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Chapter Text

Rivers of blood, that was something they could both relate to; they'd spilled enough blood over the years to fill rivers. She knew it, he knew it.

Monsters didn't get happy endings, years had taught them that by now, and yet he stood in a cold apartment in Brooklyn wondering how the hell he was supposed to walk away. 

She's better off without me. 

He'd believed that. He'd believed that with all he was at first. It was almost funny. Almost.

If it didn't hurt so fucking much, it'd be funny. One of those sad jokes that no one knew if they should laugh at or not.

His hand swung out, it went clean through the plasterboard wall effortlessly; he didn't care about paying for damages. He hadn't used his real name and he'd paid six months' rent upfront, he wouldn't be here for six months.

They could keep the rest of it for the hole in the wall if they wanted it, he really didn't care.

Money had never mattered to him; there was very little that had ever mattered to him if he was going to be honest with himself. He wasn't afforded such luxuries; he wasn't allowed to be what he wanted to be.

He wasn't allowed to be human and they'd gone and done it, hadn't they? They'd gone and made him believe there was nothing in there that was anymore until he'd met her. 

Whatever was still human in there pulled toward her like a fucking magnet. She was the most perfect destruction he'd ever seen and he knew it. A touch was electricity, a touch was enough to throw him off balance for days. That heart beat in there after all; it wasn't as cold as ice, it wasn't black and brutal. If he was ever going to let him be destroyed, he couldn't think of a better way to do it.

It didn't end well though, did it? He could remember her screaming when he'd been pulled into that lab; they both knew what was going to happen but they'd screwed with her so that she didn't remember.

And him? He'd been thrown into deep freeze until he was useful again until he could be wiped and pointed at a target like it didn't goddamn matter that he had someone he'd loved. She wasn't his to love, they'd made that clear; the thought of Alexi touching her was beyond what he could bear. He'd hated it.

Until he hadn't.

There was no one in there anymore; it didn't matter once he was brought around what he was before or what he felt before, he'd lost it all. He was just gone. It took him years, years to find his way back to the people that he cared for but he didn't remember, not at first.

She did.

She knew who he was long before he did, she knew she loved him long before he knew he loved her; they'd crossed paths dozens of times over the years but he'd always been just out of reach.

Just too lost.

Just too buried.

Just too cold.

She wasn't afraid of him though.

She'd never been afraid of him.

Nothing scared her; she treat everything like a challenge more than anything else and he found that interesting. Before he'd known who she was again, he'd worked alongside her because she was capable. It came back in trickles at first and then it was like someone opened the floodgates and everything hit. Steve, Natasha, him...

Natalia.

His hand balled into a fist again. He didn't swing it this time, instead, he turned and walked out of the apartment and headed out onto the street trying his best to let the fresh air clear his head.

I might have put a bullet in my brain to quiet the ghosts if not for Natasha.

What was to stop that bullet now? She was gone. She had no idea what he meant to her and yet he worked beside her anyway; he stood there and faced her and he loved her more than he could begin to tell her and she looked at him like there was nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing left of him more like. It was no wonder he was so angry and in so much fucking pain. The world had taken away the one good thing in his life and it didn't matter how many months passed since that day it still hurt as much as it had that first night.

It still tore him clean in two.

Days felt like weeks, it was hell. Hell would've been preferable. He walked. He walked for what felt like hours until he came to a stop outside of her building; he checked in from time to time when he knew she was home just to see if she was okay. He needed to know that she was safe at least.

Many a night, he'd stopped by and she hadn't been alone and it had worn away at him little by little. He knew that it was nothing.

She wasn't involved with anyone but it hurt him that he couldn't be the one there.

He wanted to be the one there with her.

Screaming. Screaming so loud and so painful that he felt the panic rise in him and before he even realized what he was doing he was sprinting up the fire escape and he vaulted onto the balcony outside of her apartment. She was screaming.

She was screaming so loud and with such fervor that he was honestly terrified. 

She always kept the door open just a crack in summer; he called it reckless but he knew that she was better trained than that. She'd never leave herself unguarded but the summer heat when you were used to the harshness of Winter got to you. He slid the door open as gently as he could but she must have heard the movement regardless because her hand darted for her gun.

He stood there with his hands held out in front of him.

"I'm not armed, Natasha," he spoke softly.

She was shaky. She could barely hold it without her arms trembling but she still looked determined to shoot if she thought he posed a threat. She hadn't slept properly he could tell that; the sheets around her were thrown absolutely everywhere from what he could only guess was her tossing and turning all night.

Her breath came quick and uncertain and her chest heaved with panic. He'd only ever seen her like this once before and she'd been so, so much younger.

The gun didn't bother him, not even a little bit. She knew better than to think he'd hurt her, it didn't matter to him if she shot him he knew that she knew he'd never hurt her. They were friends so he had that at least.

"W-Why are you--" She couldn't finish her sentence.

She was too preoccupied trying to settle herself and compose herself. She didn't seem to be winning. He walked over and sat down beside her, brushing her hair out of her face gently as he studied her with worried eyes; she lowered the gun but she smacked his hand away.

All he wanted was to see that she was okay. He knew the risks of it, he knew she could react badly but she knew he'd been watching over her.

She'd told him she didn't need it. She did, he knew she did. She didn't know. She didn't know who they were. That tore him apart in ways he couldn't begin to explain but he couldn't walk away. He couldn't just leave her even though he'd thought he could.

Love made people crazy. Ha.

"You were screaming." He flicked his eyes down to his lap for a moment before he inhaled a deep breath. "I needed to know if you were okay." He wasn't acting like a teammate and he knew it.

He didn't care.

"I told you I didn't need you to watch over me." She chewed on the inside of her bottom lip.

He shook his head and released a sigh, his eyes flicked back up to her.

"You don't need me to watch over you but I need me to watch over you." He was selfish.

He knew he was selfish.

"Because you love me?" she spoke and it threw him off.

His brow furrowed as he studied her wondering where the hell that had come from. She didn't remember.

She didn't know.

He'd passed it off as him knowing her from all those years ago and him wanting to make sure that she was okay. They were old friends, after all.

"Because I know you," he replied.

He couldn't face this now. 

"So you keep telling me." She didn't know him though.

Not the way he seemed to know her.

He stood up and moved back toward the door, casting a look over his shoulder at her and he had a sad look on his features that made her both curious and sad for him. She wished she could understand why. She didn't know what the hell it was that ate him up, but she felt compelled to comfort him all the same.

"Take care of yourself, Natasha," James spoke quietly.

"You're just going to leave?" She sounded almost snappy.

He let out a small laugh and turned around just for a moment. He could see that she wanted answers but there were none that he could give her without risking messing her up. He wanted to ask what had her so spooked in her dream but he knew better than to think she'd tell him.

"I'm out of the country in a few hours; I have a mission. I just wanted to make sure that you weren't hurt." Rookie mistake. Foolish and he knew it.

He'd sworn he was leaving and not sticking around so she wasn't put through more and so she wasn't put under pressure to remember things that may be gone forever. He couldn't do it to her but he couldn't quite stay gone either. He wished he could; she deserved better from him.

She'd deserved better from the world than the hand she'd been dealt.

They both did.

Their relationship was littered with moments like this. Almost-somethings. Memories gone, moments lost to the abyss only to come back again someday. Someday... God, he hoped there'd be a someday this time around. He'd lost her enough already.

She'd lost him enough already. They didn't deserve this but life was so cruel. Leonid Novokov had killed Bucky Barnes in the truest way possible: He'd taken away the only person in the world that he'd ever loved and now? Now he was empty and alone just like Leo had always wanted.

He'd taken everything and now, now he had nothing and there was nothing more dangerous than someone who had nothing; he had a new mission, a new focus and maybe it'd be the thing that saved his sanity for a little while, he couldn't keep on like this and he knew it.

It was driving him insane. 

He'd gotten his wish after all. What did it even matter now? She didn't remember. She might never remember. He'd love nothing more than to make her fall for him all over again but if he hurt her more he'd never forgive himself.

What a fucking mess he was in indeed. 

"You've got to stop this Guardian Angel shit." She couldn't look at him as she said it though.

Her tone sounded uncertain. That was curious to say the very least. He expected her to argue more but she fell strangely silent.

He allowed a smirk to play on his lips and he shrugged his shoulders.

"I will when you can say that and mean it. Goodnight, Natasha."

And just as quickly as he'd appeared the Soldier was gone leaving the redhead to stare at an open window with her covers scattered around her and her clammy skin prickling in the gentle breeze of the nights' air.

Chapter Text

He hadn't bothered to go home that night; he'd spent most of the night reading over his mission briefing at SHIELD. There was nothing else for him to do; he knew he wouldn't be able to rest anyway so what was the point in trying? A restless mind didn't permit a good night's sleep.

He couldn't even remember when he'd last got one of those, well no he could he just didn't want to because it was too painful to think about. He supposed he'd rather have the pain than the emptiness though; he'd lived with the emptiness for too many years now, he'd been empty for long enough. All he wanted was to be a person and he should have known that it was a fool's errand. A pipe dream and nothing more because it could be nothing more, not in a life like his.

By the time 7 am rolled around, he at least figured he should eat something and so he'd spent about a half-hour in the SHIELD mess hall poking around with badly cooked eggs, bacon and toast before downing as much coffee as he could and making his way into the hangar bay.

Suited up, the soldier had more weapons strapped to him than he'd probably use, but he'd gone in ill-prepared before, he wouldn't make the same mistake again.

He knew when he touched down, he'd be sent to one of the safehouses that SHIELD had set up and there'd be more supplies there because that was always the case. He'd made a specific point of telling them that he'd pilot it himself; he didn't need some agent talking his head off the whole time about mundane crap, he was more likely to punch them and knock them out just to shut them up than he was to tolerate it.

He didn't have the patience for idle chit-chat these days. He had too much on his mind.

He discarded his gear, making sure that they were strapped well enough; no one wanted an accidental discharge from a gun falling from a rack when you were in the air. Distractions weren't good, he didn't need a crash on top of his already growing list of problems.

He was still kicking himself for being such a fool last night. 

Messy cropped hair didn't hide tired eyes, as well as his long hair, had; it was times like that that he missed it. At least when his hair was a bit longer he could slightly hide the fact that he felt like shit and probably looked even worse.

He didn't even notice there was anyone else with him until he walked toward the front; her feet were kicked up on the console in front of her and she tilted her head to the side as he stared at her. 

"You think I can't pull strings and get myself put onto a mission in a few hours?" She sounded incredulous as she spoke, incredulous and amused.

She let out a laugh and swung her legs down.

"Are you gonna stand there all day or are we going to go?" She asked with a raised brow.

He could do nothing but stare at her.

How the fuck did this happen? Why had no one warned him?

He found himself cursing Hill, Johnson, and Steve in his head for it; he'd have a goddamn serious conversation with all three of them when he got back, if not over the phone later on. He was far from amused; there was a lump in his throat. She rolled her eyes at him and sighed before shaking her head. 

"Am I gonna have to whack you back to reality?"

He heard her voice.

He heard it but she sounded so far away that he couldn't focus on it. Barnes, Barnes... Focus. Focus.

You're better than this.

He was too well trained to let something throw his focus like this. Shaking his head, he stepped forward and fell into the seat beside her, and stared dead ahead. He had to focus on the mission, but he was undoubtedly distracted. 

Focus. 

He found himself digging his metal hand into the still healing knife wound he had on the top of his leg just to snap himself out of it. It wasn't smart and he knew it but he had to focus on something. 

The jet roared to life with the press of a few buttons. He didn't speak, at least not for almost 20 minutes.

"Why'd you come, Natasha?" he muttered, trying to keep his composure.

"Because I'm curious? In case you need backup? Because I'm bored? What does it matter?" She shrugged.

It was frustrating for him, undoubtedly and he'd known that she'd have questions but he hadn't expected her to do this and that was a huge mistake. Rule one with Natasha: Expect the unexpected.

He should have known that after last night she'd do something, she'd be curious and she'd do something to get his attention. She wasn't stupid, she knew there was more to his whole Guardian Angel act than he was telling her and Natasha sought out the truth better than almost anyone he'd ever met.

She didn't like being lied to which was ironic considering she lied for a living.

They both did and yet lying to her was painful. He could lie to anyone else with ease but lying to her? That was enough to break his heart if it was possible for it to break anymore, the poor son of a bitch.

"Right." That was the only answer he could manage. 

This was a clusterfuck and he knew it. He'd been stupid going there last night and even more stupid telling her he had a mission this morning. He should've seen it coming, he should've known that she'd do something to get answers out of him.

Trouble was, he wasn't so willing to give them. She had to figure this out on her own if she was ever going to do it. Her memories wouldn't be recovered by him telling her their story. Their story was one that she had to remember on her own, he kept telling himself that but he wasn't sure if she ever would. 

"Right? That's all you're gonna give me?" She sounded annoyed.

"This isn't about last night, Natasha. I have a job to do," he spoke eventually.

She looked over at him and nodded her head. He could see that she wasn't happy about it but what could he do? What could she do? He wasn't going to say a damn word because it'd throw him off and he had to focus. The mission came first, she should understand that better than anyone else.

"The mission always comes first," she agreed. 

He wished that he could smile but it sounded too much like before. Before they'd both gotten out. He has to fight a physical reaction.

He knew she'd get that the job was always supposed to come first. She always did, she was always a hell of an agent no matter who she was working for; she put the job first no matter what it cost along the way and so did he because it was what they were trained to do. They had no other option, it was either that or death or brainwashing.

The mission was their only focus, it was the only thing that was allowed to be their focus.

It wasn't like that anymore but that was so ingrained into both of them that when they were out in the field they knew that they had to shut everything else off. It didn't matter how much it bothered them.

"But when all of this is over? We need to have a conversation about what the hell you think you're doing," she sounded serious.

He sighed. He didn't want to have that conversation, at least not-- well no, he did. He really did. He wanted to know if there was even the slightest possibility that she'd remember anything at all but he had no proof. No proof either way and that was probably most of his problem.

He'd remembered eventually, so he still had hope that she would too.

"When it's over? Maybe," he paused then. "Do you even know what the mission is or were you just intent on being a pain in my ass?"

"A little bit of both." She grinned.

"Of course, I know what the mission is, Barnes."

Every damn time she called him that it broke him a little more. It was too cold, too impersonal. It made him feel like he was talking to someone that didn't give a damn about him, not someone that had loved him for 60 years.

"James," he muttered irritated.

Needless to say, the rest of the ride had been silent for the most part; he had to get his head together if he was going to keep it in the game and he had to keep it in the game, there was no other option.

********

Hours on recon. That was about as fun as you could imagine with someone that wanted to ask a million questions, instead she'd settled for idle talk for a little while before she'd told him about her last mission; he found himself amused at the fact that she still used many of the same tactics that he'd taught her over the years.

He was a little bit proud of that if he was going, to be honest. 

She was a damn good agent and he'd been instrumental in making sure of that. All those years ago when he'd first met her, he hadn't thought for even a second that she'd mean nearly as much to him as she came to; he wished that he'd been able to fight harder.

He still remembered now being dragged into that lab, screaming for her to know that he was sorry and telling her she had to be strong.

He knew that whatever they'd do to her, she'd be okay because she was tough. Resilient, but he hated the goddamn thought of her being married to that son of a bitch. She wasn't just some tool to be used, she was a person only they hadn't seen either one of them like that. They were just assets to be passed around and used.

His eyes flicked to her as she turned around to face him, her back to the passenger door with her knee drawn to her chest.

"You really hate the fact that I'm here, don't you?" She'd picked up on the undertones hours ago.

She was just as well trained as he was, it wasn't easy to get much past her. He let out a small laugh and shook his head at her. 

"No, surprisingly. I wasn't thrilled about it I'll give you that but there isn't much I can do about it. You're not the type that'll listen when someone tells her not to do something so even if I'd told you to stay behind? You wouldn't have listened." He studied her then.

She looked thoughtful, almost like she was trying to piece something together in her mind that she was struggling with but she wasn't winning; he knew that look and he knew the pain of it. When your mind was fractured it was hard to place anything where it should go. She didn't deserve to have her mind messed with and that was exactly why he'd chosen to leave: He didn't want anyone else doing it again on his account.

Natasha had been through enough.

She'd been screwed with and manipulated enough. She didn't seem to come up with anything that made any sense to her though because just like that, her expression changed and she became almost closed off again.

"No, you're right I wouldn't have," she replied. She leaned her head back against the window.

Reaching for a cup of coffee, Natasha let out a lazy yawn. Bucky watched her out of habit more than anything but he didn't take the focus off of their target either. Being as highly trained as he was he didn't need to focus solely on one thing. He could more than competently appear normal while doing his job.

Their target moved and he looked back at Natasha as he climbed into a sports car; Bucky would've preferred the typical SUV.

There was no way they could outrun it in this car. SHIELD had given them something so they 'Wouldn't stand out' and it meant that it wasn't built for a pursuit.

"Y'know what? Screw this," he muttered. 

"What--?" She questioned as she looked at him. 

"C'mon, we're going to keep up with this son of a bitch one way or another." The upside to traveling all over the world?

You had supplies. The car was ditched in an old scrap yard where he traded it in for a bike; he knew the owner. He'd been here before and he'd turned the guy into an asset about a decade or so ago. They had a tracker on the son of a bitch they were targeting anyway so it wouldn't be hard to find him.

It'd be easier to keep up if he happened to go anywhere else though.

"Really?" She looked at him and laughed.

"C'mon sweetheart, what're you afraid of? It isn't the first time you've been on the back of a bike with me." Was he challenging her? Oh, absolutely.

He couldn't help the minor slip-ups he had when he talked to her though, little moments where he'd refer to their past but he tried to keep it as minimal as he could. He didn't want to be the thing that caused her to snap. She rolled her eyes at him as she climbed on the back of a bike.

"I'm a better driver than you are." She commented offhandedly.

His hands tightened on the handles for a moment. Did she...? Focus. Mission first.

"You wish," he replied as he kicked the bike to life.

He'd tolerate none of that electric shit. He preferred to bring a bike to life with more than just the turn of a key, that took the fun out of it. Besides, he had about enough of this modern crap as he could handle.

He was right, it was far easier to wind through the city traffic on a bike than it was in a car and he loved the freedom of it; he didn't much care for being cooped up but then after years in a cryotube no one could really fault him for that. He'd spent too much of his life shut inside of something.

Cars got a little bit claustrophobic after a while.

The feeling of her arms around his waist brought back memories that he wished he could bury any other time but for now, he was content in just those few moments where he could pretend that none of this had happened.

As fleeting as those moments were, he'd still take it.

They pulled up outside of some nightclub, the doorman was twice the size of Bucky and he was only letting select people in which meant that there was a criterion that you had to meet; he guessed it was something to do with looks. It was always something to do with looks with shallow conceited assholes like their target and so, he turned to Natasha as the rumble of the engine died out.

"Looks like you're gonna have to use your charms," he spoke playfully, he was kidding of course.

That didn't mean that every goddamn syllable of that goddamn sentence didn't hurt. He always hated missions where she had to seduce some asshole.

"You mean you're going to have to act charming while I just look good?" she retorted.

"Pretty much," he muttered drily, he hated this. 

They needed eyes on their target and this - unfortunately - was the only way they were going to do it. He hated clubs, they were overcrowded and full of idiots that were either drunk or worse; he honestly wished that there was a way he could get SHIELD to get eyes inside, and maybe they would have been able to if they weren't still trying to heal after-- After what she'd done.

The best one at all that Eyes inside crap were Jasper. Sitwell had been a good friend to both of them over the years, he knew that she still remembered what she'd done to him even if she didn't exactly remember why. It was to send a message to him and their friend had died for it.

"Great." She mumbled, she was clearly less pleased than he was.

Both of them could only hope that this asshole wouldn't spend all night in here but they had to try to get close enough to hear what he was talking about because if the plan they knew about changed? They were going to go in unprepared yet again and that never ended well for either of them.

The good news was that they'd gotten inside, the bad news was that the music was too loud for him to think and there was at least twice the capacity there should be in here which he supposed worked; it kept people busy so that they didn't pay much attention to the heavily armed Hungarians in the far right corner or the assassin sat on the balcony watching the room.

He'd run across her before and while he didn't exactly like her, she wouldn't take him on if she could avoid it and he'd offer her the same courtesy.

She wasn't making a move to kill anyone, he could see that much; she had no weapon with her and she wasn't appearing to watch anyone in particular but he still nudged Natasha and told her to keep an eye on her anyway; it would have appeared that she was hired muscle and not much else which was curious.

He already had at least seven heavily armed mercs, why did he need someone like her, too? Was there something else going down tonight?

"Things might get crazy in here," she murmured.

The assassin had moved but she was staying far away from their target which meant he was unlikely to be her target, she had no gun on her that either one of them could see and in a place like this, guns were just going to panic a crowd which was sloppy work at best.

"Think she's after our boy?" Natasha asked as she cast her eyes toward him.

Bucky shook his head though. 

"I think she's gonna do whatever she's here for quietly but I don't think it's our target." Especially because she still hadn't made a move toward him.

