Work Text:
He thought they were dreams at first. Little snippets of a life he couldn’t recall. Images that didn’t seem to make sense. Lines of little girls, attacking him one by one. His metal hand striking back, sending so many of them flying. Fancy parties. Dressed in a tuxedo, a young girl hanging on his arm. The feel of a throat being clenched beneath his hand. Running down an alleyway with the same girl, spots of blood on her black dress gleaming in the night air.
The same girl in a dirty hotel room. Red hair spread everywhere. A pile of weapons on the floor.
“Do we have to go back?” asked in a voice that sounded so familiar, but he couldn’t place.
He’d open his eyes, blinking as he tried to focus, to bring the current world back into perspective. The triggers were gone, Shuri had said they were, but it wasn’t strange that dreams remained.
Except that they kept coming. More images, more snippets. Clearer every day.
He could see the girls now. Lined up against the white concrete wall, all of them matching. Hair in braids. White tank tops. Black shorts. Black shoes. All eyes on him as he took them down, one by one.
He could see her too. The girl with the red hair. Could feel himself, even in his dream, drawn to her. Connected to her. Even as she fell after the impact from his fist. Even as she got back up, her eyes steely, her jaw set.
Her skin was soft when they danced, pressed together during the party, her black dress long and grazing the floor. He held her tightly, twirling her around, letting her scan the room, searching for their target.
She was the one who killed the target. He clenched the man’s throat, and she slid in the knife, as easily as spreading butter.
He nodded at her. Proud. And her eyes met his. Also proud. But maybe something else.
He heard the noise in the hall, the footsteps coming. They both looked around, saw the balcony. Their only escape. He braced her against him as they jumped, crashing on to the top of a dumpster below.
She stared at him as he helped her up. Fear or admiration. He wasn’t sure which. It made him feel weird. Hot.
He felt that way again in the dirty hotel room. The one with the stains on the carpet and on the bedding and the smell that wouldn’t go away.
But he was hot. Flushed.
Her skin was still soft as he touched her. Her lips gentle as he kissed hers.
“Do we have to go back?” she whispered into his ear. “Couldn’t we stay here?”
And Bucky blinked awake again, back in his own hut in Wakanda, sitting cross-legged on the floor. A feeling of dread, of horror, pressed down on him. The snippets rearranged themselves again in his head, forming clearer pictures.
Not dreams, he knew. Memories. Memories from a life that Hydra had worked so hard to make him forget but was now returning.
And he could see her face. The red curls. The green eyes. The way her lips curved up just so. And he heard her voice, as clear as day. A voice he knew. Then and now.
Black Widow. Natasha. Steve’s friend.
Natalia.
He remembered more. Every day something new. The Red Room had sent them everywhere. A target in St. Petersburg. Vienna. Rome. Paris.
Her hand always in his. Her body pressed against him. His heart always aching, want to keep her with him.
“We could run away,” she whispered into his ear. Munich, Germany. Two nights before she would turn sixteen. Two nights before her graduation ceremony. “No one would catch us. We could disappear. You and me.”
Her hand touched his face, her eyes peered into his soul. He wanted to say yes. Every cell of his being wanted to say yes. He knew what was coming for both of them if they went back. Pain. Torture. They would never let her see him again. Not once she had graduated. Not once she was fully one of them.
“I can’t,” he whispered, the hardest two words he had ever said. But he couldn’t. They couldn’t. Because she was wrong. They would catch him. They would catch them both. There was no place to hide. No place they couldn’t be found. And they would kill her. He wouldn’t let that happen.
“Don’t make me go back,” she whispered.
“It’s better to go back,” he said.
He kept his arms around her all night. Stayed awake and watched her breathe. In the morning, he kissed her one last time.
“I love you,” she said. “I want to stay with you.”
“You don’t know what love is,” he said.
But he had lied. He was the one who hadn’t known. He was the one who hadn’t been brave.
He had been right about something though. They hadn’t let him see her again once she went through her graduation ceremony. Not even a glimpse of her. Not until he’d fought against her while she stood at Steve’s side. He hadn’t remembered her then, but he remembered her now.
She came with Steve to fight Thanos, as he knew she would. But he waited until it was over to talk to her. To tell her what he now knew.
“They took all my memories,” he told her.
“I know,” she said. “I was there the last time they did it. They wanted me to see.”
He closed his eyes, tried to remember that moment. And then it was there. The men dragging him to the machine, strapping him in. Other men were holding her too, even as she fought. His eyes had met hers. The last thing he’d seen were the tears on her cheeks.
He opened his eyes now, reached out, took her hand, drew her in to him. She was still soft against him, even all these years later.
“I remember everything now,” he told her softly.
She smiled, her eyes a little glassy. Her finger smoothed over his lips. “I never forgot,” she whispered, before leaning in to kiss him.