Wakanda

Spring 2016

As no one had told them they were to stay in the rooms provided, Nadine felt no compunctions against wandering the halls of the Mount Bashenga facility. She limited herself to the halls, both not wanting to strain their host's hospitality or break their trust by poking around where she wasn't wanted of course, but also because the goings on within the facility—though fascinating and informative she was sure—beyond how it pertained to her and her team were honestly of little interest to her in that moment. She simply couldn't muster the motivation to apply her skills to satisfy her long-ingrained need to learn as much as she could when faced with the unknown and the uncertain—both of which described their hosts and Wakanda as a whole to a 'T'.

While undoubtedly enlightening about their hosts as poking around would be, she had other things occupying her thoughts.

So she didn't. Nadine just wandered, her thoughts unsettled—if mercifully aimless and unfocused—enough that she knew she wasn't about to settle enough to even consider returning sleep again any time soon.

She wasn't sure why she wasn't used to it by now, really. In many ways, it had become unsettlingly normal on an almost regular basis since she'd found herself falling in with the Avengers over a year before. So much had happened since then. So much had happened just in the past couple days! That she was too restless to sleep probably shouldn't be a surprise, even considering her activities with Steve on top of the emotional and physical strain the last week had put her through.

Truthfully, part of her felt like she could easily sleep for a month...

And yet here she was. Wandering the facility, unable to settle her thoughts enough to fall back asleep.

Especially not given what specifically was occupying those thoughts in that moment.

Out beyond the research facility, the earliest tint of dawn was beginning to wake on the horizon, the stark darkness of the night sky beginning to fade into an ombre of soft yellows and pale, gentle blues.

Nadine wasn't sure just how long she'd been wandering anymore. When she'd carefully extricated herself from Steve's arms, it had still been dark—perhaps with the faintest lightening of the sky to the east.

Sleep had come quickly nestled comfortably beside him, but it hadn't stayed. All too soon consciousness began to return and eventually took hold, the drowsy fog clinging to her thoughts fading, taking with it any chance of falling back asleep.

And before long she'd needed to get up.

She'd been too warm, too restless.

Too awake.

She'd just needed to move.

It was how she found herself aimlessly wandering the facility, trying not to let her thoughts run away with her. Thankfully, it so far seemed to be working. Mostly. Her thoughts had so far remained nebulous and fluid, not lingering too long on any one thing. And she was alright with that.

She was still tired, even if her mind and body didn't seem interested in actually letting her sleep.

Still, they were tending toward heavier topics regardless; what to do next, where to go, anxieties about and for Nina and the Twins, her future with Steve, worry for Clint and his family...

...Barnes.

Her already sedate pace slowed further until she simply stopped.

Apparently her mindless wandering hadn't been quite so mindless after all.

Apparently her feet had unconsciously taken her to the corridor just outside the Private Lab where Barnes' cryopod had been placed.

Nadine's throat threatened to close.

Especially at what she glimpsed through the frosted glass.

A pang of guilt twisted in her belly at the realization. That she stood outside the room where Barnes was waiting, isolated and frozen while Iris stayed patiently, if anxiously by his side.

And meanwhile she and Steve had gone and fallen into bed with each other before he'd even been under more than a couple hours. Though completely unaware in stasis as he was and though still physically close, he was still separated from the people he cared about most, while she and his friend—

Nadine forcibly shook the thought away. There was no point in dwelling. He'd chosen this and it had given him peace. He'd known what he was doing. What he was missing.

But he believed to risk to outweigh the cost. He believed that it was a worthwhile sacrifice.

He'd needed to do it.

He'd needed to take his life back.

So he had.

And soon enough Shuri would set him right, Nadine reassured herself for the umpteenth time. Shuri would find a way to safely remove his programming. Then he'd be woken up and free to take his own comfort with the woman he loved. He'd be free to reunite with his daughter and his best friend.

He'd finally be free of the programming that had enslaved and tortured him for the last seventy years. Free of the programming that put the people he cared about most in very real danger.

