Maria Hill is trained for proper response to trauma. She has dragged wounded agents through crossfires on countless occasions. Once, she remembers tying a makeshift tourniquet with a dead sniper's shirt, trying to prevent another man from losing (what was left of) his arm.

The man's eyes were wide, his pupils dark and lucid. "It hurts," he moaned as he cringed away.

"Dying hurts more," Maria said, tying the shirt tighter. "Just ask Coulson."

When the hostiles were neutralized, S.H.I.E.L.D. transported the wounded agent directly to surgery. Maria never did learn of his fate; she had other missions to complete, which left no space in her mind for distractions. She was used to explosions on the horizon, bullets whizzing overhead, limbs that went all the wrong ways. She could compartmentalize.

Natasha taught her that.

Maria can still remember her first mission alongside the infamous assassin. "So tell me, Black Widow," she asked as she shifted their car into drive. "What's your real name?"

Natasha's lips lifted at the corners, but not enough to be considered a smile; it was a predatory smirk, cold and faraway. "That's classified."

"Your skill set?"

"Also classified."

Maria drove in silence, watching her passenger in her peripheral vision. Minutes passed uneventfully. When the grenade went off (because of course they would be ambushed on their first mission together) — when Maria sprinted out of the smoke, coughing, her pistol in hand — she cast a cutting glare in the Black Widow's direction. "Give me one reason to trust you."

Avoiding the agent's eyes, Natasha fired her twin pistols in tandem. Two shadows, barely visible through the wreckage, collapsed to their knees. "That's two," she said.

"What?"

"Reasons to trust me."

Maria Hill would always have her doubts. Suspicion was a critical aspect of her nature; it set her above lesser agents whose fatal flaw was trust. She was always expecting a bullet in the back, always prepared to be blindsided.

But Maria never questioned the Black Widow again.

Amidst an ambush, the agent and the assassin forged a fragile trust. Time would strengthen it into a bond of steel, unbreakable. Natasha would clean Maria's bullet wounds after battle. Maria would silence her subuordinates' questions when Natasha arrived at work pale and sleepless. Sometimes, in between missions, they would go out for coffee and talk about anything but their assignments, and the world would feel a little less broken.

Maria Hill can count the things of which she is certain on one hand. Steady support from Natasha Romanoff, her sister in arms, is one of them.

And so it follows that, when Sharon Carter calls at three AM — damn near hysterical about Steve and the Winter Soldier and a flashbang grenade — Maria Hill feels like a hand of ice has closed around her heart.

"I'm on my way," she says, barely shrugging on a leather jacket before stepping out into the night. "I'll comm Fury."

As she drives, Maria tries to find her center — something to which she can safely tether herself, something to keep her grounded — but she's been sweeping up S.H.I.E.L.D.'s jagged pieces for weeks, and she isn't sure if trust still exists for people like her.

Maria is already unsteady when she reaches Steve's house. She comes undone when she locates (what's left of) Natasha Romanoff. At first glance, all she sees is raw skin and blood, and there's a sick scent of burned flesh in the air, and as fear clamps her chest, she turns to Steve and asks, "Where is she?" (because there's only the splotch of crimson and black,) and Steve pales at the question. He is kneeling beside the blood, which doesn't make sense if Nat—

Oh God please no it can't be oh God oh God no —

Maria stares at the ruined, bloody thing. "Natasha?"

The thing's mouth opens; Maria wasn't able to locate a mouth until now. "Get me... the hell... out of... here."

Maria's stomach lurches. Every inch of her feels cold. "Natasha," she says again, unable to fathom.

Natasha coughs, blood bubbling on her lips. "Get... me... out."

Abruptly, a shadow moves in the corner. Maria draws her pistol on instinct, poised to pull the trigger. "Freeze!"

The Winter Soldier steps forward, blood and tears streaking his cheeks. His arm of flesh is shuddering, from the shoulder to the fingertips. "You can't take her," he rasps. "I'm not leaving her."

"She needs medical care immediately."

"Take me with her."

Maria holds his tortured gaze. "I'm afraid that's not an option."

With his metal arm, the Soldier grips his wrist of flesh to still its shaking. "I won't leave her."

Steve swallows. "James —"

"I won't," the Soldier says. His eyes squeeze tightly shut, his jaw tensing, as though he is trying to lock a scream inside of his skull.

Outside, an engine roars and then cuts off.

"That man," Maria sighs. She wipes sweat from her forehead with the back of a hand. "Always with expert timing."

As if on cue, a door opens down the hall. Seconds later, Nick Fury enters the room, sauntering silently to Maria Hill's side. Years of working side by side have caused them to evolve their own unspoken language. Maria nods to him, then gestures to the Soldier — a wordless signal.

