Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sam headed back to the group, shield on his arm—it looked right on him—and that left the two of them, face to face. “Rogers, you stupid asshole.”

Steve smiled back. Scrawny little kid, super soldier, or very senior citizen, the smile was always the same. “Let’s take a walk.”

Bucky crossed the distance between them and fell into step beside his friend. “You sure you can keep up?”

“You wanna race around the lake?” Steve challenged.

“I don’t wanna kill you at a funeral, old man.”

“You’ve tried before; I could still take you.”

“Sure thing, pal. You look like shit, by the way.”

“Get back to me when you’re 180 years old.”

“You’re double counting some of that to make it sound more impressive.”

“It all counts, my friend. Believe me.”

Bucky picked up a stone from the shore with his left hand and slung it at the lake. They paused to watch it skip across the surface, all the way to the other side. “Show-off,” said Steve, and they moved on.

“So… how was it? Your normal life. Everything you hoped?”

He looked distant for a moment, only a flash of wistfulness under his contentment. “And more. No regrets.”

“Good. You deserved it.”

That troubled him somehow, and he said, “Actually, I do have one regret. And an apology to make.” He turned the full Steve Rogers sincerity on him, and it was somehow even more powerful now. “I tried to find you.”

Bucky nodded. “Of course you did.”

“For years. But…”

“You stopped for Peggy.”

“She never would have asked me to. She helped. She’s the reason S.H.I.E.L.D. started tracking you in the eighties. But with the kids… It was too big a risk. We both had to retire from field work, official or unofficial. And then time just...passed. I’m so sorry, Buck.”

“Sorry for what? Not putting your family in the crosshairs? It was the right call. Maybe it happened how it had to happen, ever think of that? You already saved me once. What were you looking for, extra credit?”

“You deserved it, too, Bucky. The normal life, the wife and kids…”

Bucky laughed. “The picket fence? The nine-to-five? I don’t know if that was ever gonna be me. But I’m happy for you, buddy. I really am. Kind of steamed I missed the wedding, though. Who was your best man? You know what, don’t tell me.”

“I missed you, too.” That resolved, Steve said, “It’s not too late, you know.”

“For what, a stag party? I already said I’m not trying to kill you.”

Steve elbowed him. Old-man elbows were pointy. “Not too late for you to find someone, idiot.”

“There aren’t a lot of Peggy Carters to go around out there. Dummy.”

“No, there are not. But I’m an old man, and I’m allowed to be sentimental—”

“Oh, now you’re allowed, what was your excuse before?”

“I don’t want you to be alone.” If he thought the sincerity was intense, the earnestness sure packed a wallop.

“I’ve been alone a long time. It makes sense to me.”

“I know. It makes me sad, Buck.”

“Jesus. The hard sell.” He tried to keep it light. “You got a granddaughter you want to set me up with?”

“I have a great-granddaughter, and she’s way too good for you.”

“So what, you want me to join a whaddayacallit, an app? What goes on the profile first, the cybernetic arm, or the long list of political murders? Or maybe there are S.H.I.E.L.D. mixers, I’d be a real hit there.”

“Okay, smartass. I’m just saying… miracles happen.”

He tensed up and glanced away from Steve. “Yeah, well. It would take a miracle.”

“Oh, come on, you’re not that ugly.”

“I’m prettier than you now,” he smirked.

“Debatable.”

They walked along in quiet a little longer, just the birds and the rustling leaves, before Bucky said, looking at his feet, “There was someone, once. A while back. Not that long ago, considering. It didn’t last long. And it ended...badly.”

“Did you love her?”

Direct, as always. If he was pulling it out of him, he might as well get it all. “Yeah. As well as I could, I guess. I wasn’t quite myself, but with her, for a little while… at least I was somebody.”

After just the right amount of silence, Steve said, “I’m glad. I’m glad you told me.”

“You really did rack up a lot of grief counselor hours, didn’t you? Are you gonna just keep listening at me with that kindly old grampa face?” When Steve did just that, he continued. This part was harder. “It took a while for all of it to come back to me. I was hoping to talk to her, after I got my head straight. Apologize for some things.”

“What happened to her? Do you know where she is now?”

“Yeah. She died.” He stopped and looked his best friend square in the eyes, still the same damn eyes. “On Vormir.”

Steve hung his head and said, “Jesus, Buck.”

He shrugged, stuffed his hands into his jacket. “She probably didn’t remember me, anyway. They fucked with our heads pretty good.”

Steve looked out at the lake, pondering, before he finally sighed and said, “She remembered. She told me.”

Bucky just stared at him, fists clenching inside his pockets. “Well. Fuck.”

378 DAYS AFTER THE SNAP

Steve walked in on her doing what he thought of as her ritual: looking down the List of the Lost. She would sit there, sometimes for hours, ghost after ghost floating above the desk as she scanned through the files. He sat down across from her and joined the vigil.

She had stopped on the photo of one James Buchanan Barnes.

It was still a sharp hurt, on top of all the others, that he’d barely had a chance to know his oldest friend again before losing him. But they’d lost so many, sometimes mourning one person in particular felt strangely selfish.

Natasha was still staring at Bucky—the Winter Soldier, to her—wearing an expression he couldn’t interpret. Nat could be very open with her thoughts and feelings, but when she wanted to, no one was more expert at concealing them. Finally, she made eye contact, and he could tell she’d made some kind of decision.

“I knew him,” she said.

He leaned forward, confused. “Yeah, I know, you told me about—”

She shook her head. “No, before that. In Russia. We knew each other.”

He needed a minute to absorb this, and she waited him out silently. “You knew Bucky?”

“I knew someone. Not the guy you knew. Not exactly. I don’t think. It’s hard to say…” She trailed off, her discomfort rising, as if she regretted bringing it up.

The chair wobbled underneath him. “How?”

“They brought The Soldier in to train us. We...ran a few ops together.”

Stunned at her matter-of-factness, he said, “Wow. You’re good at keeping secrets.”

She looked at him apologetically. “Well, I was a spy, so…”

He thought back; she had gotten the file on him so fast. “Were you keeping track of him?”

“I tried to. Steve, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. But it didn’t seem relevant to the mission. And then Sokovia, and then the Accords…”

“You helped us get away. Put everything on the line…”

“Because it was the right thing to do.”

An awful intuition crept up on him. “Was that the only reason?”

She deflected. “He didn’t remember me. I could tell. That’s why I never brought it up. Every time we fought, I looked for something, but it was never there. Of course it wasn’t. They would have taken...all of it.” The image on the holographic display shimmered between them. “I’m glad he remembered you, though. I’m glad he got that back.”

We’ll get him back. We’ll get them all back, he wanted to say, but even if in that moment he meant it, he couldn’t lie to her. “You could have talked to him in Wakanda.”

“There wasn’t time. Or maybe I thought there would be time. I don’t know.” Her expression softened, revealing something raw underneath. “I don’t mean to upset you.”

“No, you’re not,” he reassured her. “I just… I guess we have something else in common now.”

“I guess so.” She stood and gestured at the interface, and Bucky’s image shrank and became one of hundreds filling up the display. “I’m going for a run. Can you man the desk?”

“Yeah. Sure.” Apparently the conversation was over, before his head had even had a chance to stop spinning. “Hey, Nat.” She turned, mid-tying her hair back. Something told him it was his last chance to ask...or not to ask. “It was more than just running a few ops, wasn’t it?”

Natasha only smiled sadly.

Whatever it was, it was in the past. Along with everything else.

“I don’t know why it makes a difference,” Bucky said, hearing his voice come out with static in it.

“Do you want to sit and talk for a while?”

“And what, feed the ducks?” he said sharply. “No. Unless you’re saying you need to sit down.”

“I get it, I’m old. Are you all right?”

Bucky forced himself to relax. “Yeah. Sorry. I don’t know why I’m—. It doesn’t change anything.”

“Kind of sounds like it does.”

“She’s still dead, isn’t she?”

Steve took the harsh words placidly. He’d had more time to get used to it. “And I still miss her. A lot of people up there do, too. You’ve got family, if you want it.”

“That’s your family, not mine.”

“You’re here, aren’t you? Anyway, it was Nat’s family, too. You know, she never gave up on getting everybody back. That includes you.”

“What did she tell you, exactly? About us.”

“Hardly anything. I think she just needed me to know there was a connection. We were all doing whatever we could to feel less alone back then.”

Bucky wasn’t sure what that meant. “Did you two ever…?”

“What? No! Geez, no. I wouldn’t. I mean, we kissed once, but that was spy stuff. And it was her idea.”

“Okay, relax, you’re off the hook. I wasn’t accusing you of stealing my girl.”

After a few seconds, Steve asked gently, “Is that how you think of her? As your girl?”

Bucky sighed. Lisichka, zvezda moya...That’s how he’d thought of her once. The last time he’d seen her, which was also the first time since the truth of who she was to him had re-emerged, was as a furious flash of now-blonde hair through the fray of the battlefield, dealing more damage than she took. He’d grinned at the sight of her, and yes, thought for a second, That’s my girl. “Nah,” he denied. He hadn’t earned that. He never would, now. And he’d been dealing with it, accepting it as just another shitty turn of the cards, until Steve had started digging. Her death shouldn’t have anything to do with him or how he felt; she was more important than that. But knowing that she had still cared, even a little, he could suddenly feel the absence of whatever piece of him she’d taken with her. It fucking hurt. On top of his oldest friend now being his oldest friend… “I kind of wish you hadn’t told me, buddy.” Before Steve could apologize, he said, “Let’s go back.”

Though it felt like miles from where they’d started, they hadn’t actually walked very far. When the Stark house came into view through the trees, there was some kind of commotion going on outside. He couldn’t pick anything out of the chatter, but it seemed excited, not alarmed. Everyone was gathered around some buzzing hub of activity, with a gesticulating Hulk towering over the center of the crowd. Bucky shot a questioning look at Steve, who shrugged. As they got closer, he recognized Shuri’s bubbling laugh among the voices. A kid ran into the house and ran out again with Barton, who shoved his way through the throng, and whooped. Hulk stooped over, lifted a woman off the ground, and tossed her high in the air—a grand jeté and a flaming banner of hair, graceful and bold against the blue sky.

Bucky stopped as if he’d walked into a wall. Something inside him cracked, and whether it was a break or a repair, he didn’t know.

Behind him, Steve whispered, “Now that’s a miracle.”

Chapter Text

The joy and disbelief rippling through the group was the upside-down version of the solemn unity that had held the day together until now. The crowd had diffused into a loose semi-circle around Natasha, who made eye contact with everyone, touched everyone she could, happily taking stock of the returned. She squeezed Pepper Potts’ hand, then hugged her tightly. Thor crushed her to him, openly weeping. Rhodes patted the Asgardian on the shoulder and was pulled into a group hug. She got a kiss on the cheek from T’Challa, and clasped forearms with Okoye. Sam hugged her, then Fury, then Hill. She embraced Wanda Maximoff, who looked a little shell-shocked, but returned it nonetheless. The woman they called Captain Marvel scrutinized her for a long minute, and then nodded. The Spider-kid bounced around the edges of the gathering, and Scott Lang high-fived anyone within reach. The Barton family surrounded her, Hawkeye with his arm around her waist, the youngest kid pulling at her hand. Banner hovered over her the entire time. She even fist-bumped the raccoon.

Bucky watched the whole thing from his position under the trees, the furthest satellite from the sun.

He’d forgotten Steve was behind him until he felt a hand on his back in what he thought was camaraderie, until it gave him a surprisingly forceful shove. “Go on, stupid. What are you waiting for?”

He looked back at him, and he didn’t want to say he felt like he was dangling over a precipice, but… “Did you know this was going to happen?”

“What? No. I’m not from the future.”

Oh. Right. “You coming?”

“In a minute.” Steve smiled reassuringly, and the damndest thing about it was that it actually worked. “Go on.”

As he approached he heard people start to barrage her with questions. “There’ll be time for a full debrief later,” Fury said, and Laura Barton hooked her arm through Nat’s protectively, as if she didn’t care what the full story was—a sentiment Bucky shared. Natasha looked exhausted and a little ragged, too thin, and impossibly beautiful. Overwhelmed by the attention and the tears, her face shone with gratitude for her family, and grief for her friend Tony underneath it. He felt sick that there’d been a time when he hadn’t recognized that face, and angry at people he might never have a chance to make regret it. It was a dangerous road for his thoughts to go down, but it might be safer than continuing to stare at her.

He made his way toward Shuri, who was chatting with an older couple he didn’t know, and stood behind them. Like a coward, he thought, and resisted looking back for Steve. Shuri beamed at him. “Amazing, isn’t it? I guess it’s harder than we thought to kill a Black Widow. I was just saying to Drs. Pym and Van Dyne what a shame it was that we didn’t have the chance to study the Infinity Stones more closely. Who knows what role it may have played in her survival?”

“Yeah, who knows,” he said absently. He didn’t know Infinity Stones from glass marbles, and didn’t care to. Shuri made introductions, and the woman, whichever Doctor she was, smiled politely. The man was already disinterested. People were starting to rearrange themselves in small clusters, and Bucky maneuvered again to keep Natasha in his sightline while staying out of hers.

Shuri put a hand on his arm, and he looked down to see concern on her face. “Bucky? Are you all right?” It occurred to her to survey the crowd and ask, “Where is Captain Rogers?” Before he could think how to answer that, the people around them moved again, and he lost his cover.

He knew he was exposed, sensed her eyes on him even before the warm, weary voice said, “Soldat.” Something else he’d hoped to never hear again, but this time…this time he didn’t mind.

He faced her, nothing but a few meters of empty space between them now, and he didn’t know how to cross it. She did it for him. “You’re back,” she said. Friendly, but neutral. Contained. Like he was just another of her well-wishers and acquaintances. It took him a second to remember that as far as she knew, every moment they’d spent together had been brutally and permanently disappeared as retaliation for their transgressions. He’d thought the same must have happened to her until Steve had told him otherwise.

“Yeah, you too.” Smooth, very smooth. “How’d you pull that off?” he asked, as if he had operational interest, instead of not currently giving a shit how it happened as long as she was here.

“Long story. Let’s just say it turns out the Red Skull wasn’t an entirely trustworthy authority on how the Soul Stone worked.”

“The Red—?!” he started. “Okay, nobody told me that part.” That made her laugh, and it was like somebody removed a rock he hadn’t even known he’d been carrying around inside his chest.

“I guess we’re all missing some pieces,” she said.

“Well,” he said. “I know how that is.”

She held his gaze, and he was sure she would see it, see everything, but she only nodded a little sadly. She looked over her shoulder at Clint and Bruce, who were observing their interaction, and said, “We’re all going inside.” Inviting him to join the family.

“I’ll see you in there.” Family or not, he wasn’t going to lose sight of her for a while if he could help it. As she walked back to the group, quickly surrounded again by people who loved her, she glanced back at him, searching. Reading him like radar. Don’t tell her, he thought. Leave her alone. Let her have her life.

“Natalia Romanova!” he heard himself call.

Chapter Text

Natasha spun around, more of a stumble than a pirouette, and he felt a surge of regret for his impulsiveness. This was too much of a burden to lay on her after whatever improbable journey she’d just made. But the question in her eyes kept him moving forward. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

People were starting to stare at them, but they were easy to ignore. She walked toward him, and he matched her pace for pace until they were an arm’s length apart. He wondered if everyone else really saw how bone-tired she was. “Do you?” she asked, still cautious, but her eyes were lit with something that made his breath catch. Hope, he realized.

She raised her hand and his eyes flickered closed as her palm made soft contact with his cheek. He remembered music, and pain, and a dazzling field of snow. When he opened his eyes, hers were bright with tears. There’d been a lot of tears today; he never imagined any would be for him.

“Prosti menya, lisichka,” he whispered.

“For what?” she asked, and her body met his with a force that knocked him back a step. She wound her arms tightly around his shoulders, the pad of her thumb at the base of his neck, and he felt his equilibrium failing. His arms hung helpless at his sides. The last time he’d touched her had been in violence; that was all too clear in his mind. But it was being pushed aside by the warmth and solidity of her against him, the simple grace of her acceptance. When she sighed, his right arm wrapped around her waist, followed, after a moment’s hesitation, by his left. The softness of her hair under his fingers, against his face...if he ever forgot his own name again, he swore to himself he would remember that.

He could feel her ribs underneath her battered Black Widow uniform. Whatever she’d been through had taken too much out of her. And even though it had been years since he’d held her, and he’d had his skull scraped out multiple times since then, there was no doubt the woman in his arms was the woman he had known, the one who had been his only brief lifeline to the surface when he’d existed, or what passed for it, in the depths. Something shiny in the blackness, for a little while. Zvezda moya, my star.

She drew back abruptly, and he had a moments’ panic that he’d overstepped, as if she had somehow overheard his thoughts, until he realized from her shocked expression that she was looking at something over his shoulder.

“Is that…?” Steve. Still standing under that damn tree.

“Yep.”

The old man waved at them, and she lifted her hand to return it. “Time travel?”

“Yeah, it seems to be the thing these days.” He figured Steve would fill her in on the details. He hoped so, because he barely understood them.

