#avengersangst

Natasha twists around to look over her shoulder. Sure enough, through the layers of her shirt and the hoodie she stole from Clint, a dark patch of blood is spreading.

“Shit,” she sighs. She stands, and suddenly sways. Clint rises immediately, and puts a steadying hand on her back, mindless of the blood.

“Easy,” he murmurs. All eyes are on them now. Clint guides her through the lounge towards the door, focusing on her as the team make various noises of alarm. He walks her out of sight down a corridor before he speaks again.

“How bad is it?” he asks.

“I’m fine,” she mumbles. He swears quietly, but doesn’t press the issue. She is leaning more heavily on him now, and he can’t believe he didn’t notice how pale she was.

The first room they come to is his, so Clint diverts them inside, and into the bathroom. There, he helps her pull off the hoodie. The back of her shirt is soaked through with blood. He strips that off too, and is confronted by a soaked gauze patch, which in turn reveals a bullet wound below her left shoulder.

“Fuck’s sake, Nat,” he mutters. She hangs her head, but he doesn’t know if that’s shame or blood loss and exhaustion. The wound has been clumsily stapled, and she obviously thought that would do it, but performing a wound closure on herself while reaching over an already injured shoulder has punched the staples half into the wound and half into untouched skin. She must be in agony. Clint knows where she stands on painkillers.

He cleans his hands and makes quick work of the first staple, but as he pulls the second out, covering his fingers in blood, he hears an intake of breath from behind him. He and Natasha turn, and find Steve holding a first aid kit loosely in one hand. His mouth is half open, but he is frozen, staring at the ragged hole in Natasha’s skin, and the blood dripping down onto the bathroom floor.

“I’m fine,” Natasha manages, but it’s less than convincing coming from her pale lips.

“You’re not fine,” Clint snaps. “Don’t be an idiot.”

“Clint,” Steve protests.

“If you’re not going to help, get out,” Clint snaps. That seems to hit Steve where it needs to, and he kneels down, opening the kit.

“Don’t,” Natasha mumbles, swiping at Steve. She leaves a streak of red down his clean shirt.

“Stop it,” Clint says, firmly. She responds to his tone, and lets him work. Clint ignores the glare from Steve. He cleans the wound and grabs the suture kit.

“Wait,” Steve says, his voice panicked. “She needs-”

“She won’t take anything,” Clint interrupts. “Right, Nat?”

“No drugs,” Natasha says faintly.

“But-”

“She won’t, Rogers.” Clint pushes him gently but firmly out of the way, leaving more blood on his shirt. Steve watches in detached horror as Clint sews Natasha’s wound closed. Natasha doesn’t make a sound. When he’s done, he wipes her skin with antiseptic, and helps her up. Steve watches them walk unsteadily to Clint’s dresser, where he finds her a new shirt.

“You okay to stay here?” he asks her, and she nods. He helps her into bed, and Clint rests his hand on her shoulder for a long moment. Then he strips off his shirt, grabs a clean one for himself, and washes his hands.

“Come on,” he says to a stunned Steve as he goes for the door. Steve, shirt still bloodied, follows him.

“What the hell was that?” he demands, when they’re out of earshot.

“Pretty standard,” Clint answers. They enter the living area, and Clint ignores the sudden wave of alarmed questions from the team, who have instantly spotted Steve’s bloodied shirt. He waves them all off, and gets himself a beer.

“She’s fine,” he says, finally. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Is she seriously so proud that she’d rather bleed out than ask for help?” Tony asks sharply. Bruce elbows him, far too late.

“It’s not pride,” Clint yawns. “It’s just how she is.”

“How is it not pride?” Steve asks. “Clint, she wouldn’t let you give her painkillers before you sutured her.”

“What?” Bruce gasps. Even Thor looks horrified. Clint looks around at them, and remembers that these men have only known Natasha a few years at most. They still have a lot to learn.

“She was trained to be like this,” he says. “You can look it up in the files SHIELD has on the Red Room program. They desensitised the girls to the point where they would fight until they dropped.”

A heavy silence settles on the group as they process this.

“It’s been so long,” Steve says, finally. “Hasn’t she… you know, broken the programming?”

Clint shrugs. “Most of it. But there are parts that are so ingrained that no one could undo them. There are some things she’s always going to do, or believe, no matter how insane they are.”

“Pain is weakness,” Thor says, musingly. The others look at him, surprised. He chuckles, but it’s not a warm sound. “My father taught me the same thing,” the god says. “I was lucky. My mother did not think that way.”

Clint nods. “She lived a whole life before I met her,” he says. “All those years, she never had anyone she could trust enough to ask for help. Sometimes she still won’t let me help her. There’s nothing I can do about it, except be there when she’s ready to need me again.”

Natasha cried out, and allowed them to knock her sidearm out of her hand. With uncharacteristic clumsiness, she wrenched herself away and threw a weak punch. To anyone who knew Natasha Romanoff, it was obvious she was acting. Apparently to the men dragging her towards the compound, this was not so obvious. Natasha kicked and screamed until one of them clamped a hand over her mouth, and as Steve watched, she disappeared into the compound. Her decoy commlink was wrested from her in a flurry of static and shouting. The backup comms kicked in, and the noise settled into a clear feed of sound from inside the compound.

“You won’t get away with this,” Natasha was telling her captors.

“Shut up,” one of them growled. There was a thump, and Natasha grunted in pain. Steve winced. It had sounded like a kick from a heavy boot. Nothing too serious. Nothing worth breaking his cover over, he reminded himself.

“Alright, she’s in place,” Tony said. Steve blinked, and took a breath. They had to monitor the situation. He and Tony were Nat’s only safety net on the ground. Clint was above them, hovering high with Bruce in the shielded quinjet. Everything was in place. All they had to do now was wait until Natasha made her move.

She couldn’t yet, though. Steve knew it was going to be at least a few hours until the bugs she had dropped on the way in could work their way into the system and get them the information they needed. Until they could send Natasha the signal to go, they were stuck with a one-way link to her. They could hear everything, but they couldn’t talk to her.

“Good evening,” a voice said, over the comms. Steve had to assume it was one of the guards. No higher ranking HYDRA personnel were in the area, and the base was manned mostly by a skeleton crew.

“Mind telling me what you were doing snooping around our facility?” the voice asked. Steve focused on details. It was a man, and he had an American accent, which had a tinge of Southern to it. Steve couldn’t place it.

“Chester,” Natasha recited. It was a cover she’d selected earlier. “One-five-seven-nine-Alpha-Theta-four.”

“I just want to have a conversation.”

“Chester one-five-seven-nine-alpha-theta-four.”

“Chester, is it?” the man asked. “Are you an agent?”

“Chester one-five-seven-nine-alpha-theta-four.”

“Agent Chester, then. How did you get inside?”

Again, Natasha repeated the phrase. The man asked more questions, and was answered each time with the recitation of numbers and letters. He didn’t sound particularly frustrated, and Steve started to relax.

After almost fifteen minutes of brick wall questioning, there was a sigh, and the sound of a door closing. Steve shifted to get more comfortable, and listened. The door soon opened again, and Steve heard multiple sets of footsteps.

