I Knew Him

“You know, I’d be more than happy to show you how JARVIS works.” He held up both of his hands as if to fend off immediate complaint. “I know you probably more-or-less get how, but there is definitely more to it that could keep you better entertained. I can show you the in’s and out’s. He’s incredibly useful, if a bit snarky.” “Glad you think so, Sir,” JARVIS returned with, amazingly, for an intelligence that existed solely within a binary code, hints of both amusement and sarcasm. Tony pointed at the ceiling and sent a meaningful look towards Bucky. “Case and point. You’d almost think a sarcastic asshole made him.” Breaking into another smile and winking, Tony gestured for Bucky to come closer to him.

Bucky huffed out a laugh as JARVIS gave his witty remark. Bucky was slowly getting used to the disembodied voice that sounded throughout the Tower, answering demands and commands in that smoother than smooth British accent. “I happen to like sarcastic assholes,” Bucky remarked as he flew the board over to Tony. “Life would be dull without ‘em.”

He carefully stepped off the board, one foot at a time, and let the board hover in between him and Tony. Time to have his arm looked at then. Bucky had to take in a deep breath as he reminded himself that this was an infinitely safer environment than Hydra ever was. Tony was a friend. Tony wasn’t going to intentionally hurt him. Tony wanted to help him. Bucky was safe here. This was a safe place. Tony was a safe person. Bucky did not have anything to fear here.

“Alright, sure. Arm first, then more hovering.” Bucky gave Tony a strained smile and tried to push his fear and worries deep down inside of him. “I gotta be honest,” he said when he realised that trying to ignore how he was feeling wasn’t going to be the best approach, “the last people who looked at my arm were Hydra and they didn’t exactly treat me with kindness. Not that I think you’re going to be the same, but I might- yeah. I might not be the best patient.”

God, that smile. Tony thinks he understands Steve a little better now, because yeah, who wouldn’t want to make Bucky Barnes smile? He feels warmer, somehow, like he’s succeeded. If he can do anything, anything to drag Bucky back a little from the darkness, he’s up for it, now. It’s been a damn long time since anyone’s been this playful with him. Since he’s genuinely been friends with someone, maybe.

Bucky smirked back at Tony, not missing the not-so-hidden innuendo he was making. Before Hydra, Bucky was the biggest flirt he knew. While he wasn’t feeling so up for that kind of thing now, he made note that Tony was just as bad as he used to be. He could almost picture Steve’s face now if he ever caught Bucky and Tony flirting up a storm together.

For now though, Bucky’s attention became focused on the hover board. He put one foot on it and tested his weight on it. It appeared to be holding steady although it didn’t feel entirely stable either. He glanced at Tony and gave him a nervous smile before putting his other foot. There were a few wobbles but Bucky was able to maintain his balance by holding his arms out. The weight of his bionic arm made it a little more difficult to stay balanced but Bucky managed it. He kicked off the floor and sent himself and the board gliding across the room.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he exclaimed, “I don’t care what Spangles says; I’m keeping this thing!”

Tony Stark was a man of his word. He and Steve might argue over what that word was, exactly, but Steve respected that about him at the very least. True to his agreement, Tony had allowed Steve to lock down the cinema room near the top of Stark Tower, password known only to Steve, so that he could enjoy some private time with Bucky in somewhere that wasn’t his own suite.

It might have sounded paranoid, and it probably was, but Steve still didn’t trust the outside world when it came to Bucky. Not when HYDRA was still out there, not when the US Government presumably still held Bucky accountable for the Winter Soldier killings. It was too dangerous to pretend it wasn’t happening.

He was still overjoyed to have Bucky back, however, and while his efforts at security might have been excessive it didn’t stop Steve from trying to carve out some quality time with his best friend, which at that time involved the pair of them lolling around on oversized bean bags working their way through all the James Bond movies.

Steve’s opinion?

