keep having to clean up."

Your grip tightens around the knife. "I didn't ask you to clean up the trash."

That lands.

His jaw ticks, just once.

Then he moves, fast. Faster than you expected for a man built like a tank in military issue.

But you move too.

He reaches for your wrist, probably expecting to disarm first and ask questions later. You twist before he can get a solid hold, knocking his hand aside as you pivot out of reach. He adjusts instantly, stepping in again, sharp and precise, and you meet him head on, matching him move for move.

His fist comes toward your shoulder. You duck and drive your elbow toward his ribs.

He blocks.

You slash low with the knife, not to kill, just to force distance, and he jumps back just enough to avoid the blade before surging forward again. His hand catches your forearm this time, but only for half a second before you wrench free and bring your knee up hard. He turns with it, takes the blow on the side instead of center mass, and exhales through his nose like you are becoming very interesting very quickly.

You spin, aiming the butt of the knife toward his temple.

He catches your wrist.

You plant your boot, brace, and shove into him instead of away.

For one charged second, the two of you lock there in the dark, close enough to hear each other breathe, each trying to overpower the other and neither giving an inch.

His eyes narrow. "Yeah. Definitely didn't expect you." he mutters.

You yank your wrist free and slash toward him again. He traps your arm against his chest, and your free hand flies toward his throat. He catches that too.

Now you are really close. Chest to chest, braced, straining. The kind of closeness that feels less like an accident and more like a threat.

He looks down at you, breathing hard but controlled, his grip firm without quite tipping into cruel. "You always greet people like this?"

You glare up at him. "Only the ones stupid enough to get in my way."

That crooked edge is back at his mouth, but it is meaner now, sharper. "Yeah," he says quietly, "I can see that."

You drive your foot down hard onto his boot and slam your head forward just enough to break his concentration, his grip loosens. It is all the opening you need.

You tear yourself free and spring back, knife raised, breath heaving.

He straightens slowly, shoulders rolling once as if settling back into himself, though his eyes never leave you. No smugness now, no easy confidence. Just focus, like he finally understands exactly what you are.

The sirens are louder now, voices beginning to rise in the distance outside.

He glances toward the entrance, then back to you. "This your thing?" he asks. "Swoop in, kill the target, disappear before the cavalry shows up?"

You edge backward toward the shadows. "You say that like you're offended."

"I'm saying," he replies, taking one step forward, "you're making my job harder."

You snort. "Then maybe you should be faster."

That sparks something in him. Not anger exactly, something hotter, something that looks a hell of a lot like challenge. "I'll remember that."

"Do," you say.

He studies you one last time, eyes flicking to the blood on your blade and back to your face. "Need to know basis, huh?"

You tilt your head. "Looks like you still don't need to know."

Before he can move again, you slip back into the dark beyond the warehouse beams, gone just as the first wave of voices spills in from outside.

You don't look back. But you feel him there anyway, watching.

You slip into the compound long after midnight, silent out of habit, keyed up enough that every shadow feels like a threat.

The mission should have calmed the noise, it usually it does.

Usually the blood cools something ugly in you, settles the rage back into its cage for a few hours, lets you pretend there is a system to this rot and you are cutting pieces out of it one by one. Usually by the time you make it home, your pulse is steady, your hands are clean, your mind empty enough to pass for tired.

Not tonight. Tonight all you can think about is the man in military green standing in that warehouse like he had every right to be there.

The way he moved, how he kept up, how he saw your face.

Your jaw tightens as you shut the door behind you more sharply than you mean to. The sound snaps through the quiet hall.

You curse under your breath and turn toward the stairwell, already peeling your gloves off finger by finger, mind racing ahead to all the ways this could go wrong now. A face is dangerous, a face can be traced, a face can be remembered.

You have spent the last year making sure all they ever found were bodies and ghosts and now one soldier with sharp eyes and a smart mouth has both.

You barely make it three steps before a voice cuts through the dark.

"You're late."

You freeze.

