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and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)
I.
James is fairly certain he's never going to see Natasha Romanoff, bounty hunter, ever again. She made that pretty clear to him when they parted. And he's not sure how he feels about that. Or, rather, he knows how he feels about it. He wants to see her again. He's just not sure why.
Because on one hand, James knows that she's good, that beneath her studied carelessness there are real and solid morals. And he wants to be like Steve, who can see the seed of goodness in a person and keep watering it, tending to it, until it grows.
But he's not Steve. He's James. And beyond all that talk of goodness and morals and high ideals, Natasha is the most beautiful woman he's ever seen, and now they've got a whole goddamn galaxy in between them. He thinks. So it's kind of a surprise when he's checking in at the docks at Cloud City, scheduling a time to refuel, and she just walks up to him, cool as you please. “Hey, stranger.”
James's jaw probably drops, and his heart does a weird sort of somersault in his chest. He pays the dock manager as quickly as he can and then turns around to look her up and down. Same suit. Same weapons. Same teasing, mischievous smirk. “Natasha. Here to capture me for real, this time?”
Natasha's expression flickers a little bit, but the brief emotion is gone before James can figure out what it is. “I told Gorga I didn't sign on to do trash pickup,” she retorts, and James is relieved and a little surprised. He's even more surprised when she continues the conversation by remarking, “So… you made it back to D'Qar in one piece. I was wondering about that.”
She was? For the first time, James wonders if she's been thinking about him as much as he's been thinking about her. “It takes more than the galaxy's most gorgeous bounty hunter to stop a star pilot like me,” he replies with a grin.
“You're even more annoying than I remember,” Natasha remarks dryly.
“You said you'd never see me again,” James points out. And he had taken it for granted, more or less, because after all they're on opposite sides. But it had still hurt, a little bit. He'd missed her.
“Yeah, well.” Natasha shrugs and glances away. “I say a lot of things.” And there's a long pause, where she looks like she's thinking and James is trying to figure out where the conversation can go from here. Are they meeting as enemies? Friends? More? Neither?
He opens his mouth to blurt out that question when Natasha's face clears, like she's decided something. “Listen,” she says. James shuts his mouth and listens. “I've bribed the dock manager to sabotage any Resistance ship that docks here. If you go now, you might have enough time to stop them.” She grabs his wrist to keep him in place, though, and leans up on her tiptoes to press a quick kiss to his mouth before letting this go. “Consider this one a freebie.”
II.
He catches a glimpse of her on the other side of a cantina on Sanrafsix, and isn't that just the kicker, because James is busy. He's got a job to do—simple hand-off, credits (an exorbitant sum) for information (not enough). No time to chase after a pretty bounty hunter, as much as he wants to. And he really, really wants to.
She sees him too, through the deathstick haze hanging low and heavy in the air, and jerks her head to the door. Come outside with me.
James shakes his head. Can't, he mouths, and then holds up one finger in the universal gesture for 'later.' Is there a universal gesture for 'later'? He sure as hell hopes so, and he sure as hell hopes that was it, because in the next second he loses track of Natasha in the moving crowd. Back to the bar. James taps his fingers impatiently against the durasteel surface of the counter, an industrial look for an industrial city. His contact is late.
Gendoo never shows, actually, and James waits about thirty minutes before he starts getting too antsy. A missed rendezvous is always a bad sign, and the bartender is going to start remembering his face if he stays too long.
James pays—ten credits, a ripoff for the crap drinks—and then moves as gracefully as he can through the dancing crowd. It's getting late here; things are starting to get a little wild. He slips out the back door… and someone immediately wraps their arms around him from behind.
He's got his blaster out and is whirling around before he realizes: “Romanoff,” he says and grins, his expression matching hers. His sudden rush of adrenalin changes into something else that keeps his heart beating fast. He puts his blaster back into its holster at his thigh. “Should've known.”
“You should be more careful, flyboy,” Natasha says. “You didn't even look around before you walked out.”
“I knew you had my back,” James says, but it's true, she's right (as usual), and he should really be more careful about what kind of situations he's getting himself into. Especially since his contact has, for all intents and purposes, disappeared. “You ran off before I could thank you, on Cloud City.”
