(no subject)

[natalia_romanova]

She remembered Russia, not the broken former Soviet Union, but the proud mother who raised proud children. She remembered a program and others alongside her in dwindling numbers as she neared the exit of her time. Her recollections at the time were so startlingly vivid that they could have passed as yesterday and not the decades earlier of their origin.

There were days and nights in cold stone and brick barracks, long hours of training, of perfecting and honing each skill till they were seamless and instinctive. There was a graduation that served more as a passing on to higher things, a more deadly game, and then a pairing not of her choice but of her duty.

In all of that though, there were gaps. That was what had bothered her. Memories contained random scars that healed and left disruptions, it was to be expected. It was the way of the brain to heal with such keloid mashing of time, but the gaps were different. Memories were never so surgical and precise in their nonexistence. Like a poorly spliced video that shows random jumps and skips with no hint of what was missing.

But there was something missing, and she knew it.

That was what had her pouring over records, pulling files, and doing what she could on her own to fill in those meticulous gaps. It wasn’t difficult actually, locating the material was easy. She had, in essence, left herself a trail of breadcrumbs should the need arise for delving into the alterations that had been made to her. It was not as if such had never been crucial before, merely that this time things seemed to hinge on a more personal note.

Natasha wrapped her hands around a hot mug of strong tea and scanned more files. Some records went back to old microfiche and paper files, but they all seemed to allow her to find those missing moments. They centered specifically on her training and some later missions and events; the last being just before her abduction by Leonid.

The subject of such edits was one man, as near as she could narrow it down; a former United States soldier turned Red Room elite operative, turned defector. James Buchannan Barnes. The recent picture of him showed a rugged-looking man in his late twenties to early thirties in apparent excellent physical condition save for the one arm and an extremely disgruntled expression. Fingers tapped over the screen, enlarging the picture until she could look the image in the deep, warm brown eyes. There was no recognition in her, she felt no reaction to the image, and this man was not even a hazy memory.

Why then was he important enough to strip away from her memory? He had been a trainer at her own facility, so they had most likely interacted, but she had with many trainers. She sat back with a dissatisfied grunt and pulled her knees up to her chest. Huddled down in this way she could think, something about the small space making her feel safe…well safer, she never truly felt safe.

Mission after mission had been altered for her, why was this man involved? The mission briefs were severely blacked out but with her skills, it was short work to get a full version. She read with interest as the case with Leonid seemed to heavily involve this man. She pulled her own personal entries of the event and was shocked to hear her voice address she and Barnes as Lovers?

Callous as she may be, causal as her relationships were she still remembered men she took to her bed. That she would have allowed anyone to classify a man as her lover went far to say just how she herself had viewed him. She looked again at the picture; she needed something, needed to understand who he was.

Once started in this path she was voracious; payments by her to ensure the best of medical care for one Rebecca Proctor, formerly Barnes. Natasha clucked her tongue; why would she pay for medical bills for this woman? Barnes and she must have been more than just lovers, something she never knew in her life to be the case. All she had was fact, just fact and nothing to back that. She normally had instinct and intuition but both were failing her, as though this man existed only in a blind spot of her life. She wanted answers, and there would be only one way to get them.


......


Tracking him was pathetically easy. This was the Winter Soldier? This was the man both revered and feared? He was a blunt instrument with no finesse. She watched him as he blundered his way through an assignment; he was either drunk, lazy, or wanted to die; or, given the fact that he survived to the end possibly some combination of all three. She stalked him from a distance, even when the rain began to fall she did not seek dryer cover. She wanted to be where she could see him, watch him, and when the time was right get the answers she needed.

The time proved right sometime after three in the morning and what had to have been two full bottles of liquor. He left the bar with an impressively even step for someone who should be having his stomach pumped for alcohol poisoning. He was still sloppy, his face more haggard now than in the picture she’d seen. His chin and jaw darkened rough stubble, his dark hair hung in unkempt and messy nearly to his shoulders. Were it not for the reports on him she would have written him off right then.