Natasha Romanoff stands at the far end of the hall, one shoulder propped against the wall, arms crossed over her chest. Barefoot, black tank, sleep pants. Casual enough to look harmless if you did not know better.

You know better.

She has been waiting.

Your expression hardens instantly. "You should be asleep."

"So should you."

You stare at each other across the dim hallway, the air between you tightening by the second.

Her face gives very little away, but you know her too well now. The stillness is deliberate, the calm too measured. She is not here by accident, and she is not here because she could not sleep. She is here for you.

You exhale through your nose and step toward the stairs. "I'm not in the mood for a lecture tonight."

"Good," Nat says quietly, pushing off the wall. "Because this isn't a lecture."

That makes you stop. Something in her tone catches. Not sharp enough to cut, but heavy enough to sink.

You turn back slowly. "Then what is it?"

She studies you for a long moment, gaze moving over your face like she is cataloging every crack you thought you had hidden. The late hour, the tension in your shoulders, the faint smear at your sleeve you missed in your rush to leave the docks.

Her eyes return to yours. "I'm onto you," she says.

The words hit like a fist to the sternum, though your face stays still. You do not blink. "Onto what?"

Nat does not rise to it. "Don't do that."

You laugh once, humorless and frayed. "Do what?"

"Lie to me."

The hallway goes very quiet.

Your exhaustion curdles into something meaner. "I really don't have the patience for this tonight."

"I know." She says it too softly, and somehow that is worse.

You take another step toward the stairs. "Then move."

Nat steps in front of you before you can pass.

Not aggressive, just there, just enough.

Your temper sparks fast. "Nat."

"It's not a lecture," she says again, and now her voice is low, steady, careful in a way that makes something in your chest twist. "I'm not calling you out. I'm not dragging Steve into this. I'm not stopping you in front of everyone and demanding answers you're not ready to give me."

You hold her gaze, breathing too hard for someone standing still. "Then what do you want?"

Her expression shifts then. Only slightly, but enough.

The spy gives way to the friend. The woman who has buried too many people and carries every one of them like a scar. "I don't want to lose you," she says.

The anger in you stutters.

Nat swallows once. "Not like I lost Clint."

That lands harder than you expect.

You frown, thrown enough that some of the fight slips out of your stance. "What do you mean by that?"

For the first time all night, Nat looks tired. Soul deep. The kind of tired that comes from grief settling in the body and refusing to leave.

She glances down the hall, like checking to make sure the compound is still asleep, then looks back at you. "I know Clint isn't the one doing this here."

Your stomach drops, but she keeps talking before you can cut in.

"Rhodey tracked him to Mexico."

You go still.

Nat watches your face carefully, sees the flicker there, the split second reaction you cannot bury fast enough. Recognition, calculation. The instant your mind starts rearranging pieces.

Of course she notices.

"He found him there weeks ago," Nat says. "Cartel. Multiple bodies. Clint's pattern all over it." Her voice tightens just a fraction. "So unless he figured out how to be in two countries at once, he's not the one leaving corpses in shipping yards and warehouses over here."

You look away first. A mistake. Because silence is not denial, not with Natasha. Not with someone built to hear what you do not say.

She steps closer, not enough to crowd you, just enough that you can feel the weight of her presence. "I didn't want to believe it was you."

Something jagged flares in your chest. "Then don't."

Her eyes flash. "You think I'm here because I want to be right?"

You don't answer.

Nat lets out a slow breath, reins herself back in. "I'm here because I know what grief does when you give it a knife and tell yourself it's justice."

Your jaw locks. "No," you say flatly. "You don't."

Her expression changes again, sharpened now by something wounded. "Don't I?"

The question hangs there, barbed.

You hate it because part of you knows she is not talking about Clint.

She is talking about herself.

Red in her ledger, blood in her hands. All those years when survival and vengeance and obedience blurred together so badly she probably forgot where one ended and the other began.

You look at her and see it all at once, and because you see it, you hate that she sees you too.

"This is different," you say.

