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your-highnessmarvel · 5 years

Text

Alias

Summary: Bucky starts to remember a certain redhead. The past becomes a reason to connect and a reason to delve back into his treacherous mind.

Pairing: Bucky x Natasha (WinterWidow)

Warnings: Violence

AN: in the light of the post i reblogged of bucky and nat and my small rant, i decided to feed my imagination and console myself over the fact that nat is dead and we never got to see nat/bucky love onscreen. And also, my requests are empty. I’ll be making a masterlist of this soon.

CHAPTER ONE

The first time Bucky ever took notice of Natasha Romanoff, he was watching Steve doodle in the kitchen. The compound was half empty, silent, somber, and Steve had taken to doodling by the light of the moon, and Bucky had always found it especially relaxing to watch his oldest friend do the most mundane thing. And if it hadn’t been for the soft pitter-patter of footsteps on the hardwood floor, Bucky would have watched Steve draw for hours. But the light in the kitchen came on, and both Steve and Bucky looked up and saw a redhead waltzing in unabashedly.

The rest of the team were out for the night. Usually, Nat was the first to climb into Tony’s sleek car and go to some bar, but tonight, she stayed in. Bucky had never really taken notice in her, besides, well, that time he choked her and slammed her against a metal table. And now she was there, absently rummaging through the fridge, wearing thick leggings and woolen socks, her bright red hair a curled mess.

Steve went right back to his drawing, neck bent, unbothered by the normal appearance of Natasha. Bucky heard the scratch of Steve’s pencil, but he was unable to bring his eyes back to the paper.

Ever since Bucky had lived and survived his brainwash, all he’d wanted to do was live in a moderately stimulating world. He’d wanted to rekindle his friendship with Steve, something that had been ripped away from him so harshly. He’d wanted to mend his mind, to bring himself some sort of comfort and solace for the things he’d done.

He had not thought of striking up a romance.

Steve smiled, noticing just how intently his best friend was following the redhead with his eyes. “You can talk to her, you know,” Steve muttered, not leaving his drawing with his eyes.

Bucky frowned, turning his glare abruptly onto his friend. “What?”

They were far enough that Nat could not hear them as she was preparing herself a midnight snack.

“She’s a nice woman,” Steve continued. “Well, she can be harsh, but I’ve seen her be sweet.”

Bucky shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Hm.”

But Bucky couldn’t stop thinking about her. Because there was something familiar. He’d seen her before. He knew her. His mind was a tricky place to venture in, and he preferred leaving his past with the Soviet Union where it belonged; in the dark confines of his thoughts. But he wanted to know exactly how Natasha fit into that puzzle.

He did his own digging. She was ex-KGB. Black Widow program. Red room. She could be placed with the Russians in the exact timeline where he’d been their perfect weapon, their ideal asset. The more he read, the more he felt like he lived it. The more he felt like he knew all of this already. But just like the Soviet’s had erased Bucky to implant the Winter Soldier, Bucky had done his best to erase the Winter Soldier.

One thing he kept telling himself was that if Nat knew him, wouldn’t she have come to him already? For answers. For unfinished business. For clarity. Whatever he’d done, to her or with her or despite of her, wouldn’t she have come clean?

Those were too many questions for Bucky’s fragile psyche to endure. For nights, he stirred awake in his bed, wondering if the redhead he couldn’t stop thinking about was afflicted with the same insomnia. He never dared talk to anyone about it, not even Steve. There was too much darkness Bucky did not want to relive.

But one day, Natasha stumbled upon his search history. She knew immediately that the memories had come to visit, had come knocking on the careful, intricate, and fragile door of Bucky’s mind.

She went to him then, careful in her approach. He was fresh off the running course, breathless and sweaty. She waited for him by the door, examining his posture. Defensive, when he saw her. She let her arms fall to her sides, open, harmless.

“Do you remember me?” she asked him carefully. He looked her over slowly, his blue eyes like two different doors to two different times.

“I think.”

She gulped. “What exactly?”

He shook his head, standing arms length away from her. “I don’t really know.”

Carefully, she stepped forward. Immediately, he stepped back. He’d grown a fear of proximity since his return to his normal self. And not because he was afraid of others, but because he was afraid of himself and the uncontrollable and unpredictability of his mind.

“I can tell you, if you want,” she offered, tensing at the sound of his metallic arm whizzing as the plates rearranged themselves.

He bit his lip, eyes cast down, pondering if he’d like to rehash his horrible past.

“It’s not...” she trailed off, gulping, and Bucky didn’t miss the slight redness of her cheeks. Oh, god, he thought, what did I do to her? “It’s not that bad, actually.” He felt a little bit better.

“I...” He looked at her; rosy cheeks, wide eyes, mouth parted. “I’d like to shower.”

She smiled. “I’ll wait for you in the kitchen.”

After his shower, Bucky dressed in jeans and a sweater, and found Nat in the kitchen. She’d made coffee, and two mugs were sitting on the table. His was lightened with milk. She knew how he took his coffee?

When she saw him examining his mug, she cleared her throat. “I guess that’s a good place to start.” They both sat at the table, facing each other. “We were very... close, you and I.”

Bucky nodded. “I had a feeling.”

She rolled her eyes. “Why, because you’re such a ladies man?”

For the first time in a long time, Nat saw him smile. “I just figured that if you knew how I take my coffee, you knew me fairly well.”

Her eyes snapped down to his coffee mug, to where his fingers wrapped around the cup, flesh and metal. “You’re right.” This time, her tone was less playful. “I guess I should have told you all of this sooner. But when you didn’t recognize me, I was hurt. And then, when you came back, you were so... fragile.”

He winced.

She continued. “I’m sorry. I owed you this way sooner.”

“I don’t think I was ready,” he offered, examining the cut of her jaw, the wild curls of her hair. Something in his gut shifted. Reconnaissance. Familiarity. Warmth spread in his chest, the kind you get when you are on known ground, when you know you are safe.

She smiled tenderly.

Russia, 1998, Red Room. Black Widow Program. Class of ‘84.

Eleven girls, fourteen in age, stood as stiff as metal rods under the green artificial lights of the gymnasium. A series of glistening blue mattresses were spread out behind them, fighting equipment lying vagabond. Gloves. Helmets. Mushy batons.

Mistress Galina had ordered them all to change into their training uniforms at the the crack of dawn. Natalia stood rigid at the epicenter, watching with vivid eyes as her Mistress stalked into the room.

“Ladies!” Her voice echoed off the walls sending the renown chill down Nat’s spine. Behind Mistress Galina were two of the trainers and one medic, per usual.

“Mistress,” came the drawling tone of fourteen young recruits. Galina smiled tightly, standing before the row of girls. Her dark brown hair was pulled back tightly into a knot at the base of her head. She wore the black suit of high-ranking spies of the KGB, outlined with dark red. A Widow suit.

“Ladies, let me present to you one of your new trainers and our best new asset.” Mistress Galina stepped aside, gesturing tightly to the door. Fourteen pairs of eyes watched as a man walked in.

Natalia observed him with discreet indifference. She knew what interest got her, and so she schooled her features to remain stoic.