“I wondered where he was. No one would give me a straight answer.” She looked back at him, tilting her head, and then back at Steve. “God, I really have missed a lot.”

“Oh, no, that literally just happened. Go talk to him,” he nudged. “He missed you, too.”

She took two steps, eager, but then hesitated and turned back to him. “We should talk later. You’ll stick around?” He couldn’t blame her for guessing he might run.

He tried to smile reassuringly. “Gotta. Sam’s my ride.” She huffed out a little chuckle as she turned on her heel and jogged down the path toward Steve.

His nerves were still lit up like she’d hit him with one of her darts, and he took a deep breath to steady himself.

Natasha and Steve hugged for a long time, swaying a little now and then, Steve rubbing circles on her back. When they separated, he took a handkerchief out of his pocket, and they both used it, laughing through tears. Bucky turned away as they started talking, feeling like an intruder. They were connected, the three of them, but those two also had something he wasn’t a part of.

Clint Barton ambled over to him, sizing him up in a way that said, ‘Look, we’re both killers, but let’s keep this light.’ “I take it you two knew each other in a past life.”

“You could call it that, yeah.”

He squinted at Bucky as if drawing a bead on him, and then slapped him on the back with an emphatic whap. “If you’re okay with her, you’re okay by me,” he said, making it clear the appraisal was extremely conditional on that ‘if.’

“Thanks...” The Hawkeye seal of approval wasn’t something he’d been looking for, but it couldn’t hurt, he guessed.

Barton crossed his arms and looked toward Natasha. He sniffed. “And this, none of this...” The loss, the mourning, the shock return. “....Ever happens again.”

Bucky knew what he meant. He’d crossed his own arms reflexively to mirror the other man’s posture. “Agreed.”

With a big smile, Barton waved at Nat. He pointed back toward the house with his thumb. Before turning to go back to his family, he looked Bucky in the eye and nodded once, the smile gone. It was the first time they’d ever spoken.

Under the tree, Natasha put her arm through Steve’s, the way you’d help an old lady cross the street, and led him up the little hill to the house. She might have been the only one who could have successfully coaxed him to rejoin the party, reintroduce himself to the time-travelers and geniuses, gods and royalty, super spies and freaks. He watched his resurrected ex-lover and suddenly geriatric best friend walk past a wizard talking to an alien.

What a weird fucking day.

Chapter Text

Inside, the mood of the get-together had shifted considerably. Not quite a party, but a livelier sort of melancholy. Someone coming back from the dead, even if it wasn’t the guest of honor, took some of the funereal edge off a funeral. The chatter was a little louder and brighter. The faces, most of them, were a shade less somber. Natasha’s closest friends still huddled around her, but even people who didn’t know her at all drifted in and out of her orbit, buoyed by the positive atmosphere. That’s how important you are, Bucky thought.

Before anyone could corner her, Pepper shepherded Natasha upstairs, offering her a shower and a change of clothes. Once she had exited the scene, that’s when the crowd’s focus changed: people had started to notice Steve.

Bucky stood in a corner and watched his friend make the rounds, awkwardly attempting to explain himself to each new person he was seeing for the first time in seventy-five years (or, from their perspectives, twenty-five minutes). Steve was clearly affected by the reunions, but he also kept throwing Bucky desperate glances for aid, which were answered with a shrug and a smirk.

Thor wanted to know if Steve could still wield the hammer, and demanded a demonstration. Steve protested—weakly, Bucky thought—and then lifted it easily, swinging it in a little half-hearted arc, to light applause and a triumphant bellow from the thunder god.

In a little while, Sam appeared beside Bucky with two bottles of beer, and handed him one. “Cap’s looking a little overwhelmed.”

“He asked for it.” Although Bucky suspected that if Natasha hadn’t reappeared, Steve would have been satisfied to fade out without a word. Or at least without making a scene.

Sam sipped his beer quietly for a second, then came up with, “Amazing about Nat, right? Kind of a miracle.”

You really are the right person for that shield. He narrowed his eyes at Sam. “You’re not subtle. Just ask.”

“Okay. What’s with you and Nat?”

“We knew each other. Before.”

“But you weren’t you...before.”

He didn’t feel like explaining the subtleties. “They left me out of the freezer too long, and I got a little bit...independent. That’s when I met Natalia.” He stopped there, and drank his beer, grimacing at the bitterness; one thing about modern life he hadn’t quite figured out yet was IPAs. “They learned their lesson after that, though.”

“That sucks, man. I’m sorry.” From anyone else it would sound glib, but Sam meant it.

“Yeah, well. It all ‘sucked.’ Except for—”

Natasha had appeared at the top of the stairs; he hadn’t staked out that particular corner by accident. She was dressed in leggings and a loose gray top, her damp hair combed straight and flowing over one shoulder. She looked, if not rested, at least more relaxed. People gave her space now as she moved through the crowd, exchanging a few brief words before continuing on her way through the living area. Tony Stark’s...butler? Chauffeur? Tony Stark’s something, friend he guessed, waved her over toward what he assumed was the kitchen. This really was her family, eager to feed and care for her. It was good to see.

When she disappeared into the other room, Bucky turned back to his conversation and found Sam giving him a slow, sympathetic head shake.

“What?”

Sam just clapped him on the shoulder and walked away.

As the evening wore on, a few of the civilians paid their respects to the widow and went home, but most people seemed reluctant to break up the gang. It was, in a way, also a victory celebration after a hard-fought battle, even if no one wanted to admit that out loud. Conversation clusters formed, dispersed, and reformed in different configurations; the returned still had a lot of questions, and the others had a lot to say.

For the most part, Bucky hung back, observing. He let Scott Lang talk at him for a while, and he got a brief introduction to some of the Guardians. (“Winter Soldier! These are my friends! They’re from the stars, like me. But they’re not gods. They’re actually quite ordinary.”) The big, shirtless guy with the scars asked why he hadn’t had both his puny human arms replaced with the obviously superior vibranium version, and the gal with the antennae gave him an unsettling wide smile and a thumbs up for some reason before Thor dragged them away, explaining to Drax that Winter Soldier was “just a name, really,” and he could in fact fight in any season.

Eventually Bucky drifted toward the super-science contingent, where he spotted a friendly face. He leaned over to Shuri and said, “Believe it or not, I used to be good at parties.”

“I believe it,” she said. It was true, he’d been more at ease in Wakanda. And more popular.

“Bucky, hi!” Hulk, who’d been taking up one wall of the room as inconspicuously as possible, attempted a casual lean on the arm of the leather davenport, and the end Shuri was sitting on lifted into the air. She let out a little yelp, and he managed to lower her to the ground again with a bounce but not a crash. “Sorry! Sorry.” He turned to Bucky again. “So...how’s it going? How’s the, uh...remembering stuff?”

“It’s...fine.” He’d talked to Bruce Banner once, briefly, before the Battle of Wakanda, and he seemed like a nice enough guy for a genius, but it wasn’t like they’d bonded.

“Good, that’s good. Well. I’m going to see if there’s more bundt cake. Does anybody want more bundt cake? No?” He turned sideways and ducked through the doorway.

Bucky shot a questioning look at Shuri, who said, “Do not ask me. I didn’t even try the bundt cake.”

When all the wine bottles had been drained, the little kids had gone to bed, and the whiskey had been poured by the fire, the Avengers and their closer associates assembled in the living room. Natasha was engaged in what looked to be a charged conversation with Fury, Barton, and Banner, with Steve standing by. Barton was ready to argue with Fury, but Bucky heard Natasha say, “No, I want to.” She sat in the center of the couch, a space everyone had seemed to know to leave open, and people quickly rearranged themselves so that Barton and Steve could flank her. Those who couldn’t find a seat lined the walls. A quiet anticipation blanketed the gathering.

Bucky leaned on a windowsill at Natasha’s two o’clock. She looked calm, but unsure, like she was ready to tell the story, but didn’t know where to begin. “I know you all have questions,” she began. “What happened to me, how I got here. All I can do is try to explain it the way I understand it. Should I backtrack from today, or…?” she debated aloud.

The idea of being put on the spot like this, assaulted with curiosity and expectations, made him itchy, and as she cast her gaze around the room he tried, somehow, to let her know there was at least one person here she didn’t owe a single damn word. For a second, her eyes caught his, and he felt it like a hook in his chest, her fleeting, soft smile tugging on the line.

She looked at Clint, then down at her lap, and after a deep breath said, “I guess I should start right after the fall.”

Chapter Text

“I never thought much about the afterlife,” Natasha began. “If you had asked me I probably would have said it didn’t exist. But I did used to think a lot about...karma. Restitution. So when I woke up in the Red Room, I thought, ‘Oh. This makes sense. This is Hell.’”

Bucky winced.

Banner said, “Nat—”, but she stopped him with a glance and continued.

“I wasn’t there there. Not my body, although I didn’t know that then. It was...like a dream, where it feels completely real, until little cracks start to appear and the reality falls apart. Except I wasn’t waking up. It was just...cycles, of reliving my past.” She looked up and her gaze hooked Bucky once again before quickly moving on. “Not just the painful parts, but...” She took a breath, and he knew she was finished sharing this part of her story with the group. “I don’t know how long I spent like that. Time was...” She struggled for a description.

“It didn’t exist there,” Strange provided. “That immaterial aspect of your self, your soul in common parlance, doesn’t exist in time the way you know it. Any realm made to contain it would have to exist outside of time as well.”

“Like the quantum realm!” Lang piped up. Then, not receiving the anticipated affirmation, stage-whispered to the pretty but annoyed-looking woman next to him, the one who did business as The Wasp, “Like the quantum realm.”

“It would also exist outside of space as you know it,” Strange said. “But—” He looked at Natasha in what might have been an attempt at being comforting, but it was hard to tell with him. “I don’t think it was Hell.”

“Neither do I,” she agreed. “Not now. I think I was somewhere. Not any kind of afterlife, but… I think I was—my soul was—somehow, inside the Stone.” A murmur rippled through the crowd. “I don’t know if that—technically—even counts as dead?”

Banner groaned, distressed. “We were starting from a false premise! That’s why nothing we tried to bring you back worked.”

“Wait,” said Steve. “Are you saying that the whole time we had the Soul Stone, we had you?” He sounded horrified. “We could have…?”

She shook her head. “That’s the thing, I don’t think you could have. I think— I think returning the Stone was the key. It… it reversed the sacrifice, somehow.”

Strange was nodding thoughtfully. Then, a good-looking brunette in wide-legged trousers interjected, “Like returning a blender to Target?”

“Not...unlike that,” said Strange. “I’m sorry, who are you again?”

“May Parker. I’m Peter’s aunt.”

“What?” said Quill.

The Spider-kid ducked his head a little and raised his hand. “She means me.”

Barton asked Strange, “Couldn’t you have just done a spell or something?”

“Oh no, that would void the warranty,” May Parker said.

“She’s not...incorrect,” confirmed Strange. “If those were the terms of the bargain.”

“But they weren’t,” objected Clint. “The guard, the—”

“The Red Skull,” said Steve dourly.

“He didn’t say anything about that.” Barton was upset. “Why would he lie about some cosmic...fucking…?”

“Is that even allowed?” asked Wanda Maximoff.

Bucky scoffed; he couldn’t help it. “He doesn’t need a reason to screw with you guys.” Everyone looked at him, and under the sudden scrutiny he felt like ten times the outsider that May Parker was. “He might be some kind of...space ghost now,” he explained, “but he’s still a fucking Nazi.”

Strange agreed, if obliquely. “Obviously you didn’t have all the relevant knowledge at the time.”

“We also didn’t have a sorcerer,” Steve said. “But we did the best we could anyway.”

“We had what we needed,” said Natasha. “And we did what we were supposed to. All of us.” Bucky wondered how often her Avengers duties included pouring oil on the waters. “Returning the Stone was the right move, too.”

“What happened next?” asked Fury, emerging from where he’d receded into the background, silently absorbing the proceedings.

“It wasn’t automatic, I didn’t just wake up at the base of the mountain.” She looked at Barton as she said it, trying to reassure him. Obviously the two of them were close. Since hearing the story of what had happened on Vormir, Bucky had tried to avoid imagining the sight that must be still be haunting the other man. Of all the lousy things he had to live with in his head, at least her broken body wasn’t one of them.

She kept talking before more questions could come. “It was more like it unlocked a door. The illusion of whatever world or dimension the Stone created started to fade, like...like reality was leaking through the keyhole. That’s how we were able to find our way out.”

Everyone heard it. Steve asked, “We?”

Natasha looked across the room at the odd menagerie of individuals known as the Guardians of the Galaxy, her face full of sympathy. “Gamora and I.”

“Gamora’s alive?! My Gamora?” Quill jumped up from his folding chair. Behind him, Drax stood as well, and Mantis sort of hovered, not sure what to do, until the raccoon—Bucky still couldn’t get over the raccoon—yanked on her wrist back to where they were seated sharing an ottoman.

The blue lady that Bucky was pretty sure was a robot said, “She doesn’t know.” She addressed Natasha directly, and he got the idea she’d been ahead of them for a while. “Do you?”

Nat shook her head, regretful. “No. I’m sorry. We went through the door together, but I was alone when I got to the other side. Back on the mountain with the warden, face to ...skull. I think he was surprised to see me. Maybe he didn’t even know the rules,” she speculated.

“Wait, how long ago was this?” asked Banner. He looked horrified. “You haven’t been out there since 2014?”

“No,” she reassured him quickly. “Thank God. It was a few weeks ago, I think.”

“The Stone ejected you back into your proper place in the timeline,” said Strange. “It may not have been able to return your soul to a reality where it was already present.”

“Can we get back to talking about Gamora, please?” asked Quill anxiously. “Is she alive or not?”

“Almost certainly my sister is alive.” The lady robot’s strange expression was what you could almost call serene. She tilted her head to look at Quill, and her face twitched almost imperceptibly in what might have been sympathy. “But probably not in our reality.”

Quill sat down, with Drax following. “Why not? Wouldn’t she just have come out five years ago? She could still be out there, looking for us!”

“I hope you’re right,” said Natasha. “I hope you find her. I couldn’t have survived without her. But…”

“Just her presence back in 2018 would have created a new branch of reality than the one all of us experienced,” Banner explained gently.

“Or she could have created a new timeline herself by decisions that she made after she came back,” said Lang, and when several heads turned to him quizzically, “What? I pay attention. Oh! Or what Nat did in 2014 might have changed the 2018 that Gamora originally came from, so… Wait, now I’m confused again.”

“They’re saying that if Gamora’s alive, she’s in some other universe with some other crew of Guardians and some other Quill.” The raccoon said this. Everyone else seemed so used to the talking raccoon.

Quill (and Drax) sprang up again. “Some other me has my Gamora?!”

Behind him, Drax realized no one else was standing, and muttered, “Is this not a human custom?”

“The Gamora that traveled here from 2014 is now this reality’s Gamora,” said Strange authoritatively.

“The...what?” asked Natasha. Now even she looked confused.

Steve leaned over and said, “There are some things we need to fill you in on, too.”

“Okay, but how do you know?” asked Quill. Bucky admired his persistence. “Because there would be two of her? Cuz there were two Nebulas.” Nebula, that was the lady robot’s name. “And there were two of this guy,” he pointed at Steve, “While one was frozen and one was just...bein’ a dude.”

“This is true,” said Thor.

“Thank you! Thank you, Thor. And you thought she was dead.” He pointed at Natasha and added, “No offense.” He made very purposeful eye contact with all the biggest brains in the room. “You guys talk like you know all these rules. But if there’s one thing I know, it’s making shit up as you go along, and it kind of sounds like that’s what you’re doing.”

Well, damn, Bucky thought.

Drax, still standing behind Quill, crossed his beefy arms and said, “It sounds like that to me, also.”

Quill turned appreciatively. “Hey, thanks, man,”

“And I usually don’t think his ideas are very good at all.”

Quill sighed. “Anyway…” he continued, a little deflated and unsure how to wrap things up now that his point was made and no one had decided it was worth arguing, “you can finish your story now, I guess. Again,” he gestured at Natasha, “Welcome back, nice to meet you, glad you’re alive, you seem cool.” They sat.

“Thanks, you too,” she said, dry but sincere. “Where was I?”

“At the top of the mountain,” prompted Steve.

“Right. It was like...you know when you wake up from a dream, it takes a minute to get reoriented, to sort out what’s real. But I felt in my body again, and it felt like…well, like I fell off a cliff.”

Rhodes spoke up then. “I’m probably going to regret asking this, but how did you get back into your body if your body was in 2014?”

Natasha started to shrug, but Strange, once again, had an answer. The guy seemed to really enjoy having answers. “The power of her soul, refracted through the Stone, would have been amplified enough to restore her body and draw it to her across spacetime, or perhaps maintain it in a suspended state—”

“Never mind,” said Rhodes. “Got it. Magic. Next time just say ‘magic.’”

Natasha smiled. “Whatever magic it was, it wasn’t enough to cure a full-body hangover.” The fatigue she was so gracefully but obviously shouldering made sense now. “I figured if the Red Skull knew my father’s name, he might know a way off the damn planet. So I threatened him. I told him obviously my friends had the other Stones, at least one of which was capable of destroying him, and sooner or later they would come for me. So he cooperated. Even the damned don’t want to die.”