A man in a dark suit that sat at the very end of the bar though hadn't been so lucky; Bucky watched as she walked past him from behind and moments later he slumped forward. He was clearly dead and that made him curious. Who the hell was he and who'd hired her? 

That was a problem that could wait for later. 

"Well, that was efficient," Natasha almost sounded impressed.

"A little too efficient." He shrugged though. That was not why they were here and they didn't need any more problems.

One of the heavily armed mercs stepped forward as their target stood up and they walked toward the back of the club, she let out a small laugh and shook her head. 

"We need a distraction." 

They didn't though, it would seem. An earsplitting scream filled the air as the young barmaid noted the dead man and almost immediately everyone around them started to move in panic which would make it a whole lot easier for them to follow their target outside but Bucky and Natasha both knew that this was a little too much of a coincidence.

"We're missing something here." He muttered as they wound through the crowds that rushed toward the door in a stampede of stupid drunken stumbling. They reached the back and Bucky incapacitated the remaining Merc with a swift kick to the side of his head.

"That was sexy," Natasha spoke as she flicked her eyes toward him and pushed her way past him and out of the exit.

Goddammit, Natasha.

He had to shake it off though. The back of the club led toward an adjacent building that had a steel door that appeared fixed tightly shut and given the fact that that was the only place their target could have gone, it was the one place they needed to get into. Natasha didn't even bother to wait for him to say anything to her before she was using every damn obstacle around her to vault onto the roof and she glanced over the side.

"Coming?"

Like he had a damn choice? Within seconds, he stood next to her as they glanced around; a rooftop entrance was the only thing up here except for a few vents and there was no way in hell he was going in one of those.

Claustrophobic. Nope. Too much like the cryotube.

"Looks like we've got one option." He sighed.

"Two, technically," she commented.

"I don't do vents," Bucky replied immediately.

"I meant the window we went past to get up here, dumbass." 

"Right, that." He glanced backward then.

She clapped him on the shoulder. "You take the stairs, I'll take the window."

Divide and conquer had its advantages but this was supposed to be his mission and he didn't much like the idea of her going off on her own; it must have literally shown on his face because she rolled her eyes.

"Don't worry James, if I get myself into trouble I'll shout. Loudly." She chose to use an emphasis on his name.

He wasn't sure why maybe to show she'd noted his irritation in the jet or maybe it was to piss him off. He really wasn't sure.

"Fine. Don't get yourself killed."

He turned to walk toward the rooftop entrance hearing only a laugh as she vaulted off the side of the building. She always made that look so effortless, she was fearless and he'd always loved that about her. The way she moved with such precision and such deadly intent, the way that she made every move she made look fluid and elegant... It was like a dance all of her own.

The damn door wouldn't budge which meant that his best bet was to shoot off the lock; he was glad he had a silencer but there'd still be sound from the door he was sure. He decided against that and opted instead for quite literally crushing it in his hand. The creaking metal made a whole hell of a lot less noise than the alternative and at least it got him inside.

He slipped silently down the stairs onto the balcony overlooking the floor below them.

His eyes immediately fell on the blonde assassin who sat atop a forklift with one foot dangling over the side of it like she didn't care about what was going on around her. Of course, she was with them. That was the thing that made the most sense but then, who the hell had the man she'd killed been? Had that been a hit or just a distraction? 

Natasha had made her own way inside and she offered him a smirk from the opposite side of the room, doing a swift turn to show him that she hadn't been hurt at all and he rolled his eyes at her. 

"Not helpful, Romanov," he muttered, talking to himself.

He completely forgot that the comms were on though.

"Aw, come on!" Natasha spoke and he glared at her.

He could read the blatant amusement on her face. 

"Just focus, Natasha," he sighed. 

They had to focus on the goddamn mission and she knew it. He knew it. Both of them turned their attention to what was going on down below them which - from first glance - seemed to be a simple weapons exchange. They almost missed the fact that the final box brought out had air holes. There was something in there that was alive. Bucky's brow furrowed.

He expected it to be an animal of some form.

Nope.

The crate was pried open and sat there, tied up and clearly terrified was a kid.

"Shit," Natasha whispered. "That wasn't in the brief."

"Nope," he replied.

"We need to go in," she spoke, and while he agreed...

He shook his head. "Wait." They needed to know who - or more to the point what - this kid was.

Both of them fell silent again as they listened to their son of a bitch target tell a Japanese man that the kid was a mutant with the ability to literally disrupt molecules, something that he forced her to demonstrate on the crate around her and it fell to pieces.

"And she can do that to a person?" The man spoke. 

Their target smirked and nodded his head. Next, he gestured to one of the guards behind him and he pressed the gun to the young girl's head. Both of them could see from the terrified look on her face that she didn't want to do it. She was sobbing the whole time.

Natasha's grip on the rail was so tight he could see her knuckles turning white; it was hard for her to watch and he knew it. She'd been through hell in the Red Room, Ivan liked to experiment on his girls. He offered them a father figure at first but he liked to see what he could do to them and what he could turn them into before they broke. Natasha had been no exception to that and he knew it.

It was how she'd wound up with the serum that was responsible for her longevity: someone else had screwed with her.

She got to her feet and immediately he could tell what she was thinking. Standing up slowly, Bucky could only nod at her. She was going to do it with or without him. Natasha never could stand to see a kid in trouble. 

Ah, hell.

Chapter Text

It was far more calculated on both of their behalf than he expected; she assessed the situation before her before she jumped in and it seemed to be just as it had a hundred times before: He'd taken one side and she took the other. Guards two and six were taken out within seconds of each other with two quick shots from her as she spun in a perfect pirouette that would have made any real trained dancer envious but there was an undeniable - and unavoidable - amount of uproar and every idiot was firing in every direction possible.

They were sloppy and both he and Natasha exchanged a look.

It was a wonder they didn't end up killing themselves and save both of them a job. Their target had been quite obviously already been alerted and before he could grab the girl and bolt toward the door, Bucky's hand was on his arm and he snapped his wrist. The man let out an angry yelp and swung for him which proved to be a mistake because he was down and out after being thrown headfirst into a wall by Natasha before his hand got within at least 12 inches of Bucky's face.

Mission? Totally blown. Him? Staring at her in awe. He never ceased to be impressed when he watched her fight. They were going to have a hell of a time explaining this when they reported back but then, this wasn't something they'd seen coming; their intel hadn't said anything about one of the weapons being a living, breathing person though he supposed that they shouldn't have been all that surprised. People with abilities would always be at risk to people like that. 

They'd both seen it enough times to know that but there was supposed to be a bigger crackdown on it now. SHIELD and the Governments of the world had come up with some bullshit thing where there'd be specialized teams that dealt with bastards that trafficked in this stuff. Apparently, this one had fallen through the cracks.

"Thanks." He glanced toward her for a moment.

"No problem," she shot back playfully.

The Japanese buyer took a bullet to the shoulder before two of his goons hauled him out of the room and out of the exit just to the west of them and back to back, Bucky and Natasha took out the 8 remaining in a familiar pattern of fluid movements they'd enacted dozens - if not hundreds - of times over the years that they'd worked together and at that moment it was easy to forget everything that was wrong between the two of them. He knew her movements as well as the beating of his own heart and she knew his.

Even if she didn't remember right now, it was ingrained into her instincts. She covered him instinctively and he did the same for her. She didn't seem to even realize she was doing it which was probably a good thing in its own way, the very last thing he wanted to do was have her thrown and distracted in the middle of a firefight. 

The last three fell but Bucky and Natasha both took minor hits, grazes, and nothing more but it was still enough to have both of them more than a little bit irritated. He couldn't help but worry though and so, he tried to assess whether or not she was okay without making it overly obvious he was doing it.

Natasha vaulted to the side as their assassin friend fired a shot at her and Bucky's head sprang around, jumping up on the crates and tackling her to the floor. He had his hand closed around her throat, and she had her gun pointed beneath his chin.

"I wish I could say it was nice to see you again, Ana." Bucky kept her pinned.

"Get the hell off me." She swung her knee up into his stomach.

It worked.

He rolled off to the side clearly winded and he coughed before he turned his head to the side and glowered at her, clearly unamused by the cheap shot but she didn't seem to care. A laugh broke her lips as she offered him a sarcastic smile.

She hopped to her feet easily before she turned to look at him and held out a hand only to have Natasha's fist connected with her jaw; the sickening crunch told him that she'd probably caused a bit of damage too and Natasha's would-be assassin staggered back. Bucky stood up almost immediately and looked at Natasha.

"It's okay. She's--" It wasn't okay. It was far from okay.

"A friend?" Ana offered, flexing her jaw.

She turned toward Natasha.

"Good shot by the way." She could hear the click when she moved it; that was gonna bruise badly.

"Hardly. An acquaintance more like and one I wish I didn't have." He muttered.

Ana feigned offense for about a second before she shrugged her shoulders and glanced between the two of them. She'd heard stories of Bucky's redheaded girlfriend, then again pretty much every assassin in the world knew who Natasha Romanov was, the famous Black Widow. Her name was whispered in shadows just like he was, she didn't quite have the renown yet but she hadn't been doing this for as long as they had and she hadn't the backstory they did.

"What the hell are you even doing here, Ana? You don't hurt kids." It was clear Bucky wasn't amused, not even slightly.

"She almost shot me." Natasha sounded just about as pissed as he was.

"Oh, relax. If I wanted you dead you'd be dead. I wanted your attention and look! I got it." Ana offered her a sardonic smile before she looked at Bucky.

She sighed.

"I don't hurt kids, douchebag. If I'd known what that asshole was transporting I'd have put a bullet in him myself. I took the damn job because I was passing through and I figure some extra cash wouldn't hurt; I was on my way to Monte Carlo for a weekend off, girls gotta unwind, right? I got an email offering me $250,000 for three days of easy work." Ana was a bitch but she wasn't that bad. She had morals.

Sort of.

No kids. That was her rule: No kids. Never kids.

"How the hell do you two even know each other?" Natasha snapped.

"Oh, magical night in a hotel room in Montreal what, ten years ago now?" Ana rose a brow as she looked at Bucky.

Natasha let out a humorless laugh. "Great."

Bucky noted her tone immediately and he rolled his eyes.

"We didn't-- Her target and mine were apparently planning to hook up that night so the best bet both of us had to get the job finished were to go to some lame party in her targets hotel suite. It beat the hell out of the attention we'd draw if we shot through the windows so we both had to opt for a close kill. That's it."

He watched the way Natasha frowned at him and he could tell just from the look on her face she didn't believe him. A part of him wondered why that seemed to make her look hurt. It was curious... 

"Right," Natasha muttered.

"Wow! Talk about drama. I'm sorry, did I just add fuel to the lover's tiff you two are having?" Ana chuckled.

"Relax, Red. He's not my type. You on the other hand..." Ana turned to Natasha with a teasing smirk.

Bucky walked over to stand beside Natasha again then; it almost seemed like a defensive measure and one he noted that Ana noticed straight away because she smirked and shook her head, he studied Natasha out of the corner of his eye while making sure he never stopped watching Ana for even a moment; he knew just how apt this one was at disappearing, she wasn't half bad at it for someone as young as she was. She only had a modicum of the training he and Natasha had but to her credit, she was good at her job. 

"So, you two are blown," she stated offhandedly.

"Whatever your mission here is? Don't care. I'll help you with our asshole seller because no doubt he's going to think his hired assassin took the two of you out so, you can use that. I'll check-in, report a job well done after I take some pictures of you two playing dead and you can finish what you came here to do, as long as I get access to his bank accounts? You can do whatever the hell you want to him."

(Her dossier reads something like this:

NAME: ANASTACIA VASILEVA 

AGE: 32

HEIGHT: 5FT 5INS

WEIGHT: 103LBS

HAIR COLOR: AUBURN

EYE COLOR: HAZEL

DISTINGUISHING FEATURES: TATTOOS ON WRIST, BACK OF NECK AND RIGHT RIBS.

KNOWN AFFILIATIONS: NONE.

CURRENT STATUS: ACTIVE/FREELANCE.

PAST AFFILIATIONS: CZECH SPECIAL FORCES, AIM, H.A.M.M.E.R, HYDRA

KNOWN ASSOCIATES: MADAM HYDRA, RECLUSE, ELEKTRA NATCHIOS

NUMBER OF KILLS: UNKNOWN.)

Bucky actually glared at her and she offered him an amused smile. Ana knew she was on quite a few watch lists and she had warrants out for at least 12 of her cover identities, she was wanted by every agency across northern, southern, and central America, Interpol, Russian Police, Czech armed forces... She'd defected from them and they hadn't taken kindly to it but Ana happened to like killing people way more than she liked to take orders from anyone...

That didn't mean that she hadn't made a statement when she'd left though.

Bucky thought she was reckless and impulsive and not in a good way, either. She was chaotic. She was going to wind up getting herself killed and while that was entirely her problem, he often thought that she could do some good if she worked for the right people. He'd tried to tell her that but she hadn't been in the mood to listen. Maybe after this? She would be.

"C'mon, Buckeroo! It's your best bet and you know it," Ana purred playfully clearly knowing he had no other choice and making that very clear.

"No, my best bet is to shoot whoever gets in my damn way," he replied through gritted teeth.

"Yup, but you've already lost the kid. Wanna think twice on that?" Ana looked between Bucky and Natasha as she leaned against the wooden crate behind her.

A smirk played on her lips as she crossed her feet at her ankles and studied both of them. Both - naturally - looked around to check whether Ana was right or if it was another ploy but just as she'd said: the kid was gone. So was their unconscious seller.

Ah hell. Bucky found himself hoping it was somewhere before Ana had thrown herself into the fray or her proposal wouldn't work and they'd need weeks of gathering new Intel and in that time they could lose him and the kid completely.

"I'm offering you what you want on a platter it's a good deal for you and you know it." She could see he was mulling it over. 

She knew well enough to know he'd be weighing the pros and cons of it all. She knew he was also likely wondering whether he'd ever get clearance if he asked about it over any official channels.

She doubted it.

"All I want is what the son of a bitch owes me and to make sure the little one doesn't get hurt, I won't have some poor kid be used by people like that; I may not give a shit about much but not even I'm that cold. Don't care what happens to him, never did. It's just a job to me, my loyalties are never with the bastards that point me at a target all I care about is myself, you know that." She'd told him as much.

He sighed and rolled his eyes at her.

"You could do some goddamn good, Ana. There are other paths for people like us now," he implored, not for the first time mind, hell it probably wouldn't be the last either. He liked her more or less anyway, he didn't want to find out she'd died out here someday.

"Nah, at least this way I know who I'm killing for. You've given me the hero speech before and it didn't take hold," she shot back, they all knew SHIELD wasn't squeaky clean.

"You do know all you're doing is looking out for yourself, right?" Natasha rolled her eyes at Ana and looked at Bucky.

"We need to get that little girl someplace safe and if that bastard has her? Your irritating little friend is probably our best play so, we're playing dead," she sounded resolute. 

What was the use in arguing? They both agreed on a plan he didn't exactly like but then if it involved trusting Ana? It wasn't exactly going to be something he'd approve of. She was only ever loyal to herself and if the money offered for turning them in outweighed what she could get from working with them she'd do it in a heartbeat...

Or would she?

"Alright! On the ground and look like I just shot you. No smiling." Ana clapped her hands together as she gestured with her gun. "C'mon! I'm not actually gonna kill you. I happen to like you and your girl has a great ass."

Both of them turned to glare at Ana then. This was a goddamn bad idea and he knew it.

Chapter Text

Making a deal with an assassin probably was not his smartest move but it wasn't even the dumbest thing he'd done in the last 72 hours so he'd pretty much just settled on the fact that this whole week was probably a write off at this point. He found himself sighing as he listened to Steve tell him that this was so far off of their plan that they wanted to send in a tac team for backup. Immediately both he and Natasha had refused it. Neither one of them played well with others but he was worse for it than she was.

She worked with others more than he did even if she did prefer to work alone, she had allies and friends whereas him? He was solely a solo act except when he worked with her or he had to work with Barton and Bobbi. Occasionally, he worked with Steve or with Logan but aside from that Bucky Barnes preferred to go in alone because he knew that if he got his dumb ass killed it'd be his own fault but if he got someone else killed in the process he'd have to live with that.

He lived with enough guilt.

It was a clear night overhead, the stars were bright but there wasn't much of a moon so the natural light was dim at best which was probably for the best; the comms fell silent after about 20 minutes as they both watched Ana make her way into the facility, making her way past the guards almost lazily. She didn't look remotely phased which Bucky found amusing. She reminded him of Natasha when Natasha was younger. She had the same reckless attitude way back when.

She still did on occasion, she had this indifference and it bothered him. She didn't care what happened to her if she got the job done in the process, she'd take a bullet gladly if it meant that she at least finished what she'd started first; he wished that she'd believe her life was worth more but so far, she really didn't. She had once. She had started to believe that she could be made whole but that seemed to have been taken away right along with them. 

He had the same problem though and he knew it; he couldn't lecture her when he knew that his own shortcomings matched hers almost to perfection. He didn't much care what happened to him anymore either. He had, back when he'd had her he cared very much because he had something to go home to, and now? Now all he had was the job and he'd thrown himself into it with such fervor that it was bordering on stupid and he knew it.

Steve had told him it was enough times but he didn't care. The job was all he had now. He needed something - anything - to focus on that wasn't the fact that he'd failed.

"I still don't trust her," Natasha commented offhandedly.

Bucky looked over at her and shrugged. He agreed. He didn't trust her either because all she really cared about was money but they were out of options; they'd blown themselves because they'd wanted to try to save the kid. They had to find a way to salvage this that wasn't an all-out assault because casualties were one thing but children? That was another matter entirely He wasn't that cold. Natasha wasn't that cold.

Ana wasn't that cold.

"We don't have much of a choice right now," he sounded about as thrilled about it as Natasha did.

He heard Ana huff. 

"Y'know, I could just leave you two to it and not help, right? I play nice and I get what I want, you two however? You're screwed if I don't help you. You can't get inside this place without me," she sounded arrogant. 

It made Natasha angry and Bucky could see it.

"You can hit her later," he mouthed. 

She glared at him. She wanted to do a whole hell of a lot worse than that and he knew it. He couldn't blame her of course, Ana had taken a shot at her and while it had been a sloppy shot at best it was still a shot and he could see why that'd piss her off. He'd be the same if it had been him, but she'd taken a shot at him before too. He knew she was far better than she'd let on last night. She hadn't intended to hurt anyone which was interesting. She could have.

Maybe the fact that it was him had given her pause. 

"No, we can't but you need us just as much as we need you. If he finds out we're not dead, we both know you are so how about we just play nice and we can work out who owes who what later?" he replied, trying not to sound as irate as he felt.

Focus. The mission was more important.

He fell silent after that and so did Ana, at least until she began to converse with their target and both he and Natasha listened in on the conversation; she reported them dead and he spoke to Ana like she was a good little dog that had brought her master a bone. Bucky could imagine quite vividly how pissed off she'd be right now. He knew Ana well enough to know that she hated being treated like that, she was no one's little errand girl. He heard her click her tongue.

"You owe me extra for that." She was trying to keep her tone even.

Their target agreed. Bucky reached for the binoculars that were next to him and he watched through a very dirty window that didn't offer much by way of clarity but it was at least eyes inside, sort of. He watched as their target walked over to what appeared to be a safe room at the back of the room and then the door opened.

"You have three of them?" Ana spoke, her calm was quickly fading.

"Ana, breathe," Bucky reminded her. She couldn't react.

She could not blow this.

"Little mutants make good money on the black market," Their target commented, sounding a little too indifferent for Bucky's liking.

From the look on Natasha's face she didn't like it either. She reached for the rifle and he placed his hand on the barrel and shook his head. There was no way in hell she could shoot, not now. Not yet. 

"You can take that shot as soon as I get inside and get those kids somewhere safe." He'd decided on going in alone.

He hadn't told her that he'd decided on going in alone until now and she let out a short laugh and shook her head in a definitive No. She wasn't going to sit idly by on the sidelines and let any of this happen without being in there to help. It wasn't anything beyond her wanting to see a mission through to the end and he knew that but-- He sighed and shook his head.

But nothing. But wasn't a factor. 

"I'm coming in with you. Screw your protective shit. I don't need you to protect me." She yanked the gun back.

The quick movement caused friction against his hand. He knew that she was right of course, she'd never needed anyone to protect her but that didn't mean that he wasn't going to try, it didn't mean that he wasn't going to have her back no matter what happened and he didn't care if she knew that or not. He didn't care if she wanted him to or not.

"Do you have a buyer?" Ana spoke, snapping them both back to their focus.

"Mm, yes and no. Our Japanese friend pulled out but there are other options." Both Bucky and Natasha knew those other options were nothing good.

They knew just what was out there for kids that could have a use to someone. 

"You never said anything about kids." Ana was quickly losing her composure.

Natasha took three swift shots and the guards out front went down right after she shot out the security camera. She was always quick, she wasted no time at all and she was one of the best marksmen in the world. She could hit shots that others would have considered impossible but the impossible was just another day at the office for people like them. The front was clear.

