He was missing something. He could feel it with every fiber of his being. It was an ever-present feeling that he carried with him, because frankly there were a lot of things he was missing. But that feeling hadn't been as strong in the entire nine months he'd been on the run than it was right now.
Bucky found himself staring after her as she moved across the room and put ice in their glasses, pulled out water bottles from the fridge and poured it into the glasses and then sat down like she was completely oblivious to the weight of his gaze. He knew better, though. She hadn't become Black Widow by being unobservant.
His nerves were decidedly rattled, but the toast chose that moment to pop up from the toaster and he moved to grab them, laying them on the plates and carrying them to the small table, taking the seat directly across from her. He waited for her to make her sandwich before he would -- it was the polite thing to do, and there was that female voice against, distant but present, in his mind. Kind but firm.
"Soup smells good," he said quietly, finally letting his gaze drop from her form.
She wasn't oblivious. Far, far from it. The touch of those Nordic eyes was almost palpable, like a warm hand - or even deliciously cool fingertips - stroking down the length of her spine, blossoming into a weighted heat further down. And Christ, hadn't it been just forever since anything had affected her so? But she was a chameleon still, and it took very nearly every ounce of composure she could muster to sit there as if nothing had happened, as if electricity hadn't just crackled between them, wild and wicked.
The pop of the toaster gave her something other than him to focus upon, and Natasha sat up expectantly as Bucky turned with the plate of warm bread and took the other seat across the table. After a brief pause - she was still unused to his hesitance over nearly everything - Natasha gave a mental shrug and took two slices of toast and fashioned a sandwich for herself, layering meat, cheese, and lettuce in a dainty pattern between the bread.
Bucky broke the thick silence and she glanced up with a thin smile, nodding her agreement. "It does." Was it only her imagination or had her voice gone a little huskier? God. A sip of water corrected than, she hoped, and Natasha added, trying for lightness, "Hopefully it tastes better than diner breakfast at two am."
Bucky reached out and took the other two pieces of toast and set them on his own plate, fashioning a sandwich very similar to the one she'd created, albeit with more meat and cheese on it than lettuce. When he was finished, he picked it up and took a bite, closing his eyes momentarily and chewing as slowly as he could, trying to savor the tastes. Even this morning he'd been in too big of a hurry to scarf down the food to really stop and enjoy it. But maybe, even if it was just for now, he could let his guard down a little, let himself relax. At least long enough to enjoy a meal.
He kept giving small, flickering glances in Natasha's direction. He had a feeling there was so, so much more to her than what he knew about her. It was fair, considering how little she probably knew about him, too.
"It was good too," he told her. "The food this morning." He dropped his gaze to focus on the food in front of him now. He ate a few bites of the soup before he spoke again. "All food is better than the protein shakes."
At least he wasn't inhaling his food this time. Natasha felt that was progress, given how he'd attacked the plates at Denny's earlier. But the man was hungry, so she couldn't fault him for eating as if he might never taste anything else again. She also wasn't too surprised to see that he'd piled the meat and cheese thick on his sandwich; an imp of a smile touched her lips as she took a bite of her own.
And he kept looking at her. Every so often their eyes caught, and Bucky always glanced away first. Natasha simply lowered her gaze to her plate, eating lightly and with a delicate sureness to each movement, very well aware of being observed, scrutinized. It didn't bother her. She knew he had to be constantly combing through what was left of his memories, searching for that something that would trip a switch and suddenly remind him of things long past, be they pleasant or...otherwise.
She glanced up when he spoke again, giving a light little shrug. "I'm glad you liked it. Diner food can sometimes be a little heavy on the grease, for me." Then she lowered her spoon, a small but tangible wrench momentarily knotting her stomach when he mentioned protein shakes. "They're...not the best, no," she agreed quietly, stirring her soup slowly.
Natasha worried at her lower lip, wondering if she should even bring it up, but... "It surprised you, didn't it, when I called you 'James' a minute ago." Not really a question, that. She looked up at him through her lashes, a little bold, but...soft. Something had snapped between them just then; she'd felt it, and from the look he'd given her, she hadn't been the only one to do so.
The food had been a bit greasy. Fortunately between his metabolism and whatever bastardized version of the super soldier serum they'd given him, his body seemed to handle it all right. The first few meals with actual food he'd consumed hadn't settled well. It had made him wary of eating for days, but eventually his body started to get used to actual food and not just a shake and a shot of vitamins. And now here he was.
It didn't escape his notice that she agreed about the protein shakes and he found himself gazing at her for a moment, speculative. He wondered what her own training as Black Widow had consisted of. He can't imagine the methods used had been pleasant. He wondered if they'd wiped her brain out a few times, too. He wondered just how similar the two of them might truly be. Whatever similarities they had, the differences stuck out far more. She took on a persona of someone who was flirtatious and optimistic but he didn't buy it. It didn't seem real. She was acting -- but for whose benefit? His or her own?
And then, for a moment, the facade dropped entirely and he found himself holding his breath, staring at her with his glass of water halfway to his lips. "Yes," he agreed, because there was no point in denying. He hadn't tried to hide his reaction. "Yes, it did." He took a sip of the drink and set it down on the table once more, but kept his fingers curled around it.
"It felt -- familiar?" He wasn't sure that was the right word, exactly.
It was definitely the right word. Natasha kept her expression carefully neutral, still moving her spoon around in her soup bowl. She lowered her eyes to the plate in front of her, wishing she could just tell him. Tell him everything. But that would undoubtedly lead to disaster, and she had no intention of adding any more burdens to his already weighted shoulders.
"Well," she heard herself say, as if from the end of a very long tunnel, "that is your name, isn't it?" It was a customary quip, but even to her ears it fell a little...flat. So she tried again, forcing her lips to curve somewhat wryly. "Steve shared your file. What information that he had, rather." Never mind that she'd given him most of it in the first place. Details she'd compiled over a decade of searching.
"He hoped that there was something in there that would help us locate you, after SHIELD collapsed." She shrugged again, but suddenly wasn't hungry anymore, either. "But we never even got close, did we?" Nine months, they'd traveled the world, looking for a single man. A man who was nothing more than a ghost, a specter lost amid the masses.