Brazenly he walked into the alleyway over which she had perched, she’d known he would. It was in the nature of men like him to avoid the light, stick to the shadows, and vanish when not actively doing something. He coughed, maybe muttered something quietly, or was he singing? Hard to tell at a distance and with the gruff low tone of hid voice. His hand shoved deep into the pockets of a leather jacket and his head hung down, rain running down the messy hair and surely slithering icy fingers down his neck and spine as well.

Not as cold as the northern lands where they trained, Red Room agents were weaned on ice and snow, in this at least she could see they had commonality. Natasha waited until his next step before she leaped. It was a graceful movement, something part dance and part death in motion. It brought her down behind him and her momentum helped to let her spin him around to face her. No hesitation, his back was slammed to the wet brick wall behind him. In that same instant, her gauntlet was raised under his chin, she could incapacitate or kill if necessary but for the moment it was only there for persuasion.

“Who the hell are you and why has someone taken great pains to eliminate all memory of you from my mind?”

Comments

[a_survivor]

He'd thought she might have been there. Close to him, following him the way she might, if she was worried he might be over his head (which he often was). But that was not possible, and he discarded the small signs that would have let him know, otherwise.

She was gone. It was his choice (sort of), and she - from what he had data on, she was doing well. Normal. Possibly somewhat restless, but not alone (she'd earned her friends and teammates) and that was - that had to be enough.

It wasn't. But he kept on going. He wondered if it had been similar, for her, but then he almost could laugh at himself. She had triumphed. He was... scraping by. At best.

Still alive, at any rate.

It took obscene amounts of alcohol to shut up the urge to just - end everything, when he didn't have a specific goal to work to.

And then.

Then she was there, and the combination of familiar motions and her smell in the rain registering even before she spun him and he could see her, and, by God, she was beautiful. His mouth softened, and his eyes drank the sight of her before finally meeting hers. It was a good question.

"Because he hated me. And you and I, we were each other's vulnerability. Now you no longer have that problem."

Bucky was surprised at how steady his voice was. But then, the sun had risen and the birds were singing and it was May, everything was all right. Even if it would only last a few minutes, if he could help it.

[natalia_romanova]

Vulnerability, it was something she never knew. She did not hesitate, she did not rethink and she did not have remorse. She was flawless; and in that lay her flaw as this woman did not learn at the hands of a man she loved, she learned from a faceless instructor. She was too precise, too tight with her movement and her thought. There was no question she was still lethal and dangerous, but there was something lacking in her that had been there before.

“Novokov hated you so he sliced up my mind. What were you to me?” Her tone was low but crystal clear, a lethal sort of clarity that give every indication she might dispatch him for a wrong answer. Think quickly and think good Bucky, you were not going to get lee way on this.

[a_survivor]

Something she didn't recall right now, at least.

And he. He heard the threat crystal clear. Did not even flinch.

Instead, he though for a moment. "A teacher who saw in you more than a puppet to be molded to somebody's will. A man without memory or past that you reached and touched with something completely human in a place of cold, and who touched you back. Somebody who was taken away from you for a long time, then returned, more complete, decades later. The reason you have a distaste for plans that boil down to 'rush in and get captured' and yet, once in a rare while, you do it, too. The man you bicker with over pancakes."

He closed his eyes to hide the glint in them. "The reason why, while you loved, after me, you never settled with any of them. Because you didn't see darkness to match yours without seeing a complete monster, anywhere else."

[natalia_romanova]

Hard to recall what’s been cut out of you.

Full points for not trying to beg his way out though, he was apparently neither fool nor coward. But she knew that already from his file didn’t she? Why was she looking for reasons that this could not be? It wasn’t that she didn’t think it was possible, but that it could be taken from her so cleanly as to never have existed, that idea terrified her.

“I had many instructors. I have no memory of you.” There it was, plain and clear in her eyes, the eyes that had once shone for him or been cross with him, they lacked any flicker of recognition. He talked and she could not place anything he said, felt no connection to it. An unlikely word drove lightning into her head… “Pancakes, stupid obsession.” She muttered it through gritted teeth, her free hand pressing at her temple as though she could release the pain and pressure there. Why did she react to that word? Why did she react in that way?

She had never settled, when he continued to speak his eyes were closed but the truth of his words was evident without them. She had used lovers, had them at her convenience and left them just as easily. There was emotion at times but there was never something to make her consider it more than a passing pleasure. Could that be true?