“I wish the dock manager ran off before you could save your ship and get your money back,” Natasha says, her smile turning into a smirk. Both of her hands are free; she reaches up to cup James's face. She's tiny, James thinks, and not for the first time. He's got to bend his neck a little just to look at her. “He told me my money wasn't worth it anymore, after you were done with him. And now what are you doing? I haven't bribed anyone here.”
James closes his eyes as her thumbs smooth over his cheekbones. “Oh, you know,” he says. “I've been chasing pretty redheads across the galaxy.”
Her movement stops, and James hears her catch her breath for just a second. He opens his eyes as she asks, “Have you?”
James can't read her expression. Would it be a good thing or a bad thing if he was? James supposes that depends on the reasons. He turns his head so that he can kiss her palm. “I wish I was.” He steps closer to her to put his hands at her waist. The material of her suit, as always, feels slippery and foreign underneath his fingers. “It's Resistance business. Classified. The usual.
“The usual,” Natasha echoes. She ghosts her fingers down his cheeks before moving her hands to the back of his neck. They come together for a kiss almost by accident, but suddenly Natasha's mouth is against his and her arms are around his neck and she's pressed up flush against him like she wants to get so close that she's part of him, and he's got his hands on her hips and then lower, and he's backing up with her towards the wall… when he feels his heel collide with something fleshy and unpleasant.
James straightens, breathless, and lets go of Natasha so he can turn and look at what he's nearly stepped on. It's… Gendoo. Gendoo's corpse, rather.
“My assignment,” Natasha says, glancing down at the dead Rodian, her hand on the small of his back. “We can go somewhere else if you want.”
James looks at her and then laughs. “I was supposed to meet with him tonight. Alive, you know.”
“And I was supposed to keep him from passing on sensitive information,” Natasha says, looking down at Gendoo's body. “Funny how these things work.” She takes James's arm, pulls him out of the alley. “Come on. Your meeting is off now, and you have a few minutes.”
“Only a few,” James argues, but that's not true; for her, he has all night.
III.
Beyond the tiny bit extra intuition that makes a good pilot into a great one, James isn't Force sensitive at all. He's “thick as a rock” when it comes to things that don't involve piloting an X-wing through space, as Steve puts it one day. Steve is joking, but it's true; James is no Jedi. Not even close. And his dreams are just that—dreams. Not prophecies, not visions. Just ridiculous holovids that his subconscious comes up with and projects to the rest of his brain while he's asleep. Which is a good thing to remind himself when he wakes up tangled in his sheets on his bunk, breathing hard and fast like he's just sprinted the entire training circuit through the D'Qar jungle.
The dream was like this:
James and Natasha are lying on a large, soft bed together in a spacious room, with windows open to reveal a lush and verdant landscape. Nat is in civvies, out of her suit. It makes her seem softer, somehow, as she lays half on top of him and looks into his eyes. Hers are an uncanny green, brighter than he's ever seen them before. He watches her eyes, mesmerized, as she leans down to press a soft, slow kiss to his lips. Then he closes his eyes, and they kiss for ages, like they've got all the time in the world. Maybe they do. James doesn't know where they are, what they're doing. He brings up his hands to cup Natasha's face and she pulls away from him. “I love you,” she says. Her voice is soft and just the tiniest bit gravelly and her words make James's heart twist in his chest. She loves him. He takes a breath to respond. “Don't say it,” Natasha warns him. She reaches out to her side, to grab something that's on the table. James doesn't see what she's got, but he realizes what's going on when he feels the harsh coldness of a blaster pressing up to his chin. Natasha looks down at him, her eyes infinitely sad, infinitely green. “I'm sorry,” she says, and pulls the trigger, and James wakes up.
It takes him a while to calm his breathing, to untangle himself from the sheets and to remember that this isn't a dream, that Natasha has never betrayed him like that, that she's never even said she loves him (for better or for worse). That even though they're often on opposite sides, she wouldn't do that to him. She wouldn't.
Would she?
IV.