“Chief says you ain’t talking.”

“Chester one-five-seven-nine-alpha-theta-four.”

“So he said to come have a little fun with you.”

“Chester one-five-seven-nine-alpha-theta-four. Chester one-five-seven-”

Natasha’s recitation was cut off abruptly, and Steve jerked when he heard the sound of a slap crackle over the comms. Natasha gasped, and then spat.

“Chester one- Ches- no- what are you-”

She cried out, and Steve curled his hand into a fist. What followed sounded like a flurry of punches. Steve had prepared for this. He knew torture was always a possibility, Nat had even talked to him about it before they’d left. Don’t let it get to you, she’d said. It might happen. It might sound real. I can take it. I can handle it. He had believed her, but now… now it was different. It was actually happening, and he had to sit there listening to it. It was a lot to bear.

“Rogers.”

It was Tony. Steve started guiltily.

“Here, Tony.”

“You okay?”

“Mmhmm.”

There was a silence between them, broken only by the grunts Natasha was making as she was struck repeatedly.

“It’s okay,” Tony said, although his voice sounded slightly quiet. “She knows what she’s doing.”

There was a little more silence.

“No,” Natasha said, sounding frightened. Steve bit his lip. “No, don’t- please- please-”

She screamed, and Steve let a huff of air escape his lips. He didn’t want to listen, but he couldn’t. If she said the password - Tony had joked about safewords before - then he had to be ready to jump into action.

“She’s a good actor.” It was Clint, chiming in from above. “Don’t worry. She’s okay. She-”

A louder scream cut them off. It was ragged, and full of pain and fear.

“Clint,” Steve said, uneasily, “are you sure? It sounds real.”

“It always does,” Clint said. Steve wasn’t sure, but he thought he might be hearing doubt in Clint’s voice too.

“Please!” Natasha shouted, hoarsely. “Please, don’t- don’t! No!”

More screaming, then soft sobbing. Steve could feel bile in his throat. This was worse than feeling the pain himself. He wanted so badly to jump in and do something, but he knew he couldn’t. She hadn’t said the phrase he needed to hear.

“What if she can’t say it?” he asked.

“What?” said Tony.

“What if she forgets it? What if she can’t say the word, and she needs an extraction and we can’t get to her?”

“Calm down, Rogers,” Tony told him, although there was a shake to his voice as Natasha’s sobs echoed down the link. “She’s… she’s just acting. It’s fine. She’s fine.”

“Help me,” Natasha moaned. “God, please, someone- no, no no no, please, no-”

She screamed again, crying out for help, praying out loud. Steve had never heard anything so horrendous. He could only picture what was going on in there. Horrible things. Terrible things. He could barely contain himself. He knew the others would be feeling the same way, so ready to jump in and save their teammate, their Natasha. They couldn’t let this go on much longer.

“Got it,” Clint said. “Bruce has the data. Sending the signal now.”

Steve heard three distinct beeps, and suddenly the crying stopped.

“This has been great, guys,” Natasha said, suddenly sounding like her old self. “But I have to be going.”

There was laughter, which abruptly turned to shouts of alarm and screaming from the men as the link hissed with noise. Steve couldn’t follow what was happening just from the sound, but it was definitely violent. After a few minutes, he heard Natasha again.

“Ready for pickup,” she said. “I’ll be at the rendezvous point in two minutes.”

Steve got to his feet, and began the jog through the trees to the meeting point. When he got there, Natasha was already waiting at the treeline, and Tony was just emerging from the forest. He heard the sound of engines, and before he could say anything, the quinjet appeared. The three of them clambered on board, and before they knew it they were away.

Steve immediately cast off his shield and went to Natasha’s side, grabbing the medical kit as he went.

“Where’s worst?” he asked feverishly. Tony opened the kit and began rooting around in it. Bruce climbed out of the copilot’s seat and joined them.

“Grab gauze,” he directed. “Suture kit- get that disinfectant. God, Tony, get out of the way, I’ll do it.”

“Nat,” Steve said. “Nat? Nat, are you okay?”

“Get off me,” she said, waving him off like he was an irritating insect. “I’m fine, what- Bruce, what are you doing? Get that out of my face.”

Steve moved back, bewildered. Natasha pushed Tony away with her foot, and took hold of the kit herself. She zipped down her suit and rolled it off her top half, revealing some shallow cuts and bruises.

“What…” Bruce mumbled.

“You’re not…” Tony continued.

“I told you,” Clint said, shaking his head. Natasha looked at the three of them, and her gaze softened a bit.

“Idiots,” she sighed. “Those guys barely knew how to hold a knife, let alone torture someone.”

“So…” Steve mumbled. “You… that was all…”

“I’m excellent at faking it,” she smiled. She looked to Tony, expecting a quip, but he just sank down into a seat and ran his hands over his face. Steve felt embarrassment pulling the blood to his face, and he took a seat beside Natasha.

“It’s okay,” she said, her voice gentle. “I take it as a compliment.”

“I thought…” he mumbled.

“I know,” she said, taking his hand. “Come on, Steve. It’s okay. I’m alright. Here, help me with my back.”

She turned, and handed him a pack of band-aids. Sheepishly, Steve took the box, and stuck the little plasters down over the cuts on her back.

“Tony,” she said. “Could you grab the antiseptic wipes from the kit?”

Tony did as he was told, and Natasha handed Bruce the suture kit.

“There’s a deeper one on my shoulder that probably needs a stitch or two,” she said. Bruce sat on her other side and began to clean out the cut. Natasha sat back and let the three men tend to her. Only Clint caught the amused glance she threw him, and he chuckled to himself as he piloted them towards home. If the team needed to look after her to recover from their ordeal, then so be it. Apparently, it had been harder for them to listen to than it had been for Natasha to endure it. So, she squeezed Steve’s knee, and Bruce’s hand, and nudged Tony gently with her foot, making contact with all of them one by one. They seemed calmer, and each one felt better knowing they were helping a little.

When they arrived back at the compound, the three of them stood awkwardly by as Natasha climbed down from the jet. She smiled, and kissed each of them on the cheek as she passed.

Three days later, Rocket says his goodbyes and boards the Guardians’ ship with Nebula. They aren’t used to this world, and staying here on the planet where their friends died can’t be a fun prospect. Natasha understands. She goes out with the others to wave them off, and to watch the spectacle of the ship rocketing up through the atmosphere until it is out of sight.

Conversations are thin on the ground when Carol announces she’s leaving, and Natasha almost wants to ask her to stay. It’d be nice having another woman around the place, but Carol is a superhero, and superheroes have places to be, things to do. It’s been a week since Rocket and Nebula left, and they haven’t heard from them.

“I’ll call when I can,” Carol promises, and hugs her. They’ve never hugged before, but it feels appropriate. Who knows where they’ll be the next time they’re in contact range? Natasha feels another piece of her life slip away as Carol follows the same path as the ship. She’ll call when she can, Natasha repeats to herself. Steve squeezes her shoulder, and Natasha clasps his hand. Everything is falling away, even now, even after the battle is done.