Stupidly her mind returned to the one word that had elicited a reaction in her, pancakes. Images of dingy diners and hot coffee, the sweet mixture of syrup and butter on her tongue that chased the bitter brew. She… remembered but what did it mean?

“You are saying we were in love. That the reason Novokov cut away my memories was because we had a relationship?” What was the point? What harm could it do really? Love was fleeting and she had seen it pass quickly enough. “Why does this bother me?” If he knew her so well, he should be able to answer that.

[a_survivor]

And Bucky. Bucky blinked at her, when she talked about pancakes. There was a shudder up and down his spine that he worked hard to suppress, to stop from finding its way out.

But then she went on, and, God.

"Because it's decades of your life, rewritten. And you've had enough people, strangers, poke inside it for ten lifetimes." His tone was steady, but his voice wasn't. He wasn't anywhere near sober enough to just be calm for this conversation, not as much as he wanted to be. Tears were starting to choke him up, because she was so close, and she wanted answers, and he couldn't. He couldn't undo it all. He didn't stop it from happening.

"Novokov cut your memories off because what we had was... it can be described as love, yes, but it was--" is "--more than that. Because he hates me, and would stop at nothing to hurt me - and death would be too easy. Done it, it doesn't work for me." Twice. And the second time, she'd been there, when he woke up. And-- "He also wanted you. To love him, the way you loved me. But you have better taste." He bit his tongue, hadn't meant to let that one slip.

"You were a prize, to him, and a tool. Something was taken from inside your mind, from the past that reaches back so far, that you've built at such a price. Of course it bothers you."

[natalia_romanova]

"You knew? You knew I would lose part of myself and you agreed to this?" She shoved hard, her wrist tight up under his jaw, struggling to find something in him that was familiar.

She had emotional reactions, not to him, but the the void within her. It was something she didn't tell the S.H.I.E.L.D. psychologist when she was screened to returned to active duty. She wasn't even sure she could have put it into words had she tried. But it was there. Gaps in her memory, foggy spaces that had feelings connected to them but she couldn't summon the reason why. It was worse than not knowing, because there was something there to know, and it all seemed to connect around this man.

She wanted to know everything, why her files were littered with his name, why there was evidence of him scattered throughout decades of her life and possessions. He could give her the answers, but was she ready to hear them?

"Love you make it sound like something in a fairy tale, I have seen love come and go, I have had lovers, what makes you so different?" It wasn't his looks, he was handsome in a rough hard way, but not breathtaking. He was effective but he also made mistakes, so it was not for his skills either. What was it about him that made her fall into this fanciful feeling with him?

She frowned when he spoke about what was taken, he was more accurate than anyone who had spoken to her yet about it. It was bothersome that he might be so dead on. "Living this long extracts a toll, it is usually being solitary for your own protection."

[a_survivor]

"No! Not before he did it! There's nothing I wouldn't give, to have been able to stop him. Nothing!"

He wasn't shouting, no, his voice was low and intense, almost to the point of getting raspy. The reaction was immediate, and there was nothing fake about it, not on any level.

Then he took a few long breaths, leaning his head back against the wall, for a little while. Closed his eyes. "We met... long before you knew how long you would live. A different time, a different place. You were much younger. I had no idea who I was, other than - a weapon. Not fully consciously, at least. I'd never met anyone like you, and I think vice versa. We. In a place of cold manipulation, a place where obedience and perfection and usefulness were the norm, we found in each other - somebody human. Warm. Real. We both got punished for that. I went back to stasis chambers and mostly getting taken out to do the odd job or train other sleeper agents. You - had to do many other things. Harder."

He opened his eyes again, seeking hers. There were tears on his cheeks that he ignored. "You found a better place to be. Made a life for yourself, here. Then my old partner, after decades, found out that I hadn't died, not finally, and restored my memory. After that, we met again. You remembered..." His voice wavered, there. "You came back to me. For me. We were good together, so good, Nat. But I taught another student of mine too well, too. Novokov."

[natalia_romanova]

There had been no hesitation in his response, and if it was falsehood he spoke it convincingly enough that he must have believed it himself. She was willing to accept that, backed but what she knew of him, to be truth.