He was the most frightening man she had ever seen. His hair was chin length, the color of chocolate, obscuring his face, keeping him in the shadows. She could understand why, if he was a new asset. One important and redundant feature that she was taught was anonymity.

He was of average height for a man, not that she’d seen many. She knew Henrich the medic and two of the fifteen trainers were men. But this man was built different. He walked like shadows, silent and smooth, and Natalia could almost smell the training off of him. But what was more alarming wasn’t the width of his shoulders or the size of his hands or just how impenetrable his chest looked. It was his metal arm.

It glistened under the lights, whizzing as the metallic plates rearranged themselves. As he came to stand dutifully next to Mistress Galina, he eyes remained trained forward, and his metal digits closed into a fist.

He looked inhumane.

“I assume you are ready to move forward in your training?” Mistress Galina asked.

The response came quickly. “Yes, Mistress!”

Their training to this day had consisted of fighting dummies or one another. Marksmanship was four times a week, and they had already graduated to sniper rifles. Six hours of school per day.

“Good.” Mistress Galina examined the row of girls before her with a somber expression. Natalia’s eyes kept finding their way over to the man with the metallic arm. His expression was void, jaw clenched, shadow of a beard on his chin. It was almost as if he didn’t even know where he was.

“Natalia!”

Nat’s eyes found Mistress and she straightened, chin up as she was taught to respond to her superiors. “Yes, Mistress.”

“Come forward.”

Natalia knew what hesitation got her. She knew the pain; it still echoed in her bones, in her muscles. She stepped forward two steps, hands behind her back. Braid of red hair feeling especially tight at the bottom of her skull.

“Show me and your trainers what you’ve learned.”

Natalia frowned. “I beg your pardon, Mistress?”

Mistress Galina smiled tightly again. “Show me and your trainers what you’ve learned in combat training, will you?”

Natalia gulped. She had no selected partner. Was she being given leave to pick her own adversary? She turned her head to her left, examining the row of young girls standing straighter than rods, eyes forward, chests out. Learned, indoctrinated postures.

She was about to make her choice when a shadow moved in her periphery. Nat’s head snapped forward, eyes sharp, her senses on high alert. She’d been trained well to react to any stimuli.

The man, moving like a ghost, now stood directly in front of her. He was much taller than her, and much wider. He didn’t seem to care that she was a fourteen year old girl and he was a grown man. He didn’t seem to care that his expression was blank, almost dead. He didn’t seem to care that his metallic hand was twice the size of her wrist as he clamped it around her neck.

Natalia reacted quickly. Her training had beaten it into her that it was now second nature, instinct, to defend herself. Her feet left the ground, leg wrapping around his arm. Her hands gripped his metal wrist.

But he was twice her size in weight, and her featherweight did nothing to deter her.

“You will face off opponents twice your size!” Mistress Galina exclaimed, and the man brought Natalia to the floor with a deafening thud. Nat’s ears started to ring, but she didn’t let her body distract her. He had her in a choke hold, one knee on the ground, her on her back. “You will face off men able to break you like a straw!”

Nat’s lungs burned, but she ignored it as she looped a leg around his neck. The only sign of life he gave was a low huff before he picked her up and slammed her so hard against the ground that her vision went dark and her body went limp.

“You will have to fight twice as hard as they will!”

Nat’s breathing echoed in her ears. She felt this man, this ghost with a metal arm who moved like a shadow, pick her up. She was like a doll in his arms, her back against the sturdiness of his chest. Natalia had only seen one doll in her life.

When her vision began to return, she saw the thirteen pairs of feet still standing, witnessing her weakness, her loss. Something akin to shame filled her from head to toe, burning bright on her cheeks, and the rage that followed was worse for her training than pride.

She threw her head back and heard the satisfying crack of bone, the loosening of the Ghost’s arms around her. Seeing her opportunity, she used her slimness to slip through his grasp and send her heel into his booted foot.

She twist and kicked him in the gut.

His nose was bleeding when he faced her, but unlike her, he wasn’t seething with rage or coiling with shame. He was as void and as blank as a machine.

They stood a few feet apart, enough space between them to breathe, to asses. Natalia looked to her Mistress, not surprised to see the total carelessness on her features as she assessed the young girl. Natalia wasn’t done fighting.

He came back at her with the same expressionless eyes. Natalia dodged all of his punches, receiving a few kicks and shoves, but managed to survive. She could not, however, land any offensive blows.

“You cannot go on like this, Natalia!” Mistress Galina hollered. “Strike!”

Natalia’s labored breathing left her lungs, but she obeyed her Mistress. The Ghost and her had danced around the training mats a few paces. Natalia decided to strike, using her ingrained tactics. Her knuckles hurt and bruised from the blows she was able to land, but he was remarkably fast, and he returned her punches tenfold.

He didn’t seem to be tired. He didn’t even seem out of breath. Maybe that’s why it was so easy for him to avoid her legs as she attempted a wrestling hold and pressed her flush against his chest again. Her arms pinned to her sides.

“Do not hesitate, Soldat!” Mistress ordered, and Nat wasn’t sure if it was an order to her or to the Ghost.

She soon got her answer.

He picked her up as if she was a doll, slamming her body against the floor with such force that a piercing crack echoed in the room.

Natalia screamed and everything went black and red. Pain blinded her senses, the breath leaving her lungs until her mouth was open in a silent, suffocating scream. Feet shuffled around her, but no one touched her. No one came to her rescue. No one helped her.

She rolled onto her back and gasped loudly, squeezing her eyes shut. Praying that the Ghost would not continue his assault on her. That Mistress Galina would order him to stop.

But over the buzzing in her head and the throbbing of her heart and the breath in her throat, she heard Mistress Galina yell, “The pain must not stop you from fighting! The mission, ladies, the mission is more important than something as trivial as pain!”

Natalia was sure that her collarbone was broken. She’d broken a few bones in the past; fingers mostly, her left ankle, and her wrist. But this sort of pain was different.

Things were yelled around her but she couldn’t hear.

Someone grabbed her by the arm, and Natalia screamed as she was picked up, brought to her feet. Opening her eyes, she was met with the shadow of the man, his metal fingers clinging to her bicep. She was unconsciously leaning against him.

Mistress Galina stood in the wavering line of sight of Nat. “You will fight, Natalia.”

“Yes, Mistress,” she whispered breathless, the pain scattering along her shoulder. She held it in, her left side rigid with pain, as she turned and faced off the Ghost again.

He didn’t seem bothered by the pain he’d caused her. He was too effectively trained to let such things affect him.

She brought her arms before her face, wincing and clenching a scream behind her teeth.

A fourteen-year-old girl against a twenty something man.

He came at her and this time, the fist he rammed into her ribs was enough to unravel her. She fell to her side, yelling, the world swimming in and out of consciousness. She was vaguely aware of the hand in her bright red hair. As if she was out of her body, she was lifted from the ground and slammed right back into the floor, her head splitting open. There was red on the floor, but Natalia wasn’t sure if it was her hair out of it’s braid or blood.

She didn’t care. She let the darkness take her.

#bucky #bucky barnes #natasha romanoff #bucky x natasha #buckynat #buckyxnat #buckyxnatasha #bucky fic #bucky fanfic #bucky fanfiction #bucky imagine #imagine bucky #winter soldier #the winder soldier #winter soldier x black widow #winterwidow #angst

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soldierswar · 4 years

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Cascade - Chapter III

Pairings: Winter Soldier X Natasha Romanoff, Bucky/Nat, WinterWidow (however you want to call it.