"What does it matter? You get paid either way. You weren't complaining about morals when you killed the Interpol agent," he muttered, sounding half-amused at Ana's seemingly abruptly developed moral compass.

"He wasn't a kid, asshole." That was it. She'd snapped. 

Bucky heard the shots over the comms and he cursed in Russian to himself. It was a distraction that he didn't need because Natasha was already gone. A string of profanities broke his lips as he vaulted down the side of the building and joined his rather pissed off partner on her crusade. 

"Please tell me you're alive," he was talking to Ana now.

"Yup. Four more guards down. You're facing eight on the way in, then you've got four to the right and three more to the left before you enter into here. Code for the door is 182774. Move." And then he heard the telltale sound if distortion as she pulled the comms unit from her ear.

As she'd said, there were a total of 15 guards on the inside, Natasha dispatched a few with far more brutality than she needed to; a few clean headshots would have done it but she'd made a purpose of snapping necks anyway. She was pissed.

By the time they'd gotten through the door both of them were angry as hell and about ready for all of this to be over. Ana had a gun on their target and three children huddled together in the corner of their makeshift prison.

"Get the kids." He looked at Natasha as he spoke; he didn't want her losing her cool.

She wanted to argue and he could see it but she wanted to keep them safe even more and so, his orders won out. Not kids. Never kids. Kids were a surefire way to set something off inside of Natasha Romanov that few other things could trigger. Hurting him had once been one of those things.

"Buyers names, now." Bucky pointed his gun at the mans head.

"All three of you are dead," he laughed.

"You have two guns on you and no backup so uh, I'd say your math is a little off," Ana replied, taking out his knee with her foot. Her hand closed around his throat as he fell to his knees and she pressed her gun against his temple again. "You heard the man: Buyers names," she pressed.

"I'm dead either way," the man muttered through gritted, bloody teeth.

He was right, he was. Ana had no intention of letting him walk out of here but he suspected Natasha wasn't either. See, the two of them had more in common than either of them thought. 

"Then you may as well make your last actions here on this earth something half worth redeeming yourself," Bucky glared at him then.

"What do I care about redemption?" He laughed. He didn't seem to grasp what was going on.

"Oh buddy, you really don't understand the shit you're in, do you?" Ana was growing tired of his crap.

"No, the three of You don't. Me? I'm just one cog in a goddamn big machine and you're just a minor inconvenience. Even if you make it out of here alive - Big if, by the way - you'll be dead soon enough and I have no incentive at all to talk to you. I talk to you, my bosses kill me if you don't have the chance to first." He was right, he had absolutely no incentive.

But Bucky hadn't any intel on his bosses, either. They were in a predicament. 

"Oh, whatever." Natasha rose her own gun and fired straight between his eyes.

"We'll get what we need from the computers and his cell," she shrugged.

There it was again, that recklessness that Bucky was quickly growing to hate.

"Nice shot, Red." Ana complimented as she made her way over to the computer console. 

The facility was screaming with alarms and if that hadn't distracted then maybe he'd have noticed the two men stood on the catwalk above them. One had all three of them on their knees within seconds - A mutant Bucky guessed from the screaming pain in his head - and the other? Three shots. Three. Bucky took a shot to the stomach, Natasha to her chest and Ana in the bottom of her neck. His hand raised and he fired at both of them before he felt the blood fill his mouth and he watched the eldest of the three kids run over to put pressure on Natasha's chest wound, the youngest - the girl - put her hands over Ana's neck and he spoke shakily over the comms.

"We're down. We need a medevac." Now.

He remembered absolutely nothing until he woke up at SHIELD hooked up to machines with a ripping pain across his stomach and Steve Rogers sat at his bedside looking worried. He released a shaky breath as he fought to sit up; Steve put his hand on his arm and stopped him immediately.

"I wouldn't if I were you, the bullet missed your artery by millimeters. The repair work was extensive," Steve warned gently.

"Natasha and Ana?" Bucky asked weakly.

"Natasha took a shot through her lung, she was in bad shape. Massive internal bleeding just like you had, but she's alive. She's not awake just yet, we're keeping her sedated until we're sure she can breathe on her own." He could tell Steve hadn't wanted to tell him that his soon after he woke up.

"Ana? How's Ana?" Bucky asked again.

"Alive. Barely. By the time we got there she'd lost a lot of blood. If the kid hadn't literally had a hold of her artery she'd be dead." 

Good, all three of them had survived.

"And the kids?" he questioned sounded quite naturally worried.

"Safe, they're with Xavier," Steve replied soothingly. 

Thank fuck. It hadn't entirely been a bust after all.

"Do we know who the two others were? I don't think I hit them when I shot..." The pain seeped into his voice. Literally. His body felt like it was on fire.

"Don't worry about that." Steve squeezed his arm and offered his best friend a smile.

"The hell I'm not worrying! They nearly killed us." And they'd gotten away. 

"We've got access to the footage and we're running them through every database we have. If they're in any system we'll have information soon enough," Steve sighed then.

He wished that Bucky would just rest. He knew all too well that the next thing out of his best friends mouth was going to be a request to go and see Natasha and so, Steve shook his head gently and glanced around at the machines.

"You need to stay here and rest," he warned. Whether or not Bucky would listen was another matter entirely.

"I need to see if she's okay." He could hear the pain in Bucky's voice.

"She isn't. Not yet. She will be, she's tough. You're the only one out of the three of you conscious right now." He knew what Steve was saying: There was no use going just yet.

There was. There really was. He could be there if she woke up so that she didn't have to wake up in a room alone with no one around her that gave a fuck. 

"I promise you if anything changes with either of them you'll be the first to know." 

He didn't want to accept that, he didn't want to accept that the only thing that he could do was stay here and heal when the love of his life was unconscious in some room on this endless corridor of hustle and bustle with people that didn't know her. He couldn't stand to think that she'd wake up alone, she didn't deserve to wake up alone; she'd sat by his bedside when he'd been almost killed and she hadn't left. Not even for a goddamn second though he knew people had told her that she should.

"She stayed with me." He fought for strength. He really did.

"I know, but only one of you was hurt then. You need to heal. You're no good to her if you're like this." Steve was dead set against him moving.

"If anything happens to her--" he replied stubbornly.

"Then I'll come and get you myself." Steve could tell that it wasn't going over well.

He watched the way that Bucky fought a war inside of his head, he watched the shifts in his expression and the way that his hands balled into fists at his side so that he could focus on something; he watched the way he tried to hide the pain on his face. Steve Rogers released a gentle sigh as he patted Bucky's arm.

"You should know that she had a seizure when she came out of surgery..." Steve spoke carefully.

"What the hell happened?" This wasn't helping. This was making him more worried.

"Blood clot." Steve flicked blue eyes to Bucky's face then.

"They managed to fix it but... It took a lot out of her. She was already weak." Shit. Shit.

"Buck, you gotta let her rest. I know you love her and you wanna make sure she's okay but she needs to rest. She needs to get better. You need to let her heal. If anything changes, I'll tell you. I'll get you when she wakes up but right now she's not in a good place. Her or your friend. Both of them were hurt bad. Both of them need to heal and so do you." 

Fuck. Fuck all of this.

She shouldn't have come with him. She'd be safe if she hadn't come with him.

Naturally, Bucky Barnes blamed himself.

Chapter Text

Another four days passed before Ana woke up, naturally, she'd fought like hell against her restraints when she did and Bucky had decided to go see her when he watched the nurses scramble in along with a very big SHIELD security agent. Bucky had rolled his eyes at all three of them and told them to get the hell out before he loosened her restraints before she wound up doing some serious damage to herself struggling against them and he studied her.

"How're you feeling?"

Ana flexed her wrists and rubbed her right one; she had some bruising there that was fading now but the line for the IV was still stuck against the side of the bone. That had to hurt, he knew from experience that when they were placed in certain areas it always hurt more than others.

"Been better," she coughed very, very gently after she spoke; her throat was killing and she still had stitches she really didn't want to tear.

"You're not a prisoner, Ana. I promise, you have my word I'll get you out of here when you're well enough to leave." She'd helped them. she did not deserve to be taken prisoner for that.

"I took a damn bullet for you, Barnes. You'd better get me outta here." She warned in as much of a playful tone as she could muster, trying to make light of the situation.

Deflecting with humor seemed the best bet right now for just about everyone. She didn't want to focus on the fact that she'd nearly died. She could remember choking on her own blood, she could remember someone literally pinching her artery closed with tiny fingers as they whispered hold on to her over and over again and that? That was not a pleasant memory. Everything that had happened there had been nothing short of a shit show and one that all of them had barely survived if in fact all three of them had but it had been for a good cause, at least she hoped it was.

"Did we get the kids out? I know they were trying to help us." When they'd been shot, she could remember the little girl with her tiny hands trying to stem her bleeding.

She apologised to her what must have been a hundred times for evidently panicking but Ana was freaking out worse; wide-eyed Ana fought to sit up and run even though she knew it was no use; her hand had literally slipped in her own blood as she'd tried to scramble. Ana looked down at her hands like she expected it to still be there now.

"Yeah, they're at the Xavier school now," Bucky replied quietly.

She huffed out a relieved sigh and immediately wished she hadn't; her hand moved to her neck alarmingly fast and he found himself worried as he watched her.

"Fuck me, that hurts." She rubbed her neck gingerly; he could tell she was measuring each movement of her hand carefully.

"You're gonna be okay, I swear. When you're good, you can go. I'll take whatever hell they wanna give for it. You saved those kids same as we did." She'd done good and he wanted her to know that.

"Heh, maybe I can be a hero after all." He could tell she was kidding but he shrugged.

"I think you can," he replied as he studied her carefully, he was trying to figure out how much pain she was in and how bad the damage was, he felt bad about what had happened to her.

"Save the sweet talk for your girl. How is she?" Not that she was expecting a visit or anything but she had no idea how Natasha was, if she'd even survived.

"She's in a bad way. She's still out, the bullet ripped through her lung," he sighed then.

"Blood clot traveled to her brain and she had a seizure. She hasn't woken up yet." He spoke the words like it was literally tearing him apart; he struggled with each one of them.

She could tell the pain was practically killing him and he had absolutely no way at all to deal with that beyond feeling lost and helpless; her expression became sympathetic and she reached out to pat his hand.

"I'm sorry Bucky." She couldn't imagine what he was going through.  She'd never really done the whole relationship-thing. 

"I just want her to wake up," he admitted quietly.

Even if she never remembered, even if she was gone for good when it came to them he could take it if she just goddamn woke the hell up. If she was at least okay he could live with it, he'd spend the rest of his life hating himself if she didn't recover, if he even survived losing her anyway.

"Hey, where's that positive attitude? I don't know that much about her but she seems like she's tough, I mean she packs a hell of a punch so she'll come out of it..." She tried to smile. 

She just wanted to help which was a new one for her; Ana wasn't exactly the caring type. Assassins rarely were though.

"Yeah, I hope you're right."

Yeah, so did she. It'd break the poor guy if he lost her and even Ana could see that. She - not that she'd admit it, mind - was actually quite fond of Bucky Barnes in one of those annoying younger sibling ways. He was like the big brother that she wanted to go out of her way to piss off and him? He seemed deadset that she could be more than she'd allowed herself to be so far. It worked.

"I'll stick around even if I'm cleared until she wakes up if you want just so you don't have to spend every day all alone driving yourself nuts..." she offered gently. She could tell Bucky appreciated it.

"Careful there, kid. You're starting to sound like you give a damn," he replied, trying to smile.

Trying.

"About you? I do in my own quirky little way. If it was anyone else I'd tell 'em to get screwed and be out of here. You ain't half bad, Barnes. I can actually tolerate you which is a big improvement from most of the hero types." Ana attempted to smirk.

Attempted and failed, she seemed to realise pretty quickly that certain movements hurt her more than others. She winced softly and looked off to the side, Bucky reached for her chart; he'd seen enough of these over the years - both his own and other peoples - to read them pretty easily; they seemed to have her on regular four to six hourly medication and blood thinners to make sure she wasn't at risk of clotting too. He was glad for that.

"You're due meds soon so that should help with the pain at least." At least that'd help her some. She looked grateful at the news.

"You're a good person Ana. I really wish you'd see that too." He reached out to squeeze her arm then.

"I'll come see you later or tomorrow. Take your meds without arguing. Eat something if you Can, trust me. I'm not gonna let you get taken prisoner here so relax and focus on getting better." Hell she needed to but then so did he.

He hasn't wholly healed yet either; he healed faster than most people did but he still wasn't entirely right again.

"'Mk, I'll try. See you later. Try relax yourself. You'll drive yourself nuts if you dwell on the worst parts of what could happen with this whole thing. I get that you're scared but you need to keep your head together. You're no good to her if you fall apart, too." 

He nodded his head and sighed as he walked out of the room, making his way - against Steve's orders - back to Natasha's room; she was still unconscious and hooked up to a whole bunch of machines but at least now she was breathing on her own so that was a good sign.

Another three days and nothing changed at all with Natasha beyond them removing her breathing tube. Steve Rogers though had decided to go and visit Ana and Bucky was quite intent on leaving him to it until he heard Ana shout something about not wanting the guards anywhere near her. He was curious if nothing else and so, he meandered down to the dark-haired assassin's room and leaned against the doorway as he studied both her and Steve, Steve was well out of his depth and Bucky could see that all too clearly on his face, he chuckled softly at them both and shook his head.

"Y'know, you don't have to give everyone so much shit, Ana." He fought back humor as he spoke.

She turned to him and grinned.

"Ohhh actually, I do. I'm bored. I literally have nothing better to do," she shrugged.

He could tell she was itching to get out of there. She was bored and restless and she wasn't good at being cooped up; the two of them had that in common. Ana was a far better person than she gave herself credit for, she actually had a heart and she could choose quite easily to do the right thing when she wanted to, she'd proved that. 

"Except prove you're perhaps a little bit human, Ms. Vasileva," Steve replied with a small ghost of  a smile on his lips.

Ana held back a burst of laughter. While she wanted to laugh at him she knew it wasn't worth the pain it'd cause her if she did. Yep, him assuming at all that she was human was funny because for the most part she didn't give a shit about anything but she didn't want to wind up having to spend more time in here because she'd gone and hurt herself again.

"You're lucky I can't laugh at you, Captain spangles." She still held the bottom of her neck.

Bucky was starting to wonder if it was because it still caused her that much pain or if it was a protective measure she'd started to develop; he had plenty of his own at this point after being shot that many times and everything that he'd been taught to be over the years. A subconscious thing that he didn't even realise he was doing usually until someone pointed it out. 

"You wouldn't have donated the money you were paid for this job to Xavier for the kids if you didn't care," Steve replied simply.

Ana glared at him and looked like she was about ready to hit him. Bucky rose a brow as his blue eyes slid to her and he studied her carefully.

"You weren't supposed to say anything about that," she muttered, she sounded a little bit embarrassed. 

Bucky frowned at her and walked over to sit beside her; it was a sort of protective instinct at this point he supposed. He placed his hand on her shoulder and offered her a small smile.

"You did good, Ana." He was trying to be reassuring but he watched the way she reacted to the word good. 

He could never quite grasp her hatred for it. 

"I'm not a good person, Barnes." She narrowed her eyes at him as she spoke.

She knew that he disagreed and it would seem that Steve Rogers did, too. She allowed her eyes to drop back to Captain Goddamn America and she studied him from head to foot; he had a good foot and a half on her height wise and at least 100lbs, he was a big guy but then Barnes wasn't exactly little either. Both of them towered her and if she was the kind of person that was intimidated by that kind of shit, it might have bothered her a little but she really wasn't. She didn't think either of them was a threat to her.

She was right of course, Bucky wouldn't kill her without a damn good reason and Cap? He was too much of a do-gooder. Redemption for the whole fucking class and all that crap. Ana had to force herself not to roll her eyes at the thought of it.

"I believe you are," Steve mused.

"I don't think you'd have done half of what you have over the last week if there wasn't at least a little part of you that was decent." 

Ana rang her hands together, she wouldn't look at either of them. Bucky released a gentle sigh.

"I'd like to offer you a job," Steve spoke.

Ana flicked her eyes to Bucky immediately and she looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a car; he'd told her dozens of times over the four years that he'd known her that she could come and work for SHIELD and that she could make a difference in the world but there was something evidently different about him saying it to her and her being stuck in the same room as Captain America with him saying it. She knew Bucky, at least sort of; they'd crossed paths enough times to have traded friendly jibes, pull one anothers ass out of the fire on occasion and develop a sort of to and fro that she was comfortable with.

Cap was a straight-up hero. It was different. Bucky kept his hand on her shoulder and he glanced up at Steve; he could tell the very last thing that Steve wanted to do was to spook her and in truth, he could see that Steve was also braced for the fact that she may very well tell him to stick it up his ass but so far, she'd remained quiet and she looked almost contemplative and that wasn't the Ana he knew. The girl he knew would've told them that she'd rather die than work for SHIELD.

"Ana?" Bucky questioned softly. "Are you okay?"

She didn't look okay. 

"If I say yes, can you be my mentor or whatever the hell it is I need? Supervising Agent? Paid stalker? I don't trust anyone else and I already know you can tolerate me so if I'm gonna do any of this, it has to be you or I'm out," she spoke softly yet still playfully, clearly only speaking to Bucky and not Steve.

Barnes nodded his head.

"Of course I can. I've been telling you for months to listen to me and come on in." He'd been the one to ask her to give all of this a chance, the least he could do was help her.

He was still thrown that she hadn't told Steve to get lost.

"You aren't under any obligation here. It isn't about stopping you dying, it isn't you work for SHIELD or your freedom ends I promise. You can go if you want to go." He wanted to make sure that she knew that.

Her freedom wasn't conditional on accepting Steve's offer; he'd make sure that she wasn't locked up because he owed her big time for what she'd done. She'd helped them get those kids to safety and she hadn't turned her back on them when she could have, it wasn't her problem and they both knew it. Ana wasn't the one there trying to save the day but she had. She'd done the right thing.

"No, I know," hhe replied, a gentle sigh broke her lips.

This was the most human he'd ever seen her.

"I figure maybe it's about time to do something besides be out there on my own; I've spent this past week watching you hope for your girl to wake up and I know that if someone had walked up to you and told you someone out there needed your help you'd have done it without question, I've been checking in on three kids I met for five minutes every damn day because a quiet little six year old girl stuck her finger in a hole in my neck and saved my ass and I figure alright maybe he's right, maybe I am a person after all at least a little bit. I'm not good. I'll never be good but even I can do the right thing sometimes. I'd like to do the right thing sometimes. If that little girl can save my life because I tried to save hers? I should try. I should keep trying," she spoke quietly.

For his sake and for those three kids. He'd gone out of his way for her and she knew it.

SHIELD would have imprisoned her if he hadn't insisted otherwise because she was a killer and that was their job. He'd taken a chance on her maybe - just maybe - she ought to do the same and take a chance on the system he trusted.

"Then it looks like you have yourself a protege, Buck," Steve smiled, sounding altogether happier with the outcome.

Happier than both Bucky and Ana liked. Both glared at him.

"You know the last time I trained a rookie was over 60 years ago, right?" He studied Steve.

"Yeah, and she turned out okay," Steve replied.

Except for the coma that was drawing on 2 weeks now. Goddammit Natasha, just wake up.

"We'll get all of your paperwork set up this afternoon." Bucky was glad Steve dealt with the business stuff.

He didn't have a level enough head for that kind of thing.

"'Kay well, I'm gonna go check in on Nat and leave you two to talk boring office stuff." That was about as much as Bucky could take of the SHIELD recruitment kick for one day.

His head still wasn't in it and while he was glad that it meant Ana wouldn't have to be out there alone with whoever the hell was pulling the strings potentially hunting all of them, he couldn't quite muster the kind of enthusiasm people would have expected of him; he was glad Ana seemed to understand though.

All he wanted to do was see that Natasha was safe, all he wanted was for her to wake up and that seemed like the most impossible thing in the world right now. As he made his way back into her room, he fell down on the chair beside her and his hand closed around hers; his eyes closed as he released a sigh and he shook his head, her warm hand underneath his should have offered him comfort but it didn't. The steady rise and fall of her chest offered him no comfort nor did the monitor that showed the steady beating of her heart.

None of it helped, not even a little bit because she wasn't awake. She wasn't talking or yelling at him or telling him to get the hell out and stop acting like she needed someone to watch over her but that was exactly what he was doing now, vigilantly, day after day and night after night, Bucky Barnes refused to leave her side because he couldn't stand the thought of her waking up alone and even just watching her here and now he knew he could do nothing for her but be a guardian to make sure nothing else happened to her.

He talked to her, sometimes about absolutely nothing at all bar whatever memories of his childhood popped into his head; he knew she loved to hear his stories of when he was younger, back when he was far from being The Winter Soldier, back before anyone had put a gun into his hand... Sometimes, he talked to her about memories of them. Times that they'd spent together and missions they'd been on, how she'd kicked his ass or how he'd pulled hers back before she'd taken one step too far and ended up hurt.

