i forgive you (y/ns pov)

Chapter 21: I will fix this

[trigger warning: grief]

A few hours later I sat in my tub, my knees close to my chest, my eyes staring into blank space, my fingers lingering over my lips. My thoughts had wandered off a while ago.

After escaping the warehouse, we spent quiet some time lying on the ground to make sure it was safe for us to move again. We then walked a few hours through the darkness to get back to our car and drove back to the compound. The weather was already cold and rainy during the day but at nighttime, it was brutal. So I ran a hot bath after returning to warm my body before going to bed. I should have been exhausted at this point, but Sams training on one and the mixture of cold air and adrenaline on the other hand both still had me going strong.

On the way back I didn't dare to speak a single word. I tried to avoid even looking at Barnes but every once in a while I caught myself glancing over at him. It wasn't being physically so god damn close to him that scared me. It was the fact that I didn't pull away, that my body was aching for more, that had me on the edge.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

I snapped back out of my thoughts, leaned back and pushed my head under water, breathing out until all the air had left my lungs.

When Barnes entered the office the next day, I was already engrossed in my work.

"Didn't expect you to be up already", he said surprised.

I looked up at him, still sleepy, and pointed towards my coffee mug. He was right, I hadn't been sleeping a lot the night before. I couldn't settle my mind to rest. Eventually I got up frustrated and already took a morning jog, before I decided to put my mind back on the case. When I was working, I was able to push any other distracting thought away.

While I took a closer look at the projectile we found in the tunnels through a magnifying glass, the map was already getting updated with the new, recorded data we took of the building. For a moment Barnes stood still in front of the hologram. I chuckled at the sight of him being completely drawn in by the map slowly building itself. As I practically grew up at S.H.I.E.L.D. facilities and always have had access to their most modern technology, I barely ever noticed how extraordinary our reality actually was. But that definitely wasn't the case for Barnes. Even after all the time he had already spend with the team at the compound and even his time in Wakanda, technology still sometimes freaked him out. His eyes shimmered with the curiosity and inquisitiveness of a little boy who was fascinated by everything he didn't understand yet. As he noticed that I was watching him, he tried playing it cool. He cleared his throat.

"If they find out where we came from, we're screwed", Barnes stated.

I agreed: "There's only one way to find out what they are hiding down there."

"But we can't raid this place with just the two of us."

"We need time and backup", I said.

"And currently we have neither of them", Barnes added.

"The problem is: If we wait too long..."

"They are either gone or prepared", I finished his sentence.

"Did you find out anything about the ammunition, yet?"

He walked around the table to get to the desk, where I was sitting, grabbed one of the chairs from the conference table and sat down right next to me. All I had found out so far was that these weapons probably had nothing to do with any commonly known groups we were already keeping an eye on.