It was a long day, the fatigue from the previous two trying to catch up.
The Winter Soldier kept on moving. Fatigue was irrelevant. He was the Winter Soldier, and as a good soldier would do what he had to. And he was given plenty to do.
He noticed that something was missing from his full schedule by midmorning anyway. Someone. And since he knew he had given no sign to anyone that there might be a connection between them - he had been very, very careful - there was something else going on.
By noon, he was hearing about the kind of glorious day she was having. Which was a relief - she hadn't been sent off to a mission yet. He finished his meal early and snuck off, yes, even here, to watch her from the shadows, and the glow from her ... the way she moved. It set her apart from anyone else he had seen all day. Their superiors would be blind to not see it, and they didn't seem to be blind.
And then mid-afternoon he was pulled out of training to be rapidly briefed on an extra assignment he was given for the rest of the day - there would be certain guests visiting, and he was supposed to shadow them, primarily for security (he wondered why the safety of special guests would be in danger here, on the premises, but didn't question it by word or look), but also to make sure that certain of them didn't encounter each other. If by some chance that was likely to happen, he was to run interference; otherwise, he was to remain invisible.
This all, he could do. He read through the information he was given, but it wasn't until he actually saw Comrade Red Guardian in motion that something clicked in his mind, and he knew that coming up against him would be to great peril to--
-- to the program.
But they were both working for the same cause, so scoping him as an enemy was unnecessary.
It was something he had to remind himself of multiple times though the evening. As he almost could make out the look in her eyes, but he was too distant for that. He could only guess from her face carved from porcelain, from her delicate smile. Almost brittle.
Almost, but far from it. Even though she was untried, he knew that much. Brittle and dainty were parts of her mask, but not of who she was.
And he had to put the image of her dancing out of the room as he shadowed the guests out of the premises. Then reported and was dismissed from duty. Then returned to his room.
And then stood completely still in the middle of it, trying to think of what to do next. The reasonable part of his mind, the trained part of his mind, said that he needed to rest. But it was tired. He'd pushed himself far enough for some of the control that the reasonable part of him exercised to be fraying at the edges.
A minute later, he was up on the roofs, making his way to the familiar window.
It was still lit up when he arrived, and he peered in very carefully, to make sure she was alone. Before he'd left, he wouldn't have questioned it, he knew the rhythm of the Room and how to tread it unnoticed. Now... things were going that he reasoned out but knew not the details of. So he was careful.
Or was until he saw her.
The sight took his breath away, and he turned fully as if falling into the light from the room would get him closer, his right palm splaying against the chill glass of the window. That was...
What seeing her in something as simple as a towel wrap shouldn't have shaken him this deeply. He'd seen her in barely more, with the nightgowns she wore. And yet the graceful curve of her shoulders, the line of her neck as she turned her head...
He breathed her name voicelessly, before knocking slightly on the frame of the window, if that was even necessary to alert her to his presence by now.
no subject
The Winter Soldier kept on moving. Fatigue was irrelevant. He was the Winter Soldier, and as a good soldier would do what he had to. And he was given plenty to do.
He noticed that something was missing from his full schedule by midmorning anyway. Someone. And since he knew he had given no sign to anyone that there might be a connection between them - he had been very, very careful - there was something else going on.
By noon, he was hearing about the kind of glorious day she was having. Which was a relief - she hadn't been sent off to a mission yet. He finished his meal early and snuck off, yes, even here, to watch her from the shadows, and the glow from her ... the way she moved. It set her apart from anyone else he had seen all day. Their superiors would be blind to not see it, and they didn't seem to be blind.
And then mid-afternoon he was pulled out of training to be rapidly briefed on an extra assignment he was given for the rest of the day - there would be certain guests visiting, and he was supposed to shadow them, primarily for security (he wondered why the safety of special guests would be in danger here, on the premises, but didn't question it by word or look), but also to make sure that certain of them didn't encounter each other. If by some chance that was likely to happen, he was to run interference; otherwise, he was to remain invisible.
This all, he could do. He read through the information he was given, but it wasn't until he actually saw Comrade Red Guardian in motion that something clicked in his mind, and he knew that coming up against him would be to great peril to--
-- to the program.
But they were both working for the same cause, so scoping him as an enemy was unnecessary.
It was something he had to remind himself of multiple times though the evening. As he almost could make out the look in her eyes, but he was too distant for that. He could only guess from her face carved from porcelain, from her delicate smile. Almost brittle.
Almost, but far from it. Even though she was untried, he knew that much. Brittle and dainty were parts of her mask, but not of who she was.
And he had to put the image of her dancing out of the room as he shadowed the guests out of the premises. Then reported and was dismissed from duty. Then returned to his room.
And then stood completely still in the middle of it, trying to think of what to do next. The reasonable part of his mind, the trained part of his mind, said that he needed to rest. But it was tired. He'd pushed himself far enough for some of the control that the reasonable part of him exercised to be fraying at the edges.
A minute later, he was up on the roofs, making his way to the familiar window.
It was still lit up when he arrived, and he peered in very carefully, to make sure she was alone. Before he'd left, he wouldn't have questioned it, he knew the rhythm of the Room and how to tread it unnoticed. Now... things were going that he reasoned out but knew not the details of. So he was careful.
Or was until he saw her.
The sight took his breath away, and he turned fully as if falling into the light from the room would get him closer, his right palm splaying against the chill glass of the window. That was...
What seeing her in something as simple as a towel wrap shouldn't have shaken him this deeply. He'd seen her in barely more, with the nightgowns she wore. And yet the graceful curve of her shoulders, the line of her neck as she turned her head...
He breathed her name voicelessly, before knocking slightly on the frame of the window, if that was even necessary to alert her to his presence by now.