Two weeks after that, Thor leaves quietly in the night. They don’t realise he’s gone until Bruce goes to check on him and finds a note. It’s not much, just a few lines saying he’s leaving to be with his people. It’s not personal, Natasha knows. He’s got better things to do than to hang around with what’s left of the Avengers. This is their new reality, and they have to make do with what they have. Half of the Asgardians might still be alive, and Thor is their leader. He had to go. She wonders if he really had to go without saying goodbye.

It stings a little more when Rhodey departs in their second month together, mostly because he doesn’t really have to. The facility has all the tech he needs to pick up the pieces of the military, but he’s always been a boots on the ground man and he doesn’t like directing from behind the scenes. There are only so many high ranking officials left, and he’s one of them. He tells her all this while she tries not to let her emotions show. They’re drinking, as they so often are, by the big windows overlooking the lake. The others are around somewhere, milling in the quiet space of the empty complex.

“They need me,” Rhodey says, and she nods.

“You get them in line,” she tells him. “Then you can come back.”

“I’ll be back,” he promises. It’s empty, she knows it. No one wants to be here anymore, in the hub of everything that failed. The home of the team that is no longer here.

It’s a few days before she realises that it’s only the three of them. Bruce is here and there, mostly pottering, trying to distract himself. Steve is reaching out to SHIELD contacts, trying fruitlessly to plan, to network, to do his job. Natasha spends a week tracking Clint down. She went to the farm, in the very first days after the Decimation. She found the ashes, still lying where they had fallen. She found the tossed house, and knew he was alive straight away. His cell and broken ankle monitor were in the master bedroom, and she lay there for a long while, on his bed, wondering how the world had come to this. There was no note. Maybe he thought she was dead. She left one for him anyway, left it on the kitchen table where she had eaten breakfast with his family so many times. All gone now. All gone to dust.

Six months after the end, Bruce announces his plan to leave. Natasha feels that same heavy feeling in her chest, the same feeling as when Rhodey left, the same feeling she gets every time she sees a picture of what Clint’s doing all around the world.

“I’m sorry, Nat,” Bruce says, even though she hasn’t said anything. She doesn’t have to, and she can’t hide her sadness anymore. She’s tired, and there’s no one left but Steve to be strong for. But he’s an old hand when it comes to tragedy, and he’s moving on faster than she can keep up with.

“You do what you have to,” she says, taking his hands. “Whatever you need. Then you can come back.”

He nods. “I will.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

Bullshit, she wants to say, of course you won’t come back. Who would want to be here? Why would everyone have left if this was a good place, a place where they could hold on to what little they have left? But she can’t ask him to stay when he doesn’t want to, so she helps him pack, gets him a car, and sees him off on his way. Later, Steve offers her a hug, and she takes it gratefully. There’s no one to hide her weakness from anymore. It’s just the two of them, and the big, empty facility.

For a while, it seems like it could work. They get up, train together, run around the lake path sometimes. They work together, setting up the new networks, consolidating the contacts they have left. A system emerges, and the rhythm lasts for months. It’s been a year and a half since the Decimation when Natasha sits down to breakfast one morning, and Steve, across the table from her, looks up nervously.

“I’m going to head back to Brooklyn in a couple of days,” he says. Natasha’s hand tightens on her spoon. She stares at her cereal.

“Just for a few days,” he says. “You’ll be okay on your own, right?”

She is embarrassed by her own relief.

“Yeah,” she says. “Of course, I’ll be fine.”

He goes, and for the first time in eighteen months, Natasha is alone. Of course, she’s spent most of the past year and a half alone anyway, but there have always been others around. Now she’s entirely alone in the facility, free to drift around like a ghost. She remembers when Tony finished the rebuild here, how they came to see it, how it felt for the first time in her life to have a real team, and some semblance of a family. Now she’s alone. Perhaps this is how it should be.

Steve comes back after three days. They fall back into their routine. It’s comfortable, and Natasha is grateful that Steve, at least, hasn’t left her.

“I’ll be in the city next week,” he says, the next month. “I’m helping to set up a few support groups with the VA.”

“Great,” she says. “I’ll miss you, though.”

She does. It’s a long week, though she fills it up with emails from Rocket, a call from Carol, checkins on Rhodey and Thor, and a fresh report on some horrific activity she’s pretty sure is Clint rampaging in Cairo.

Natasha has a knack for reading people, and she realises what Steve is going to say before he says it. They are nearing the two year mark of this new life, this life that Natasha is struggling not to call an afterlife. She knows Steve has built new things for himself, new relationships, and he has a new purpose. So she knows what he’s going to say, and she holds up a hand to stop him.

“It’s okay, Steve,” she says. “Brooklyn is your home. The city, that’s… it’s your home. You don’t have to explain yourself.”

“I’ll visit all the time,” he says. He’s not terrible at reading people either, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Natasha, faced with a life alone in the facility, is scared.

“You’d better,” she smiles, forcing it, pretending that this is okay. It’s not, of course, but she doesn’t need to burden Steve with the fact that she needs him, that he’s the last person standing between her and absolute solitude.

He packs up and leaves within the week, and then there is just silence. There are parts of it that are nice. She doesn’t have to worry about crying in the common areas. She can cook whatever she wants, and she can get up at all hours of the night without worrying anyone. And there are parts of it that are bad, like the crushing loneliness, like the feeling of failure, like the lack of arms around her when she needs them the most.

Some of them visit, of course. Steve comes when he can, although after the third year she barely sees him. She reminds him of the past, she knows, and he doesn’t want to live in those memories anymore. Rhodey comes in and out when he’s in the country. She gets calls from Bruce, and her reliable emails from Rocket and Nebula. Carol drops by once in person, and on the video conferences when she can. Natasha remains, as she always does, and fills her days with her work, keeping the place going, being a constant source of information and support for her friends who are out there in the universe.

It’s something of a surprise when Tony checks in on her. He doesn’t come to the facility, but she’s invited out to a house she didn’t know existed, and when she gets there, she meets a two-year-old named Morgan and comes face to face with a Tony Stark she didn’t know could exist - a happy, fulfilled Tony Stark, married to Pepper, father to a beautiful baby girl.

Natasha’s heart is full for him, before it breaks for herself on the way back to the facility. Alone again, at the wheel of a black sedan, she cries her heart out. The steering wheel is marked by her fingernails and when she finally gets out of the car, her shirt is wet from her own tears. She goes inside, straight to the comms hub, and works through the night. She reorganises her file on Clint. She cleans up the office. She drinks too much coffee.

As the sun comes up, Natasha’s eyes are burning and her hands are shaking. This is her life now, alone in the facility. She sets her jaw, and goes about her duties. She will carry on.

“Not really,” she sighs, letting herself fold down so her forehead is pressed against the counter.

“Bad dreams?” he asks. She turns her head to look at him, and he shrugs.

“I’m getting predictable,” she mutters. She might have passed it off as a joke, but then her lip wobbles and she straightens up. He motions for her to come over and she does. She’s frightened, and Steve gives really good hugs. She even lets herself rest her head on his shoulder for a moment before she breaks off.