"Steve always referred to you as 'Bucky'," Natasha added softly. Then she looked up at him again, sincerity edging into warm green eyes. "But I think I like you better as 'James'." Moy Dzheyms. Moya zvezda...
"So I hear," he quipped in response without missing a beat. He thought maybe he should be perturbed that he could joke so thoughtlessly about the fact that he didn't, in reality, have any kind of solid grip on who he was, but he wasn't. But the idea that Steve had shared information on him with others was a bit surprising. Then again, she'd been helping Steve look for him for the last nine months, as well as one Sam Wilson.
He exhaled, sitting back in his chair and staring at the mostly empty plate of food before lifting his gaze to look at her. "A couple of times." He paused. "I knew he was looking for me. That he'd recruited people to help him." He also knew Steve was never going to stop and that at some point, he was going to have to at least meet with him, convince Steve that he was fine and he could handle himself. It made him tired just to think about. It wasn't that he didn't want to see Steve, it was that he wasn't ready. He'd been trained to be a ghost, and he was damned good at it. Maybe better now, even, because he had even deeper incentive to stay hidden: keeping Steve safe. And he was mostly certainly not safe to be around.
Which Natasha knew, too, and yet...here they were. Sitting across from each other in a safe house in the middle of Hungary, having dinner like they were old friends. And the weirdest part of all of it was that sense of deja vu that he couldn't seem to entirely shake.
He drew in a breath and lifted his eyes to look at her, to hold her gaze. "It's fine. You can call me whichever," he said quietly, nodding. Neither name necessarily felt like who he was at that point, but maybe he could get used to them more if someone was addressing him regularly. He paused at that thought, realizing he'd already jumped to the assumption this deal between them, whatever it was, was more than short-term.
She wasn't afraid of him. Had never been. Would never be. To fear this broken man would be the worst sort of blasphemy. But she could be afraid for him, definitely. She also wasn't surprised that Bucky had known they were tailing him, dogging his tracks across the continents and even beyond, she sometimes imagined. But they both knew that Steve Rogers was never going to stop. Once an idea took root in his mind, Natasha had learned that there was no dislodging it. And she also knew that Bucky was indeed correct: Steve did sometimes make bad decisions, particularly where the man seated across the table was concerned.
But Steve wasn't here. And if things had gone according to the plans he'd discussed with her and Wilson just four short days ago, the two of them were heading back Stateside, which took a lot of the stress out of her shoulders; that she didn't have to watch her back for America's Golden Boy bearing down on them both. Because she knew Barnes would absolutely disappear, and then she'd be left holding the proverbial empty bag.
Bucky met her eyes then, and Natasha's spoon stilled as she let it come to rest against the side of her soup bowl. She nodded back, once. "Khorosho," she murmured back. All right. And she felt it again, that unerring pull. It seemed to snap back into place each time their gazes met and strengthen the longer they held. It was both aggravating and bittersweet simultaneously.
"Why did you come with me?" she suddenly heard herself ask, shifting slightly and straightening in her chair. "You had no reason to, but you did. Why did you trust me?"
It wasn't that Bucky wanted anyone to be afraid of him. He didn't want to be the monster that HYDRA had twisted him into being. But he knew people should be afraid of him, because he knew exactly what he was capable of. He also knew there were those still out there who would be able to flip the switch in an utterance of ten little words that would force him to do their bidding whether he wanted to or not.
He also knew what he would do if he was backed into a corner. He wouldn't like it, but he wouldn't allow himself to be apprehended, locked up or used. Not by HYDRA. Not by the remnants of SHIELD that was rebuilding itself. Not by any other organization or agency because as far as he was concerned they were all corrupt and had hidden agendas.
Never again.
There was something in the way she kept looking at him, like she was waiting for something, like she was trying to figure him out or she was waiting for him to figure it out. But what?
The question surprised him and his lips parted momentarily, because truthfully, there was no real good reason he could give her that would answer her satisfactorily. He rested his hands on the table, considering. It was a fair question. "I guess I just have a gut feeling about you," he said finally.
Well, that was about as honest an answer as she could expect, really. Natasha nodded, satisfied for the nonce. Although she could have told him that gut feelings were hardly something to bet one's life on, but she supposed he had better reason than most to trust his own instincts. At least, they'd gotten him this far, hadn't they?
"Fair enough," she murmured, picking up her sandwich and taking another small bite. She'd let her gaze fall as she did so, needing somewhere else to look other than crystalline blue. As she ate, Natasha silently wondered how long it would be before she woke up to find him gone again. She wouldn't begrudge him that, when she did. She had no illusions that Bucky would remain, even if some small, wishful part of her hoped that he would. Even if he didn't remember everything that had transpired between them, James Barnes was still a force to be reckoned with, and paranoid enough to sniff out trouble at the slightest hint of something not right.
Her old, battered humor quirked for a moment, and her smirk tilted slightly. "Some people might not consider that plus, though." Natasha touched a fingertip to the corner of her lips, brushing away a few stray crumbs. "My backstory isn't exactly stellar, either." If he hadn't gone through the files she'd released online, she'd eat her boots. It was a mixed blessing that certain details regarding both of their histories had been redacted at the highest levels; only Nick Fury had known the true account of the "Black Widow", and Natalia had trusted him with her life, rightly so.
She ate a few more bites from her sandwich, then her soup, before setting both away and leaning back in her chair. Crossing her arms, Natasha let her head tilt slightly, silently appraising her companion before inquiring, "Did you save any hot water for me, by chance?"
He'd managed to avoid every person and agency looking for him for nine months acting on his instincts and doing what he'd been trained to do. He doubts seriously that anyone from HYDRA ever anticipated he'd take the training they'd forced on him and use it against them, though even if it was done in the most passively defensive way on earth. It had crossed his mind on more than one occasion, too use his skills a lot more aggressively. To use his knowledge of their inner workings, their facilities, their codes and programming, and blow them right off the grid.
It was going to happen. But not until he could be sure that their programming could be deactivated. He was smart. He wasn't going to risk losing himself -- whatever was left of himself anyway -- because of his desire for vengeance.