He wouldn't begrudge Nadine and Steve their time together anymore than she'd begrudge it him if their positions were reversed. He'd assured them of that, for heaven's sake. Steve and—dare she admit it in spite of the virulent little voice reminiscent of her training mistress that still lingered in the back of her mind that always hissed otherwise—she had endured enough of their own darkness. Especially the last few days.

They...deserved to pursue their own happiness...right? To find...solace in each other, be it emotionally, physically or otherwise? She knew without the shadow of a doubt that Steve did. And she knew that he—and probably Barnes as well, if she were being honest—would insist the same of her whether she personally felt it deserved or not.

And dammit if she didn't want it. Because she did. And not just the physical release. She...needed the closeness, the comfort that came from Steve's presence alone, solid and steady and safe. He felt like home and there was no way in hell she was ever going to let that go.

There was no way she was ever going to let him go.

Now that she knew what it was like? To care for someone—to love someone so deeply and to know they cared—loved her just as much in return?

She would fight for it with everything she had just as she'd fought for Nina.

And she would fight beside Steve without hesitation.

Her head tilted faintly as she considered the dark, blurred form on the other side of the frosted glass. From what little she could make out, Barnes' girl had wheeled one of the chairs over from one of the labs' stations to sit in front of the pod. To sit next to Barnes.

Close, but still so far.

And as she watched, Iris' indistinct form seemed to shrink, the movement suggesting that she'd curled further in on herself, her chin lowering to where she'd likely hugged her knees to her chest.

Nadine unconsciously shifted her weight to her left foot. She should leave. The younger woman wouldn't want her interrupting. Not when she was likely grieving after a fashion. She likely needed time to herself. Nadine would if she were in Iris' shoes. If it had been Steve frozen? If she'd barely had more than a moment to say goodbye after so long apart? Even if she couldn't touch him, couldn't hear his voice or even his breathing to reassure herself he was alright? Not knowing for how long he'd be frozen—weeks, months...years? Plagued by a sickening uncertainty that he...that he might never wake up? Nadine swallowed thickly, a faint, unwelcome prickling waking behind her eyes.

Fearing that she might have just said goodbye for good?

She would want to just be there, with him.

Just the two of them. Alone.

She wouldn't want a stranger intruding on her privacy.

Nadine sighed heavily.

But even so, even as a clenching, sympathetic ache formed in her chest, making it hard to breathe just contemplating what Iris must be feeling, a weight settled around her.

She'd made a promise to explain.

But she shook it away. It could wait.

It wasn't a good time.

No, it was better if Nadine just left the hazel-eyed woman alone for now.

Her eyes slipping shut, she forced back the aching well of emotion, inhaling a deep, bracing breath as she drew her composure back around herself like she was slipping on a jacket. Satisfied that she once more had herself back under control, she looked back up to the blurred form sitting in front of the faintly illuminated cryopod.

Only to feel the cool metal of the door handle giving way beneath her hand and, even as she realized what she was doing, she had stepped almost silently through the door.

Nadine didn't know how long she stood there, just...watching.

It might have been a few seconds or an hour, caught in an odd timeless moment, not moving, not even breathing.

As she'd suspected, Iris had indeed wheeled one of the lab's chairs over to sit just slightly off to the side of Barnes' cryopod, sitting with her legs hugged close to her chest and her chin propped on her knees, staring up at his peaceful features with bright, distant eyes.

But it didn't last, and the moment was broken when Iris stiffened, giving herself a little shake as she turned to Nadine with a start. Sniffing, she dashed the back of her hand across her cheek as she unfolded herself stiffly from the chair.

"I'm sorry," she said softly, her voice catching faintly, both from the riot of emotion Nadine could recognize all too well from her features alone as well as from of sitting so long without speaking, "do you—oh, you're...you're not Wakandan," she blurted out, startled.

Nadine grinned wryly despite herself. "What gave it away," she teased lightly. As intended, Iris grinned tentatively, a small, hitching chuckle hiccupping free.

"Sorry." A faint flush was beginning to darken her cheeks. "I just wasn't, well...expecting anyone," she said hesitantly, her gaze shifting back to Barnes. Nadine considered her, a sympathetic flutter trembling in her already tight chest as she too glanced to Barnes before turning her considering gaze back to the young woman in front of him.