Sometimes, sometimes he just talked to kill the silence. They'd told him that there was a strong chance that she could hear him, her brain activity was brilliant which meant that there was no discernable damage from the seizure but... No one would know anything for sure until she woke up. He hoped that when she woke up there'd be nothing wrong, she'd already been through enough.

Every day now for just under 2 weeks he'd told her over and over that she had to wake up, he didn't care if she never remembered him at this point so long as she woke up; he'd spend the rest of his life with that pain and that'd be okay as long as she was okay because it beat the alternative, it beat the thought of thinking she'd be in there forever laid hooked up to machines unable to open her eyes. There were options, there were always options but he knew Natasha wouldn't want any of them. She'd been messed with enough.

He sat as the vigilant guardian that she swore she never wanted until Natasha Romanov opened her eyes.

Chapter Text

Sixteen days.

She was mad as hell at the fact that she'd been out for that long but worse still that she'd been vulnerable for that long. Natasha never was too keen on vulnerabilities. She found herself glaring at Bucky when he told her that he'd checked in on her because he wanted to make sure she was okay and she'd made it clear that she was far less than pleased at the fact that he'd maintained that whole Guardian Angel act.

She'd told him to knock it off but he maintained that he'd just wanted to know that she was going to wake up.

It was his op she'd gotten hurt on and he just wanted to make sure that she was okay or so he tried to maintain anyway.

She knew he was full of crap, it was more than that but she wasn't ready to confront him on it and he wasn't ready to talk about it; she still felt weak as hell and the moment she'd woken up she had Nick Fury tell her that she'd be subjected to a battery of tests starting with an MRI tomorrow before any of them could even think about clearing her to go home; Natasha never did like people fussing because of her.

She wasn't thrilled about absolutely any of it but they'd been very delicate when explaining the damage to her body simply because no one wanted to stress her out even more by being abrupt and tactless. 

At this point she didn't think it was possible to feel worse than she did right now and naturally that caused her to lash out; she was frustrated, her body was tired and felt tight and her head was killing her. She wanted a shower and a run and neither of them were permitted right now; she was dreading the amount of training it'd take her to find some normalcy again after this.

She watched the wounded look on Bucky Barnes' face when she told him that she didn't want him there but he complied anyway and left her to it because he knew by now that arguing with her would do no good for either of them.

It'd be the last time that she'd see him for just over a month because Natasha had her own issues to work through, she didn't need him, too. At least that was what she kept on telling herself.

Before she was discharged from the Infirmary she'd been given every test they could think of and clear from every single one of them which made her happy; the last thing she needed was her health failing her, too.

She could already feel her mind doing it and it felt a whole hell of a lot like she was fragmenting all over again; she had splitting headaches but the MRI had come back clear, it was a pain she knew all too well and one that she'd never wanted to experience again as long as she lived.

She was getting really tired of being screwed with.

Natasha had kept her distance from everyone for just over a month once she'd been allowed home because she was determined to clear her head and figure out what the hell had happened to her and what was going on in her head right now. She was struggling all over again to figure out what was real and what were false pieces forced into the ever-changing kaleidoscope that was her brain.

Natasha felt like she was at a loss all over again because if what she was 'remembering' was accurate, then everyone had lied to her.

Again.

They all knew how she felt about being lied to and so she'd decided her best bet was distance.

Distance would be her ally; she'd taken a few freelance jobs over the last few weeks just to keep herself busy so that she didn't have to think about it all but when she was alone, it was like her mind wanted to throw every damn thing it had locked away for the past several months at her and it brought her to her knees some days.

Some nights, she'd wake up screaming out so loudly that a few times she'd had her neighbors knock just to make sure that she was okay.

She was not okay. She hated it. She hated the way that her mind once again didn't feel like it was her own. 

She'd wanted to believe so thoroughly that she'd never be unmade all over again but she had. She'd been screwed with and forced to forget a whole chunk of her life and she found herself angry and resentful. She threw herself into work because it was all she knew how to do; she didn't cope too well when she was faced with something like this. Her mind was supposed to be hers again. That was the deal when she'd defected and she'd run all those years ago.

She'd told Ivan that no one would screw with her again and that included him. She didn't care. No one would ever hurt her again in the way that any of them had but he'd warned her that she would never truly be free no matter how much she believed otherwise because she would always be a product of what they'd turned her into.

A product of what he'd helped turn her into but he was wrong. She was no longer one of his Devushka Ivana.

She was her own person now.

She wanted to find a way to make herself whole again and fix all of the pieces that they'd taken away and stolen from her over the years and she'd been close. She'd been so, so close. She'd been close enough to start to believe that she could be a real person all over again and then someone had gone and screwed with her head all over again. Jasper... Oh, god. Jasper. Jasper had been her friend and she'd shot him down. She'd remembered little pieces of that but she'd hoped that it was just a bad dream.

Nick, Jasper... Thankfully she hadn't killed Nick but she could tell he was pissed at her for a while after that.

Not everyone survived when she'd tried to kill them so really, he was lucky. So few had survived the renowned assassin once she was told they had to die. It was programming, implants inside of her that weren't her, and thoughts that weren't her own. She had been a puppet all over again and she was so angry about it that she honestly wished that there was still someone out there that she could punish for it.

She'd endured enough punishment for it and it wasn't even her fault. Blame was relative in their world though. 

Three straight weeks she'd been out of New York throwing herself into whatever damn half-assed mission she stumbled upon while she was out there, some of it was just her being in the right place at the right time with a contact that needed some favor or another to help them out and others were loose ends she knew for a fact that she could tie up just to give herself some semblance of peace and accomplishment that'd take her mind off of the war inside of her. It was half-assed and reckless at best because she was going in with no plan, no backup, and no way to get a hold of anyone if she fell into a mess.

It didn't even register to her at all though. All she could focus on was trying to make the pain inside of her head stop and find something to focus on that wasn't going to screw her up even more than she already was, Natasha could be the queen of avoiding when she wanted to be and this? This was exactly how she did it. 

She knew what he'd spent this last month doing, she'd made a purpose of keeping tabs on him just because he did it to her whether she wanted him to or not and she knew that he'd spent the last month training and helping that goddamn assassin. In truth, Natasha wasn't thrilled at first about her being offered a job at SHIELD but she'd realized quickly that she'd been in the same boat Ana was once and that if it wasn't for her help - regardless of her taking a goddamn badly aimed potshot at her - they wouldn't have gotten those kids out alive so it seemed like an even trade.

She didn't want her to be locked up any more than Bucky did. Bucky had chosen to take a chance on her and so, there must be a damn good reason for it. She'd been amused and incredulous when Steve had told her he'd recruited the goddamn girl but from what she knew, she'd quickly proved herself to be a hell of an asset even if it bothered her to think that James had another partner. She couldn't quite explain why it bothered her though and that bothered her more. This whole thing was confusing.

It had just made her want to throw herself into working more because it beat the hell out of trying to make sense of her sudden bout of jealousy. Natasha Romanov was Not the jealous type; she'd never met a female that she thought was a threat to her and she knew - as Ana had said - that Bucky wasn't her 'Type' if what she'd been saying was even remotely true but Assassins weren't the most reliable people on the planet when it came to the truth. 

She'd shadowed one or two of their missions anyway just to be sure that the girl wasn't going to stab him in the back or sell him out. She'd never get answers from him if he was dead and she knew that she needed answers. While she didn't trust her at all she'd come to the conclusion that she wasn't going to get him murdered out there for her own benefit and so, Natasha had gone her own way.

She knew that they were doing the exact same thing that she was though: They were gathering intel and trying to get answers on who out there might be targeting them before it became a real issue. She was used to people out there trying to kill her and she knew that Bucky and Ana could relate to that but this? From what that bastard had said this was more dangerous than they'd initially thought and none of them knew if any other kids were out there in danger.

It was a hell of a mess but eventually, they'd face it and she knew it. It remained to be seen though whether they'd do it as a team or whether it'd end up being a solo mission for each of them that'd wind up getting them systematically wiped out one by one, not that she nor Bucky would be easy to kill but if someone happened to try hard enough? It wasn't an impossible task. Unfortunately.

When she'd eventually decided to calm down, go home and just try to be still, she'd been hyper-aware of the fact that he'd been checking up on her.

Again.

It didn't seem to matter that she'd told him she didn't need help or that she didn't need protection he seemed intent on making sure she was okay regardless. In some small way, she appreciated that; she was starting to remember little pieces, fractions that became distorted images that gradually started to clear up over time and become things that began to make some sense to her and she got a strong feeling that he was just as important to her as she seemed to be to him.

The dreams were the worst; it was mostly the bad things she remembered in her dreams. The ones that haunted her and it ensured that no matter what she had no escape from it and that became a resentment that bubbled up inside of her making her too afraid some nights to close her eyes.

She hadn't slept in three days. She was exhausted and so tightly wound she felt like she might explode at any second. 

She had tried to get answers out of a very unwilling Steve who had merely settled for only telling her that she wasn't going crazy and the things she was remembering were real but it wasn't him she needed to talk to. It wasn't him who could help her as much as he might want to because it wasn't his story to tell which had frustrated her even more.

She'd even called Clint who had apologized quite profusely for keeping things from her and he'd explained rather sincerely that when she remembered more she'd understand why he hadn't said anything to her about any of it and why he'd kept quiet because all Clint Barton ever wanted to do was keep her safe, Clint wanted to protect her just like he always did. Just like James seemed to want to.

He promised her that she would eventually understand and that he hoped she'd forgive him. She wasn't mad at Clint or at Steve if she was going to be honest but she was undoubtedly frustrated by all of it.

She was glad it was warm outside because she spent most of the nights now sat just watching the nights sky and the hustle and bustle of the city around her simply for something to do when she wasn't lost in a good book because she couldn't bring herself to face what awaited her in her sleep again. Natasha always did love to read, she remembered now that some of the books she'd owned had been gifts from him over the years.

Some had small messages inside that she hadn't understood for the last several months but now, she was starting to gain some semblance of understanding when it came to their meaning and their significance.

She breathed out a sigh as she looked up toward the roof. She knew he was there.

"Come on down, I got you a beer." She was fighting back a yawn; she was so goddamn tired. "You could at least have a drink with me if you're going to keep checking up on me." 

He seemed to hesitate for at least two or three minutes, she didn't know. She wasn't paying all that much attention. She was nursing the same glass of wine she'd had for a good half hour now. She was often far too lost in her thoughts these days to really pay attention to much when she didn't absolutely have to. She knew she was safe here. She didn't have to keep her guard up.

Still, he decided to join her and sat on the chair opposite her, and scooped up the glass bottle. 

"I thought I told you to stop watching over me," she commented offhandedly.

"Yeah well, you almost died so that made me worried. Again." He was trying to sound dismissive.

He wasn't succeeding.

An amused smirk played on her lips as she turned her head to look at him. She shook her head then and she studied him. He looked better than the last time that she'd seen him, a whole hell of a lot less sad. She felt a pang of guilt for that. 

"And what was your excuse before all of that?" The way she spoke told him she was baiting him.

He was right, she was.

"You've been through a lot..." He seemed somehow withdrawn. He couldn't finish his sentence.

He was trying not to say far more than he was actually saying and she was trained well enough to know it, too. He had to know she'd notice. She rose a brow at him and shook her head.

"You can't lie to someone who lies for a living, I'm trained well enough to call you on your bullshit so, consider yourself called out." Natasha looked at him over the top of her wine glass.

"Tell me why you're watching over me." She was pushing him and he knew it.

He placed the glass bottle down and shook his head at her.

"You know why, Natasha. Somewhere inside of you, you know why." He was taking a dumbass risk but then he had been all along.

She was the type that noticed shadows, she'd spent her whole life being taught to pay attention to shadows. There was no use trying to use them to hide, not from someone like her and not when she was just as much at home in them as he was. Natasha's green eyes were fixed on him and she downed the rest of her drink.

She remained silent for a few moments as she studied him, a gentle frown touched her features and she released a deep sigh almost like she was trying to center herself.

"I know something." She shrugged her shoulders gently, mulling over what she wanted to say. "I wanted to act like it didn't matter," she admitted, she sounded almost distant for a moment.

Her eyes stared off into the distance almost like she was looking at something he couldn't quite see and he knew she was just trying to get her head together. He knew just how hard all of this was because he'd been there before. He'd been through it. She'd been through it before and he'd never wanted to see her go through it again.

"I remember-- I'm not even sure what I remember."

She tapped her fingers on the side of the glass for a moment before she stood up and turned to walk back into her apartment. He sat there unsure what the hell he was supposed to do.

Why the hell had she even started any of this if she was just going to walk off?

She emerged a moment later and leaned against the glass sliding door, holding a book in her hand and she opened the front cover of it carefully; it had been one of her favorite stories when she'd been a child and few people knew that information about her.

'Thank you for being the light I needed to find my way home.' She read the words and her eyes never once left him as she did.

"I don't remember everything just little pieces." She closed the book gently and moved to sit down again. She placed it on the table between them. 

"I remember enough to know you left," her voice was laced with pain mixed with anger.

He recoiled from her words but he couldn't blame her at all for whatever anger she might have toward him.

"I wanted to stop hurting you." Bucky averted his eyes as he spoke.

"I left because I knew all I'd want was for you to remember me, to remember us and it'd become a pressure on you that you didn't need. It'd become a distraction for you that could've got you hurt, Natasha. I didn't leave because I didn't care, I left because I thought I put you in danger and that all I'd keep doing was put you in danger and I couldn't take it. I was stupid and I was a coward and I'll hold my hands up to that but I never left because I didn't care." He didn't expect her to understand it.

Hell, he didn't even understand his own stupid-ass decision when it came to that but he'd been so fixated on the fact that what had happened to her was his fault that he didn't stop to think about the fact that maybe she needed someone to help her heal. She had Barton, but Barton didn't know her as he did. She didn't need anyone to fix her, that had never been who she was but maybe she could've used someone that helped her through the pain inside of her that she wouldn't quite be able to name or explain.

The emptiness he knew would reside there because it had in him for decades. All he'd wanted was for her to remember and now it seemed she did, he didn't know how to face it through fear of pushing her further away.

"I was stupid and I was selfish and I left because I thought I was doing the right thing for you so you could rebuild your life without feeling obligated to remember who I was to you but I couldn't stay gone so I started to watch over you, I hated it when Steve would put us together on missions or Hill would or-- I kept telling them that I couldn't work with you because it was too hard and they kept telling me that's exactly the reason I should because I owed you that much and they were right." He deserved to suffer for what had happened, she didn't.

"I kept coming around to check on you to make sure that you were safe. Sometimes when you were out there if I was close by I'd stay just in case you needed backup out there and you had no one. You've never needed anyone, Natasha. Not me or anyone else but I needed to make sure you were safe for my own selfish reasons because I never learned how to live in a world where you weren't in it in some capacity or another. You've been this huge part of me and who I am for as long as I can remember. I never felt a damn thing until I loved you." He felt like he was suffocating. He had to explain but it was hard.

She remained quiet as he spoke, taking in his words until she could process it enough to come up with an answer that wasn't laced with anger.

"You kept dropping these little hints every time I saw you or every time we worked together and I couldn't work out why at first." She shook her head.

He'd wanted to see if gentle hints could make her remember something. All it had done was confuse her for a hell of a long time but she'd managed so far to ignore it and bury it and shove it into another box inside of her mind that she'd deal with much, much later on.

"For over a month all I've had is this assault of memories, nightmares that have me screaming out so much that I don't want to sleep anymore. You and me? It was - it is - so much of who I am and who I became over the years. I think I knew somewhere inside that something was missing I just didn't know what. Everything that happened to me after I got shot broke some kind of barrier in my head and everything started to come back all jumbled up and out of order and fractured. It didn't make sense. Little things started to fall into place." A little at a time anyway.

"Then I knew that I couldn't face you until I'd remembered enough to find something in all of it that made sense. I hated you at first for leaving because it felt like you were just being a goddamn coward, for running away when it wasn't you who went through that but you did. They might not have put anything in your head but they took something away from you just like they did with me."

In a different way. A very different way indeed but they'd both lost something and they'd both lost each other.

"I always knew you were out there, it was like I could sense it. A part of me was glad you'd watch over me even if I didn't get it at first and even when I kept telling you to stop; I wanted to believe that it wasn't because you thought I couldn't do it on my own but I knew deep down that it wasn't that. It felt like familiarity even if that familiarity made no sense to me." She hated how screwed up she felt all over again. 

She chewed her lip to fight the tide of emotion threatening to bubble over. 

"I've spent years trying to hold onto something that made me feel whole again and you know that. I searched for something in so many different places that I felt like all I was doing was scattering more of who I was all over the place and I'd never be complete but what happened with Ivan made me realize that I was," her voice cracked just a tiny bit.

Just for a moment before she pulled her composure back together like a flawless shroud.

What she'd been through with Ivan had taught her a whole hell of a lot.

"It made me realize that the only thing that made me whole was you and my friends and he tried to take that away, he tried to take away my friends, my freedom, keep me from the man I love and it still didn't cause as much damage as what happened to me when I had my head screwed with and all I was put into a goddamn blender again." 

He knew, he knew just what she had been through because he'd been by her side the whole time just as he had with everything else. He hadn't left then no matter what she was facing and so he hated himself for leaving when she was facing something that had been hard on him, too. She shouldn't have had to go through any of it alone. She shouldn't have had to deal with it let alone go through it alone and to this day he still blamed himself.

"I thought a thousand times about how I wanted this conversation to go down, I thought about how I'd throw every goddamn ounce of anger I had at you and tell you I hated you for what you'd done but I don't. How can I hate you? You were the thing I'd spent my life searching for. Literally. I spent years trying to track you after they forced us to end what we were and you forgot all about who I was, you were the one thing that's been mine no matter what happened or how much life tried to tear us apart." They always found their way back to one another, she ran her hand through her hair.

Then she started to toy with the ends of it again. She did that when she was anxious. 

He smiled. She always thought no one noticed but he knew every single one of her little quirks.

"So we find our way back through impossible odds again and I still can't make any sense of half of the things I remember; I retraced some things trying to kick up something inside of me that I could work with." It had been tiring at best.

"I remember just enough to know that I've loved you now for decades. I remember enough to know that you don't know how to give up on me and I've never given up on you." She sounded thoughtful but pensive.

She sounded sad in a way he found himself hating.

"I don't do open. I've never done open very well. All I know how to do is shut down but I have this feeling that it isn't like that with you."

He offered her the smallest ghost of a smile as he shook his head to tell her No.

"No, it's not like that with me. With me you know you can always be honest no matter how much I might hate what you have to say; you're blunt and honest and you never ever hold back when it comes to me." 

She studied him then with curious green eyes.

"So be honest with me now, are you watching over me because you feel bad that what happened to me was because of you, or are you watching over me because you're still in love with me? I need to know..." She had to know. It would be the only way she'd know how to handle everything.

"You know the answer to that." He knew she did. She wouldn't be telling him any of this if she didn't.

"You're a good man, James," she murmured the words softly; she knew they were familiar.

She'd said that exact thing to him before.

"Not really, no. But you're the only one that understands that." He let out a small laugh. "The train station right before you left to chase ghosts that you never told me about." Both of them were good at that. Ghosts made up most of their lives.

Ghosts and empty holes in their memories that were left by fillers and fakery were the ones that lived a life in the shadows because they weren't quite human anymore. The history that they shared ensured all of that. 

"Natalia, my sweet Natalia." He was the only one that she allowed to call her that.

She was the only one that had ever called him James. Everyone else called him Bucky but she'd never liked it. It wasn't the person that she'd known. She'd always known James Barnes, the man behind The Winter Soldier, the man that he was behind all of that, behind all of the implants and the missions and the hell that they'd put him through. She knew the human that still resided in him even when he'd believed that there was absolutely none of it left.

She loved him for all he was and that included the monster.

Until she didn't anymore and that was when he'd learned what true loneliness really was.

There was a soft fondness to his voice that made her flashback to years ago, to a stolen moment where he'd promised her that no matter what he'd always love her and that there would never be anything they could do to change that. He'd promised her that no matter what they'd ever made both of them it was the one thing that was real and the one thing that'd always be real. It was the one thing that they could count on even when they had nothing else.

There had been plenty of times when neither of them had anything else, not even one another. For years, she'd tracked him and showed up on his missions trying to reach through but it hadn't quite worked out, not for the longest time, then she'd gotten him back and he'd lost her. It just seemed never-ending.

"I'm not hollowed out, James. Not anymore." Not completely anyway. There was still a lot missing and she knew it but what could she do about it?

She'd get it back in time and they both knew she would.

"You had no idea who I was, not for years. I watched you look at me with cold, empty eyes and I couldn't do a damn thing to help you. You've fought by my side now all this time and you had to see the same thing I did." She knew how hard it was from experience.

She really, really did.

"I don't know what the hell we do from here," he admitted weakly. He could tell from the look on her face that she didn't, either.

What kind of goddamn torturous impasse was this? She stood up then and made her way over to him and she held out her hands to pull him to his feet. 

