Chapter 6: It’s physically hurts
On the quinjet, silence wrapped around them like a shroud.
Steve piloted. Thor studied his hammer. Tony scrolled through data, muttering about ‘unethical subroutine architectures.’ Joseph sat apart, his elbows on his knees, head bowed. He studied the fine tremors in his fingers—the biological ones. The metal hand rested, inert and perfect, on his thigh.
Natasha watched the landscape blur past below. Her own hands were steady. They were always steady. It was the furious, humming ache behind her sternum that betrayed her.
“Debrief in one hour,” Steve announced, his voice too loud in the cabin’s quiet. “Get some air first.”
The compound was a relief of open space and muted light. Joseph vanished towards the residential wing without a word. Natasha let him go. She showered, the water scalding, trying to wash the feel of the vent’s grit and the corridor’s tension from her skin. It didn’t work.
An hour later, his door was closed. She knocked twice. No answer.
“Joseph.” She tried the handle. It was unlocked.
The room was dark, the only light bleeding from the hallway. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, still in his mission pants and a thin grey shirt, staring at the far wall. Or maybe at nothing.
“Joseph,” she said again, quieter, stepping inside and letting the door sigh shut behind her.
He turned his head. The movement was slow, weighted. His blue eyes found her, clear now but hollowed out. “Hey,” he rasped.
“You missed debrief.”
“Yeah.” He looked back at his hands, clasped loosely between his knees. “Steve’s notes are thorough. He doesn’t need me to narrate the part where I almost murdered...” she cut him off.
“You stopped.” She leaned against the doorframe, arms crossing. A defensive posture. She made herself drop them.
“Did I?” A bitter, soft laugh escaped him. He ran his biological hand through his black hair, leaving it messier. “Or did you stop me? Again.”
“You’re not a thing that needs to be stopped.” She pushed off the wall and took two steps into the room. The space felt charged, like before a lightning strike. “You walked away.”
“I wanted to crush him.” The admission was a raw, torn thing. He looked up at her, his expression openly ravaged. “I wanted to see the light drain from his eyes. The part of me that’s still in that room… it was cheering.”
“But you’re here,” she said, her voice dropping to a murmur. She moved closer, until she stood within arm’s reach. “You’re here, beating yourself up instead. That’s the definition of not being him.”
He shook his head, a frantic denial. “I’m a mess Nat”
Her heart didn’t just ache; it splintered. She closed the final space between them.
She didn’t speak. She simply sat beside him on the bed, the mattress dipping under her weight, and wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders. She pulled him into her, one hand cradling the back of his head, her fingers tangling in his soft hair.
A shuddering breath racked his entire frame, and he collapsed into the embrace, his face burying against her neck. His arms came around her waist, holding on with a desperation that stole her air.
“It’s okay,” she whispered into his hair, her lips moving against the dark strands.
“I lost it today,” he mumbled, the words hot and damp against her collarbone.
“You didn’t. You came back.” She held him tighter, as if her own strength could suture his fractures.
They stayed like that for long minutes, in the quiet dark. The only sound was their breathing, slowly synchronizing. The frantic energy that had vibrated through him since the lab finally began to leach away, leaving a profound, exhausted stillness.
He finally loosened his grip, but didn’t pull away. He leaned back just enough to look at her. His eyes were red-rimmed, but clear. The naked gratitude in them was almost too much to bear.
Her thumb traced the line of his jaw, over the stubble she knew, she missed. She felt the words forming in her own throat, a dam finally cracking. "Joseph, I—"
"I Sti…"
The door opened.
Steve stood there, one hand still on the knob, his expression shifting from neutral to awkward comprehension in a half-second flood.
“We’re all having a celebration in the lounge area if you two wanted to join.” He said it too quickly, the words stumbling over each other. He was already backing out. “No pressure. Just… yeah.”
The door clicked shut.