When Gorga Desilijic sends word from Tatooine that he wishes to meet with a delegation from the Resistance, preferably the General herself, the Resistance decides to respond. Knowing Gorga, it's likely a trap, but if he is sincere (when is a Hutt ever sincere?) he could be a powerful ally against the First Order.
The General doesn't go. Ackbar does, though, with a small team of soldiers for protection. James is one of the pilots who volunteers to be part of the escort. He's got no love in particular for Tatooine; desert planets, in his experience, are full of sand and all sorts of nasty creatures. But Natasha, as far as he knows, is still part of Gorga's entourage. And that's reason enough to put his neck on the line and go.
(What kind of person has he turned into for l—is this love? It's something.)
Gorga has taken over Jabba's old citadel, and though James has never been, he's heard stories about dark corridors, the smells of burning spice and heavy perfume, the throngs of people vying for Jabba's attention or a share in his power. If those stories are true, Gorga has cleaned the place up. The corridors still have low-ceilings but the whole palace seems more austere. Gorga isn't surrounded by slaves and dancing girls like James imagined. Instead, he's surrounded by armed bodyguards.
Well, then.
James scans the room for Natasha but can't find that bright red hair that always gives her away to him in a crowd. Maybe she's not here, he thinks for the first time, as Gorga and Ackbar greet each other. Their words are polite but barely hide the sharp edges of what they're saying; James can already tell the negotiations won't end well.
They make it through the first phase of negotiations, though, and then the political talks break off for a reception. Gorga's guards melt back against the wall, and tables laden with food are brought out to fill the hall. This is where the dancing girls come in, James thinks, and it's true; as if from nowhere, Gorga's whole court is there to join the feast.
If this was a trap, now would be the time to spring it. On edge, the entire delegation sticks together at their table, more or less ignoring the revelry that's taking place around them. James notices Testor surreptitiously checking their food with a scanner to make sure it's not poisoned; he waits until she gives the thumbs up before he digs in.
“It's not too bad,” Sam, who's sitting next to him, says. There's meat, and bread, and fruits, and James has eaten enough meals on enough strange planets that he's stopped wondering what kind of animal his meat comes from.
“It's alright,” James agrees. “He's throwing his money around, to give us all this fruit on Tatooine.”
“All the slugs are show-offs,” Sam points out, and James has to nod in agreement, looking around as Gorga's entourage eats and drinks and dances, the volume of conversation and laughter mounting in the room as the revelry continues.
He can't see Natasha joining in a scene like this. Maybe that's why she's not here. But as soon as James thinks that, he catches one of Gorga's helmeted guards looking at him. When he returns the stare, the guard removes their helmet and shoots him a grin.
There she is. James ducks his head to hide his smile.
Later that night, James slips out of the small room he's sharing with Sam and a few of the other pilots, heading down the hall to the refresher. A helmeted guard is at the end of the hall. James keeps his head down just in case as he passes, but the guard reaches out to grab his elbow.
“What—” James begins.
The guard puts one finger over where their mouth would be, then removes their helmet. It's Natasha again. “Hello, handsome,” she murmurs, and leans up for a kiss.
James grins against her lips. “I was wondering when you'd finally stop by,” he comments.
Natasha bends for a second to place her helmet noiselessly on the packed earth floor, then kisses him again, open-mouthed and hungry. James puts his hands on her hips and backs her up against the wall, pressing against her and kissing back with an equal fervor.
Minutes pass. James is being as quiet as he can but his heartbeat is pounding in his ears. He feels like it might be loud enough to echo through the entire hallway.
Finally, breathlessly, Natasha pulls away, placing her hands on James's cheek and looking up at him. Her face is pink; her lips are slightly swollen. “You shouldn't have come,” she tells him. Her fingers brush back into his hair. “This isn't a good place to be right now.”
James brushes a few stray strands of hair out of Natasha's face. “I hoped you would be here,” he says, leaning down for another soft kiss.
Natasha turns her head away. “Idiot,” she says. “The stupidest X-Wing pilot in the Resistance.”
Since she won't let him kiss her lips, James kisses her temple, her jaw, bends to press his lips along her neck, whatever he can reach before her guard armor gets in the way. “That's me,” he murmurs.