Bucky had been struggling not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the James Bond movies. Was this how the rest of the world perceived the intelligence community? If so, they were extremely disillusioned. While Bucky didn’t have the clearest of memories of his time as a spy, he knew it wasn’t anything like what James Bond was going through. Hell, if Bucky’s experience had been more like Bond’s, he would’ve never complained!

“Suspension of disbelief, Stevie,” Bucky drawled as he helped himself to more of the Reese’s pieces that were a part of the snack haul Steve had brought with him. Bucky was still acclimatising to modern tastes but what he had tried so far, he liked; especially the explosion in different types of candy and sweet things. “This is a work of fiction. It’s supposed to be ridiculous and fantastical. Otherwise it’d be boring and no one would pay to see these movies.”

Bucky chewed on his candy and glanced at Steve. It was the first time that Bucky could remember that Steve actually looked at ease. There was still an edge to him, like he was waiting for the worst to happen, but visibly there wasn’t as much tension in his muscles as there had been recently.

“You take things too seriously,” Bucky informed his best friend. “Just let the fantasy that is James Bond happen and stop questioning it.” Bucky thought about extending his advice to other areas of Steve’s life but he held that back. Steve never was good at being told what to do if Bucky’s memory served him right.

Tony’s eyes saddened immediately. Being locked up, yeah, he had an idea of what that was like. Nothing on par with what Barnes had gone through, he was sure, but still, something that kept him up at night and followed him like a walking nightmare. “Poor choice of words, buddy, sorry.” He gave a weak smile. “But hey, by the way, if your arm is giving you any trouble I’d be more than happy to take a look, yeah? Make it move a little better, I can add features, if you’d want… If the shoulder is bothering you, I have this new thing I came up with that can make the transition totally seamless.” He puffed up a little again, proud of his own work, and that it was now used to help rather than blow places he’d never seen to all hell.

“Besides, if you don’t have a piece of Stark tech attached to you in this day and age, who the hell are ya?” Tony winked and paced over to a cabinet to pull out the hover board he’d mentioned.

“I think bunking with Rogers would be quite the adventure, considering he wants to throw me off the top of the tower half the time. It’d still be worth it to see him walk around shirtless.” It’s clear he’s joking, grinning ear to ear, and his eyes sparkling with mirth as quickly as they had darkened with sadness. 

Throwing the board to the ground, which it never hit, Tony carefully rested one foot on top of it. “Not a word to anyone, especially Barton, alright?” He warned with a pointed finger. “Or no robot.” 

Bucky barked out a laugh and shook his head over Tony’s comment about Steve wandering around shirtless. “It doesn’t happen all that often,” Bucky informed him. Then a spark of the old Bucky came through, broke through the doom and gloom of all the brainwashing and broken memories. “More’s the pity.” He grinned back at Stark, and for the first time in a long time, he enjoyed a joke. He could get used to this.

But then his attention became utterly distracted by the hover board. It lived up to its name as it hovered above the ground. It didn’t make a sound and looked like it was powered by magic. Bucky knew it must be magnets and electronic batteries doing the magic but all of the technicalities were beyond his understanding.

Absent mindedly, he crossed his heart and held up his right hand, all while still staring at the board. “I swear I won’t tell a soul.” He looked up at Tony and a slow and an easy grin stretched across Bucky’s features. “But you are going to let me have a go though, right?”

“It’s fine, we don’t have to.”

Steve swiped his wrist over his forehead, pushing a stray lock of hair off his brow. His hair was getting long again, he thought, closer to how it had been straight after waking. Closer to something that might have been familiar to Bucky in a world gone crazy. Milkshakes and apple pie, it had all seemed so easy for a heart beat.

“You’re safe with me. I would never let anyone hurt you. Not-”

He choked on the rest of the words because of course he had let Bucky hurt. He hadn’t looked for him. He’d left him hurting for decades. He sank into misery, walked into its depths with stones in his pockets, and smiled for Bucky all the while.