"Nickolas J. Fury?" The Soldier stares, his blank eyes revealing that he is too shocked to move.

"No need for the pleasantries," Fury says. He retrieves a device from his coat pocket, his finger tense against its trigger. "Just call me Nick."

The Soldier blinks. "I thought I —"

Fury presses the device to the Soldier's throat, and immediately, the Soldier crashes to the floor. He twitches for several seconds, his nerves firing spasmodically, save for his arm of metal (which is designed to resist electric shocks or pulses.)

Fury sighs. "Killed me?" he says, turning away.

The Soldier lies still, unconscious. He might look peaceful, if not for the uneven pattern of bruises and blood against his skin.

Steve Rogers straightens, groaning as his (surely broken) ribs shift. "Was that really necessary?"

Fury rolls his good eye. "Somebody needed to electroshock his ass," he says. Then his expression hardens. "I pulled some strings at the hospital. There's a medical team on the way."

~x~X~x~

Every nerve in Natasha's body is screaming. She is vaguely aware of helicopter blades, of scrambling paramedics, of Fury arguing with Steve.

"I'm going with her."

"Your ribs are broken."

"She did this for me, to save my life. And if she dies on the trip to that hospital, she will not die alone, do you understand me?"

"You can't fix this."

"I let her go once, and not an hour has gone by when I didn't regret it."

"Natasha chose this. She threw herself headlong on to an grenade, and trust me, Rogers, she knew the implications of her actions."

"If she dies, her blood is on my head."

"She must have damn well thought you were worth it."

Natasha's throat is dry. The world blinks in and out of focus, as though a shadow is passing over the sun.

Maria is at her side, gripping the stretcher because her hand is too badly damaged. "You're going to be okay, Natasha," she says, but the color has drained from her face. "You're going to be okay."

As the paramedics load Natasha into the helicopter, she catches final glimpses of her allies. Steve screams after her, screams her true name — until Fury uses the shock device again, at which point he crumbles to the concrete. An additional team of medics is loading the Soldier into a van. Maria Hill has keeled over and is throwing up, retching until there's nothing left to expel.

Natasha takes a shuddering breath.

I should be dead, she thinks, and then darkness slips over her eyes.

~x~X~x~

The journey to the hospital is a moment and a forever.

Steve Rogers is cast adrift, tempest-tossed through a dreamless sleep. Once, he thinks he dances with the skeleton — and when he looks down, his own arms are nothing but fleshless bones — but then the ballroom turns to ash, and embers swallow the vision.

Natasha Romanoff is trapped beneath the waves, held fast by the cold and the dark. Once, her wandering mind dredges up her ledger — only it's been wiped clean, every transgression erased, because she wears the red on the outside now, plastered on every inch of her seared skin — and she thinks maybe she deserves it.

Once, James Buchanan Barnes wakes — his eyes lucid, fixed upon the nearest medic — and he chokes out a ragged, "I'm sorry," before they inject a needle into his arm of flesh.

He doesn't resist because slipping back into half-sleep is effortless and always has been.

~x~X~x~

Steve comes awake with a raw gasp. He turns his head, subconsciously expecting to see Natasha — but there's only the edge of his hospital bed and a call nurse button and a white wall, and for an instant, he forgets to breathe.

"On your left."

Steve turns his head. Groggily, he mumbles, "Sam?"

"Keep your voice down," the Falcon says, and there's an edge to his voice, but he's smiling because of course he is. (That's what makes Sam Wilson a true hero, not only a soldier; he can smile while the world comes crashing down.) "I'm not supposed to be here."

Steve blinks the sleep out of his eyes. "Natalia," he says, terror seizing him. "Is she —"

"She's still in surgery."

"Something tells me there will be a lot of surgeries."

Sam's smile turns lopsided. "Yeah," he says. "There will."

There was so much red, so much blackened skin... Steve cannot imagine the amount of emergency treatment she must require. Worse, he cannot imagine that she will recover.

Fear, insidious, twists around Steve's ankles. He blinks to dispel his visions of skeletons and ash.

"I'm sorry, by the way," Sam says. "About everything that happened."

Steve sits up in bed, ignoring the dull stabs of pain in his ribs. "Why are you here, Sam?"

In the hall, a nurse is giggling at something her friend said. The sound grows louder — closer — and Sam draws the curtain shut, hiding Steve and himself from view.

"There's something you should know," Sam says. "About Natasha."

"If this is something from her file —"

"You read it?"

Steve clenches his jaw. "No," he says, his voice low. "I didn't."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because I trust her."

"Let me get this straight." Sam crosses his arms. "Your agency was invaded by a Nazi splinter cell, your best friend tried to kill you — twice — and here you are, having broken half your ribs, lecturing me about trust."

