The Guide To Moving On

Chapter 31 Part 1- Hurt

Nat's POV

I was awoken by the sound of an alarm and then a shift next to me. I opened my eyes slowly and was immediately met with the sight of a bare chest. I looked up and smiled at the soldier that I had spent the last almost 2 weeks with exclusively.

Waking up next to him every morning was one of the highlights of each day. I reached across him and turned off the alarm before looking up at him. He buried his head into my hair and sighed. 

"Come on Steve, today is the big day, we have to get up." I called and he groaned. 

"Can't we stay here?" He mumbled, his eyes still firmly shut. 

"I know, but you know that we can't." I reasoned and he opened his eyes and looked down at me. He is so cute when he first wakes up in the morning, the lines of worry and responsibility from the previous day erased from his face. 

"Fine." he grumbled, rolling over and sitting up. I got up and sat next to him, both of us staring out the window which overlooked the street below. It was still dark out and the streets were nearly empty for it was only 4:00am. 

We had to get up so early to ensure that we were at the base at the break of dawn. I rested my head on his shoulder and yawned, his arm immediately wrapping around me. It was one of the things about our relationship that I cherished, we had grown very close and these little acts of comfort were something I looked forward to whenever I was around him. 

"Alright, we better get ready." Steve said, breaking the comfortable silence that had fallen over the past 5 minutes. 

I nodded and strode past him to the bathroom. It wasn't until I was finished having a shower that I realised I left my suit in the closet and I had no way of getting it. 

"Steve?" I called through the bathroom door. 

"Yeah?" 

"Would you mind getting my catsuit from the closet? I forgot to grab it. I told him and he agreed, presumably going to get it. A moment later he knocked on the door and I opened it a crack so he could pass it to me. 

"Thank you!" I said as I slipped into my catsuit quickly. I emerged a few moments later and started getting putting weapons on. 

I started fiddling with my widow bites, but the latch on one of them had always been dodgy and it some days didn't want to co-operate. Today was one of those days. As I was about to give up on it, I felt two warm hands wrap around my wrist gently and clasp it on for me. 

I looked up and smiled at him shyly. I am not used to people doing things for me, I am not used to letting people do things for me. And yet, he broke through my emotional barriers as if it were made of butter and helped me. 

How he did that was beyond me, but I was kind of glad in a way. It is nice not having to be independent all of the time. 

"You wouldn't happen to know where my shield is, do you?" He asked, smiling back at me. 

"Yeah, it is in the bottom of the closet near my handguns." I replied simply and he immediately went to go and get it. Securing it on his back he turned back to me. 

"What would I do without you?" He asked timidly, passing me my hand guns that I was yet to grab. 

"Well, for starters, the Captain America would've lost his shield." I replied, grabbing the last of my weapons and securing them. He chuckled lightly and placed his hand on the small of my back, guiding me out the door. 

30 minutes later, we were parked outside of the base that we had been running intel on for the last 2 weeks. It was finally going to matter, the work that we had put in, it all came down to whether or not we could take this base down.