He was still in the gym and Steve was still stood in front of him with a distressed look on his face. Bucky flinched as he realised that he was the one to have caused Steve that distress. This wasn’t the first time Bucky had hurt Steve and it probably wasn’t going to be the last. Even when Steve tried to put on a smile for Bucky, he could still see the hurt in his clear blue eyes. Steve never had been good at hiding his feelings, especially from Bucky; this piece of knowledge ringing loudly in Bucky’s mind as one of the truths he could trust.

“Sorry,” the apologies tumbled from his lips. “I’m just used to lurking in the shadows. Still not used to the whole normal living thing.” Was he ever going to be used to living normally, if there was going to be such a thing for the Winter Soldier? 

“Let’s go,” he said quickly, determined to let Steve lead the way. Technically Steve did still outrank him and if the good Captain wanted milkshakes, so be it. He knew this world better than he did right now. If Steve was sure that they would be safe, Bucky believed him.

Being faced with a Bucky who was relatively docile, who was lucid and seemed to remember Steve, seemed almost harder than dealing with violence or anger. The horrible whisper at the back of his head took Natasha’s voice, took SHIELD’s voice, and told him this as too easy, to keep his guard up anyway. The Winter Soldier was good. The Winter Soldier never failed, and Steve was his last target after all. The last orders he’d ever been given.

Who the hell is Bucky. His heart throbbed in his chest. If this was all an elaborate plan then he’d break open, split clean in two, and never come back from it. Steve weighed the options. Acceptable risk, in the face of a chance of happiness.

“I can get you food, there’s so much food now. Howard’s son has a– a sort of butler? He can bring anything you ever want, whenever you want it.”

Sweat cooled in his collar bones, in the valley of his spine. He jerked his head to one side, eyes roaming over Bucky’s face the whole time.

At least that was what he kept telling himself.

He wasn’t going to be able to escape the after effects of decades of brainwashing so easily. Yes, ttoday was a good day but that didn’t mean tomorrow would be, or the next day, or the day after that. Was it fair of Bucky to inflict those bad days on Steve? Didn’t Steve have enough to worry about already? Bucky didn’t let himself think about that, regardless of if that was selfish of him or not. One day at a time.

Bucky was ready to follow Steve wherever he was going to lead but he stopped dead in his tracks. Steve’s oh-so-friendly gesture of getting a milkshake turned Bucky’s limbs to lead. Surely that wasn’t safe. What if someone saw Bucky and recognised him as the Winter Soldier? What if something triggered him and Hydra’s brainwashing came back and took over from his senses? What if, what if, what if.

“Are you sure about that?” He asked, clearly worried and anxious. His breaths were starting to get shallow as panic began to take hold of him. “You know best but will it be safe?” Will it be safe for him to be in public and not lurking in the shadows? Will it be safe for Steve to be seen with him? Will it be safe for Steve to stay in the company of the assassin who had tried to kill him? 

Tony scratched the top of DUM-E’s head, just the apex of his three prongs, and shrugged. “One of these clutzes? Sure, no problem. Give me about two hours and I’ll have one built that doesn’t knock over everything it touches. What do you want it to do? Oh–” He turned on his heel and snapped his fingers, eyes gazing directly into Bucky’s. 

“Your rooms. They have everything you need? I know Rogers is freaking out and trying to keep you locked up, but seriously, anything you need, just let me know. Amazon loves me, so– Oh, that’s an online delivery service for all sorts of things, and they love me, so if you need anything I can have it here in a day. No problem. That, and if you want your own suite, just let me know, I’m certain we have open quarters somewhere…” His eyes slid to the side as he thought. “You’re still staying with Rogers, right?”

Even though Bucky was excited about robots and everything else, it didn’t really show in his features or his body language. He was still holding back from showing his true feelings,still unsure of how wise a move that would be. When he had been in Hydra’s clutches, they had used his emotions against him. Anything Bucky had shown them, they twisted and tortured him with it. He was still learning that it was a lot safer now to allow himself to openly emote and this process was going to take time and patience. 