Steve takes a breath. "Trust," he says, "isn't so simple. It's not about having a reason; it's about making a choice. To have faith. To believe that people can be better."

"She's a trained killer, Steve."

"But that's not all she is."

Sam shakes his head. "I didn't come to question your life choices," he says. "This isn't about her mistakes. It's about giving you some hope."

"I don't understand," Steve says, but the word hope is fluttering around in his chest, faster and faster, its wings beating against his sore ribs.

"Steve," Sam says, and his voice is so serious that Steve's throat tightens (because Sam is nothing if not eternally lighthearted.) "You aren't the only one who received a super-soldier serum."

~x~X~x~

The folder is thin and unassuming, but the harsh red stamp of CLASSIFIED across its cover marks it as far from ordinary. Steve runs his fingers over the letters for several minutes before gathering the courage to open the file.

Subject: Natalia Alianovna Romanova

Codename: Black Widow

Primary Aliases: Natasha Romanoff, Natalie Rushman

Steve swallows. As he lay bleeding beside the Potomac, he made a promise to this woman — an honest vow that he would not prevent her from having secrets. His heart clamps (because he is nothing if not honest.)

Regardless of her past, Steve is already hopelessly entangled with the Black Widow. He would trust her all the same, no matter what he discovered. But there is a part of him that froze in the ice, the part that completely and utterly believed he would walk Peggy Carter down the aisle.

Even trust is born from fear of all one might lose otherwise; it is a shout into the void, a scramble for a handhold. It is a far cry from true hope, a great distance from effortless certainty.

Steve will trust Natasha come hell or high water. There will always be a piece of him that says she can be better, stubbornly insisting that the Black Widow is her shadow, not her silhouette. But for that fragile trust to become unwavering hope — that will take time, and being huddled close together in the crossfire, and stolen glances and fleeting laughs, and promises all the better for being unspoken.

Steve will always know that he and Natasha could be something more. But for him to embrace that concept, to call her his and to call himself hers, involves taking a leap into the unknown.

The last time Steve did that, he lost seventy years. He lost his chance to love Peggy Carter.

Steve swore he wouldn't read Natasha's records. On one hand, he did so to spare her further pain; on the other, he did so for fear that his doubts would destroy whatever it is they have.

A shard of the ice that once imprisoned him remains embedded in his heart. Steve will always believe in Natasha; he is afraid to fully believe in them, together. Truth be told, he fears that knowledge of her bloody history would only widen that hidden chasm.

But for him to truly know her — to build beauty out of the past, and not merely to embrace the present — he must be brave enough to delve into her darker times.

And so, for the first time in seventy years, Steve Rogers breaks a promise. He opens the folder, and he begins to read.

As an elite member of the Red Room training program, Romanova received the Russian variation of the super-soldier serum. It enhanced her endurance, stretched the limits of her physical capabilities, severely slowed her aging process, and enabled her immune system to initiate rapid healing from even the most crippling of injuries...

~x~X~x~

Weeks pass.

Steve's house has been marked as a crime scene, cut off with yellow caution tape, so he spends countless nights in the hospital waiting room. "You can crash at my place," Sam insists, but Steve doesn't always listen. Often, the Falcon simply brings a blanket and a pillow to the hospital. Steve accepts these gifts with a weary smile, but he still refuses to leave the waiting room.

Bucky Barnes has been placed under quarantine, permitted to have only strictly limited contact with outsiders. Steve's presence is explicitly forbidden until later notice. Of course, notice never comes. Occasionally, nurses provide updates — he spoke several sentences in English today, he was able to tell us his name and his regiment number, he realized it was the twenty-first century before his usual nervous breakdown — but these are sporadic, and they frequently serve to unnerve Steve all the more. (Has the world come to this, that Bucky Barnes knowing his own name is a glorious victory?)

Natasha endures surgery upon surgery, and is usually sedated in between to spare her the agony of waking. Once, in the briefest instant of clarity, she opens her heavy eyes and asks if Steve is all right, but they inject her with something before she can hear the answer (he is, and he asks about you every day.)

Steve waits, and he trusts, and he prays. And he waits.

And he waits.

And one day, a nurse steps into the waiting room and says, "She wants to see you."

~x~X~x~

The fifth time they touch, she imagines that it won't be the last.

When Steve Rogers approaches her hospital bed, his grin is wide enough to illuminate the room. "Natalia," he says, and he kneels beside her hospital bed, his fingers twisted together as if in a thank you prayer. His breath hitches. "Natalia..." He closes his eyes. "I thought... I was afraid that —"

"I'm sorry," she says. The words emerge hoarsely; it has been a long time since she spoke.