Bucky shifted his gaze to her once more, focusing intently on her, studying her the same way he had this morning at the Denny's. "Most people aren't like us," he said carefully. Because yes, he had seen the information that had been released. He'd read every bit of it he could get his hands on, practically memorized it. He also knew she was the one to release the information that came out. He'd seen her interrogation in front of congress and how matter-of-factly she'd handed them their asses on a platter before waltzing out.
No. His instincts about her were spot on. He could feel it in his bones.
"Of course." He tilted his head at her. "Believe it or not, at one point I used to be a gentleman. I think."
"That's true," Natasha agreed in that same quiet voice, "most people aren't." And thank God for that. "And I think that's actually a good thing." Because it was only the strong, the resilient, who could survive the lives they led. They both were broken in different ways, yes, but they were both still alive. Which, she believed, was a testimony in and of itself, given their bloody and violent histories.
She almost smirked to his latter quip, but reined it in just in time. Because yes, yes he had been, hadn't he? So long ago, and in small ways, ways which counted for so much because they weren't programmed; they were simply part of the man he'd been before HYDRA sank its poisoned claws into him. "I can believe it," she told him, eyes still warm. Natasha pushed up from the table, absently flicking a curl over her shoulder.
"I imagine you were a regular charmer back in your day, James Barnes," she remarked as she stepped around the small table, unable to help placing a slender hand on Bucky's left shoulder as she moved behind his chair. Her fingertips drifted from his left to his right as she passed, adding, "Help yourself if you're still hungry. I'm gonna take a quick shower, then we might want to think about getting some sleep."
"It is," he agreed quietly. His gaze dropped to the table, appetite vanishing from the direction the conversation had turned. For every single thing he did know about Natasha Romanoff, he'd bet there were twenty he didn't. There hadn't been much on how she'd been trained or what methods had been used, but he'd wager they hadn't been pleasant.
Still. Her easy agreement about his joke almost caught him off guard and he glanced at her, assuming Steve may have filled in some of the blanks on the guy he'd once been. He remembered that he'd rarely spent a weekend without a date before the war. More than that, though, he knew that guy had been dead for a long, long time. He'd died back on a table in a weapons factory in Azzano, long before he'd taken a plunge off a train. The beginning of his ruination.
The light touch to his shoulder brought him quickly out of the dark terrain his mind had veered into and he found himself holding his breath, wondering if she had any idea that she was the first person to touch him without inflicting any sort of pain for longer than he can actually recall. It seemed so casual and easy, those light touches, but in reality they gave him goosebumps up and down his right arm and he turned his head to watch her go, feeling shaken to his core for reasons he didn't understand.
Natasha stood under the stream of hot water, head down and eyes closed, letting the heat seep down into her bones. She inhaled a shaking breath, wondering not for the first time how her sanity was going to survive this. Your mental health is irrelevant, she heard a voice between her ears remind her. This is for him, it is all for him, lest you forget, Natalia.
Yes, she knew it was all for him. And she still felt a little guilty, not immediately notifying Rogers of the situation. But damnit, she'd given her word, and she still knew that putting Steve Rogers and James Barnes in the same vicinity right at this moment was guaranteed to end in disaster. And everyone had had enough of that for a while, thank you.
Twenty minutes later saw her stepping out of the shower after giving herself another mental lecture, chastising herself for wanting more than she should. But it wasn't wrong to hope, was it? No, not wrong, but as everything else she'd dared dream, more than likely futile. She wasn't meant to have those dreams; her hands were stained just as red as Bucky's. The best an assassin could dare to hope for was a clean death, after all. Natasha snarled at that thought, yanking a comb savagely through her wet hair.
Ablutions didn't take her long - they seldom did - and she emerged from the steam-clouded bathroom a few minutes later, snugly wrapped in a thick grey robe, barefoot and rubbing her still-damp hair with a towel. She fetched a few pillows and blankets from the closet to bring with her to the couch, padding down the small hallway with laden arms. She'd slept in worse places, after all. But the heater was running full blast - even in this mild weather, it could get downright chilly at this altitude.
While Natasha was in the shower, Bucky cleaned up the kitchen, putting away all the leftover food for later, then washing and drying the dishes before putting them away, as well. He washed down the toaster and the counter and the sink and left the wash cloth draped over the sink nozzle to dry. And then, he simply leaned against the counter and stared out the window blankly, listening to the sound of running water from the shower in the back of the cabin.
He wondered if it would even be possible to sleep here, but more importantly, he wondered if it was possible to sleep here and not have any nightmares. He didn't really want to consider those possibilities, but they were possibilities. Sleep didn't come easily these days and when it did come around, it tended to be full of images he'd rather not see. Sometimes they were actual memories, other times, they were simply his worst fears dancing behind his tired eyelids.
Shivering a little in the chill of the air, Bucky moved and kicked the furnace up. He didn't like the cold and with good reason. And if Natasha was insistent on sleeping on the couch, the cabin needed to be a lot warmer than it was right then. He turned to look over his shoulder when he heard the bathroom door open and then she emerged with a grey robe wrapped around her, engulfing her in its warmth.
Bucky swallowed heavily, watching as she moved toward the sofa carrying pillows and blankets. "Are you sure you don't want the bed? This is your place."
A glance in the kitchen confirmed that her houseguest hadn't been idle while she'd been in the shower, and Natasha gave him a nod of thanks as she went past him towards the couch, propping her pillows on one end and spreading out the layers of blankets she'd brought with her. Free of its ponytail, her curls spilled over her shoulders like streaks of blood, swinging with a damp bounce when she turned her head at the sound of Bucky's voice, looking over at him with a slightly lofted eyebrow.
"I'm sure," she affirmed, finishing her nest then lugging the large black case up on the coffee table. "One, the couch is a little too small for you to be comfortable; two, it's warmer in here than it is in there and I always freeze if I sleep in there by myself; and three, I thought you could use a little privacy, if you wanted." She sat down on the edge of the sofa, touched the combination on the case's electronic keypad, waited for the green beep, then opened it to reveal a veritable armory within.