Natasha’s hand dropped. Joseph’s eyes slid shut, a long, weary blink. The distance that returned was physical, an inch of mattress suddenly feeling like a canyon. He straightened, the vulnerable curve of his spine gone rigid again.
“Right,” he said, the word flat and empty.
“Steve has the situational awareness of a brick,” Natasha muttered, but the heat in her voice was forced. Her heart was hammering a frantic, furious rhythm against her ribs.
Joseph stood, turning his back to her as he walked to the small window. He braced his arms on the frame, head hanging.
She stood too, the lingering warmth from his body already leaching away. A cold, practical anger settled in its place. It was safer. “Do you want to go? drink Tony’s terrible champagne?”
“Do you?” He didn’t turn around.
She studied the tension in his shoulders, the way his metal fingers pressed white into the windowsill. Going down there would be a performance. Staying here… staying here was a minefield they were both too exhausted to navigate. The almost-confession hung in the air, poisoned now by interruption.
“We should,” she said, making her voice light, agent-casual.
He gave a single, sharp nod. “Give me two minutes.”
She waited in the hall, the sterile light humming overhead. When he emerged, he had changed his shirt and splashed water on his face. The man who stepped out was a smoothed-over version of the one she’d held—composed, closed-off, a polite mask firmly in place.
They walked the long corridor side-by-side, not touching. The sound of laughter and AC/DC drifted from the common room.
Tony had turned the music down to a thumping baseline. The fire cracked, painting everyone in shifting amber. Steve was by the chessboard, but he wasn’t playing. He was watching the door, his expression carefully neutral when they walked in.
“The cavalry arrives,” Tony announced from behind the bar, already holding up a bottle. “Sort of. You two look like you just finished a tax audit.”
“Long day,” Natasha said, her voice expertly sanding the edges off the words. She didn’t look at Joseph as she moved to an empty armchair, putting its wide bulk between herself and the room.
Joseph went straight to the bar. He didn’t sit. He just leaned against it, the polished cool of the countertop seeping into his palms.
“Since no one can get drunk I’ve brought Asgardian mead.” Thor said, pouring glasses. The liquid was a deep, shimmering gold, thicker than honey. It slospped with a weight that promised oblivion.
Tony smiled. “The good stuff.”
He slid a full glass toward Natasha. She took it with a nod, her fingers wrapping around the stem. Bruce accepted one with a skeptical frown. Steve declined with a small wave.
Thor pushed a heavy, ornate horn toward Joseph. “For you, Shield-Brother. To wash the dust of that foul place from your spirit.”
Joseph stared at the drink. His reflection wavered in the golden surface, distorted. He saw his own hands, one flesh, one metal, holding a trembling man against a wall.
He didn’t pick it up.
Joseph sat at the bar watching them all drink.
Tony knocked his back, coughed once, and his eyes watered. “Okay, that’s… that’s a sinus cleanse.”
Bruce sipped cautiously, then his eyebrows shot up. “Fascinating. The molecular structure is…”
“It is not for study, Banner,” Thor boomed, clapping him on the back. “It is for joy!”
Natasha took a slow, deliberate swallow. Her eyes locked on the fire. She felt the mead hit—a warm, expanding bloom in her chest, a faint, buzzing hum at the edges of her senses. It didn’t blur anything. It just made the room sharper, the distance to Joseph more precise.
She watched him from the corner of her eye. He hadn’t moved. His back was a straight, tense line, his shoulders blocking out the camaraderie behind him.
“You know,” Tony said, wiping his mouth, his gaze flicking between the two of them. “Debrief was efficient. Could’ been a podcast. ‘Mission: Accomplished, Asset Almost Went Rogue, The End.”
Steve shot him a look. “Tony.”
“What? We’re all thinking it. The doc is in cryo, the data is fried, building go boom. The only loose end is the existential crisis at the bar.” He poured himself more mead. “Which, for the record, we’ve all got. Welcome to the club.”
“He is not a loose end,” Natasha said, her tone flat and cold enough to frost the glass in her hand.
