Cheated of feature by dissembling nature;

[grimvisaged]

Earlier today, he'd stood barefoot in his post-shower fog and stared down the hazy figure staring back at him through the filmed bathroom mirror: Dark, bedraggled, indistinct. Fueled by a nameless compulsion, he'd snatched up the razor from its place amongst the neat line of complimentary toiletries, and didn't wipe the steam from the mirror until he'd finished.

It was a poor job, with patches of stubble and shaving cream overlooked, and he can't say whether he feels more or less like himself, not knowing what that feels like in the first place. All he knows is that it felt a little like relief to look into the mirror and see someone different there.

Hair still hanging in a damp and stringy curtain around his freshly-shaven face, he's now sitting in the corner of her room, a figure half in shadow, waiting for her to return.

Unlike Rogers, she almost always knows when he's watching her. She's patient and does not force his hand, but there is volumes to be read in her silent acknowledgment of his presence: The subtle stiffening of her posture or casual flick of her gaze. They speak the same rarefied language, they two, and there is a certain thrill which accompanies the knowledge that he is, in fact, not as singular as he had once believed.

Unlike Rogers, who comes packaged with a compelling yet overwhelming burden, she demands nothing of the man he is nor of the man he used to be. She is simply waiting for the day when his resolve breaks and he does more than watch her from the shadows. They both knew it was coming; it's been coming since he first laid eyes on her, here. It should bother him more how futile it's been, resisting her inexorable pull.

Comments

[regimes_fall]

Natasha was aware that there was someone else in her room the moment she opened the door. It wasn't as though he'd disturbed anything, or even that the very presence or breath of him stirred the air - he was far, far too good for either of those things. It was the way she felt when she knew he was watching her, and the very faint, musky, clean scent of the hotel provided shampoo which she had not used since her first week in the Nexus. Natasha was not without enemies, and who was she to say that he wouldn't try killing her again someday? But she didn't sense this was an ambush or an attack, and instead simply thought it was him finally doing what they'd both been waiting on for months.

She stood motionless by her door for a moment, waiting, but when he made no move from the shadowy corner in which she sensed he was waiting, she shut the door behind her and turned on the light. He was in the corner she'd suspected, and his hair was still quite obviously wet.

"Hello," she said, sitting down her bag but keeping her jacket for the time being. "Your hair is wet. Should I get you a towel?"

Of course, he could've gotten his own towel if he sensed that was what he needed, but sometimes it was better to be offered something than to take it of one's own free will.