"Unfortunately… you shall be too dead to hear it."

Natasha whipped her head away from the Zola-screen as she heard the automatic doors of the underground room start to close. Beside her, Rodgers turned just as quickly, launching his shield across the room in hopes of wedging the door open. As soon as it left his hand, she knew it wouldn't get there in time – the doors may have been fifty years old but they slid as quickly and smoothly as if they'd been maintained yesterday, which was a definite possibility.

Her cell beeped and she pulled it from her pocket as the Captain stepped forward and caught his shield. "Steve, we got a bogie… short range ballistic, thirty seconds tops." She glanced up, locking eyes with Rodgers, her head still reeling a little inside from information shock.

Steve looked a little stunned too, staring at her slackjawed for a moment before responding. "Who fired it?"

As if they didn't already know the answer. "SHEILD." She looked away, shifting back to survival mode.

"I admit I have been stalling, Captain." Zola cut back in, his accent adding a comic-book villain touch that in the stress of the moment was almost laughable. "Admit it, it's better this way…"

She scooped the drive off the desk, its importance magnified as her stress levels climbed, and turned to search a way out. Her breathing hitched up a notch. Was this really her end? The locked doors weren't an option, not with just them. They were trapped in an underground bunker that she knew would be composed of walls of reinforced concrete several feet thick. No way out… no way out… the seconds crawled by without mercy. Steve was stepping back and forth, looking frantically around the room.

"…we are both of us…"

He looked down, noticed for the first time the grate, ripped it out of the floor and beckoned to her. Natasha lunged towards Steve as much as the dark hole in the ground – in that instant they both represented safety, survival.

"…out of time."

She saw the light of the explosion before she heard the sound or felt the shockwaves hit her body. Time slowed nearly to a stop and with a final cry she flung herself at Steve, feeling his arm wrap securely around her waist as he leapt into the pit, pulling her body underneath his own with a yell. He crouched over her as the world blew apart, the shield held firmly above them both, and chunks of cement began to rain down around them.

Natasha felt herself beginning to go into shock. The Black Widow fought the apathy, fought to stay alert, but Natasha was lulled by the sense that Steve had her now, and she had never seen him let anyone down. The explosion was still intensifying and Rodgers' yell turned to a roar as he fought the weight of the rubble piling down on his body and the intense heat bearing down on them both, his face twisted in a grimace.

Her vision was starting to go. What started as a healthy distance between their bodies (always the gentleman, wasn't he?) shrunk under the pressure until he was pressed bodily against her just trying to save her from the worst of the weight or any impact. Suddenly, it was all too much - the buzzing in her head, numbness in her limbs, the heat and the pressure and the realization that she had finally given up and completely entrusted someone else with her safety. She cried out and then fell unconscious.

The missile hit the bunker and Steve locked eyes with Natasha, reaching out as she lunged towards him with the world going orange in his peripheral. He finally managed to lock an arm around her and pull her underneath him as he jumped into the space under the grate and braced the shield to cover them both.

The bunker began to rain down around him, and it was hot like he'd known it would be, and heavy, but right now he had a singular focus. He would make it out of this, and when he did he wasn't going to be walking out with a body.

He clenched his jaw as the shield became harder and harder to hold up, sinking lower and lower in his crouch, and then he was yelling over the roar of the explosion as the sweat beaded out of his face and the heat and the pressure became almost too much to bear. He felt Natasha suddenly go limp underneath him and he renewed his efforts, recalling the times when his best hadn't been enough. Not today. Not again.

And then, as soon as it had started, it was over. The rubble was no longer raining down, no longer entrapping them in this tiny cave in the floor. The heat subsided to a bearable level, no longer singing the fine hairs on the back of his neck.

Steve gasped in air, coughing as he pulled a lungful of dust. There was a big piece of concrete almost resting on his shield; he grunted and shoved it to the side, lodging it against the pit wall. A few smaller pieces were knocked loose and shifted a little, but with that their safe haven was stable for the time being – like a concrete tent.

He gently reached down, checking pulse and breathing, running a hand along the underside of Natasha's neck. Everything seemed fine there… She had a decent cut on the side of her head where the blood was running into her hair. Something must've hit her. He made a mental note to check for concussion later and turned back to shifting the rubble, letting out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. Because at that moment, he realized what it would have meant to him to lose her. He realized how much it would've been like losing Bucky all over again.

As soon as there was a viable way out he crouched down and scooped Natasha up, cradling her securely against his chest. Adrenaline and exhaustion waged a mini war inside his body but he knew they had to move now – SHIELD was nothing if not thorough. The backup choppers would be here soon. Glancing nervously at the sky, he clutched Tasha tighter and began picking his way out of the ruin, making for the trees.

He was safely under cover of the treeline by the time he heard the helicopters arrive. Silently thanking God that they had ended up in a forest he knew for once, he slumped back against a trunk to catch a moment of rest.

He glanced worriedly at Natasha, wondering if he should bother trying to wake her, wondering if he'd even be able to. She wasn't the type who liked to be fussed over – Lord, she was so very much like Peggy in that way – but right now she seemed so small, without her enormous presence of mind taking up extra space.

"Natasha. Natasha, can you hear me?"

She didn't respond. He frowned, realizing he'd been in the same place too long, and began moving swiftly through the moonlit forest in the direction of the small town he knew was some 8 miles north.

The red headed spy that weighed so lightly on his arms was still rather heavy on his mind. Sometimes he almost felt he was falling for her, in the slow but steady way that he'd fallen for Peggy, as unavoidable as a glacier's slow traverse down a mountainside. They were so similar, even coming from such disparate backgrounds – both strong, independent to a fault, with a sassy sense of humor that expressed itself as almost aloof in Peggy and as dry, biting wit in Natasha. Neither of them looked at him and saw the famous Captain America – to them he was just Steve, just another soldier, and he cherished their disillusionment with his grand public figure, their lack of regard for his reputation.

But then – she was almost becoming more than Peggy had been. He cursed himself a little for thinking it. She was the beautiful woman he watched day in and day out fight for those other than herself, and this made her like Peggy; but she was also the one who followed him fearlessly into whatever misadventures he could dig up, and in this way she was Bucky; and at the bottom of it all she was Natasha – above all, doing what she thought was best, regardless of whose orders she had to disobey, and loving her comrades fiercely til the end, even if she'd never openly admit it. He had to admit, he really admired her a lot.

The thought of love crossed his mind for an instant and he cursed it away, blaming the shock of rediscovering his old enemy and then getting intimate with a bunker explosion. Because his admiration notwithstanding, he reminded himself, she was the Black Widow. She might have a strong brotherly love for all of them, but he'd never seen evidence of her showing romantic feelings for anyone. To her, love would be a silly weakness or a liability – an illogical move that should be avoided. He pressed all thoughts of admiration (what did they call it these days? A "crush"?) to the back of his mind and focused on moving his tired feet silently over the spongy forest floor, stepping to the beat of an old march tune that looped lazily through his mind.

Anyway, the childish part of him couldn't help interjecting, if she fell for anyone it wouldn't be you. You're the fossil, remember? The antique. It would obviously be Clint. Or Banner, or… or someone.

He growled to himself, feeling patently ridiculous and glad that his thoughts were his own, and quickened his pace.

A/N - So I have this listed as a romance story but Steve and Tasha don't really "get anywhere" relationshipwise; it's just a look into their thoughts.