"You don't need to apologize," Nadine assured her, drawing Iris' attention back to her. "I'm interrupting." Iris blinked, straightening slightly.

"What? No, I—it's okay," she said in a nervous rush, her hands clasping tight for a moment before she looked down to them, frowning faintly at her pale knuckles. Slowly, she loosened her grip, absently rubbing at the back of her left hand as she looked back up to Nadine. "I just..." though she trailed off, her eyes bright again as she looked back to her lap, Nadine had little trouble understanding.

Though Iris undoubtedly felt it far, far more potently than she did, Nadine had to admit that, even having only truly had the chance to get to know the real Barnes for as brief a time as she had, she felt the same.

"You miss him even though he's right there." Iris' gaze snapped up to Nadine, those bright hazel eyes wide with what Nadine could only describe as hopeful relief.

"I—yes," she agreed, sagging. "That's...yes, that's it exactly." Nadine smiled faintly, looking to Barnes.

He really did look so...peaceful. Even for all that the glass of the pod was faintly frosted from the intense cold sustained within the pod and the pale grey strapping holding Barnes in place, it really did look like he was just sleeping. More than that, he truly looked at peace, the tension that had always suffused his powerful frame and always shadowed his features to some degree when he was awake gone.

"You know him?" It was such a small, sad yet hopeful question. Nadine fought back the swell of emotion that threatened to press against her throat.

God, how was she supposed to answer.

It was then that all her deeply-ingrained training, all her carefully-honed instincts for knowing the right things to say even under pressure to accomplish whatever was needed, failed her.

That was happening a lot recently, she realized with a clench in her gut.

"I do," was all she could bring herself to say. It was softly spoken but mercifully didn't betray the discomfort and guilt she suddenly felt saying it to the woman sitting next to her.

"How?" And Nadine's eyes slid shut for a brief, pained moment at Iris' quiet, curious tone. Drawing in a slow, steadying breath she opened her eyes and looked to Iris, careful to keep her features as open as her quivering emotions would allow. But before she could help herself, her gaze slid back to Barnes. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Iris do the same.

How, indeed... How on earth was she supposed to explain?

She let out a heavy sigh.

Honestly, she supposed.

If Iris knew half as much about Barnes as she suspected given what Sam had told her, she would understand.

She hoped.

"It was a long time ago," Nadine finally started softly, each word deliberate and...dammit, did she really need to sound so defeated? Instinctively her chin lifted and the breath she drew in summoned long-ingrained instincts to hide behind her impassive masks and detached frankness. But as she let the breath go, looking at Barnes? With his sacrifices and everything he'd been through—the things he'd said to her, the catharsis and closure they'd somehow managed to find together—weighing on her mind? All those instincts bewilderingly went with it, leaving her feeling suddenly weary.

She looked to Iris, then. And just as incomprehensibly the anxious knots in her gut began to ease at the compassionate, gently perceptive way the dark-haired woman was looking up at her, waiting patiently for Nadine to continue with the faintest light of sympathy in her expressive eyes. As though she already had the sense that whatever it was that lay in Nadine's past was difficult to talk about.

Nadine restrained the urge to swallow thickly against the odd, unexpected urge to...to confide in this woman. Not just tell her the facts and inform her about developments in Barnes' life she needed to know, but...entrust her with them.

Truthfully, Nadine hadn't known what to expect when it came to the woman who had found her way into Barnes' heart. Mostly because she hadn't known she had until very recently indeed, but also because she simply hadn't had the time to really consider it since she had learned of it.

As intriguing as the idea was once Sam had prompted her to make the realization, there had simply been far more pressing things to focus on.

But looking at Iris now? She was starting to understand the appeal. Her physical appearance aside—she really was quite pretty with her kind face, warm hazel eyes and cloud of dark curls—there was an innate gentleness to the woman that Nadine had sensed almost the instant she had turned around. Though her eyes sparkled with spirit when not distant with the wistful sadness that surfaced whenever they were drawn back to Barnes, she had a...a soothing presence, Nadine finally decided.

