Stucky- Sparring

“Romanoff this isn’t a good idea,” I murmured while reluctantly being dragged out of the quiet apartment at 5 in the morning and into her black sports coupe. Something had gotten into her head that I needed to train with her. All week. Steve… He wasn’t around due to a mission and I’m thinking that it was planned for it to be like that. Steve knew I wasn’t ready. I could have sworn I told him so he could pass the message along, same with Natasha.

“Buckle up, old man” she insisted playfully while revving the engine. I sat uncomfortably as she sped off, not waiting for me. The doors locked automatically as we drove on and out of the city, making my paranoia that much worse.

“You enjoy this,” I held onto the door grip and stared at her. She shrugged and smirked at me, like this was some sort of joke. It wasn’t funny.

I put my view on our surroundings, reading the few signs that we passed to try and get some notion of where we were headed this time. It’s been weeks after telling S.H.I.E.L.D. that I was willing to come in. To be questioned. Tested. Evaluated. Examined. Weeks since I showed up at Steve’s apartment door in Brooklyn.

“Barnes, stop being such a baby. You need to train and I’m not on any assignments. So you need to get out of that apartment, quit sulking and get motivated,” Natasha said while turning onto a dirt road. We had to be upstate, or north Jersey. I didn’t recognize where we were anymore.

“I’m not sulking. It’s called recuperating. All last week and the week before that I was poked and prodded by your buddies at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters and it was hell,” she had no idea of the nightmares that they caused. Not that I was sleeping or not having the flashbacks that caused me to black out. No one knew of those and I planned on keeping it that way.

She parked outside what seemed to be an abandoned warehouse surrounded by woods. I looked at her then at the building, slightly curious despite my panicking.

“You and I are sparring today, Barnes. We’re away from society so there isn’t any reason for you to use that as an excuse,” Natasha stated. I got out and followed her into the building, feeling defeated already.

I didn’t plan on fighting. Not now or anytime soon. What I had done was still too fresh in my memory. And the most recent mission… It was just too painful to grasp what I had done. Who I hurt…

Natasha dropped her bag and walked over to the center of the room and waited for me to follow. Basic scan of the room showed that it was as it seemed. Punching bags in the corner to be used, various gloves and boxing equipment near that station, too. Nothing seemed questionable.

“Front and center,” She said standing on a mat.

“I’m not doing this, Romanoff,” I attempted before getting stared down. This was going to be a long day.

Sighing, I walked over to where she stood. She seemed pleased that her staring did the trick in order to get me over to where she was. I was less than impressed and even more than unwilling to go on with all of this.

“Focus, Barnes. Come on,” She started, putting her arms up. I didn’t move a muscle as I kept my distance.

“It isn’t happening.”

“Look, I know it’s hard. I know you don’t want to remember what you’ve done. Or how you did it. But you need to learn to blend the Winter Soldier with Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes,” Natasha urged while moving closer and posing my arms like a doll. I watched her silently. “I know you wont go postal on me, or hurt me. Well unless it’s my own fault but that wouldn’t be your fault either way.”

I took a breath and gave a weak nod while adjusting my feet. She was right. If I wanted to work along side Steve on missions then I would need to get on with my issues. Needed to face what I have done. Not let them hold me back. Past is my past, not my present or future.

“Good, ready?” She said taking a step back and putting her arms back up. I gave another nod apprehensively, not really sure what my nerves would do to my voice at this point if I attempted to answer. “Good because I am not going to hold back,” Natasha said while throwing a punch at me. With ease I blocked. Then came jabs and none connected with my body. Her attack could be predicted, she was the aggressor, the antagonist. My plan of attack was the complete opposite. Not attack at all.

After a few kicks Natasha noticed what I was doing. I shoved her back by grabbing her leg and flipped her in the process. She moved swiftly, like a dancer. All those rumors of the Black Widow assassins seem to be true after all.

“You won’t be able to pass any physical test that S.H.I.E.L.D. throws at you with you acting like a robot, Barnes,” she shouted.

“I’m not ready,” she recoiled while I shouted harshly at her.