Steve shakes his head. "Don't be."

Natasha looks into his eyes, blue blue blue, like they could wash her every bloodstain away. These past weeks, she missed those eyes more than she'll ever admit.

"I'm sorry, Steve," she says. "I never meant to put you through this."

Steve grips the edge of her hospital bed. "You meant to die?"

"For you," she says, holding his gaze. Her heart pounds in her throat, in her fingertips. "To give you a second chance."

"At what?"

"At who you want to be."

Steve's lips curve into a smile, achingly beautiful. "I owe you," he says.

She smiles back. "It's okay."

They sit together in silence, renewed in the presence of each other.

Steve lifts his hand from the edge of her hospital bed. He reaches for her, then hesitates. Natasha knows what he sees: a broken echo of a girl, covered nearly head to toe in bandages. She also knows what he truly sees — something so much more than a wounded, weary woman in a hospital gown — and the thought makes her pulse stumble.

Steve's hand trembles. "Can I...?"

She doesn't reply; only lifts her hand, intertwining her fingers with his. They sit that way for a minute or a forever (she's lost in the moment,) not speaking.

It has been weeks since anyone touched Natasha tenderly. Her hand isn't the only thing that's warm; heat spreads through her whole arm, all the way up to her shoulder. It settles in her chest and pieces her back together. Sighing, she closes her eyes.

Suddenly, Steve says, "It's okay, you know."

"What?"

"To have loved him."

Startled, Natasha blinks. "Steve —"

"I loved Peggy," he says, his voice cracking on her name. "I didn't know her for very long, but I'm sure I loved her." He sighs. "And you loved him."

Natasha looks away. "It was a long time ago," she breathes.

"But you loved him," Steve says. "And it's okay." He squeezes her hand. "I wanted you to know that."

She nods. "Thank you."

"Anytime," Steve says, but then his expression darkens.

"What is it?"

He swallows. "I read your files."

Natasha opens her mouth to say something — to say anything at all — but nothing comes out, so he keeps talking.

"I told myself I hadn't read them because I was protecting you. But really, it's because I was afraid." Steve's face flushes. With a deep breath, he releases her hand. "I'm sorry for that."

"I'm sorry for lying."

"We have a lot of things to be sorry for, don't we?"

Natasha laughs (it's a lovely sound, and she can't remember the last time she heard it.) "Yeah," she says. "We do."

"If I wanted to get even, I would start making jokes about your real age."

She arches an eyebrow, even though he can't see it through the bandages. "Don't you dare."

Steve laughs, and it makes her laugh again, too, and laughing is such a peculiar thing, and she thinks she could get used to it.

She looks at him, her heart pounding. "I'm not sorry for saving you."

"I know."

"I would do it again."

"I know."

Steve leans down, so that their foreheads are nearly touching. She exhales. All the tension ebbs from her body. He rests one hand against her cheek, gentle, his skin barely brushing hers, and for the first time since the grenade, every inch of her feels whole.

"I love you," Steve says.

She cradles his face between her hands. "I know," she says, and then she pulls his lips to hers.

And maybe she'll never say, I love you. Maybe he'll stay by her side from now on, and after every battle they face, she'll say, I owe you. Maybe someday he'll hold her flush against him in the dark, and she'll trace the firm line of his jaw and whisper,I want you. Maybe someday he'll walk her down the aisle, and she'll wear white (without a trace of red,) and she'll breathe, I choose you, now and tomorrow and forever.

And maybe Natalia will never say,I love you, but she kisses Steve like she does. And he kisses back like he believes her.

It's the fifth time they touch, and recklessly, she imagines that it won't be the last.

It isn't.

THE END

A/N: I chose "Your Guardian Angel" by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus as this last installment's song, because I came across it while writing and listened to it on repeat for the entirety of the final scene.

I can't even express how much you, the readers, mean to me. Every follower, every favorite, every review, is amazing. I've been writing a novel since 2012, and for a while, something stopped me from working on revisions. Maybe it was fear, or maybe mere insecurity, or maybe I was intimidated by the sheer scope of the project. I don't know. But each and every one of you has reminded me why I write, and why I need to write the story that lives inside of me. I went back to revisions today. I plan to finish his round of edits before summer is over. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I turn 17 on Wednesday, so I consider this story's completion to be a gift to myself. My parents' present to me is Philadelphia Comic Con tickets for Saturday — so if you happen to be there and you see a teenage girl, ridiculously excited, with curly red hair and a blue V-neck T-shirt that says NERD in big white letters, that's me. Say hello. I love making new friends.

I will say it one more time: Thank you. All of you.

Now I have a novel to finish, and a dream of publication to chase...

— Shadows