Natasha sighs. James feels her breath ruffle his hair. “This isn't going to end well,” she says, moving her hands to his back. “I don't want to see you hurt.”
“I can take care of myself,” James says. “I made it years before I had you to save my ass, remember?”
“Sometimes I wonder how you managed,” Natasha replies dryly, but James can feel the tension seep out of her shoulders. She turns her head back to kiss him on the temple, and then pulls him into a hug. “I have to go. Be well tomorrow.”
“And you.” They share one last, lingering kiss, and when they break apart, Nat cups his cheek in one of her hands and looks at him. Her green eyes search his, like she's looking for something, but James doesn't know what her unspoken question is and therefore can't answer it. He touches the back of her hand lightly, and that seems to snap Natasha out of her daze.
She turns away to pick up her helmet. “Until next time, Barnes,” she says, then puts the helmet on, straightens up, and walks away.
The negotiations, to no one's surprise in particular, go sour the next day when it turns out Gorga has just lured them here to try to sell them off to the First Order. Luckily, the trap is sprung too early, or the Stormtroopers arrive late—James isn't sure how or why, but there's enough of a miscommunication that the Resistance delegation can get out with minimal injuries and no deaths. They jump into hyperspace before the TIE fighters can chase them down.
James can't help but wonder whether Natasha had something to do with the mess-up that allowed them to get away. He'll never know, because he'll never ask, but as foolish and farfetched as it is, he'd like to think it was her, and that she did it for him.
V.
For someone who works as a pilot and, if needed, a sniper, James finds himself getting into more than his fair share of firefights. But if there's one thing the Resistance trains you for, it's taking double duty.
This is the worst place for a firefight, though: the cramped, narrow corridors of a Resistance shuttle, which has been stalled and boarded by a group of Gorga's men. They look like knockoff Stormtroopers, actually. The bargain version. James is neither foolish nor naive enough to think that Natasha is part of this operation, and he's not sure whether that makes him feel better or worse about the whole thing, especially when he ends up separated from his group of fellow pilots and soldiers and down a dead-end corridor that just leads to the refreshers.
Shit.
James tucks himself into a little niche in the hallway, one of the doors that opens up into a dead end locker room, to give himself some cover. He can hear footsteps echoing off the metal floor of the corridor; he counts to three and then breaks cover to shoot.
He takes the first soldier down. The second one, though, manages a shot that hits James in the wrist, immediately causing his hand to spasm. He drops his blaster, and the armored soldier raises their blaster to fire again—but is taken out by a shot from behind.
The third guard. James, his right hand numb and twitching, stares. Is it…?
But the guard doesn't take their helmet off, just nods at him after a few seconds, then turns away. James slumps back against the wall for a second just to catch his breath, then picks up his blaster with his left hand and heads back down the hall.
They end up winning, because Sharon and her team fight their way to the control room where she activates the blast doors throughout the ship, cutting off Gorga's men from the Resistance fighters. A few get caught in the airlocks and swept out into the vacuum of space. Many escape. They end up with three prisoners.
James uses a vial of bacta and some synth-skin on his wrist, and then Maria Hill binds up it up in a brace. He volunteers for guard duty over the prisoners, and gets the second shift.
Somehow, he's not surprised that Natasha is in one of the holding cells. She's taken off her helmet and her armor, which is piled neatly in the corner, and is sitting cross-legged in her usual suit. She doesn't look up when James peers in until he clears his throat, and then her eyes go wide. “You—how's your wrist?”
James holds up his hand, brace and all. “I've had worse. That was you back there, wasn't it? Earlier. Thanks.”
“For what?” Natasha asks innocently, but she's not fooling anyone.
James unlocks her cell door. This is a stupid, reckless idea and could have him tried for high treason by the General herself if he's found out. But this is also Natasha, who's not at all bad but not quite good, whose loyalty to Gorga is more from credits and habit than inclination, and who dislikes the First Order as much as anyone. This is Natasha, who's saved his life in a hundred ways since the day they met. And James is a person who pays his debts.
Natasha watches him warily. James steps inside and crouches down, lowering his voice so they won't be overheard by Gorga's soldiers in the other holding cells. “The monitors are turned off for maintenance,” he says. “Escape pods are on the lower levels. There's no code to use them.”