“Because of the Asset? The Winter Soldier?” She lunged at me, leaving me no choice but to use force to stop her. In seconds she was face down on the mat beneath us. My hands twisting her wrists and arms so she couldn’t move in the moment.

“Yes, Romanoff. You’ve seen what I can do… What the Winter Soldier can do, I can’t let that happen,” she pushed and I moved away quickly, standing back up a few paces behind her. Standing up she adjusted and stared at me before looking around us and then back at us.

“I know. But I can’t help if you wont let me in. Please, James, work with me here,” she said while stepping closer to me. I countered her steps; it could be a trap, a set up before she would attack. Seen countless of times by the people of HYDRA.

“No one can help me, Natasha,” I shook my head.

Just as predicted she tried again to go after me. I moved a few seconds too slow and was knocked to my knees.

“Wrong,” she circled. I watched her, having a slight amusing yet random thought of how she was truly a black widow while in a fight, going for the kill. “Wilson offered you join him with his group, for you to talk even if it’s one on one… I want to help, so does Steve.”

I shook my head. She still wasn’t getting it.

“Come on,” she said grabbing my arm and pulling me onto my feet before dragging me over to the punching bags. Her tone was different this time. “I know you aren’t talking to Steve. So this is what’s going to happen. You will talk to me since you wont talk to anyone else. And while you talk to me you are going to hit the punching bag. Got it?”

It took a moment of my checking that it wasn’t a sort of trick before agreeing. She watched as I walked over to grab a glove for my right hand and readied for a conversation I wasn’t ready for either. But I needed to push. Needed to get it out of my head. Maybe then it would stop haunting me…

“I don’t think this will work. So many agents want to lock me up or experiment on me,” I threw a punch, “the latter being Stark and former being S.H.I.E.L.D.”

Natasha kept silent, waiting for more. I hit again, getting used to the force of the bag held still in front of me. I took a deep breath and swung again but I didn’t say anything. “Keep going, hit and talk. Tell me what else you’re thinking.”

I was thinking about everything.

“I… I hate that I’m like this…” Right Hook. Left jab.

“I hate my arm,” Left hook.

“I’m a monster! I have nightmares of what I did… Of what I was assigned to do for HYDRA,” Heart rate was increasing, along with my anxiety and heart rate.

“I don’t trust myself. I can’t forgive myself.”

I hit harder and harder, pushing Natasha as I hit the bag. I don’t remember when she stepped out of the way as I continued to take out my pent up issues on the punching bag. My eyes were locked onto the bag as it flew off the chains holding it up. My chest was heaving.

“I wont forgive myself,” my stomach churned.

Natasha was staring at me. I couldn’t place what her expression was. I shook my head before moving to another punching bag. I kept my eyes down and staring at the new bag in front of me. I just breathed as time passed.

“Don’t stop…” She said softly, moving to stand beside me and not behind the bag.

“I don’t deserve a second chance from anyone,” I swallowed hard and closed my eyes before letting my fists connect with the bag.

“Yes you do…” she said.

“No,” I shook my head, hair fell in my face, “No I don’t. Not with S.H.I.E.L.D. and definitely not with Steve.” My hits were hard again. I had no control.

“I shouldn’t be alive. I’m too dangerous. A weapon-.”

“So am I. I’m a trained assassin who’s very dangerous. A threat to most everyone,” Natasha said while walking behind me. She was watching me move. How I was attacking the punching bag.

“It isn’t the same, Romanoff,” I growled and grabbed the swinging bag to stop it from moving.

“No? I started before I was ten. I had to kill a man to graduate from the program I was in… Bucky, I know what it feels like to only know of getting orders and taking lives. But it’s better now,” Natasha said calmly.

My head was throbbing. I wanted to stop all of this: the talking, the fighting; everything.

Natasha waited before saying anything. I wanted to go back to Brookyn and back to my room. I wanted to sleep and not have terrors that wake me up with horrible headaches that lead to blackouts that give me even more flashbacks. I wanted anything but to be hitting the punching bag in front of me.

“Lets call it a day, Buck. You did great,” She said, closer than before. I nodded feeling already raw and exposed. I didn’t complete the task that I was told to do. How was that a good thing?