Handguns, throwing knives, all of her own custom-made weaponry, and also what any layman would recognize as an assault rifle, broken down into its smaller components, quietly waiting to be fashioned into a deadly killing machine once again.
Natasha immediately reached for one of the handguns nestled in its custom liner, ejecting the magazine and opening the chamber to prove it empty, then turned it around and held it by the barrel, offering it to her houseguest. "Sig P220," she remarked. "I believe you're familiar with it, da?"
Bucky didn't really know how to do idle. Maybe that was one of Steve's traits that had rubbed off on him growing up, but sitting still these days just wasn't part of his forte. Sitting still for too long meant he'd delve too deeply into thoughts he'd rather not deal with, and that didn't tend to turn out well. He could slip into his mind far too easily, and wound up drowning in the darker memories that he'd gotten back.
He especially had no desire to do that in the presence of anyone else considering how ugly it could get.
He watched as Natasha's red locks framed her face in a way that was far too beautiful for one person and he had to remind himself that despite everything, somewhere deep down he was no different than any other hot-blooded male and noticing the fact that she was so damn pretty that it almost hurt to look at her was possibly the most normal thing he'd felt in years.
Even though what she said made sense (the couch was definitely too small for his larger frame), and that it was warmer out in the living room than the bedroom, he couldn't quite shake the guilt that weighed on him for taking the bed anyway. It just didn't seem right. But she was insistent, so he wasn't going to put up further argument. And if he wound up covering her up with another blanket in the middle of the night, well. It was the least he could do.
Bucky watched as she opened the case, and he paused, gaze sweeping over all the different weapons she'd stored inside of it. There wasn't too much in the way of weaponry that he wasn't familiar with. He could assemble and disassemble all of the different guns in a matter of seconds, and in his sleep.
Still. He was a little unsettled at the fact she was trying to hand him a gun. Slowly he shook his head, holding up his left arm, a chilling reminder that really, the only weapon he needed was already attached to his body. "I'm good. But thank you."
Besides. He had a gun at his hip, one at the small of his back, knives strapped to both of his ankles, and another at his right shoulder blade. He didn't like it, but it was how it had to be for now. It was his just in case insurance.
Rather than insist he take the gun, Natasha merely shrugged and placed it back in its spot; she had a very good hunch that he was carrying his own private arsenal with him. It was what they did, after all - never be unprepared. And she had to agree with him on one thing; that fascinating left arm was a weapon with which to be reckoned.
But she went on with her nightly weapons check, even removing one of the smaller Glocks and nestling it beneath the couch cushion as if it were a matter of course. A sheathed knife was slipped beneath the cushion on sofa's other end, and Natasha also chose a few other toys before closing the case and setting the lock once more.
"Well," she commented, gingerly sliding the case off of the coffee table and back to its place against the wall once more, "if you need it, it'll be there." She then fetched a clean pair of socks from her duffel and pulled them on, returning to her bed on the sofa to begin settling down in it. "I think I might turn in," she said around a sudden yawn. Sleepy green eyes found Bucky's, and she tilted her head back and forth, pulling up one of the blankets to wrap in her arms.
"Just...if you do decide to take off again, wake me up before you go?" It would...hurt, to wake up later and discover he'd vanished. "You know you're more than welcome to stay, and..." a small shrug, "...it's nice, not to be completely alone. For a while, anyway."
He watched as she carefully tucked away her own stash of weapons, readying herself for any middle of the night battles that might break out. He hoped like hell no middle of the night battles broke out. He felt reasonably assured they'd hidden themselves away safely enough, at least for the time being.
Bucky nodded slightly at the reassurance, unsure whether or not he should alert her to the fact he's already packing. "In the interest of full disclosure...I have weapons on me aside from the arm."
He found himself holding his breath at her request, at her quiet admission that it was nice not to be alone. He wasn't sure which affected him more, but they both left an invisible mark somewhere on his soul. "I won't take off without telling you." He'd do his best to keep his word on that, and if there was trouble...
He wouldn't leave her behind. He'd watch her back. He held her gaze a moment longer, then turned to head down the hallway, pausing only for a few seconds. "Goodnight," he said quietly.
It wasn't surprising that he was packing, and probably more than just a single firearm, but it was a little startling that he'd admitted it. But maybe, just maybe, he was starting to trust her, and despite what the rest of the world believed, Natasha Romanoff - Natalia Romanova that was - made it a point never to go back on her word.
Not ever without a damned good reason.
So she nodded, considered making a quip along the lines of A man generally works best with his own equipment, but tried to stifle another yawn instead, and failed. Then she blinked up at him again, hearing his quiet assurance that he wouldn't, in fact, disappear into thin air without saying something, and a sweet, sleepy smile curved her lips as she tucked herself in, pulling up the blankets and absently flipping up her long hair to coil across the pillows.
Natasha met his eyes steadily, though her lids were drooping quickly, and watched as Bucky slowly turned towards the hallway, hearing his gruffly gentle benediction as he paused for a moment. It warmed her heart, fragile frozen thing that it was, and curled her toes, warm in their thick socks.
"Goodnight, James," she called to his retreating back, then reached above her head to flick off the lamp, then snuggle down into the warm darkness. She lay still on the sofa, automatically listening for any noises or rustles from the back of the house, but eventually slumber took her away, down into its inevitable embrace.
Truth be told, Bucky wasn't sure what to think when it came to the fact that he felt like being upfront with her was the right thing to do. It wasn't because he viewed her as some kind of replacement handler -- the thought alone made him shudder involuntarily as he made his way into the bedroom. There was something else, something just beyond his reach, buried in his subconscious, that told him that trusting her was okay. That she wasn't out to get him. Maybe it was naive, or hell, even wishful thinking, that there was someone on his side, someone who wasn't going to turn on him. Sure, there was Steve, but - that was different, too, and he wasn't sure why. It just was.
He laid down on the bed but didn't get under the covers. He simply lie awake, staring up at the ceiling as the minutes ticked by slowly. After awhile, the cold air began to seep into his skin and he grimaced. Cold was maybe one of his least favorite sensations and he reluctantly climbed off the bed and tugged the blankets back, pausing and staring down at the mattress as thoughts of the redhead flickered through his mind, wondering if she was warm enough. She was small, and while he knew she was anything but weak, she was just as vulnerable to the cold as he was.