A mournful sigh came from Banner, who was now hunched forward in self-reproach. “Why didn’t we do that?” It was a good question.

“Bruce, you thought I was dead dead.” Natasha patted the back of his huge green hand, and a tender look passed between them.

Oh, Bucky thought.

“He told me about a derelict ship, a couple days’ walk from the mountain. There was no way it was going to fly, but there were some rations in there, hydro-gel and protein packs, enough to keep me going while I took apart the hardware and tried to get the comms system working.” She looked at Pepper. “When I felt like giving up, I thought to myself, ‘What would Tony do?’ Eventually I managed to get a signal, and I contacted some people Gamora told me might owe her a favor. After I got on their ship, that’s how I found out you guys had won.” To Quill, she said, “Kraglin says hi, by the way.”

“Aw, that’s nice.”

“Something tells me the Ravagers didn’t give you a ride home out of the goodness of their hearts.” The raccoon again. Was his name Robert? That couldn’t be right.

“I...might have had to help them pull a job,” she admitted.

“Ooh, space heist!” said Lang.

The older man Shuri had introduced to him earlier, who he now realized looked perpetually disinterested in everything, not anything specific to meeting him, corrected, “Technically every heist is a space heist.”

Lang rolled his eyes and muttered, “Please, you’ve been heisted so many times you don’t even know.”

Quashing amusement, Natasha continued. “Anyway. I had them land at HQ, and...well, you know what we found. I took a look around, and then I went into town. I borrowed someone’s phone to check the news. That’s...how I found out about Tony. After that, I came straight here.” She looked around the room, underlining the end of her story. “I didn’t expect to find…everybody.”

After a few seconds, Pepper Potts spoke for the group. “Well. We didn’t expect you, either. But we’re so glad you’re here.”

At that, Barton put his arm around Natasha, and she leaned into him. “Me too. You have no idea.”

T’Challa raised his glass, and declared, “Natasha Romanoff!” A chorus of voices echoed him.

Bucky tipped his bottle in her direction, and said her name—the name she chose to wear in this world she’d chosen to be a part of, if not quite the one she’d worn in the world where they’d met. But it fit her, and this world fit her. Watching her relax into the company of this weird, ragtag extended family of heroes and oddballs, that much was clear. That other world felt like a very long time ago, and he didn’t know if there was a world he fit in now. It had only been a few hours ago, though, that she’d let him hold her, and that had been just as real. As the guests began to stir from their seats and mingle again, he moved from his spot by the window. Natasha lifted her head from Barton’s shoulder as she noticed his approach, and tracked him across the room. He remembered how earlier he hadn’t wanted to let her out of his sight.

Then someone bumped into him from behind, while at the same time Laura Barton squeezed herself onto the couch between her husband and Natasha, and the connection was broken.

For now, he let himself think, as he rubbed the back of his neck in the place where her thumb had brushed his hairline. Maybe.

Chapter Text

The crowd dwindled after that, people filtering out in twos and threes after making the rounds of farewells. Going home, or to their next mission, or to continue re-assembling their lives. Bucky had found a dark corner on the porch where he sat alone, watching the fireflies. Not lurking, he told himself. It had just been a lot of day with a lot of people in not a lot of space. If he had been lurking, though, it would have worked out for him; he caught Steve Rogers trying to slip through the door unnoticed.

“Hey,” he said, and when Steve startled he was afraid for a second that he’d given him a heart attack. But he only turned around and smiled.

“Hey, Buck.”

“Trying to pull an Irish goodbye?”

“I didn’t want to make a fuss.”

“I get that,” Bucky said as he got up. “But you were definitely gonna find me before you left, right? Give me the address of your old folks’ home so I can come over for poker night and stewed tomatoes?”

“I still don’t play poker. Not any good at it.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s why I wanna play with you.”

Steve laughed. “I’ll be in touch.”

He’d have to take that for now. “I hope you at least said goodbye to Natasha.”

“I did.” He gave Bucky a stern but caring look that made him think Steve would have made a good grammar school teacher. “Did you talk to her?”

He shrugged one shoulder. Grammar school teachers always could make him squirm. “Some other time, maybe. Seems like she’s probably all talked out for tonight.”

Then Steve sighed. “You should probably check with her about that.”

“Yeah, all right, maybe.”

Steve narrowed his eyes, and then the corner of his mouth lifted. It was amazing how much his face hadn’t changed. His chin lowered and his eyebrows went up as he said, “You still love her.”

After a second, “I don’t know,” Bucky said, as if it had been a question. How could he know, given how much had happened, how much they had changed?

Steve put a hand on his shoulder. “Look. I’m not saying you have to marry her. Just...leave the door open, that’s all I mean. Second chances only come around once.”

Then Bucky sighed, and shoved Steve’s hand away as if initiating the kind of horseplay that used to get them kicked out into the street, Steve always trying to go as hard as he could, Bucky always holding back. “You’re really pushing this wise old man routine, you know.”

“Hey, at the very least, you could use another friend.” A surprise left jab hit Bucky in the ribs. Not hard, but…

“Ow, hey!”

“I told you I could still take you.” Steve pulled him in for their second hug of the day, or in eight decades, either or both. “Talk to her,” he ordered. “I still outrank you.”

“Okay, okay.” He would try.

Bucky walked Steve to the steps. He didn’t need assistance, but he used the handrail on the way down. He either had his own car or had a ride waiting, but either way he didn’t volunteer the details.

“You’ll be in touch, right?” Bucky asked to confirm.

Steve nodded. “And what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. Go back to college, maybe? Guess I should get a driver’s license…”

“About Nat, idiot.”

“I’m gonna talk to her,” he promised. Eventually. She had asked, after all, and he had agreed, if not in so many words. And...he wanted to.

“Good.” Steve looked at the ground for a second, steadying himself against a sudden wave of feeling. “I just want… I hope… I’m really happy to see you again, Buck. Take care.”

Bucky swallowed. For an instant the floorboards of the wooden porch seemed to sway beneath his feet, and then the ground was firm again. “Yeah,” he said, hearing that crackle in his voice. “I will. I’ll try, anyway. You too, Captain.” He threw up his hand in a salute that was supposed to be a joke, but as soon as Steve returned it, it wasn’t.

Bucky stood at ease and watched his friend—hell, his brother, really—proceed carefully down the path. Even with enhanced vision, it didn’t seem very long until he had faded completely into the dark.

Behind him, the door creaked open and clicked shut, and soft footsteps padded over to the porch rail. He turned to see Natasha, her hair shining like a signal fire under the electric lantern hanging from a beam overhead.

“Are we ever going to see him again?”

“Sure,” he replied. Then, “I don’t know. Hard to say.” She looked out into the trees, maybe watching the same fireflies he had been earlier. Here was his chance; just a minute ago he had given Steve his word. “So...I know before you said we should talk, but if you’re too tired—”

“Oh, no. You’re not getting out of it that easy, soldier.” She turned and rested her hip on the rail, arms folded loosely in front of her.

“That’s not—” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and ambled over to lean against a post, a few feet away from her. “Just seems like you’ve had a rough few weeks, that’s all.”

“I’ve had a rough five years.”

He lowered his head. “Right.”

“I’m fine, really. I know I look like hell…”

“No, you don’t,” he said. He looked straight at her, then. Her face was a little drawn, yeah, and maybe a little haunted; the wide neckline of her top displayed slightly too-prominent bones around her sternum. None of it made her less beautiful; maybe nothing ever could. But more than that, her eyes were alive, just the way he remembered. Maybe she’d been through hell, almost literally, but she looked like… “You look glad to be home.”

“Yeah,” she said. “All things considered, I definitely prefer Earth.”

He laughed, and felt the anxiety he’d been carrying around about this conversation begin to melt away. It was so easy to be around her; maybe eventually that would produce its own brand of anxiety, but for now...for now it felt good.

“So what will you do now?” he asked. He didn’t know if he meant tomorrow, or the rest of her life.

“Nick will probably want to run a bunch of tests, to make sure I’m not a clone or a Skrull or something. I’m not, for the record.”

“Nah, I’d definitely know the difference.” I’d know you anywhere, he thought, but that was such a recent development, it felt like tempting fate to say it out loud. “A Skrull wouldn’t be out here wasting time talking to me.”

“Their loss,” she said, and before either of them could linger on it, “Anyway, after that I think I’ll go to the farm—Clint and Laura’s place—for a while.”

“That sounds like a good idea.” Someplace she could rest and recover; he knew how important that could be. “They’re good friends of yours, huh?”

“Yeah,” she smiled. “I’ll tell you that story someday.”

The promise of future conversations started to look, just a little, like Steve’s open door. A door to what, though… He could use another friend. That’s as far as he was willing to look right now.

“What about you?” she asked. “Will you go back to Wakanda?”

“I don’t know.” He honestly hadn’t thought about it. Living in the moment had its limitations. “I’m staying with Sam right now. I might stick around and bug him for a while.”

“You should,” she encouraged. “I’m sure he could use a sidekick.”

“Hey.” Her little smirk was so wonderful, he could barely pretend to be offended. “I guess I should get a job. Kind of a crummy resume, though. Do you think Fury would hire me?”

“He hired me,” she said. “You can list me as a reference. I’ll give you my email address. Do you know how to use email?”

He grinned. “Are you making fun of me or really asking? Because either way, the answer is no. I can ask Shuri to teach me, though.”

“She’s a good friend of yours, isn’t she?”

“She puts up with me, I guess.”

“It’s good to have friends,” she said. She turned to look out toward the lake, pensive. “I can see why Tony liked it up here. It’s peaceful.”

Her friend, Tony. “Condolences, by the way,” he said. Then, haltingly, “We all owe him. I owe him… things I can’t ever—”

She cut short his mea culpa with a gentle, “That wasn’t you.”

He thought of Howard Stark’s face in his last moments. His last words. “It wasn’t not me.”

“Bucky, come on.”

It was strange to hear her call him that. “Don’t you take responsibility for the things they made you do?”

“That’s different,” she argued.

“Is it? Were you free to choose?” He barreled onward before she could equivocate. “No. You know how I know? Because as soon as you were, you got the hell out of there. At least that’s how I heard it.”

“So did you,” she pointed out.

“I had a lot of help,” he insisted.

“So did I.”

He let it stand at a stalemate; there was no point fighting over who was less innocent, even if he knew the title was his to lose. “It’s almost like we have something in common." That made her smile. "Of course, then you went and became a goddamn superhero.”

“Oh, there was a...transitional period.” She tilted her head, evaluating him. “Maybe that’s where you are now.”

“Maybe,” he said, though he was skeptical. Was that really what she saw?

“I’m sorry, by the way.”

He frowned, unable to conceive of a single reason she’d need to apologize. “What for?”

“That I couldn’t do what Steve did. For you. I gave up too easily. I was cynical.”

“You’re Russian,” he teased her, because her solemn confession was too much for him, and too unnecessary. “No, you were realistic. You knew them. Steve was naive. It just happened to work out for him. Anyway, you helped. Even after…” He winced, gut-punched by guilt. “I could have killed you, Nat.” It was what Steve called her, and when his conscience spoke, it often sounded like Steve. “I would have.” He couldn’t have come back from that.

“Plenty of things could have killed me,” she joked. But then she looked down, a little wrinkle appearing above her nose. “That was… tough. But a fight is a fight. That’s something I know how to handle.”

"You shouldn't have had to."

“We shouldn’t have had to do any of it. We never chose…” She sighed, shifted her weight, and crossed her arms a little tighter. He had an idea what was coming. “If it's not too personal, can I ask...how you got it back? I mean—”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” he said quietly. He thought about it, how to explain the process, the work he’d done, the things it had felt like his brain was doing to him. Still did, sometimes. Finally, he said, “We used to do a lot of jigsaw puzzles when we were kids, when Steve was too sick to go outside. I hated them. Boring as hell. I didn’t have the patience. But he liked it. He had this whole orderly process. Anyway, you know how the pieces are all mixed up in the box, and you’re looking at scraps of red or blue. Or sometimes they’re upside down and blank. Sometimes you lose one under a chair. So you start trying to sort through, and you put two or three together, and you start to get an idea. You see the lighthouse or the dog or whatever. And you do that over and over again.” He had moved a few steps closer to her while he was talking. “That’s kind of what I was doing in Wakanda. I had to learn the patience part.” He found her staring at him keenly, and it made him self-conscious. “I don’t know. I’m not a metaphor guy.”

“No, I get it. Find all the pieces, see the whole picture.” She fidgeted with the fabric of her sleeve. “Would you...lose any of those pieces, if you could?”

“Maybe.” If he could lift out a huge chunk of that puzzle, all the ugly parts, would her face still be there, in the middle of the empty space? Would it even make any sense that way? “Maybe not.”

She took a step toward him. “Were you ever going to tell me?” she asked. “If Thanos hadn’t come, if I hadn’t… Would you have told me that you remembered me?”

“I don’t know.” He anticipated that she would back away, but she only waited, without judgment, for him to go on. I didn’t have the guts, he thought. “I’m...kind of...messed up.”

“We’re all ‘messed up,'” she said. “You’re not alone in that unless you want to be.”

When she said it, that made sense to him. “I would have wanted to tell you,” he said, as near as he could get to sure. “I thought about it. But...I assumed that they wiped you, too.”

She shook her head. “They couldn’t afford to start fresh with me.”

“Sounds like your assholes had a different philosophy from my assholes.”

“Besides,” she said with a grim smile, “It wouldn’t have been much of a lesson that way. It had to hurt.” Her face crumpled, the pain revealing and concealing itself again in a flicker. “So they took you away. Erased you. My soldat.”

He felt a stab of bitter rage. “God, I’m sorry.” Sorry to dredge this up. I should have let you go today. I shouldn’t have called your name. But she was standing so close now, he knew he wasn’t really sorry he’d done it at all.

“Stop.” She was firm. “After that was when I started to doubt. If I hadn’t known you… I might have never gotten out.”

“Yes, you would have.” He said it with absolute certainty. “You were always meant to be more.”

She exhaled. “There’s no ‘meant to be.’ There’s just...what we do.”

“Okay, well, what you do is save the world, so…”

“So,” she said, and let the conversation idle while she decided where to steer it. “If you had known that the Red Skull was now a mystical cosmic entity in charge of guarding a magic rock on another planet, what would you have done?”

He pretended to think for a second. “I guess I would’ve gone to space and said, ‘Give me back my girl, you Nazi fuck.’” And she laughed, her cheeks lifting, head ducked, hair falling into her face. “Not that—” but he abandoned the backpedal when he realized she didn’t mind. He took a moment to enjoy her laughter. It made him feel lighter than he could remember, to give her that. “Anyway, it seems like you had that handled. I hope you kicked his ass.”

“Can’t kick a non-corporeal ass, unfortunately.”

“I woulda found a way.”

“Such a smartass,” she said with amused surprise. “It’s so odd. I know you. But I don’t, really.”

He knew it was true, even if it didn’t exactly feel that way to him. She was so familiar it ached; the way she seemed to see into him, through the outer layers, to something solid and unmoving at his core. “Yeah.” He extended his right hand. “James Buchanan Barnes.”

“Nice to meet you, James,” she said, and he liked the sound of it. Her palm met his, and as they closed their fingers, for one crazy second he wondered if he should kiss her hand, as if he was Charles fucking Boyer. Instead, he just held it, until somehow they were closer. She drew him to her, like a light in a dark room.

After a quiet minute, she said, “I used to not let myself think about you. If there’s one thing they trained us to be really good at, besides murder, it was how to compartmentalize. After the Snap, though… Everything seemed muddy and gray. Sometimes the only thing you had to occupy your mind was the past, because the past was all there was. Other people were better at moving on than I was. I just couldn’t stop thinking about it, all the people we lost. All the futures that were stolen. My compartments all broke down.” She raised her head and showed him a heartbreaking smile. “So I thought about you. Because you were one of those people.”

"Natasha..." He couldn't think of anything else to say.

In a low voice that struck a long-dead spark inside him, she asked, “Are people watching us?”

Without turning his head, he glanced over at the window. “A few people, yeah.”

She brushed his hair out of his face, and pressed her lips to the corner of his mouth. He counted the breaths the contact lasted, one, two, three. He curled his fingers under her chin and kissed her forehead, three, two, one. Anything more would’ve been too much; anything less would have been impossible.

She stepped back, and their fingers reluctantly disentangled. “I guess I should go inside. Thanks for the talk.”

“Yeah, I— Yeah.”

“Don’t disappear, okay? Keep in touch.”

“Okay,” he agreed. Anything, he thought. Right now she could ask him for anything. That one would be easy.

She paused in the doorway, and smiled at him. “See you around, James.”

“Do svidaniya, Natalia.”

She went back into the house, and he walked to the bench by the lake, where he sat until Sam came to tell him it was time to go.

Chapter Text

Natasha went along with Nick’s request to accompany him to SHIELD’s new ad hoc HQ for a medical rundown, even though Clint once again argued. “We don’t work for them anymore,” he pointed out. Technically true, although she thought that was a gray area. But they had the expertise, and all her medical history. Besides, if she didn’t agree now, they’d only cajole and surveil her until she did. And she didn’t have anything to hide.

