I am determined to prove a villain

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.

Rogers is not as good at this game as Romanoff. He is a man who lives the whole of his life in the open and has little knowledge of shadows, little use for subterfuge. Sometimes, his attention will find the right spot a moment too late. More often, Rogers doesn't know to look at all.

This should not be admirable, yet it is.

Nearly three weeks he's been trailing Rogers, quietly watching him, trying to find the footing he so thoroughly lost in Washington. He's less secure than he wants to be, the very sight of the man a perpetual punch to the gut, but curiosity eats at him, fed by an emotion beneath that he can't give a name to.

(lovelovelovelove)

In the long, late afternoon shadows of the gardens, he waits. Watches the figure jog through stands of trees, hurdling effortlessly over bushes, a distant smear of white on green growing rapidly closer. Predictable. Easily avoided.

This isn't how he intended this to go. He hadn't intended anything at all. Yet his right hand pulls the hood down from the stringy mess of his hair, and he takes one deliberate step from behind the pale and spindly trunk of a birch. Not line of sight, just on the periphery.

It'll be enough.

He doesn't realize he's holding his breath.