“I didn’t say he was.” Tony held up his hands. “I’m saying the vibe is frosty. We just won. This is the part where we… I don’t know, not brood.”
Joseph finally moved. He picked up the mead horn. He didn’t drink. He just turned it slowly, watching the light catch the curves.
The heavy door to the common room whisked open. Pepper Potts strode in, her heels clicking a precise, businesslike rhythm on the polished floor. The mood in the room instantly shifted, the dense atmosphere thinning under her practical gaze.
She zeroed in on Tony, who was mid-pour, his posture defensive. “There you are. The board conference call moved up. It’s in fifteen minutes.”
Tony groaned, a theatrical slump in his shoulders. “Pep, come on. I’m conducting vital inter-realm diplomacy.”
“You’re avoiding a quarterly earnings report.” She didn’t smile. She simply reached out, her fingers wrapping around his wrist with gentle finality. “Now, Tony. You promised.”
He didn’t resist. He let her pull his hand away from the bottle, his eyes rolling toward the ceiling in a mock plea. “The tyranny of capitalism. Fine, fine.” He shot a look at the group. “Don’t have all the fun without me. Or do. I’ll live vicariously through Friday’s footage.”
He let Pepper lead him away, her quiet, firm voice already detailing talking points as the door sighed shut behind them.
The silence they left was different. Lighter, but more exposed.
“Another?” Thor boomed, gesturing with the bottle toward Bruce.
Bruce peered into his empty glass. “My metabolism will burn it off in approximately six minutes. But what the hell. For science.”
Thor filled his glass with a generous glug. Steve watched them, his arms folded. He looked from the mead to Joseph’s still, silent back at the bar, then to Natasha, who was staring into the fire.
“Alright,” Steve said, abruptly. “I’ll try it.”
Thor beamed, pouring a modest amount into a fresh glass. Steve took it, sniffed, and took a determined sip. He held it in his mouth for a second before swallowing. A slow blink. A slight, appreciative nod. “It’s… warm.”
“Ha! The Captain approves!” Thor clinked his horn against Steve’s glass with a solid clink.
The sound seemed to jolt Joseph from his stillness. He looked down at the ornate drinking horn in his hand as if he’d forgotten it was there. The golden liquid within was untouched, a still, perfect pool.
He turned and placed it on the counter before Thor with a soft, definitive tap. “Thank you,” he said, his voice low. “I need some air.”
He just moved, a quiet force cutting through the room’s new ease, heading for the large glass doors that led to the wide balcony at the opposite end.
The doors slid open with a whisper and shut behind him, muting the room’s warmth and chatter.
Natasha watched him go. The cold night air that stole in was a brief shock against her skin. She saw his silhouette emerge against the sprawling, star-dusted view of the compound grounds, his hands coming to rest on the railing.
The fire popped. Bruce and Steve were discussing the mead’s biochemical properties. Thor was listening with genuine interest.
She set her own glass down on the side table. It was still half-full. The warm buzz from the mead now felt like an internal noise, clashing with the quiet scream of her instincts.
Joseph thought about all the whats. What Natasha was going to say before Steve walked in. Joseph I… still love… still need… Each possibility was a small, bright detonation in his chest, followed by the crushing debris of reality. Their lives were grenades with the pins half-pulled. To add that weight, that vulnerability, was to guarantee someone got shredded. He saw Vasiliev’s face. He saw a dozen other faces, targets he’d erased on command. He saw the dark stain on the Red Room floor that never came out.
His thoughts broke when the door behind him opened and closed.
A new rectangle of light fell across the balcony floor. But the steps that followed were heavier, slower. A familiar gait.
“Mind if I…?” Steve’s voice was tentative, unusually so.
Joseph let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. It wasn’t relief. It was a different kind of tension. He gave a slight shrug of one shoulder.
Steve came to stand on Joseph’s other side, mirroring his posture at the railing. He held two glasses of water, condensation beading on the sides.