“Why are you doing this?” Natasha asks, unmoving. Her gaze is still skeptical, like she can't believe James is sticking his neck out like this. “I don't want to owe you anything.”
“Are you kidding?” James asks. He pulls the stun gun from the holster at his thigh and passes it over to her. “I owe you. Now come on. Shoot me, and get out of here.”
Natasha takes the stun gun and stands. James stands too. “I'll… see you around, probably,” he adds when she doesn't fire immediately.
She's looking at him with that considering expression again. James feels like she gives him that look a lot when they're together. Then she steps forward and puts her hand on the back of his neck, pulling him down for a hard kiss. James goes willingly, closing his eyes and kissing her back as her body melts into his.
He could do this forever, he thinks, for the rest of his life, and die happy. He wants to do this forever. But this is a war, and they've picked different sides, and both of them are too stubborn to switch, even for something like love.
(He thinks maybe, just maybe, this is love.)
Natasha pulls away first, reluctantly letting him go and caressing his cheek before she steps back. “I,” she begins, flicking on the stun gun. It's charged already, and the sides glow a bright blue. James waits. “Never mind,” Natasha says and lifts up the weapon. “Sweet dreams, handsome.” Then she fires.
VI.
There's no such thing as 'paid leave' when you're in the Resistance, and certainly no such thing as vacation. The First Order isn't going to sit around and twiddle their thumbs while General Organa takes a break; the New Republic isn't going to pick up the slack if all of the Resistance's X-Wing pilots decide to head to Coruscant for gambling and high fashion.
But there is such a thing as, “Sergeant Barnes, Steve wants to check in with our old friend Maz. I'm taking you off active duty for a week. Make sure he doesn't get into any trouble.”
“You got me a vacation,” James tells Steve with delight as they prepare to head out, clapping him on the shoulder over the rough cloth of the Jedi robe.
“Don't say it so loud,” Steve says, but he's grinning. “People are gonna be jealous. I tried to get Sam to come, too, but I took him with me last time.”
There are people who think that Jedi are austere, boring, law-abiding, no fun. They've clearly never met Steve. James grins. “I'll keep my mouth shut.”
“Like you ever have,” Steve snorts and elbows him in the side. His elbows, even though cushioned by the thick linen sleeves of his uniform, are sharp as ever. James dodges too late, then laughs.
They make it to Maz Kanata's watering hole without incident, and Steve, who's changed out of his tan robes and into civ clothes, sits around with him and watches half a game of dejarik at one of the betting tables before Maz comes over to them.
She greets James first, warmly like an old friend. “There's someone here looking for you. They haven't said, but I can tell.” James and Steve exchange a wary look. “Oh, it's nothing bad. You'll see.” She pats James's hand and, on that enigmatic note, turns to Steve, greeting him with kisses to both his cheeks. “Come, I'm going to take you away from your brother for a while. Let's go downstairs.” Steve waves at James, and they disappear down into the cellar to do meditation or Force exercises or whatever it is that Jedi do when they get together.
The first time Maz Kanata called them brothers both James and Steve had argued about it, but she'd said that brotherhood does not require blood ties. Since then, James has decided she's right. He gets up to get a drink, then sits back down to watch the conclusion of the dejarik match with the detachment that comes from knowing that other people have put a lot of money down, but he hasn't made a bet.
He's not surprised when someone comes up from behind and sits down next to him. If you come here alone, you won't be alone for long. He is surprised, though, when he turns and sees Natasha leaning in to kiss his cheek. After this long, it probably shouldn't be so unexpected. They keep finding each other, like it's destiny (if James believed in destiny) or the Force (except he's no Jedi, and neither—he thinks—is she). Then James laughs.
“What?” Natasha says, frowning at him. “Something on my face?”
“Maz Kanata told me someone here was looking for me,” he says. “Should've guessed it would be you.”
“I'm not looking for you,” Natasha replies archly. James isn't sure whether she really means that, or if she's just saying it. Then she settles down next to him, relaxing a little more, and adds, “I've been chasing down the handsomest pilot in the Resistance.”