Summary: Natasha goes off on her first assignment with the soldier. But now...she has to battle feelings that she begins to have.

Some fluff, a lil’ angst

Warnings: Mild sexual themes, murder.

Masterlist for previous chapters

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The day had come.

Natasha was in Prague in a very nice hotel room preparing for what was to take place that night.

Target #1 was a congressman who had had mild affiliation with heads of the Red Room in the past. But he had recently started to indicate signs of turning on them.

Target #2 was a Russian official that had close affiliation with him. Red Room had big leads and reason to deduce that target number #1 started talking potential intel with him.

Big mistake.

For this assignment, Natasha had to pretend that she was an elite, high-end Russian escort…(Of course she did).

Ever since she had turned 18 six months ago, they had used her and other young girls to pose as such. At the very least, they didn’t necessarily or always have to pretend to be ladies of the night. Depending on the setting, they would just pose as drunk party animals who were willing to be taken home after one conversation with an important, rich man.

Luckily, they never went as far as to sleep with them. In fact, there would be serious consequences if they did so.

The event that Natasha would be attending would be an elite black-tie event that only some of the most powerful European social, or political figures would be allowed to attend. Since the event wasn’t based on talking about politics, there was a loophole on how to get in. There were some extra plus ones who were allowed to attend other than a spouse or romantic partner.

Another fact about this loophole, nobody asked questions if there were singular individuals who weren’t attached to someone from the beginning posing as an “extra cousin” to whoever they decided to point a finger at. It was a very well known, but unspoken truth that the majority of these “unknown plus-one’s” were men and women (as previously mentioned), “of the night”.

This was why Natasha’s cover was perfect.

Her target was single, and to an extent famous for being one of those men to take one of these women home.

Her assignment didn’t quite start at the gala. She had to make sure that she had his attention before she got there.

While walking down the street where she knew he would be that afternoon, she bumped into him.

She knew that he could react in two different ways.

One, he could passively curse her and be on his way.

Two, she would make sure that he caught her innocent looking eyes, and proceed to look at her apologetically as she continued on her way.

She accomplished on getting the latter.

The purpose of that interaction was to make sure that he did in fact catch her eye, but not enough to study her face. So when he’d see her at the gala looking for his next expensive conquest, she would be the one he was more drawn to on the basis of subconscious familiarity.

As she zipped up her new silk black dress, she couldn’t help but admire herself.

It was long, so it covered her six-inch, gold strappy heels. But there was a long slit to the side that reached slightly above her knee. There was also a long v-line that reached the middle of her chest, but didn’t end up showing any cleavage. She looked both sexy, and classy at the same time.

Going out to events, or parties were something she never really got to experience in her real life. It made her wonder what it would be like to go out with people she knew and liked in a normal setting. Something outside of sneaking into somebody’s room and drinking booze that somebody else had smuggled in with 3 or 4 other people in the Red Room quarters in the middle of the night.

She wanted a man to look at her in dresses like the one she was in and fall in love with her. For a man to see her as more than some conquest that he either was planning to pay for, or to just be another one-night-stand.

She wanted to be around a man that she actually liked. And she especially wanted to be around a man that she actually wanted to see her in that kind of way without having to kill him within a few minutes.

As she attempted to fasten her diamond bracelet, she heard a soft knock on her window. She snapped her head to the side and found the soldier standing by the sliding glass door of the her balcony.

She made her way over and opened the door, letting him in.

“Hi,” she greeted confusedly.

He didn’t say anything as he entered, was gave her a once over. In fact, she couldn’t help but feel suspicious that he was…admiring her?

Without saying anything further, she outstretched her arm toward him and set the bracelet onto her wrist holding one side and silently signaled for him to help her fasten it.

It took him a second for him to stop looking at her in the dress and realize what she was trying to get him to do. When he did, he ever so softly took the other side and snapped it closed.

“Hi,” he finally replied.

She smiled, and held back a chuckle.

“I wasn’t expecting you to come by,” she said.

“Just wanted to make sure plans were in sync,” he replied.

Figures.

“I make sure my target is alone with me before the gala is over, and when your target leaves at the end of the night, you finish your end, correct?”

He nodded.

“You look nice,” he said.

She blushed, and immediately turned her face and cleared her throat to try to mask it.

“Thank you,” she replied.

She turned back to face him, and found herself gazing into his eyes.

She hated when this happened.

Ever since their first session with training together, she found herself getting lost in those bright, blue-grey eyes of his. They were beautiful, and honestly so was the rest of him.

It had to be impossible for a young girl like her not to be absolutely enamored with his looks. He was tall, incredibly muscular, and as mentioned before, his eyes alone could captivate any person alive.

No matter how much she tried to fight it…She couldn’t deny the physical palpitations within her chest.

When she thought about wanting a man to see her in the kind of light in the context that she wanted…She couldn’t help but think about him. And she honestly wasn’t sure how to handle the idea of it actually coming to fruition.

Maybe she was just hopeful. Maybe she had made every lingering glare towards her up in her mind. That she was just projecting how she was trying to suppress looking at him, onto him actually looking at her.

And why was it him of all people that did this to her?

“So I guess I’ll see you after,” she confirmed.

“Once the job is done?”

He nodded silently once again. Again, noticing that his eyes weren’t stoic like before they had landed in Prague…But as though he were maybe admiring her.

They took a moment, and continued to stare at each-other as though the other were unsure on what to say next. Maybe there was truth to her suspicion. She at least knew that she didn’t know what to do.

She decided to turn back to the full sized mirror and make sure that she did still look perfect.

And she did.

She also hoped that he would notice that.

…

Three hours had passed, and both jobs were done.

By the time the assassination of target #1 had happened on the streets of Prague after the event, Natasha had already taken target #2 to his hotel room.

She wasn’t quite sure which target was dead first. All she knew was that neither of them knew that the other was dead by the time they themselves had met their demise.

When at the gala, she had caught eyes with her target the exact way that she had expected him to. Coincidentally, he was deep in conversation with target #1.

A few moments after he caught eyes with her, he joined her by the bar and offered to buy her a drink.

She accepted, and carried conversation. When he asked her who she was with, she quietly confided that she wasn’t actually there with anyone. That was the subliminal signal that he in-fact was looking for.

The only thing that was important was that he wanted her, and that money was no object towards what he wanted.

She made sure that he took her to his hotel room before the gala was over, and the soldiers target was still alive. If he had been executed before her target, security would definitely be circling around them immediately. And after figuring that he might be safe…the press might have been circulating around to figuratively execute a rising political figure looking for an expensive lay.

She played things off in a way that made him think that he was not allowed to touch her until they were alone, and secure within closed doors. That until they were ready to seal the real deal, no hand nor lips would be used toward each-other in any way, shape, or form. This especially helped her make sure that things were discreet, and nobody would notice her actually interacting with him.

When they actually did make it to the room as according to plan, she pretended to want to make extra drinks for them just for the fun of it. It was obvious that a man like him was never going to decline that sort of offer. Especially when the expensive hotel room included a full bar.