“Steve’s just trying to keep me safe,” Bucky said, immediately jumping to his dearest friend’s defence. He knew Tony wasn’t meaning to cause offence but Bucky couldn’t stop himself. It felt like the natural thing to do, after all Steve had done for him during his rehabilitation. “Plus I’m not locked up. I’ve locked up and what I have here isn’t it.” Dark memories stirred inside of him, threatening to block out anything positive Bucky was currently experiencing. Everything Hydra did to him was always hovering on the edges of his consciousness, waiting for any kind weakness to exploit.

Bucky swallowed the bile that had risen up in the back of his throat and shook his head in an attempt to shift the darkness back to the edges of his mind. Not now, he told himself. “Plus I like bunking with Steve. But the moment we start getting on each other’s nerves, I’ll let you know about that spare room, OK?” Bucky attempted an easy going smile and a change of subject. “So where’s this hover board then?”

DUM-E waggled and made a whirring noise as it turned to follow. “No–” Tony said immediately and held his hand out. “You finish cleaning and then you can come play with the big kids.” DUM-E lowered it’s head and made a low whir, turning back to the table. At this Tony groaned, and gestured for the robot to follow. “Fine, fine, but only because Sergeant here likes you.” He tossed Bucky an amused look as the robot toddled towards after them as he led them through a door and into a new room.

Bucky glanced over his shoulder at DUM-E as he made an attempt to follow them. He nearly spoke up in defence of the robot (yeah, he was now living in a time when he could defend the right of a robot!) but Tony eventually caved and DUM-E was allowed to come with them. Bucky smiled at the robot as it whirred and caught up with them. “Can I get one of those?” Bucky asked as he thumbed towards DUM-E.

It was everything he had ever wanted. Best possible outcome, no trade offs. Nobody gets hurt. Steve himself might end up with something more than his broken heart but in that moment Steve knew it was worth the risk. He was never afraid of Bucky, not even when he was busy putting three bullets in him in a ship above the Potomac.

“I’ll put cushions on the floor if you want, Buck.”

He leaned back heavily on the punch bag, giving a watery smile of his own in return. A temporary retreat into his own space while he got himself under control and could be strong for Bucky again.

“I live with Howard’s son right now, Tony Stark, you know about him? He owns the big show off place right by Grand Central Station. You’d be okay there. I have my own suite of rooms, you… you wouldn’t have to see anyone that you didn’t want to. No-one has to know where you are until you’re ready. I can keep you safe. Stark can keep you safe.”

One of his eyebrows quirked up at the mention of Howard Stark, or at least his son Tony. A distant memory of a flying car and other seemingly ultra modern inventions of Howard’s stirred and that was enough to spark Bucky’s imagination. The man with the bionic arm had always been fascinated with the futuristic possibilities of inventions. Seeing what Howard’s son had managed to achieve in these modern times excited him.

Despite that excitement he could feel starting to bubble inside of him, it didn’t show on his face. There was still too much fear and apprehension going on in his mind. Too many what if’s were casting doubt over the excitement.

Tony’s expression shuttered at the mention of his father, but ever the practiced performer he put on another smirk and gestured with his head further into the lab. “Yeah, I know who you are, Sergeant.  And I’ll just pretend you didn’t break into my lab–” Tony conveniently left out that he’d set JARVIS’ protocol to allow Bucky in, as well as the rest of the Avengers, “and that Sir Spangles hasn’t been hiding you in his room, and you make me dinner tonight, how about that? I’ve heard it mentioned you’re not too bad in the kitchen,” Tony intoned with a charming smile as he paced back towards where his Iron Man suits, the first ones, scrappy, banged up, and proud as ever, displayed in cases with singular lights shining down onto them.

