Somehow, things still hadn't been awkward the morning after they shared a bed, nuzzled close into each other for warmth. Maybe it had something to do with the pair of assassins being consummate professionals: in the morning, the fire had run down and they were in a lingering pile of warmth, but they started their day briskly and efficiently, without comment. As if this happened all the time.
They had re-made the bed. Packed up their equipment. Natasha made coffee, James cooked scrambled eggs, and they waited for their missing third.
Steve eventually came back, cheeks pink from the cold and boots tracking in snow, and it didn't take long for them to float the discussion of Madripoor later in the day, and it didn't take long for Steve to refuse. Absolutely not, he'd said at first, but Bucky didn't relent.
It was like pulling teeth.
Trying to convince him of that cold, hard calculus. The fact that Bucky didn't want to put him at risk. The fact that Steve didn't mind being put in harm's way; actively courted it, really. The fact that Natasha's hand would be steadier on that trigger. The unsavoury underbelly of Madripoor and how these two were practically made for it, trained for it, and Captain America most decidedly wasn't.
Those trigger words, burning a pit into his best friend's brain.
It had been a long argument, it had gone back and forth, they kept going over it and over it in their drive down the mountain and onto the next safehouse. Natasha had, probably wisely, sat on the sidelines and let the men wrestle it out. They would come to a conclusion, either way.
And so, they did. It took another week to get the preparations ready, but then it was Steve packed into a duffel bag, a crushing hug on an airfield, arms drawn tight around each other — Bucky murmuring something into his ear, a laugh drawn out of the other man — the two finally parting with no idea when they'd see each other next, but with the hopes that when they did, things would be different. Bucky had watched him go, his glacier-blue eyes steady on Steve Rogers' retreating back; and when he was out of view, James had turned back to Natasha, and said:
What now?
More chartered flights with more private contacts. They made their way east out of Europe, to the steaming muggy heat of Madripoor; traded frigid Norwegian snow for monsoon season, swapped knit sweaters for sweating through their undershirts; traded a mountain cottage for a small apartment with wallpaper peeling in the humidity. There was only one bedroom, still. As much as there might've been a quiet ulterior motive, it was genuinely pragmatic too: they had to save their money, because disappearing off the grid took cash; greasing palms and bribing criminals took even more.
But they were here on a mission, so they spent their nights pounding the pavement and searching for clues, nosing around the city's information brokers, discreetly asking around. The leads mostly petered out — there were plenty of back-alley doctors, and even whispers of people buying superpowers if they wanted them — but James wanted the opposite. He didn't need more serums and more experimentation. He wanted the effects of the last experiments reversed, carved out of him. Their requirements were strict: they needed a neurosurgeon, a cognitive specialist, someone shady enough to operate and keep their mouth shut, but not so shady that they couldn't be trusted at all.
This was the last try for the night before they would inevitably have to wend their way back to their apartment: to tossing and turning in sweaty sheets, James on the sofa, staring up at a black spider crawling across the apartment ceiling.
But they weren't there yet. In a crowded bar, James slipped through the crowd and back to Natasha's side. He was wearing long sleeves despite the heat; hiding his left arm from view, a cap low over his face, the ubiquitous Avengers disguise.
"Don't think the guy I spoke to is gonna pan out," he said. "Any word from your contacts?"
It had been difficult sending Steve back to the States. Rogers was a good friend, a solid presence, and a definite buffer between her and her memories. He hadn't wanted to leave them, that Natasha knew, but she'd prudently kept her opinions out of the discussion, and let things come to the logical conclusion.
Madripoor was an entirely different world. One had to be ruthless to survive, and able to scrounge while keeping one hand on a trigger and one eye over the shoulder. Vermin didn't always have four legs, in this sweltering nest. Dank back alleys, shadowed doorways, tired back rooms; these were the places where business went down, in Madripoor.
She'd just returned from one of those sorts of 'meetings', herself, plunking down at the far end of the bar with a grunt of exasperated frustration. The bartender brought her a club soda, heavy on the ice - her beverage of choice when working - and Natasha sipped it slowly, brooding over the glass's rim as her mind whirled a mile a minute.
It was hot; even indoors with conditioned air, the jungle heat was enough to oppress, lying thick and heavy over all beneath it. Nevertheless, she was prudently garbed in form fitting jeans and jacket, boots in which were secreted a number of weapons, as well as her customary arsenal she never went without.
A familiar shape materialized out of the gloom, and Natasha glanced up to greet her companion with a brief nod, then a repeat of her former exasperation. Barnes had to be dying, in this heat. She sympathized. "Nothing yet," was her low grumble, swallowing another icy gulp. "I may have to step on a few toes, if something doesn't come back soon."
They'd been at this for a while, trying to find the information they needed, and had hit more brick walls and dead ends than she liked. Before, her information network had been impeccable, able to provide whatever was requested within a matter of hours, but here, information routes were sketchy, at best. It was irritating. But necessary, therefore she wasn't willing to give up. Not by a damn sight.
And the more they 'worked', the busier they both stayed. Work was good. Busy was good. Unbusy, alone together, was...well. Even though their interlude back in the snow hadn't lifted any eyebrows, now, without the third to insulate, Natasha felt it. The slow thrum of...something, simmering away between her and the former Winter Soldier.
She ignored it, for the most part. They had other, more important objectives, and as long as it was kept out of sight, kept quiet, she could deal with it and move right on along. No harm, no foul. Smooth as glass. But it was nevertheless ever-present, and she could no more deny its existence than she could fly to the moon. Still. Work. Focus on the mission.
So she slid a second full glass over, automatically running her eye along Bucky's trail back through the room, just to make sure he hadn't been followed or any undue attention still lingered. "A storm's supposed to roll in tonight, so everything'll be battened down for the duration, anyway."
The search had been futile so far, but he didn't mind taking it slow-but-steady, and not rushing the info-gathering. It wouldn't do to seize the first slipshod connection they could, only for the medical operation to go wrong. Not when they had so much at stake: the Winter Soldier conditioning, and James' life and sanity on the line.
As he crossed the bar and took the seat next to Natasha, she could see the sweat slicking the back of his neck, glinting at his temples from the hot night outside, the fabric of his shirt clinging to his shoulderblades. The club soda and ice was welcome, and he nodded to her in gratitude.
Nat's graze drifted behind him and he didn't shift, trusting her to check the corners and literally watch his back. It would be far less suspicious than James swiveling in his seat and peering back over his shoulder like some jumpy tourist.
"What's with our luck and storms?" he asked; wry, one of his first acknowledgments of the night they'd shared back in Norway. "Kind of a different environment here, though."
It was practically the opposite of the winter they'd come from; now it was humid tropical nights, the AC unit puttering away and groaning in the window. Condensation pooling on his glass as he took it and gulped a sip, desperate to cool down. (Something had been even more familiar about living with her in this new stage of their flight, just the two of them. There was some vague sense of having done this before— but he kept pressing it down, like an annoyingly persistent glimmer of deja vu.)
"Mmm." Natasha agreed over the rim of her glass, eyebrow flicking upwards. She hadn't forgotten either, that freezing cold night in Norway, not all that long ago, really. A final perusal of the room satisfied her, and a little of the rigid tension melted from her shoulder blades, but she wouldn't truly relax until they were back at their nondescript apartment, locked away from the rest of the world while the rain pelted down outside. Giving them a few hours reprieve, anyway.