When she reached down to grab a half-full bottle of gin (of course he had drank half of it within the two days that he was staying there), she poured the lethal powder in the cup before adding the gin along with it without him noticing.

By the time she had finished pouring, the powder was completely invisible. And because of that, when he drank half of the glass within one gulp, he didn’t suspect a thing.

Within seconds of him finishing his drink after the second gulp, his airways began to constrict, and he was dead after thirty seconds as she stood in-front, and practically atop him as his body succumbed to the inevitable.

There would hardly be an investigation on his death.

The solution that she was ordered to give him would mimic something like a drug overdose. One that could be explained as a result of intense grief for his fallen best-friend.

Based on the fact that there was half a bottle of gin that was finished in that room that had obviously been fully stocked before him checking in the previous night, and the actual stash of cocaine hidden in his briefcase, it was as easy case to cover up.

She pressed some powder against, and up his nose, and made two perfect lines on the nightstand next to what would look like an absurd amount of tracts of already snorted lines.

When she exited the room nobody was around, and she knew that the cameras wouldn’t catch her because those had already been taken care of by her superiors.

Mission was accomplished without a trace.

And by the time she made it to her room, undressed, slipped into her sleepwear, and turned on the tv news, she knew that his job was done too.

Natasha could not sleep right away. She knew that she wouldn’t.

Although she was doing what she was highly trained and skilled to do, it didn’t stop the occasional flashback, or spark of guilt to hit her right after.

Her superiors were still working hard to beat that trait out of her. Although she never protested any one of her assignments, they could always tell that there was always at least just a little feeling of hesitation within her. No matter how hard she tried to mask it.

She flipped through channels and watched a few minutes of shows that she was never able to watch unless she was in the kind of setting that she was in then. Some of them were pretty funny, and entertaining too.

Suddenly, she heard a knock on the glass window once again. This time, she recognized who’s knock it was.

She quickly walked over and opened the door for him before anybody could notice that he was there. Granted, he was masterful at going unnoticed.

How was it possible for nobody to notice a guy with a shiny metal arm ending up on her balcony?

But this time, he wasn’t in uniform. He was dressed like a normal person. He wore jeans, a black t-shirt, a leather jacket on top of a hoodie, and one glove concealing his left hand.

He pulled his hood off when he walked in, after the window was closed along with the curtain.

This time, she was the one that was attempting to conceal the once-over. He looked…He looked so different than how he usually did when he wasn’t in uniform.

This did not help the palpitations.

When she stopped noting what he was wearing, she began to realize that she wasn’t exactly dressed in a way that he was used to seeing her either.

She had a pair of black, silk shorts on and a tight, grey, ribbed tank-top that did nothing to conceal what was under her shirt. She began to feel herself blush, so he crossed her arms in a sad attempt to cover her chest. Not that she was really thinking that he noticed.

“I suppose they want a mission report?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Target is down, and there should be no ounce of suspicion. They’ll probably just figure that it was tied to…well…your end of the assignment.”

“Good.”

“And you?” she asked.

“I see you completed swiftly.”

He nodded.

“I walked by the scene where the crowd congregated to confirm that it was done, minutes after I hit him.”

That probably explained the outfit.

“Right through his skull in one shot,” she stated, repeating what she had heard on the news no ten minutes before.

“You never do miss, do you?”

That question was rhetorical, and he treated it as such.

“So we have everything covered,” he said.

She nodded.

“Are you going to climb off of my balcony again? Because you know that you can just walk out of the front door like a normal person right now.”

His lips curled into a light smile. That damned smile that caused that damned feeling again.

“Here,” Natasha said.

“I’ll walk you out.”

He followed as she made her way over to the door.

By the time she reached to open the doorknob, he had beat her to it before she could even register; causing her hand to land right on top of his. She couldn’t help but let her hand linger, despite the normal instinct that would be to pull back. But at that moment, didn’t want to not feel the warmth of his hand beneath hers no matter how much the contact made her feel like snakes were circulating around her stomach and chest.

She looked up at him and noticed his expression. His right brow was knit in mild confusion, but he didn’t seem disturbed or even at the very least…uncomfortable.

What Natasha was about to do next was risky. She knew that. In fact, it was probably stupid. No, it was stupid. There was no reason why she should think that that was an acceptable thing to do, but she felt like he had to do it.

She took her hand off of his, and waited to see if he would rush out.

But he didn’t. He looked at her as intensely as she probably was probably looking at him. Almost as though their energies had matched. (Except for that fact that he might not have felt like air was being constricted from his lungs.)

So…she followed through.

She lightly brushed the side of his cheek, and kissed him softly.

And he didn’t pull away.

#BuckyXNatasha #winterwidow #winterwidowfluff #winter soldier #black widow #Buckynat #Buckynat fluff #Natasha romanoff #Natalia Romanova #Bucky Barnes #red room #BuckyXNat #Winterwidow fanfic

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str0ngerafterall · 4 years

Video

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POV: This takes place after endgame. Bucky mourns Natasha's death but Hydra has been resurrected. They cut Bucky a deal in which they use their technology to give Bucky and Nat their endgame for a period of time before he comes back to reality and becomes their weapon again.

New video! Like Comment and Subscribe! Let me know if you like these POV ideas!

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wildmomodoesart · 5 years

Photo

“I’ll Catch You” So I I’ve never done a “Draw In Your Style” type thing. So I tried my hand at one and this was the result. This was originally done as a cropped in version and then I worked it til I did both full bodies. I spent more time on this than I care to admit. But I like it either way. I know I said I was done with Winter Widow for awhile, but I lied. I cant stop. Also. Reblog this. I read everyone’s tags and they make me so incredibly happy that I keep drawing more.

Bottom Image is from The Winter Soldier Comics. I believe the artist is Chris Samnee.

#Winter Widow #WinterWidow #Bucky Barnes #The Winter Soldier #Black Widow #Natasha Romanoff #Buck x Nat #Nat x Bucky #BuckyxNat #Marvel #Marvel Cinematic Universe #MCU #request art #Natasha #Bucky

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avengerwindgirl · 6 years

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I know Natasha can't have children, but I can imagine what I want and I need to see them happy together! ❤

#winterwidow #buckynat #buckyxnat #bucky barnes #natasha romanoff #winter soldier #black widow #mcu #marvel #avengers #my edit #my manip

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imagining-supernatural · 6 years

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The Best Laid Plans...

Part 2 of But It Burns

Summary: When you hit rock bottom, you have nowhere to go and end up on your former best friend’s doorstop, bruised, bloody, and broken. You aren’t expecting him and his girlfriend to take you in and try to patch up your shattered life, especially with the danger your presence puts them in.

Warnings: Language, medical scare, hospitals

Word Count: 3301

“This is huge! I should call this into the station. At least about Stark.”

“Why don’t you? We don’t own Y/N anything.”

“Buck… she trusted you. Above everyone else. In a matter of life or death, she came to you. Don’t you want to find out why?”

A whispered conversation slowly woke you up. After a moment of floating along the edge of consciousness, you finally tumbled over the edge and managed to just barely hold back a groan of pain. You needed to hear Bucky and Natasha uncensored.