With each passing moment, Nadine was starting to understand what drew Barnes to her. And why Wilson spoke so fondly of the woman. Even Nadine had to admit she felt drawn to her in some small, albeit different way. Iris was the sort of soul who brought calm and comfort to the motivated and tormented alike.

More than that, she was normal. She wasn't weighed down by the sorts of ghosts and burdens people like Nadine, Barnes and the rest of the Avengers carried.

She was precisely the sort of person Barnes needed, Nadine mused. Someone who could help him heal. Someone who could help him find his own 'normal' again. Someone who could see past the Winter Soldier and his past and the darkness and guilt weighing on his psyche to the damaged man beneath it. Someone who could see the man he used to be where it had been suppressed beneath everything that had been done to him and coax that man back to the surface.

And from what Nadine could determine from cues given by Barnes and Wilson and even to a lesser degree, Steve? That was exactly what Iris had been for Barnes simply by being there for him in DC and by who she was with him. Simply by caring about him. And by falling in love with him, herself.

Inhaling another, slower breath, Nadine turned, retrieving a second rolling chair from the console to the right of the door and pulling it over to settle into it opposite Iris before Barnes' pod. And with a sigh, she looked up at Barnes again, unconsciously drawing her arms close to her body, her elbows resting against her hips as her fingers laced and fiddled absently.

"He was brought in—as the Winter Soldier," she clarified wanly with a brief glance to Iris, "to the place where I...grew up, to train us." Just out of arm's reach, Iris straightened in her own chair, looking between Nadine and Barnes. "He...well, there's no other way to put it than he saved my life," Nadine continued frankly, the words slowly spilling from her lips as she considered them. "In...in ways beyond just letting me go when he caught me running away one night. Ways even I didn't realize until...until much later."

She looked over to Iris again, swallowing back the sudden lump that tried to form in her throat at the genuinely empathetic expression on her face as she listened silently. A small smile quirked at the corner of her mouth. "I've spent the last eighteen years looking for him, to repay him—to...to give him everything he gave me." She nearly choked, instinct rising to frustratingly keep her from doing anything more than referring to her reasons for finding Barnes in the vaguest—but no less true—terms to a complete stranger, no matter the irrational and nearly as powerful instinct to trust the dark-haired woman.

No matter that she had promised Barnes she would tell Iris about Nina if it came down to it.

Yet...she couldn't bring herself to say it.

She wasn't sure how.

Even knowing that Barnes had likely at least mentioned his newly discovered daughter—though just what he might have said, Nadine didn't know, which left her even more unsettled over the whole issue...though he must not have pointed out Nadine as that daughter's mother or Iris hadn't put it together yet, else she rather doubted Iris would be so comfortable and open with her if she knew that bit—how was she supposed to talk about Nina with this woman without hurting her more? Because she suddenly found herself incredibly reluctant to do so. There was no way any conversation about the secret child of the man she loved wasn't going to hurt Iris at least a little and Nadine hated it.

"And you finally found him," Iris said softly, her voice threaded with a tone of awe that had guilt fluttering in Nadine's belly once again.

"I did," she murmured wearily, looking to Barnes again. Wishing not for the first time that he had done the selfish thing and postponed going under so he could have at least some time with Iris; he was the one who should be talking to her about...all this. "With...help."

"And you got a chance to...to thank him? To...give back what he gave you?" Nadine had to force herself to meet Iris' eye, drawing in a shaking breath. Mutely, she nodded. Iris' face lit up with a pleased smile, turning back to Barnes. "Good."

"Yes," Nadine agreed softly before they lapsed into a surprisingly comfortable silence. The only sound in the lab was the faint hum from the cryopod interspersed with the occasional soft hiss, like sighing exhale.

Yet the nervous knots in Nadine's gut nevertheless twisted tighter.

The more she considered how to tactfully bring up Nina and all that that entailed as Barnes had asked of her, the more callous and insensitive it all sounded.

And that was the last thing she wanted.

Especially after having finally met the woman.

But after a moment Iris' slim brows dipped in a faint frown as she turned to Nadine with a glimmer of recognition in her eyes, interrupting Nadine's thoughts. "I...I think I recognize you," she said carefully, "from when," her eyes flicked briefly to Barnes, her features pinching sadly as a faintly troubled shadow crossed them, "you were outside, with Sam and the King and..."