From both the sweltering heat and the two-legged predators prowling these islands.
The bartender refilled both of their glasses, and Natasha chugged hers down gratefully. She hated cold, but this type of oppressive heat, coupled with the outrageous humidity, wasn't too much better, in the way of relative comfort. But all told, she'd rather be hot than cold, so. At least the wind was starting to pick up, bringing with it the first cooler breezes, a breath of relief from the normal tropical atmosphere.
"I have a supply order in at Mac's," she told Barnes sotto voce. Groceries, ammunition; as much of both as they could afford. At least for a week or so. "Might be a good idea to get over there before this storm hits. Power could go out." A mildly exasperated sigh. "...again."
"Occupational hazard, I guess. But yeah, we can finish our drinks and then head on over." James had propped his elbows against the edge of the bar, and if you squinted and transplanted the image out of Madripoor, you could almost pretend he was a man unwinding at the end of a long day at the office, going for a drink with a pretty woman. Despite that tension sitting heavy between them these days (building like an oncoming storm), he felt most at ease when they talked bare logistics: it was that comfort of falling into a job, a task, a mission, with a particular goal to reach. Even if they were operating on minimal resources, her connections severed, the pair of them bootstrapping it in the criminal underbelly of the world.
"In case I haven't said it enough— I appreciate you sticking this out with me," he said after a pause. "You really didn't have to."
They were practically strangers to each other (were they?), and yet Natasha was still putting her life on hold for him, sticking her neck out for him. It was a sacrifice he still wasn't sure he knew how to repay properly.
A minute or two passed before Natasha replied. Hands wrapped around her icy glass, the redhead relishing the chill. "I know I didn't." One corner of her mouth quirked. "But you're welcome." Club soda swished in the bottom of the glass as she idly swirled it. "I couldn't let the world's most forgetful fossil toddle off on his own, right?" A wink followed, a small reminder of her same response back in the blizzard.
"Besides," she added lightly, crunching on a piece of ice, "this is actually a lot of fun." Granted, her definition of "fun" was slightly different than the rest of the world. Despite all of the insanity with the Avengers over the past few years, aliens, demigods, otherworldly creatures bent on total domination seemed...very far away just now. But outsmarting and out-maneuvering just as sly, just as crafty, as she was always worth the trouble.
And if she focused, kept her mind strictly where it belonged, she could ignore this undercurrent of curious want humming between them. Since they'd arrived in the islands, proximity had been cut in half, and both of them were, she was sure, acutely aware of each other, but far too hesitant to say or do anything about it. Don't rock the boat, in these waters there be sharks.
Natasha drained her glass, then glanced over at her companion. "Ready?"
"If this is your idea of fun, I'd hate to see what your idea of an actual vacation is like." James grinned, then drained the rest of his drink — easy enough, since he'd have been able to shotgun hard liquor too — and then slid off his stool.
"Ready," he said, and fell into position beside and slightly behind Nat as they left the bar and stepped out into the muggy night, the crowded streets, the neon lights. It was one of his tics and old habits: he never gravitated to walking exactly by her side, as if they weren't equals. He defaulted instead to the bodyguard position, functioning as a shield-arm; and he walked on her left, so his left arm was on the outside and ready to block any incoming threats.
Nat had to keep chivvying and reminding him to move up next to her, those times they'd been pretending to be average tourists — but Madripoor wasn't ambling down a sunny Parisian avenue, and so perhaps this position worked better here. That position, and the way his gaze stayed lodged on the faraway crowds, the angles of the alleys.
"So supplies first, then home?" he asked. Then, a second later, he realised how strange that one syllable sounded on his tongue. A slip-up. (He hadn't had a real home in so long, hadn't had a place to pin to that word — even NYC had become foreign to him — but it turned out that home really was where the heart is.)
Had they been anywhere else in the world, Natasha would have corrected Barnes' position, bringing him in step with her; he wasn't her servant, damnit. But here in Madripoor, the literal "urban jungle", it looked better if he did stay one step behind. Gave her street-credibility, that. And that was precious coin in this hellish maze.
Natasha nodded to James' question just as the wind began to pick up power and speed, thus she didn't linger in their trek to retrieve supplies. Her list was complete, and after only minor haggling over the prices - tropical storms were no joke around here - she and the former Winter Soldier made a hasty retreat for their apartment building, Natasha running inside just as a particular gust almost blew Barnes inside.
"God," the redhead groused, readjusting her burden for easier carry up the four flights. (This posh establishment wasn't nearly flush enough to afford an elevator.) Their rented apartment wasn't anything to write home about: aged curling wallpaper, kitchen furniture not even popular in the sixties, a spavined refrigerator, microwave that only worked half of the time, frayed, vermin-chewed carpet, and there was probably enough penicillin growing in the bathroom to cure half the world's cancer.
But it was private - she'd made sure of that - and no one asked questions, no one visited, and best of all, it was a corner spot, which meant they had eyelines in all directions. Natasha had insisted. The view was lost on the both, however, as Natasha deposited her bags on the small Formica table and began rummaging for the cold stuff, to get it in the fridge before it melted or soured entirely.
The lights suddenly flickered, garnering her disapproving frown upwards, and a muttered Russian curse followed.
He took the heaviest of their supplies (it helped to have a pack mule with superstrength) and helped her hike up the stairs, but they could already hear the storm howling outside.
The wind was starting to pick up; they were hurricane winds, balmy with warm rain starting to lash sideways, the tropical trees creaking and bowing around them, wind-lashed. It was odd, how different it could feel from those wintry blizzards. They were both accustomed to cold and cutting Siberian snowstorms, the way that wind felt like knives trying to flay the flesh from your bones; whereas this was warm, almost comfortable, but still violent. Rumbling overhead and underfoot, rattling the windowpanes of their corner apartment.
While Natasha busied herself with the groceries, he took care of the ammunition: quick and brisk and efficient, storing them away safely in the many weapons caches around the apartment. (Because there were, of course, several: go-bags in the closet, spare gun stashed in the toilet tank, another taped above a doorframe. They were paranoid people.)
As soon as the supplies were put away, James hauled off his long-sleeved shirt and tossed it onto a nearby chair, leaving him back in his sweat-rumpled white undershirt. That left arm, finally visible, now that he was in a place where he didn't mind her seeing it. He wound up gravitating back towards the corner windows, looking contemplatively out over their view of the city. The glass panes blurred with water, the loud drops hammering against the windows.
Shitty conditions. Pretty much everything had been shitty ever since Germany. He probably had to stop apologising for it, though; Natasha had made her choice, and she'd decided to stay by his side, and he had to trust her to know what she wanted.
"What's the plan for tomorrow?" he asked distantly, still staring out.
"Depends on how bad it gets tonight," was the casual reply as Natasha closed the refrigerator door. She glanced out of the window, observing, "Probably nothing much, if it keeps this up." Because the power would probably go out, and there was no leaving the apartment while the winds were blowing at gale-force.
Looking out of the windows provided a secondary visual tidbit: James Barnes in a faded undershirt and jeans, his entire torso on prominent display. The redhead bit the inside of her cheek. God, but he was still beautiful, aesthetically pleasing even with all of his imperfections. And it was so unfair, that she couldn't just come up behind him, slide her hands up over those sculpted shoulders, and lean into his back, soaking up his warmth and strength.
