#maybe if i buy the exact same dress again nobody will suspect anything

[queen-hastur]

my favourite dress is beginning to fall apart :(

maybe i should not have worn it almost every single chance i got

[soldierswar]

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.