Back in the car and driving back was all a blur. Natasha didn’t say much or drive crazy like how she was earlier this morning. My mind was blank. Or was I just numb and shut my brain off? I didn’t know. It was just extremely silent.

“You know Steve trusts you,” she broke the silence.

“You don’t know that,” I countered. She glanced at me before back to the road.

“Yeah I do. I’ve been working with Steve and hanging out with him and I see how he gets when he talks about you. About before the serum, the way you guys were like. How he trusts you with his life, like back in the war. Bucky, Steve hasn’t changed his mind about you.”

I swallowed hard, keeping my eyes on the passing cars and buildings. We stopped at a light and she turned in her seat to look at me.

“I’m not saying that I know what you been through, or how you could be feeling. But, you aren’t alone anymore. Those fifty years that you missed out on, that you might remember or not remember, can be dealt with in a bunch of ways. But you don’t have to deal with it alone. If not with Steve, then with me. Even Sam has offered when you’re up for it that you can go to his meetings when you are in DC. We’re a team, and you’re part of the team now.”

The light changed from red to green and she went back to driving. I didn’t respond. I was getting more and more uncomfortable as she continued talking. I couldn’t be a part of their team. I was a killer. I was HYDRA. How could that be all that they wanted me to be?

I looked down at my hands and flexed both the flesh and the metal.

“When I was brainwashed… Or when my mind was wiped… if I slipped or made a mistake I was taken to a room and basically… tortured…” I whispered. “I was beaten and shocked until I responded how I was supposed to be programmed… If I didn’t then I was wiped and reprogrammed until I would submit. I can’t slip up with S.H.I.E.L.D. like I did then…” The car was parked as I said this and Natasha was stared a hole into my skull.

“You wont be punished or tortured if you make a mistake with S.H.I.E.L.D., Bucky. S.H.I.E.L.D. isn’t like that,” she said taking the keys out of the ignition.

I stared down at my hands.

“What HYDRA did to you was beyond horrific. But that wont happen ever again to you. I know that as a fact,” she attempted to be reassuring. She was trying; I’ll give her that much, even if my brain was checked out of this conversation…

“When I showed up at Steve’s apartment… I was still fighting the programmed instincts that HYDRA drilled into my brain. I stood there at his apartment doorstep with a dislocated arm, other wounds that I didn’t tend to because I was fighting myself. Steve didn’t even skip a beat… Practically pulled me into his apartment. Then immediately helped clean me up. He stopped everything for me… He did all that when I couldn’t even remember my name. I was expecting a fight… Questions… I didn’t understand how I survived on the streets for three whole weeks after fighting him on the Helicarrier. I don’t remember much either.” Somehow I was word vomiting, but I wasn’t thinking.

Natasha went back to staring at me.

“You said he trusts me… maybe he does… Because who would do that for someone who was sent on a mission to kill him?” I finally looked at her.

“Because he knows who you are,” was all she said to me. I unfastened my seatbelt and got ready to get out of the car. She waited, still watching me carefully.

I got out of the car; I wasn’t waiting around for her to ask me any more questions. I wanted to be left alone now. Natasha came up behind me as we walked up the few flights of stairs to Steve’s apartment. I had lost track of how many times I had walked out in the middle of the night and down these stairs to try to stop the flashbacks. Or not wake up Steve with my shouting.

Steve was apparently waiting for us cause the door swung quickly open as we got to the landing. I took one look at him before feeling nauseated and walking right past him.

“Going to shower,” I muttered

I heard Natasha greet Steve and start talking as I went into my room and grabbed clothes before heading into the bathroom. I needed peace and quiet. I needed sleep.

Hot water and soap only went so far. No matter how many times I washed myself, scrubbed at my skin I wasn’t clean. I couldn’t clean the blood from my past. After hitting that punching back all I wanted was quiet, but once I had the water going, my brain was shouting at me. I couldn’t escape the pent up emotions.

I sank to the bottom of the tub, the hot water crashing down on me. Too numb to care or move I pulled my knees to my chest as my head pounded, causing the room to spin.