It wasn’t the exhaustive round of tests she expected; a routine physical, blood work, vaccinations, and a DNA profile. She got a few scrips for supplements and painkillers, and an all-clear. At her meeting with Nick when she turned in her written debrief, they met in a coffee shop instead of his office. “Still being redecorated,” he told her. “Hill has very specific ideas about how to combine opsec with aesthetics. I just want a damn couch.”

Nat laughed. “Stay out of her way, then, or the couch line will get cut out of the budget.”

“Such as it is, these days,” he grumbled. Just like old times, she thought.

“Hey, Nick,” she started, careful how she broached the subject. “I was a little surprised that my exam was so...basic. I kind of expected—”

“Invasive procedures, brain scans, an eight hour interrogation?”

“I mean… sort of, yeah.”

He shook his head. “You know I go with my gut. That stuff wasn’t necessary. Now, if we were clearing you to go back to work, we would need to be a little more...thorough.”

“Ah,” she nodded. “Are you asking me to come back to work?”

“I’m telling you to take care of yourself and enjoy your sabbatical. And when you’re ready, the work will be there for you.”

“The work will always be there, huh?”

“That’s the only thing I’m one hundred percent certain of. It might be a better world if it didn’t need people like us, but it does, and it always will.”

“Optimist,” she said dryly. “I’ll think about it. That’s all I can commit to right now.”

“Fair enough.”

They chatted over their pour-overs for a while longer before Nick had to make it to another appointment at an undisclosed location. Just as their meeting was wrapping up, she decided to broach the request she’d been holding back, as if it was something that had just occurred to her at the last minute. “Hey, this may not ever come up, but since you need people to do the work… Do you mind if I put a word in for a friend of mine?”

The first thing she did when she got to Missouri was sleep. Laura had prepared her usual room at the farm, and it was the closest to home she’d felt in a long while. The same softly faded wallpaper, same cheerful chintz curtains blowing in the evening breeze, the same familiar quilt she eagerly crawled beneath and hardly emerged from for almost twenty-four hours straight. The next thing she did after that was join the whole family for an absolutely enormous quantity of pancakes. Nat joined Lila in rolling her eyes at Clint’s showoff trick pancake flips, but the boys were still young enough to indulge him. 

What she wanted more than rest now was normalcy—not her own normal, whatever that was anymore, but someone’s—so when Laura offered a “girls’ day” in town, she jumped on it. It wasn’t something she had much experience with, but if she looked at it as a mission, she knew she could kill it. About an hour into clothes shopping with Laura, Lila, and Lila’s friend, Evie, she realized she was enjoying herself. ‘Maybe not everything in life is a mission’ was an insight she’d have to examine more closely at a later time. 

Since literally everything she owned except her uniform had been destroyed, the prospect of starting fresh was both exciting and daunting. The consumer economy was still kind of a chaotic mess, but even during the Snap people had found a way to buy and sell, and things were no different now in that respect. A former Walmart was now a makeshift community bazaar, and if Laura was navigating Nat through Girls’ Day, Nat got to return the favor by navigating them through the disarray of a post-Snap world.

She managed to acquire jeans and plenty of t-shirts, two bras and a six-pack of underwear, workout clothes, trail-running shoes, second-hand Chuck Taylors, third-hand work boots, and a pair of officially licensed Avengers logo pajamas that probably fell off the back of a truck. And she had fun, treating shopping not as a mission, but as an activity with friends. 

A salon that Laura knew of had re-opened nearby, and apparently that was Girls’ Day Phase Two. Lila and Evie were psyched for manicures—Lila selected a truly impressive bruisey purple—while Laura encouraged Nat to go for a haircut. “Come on, how long has it been? Time for a fresh start, right?”

“Right.” She was weirdly nervous as she sat in the chair, though. She’d never considered her hair or wardrobe as much more than tools of tradecraft; she changed her look when required and never took it personally. But it had been a long time since she’d played the chameleon, and she didn’t have a mission now. She didn’t even have a job. She was just Natasha. 

And that’s how she ended up with bangs.

“It looks so good!” Evie said. Evie was a nice girl. “You’re so pretty, you can pull anything off.”

“Thanks…”

“It looks great,” Laura reassured her. “It’ll look great in a few days. They’ll be so cute with a ponytail.”

Nat looked at Lila. “What do you think?”

“They’ll grow out,” she said.

Nat put her arm around Lila’s shoulder, and they went in search of Girls’ Day’s third and final phase: frozen yogurt served in vats and priced by weight. 

Maybe the whole day was kind of a mission. But it was more than that, too. Spending time with Laura, watching Lila and Evie… It made her think of the bond she’d formed with Gamora, and how she hoped that wherever she was now, fate had been kind to her. And it made her consider what she knew of Gamora’s relationship with Nebula, how it had been tainted and deformed for so long by Thanos’s manipulation and cruelty, but they had overcome it. She thought of what she’d seen of the Dora Milaje. Natasha had grown up among other girls and women, and they had been taught not to trust each other, trained to be ruthless and suspicious of the competition. Surrounded by enemies who could have been sisters. 

If she were feeling optimistic, on days like this she could almost think she was getting back a little of what had been stolen from her.  

The rest of her first week at the farm was all about settling into a routine. Exploring which trails she liked to run; helping out around the house; sweating in the vegetable garden—finding ways to feel useful while everyone was telling her to relax. It didn’t help her any to sit around watching the world clumsily get back on its feet via cable news, even if she could relate to the struggle.

In the afternoons, she spent time with the kids, whether it was playing soccer in the back field, teaching little Nate ballet—the kid had great turnout—or, with Laura’s permission, going to the barn and instructing Lila in a little basic hand-to-hand. Evenings were family time, which meant dinner, and then usually Clint trying to convince everyone to play some kind of board game while Lila stared at her phone, Cooper and Nate stared at tablets, Laura stared at her laptop, and Clint eventually gave in and watched sports on tv. 

Saturday, however, was movie night. Everyone “agreed” on a title to watch (Lila abstained with an “I don’t care, ugh,” and replaced her earbuds). The boys sat on the floor in front of the couch, Nate with his favorite stuffed Hulk toy, and Clint and Nat each took one end while Laura was in the kitchen. Nat’s last errand of the week had been getting a phone of her own. Not a secured, sat-uplink, triple-encrypted, government-issued phone. Just… a regular-person phone, for regular-person stuff. She had emailed a few people her new number, and then not picked it up much again after that. But it happened to be sitting on the arm of the couch next to her when the text alert went bzzt!

      Dear Natasha,

She scrunched her face in confusion, and Clint must have seen it, because he asked, “Who is it?”

“Some kind of weird spam, maybe,” she said, and put the phone down on the armrest again. 

Bzzt!

                                        How are you doing?  How’s farm life?

“What?” she muttered at the screen. Bzzt!

                              Sam made me get a phone but
                                 apparently people don’t talk on
                                 them anymore. He gave me your
                               number, hope that’s all right.   

“Oh...” She put her hand to her mouth and stifled a laugh. 

“Who is it?” Clint persisted. Bzzt! Bzzt! Bzzt!

              It’s me, by the way.

         James.                

       Barnes.              

She laughed out loud. Clint reached over to try and grab the phone but she easily evaded him. “Who is it?”

“None of your business,” she taunted, and dropped the phone down her shirt. Muffled bzzt!  She laughed harder while retrieving it. 

                Am I doing this right?

Laura approached the couch with two giant bowls of popcorn, handing one to the boys and keeping one for the grown-ups. She saw Nat grinning with her hand over her mouth, and asked, “Can I see?”

Nat handed her the phone, and Clint said, “Why does she get to look?”

Laura did a quick scroll and chuckled. “Oh, man. That’s cute.”

“Hmm,” said Nat. But yeah. It was. She typed:

Doing fine. Talk later?

And immediately got back:

      OK!              

Something about the exclamation point put a little lump in her throat, just for a second, but it was gone with the first handful of popcorn. She could have paid more attention to the movie if every few minutes she hadn’t glanced over at the armrest, where her phone remained inert.

After she climbed into bed that night, she opened the text chain again, and when she couldn’t think of what to say, decided to add him to her contacts. She thought about a codename or an alphanumeric cipher, until she remembered that no, this was not her work phone. This was a regular-person device. She hesitated, typed “B. BARNES”, frowned, and deleted it. She tried “JBB”, but that didn’t look right, either. She went back and read the brief exchange again. That exclamation point, like he was excited to talk to her…

Natasha re-opened her contacts, and added “James.”

She turned off the light on the nightstand, pulled the quilt up against the cool night air, and swiped her thumb across the keyboard.

  Calling it a night.

 Catch up tomorrow?

She tapped her thumb on the bezel, waiting for the

Bzzt!

  Sure.      

     Goodnight.

No exclamation point this time. She certainly wasn’t going to lie awake parsing that. “Night,” she typed, and her thumb hovered before hitting send.

Night, James.

Barnes.

She muted everything but her alarm, and smiled into her pillow. 

They were fixing lunch for the kids when Laura said to her, “You can check, you know.”

“Hm?”

“Your phone. You can check your phone. I’ve heard it vibrate in your pocket like four times.”

“It’s not…” ‘A big deal’, she was about to say. But maybe she had checked for notifications when she’d turned off her alarm this morning. And at the end of her run, she had definitely snapped a picture of what she thought was a particularly pretty sky, attached it to the message “Morning”, and sent it to him. That was five hours ago. Not that that mattered.

God, what was happening to her?

Laura pointed a peanut butter-covered knife at her. “Check or I’ll do it for you.”

“Fine,” she conceded, and opened her messages. 

                                       Nice view. Guess you’re enjoying
                                               country life. Hope it’s doing you good.

                                   I’ve been taking a lot of walks.
                                            Today I saw a pigeon push a rat off a
                                               fire escape. Didn’t take a picture, sorry.

                                             I’m making a list of foods to try.        
                                                  Have you had jerk chicken? It’s amazing. 

                                          Maybe this isn’t what you meant by
        keep in touch.

She could feel herself smiling, and put an effort into keeping her face in check. Laura looked amused. “Are you going to tell me the story here, or what?” 

Nat thought about it. “It’s long and mostly unhappy,” she warned.

“Seems like it’s not over yet, though,” Laura pointed out.

“Yeah, maybe not,” Nat murmured.

“So are you going to reply?”

“Later,” she said. It wasn’t about game-playing; she felt like she needed time to regroup and strategize her approach as this developed, for her own sake. “There’s no way he knows how read receipts work.”

Natasha sat on a hay bale in the barn before Lila’s lesson, and thought, as long as I’m waiting...

Have you heard from  Steve?

                                        Sort of. Somebody set up a bank
              account for me.

How do you know it  was him?

                                      It was opened in 2005. And the
                                     security questions were kind of
                                      a give-away. No one else knows
                            the name of my first boss.

Who was your first boss?

                                     Mr. Ruggiero at the newsstand. 
                               

                                Shit, now I have to change it.

With infosec like that I could
hack you whenever I wanted.

She winced a little reading that back. It wasn’t actually suggestive, but in the right frame of mind…

“Are you texting that guy again?”

“What?” Natasha glanced up. Lila was standing there, eyebrows raised in curiosity. Great situational awareness, Nat.

“Is it the guy you kissed at the funeral?”

Nat’s eyes widened. “I didn’t really… He’s, um, an old friend.”

“Older than my dad?”

She smiled wryly. “A lot older.” She stood and brushed off her jeans. “Okay, get into your stance. Remember what I told you? Distribute your weight, pay attention to where it goes. I’m going to strike, and you either block or evade me. We’ll do it in slow motion so you can watch my form. Got it?”

Lila gave her a crisp nod and raised her arms into position. Nat’s right cross was floating through the air as Lila said, “I liked his hair.” The kid ducked it. 

By the end of her second week at the farm, the novelty of having Aunt Nat around all the time had worn off, so she had a little more time to herself. But the more of it she had, the more restless she started to feel. She thought about going back to work, but she knew she wasn’t ready, and she knew she was here as much for Clint as for herself, so she stayed.

She kept herself busy. She had her daily workouts. She hoed and weeded the vegetable garden, and built trellises for the beans. She reacquainted herself with Butternut Barton, the family’s horse, and started going for the occasional ride. She watched baking competition shows, and made a few runs at recipes. And she had her morning runs—and morning photos, and morning texts.

And afternoon texts. And...evening texts.

If she initiated, it was usually an image and a brief caption, whether it was an empty pizza box…

The boys bet I couldn’t do it  

                        There’s no pizza in space.

(is there?) 

Or a closeup of Butternut, or a red-tailed hawk she’d seen in a pine tree by the creek, or a very sad-looking failure of a cherry pie. He always replied.

If he initiated, sometimes it was to tell her about his walks. 

                                  Saw six deer in Rock Creek  Park
today.      

Did you go to the zoo?

                      No. Don’t like the cages.

 I get that

                      Went to the planetarium.

 No crowds.

Have you walked the  whole
city yet?

She could see how for someone who’d had no control over his own movements, who’d spent a long time on the run, just being able to move freely, at his own direction and his own pace, would have an irresistible appeal. But she worried sometimes that he was pushing himself too hard, especially if he was still dealing with residual paranoia. Not that he told her that, of course.

                                Picked up the habit in  Wakanda.

        Calms the mind.

Like meditation

                 Yeah, like that I guess.

She hoped it was like that. 

He was also reading a lot. It made sense to her, too, that someone who hadn’t been allowed a mind of his own would want to use it as much as possible once he got one. Television was too noisy, he told her. Too flashy. He read the box scores in the paper, and listened to a ballgame on the radio once in a while. He watched women’s soccer with Sam. But mostly, besides walking, he raided Sam’s bookshelf, and then started picking up titles at used bookshops here and there. A bunch of Easy Rawlins mysteries. Catch-22. The Lottery and Other Stories. A book called Wise Blood that she read the Wikipedia summary of and cringed. The list went on, and she always got a blurb or a capsule book report if she asked for it, which she usually did.

What is it today?

      Invisible Man

Sounds like someone  Nick
should recruit.

       Different guy

“No phones at the dinner table,” scolded Laura. Nat looked up guiltily before she realized she’d been talking to the kids. She set her device aside slowly, and stared down Laura’s knowing smirk.

Natasha took cover in the doorway and shot a five-second recon video of the hostiles: Coop and Nate screaming at each other, Lila screaming at both of them to stop screaming. 

Require immediate extraction

                                I can boost Sam’s rig and  be
             there in 3 hours.

C+L should be home  by then

     Babysitting?

Yes I’m the cool aunt

     Sounds fun!

Was that sarcasm?

No!        

Ok that was sarcasm

LOL no  

Maybe   

Who taught you LOL?

                                   I am capable of learning  things.

Guess I should go mediate

                                       I missed out on being  a fun uncle.

      Stupid Steve. 

She’d thought Vormir was the worst kind of purgatory. That was before she’d been to Fun City. It even had rock-climbing. 

I’m at an indoor trampoline 
and water park.

Humid...cacophony

Do those two words go
together?

                                     Jesus. It looks like Coney  I s land
              for child soldiers.

There’s an arcade

I dominated at laser tag

  Of course.

Talk later, I’m needed  at the
go-cart track

                                      Can you at least put money  on it?

I’m broke from buying two 
hot dogs and a coke.

                  Natasha, I mean this:

Stay safe.

                                   Get your team out of there alive.

                You trained for this.

 She sent three eye-rolling emoji and grinned. 

                What are you doing?

Watching the classic  movie
channel

                             Those are just movies  to me.

                                Hey, I recognize these  people!

Have you seen this before?

          Not since 1939.

                                    Mary Rose O’Callaghan probably 
                               remembers it better than I do.

                              Actually she’s probably  dead.

That’s terrible

                       Yeah. She was a nice girl.

You went out with nice girls, huh?

  Always.     

Sure

                         Well they were nice to me.

Wow

She watched the ‘still typing’ indicator pulse and laughed as she imagined him trying to figure out if he could delete something she’d already replied to. That’s not how time travel works, buddy, she thought.

                                      Now I remember why this annoyed
                                              me. Just tell him you’re in a wheelchair!

I know

She wants to be  i ndependent though

And he wanted to be worthy  of her.
That’s why they waited  six months

 Yeah        

He went silent for a while after that. She got misty-eyed at the end of the movie.

        Goodnight Nat

Night James

As Natasha’s third week at the farm wore on, something changed. Her sleep wasn’t as sound, and her mind drifted more and more toward darker shades. She thought more of Tony; of Vormir; of the lost years; of the Red Room. Of exiles of all kinds. She maintained her routine, but her usual distractions began to fail her. She tried to hide this internal disquiet from the Barton family, but she noticed Clint shooting her concerned looks when he caught her withdrawing. 

Still, though, there was the lifeline in her pocket, even if she didn’t admit she thought of it that way. Until the day it wasn’t there.

She took her morning photo—her running shoes, caked in mud. There was no reply right away, but that was normal; he slept in sometimes. There was nothing by ten o’clock, but that wasn’t that unusual. She sent him a picture of a rain-streaked window.