“You gonna be okay?” he asks. She knows he badly wants to offer help, but he’s learned that she won’t (can’t) accept it, so she just shrugs, as if she knows what the answer to his question could be. He makes his tea, and she follows him out of the kitchen. He gives her a smile when he reaches his door, and she carries on back to her own room.

Her bed is a yawning mouth, and she hovers in the door. This is stupid, she thinks. She’s not afraid of her own bed. No, not the bed. It’s not the bed that’s the problem. She’s afraid of what her own mind is going to show her when her head hits the pillow.

She lies down anyway, because Natasha has never shied away from a challenge. It’s a competition she loses every night, but she’s trying again, because what else can she do? Stay awake forever? Tempting, but impossible.

The nightmares come back in what feels like moments. She can feel herself being cut open, noise and fear coming at her from every angle. Her loved ones are cut down around her like wheat by a scythe. She is at the centre of the maelstrom and when she wakes, gasping, sweating, she can only curl up on her side, shaking violently. She looks at the clock. Only two hours have passed. She gets out of bed and walks around her room. The bed is taunting her. She’s so tired. She’s been tired for weeks.

“Romanoff?”

Someone is knocking at the door. She goes to open it.

“It’s three in the morning,” she tells Tony. He’s still in his clothes, and has clearly just emerged from the labs.

“Is it?” he asks. “Huh. Want a drink?”

Natasha doesn’t know why he’s here. He either heard her calling out as he passed, or he genuinely just wants a drink. Either way, she can’t go back to bed, so she follows him away from her room and back to the lounge.

“Can’t sleep?” he asks, as he hands her a whiskey. She sips it. It’s a good one. She shouldn’t be surprised. Everything Tony stocks in his liquor cabinet is top notch.

“Bad dreams,” she says. He looks at her like he’s surprised, and she realises she hasn’t talked with him about this before. It’s weird, but it feels kind of good to admit that she’s struggling. Plus, she’s taken him by surprise. He has no witty retort for an admission of this sort.

“Have you tried sleeping pills?” he asks. “I use them sometimes.”

“Don’t work on me.”

“More alcohol?”

“Makes them worse.”

“Ah.”

He’s actually trying, she realises. He’s not making fun of her. Tony is genuinely offering her solutions to her problem. She feels herself relax a little, but that wall is still there, preventing her from admitting any more of her weaknesses. He can’t know. He’ll never respect her again if he finds out the true extent of all of this.

“What do you dream about?”

“Stark.”

“Come on, you can tell me.”

Natasha shakes her head. Her throat is tight, despite the alcohol. No. She can’t tell him. She doesn’t have the words to encapsulate the whirlwind of red and blood and black and fear that is every night for her these days. Tony might understand PTSD, but he remembers what it’s like to sleep calmly.

“Hey,” he says, and his voice is awkward, uncomfortable. “Hey, don’t…”

Natasha realises with a tired wave of horror that she’s crying. She doesn’t have the energy to stop. Tony shifts off the couch and moves over to crouch in front of her. She tries to bat him away, but he sits there, squatting in front of her, and it’s so fucking awkward that she almost stops crying, but her emotions have got her by the throat now, she can feel her airway constricting in time with her ragged breaths. Natasha can only dip her head as she feels Tony patting her knee in whatever semblance of sympathy he is able to muster.

“Sorry,” she manages, when she catches her breath. Tony, mercifully, has not tried to hug her. He does look concerned, though, even more concerned than when she gets injured in the field. She hates that mix of pity and sadness on his face. He knows as much about her past as everyone else does nowadays, and that’s what she sees when he looks at her like this. Poor little Natasha. Such a terrible childhood. So much pain. So broken. She looks away from him.

“Don’t,” she says, as Tony opens his mouth. “Don’t- I can’t deal with you if you’re going to pity me.”

He shrugs, and gets up. He goes to say something, and thinks better of it. He looks annoyed, which causes a weird twinge in Natasha’s chest, but is otherwise a relief. If he’s mad at her, he can’t feel sorry for her.

“Fine,” he huffs. He flops back into his own chair, irritated, and sips his drink. Natasha downs hers, and gets up to leave.

“If you decide you want help, you know where to find me,” Tony calls after her. She ignores him, and goes back to her room.

When the door shuts behind her, she leans back against it and stares down her bed for the third time tonight. The clock reads 3:28. There are still a few hours before she can reasonably get up for the day, so she climbs back under the covers and tries to imagine somewhere warm and pleasant.

She dreams, of course. At first it all seems fine. She’s in her room at Clint’s farm, and the morning sun is streaming in through the window. The curtains move in a light breeze, and Natasha wonders for a moment if the facility is the dream, and this is real. She gets up, and goes to the door. The house is silent, but as her feet hit the landing she is filled with a deep sense of dread. Something bad is at the bottom of the stairs. She knows it. She can feel it. She hears a noise, and descends despite the buzzing fear in the back of her head.

Natasha calls out for Clint, but her voice falls flat and at the same time echoes in her own ears. The ground floor seems dark, even though she can see perfectly. Natasha trips as her foot hits something solid. She looks down, and recoils. It’s Cooper, lying sprawled on the ground. He’s covered in blood. A few feet away lies Lila, and as Natasha struggles over to her, her feet weighed down by some force of her nightmare, she knows it’s too late. Her nephew and her niece, Clint’s children, are dead. The grief overwhelms her and she stumbles backwards, tripping again. She falls, and next it’s Laura she sees, hunched over as if to protect something- it’s Nate, still in her arms, both of them pale and covered in blood. Natasha knows there is only one more person to find, and her head is spinning, nausea rising in her stomach and tears on her cheeks, but she has to find him, she has to know where he is, has to warn him before he sees all of this.

She finds him in the kitchen. He’s lying on his back, blood pooling under him. His eyes are open, and as Natasha falls to her knees beside him, he looks directly at her.

“Why?” he rasps. Natasha doesn’t understand, then she looks down and she sees a knife- no, her knife, lodged in his chest. She reels back, and suddenly her hands are covered in blood, her clothing is wet with it, her hands are littered with scratches and scrapes, with fingernail marks-

“Why, Nat?” he asks.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m sorry, Clint, I…”

“You killed us,” he accuses. “You killed my family.”

“I didn’t,” she pleads. “Clint-”

The world dissolves into fire and it’s burning her, dragging her backwards to the heart of the inferno, and Natasha screams, clawing at nothing. She wakes, ripping at her bedsheets, and thumps hard onto the floor as she tries to escape the dream. She grips her knees, leaning back against the bed as the room comes into focus. The clock blinks 6:02, and the sun is finally peeking through the blinds. Natasha fumbles for her phone, and dials.

“Hey, Nat.”

“Clint,” she mumbles. “Hi. Sorry… sorry to call so early.”

“It’s fine,” he says. “Nate’s already up, and Cooper and Lila want pancakes, so I’m cooking while Laura has a little sleep in.”

She wants to weep from relief. “Can I talk to the kids?”

“Sure,” he says. “Is everything okay?”

“No,” she answers. “Don’t wanna talk about it.”

Clint hands off the phone and Natasha hears a rustle.