"Gonna go take a shower," she reported abruptly, also shrugging out of her heavy jacket and taking it with her into the single bedroom. "Be out in just a few." Because there wasn't anything better for fortifying the constitution than cold, cold water.
While Natasha went off to the bathroom, James shot a look after her, then dragged his gaze away and tried to keep himself busy while the pipes started whining. He often found himself at loose ends like this, once they were done pursuing leads for the day: like he was a weapon taken off the shelf but now sitting aimless, purposeless, simply waiting for the next day he got to be retrieved from the holster. There wasn't anything else they could do right now, during the storm, until the next day they could hit the streets and talk to people.
He still wasn't good at figuring out what to do with himself when he wasn't working.
So he paced the room a little, before heading over to their labouring refrigerator. He poured himself some ice water and took a deep sip, still trying to cool off. A cold shower sounded great, actually, but he could take his after hers. So in the meantime, he flopped onto the sofa — his makeshift bed — like a marionette with its strings cut. Head tipped back against the cushions, staring up at the ceiling, as the heat made him sluggish and listless.
The apartment was small enough that his keen, enhanced senses could hear the rattle of the plumbing, the hum of the water, the creak of the shower curtain scraping on its rings as Nat moved it. He tried not to picture it, but he found himself distracted by the noise regardless; there wasn't much else to focus on outside of the storm.
She let the chilly water run over her; at least the water pressure was decent, for a place as downtrodden as this one. It streamed through red hair, darkening the vibrant color, but left gooseflesh over pale skin as it trickled down and away.
Focus was requiring more and more effort; like Bucky, Natasha wasn't really sure what to do once the work had finished for the day (or night). And it wasn't really like her, not to be comfortable in her own space, no matter where she was. But lately, she'd noticed a certain...tension in the apartment every now and then, and she wasn't entirely sure why.
She was doing her damndest to keep her distance, to treat Barnes as no one other than a comrade, a teammate, even though she knew deep down that that was a lie. Still, she didn't have a choice. Some secrets weren't hers to share. Not entirely.
But Natasha sensed James' growing curiosity, his subtle interest, even if the man himself wasn't aware of it. And she wasn't entirely sure how long things would hold out before the other shoe - his precious, hard-won sanity - dropped. Still, she was determined to keep him sane for as long as she could, and pray God they'd soon find someone to take those awful words out of his head, to neutralize the hold HYDRA still had over his mind.
That thought firmly in place, Natasha quickly finished her shower and, shivering a little, toweled off and slipped into comfortable cotton shorts and a tank top. Emerging from the bathroom still running a towel through her hair, she spied her companion sprawled on the couch and folded into "her" chair.
"Bathroom's free," she reported, "if you wanna go rinse off."
"You read my mind," James said, as if this wasn't a daily occurrence by now: trudging back to the apartment, then automatically scouring off all the sticky sweat of the day.
So, just like usual, he went to the shower. Cold water sluicing between his shoulderblades, through the hair he'd cut short to look less like the Winter Soldier of old. Cold water dripping on tile. He showered quickly, briskly, just enough to cool off, with the kind of automatic habitual speed which came from timed showers in the army, metered seconds in a Soviet washroom. After hopping back out, he paused in front of the mirror, which had fogged up his blurry silhouette in the condensation, his unrecognisable face blurred into a haze. James ran his right hand across the mirror, smearing it until he could see himself again: blue eyes blinking back at him.
The cold water cleared his brain, helped scour it loose of distractions (at least, for now). Compared to their stint in the mountains, they were no longer bundled up in blankets and sweaters and layered fuzzy socks, sweatpants and hoodies zipped to his throat. By sheer necessity, now James was in boxer shorts and that perpetual white undershirt. He felt temporarily less stifled by the heat as he stepped back out into the living room to rejoin Natasha, but just as he opened his mouth, the wind raised to a howl and the lights flickered again, and—
And they went out completely, plunging them into darkness, the air conditioner's low growl clinking into silence.
James was a silhouette standing motionless behind the couch; the angles of his head and shoulders painted in the shadows, gone still and quiet. That paranoia ticking over as he instantly envisioned the worst: HYDRA agents cutting the power to their building; SHIELD agents surrounding the apartment.
His voice came came out of the darkness: "You think it's natural?"
A few Russian curses managed to escape before she could bite them back, and Natasha immediately bolted to her feet, small but strong flashlight in her right hand. The left held a pistol, expertly unwavering, and she automatically took stock of their living room, combat training taking over natural instinct. Then she turned to the windows, easing out of the direct line of fire, and peered out into the inky, wet, wind-swept, lightning-illuminated darkness.
A sigh preceded her response.
"Yeah, more than likely." The gun lowered, as did the flashlight, clicking off so she might better see outside. "Looks like the entire block's gone dark. Transformer probably blew out, or the substation got zapped." This time, she didn't bother holding back the Cossack invective.
"But," came Natasha's low, whiskey voice out of the dimness, "I'd stay away from the windows, malyshka, just in case."
Taking her own advice, she slowly made her way away from her vantage point and plunked down on one end of the couch, since her comfortable recliner wasn't entirely the best place to perch right now, as it offered a good view of the corner window.
"At least there's cold water in the fridge," she mused, tucking one bare foot beneath her. "And it should stay cold in there for several hours." Hopefully. "I picked up a bunch of perishables, fresh fruit and snacks, for this specific reason." Everything in their apartment was electric, so no chance to cook without power.
"If you're hungry, I can filch a few things out of the fridge without letting too much cold out."
He hesitated, head still craned towards the windows; it was like an itch, wanting to keep an eye on the territory outside, spotting for suspicious movement or the flash of a sniper scope. But there was another instinct which tells him to stay the hell away from those windows and those clear lines of sight, so in the end, Natasha's suggestion and that latter instinct won out. James circled the apartment and took up position on the other end of the couch, facing her.
"You're always feeding me," James remarked wryly. "I'm fine for now. Had some nasi goreng from a street vendor on my way back from the meet."
He was thinking about his supersoldier metabolism (a perpetual small annoyance in their side, probably), and just as he did, a memory seemed to emerge from the haze, and he seized it like he was grabbing at a slippery eel, dragging it to light, hanging onto it before it could slip between his fingers. And he shared it, making it real before he could forget or before it could vanish again: "My mother kept saying I was gonna eat her out of house and home. With you, it might actually be true. I'm going through those groceries like hell."
She chuckled to his wry remark, acceding the point with a small shrug. "I know how many calories you burn on the daily," Natasha reminded him, leaning her head over to prop on a hand. This, sitting thus, was...comfortable, the camaraderie between them at ease, confident in the other's ability to defend and protect, if necessary.
Then a low laugh emerged in the drenched darkness, followed by Natasha's light quip. "Well, you don't have to worry about eating the rent, malyshka," she told him, shifting slightly. "Our groceries and ammunition are covered." A pause, then she confessed, "I spoke with Pepper Potts before we left Europe. Told her what we were doing, just as precaution. She agreed to open an untraceable account for me, which refills with small amounts on an irregular schedule."
Natasha lowered her hand. "I've been using it to buy supplies and mainly food, but there's never enough in it to raise any alarms, or cover all of our expenses at one time. And she's promised to keep it quiet, so certain nosy Rosies don't catch on." Namely Tony Stark or Steve Rogers.
But Natasha trusted Pepper - call it a shared woman's intuition. A secret sisterhood, perhaps. Either way, contingency plans were a way of life, and there wasn't any way in hell she would have come here without at least one safety net.