He set one gently on the railing near Joseph’s metal hand. The glass clicked against the steel.
For a minute, they just listened to the nocturnal hum of the compound. Distant security lights winked in the trees. The air smelled of cut grass and the sharp, clean scent of a coming frost.
“How are you doing?” Steve asked finally. His tone wasn’t Captain America official. It was just Steve. A friend who’d seen a friend break.
Joseph stared at the distant treeline. A dry, humorless sound escaped his lips. It wasn’t quite a laugh. It was the release of compressed air.
Steve smiled faintly, a shared acknowledgment of the absurdity of the question after the day they’d had. He laughed softly with him, a low rumble in the quiet.
The brief levity faded, leaving the real question hanging. Steve took a sip of his water, buying a second. He nodded back toward the common room. “Are you and Nat back together?”
Joseph’s head turned. He looked at Steve, really looked at him. The open concern on the other man’s face was worse than judgment. He could have handled judgment.
“No.” The word was flat, final. Joseph felt his shoulder drop, the weight of it pulling his whole frame down an inch. He picked up the water glass, the cold shocking his palm.
“Ohh.” Steve said. It was a whole sentence. Understanding, sympathy, and a touch of frustration all packed into one soft exhalation. He looked down at his own glass. “Right.”
Joseph took a long sip. The water was tasteless, perfect. It didn’t burn like the mead would have. It just was. He swallowed, his gaze fixed on a single, bright star low on the horizon.
The silence wasn’t uncomfortable. It was full.
“I still love her.” Joseph whispered. The admission didn’t feel like a release. It felt like surrendering a vital piece of intel, making himself permanently, dangerously vulnerable.
It hung in the space between them, more tangible than the frost.
Steve didn’t move. He absorbed it, his own history with Peggy a quiet, parallel ache in the room. He gave a slow, single nod. “I know you do.”
“It hurts.” The words tore out of him, ragged and low. He pressed the heel of his palm against the center of his chest, as if trying to stanch a wound. “Like my chest physically hurts to not be able to tell her I love her.”
Steve looked at him, his own face a landscape of quiet understanding. He was thinking, weighing the enormity of that simple, impossible truth.
“And sometimes,” Joseph continued, the words coming faster now, “Sometimes I think she’s the only one I could ever be with. Like anyone else would just be… noise.”
Steve opened his mouth to respond, his brow furrowed with the weight of what to say.
Joseph cut him off. He couldn’t bear the platitude, the well-meaning advice. He swiveled to face Steve fully, deflecting. “Anyway. Are you back with Peggy?”
The question hung in the frosty air. Steve looked down, shaking his head slowly. A decade of pain in the motion. “No.” He admitted the word like a surrender. He stared into his water glass. “I still love her though.”
Joseph studied his friend—the set of his jaw, the weary acceptance in his eyes. He saw the mirror of his own exile. He reached out and put his hand on Steve’s back, a solid, grounding pressure. “You should tell her.”
Steve’s laugh was a short, dry crack of sound. He finally looked at Joseph, his eyes bright with a regret so old it had crystallized. “I couldn’t.”
The certainty in his voice was absolute. It wasn’t about fear. It was about the irrevocable chasm of time, of altered lives, of duty that had become identity. Saying it made it real, and some realities were too devastating to confront.
From inside, through the glass, came the deep rumble of Thor’s laughter. A log shifted in the fireplace, sending up a swirl of sparks visible as orange ghosts against the window.
Both men turned at the sound. Through the panoramic glass, the scene in the common room was a silent film. Bruce was gesturing with his empty glass. Thor was refilling it, his mouth moving in a booming speech no one could hear.
Natasha was gone.
Her armchair was empty. The half-finished glass of mead still sat on the side table, catching the firelight.
Joseph’s breath hitched. A cold that had nothing to do with the night seeped into his core.
Steve followed his gaze. “She probably just stepped out,” he said, but his voice lacked conviction.