She knew the facts; she’d hunted until she could piece together the timeline as best she could. It was what made her realize he was the intentionally missing piece. She knew he had been, under another name, a trainer with the organization. By all accounts he had been one of the best, she had to have worked with him but there was no recall for her.

She could see how it must have been though; she remembered younger days, days where she was innocent to the world. At least as innocent as one can be when being trained as a wet works operative. Again the emotional timeline and her memories diverged, there was a lingering warmth in the middle of the haze, was it him? Was he the reason she remembered days seeming brighter and nights less bitterly cold?

But they were discovered, and she gasped softly in spite of herself. She’d been sent away suddenly, for the good of the program, sent away and told she would marry Alexi. Her feelings of disappointment and loss could have been for more than her freedom. Nights with him ended in her remaining unfulfilled, was it due more to the man in her head than in her bed? If they had been as he said, and separated it would go far to explain her lack of connection with all of her lovers from that time forward.

She’d drifted as he spoke, his voice lulling her without her realizing it, but he paused and she returned to the present. Natalia was shocked to see tears streaking his face, shocked because she felt like she wanted to react, should react but had no idea how.

“Novokov, I’ve already made plans for dealing with him.” She spat quietly but he had given her so much to think about. But could it really be true? She had thought all her life she was just a spy that was all she was intended to be, could it even be possible for her to connect to anyone like that? “And how do you know I loved you? That I wasn’t playing you all along?” It was a possibility, one she wasn’t sure she could account for herself.

[a_survivor]

"You had nothing to play me for, Natalia. Not when I was Captain America, not when I died - again - and woke up with you by my side. Nothing that you hadn't have or couldn't have without me."

Whatever plans she had for Leonid... they weren't enough. Not enough for what he'd taken from her, not enough for what he'd made her do.

"All I had to offer was - myself." His heart, his mind, as it was. His skills. "Somehow, that was enough." Bucky took a breath that was almost a sigh. "Then Novokov showed up. He split us up, caught you when I was - otherwise occupied. Scrambled and rescrambled your head, God, he had you thinking you were a ballerina again. Then thinking that the deflection, all your life since that, was a cover."

He was sick to his stomach. Again. It had nothing to do with the booze. "When we got you back, they managed to rebuild - much of the connections, inside your mind. But me, what was related to me? That was severed. So this is what it is. Who I am." He motioned down at himself with his right hand. "Not much of a loss, as you've been able to see for yourself."

He had to do this, right? Make her go her own way, make her own life, a chance she never had, before, when she carried the memory of him.

It was almost impossible to say it, though. One word, and it wouldn't cross his lips. Go.

[natalia_romanova]

All he had was himself, and that was enough? No, no there had never been a time where that was true; she had never given in for just that. Her lovers were a long list of stepping stones, convenience, and means to an end if anything more than pleasant dalliance.

Her head ached again, she remembered…remembered tracking Novokov. She did recall it, why was she there…who was she talking with? There had been agents and.. ”Sitwell.” She pulled back from him, her arms wrapping around herself like a wounded animal. He had been a good man, a good agent. The programming had made her end all that. The man died leaving his wife and son behind and she was responsible. Emotionally she was still reeling from it, though she had already taken great pains to see that the pair never wanted for things. The standard S.H.I.E.L.D. insurance was generous but Natalia had at least tripled it by pulling strings. She could never replace the man, but she could make their misery a little bit less uncomfortable.

“James Buchanan Barnes, born twentieth March nineteen twenty five, lived in Shelbyville Indiana. Orphaned by age sixteen, watched over a younger sister, Rebecca until you were chosen to serve in a special program with Camp Lehigh. You hated your name and soon others took to calling you Bucky, you made a reputation to go with it. You were trained as a solider and killer before you could legally drink and became the protégé of Captain America.” She recited the facts of his life, clearly having memorized them. She knew his entire history it seemed, though there were more vague points through his years as Winter Soldier where the reports could not fill in and her memory did not exist.

“I know all this, but I don’t know you. I studied you, read every file I could find, scoured for old film and training footage.” She turned back to him with a look that fluctuated between anger and confusion. “And I can’t stop. I don’t know you but I can’t let this go. I need to understand, I need to know why you, a man I wouldn’t know in a crowd, are so important. Why I can’t, forgive the irony, get you out of my mind.”