Nat's mouth presses into a thin line. "That's what everyone says when they need it to be."

"They're not innocent."

"I know."

"They hurt girls, Nat."

"I know."

The quiet certainty in her voice makes your anger stumble, but not enough to stop.

"Then what exactly are we doing here?" you snap. "Because last time I checked, the system isn't exactly sprinting to save the people it leaves behind."

Her eyes do not leave yours. "This isn't about whether they deserved it."

"Easy for you to say."

"No," she says, and there is sudden steel in it now, cold and unmistakable. "It's not easy for me to say. That's why I'm saying it."

You look away again, toward the dark stairwell, toward escape, toward anything but the truth standing in front of you in bare feet and tired eyes.

Nat softens before she speaks next. "That path doesn't end where you think it does."

A laugh catches in your throat, brittle enough to break skin. "You think I don't know that?"

"I don't think you care."

That one hits dead center.

Your eyes snap back to hers. For a second, all you can hear is the blood rushing in your ears. Because that is the problem, isn't it? Not that she knows, not that she figured it out.

It's that she is standing here looking at you like she sees exactly how little you value your own life right now. Like she knows this is not just about punishment, it is about erosion. About letting each kill take something with it until there is not enough left of you to hurt anymore.

You fold your arms over yourself, suddenly cold despite the sweat still drying at the back of your neck. "I said I'm not in the mood tonight."

Nat's face crumples so slightly most people would miss it. You don't.

"I know," she says again, barely above a whisper. "But I need you to hear me anyway."

She steps closer, and this time you don't move.

"I lost Clint a long time before Rhodey found him in Mexico." Her voice is rougher now, more honest. "The second he decided there was no coming back from what the world took, I lost him. Maybe not all at once. Maybe not enough for everyone else to notice. But I did."

You stare at her, throat tight.

"I can see it happening to you," she says. "And I can't just stand here and pretend I don't."

The words press into every bruise inside you, because you want to tell her she is wrong. You want to tell her Clint is not you, you are not him, this is not the same.

But then you remember the woman at the docks. The dream before that. The soldier who saw your face. The way your first thought on the way home was not fear of getting caught, but fury that someone had gotten close enough to try.

You remember how little that scared you compared to waking up from the dream. How little any of this scares you now and maybe that is the worst part.

Nat's gaze searches your face. "You don't have to tell me everything tonight."

You let out a slow breath through your nose. "That's generous."

"I'm serious."

Your mouth twists. "That makes one of us."

A ghost of something sad flickers across her face. "I'm not asking you to confess. I'm asking you to stop pretending you're alone in this house."

That breaks somewhere deeper than anger can reach.

Your laugh this time is softer, uglier. "You really picked a bad night for this."

"I know," she says.

Because of course she does, of course she noticed more than the blood and the late hour.

Nat always notices.

Maybe she sees the leftover dream on your face. Maybe she sees the fresh fracture of it in your eyes. Maybe she just knows grief when it walks into a room and tries to pass for rage.

You scrub a hand over your mouth, exhausted suddenly, viciously, all the fight draining out so fast it leaves you dizzy. "I let someone get close tonight."

That is all you offer.

But it is enough to make Nat go still. "Who?"

"Military."

Her eyes sharpen. "Did he see you?"

You hesitate. That is answer enough.

"Damn it," she mutters.

You lean back against the wall, the cool surface pressing into your spine. "Yeah."

"Do you know who he is?"

You think of the uniform. The speed. The voice like a challenge thrown in the dark.

Your jaw tightens. "No."

Nat watches you, "Then it's only a matter of time before this gets worse."

You close your eyes briefly. "I said I know."

The silence that follows is heavy, but not hostile. Just full, crowded with all the things neither of you knows how to fix.

When you open your eyes again, Nat is still there.

Still steady, still not leaving. You hate how much that matters.

"I'm not Clint," you say finally, voice rawer than you want it to be.

Nat's expression softens. "No," she says. "You're not."