Finally addressing Bucky’s query, he waved his hand loosely at his work bench, which, as always, is littered with welded parts, nails, bolts, and wrenches. He clicked his fingers at DUM-E and the curious robot whirred happily forward. 

“You, butterfingers, clean this is, we have a guest.” Whirling on his heel back towards Bucky, he patted DUM-E on it’s “head.” “This is DUM-E. Shoulda scrapped him years ago, but–” his words are punctuated by the robot dropping a wrench onto the ground and then giving a dismayed whirr. “I got too nostalgic. Anyways, moving on. My dad really, uh… pushed me as a kid, I had a knack for engineering, went to a few schools for it, and voila, here’s my lab. I mean, it’s not like I can’t afford to material to build it all, and it gives me something to do, let’s me be useful. Also, dad’s flying car was a shitty gimic, and he knew it. I fixed it years ago, but the price point is too high for it to make any economic sense,” he finished, clearly bored by the topic of his father’s inventions. “Dearest Daddy was much better at blowing things up than building. Speaking of, want to see an honest-to-God laser gun?” 

He grabbed a futuristic, sleek, shiny, metal, gun off a table and grinned. “I have a target range.” 

“Sir Spangles? You mean Steve?” Bucky huffed out a laugh at Tony’s nickname for Steve. Bucky got the impression that Steve either didn’t know of this nickname or didn’t approve of it. Whichever it was, it was kinda funny. “I could be worse,” he said in reply to Tony’s statement about his talents in the kitchen, “as long as you don’t want anything too over complicated for this dinner of yours.”

Bucky stared, dumbfounded, as the robot whirled to look at Tony without any obvious eyes. It nodded at Tony’s instruction and whirred and hummed as it got to work. Bucky had a bionic arm but it still boggled his mind to see a robot act like that. This whole place was fascinating. “Pleased t’meet ya, DUM-E,” he said, giving the robot a wave and a smile.

Before Hydra, Bucky would have been blown away by the laser gun. He would have eagerly taken the weapon from Tony and shot the damn thing as many times as he could get away with at the target range. Now though, he felt sour towards guns and weapons in general. They were an essential part of society now, he knew that, and heroes like the Avengers needed weapons to protect themselves and their planets. But that didn’t mean Bucky had to like them.

“You shoot it, I’ll watch.” Bucky tried to smile as if he was relaxed and chilled about the whole gun thing but his smile was strained. He’d rather marvel at things that could fly instead of things that could harm or kill other beings. Still this was Tony’s lab and Tony’s territory; if Tony wanted to shoot things and call it having a ball, Bucky wasn’t gonna argue with the man.

“That sounds about right for us. Me being stubborn and you being worse.”

His mother had died that day less than ten years ago in Steve’s living memory, and the afternoon was crystal clear to him. A hand on his shoulder that hadn’t felt heavy, only warm and promising. Bucky’s slicked back hair and good suit and even then, in the middle of his grief, Steve remembered thinking that Bucky was everything he wanted to be.

Even though Steve meant his offer of help, Bucky was hesitant to accept it. Surely he would be a burden on Steve. Surely Steve had enough to worry about without Bucky trailing around after him like a hapless fool. The last time someone had tried to ‘help’ Bucky, he ended up with a metal arm and brainwashed.

But Steve wasn’t Hydra. Just looking at Steve told Bucky that much. Not everyone was going to use Bucky like a tool as Hydra had done (You are the new fist of Hydra, Sergeant Barnes). Steve wasn’t going to make Bucky do anything he didn’t want to do. Steve, out of all the people in the world except maybe Natalia, was going to let Bucky be Bucky.

“I don’t want to impose,” Bucky said as he looked down at his feet, as if they could offer him a clue. “But if you’re sure, I’ll go with you.” Bucky looked up again once he realised his feet had nothing of note to offer him. He gave Steve the smallest of lop-sided half-smiles. “You gonna put the couch cushions on the floor too?”