There was nothing by lunch. Maybe he was out walking, or caught up in a book. Maybe he forgot to charge his phone. She sent him a picture of a dragonfly, and one of the creek riding high on its banks.

Nothing by three o’clock. 

What did you do today?

Nothing by four. Or six. That was when she admitted she was worried. He was a grown man, and he certainly could more than take care of himself. But he had...fissures. She knew this. He’d been broken and mended, and he was holding himself together admirably, but that didn’t mean the cracks disappeared. Contemplating that too long created a tightness deep in her chest, a wave of unease that tipped her whole body off-kilter. Was it wrong that they’d drawn so close, again, so quickly? Was it dangerous? It didn’t feel that way. It felt safe. Comforting. Some days every text alert was like letting out a deep breath. 

That’s what her instincts told her. But maybe her gut couldn’t be trusted with this one. Maybe… was that not what it was like for him?

She sent him a picture of a barn cat.

At eight, she finally texted Sam.

Is Bucky around?

                                   He was in his room this morning. 
                            Haven’t been home yet. Why?

Probably nothing.

Just wondering.

                Want me to check in?

“Yes,” she said to herself.

Just let me know if he’s  home
when you get there.

 Got it.      

 At nine twenty-eight, she was sitting on the bed in her room, and the phone vibrated in her hand. She let out a shuddering exhale.

Sorry      

                Bad night last night

               Crummy day today

“Shit.” She wondered what a "bad night" entailed. Nightmares? Anxiety? Flashbacks? Despair? She didn’t think he’d give her details if she asked. 

Are you okay?

       Ok now yeah

                      Thanks for the pictures

     They helped

Her shoulders slumped in relief.

I’m glad

                            Sam said you were worried

       I’m sorry Nat

She bit down on a quiver in her jaw.

No it’s fine

You’re allowed to take a day

She waited, but he wasn't typing.

Am I crowding you?  We  could
take a break

 No no no

                  Unless you need one

No

   Okay good

 “Okay.” Her voice sounded watery and small. She sank backward and let the headboard hold her up.

You can talk to me, you know

If you have another bad night

A brief delay, and then, 

Thanks 

Or anytime

I mean it

    Same here

That was probably true, she realized. She hadn’t wanted to tell him about her shitty week, hadn’t wanted to break the mood of their back-and-forth, but if she had opened up to him first… She sighed. 

I’ll hold you to that

Deal    

                                  Hey send me another picture 
                     of that cat tomorrow.

She sniffle-laughed.

You know, SHIELD’s medical plan
covers therapy

Just saying

                                        It would probably be  mandatory. 

Would that be so bad?

     Maybe not.

        Probably not.

I’m not trying to push you

It gave me a purpose when I
needed one, that’s all

        I get it.         

                                 Serious about that cat picture
though. 

When Nat had been at the farm almost a month, she sat down over beers at the kitchen table with Clint, and told him she was considering going back to SHIELD. He wasn’t thrilled with the idea.

“Are you sure you’re ready?”

“Not yet. But I will be. Are you sure you’re ready to retire?”

“Yeah, I really think I am. You could get out too, you know. You’ve done your part.”

She shook her head. “I’m not finished yet. Besides, I can’t stay here forever.”

“Sure you could.”

“You just want the free babysitting.”

He smiled, and peeled up the corner of his beer bottle’s label. “Where would you be based out of?”

“New York, maybe,” she said. “Maybe D.C.”

Clint leaned back in his chair, casual as could be. “That where Barnes is?”

“For now,” she admitted. “It’s not about that.”

“No, I know. I know it’s not. It’d just be nice to know there’s someone in your corner, that’s all.” He glanced out the window, where Laura was taking laundry off the line. “You’re tougher than me, though, so I know you’ll be fine.”

She felt a pinch of guilt then, and committed to spending more time with Clint, just the two of them, before she left. “You’ll always be my backup, though, right partner?”

“You’re goddamn right,” he vowed, his voice a little choked with emotion. 

They clinked the necks of their bottles together, and she echoed, “Goddamn right.”

It was two-thirteen a.m., and Natasha couldn’t sleep. Not for any particular reason she could put a target on, just one of those nights when her brain refused to settle. She padded downstairs on demi pointe, careful not to wake the kids, and put the kettle on, taking it off the burner just before it had a chance to whistle. She carried her mug out to the porch with her, where she folded herself onto the creaky wicker lounge chair. Moths fluttered around the porch lights, and a few remaining fireflies signaled to each other in the field. The crickets she heard through her window were twice as loud from here, and cicadas called in the distant trees. She sipped her chamomile-rosehip tea, and tried a focused relaxation technique.

Five minutes later, she took her phone out of the pocket of her hoodie. She balanced her mug on the arm of the chair and snapped a picture, white siding and the screen door in the background.

Can’t sleep

She didn’t expect a reply until morning, but got one almost right away, and felt foolish for possibly waking him.

             Something wrong?

No everything’s fine

Sorry if I woke you

 It’s ok.     

                                  I have trouble sleeping through
                 the night sometimes.

She sighed. It wasn’t a surprise, but he’d never told her that before.

What do you do?

                               Usually read until I fall asleep
         or it’s morning.

What are you reading now?

                                   Hold on a sec, I’ll take  a picture.

It was the first time he’d attempted it. Nice that he was broadening his tech horizons, she supposed. When the image came across, though, she expelled a burst of delighted laughter so loud she clapped her hand over her mouth afterward, sure the whole house had heard.

It was...a selfie. An unintentional one, no doubt—foiled by the front-facing camera—but framed pretty well just by chance. He sat on the edge of his bed, leaning forward slightly, his hair making a motion blur over one side of his face. He was not wearing a shirt.

She pressed her forehead to her knee, one eye on the screen, shaking with laughter as a flush crept up her neck.

                    That was an accident!!

I SWEAR 

She bit her lip and grinned.

Suuuuuure

    Jesus christ

                             How do I get off the planet?

No I believe you

Totally an accident

Let’s see your book

B-O-O-K

              Ok one more try.

                                   Then I chuck this thing and we
                  start writing letters.

He got it right that time, and sent her a picture of his sparse nightstand with a battered black hardcover on it, the cover torn but intact enough to read. It looked almost as old as him. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn . The title rang a bell, but that was all.

Is it good?

         Just started. 

                                          I remember guys reading it during
                                        the war. I always thought, why do
                                   I need a book to tell me about 
                                    Brooklyn? But I saw it in a shop
              so I picked it up. 

She did a quick search and read a summary. It was certainly a change of pace thematically from some of the other stuff he’d read. If not happier, at least gentler. She typed, You’ll have to tell me what you think, but she let the cursor blink, and then deleted it. She scrolled up and smiled at that picture again. She flicked her thumb and scrolled up, up, up over all their conversations, back to the very first one. It’s me. James. Barnes.

She remembered taking his hand on Tony and Pepper’s porch. 

Her thumb hovered over his contact for a second, and then tapped the icon for ‘call.’

It rang twice as she held her breath, and then she heard, “Hello?” and then a clatter, and then a quiet “Shit!” and a clear, repeated “Hello? Sorry, I dropped the phone. Slipped out of my left hand. Sam told me to get a case, but they were sixty bucks, and—Natasha? Are you there?”

“Yeah,” she said, a lump in her throat and a heat building behind her eyes, feeling ridiculous. It was just his voice, that’s all. “Yeah, I’m here. Hi.”

“Hi.” Not nervous now, but quiet, almost shy. “What’s, uh. What’s going on?”

“Still can’t sleep, I guess.”

“Tea not working, huh?”

“No. I was wondering…” She closed her eyes tight, squeezing out the tension. “Maybe you could read to me?”

The night sounds filled the pause until he answered, “Yeah. Yeah, I can absolutely do that.” There was a rustling as he picked up the book. 

She relaxed and readjusted herself in the chair, and absently rubbed at the collar of her shirt while she waited for him to begin. “Ready when you are.”

“Okay.” He paused again, gathering himself. “‘Book One. Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New York. Especially in the summer of 1912. Somber as a word, was better…'"

He got into a rhythm after a page or two. Some of it was jarring to her modern ears, but she listened carefully, wondering if this was the world he’d grown up in. She listened as she went inside and washed out her mug, re-locked the front door, and trod softly back upstairs. She listened, without interruption, as she got into bed and pulled the quilt up over her knees. 

“...That’s the end of chapter one,” he said. It was nearly three o’clock. “You want to keep going?”

“No, that’s good for tonight. But maybe tomorrow…?” 

“Yeah,” he quickly agreed. “That’s… yeah.”

“Okay. I’ll call you? Probably before two next time.”

“Hey, whenever. I’ll be here.”

And she believed him. “Thanks, James.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, his voice husky now from use, or something else. There was an empty space where she sensed more words were about to come, but he only said, “Goodnight, Natasha.”

“Goodnight. Get some sleep,” she told him, and ended the call.

For the next week, in addition to their daily texts, every night she would call him, they would chat a while, and then he would read. She would listen while she changed for bed, while she brushed her teeth. Sometimes she would interrupt with questions, and he started to tell her stories from his own childhood, which of course frequently featured Steve. 

One night she put him on speaker while she was making up her bed with clean sheets, and as he read, Laura stopped in the open doorway. She came in and helped tuck the corners, and she looked at Natasha with her lips pressed together and the softest, kindest eyes.

The day after that, Nat took a long, early run down by the creek, splashing over rocks, jumping over tree roots, and came back in sight of the barn just as a.m. twilight was giving way to full sun. She stopped, sat down in the grass to stretch, and took her morning photo.

When Bucky opened his texts that morning, he dropped his phone again. Sam, at the counter behind him making a smoothie, said, “I told you—”

“Get a case, I know.” He picked it up and checked that the pre-existing crack in the corner hadn’t spidered. It hadn’t, and anyway, it didn’t mar her picture...which was a picture of her.

She was lying in the grass with her hair spread out behind her, damp tendrils around her face. Her tee shirt stuck to her chest, and the skin above her collar was flushed from exertion. She squinted a little against the brilliant sun...or maybe that was just from her smile. No haunted expression now; her face was radiant, open, and alive.

And, y’know, drop-dead gorgeous. Couldn’t forget that.

He stared at it, and stared at it, her beauty making a mess of him. A good mess, for once.

He jumped a little when Sam leaned over his shoulder and said, “Uh huh, I see.” Sam held out his fist and Bucky absently bumped it. “Want me to show you how to make that your lock screen?”

“What? No, that’s...” He thought about it. “Maybe.” He typed, Good morning, beautiful, and then deleted “beautiful.” You chickenshit , he thought. He added a sun emoji, though he was not an emoji guy.

He went out to a coffee shop, tried to read the paper, and stared at the photo. He came home, sat on the couch, and stared at the photo. Their text chain wasn’t active that day—she’d gone into the woods to shoot arrows with Hawkeye or something—so he had plenty of time to stew in his feelings. And he had a lot of them, no matter how he tried to stay level, hold back. Every time he said goodnight to her, he felt other words building in his chest, and stifled them like a cough. Steve’s open door was swinging off its hinges, and he was white-knuckling the jamb.

And on the other side of that door, she was… He didn’t know what she was. He sensed, yeah, but he didn’t know. He could just ask her, he guessed. If he wasn’t such a chickenshit.

He stared at the photo, and thought of all the guys during the war who’d carried pictures of their wives or sweethearts in the pockets of their uniforms. Some of them had gone home to those women, and some of them had died with those pictures over their hearts. None of them had had any control over which way it went. It was all down to dumb luck.

He had met her, in the darkest of circumstances, and lost her; found her, sort of; lost her, for good; then, impossibly, found her again. All dumb luck, out of his control. 

Until now, maybe. 

He put on his jacket and tucked his phone into his breast pocket.

Maybe now, he had a choice.

Chapter Text

When Natasha jogged downstairs after her shower, Laura was sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop, enjoying some peace and quiet before the kids got up. Nat greeted her and went to pour herself some coffee, although she hardly felt like she needed it. She’d been humming with a weird, buzzy energy all morning, a little like the rush from kicking in a door, but...nice.

“What are you so giddy about?” Laura asked.

Nat looked behind her. “You must be talking to someone else.” Giddy? Is that what this was? No.

“You’re the only one who bounced into my kitchen all chipper in the past five minutes.”

Chipper? Now she was almost offended. “I’m not— I don’t get— That’s literally impossible.”

“Of course, my mistake.”

“Where’s Clint?”

Laura accepted this obvious diversion. “Out in the shed getting some stuff together. He’s going to ask you to go camping. Act surprised.”

“Got it,” Nat smiled. “Camping, huh?”

“Yeah, I suggested it.”

“You know I was basically camping on another planet for like two weeks.”

Laura looked mildly aghast. “Oh, god, I didn’t think of that.”

“I’m only kidding,” Natasha reassured her. “I assume the accommodations will be better on this trip.”

“I guess if you like lake trout and air mattresses...”

“Believe me, that’s way better.”

“Okay.” Laura paused. “I just thought… I know you’ve been giving him time to be with us, and I appreciate that. He needed it. But it feels like you’re gearing up to leave—which is good, even though we’ll miss you—and I thought the two of you should spend some time together before that happens. He needs that, too.”

“Yeah. So do I,” Natasha acknowledged. She was lucky to have this woman as a friend. “It’s a good idea. Thanks.”

Then, Nat’s phone buzzed. Her hand went to her pocket automatically, but when she saw Laura’s knowing look, she stopped, and sighed. “...That could be anything.”

“Mm hmm. Let me see, then.” Laura held out her hand.

Nat hesitated, then sat across from her at the table and complied. This was good, actually. This was the first reply since her impulsive selfie, and now that she was thinking about that, the morning’s previous buzziness was more of a churn. She could use the buffer.

“Ohhh,” said Laura. She looked delighted. Nat was briefly terrified. Laura held the phone screen-out and said, gleeful, “‘Good morning, sunshine.’”

Natasha snatched the phone back and studied the message. The emoji was new and unexpected. Yes, this was an appropriate escalation, commensurate with hers. She certainly hadn’t been expecting anything more...had she? Like what? She’d only sent him an innocent hello, not anything provocative. But in the moment, snapping the shutter, she had felt exposed. “Was that picture okay? Was I squinting too much?” She hadn’t even thought to ask it, it just came out.

“No, it was cute! You guys are… you’re very cute.”

“Oh, god,” she muttered. Never in her life…

“You’re blushing,” Laura accused.

“Bullshit,” Nat said, but she put her hand over her face, because she might as well be. What the hell is happening to me? And other people can see it?

It was like some reservoir inside her had been weakening since the moment she'd stepped onto that porch in upstate New York, and now want was spilling out of her, impossible to contain.

“You really have to tell me this whole story now, you know. At least the bullet points version.”

“Poor choice of words.” Laura’s eyebrows shot up in curiosity. “Okay,” Nat relented, and Laura got up to pour herself more coffee.

When the story, or as much of it as Natasha was comfortable sharing, was finished Laura said, “Yeah, that’s...dark.”

“I told you.”

“Okay, but the thing is, it also isn’t. ‘Cause you came out the other side, right? Like that’s amazing.”

Nat felt one corner of her mouth quirk upwards. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“I’ve been watching this summer, and, y’know, you’re not as cagey as you think you are. And it doesn’t seem like this is some kind of unresolved...drama...thing. It just seems like you like him and it’s making you happy.” She paused for Nat to take a deep breath and exhale. “You know. Just as an outside observer. And a friend,” she said pointedly. “I say go for it.”

“‘Go for it’, huh? Meaning?”

“Meaning whatever you want, girl.” She grabbed for Nat’s phone. “Let me see that shirtless pic again.”

“God,” Nat said, laughing as she took the device back and unlocked it. She shielded the screen with her hand as the boys tromped downstairs and into the kitchen, and held it out in front of Laura for two seconds.

“Oh yeah,” Laura said as she stood up. “Go for it.”

Bucky was stuffing a limited selection of his already limited number of possessions into a backpack when he got a call from an unknown number. After a few seconds, curiosity outweighed suspicion, and he answered.

“Hello?” he said warily.

“Wherever you’re going, can it wait a few hours? I’m coming in on the train.”

He relaxed. “Hey! How’d you get my number?”

“I still have a few connections. Will you meet me?”

“Yeah, of course. Where?”

He was given an address. “I can get there. Half-hour okay?”

“We’re just pulling into New Carrollton. Maybe forty-five minutes?”

“Sure. You know, a little advance notice would have been nice.”

“Gotta keep you on your toes. See you soon.”

“Yeah, see you there. Hey, how did you know I was—Hello?” Bucky frowned at the ‘call ended’ message, and muttered, “And when did you get so fucking mysterious?”

Forty-nine minutes later, he was walking past the bronze bas reliefs, not looking at them too closely. He followed the arc of the row of granite pillars, until his shadow fell on the man on the bench under the Atlantic arch.

“Little on the nose, don’t you think?”

“Cut me some slack, I haven’t been here in a while.”

Bucky sat down beside Steve. “I hate this thing. It’s...grandiose.”