As Iris faltered, her brow furrowing, Nadine's heart nearly stuttered as her apprehension spiked, her impassive mask nearly snapping into place as an instinctive flash of panic struck right along with it.

She only barely managed to maintain the calm she'd been working to project ever since she'd stepped into the room, looking to Iris with genuine sympathy.

She could only imagine how Iris had to feel about this.

"Barnes' daughter," Nadine confirmed softly when Iris didn't continue.

Only for her stomach to sink as, after a moment' incomprehension, with a faint choking gasp catching in her throat, Iris' eyes blew wide with shock and confusion.

Along with a flash of poignant hurt.

Nadine abruptly realized she'd misunderstood the reason for Iris' hesitation. That she'd assumed...

Guilt twisted like a knife in her gut.

She'd hoped...she thought he must have said...something.

"Wh—what?" The bewildered shock on the younger woman's face as she reeled was plain to see. A soft, huffing breath laden with guilt and remorse gusted out from deep in her chest as Nadine deflated, her shoulders sagging from the weight of her horrible misinterpretation and her failure to properly keep her promise to Barnes suddenly bearing down on her.

"He didn't tell you, did he." It wasn't a question. She didn't even try to hide the shame and apology in her voice. She couldn't bear to.

Iris deserved her honesty.

Iris looked to Nadine, and Nadine watched with growing heartache as a sad sort of comprehension began to surface through the confusion and hurt that had accompanied Nadine's poorly delivered revelation.

And as the moment dragged miserably, Iris sagged, curling in on herself as her face crumpled.

"He...I think he tried before..." she whispered guiltily, the way her gaze darted to the cryopod finishing what she couldn't quite bring herself to say easily enough. "He started to, but I..." Nadine's heart clenched, the sympathy she already felt for the younger woman deepening to an almost physical ache.

Iris looked up to her then, visibly fighting to restrain the tears glimmering in her eyes. Tears that managed to enhance the almost desperate yet, somehow...fierce light that had woken in the hazel depths as she boldly met Nadine's eye.

"He didn't know...before, did he." Nadine blinked in astonishment, caught off guard by the quiet certainty to Iris' tone and the sharp consideration in her eyes. Nadine could practically see her putting the pieces together. "That's what you meant, right? About giving him what he gave you?"

This woman was just full of surprises.

Her throat constricting, Nadine could only nod briskly at first.

"Nina's why I ran," she forced out, her voice faintly hoarse with lingering shock and the remnants of her long-ingrained reluctance to share the truth about Nina's paternity. "She's...she's my everything. I needed to find him for her just as much as I needed to find him to...to get him out the way he got me out. It was the least he deserved." She fixed Iris with an intent look of her own, then. And to Iris' credit and Nadine's satisfaction, the dark-haired woman didn't flinch despite the uncertain flicker in her eyes. "I meant it when I said he saved my life, and not just because he broke through his programming long enough to let me run when he should've killed me.

"He's a good man," she finished vehemently, startling even herself as the assertion burst out.

It was a long moment before the intensity in Iris' gaze abated, a soft sympathy and a spark of approval and pride surfacing instead that left Nadine reeling.

She suddenly got the very clear sense that Iris was far more than just a safe haven for Barnes. She was his champion. It was suddenly quite clear that Iris had protective streak toward him that Nadine suspected would easily rival the one Barnes held for her. She wouldn't hesitate to fight for him, to defend him, with everything she had.

Against anyone who dared doubt that he was a good man despite everything.

Even, Nadine suspected, against himself.

Oh yes, she could definitely understand now how Barnes had fallen in love with this woman.

There was a hidden core of steel in Iris' gentle soul, that was for sure.

Nadine looked to Barnes, a soft, wry smile curling her lips.

He never stood a chance.

But slowly, the proud gleam and the warm adoration that had had suffused Iris' features faded back to the weary sorrow that had shadowed them before Nadine's defence.

"I wish..." she murmured, sinking back into her chair again, her knee lifting so she could hug it to her chest once more. "I just wish I could talk to him."

