Title:In a Grain of Sand
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: PG
Length: 392
Content notes: My sweethearts
Author notes: The beach trip takes place just before Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Summary: Steve remembers Natasha.




To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
~ William Blake

*

Steve Rogers walked along the beach alone. He was lost in thought, lost in memories.

Once, a lifetime agio, he and Nat had driven to the beach for a few days. They’d rented a tiny cottage right on the oceanfront. It had one bedroom, a cozy kitchen, den and a bath. It was built on stilts and had a deck on the front with two well used rocking chairs and an old windchime made of cork and sea glass glued to twine. It made such a sweet sound when the sea breeze hit it. He and Nat had made love to the sound of those windchimes and the ocean waves gently rolling in during low tide.

They’d made castles in the sand, too. It was the only time he’d ever seen her carefree as she carried tiny buckets of sand and dumped them in a huge pile to make her castle.

“Look in the house for cups, pots, something flat to make the castle,” she ordered him with a grin and he obeyed, returning with his arms full of plastic cups and a couple of kitchen knives to help make straight edges.

Nat has worked all day on her sand castle and it showed. It was about four feet tall and looked like a real castle. She’d even dug a moat around it and made flags out of tiny flags on toothpicks she’d found in the kitchen cabinet.

When it was done, Steve asked her, “What now?”

“It’ll wash away in the tide,” she said in that matter-of-fact Nat tone that he knew so well. Her face crumpled for a minute and she looked as if she might cry. “It’ll wash away like everything does in the end.” She’d run back into the house and jumped in the shower without even a look backward.

Before they left the next morning, Steve had looked out at the beach and the sand was smooth, as if nothing had ever even been there.

He bent down and scooped up a handful of sand and let it run through his fingers. Silent tears fell down his cheeks as the sand slipped away.