"Long time no see, Mr. Barnes." Natasha stood straight before the table, holding her bag in both hands. She did not look him over, only glanced at him once before turning her head aside and taking the menu from the waiter as she turned in place.
Bucky stood there in a daze for several seconds before seeming to suddenly come to his senses. He walked around the table and pulled out a chair for Natasha.
"Thank you." Natasha smoothed the skirt over her hips, then sat down. She placed her bag at her right hand and opened the menu.
Bucky returned to his seat across from her. He put both hands on the table, then took a deep breath and leaned back. Next, he turned to look at a waiter passing nearby, then put both hands back on the table and leaned forward.
Natasha lowered her head and studied the menu intently. The restaurant's dim golden light flowed across her sculpted features. Her brow bone, eyelashes, lips, and jawline—every part of her seemed like a tiny world holding infinite mysteries. The tremor of her breathing was like an earthquake; tiny people made of dust panicked and fell, raining gold through air carved apart by edges and lines, dancing with ashes that had reignited.
Bucky felt his eyes and heart crack apart like lava. All the mental preparation he had made in advance was utterly useless. Natasha's beauty was like the sharpest sword in the world. In this first exchange, he had already lost too much blood on an invisible battlefield of hormones.
People always fell in love with the same type of person over and over again. Before they realized that, everyone believed they would not fall in the same place twice. But the thing that made them fall was