JARVIS, as Tony had programmed him to years ago, alerted Tony as soon as the door to his lab opened and Bucky took a step in. “Sir, Sergeant Barnes has entered into your laboratory. His intentions appear to be non-aggressive. He seems… curious, sir.” Tony himself was in his room, for once, a towel in one hand as he padded towards his bathroom to shower the grease and oil and grime away from his most recent tinkering session. 

Barnes. James Buchanan Barnes, known to his friends and family as Bucky, Steve’s best friend and lost love, the man with the iron arm, was in Tony’s lab, and he was… curious. With a spike of excitement Tony dropped his towel and with it all intent of showering, scooting towards his personal elevator and jabbing at the button. “Thanks, J-Man.”

Four seconds later and the elevator doors to his lab are sliding open soundlessly. 

“I still say that myself, sometimes, when I stop to look around, and I built the place,” he intoned with a small, cocky, smile. “I usually use a few more expletives, too.” Crossing over to Bucky, he stuck his hand out. “Tony Stark. I think we’ve met. I’ve heard quite a few stories about you, you know. Practically grew up on them.” 

And he had, after all. Tony’d grown up with his father telling him borderline-reverent stories about the Commandos, about Sergeant Barnes, and of course, Captain Steve Rogers, the man he could never, never, live up to, much to his father’s chagrin. He’d grown up under the weight of it all, completely in awe and filled with deep respect for the men his father spoke of, and hatred that his father never once looked at him or his achievements with an ounce of that same pride. Failure, Howard whispered. 

Still, Tony’s warm, brown, eyes never wavered from Bucky’s face, and he offered a genuine smile. “Want me to show you around?”

Bucky didn’t turn to look at Stark as he entered the lab. The sight of all the suits and gadgets and thing-a-me-bobs was too captivating for Bucky to look away. Everything was so... shiny! This really was living in the future. If only Howard Stark could see all of this now. Surely he would be proud of his boy creating all of these wonderful machines!

It was only when Tony stuck out his hand to Bucky that Bucky blinked and looked at something that wasn’t one of Tony’s incredible inventions. Damn but did Tony look like Howard. It was like looking at a ghost and it took Bucky a moment to take it all in and make sense of it. He shook Tony’s hand and grinned at him. “Bucky Barnes,” he said before releasing Tony’s grip. His eyes didn’t linger on Tony for much long, going back to the hypnotising sight of Tony’s workshop. “You made all of this? Just you? How?”

He couldn’t explain why but he felt pride on behalf of Tony. Perhaps it stemmed from Bucky’s passion for all things futuristic so being able to stand in such a place next to the man who had built it all, Bucky was proud of Tony and his achievements. Tony had built suits that could fly and shot weapons and save the day and that was just the start of it. 

The moves were wrong, somehow. Bucky wouldn’t have hesitated or stuttered over his words, wouldn’t have wavered on the spot. Steve shouldn’t have been doing it either. But the years Steve had spent sleeping and Bucky had spent killing his way through the twentieth century had changed them in ways that could prove irreparable. Still, the Bucky before him then was different to the Winter Soldier that Steve had confronted all those months ago, and something in Steve’s heart, a small quiet place, dared to hope.

He’d read books of course. Used the internet, researched conditioning, electrotherapy, psychological torture. Harrowing stuff that haunted Steve’s dreams, and really he thought it was a miracle that Bucky was even standing, let alone expressing a desire to “want” to do anything without being told. It was the use of that word, “want”, rusty with disuse that convinced Steve more than anything else, and he stood up straight and came close enough to curl a bandaged hand around Bucky’s metal arm. The arm had haunted his dreams, too, had stalked him through the battles with the Foesitians, but Steve didn’t fear it, not really.

The one thing no-one would ever understand was that until Steve died for Bucky, the metal arm would be a reminder of a debt unpaid. A guilt that would remain unresolved.