It wasn't something aimed at Nadine, so the former assassin didn't respond no matter how the younger woman's soft, heartfelt wish tugged at her. She wasn't even sure Iris realized she'd said it at all.

After a long moment—long enough that Nadine was starting to wonder if she should leave Iris alone to her thoughts—her gaze distant and lost in thought even as she stared up at Barnes' peaceful features, Iris sighed sadly.

"I really don't know him at all, do I," she said, her soft voice pained. Nadine breathed out a sigh of her own before levelling her with a significant look.

"You know him in every way that matters," she said firmly. "Everything else is just details." Iris' lips quirked in a brief, grateful smile even as she sank into thought again.

"He—it made him happy, at least...right?" she asked tentatively, looking entreatingly to Nadine. "Finding out about...Nina, was it?" Looking to Barnes herself, Nadine couldn't help her smile.

"It did," she confirmed easily. "Meeting her? Spending time with her? I've never seen him that happy before." She glanced back to Iris, sparing her a faintly wry grin. "At least, not until I saw him with you." A rosy tint spread across Iris' cheeks as her head ducked with a self-conscious but no less pleased and hopeful smile that instantly banished the sad cast that had grown with Nadine's answer.

Not that Nadine didn't genuinely mean it. Because it was true. The way Barnes' features had softened when once he'd gotten over the shock of Iris' unexpected appearance? The peace that had come over him?

The pure happiness?

Until that moment, Nadine had only seen his walls come down like that with Nina. She couldn't even say Steve managed to break through the distance Barnes held himself at so completely.

"And..." Iris asked carefully after a moment, "and you're...okay with that? With—with me and...and him, I mean?" Nadine barely even registered the question much less heard it, but as she did she frowned, looking up to the dark-haired woman in confusion. Why wouldn't she be? Uncertainty suddenly clouded Iris' features as she nervously pressed on, "I mean since you two...since you had...have..."

"A past," Nadine supplied wryly, catching on immediately. She couldn't help but grin with amusement as a faint, embarrassed flush tinged Iris' cheeks.

"Sorry," the younger woman offered self-consciously, "it's really none of my—"

"No, it's okay." Nadine waved off her apology with an absent gesture, looking back at Barnes as she did, her thoughts already turning to how to put her admittedly complicated feelings about Barnes—and by extension Iris, she supposed, for all that she was pleased that he'd found her—into words. "It sort of is, considering."

"Did..." Iris asked quietly after a long moment when Nadine didn't continue, her voice catching sadly, "did you love him?" Tentatively, almost reluctantly, as if afraid what she might see in Nadine's face or hear in her answer, Iris looked up, meeting Nadine's eye.

Nadine nearly started at the question; she really should've expected it, she silently admonished herself. She had a child with the man, for heaven's sake; it was a natural thing to wonder. It was one of the first things Steve had asked all those months ago, after all. Of course Iris was going to wonder given her own feelings for Barnes and his for her.

Slowly, Nadine shook her head, sparing Iris what she hoped was a reassuring if wan smile as she steeled her nerve, resisting the urge to adopt her habitual and meticulously controlled impassive mask.

"No. Not like...not like what you found with him. Not like what I...what I found with Steve," she answered carefully after a moment's consideration. She hesitated then, uncertain if she should elaborate further. Her lingering reluctance to do so aside, she wasn't certain she wanted to burden Iris with...specifics.

It wasn't exactly a pleasant history between her and Barnes, after all.

That it had all turned out for the best felt somewhat beside the point in that moment.

But before she could help it, it was spilling out with all the aching release of a confession. "What I had with Barnes all those years ago? It was..." she faltered, her terse smile fading as she searched for the right way to explain it. "It was a fascination—an escape—nothing more. We were just, drawn to each other, I suppose is the best way to put it. Maybe...maybe because we were both so...so lost, trapped. So...damaged. So desperate for...I don't know, for some sort of...human connection with someone else? My life was so saturated with death and darkness at that point in my life that...well, I felt...alive with him in a way I'd never really known was possible. And because he was so...lost within his own mind? He couldn't control his impulses the same way he would have before they made him the Winter Soldier."

Iris swallowed thickly, her face paling as Nadine's explanation sunk in.