"Then stop looking at me like I'm already gone."

Something shatters quietly in her face at that. "I'm looking at you like I'm afraid."

The honesty of it strips you clean.

For a second, you are not at the compound. Not in the hallway, bloodstained and tired and mean around the edges.

You are just a girl who has lost too much, being seen by someone else who has lost too much, and neither of you knows how to save the other from the shape of that grief.

Nat reaches out slowly, gives you every chance to pull away.

When you don't, she rests her hand lightly against your forearm. Not restraint, just contact.

"You don't have to tell Steve tonight," she says. "You don't have to hand me your knives. You don't have to suddenly become okay because I asked nicely."

Your eyes burn.

"But you do have to let somebody in," she says. "Before this turns you into someone you can't come back from."

You swallow hard, staring at the floor between you. For once, there is no sharp answer waiting on your tongue. Just exhaustion, just ache. Just the terrible, quiet possibility that she might be right, and that maybe part of you already knows she is.

"I can't promise anything," you say at last.

Nat's hand squeezes your arm once, then falls away. "I know."

You nod, once, because it is all you can manage.

She steps aside then, clearing the path to the stairs, but her voice stops you one last time. "Whoever he is," she says, meaning the soldier, "if he got that close once, he'll try again."

You glance back at her.

In the dim hallway, she looks older somehow. Not in years, in burden, in love, in fear.

"I know," you say.

And this time, the words mean more than the danger.

Because now there is a new one lodged beneath your ribs.

Not the military. Not the ghost at the docks with the quick hands and sharper mouth.

Nat was right.

The worst part is not that someone saw your face.

It is that when she said she did not want to lose you, some broken part of you realized you are not entirely sure there is enough left worth keeping.

The first week, you vanish. Not literally, you still come back to the compound, you still train. You still eat just enough to keep Nat from watching you too closely and sleep just little enough that no one calls it rest.

But out there, in the city, in the dark places where your other work gets done, you become smoke. No repeated routes, no familiar rooftops, no lingering.

You stop using the same exits twice in a row, you switch boroughs, switch nights. You bury your patterns so deep even you start to feel like a moving target in your own skin. If the military wants to find you again, they are going to earn it.

For a while, it works. Two weeks pass with nothing but dead ends and cold leads.

You keep your distance, you observe more than you strike. You leave three targets untouched because the setup feels wrong, because your nerves keep whispering trap, because one man in green got close enough to learn your face and now every quiet street feels lined with teeth.

You hate him for that, hate that he got under your skin.

You hate even more that Nat's words still crawl around in your head when the city gets too quiet.

"You don't have to suddenly become okay."

"Before this turns you into someone you can't come back from."

You kill those thoughts the same way you kill everything else. By focusing on the next monster.

Tonight, it is another woman.

Late forties, church volunteer smile, community outreach badge. The kind of voice that says sweetheart and honey and darling while steering frightened girls toward "safe housing" that is anything but. You tracked her for eleven days before you were sure. Five more before you could isolate her.

She leaves the community center at 11:17 p.m. alone, heels sharp against the sidewalk, phone in hand, coat buttoned high against the wind. She cuts through an alley behind a row of old brick buildings, heading for the parking lot on the other side.

Bad choice, you drop from the fire escape behind her without a sound.

By the time she realizes she is not alone, the muzzle of your gun is already pressed into the base of her skull.

She freezes, her breath catches in one sharp little gasp.

"Don't," she whispers.

You almost laugh.

Don't, as if she ever gave anyone else that courtesy.

You shove her forward until she stumbles against the brick wall, one hand splayed there for balance, the other still clutching her phone like it can save her now. Your silencer gleams dull black in the thin spill of streetlight overhead.

"Hands where I can see them."

She obeys, slowly, shaking.

You step in close enough to smell her perfume. Something floral, expensive, sweet enough to make your stomach turn.

"How many?" you ask.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

You press the gun harder into her skull. "Try again."

Her voice breaks on the inhale. "Please."