He quietly tugged the blankets off the bed, carrying them in his arms and making his way to the living room where she lay sleeping, breathing slow and even. For a moment, he simply found himself watching her. Then he set the blankets down silently on the floor, keeping the heaviest one in his arms and moving to gently drape it over her unconscious form.
When morning came, she'd find him passed out on the floor across the room, curled up beneath the remaining blankets from the bedroom.
Natasha stirred some nine hours later, feeling a little dizzy and lightheaded. She usually only averaged about six hours at the time, when she could manage it, but she must have been tireder than she'd realized. Not surprising, given the emotional roller-coaster she'd been on for the last day and a half. Yawning delicately, the redhead swam up from her nest, starting in surprise when she recognized the comforter from the bed. She let her fingers roam over the bedspread, then sat up further and glanced around the living room, mouth melting in a smile to see the covered lump curled up on the floor.
As quiet as a shadow, Natasha slipped up off of the couch, gathering up the bedspread as she went, and padded over to return the favor, draping it over Bucky's slumbering form, trying not to wake him. He deserved to sleep as long as he liked, although her heart gave a twinge that he'd opted to sleep on the floor instead. A glance at the clock revealed it just after sunrise, and a peek out of the kitchen window showed the edge of light just peeking over the mountains to the east.
She briefly considered firing up the stove and starting on breakfast, but then recalled that Bucky had asked her yesterday to teach him the recipe. So she started up the coffeepot instead, then padded on silent feet to the bathroom to tend to the morning ablutions. It was definitely chilly in the bedroom, even with the small gas heater running, so she didn't linger. On the way back, she snagged a novel from the bookshelf and took it back to the couch with her, flipping through the first pages while waiting for the coffee to finish brewing.
Bucky slept like the dead, still and silent on the floor, completely immobile and unaware even as she got up and moved around to start coffee and use the restroom and grab a book. The smell of coffee is what permeated his slumber and his eyebrows furrowed, his head under the nest of covers.
Sniffing, he shifted beneath the weight of the blankets and poked his head out, momentarily trying to figure out where he was. He wasn't used to waking up to the smell of freshly brewing coffee, and he'd be hard-pressed to dig up a memory where he was. It was new, comforting, and completely non-threatening, and none of that made any sense. When he opened his eyes his gaze immediately locked on her form, curled up on the couch reading.
He'd fallen asleep on the floor of a safe house that belonged to Natasha Romanoff. He blinked a couple of times, sitting up and idly wondering if he'd dreamed up this scenario because everything about it screamed that he had to be mistaken. But no, he dug the nails of his right hand into his left leg, felt the sharp pain it caused, and knew he wasn't dreaming. Still. His eyes zeroed in on the book in her hands.
"What are you reading?" His voice was rough from sleep.
She heard him stirring a few minutes later, but opted to just let him wake up on his own, and kept her gaze on her book, turning a page every now and then. Only when she heard him speak did she glance up, a soft smile on her lips and eyes warm, holding up her book to show him the cover title.
"A James Patterson novel," was her quiet reply. "He's written several, and his mysteries are pretty good." A rustle, a moment later, and the lamp next to the couch came on, casting gentle golden light over the room, revealing the former Winter Soldier in all his tousled glory; Natasha had to chuckle under her breath. It would be so easy to let her hands smooth through his disheveled hair, drift fingertips over his stubbled cheeks and sharp jaw, wouldn't it.
"Want some coffee?" she asked instead, placing her book aside and sliding out of her rumpled nest. "It should be ready by now."
He'd heard of James Patterson, even picked up a couple of his novels at a thrift store a few months back, though he hadn't ended up buying them. He'd decided on buying a discount a science fiction novel instead. But he filed away the knowledge that she had a preference for mystery novels along with the other things he knew about her.
Bucky rubbed his flesh hand over his face, yawning involuntarily and untangling himself from the blankets he'd used to make a pallet on the floor before he rose to his feet. "Yeah. Definitely need coffee," he agreed. Not that it did anything for him. It was a tiny bit of normalcy that he'd clung to.
"I can get it," he offered as raked a hand through his tangled hair.
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maskirovka) wrote2018-04-08 02:44 pm
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Bucky found himself staring after her as she moved across the room and put ice in their glasses, pulled out water bottles from the fridge and poured it into the glasses and then sat down like she was completely oblivious to the weight of his gaze. He knew better, though. She hadn't become Black Widow by being unobservant.
His nerves were decidedly rattled, but the toast chose that moment to pop up from the toaster and he moved to grab them, laying them on the plates and carrying them to the small table, taking the seat directly across from her. He waited for her to make her sandwich before he would -- it was the polite thing to do, and there was that female voice against, distant but present, in his mind. Kind but firm.
"Soup smells good," he said quietly, finally letting his gaze drop from her form.
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The pop of the toaster gave her something other than him to focus upon, and Natasha sat up expectantly as Bucky turned with the plate of warm bread and took the other seat across the table. After a brief pause - she was still unused to his hesitance over nearly everything - Natasha gave a mental shrug and took two slices of toast and fashioned a sandwich for herself, layering meat, cheese, and lettuce in a dainty pattern between the bread.
Bucky broke the thick silence and she glanced up with a thin smile, nodding her agreement. "It does." Was it only her imagination or had her voice gone a little huskier? God. A sip of water corrected than, she hoped, and Natasha added, trying for lightness, "Hopefully it tastes better than diner breakfast at two am."
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He kept giving small, flickering glances in Natasha's direction. He had a feeling there was so, so much more to her than what he knew about her. It was fair, considering how little she probably knew about him, too.
"It was good too," he told her. "The food this morning." He dropped his gaze to focus on the food in front of him now. He ate a few bites of the soup before he spoke again. "All food is better than the protein shakes."
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And he kept looking at her. Every so often their eyes caught, and Bucky always glanced away first. Natasha simply lowered her gaze to her plate, eating lightly and with a delicate sureness to each movement, very well aware of being observed, scrutinized. It didn't bother her. She knew he had to be constantly combing through what was left of his memories, searching for that something that would trip a switch and suddenly remind him of things long past, be they pleasant or...otherwise.