“It’s just what she does, Natasha. She comes to me to try and sweep things under the rug for her when she fucks up. It was like this all throughout college. Maybe if we play this one by the book, call it in, have her actually face her consequences in jail, then she’ll finally get her shit together.”

“Or maybe this baby will set her straight. Maybe we can help her get out of the country, like she said. She could be a valuable asset to us. She was married to Tony Stark. The kind of information she has on the Mob?”

“She says she’s pregnant. She says she was married to Stark. She says the Mob will be after her. The last time I saw her, she was so fucked up on so many different drugs, Nat. Maybe she’s having some kind of drug-induced psychotic break…”

“You don’t believe that, Bucky. I can tell. Y/N’s telling the truth. I know you know it.”

“The truth as she believes it,” he whispered weakly.

You couldn’t blame him for not trusting you. You’d manipulated him into this. Manipulated him into hating you. Into letting you go. Into moving on without you in his life. You’d crushed the dream of a future the two of you had built up with matching houses in the suburbs and kids growing up next to each other and summer vacations with each other’s families. It was your fault you were no longer a part of his life.

Which just reminded you that you needed to get the fuck out of his life again.

Slowly, you opened your eyes. Well, your right eye. The left eye was swollen shut, which wasn’t a surprise in the least. It was a miracle you’d gotten out of your house alive last night, much less all the way across town to Bucky’s apartment.

Bucky and Natasha’s apartment. It wasn’t just his life you were putting in danger by being here.

Experimentally, you lifted you arm to push down the sheet of the bed you were on. They must have finished stitching you up, found some clean clothes for you, and put you in what looked to be a guest room. Tastefully decorated but lacking the personality that came from a constant occupant. Generic paintings from a home décor store and a bookcase with old classics and framed pictures of the two of them.

With careful, measured movements, you swung your feet off the bed until you were sitting up, biting back another groan. Tony hadn’t ever beat you this badly before. Some nights he got drunk and you angered him, but this had been different. It was as if the devil had possessed him. The man you’d married was nowhere to be seen.

It took a moment of deep breathing before you convinced yourself to stand up. As soon as you were upright, a sharp stab of pain hit your abdomen, quickly shooting through your body. A shout of agony escaped your lips and you curled in on yourself, falling to the ground. “Fucking, goddamned mother of shit!”

“Y/N?” Soft fingers danced across your shoulder. Natasha. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t—” another wave of red hot coals rushed through your body, cutting off your words. Something was wrong. Really wrong. Fuck, the baby… You reached down and felt along the leggings you were wearing, eyes widening when your fingers came back red. Wide, terrified eyes darted up to meet Natasha’s. “I’m bleeding. I’m fucking bleeding. God, I’m going to lose my baby. I can’t—I need him. I can’t lose him!”

“We are going to the hospital, Y/N.” Her voice left no room for negotiation. Not that you would have. You’d been an idiot last night. You should have gone straight to the hospital. If you lost your baby, it would be your fault. You wouldn’t be able to live with yourself. Frozen in fear, you could only watch as Natasha looked over her shoulder. “Bucky, bring the car around. I’ll bring Y/N out. And give Steve a call. Have him waiting at the back door of the hospital and a doctor ready as soon as we get there.”

The drive to the hospital happened in a blur. Natasha sat in the back of the car with you, holding your hand while Bucky drove. You were only marginally aware of them. All of your attention was on your baby. You couldn’t feel anything. Could you feel him before now? Why didn’t you know what was going on with him?

“We’re here,” Bucky said in a low voice, drawing your attention. You looked up to see a cop by the back door with a wheelchair. Bucky turned around in his seat to look at you. “That’s Steve. If you trust me you can trust him.”

“Fuck, I don’t even care. Get me to a fucking doctor.”

You could figure out logistics later. Right now, your kid was the only thing that mattered. You tried to keep as quiet as possible when Bucky moved you to the wheelchair, even though it felt like an earthquake was setting off landmines inside of you. Once you were inside the hospital, a nurse and doctor took you from Bucky and wheeled you into a room without windows. They poked and prodded and asked questions upon questions and somehow managed to finagle your entire medical history from you in the first five minutes. On minute six, you were being prepped for surgery. For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, you were pulled under the line of consciousness and left at the mercy of others.

It felt like you’d been run over by a garbage truck when you woke. Fuck, what happened? You couldn’t even move your legs. They were like cement locked to the bed. Tony had been out checking on a shipment last night, so he couldn’t have—

Fucking shit, you’d killed him. Then you went to Bucky’s and his girlfriend stitched you up and—

“Y/N?” Bucky’s raspy voice broke through your thoughts.

“The baby? What—God, please tell me he’s okay. I can’t feel him, Buck!”

“Whoa, whoa,” Bucky was by your side in an instant, holding your hands still so you wouldn’t rip out your IVs and make things worse. “The baby’s okay, Y/N. He’s fine. As long as you take it easy, he’ll stay that way.”

As his icy blue eyes bore into yours, you forced yourself to calm down, process his words, accept them. “Really?”

Bucky nodded.

Relief flowed through your veins, making your head fall back onto your pillow like a weight. “Oh, thank God.”

Hesitantly, Bucky let go of your hands, as if he wasn’t sure that you wouldn’t start thrashing around again. All you did was move your hand over your stomach gently, as if you’d be able to feel the baby. Bucky pulled a chair closer to the bed and sat down, keeping his eyes on you. “You were in surgery for twelve hours. Dr. Banner thinks both you and the kid will be just fine, but he’s putting you on bedrest for at least a month. Maybe the rest of the pregnancy.”

“Gonna make getting to Ecuador a hell of a lot harder,” you mused. But you could make this work. The kid was fine. You were fine. And you’d make damn sure the both of you stayed that way. Which reminded you… “How am I here? Who knows I’m here?”

“Me, Natasha, the doctor and nurses who worked on you, and Steve, Natasha’s partner. But as far as computer records go, it’s Natasha who’s three months pregnant and just had a twelve-hour surgery. We know you were worried about being put in the system.”

“So you decided to commit insurance fraud for me?”

He raised an eyebrow. “No. They’ll bill this, but they’ll make a mistake so the insurance company rejects it. We’ll pay in cash, full. And you will pay us back.”

“With interest,” you promised, closing your eyes. “And hazard pay. And rent for the night I stayed with you.”

“Oh,” Natasha’s voice came from the door, prompting you to open your eyes again. “You’re paying more than one night of rent. You’re on bedrest, sweetie.”

“I can be on bedrest in a hotel room. You’ve already done more than you should have to.”

Bucky let out a short, humorless laugh and leaned forward, elbows on knees. “You came to me. Again. If you didn’t want my help you should have stayed away.”

“I should have,” you agreed quickly. “But I’m still that selfish person I was five years ago. You’re still my safe place and I needed that last night. But I didn’t think about how that would affect you. And I’m sorry for that, but I’m trying to fix it, Bucky.”

“You weren’t selfish, Y/N. Not last night.”

“That’s why I have a cop committing insurance fraud for me while the entire Mob is out for my head on a platter?”

“Why did you come to me last night?”

“I just killed my husband and I was bleeding out and—”

“Why did you come to me last night?” He interrupted to ask again.

“You were the only person I knew wouldn’t kill me—”

“Why did you come to me last night?”