“Morning Auntie Nat!” Cooper says. “How are- Lila, get off! How are you?”

“I’m good, baby,” she murmurs. “Be nice to your sister. I’m just calling to say good morning, and to tell you I love you guys.”

“We know that,” Cooper says. “Did Dad show you a picture of my new bike yet? It’s a ten-speed.”

“Wow,” she says. “That’s amazing. Can I talk to your sister?”

“Sure,” Cooper says. “Here- Lila! Come here! Auntie Nat wants to- hey!”

There is a brief scrap, and Natasha listens to the sound of Clint scolding his kids while he cooks breakfast. He probably has Nate in one arm while he mixes pancake batter with the other. She can just picture it, the sunrise filling the farmhouse with golden light, the kids in their pyjamas. It’s a far cry from her dark room at the facility.

“Hi Auntie Nat,” Lila chirps.

“Hi, sweetheart,” she says. “I’m just calling really quick to tell you I love you.”

“I love you too,” she says. “Can I go? Me and Cooper are playing with legos.”

“Of course,” Natasha says. “Give me back to your dad, okay?”

“Okay, love you!” Lila calls. She is handed back over.

“Come visit us,” Clint says. “I’ve got your room made up, so just come by whenever.”

“I will,” she promises. “There’s just a lot for me to do here at the moment.”

“Okay,” he says. “Anytime. Got to go, I think Cooper just started World War Three over a lego spaceship.”

He hangs up, and Natasha grips her phone. They’re all okay. They’re fine. Her weird little adopted family are living their lives safe and sound several states away, and she hasn’t done anything to hurt them. Clint knows something is up, but when is something not up? Everything will go on like it usually does.

Natasha gets up, and stretches. She makes her bed, ready for the next round of battle when she eventually has to sleep again. She goes straight to the kitchen and makes a beeline for the coffee machine. With a black coffee in hand, she reads the newspaper, and tries not to remember the visions of her dead loved ones. She gets to an article about wheatgrass on page three, and folds the paper closed, instead opting to gaze into the depths of her mug and watch the steam swirl off the surface of the coffee. It’s okay. With the sun in the sky, it’s all okay. She doesn’t have to worry about sleep for a while yet.

He is asking more questions, but her body has just registered that she’s finally safe, and the adrenaline that’s been running through her veins in place of all her lost blood dissipates. She registers the elevator opening again, but that’s the last thing she’s aware of as her legs give out beneath her and she falls to the floor. She hears someone shouting, and then she hears nothing.

-

“Did you see her fingernails?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you see what they did-”

“I saw everything,” Clint snaps, rounding on Steve. “Just- stop.”

Steve sits back heavily in his chair, and swirls his drink around his glass. The ice clinks, and it does nothing to distract him from his thoughts. He can’t get drunk, but this feels like an appropriate time to have a drink in his hand.

“We should have found her,” Steve murmurs. It’s late, and the lounge is empty but for the two of them. Natasha is still in surgery with Helen Cho, who has been flown in by Tony.

“We did our best,” Clint says, but it’s hollow, and the subtext is exactly what Steve’s just said out loud. His voice is bitter. Their best wasn’t good enough.

The door opens. Tony walks in. He looks as exhausted as the two of them feel.

“Is she-”

“She’s stable,” he says. “Whoever did this to her knew what they were doing, but she’ll heal with time. Bullets are out, she bled a lot. Helen says she’ll need a lot of looking after, but she’ll be okay. She… yeah. She’ll be okay.”

It’s not much, but it does a little to ease the tension. There have been at least three times in the last twelve hours that Clint has been sure his partner is going to die. They only know what happened before they lost contact with her, although her laundry list of injuries has gone some way to solving the mystery of what happened to her. They don’t know who took her, or why, or where. There’s a beat up old Nissan parked outside on the gravel, which hasn’t provided many clues other than a Missouri license plate and a shitload of blood on the driver’s seat and the console.

“We should all get some rest,” Steve says, ever the voice of reason. Tony nods, and Clint tries to look like he’ll be doing anything except sitting by Natasha’s bed until she wakes up. Maybe Steve already knows this, because he claps Clint on the shoulder, and leaves him to it. Clint snags a bottle of something brown from the bench and walks the long way to the medical unit. Helen is typing when he arrives, and she has mercifully changed out of her bloodied scrubs.

“How long will she be out?” he asks. He doesn’t ask if she’s okay. He knows she’s not. He doesn’t ask if she’s going to be okay. Neither of them know the answer to that.

“The anaesthetic should wear off in about two hours,” she tells him. He nods, and she gestures to the door of one of the recovery rooms. He pushes inside and goes to sit in the chair Helen has left there for him. Is he really so predictable? If he shares such an obvious bond with his partner, why didn’t he find her before this violence was perpetrated? Why didn’t he stop them from torturing her? She looks exhausted, even while unconscious. Clint swigs at the bottle in his hands, trying to wash the guilt from where it sits lodged in his throat. It doesn’t work, but the burn is nice.

He dozes for a while, always waking to check, sometimes drinking.

“Barton.”

He rouses. Natasha is sitting up. She hasn’t ripped out her IVs, so she probably knows where she is. That, at least, is comforting.

“Uh oh,” he chuckles. “Last name. Am I in trouble?” She doesn’t reply, just gazes evenly at him. He is put in mind of the early days, long before they were working together. “Tasha?”

“Eight days.”

He tastes bile. “I know. We were looking, I barely slept-”

She interrupts with a scoff, and he falls silent.

“You barely slept,” she mutters. “Eight days, Clint.”

He doesn’t know what to say. She stares him down, daring him to make an excuse when he knows there are none to make.

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t care,” she tells him. It hits him in the gut, and he wishes she would just punch him. Then he would know she was okay. This, this quiet anger from a woman who can barely move from her injuries, this is so much worse than a physical blow.

“Get out.”

“Tash-”

“Get out.”

He rises, and thinks about arguing, but she’s looking at him with a coldness in her eyes that he hasn’t seen before. This is new, and it scares him. He leaves the room, presses a button to summon Helen from wherever she’s sleeping, and then goes to his quarters. He passes out on top of his blankets.

-

Natasha is begrudgingly released after three days, on strict instructions from Helen that she is to remain on bed rest for at least the next week, an instruction that no one in the facility will have the nerve to enforce. They can only hope that Natasha’s self-preservation instinct extends to injury recovery.

Bruce is the first person to be refused entry to her quarters, swiftly followed by Steve. Clint thinks she’ll let him in. He’s sure of it. She’s never gone this long without talking to him, and he’s never been so completely unable to check up on her.

He comes back to the lounge and throws himself down on the couch. The others don’t need to ask if he was admitted into her rooms. He’s only been gone ten minutes.

Tony slips out quietly, while Steve and Bruce try to talk Clint through it. He makes his way to her door, and with Friday’s help, he overrides the locks and lets himself in.

The blinds are all open, letting the sunlight in. The space is neat, which is unexpected. Natasha is sitting by the window with a cup of tea, and as she watches him walk through the door, she sets the mug down on the coffee table beside her. She turns the mug so the handle is facing away from the edge of the table.

