The raindrops that fell heavily, slid down the stained glass like teardrops, gliding down the building as though the cheek of a mourning being. It was like the sky cried alongside those in the beautiful yet shadowed cathedral. The sun nowhere to be found on the dark and melancholy Sunday, and the grey clouds seemed to add a weight almost, to the shoulders of those who already sagged with the loss and grief the day brought. 

Steve Rogers stood stiffly in the middle of the red carpeted aisle, his right hip brushing against the beginning edge of one of the many deep wooden pews. His hands were hidden away in the pockets of his deep black dress pants, but he could feel the coldness that numbed the tips of his fingers. The weather was harsh, just as the sky was. It blew in a chill that everyone felt running down their spine until the cold was released into their very bones. 

The cathedral was empty now, everyone who had joined in remembrance of the lost soul, had dispersed. But Steve couldn't move from his spot. It was as though his feet were planted into the floor beneath him, and his body was frozen rigid in place. His heavy and saddened eyes stared forward, locking with those of the woman who's picture still rested up front. And even as he knew he was looking at merely a photograph in a large frame, it felt as though he was staring into those emerald eyes he had just days prior. 

The screams and screeching of metal echoed inside of the small building, and it shook the fragile ground Steve walked across. He was pinned down, in some building down a street he hadn't remebered turning and managed to enter just as the foundation began to crumble down around him. Trapping him inside the unsafe walls. 

He managed to tell the others he was down before the connection was lost, but as he entered the main room of the establishment, he suddenly didn't feel the worry of being trapped inside any longer. In fact, he couldn't think about himself for another second. For his eyes fell upon a pair of legs, sticking out from beneath a pile of rubble. Her left shoe was no where to be found, and the pair of thin black tights she wore were ripped in places exposing her now dust coated skin. Smudging a darkness across her once porcelain complexation.

Steve ran over to the body, and found himself breathing a breath of relief when he saw her wide and frightened eyes fall upon him. She was still alive. 

"It's pouring pretty bad out there Rogers," A voice broke Steve from his wandering thoughts. "you might want to head out before the street floods."

He turned his head slowly in the direction of the familiar voice, his feet still not shifting an inch from where they stood stuck, and his eyes soon fell upon a certain red headed woman walking steadily towards him.

"What are you doing here?" Steve asked, raising a brow as Natasha Romanoff continued to walk towards him, her tall heels barely heard against the soft carpet she glided across. And her steady movements didn't slow until she stood across from him, leaning back slightly against the pew behind her. The confusion and curiosity was evident in his voice, and he hadn't tried to hide it. As far as he knew, no one knew he was here this morning. And yet, here Nat stood. 

"A little birdie told me you might be down here," She replied smoothly, wringing her hands together in front of her. "or rather that a certain "superhero" was sitting in a church for one of the victims of the attack."

"And you figured it had to be me?"

Nat shrugged, a soft smirk tugging at the edges of her perfect red stained lips. "I pieced it together."

Steve nodded with a small shadow of a smile, and looked down at his shoes. "What are you really doing here Nat?"

As Steve lifted his head to look at the woman, he saw something raw in her eyes that he wasn't always used to seeing. She was strong and put together and never one to show a sliver of weakness, and yet, he saw compassion and an undeniable glimmer of pure sadness reflecting back in her watchful gaze. 

Her lashes fluttered softly, before she lifted her left shoulder delicately. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay."

Steve could hear his deep and slightly ragged breaths echoing around him, as he rushed over to the wounded woman. His knees hitting the concrete harshly as he looked to her body that had been pinned beneath a slab of the ceiling that had collapsed. It covered her abdomen and her left arm was crushed beneath it. He could see the crimson blood soaking through the loose navy fabric of her floral dress, and it stained the bare skin of her upper chest and collarbone like a thick paint. Smearing across her skin, tainting the beauty of her once pale flesh color.

Steve could hear, through the dense echo of his heartbeat in his ears, the moans rumbling from the young woman's throat. She wanted to speak, but the only noise close she could create, sounded as though an animal dying in great suffering somewhere. She was in pain, and as Steve looked at her face that seemed to twist with agony, he could suddenly feel it deep in his chest. As though her pain was a knife twisting in his heart, causing him to hurt right along side her. 

"Hey," He breathed out softly to the woman. "hey, it's okay. We're going to get you out of here alright?"

He looked up at the woman's eyes, and was taken a back by how deep evergreen a shade they were. For it seemed misplaced in the moment, as though the splash of sudden color was a mistake somehow. For they were both coated in dark dust and dirt and deep burgundy blood, and here was a woman with clear sparkling jewels for eyes. They had softened since the time she had first laid eyes on him, he could still see the fear and the pain soaring within them, but she seemed slightly calmed by his presence now. 

"I'm going to lift this block of concrete off of you alright, it should help you breathe a little better."

Steve reached his arms around the thick block and begin to lift it from the woman's small frame. Even as his muscles ached and the soreness of the day was beginning to set in, the concrete wasn't much for him to pick up. Swiftly releasing the woman from it's heavy prison, he drops it onto the floor beside them, listening to the loud crack as it hits the ground. 

"How's that feel? Any better?"

Steve turned back to the woman, but felt the breath he was breathing slip away as he watched her nod her head softly. But it was the blood dribbling from her pale and cut lips that made his chest falter, and as she coughed, he could see the way it pained her to do so.