"I think something like This," she whispered softly. 

Then she kissed him and nothing else in the goddamn world mattered to James Barnes at that moment; for months now this had been the one thing in the world that he'd wanted more than anything else in the world but even he knew that wishes didn't come true in this kind of life.

This? This was the calm before the storm but then she'd always been his shelter from those.

Chapter Text

They actually slept peacefully, both of them.

She had no nightmares that night which was a huge relief for her; she was well aware of the fact that exhaustion did not exactly make for good agents or good decisions out there in the field, in fact, it was pushing yourself beyond your limits that got you killed and she spoke from experience on that because Natasha had a nasty habit of pushing herself to breaking point quite a lot; Natasha Romanov was not without her scars from the brushes of deaths cold fingers through occasionally reckless and irrational choices and neither was James Barnes. She knew it was nothing short of a miracle that they were still here.

She woke up the next morning with a sense of calmness that she'd almost forgotten existed; he was still asleep when she roused and for a moment she just laid there enjoying the quiet warmth of having someone next to her that chased away the horrors in her head. It had been something that she really had underestimated the benefits of; she knew from their conversation that a decent night's sleep had become a distant memory for the both of them.

Perhaps it was months of dealing with life alone with holes in your memory that left you feeling empty without allowing you to understand why she was so glad that she didn't have to face the nightmares all over again; she hadn't even really expected to fall asleep but she had a sense of safety that she hadn't felt in far too long with him there with her.

A quiet, lazy yawn broke Natasha's lips; she leaned up on her elbow and prodded him gently in the shoulder. He stirred, but at first, he did not wake up which became a subject of some amusement for her for a moment; she shook her head before poking him again.

She had almost forgotten the way he looked like a wholly different person when he was content and peaceful. It was seldom seen outside of the times they were alone together. He was never like that around anyone else.

She was the same though. She could be just as closed off and defensive, if in truth not more so than he was. He stirred as she once again gently prodded his upper forearm. A quiet sound broke his lips as he started to rouse.

"Mm, wha-." He was struggling to speak through his still sleepy haze.

"Hi." He blinked, trying to get his eyes to focus.

Natasha's lips formed a gentle smirk as she tilted her head softly to the side and studied him. She traced a gentle line down his arm with her finger. He released a content sigh and looked toward her with a sleepy smile.

"I forgot how much I love waking up next to you." He had almost given up on ever feeling like this again.

He'd have sacrificed her loving him if that was what bargain he had to make sure she woke up and that she was safe and well; he'd have traded anything when he was watching her in the hospital as her body desperately fought to heal from something terrible. Natasha hadn't deserved what happened to her. Not one goddamn part of it had been anything she'd deserved but then this life wasn't kind, not to her or anyone else.

She'd been through so so much, betrayed by people that she had come to trust and rely on, she'd been isolated, hunted by her friends, and led to believe that she'd never been anything but an outcast, she'd been used by people, manipulated...

She hadn't deserved a goddamn ounce of it but she came out of it strong and admirable just like she always did. She knew by now that he had so much tragedy in his life, too, and she hated it. She hated that neither of them was able to protect one another from the evils in the world but they'd overcome most of it side by side and at least that? She could be thankful for that. 

'You died, James.'

'Oh, that again. That trick never works.' 

Natasha blinked rapidly and immediately, he noticed that she'd gone somewhere else in her head. Immediately he sat up and pulled her into his arms and placed a kiss against the top of her head.

"Where'd you go? What happened?" He sounded worried. Of course, he sounded worried.

Natasha released a breath and shook her head at him.

"Nowhere too bad. I remember SHIELD right before we got into that whole mess and-- You were in a bad way. I thought I was gonna lose you." She'd had many a dream where she did. 

She had many a dream where his death that day had been real and very, very permanent and she had to live knowing that she'd failed him and she couldn't imagine anything else or anything more painful than that. She knew he could though, she knew he could because he'd had to see what had happened to her now and back then and he had thought he'd failed her all this time and there was nothing, nothing at all that he could have done to change what she'd been through.

She could see how much he hated himself, he could hide but he couldn't hide that well.

"But you didn't lose me and I didn't lose you. We've had temporary setbacks and we've been through every layer of hell life can throw at us but we're here. We're together. I swear no matter what happens I won't let anyone do that to you again; no one will ever open us up and hollow us out again. I've lost you too many times." The same could be said the other way around.

She'd lost him too many times, too. Years, it had taken them literally years to find their way back to one another. This time around, it had taken her nearly dying to do it. 

"I wasn't conscious when you were taken in. What happened to me was mild compared to--" He flexed his jaw and sighed.

It was mild compared to what had happened to her and to Ana and while both of them had pulled through it didn't mean he hated himself any less for it and it didn't mean that he didn't hate the sons of bitches who were responsible for what had happened to all of them and to those innocent kids.

"Let's not?" she offered gently. "Not right now."

Eventually, they'd talk through whatever came back to her when it did but it didn't have to be right now. She felt far too relaxed to do all of this now, calmness wasn't something that she'd gotten a whole hell of a lot of over these past few months, and this? This was a familiar kind of comfort that she'd missed. 

"Yeah, I'm good with that," he still sounded so sleepy.

Lost in the gentle calmness and quiet throes of slumber that threatened to pull him right back under again.

"We need coffee!" she announced, trying to summon her own energy.

In truth she felt just like him, just like the two of them could happily fall back to sleep and waste away their day in their own blissful little bubble but they couldn't and they both knew it. As much as he might want to, they had a job to do and a life to face outside of here, but he knew just as well as she knew that they were both questioning whether that had to be today. Natasha knew in their line of work that time off meant that they could very well miss something important, and they were still in the stage where they were trying to gather intel on what may - or may not - be going on.

Not to mention he had that whole tutoring thing with Ana to deal with. It didn't seem like time off was even remotely possible. Especially not with each of them being newly back from their medical issues.

"We do, yeah," he agreed with a small nod.

Coffee was the life's blood for people like them. SHIELD expected the two of them in today whether or not either of them felt mentally ready. Bucky? Bucky had been back at work for a while but Natasha had been ducking everyone for over a month. She was the one that had the most to catch up on.

After each of them had woken up by the time 7:30 rolled around and Natasha had made bacon and pancakes which was something that Bucky was thankful for after quite a few rushed SHIELD cafeteria breakfasts over the last month and pretty much nothing else. He was running on empty but he was too worried about her to really care; he didn't have that worry anymore at least not as much as he had before but he wouldn't stop worrying no matter what. He loved her. 

"So, did you find anything while you were out there or...?" He asked eventually, he'd been wanting to ask since last night but it hadn't seemed a good time.

"I checked in with Lehnsherr, he swears it has nothing to do with the Brotherhood or anything else he's dipped his fingers in over the years, he seemed pretty pissed that Mutant kids were still being sold as weapons and vowed that whole; They'll pay' crap he usually pulls when he's pissed about something. He suggested we ask Xavier about the mutant that attacked us and took us down, he hasn't heard of anyone with that kind of power but he was damn curious about it. No doubt he'd love another weapon." Not that that was ever going to happen.

"Put a call in to Doom too, just in case  he happened to know anything on his crazy ass end of psychoville but even he says no." 

"That's good news, right? If it hasn't reached their level of insane it's good?" Bucky truly wasn't sure, Natasha could relate to that.

If it hadn't reached their level of utterly insane that was a good thing in and of itself but he wasn't all too sure that it was and he could tell from the look on Natasha's face that she had the same suspicions he did. 

"Then that probably means it's really deep underground." Bucky came to the conclusion all on his own, but he watched Natasha's slow nod.

She'd come to that conclusion. She'd come to that conclusion when she'd been running halfway around the world trying to figure out why the hell people were taking shots, why people were selling kids and why the hell that son of a bitch had told them that what they were facing was beyond anything they could comprehend. If that were the case, she'd be very surprised given all that she'd faced and all that he'd faced. They'd seen monsters unlike anything anyone else could possibly comprehend in the past,

Monsters that tore lives apart were nothing new to people like them, people using kids was nothing new to people like them but this? This wasn't something that she'd seen for a hell of a lot of years. Not since The Red Room and even then, people with abilities weren't really their kick. Little girls with nowhere to go? That was what they preferred but people with abilities were too much of a liability. They didn't like liabilities or anything they couldn't control. 

If it wasn't easy for them to break them out of the habit of standing up for themselves and submitting to orders, they weren't interested in it. People that had abilities tended to be a lot harder to beat down and make into compliant, mindless little soldiers because they knew they had a way to stand up for themselves unless they were brought in real early. 

"He said we were facing something worse than anything we had before but I don't see how that can be true. The Red Room, what you faced with The Russians? How can it be worse than that?" To her, it really couldn't get much worse than that.

They were monsters to the worst degree, what could possibly be worse? Well... Selling kids off as weapons definitely made you pretty high on Natasha's list of scumbags. 

"What about you and Ana? Did you guys find anything?" She turned to study Bucky as she spoke.

He released a sigh though and shook his head.

"Not much. We got a solid description off of the kids of everyone they could remember and every location they could think of but we haven't narrowed much down yet. Most were empty by the time we got there and others are too much of a risk for us to go in without more research, surveillance... You know the drill." 

"So, the short answer is none of us have any goddamn idea who we're up against?" Natasha questioned obviously feeling slightly irritated.

He could understand her irritations and her frustrations. They'd both been there one too many times over the years. If there was someone out there targeting them and trying to kill them it wasn't anything they weren't already used to but there were kids caught in the middle of this. Again. Kids that were innocent and that didn't deserve to live a life where they were nothing but their abilities. There was more than life to that.

She'd been desperate once upon a time as a foolish little girl to prove there was more to life than that. They'd tried to get it out of her quickly and unfortunately they'd succeeded and Natasha had become quite the proficient killer over the years but she had never been free and if those kids didn't get out of there, they'd never be free either. No one deserved that life and Bucky Barnes understood that better than anyone else in the world possibly could.

"We need to be working on this. We need to put every damn thing we have into this because I can't just let innocent kids out there be used like that. We know what it is. We know what that life is and no one deserves that, James. No one deserves to be used their whole lives." She pulled her knees to her chest and sighed.

"And we won't let that happen, Natasha. We'll fight for them and I promise you we'll do everything in our power to save every single one we can." He leaned forward to place a kiss against her shoulder.

"We'll figure this out. We'll do the leg work and we'll haul in as many middlemen as we can find until we get to the bastards at the top and we'll pull the whole damn thing down." He promised quietly.

He knew it wasn't going to be easy, it was going to be far from easy but he'd make damn sure she wasn't going to hate herself for failing these kids.

"We'd better get ready to go in," she sighed and shook her head.

She seemed about as enthused as he was when he glanced at the clock on the wall.

"Yeah, I have training with Ana at 10." He'd almost forgotten.

She turned over her shoulder to look at him and she glanced up, catching his eyes. She reached back to run her hand through his hair as she placed a kiss against his lips.

"Do you want me to come over tonight?" 

"Maybe," she replied.

Maybe. Well, maybe was better than no.

********

It had been a rough morning. The training was easy enough because he'd been doing it for years but Natasha however hadn't had anything nearly as simple. By the time she'd gotten out of the shooting range and been pulled into a meeting with Steve, she found herself quite frustrated. It wasn't that she was frustrated at all with SHIELD or with Steve but more that she was frustrated with her whole situation; she hated the way that everyone still tiptoed around her and acted like she was going to break.

Yes, she'd been shot and yes, she'd almost died but she was doing goddamn fine now. She found herself subconsciously placing her hand over her mostly healed bullet wound. She made her way into Steve's office and sat down as he turned to look at her; there was the ghost of a gentle smile on his lips and he studied her trying to figure out whether or not he should ask her if she was okay, she looked well enough and he was glad for that.

"It's nice to see you again, Natasha," he sounded warm and welcoming.

"Yeah, you too Steve." Natasha drummed her fingers on the desk in front of her as she spoke.

"So, what's up?"

"Clint sent over some files for you, he said he'd have dropped them by in person but he's concerned you're angry at him," Steve sounded curious as to why he'd think that.

Natasha knew him better than to think that he'd ask about it. He was curious, she could see it painted on his features but he wasn't - and would never be - the intrusive kind, he knew that there was enough going on with her right now to risk stressing her out, well that and no one knew whether or not she was fully healed from everything she'd already been through. Natasha noted the careful way he regarded her and she sighed and rolled her eyes.

"My brain is still messed up, Clint is afraid because I'm starting to remember and he's worried I'll lose my shit at him for not telling me what he knew before; I called him right after I called you but he had nothing he could tell me beyond that I'd get everything back on my own eventually and that he didn't want me to hate him when I did. I'm fine though, my uh... My wounds are more or less healed and I've had to follow up MRIs twice now and there's nothing. I'm good." She ran through everything quickly.

In true Natasha style, she made most of it sound matter-of-fact and like she could easily brush over it but Steve's rose brow and curious look told her otherwise. She couldn't help but fold her arms across her chest and shake her head at him.

"What? Don't give me that look." She knew Steve well enough by now to know when he wanted to say something.

"Does James know? About your memories, I mean?" Naturally, his first thought was his best friend.

That was something she'd always admired about him, he thought about absolutely everyone else before he thought about himself. She knew just how important James was to him and she knew just how much he'd worry about the impact this would have on his best friend.

"He does. He came by last night keeping up with his typical Guardian Angel crap." She could see from the look on Steve's face it wasn't a big surprise to him.

Though it wasn't surprising for her to discover Steve already knew Bucky was watching over her, he'd probably talked to Steve about it either before he'd decided to do it or he'd told him afterward and accepted whatever lecture he had coming for it.

"I told him as much as I remember for now," she sounded almost pensive.

Steve made his way toward her and reached out to squeeze her shoulder gently, trying to offer her comfort and reassurance for all she'd been through not that he thought it was working. Natasha had endured too much recently.

"I'm sorry Natasha, I really wanted to be able to help you but anything I said might've it worse. I didn't know if anything I could have said might have triggered something that could've hurt you more." He was still getting the hang of all of this stuff.

It was the product of a world far darker than his own.

"I understand, Steve. It's okay, I get it," she breathed out a deep sigh.

"I never wanted to lie to you, Natasha. I told Bucky I didn't agree with what he was doing," Steve replied, he sounded uncertain which was curious.

"Which part?" Her brow rose as she spoke.

"All of it, choosing not to tell you the truth, choosing to walk away, choosing everything he has these past couple of months. I didn't agree with any of it. I understood why he watched over you and why he wanted to keep you safe but I was worried about the damage it could have caused you." Steve was a good man, he'd always been a good man with a good heart.

Natasha has always appreciated that.

"He had good intentions, he always has when it comes to you because he loves you, Natasha." Steve didn't doubt she knew that already.

"He stayed with me last night." She sounded casual as she spoke, far more normal.

Far more like Natasha, still, she noted the look on his face and she chuckled softly.

"Not like that. He wanted to help me." And he had, it was only because of the comfort he offered her that she'd been able to sleep.

Better rested and more capable to think clearly she was far more useful to everyone including herself. 

"You look good." Steve smiled then.

Far less troubled, it was good to see. 

"So did you haul me in here to talk about my memory issues or...?" Just like that, she was back to business.

Natasha was good at that.

"Yes and no. The file Clint dropped off for you came with a thumb drive, SHIELD tech teams had a look at it but it's encrypted. Barton sounded like an excited kid when I told him we couldn't crack it. He said he didn't care because no one but you was supposed to know how." 

Natasha laughed at them and flipped the file open quickly scanning the information in front of her before taking the drive out to study it.

"Clint and I designed our own stuff a few years ago, we figure if one of us ever got into shit we'd be able to pass on Intel no one but the other would be able to crack it. It was a security thing. Bobbi and James both know the cipher too." Their respective partners seemed like another safe bet.

"That actually makes sense," Steve replied, he seemed somewhat impressed.

Natasha quite obviously frowning wasn't sure how she felt about that. She glared at him anyway just for good measure.

"Y'know sometimes Rogers you--" she didn't have the chance to finish.

A loud boom ripped through the air and the ground beneath them shook and cracked and crumbled as the ceiling crashed down around them and windows gave out under the weight of falling walls and she dove forward immediately to push Steve out of the way of a collapsing beam.

"What the hell!" She snapped, blinking through the smoke.

"I'm gonna go with an explosion," Steve offered.

Natasha - clearly not finding it helpful at all - rolled her eyes.

"You think?!" She snapped as she looked around.

Or at least looked around as well as she could manage given the smoke-filled air, her green eyes fell on the very blocked doorway and she let out an incredulous laugh.

"Of course, we're freaking stuck here." She glanced back at Steve.

"Are you hurt?" 

"No, what about you?" He replied as he checked himself over anyway.

"No, I'm good." Pissed off sure but so far she was pretty unscathed.

Steve seemed relieved then, she did not need any more injuries after what she'd already endured.

"Someone actually tried to blow SHIELD up..." Natasha spoke trying not to cough through the haze of smoke.

"Again," Steve added with a sigh.

"We need to contact everyone else, find out the damage and any casualties..." Steve was in business mode.

It was a good thing that he was focused on getting his job done, something like this could feel really personal, hell it probably was for all they knew.

"I need to get out of here and find James and Ana. We need to figure out what the hell happened."

As she finished speaking there was a secondary ear-splitting explosion had Natasha gripping her head with her hands over her ears as she fell to the floor, debris crashing loudly around both of them and broken wiring above them sparked and it was like the world around them burst into flames, they traded a worried look as they felt the foundations of the building become unsteady beneath their feet.

That wasn't good.

If anyone was alive out there, all Natasha or Steve could do was hope they weren't hurt too badly... And that the explosions were over.

Chapter Text

"Ugh, ow!" Ana rolled over onto her back as she pushed a piece of stone off of her abdomen that had torn a hole through her shirt and would undoubtedly leave a bruise but that - she supposed - was rather mild considering that the whole building had blown up or at least she assumed it had.

Things blowing up rarely did very little damage so it seemed like a decent enough guess. She couldn't help but wonder if everyone she'd met over the last few weeks was okay or not; she did have a heart and she did care, she just wasn't all that good at showing it, and most - not all, mind - of these people had been good to her.

"Damn that hurt," she groaned, placing a hand over her abdomen before the other reached over to whack Bucky in the arm, he seemed suspiciously still and she was worried.

"Wake your ass up!" she muttered, sounding somewhere between pained and worried; she really hoped he was okay. 

She couldn't lift an unconscious Bucky Barnes if this whole mess got worse, that kind of dead weight was too much for her small frame to carry.

"If you die on me I am not gonna be happy, Barnes." She was mostly talking to herself but she was glad when he stirred. She breathed out a relieved sigh.

Okay, not dead friend and partner was a good thing. She tried her best to hide the fact that it was a huge relief for her though, she was pretty sure if he made any jibes about her actually giving a damn one more time she was going to punch him square in the nose and they were both probably hurt enough right now.  

"I'm awake, asshole," he replied as he pushed himself to sit up.

Both of them looked around and a frown touched both of their faces, each one assessing their situation; he wondered if like him, she was looking for a potential way out.

Great.

They were stuck in the goddamn training area and as both of them came to that realisation they turned to one another.

Ana patted around her body to make sure that she was more or less unhurt before she looked over at Bucky and he did the same. He seemed unhurt too aside from a few obvious shallow wounds which she was glad for; they both had a few very unavoidable bumps and scrapes but nothing seemed overly serious which was good; she was still healing from her neck wound and so her hand moved to it out of instinct.

It as nearly impossible to n see clearly, there were small fires scattered all over the previously clean room, the floor around then was cracked and broken and had fallen through entirely over by the door and the only windows were too high up to reach so even if you could avoid the broken glass it'd be impossible to use them to escape.

The air was thick with dust and smoke and it was making his eyes hurt, he suspected Ana wasn't fairing up much better because she kept blinking rapidly and rubbing her eyes, he chided her and shook his head; it wouldn't help her if she kept doing that it'd make it much, much worse. His mind was going into overdrive thinking about the danger Natasha could be in and He knew if he didn't focus he'd end up turning himself into a liability none of them needed.

"Can you find your bag in any of this shit?" Bucky questioned, he'd left everything in the locker room which seemed utterly nonexistent at this point but Ana wasn't so keen on leaving her stuff behind.

She still didn't trust SHIELD just yet and he didn't blame her for that and right now, he was glad for it. She unsteadily rose to her feet and dusted herself off before she looked around.

"I don't know, a little light would be goddamn appreciated." She muttered, trying not to cough through all of the smoke and the dust in the air.

"I'm pretty sure any light right now could set off an explosion, we don't know the extent of the damage." There could be gas leaks among all of the other structural damage.

He stood up and placed his hand on her shoulder. Even though he knew by now that there was absolutely nothing wrong with her that wouldn't heal in a few days - a week or two tops - because it was mostly bruising and mild abrasions but nothing all too severe. Mild bruising. Mild bruising and they were damn well lucky for that given what they'd been through and he was panicking internally more than he wanted to admit. He had no idea if anyone else was alive or what damage they may have sustained.