James blinked, a little surprised by that confession. Had he ever stopped to wonder where their finances came from? No, apparently not. He'd scraped together money when he was on the run by himself, but there was something about traveling with Nat specifically which made him just assume it was all under control. And as the Winter Soldier, he'd never had to stop and consider where the funding was coming from, who was bankrolling his next safehouse, who provided all those ammunition refills; HYDRA always provided. He'd taken and taken and taken, knowing that equipment would always be sitting ready for him when he needed it. So old habits died hard.
It was a good reminder, to not get complacent.
"Shit, that's good of her," James said. What do I owe her? he almost asked, but that wasn't the right angle. Financially, it would be a debt he couldn't afford to pay back. So instead, he found himself asking with all that old cynicism of his long, long years: "Are there any strings attached?"
Natasha paused, head tilted, a bit surprised that he'd even ask. "No...nothing you have to worry about," she told him, tone a little wry. "She's on board with our current mission, so consider it a donation from Stark Enterprises." Since Pepper was still the CEO of Tony Stark's massive manufacturing empire.
"We'll still have to come up with pocket money for the really big stuff, but at least we won't starve or run out of basic ammunition. Although," she amended, giving the ceiling a frown, "we might blow away this time, if the wind gets any stronger."
And it was already getting warmer inside their small apartment. Natasha preferred warm over cold, definitely, but the tropical humidity was no joke. Granted, with the storm raging about outside, the customary heat wasn't an issue now, but once it blew itself out, it might be days before power was restored to their corner of this pirate's den.
A gust rattled the windows, but thankfully they held. The couch was well out of range should the glass implode, but it was still a little unnerving, just sitting while Nature's fury ripped and roared about outside.
"Want to practice languages again?" A game left over from their time in Norway, useful for passing the time whenever the power went out.
The mention of Stark Enterprises made some indescribable emotion cross James' face: a twist at the corner of his mouth, self-conscious and rueful. Just because Tony Stark had relented and decided to let him go didn't mean there weren't still complicated feelings on both sides. Accepting donations from Stark, no matter how simple, came with a tangle of guilt.
(He'd been friends with Howard. He could still remember all the time they'd spent together. Sharing pints of beer in a pub in London; joy-riding an army jeep at headquarters; both of them chatting up women together on leave, both acting as flirtatious wingmen trying to help Steve out of his shell.) (And then, that perplexed voice: Sergeant Barnes? His metal hand smashing into the other man's face again and again and again, until it was just a mess of pummeled meat and broken bone. His hand coiled around Maria Stark's throat.)
Anyway. It's complicated, is what we're saying.
When she suggested practicing languages, James considered it from his boneless slump against the sofa, but then ultimately shook his head. "It's too hot. I can't think straight. I feel like a goddamn engine overheating, I'm not good in this kind of—"
He'd been built for Siberian winter.
He hesitated for a second, already feeling that heat settling into all his skin and bones, and then he straightened in his seat. "Sorry, this is gonna kill me. Is it okay if I strip down more? This might be is our beach day after all." As soon as she tipped her chin in an assenting nod, James hauled off his undershirt, leaving him just shirtless and sprawled in that sofa in his boxers, and then he fell back with another sigh.
She knew about the Starks, of course, but there was no way in hell she'd ever divulge the fact that she knew. It wasn't any of her business, for one, and she'd never willingly cause the man at the opposite end of the couch any more guilt than she knew he already carried. Which was why she'd more or less kept those little details on the down-low, at least until he asked.
But the Winter Soldier's past missions were abruptly shunted aside when Barnes asked if he could peel out of that damp undershirt, and Natasha watched with an unconcerned façade, but in truth her hooded gaze was mapping every single defined line of that magnificent torso, gleaming with dewy sweat in the brief flashes of light from the storm outside. And heaven help her, but she could still recall how it felt beneath her fingertips - heated velvet over corded steel.
Another freezing cold shower loomed in her future, she knew.
Well, James' idea wasn't a bad one, and after a moment's thought, the redhead uncoiled from the sofa and made her quiet way into the bedroom, emerging a few minutes later in just her plain black bikini top with a cold wet washcloth around her neck, long curls swept up into an artfully messy twist, leaving her neck and shoulders bare. She'd kept her soft cotton gym shorts, but nothing beneath - satin stuck when one was sweaty.
She plopped down in her former place, absently tossing a second cold cloth towards her companion, the cool wet rag landing right in the middle of that perfect abdomen. "Here," came her husky drawl out of the interrupted darkness. "See if that helps."
James yelped a little — an undignified noise and entirely un-Winter Soldierlike — as the cold cloth hit his stomach like an icy punch, but then he sighed in relief. "Ah jeez, great idea. Thanks."
His finger knotting into the fabric, he pressed it against his neck and throat to start cooling himself off, then rested it against his temple as if he had a headache. He leaned against it and then, despite himself, slid a glance sideways to his companion. And he told himself, sharply, not to look—
But he'd already started looking.
It really was unfair. He'd thought he'd grown long-since immune to the sight of an attractive woman: all those parts of himself shut down, out of service, decommissioned, the lights turned out and the windows shuttered and the doors locked. But there was something. Something about Natasha in specific. They shared the same goddamn shampoo so he shouldn't notice the smell of her hair when she walked past him in the morning, and yet. And now from where they sprawled, he couldn't help but notice the long lines of her bare thighs and the gleam of sweat on her neck, which made his mind go places it hadn't gone in so, so long.
But with near-Herculean effort, James managed to drag his focus away for now. Because his gaze had slipped down the angles of her collar bone and the dip of her chest and landed on her stomach. That old and familiar bullet wound.
He still remembered pulling the trigger.
"It must've hurt," he said. A non-sequitur, possibly disorienting for a moment, before he gestured with the hand which wasn't holding the cloth. That ugly scar. At least it was a clean shot, had gone right through her, when it could've been a kill shot. They'd already talked about it, that strange omission or improbable slip-up by the Soldier, but seeing the proof of it with his own eyes is something else.
"I'm glad—" James hesitated. I'm glad the Winter Soldier let you live? I'm glad I didn't kill you? He wasn't sure how to continue that sentence. "I'm glad it wasn't worse."
Despite the muggy heat of the tropics, even with the storm clamoring about outside, the temperature in the small apartment did drop a few degrees when Barnes mentioned The Scar. Natasha grew still, but only for a moment, then her customary nonchalance resurfaced and she foisted off a slight shrug.
"It did," was her easy response, resuming the chore of bathing the back of her neck and slope of shoulder. "I really wasn't a fan of yours for a good long while, after that little incident." Not to mention the loss of that Iranian engineer. Her career had been hanging by a thread as it was, before that assignment. Having a hold in her side helped explain her failure, but the rehabilitation that'd followed hadn't been pleasant.
"But," Natasha drawled then, shifting about on the couch with a resigned sigh, "that's the nature of the job, isn't it?" She didn't blame him, not in the least. He'd been programmed, after all, and besides, he could have killed her outright. "...you could have killed me," she told him, voice quiet. Then a soft smile followed, "I'm profoundly grateful that you didn't. James."
“It’s the nature of the job, yeah, but how many times have you been shot by a friend?” Beat. “If that’s what we are. I mean, I like to think that’s what we are.”