“I don’t know what answer you’re looking for!” You yelled. “I was emotionally strung out and not thinking straight and I needed someone I trusted while I got my feet back under me.”

“You didn’t come to me because you were scared for your own life, Y/N. You were scared for your baby. Making sure you lived long enough for him to be born. That’s why you came to me.”

Huffing a short breath, you looked away and shook your head. “No, I didn’t. If I had then I would have gone to a hospital. I would have chanced being entered into the system so an actual doctor could patch me up and make sure my baby was fine instead of my former best friend and his cop girlfriend.”

“Well, your former best friend and his cop girlfriend have already talked about this,” Natasha said, pulling up another chair. “And you’re staying with us. Tony Stark’s body was found early this morning. James Rhodes was also found dead a few hours ago. I’d guess there’s a few days until someone takes Stark’s mantel and the Mob get in order again. That means we have a few days to figure out how to keep you in our apartment, safe.”

“Safe,” you laughed. “Right. Safe. I’m pregnant with Tony’s baby. His only child. They killed Rhodey because he was Tony’s second. You really think they aren’t going to feel threatened by Tony’s kid? His heir? There are people in the Mob who fucking worshiped the ground Tony walked on. They’re probably searching for me so they can make sure this kid is born, then they’ll kill me and raise the kid so they can brainwash him into their perfect ideals. And the people who want to take Tony’s place? Well, I’m a threat. I know far too much. I’m not safe here.”

“We’ll figure it out, Y/N,” Natasha assured you, to which you just laughed. She brushed off your reaction. “The doctor wants to keep you here overnight. He’ll be in in a few minutes to talk to you himself. Bucky and I will install a new security system at our apartment tonight—”

“No. Fuck, you can’t change anything. If they come looking and find out about Bucky, they’ll notice the new system. It’ll be a red flag.”

“We’ve been looking at new security systems for a few weeks already. It’s not a rash decision.”

“I—” well fine. That wouldn’t be too much of a red flag. Besides, a cop and a P.I. living together? Talk about a couple who had every right to be paranoid. And the opening line to some joke. “Okay. But as soon as I get the green light from the doctor, I’m out of here. I promise you won’t see me again. I’m done putting you in danger.”

“You say that like you’ve put him in danger before,” Natasha observed.

Shit.

“If only you knew how many black eyes he got on the playground because of me…” it was a weak coverup. And, unfortunately, both of them saw right through it.

“Y/N…” Bucky prompted. “When did you put me in danger before?”

The door to your room opened, showing in a doctor and you could have kissed him for his perfectly-timed intrusion.

“Ms. Y/L/N,” he started, eyes still on your chart. You shook your head briefly in surprise. Y/L/N was a name you hadn’t heard since you married Tony. “Your tests look good. Not as good as I’d like, but you’re stable. You and the babies.”

“He’s really fine? He won’t have any problems?”

The doctor – Dr. Banner, Bucky had said – met your eyes and you didn’t like the apology in them. “There is a good chance your babies will be just fine. However, I do want you to be prepared for the developmental issues that might arise. The stress and trauma they endured was substantial. But with proper care, they should be just fine.”

Holy fuck… “Hold up…They?”

“You’re carrying twins, Ms. Y/L/N.”

“What the fuck?” It was like all of the air had been sucked out of your lungs. “Fucking twins?”

Dr. Banner nodded. “It’s a miracle both of them survived.”

“How the hell didn’t I know I’m having twins before now?”

“You’re about ten weeks along, which is usually when the ultrasound shows if you’re going to have more than one child. Would you like to meet them?”

“I— I don’t know.” Twins… What would Tony have done with twins? Would he have chosen a favorite? Were you going to end up choosing a favorite? What kind of a mother did you hope to be? One child had been a daunting enough future. But two?

“You don’t know?” Bucky challenged. “How can you not know?”

What kind of a mother didn’t even want to see her children on an ultrasound? Your eyes fell to your hands laying limply in your lap. The hands that killed the father of these children. Shit.

“Okay, men out,” Natasha announced, standing up to pull Bucky out of his chair. “Y/N and I are going to have a little chat.”

“Nat—”

“Out,” she ordered, cutting Bucky’s protest short. It wasn’t long before it was just you and Natasha in the room. She took a deep breath before turning towards you. “So, twins, huh?”

“I can’t do this.” It just slipped out. “Fuck.”

Natasha perched on the edge of the bed. “You’d be surprised at what you can do.”

“I started working at a bar and dealing drugs part time for my boss in college and somehow ended up marrying and ultimately killing the Mob Boss of Brooklyn not even six years later. There’s very little that would surprise me about myself anymore.”

“Dealing drugs? Bucky never told me that.”

“Bucky doesn’t know.” With a shaking hand, you carefully lifted up the hospital gown you were wearing and looked down at the white bandage on your abdomen from where they’d made the incision during surgery. “Fucking twins. God has a twisted sense of humor.”

If you could stay alive until you gave birth then you could give them up for adoption. Let them go to a family that would raise them right. It would be anonymous. They’d be safe from the zealous mobsters who followed your husband.

“Look, Y/N. If you give us intel on the Mob, I can get you into Witness Protection. You’ll be safe there.”

“They’ll find me there. You really think someone’s safe from the Mob just because they have a brand spankin’ new government issued ID?”

Six months. That was how long you’d have to stay alive. Just long enough for your babies to be adopted by someone else. After that, no one would care what happened to you. After that you wouldn’t have to worry so much. It would just be your life on the line. And your life wasn’t worth much.

“What’s your big plan, then?”

“Ecuador. Los Cuernos de Cobre keeps away the Brooklyn Mob. Really the only enemies that can hold a candle to the Mob. They don’t know my face there. I’ll be safest there.”

“Too bad the doctor said you’re not cleared for travel of any kind. Sounds like you’re stuck here a little longer.”

“I’ll figure something out,” you mumbled.

Natasha glanced around the room and sighed heavily. “Look, Y/N. I don’t know you. And I instantly didn’t like you when Bucky told me about you. But… There’s another side to your history with him, isn’t there? A reason you were such a bitch to him.”

“Nope,” you lied. “That’s just who I am.”

“I’d be a horrible detective if I believed you.” She reached for your hand and you hesitated before letting her take it. “You’re going to be staying with us for a few weeks. If you take off now, Bucky will worry himself sick over you. He’s still hurt over what went down five years ago between you two. So don’t you dare think you can just sneak out. Promise me that you’ll, I don’t know, talk to him? Talk to me? He loves you. I don’t know in what way he loves you, but he does. And after everything you’ve put him through, he deserves to know why you treated him like that.”

“Great idea,” you mumbled. “Let the hormonal, pregnant murderer into your home.”

“Self-defense, Y/N. You killed him in self-defense.”

“Maybe I wasn’t just talking about him. You don’t know shit about me, Natasha. If you did, you’d arrest me right now.”

She smirked, squeezing your fingers. “Don’t worry, Y/N. I haven’t ruled that option out yet.”

You really didn’t have any options here. No say. You were going to be staying with Bucky and his cop girlfriend for the foreseeable future. At least she was likeable. She wasn’t going to take your shit. But she also wasn’t going to be an easy target to pull the wool over her eyes.