Natasha was here.

Steve was here.

Maria, Nick... These were people he cared about. He couldn't stand the thought of not knowing what happened to them or who did this. He did not want to get out of this room to find out everyone that he knew died. He didn't want to get out of here and find out that his best friend or his goddamn girl hadn't survived whatever attack this was. 

"Is this connected to what we did out there?" Ana was obviously just as curious about that as he was.

Bucky shook his head before he shrugged his shoulder; he knew no more than she did. He had no more knowledge than she did but an educated guess would state it'd be a possibility. She fished around in the rubble, pushing things aside and trying to navigate a room that looked absolutely nothing like the room they'd walked into. Nothing looked like it had this morning the two of them included. They were dusted up and in a hell of a mess and she could see in his eyes that he was worried about what'd happen when they got out of this room.

"I don't know, maybe. SHIELD pisses off a whole hell of a lot of people so it could either be what we did or it could be something someone else in here has done over the last couple weeks, until we get out of here there's no way to know. The CCTV footage may give us a visual on who did this." That was their best bet, he didn't want to say that it wasn't connected or even that it was.

No one knew.

No one could prove a damn thing until they'd gone over what little they could to try to figure it out. Experts would be testing the explosive residue if there was anyone even left to do it. They'd have answers soon, but it may not be anything that was helpful for any of them.

"Well, whoever the hell did this is officially at the top of my 'I'm gonna murder you because blowing up a goddamn building and potentially trying to kill me and my friend is a dick move' List," she grumbled as she kicked a rock out of the way.

Well it wasn't technically a rock it had been a part of the ceiling above them until about 20 minutes ago. Pulling her bag out of a pile, Ana fished around for her phone and held it up with a look of triumph on her face.

"And none of that cliche'd 'Oh no, my battery is dead' crap you see on all of the movies," she spoke playfully before she walked over and handed it to him.

"Call whoever you need, I hope like hell they answer." And she did, she truly, truly did.

"Thank you, Ana." He was beyond grateful at this point for her trust issues which was something he never thought he'd be able to say.

Naturally his first call was to Natasha, even if he just got to hear her voice for a few seconds he'd know she was safe and well and that was important to him. He'd only just started to get her back, he did not want to lose her again. Pressing in Natasha's number, he listened to the tone as it called through and he found himself praying in his head that she'd answer and he'd know she was okay and that Steve was.

Please answer, Nat. Please....

"Who is this?" She sounded a little frustrated as she answered but she was alive.

Bucky let out a small laugh, to say he was relieved would be a massive understatement.

"Hey, it's me. Are you okay?" Thank whatever freaking God was out there that she answered.

Hearing her voice made him feel like he could breathe again.

"James! I was so worried." She breathed out a sigh of relief.

Not that he'd admit it here and now but hearing her actually use his name again instead of calling him Barnes or something equally as impersonal was a huge relief.

"Don't worry, I'm good. I have a ton of new bruises but I'm good. Are you both okay?" He didn't want her to worry about him.

"Yeah, yeah we're good. Banged up and stuck in Steve's office so far but we're good aside from the fact that he looks about ready to kill someone for dropping a building on his head." She didn't sound hurt.

He was carefully assessing her voice for any hint of pain.

"We're stuck in training," he replied as he glanced around again; it was unsafe in here but he didn't want to worry her.

Natasha couldn't help the relieved smile when he said we. 

"So I take it your pain in the ass Protege is good?" she questioned, trying to hide that she was actually glad for that.

"Yeah, she seems alright." Bucky cast a glance back at Ana as he spoke.

"Fine thank you!" Ana shouted in the background.

Natasha let out a small laugh. "I'm glad you're both safe."

"She gave me her phone so I could call you. I was really worried," he spoke softly. Noise wasn't helpful.

His head hurt. Explosions were loud.

"Tell her I said thank you."

They needed to find a way out of their respective traps and they both knew it. He really was starting to regret either of them being here today but at the same time it was probably a good thing, the two of them were resourceful and they'd make sure the people they cared about would make it out of this if they could.

They weren't the type of people that just rolled over and surrendered when things got too much.

They'd been in plenty of messes like this before. It wasn't a first for them, for Steve, for even Ana he was sure. He could remember her telling him about an earthquake she'd been caught up in, still he knew that being buried alive wasn't high on any of their lists.

"Kinda wishing we'd stayed home in bed..." he spoke, half serious half joking.

"No you don't, we both know if we'd heard about this and we weren't here to do something we'd have both felt guilty," she replied.

He sighed, while he knew she was right he wished that today hadn't gotten so chaotic.

"How the hell are we gonna get outta this?" Bucky sighed as he spoke. He sat down on a piece of large fallen debris.

He glanced up and guessed that it had once been a storage room above which meant there was probably a way out up there if they could get high enough up. Needless to say, he found himself mulling over it. It was structurally unsound and he could see that but if he was careful enough...

"Steve called Barton, Stark and Logan too. They're gonna pull anyone else in they can find. Maria is fine, she was in the garage when the explosion went off so she's a little battered and has a headache from all the alarms but she's coordinating teams." Natasha glanced back at Steve who seemed altogether happier now he knew his best friend was okay.

In truth it was a relief that Natasha shared more than she wanted to admit; when she hadn't been sure if he was okay or not she'd panicked more than she thought possible. She wasn't even sure why, there was still so much she didn't understand but she was working through it or at least she was trying to, the amount of crap life was throwing at all of them made it goddamn hard to do it.

"So we've got the cavalry coming, that's good." Not that he knew either of them were planning to sit around and wait for a rescue.

That wasn't their style. They'd both rather do everything in their power not to feel useless in amongst all of this mess, too. Sitting around wasn't something either of them was good at.

"What's the real plan?" He knew her, she was smirking.

He'd bet his life on it.

"Vents. I'm going to go through as far as I can get and see if I can get to you. Can either of you get out of there? Either up or down works though down is mostly basement... I don't think it'd be safe so up is better. Meet me on the second floor?" She heard him let out a small laugh.

"Offices above us once we get outta the storage room, roof is almost entirely out but if we can get up, we can get out that way I think. Rogers isn't gonna fit in the vents, Nat." This time she laughed.

"Neither are you but me and your little Assassin friend will. Even if you and Steve stay stuck for now we can meet everyone else and help get you two out if you can't get out on your own." She sounded amused as she spoke

He was glad for that. Amused meant she was okay. Amused meant she felt like herself.

"I don't do confined spaces thanks." Ana looked at Bucky and shook her head vehemently. The mention of vents had her shuddering.

"Alright, we'll try go up. I'll let you know if it works. Stay safe. If it's too risky go back, I mean it Natasha. No stupid heroics." He had to warn her; he knew she wasn't 100% yet because none of them were.

They healed fast, both he and Natasha did but that didn't mean that the damage was completely over with when they were healed physically and right now she was going through hell in her head and he knew that better than anyone. He'd been there himself. He knew what she was facing. He knew how much it could mess you up at all of the wrong times and he didn't want something hitting her out of nowhere and her feeling all the more compelled to try to save him at her own expense.

He'd done it enough times to know while noble, it wasn't a good idea.

"You'd better do the same. We've had enough nearly dying lately," she replied trying to keep her voice schooled and calm.

It was nothing short of a miracle that all four of them were okay as it was.

"Call Carter. She should come in, too," Steve spoke in the background, Natasha murmured a quick agreement.

"Good luck." And with that, she ended the call.

Bucky turned to look at Ana as he tossed her phone back to her and then looked back up, she came over to stand beside him and chewed on her bottom lip as she assessed the best way to get the hell up there. They both already knew the best bet was him helping her up and then her finding a safe place to do the same for him.

"Alright, up you go," he announced, turning to her. She glared at him but agreed anyway.

This wasn't going to be fun but he was technically her partner for now and she'd trusted him this far, she had no reason to stop now and besides they had to trust one another if they were going to get out of this mess in one piece. She still huffed though as she turned to look at him.

"Y'know ever since you came crashing back into my life I've been in mortal danger." 

He noted the look on her face and fought back laughter as he shook his head at her.

"Just move your ass, I ain't gonna let you die stop complaining."

********

By the time Natasha made it to the hallway on the second floor, she was covered in soot, dirt and smeared blood and the smell of smoke clung to her like a shroud and she was trying not to let it get to her, She hauled herself out of the vent that was honestly like a goddamn oven and she took a moment to just breathe. She was glad for the space to move again and she stretched out the moment she did.

Her green eyes cast from one end of the hallway to the other as she studied the scene around her; the building was in a piss poor state and they'd probably spend months - and millions - trying to rebuild it if they even bothered which meant that business as usual would mean Helicarriers from here on out for a little while but she didn't mind all too much.

She'd learned from experience quick exits were easier without being trapped in a building that could go into lockdown. Speaking of, she was glad no one had activated that or there was no way in hell anyone was getting in here to help. She grabbed one of the fire extinguishers off of the wall and she made her way down the hall toward the back offices making the rookie mistake of not having her gun in her hand as one of the doors sprung open.

Thankfully the two people emerging weren't going to hurt her.

Looking rather beat up and just as messy as she was, James Barnes and Ana Vasileva studied Natasha and both of them seemed somewhat relieved it was her and not someone creeping around trying to take out the remaining stragglers that had survived the explosion.

"I never thought I'd be this happy to see you, Red," Ana smiled at Natasha which had her desired effect, Natasha looked annoyed.

Secretly amused but definitely slightly annoyed, too. There was probably never going to come a day where Natasha would admit that she was actually a little bit glad Ana was around right now.

"Aw, see! You do like me." Well, at least Ana seemed her normal, annoying self.

"Yeah yeah, whatever you say," Natasha muttered as her eyes moved to Bucky.

A soft smile settled on her features as he stepped forward to pull her into a hug, Natasha found herself glad to be in the safety of his familiar embrace.

"Hi," he spoke before he placed a kiss against the top of her head.

She buried her head in his chest for just a few moments, allowing herself to find some calm in the chaos and center herself before they went off to try to find someone to pull everyone else out of the rubble; it'd be an operation that'd last days but for those they knew were in here and alive? They could get them out much faster.

At least they had that, she hoped like hell the casualty list wasn't too long but they wouldn't know for a while yet.

It was frustrating. She knew most of these people. She'd trained a good half of them and fought with them, they'd become people she actually knew and in her own way even cared for. 

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked softly.

"Yeah, I was just worried about you." A quiet reply slipped her lips. She released a sigh.

"We're taking a few days off after this." He kissed her on this head again.

She wished they could and so did he but after this they both knew it was wishful thinking and it wouldn't happen.

"Yeah, if only..." Natasha glanced up at him, she truly did wish they could but it wouldn't be possible after this because Steve would insist on ramped up security for all of them until they figured out who did this and if it was connected with anything that was going on lately or any of the open ops they had going; she knew too that they'd have to make sure that none of the security was breached and that the computer systems and subsequent files on the agents were safe and secure. 

"Did you find anyone else on your way up here?" She spoke as she pulled away, he shook his head though.

"No one alive." Buckys eyes dropped to his feet and he sighed. 

Natasha wouldn't react. She steeled herself and instead responded with a single nod; she had known there would be loss include, it was natural in a situation like this and there was little that could be done about it. Focusing on getting out and saving the survivors seemed like the most logical thing to do.

The problem being though that humans are not inherently logical creatures when it comes to emotion. Luckily though she and Bucky had been taught to control theirs.

"We should go before anything else blows, we need to meet the teams out front and get whatever Intel we can on what happened here, coordinate with the cavalry and get everyone we can out safe." This was logical.

This was Natasha being logical. He frowned slightly as he studied her but he knew her well enough to know this was probably what she needed to do to get through all of this without it screwing with her head.

She already had enough screwing with her head right now. Ana glanced toward Natasha as she spoke, her eyes briefly flicking to Bucky before they landed on the redhead again. She wanted to ask about it, she wanted to ask about the immediate snap to logical and mission oriented but the look on Bucky's face told her now was not the time.

"Thanks for taking care of him by the way Ana." That was as close as she'd get to Natasha admitting she actually did quite like her.

"We should split up, you two go to the security office and I'll make my way to the lobby. If you can get whatever intel you can from the CCTV footage we'll figure out what happened here faster." Natasha watched Bucky frown.

He didn't like the idea but she could see it in his eyes that he was weighing up whether or not she actually had a point, he knew she did. If there was limited access and it required a little more finesse to get to the lobby Natasha was best off going alone; she was adaptable, she could get through just about anything but him? He was larger than she was. She was lithe and small framed, flexible and made most things look utterly effortless and while he wasn't too bad himself? He wasn't Natasha. He didn't have her moves and she knew it.

That Dancers grace of hers really was useful.

"I don't like this," he stated flatly.

She chuckled and shook her head as she placed a hand against his cheek.

"You don't have to, you just have to be a good little boy and listen to me." She tapped her hand against his skin then and smirked.

He narrowed his eyes at her. He'd missed their to and fro more than he wanted to admit to himself and here and now was not the time to contemplate how damn sexy she sounded saying that. He let out a small groan and shook his head at her. 

"Please, please be careful?" His hand reached for hers and he drew it toward his lips, placing a gentle kiss there.

"You too, both of you. If you can't get there without putting your asses on the line head back no matter what. Do not try to get the damn footage if it'll be too dangerous for you it isn't worth your life. Head toward the lobby and I'll meet you there, I'd rather you came out of it alive than risk it for computers we can access remotely. Stairs and the elevator are both out but we should be able to climb down. It didn't look too dangerous if you're careful where you step." Which was her way of telling him to be careful, pay attention and not let his guard down.

The last thing she wanted to do was lose him here today, not when she'd just got him back. It was the closest she could get to telling him how much she cared. It was the closest Natasha was willing to get right now to telling him how much she loved him: Stay alive. It isn't worth your life.

Come back to me. Don't die.

Natasha turned then and walked away with a gentle sigh breaking her lips as she shook her head. Everyone had damn well better come out of this alive, she was not ready for more goodbyes.

Chapter Text

All four of them had been utterly opposed to anything but basic check overs in the infirmary on board the helicarrier. Maria - it seemed - took the worst of it, she had a broken wrist and a nasty cut above her eye and a hell of a concussion that had given her a headache for well over a week afterward but other people hadn't so lucky; seventeen people hadn't survived the blast and it had been full-blown lockdown security mode since then. Ongoing investigations told them that it was indeed connected to what they'd done out there which meant one of two things:

These people were adept at tracking and had somehow done so back to a secret organization and gained enough intel on it to be able to plant explosives without being detected or they had an insider and Natasha liked neither of those options too much. Looking into other agents wasn't something that was unfamiliar for her nor for James but she didn't have to like it. She wasn't a stranger to rogue agents, she'd been the same herself more times than she cared to remember but this time it wasn't her doing.

Naturally, people blamed Ana. Natasha though didn't believe for even a second that Ana had sold them out; she was annoying, a little bit too arrogant and she was overconfident on occasion, she was snarky and she was distrustful around people but that didn't make her a traitor that just meant that she still saw herself the way everyone else seemed to: As an outsider. Bucky didn't seem overly happy about them blaming her either but Ana hadn't been all that phased.

She'd shrugged it off as though it were nothing but Natasha had her suspicions that it was bothering her more than she wanted to admit and she made a mental note to check in with her at some point and let her know that it really wasn't personal, no one that was of any consequence didn't believe she'd done anything wrong. Steve didn't believe she'd done anything, she nor Bucky believed she'd done anything and neither did Maria. She couldn't say the same for other higher-ups but then aside from Nick, Natasha didn't listen to a damn thing any of them had to say anyway.

She had always been the one that would without a doubt kick some ass if she needed to and she was willing - no matter who they were - to put people back in line when they stepped too far out and this time around - as much as she couldn't believe she was doing it - they had when they'd decided that Ana simply because she was new must have been responsible for what happened and they'd done nothing but baselessly give her crap for it. Natasha had been where she was once upon a time and a number of times since then.

She had a tentative trust with SHIELD at best. It had been a hell of a few days and that was putting it mildly. She'd snapped at more than enough people informing them that unless they'd been through what they had, they could shut the hell up before she made them shut up. Ana had plenty of chances to turn on them and she hadn't done it. She'd fought when she didn't have to, she'd protected innocent people when there was nothing in it for her.

She'd joined SHIELD when she knew what she was facing and she hadn't complained once at any of the abuse that she'd gotten from anyone despite the fact that it undoubtedly made her angry. Natasha had been an Assassin out there in the cold once and so had Bucky. They both related to her, they both knew that all it took was one person willing to take a chance on you for everything to change. 

Day three rolled around and she needed a goddamn break from all of it and she wanted more than anything to just go home and so she had.

By the time she'd gotten back to her apartment, she was more than keen for about a weeks worth of solid sleep and enough food to put her in a coma to achieve said sleep goal but that apparently wasn't on the cards; she tossed a look back over her shoulder at James and offered him a small smile before she kicked off her shoes and made her way toward the couch, scooping up her laptop on the way over as she plugged in Clint's thumb drive. It took her mere moments to crack his code.

She couldn't help but smirk at the fact that SHIELD analysts had struggled.

"Barton still using the simple encryptions?" He asked as he dropped down next to her.

She shot him a playful grin as she nodded her head.

"Yep, fools 'em every time," he replied. She and Clint always stuck to the simplest things because strangely it was the last thing anyone looked for.

They all assumed it was something complicated because it was something to do with Natasha but it wasn't, she kept it simple because she knew from experience that simple was the last thing that most people looked for in their line of work.

"So what's the verdict?" He wouldn't look at her screen over her shoulder it was just bad manners so he picked up her book from the coffee table and flipped it over to read the synopsis.

"Not sure yet. He and Bobbi have some surveillance from the warehouse into the docking area and an itinerary for a boat. I have no idea if they followed it but typically speaking what people file with the coast guard tends to be pretty close to their intended path unless they've got outside rescue even if they are bad guys. Seas out there are rough this time of year," she replied thoughtfully.

It was the middle of summer true enough but hurricanes and storms were still rampant all over the world and certain areas of the world were prone to bad weather more than others. She knew they both knew firsthand that rough seas and storms weren't exactly an ideal way to travel. It made for an interesting getaway though and it meant that they weren't likely going all that far.

"She got us info on the boat, too. Details on owners registered docking areas... No idea if they're connected at all but it's something for us to look into. It's a starting point." She perused through the information carefully, trying not to miss even a small detail.

"Anything on the mutant that took us down? Or our dead seller?" Both would be helpful, he knew that there was little information that Bobbi Morse couldn't find; she was very well connected just like he and Natasha were only she had access that neither of them was supposed to have. 

And she had it legally. It wouldn't be flagged nearly as bad if she looked into it instead of them doing it. It was one of the very many reasons that he liked her as much as he did, Bobbi was a good friend and she'd go out of her way for the people that she cared about and she made a valuable ally out there in the field, too. Barton was an idiot sometimes but he was glad to have his backing too, not that he'd ever tell him that.

"Seller seems to be associated closely with a Trafficking ring and weapons ring known as Veil. I'm guessing either relatively new or seriously underground I couldn't honestly say with any certainty; I haven't even been that deep underground since--" Since Leo. She'd tried to stay out of anything that deep underground since then.

She needed the time to recover from all of that, not something that was going to throw her into more turmoil. She couldn't say the same for him because she didn't know what he'd been doing all that time. She hadn't asked. He knew more or less what she'd been doing because he'd insisted on watching over her but she didn't know what he'd been doing. He reached out to wrap his arm around her shoulder and he pulled her into his side, placing a kiss against the side of her head. He didn't see the soft smile on her lips that she tried to hide though.

"So, we look into these guys and we what? What next?" Distractions. Make her focus on a plan. He just wanted to keep her mind busy.

He was still worried about pushing her further than she was capable of going right now but he knew better than to underestimate Natasha, hell he knew that better than almost anyone else; he'd known her now for decades and yet she impressed him every damn time.

"We need to figure out associations, we need to figure out who the hell might be funding them or who the hell might be behind it all. We don't know if it's connected to anything we know already or if we have a whole host of new problems but they're brazen, attacking SHIELD shows they're not afraid of stepping out of the shadows to prove a point. We've obviously pissed them off," she frowned as she spoke. 

It was nothing new honestly.

"Then there's the fact that if it's all new, where the hell did they come from? It's not like evil organizations pop up overnight so how did we miss it for however long they've been running?" No matter which way this worked out it was concerning.

"Even if it's an offshoot of something we've faced before there's still the question of how we missed it," she sounded perplexed.

"So we do the research, we scope it all out and we dig into whatever we can even if we start low on the chain of command, we've done it before it's nothing new. We can do this." His hand drew an idle pattern against the skin on the top of her arm.

He was just trying to offer her some calm, he knew by now that she'd be racing through every possibility in her mind trying to figure out which was the most likely option, Natasha's mind was very tactical and she assessed situations carefully. She carefully studied each part of the information she was given for the most likely outcome and the most likely path. People rarely stayed one step ahead of her for too long.

"Whoever is doing this picked the wrong fight with the wrong people. We're gonna stop them." He had no doubt that she knew that already.