The heat was thick and humid and oppressive, and the distant lights of Madripoor outside were a smear of colour against the dark windows. He was sprawled motionless on his end of the sofa, and pulling his thoughts together in a coherent order was difficult. Even with that cold cloth pressed to his face, it felt like thinking through a fog.
Maybe that was what made it easy for the next few words to slip out, James’ brain a livewire straight to his mouth.
“I know we’re not exactly close,” he wasn’t sure how to define their relationship, because they were travelling together and literally living together, and they should still be practically strangers — and yet there was that sense of intimacy, of unearned comfortable companionship, as if they’d known each other so much longer. “But you’re one of the only people left in my life. So I’m… profoundly grateful, too.”
"We're friends," Natasha agreed off-handedly, still bathing the back of her neck with the damp cloth. The lightning fell quiet for a few minutes, leaving only the beating rain and the occasional howl of the wind for company, and the small redhead quite abruptly took full advantage of the darkness. Her end of the couch gave a minute creak, then the barest rustle stirred, and when the next flash illuminated the Stygian darkness, bright green eyes gleamed just six bare inches from Bucky's own face, intent, heady.
A bare knee dug between his thighs, not unintentionally pressing right against the apex of those semi-loose boxers. One hand rested on the back of the couch, the other pressed against Bucky's shoulder; she only needed bend her elbow to bring their bodies into full, complete contact. Green eyes glinted, red lips slanted just so.
"--closer than you think," Natasha suddenly purred, whiskey voice rough, and low. Her knee moved lightly, pressing, giving pressure and inviting just a little more, if he wanted... "And maybe..." her lashes lowered as did her gaze and her hand, trailing just fingertips down over his collar, his chest, fading sensations as they went, "...a little more than friends, da?"
Before he could answer, Natasha met his eyes again, lips parted, then time seemed to stop completely when she leaned down and pressed her lips to his. A soft sigh escaped her, testament to the secret she still carried, but her mouth was soft, moving against his, the smallest flick of her tongue a cheeky tease.
Two heartbeats passed, then she was gone, pushing up and off to sashay towards the kitchen, saying over a pale shoulder, "I'm getting an apple and water from the fridge. Want anything?"
He’d always known, of course — the widows trained for seduction and for twining people around their little finger — but being on the receiving end of it was an overwhelming experience regardless. His heartbeat felt like it was going to pound right out of his chest, all his skin afire where she trailed her fingertips across his skin. Each touch a spark, lighting something he’d thought long-buried.
And when Nat leaned in and kissed him, that spark flared and caught like a wildfire.
It was the barest thing, a small and ghosting thing; not tentative, but teasing. Coquettish with that slip of tongue, before she whisked herself away and walked across the room again, with James staring helplessly after. And for a second—
( he remembered her knee between his legs in a lumpy bed
her teeth nipping his bottom lip as he pressed her against the wall of a building, the Siberian chill on both their skins, and they both taste of winter
the warmth of her tongue and innumerable mornings and afternoons and midnight evenings, time carved out between missions and assignments, stolen minutes, stolen kisses, rushed, her quick fingers going for his belt while his slipped under her shirt
there had been so many more missions than she’d implied— )
James sat there for a second like a statue carved out of stone, stunned, not answering her question. And then, before he could really rethink the movement, he was already on his feet and following her to the kitchen instead of replying. He reached out and caught her wrist, tugged her back to look at him.
“Natalia,” he said. Her real name, her true name, given to him as a gift yet so rarely used. “I’d wondered if I dreamt it. Have we—”
He petered out, unsure how to piece together those words. It wasn’t all of it, it wasn’t the floodgates opening and delivering a tidy resurrection of all his long-dead memories — but it was like a rockslide had slid loose, offering a series of flashes, all dislodged by that kiss. It was far more than he’d had before.
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maskirovka) wrote2021-07-20 01:46 am
from madripoor with love.
They had re-made the bed. Packed up their equipment. Natasha made coffee, James cooked scrambled eggs, and they waited for their missing third.
Steve eventually came back, cheeks pink from the cold and boots tracking in snow, and it didn't take long for them to float the discussion of Madripoor later in the day, and it didn't take long for Steve to refuse. Absolutely not, he'd said at first, but Bucky didn't relent.
It was like pulling teeth.
Trying to convince him of that cold, hard calculus. The fact that Bucky didn't want to put him at risk. The fact that Steve didn't mind being put in harm's way; actively courted it, really. The fact that Natasha's hand would be steadier on that trigger. The unsavoury underbelly of Madripoor and how these two were practically made for it, trained for it, and Captain America most decidedly wasn't.
Those trigger words, burning a pit into his best friend's brain.
It had been a long argument, it had gone back and forth, they kept going over it and over it in their drive down the mountain and onto the next safehouse. Natasha had, probably wisely, sat on the sidelines and let the men wrestle it out. They would come to a conclusion, either way.
And so, they did. It took another week to get the preparations ready, but then it was Steve packed into a duffel bag, a crushing hug on an airfield, arms drawn tight around each other — Bucky murmuring something into his ear, a laugh drawn out of the other man — the two finally parting with no idea when they'd see each other next, but with the hopes that when they did, things would be different. Bucky had watched him go, his glacier-blue eyes steady on Steve Rogers' retreating back; and when he was out of view, James had turned back to Natasha, and said:
What now?
More chartered flights with more private contacts. They made their way east out of Europe, to the steaming muggy heat of Madripoor; traded frigid Norwegian snow for monsoon season, swapped knit sweaters for sweating through their undershirts; traded a mountain cottage for a small apartment with wallpaper peeling in the humidity. There was only one bedroom, still. As much as there might've been a quiet ulterior motive, it was genuinely pragmatic too: they had to save their money, because disappearing off the grid took cash; greasing palms and bribing criminals took even more.
But they were here on a mission, so they spent their nights pounding the pavement and searching for clues, nosing around the city's information brokers, discreetly asking around. The leads mostly petered out — there were plenty of back-alley doctors, and even whispers of people buying superpowers if they wanted them — but James wanted the opposite. He didn't need more serums and more experimentation. He wanted the effects of the last experiments reversed, carved out of him. Their requirements were strict: they needed a neurosurgeon, a cognitive specialist, someone shady enough to operate and keep their mouth shut, but not so shady that they couldn't be trusted at all.
This was the last try for the night before they would inevitably have to wend their way back to their apartment: to tossing and turning in sweaty sheets, James on the sofa, staring up at a black spider crawling across the apartment ceiling.
But they weren't there yet. In a crowded bar, James slipped through the crowd and back to Natasha's side. He was wearing long sleeves despite the heat; hiding his left arm from view, a cap low over his face, the ubiquitous Avengers disguise.
"Don't think the guy I spoke to is gonna pan out," he said. "Any word from your contacts?"
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Madripoor was an entirely different world. One had to be ruthless to survive, and able to scrounge while keeping one hand on a trigger and one eye over the shoulder. Vermin didn't always have four legs, in this sweltering nest. Dank back alleys, shadowed doorways, tired back rooms; these were the places where business went down, in Madripoor.
She'd just returned from one of those sorts of 'meetings', herself, plunking down at the far end of the bar with a grunt of exasperated frustration. The bartender brought her a club soda, heavy on the ice - her beverage of choice when working - and Natasha sipped it slowly, brooding over the glass's rim as her mind whirled a mile a minute.