She glanced up when he spoke again, giving a light little shrug. "I'm glad you liked it. Diner food can sometimes be a little heavy on the grease, for me." Then she lowered her spoon, a small but tangible wrench momentarily knotting her stomach when he mentioned protein shakes. "They're...not the best, no," she agreed quietly, stirring her soup slowly.
Natasha worried at her lower lip, wondering if she should even bring it up, but... "It surprised you, didn't it, when I called you 'James' a minute ago." Not really a question, that. She looked up at him through her lashes, a little bold, but...soft. Something had snapped between them just then; she'd felt it, and from the look he'd given her, she hadn't been the only one to do so.
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It didn't escape his notice that she agreed about the protein shakes and he found himself gazing at her for a moment, speculative. He wondered what her own training as Black Widow had consisted of. He can't imagine the methods used had been pleasant. He wondered if they'd wiped her brain out a few times, too. He wondered just how similar the two of them might truly be. Whatever similarities they had, the differences stuck out far more. She took on a persona of someone who was flirtatious and optimistic but he didn't buy it. It didn't seem real. She was acting -- but for whose benefit? His or her own?
And then, for a moment, the facade dropped entirely and he found himself holding his breath, staring at her with his glass of water halfway to his lips. "Yes," he agreed, because there was no point in denying. He hadn't tried to hide his reaction. "Yes, it did." He took a sip of the drink and set it down on the table once more, but kept his fingers curled around it.
"It felt -- familiar?" He wasn't sure that was the right word, exactly.
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"Well," she heard herself say, as if from the end of a very long tunnel, "that is your name, isn't it?" It was a customary quip, but even to her ears it fell a little...flat. So she tried again, forcing her lips to curve somewhat wryly. "Steve shared your file. What information that he had, rather." Never mind that she'd given him most of it in the first place. Details she'd compiled over a decade of searching.
"He hoped that there was something in there that would help us locate you, after SHIELD collapsed." She shrugged again, but suddenly wasn't hungry anymore, either. "But we never even got close, did we?" Nine months, they'd traveled the world, looking for a single man. A man who was nothing more than a ghost, a specter lost amid the masses.
"Steve always referred to you as 'Bucky'," Natasha added softly. Then she looked up at him again, sincerity edging into warm green eyes. "But I think I like you better as 'James'." Moy Dzheyms. Moya zvezda...
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He exhaled, sitting back in his chair and staring at the mostly empty plate of food before lifting his gaze to look at her. "A couple of times." He paused. "I knew he was looking for me. That he'd recruited people to help him." He also knew Steve was never going to stop and that at some point, he was going to have to at least meet with him, convince Steve that he was fine and he could handle himself. It made him tired just to think about. It wasn't that he didn't want to see Steve, it was that he wasn't ready. He'd been trained to be a ghost, and he was damned good at it. Maybe better now, even, because he had even deeper incentive to stay hidden: keeping Steve safe. And he was mostly certainly not safe to be around.
Which Natasha knew, too, and yet...here they were. Sitting across from each other in a safe house in the middle of Hungary, having dinner like they were old friends. And the weirdest part of all of it was that sense of deja vu that he couldn't seem to entirely shake.
He drew in a breath and lifted his eyes to look at her, to hold her gaze. "It's fine. You can call me whichever," he said quietly, nodding. Neither name necessarily felt like who he was at that point, but maybe he could get used to them more if someone was addressing him regularly. He paused at that thought, realizing he'd already jumped to the assumption this deal between them, whatever it was, was more than short-term.
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But Steve wasn't here. And if things had gone according to the plans he'd discussed with her and Wilson just four short days ago, the two of them were heading back Stateside, which took a lot of the stress out of her shoulders; that she didn't have to watch her back for America's Golden Boy bearing down on them both. Because she knew Barnes would absolutely disappear, and then she'd be left holding the proverbial empty bag.
Bucky met her eyes then, and Natasha's spoon stilled as she let it come to rest against the side of her soup bowl. She nodded back, once. "Khorosho," she murmured back. All right. And she felt it again, that unerring pull. It seemed to snap back into place each time their gazes met and strengthen the longer they held. It was both aggravating and bittersweet simultaneously.
"Why did you come with me?" she suddenly heard herself ask, shifting slightly and straightening in her chair. "You had no reason to, but you did. Why did you trust me?"
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He also knew what he would do if he was backed into a corner. He wouldn't like it, but he wouldn't allow himself to be apprehended, locked up or used. Not by HYDRA. Not by the remnants of SHIELD that was rebuilding itself. Not by any other organization or agency because as far as he was concerned they were all corrupt and had hidden agendas.
Never again.
There was something in the way she kept looking at him, like she was waiting for something, like she was trying to figure him out or she was waiting for him to figure it out. But what?
The question surprised him and his lips parted momentarily, because truthfully, there was no real good reason he could give her that would answer her satisfactorily. He rested his hands on the table, considering. It was a fair question. "I guess I just have a gut feeling about you," he said finally.
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"Fair enough," she murmured, picking up her sandwich and taking another small bite. She'd let her gaze fall as she did so, needing somewhere else to look other than crystalline blue. As she ate, Natasha silently wondered how long it would be before she woke up to find him gone again. She wouldn't begrudge him that, when she did. She had no illusions that Bucky would remain, even if some small, wishful part of her hoped that he would. Even if he didn't remember everything that had transpired between them, James Barnes was still a force to be reckoned with, and paranoid enough to sniff out trouble at the slightest hint of something not right.
Her old, battered humor quirked for a moment, and her smirk tilted slightly. "Some people might not consider that plus, though." Natasha touched a fingertip to the corner of her lips, brushing away a few stray crumbs. "My backstory isn't exactly stellar, either." If he hadn't gone through the files she'd released online, she'd eat her boots. It was a mixed blessing that certain details regarding both of their histories had been redacted at the highest levels; only Nick Fury had known the true account of the "Black Widow", and Natalia had trusted him with her life, rightly so.