This was Natasha Romanov, she didn't back down no matter much the odds were stacked against her and there had been more than enough times that they had and she'd proved everyone around her wrong. He'd seen her fight wars all on her own so the three of them all highly pissed at whoever was behind this? They had it covered he was sure even without the backup of Steve, Clint, and Bobbi.

"I'm so sick of people trying to blow me up," she muttered as she released a sigh and closed her laptop.

She moved back a little so that she was sat cross-legged on the sofa and she looked at him, studying him carefully for any injuries he may have sustained that he'd failed to mention or brushed over entirely, he was as bad as she was for that. They both downplayed their injuries even if they were serious, she would have done it a whole heck of a lot more if there weren't times where she'd literally lost consciousness only to wake up in the SHIELD infirmary.

Even then though, she'd tried to make out like it looked worse than it was most of the time but then she was stubborn, she'd always been stubborn and it worked in her favor that she was hard to kill. Plenty of people had tried and failed over the years.

"What?" he questioned softly.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"I don't know. I guess I just wanted to make sure you were okay." Her brow furrowed as she sighed.

"I'm good. What about you? How are you feeling?" he replied, offering her a small smile.

He looked about as tired as she was. Her hand moved to her head and her expression shifted immediately into one of pain and discomfort, out of instinct more than anything he reached out for her.

"My head is killing me." She knew why, she knew he did too.

It felt like her mind was being torn apart over and over again and it was exhausting. It was exhausting just how much it was a repeated pattern of pain and torment and one that she'd get away from in a heartbeat if she could. She'd known this pain, she'd been through it before more times than she cared to remember but when she'd sworn it would never happen to her again she'd been determined to keep that promise to herself, life it seemed had other plans.

Just her luck.

"Maybe you should go lay down..." he spoke cautiously.

He knew all it would take was one wrong word and he'd end up right back to square one again with her being pissed at him and telling him to get the hell out and that was the last thing that he wanted, he could see the tiredness etched on her features and the pain was making it a thousand times worse. She fought back a yawn.

He watched the way that her hand massaged her temples trying to abate some of the pain and he felt in that moment more useless than he had in as long as he could remember, he knew exactly what she was going through just as he knew she deserved better than to be going through it all over again. She had more than suffered enough with everything that she'd been through already. He was glad she was starting to remember more by the day but he knew how much pain it must be causing her.

It had done exactly the same to him when he'd started to get his brain back to normal after everything, he knew how hard it was when someone messed with your head and undid everything you were, emptying everything out and shoving something new in there that didn't belong. He knew what it was like when someone took away your memories. He knew what it was like when someone screwed you up for their own gain.

"I can't yet," she responded as she looked around her apartment.

She studied the area like she'd lost something that she couldn't quite remember. She probably had for all she knew, it had been a long few days.

"Why?" Naturally, he was curious. He frowned as he studied her.

"Because I need to eat and-" she cut off as he shook his head.

"No, you can eat later," he spoke softly.

"Go lay down, your head won't get any better if you don't." He knew her, she'd probably end up waking up in the middle of the night and getting something to eat.

Hell, he'd even cook something for her if that was what she wanted just as long as she got some rest.

She'd done it a thousand times before which often resulted in them sitting around on her kitchen floor eating whatever junk she had while they laughed and joked and just had a few moments of fleeting normalcy like any other couple on the planet. That had been before though and it was memories like that that had kept him going when it got hard.

"Well someone's bossy," she commented playfully.

"I'm bossy because I care about you and you never listen when someone is trying to take care of you." He fought to stop himself from rolling his eyes.

She had always been single-handedly the most stubborn woman he'd ever met and he loved her for it even if she did drive him utterly insane with it sometimes. She was strong and beautiful and she'd fight against absolutely any odds and she never ever backed down.

"So, you're ordering me to go to bed?" She had a smirk painted on her lips as she spoke.

Bucky studied her with a slight frown. He was not getting into this. Nope. He'd missed her more than he even knew how to explain but he had to focus on trying to just get her to get better. Absolutely not he was not getting into anything that seemed even remotely suggestive-

"Yeah, something like that." Okay fine, maybe he was. He allowed a small chuckle to break his lips.

"I'm just worried about you..." He was trying his best to be neutral.

She sighed dramatically, clearly playfully as she stood up and held out her hand to him. 

"You coming with me or are you planning on sitting out there and just watching Netflix all night?" She watched him as she spoke.

If he wanted to he was more than welcome to.

"Nat I-" He sounded uncertain as he spoke.

He watched her smile become gentle and she leaned down to take his hand anyway.

"Not like that I just don't wanna be alone that's all." She wasn't ready for anything else, not yet anyway.

She was still figuring herself out and sorting through her memories she was still figuring out all of the insanity inside of her. Her mind was still processing everything, slowly returning back to normal or at least as normal as she ever got. 

"Okay, if that's what you need I'm good with that." Anything at all she needed right now he was more than happy to provide.

"Just know I'm here for you, okay? So if this is what you need I'm here."

It was his fault she was in this whole mess just like it was his fault that she'd gotten shot and blown up. She really seemed to be worse off with him in her life and that was what he'd told himself when he'd left her that day, he'd sworn it was for her own good but he knew somewhere inside of him it was just residual insecurities left over just like his thoughts right now. He'd always felt like he'd hurt her enough but he'd never take away her ability to choose again.

If she wanted him in her life then he'd be here every damn day until she told him to leave.

"It is," she responded quietly as she turned to walk.

They could figure out everything else in the morning.

Chapter Text

"You're a dick," she stated flatly.

She did not look even remotely impressed. Arms folded over her chest as she assessed the man stood before her, she felt resolute in the fact that if he didn't stop making out like she was the bad guy here she was going to break his face in about a hundred different ways. She'd been going through interrogations for the last three hours and she knew by now that Barnes wasn't aware of it.

He'd have pulled her out by now if he was. She knew how he felt about them blaming her just as she knew how Natasha felt about it. Hell even Rogers would be pissed if he knew which meant that this went above his head. 

"And you're not answering my questions." The agent snapped.

"Actually I am. I have. Repeatedly. This whole goddamn thing had nothing to do with me. Granted when all of this started I was on the wrong side of the fence but since I was brought in here an inch from death I've changed my mind on what side I'm on only that doesn't seem to be enough because to all of you I'm still the bad guy. Get screwed. I told you this had nothing to do with me so just let me the hell out of here." She was in no mood for this shit.

"Where's Barnes?" He was her friend. Her partner. 

"What makes you think he doesn't know that you're in here?" He sounded smug as he spoke. 

She was far from impressed. That was it. She snapped and her fist swung out connecting with his nose before she pulled it back and swung again connecting with his jaw. He'd have a goddamn hard time talking now. Dick. She didn't believe for even a second that anyone that gave a shit about her knew she was here and going through this. She had no doubt that they'd have intervened because none of them believed she'd had a damn thing to do with this. 

She turned and walked out of the room without bothering to look back at the man who was both bleeding and writhing in pain. As far as she was concerned he more than deserved it. He'd spent the last three hours making her feel like shit and trying to call her a traitor over and over again. Once upon a time she'd have had no problem turning her back on any agency or organisation she worked for and selling them out for the right price but that was then and this was now.

She was caught up in that too, she'd seen the dead bodies; Ana had watched the pain in Bucky's face when he was considering even for a moment that he might lose the woman he loved back when they were in the hospital. He'd come to see her day after day to keep her company and talk to her when she felt like she was otherwise alone and isolated. She'd fought by his side, trained with him...

Hell she'd even sort of befriended Romanov. Rogers seemed to trust her too at least from what she could tell. She really hoped that wasn't a lie. She'd accepted his offer to join this goddamn shitshow of an organisation and now she was second guessing whether or not she should've joined in the first place if they were gonna turn on her the second something went wrong. 

She'd had nothing to do with the goddamn explosion, if she had she'd have been smart enough to get the hell out of there first she wouldn't have let herself be caught up in it and risk her own life. She was too smart for that. 

She made her way to the top deck and just for the fresh air and she let out a loud groan before she sat down and just stared at the clouds above the glass ceiling. She wished she could be outside but she knew altitudes made that impossible. Maybe just getting back on the ground again would be a damn good idea. She'd had nothing to do with what had happened...

And she thought she'd proved that four days ago.

Four days ago:

They had been told by Romanov to make their way to the security office which seemed simple enough only... It wasn't. The floors meant tentative movements at best. She knew that they could fall and end up hurt at any second and that wasn't even considering everything else. The structural integrity of the building was probably naught at this point and while her instincts told her to get out, she wouldn't leave.

She wouldn't leave behind the people that she'd come to consider her friends. 

She made her way down the smoke-filled corridor not taking her eyes off of her friend and partner. Everything around them was crumbling and falling to pieces and he looked as though he was about to lose his shit at any second and she couldn't blame him. She wasn't too far behind that herself but one of them had to keep a level head. He was too close to snapping because his girl had been put in danger.

Aside from him she wasn't all that close to any of the others. She did care, of course she did but she wasn't all that close to anyone else. She didn't take her eyes off of him because she was worried about what might happen if she did. 

He wanted nothing more than revenge and she knew it, he might not say it but it was clear to see he did, she might be new at this spy gig but he was pretty easy to read when it came to anything to do with Natasha,  this marked the second time someone had taken an attempt on their lives.

He'd only hurt gotten her back and now someone was trying to kill all of them so yes, Bucky Barnes was pissed as hell and she couldn't blame him. 

The floor up ahead was barely there which meant walking across a ledge, a very thin and very dangerous ledge with more than one place where you'd get impaled if you fell wrong. She grimaced at the thought of it, a sigh broke her lips as he informed her of the one thing she already knew: it was their only way across.

Of course it was. She cursed internally before she reluctantly followed him anyway with her back pressed against the wall and she focussed on nothing but making it to the other side without either one of them getting killed. She didn't want to follow him at all... Natasha had told them no dumb shit and this in her book classed as dumb shit.

It was a damn good job she did though. He missed a step, just one.

Just for one moment his foot moved to the wrong place and Bucky lost complete control of the situation, his body fell forward and he reached out for some kind of safety but found none at all; his metal hand was wrapped in a wire dangling below as he fell, unfortunately for both of them it was a loose electrical wire that was already sparking and that each of them had already warned the other to be wary of; Ana shouted his name as her eyes widened with panic.

With thousands of volts of electricity running through his body, Bucky Barnes could do nothing at all as he smashed into the wall and cried out in pain as his body spasmed and jolted and he felt like his insides were literally being cooked and he couldn't breathe properly. His eyes widened, the pain clearly etched upon his features and he could tell he was panicking because he started trying to thrash around to free himself. It wasn't working.

He could swear he could literally see the current running through his body burning him inside a little at a time. Everything felt white-hot like the worst kind of fire he could imagine. He was fighting to stay conscious. Fight. He couldn't do this, not here and not now. He had to- The world around him was starting to go more and more blurry and all he could feel was the searing pain.

He had to make it back for her. He'd promised her he'd make it back for her.

It took Ana literally a second to respond as she reached for a shard of sharp metal and sliced through the wire - and her hand in the process - before she allowed herself to fall back against the wall as she tried to pull her head together because she was no use to any of them if she was panicking. He wasn't going to just bounce back after that no matter how much he was going to make her believe he could.

He fell to the bottom with such a loud crash that she honestly feared he'd broken his neck or something and it took him a few long moments before he spoke or moved and even then it was a slow, sluggish movement that told her he was weak as hell from what had just happened.

Natasha had told him not to be reckless. 

Ana vaulted down after him and she crouched by his side as she studied him carefully but she didn't move to touch him; she studied his mental arm warily and her eyes moved back to his face and he offered her a weak smile. His body still jolted just slightly as the electricity started to die down inside of him. If he were human what happened might've just killed him.

"Stop doing dumb shit before your girlfriend kills us both," she muttered playfully before she stood up and offered him a hand to help him up.

Playful words were her way of dealing with the panic coursing through her right now. Her heart was racing so fast she felt dizzy. Goddammit Barnes. 

She couldn't help but be worried but she knew it'd just make him feel altogether worse if she were overly obvious about it. She didn't doubt that he knew already, Bucky could read her well enough because he'd been trained to but she did her best to put on a brave face anyway. He was her friend, she was going to worry about him whether he wanted her to or not. Goddamn idiot telling her she had a heart.

Why couldn't he just let her be cold and be done with it?

Bucky turned to look at her and he looked altogether terrible as he let her help him to his feet, he wavered and reached out his hand to steady himself and the other moved to his head. He closed his eyes and a groan broke his lips. He had no idea if there'd be any damage from that, he had no idea what had just happened or how he'd even missed his step when he'd been trying so hard to concentrate...

Okay no, he knew exactly how he'd done it: He was too worried about Natasha and Steve to think properly about what he was doing. He'd gotten distracted, it was a stupid rookie mistake that could very well have gotten him killed.

She slipped her arm around him to help support him because he looked like he was about to collapse again. He wasn't getting back up there anytime soon and she knew it. She could but he'd have to stay here. 

"Don't say anything Ana, please? Just don't." He cast his eyes to the floor. He could barely speak.

His lungs felt like they were on fire and he blinked his eyes over and over trying to get everything to swim back into focus. Everything wasn't overly keen on doing it for him though. Ouch.

Everything hurt. Everything. If he weren't superhuman he felt pretty damn sure what just happened to him would've killed him. He'd never felt so thankful for the serum inside of him than he did at that moment; he wasn't ready to die, he wasn't ready to leave Natasha for real this time. He looked over at Ana and he was thankful she was there holding him up because he felt pretty damn sure he'd still be in a crumpled heap on the floor if it weren't for her.

He definitely owed her one for this. It still felt like the current was coursing through his body and breathing was horribly painful. His head felt like he'd been smacked with a sledgehammer... Repeatedly.

The idea of lying about this made her uncomfortable, he could tell as much when he looked toward her and offered her an apologetic look. She'd keep his secret because she owed him that much after everything that he'd done for her but not for one second would she be happy about it. She didn't think him lying to Natasha - again - would do him any favors in the long run.

"Only if you tell medical yourself when we get the hell out of here and we get checked over, you don't and I'll do it myself. You need to make sure there's no serious damage, promise me." She sounded worried.

He appreciated her concern, he nodded his head reluctantly. She could tell he was already thinking up a way to downplay it and she shook her head and rolled her eyes. She meant what she'd said: If he didn't say anything about it she would. 

"Alright, c'mon we need to move," she sighed as she spoke. 

All she wanted to do was get all of them out alive... safe wasn't an option and he'd just proved that with her because she hadn't been able to stop him from getting hurt, she wanted to have gotten him out of there without injury but she should've known that wasn't possible with the building in this poor a state but she'd be more than happy with just alive at this point.

"You don't get to die on me here asshole," she informed him stubbornly.

She had no doubt that he would've laughed if he had the strength but right now he didn't and he had to conserve what little energy he did have for pretending that he was okay when they found Natasha again. He'd fake it for Natasha's sake.

She was - needless to say - exacerbated and worried. 

Clint sat on Natasha's couch and he regarded Bucky with a glare, Bucky did little else but roll his eyes as he stood off to the side and surveyed the situation. The blonde that sat on the other end earned a smile and a nod. She was a decent person, he quite liked Clint's ex-wife.

"So, we've managed to figure out that the people that have decided they want you dead are mostly South American. There are a few groups connected to them in Asia but they're largely based in South America. Smuggling mutants - kids mostly - to Europe and other continents simply for the purpose of selling them to God only knows who. Seems like they've been doing it for about ten years. No idea why we didn't know 'til now." Clint sounded somewhere between stressed out and annoyed.

"Because we weren't looking for it," Natasha sighed and shook her head.

"We didn't know anything to look for it. They didn't leave a trace until you three stumbled on what they were doing and busted their now not so secret op. It'd help if we knew what they told your assassin friend, Bucky." Bobbi spoke gently, she was more tactful than Clint.

"All Ana was told is that she was a hired bodyguard. An Interpol agent was killed because he suspected something but didn't have proof so he was running an off-books investigation. He ran across something or at least that's what she guessed. She wasn't told much beyond watch my back and kill the interpol agent so she's about as clueless as we are. He didn't tell her what he'd be doing just running weapons. She didn't know the weapons were alive."

Bucky sounded earnest as he spoke but it was easy to see that Clint didn't believe him because he frowned and shook his head. He was trying not to say something else and both Bucky and Natasha seemed to notice that. Both offered him a quizzical look.

"I'm just worried about who you're trusting, Tasha," he explained with a shrug.

Natasha studied him, she could tell he was worried. Her being shot and then blown up had probably worried him to no end but seeing her go through everything else too was probably too much for him to take without trying to do something - anything really - to help her. He didn't want her hurt even more and she understood that, she really, truly did. Clint Barton had been her best friend for years now. She trusted him.

She needed him to trust her this time.

"Ana almost died trying to help us. She's not gonna do anything to betray us." She never thought she'd be the one to stand up for Ana...

But here she was. Bucky gave her a thankful smile and she nodded her head. She didn't mind all too much standing up for his little protege when she knew she'd done nothing wrong and didn't have a part in it. They might have been on opposite sides when she'd met Ana but she'd proven herself quickly and Natasha had made sure of that even if she never said anything about it; Bucky still didn't know to this day that she'd checked up on him during the time she was away.

He didn't need to know though.

"Alright well... Little miss assassin is good and apparently doesn't know much either," Clint sounded somewhat fed up.

"But we do," Bobbi reminded Clint gently.

"At least a little bit. I've tagged a couple of local runners in Mexico and Puerto Rico, I can give you names and locations. It's starting right at the bottom but it's something." 

Both Bucky and Natasha could see Bobbi wished she had more to offer them than that. It was more than they'd had for the last few days so she was thankful for that and so was he. 

"And we've ID'd one of the people who planted the explosives, too. Guessing they have mercs working for them because this guy was former Spec Ops, English. We've got people trying to find him, too." For 2 days work it was better than nothing. 

"Thank you." Natasha looked between the two of them. "Both of you."

"I guess we head out tomorrow to Puerto Rico to find these bastards." She looked reluctant.

Bucky looked downright worried. Angry, keen for revenge just as she was but worried too. He wasn't ready to risk losing her and he never would be. He knew that they had to be balanced and measured, he knew that they had to be tactful and separate their anger from their mission or the only thing that would happen would be certain death. They'd already proved they weren't afraid to attack where they felt safest.

That meant that they'd proved they wouldn't hold back.

"We'll take Mexico." Bobbi offered with a smile, Clint nodded. "Divide and conquer."

Divide and conquer... Either that'd be their best bet or it'd just end in more people getting killed than they needed to. This whole goddamn thing was a mess. This whole goddamn thing was more messy than he'd ever wanted it to be, it was more messy than she'd ever wanted it to be. None of them wanted Bobbi and Clint involved. None of them wanted Ana involved especially not him... Natasha looked apprehensive.

"No." She stated simply. "This isn't your fight."

"It is now," Clint replied with a shrug. "They blew up SHIELD, tried to kill our friends and made kids into a way to earn money. It is our fight."

Ah, Barton was a stubborn son of a bitch.

Reaching for his phone, Bucky read the text message and he let out a loud groan and smacked his hand against his forehead before he shook his head and blew out a sigh.

"I need to go rescue Ana. Assholes had her in interrogation for 3 hours before she lost her shit and beat the hell out of the agent," he almost sounded a little proud of her.

He was pissed as hell that they'd done it to her to begin with but the fact that she'd lashed out made him proud. She was strong, she wasn't going to tolerate being treat like crap from absolutely anyone and she shouldn't have to either. He and Natasha had both vouched for her, so had Steve and that should've been enough but it seemed as though it was far from enough at all. She'd still been treat like a suspect, an outsider.

She'd been treat like nothing she'd done for the last few months had done any damn thing and that wasn't fair. She deserved better than that. He was pissed as hell that they'd use this crap when none of them were there to help her out. She'd been in a goddamn burning building days ago trying to help people get out of there alive and salvage whatever chance they may have had to get info on who blew the damn thing up.

She'd had no part in it, not to mention that she'd literally saved his life. He still hadn't told Natasha what had happened to him and while he was around her he was trying his best to act like he was just fine... The burns were almost healed anyway. Give it another day and he'd be just fine. No harm no foul. 

She didn't have to know and she didn't have to worry.

"Go." Natasha brushed his cheek. "Get her out of there and take her home."

She knew just how rough a SHIELD interrogation was on you. She could use some sleep, no doubt a damn hot shower and a decent meal. She could probably also use a few days to herself to regroup after that. It was nothing short of mental torture and she had to admit she was a little bit proud that she'd handled herself so well with it all.

"I'll see you tonight," she spoke softly.

He smiled and nodded.

"I love you," he whispered as he leaned his head against hers. "Never doubt that."

Her mind was still fractured and fragile but he'd tell her that every chance he got just so she'd know. Just so she'd know that everything he was telling her was real. Just so she'd know that they were real because he knew the doubts and the fears she had. If he had to remind her that they were the one real thing each other had, he'd do it as many times as it took. 

