black bird

nineteen

"So what happened on that mission in Amsterdam?" Bucky asked Steve while they were cooling down from their run, deciding to walk the last mile of it. It was freezing outside, but neither one of them felt it after running fifteen miles.

"What do you mean?" He asked, knowing he told Bucky everything he needed to know.

"At Nat's party, I grabbed her arm and she flipped her shit on me. Was there something else that went on?" He asked, and as Steve connected the dots, Bucky could tell something else had happened. "What happened on that trip?" Bucky asked again, this time demanding an answer.

"It's not really my place to tell." Steve responded, avoiding the question.

"But you were there and know what happened. It is your place to tell if it's something to do with her safety. And mine, for that matter." He answered, adding a chuckle onto his last statement.

"Those three men she took down tried to rape her, Buck. She put them all on the floor before they had the chance, but it did traumatize her a bit." He told him after a few moments of walking in silence, and he watched Bucky's demeanor change.

"One of them grabbed her arm?" He asked, putting the pieces together himself.

"She had the bruise for a week." Steve replied softly. "I can't stop thinking about it. I should've gone with her, I should have insisted on being in the room. None of this should have ever happened." He continued to ramble on.

"Steve, you can't beat yourself up over this." Bucky butted in.

"But I have to. She should have never gone in that room alone. I was there Buck, I could've stopped it." He continued on. He never revealed it to Emilia, but he had been beating himself up over the incident for the last two weeks. It was just something he did not want to burden her with, so he kept it to himself, even though it was tearing him apart.

"I bet she made the choice to go to that room to fulfill the mission. None of this is on you." He reasoned, trying to get through to him.

"I know, I just wish I could've stopped them from giving her one more thing to look back on during her shitty life." Steve sighed as they made it back to the compound.

"Well you two being involved doesn't make it any easy, but I'm betting you're still making her life better. We all have, I hope. Now we just have to give her new memories instead of the ones she grew up with." He answered with a smile.

"Long as Christmas goes as planned." Steve laughed as they went inside to head to the training room, finding Natasha and Emilia already going at it on the sparring mat. They watched for a few minutes, always finding it odd that Emilia could actually take down Natasha when they both struggled to do so sometimes. They have their strength, which could usually overpower her craftiness, but Emilia had both, so they found it quite entertaining.

Emilia pinned Natasha to the ground, her forearm over her throat. Not enough pressure to choke her, but enough to incapacitate her so she would not move out from under her. She was dead weight on top of her, so Natasha finally took the loss and patted her arm to declare their spar done. Emilia rolled off from on top of her, both of them panting hard after sparring for the last hour. She looked over at Natasha, whose chest was heaving up and down, slowing down as she caught her breath. They both got to their feet, bumping fists and smiling at one another as they looked at the guys.

"Enjoy the show?" Natasha asked as she made her way over to the fridge to grab bottles of water for the both of them.

"It's always exciting entertainment." Bucky snickered as Natasha tossed her a water bottle, making sure to narrowly miss Bucky's head in the process. "Not cool."