That word again. Always so small on their tongues, so useless.

"I've seen the messages," you tell her, cold and quiet. "The pickups. The transfers. The girls you told you were helping." Your jaw tightens. "How many?"

She starts crying.

You feel nothing.

"Please," she says again, shoulders shaking now. "I didn't hurt them, I just... I just connected people, I just made calls, that's all, I swear to God."

The disgust that rolls through you is volcanic.

You hate this kind most. The ones who wash their hands in technicalities. The ones who tell themselves they never touched the fire, they only passed along the match.

"You sold them," you say.

"No, no, I..."

"You sold them."

The words crack through the alley like bone.

She sobs harder, body folding in on itself, and you think of every girl who probably believed this woman was safe. Every hand she held. Every smile she wore like a lie.

You raise the gun. Your finger tightens on the trigger.

Then someone grabs your wrist.

The shot goes wide with a muffled spit, slamming uselessly into brick.

The sound ricochets through the alley and the woman screams, dropping to the pavement before scrambling to her feet and running blind toward the street.

"No!" you snarl, wrenching around.

It's him, the soldier.

He has your gun hand twisted just enough to ruin your aim, his body crowding yours, fast and solid and infuriatingly real. He must have come out of the dark a split second before the shot, must have closed the distance with that same brutal speed as before, and rage detonates in your chest so hard it whites out everything else.

The woman gets away because of him.

You rip your wrist sideways, trying to break his grip. "Let go of me!"

"Not happening." His voice is rough, low, too close.

You drive your elbow back toward his ribs. He shifts, takes the hit half on, grip tightening instead of loosening. You spin into him with your free hand already coming up, aiming for his throat.

He catches that wrist too.

For one second you are pinned in his hold, both arms trapped, your back nearly against his chest, and humiliation burns hotter than fury.

Then you slam the heel of your boot down on his foot and throw your weight sideways.

He grunts, his hold slips.

You twist free and whirl on him, gun still in hand, fury shaking through every muscle.

"She got away!"

His chest rises hard once, but his expression is locked down, all hard lines and sharper intent. "Yeah," he says. "That was the idea."

You charge him before the last word even lands. There is no strategy in it, no patience, only rage.

You slam into him with enough force to drive him back a step, then another, shoving, striking, wild with the kind of anger that comes from having something taken. Your fist catches his jaw, his head snaps to the side. Satisfaction flashes hot and savage through you.

"You arrogant son of a bitch!"

He blocks your next hit, catches your forearm, but you wrench free and swing again. "Do you have any idea what she's done?"

"Yes."

The answer almost makes you falter.

"Then why the hell would you stop me?"

He ducks your next strike and grabs for the gun. You yank it back, bringing your knee up hard. He blocks with his thigh, hissing a curse through his teeth.

"Because I need her alive!"

The words hit like a slap.

You stare at him for half a second too long. He uses it, surging in, one hand catching your gun wrist, the other bracing at your shoulder as he drives you back against the brick wall.

Your spine hits hard, pain sparks. He presses in just enough to control, not enough to crush.

"I've been building a case for weeks," he says, breathing hard, face inches from yours. "Surveillance. Contacts. Routes. Safe houses. Names." His grip tightens when you try to jerk away. "You put a bullet in her head, I lose the line."

You glare at him, chest heaving. "You lose the line?" you spit. "They lose their lives."

His jaw flexes. "You think I don't know that?"

"I know you don't move fast enough."

That lights something in him.

His eyes flash. "And I know you don't think past the trigger."

The alley goes dead still.

You stare at each other, every breath sharp, every inch between you electric with hatred and something worse, something more dangerous because it is not simple.

He is angry. You are furious.

And beneath all of it is the undeniable fact that he had you, for a second again.

You hate that most of all. You bare your teeth at him. "Get off me."

He doesn't move. "Go ahead," he says, voice lower now. "Tell me I'm wrong."

"She was filth."

"I didn't say she wasn't."

"She deserved it."

"Maybe."

That stops you cold.

