The Ghost [Marvel | Steve Rogers]

Chapter 39

Dresden, Germany

Spring 2016

She knew Steve was right. She really did.

But that didn't stop her apprehension from threatening to get the better of her once again.

It certainly didn't help that her embarrassment from losing her composure and blurting out her irrational fears to Steve still lingered. Bewilderingly, she was almost glad on some level that it had been Steve she'd unburdened on—she really had come to trust him more than almost anyone, she marvelled with a flood of undeniable affection—but that didn't quite overshadow how mortifying it had been to admit just how unbalanced the very prospect of talking to Barnes had left her.

Still, there had been a certain cathartic benefit to her admission. She had to admit to that.

Just as she had to admit he'd somehow managed to say precisely the right thing to help her get her irrational outburst of emotion back under control, playing into her reliance on preparation, reminding her she knew what she was up against even if it didn't wholly feel that way. Not to mention the unexpected amount of comfort she'd gotten from the way he'd let her lean against him, somehow knowing that anything more would only bring her discomfort in that moment despite the way a small part of her had craved being pulled into his embrace.

And from the way his fingers had threaded, warm and steady, through hers.

It was then that it hit her. More than trust, she felt safe around Steve. Safe enough to admit—aloud—that she was...afraid. Something she'd never truly done before.

Not even with her sister.

What was more, he had proven worthy of that trust. He hadn't pitied or coddled her over it. He hadn't looked down on her, or dismissed it. Instead, he had helped push her past it. It was...nice, being able to rely on him, on his support. Part of her insisted it was a sign of weakness...but...but it really didn't feel that way just as it didn't feel that way when she leaned on Natasha. It was a baffling and almost unsettling realization and flew in the face of everything she'd ever been taught.

Yet, at the same time it felt so...natural...

No, he was helping her to feel...whole in a way she'd never known before. In a way her relationship with her sister and friendship with the Bartons had been starting to feel...but, somehow...more.

She couldn't entirely explain it.

But then, she didn't entirely understand the feeling enough to properly try.

He made her feel like she was capable of being far more than just what the Red Room and her troubled past had moulded her into.

Like she was more.

As if she hadn't fallen for him enough already...

Oh God, what was she going to do...she shouldn't be even thinking of entertaining the idea that there could be more between them...and yet...

Steve stepped away then and, with the corner of his mouth quirking in a final, encouraging grin, he excused himself. She fought the way her breath tried to hitch, forcing her heart rate to remain steady. She didn't entirely succeed.

"I'll take watch," he said with a glance to Barnes and Nadine, a subtle air of duty settling around him. Not that it was wholly for duty's sake of course.

Nadine breathed in a long, steadying breath.

Steve was right. She needed to talk to Barnes. To get her ghosts out in the open and off her back. Because her normal methods of coping with the shadows of her past—pushing them aside and compartmentalizing them away—weren't working anymore. Not with Barnes here, viscerally reminding her of what she had done to him and the secrets she still kept from him with his presence alone. And with what they were set to face? It was a distraction none of them could afford. What had happened in Bucharest and in the JCTC had made that abundantly clear. She had faltered. She had let her personal feelings cloud her judgement and dull her instincts. All because she had let him, and more critically the history between them, get to her.