[a_survivor]

Sitwell. His right hand twitched, when she drew back, longing to touch her and comfort her, but then he folded his fingers and just watched. Not his. Not his to give that to.

And then.

Hearing facts about his life, the official facts, the ones that the never actually talked about because they both knew, the ones that the few who had access to only data would know, in that voice, when she added that she couldn't stop... It was the last drop. His stomach heaved, and he waved a hand, briefly. "'scuse me."

Turned away and threw up. Because alcohol did not forgive. Anybody.

When he straightened again, he wiped his mouth on his sleeve and. Breathed for a half-minute until the bile retreated from the back of his throat. He watched her, during that time.

"If I'm - if I'm around and answer any questions you might have, I mean, job permitting, if you don't have to be curious 'on empty' any longer, will you try to? You loved me. Then that was ripped from your mind. That's why. It's..." His eyes tore away from her. "It's better for you if you would."

[natalia_romanova]

The purge was unexpected, but maybe it was the alcohol, it tended not to be kind to emotional shock and bar fights. She stepped back and gave him space, it wasn’t the first time she’d seen someone vomit, given the number of times she’d used poison, she was fairly used to it.

She was just there, no longer threatening, no longer holding him but she knew he wouldn’t run from her either. He would give her answers, but he seemed to be holding back. What was it she wondered?

Ah he proffered a deal, he would fill in the gaps and she would go on with her life without him. Natalia nodded and listened. She considered the haunted look in his eyes, the tears that still dampened his cheeks, that hard swallow to fight back the contents of his stomach until he was stable. He was offering her the out, a free get away and he could wallow in his own misery.

Again she nodded, then she drew back and sent a fist flying at his jaw. The chances were he was too stunned or drunk to avoid it. Even if he wasn’t she was fast, her chances were better than even. Her other hand curled into the front of his jacket and jerked him toward her. “If you know me at all you would know I don’t give up what is mine without a fight. If I love you there is good reason for it and I will know what it is…was. This is not your choice or your deal to make. I will decide for myself, no one makes decisions for me anymore, are we clear?”

[a_survivor]

I don't give up what is mine without a fight.

The words shot through him, and, for a few long moments, all that happened was that Bucky's eyes going wider and wider... and wider, as he realized just what he had done when he'd walked out, tired and hurting and desperate, out on Steve, Clint, Maria, and Logan. He drew a deep breath and started swearing. Elaborately.

In Mandarin.

At himself.

[natalia_romanova]

It was true, everything she’d ever had in her life she had to work for. In many cases she had to overcome odds that were all but insurmountable. She remembered hard work, all the blood and sweat and tears poured into making her life success. There were times where her very survival was a matter of pushing past exhaustion, don’t give up, not without a fight.

Her words seemed to have hit him harder than her punch, which was almost disappointing. She saw something passing over his face, some sort of shock setting in, and a reaction. She didn’t know how to quantify it exactly, fear and anger and something all mixing up. Was that even it? Was it something else entirely?

And then the cursing, anger, definite anger. It could have been comical if she had been in a better mood or if the situation was less serious to her. Fingers released him, she didn’t need to be physical with him again, he was beating himself up enough for both of them.

Maybe later, depending on how she felt.

[a_survivor]

It took him a little while, but he got his anger at himself under some semblance of control. He switched to Arabic, after Mandarin, too. And, when he ran out of ways to call himself a moron, it was clearly shame that remained.

"'m sorry. That was... what you said made me realize I may have misjudged a situation... at your cost." With a glint of dark humor, he spread his arms. "A valid argument for my request, just now." His face turned serious once more. "I'm at your disposal."

And mercy. But saying that would sound as though he was asking for it, and that was - not yet something he thought he deserved.

[natalia_romanova]

“Are you finished?” He wanted to rant against himself she would let him, she had no call to stop him, but it wasn’t productive.

“So we take steps to repair it, I … Another machine is the last resort. If I can jump start them, trigger the memory with details I would rather do that?” She wanted her mind back on her terms, it seemed fair.