It was hot; even indoors with conditioned air, the jungle heat was enough to oppress, lying thick and heavy over all beneath it. Nevertheless, she was prudently garbed in form fitting jeans and jacket, boots in which were secreted a number of weapons, as well as her customary arsenal she never went without.
A familiar shape materialized out of the gloom, and Natasha glanced up to greet her companion with a brief nod, then a repeat of her former exasperation. Barnes had to be dying, in this heat. She sympathized. "Nothing yet," was her low grumble, swallowing another icy gulp. "I may have to step on a few toes, if something doesn't come back soon."
They'd been at this for a while, trying to find the information they needed, and had hit more brick walls and dead ends than she liked. Before, her information network had been impeccable, able to provide whatever was requested within a matter of hours, but here, information routes were sketchy, at best. It was irritating. But necessary, therefore she wasn't willing to give up. Not by a damn sight.
And the more they 'worked', the busier they both stayed. Work was good. Busy was good. Unbusy, alone together, was...well. Even though their interlude back in the snow hadn't lifted any eyebrows, now, without the third to insulate, Natasha felt it. The slow thrum of...something, simmering away between her and the former Winter Soldier.
She ignored it, for the most part. They had other, more important objectives, and as long as it was kept out of sight, kept quiet, she could deal with it and move right on along. No harm, no foul. Smooth as glass. But it was nevertheless ever-present, and she could no more deny its existence than she could fly to the moon. Still. Work. Focus on the mission.
So she slid a second full glass over, automatically running her eye along Bucky's trail back through the room, just to make sure he hadn't been followed or any undue attention still lingered. "A storm's supposed to roll in tonight, so everything'll be battened down for the duration, anyway."
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As he crossed the bar and took the seat next to Natasha, she could see the sweat slicking the back of his neck, glinting at his temples from the hot night outside, the fabric of his shirt clinging to his shoulderblades. The club soda and ice was welcome, and he nodded to her in gratitude.
Nat's graze drifted behind him and he didn't shift, trusting her to check the corners and literally watch his back. It would be far less suspicious than James swiveling in his seat and peering back over his shoulder like some jumpy tourist.
"What's with our luck and storms?" he asked; wry, one of his first acknowledgments of the night they'd shared back in Norway. "Kind of a different environment here, though."
It was practically the opposite of the winter they'd come from; now it was humid tropical nights, the AC unit puttering away and groaning in the window. Condensation pooling on his glass as he took it and gulped a sip, desperate to cool down. (Something had been even more familiar about living with her in this new stage of their flight, just the two of them. There was some vague sense of having done this before— but he kept pressing it down, like an annoyingly persistent glimmer of deja vu.)
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From both the sweltering heat and the two-legged predators prowling these islands.
The bartender refilled both of their glasses, and Natasha chugged hers down gratefully. She hated cold, but this type of oppressive heat, coupled with the outrageous humidity, wasn't too much better, in the way of relative comfort. But all told, she'd rather be hot than cold, so. At least the wind was starting to pick up, bringing with it the first cooler breezes, a breath of relief from the normal tropical atmosphere.
"I have a supply order in at Mac's," she told Barnes sotto voce. Groceries, ammunition; as much of both as they could afford. At least for a week or so. "Might be a good idea to get over there before this storm hits. Power could go out." A mildly exasperated sigh. "...again."
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"In case I haven't said it enough— I appreciate you sticking this out with me," he said after a pause. "You really didn't have to."
They were practically strangers to each other (were they?), and yet Natasha was still putting her life on hold for him, sticking her neck out for him. It was a sacrifice he still wasn't sure he knew how to repay properly.
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"Besides," she added lightly, crunching on a piece of ice, "this is actually a lot of fun." Granted, her definition of "fun" was slightly different than the rest of the world. Despite all of the insanity with the Avengers over the past few years, aliens, demigods, otherworldly creatures bent on total domination seemed...very far away just now. But outsmarting and out-maneuvering just as sly, just as crafty, as she was always worth the trouble.
And if she focused, kept her mind strictly where it belonged, she could ignore this undercurrent of curious want humming between them. Since they'd arrived in the islands, proximity had been cut in half, and both of them were, she was sure, acutely aware of each other, but far too hesitant to say or do anything about it. Don't rock the boat, in these waters there be sharks.
Natasha drained her glass, then glanced over at her companion. "Ready?"
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"Ready," he said, and fell into position beside and slightly behind Nat as they left the bar and stepped out into the muggy night, the crowded streets, the neon lights. It was one of his tics and old habits: he never gravitated to walking exactly by her side, as if they weren't equals. He defaulted instead to the bodyguard position, functioning as a shield-arm; and he walked on her left, so his left arm was on the outside and ready to block any incoming threats.
Nat had to keep chivvying and reminding him to move up next to her, those times they'd been pretending to be average tourists — but Madripoor wasn't ambling down a sunny Parisian avenue, and so perhaps this position worked better here. That position, and the way his gaze stayed lodged on the faraway crowds, the angles of the alleys.
"So supplies first, then home?" he asked. Then, a second later, he realised how strange that one syllable sounded on his tongue. A slip-up. (He hadn't had a real home in so long, hadn't had a place to pin to that word — even NYC had become foreign to him — but it turned out that home really was where the heart is.)
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Natasha nodded to James' question just as the wind began to pick up power and speed, thus she didn't linger in their trek to retrieve supplies. Her list was complete, and after only minor haggling over the prices - tropical storms were no joke around here - she and the former Winter Soldier made a hasty retreat for their apartment building, Natasha running inside just as a particular gust almost blew Barnes inside.
"God," the redhead groused, readjusting her burden for easier carry up the four flights. (This posh establishment wasn't nearly flush enough to afford an elevator.) Their rented apartment wasn't anything to write home about: aged curling wallpaper, kitchen furniture not even popular in the sixties, a spavined refrigerator, microwave that only worked half of the time, frayed, vermin-chewed carpet, and there was probably enough penicillin growing in the bathroom to cure half the world's cancer.
But it was private - she'd made sure of that - and no one asked questions, no one visited, and best of all, it was a corner spot, which meant they had eyelines in all directions. Natasha had insisted. The view was lost on the both, however, as Natasha deposited her bags on the small Formica table and began rummaging for the cold stuff, to get it in the fridge before it melted or soured entirely.
The lights suddenly flickered, garnering her disapproving frown upwards, and a muttered Russian curse followed.
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The wind was starting to pick up; they were hurricane winds, balmy with warm rain starting to lash sideways, the tropical trees creaking and bowing around them, wind-lashed. It was odd, how different it could feel from those wintry blizzards. They were both accustomed to cold and cutting Siberian snowstorms, the way that wind felt like knives trying to flay the flesh from your bones; whereas this was warm, almost comfortable, but still violent. Rumbling overhead and underfoot, rattling the windowpanes of their corner apartment.
While Natasha busied herself with the groceries, he took care of the ammunition: quick and brisk and efficient, storing them away safely in the many weapons caches around the apartment. (Because there were, of course, several: go-bags in the closet, spare gun stashed in the toilet tank, another taped above a doorframe. They were paranoid people.)
As soon as the supplies were put away, James hauled off his long-sleeved shirt and tossed it onto a nearby chair, leaving him back in his sweat-rumpled white undershirt. That left arm, finally visible, now that he was in a place where he didn't mind her seeing it. He wound up gravitating back towards the corner windows, looking contemplatively out over their view of the city. The glass panes blurred with water, the loud drops hammering against the windows.