“Yeah, maybe. But I think the scale is...appropriate. And it’s got a place to sit. Someplace to sit is important at my age.”

And they sat for a minute, elbows resting on their knees, observing the summer tourist crowd. Bucky said, “Did you ever wonder whatever happened to hats?”

“Frequently, actually.” Then, wistfully, “Peggy looked great in hats.”

“Yeah, I bet.” Bucky let another minute go by, watching Steve watch people mill around the granite oval. Half the people in the universe had just died and come back, but all this—this thing they had been a part of, the grinding, grimy leviathan that had swallowed them up and changed them forever—it still meant something to people. Enough that they’d built a temple to it. What a funny fucking world.

“Sorry for the surprise call,” Steve said eventually.

“Nah, it’s fine. I thought you were bullshitting me about keeping in touch, so, y’know. Nice to be wrong. Been keeping tabs on me, huh?”

“Not really, not like you’re thinking. I have an alert set up if there’s a large withdrawal from your account. Forgot it was even there.”

“How large?”

Steve looked at him, with that ‘I’m about to be disappointed in you’ warning in his eyes. “Enough to pull up stakes.”

“Ah. You think I’m blowing town.”

“I wondered.”

“Look, I appreciate the concern—not so hot on the spying—but it’s not what you think.”

“So reassure me.”

Bucky told him, “I bought a used motorcycle.”

“Oh. Is this just for daily use, or…?”

“No, you caught me. I’m leaving town.”

“Bucky—”

“Not permanently, calm down. Just a little road trip.”

Steve was clearly relieved, but still doubtful. “Where are you going?”

“Actually…” Okay, here we go. “It’s kind of lucky you’re here, you might be able to help me with that. I’ve got more of a geographic region than an address...”

The old man’s face lit up. “Nat. You’re going to see Nat.”

Bucky avoided his proud, quasi-fatherly gaze. “Yeah, well, we’ve been talking a little...”

Steve punched him on the shoulder. “I told you. Didn’t I tell you?”

“Christ, you’re such a sap.”

“I’ll tell you where the farm is. You don’t have the clearance, but I think an exception can be made just this one time. If Nick complains, he can call me.”

“So Nick has your number?”

He ignored the question. “How were you going to get there without the address?”

“I guess...I was going to drive west and then call from the road when I got too far to change my mind.”

“Wow, so this is serious.”

“I don’t know,” he balked, on pure reflex. “It’s...it’s something.” The thing was, he did know. But actually saying it out loud, admitting it, still felt far too risky. Sighing, he retrieved his phone from his pocket and brought up her picture. “She sent me this.” He handed it over, unsure. He couldn’t believe he was about to ask Steve Rogers for advice about women. One particular woman. “What do you think it means?”

Steve smiled fondly at the photo, and then he went very still. “I think I can stop checking up on you so much. ‘Cause you’ve got somebody who loves you.”

The words hit Bucky like a miniature shockwave. An unfamiliar heat flooded him from the inside, coming up through his skin. He could feel it on the back of his neck. Steve wasn’t humoring him, or joking around. He just said that as if it were true.

“I don’t know,” Bucky repeated, looking down at the stones between his boots. “Don’t know if I’m—” Ready for that, he had been going to say, but that wasn’t quite it. He was ready enough to want that. Ready to drive nearly a thousand miles for it. “I don’t know if I deserve it.”

Steve let out a soft sigh. “Well you know where I stand on that.” He was quiet until Bucky looked at him again. “Have you talked to anybody else, since you left Wakanda?”

“You mean like a doctor.”

“Somebody like that, yeah.”

“No,” he answered, and to forestall arguing, “but I think I’ve got a lead on something.” It had the benefit of being true.

Steve narrowed his eyes for a second, then decided to believe him. “Good.”

Bucky smiled. “You’re going to keep checking up on me anyway, aren’t you?”

“Probably. Oh,” he said, patting his pockets. “Before I forget, again…” From his windbreaker, he retrieved an object about the size of a phone—or of the address books they used to carry. “This is for you. I meant to give it to you before, but I still had it in my pocket when I got on the platform. Just found it again in the attic a few weeks ago.”

Bucky took it. Smooth cover tattered at the corners, yellowed unlined pages, and in fading ink...lists. Weird lists. “Thanks?”

“I used this when I got back. To catch up on stuff that I missed. It helped me get re-oriented. I thought maybe...”

He nodded, understanding. “Ah, yeah, I have something like this. For food, mostly.” Steve chuckled at that. “But yeah. I could use it. Thanks.”

“Of course, you could probably use this for that, too. Since you’re all tech-savvy.” Steve handed him his phone back, and it woke up as Bucky’s thumb passed over the sensor, revealing Natasha’s image once again.

‘Somebody who loves you.’ How about that.

“Buck?”

He looked up, noting Steve’s amusement and ignoring it. “Anyway, now that I know how these things work, I know you have one on you, and I know you have pictures of your grandkids on it, and I want to see them.” He got up and looked around at the growing crowd. “Now what do you say we get out of here before someone decides to thank you for your service?”

Steve stood, slowly. “Buy me lunch and I’ll give you the destination for your road trip.” Then, a few seconds later, “Wait, do you even have a license?”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Are you gonna confiscate my keys? I thought you were a romantic.”

“I’ll let it slide this time.” They were halfway across the massive oval when Steve elbowed him, and said victoriously, “I told you.”

Bucky grinned. “Fuck off.”

Natasha and Clint’s wilderness retreat was only two nights in a state park less than three hours away, but Laura had been right about them needing it. They did some hiking, some fishing—mostly Clint did the fishing—and she got a little refresher on the bow. They built a fire and told the old stories, and there in the woods, under the stars, they finally had the talk they'd been putting off all summer. Or not putting off, but building up the strength for—him by grounding himself with his family, her by reaching out to someone...unexpected.

She acknowledged how her decision on Vormir had hurt him. He accepted that she would apologize for the grief, but never for the actions that caused it. How could either of them have done anything differently? They were partners; keeping each other alive was part of the deal. It wasn’t death she chose; it was duty, and love.

She was honest about how his descent after the Snap had affected her. He talked about that period in as much depth as he could stand, and she listened. She was qualified to understand, not to judge. She could offer him absolution for the pain his pain had caused her; anything else he needed he had to seek out on his own.

She let him know how much it meant to her to see him with his family again; how much they meant to her, and how grateful she was. And she finally told him how, though it wasn't the same as what he went through, she had once found something warm and piercingly human in the coldest, unlikeliest place, and had it torn away.

It was heavy, and it was hard, but she felt lighter and cleaner afterward, and she thought he did too. He drove them home with the truck’s windows down and the stereo up, forcing her to endure his terrible country-rock.

The trip set her at ease in another way. There was a fear that occasionally pricked at the back of her brain, that she was only falling into this...thing with James as a crutch, a way to avoid processing her trauma. Stepping back and putting things on pause for a few days to directly address some of those capital-I Issues was a good test. Maybe these feelings would dissipate, or the intensity of them would fade. That hadn’t happened so far. From how quick she had been to snap a pic and text him 'Out of the woods' as soon as they pulled into the driveway...it didn’t seem likely.

She was in the barn waiting for Lila, who was late for their lesson, and passing the time the way anyone would—by staring at her phone for no reason in particular—when she heard the motorcycle engine. The Bartons weren’t expecting anyone as far as she knew, but it was definitely approaching the house. She went quickly to the wall and took a sickle off a rack of farm implements, testing its weight. The engine noise stopped. She was about to look around the edge of the barn door when Lila rounded the corner at a run. Nat tried to push the girl behind her, but she sidestepped, confused.

“Your boyfriend’s here!” she announced.

The hand with the sickle dropped to Nat’s side. “I don’t— What? He is?”

“Yeah.” Lila eyed the sickle. “What were you going to do with that?”

“Um, nothing.” She hung it back on the wall and wiped her hands on her shorts, trying to brush dust and straw off them. “Who’s here?”

Lila put her hands on her hips and raised her eyebrows. She could not have looked more like a mini-Clint. “Your boyfriend,” she repeated, politely leaving off the duh. “Hair guy, from the funeral. With the metal hand? That’s the guy, right?”

Nat stood with her mouth open for a few seconds. “Yeah, but he’s not—” Not what? Why was she issuing denials to a teenager? “Yeah, that’s the guy.”

“Okay, well, he’s here. Lesson’s cancelled, right?”

“Guess so.”

“Cool.” She turned to go, arms swinging, then spun around and walked backward for a few steps to say, “You look fine, by the way.”

Nat froze in the middle of finger-combing her hair. “...Thanks.”

As Lila was leaving, Clint appeared in the doorway. He put a hand on her head and said, “Go help your mom with the boys,” as she ducked away and sighed. He walked in and stopped in front of Nat, barely suppressing a grin. “The greatest generation’s here to see you. The one who’s been blowing up your phone, I mean.”

She rolled her eyes. “I did not know he was coming.”

“Yeah, I know. I think this is what they call a ‘gesture.’ Cap called ahead to make sure I didn’t put an arrow through him at two hundred yards.”

“What? You could have told me!”

“Nah, this is more fun.”

She jabbed two knuckles into his ribs, and he doubled over, groaning. “Idiot,” she laughed.

He looped an arm around her neck and said, “Come on. Don’t be nervous.” It was half-teasing, half genuine encouragement.

Damn it, she thought. Why can everyone read me now? Maybe she had been out of the game too long.

She lagged a step behind Clint as they walked to the house, hoping to spot their visitor before he spotted her. The bike was parked in front of the porch steps, and Cooper was already climbing all over it. James—Bucky? She was suddenly uncertain of the protocol—was chatting with Laura. His left arm was outstretched and Nate was dangling from the end of it, legs happily swinging in the air, grasping two of James’ unbreakable fingers.

She had a feeling like standing in the surf when an unexpected swell hits; it doesn’t knock you over, but it moves you.

When he saw her, he slowly lowered Nate to the ground, and the boy went to join his brother. Natasha raised her hand in a little wave. James broke into a smile in return, free and unguarded, and full of expectation. All the times she had faced off with the Soldier, his expressionless mask and pitiless indifference, and had refused to let it affect her, crashed into her at once, and she lost a step under their weight before recovering and closing the distance. That was over; she’d kick it back into the past before she’d let it drag her down now.

“Making friends?” she asked him. His smile was tempered now, but it was still so...so good. Heat kindled in her solar plexus as she wondered what else she could make his face do. She tamped it down for the time being.

“Yeah, I think so.”

Clint was now supervising the boys, making sure they didn’t argue or break anything. Lila had apparently abandoned her duties. “Oh, yeah, you’re in,” said Laura. “Boys! Come inside and help me make lemonade.” There was some complaining, but Clint wrangled them off the bike and onto the porch. “We’re all about child labor around here,” Laura joked.

Nate tugged at her hand and she crouched to let him whisper something in her ear. “I don’t know,” she told him, and turned to look at James, and then Natasha. “Is Bucky staying for dinner?”

“Uh.” He looked at Nat, and then at Clint, who shrugged magnanimously. “Yeah. Yes. Thank you, ma’am.”

Clint laughed as Laura cringed and said, “Oof. Is that what I introduced myself as?”

“Sorry. Laura.”

After the family went inside, Nat said to him, “I think only Steve could pull off the ‘ma’am’ thing.”

“Of course, even my manners can’t live up to him. So much for making a good impression.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” she reassured him. “You already have.” She smiled to herself, but didn’t explain any further.

“Okay…” He stood with his hands in his pockets, looking a little like someone who’d shown up for an appointment but wasn’t sure he’d got the time right. “It’s good to see you,” he said, and he did sound sure about that.

“You too.” She put her thumbs through the belt loops of her shorts to keep herself from fidgeting with her hair. “Unexpected.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. I thought it would be...I don’t know.”

A gesture, she thought. He wasn’t wrong. Neither of them could help it if they were clumsy at romance, but if that’s what this was, it was bold, she had to hand it to him.

If that’s what this was. The thought intruded suddenly. What if she was wrong about his feelings? What if this whole time she’d been doing what she’d warned younger agents against so often: interpreting the available intel to favor her preferred conclusion? If he only needed friendship from her, and she’d chosen to see something else, only because she wanted it…

“No, yeah, it’s… not a problem. So did Sam kick you out?”

He laughed. “Not yet.”

“He’s too nice.”

“I keep telling him that.” He had started digging through the bag that was strapped onto his bike, and she sidled up closer, curious. “I brought you something.”

She leaned in. “Oh yeah?” He unwrapped a t-shirt from around a book-shaped object, and she saw the tattered dustjacket of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. “Oh.”

“I figured...since we finished Book Two…” He held it out to her, and she hesitated a second before taking it. It was heavier than it looked.

“Are you…? Do you not want to read it anymore?” Was this, whatever it was, over? Had he come all the way out here just to break it to her gently?

He looked confused for a second, and then realized what she was asking. “No! Yeah, of course I do, I just thought—” He sighed, frustrated. With himself, she thought. “Sometimes I can’t sleep. So I thought we could, you know, trade off. It’s— I like hearing your voice.”

Oh. Her doubts shrank away. The way he was looking at her, the way her scalp prickled in response...she hadn’t been out of the game long enough to misinterpret that. This was happening. And if she’d wondered if she wanted it...well, now she knew. “Okay.” She hugged the book to her chest. “I don’t want to abandon Francie.”

“Right,” he said, and smiled a little, relieved.

“Hey, do you want to take a walk with me?”

He smiled wider. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.” He took off his jacket and slung it over the handlebars of his bike. His charcoal gray t-shirt looked soft.

She led him past the barn—they said hello to Butternut, who was grazing outside—and cut across the hayfield toward the creek. He walked on her left, and their knuckles brushed together, maybe accidentally, sending an electric shiver up her arm. She repeated it, on purpose, and his fingers twitched, but neither of them had the guts to grab hold.

“James,” she said, and he looked down at her. “You didn’t come all the way out here just to give me a book, did you? Because if that’s it, you could have mailed it. I hear the postal service is almost back up to full capacity.”

“It wasn’t just to give you the book.”

“I figured. You feeling stir crazy?”

“Well, yeah. Steve thought I was making a run for it, actually.”

“You got to talk to him?”

“I saw him before I left. It was...good.”

“I’m glad. And I’m glad he warned Clint you were coming, or we’d still be pulling arrows out of you.”

He snorted. “Yeah, I guess I didn’t think of that. I just…” He held her gaze for a moment, and she held her breath. “I wanted to see you.”

She exhaled softly. “Well. That’s a good enough reason.”

“And—”

She looked up again, expectant. “Yes?”

“I need your advice about something.”

“Oh.” Not what she’d been expecting. “Of course. What’s going on?”

“Do you know Sharon Carter?”

“Thirteen? Yeah. She was friendly with Steve, right?”

“They were slightly more than friendly.” He paused, and made a face. “I’m actually just now realizing how weird that is. Anyway, she reached out, through Sam, and she wants to sit down over coffee.”

“So unless Sam is setting you up on blind dates,” and he’d better not be, “it sounds like you’re being scouted. Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

He looked away, although there’d been no accusation in her tone. “I don’t know. It only came up within the last week, we had other stuff going on. I guess I was waiting to figure out how I felt about it before I asked you.”

“So you figured it out, huh?”

“Yeah. I got some thinking done on the road. About that and...other things.”

He was looking at her again, and she knew what he’d decided. “You want to do it.”

“Yeah, I do. But...I don’t know if I should.”

“Did you talk to Sam about it?”

“A little. But he doesn’t understand the way—”

She nodded. “The way I do.”

“Right.”

They’d reached the head of one of her running trails, and she guided him along the path, under the shelter of trees. “What’s holding you back?”

He went quiet for a moment, thinking. “You said the work gave you purpose.”

“It did.”

“That’s what I want. I have all this…” He flexed his prosthetic hand, symbolizing all the enhancements, the training. The pain. The potential. “All this stuff I never asked for, but I know how to use it. Really, really well. That’s what I’ve got, that’s what I have to offer. And if there’s a way I can use it to...to balance the books—not that I could even get close to—you know what I mean?”

“I know exactly what you mean.” That’s not all you have to offer, though, she thought, but he went on before she could tell him.

“Yeah, I thought you might. So if SHIELD’s the way to do that, then, fine. But... can I trust them?”

“Well…” she began, wanting to give him an honest answer. “I trust Nick and Hill as much as I trust anybody in this business. SHIELD as an institution...I trust them more than I used to.” She smiled wryly. “Thanks to you, incidentally.”

“I don’t care if they’re supposedly the ‘good guys’, you know?” he continued. “I’m not going to let anybody use me again, ever. I’m not going to be anybody’s gun.”

It was the fiercest she’d heard him speak since they’d been reacquainted, and it made her feel a little thrill of pride. “If Nick tried to use you that way, he’d be a fool.” And he’d have to answer to me. “He’s not a fool, though.”

“Okay, that’s good to know,” he said, but he didn’t sound completely reassured. “If I do this, I’d need…” He struggled to articulate it.

“A clearly marked exit door?” she suggested.

He nodded vigorously, excited to be understood. “Yes. I just got my life back, you know? I’m not going to sign it over to anyone.”

