REQUIEM | Avengers

VIII.

- VIII -

After a month of rain and grey skies, the sun had decided to shine. November in New York was dreary and cold, but she was free. Free. When she remembered that, after long nights of waking up in cold sweats, even the grey days didn't seem so bad. The sunny days, though, were spectacular.

It was hard to think, as she walked down the busy street, sidestepping people going to work or wherever it was their lives were taking them, that only three months ago, she had been in Sokovia. Three months since she died. Three months since everything changed.

Now, the arc reactor in her chest clicked gently, her constant company. Then, just as the early afternoon sun crested around the building and she turned the corner, she finally stopped.

She looked at up at the window on the top floor of the three-floor building that looked out over the street. There was a soft light on, but no movement beyond the glass that she could see. So, bending down, she grabbed a small piece of gravel from the edge of the grass that lined the sidewalk, and tossed it at the window.

It clicked against the glass and fell back to the ground. She waited a moment before bending back down to grab another rock, but just as she raised her arm to throw it, the window opened, and a head popped out of it.

"Have you ever heard of knocking?" Steve said, and though his words were annoyed, there was a smile stretching across his lips. From where she stood on the sidewalk, she could see the white sheen of shaving cream across his upper lip and right cheek, streaks of it also down his neck.

"You're late!" she called up at him. She just watched as he checked his watch and his eyes widened.

"You're ten minutes early!" he countered, and she just shrugged.

She was much later than she could have been. She had spent the last hour pacing around her apartment, her palms sweaty and none of her clothes seeming to fit right. Not only because she had gained pounds of muscle and weight, her body thankful for the time off and the rest, but because she couldn't seem to stop the nervous twitching of her hands. What a fool, she had chided herself as she had reached for her door handle and then pulled back again- nervous and shaking and pacing.

"I thought you were going to text me when you were on your way," he called down and she just raised her eyebrows at him.

"Are you telling me you know how to answer a text now?"

He glowered, before ducking his head back through the window and closing it behind her. She chuckled to herself, balancing on the curb as she waited- her heels hanging, and her toes perched on the concrete. In truth, his learning curve with technology had been frighteningly steep, but old habits died hard, and she couldn't help but remember the day he had gotten his first cellphone and looked as if his eyes might bug out of his head.

When he finally walked out of the front door, wearing a thick brown coat that was taught across his shoulders and his favourite pair of dark jeans, he smiled at her.

"You know, I sent an email on this thing the other day," he said, falling into step beside her as they walked down the sidewalk. He held up his phone for dramatic effect. "I'm a fast learner, Ms. Blahov."

"I know," she said simply, ignoring the small wink he sent in her direction. "I mean, I learned how to hack through government databases when I was a child, but I'm sure you'll catch up one day."

She looked up at him with a cheeky smile and he just laughed, a bright sound that had him tilting his head back into the cool breeze, revealing the chorded muscle of his neck. He smelled fresh, like shaving cream and a fire smoke. It was an effort not to lean into him.