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.

There are things which he knows, and things which he remembers, but they are seldom both at once. This is the way that it has always been

(no)

understanding kicking up sparks in the empty corners of his brain, woven with instinct to inform him what's true and what isn't

(wrong)

memories distant and unformed, hazy smeared images, impulses that pop and fade like a flashbulb, leaving him dazed, spots in his eyes.

This place he doesn't remember, but he remembers her in it. A cockeyed smile across a tabletop, perfect teeth skimming against a plush bottom lip. When he first sees her here, that shock of fiery red hair brushing a pale cheek, he remembers her through the sight of a rifle and isn't sure why.

He knows who she is, in the obtuse sense: Romanoff, Natasha. Colleague of Rogers, Steve. She's changed her name, and he isn't certain why he knows that, either.

He thinks, maybe, she knows he's there the second before his left forearm presses against her larynx; she's that good. Silently, swiftly, he pulls her from the carpeted hall and into the shadows of an alcove, dragging her back against his chest, arm firm across collar and throat, the soft scrape of metal plate beneath the soft fabric of his hoodie. She could break free if she wanted, and he thinks he'd let her.

She's that good.

"Explain," he says against the warm shell of her ear, voice low and velvet-rough from disuse.

He can smell her shampoo.

He's been here before.