He had managed to remove the boulder crushing her... but the damage had already been done. 

"I still don't know how I ended up in that building," Steve's voice seemed like a loud echo inside of a deep canyon, for it seemed to bounce off of the holy walls and smack straight into the two bodies with a strong force. For there was no way to disguise the raw pain and regret that dripped from Steve's words. "I don't know if I just took a wrong turn, or if I was running towards something when I approached it."

Steve shook his head, and turned to face Natasha. His back leaning back against the pew, and his head looked downward to his shiny black dress shoes that squeezed his feet. "And then, there's moments, when I can't help but wonder, if it was simply fate." 

"You believe in fate Steve?" Nat asks gently, and Steve shrugs unsure. But as his shoulders drop back down, he inhales deeply and looks up at the woman. 

"I don't know," He replied to her honestly. "but not a soul in the world, knew she was in there. No one knew she was trapped, buried beneath concrete that was crushing her. She was alone, with not a single person anywhere looking for her. And then I come along."

"I come along... and just miraculously stumbled upon her."

Nat pursed her lips softly, nodding her head faintly as she take in his words. "You think something of a... higher power... lead you to this girl?"

Steve couldn't answer her question, because he simply didn't hold the answer. He wasn't sure if he believed in fate; that there would always be a reason and a way for every living thing. That what was going to happen would, because it was destiny. But he couldn't deny that feeling in his bones, that day and even now, that he was meant to find that girl.

"Do you do this often?" Her voice seemed to match her apperance. It was soft and gentle, with a soft lisp to it that only made it more sweet-tempered. But the blood that continued to dribble past her pale lips, even more so as she coughed with her pained voice, seemed to drain the innocence from her voice. For reality was setting in, and neither one of them were naive enough to ignore it. 

"Do I do what often?" Steve asks the woman who's name he had learned shortly after he shared his own. 

"Save the world from an alien invasion."

Steve tried to keep his tone lighthearted and even let a breathless sliver of a laugh past his lips, but it was hard to keep a peppy disposition as her blood flowed through his fingers. He tried to apply pressure to the wounds on her abdomen, but it seemed futile as the color drained faster from her face and the blood flowed quicker through his hands. Coating his skin in a thick and sickly warm substance. 

"I'd have to say this a first ma'am." 

Steve ran a hand through his hair, completely destroying any styling he had tried to accomplish that morning. But he didn't care. 

"She was a..." Steve shook his head. "wannabe artist, she said. She loved to sketch, ever since she was a kid. Didn't think she'd make it, but wanted to give it a fair shot before giving up on the dream."

"She told you all that?"

Steve hummed as he nodded his head. "I wanted to keep her talking. I wanted her mind to focus on something other than the pain."

"She was from Brooklyn," Steve released a pained dry laugh, that sounded strained and strangled in the back of his throat. "if you can believe that."

"Steve--"

"I didn't know her. I hadn't ever met her before that day. But I swear..." Steve shook his head with force as his burning eyes dropped to the dark carpet. "it felt like I'd known her my whole life."

"I'm sorry." Her voice was struggling now, and Steve could see the color in her eyes beginning to dim. "you should be out there, saving a life that really matters. But you're in here, stuck wtih me."

Her body convulsed with the pain that had begun to send her into shock, and he knew that the time she had left was running out faster by the passing seconds.

"Hey," Steve shook his head, and pressed his hand gently against her pale cheek. "I'm not giving up yet. And neither should you."

Slowly, Steve felt as her right hand raised, and she weakly brushed her fingers against the back of his flat hand that held the side of her face. "You're a good man Steve, I wish we could've had more time together."

A new warmth touched the tip of his finger then, one that was thinner than the blood he felt flowing against his skin before. And he watched as it burned a trail against her colorless complexation and it was then that Steve Rogers watched her soul leave her body. Right there beneath the tender touch of his hand, he felt life leave her angushed body. 

"I was the last one to ever see her alive," Steve whispered. "and all I could do was let her go."

Natasha's hand found his tense arm and softly squeezed it in an attempt of comfort. "But you were there so that she wasn't alone Steve. Someone knew where she was, and what had happened to her. Someone was there to mourn her, and give her comfort until her last breath. You can't forget that."

"Maybe it was fate... that brought me to her. That allowed me to be there for her, so she didn't have to die alone and petrified." Steve wondered out loud. "But if that's true, then it must've been fate that she was going to die that day, wasn't it?"

Natasha shrugged softly with a shake of her head, "I don't know."

"That's the thing about fate. We're all just waiting around to find out our own. Good or bad. We wait on fate because it must be this grand plan. That everything will work out just as it should... but how is it, that some's fate is simply that it's their time."

"So you ask if I believe in fate Nat?"

"I believe in living, for as long as we may have. And I believe that when it's God's time, he'll call me home, whether I'm ready or not. And maybe those are the only two things I really need to believe in."

A/N: This has been an idea I've had for a while now, but whenever I sat down to write it, it just didn't flow right. So I gave myself some time away from it, until I finally found myself giving it another shot. And I feel this time around, I was able to succeed with what I was hoping for and had imagined for this story line. The ending turned out to be something a little different and something I didn't know I would create, but I like the way this one shot has gone. I hope you all have too!💙