James looks at her with amusement. “Have you found him?”
Natasha grins. It's almost a smirk. “Not yet. Still looking.” She turns her attention to the dejarik table and the hunched over Quarren player who, with an unreadable expression, is making the final moves. “Did you make a bet?”
“No,” James replies.
“Good.” She stands and pulls him with her. “Warrik always cheats. This won't end well.”
They wind up outside, and James goes willingly because he's sure that Steve can track him down without a problem, and if Steve can't, then Maz can. The tall trees provide shade from the bright midafternoon sunlight, and their footsteps are muffled by the rich, loamy earth.
“Where are we going?” James asks a several minutes pass by without either of them speaking.
There's a pause, long enough that he thinks that Natasha isn't going to reply, before she says, “I don't know. Away from things for a while.”
“You're not going to try to capture me? Sabotage my ship? My mission?”
“Are you on a mission?” Natasha asks.
James considers that. “Not really.” He looks at her. She's looking at the path ahead. “Are you?”
“No. I… told Gorga I'd had it with him. I didn't become a bounty hunter to spend my life under the First Order's thumb. So I'm currently unemployed.” She's still not meeting James's eyes.
James takes a few moments to consider that, too. “Alright,” he says eventually. And then, “You know, the Resistance could use someone like you. A good shot. Smart. Gorgeous.” He touches her arm.
The compliment makes Natasha roll her eyes. “I don't think I'm the kind of person your Resistance needs, either. Or that you could afford me. I work for credits, not… ideology.”
James moves his hand to her lower back, and lets it rest there when Natasha doesn't tense or move away. “We need everybody we can get,” he argues. “The more the merrier.”
Natasha's still frowning. She's not convinced. He's not going to be able to talk her into this, probably, at least not today. “I'm not really a team player.”
“Suit yourself.” He's only giving up for now. He'll concede the battle—not the war.
They end up on a rocky outcrop overlooking a stream. Natasha sits down first; James, who has used the silence of their walk to come to the realization that he would follow blindly wherever she goes, for better or worse, if she asked him, sits beside her. Their thighs are touching. Natasha's hand, open, is resting on her leg. James reaches out and takes it, lacing their fingers together. “It'll be nice not having to meet you on the other side of a blaster. Or to have you sabotaging my assignments,” he comments idly when she doesn't speak.
“Makes me wonder who's gonna save your ass now,” Natasha replies, her voice dry.
“That's the second time you've said that to me,” James points out, because yes, he has kept track. Sometimes it feels like all their brief interactions have been compressed onto one holovid that plays over and over in his mind, like a tactical training exercise that he has to analyze for any flaw, any strategy, any weakness. “And I told you, I can make it.”
Natasha squeezes his hand. “When you first met me, did you think it would come to this?” she asks after a few moments, ignoring his reply.
James laughs. “When I met you, I thought you'd kill me,” he replies honestly. “You might still do it, one day.”
“Don't say that,” Natasha says and finally turns, her hand slipping out of his grip to move up and rest on the back of her neck. She brings her face up, and James tilts his head, and they meet for a soft kiss that's just the barest brush of lips together.
“I'm just teasing,” James says, pressing a kiss to her nose, then the side of her mouth. “I know you wouldn't. Funny enough, I trust you.”
Natasha makes an exasperated noise and shifts, turning further towards him and shifting closer so that she's straddling his thigh, practically in his lap. “Stop talking.”
James doesn't need to be told twice, when she asks like that. He settles one hand on her hip and the other at the back of her neck, pulling her in for a deep, open-mouthed kiss.
“How much time do you have?” Natasha asks when they finally pull apart to catch their breath.
All the time in the world, James wants to say, and then, the rest of my life, maybe, but he knows those are both stupid answers. They have lives to live, separate ones, and both of them are too stubborn to change that. They're better meeting from time to time than getting caught in each other's orbit and spiraling together to a nasty collision. What they have is good, for now. He licks his lips. “As much time as you need, sweetheart.”
“Good answer, handsome,” Natasha replies and kisses him again. James can feel her grin against his lips.
Yeah, he thinks. This is good.