Shitty conditions. Pretty much everything had been shitty ever since Germany. He probably had to stop apologising for it, though; Natasha had made her choice, and she'd decided to stay by his side, and he had to trust her to know what she wanted.
"What's the plan for tomorrow?" he asked distantly, still staring out.
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Looking out of the windows provided a secondary visual tidbit: James Barnes in a faded undershirt and jeans, his entire torso on prominent display. The redhead bit the inside of her cheek. God, but he was still beautiful, aesthetically pleasing even with all of his imperfections. And it was so unfair, that she couldn't just come up behind him, slide her hands up over those sculpted shoulders, and lean into his back, soaking up his warmth and strength.
"Gonna go take a shower," she reported abruptly, also shrugging out of her heavy jacket and taking it with her into the single bedroom. "Be out in just a few." Because there wasn't anything better for fortifying the constitution than cold, cold water.
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He still wasn't good at figuring out what to do with himself when he wasn't working.
So he paced the room a little, before heading over to their labouring refrigerator. He poured himself some ice water and took a deep sip, still trying to cool off. A cold shower sounded great, actually, but he could take his after hers. So in the meantime, he flopped onto the sofa — his makeshift bed — like a marionette with its strings cut. Head tipped back against the cushions, staring up at the ceiling, as the heat made him sluggish and listless.
The apartment was small enough that his keen, enhanced senses could hear the rattle of the plumbing, the hum of the water, the creak of the shower curtain scraping on its rings as Nat moved it. He tried not to picture it, but he found himself distracted by the noise regardless; there wasn't much else to focus on outside of the storm.
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Focus was requiring more and more effort; like Bucky, Natasha wasn't really sure what to do once the work had finished for the day (or night). And it wasn't really like her, not to be comfortable in her own space, no matter where she was. But lately, she'd noticed a certain...tension in the apartment every now and then, and she wasn't entirely sure why.
She was doing her damndest to keep her distance, to treat Barnes as no one other than a comrade, a teammate, even though she knew deep down that that was a lie. Still, she didn't have a choice. Some secrets weren't hers to share. Not entirely.
But Natasha sensed James' growing curiosity, his subtle interest, even if the man himself wasn't aware of it. And she wasn't entirely sure how long things would hold out before the other shoe - his precious, hard-won sanity - dropped. Still, she was determined to keep him sane for as long as she could, and pray God they'd soon find someone to take those awful words out of his head, to neutralize the hold HYDRA still had over his mind.
That thought firmly in place, Natasha quickly finished her shower and, shivering a little, toweled off and slipped into comfortable cotton shorts and a tank top. Emerging from the bathroom still running a towel through her hair, she spied her companion sprawled on the couch and folded into "her" chair.
"Bathroom's free," she reported, "if you wanna go rinse off."
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So, just like usual, he went to the shower. Cold water sluicing between his shoulderblades, through the hair he'd cut short to look less like the Winter Soldier of old. Cold water dripping on tile. He showered quickly, briskly, just enough to cool off, with the kind of automatic habitual speed which came from timed showers in the army, metered seconds in a Soviet washroom. After hopping back out, he paused in front of the mirror, which had fogged up his blurry silhouette in the condensation, his unrecognisable face blurred into a haze. James ran his right hand across the mirror, smearing it until he could see himself again: blue eyes blinking back at him.
The cold water cleared his brain, helped scour it loose of distractions (at least, for now). Compared to their stint in the mountains, they were no longer bundled up in blankets and sweaters and layered fuzzy socks, sweatpants and hoodies zipped to his throat. By sheer necessity, now James was in boxer shorts and that perpetual white undershirt. He felt temporarily less stifled by the heat as he stepped back out into the living room to rejoin Natasha, but just as he opened his mouth, the wind raised to a howl and the lights flickered again, and—
And they went out completely, plunging them into darkness, the air conditioner's low growl clinking into silence.
James was a silhouette standing motionless behind the couch; the angles of his head and shoulders painted in the shadows, gone still and quiet. That paranoia ticking over as he instantly envisioned the worst: HYDRA agents cutting the power to their building; SHIELD agents surrounding the apartment.
His voice came came out of the darkness: "You think it's natural?"
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A sigh preceded her response.
"Yeah, more than likely." The gun lowered, as did the flashlight, clicking off so she might better see outside. "Looks like the entire block's gone dark. Transformer probably blew out, or the substation got zapped." This time, she didn't bother holding back the Cossack invective.
"But," came Natasha's low, whiskey voice out of the dimness, "I'd stay away from the windows, malyshka, just in case."
Taking her own advice, she slowly made her way away from her vantage point and plunked down on one end of the couch, since her comfortable recliner wasn't entirely the best place to perch right now, as it offered a good view of the corner window.
"At least there's cold water in the fridge," she mused, tucking one bare foot beneath her. "And it should stay cold in there for several hours." Hopefully. "I picked up a bunch of perishables, fresh fruit and snacks, for this specific reason." Everything in their apartment was electric, so no chance to cook without power.
"If you're hungry, I can filch a few things out of the fridge without letting too much cold out."
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"You're always feeding me," James remarked wryly. "I'm fine for now. Had some nasi goreng from a street vendor on my way back from the meet."
He was thinking about his supersoldier metabolism (a perpetual small annoyance in their side, probably), and just as he did, a memory seemed to emerge from the haze, and he seized it like he was grabbing at a slippery eel, dragging it to light, hanging onto it before it could slip between his fingers. And he shared it, making it real before he could forget or before it could vanish again: "My mother kept saying I was gonna eat her out of house and home. With you, it might actually be true. I'm going through those groceries like hell."
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Then a low laugh emerged in the drenched darkness, followed by Natasha's light quip. "Well, you don't have to worry about eating the rent, malyshka," she told him, shifting slightly. "Our groceries and ammunition are covered." A pause, then she confessed, "I spoke with Pepper Potts before we left Europe. Told her what we were doing, just as precaution. She agreed to open an untraceable account for me, which refills with small amounts on an irregular schedule."
Natasha lowered her hand. "I've been using it to buy supplies and mainly food, but there's never enough in it to raise any alarms, or cover all of our expenses at one time. And she's promised to keep it quiet, so certain nosy Rosies don't catch on." Namely Tony Stark or Steve Rogers.
But Natasha trusted Pepper - call it a shared woman's intuition. A secret sisterhood, perhaps. Either way, contingency plans were a way of life, and there wasn't any way in hell she would have come here without at least one safety net.
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It was a good reminder, to not get complacent.
"Shit, that's good of her," James said. What do I owe her? he almost asked, but that wasn't the right angle. Financially, it would be a debt he couldn't afford to pay back. So instead, he found himself asking with all that old cynicism of his long, long years: "Are there any strings attached?"
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"We'll still have to come up with pocket money for the really big stuff, but at least we won't starve or run out of basic ammunition. Although," she amended, giving the ceiling a frown, "we might blow away this time, if the wind gets any stronger."
And it was already getting warmer inside their small apartment. Natasha preferred warm over cold, definitely, but the tropical humidity was no joke. Granted, with the storm raging about outside, the customary heat wasn't an issue now, but once it blew itself out, it might be days before power was restored to their corner of this pirate's den.
A gust rattled the windows, but thankfully they held. The couch was well out of range should the glass implode, but it was still a little unnerving, just sitting while Nature's fury ripped and roared about outside.
