#buckyxnat

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

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

He had not thought of striking up a romance. 

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

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

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

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

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

“Hm.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I think.”

She gulped. “What exactly?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bucky nodded. “I had a feeling.”

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

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

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

He winced. 

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

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

She smiled tenderly. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He looked inhumane. 

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

The response came quickly. “Yes, Mistress!”

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

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

“Natalia!”

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

“Come forward.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She twist and kicked him in the gut. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She soon got her answer. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

           This was why Natasha’s cover was perfect.

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

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

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

She knew that he could react in two different ways.

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

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

           She accomplished on getting the latter.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hi,” she greeted confusedly.

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

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

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

“Hi,” he finally replied.

She smiled, and held back a chuckle.

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

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

Figures.

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

He nodded.

“You look nice,” he said.

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

“Thank you,” she replied.

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

She hated when this happened.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Once the job is done?”

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

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

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

And she did.

She also hoped that he would notice that.

…

Three hours had passed, and both jobs were done.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There would hardly be an investigation on his death.

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

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

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

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

Mission was accomplished without a trace.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This did not help the palpitations.

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

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

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

He nodded.

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

“Good.”

“And you?” she asked.

“I see you completed swiftly.”

He nodded.

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

That probably explained the outfit.

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

“You never do miss, do you?”

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

“So we have everything covered,” he said.

She nodded.

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

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

“Here,” Natasha said.

“I’ll walk you out.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

So…she followed through.

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