“Of course not.” Of course he was careful with this new life, careful about the few people he let inside it. She was privileged to be one of them. “I don’t think you’d have to, not the way you’re thinking. There are obligations, sure, but—not to boost your ego—you’re kind of a special case. I think we could work something out.”

“We?” He smiled. “Are you representing me in these negotiations?”

“I...may have tipped Nick that you might be interested when I gave you a subtly glowing recommendation, so this is kind of my responsibility.”

She was a little nervous about how he’d react to this news, but he only laughed. “Well, I did ask for a reference.”

“And you never did get an email address.” So she wasn’t the only one who’d held onto the details of that conversation on Tony and Pepper’s porch. “There are benefits to being part of an organization,” she said. She wasn’t trying to sell him, but the idea of possibly getting to work together did have a distinct appeal. “There’s the health plan, for one.”

“There is that,” he agreed. “I could get Steve off my case about therapy. And I could stop living off him.”

The bank account. “That bothers you.”

“Sure it does. He better live long enough for me to pay him back.”

“He doesn’t want you to pay him back. He set it aside for you.”

“And I appreciate it, but I’m not one of his kids. So yeah, a paycheck would be nice.”

“Sounds like you’re going to have a coffee date with Sharon Carter.”

“A ‘sit-down’,” he corrected. “Sounds like it, yeah.”

She turned off the path, and he followed her to where an old elm tree spread over the bank of the creek, its lowest branches six feet off the ground.

“I think I recognize this,” he said. It was a favorite photo subject of hers.

“I love this spot,” she said, stepping over a root and down the incline of the bank onto a rock that jutted out into the stream. “You can’t see it from the house, can’t hear the road. Just the birds and the water. The nearest neighbor’s a mile away, and I have a hunch SHIELD owns that too.”

“Do you ever feel...isolated?”

She turned to face him. “Not here, no.” But she saw where the question came from: the way she was raised, her recent stranding. It was kind of him to ask. “Not now. What about you?”

“Sometimes,” he admitted. He leaned against the tree and looked down at her. The wind shifted the leaves above her, and the dancing sunlight dazzled her eyes. “Less, lately. Especially not right now.”

“Good.” She’d been carrying the book under one arm or the other this whole time, and now she held onto it carefully as she made her way back up the bank, not wanting to drop it.

“There’s something else,” he said reluctantly. “The other reason I want this job, if they offer it.”

“What is it?” she asked, although she thought she could hit on it if she had to guess.

“What you said about me being stir-crazy, that was true. But it’s more than that. I miss… I miss it. You know, the…”

“The violence,” she said evenly. If he was ashamed of it, he didn't need to be. “I get that, believe me. None of us would do what we do if we didn’t enjoy it, at least a little bit. Even Saint Steve Rogers.”

“I guess so, but—”

“Do you want to spar?” The question surprised her almost as much as it did him.

His eyes widened. “With you? I… don’t think I’m ready for that.”

It was an honest offer, but she was relieved. She didn’t think she was ready for it either. It was fifty-fifty whether it would be too fraught with the baggage of past fights or of past...other activities.

“We could ask Clint,” she suggested, half-joking, “but I warn you, if I ref’ed I’d have to remain neutral.”

“No, that’s...maybe some other time,” he said, still processing the idea.

Maybe imagining it. Like she was. “Yeah, another time, then.”

“It’s more than just liking a good fight,” he said, back to his worry. “If that were all it was, fine, but…”

“What? You can tell me.”

“I know I can. I’m just not sure I want to.”

“James.” She squeezed the book instead of reaching for him.

“What if I like it too much?” he said quietly. She waited for him to continue. “For a long time, that’s all I was. Except for—”

Except for when you were with me.

“What if I don’t know how to be anything else?” he continued, almost murmuring, as if he were afraid to say it. “What if I really am what they made me?”

She closed her eyes against a rush of anger. She wanted to kill them all, every one of them that was left, resurrect the ones who were already dead and kill them again. But she didn’t think it would help to tell him that right now.

“You’re not. Not any more than I am. Ask Shuri, or Sam. Ask Steve, for God’s sake.”

“I know what Steve would say. I’m asking you, Natalia,” he said softly.

She saw the same stark vulnerability that had confronted her the first time she’d glimpsed behind the Soldier’s mask. “You already know my answer. You knew it a long time ago. You just forgot it for a while.” She wished she knew how to make him believe it. “I know that it’s hard, basically learning how to be a person again. But getting to know you this summer has been… You’re doing a pretty good job.” That won her a half-smile. “You decide who you are. Not them. Don’t give them that power.”

He shifted against the tree, and looked away for a moment of thought, before saying, “Most of my life—” He sighed, and started over. “What used to be most of my life, you know, before the war, even during the war, all I tried to do was to be a decent guy. Not a hero, even. Just, you know…” He seemed embarrassed to say it. “A good man.”

“You are.”

“How do you know?”

The question was so earnest. “You’re breaking my heart, here, soldier.”

He grimaced and shrank away. “That’s the last thing I came here to do.”

“No, I know, I only meant—” She put her hand out to draw him back, but it only hung in the air for a second before curling back to her body. She wanted so badly to convince him, knew that he needed to be convinced. She looked down at the book in the crook of her arm. “Okay…” She hefted it, showing him. “Do you remember the first thing you ever gave me?”

He knitted his brows, searching back. “That dried out clementine?" he recalled. "I stole it from that colonel, he had bowls of them.”

“Why did you give it to me?”

“They made you fight when you were sick, you had the flu or something. It was…” Miserable. Brutal. “I couldn’t go easy on you, so—”

“So you passed me an orange in the corridor. Something you could have been punished for. You stole it. Something you shouldn’t even have been able to do. I kept the peel under my mattress for weeks, just to smell it.”

“It was just a—” Something seemed to catch in his throat.

“It wasn’t just anything. Not to me.” She stood quietly until he met her eyes again. “That’s how I know.”

She’d thought only obliquely about her soldat while getting to know James “Bucky” Barnes. After that night on the porch, she had tried to put them into separate boxes, whether to organize her feelings or protect herself from them, she couldn’t say. Today that seemed ridiculous. The tender, funny, uncertain man standing in front of her now had the same eyes as the one who had roared like a wounded animal while he was dragged away from her years ago. A lost Brooklyn boy doing his best; an instrument of violence with a chained mind and an unkillable human heart. They were the same man.

She guessed she loved him.

The undisguised need in those eyes had pulled him across the country to her, here; once, far away, it had called her to him like a bonfire in a forest of ice. She lifted her hand to his face, the same way she had after he had called to her not so long ago. She raised herself in a relevé, and echoed, low and quavering, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

His three-days’ beard scratched against her palm as he turned his head into her touch. He craned his neck as her fingers slid over his throat—she felt him swallow—and skimmed his collarbone, until he looked down at her again as her hand came to rest over his heart. “Lisichka…”

She remembered what they called him in Wakanda, and broke into a smile. “Moy belyy volk.”

She thought she saw need transform into hope and cautious joy as he gently swept her bangs away from her face. A tingling sensation rolled up her spine.

“How’s your compartmentalizing been going?” he asked.

“Terrible.”

“Really?” he said brightly, pleased. “Me too.”

She kissed him.

The tingling radiated from her center, unfurled across her shoulder blades like spreading wings. He returned the kiss with a mixture of hunger and hesitance that made her want to give him even more, but they both held back, still finding their way. He embraced her gingerly, his right hand brushing her shoulder, left hovering at her hip. She moved her hand to his throat again, where her fingertips transmitted his pulse until she imagined she was matching him beat for beat. A new angle of their heads, a surer grip on her shoulder, a softness in his kiss and a softness in her body, a releasing of tension that had been with her so long she’d no longer recognized it as anything but her natural state.

The shuddering sigh that escaped her when they broke the kiss ended in a laugh. He smiled at her in return, and she decided it was how she liked his face best. Heat rose in her cheeks; the new dimensions of their relationship left her in unfamiliar emotional territory that she struggled to identify. Laura would call it smitten. “You were asking for advice, weren’t you? I, uh, I hope that helped.”

“Very helpful, yeah.” His lips twitched, fighting back a full grin.

“Well…good.” She had an idea how to shift their momentum, needing a little time to realign herself before they took this any further. She pushed the book into his chest, and said, “Hold this.” He took it, looking at her curiously as she jumped, grabbed onto a sturdy branch, and swung herself up into the tree. She climbed until she found a notch that would hold her comfortably enough, straddled it, and looked down at him. “Come on,” she directed, pointing her foot at a limb that looked wide and strong enough to support him. He shrugged, amused, and started to lay the book on the ground when she said, “No, throw it here.”

He managed to toss it so that its dustjacket didn’t go flying, and she caught it and started riffling through the pages as he pulled himself up and settled on the branch below her in a few effortless movements. He leaned back against the trunk and extended his legs in front of him, ankles crossed.

“Relaxed?” she asked him.

“Sure. Nice to be sitting in a tree without pointing a rifle at anyone. Didn’t get a lot of opportunities for it back in the old neighborhood.”

She looked over the top of the book. “So I gather. Okay. ‘Book Three. Four rooms made up the new flat. They led one into the other and were called railroad rooms. The high narrow kitchen faced on the yard which was a flagstone walk surrounding a square of cementlike sour earth out of which nothing could possibly grow…’”

A dozen pages later, she stopped reading abruptly. Something, a leaf maybe, had touched the delicate skin on the back of her ankle. She peeked over the book again, and found him looking up at her, caught. Not a leaf, then.

“Sorry.”

“That’s— It’s fine.”

They stared each other down until slowly, he lifted his hand again toward where her leg was dangling over the branch above him, Converse to knee within easy reach. His forefinger found the soft place below her tibia, trailed from there up her achilles. She cleared her throat and continued to read as he idly stroked her lower calf.

A few minutes later, her mouth was dry and she was having trouble concentrating due to the glaring incongruity between the words in front of her and the reason for the goose bumps covering her legs. Her perch wasn’t as comfortable as it had looked from the ground, either. She shifted in the crook of the tree, trying to adjust her shorts, and his whole hand gripped her lower leg, as if he thought she was about to fall. She gasped inaudibly, and slowly released the breath as his loosened his grasp, stammering as she returned to the text. She focused on the page as she heard him reposition himself, swallowed as he twined his forearm around her leg and cupped her knee. Her toes pointed involuntarily, but she kept reading, until a jolt ran up her body as his nose and lips brushed against her shin. She snapped the book shut.

He looked up at her, expectant and unashamed. “Am I distracting you?”

“You’re the one who brought this. If you’re not going to listen...” She held up the book, and he motioned for her to hand it to him, which she did.

He jumped to the ground, laid the book on the grass, and said, “Sorry, Francie.”

She grabbed a nearby branch with both hands and let herself drop. He caught her around the waist, her t-shirt hitching up over her ribs, and held on. Her lower abs contracted, and heat kicked on inside her like a furnace. Neither of them moved.

“You came all this way,” she said. “To get some advice? To read a book? We could have done all that over the phone.” She was practiced at seduction as part of a cover, but felt defenseless and awkward attempting it as herself. Nonetheless, she lowered her voice, walked her fingers up his sternum—the t-shirt was soft—and asked, “Is there, maybe, something we couldn’t do over the phone?”

“You said they couldn’t see this place from the house?”

She shook her head. “Mm-mm.”

Her glance bounced from the intensity of his eyes to the rapid rise and fall of his chest, and she managed half of a deep inhale before his mouth covered hers and she found herself backing into the trunk of the tree. His right hand cradled the back of her head as he kissed her, all his earlier hesitance gone. He traced his lips over her jaw and bent to kiss her throat. She hooked her elbow around his neck, put her soles flat against the trunk and walked herself up until she was eye level with him, her core quivering. His slid his left arm under her ass to support her; she felt the smooth vibranium on her bare thighs and wrapped her right leg around him. She pulled him tight, her breasts pressed into his chest, the bark of the tree rough against her back, and their mouths met again. Her whole body seemed to be throwing off heat, glowing and pliable like molten glass.

Her fingers tangled in his hair, and he dragged his right hand down her torso, thumb skimming the side of her breast like a question. She squirmed and grabbed his wrist, guiding him to the answer. She worked her hand between them and pushed up his shirt until her palm lay flat against his stomach and she felt his muscles contract at the touch. He made a sound deep in his throat and she felt like she would melt to the ground.

It had been a long time since anyone, and so, so long since him, but her body remembered him, the same way it remembered her training—these things she had taken from that terrible place; these gifts.

Despite that, despite the daze of sensation and emotion, at the back of her mind she knew that this wasn’t quite the time nor place to take this any further. “James…” she sighed, scratching his scalp as his stubble scraped her neck. “Should we…? Maybe…”

He exhaled heavily, and backed off, if only a few inches. “Yeah, maybe,” he agreed reluctantly. The slight rasp in his voice made her reconsider, but only for a moment before he gently lowered her to the ground. He pulled her t-shirt down and adjusted it around the waist of her shorts. She tried to neaten his hair. “Thanks,” he said, and she knew he didn’t mean just for that. How long has it been for you? she wondered.

She smiled, and crouched to pick up their book. The heated thrum inside her was fading to a soft pulse. “Do you want to sit by the water for a few minutes before we head back?”

He nodded. “A few minutes would be good.”

She made her way out onto the large, flat rock and sat on the edge to make room for him, removing her shoes and trying not to notice him adjusting himself as he sat down, legs spread. She dangled her feet in the cool water. “I’m happy you’re here, you know.”

“I picked up on that, yeah,” he smirked, then flinched as he splashed him. “Hey, careful, you’ll get the book wet.” He picked it up from where she had set it between them. “Are we going to finish this chapter or not?” He paged through it to find where they had left off.

“Sure.” He started in the wrong place—he really hadn’t been listening—but she didn’t say anything, only closed her eyes and listened to him read. Back to Brooklyn, back a century and more. When she sensed his concentration was back on the story, she took the chance to really look at him, and it was her mind that wandered. Back to their phone call that night on the porch; back to embracing him in disbelief at Tony’s funeral; back to Tempelhof; back to the Soldier’s steel hand around her throat on the streets of D.C. A bullet in Odessa; a forest in Siberia; a safehouse on the White Sea. Back to the Red Room.

And then, like stepping through a portal, back to here, now.

When he looked up from the book, his contented expression turned to worry. “Nat? Why are you crying?”

She started to reflexively deny it, but he was right; the corners of her eyes were wet. She sniffled once, and smiled. “That’s what my friends call me.”

“Aren’t we friends?”

She hated to make him unsure again. “Yes. Yes, we are.” She picked up her sneakers and stood. “It’s nothing. Just…”

“Everything,” he said, and she laughed. He got up and gave her a quick hug.

“Yeah.” She kissed his cheek. “Everything.”

She dried her feet on the grassy bank as best she could and put her shoes on before they set off up the trail again. After a few minutes, she took his left hand in her right, and asked, “Can you feel this?”

He nodded, and interlaced his smooth, cool metal fingers with her flesh and bone. “I can feel pressure and temperature. It’s way better than the old one. Feels more like mine and not...some Frankenstein thing.”

She stepped in front of him. “Hey.” They had to stop thinking of themselves as monsters. “That’s not what you are.”

“I don’t know what I am.” Before she could argue, he squeezed her hand. “But I’m figuring it out.”

It had been eighty calendar years since Bucky had been drunk. He’d been tempted, but when he was on the run it would have been stupid, and after he got back—”got back” was how Steve put it, although he didn’t know how a person could get back to a place he’d never been before—he was always stopped by imagining Shuri’s disapproving face. So maybe he didn’t remember exactly what it was like, but it was the closest he could come to describing how he’d felt most of the day, being around Natasha. Not sloppy, rowdy, end-of-the-night drunk, but the kind of slightly dizzy high when the band is still playing and the party is really starting to swing...which wasn’t something people said anymore, and parties weren’t something he did anymore, either. So it wasn’t quite that, but it was close.

“Are you ready for this?” she whispered, and placed her hand on his lower back, the kind of casual touch that hadn’t lost the power to surprise him after one afternoon.

He leaned in, his fingers finding their way to the nape of her neck—he saw her breath change, just a little—and said, “I feel like I’m meeting your parents.” Natasha rolled her eyes. “Do you know the last time I was a guest at a family dinner table?”

“Was it during the Depression?”

“Yes.”

Steve, nice helpful neighborhood boy that he was, used to get invited over for all sorts of occasions, and sometimes he would drag Bucky along, whether it was Seder at the Bergers or Seven Fishes with the Buglianis. He didn’t know why he was suddenly thinking of holidays; chicken with the Bartons wasn’t exactly a special occasion.

Natasha patted his back in encouragement. “I’m sorry it’s not cold peas and lard sandwiches.”

“Hey,” was his retort, as she walked away to help Laura, looking back once to smile at him over her shoulder. Maybe this was his new favorite holiday.

Dinner went fine. He didn’t volunteer much, but he was comfortable enough answering Laura’s careful questions. She was easy to talk to, actually, and it wasn’t until he noticed Clint’s glance volleying back and forth between them that he realized he was being subjected to the world’s friendliest interrogation. Smart of him to let her handle it.

