She puts her hand on the back of his neck. Her spine is straight as anything, but she turns the set of her shoulders so her body language communicates a calm she doesn't quite feel. There's no gentleness in the way she touches Steve's jaw with her other hand, turning him so she can look at his face and that cut on his cheek.
Natasha's thumb cuts quickly across his face, smoothing that drop away with the pad of her thumb. Her fingers are like steel as they hold him still, her gaze this side of intense as they look at his eyes, the set of them.
On the other side of that wall, the infected groan and slam their bodies against it. The snapping sound of bone. The hungry, devouring noises as one of them falls and another takes its place to suck the marrow. The high pitched screaming growing louder, then cut off abruptly. The rhythmic shooting of Barnes' rifle.
Natasha looks at Steve and says, firmly: ]
Grieve later.
[ And then she's off after Bucky, glock still holstered. What she says next is cruel, unkind given her owne experiences in conditioning, but— ]
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She puts her hand on the back of his neck. Her spine is straight as anything, but she turns the set of her shoulders so her body language communicates a calm she doesn't quite feel. There's no gentleness in the way she touches Steve's jaw with her other hand, turning him so she can look at his face and that cut on his cheek.
Natasha's thumb cuts quickly across his face, smoothing that drop away with the pad of her thumb. Her fingers are like steel as they hold him still, her gaze this side of intense as they look at his eyes, the set of them.
On the other side of that wall, the infected groan and slam their bodies against it. The snapping sound of bone. The hungry, devouring noises as one of them falls and another takes its place to suck the marrow. The high pitched screaming growing louder, then cut off abruptly. The rhythmic shooting of Barnes' rifle.
Natasha looks at Steve and says, firmly: ]
Grieve later.
[ And then she's off after Bucky, glock still holstered. What she says next is cruel, unkind given her owne experiences in conditioning, but— ]
Hey! Stand down.