REQUIEM | Avengers

XIII.

- XIII -

"What letters?"

The words fell heavy between them. With her newly enhanced hearing, she knew he wasn't breathing. He was frozen before her, a pained, confused look in those blue eyes she knew too well.

"Don't be mean, Nina," he said. She, too, froze for a moment before she realized he meant it- he thought she was teasing him. Despite her new strength, she felt her knees wobble.

"Steve, I'm serious," she breathed. "I don't know what you're talking about."

His eyes widened further. "Nina, I sent you letters- probably a hundred of them."

Her stomach plummeted, and her wobbling knees made her take a step back to catch herself. He continued, and it took all her strength not to ask him to stop.

"I called you, the day the Accords were signed. You should have been there, but Tony told me you had refused to come. It made no sense, but I was so scared and so happy about the night before and I didn't want to give anything away, so I said nothing. But then the Accords went through, and I knew you wouldn't stand for it- I just knew it.

"I called you. I called you as soon as I left the compound that day. I called you again and again, but it kept going to voicemail. With all that had happened the night before, I figured you didn't want to talk to me- that I had done something wrong."

Somewhere distantly, she was nodding along to his words, but she felt frozen on the spot, and could only stare as he spoke. She hadn't received a single call. Was he lying? Was he just trying to win her back? Nothing made sense, but it hadn't for over a year.

"I thought you might want space, and that there was a reason you hadn't picked up the phone or come to see me. That was why I didn't come to see you in person. If you didn't want to see me...if you regretted what had happened...I couldn't force it on you. But I called you, and I sent you a few letters at first. Then the fighting began."

His voice was breathless as he took a step towards her. The sounds of the garden were gone. There were no birds, no trickling water, nothing save for the roaring in her ears.

"When the fighting began between me and Tony, I kept expecting you to appear. I sent more letters, and kept waiting for a reply from you. Bucky told me to go to you...but I thought that if you didn't want to see me, I...I just couldn't make you see me. I kept waiting for a response, or to see you fighting on Tony's side, but you never came.

"I went abroad. It was easier to try to undo what Tony had done without Ross breathing down my neck. I kept sending letters, and kept calling you. Eventually, though, I figured you were...well, that you were done with me. I told myself that as soon as I was home, I would go to you. I almost left the fighting right then- and I would have, if Bucky would have been safe from Tony's wrath."

Thinly veiled anger twisted his face. He was looking at the ground, staring at the dew on the grass. She could see it in perfect clarity- had this been how he had seen? Was that clarity how he had seen her?

"Steve-"

"Nina," he said, his voice so dangerously soft. "Nina, I thought you were getting my letters. I thought you knew I was calling you. The first time I set foot on American soil since being deemed a rebel I came to find you."

That night in the studio. He had looked tired, she had thought. Shrouded and different.

"Steve, I didn't get a single one."

Her voice was barely more than a breath. His eyes pooled with shock as he finally looked back up at her, stepping closer again.

"What-"