verb.
To come or go back to a place or person.
noun.
The firing of a weapon to counter a shooter's shot.
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They recoiled from their pasts, and in doing so found each other.
But the universe isn't kind enough to let a moment of peace last.
It took se...
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"So, this is..."
"Home." Kat breathed softly past the lump in her throat as she stood in the threshold of the little apartment, her finger still settled over the light switch after illuminating the space, nodding in response to Sam's half-question as she watched her three companions step into the room. "Or, it was, for a while."
It was the strangest feeling, allowing her eyes to take in the features and corners that had existed only in her memory for so long. Had only materialised in a brief mention in passing conversation, but never dwelt on. It almost didn't feel real, stepping back into this world. She had expected more of it to have changed, but Markus had assured her that he hadn't rented the place out in the last year, it was almost exactly as she had left it, that day she had climbed onto her motorbike and raced off into the world of superheroes, spies and HYDRA. Her bookshelves lay undisturbed, her denim jacket still hung by the door, her running shoes tucked on the floor beneath. If it weren't for the thin layer of dust coating the kitchen countertop, she might have believed she had only stepped out for five minutes.
Well, all of her plants were now dead. At least something betrayed the fact that time had passed.
The sight of Natasha, Steve and Sam glancing around the space also unsettled that eerie feeling of familiarity. It took her a second to realise why these people who looked so out of place in her little world sparked the strangest feeling of Deja-vu in her mind. It was the same feeling she had experienced when Bucky had first shown up on her doorstep. That bewildering collision of worlds that forced her to face up to sides of herself that she had kept separate. The Katrina she had been within HYDRA, the Katie she had become in Amsterdam, and the Kat that these people knew. Those three facets of her identity that formed who she had become.
"It's cute." Natasha smiled back at her as she pulled her cap from her head, shaking out her platinum blonde locks and breaking Kat from the reminiscent spell that had settled over her as she stood in the doorway. "Cosy."
"Tiny." Kat corrected her with a tired laugh, dropping her rucksack by the door in the same position it had sat in when she and Bucky had first faced up to the reality that they would have to run from the city at some stage – though at the time, they had believed it would be together. "But it's safe. Markus won't tell a soul that we're here."
"And it has a working shower?" Sam cast her a grin as he shrugged off his own jacket and cast it onto the sofa.
"Go nuts." She assured him, nodding in the direction of the bathroom as she closed and carefully locked the door behind them, running her fingers thoughtfully over the additional lock Bucky had installed for her after insisting that the extra layer of defence could buy them vital seconds if anyone had ever come for them. It had never been needed, of course, but she was glad of it now.
"How many beds?" Natasha hummed as she absently checked the window, drawing the curtains after she had scoped out the surrounding buildings and checked for escape routes in her usual ritual.
