REQUIEM | Avengers

XII.

- XII -

She had never shivered so hard. The snow fell as thick as rain, landing on her in wide flakes that melted into slush as her body warmed them. New York was kind in many ways, but this was not one of them. This kind of cold was so different from the many ways the Red Room had been cold. It bit, but it never drew blood. The snow landed on the ground, but didn't stick for long. As she swerved on the sidewalk, dodging people whose faces she didn't bother to analyze anymore, she remembered being forced to trudge through knee deep snow. She couldn't remember why, or the faces of the other girls that had done it with her. The girls she had killed years later in those last moments before freedom ripped through her world like a whip.

The memories came and went, falling like the snow to the ground at her feet. A small smile pulled at her lips. In the months after Ultron, she had found herself resting for the first time in her life. Thoughts had come like a plague, yanking her down into a depthless pit of...herself. It had been inescapable she had thought, then. It had felt like it would never end.

Any metal under her hand had been a gun, any splash of red, blood; and she would spiral down into the terror of her own heart. Sometimes it would take weeks until she was able to make it back to the surface of herself once again. But time kept moving. Time kept passing, and as she learned to breath on her own again, how to think and feel and live in her own skin, the depths became shallower.

Sometimes, she would still fall. Sometimes, she would remember the young girl she had once been. She would think about those other young girls that had shared her room all those years and what had happened to them. All those strange angles of their bodies in the end. Resurfacing would take days.

She would bury herself in bed, surround herself in silence and isolation. She would dance and train and garden and do anything to keep the roaring of her mind at bay. Today, though, the thoughts came and went. She remembered them, felt them, and allowed them to settle lightly on her heart before they went once again.

Her apartment building was stiflingly warm after the crisp walk. Her bag was covered in a layer of slush that she shirked onto her welcome mat before pressing her thumb into the locking mechanism in the door. No regular lock had been good enough for an Avenger, Tony had said. There was a low hum and the door clicked open. She nudged it with her hip, and allowed the scent of freshly baking bread to warm her further as she closed the door behind her with her foot.

Humming met her ears, gentle and low from the kitchen. She paused in the hallway, her jacket dripping and her cheeks stinging. She listened, frozen in place, as the gentle music of Steve met her. Another second passed, and the humming stopped. Steve poked his head out from the kitchen, looking at her with a quizzical tilt of his head.

"What're you doing just standing there? Dry off! You'll catch a cold, you know."

He ducked back into the kitchen. She laughed to herself as she kicked off her shoes, dropping the grocery bag onto the bench that lined the hall and shrugged off her coat. He had been thawed for long enough now that he had adopted many modern ideas, but it made her smile when he forgot about modern medicine. He had grown up in a world where a bad flu could have meant death, and she didn't think that would ever leave the super soldier.

She pulled her wet hair into a bun at the nape of her neck, a small droplet of water sent a shive down her spine.

In the kitchen, Steve had busied himself with dinner preparations. She could see a loaf of bread in the oven, another loaf ready and resting on the counter. She unloaded the bag, and he looked up from the bowl in his hands, filled with leafy greens.