“I’m sorry for the invasion of privacy,” Tony says, holding his hands up. “You know I wouldn’t do it unless I had to.”

“I’m gonna give you one chance to leave,” Natasha says. She stands up out of her chair, and moves towards him. When he doesn’t move, she stops about half a foot away from him. For a terrifying second, Tony wonders if they’re going to hug.

“Romanoff, I know you blame us for not saving you.”

“I don’t need to be saved,” she says. “And that was your chance.”

She swings, and before he can duck, her fist collides with his solar plexus. There is so much force behind it that he doubles over, barely catching himself on the couch as he staggers backwards. She doesn’t have to tell him to leave. He’s already on the way out, trying and failing to straighten up as he convinces himself he’s not running for his life. The door locks behind him.

Clint finds him lying on the floor in the lounge, slowly getting his breath back as Steve watches on. There’s not much any of them can do.

-

By the time six days have gone past, Clint has formed a rough plan. After Tony’s encounter with her, Natasha has been spotted here and there around the facility. Whenever anyone enters a space she’s already in, she leaves. If anyone tries to talk to her, she ignores them. Clint is watching Steve slowly fold in on himself from the guilt, and he’s had enough. There’s always a solution. His might not work, but god damn it, he has to try.

At his request, Friday lets him know when she enters the kitchen. Clint goes after her, and finds her at the toaster. She hears him coming, and goes to leave.

“Don’t,” he says. He catches her shoulder and she pulls away from him, glaring. He stands between her and the door.

“Get out of my way.”

“Natasha-”

“Move.”

He puts his hand on her shoulder and she grabs his wrist, twisting his arm painfully behind his back.

“Do you want me to hurt you?” she demands. She lets him go, and makes for the door. Clint grabs for her again, and she whips around and knees him in the stomach. He gasps, and drops to the ground. Natasha advances on him. Her eyes have that same cold look he saw in the medical unit.

“I don’t know what else to do,” he wheezes. “So do what you have to.”

She looks like she’s about to help him up, but instead her foot connects with his side. Clint grunts, and tries to get to his feet. Natasha swings round and he catches another kick, this time to the back of his knees. He goes down again, and again, he staggers to his feet. Natasha punches him square in the jaw. He doesn’t make a move to defend himself, and she doesn’t seem to have a problem with that as her next punch breaks his nose. Clint can feel himself choking on his own blood, and another punch splits his brow. She’s methodical, and calculated, and Clint realises that this plan was garbage. She’s not breaking, she’s not emotional, she’s just doing to him what he asked her to do. What he wanted her to do. She knees him in the stomach and he drops like a stone.

Steve finds him lying there twenty minutes later and helps him to the medical unit. Helen has departed, so Clint cleans himself up as best he can, and Steve puts him to bed.

“We’ve got to do something,” he says to Tony, after the sun has gone down and the two of them are the last ones left in the lounge.

“Mmm,” Tony says. Steve can’t tell if he’s agreeing or not.

-

“What the hell is this?”

Natasha has her hands on her hips, and even with bruised eyes and awkward injury-protecting posture she still looks formidable.

“Natasha,” Steve says, rising from his seat. “We’re worried about you.”

“A fucking intervention?” she demands, looking around at the team. They are sitting in a semicircle, with an empty chair waiting for her. In the centre, opposite where she is expected to sit, Clint is watching her. Despite two black eyes and the gauze covering his nose, he still looks at her with pity in his eyes, and she despises him for it. She turns for the door, contempt plain in every taut muscle. Steve is up and blocking her exit before she can blink.

“Move,” she says. Even. Calculated. Steve shakes his head. Natasha switches tactics.

“The last people who locked me in a room were the people who tortured me,” she says. Steve visibly blanches, and he almost lets go of the handle.

“Remember?” she asks, hardening her tone. “The ones you didn’t bother to come save me from? The ones who ripped out my fingernails and cut lines into my skin? The ones who raped me?”

“Give it a fucking rest, Romanoff.”

Everyone turns to look incredulously at Tony, including Natasha. He is leaning back in his chair, arms folded.

“Tony,” Steve exclaims, his scolding hushed as if Natasha can’t hear him.

“What?” Tony retorts. “You see what she’s doing, right?”

“Stark,” Natasha warns.

“No,” he says, and raises a hand. “I know what you’re doing, and this kind of shit isn’t going to fly with me.”

He stands, and the corner of his mouth twitches. “You know how many times you’ve manipulated me? You’ve used every trick in the book on me, I’ve watched you do it to other people too. But not this time, not to us. You can snap Rogers’ will like a twig but not mine.”

Natasha, for once, is lost for a response. Steve is still gripping the handle, staring at Tony with a mix of confusion and apprehension.

“We’re your friends,” Tony says. “No, more than that. Hold onto your hats, cause this cliche’s a doozy. We’re your family. You can’t guilt us into letting you beat up Barton, or me, or…”  Tony glances at Steve. “Hurting Steve’s feelings, I guess?”

“Tony,” Clint protests.

“Shut up, Barton. I’m defending you and your broken nose.”

Tony walks over to where Natasha is still being blocked by Steve.

“What happened to you was terrible,” he says. “I know what it’s like to be tortured. It sucks ass. We should have found you sooner, and we didn’t. And we’re sorry. You know we are, and you also know we did everything in our power to find you. So you go take some time to yourself, and if you beat on anyone else, I swear to God I’ll tattle on you to Fury.”

He motions, and Steve lets go of the door. Natasha leaves, and Steve sags. For a long few moments, it’s quiet in the room.

“You’re such an asshole,” Bruce groans, his face in his hands.

“He’s right,” Clint admits. Steve nods.

Three corridors away, Natasha stops. She clenches a fist, and stops herself before she hits the wall. Her fingers gently touch the cool plaster, and then she rests her head against it, willing her heart to stop racing, pleading with her own pulse to stop strangling her.

He’s right. She knows he’s right. She should go back there, talk to them, apologise. But part of her is still aflame with the injustice of it all, that she was taken because she’s a woman, because they could hurt her in ways they couldn’t hurt the others, and the others, the others- they didn’t come for her, they didn’t save her. After all this time, all these years of learning to trust Barton, to be vulnerable, and then to trust this team, after all this time, she still had to save herself. It is a small comfort that she is strong enough to do their job for them, although Natasha has always known this to be true.

There is strength in forgiveness, Clint told her once. Oddly poetic for a man who prides himself on being able to eat two pizzas in under twenty minutes. What he meant is that holding a grudge only corrupts a person, poisons them until the hatred is all that there is. She doesn’t want to be that way. She’s tried it, and that path wrought nothing but destruction, endless violence and death. Clint saved her from all of that. Her Clint. Her boy with the bow. It is a strange life she lives, and she knows that any life at all is more than she hoped for when she was younger. In the Red Room, all she wanted from life was to leave it quickly and painlessly. Now she is allowed to want so much more, and she does, and the result is these emotions she was never permitted to explore before. Love. Trust. Heartbreak. Disappointment. It’s a wild pastiche, this life.