She ate a few more bites from her sandwich, then her soup, before setting both away and leaning back in her chair. Crossing her arms, Natasha let her head tilt slightly, silently appraising her companion before inquiring, "Did you save any hot water for me, by chance?"
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It was going to happen. But not until he could be sure that their programming could be deactivated. He was smart. He wasn't going to risk losing himself -- whatever was left of himself anyway -- because of his desire for vengeance.
Bucky shifted his gaze to her once more, focusing intently on her, studying her the same way he had this morning at the Denny's. "Most people aren't like us," he said carefully. Because yes, he had seen the information that had been released. He'd read every bit of it he could get his hands on, practically memorized it. He also knew she was the one to release the information that came out. He'd seen her interrogation in front of congress and how matter-of-factly she'd handed them their asses on a platter before waltzing out.
No. His instincts about her were spot on. He could feel it in his bones.
"Of course." He tilted his head at her. "Believe it or not, at one point I used to be a gentleman. I think."
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She almost smirked to his latter quip, but reined it in just in time. Because yes, yes he had been, hadn't he? So long ago, and in small ways, ways which counted for so much because they weren't programmed; they were simply part of the man he'd been before HYDRA sank its poisoned claws into him. "I can believe it," she told him, eyes still warm. Natasha pushed up from the table, absently flicking a curl over her shoulder.
"I imagine you were a regular charmer back in your day, James Barnes," she remarked as she stepped around the small table, unable to help placing a slender hand on Bucky's left shoulder as she moved behind his chair. Her fingertips drifted from his left to his right as she passed, adding, "Help yourself if you're still hungry. I'm gonna take a quick shower, then we might want to think about getting some sleep."
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Still. Her easy agreement about his joke almost caught him off guard and he glanced at her, assuming Steve may have filled in some of the blanks on the guy he'd once been. He remembered that he'd rarely spent a weekend without a date before the war. More than that, though, he knew that guy had been dead for a long, long time. He'd died back on a table in a weapons factory in Azzano, long before he'd taken a plunge off a train. The beginning of his ruination.
The light touch to his shoulder brought him quickly out of the dark terrain his mind had veered into and he found himself holding his breath, wondering if she had any idea that she was the first person to touch him without inflicting any sort of pain for longer than he can actually recall. It seemed so casual and easy, those light touches, but in reality they gave him goosebumps up and down his right arm and he turned his head to watch her go, feeling shaken to his core for reasons he didn't understand.
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Yes, she knew it was all for him. And she still felt a little guilty, not immediately notifying Rogers of the situation. But damnit, she'd given her word, and she still knew that putting Steve Rogers and James Barnes in the same vicinity right at this moment was guaranteed to end in disaster. And everyone had had enough of that for a while, thank you.
Twenty minutes later saw her stepping out of the shower after giving herself another mental lecture, chastising herself for wanting more than she should. But it wasn't wrong to hope, was it? No, not wrong, but as everything else she'd dared dream, more than likely futile. She wasn't meant to have those dreams; her hands were stained just as red as Bucky's. The best an assassin could dare to hope for was a clean death, after all. Natasha snarled at that thought, yanking a comb savagely through her wet hair.
Ablutions didn't take her long - they seldom did - and she emerged from the steam-clouded bathroom a few minutes later, snugly wrapped in a thick grey robe, barefoot and rubbing her still-damp hair with a towel. She fetched a few pillows and blankets from the closet to bring with her to the couch, padding down the small hallway with laden arms. She'd slept in worse places, after all. But the heater was running full blast - even in this mild weather, it could get downright chilly at this altitude.
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He wondered if it would even be possible to sleep here, but more importantly, he wondered if it was possible to sleep here and not have any nightmares. He didn't really want to consider those possibilities, but they were possibilities. Sleep didn't come easily these days and when it did come around, it tended to be full of images he'd rather not see. Sometimes they were actual memories, other times, they were simply his worst fears dancing behind his tired eyelids.
Shivering a little in the chill of the air, Bucky moved and kicked the furnace up. He didn't like the cold and with good reason. And if Natasha was insistent on sleeping on the couch, the cabin needed to be a lot warmer than it was right then. He turned to look over his shoulder when he heard the bathroom door open and then she emerged with a grey robe wrapped around her, engulfing her in its warmth.
Bucky swallowed heavily, watching as she moved toward the sofa carrying pillows and blankets. "Are you sure you don't want the bed? This is your place."
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"I'm sure," she affirmed, finishing her nest then lugging the large black case up on the coffee table. "One, the couch is a little too small for you to be comfortable; two, it's warmer in here than it is in there and I always freeze if I sleep in there by myself; and three, I thought you could use a little privacy, if you wanted." She sat down on the edge of the sofa, touched the combination on the case's electronic keypad, waited for the green beep, then opened it to reveal a veritable armory within.
Handguns, throwing knives, all of her own custom-made weaponry, and also what any layman would recognize as an assault rifle, broken down into its smaller components, quietly waiting to be fashioned into a deadly killing machine once again.
Natasha immediately reached for one of the handguns nestled in its custom liner, ejecting the magazine and opening the chamber to prove it empty, then turned it around and held it by the barrel, offering it to her houseguest. "Sig P220," she remarked. "I believe you're familiar with it, da?"
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He especially had no desire to do that in the presence of anyone else considering how ugly it could get.
He watched as Natasha's red locks framed her face in a way that was far too beautiful for one person and he had to remind himself that despite everything, somewhere deep down he was no different than any other hot-blooded male and noticing the fact that she was so damn pretty that it almost hurt to look at her was possibly the most normal thing he'd felt in years.
Even though what she said made sense (the couch was definitely too small for his larger frame), and that it was warmer out in the living room than the bedroom, he couldn't quite shake the guilt that weighed on him for taking the bed anyway. It just didn't seem right. But she was insistent, so he wasn't going to put up further argument. And if he wound up covering her up with another blanket in the middle of the night, well. It was the least he could do.
Bucky watched as she opened the case, and he paused, gaze sweeping over all the different weapons she'd stored inside of it. There wasn't too much in the way of weaponry that he wasn't familiar with. He could assemble and disassemble all of the different guns in a matter of seconds, and in his sleep.