“I was never a joke to you,” Steve started, his eyes suddenly and shockingly swimming.

“Not even when I was a joke to everyone else. I’m Steve, and you’re Bucky. My best friend. Nothing about that has changed.”

His fingers curled fractionally tighter, as if he could will the memories from his body into the other. It stung a little that Bucky had gone to find Nat first, but it didn’t really matter. Bucky was there then, real and solid in front of him.

“Remember what I said to you before the ship went down? End of the line. I never could lie to you, pal.”

Bucky stared with wide eyes down at his hand as Steve took it in his own. That contact sent a barrage of emotions and sensations through him. He wasn’t able to feel touch through his metal arm like a normal one would but the sight of Steve’s hand on his arm made him think as if he could feel that touch. It made his heart skip a beat or two and his breathing became shallow for a couple of breaths. 

Steve had always been on the edge of his consciousness, even when he was in the depths of his torture at the hands of Hydra. Steve was there, out of reach and out of focus, so much so that Bucky had convinced himself that he didn’t exist. It wasn’t until that moment on the bridge (“Bucky?” “Who the hell is Bucky?”) that he began to realise that Steve was real. Hope had been drained out of Bucky though and it wasn’t until now that he dared to let the tiniest of slithers of it back into his life.

Bucky looked up from their hands and back into Steve’s eyes, seeing the tears that brimmed there. There was no reason for Steve to lie to him now, no reason for any deception or conditioning to make Bucky fall into line. Steve’s words were honest and genuine, just like they always had been. Steve couldn’t lie, Bucky reminded himself as vague, shadowy memories of their childhood tried to surface in his mind.

They were in trouble. Bucky said they should lie. Steve wasn’t so sure. Bucky said: leave the talking to me. Steve agreed. Steve’s mom Sarah was staring them down. Bucky kept his cool. Steve tried to too. Sarah saw right through him. Later Steve tried to apologise. Bucky laughed and told Steve to keep his mouth shut in future.

Almost lazily, she lowered herself onto the sofa, crossing her legs elegantly as she watched the man before him. She wasn’t sure exactly how much he remembered, wasn’t sure exactly who she was to him right now but she had no doubt that she would find out soon enough.

Their own blend of Russian and English was still in her head, still as fresh in her mind as the first day they had spoken it. It had never been a foolproof code but, with the Red Room, no one could switch between the languages as swiftly as they could back then. It had been their own way of communicating, a way that not even their superiors could take from them. A tiny shred of rebellion.

The soldier and the spider.

She did not miss the way her words seem to hit him hard but it did not bother her. She knew the feeling of trying to recover from memory wipes. So many of them. The Red Room had taken her to the memory chamber more times than she could count and she knew that only patience would get someone through such things. She could sense the shame radiating from him and rose, moving to stand before him.

“Yes, it is. But here, they call me Natasha. Natalia, they said, was too close to the name of a Soviet operative - responsible for the death of hundreds.” She said wryly, watching him carefully. “So, to the Americans and SHIELD, I am known as Natasha.” She wasn’t sure how he would take to such a change but, if he did so negatively, Natasha had no qualms about allowing him to call her Natalia.

Once upon a time, Bucky would have known exactly what to do and how to act around Natalia. He would have been confident in his presence being in her apartment, her space. He would have already taken a seat, made himself comfortable, and he would be teasing her about the fact her hair has changed since the last time they saw each other. But that was the old Bucky, the one that had existed before Hydra’s torture had gotten too much for him. Did that version of himself exist any more? Perhaps but if he did, he was buried deep inside of Bucky’s present consciousness.

He stood still as she sat on the couch, lounging so easily while in the company of someone who had caused so much pain to so many. She had done her own amount of damage during her assassin days but her debt was nothing compared to his, at least in his opinion. Everyone carried their past in their own way and dealt with the consequences of their past actions in their own way too. If Natalia could recover from the Red Room, there could be hope for Bucky’s recovery too.