"Want to practice languages again?" A game left over from their time in Norway, useful for passing the time whenever the power went out.
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(He'd been friends with Howard. He could still remember all the time they'd spent together. Sharing pints of beer in a pub in London; joy-riding an army jeep at headquarters; both of them chatting up women together on leave, both acting as flirtatious wingmen trying to help Steve out of his shell.) (And then, that perplexed voice: Sergeant Barnes? His metal hand smashing into the other man's face again and again and again, until it was just a mess of pummeled meat and broken bone. His hand coiled around Maria Stark's throat.)
Anyway. It's complicated, is what we're saying.
When she suggested practicing languages, James considered it from his boneless slump against the sofa, but then ultimately shook his head. "It's too hot. I can't think straight. I feel like a goddamn engine overheating, I'm not good in this kind of—"
He'd been built for Siberian winter.
He hesitated for a second, already feeling that heat settling into all his skin and bones, and then he straightened in his seat. "Sorry, this is gonna kill me. Is it okay if I strip down more? This might be is our beach day after all." As soon as she tipped her chin in an assenting nod, James hauled off his undershirt, leaving him just shirtless and sprawled in that sofa in his boxers, and then he fell back with another sigh.
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But the Winter Soldier's past missions were abruptly shunted aside when Barnes asked if he could peel out of that damp undershirt, and Natasha watched with an unconcerned façade, but in truth her hooded gaze was mapping every single defined line of that magnificent torso, gleaming with dewy sweat in the brief flashes of light from the storm outside. And heaven help her, but she could still recall how it felt beneath her fingertips - heated velvet over corded steel.
Another freezing cold shower loomed in her future, she knew.
Well, James' idea wasn't a bad one, and after a moment's thought, the redhead uncoiled from the sofa and made her quiet way into the bedroom, emerging a few minutes later in just her plain black bikini top with a cold wet washcloth around her neck, long curls swept up into an artfully messy twist, leaving her neck and shoulders bare. She'd kept her soft cotton gym shorts, but nothing beneath - satin stuck when one was sweaty.
She plopped down in her former place, absently tossing a second cold cloth towards her companion, the cool wet rag landing right in the middle of that perfect abdomen. "Here," came her husky drawl out of the interrupted darkness. "See if that helps."
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His finger knotting into the fabric, he pressed it against his neck and throat to start cooling himself off, then rested it against his temple as if he had a headache. He leaned against it and then, despite himself, slid a glance sideways to his companion. And he told himself, sharply, not to look—
But he'd already started looking.
It really was unfair. He'd thought he'd grown long-since immune to the sight of an attractive woman: all those parts of himself shut down, out of service, decommissioned, the lights turned out and the windows shuttered and the doors locked. But there was something. Something about Natasha in specific. They shared the same goddamn shampoo so he shouldn't notice the smell of her hair when she walked past him in the morning, and yet. And now from where they sprawled, he couldn't help but notice the long lines of her bare thighs and the gleam of sweat on her neck, which made his mind go places it hadn't gone in so, so long.
But with near-Herculean effort, James managed to drag his focus away for now. Because his gaze had slipped down the angles of her collar bone and the dip of her chest and landed on her stomach. That old and familiar bullet wound.
He still remembered pulling the trigger.
"It must've hurt," he said. A non-sequitur, possibly disorienting for a moment, before he gestured with the hand which wasn't holding the cloth. That ugly scar. At least it was a clean shot, had gone right through her, when it could've been a kill shot. They'd already talked about it, that strange omission or improbable slip-up by the Soldier, but seeing the proof of it with his own eyes is something else.
"I'm glad—" James hesitated. I'm glad the Winter Soldier let you live? I'm glad I didn't kill you? He wasn't sure how to continue that sentence. "I'm glad it wasn't worse."
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"It did," was her easy response, resuming the chore of bathing the back of her neck and slope of shoulder. "I really wasn't a fan of yours for a good long while, after that little incident." Not to mention the loss of that Iranian engineer. Her career had been hanging by a thread as it was, before that assignment. Having a hold in her side helped explain her failure, but the rehabilitation that'd followed hadn't been pleasant.
"But," Natasha drawled then, shifting about on the couch with a resigned sigh, "that's the nature of the job, isn't it?" She didn't blame him, not in the least. He'd been programmed, after all, and besides, he could have killed her outright. "...you could have killed me," she told him, voice quiet. Then a soft smile followed, "I'm profoundly grateful that you didn't. James."
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The heat was thick and humid and oppressive, and the distant lights of Madripoor outside were a smear of colour against the dark windows. He was sprawled motionless on his end of the sofa, and pulling his thoughts together in a coherent order was difficult. Even with that cold cloth pressed to his face, it felt like thinking through a fog.
Maybe that was what made it easy for the next few words to slip out, James’ brain a livewire straight to his mouth.
“I know we’re not exactly close,” he wasn’t sure how to define their relationship, because they were travelling together and literally living together, and they should still be practically strangers — and yet there was that sense of intimacy, of unearned comfortable companionship, as if they’d known each other so much longer. “But you’re one of the only people left in my life. So I’m… profoundly grateful, too.”
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A bare knee dug between his thighs, not unintentionally pressing right against the apex of those semi-loose boxers. One hand rested on the back of the couch, the other pressed against Bucky's shoulder; she only needed bend her elbow to bring their bodies into full, complete contact. Green eyes glinted, red lips slanted just so.
"--closer than you think," Natasha suddenly purred, whiskey voice rough, and low. Her knee moved lightly, pressing, giving pressure and inviting just a little more, if he wanted... "And maybe..." her lashes lowered as did her gaze and her hand, trailing just fingertips down over his collar, his chest, fading sensations as they went, "...a little more than friends, da?"
Before he could answer, Natasha met his eyes again, lips parted, then time seemed to stop completely when she leaned down and pressed her lips to his. A soft sigh escaped her, testament to the secret she still carried, but her mouth was soft, moving against his, the smallest flick of her tongue a cheeky tease.
Two heartbeats passed, then she was gone, pushing up and off to sashay towards the kitchen, saying over a pale shoulder, "I'm getting an apple and water from the fridge. Want anything?"
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He’d always known, of course — the widows trained for seduction and for twining people around their little finger — but being on the receiving end of it was an overwhelming experience regardless. His heartbeat felt like it was going to pound right out of his chest, all his skin afire where she trailed her fingertips across his skin. Each touch a spark, lighting something he’d thought long-buried.
And when Nat leaned in and kissed him, that spark flared and caught like a wildfire.
It was the barest thing, a small and ghosting thing; not tentative, but teasing. Coquettish with that slip of tongue, before she whisked herself away and walked across the room again, with James staring helplessly after. And for a second—
James sat there for a second like a statue carved out of stone, stunned, not answering her question. And then, before he could really rethink the movement, he was already on his feet and following her to the kitchen instead of replying. He reached out and caught her wrist, tugged her back to look at him.
“Natalia,” he said. Her real name, her true name, given to him as a gift yet so rarely used. “I’d wondered if I dreamt it. Have we—”
He petered out, unsure how to piece together those words. It wasn’t all of it, it wasn’t the floodgates opening and delivering a tidy resurrection of all his long-dead memories — but it was like a rockslide had slid loose, offering a series of flashes, all dislodged by that kiss. It was far more than he’d had before.
“We’ve been together before. Haven’t we?”
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now that i have internet again, woo!
♥️
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