Still. He was a little unsettled at the fact she was trying to hand him a gun. Slowly he shook his head, holding up his left arm, a chilling reminder that really, the only weapon he needed was already attached to his body. "I'm good. But thank you."
Besides. He had a gun at his hip, one at the small of his back, knives strapped to both of his ankles, and another at his right shoulder blade. He didn't like it, but it was how it had to be for now. It was his just in case insurance.
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But she went on with her nightly weapons check, even removing one of the smaller Glocks and nestling it beneath the couch cushion as if it were a matter of course. A sheathed knife was slipped beneath the cushion on sofa's other end, and Natasha also chose a few other toys before closing the case and setting the lock once more.
"Well," she commented, gingerly sliding the case off of the coffee table and back to its place against the wall once more, "if you need it, it'll be there." She then fetched a clean pair of socks from her duffel and pulled them on, returning to her bed on the sofa to begin settling down in it. "I think I might turn in," she said around a sudden yawn. Sleepy green eyes found Bucky's, and she tilted her head back and forth, pulling up one of the blankets to wrap in her arms.
"Just...if you do decide to take off again, wake me up before you go?" It would...hurt, to wake up later and discover he'd vanished. "You know you're more than welcome to stay, and..." a small shrug, "...it's nice, not to be completely alone. For a while, anyway."
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Bucky nodded slightly at the reassurance, unsure whether or not he should alert her to the fact he's already packing. "In the interest of full disclosure...I have weapons on me aside from the arm."
He found himself holding his breath at her request, at her quiet admission that it was nice not to be alone. He wasn't sure which affected him more, but they both left an invisible mark somewhere on his soul. "I won't take off without telling you." He'd do his best to keep his word on that, and if there was trouble...
He wouldn't leave her behind. He'd watch her back. He held her gaze a moment longer, then turned to head down the hallway, pausing only for a few seconds. "Goodnight," he said quietly.
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Not ever without a damned good reason.
So she nodded, considered making a quip along the lines of A man generally works best with his own equipment, but tried to stifle another yawn instead, and failed. Then she blinked up at him again, hearing his quiet assurance that he wouldn't, in fact, disappear into thin air without saying something, and a sweet, sleepy smile curved her lips as she tucked herself in, pulling up the blankets and absently flipping up her long hair to coil across the pillows.
Natasha met his eyes steadily, though her lids were drooping quickly, and watched as Bucky slowly turned towards the hallway, hearing his gruffly gentle benediction as he paused for a moment. It warmed her heart, fragile frozen thing that it was, and curled her toes, warm in their thick socks.
"Goodnight, James," she called to his retreating back, then reached above her head to flick off the lamp, then snuggle down into the warm darkness. She lay still on the sofa, automatically listening for any noises or rustles from the back of the house, but eventually slumber took her away, down into its inevitable embrace.
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He laid down on the bed but didn't get under the covers. He simply lie awake, staring up at the ceiling as the minutes ticked by slowly. After awhile, the cold air began to seep into his skin and he grimaced. Cold was maybe one of his least favorite sensations and he reluctantly climbed off the bed and tugged the blankets back, pausing and staring down at the mattress as thoughts of the redhead flickered through his mind, wondering if she was warm enough. She was small, and while he knew she was anything but weak, she was just as vulnerable to the cold as he was.
He quietly tugged the blankets off the bed, carrying them in his arms and making his way to the living room where she lay sleeping, breathing slow and even. For a moment, he simply found himself watching her. Then he set the blankets down silently on the floor, keeping the heaviest one in his arms and moving to gently drape it over her unconscious form.
When morning came, she'd find him passed out on the floor across the room, curled up beneath the remaining blankets from the bedroom.
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As quiet as a shadow, Natasha slipped up off of the couch, gathering up the bedspread as she went, and padded over to return the favor, draping it over Bucky's slumbering form, trying not to wake him. He deserved to sleep as long as he liked, although her heart gave a twinge that he'd opted to sleep on the floor instead. A glance at the clock revealed it just after sunrise, and a peek out of the kitchen window showed the edge of light just peeking over the mountains to the east.
She briefly considered firing up the stove and starting on breakfast, but then recalled that Bucky had asked her yesterday to teach him the recipe. So she started up the coffeepot instead, then padded on silent feet to the bathroom to tend to the morning ablutions. It was definitely chilly in the bedroom, even with the small gas heater running, so she didn't linger. On the way back, she snagged a novel from the bookshelf and took it back to the couch with her, flipping through the first pages while waiting for the coffee to finish brewing.
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Sniffing, he shifted beneath the weight of the blankets and poked his head out, momentarily trying to figure out where he was. He wasn't used to waking up to the smell of freshly brewing coffee, and he'd be hard-pressed to dig up a memory where he was. It was new, comforting, and completely non-threatening, and none of that made any sense. When he opened his eyes his gaze immediately locked on her form, curled up on the couch reading.
He'd fallen asleep on the floor of a safe house that belonged to Natasha Romanoff. He blinked a couple of times, sitting up and idly wondering if he'd dreamed up this scenario because everything about it screamed that he had to be mistaken. But no, he dug the nails of his right hand into his left leg, felt the sharp pain it caused, and knew he wasn't dreaming. Still. His eyes zeroed in on the book in her hands.
"What are you reading?" His voice was rough from sleep.
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"A James Patterson novel," was her quiet reply. "He's written several, and his mysteries are pretty good." A rustle, a moment later, and the lamp next to the couch came on, casting gentle golden light over the room, revealing the former Winter Soldier in all his tousled glory; Natasha had to chuckle under her breath. It would be so easy to let her hands smooth through his disheveled hair, drift fingertips over his stubbled cheeks and sharp jaw, wouldn't it.
"Want some coffee?" she asked instead, placing her book aside and sliding out of her rumpled nest. "It should be ready by now."
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Bucky rubbed his flesh hand over his face, yawning involuntarily and untangling himself from the blankets he'd used to make a pallet on the floor before he rose to his feet. "Yeah. Definitely need coffee," he agreed. Not that it did anything for him. It was a tiny bit of normalcy that he'd clung to.
"I can get it," he offered as raked a hand through his tangled hair.
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