"God, that's...that's horrible," she whispered. "I'm...I'm so sorry." Nadine couldn't quite bring herself to look at her, forcing in a long, slow breath to calm her anxiously racing pulse as the familiar cold wave of guilt once more surged forward, making it feel like her chest was about to cave in from the pressure.

But she forced what was intended to be a reassuring smile to her face, humourless and decidedly sad though it ended up being.

"It was," she agreed, her voice nearly inflectionless as her training nearly reasserted itself. She drew in a bracing breath, forcing it back. "But...but it is what it is. It's in the past, now." And bewilderingly, as the words fell from her lips? The crushing weight began to ease. Lifting—dispersing, even, like...

...like the sun breaking through the clouds.

"We've both made our peace with it," she finished softly, the cold gnaw of guilt that had clamped around her chest slowly beginning to thaw.

She looked to Iris, then, taking in her wide-eyed fascination and the heartache she felt on Nadine and especially Barnes' behalf that was plainly and painfully visible. Iris' lips trembled, though Nadine suspected it had more to do with her inability to find something to say in the face of what Nadine had shared, her lips unconsciously trying to form the words she couldn't find, than with the sheen of tears that had once more formed over her vibrant hazel eyes. But that was okay.

She didn't need Iris to say anything.

Part of her didn't want Iris to say anything. She didn't need more sympathy or more commiseration or well-meant if futile attempts to try and...not absolve her of what had happened or the guilt that still—and likely always would, she was pragmatic enough to admit—weighed on her conscience, but something close. She had all the closure she needed.

So she simply drew herself up and continued.

"What we had—if you can even say we really had anything—wasn't real, not like this is," she gestured between Iris and Barnes where he slept, safely enclosed behind the frosted glass of the pod. "We used each other at the behest and insistence of the people using us. Had he been wholly in control of his own mind, it's entirely possible what happened between us wouldn't have happened at all. It was...well, it was purely physical," she explained stoically, her shoulders hitching in an absent shrug as she smiled wanly.

Nadine paused then, her brittle smile softening as she looked back to Barnes, her gaze growing distant, "I have Nina because of what happened between us, because of him, and I can't regret that for a second," she continued softly after a long moment. "More than that, because of what happened with him? I actually took charge of my own life for the first time, something I never thought to do, never realized I could do. I got myself out of that place because of the consequences of what happened, and I'm grateful for that.

"Perhaps, in another life...if things had been different? Maybe...maybe once I could have fallen for him. The...the potential was there, I think. We did develop a connection beyond the base attraction between us," she admitted thoughtfully. "A connection we still share, really. Could that have become love with time? Perhaps. But we'll never know, now. Too much time has passed. Too much else has happened. I realized that a long time ago. I accept it. I'm at peace with it.

"Nor can I say it really matters." She looked to Iris with a soft smile. "Not now that he has you, that he loves you.

"And not now that I have Steve," she said conclusively, warmth blooming in her chest and seeping into her voice as her thoughts turned to her own supersoldier. "We've found our happiness. But Barnes and I? We'll always have that connection, I think; something deeper, I suppose, than a simple friendship, but a kinship nevertheless that goes beyond the daughter we share. A bond borne of shared experience, I suppose you could call it. Because of him, I was able to build a life that was my own. And I found a way to be...happy."

Nadine shifted in her seat then, only barely resisting the urge to fidget self-consciously as she suddenly grew very aware of how what she'd intended as a brief explanation had turned into a monologue. Avoiding Iris' captivated gaze, knowing full well that she wouldn't be able to entirely contain her mortification if she didn't, her gaze slid back to Barnes, a soft smile returning to her face as she did.

"I'm glad he's finally found some happiness of his own," she finished softly after a long moment, finally falling silent, suddenly feeling utterly wrung out.

Only to start as a slim hand curled around her own, squeezing gently.

Iris' lip quirked in a small, grateful smile that somehow managed to say far more than Nadine could hope to decipher. Certainly more than anything Iris could've said aloud.

So Nadine didn't even try.

She just accepted the gesture, squeezing Iris' hand right back in silent thanks.

A/N: Thanks for Reading!

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