Maybe, not no. Not some righteous lecture about due process and restraint and law.

His face is hard, but not sanctimonious. There is dirt under this man's nails too, even if he hides it better.

"That doesn't mean you get to burn every lead before we can pull the whole structure down," he says.

You try to wrench your wrist free again but he holds fast.

"I had her," you hiss.

"No," he snaps back. "You had one body and five more girls disappearing next month because the rest of the network got spooked and scattered."

That one gets under your skin because you cannot dismiss it fast enough.

He sees that, of course he does.

"You're good," he says, not kindly, but honestly. "Fast. Careful. Mean as hell. But you're playing whack a mole with a machine."

You stare at him, breathing fire. "And what," you say, voice cutting, "you're gonna save them with paperwork?"

His mouth twists. "No." A beat. "I'm gonna save them by getting the doors kicked in before the girls inside get moved."

Something about the certainty in that, the ugly practicality of it, rattles against the walls you have built.

You hate that too. You shove at his chest with your free hand. "Let me go."

This time, after a beat, he does. He steps back just far enough to keep distance, but not enough to stop watching you like you are a live grenade with the pin half pulled.

You immediately raise the gun again, not quite aiming, not quite not.

The soldier's gaze drops to it, then returns to your face. "You gonna shoot me?"

The question is too calm, too steady.

Your finger flexes against the trigger. God, you want to.

Not because he is wrong, but because he made you miss. Because he touched your wrist and turned your shot to dust and let her run. Because he keeps appearing where he should not, seeing too much, saying too much, matching you. Because some part of you knows he is not entirely wrong, and that makes you want to put a hole through the alley wall.

Instead, you step forward until the muzzle presses into the center of his chest.

He does not flinch.

Up close, you can see the bruise yellowing faintly along his jaw from the last time. You feel a wicked flicker of satisfaction at that. His eyes stay on yours, unreadable except for the tension in them, the alertness, the challenge.

"You ever touch me again," you say quietly, "and I'll break your nose before I pull the trigger."

One corner of his mouth threatens to rise. Not quite a smile, more like a bad idea thinking about itself. "You can try."

The audacity of it nearly makes you see red. You jab the gun harder into his chest. "I mean it."

"So do I."

There it is again, that infuriating thing about him.

He does not back off, and he does not posture. He just stands there and meets you head on, like he has accepted from the start that this is going to be ugly and kept walking anyway.

Sirens wail faintly somewhere in the distance. Not close yet but close enough.

He glances toward the mouth of the alley, then back at you. "She won't get far."

You laugh, sharp and bitter. "Because now you're on it?"

"Because I planned for the route she'd take if she ran."

That lodges like a splinter. You hate him for being prepared. You hate yourself for not accounting for that possibility.

He sees the calculation flicker across your face and, maddeningly, does not gloat.

"She's not the end of it," he says. "She's the thread."

Your jaw tightens. "Then pray your people don't lose it."

He holds your stare. "Pray you don't cut it first."

For one wild second, you almost tell him what Nat said about Clint. About losing people before they are gone, about being afraid. But that would mean giving him something real, and you would rather swallow glass.

So instead you lower the gun just enough to make it clear you are not shooting him tonight.

His shoulders shift, not relaxing exactly, but recalibrating.

"You've been following me," you say.

His expression barely changes. "You noticed."

"Don't flatter yourself."

A faint snort escapes him. "Hard to miss the body count."

The alley falls quiet again, the kind of quiet that feels like a held breath.

You take a step backward, then another, slipping toward the shadows with your gun still lowered but very much in hand. He watches every movement, posture alert, blue eyes locked on you like he expects you to either vanish or lunge again.

"Stay out of my way," you say.

His mouth twitches, not quite amused. "Can't do that."

You nod once, sharp and humorless. "Then this keeps happening."

"Yeah," he says.

Just a fact laid down between you like a line neither of you plans to stop crossing.

You shift to leave, but his voice stops you one more time.

"You got a name."