Her head is still resting against the wall when she hears footsteps. She arranges herself, and prepares to greet her partner.

It’s not Clint. Tony emerges from a doorway, and she huffs, annoyed.

“You okay?” he asks. Regret rises in her as she realises he’s truly worried for her, and that he’s suffering as much guilt as the others.

“I shouldn’t have punched you,” she says.

“That’s not technically an apology.”

“Well, I’m not technically sorry.”

He smiles wryly. Natasha sighs, and faces him.

“I’m sorry I blamed you,” she says. “I know you did everything you could.”

“You’re home now,” he says. “It’s okay.”

Something in her wavers. It’s such a comforting thing to hear from someone she’s only really ever traded insults with.

“Thank you, Tony.”

She doesn’t expect the hug, and when it comes, she wants to cry. These people love her. He’s right, they’re more of a family than she’s ever had. She lets her head rest on his shoulder, and marvels at the terrifying vulnerability he’s letting her show, without mocking, without passing any comment at all. He just hugs her, happy that she’s here. He cares that she’s alive, and Natasha can’t help but be amazed at how that feels.

Tony finally pulls back, but surprises her one last time by pressing an awkward kiss to her forehead. It’s the most intimate they’ve ever been, and she sees him put his guard back up as she punches him gently in the arm.

“A few of us are going to watch shitty movies in the lounge tonight,” he says. “You don’t have to come, but if you want to come-”

“I’ll be there,” she says. He nods, and walks away. Natasha wanders down the corridor, lost in what’s just happened.

-

-

Natasha passes Tony in the hall. He doesn’t think of them as the best of friends, but it’s odd that she doesn’t acknowledge him. Tony swivels to make an accusatory remark, but she’s already sweeping towards the kitchen. He frowns, and follows.

The sun is low in the sky, and the orange light is carving through the windows of the kitchen, striking the benches and turning them red. Tony admires the sight for a second, then returns his attention to Natasha, who has sought out the liquor cabinet with frightening efficiency. She uncorks a vodka bottle, and leans back against the bench as she necks a significant amount of it.

“Bad day?” he asks, as he enters the kitchen. There’s an energy here that he doesn’t like, and he wants to leave. Something tells him he shouldn’t. Something is wrong.

“Bad life,” she mutters. Tony doesn’t know how to respond to that, but before he can, she throws the bottle back again and swallows.

“Woah,” he says. “Are you- is everything okay?”

Natasha shrugs, and sets the bottle down. Instinctively, Tony reaches out and moves it out of her reach. She looks at him, but there’s no derision, no anger. There’s an expression on her face that he doesn’t recognise, and Tony suddenly wants to call for backup.

She moves away from him, and he walks out as though he’s leaving. He pulls his phone out, and shoots a message to Clint, then Steve. Within a few minutes, Steve arrives, and pauses where Tony has stopped, outside the entrance to the kitchen.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

“I’m not sure,” Tony answers. “She’s… something’s up, I don’t know what.”

Steve moves through the entrance, and Tony hears him swear loudly and he’s gone, sprinting towards something. Tony’s blood freezes and he follows, running after Steve. The scene by the kitchen bench is not something he could have prepared for.

Natasha is sitting on the floor of the kitchen. It takes Tony a moment to piece together the images he’s seeing. A knife, knocked out of her hand and skittering across the floor. A pool of red, splatters on the cabinets. Steve’s hands clamping down on a gash running down her wrist. Natasha’s eyes, red - how did he miss that? - her head moving as she shouts something.

“Nat!”

It’s Clint, skidding around the bench. Steve has his hand around the wound but there’s blood spurting from between his fingers. Tony crouches beside him, and Steve is saying something. What’s he saying? Tony’s own blood is roaring in his ears.

“Sam!” Steve shouts again, and shoves Tony’s chest with his free hand. “Get Sam!”

Tony stumbles back, and tries to tear himself away from the sight of Natasha struggling against Steve, who has her in a bear hug from behind while Clint tries to talk to her. She’s screaming, and gnashing her teeth, and it’s like watching an animal struggle to evade capture. Tony turns, and runs, and realises as he goes that there’s blood on his shirt.

He manages to gasp out what’s happening to Sam, who follows him back to the kitchen. He seems to know how to deal with this, and Tony lets him instruct the others. Wanda has appeared in the doorway, her eyes wide, Vision behind her, trying to pull her away and protect her, and Tony wonders who he should be protecting, and how he could have let this happen.

It’s only later, when Natasha has been pinned down and forcibly bandaged, and Clint is holding her securely in an observation room, that Tony finally lets his head fall onto his arms. He’s not asleep, but he’s lost in thought when a hand lands on his shoulder.

“Go change,” Sam says. How is he so calm right now? Tony opens his mouth to say something, but Sam raises a hand and Tony, uncharacteristically, closes his mouth again. He nods, and goes to his apartment, peels out of the clothes that have Natasha’s blood on them.

-

Bucky isn’t used to any of this. He’s technically still on the run these days, but there seems to be an understanding that while he lives under Steve’s roof, he’s protected. So there’s not much for him to worry about, and with his mind unfettered by escape plans and tactics, he finds he is starting to remember things. Just small details here and there, mostly when he’s on his own in Brooklyn. He’ll happen upon a street corner and remember a deli that used to stand on the corner, or he’ll pass an alley and picture a skinny blond boy being beaten to a pulp behind the dustbins. Little things are enough, and every recollection makes Steve smile, and Bucky likes it when he does that.

Spending time with the others is harder. Bucky’s rational brain knows that these are Steve’s friends, and while some of them are wary of him - understandable, he’s tried to kill at least half of them - they trust Steve enough to relax around him, and by extension, around Bucky. It’s still strange to be handed a drink and included in conversations.

“What do you know about Natasha?” he asks Steve one night, after he’s hosted his friends in his apartment. Everyone is long gone, but Bucky is troubled.

“Not a whole lot,” Steve says. “Even with the SHIELD file leak, there was a lot I couldn’t read. Digital decryption is still kinda beyond me.”

“It’s just…” What is it just? Bucky can’t quite pin it down. Natasha hasn’t paid him much attention, and yet there’s something about her that feels… familiar.

“Bucky?” Steve prompts.

“I think I remember her,” Bucky says.

“You did try to kill her a couple of times,” Steve offers.

“No, it’s… it’s not from that.”

Bucky shakes his head, and turns in for the night. He mulls it over as he lies awake, unable to sleep. During the evening, every time he looked at Natasha, there was some spark of recognition in him that was beyond the times they’d met on the field. He knows her. He just doesn’t know how.

It’s another week before he’s in the same room as her. Steve and Bucky are invited to drinks again, at Sam’s place this time, and when they’re a few rounds deep he finds himself sitting across the room from Natasha, who is in Clint’s lap. Clint plays with her hair, and has one arm draped around her in a comfortable embrace. Very occasionally, his lips stray to her jaw to press a sneaky kiss there, or her ear to whisper something. Natasha shifts back into Clint’s chest and suddenly Bucky remembers sitting like that, with his arms around - no, surely not Natasha. He doesn’t know her, he’s never met her, but somehow he remembers sitting with her, kissing her, his arms around her.