Most of the meal, though, was taken up with usual family chat. The boys bragged about how they had scored two goals against Bucky and Nat in their soccer game earlier, before Nat had insisted they were just too unevenly matched and had to switch up teams.

“They let you," said Lila, earning sharp looks from her parents.

“Nah, I’m just rusty,” Bucky said. That was something else he hadn’t done in eighty years, not since Dorset, England, where boys in school uniforms laughed at American GIs who didn’t know the rules of the game. In return, they’d tried to teach them baseball, although it was hard to play with cricket bats. He looked at Nat, who had carried little Nathaniel on her shoulders for part of the game, and thought he’d have to tell her about that someday. I wish you could have met that guy, he thought, and looked back to his plate.

After clearing the table, the boys played videogames and Lila disappeared to her room. Bucky found himself standing next to Clint, who was scrubbing out a roasting pan. He could see Natasha and Laura sitting on the couch with their heads bent together. Clint pushed a towel at him and said, “You dry. Try not to break anything.”

Bucky took the towel in his left hand and picked up a dish. “I wouldn’t trust me with your fine crystal, but this should be okay.” He did almost drop something as his eyes kept drifting over to the women, but he thought he covered it well. “Do you think they’re…?”

“Talking about you? Definitely.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured.” He turned his attention back to his task. He got the feeling Clint didn’t feel any more pressed to make conversation than he did. “Sorry for the surprise visit, by the way. Thanks for uh...not shooting me full of arrows, I guess.”

“That’s Barton hospitality.”

“I know it wouldn’t be the first time I caused trouble for you.” There had been the little matter of federal charges.

Clint looked almost offended that he tried to take credit for it. “I cause my own trouble. We’re good.”

“Okay,” he nodded. “Good.” When they had run out of dishes, Bucky ventured, “So...you’re not going to give me some big lecture or anything…?”

Clint rolled his eyes. “For fuck’s sake. I’m not her dad.” He got four beers out of the refrigerator and handed one to Bucky, who followed him into the living room to join the women.

He chose a chair that was angled toward where Natasha was nestled into the corner of the sofa. If he pushed it forward six inches their knees would touch. She smiled at him, and it hadn’t gotten old yet. He couldn’t help staring at her long, bare legs, and the disorderly mix of feelings inside him got all stirred up again. The way he wanted her wasn’t like the way he’d ever wanted a woman before her; it reached into parts of him he hadn’t known he had, and despite being buried for a time, it had never changed.

You love her, stupid. The thought came in Steve’s voice, and he didn’t bother to argue with it.

After the kids had been sent to bed, Laura asked him, “Did you get a room in town?”

That was probably something he should have considered. “I didn’t know how long I’d be here, so…”

“So stay here tonight,” she offered.

He looked back and forth between Natasha, suddenly inscrutable, and the Bartons, who seemed to be having a silent conversation.

“Thanks,” he said. “Sure, thanks.” He caught Natasha’s eye, and her eyebrows lifted ever so slightly.

“Nat’s in the spare room,” Laura said, but it overlapped with Clint’s “Couch is pretty comfortable.”

Nat’s neutral facade dropped, and she laughed. He tried to communicate silently with her, but that trick was maybe a little advanced for them this early on, no matter how strong their connection was.

“Couch is fine,” he said. Things were happening fast, and speaking of stuff he hadn’t done in a long time… He looked at her and imagined she was similarly conflicted. Her hand absently stroked the arm of the sofa, and he felt the phantom imprint of it on his abdomen. That didn’t change the circumstances, or make the timing any better. Natasha’s small smile signaled her agreement, along with, he thought, a hint of regret. He’d come all this way to be close to her; one floor away would have to be close enough.

He wouldn’t have expected it, but between the four of them they generated enough conversation to fill the evening. He mostly listened, though he contributed a few Wakanda anecdotes, and a couple embarrassing Steve stories. They didn’t cover the origins of the Black Widow and Hawkeye partnership, but he heard enough to get his first real sense of how deep their history went, and why it was so important to her. No wonder you saved him, he thought. I bet you saw it as returning the favor.

At eleven o’clock, the Bartons said their goodnights. Natasha disappeared upstairs for a little while, and returned dressed in a baggy “Gateway to the West” t-shirt with that weird arch on it and pajama bottoms covered in little Avengers “A”s. Nobody else could make it look as good. She was carrying a set of sheets and a pillow, which she tossed to him one at a time, saying, “You were in the army, you know how to make a bed.” She had a loosely folded quilt under her arm, and before he could follow her orders and start setting aside the excess cushions, she sat in the center of the sofa and spread the quilt over her. She switched on the television and turned to the classic movie channel without saying another word.

Bucky sat beside her, unlaced his boots, and put his stocking feet up on the coffee table next to hers. “What are we watching?”

“I don’t know.” Her lovely profile took on a ghostly cast in the strange, cold light of the television. They watched the movie—some Greer Garson picture that wasn’t Mrs. Miniver or Mr. Chips—for a little while. All the unattainable women of his youth, the silver screen goddesses and va-va-voom pinups, were long gone now. Ordinarily it was little realizations like this that made him feel disjointed in time, but it was only a passing thought now as Natasha pressed into his side, warm and alive, and dropped her head onto his shoulder. They were all shadows next to her.

“When is your meeting?” she asked.

He winced internally. “...Monday.”

She tilted her head and did the math. “You came all the way out here for one day?” But she was amused, not irritated.

Instead of admitting to being an impulsive idiot, he told her, “I really needed your advice.”

“Again, that could have been done over the—”

He kissed her and felt her grin against his mouth before her hand was on his chest and she was kissing him back. His right hand went to her hair, and she shifted until he could feel her body weight and her right leg rolled over his. She set the pace, and he could sense her restraint. When she drew back, he said lightly, as if he wasn’t still stunned every time she reached for him, “I really needed that, too.”

She looked down, and seemed to be choosing her next words carefully. “Does all this ever seem impossible to you?”

“Every minute,” he said honestly. “It’s not too late to bail out, you know.”

She frowned, as if she knew he was only half-joking. “Why would I want to do that?”

“I’m not sure why you’d sign on in the first place.”

She didn’t answer for a moment, only looked a little sad, and then determined. She planted another brief kiss on him and said, “Maybe I just like you, soldier.” She took a deep breath and let it out again. “Maybe…” Her voice broke as if she were forcing the words through a barrier. “Maybe I need you, too.”

Impossible was putting it mildly.

He couldn’t find words, so he pressed his forehead to her temple and kissed her cheek, put his arm around her and drew her close to him.

“Besides,” she said softly, “you’re not the only walking battle scar here.”

He wished it wasn’t true, but he said, “Yeah, I know.”

She took his hand and turned it over, delicately stroking the inside of his wrist and forearm. He breathed through the shivers.

“House full of people,” she mused, and looked at him regretfully.

He gave her a half-smile. “Should’ve gotten a room in town.”

She leaned over and rested her hand on his thigh for the time it took to kiss him and say, “Goodnight,” and rose from the couch. The suddenly empty space beside him felt like an imbalance, and it was all he could do to keep from reaching out and pulling her back to restore equilibrium.

“‘Night.” As she reached the bottom of the stairs, he called, “Natasha,” and she turned. “It was worth the trip.”

She smiled. “Get some sleep. See you in the morning.” She disappeared around the corner, and he listened to her footsteps until they faded.

Fifteen minutes later, after using the downstairs bathroom and making up his temporary bunk, he had to text her to ask how to turn off the TV.

He slept pretty well.

When he woke up, the light coming through the windows was blue-gray and dim. Someone was in the room, but he didn’t sense a threat. A weight settled on the cushion. “It’s five-thirty,” she whispered. He squinted at her, and her fingers combed back his hair. She was dressed in running clothes, but her hair was loose and her feet were still bare.

“You going out already?”

“Not yet. I woke up early, so I thought I would, but… I just want to sleep a little longer, if I can. If that’s all right.”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course.” He lifted the quilt and shifted against the back of the couch while she stretched out alongside him. He wondered if she had bad dreams, and if she’d want to talk about them. She turned onto her side, and he draped his left arm over her gently. “This okay?”

“Mm hmm. Thanks.” A minute later her low, sleepy voice said, “James?”

“Yeah?” he whispered.

“We made it back.”

Something twisted sharply inside of him, and then he let it go. He closed his eyes tight. “Natalia Romanova,” he murmured. But she was already asleep.

If Laura saw them when she came down to make the coffee, she didn’t say a word.

James sat on the front porch rail, not any closer to leaving than he was when they stepped out the door five minutes ago. His backpack leaned against a post, minus one book and plus one bagged lunch and a child’s drawing. He had crouched down to Nate’s level when the boy handed it to him, and offered a vibranium fist bump. It had taken her so long to be comfortable around children after she’d joined the world; it was nice to see he had an easier path there, at least. It reminded her, again, that he had a before to reach back to in a way that she didn’t. She wondered if she would have loved that man, the one in the old photographs with Steve, or if the pain was the piece that made them fit together so well.

She nudged his knees so she could stand between them, and clasped her hands behind his neck.

“You’ll text me from the road?”

“‘Course.”

“And pull over first. You’re not actually indestructible.” He looked like he was about to argue the point, but thought twice about it. Smart. She was great at arguing.

His arms rose to circle her waist, tentative again. Their walk by the creek had made them, from moment to moment, either daring or gunshy; neither seemed to know which it would be until they acted. Asking to sleep beside him this morning had felt like a little of both. The request had been sincere, but when she woke up his body against hers and his breath on her neck set off a temblor of desire that it had taken every pounding footstep of her morning run to dissipate. She didn’t know what he had done—were cold showers an actual thing?—but here they were again now, ruining all that hard work.

“I wish I could take you with me.” There was vulnerability in it, even as he palmed her hip with increasing confidence.

“Are you asking me to tour the midwest’s finer rest stops and roadside motels?”

“It wouldn’t be the worst ambiance we ever had.”

This was true. She played with his hair, holding his gaze to gauge the effect it had on him, whether it was the same thing he did to her—that confusing swirl of feelings, soothed and excited, off-balance and reassured. “We could always sneak off to the barn, if you don’t mind Butternut watching,” she joked.

He squeezed her hip. “You’re trying to make me feel better about leaving you here, but it’s not working.” She raised her eyebrows. “Not the horse. Just— I could have timed this trip better. It was kind of a spur of the moment thing.”

“Oh yeah? What spurred you?” He leaned back and held up his hands to make a picture frame around her face. “Oh.” The fateful selfie.

“I had to see you for real. Find out...what the hell we were doing.” That took guts; in this one case at least, she was glad that his guts had outstripped her caution.

“Did you?”

“I think I have a pretty good idea, yeah.” He stroked her hair, and then her back. “Steve said—” He cut himself off.

She quirked her brow, curious. “What did Steve say?”

He looked down—editing himself—and then smiled up at her again. “He said I could use another friend.”

“Uh huh,” she said softly. “What else?”

He tugged lightly on the hem of her shirt, drawing her a step nearer. “Doesn’t matter. He just has to go and be right about everything. It’s annoying as hell.”

She laughed and nodded. “It really is.” The way he looked at her when she laughed was like she was giving him a present. She leaned in and rubbed her nose against his before kissing him with a kind of soft insistence that had already become familiar in the past twenty-four hours.

When they paused, he took a ribbon of her hair between his fingers, and looked down, thoughtful. “I wish—” He stopped, as if deciding whatever he’d been about to say was pointless.

“What?”

“I wish I could’ve taken you with me back then.” He pointed at his head, fingers in a pistol shape. “In here.”

“Ohh…” escaped from her lips, a little vocalized sigh of dismay.

When she was very young, one of her minders had told her that her conscience was an ugly, spiny animal living inside her, and the only way to keep it from hurting her was to starve it to death. She had tried her best, but had never quite succeeded, and had spent years since nourishing it back to health. The cost was the needle that jabbed her from the inside now.

He felt guilty for not remembering her; she felt guilty for how hard she’d worked to forget him, box him up and store him in the past, because it was the way she knew how to survive. They both held onto the guilt because compared to the numbness, it felt like something good. But that would only do damage in the long run. The only thing to do was to push the needle out and pull it through.

“You know you couldn’t have.”

He shook his head, not disagreeing with her, but arguing with himself. “Maybe if I’d tried harder…”

“Stop it.” She squeezed his shoulder, hard, forcing him to meet her gaze. “Look where we are now. Look at what we did. What you did, all that work to put yourself back together…”

His lips quirked up in a fond smile. “You came back from the dead.”

“Yeah, we’re both pretty fucking impressive.” He laughed, and she grinned.

He hugged her around the waist, and she swayed a little, relieved. “You sure you don’t wanna come?” he asked. “Do half the driving?”

“As much as I love bugs in my teeth…”

“You can have the helmet.”

She laid a hand on his chest and exhaled with a “Hmm.” She knew he was kidding, mostly, but she also knew exactly how he felt. It was exhilarating, to be so strongly attached after such a short time. Maybe that was a good enough reason to take a breather. “I’ll only be here a little while longer. The kids’ll be back in school soon, and you’re not the only one getting restless.”

“And then where to?”

“Well…” It had yet to be formalized, but the decision was made. “Back to work.”

His brow crinkled in confusion. “I thought the Avengers were in mothballs.”

“We’re on indefinite hiatus,” she corrected, and then made the announcement. “I’m going back to SHIELD.”

“Oh.” She smiled as she watched him try to contain his interest. “Like freelance?”

“Nope, on the payroll. It’ll be good to have something steady for a while.”

He nodded slowly. “Okay, I have two questions. One, is there a rule against fraternization? And two, Fury would make an exception for you because you’re his favorite, right?”

“We might have to fill out some paperwork, but as long as I’m not your direct supervisor, I think we can get around it.” They had, somehow, without ever saying it, mutually declared this a relationship, or at least the staging ground for one, whatever form it might eventually take. It was either forward or retreat, and she knew which path she’d choose. She leaned her weight against him a little more.

“So I should go after that job, then.”

“Yes. I’d ask you to stay for a few more days, but I don’t want you to miss your date with Agent Thirteen.”

“It’s a meeting. Which office will you be working out of?”

“Maybe New York—”

“I can go to New York. I’m from there.”

She laughed. “Maybe New York, but probably D.C. So don’t pack your books just yet.”

“Would you...want me to? Pack my stuff and move to the same city?” He gestured toward his backpack. “That’s half my stuff, by the way.”

“Oh. I wouldn’t want to disrupt your—”

“Right, but would you want me to?”

“I...” She wouldn’t ask him to. Maybe she wouldn’t even need him to. But she’d want it. “That’d be nice.”

He sat up straighter, pulled her closer. “Okay. Deal.”

“Just like that, huh? You’d leave Sam?”

“In a heartbeat.”

She laughed again, and kissed him again, taking his face in her hands. Early this morning, running down her feelings, she’d worried that she had revealed too much of herself, too soon. But he kept cracking himself open, even if he couldn’t help it, didn’t mean to...she owed him as much in return. “I want you to know, before you leave,” she said quietly, the words born in a tremble beneath her ribs, “Like I said last night… I’m in this. Wherever it goes.”

His face turned serious. He stroked her wrist, and the inside of his thighs pressed against the outside of hers. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. You know how I am on a mission.” It was ingrained in her, and it had broken her heart more times than she could admit: the only acceptable outcome was success.

“Relentless?” Humor crept back into his voice. His right hand slipped under her shirt, warm on her back; his left slid over her ass and grasped the back of her thigh, firm and cool. Her breath came faster, her body charged from head to toe. “Is that what this is now? A mission?”

“It’s a lot of things, I think.” More than they were ready to name. A surprise, and an inevitability. A reward, and a risk.

A leap.

She dragged her thumb over his bottom lip and kissed him. Relentlessly.

When the rumble of the engine had faded completely, even the echo of it in her mind, Natasha heard the dull creak-and-clack of Laura carefully opening the screen door and stepping onto the porch. She joined Nat in looking down the long driveway.

“How’re you doing?”

“Fine,” was her automatic response. She hadn’t had time yet to tease apart the tangle of emotions he had left her with: happy, lonely, hopeful, scared. And something else taking up space inside her, bigger than all the rest. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“Good.” She looked at Nat. “I like him, by the way. If that matters.”

Nat smiled and tucked her chin toward her chest. “It doesn’t hurt.” She glanced sideways at her friend. “I like him, too.”

“Yeah, I could see that.”

Nat looked up in concern. “What?”

“You were right in front of the window, super-spy.”

“Oh, for—”

“It’s fine, I closed the curtains. Clint and the kids didn’t see him grab your butt.”

Natasha coughed laughter. “Jesus.”

Laura bumped her shoulder with a little jostle, the way a big sister might. “Hey. You know I’m happy for you, right?”

A new strand added to the tangle; Nat swallowed past the little knot in her throat that it made. “I know.”

“I hope everything works out the way you want it. And if you need to talk, you know where to find me.”

Natasha nodded. “Thank you. For everything.”

Before Laura could reply, the screen door slammed open and the boys came barreling through. “Hey!” she shouted in vain as they careered down the steps. She rolled her eyes and held the door open for Nat as they went inside. “What’s family for?”