You let out a scoff and glance back over your shoulder. "It doesn't matter."

He takes a slow step forward, not enough to crowd, just enough to make it clear he is not dropping it. "I'd like to know the name of the person who's been a pain in my ass for the last year."

That almost gets a smile out of you.

Instead, you study him for a beat, weighing the absurdity of it. This man has spent the better part of a year arriving late to your wreckage, chasing a ghost through bloodstains and vanishing acts, and now here he is in a filthy alley asking for your name like this is anything close to normal.

Maybe it is exhaustion, maybe irritation. Maybe you just want to see what he does with it. So you humor him.

"Mara Hart."

The words land softly, but they do not stay that way.

You watch the shift happen in real time.

It is subtle. A flicker, really. Something in his face changes, eyes narrowing just slightly, like he is turning it over in his head. Fitting the sound of it to the woman standing in front of him with a gun, blood on her hands, and enough fury in her bones to light the whole damned city.

Like he is deciphering it, like your name is some kind of code he did not expect to be given.

When he looks back up at you, something about his expression has sharpened. Not softened, not warmed.

Just settled, filed away... kept.

Then he says, "John Walker."

You stare at him.

The name fits too well. Solid and blunt and military straight down the middle. The kind of name that sounds like it belongs on paperwork, medals, and bad decisions.

A humorless breath leaves you. "Good for you."

That finally pulls the faintest hint of a real smile from him. Crooked, brief, gone almost as soon as it appears.

"Now we're acquainted."

"Wouldn't go that far."

His gaze drifts once to the gun in your hand, then back to your face. "Still," he says. "Better than nameless."

You should leave, you know you should.

Instead, you hold his stare one second longer than necessary, something taut and strange winding itself through the silence now that names have been laid bare between you.

It changes everything.

Because he is not just the soldier now and you are not just the ghost in his crime scenes.

You hate that. You hate more that part of you will remember the sound of his name.

Walker steps back first, just enough to give you the exit. "Get out of here, Hart."

The way he says it, clipped and low, sends something hot and irritated down your spine.

You hide it well.

"Try not to be late to your next cleanup, Walker."

Then you slip into the dark before he can answer, but this time you do not leave empty handed.

You leave with his name and the dangerous knowledge that now he has yours too.

John stays in the alley long after you're gone.

The sirens are closer now, somewhere beyond the mouth of the street, red and blue light threatening to spill around the corner at any second, but he does not move right away. He just stands there, staring at the space where you disappeared, jaw tight, pulse still not settled.

Mara Hart.

He turns the name over once, then again.

It does not fit the way he expected it to. Or maybe it fits too well. Too soft in one breath, too sharp in the next. Like something split clean down the middle. Like the woman who just shoved a gun into his chest and looked ready to pull the trigger without blinking.

For the better part of a year, you had been a ghost to him. Bloodstains, bodies, rumors. A pattern with no face.

Now the ghost has a name and somehow that feels worse.

John exhales hard, scrubbing a hand down his mouth as he glances toward the street where the woman ran. His team should already be closing in. If his timing held, if his people did not screw it up, tonight would still count for something.

Still, all he can think about is the fact that this is the second time he has let you walk away.

When really, he should be bringing you in.

He knows that.

He knows exactly what you are on paper. Vigilante, murderer. A wild card with a body count and a talent for disappearing before anyone can slap cuffs on the mess.

So why didn't he?

John's jaw flexes.

Because every time he gets close enough to touch you, something does not add up.

It is not mercy or hesitation, it is something in your eyes.

Not guilt or fear.

Grief, maybe. Rage twisted so tight around it that one almost passes for the other. Like if he grabbed too hard, the whole damn thing might come apart in his hands.

That should not matter but it does anyway.

A shout echoes from the far end of the block. John straightens, forcing himself back into motion, back into the mission, back into the part of this that still makes sense.

But as he steps out of the alley, your name follows him.

Mara Hart.

And for the first time in a year, the ghost he has been chasing feels dangerously real.