“I’m glad he has you,” you said honestly. “You seem like the kind of person he deserves.”

“You don’t know shit about me, Y/N,” she stole your words with a half-smile.

“And if I did, I have a feeling I’d be saying the exact same thing.”

She squeezed your fingers again before letting go and standing up. “You should take the doctor up on that ultrasound. See those cute little blobs and remind yourself why you got yourself into this shit-storm in the first place. You’re protecting them.”

Just before she reached the door, you called out her name. She turned and caught your eye. “Thank you, Natasha. And, uh, can you send in the doctor? You’re right. I should—I should see the babies. Remember why I killed him.”

She caught the way your voice broke on the last sentence and tilted her head. “You loved him, didn’t you? Stark?”

“More than I should have,” you confirmed, offering a half smile to mask the pain.

Next: Blood Revealeth Secrets

Series Taglist Open. Add Yourself HERE

Bucky Babes: @lavieenlex @hallow-hazel @infinity-dreamchaser @clintawcoffeenobarton @amomenttowrite @zanthiasplace @clairese1980 @bandbandeau @zahiaouzidane @li-ssu @mogaruke

But It Burns Tags: @gaylemonshark

#buckyxreader #buckyxnat #bucky x natasha #bucky x reader #platonic!reader #bucky x platonic!reader #bucky barnes x reader #readerxtony #tony stark x reader #tonyxreader #mobster #pregnant!reader

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crappr · 7 years

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POWER COUPLE

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tonydadisbestdad · 7 years

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Sooo I started another dumb fake boyfriend thing. Nobody is super in this fic. It’s going to be super trope-y. It’s a parts fic, I don’t like posting them until I’m close to the end. If anybody wants to be tagged shoot me a message.

#I know I'm writing to air but whatever #maybe someone will read something I personally write at some point #I should be fucking studying for my final tomorrow #peterparkerxreader #peterparker #peterxreader #peter parker #peter parkerxreader #dadtony #dad!tony #buckyxnat #best friend steve #new fic #marvel #au #fake boyfriend trope #Jess tells you useless things

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marvelnatasha · 5 years

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Bucky: If i don‘t see you everyday i will forget who you are. I'm like a goldfish

Nat: James i'm going grocery shopping.

#au #funny #avengers #marvel #natasharomanoff #natalia romanova #buckybarnes #incorrect marvel #wintersoldier #buckynat #winterwidow #buckyxnat #james buchanan barnes

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your-highnessmarvel · 5 years

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Alias

Summary: Bucky starts to remember a certain redhead. The past becomes a reason to connect and a reason to delve back into his treacherous mind.

Pairing: Bucky x Natasha (WinterWidow)

Warnings: Violence, mentions of abuse

ALIAS MASTERLIST

AN: so for chapter two i wanted to establish more of the origin of winterwidow: how they met and the dynamics between the two. she is still fairly young in this, but more to come between the two as she ages up.

ALSO, i am opening a tag list.

CHAPTER TWO

Bucky sat watching the sun rise. A warm mug of coffee rested on his knee, the heat seeping into his cold fingers. The weather was humid, but the fog rising from the grass announced a clouded, shielded sky. Upon looking up, feeling droplets of rain on his forehead, Bucky examined the incoming rain with nothing more than apathy.

Natasha’s revelations last night had taken Bucky by the gut. He knew, deep inside him, that he was familiar with the redhead, but to the point of having been her trainer? Her mentor, as she’d so said last night?

Bucky was familiar with the workings of his serum, hence why he understood that to Nat, he’d been the same man she knew since she’d met him at fourteen. Since she’d fought with him and he’d broken her collarbone, ribs, and rendered her unconscious.

As she had been retelling the story to him, careful in her choice of words, Bucky didn’t feel the familiarity in them. Usually, when someone told him a story, like when Steve recalled their days before the war, he could feel the recollection behind his brows, like a pressure. But this time, watching the truth spill for Nat’s lips, he didn’t feel it. He had to search far inside of him for any spark of the familiar.

She insisted he take a break, and that break turned into a whole eight hours of sleep plagued by visions of himself with a smaller, frailer, innocent Natalia with flaming red hair. A dead one, that is. That he had killed with his own hands of a well grown man.

Hydra, the Russians, the KGB, the Red Room; they’d made him do horrible things. Torture, kidnappings, murders, stalking. But as far as he can remember, physically rendering a child of fourteen to a bloody pulp has got to be the worse of it all.

He didn’t want to think about it anymore. Bucky got up in a swift motion, walking through the glass doors of the compound. The kitchen lights were on and Steve was in the kitchen, brewing more coffee. The smell of his breakfast, eggs and bacon and God knows what else, wafted up to Bucky’s nose.

“Hey man,” Steve greeted as he saw his friend waltz in quietly. “I made some bacon.”

“I’ll have a plate.”

Even Steve could hear the tightness in Bucky’s voice. Cap turned, faced his friend, and bit the corner of his lip. “You want to talk about it?” he asked quietly, tentatively. “I’m here, you know that. No judgement whatsoever.”

Bucky nodded, the frown on his brows creasing the skin between. A moment passed where the bacon popped and sizzled. Then Bucky cleared his throat. “I just hate hearing, over and over, just how horrible I was.”

Steve was quick but calm in answering. “That wasn’t you.”

Bucky’s head snapped up. “Wasn’t me?” he said. “Steve, that little girl that I basically broke like a plastic doll was beaten by a very real me. And that girl, Nat, was very real too.”

Steve wanted to comfort his friend and it showed in the way he hesitated, hands outstretched, for half a second before shaking his head. “It was Hydra,” he answered. “It was the Winter Soldier. The Bucky I know would never dare lay a hand on a woman and certainly not a child.”

Lips pinched, Bucky nodded, anger and that familiar confusion rising in his chest. “She knew me as the Ghost,” he mumbled, eyes wandering across the floor, unable to meet his longtime friend. “All her life, until, well, until SHIELD fell. She knew me as this elusive, abusive machine.”

Steve nodded slowly. “I know, she told me.” Then he took a step and put a hand on the other man’s shoulder, finger’s clenching reassuringly. “I hate what they did to you. To your mind. I hate what they made you do.”

Bucky’s eyes burned with tears, and for the first time in a long time, he let them brush past his lashes and down his cheeks. “Fuck, Steve,” he murmured, dying to lean into his touch. “How could I have done that to little girls?”

Seeing his friend in such pain, Steve went in for a hug, wrapping his arms around Bucky’s head. It was such a vulnerable move, to have his head against Steve’s chest, face pressed in until the shirt was wet from tears.

When Steve spoke, his voice was strained. “You should ask Natasha for the rest of the story,” he said. “If you want. If you can.”

Bucky nodded, retreated, wiped the tears from his eyes. A lump was still lodged in his throat, but he smiled and wandered back out the kitchen.

If he was going to get the rest, he’d do it now. Now, when he was ready.

The compound was quiet given the hour. He knew Sam was still sleeping and Scott was probably up reading a book. The hallways were calm, just the pit patter of the air conditioning and ventilation. Wanda’s room was quiet on the second floor. Vision, who doesn’t really, totally sleep, was hovering above the upstairs living room floor.

