Longing to Be Found: A Step Behind
Art by @sunrow (AO3), fic by bennettmp339 (AO3) for @capreversebb
Fic rating: Teen (canon-typical violence) Art rating: Gen
Word Count: 13,872
Chapters: 15
Archive Warnings: none
Relationships: Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov, Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson, Natasha Romanov & Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov & Sam Wilson
Characters: Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov, Sam Wilson, Tony Stark, Clint Barton, various cameos
Tags: Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-typical violence, not-Avengers: Age of Ultron Compliant, HYDRA may be mighty but they are rather dumb, did anyone see that one coming?, i didn't even see that one coming
Summary: After the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve Rogers goes on an epic journey through Ukraine with Natasha Romanov and Sam Wilson as they search for a man who is always a step ahead of them.
Read A Step Behind on AO3
After getting through the admissions, the three of them started at the top of the art gallery, and walked slowly through the collection. Steve enjoyed the feeling of walking through an art gallery for the first time since 1945, and his fingers itched for his sketchbook, if only to draw the gallery space and the view from the balcony of the hotel. He didn’t see any reason for Bucky to have come to this gallery, and mentioned it to Natasha, who disagreed.
“He was here.” She leaned against the wall, as they watched Sam look at a picture. “The picture to the left of Sam. Go take a close look at it.” Steve nodded, and wound his way, slowly through the gallery until he got to the image. He studied it, and committed the markings just to the right of the frame to memory. They were the Morse signs for his initials: SGR. Someone wanted him to find this painting. Only after a solid 5 minutes of close inspection did a docent come up to him. They conversed about the image, and Steve learned that it was of a school in a town in central Ukraine, though the docent didn’t know much else. The docent suspected that the painter had used a nom de plume, as their name was not a traditional Ukrainian name, but was otherwise rather unhelpful. Steve memorized the name of the school and the town it was in, before winding his way back to Natasha.
