It was odd to her feeling this sort of connection to him. She had met a few people like her through the years. People that had a sort of timeless opinion on things. The truth was that she didn’t romanticise the past but she did tend to prefer certain things from then. She just behaved like she was from another decade and always had. She was still a modern woman as far as rights and equality went but she wanted to have a house and be a wife without having to be a house wife. She was raised in a system of old money that hadn’t changed since the Victorian era. That came with certain pinons and thoughts and while she didn’t agree with all of it she had felt some things were important. “I think that’s probably true but a lot of people don’t know how to work towards it.” She pointed out. “It’s hard to do and it’s hard to realize where to start.” She said thoughtfully. She chuckled and suddenly a lot made more sense. “Oh you’re a soldier? I suppose it would sound like basic training. But hopefully with less yelling.” She joked playfully.
She felt a strange pang of longing reach through her emotions and jolt through her and she tilted her head. It must have been from him but she couldn’t quite understand why or where. Maybe a memory? Maybe something, or someone, he missed. It felt an awful lot like love. It was almost sad to feel that loss, not that she had experienced anything similar. Still it seemed to stir a long dead reaction inside of her that had her very confused. Natalia smiled a very understanding smile when he said that. “I’ll take that as an honor.” She offered. She didn’t know if she believed it was just a friend that he was talking about but she supposed reminding him of that woman was a good thing. She chuckled and smiled back. “I look forward to it.” She said more than happy to uphold the promise to change his mind.
She let herself have a moment she rarely allowed and relaxed into the familiar motions. His hands were gentle and his touch was present but not imposing. It made it easy to follow the steps her body had so deeply ingrained into it. It was nice though, the way they moved. He was a very good dancer even if she couldn’t always tell who was leading with the way they moved around the floor. “It was.” She mused “Very different from the norm though.” She admitted “I don’t think many people know how to handle me.” She admitted smirking. She was weird, odd, different. Traveling and going to ancient places with ancient cultures and getting lost in them trying to find herself, living as a debutante, everything with Evan, feeling the weight of his blood on her hands through all these years. It made her very outside of the norm, so she watched the norm from the outside. But sometimes that feeling was lonely. Natalia chuckled “Really? I can’t imagine someone wouldn’t want to dance with a handsome, charming, soldier.” She said honestly smirking and thought for a second before responding. “Well if you ever find space on it again let me know, I’ll fill it up for you.” She assured.
“Peace can be… challenging,” he settled on finally. He remembered Ultron’s voice, taunting him, calling him the man who couldn’t live without a war. That was worse than being a man out of time, Worse than anything else he had ever been, a dancing monkey, a lab experiment, an errant soldier – a captain who lost his men, or failed to save the innocent. For as long as he remembered, he had just wanted the chance to do the right thing. But there was a fear in the back of his mind, subtle as a whisper, that made him question. He had the chance now, to do right, even if ‘right’ wasn’t as clear cut as he’d hoped. But what if he did the right things somehow, found a peace for the world, for himself – what would he be then?
He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“On your end or mine? I’ve seen some of those society ladies, and I would not want to be on their bad side,” he teased lightly. He smiled at her words, polite and proper, but more sincere than he’d heard in a long time. There was a purity to her that had nothing to do with her manners. A good person, that’s what Erskine would’ve said. She had a good heart. Steve could sense it in his gut, and it hadn’t steered him wrong before.”It is,” he said quietly. “And so do I,” he said, nodding to her.
The dancing was more pleasant than he’d ever imagined it. He’d never truly gotten a chance to do it before – and maybe it wasn’t perfect, because he was far from perfect, treading slightly on her toes once and staring down at his own feet perhaps a little too often. But it was nice. It was peaceful, in a way that didn’t make those questions erupt in his mind. He was fully in the moment, caught up in her voice and the way they moved around the dance floor. “I’m sure,” he agreed. “But that’s not always a bad thing.” Not in his experience. It made for an interesting life, at the very least. A good life? He was still trying to figure that one out. “Sounds like a plan,” he said, laughing lightly. And they continued to dance, barely noticing that the song had changed.