But Bucky knew Nat was awake. She was trained since she can remember, and if she had been under the same care that Bucky had been, she was up early enough.

The door to her room was ajar. Bucky pressed his knuckles and pushed it open. Her room, bare of any memorabilia like his own, was empty. The lights were off. Bed was made in that army-like preciseness. Clothing and belongings tucked in the closet.

Bucky went back to seeking her out, and when he found her, she was in the library. Out of all the places he searched, he didn’t expect her to be there early in the morning.

She glanced up from her book, red hair a wet rope in a braid down her back. She smiled, watching him from her place curled up on an armchair. Standing there for half a second too long, Bucky felt like he was on the verge of something. He felt like he always did when a memory tried to pierce the veil of his mind.

He took that feeling, that feeling he knew was not good or bad, and walked up to the redhead.

“Morning.” Her voice was sharp and when he sat down, her eyes watched him with keen intention. “How did you sleep?”

He rolled his eyes. “Bad.”

“Me too.” Then she closed the book and set it on her belly. “Nightmares.”

“Dreams.” Because the worst wasn’t the nightmares. The nightmares, he could handle. What was worse was the dreams that carried hope and love and tenderness; those dreams that were colored pastel pink or blue with laughter and smiles and warmth. Those were the worst. Because when he woke up to the bleak emptiness of his room, to the heaviness in his chest like a ton of bricks had been dropped on him, he knew he could never live what he’d just dreamed about.

“I used to have dreams when I was young,” she rasped, meeting his gaze slowly. “I used to dream that my mother would come and get me, and we’d walk out of the doors just her and me. Forget the other girls that were training with me. Forget the injustice of it all. We just simply walked out together.”

Bucky frowned. “You remember your mother?” he asked.

“Only that she had red hair like me,” was Nat’s quiet answer. Her eyes were vacant when she unfurled from her position to sit with her knees facing him. “Then I used to dream that I’d kill everyone in that Room. I’d kill the girls. I’d kill Mistress Galina. The medics. The trainers... You.”

They stared at each other for a second.

Then Nat continued: “But then those dreams became nightmares, like they always do,” she said. “Hopes and aspirations become the demons chasing you in your nightmares, mocking you.”

“Did you ever have nightmares about me?” he asked, tone almost shameful.

She swallowed hard. “Yes.”

Russia, 1999, Red Room. Black Widow Program. Class of ‘84.

It had been a year since Natalia had met with and been sorely humiliated by the Ghost, as she called him now. He haunted her nightmares like a plague; every corner, every somber alley or dark hallway, he was there.

Natalia roomed with three other girls. Bunks. She slept in the second one, bottom bed. Her roommates, Nadia, Tiana, and Lev, were all a few months older than Nat, so when she was transferred to their room, she was forced to bunk in the bottom.

Lev was the one she was closest to, but in the Red Room, under the constant supervision of the Mistresses, there was no room for attachment. No room for sentiments. It was completely void of any emotion, and if you were caught with a negative emotion, you were sure to spend a few nights in isolation.

Natalia had learned to cage her feelings between her ribs, to tuck her sadness or her envy between her heart and bones. To tuck vulnerability and sympathy deep down inside of her.

The ghost himself didn’t look like a man fit for emotion. His face remained as stoic as ever as he walked the girls through fighting stances. He was cold. Calculated. Stiff. The word “no” never sounded so threatening than when it came off his lips.

Ever since her total humiliation, Natalia had worked tenfold to better her fighting. She was the best among the girls of her class, even so that none picked her as a fighting partner. She was either paired with a trainer or a dummy.

But the most devastating thing was not her lack of “friends” or the way the Mistresses looked at her or the whispers she heard behind her back. The worst was her knowledge about the Ghost. He was a trained killer. They had emptied his brain and filled it to the brim with training. They voided his feelings, something Natalia wished they’d done to her while they injected her with a reformed version of the Serum.

But with that knowledge, she could sometimes see it in his eyes. A shift. A quirking eyebrow, a cocking head, squinting eyes. He remembered things, and not things he was supposed to. When those things happened, very rarely, Natalia would see the subtle change; parting his lips, his face going from blank to open in a matter of seconds. Then the guards would come and haul him out.

When he’d come back, it’s like he had never had that glimpse of his past life.

And today, during training, he had one of those epiphanies.

He was not a talkative trainer. Not like the Mistresses. He was quiet, watchful. He was assertive. If Natalia didn’t land a kick the way he’d taught it, she was sure to be told.

“Higher.”

Nat turned, sweat on her brow, red hair sticking to her wet cheeks. “Yes, sir.”

She tried again, the movement in its entirety, but when she turned to watch his face, he was shaking his head. Brown hair scratch across his stubble. “I said higher.”

“Yes, sir.” This time, breathless, Natalia did it again. She was beginning to feel the days training in her body; bones and muscles straining and aching.

When she turned, heaving, to face him, he was giving her one of those looks. Faraway. Wide-eyed. Lips parted as if words were trying to come out. Brows pulled up in surprise, as if he was not expecting to be here.

“Sir?” Natalia tried, remaining a respectable - and safe - distance from him.

Brown brows scrunched up into a frown. “Nat?” The voice that came from him was small, childish, and Natalia’s entire body went into alert.

The girls had been specifically told by Mistress Galina that if ever the Ghost - or Asset as she called him - were to exhibit any strange behavior, that he be reported.

But Nat hesitated. His eyes were so clear and blue, as if he knew who he was and what he was. As if he understood. As if everything was making sense.

He reached out momentarily. Nat saw the way Galina turned abruptly to them, felt the tension in the room snap, the glare on her face. She knew she must have looked as equally shocked as the Ghost, so she schooled her features into a stoic, cold expression and glided her eyes to her Mistress.

“Ma’am.” Her voice was cold and she all but saw the way the Ghost stiffened. “I request your presence here.”

Galina, dressed in black training gear, jogged to where the Ghost was standing. She took one good look at him, at the way the confusion ran limpid in his eyes, and grabbed her walkie.

“Asset team in training room eight,” she called. “I repeat, Asset team in training room eight.”

There was a long - but yet short - moment where Natalia stood before the Ghost, clenching her fists. If he decided to bound off, there was no one to stop him right now. With his superhuman strength and the metal arm that glinted in the light of the room, not even Mistress Galina could stop him.

But like all the episodes he’d had before, he just stood there. Looking sadder and sadder. Scared. Empty.

Then the team came in through the double doors. Assault rifles, black and glistening, paired with a red visor. Helmets. Batons. Tasers. And the doctor behind, in a stark white robe.

On instinct, as soon as the guards were in the room - twelve in all - the girls backed into the far corner of the room. Natalia joined Lev, sharing a quick look, before standing on guard with the other girls. Mistress Galina, Mistress Hosk, and three trainers came to stand along with them.

They watched as the team surrounded the Ghost, his eyes wide and fearful. Guns aimed at him, but he didn’t seem to register, or mind, and as the doctor approached him hesitantly with a syringe in his hand, the Ghost let himself be struck across the face. Hair blew into his eyes. Neck exposed to the syringe piercing his skin.

That night, Natalia had a nightmare. What would have happened if he’d decided to run? If he’d finally decided to escape?

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