Chapter Text

By the end of the night, he knew the only thing he wanted was to get back and make sure she was okay. All he wanted if he was going, to be honest, was her in his arms. He was still so afraid to lose her all over again. Every second that ticked by had him on edge in case she regressed or decided she hated him after all.

He loved her too much to ever be okay with her hating him. He just wanted his goddamn girl back.

He tapped against the door still not wanting to just walk in and push her already shaky comfort zone. He heard the soft shuffle of her footsteps as she walked toward the door and opened it offering him a warm smile mixed with... Well, something.

Something that made his stomach do a little flip but it was something he was probably reading too much into so he chastised himself internally for it. She stepped back and walked back into her apartment but left the door open for him regardless, when he walked in she turned to look at him again.

He closed the door behind him and stopped to note her attire or mostly lack thereof it seemed.

She stood in a baggy oversized tee and not much else but he tried not to pay too much attention to it because the very last thing he wanted to do was read the situation wrong, it was her home and she could dress however she saw fit without having to live with any assumptions whatsoever or having to explain herself, he'd never do that to her.

He didn't expect absolutely anything but the casual attire was good anyway, it meant she was relaxed. She'd been relaxed for a few days true enough but this seemed much less guarded than she had been. 

She stepped forward and her eyes flicked up to look at him before she closed what little distance there still was and pressed her lips to his in a slow, sensual kiss; her body pressed against his as she deepened the kiss herself. The very last thing he wanted to do was push her.

This was not what he'd expected that was for sure.

It wasn't that he didn't want her because he did. He always had it was more that they were still at a point where none of them knew what was going on with them, he'd been taking it one moment to the next and following her lead because she didn't understand enough of her own mind to remember completely what they were to one another and he knew the best thing he could do for her was let her figure it out in her own time.

He knew she was trying. He knew she'd been fighting hard but she wasn't quite there yet.

It was a hell of a fight and he was still cursing himself for wanting her to go through it, to begin with, he felt like one of the most selfish people on the planet and perhaps he was. He never could live with losing her forever no matter how much he might have thought he could.

As she stepped back she pulled the shirt over her head leaving her wearing nothing but her panties and a look of lust and longing in her eyes that he hadn't seen in a long time he studied the woman that'd had him in complete awe of her from the very first moment they met and he yearned for her.

She was so damn beautiful, so strong, so passionate... She was perfect, to him she'd always been perfect. He loved her more than anything else in the world and he always had. She'd always been the only woman he'd ever loved and the only woman he would ever love.

Once again she was the one to close the distance though he pulled her into his arms and ran his hand up the bare skin of her back. She shuddered at his touch the same way she used to before all of this. Her hands moved to run the skin beneath his shirt and he felt himself respond to the feeling of her hands against his bare skin. 

He obliged her silent request and removed it before he pulled her back toward him and kissed her again lifting her, her legs wrapped around him as she slid her arms around him and let out a gentle moan as his lips moved to her neck and his erection pressed against her.

"Are you okay with this?" He spoke quietly against her skin, she nodded her head.

He carried her toward her bed before laying her gently down and kissing her once again keeping with the slow seduction she'd started this with. His lips slid down her neck, across her collarbone, in between her breasts before they slipped lower; one hand deftly removed her underwear. His tongue parted her gently before he flicked it gently over the most delicate point and she gasped.

A soft moan broke her lips and she rolled her head back biting into her bottom lip to control the volume of her response.

His tongue moved to take each moment slowly, the soft moans he elicited from her lips were worth every second of it; each movement depending on the placement of pressure provoked a different noise and he could tell this was exactly what she needed.

His tongue slipped inside of her and she whimpered as she fought to continue to allow him the control she'd permitted him to have; he could tell she was aching for release but she wanted it to be slow, she wanted it to be intimate. She needed intimacy. His tongue moved back up to its previous position, he kept up the gentle pressure and two fingers replaced it slipping inside as he moved them slowly; her back arched and she moved along with the movement of his hand.

It seemed she wasn't quite ready to surrender total control after all.

Her body quivered and her moans became more and more breathless and all it took was a slight increase in pressure to send her tumbling over the edge and into her climax; she cried out his name as she gripped to the sheets around her.

He allowed her to ride it out before he pulled away kissing the inside of her thigh and she laid there with her chest heaving but looking altogether calmer. Her eyes flicked to him as she moved and he moved to get cleaned up before he came to lay down beside her and he kissed her. For a few moments she lay there curled up in his arms with a blissful expression on her features as she traced circles on his bare skin.

Just for a few moments and then it seemed as though her mind shifted back to what she'd started.

She offered a playful smirk as she pulled away and pushed him flat onto his back. Her hand ran from the bottom of his abdomen slowly up to brush across his cheek and she smiled.

"I love you," she whispered before her lips followed the path her hand had taken in reverse. 

Her fingers made light work of his button and zipper and he moved until he was free of the fabric but offered her a questioning look all the same. One he didn't have much time to ask about because her tongue slid up the back of his erection and he let out a loud moan.

She took him into her mouth so slowly he knew she was teasing. Fuck. Dammit. Her hand soon followed the movement of her mouth and her tongue slipped over the tip with such skill that it had him shaking.

The slight amount of pressure her hand applied and the way she ran her tongue up at just the right moments was driving him crazy and she knew it too. He was damn sure it was her intent. She wanted it to be just as slow for him as it had been for her. The heat of her mouth and the feeling of her touching him was something he'd missed more than he knew how to begin to explain. 

"Nat--" Shit. He could barely form a coherent thought. 

Her tongue deftly touched a sensitive point on the tip of him at the right moment and he could feel himself losing control. He wasn't going to be able to hold out that much longer. His body quivered and just like her moments ago, he was craving release. His hands knotted in the fabric around him as he fought to stay in control

He wasn't winning.

"You gotta stop sweetheart-" he gave her little but a strangled warning.

She didn't stop. He didn't think she would but goddammit!

The moment her tongue traced the vein at the back of him he lost all control and spilled into the warmth of her mouth in a series of moans that shook his body and her name slipped his lips as he rode through the waves of pleasure. He was thankful that she hadn't rushed his orgasm just as he hadn't rushed hers.

He'd missed her touch more than he could even put into words.

She let out a small laugh as she assessed him before she smirked noting his breathlessness and racing heart; he could've sworn she looked triumphant.

She moved to place a lingering kiss against his lips before she straddled him, her hand gently brushing his still very hard erection as she lined him up and sunk down on him with a satisfied moan that he echoed as her slick heat engulfed him. She'd missed this. She'd missed him even if she hadn't understood what the emptiness inside of her was and he'd sure as hell missed her; he was momentarily lost in the warmth of her, remembering many a time where things had been far more urgent than this.

He'd missed the very feel of her. He missed the perfect ecstasy that came with getting lost in her.

Her hips moved in slow movements and his hands moved to her waist before he moved to meet her movements with careful thrusts of his own. She beckoned him to sit up. It seemed indeed it was intimacy she craved. This - like everything else so far - was slow and careful. A series of quiet moans broke her lips and her hand moved to his cheek as their bodies moved in a slow tandem.

The feel of her pressed against him brought a sense of calm, unlike anything he'd felt in months. Her body rocked against his, some sounds drowned in kisses others with her head buried against his neck, he could feel the vibration of her lips against his skin... This wasn't like anything they'd had in a long time.

He drove into her with such gentleness, feeling her move along with him was dragging him closer to the edge by the second. She moved on to him finding a spot that gave her the pleasure she desperately sought with ease.

It almost seemed like she remembered just how to move their bodies together to reach what it was she sought from this.

Her movements quickened just slightly and the sounds slipping her lips became more urgent; her hands gripped him and her cries grew louder as she murmured his name over and over like it was a prayer only he could answer again and he felt her tighten around him as she moved her own pace to ride out her orgasm, the feeling of her climax washing over him drove him easily into his own and he buried his cries with his head against her chest.

His throbbing burst seemed to give her one final burst of pleasure of her own because her nails raked down his back and she begged him not to stop until they'd completely finished together.

Breathlessly, the two of them studied one another for just a moment before she kissed him again and moved to lay beside him. Sliding his arm underneath her he pulled her into his arms and she lay her head against his chest, almost immediately she noted how his heartbeat hadn't calmed even slightly but then either had hers.

She released a content sigh and pressed a kiss against the bare skin of his chest just below his right collarbone before she lay her head down again.

She remained quiet for several long moments with her eyes closed listening to the steady beating of his heart. She found comfort in the warmth of his skin, the gentle lull of his breathing... She found herself glad for the calm of having him there beside her. She'd spent days now with him by her side when she woke but not like this. This was something else. This wasn't just occupying the same space. This wasn't just the quietness of sleep. 

This was the kind of open, exposed intimacy she'd spent days debating whether or not she'd be ready for a very long time. Tonight had been her acting on a whim, her following a need to see if what she still felt toward him had been as real as she thought it was or if she was holding onto something that had passed.

She still felt it, it was real. 

"I love you," she spoke quietly. "Just as much as I always did."

"I love you too, sweetheart," he replied as he kissed her on the top of the head understanding in that moment what had brought all of this on.

And he smiled. She still felt it. It was still real for her too. He hadn't lost her.

"I missed you." She propped herself up to look she him."I never realised how much until that. I felt like I was complete again."

"I just want you back," he admitted. Missing her when she'd been right there had been hell.

"And now?" she questioned. "What do you want now?"

"Just you, darlin," he replied. "Always just you."

He always had and he always would. He could deal with whatever came next if he had her there by his side, if he had her to come home to at the end of it he could face anything. He'd face hell itself if it meant he'd never have to lose her again and he knew he might have to do exactly that. Even without what happened tonight he'd have done it though.

He loved her so goddamn much he didn't know how to do anything but fight for her.

"We didn't have to do this you know," he reminded her. "I don't care about sex Natalia. I just want you."

"I needed it." She glanced at him as she spoke. "I needed to feel you. To touch you, to remember how it felt when you touched me, to remember how it felt when you were-" 

She knew she didn't have to finish that.

"It wasn't about just sex, if I wanted just sex I wouldn't have made it like that. I needed to feel it, James. I needed to feel you. To be close, to know that I really had you and you were still really mine."

"I'll always be yours. I've always been yours. I missed that but only because I missed how it felt when I was with you." 

Sex was one thing but that was something else. She was right about that, that reminded both of them what it truly felt like to actually be together,  exposed and intimate without defensives or pretenses, exposed and open.

He'd never stop, he'd never be anything but hers because he had been since the day he met herb and that? That was what had really give him purpose all this time. Natalia Romanova was his future, his forever and the love of of his life.

Always.

Chapter Text

Waking up the next morning seemed something that happened slowly but calmly. She roused from her sleep slower than he did and he woke her with a gentle kiss on the forehead and he ran his hand down her face. A gentle caress had her lean into his hand and she smiled. 

"Hi," he whispered softly as a mild sense of consciousness pulled her from her sleepy state. "Are you okay?"

She seemed quiet, contemplative for a moment before she nodded her head. She was still sleepy, quiet and peaceful and he was glad for that. She deserved to be able to be peaceful. She deserved the calm. She'd endured enough chaos over the years, especially over this past year. Natalia - his beautiful Natalia - deserved to be happy, finally, truly happy if at all she was or ever could be. He wasn't sure if he could ever give that to her but he knew he'd damn well try.

If he couldn't though he wouldn't be selfish enough to hold her back. If she wanted to move on he'd let her. He loved her too much to hold her back if she decided she couldn't take the pain of what she'd been through.

"Yeah," she answered eventually. "I'm-" 

She fell quiet for a moment. He could see that she was trying to figure things out in her head and he couldn't blame her for that, last night had been something that he hadn't seen coming and he hoped like hell that it hadn't pushed her beyond something that she was comfortable with after all. The very last thing he wanted to do was push her beyond anything she was okay with.

He looked down then. Had he truly messed up by not stopping it? 

"Nat I-" He started to apologise but she leaned up to kiss him.

"James, I'm fine. I'm okay. It's okay, I promise." She wasn't though, at least not completely.

She wished that she was, it would've been easier if she was but she truly wasn't. Her mind was still addled, she couldn't make complete sense of everything as much as she wished she could. Her mind was scattered at best and she wished that she could figure it out but it was slowly starting to come together which was better than what she'd had weeks ago or even days ago. She knew she cared about him, loved him even but it was all distorted and their story wasn't linear, she remembered it all out of order.

It was better to remember things scattered than not remember them at all though she supposed. She knew that he'd agree too.

She remembered moments mixed up and scattered and not anything even close to making any sense. She wished that she could look at him and tell him she remembered everything he wanted her to remember and maybe one day she would but not right now. Right now, she remembered enough to know she loved him and she remembered enough to know she was safe with him at the very least and for now that would have to be enough. 

Little bits - however out of order and scattered it all was - was better than nothing at all and she kept telling herself that. He wanted her to remember and he'd admitted to her that he did and that - he thought - made him selfish and she knew enough to know that indeed he was telling her the truth and that what they had was deep, powerful and something that she wanted to fight her way back to not only for his sake but for hers too. She wanted to remember what she'd lost.

She didn't think he was selfish though. She could understand why he wanted her to find her way back. She understood what it was like to lose someone you love and want them to come back so much that it literally tore you apart inside.

She didn't remember nearly as much as he wanted her to and that made her feel terrible. Still, as she felt his gentle touch against her skin she couldn't help but smile. 

"Everything is fine, I guess my head just hurts a little." It was nothing she couldn't handle though.

She was always like this when she first woke up. She was still trying to make sense of things and it happened morning after morning. It took her a few moments to get her bearings again. Her hand brushed against the skin of his cheek and a tired smile touched her lips.

"Don't worry, I'm okay."

She didn't have bad dreams this time around which she was glad for. She rarely did when he was here with her and it was so comforting for her, more so than she knew how to explain. She was still working it all out and those feelings that had made no sense to her, that pull in the back of her mind was finally something that she could understand and she was glad for that, she was so so glad for that but it was conflicting too.

She was still more glad he was here than she knew how to explain.

"I'm always gonna worry, sweetheart," he replied with a kind smile. "I love you too much to ever stop worrying about you."

At least now he could finally tell her that without it burning away at him inside. He'd wanted to for so long, he hated how much he remembered when she knew nothing but he knew that it had been how she felt when it had been her for all those years, it was his fault she knew nothing, his dumb decision had led to everything that had happened and he knew it. He'd been stupid, selfish and cowardly.

She meant everything to him, she'd always mean everything to him and she always had whether he'd remembered it or not back then and now he was going through the same thing that she had. He'd messed up bad and almost lost the love of his life, it had been nothing short of foolish of him and he'd almost faced a very long and empty existence because of it.

Perhaps it was what he deserved but he was slowly fixing it and he'd die before he ever hurt her again. Hell he felt like he was dying when he'd walked away that night. Everything inside of him was screaming stop, go back and help her! But he'd believed he was nothing but a detriment to her mental health and if he'd stuck around she'd be in more pain than she needed to be.

He knew there was a chance that she'd start to remember on her own but he couldn't take not knowing whether or not she was safe. Shadowing her and acting as her 'Guardian Angel' as she'd put it was a risky move but one that he'd decided was worth it. He had decided that it was better to watch over her than fear she was going to go out and get killed. 

"We should get up, we need to eat..." Well she needed to eat, she wasn't sure about him but she did.

She smiled then and nodded her head but held up a single finger to tell her to stop.

"How about I go make you breakfast and you stay here?" 

It was going to be hell from the moment they went out after whoever was now actively trying to kill them, the moment you decided to track down and take out people who'd decided to do the same to you it wasn't likely to be easy. They had people who wanted to be there to help but neither of them were keen on the help. They were afraid to lose more people. She was afraid to lose more people.

He was afraid to lose her. He wouldn't say it but he was afraid to lose her, he already had through his own stupidity and - whether he wanted to admit it or not - his own cowardice. He messed up once, he wasn't going to do it twice. He was a goddamn coward, he should've fought for her once and he failed, he'd be damned if he left her this time.

"I don't need you to wait on me James," she breathed "I appreciate the sentiment but-"

"I know I don't, I want to give you a few moments of peace before all of this hell we're about to walk into," he explained with a light smile. 

"Mm fine," she conceded "Just once."

Just once, she could let him do this but just once.

They'd agreed on meeting in the world counterterrorism agency that morning, Bobbi had more footage to show them and much to both of their surprise Ana was there before they were with a coffee and a very chipper attitude that had Bucky worried; he frowned at her as they sat down and immediately asked her if she was okay.

"I'm fine," she responded with a dramatic sigh, "don't worry so much."

"Right because you're the chipper type that shows up bright and early," he quipped back "what's going on?"

She didn't answer though, with a shrug of her shoulders she turned her attention  back to everyone else as Clint and Natasha's conversation came to a close and Bobbi played the security footage she'd been able to find. Each person silent as they watched it and a few glances were exchanged as it came to an end. Bobbi looked between the three of them.

"Do any of those people look familiar?" she questioned as her eyes moved from one of them to the next.

Ana nodded first followed by Bucky confirming that it had been two of the people in the facility that day. He'd been the only one that had seen the fourth man there though: The mutant that had attacked them and left them vulnerable leading to them being shot and almost dying had come into play quickly and by the time he'd had the chance to look both Nat and Ana were down and bleeding out badly. He wondered if the shot he'd taken had been intentionally non-lethal which was curious. Why would they have tried to kill Nat and Ana and not him? He didn't know whoever the hell it was so it seemed unlikely, it would seem that he'd just gotten lucky which was a goddamn first.

"Who are they?" Natasha questioned, "Do we know anything about them at all?"

Bobbi nodded weakly. She looked apologetic which just added to the already growing amount of confusion everyone in the room was facing. Bobbi tugged her bottom lip with her teeth as she flicked her eyes between each of them. Morse looked like she didn't want to say a word but she released a sigh anyway and pressed another button which had three more faces appear on the screen.

"I've spent the last few days running these guys through any facial recognition software I could access and a few popped up under different aliases so I have no idea who they really are but we've come across these three before. Do you remember the op we ran in Leipzig? It was about six years ago," Bobbi questioned.

Natasha looked somewhat confused as she tried her best to figure out what the hell that particular mission had been and if it had been anything important, something about it seemed familiar but she couldn't quite place it. It was fuzzy at best but then her brain wasn't the most reliable thing in the world right now. Bucky though seemed to remember something because he released a deep sigh and muttered Great.

"Von Strucker is working with Sin, we were trying Rumlow at the time because we wanted more info on The Skull but all we found was a warehouse and a bunch of dead bodies. We wrote it off as a loss but after everything that happened before last year I guess Sin decided to take over her fathers somewhat problematic existence and now she's working with him selling kids as bio weapons to fund something way worse no doubt." Bobbi sounded angry as she spoke and no one could blame her.

"Then we need to stop them. I thought it was some kind of underground organization that-" Natasha was interrupted as Bobbi once again shook her head.

"It was a front, they must've known we'd try to track them so they threw some fake shit together that'd let them move again." She hated that she'd fallen for it, too.

"Uh..." Ana raised her hand and waved at everyone, "Who the hell are these guys? I wasn't hired by any of them."

"You being hired wasn't a coincidence kid," Clint spoke as his eyes moved to Ana, "They knew you knew Barnes so someone that worked the job you two were on back then has something to do with this too, they pulled you in last minute when some leak in SHIELD let them know he was the one being sent to take a look into what was going on, you were a distraction. They didn't bank on Nat being on the mission or you actually not taking the shot at Bucky in the club; I think they intended to kill you. The kid wasn't even supposed to be there it was just supposed to be a crate of standard weapons to make everyone think there was nothing special going on but the seller changed up his plans on his bosses. I think that's why he wouldn't give you anything when you questioned him, he knew he was dead 'cause he got greedy and messed up their plan."

Ana let out a humorless laugh and shook her head before she rolled her eyes.

"Great so I was being yanked around like a goddamn puppet the whole time. Who leaked the intel?" Well that pretty abruptly killed her good mood.

"I wish we knew more than we do. Everything we've found so far has been just stuff they wanted us to find. We've been played the whole time," Bobbi sighed, "The mutant appears to be someone not even the Hellfire club wanted. Emma at least provided me with some information on him, he seems to have the ability to literally liquify your brain so the headache was literally him playing nice."

"Right, setting us up to be shot was nice," Natasha muttered. "How the hell do we stop a guy who can do something like that? Who the hell leaked the intel?"

"We really have no idea, same person that planted the bomb but they either died in the explosion or they covered their tracks... Or we won't find out until someone wants us to." Clint slammed his hand on the desk after he'd spoken. "Guys you're all in serious shit."

"We're flying blind here, usually she's showy and she'll make a goddamn spectacle of whatever it is she's doing but not this time. She's playing it smart and we have no idea what her end game is or even if Von Strucker is her only ally here. We're literally blind here. We're puppets being yanked around and I know you hate it, I do too but for now the best bet we have is to play this game and see if we can get one step ahead." Bobbi fell back in her chair as she spoke.

Play someone else's game... Right.

It was that simple. Ha.