“You’re not getting out of things that easily, James.” The name rolled off her tongue in a chiding tone far easier than she would have expected.

[a_survivor]

Bucky had closed his eyes, starting to shake his head, to explain, when she called him that, and he didn't think it was possible to miss her anymore, but, apparently he'd been wrong. His eyes snapped open. But it was... not his Natasha. Maybe not yet, maybe not ever.

Either way.

"It wasn't that easy. Any options offered to restore your memories of me were - tentative at best. Experimental. Medications, telepathy, magic. You'd been through so fucking much already, and you'd gotten yourself back. Barely. I - don't think I'm worth risking that." He took a deep breath. "I don't think I'm worth risking losing yourself again. That's not why I got so angry at myself." Beat. "It wasn't my choice to make. And I should have known that. I do know that, just lost sight of it."

He shrugged, slightly. "I guess that gives you some idea, on top of the raw data, what kind of person I am."

This was possibly the hardest admission, to her, that he'd ever had to make. He hoped - prayed, almost - that he was never going to have to, again.

[natalia_romanova]

“But they are my memories, they make me who I am, you know how much of that has been taken from me already. “ I want them back, I want to know if I loved you. If I was loved. She wouldn’t even being to try explaining what it meant to her, she may have told him her complex relationship with emotions before or she may have spared him that. Either way she was not talking about it now.

She was watching him so intently that it would disturb most, did he know her well enough to understand just what was behind that look? She was trying to force herself to feel to remember but she was getting nothing except the occasional spike of pain in her skull.

“Apparently you the kind of person I fall in love with and remain in love with for decades.” So that made it worth the effort.

Natalia shrugged, indicating that line of conversation was over. “Come on, you need some food and coffee in you and there’s a diner not far from here.” Breakfast 24/7, she had seen the flickering neon sign while she waited for him, it just seemed…appropriate.

[a_survivor]

He knew. He had known. Why he had done it... he had no excuse. None worthy, at least. He ran his hand back through his hair, then straightened.

"I am sorry, Natalia. I hoped to spare you, but I was - out of turn. By about a galaxy."

After a moment, he took a deep breath, and nodded. "Food 'n coffee'll probably be a good idea." And he followed.

and picking up at the diner, I couldn't resist

[natalia_romanova]

AHAHAHA ha ha ha.

[a_survivor]

They'd almost reached the diner when he finally spoke again.

"Apart from... the missing thread." Him. "How have you been?"

[natalia_romanova]

"No one else calls me that you know, well Novokov did but outside of that no one here. They all cal me Natasha. It started as a way to keep people distant, give them the nickname and let them use it."

But not him, her hands sunk into the pocket of the trench coat she'd stored atop the building she was surveying from. There had to be a reason, her name was as personal to her as anything she owned. It might be known but she had controlled who used it.

"It's good to be part of a team again, I feel like I missed it. Which I don't completely understand given how much of my career I've been on my own." But she did enjoy working with Sharon and the other Avengers, if they had been more or less walking on eggshells around her of late.

"You?" It was funny how they were discussing this like casual conversation, as if they hadn't both been following each other's field reports.

[a_survivor]

"I know," he sighed. "It's Natalia or Nat, from me. I don't think a diminutive would be appropriate, right now. And... I always thought Natasha was a child's name. Back then, we couldn't afford to be children. Then, here, I wanted to be special. To make you feel - special. Do you want me to call you Natasha?"

A small smile eased the line of his mouth as he sat, picked up the card without looking at it. "

"They're your team. You've helped make it what it is. That's different from somebody makin' you work with people." It was good. Even if they may have been careful with her... they had reason to be. And they cared. That was better than leaving her on her own, or pushing her to her breaking points again.

"Me, I've been... well. Less than brilliant. But got a job, now. Wipin' up after my past."

[natalia_romanova]

"No, it might, I don't know help maybe. It marks you as different." She shrugged, it was something anyway

"I don't remember being a child, I know there were memories I was given but aside from the fire and the program there isn't much. The Widow has been my life." But here he was, the key to perhaps more than that, she might have a chance of a past and maybe even a future.

"They are good people, we do good work which isn't something I could say about my whole life. Which you probably know every bit as well as I do." That was strange, not having to explain things, was it nice? Could be, once the strange wore off.