He stands up and leaves the room. It’s abrupt enough that Sam comes after him to the hallway - Steve is getting a drink and hasn’t noticed.

“You okay, Barnes?”

Bucky nods. “Yeah, yeah, I… think so.”

“Memories?”

God, Sam’s impeccable empathy and observation can be fucking annoying. Steve often says that Sam knows better how to deal with trauma, but it’s like having someone inside his head, and Bucky’s had enough of that for several lifetimes.

“It’s about Natasha,” he finally admits. “I think I remember her. But… from before all of this.”

Sam, to his credit, doesn’t immediately dismiss him, and Bucky is grateful for that.

“Okay, so you know her?” he repeats. “That could make sense, you were both trained in Russia, and you could have been around in the… what, the eighties? She was born in ’84, right?”

“I don’t know,” Bucky admits. “I just remember her face, and… being around her.”

Sam looks over his shoulder. Natasha and Clint are being unusually affectionate tonight. “Ah.”

“Do me a favour-”

“Barnes,” Sam interrupts, “I won’t tell her. If you want, I can look into the records and see if there’s any correlation.” When Bucky looks surprised, Sam waves a hand. “Don’t worry about it.”

They return to the party, and Bucky tries to put it out of his mind.

It’s a few days before Sam sends him a message. He wants to meet up and talk in person. For some reason, that makes Bucky’s stomach sink.

“Going for a walk,” he calls to Steve, who waves him off.

He meets Sam at a cafe, where they order coffee and Sam hands him a slim file.

“You were right,” he says. “You did know each other.”

That brings Bucky an overwhelming sense of relief. He’s not crazy, or projecting. He’s actually remembering.

“There aren’t records of any relationship,” Sam adds. “But I guess there wouldn’t be. Everything was pretty tightly sealed.

Bucky takes the file and flips through the first few pages. There’s the name, Natalia, and details of her admission into the Red Room. There is a picture of the burned wreckage of a house, and then, on the next page, a picture of a very young Natasha, possibly nineteen or twenty, and Bucky has to set down the file and breathe deeply for a moment. Sam just waits, patient as ever.

“I remember,” Bucky says. “I trained her, I think. I wasn’t supposed to get attached, but I…” His face hardens. “They found out. We were both punished. I went back in the ice.”

“I’m sorry,” Sam says. He doesn’t have to, but it’s nice to hear it.

“Thank you for this,” Bucky says, clasping the file to him and standing up. He walks away, leaving his coffee untouched.

Back at Steve’s apartment, in the safety of his room, Bucky spreads the file out on his bed. He reads every detail, saving things he can’t place in his own head, and memorising details. As he reads, more of it comes back, mostly just in montages of feelings, or images of her hair, her face, her voice. They spoke in Russian, he recalls. He loved her. That’s the worst thing to remember, how she was the one point of light in the dark stretch of years where he didn’t even know himself. He wanted to save her, and he failed. But, he reminds himself, it turns out she saved herself. SHIELD found her, through their instrument Clint Barton, and she joined up and never looked back. Bucky wonders if she ever thinks about him, or if perhaps she doesn’t remember either. That would be better, he thinks. Better for her not to remember. It wouldn’t make looking at her with Clint so very painful.

Once again, Bucky finds himself at a social gathering of heroes. Everyone is chattering, drinking, and he is grateful for Sam’s friendly clap on the shoulder. Sam never looks at him with anything like sympathy in his eyes, which is one of Steve’s great weaknesses. The super soldier can’t quite stop the pity leaching in sometimes, and as much as Bucky loves him, that drives him insane.

Natasha and Clint aren’t quite as entwined as last time, and Bucky tries not to think of that as a blessing. She’s not his, he knows that. She’s happy with Clint, and that’s all that matters. There’s no salvaging anything they had two decades ago, and Bucky isn’t sure that’s even what he wants. All he needs is to know that she doesn’t remember him. She can’t. She would have tried to talk to him, to make some connection. They are each the only fragment of each other’s past that has any good attached.

So, even though he knows he shouldn’t, he goes out to the balcony when he sees her go out for some fresh air. He leans on the rail, and sees her look at him, always assessing threats even when she doesn’t mean to. He understands. He’s tried to kill her at least three times.

“How are you?” she asks. Measured. Unbiased. He remembers that tone so well now.

“Good,” he nods. “Yeah. Good.”

“Steve said you’re enjoying going to the movies,” she prompts. God, she’s talking to him like he’s an idiot, or a child. Someone to be congratulated for tiny milestones. He reminds himself that a few months ago he couldn’t leave the house for the noise and bustle of the streets outside.

“Yeah,” he says. “They’ve really improved since the forties. CGI blows my mind.”

She laughs. “They can do amazing things, that’s for sure.”

He is silent, and she takes it as a cue to leave. He doesn’t know what to do, what to say, how to ask her if she knows him as anything more than one of the countless people who have made attempts on her life. A name comes to him, not something remembered from a file, but something that’s been in his head for years, just hidden.

“маленький паук,” he says, quietly. She stops.

“That’s what I called you, right?” he murmurs. “Little spider?”

She turns around and walks the three paces back to him. The look on her face cuts him down, devastates him. She knows exactly who he is. She has known all this time, while he’s been struggling, and searching, and remembering. She has known, and she hasn’t come to him.

“James…”

Ah, there it is. The pain he has forgotten. The last time he felt this, he was being dragged away from her, and she had been screaming his name, and he had seen her being struck, and he had known this was all his own doing.

Her hand cups his cheek. His right cheek, so his real hand can cover hers. A movement made so many times under the cover of darkness.

“I know it doesn’t matter now,” he says. “And… I’m sorry, for what that’s worth. It’s just memories, but… I loved you. I want you to know that.”

“I loved you too.”

He realises his eyes are closed, and he opens them to find pity in her face. It’s worse than anger. He has remembered far too little, far too late.

“Don’t worry,” he says, and drops his hand from hers. “I’ll keep it under wraps. Sam helped me find the documents so… I guess you might want to talk to him.”

“James-”

“My friends call me Bucky,” he tells her. He tries to smile, in a friendly way, like friends do. It doesn’t work, but she nods. She leaves, and he ducks his head for a moment, sucking cold air into his lungs like it will soothe the burning in his chest, and in his throat. For a horrifying moment, he thinks he’s going to cry.

He doesn’t. The past doesn’t bury itself, he thinks, and he goes inside to get another drink. He goes to sit by Steve, and delights him by recounting partially remembered war stories that his best friend can fill in, tales of the Howling Commandos at their prime, the best of Bucky Barnes before HYDRA, before the Soviets, before Natasha. It feels good to remember things other than pain, and Bucky is grateful that his memories aren’t just trauma. Sam devours the stories, and for a while Bucky is able to forget that his heart, newly rediscovered, is broken.

She loved him. She knew him. She knows him. These thoughts return again and again as he fails to sleep that night. He wonders what is next. He’s moved on from worse, surely. It doesn’t feel like it, but in the numbers game that is his life, statistically he has to have endured something more awful.