"Does that include me?" Sorry James, but she has to ask.

[a_survivor]

Bucky let out a long breath. "Understood. Perhaps if I earn your trust, one day." His lips twitched, barely, but steadied into a line again with the next part.

"When I first knew you... you were already a woman. But those memories still lived within you, even though they - hurt. Everything that tried to melt the ice around us hurt. Us included." ... he paused, then looked away. "I'm sorry. Probably sounds weird, hearing somebody you don't remember talking about a relationship you don't remember. But... the Widow has been your life, but you made the Widow more, with the way you lived it. You make the Widow more, with the way you live it. What they trained you to do? Was for bad people to be able to rely on you for successful carrying out of missions, usually down and dirty. What you turned you into is somebody, with sound judgment and solid personality, that good people can rely on to do what you think right. Including, sometimes, down and dirty. Difference being that you make the call.

"Me? I wasn't there for you most of that time. Frozen, mind-messed. Always more trouble than I'm worth. I'm not good enough to even let the survivors of my old missions get some closure. Just... me."

Not that kind of wiping up after his past, thank you, Nat. He'd never do it on purpose. Just - wanted it to hurt less.

"Beginning to see why I thought I wasn't worth the trouble?"

[natalia_romanova]

"That is the awkward bit of all this, you already have it and I don't know why." She didn't trust easily, hell sometimes she didn't trust at all even after years. But this man was already comfortable with her. She feel into easy step with him, she knew the words he used, the tone of his voice but there was no connections she could make about them. Her mind felt hollow when she tried to search for inklings of him.

She listened as he told her about her own past, it was strange but she could not deny the way that everything he said felt right, correct. She felt, just a flicker, memory of herself so young she could barely have been in her mid teens. Already she was a woman though, she could kill and do so with exquisite precision. So naive for all her lethal nature, she felt a burgeoning excitement, a desire. The younger her was waiting for something, something that would change her life, there was a sharp sound, something tapping on glass and then-

She hissed and held her head, lancing pain arched across the neurons in her brain. Cells rebelled at their sudden activation and she blacked out the thought at it's terminus, it ended before the memory could turn and see the presence that joined her in the room. What had it been? Her body and mind had been stirred but there was nothing past that. With the back of her hand she cleared the fine sheen of sweat from her forehead, she wanted those memories back. They were her's and no one had the right to take them! But what if they were this man, the man who now deemed himself so unworthy?

"I went back after you then, you've said. And I've come for you now, there must be something there you are too thick skulled and hard headed to see."

[a_survivor]

His chin ground when she hissed, his arm reaching out to her across the diner table, almost brushing fingers across her forehead but instead resting his palm lightly on her arm.

"It hurts, doesn't it. All the options that were given would - the pain would have been the least of it. That's... that's why. You'd already been through so much. Putting you through more for my sake..."

He looked down, closing his eyes. "Now you have the facts. The whys. Maybe it'll be easier--"

He promised. Didn't he. "... yeah, I think thick-skulled just about covers it."

[natalia_romanova]

“It’s nothing.” She was used to pain and the worse it was the less she would speak of it. But if he knew her he already knew that trick, didn’t he? She allowed the distraction of looking at his hand, lightly laying on her arm, just there for comfort but not demanding anything. Natalia wondered how that would have felt to her if she had those memories.

“It’s not for your sake, this isn’t about you. I don’t know you so why should it bother me if I can’t feel anything for you?” That was cold, but the pain had pushed her into that spitting hissing defensive corner of her mind. He shook things in her, shook them lose like the bells of Notre Dame. “This is about me and what was taken from me. The violation of it is not something I am willing to let quietly go.”

If there was more to it, if there were feelings, those would come in time, perhaps. But the memories were hers and she wanted them back. “I Have facts, I could have gone anywhere to get them. I came to you because I need more than that. I need to know who I am and you seem to be a large part of that, James.” The name still made her mind want to twinge; it tugged at things with strings that went nowhere. Who was James Barnes to her and what did he mean to her life? She couldn’t let it go, let him go.

“You’re not getting out of this that easy.” She growled and rubbed her temple before looking back up to him. There was her hard edged determination, all of her will focused on him. She was not letting him go until she understood things and had her life back.

[a_survivor]

Bucky just. He understood. He did, he understood too well, he just wasn't worth it.

But this wasn't about him. And this? This was how Novokov lost. Because Natalia made him lose, shredding away the last tie that bound what had happened to what was, now.

So, after a few moment of absolutely helpless staring, his eyes wide at her, he swallowed. And pushed his voice into just a bit too much contrition, but only because he thought anything he said right now would make it worse for her and.

And he wanted to make her laugh.

"Not getting out so easy. No, ma'am!"

[natalia_romanova]

His worth to her was not his decision to make, but she did need his help to find it.

This was how she was, fierce, loyal, determined. Natalia Romanova had not risen to the height of her program by being sloppy or lazy. The past had been severed from her life but she was determined to know what it had been.

Such had been the degree of seriousness that his tone, and frankly that expression was disarming. The response…well that took her a full three seconds of silence before she laughed. It was deep and throaty and true, the sort laugh that had her throwing her head back and shuddering those rich waves of red hair. The humor, it was so him.

How did she… Her laughter slowed and her lips curled upward. An idea forming in her mind, if this was what she thought things might not be so hopeless. She could access her emotional responses to him, even if the memories were gone. The emotion could still be triggered.

[a_survivor]

He'd done this on purpose. Made her laugh, made her smile, brought back something that was good and easy and he shouldn't be sitting there, staring at how beautiful she was like this.

But he was, of only briefly. Because it tore at his heart. It looked, and sounded, and felt right, the laughter. The amusement, the... everything.

It had been way too long since he'd seen it. He'd thought he never would, again.

After a moment, he managed a smile back.

"Think I'm starting to work for my - figurative - keep, then."

[natalia_romanova]

"Perhaps you are."

It felt so good, felt right to be able to laugh. Those emotional strings were tying together in her mind and her reactions to him were getting stronger.

"Give me your hand."

It wasn't a request, she stretched her hand across the table for his and waited expectantly.

[a_survivor]

He watched her for a long moment, with her hand extended, then held up both of his, plain, in her sight.

"Which one?"

The real? Or the bionic?

[natalia_romanova]

"Both, one and then the other." She waited, her palm remained open and waiting.

[a_survivor]

... yeah, he had no idea what she was getting to. But he reached his real arm until his hand was resting on top of hers, palm down on her upturned one.

[natalia_romanova]

She felt the weight of his hand, the warmth of flesh. Her free hand dragged fingers across the palm, over the calloused pads and up the slight involuntary inward curl of his fingers. It felt familiar but with nothing to connect it to. Like any hand belonging to a hardworking stranger she had never met.

She nodded and let her fingers ghost away from him so he could retract that hand and bring up the other.

[a_survivor]

Bucky's lips were parted, his eyes. Something. Soft, at the light, familiar touch. But he kept focused enough to take the hint and pull back his arm, offering the left one instead. No glove.

It was the kind of trust that, not so very long ago Natasha would have recognized for what it was. I place my life in your hands. No reservations.

[natalia_romanova]

There was something in his expression, not a memory but a feeling. She was realizing that memory was not her only link to her past, the emotions built in that time could still be triggered and that brought some sense of completion.

The way his hand felt in hers brought a gasp. It wasn't the weight which he managed to keep from falling fully on her, nor the cold which could not be avoided with the metal. It was a flash of that touch on her body, cold soothing over injuries and burning against fever hot skin. She knew this touch, intimately more intimately than just sex but in complete trust.

She'd had impressions of their closeness before but until that moment there had been doubts; now she knew better. "It's all true..."

A tag out of the blue...

[a_survivor]

Bucky stared at her, feasting his eyes on the subtle, faint play of emotions that he could detect only because he knew her so well, and swallowed. This was... No, it was hurting her, and it was going to hurt her ever more, he was sure.

Then he dropped his gaze, and leaned back, letting his hand pull away from her grasp.

"I should go."

Yeah, that was. Sudden. It was also not harsh, not at her, at least, instead just raspy and blue. And the hardest thing he'd ever done, ever.

"You've got enough answers now to stop living somebody else's decisions, dontcha."