Bourbon
As soon as she was through the window, Steve found himself reaching out to her. He forgot his previous anger, the frustration he held at her cryptic tendencies, the disappointment of once again feeling Bucky slip through his fingers. He pulled her into his arms.
She took a shuddering breath beneath his embrace, her whole body shaking with some emotion that he couldn’t quite place. Relief, maybe. They stayed like that for a moment and he relaxed further as her arms slid around his back and her head slid into the crook of his neck.
When she finally pulled away his worry returned. He took her in with a sweeping, concerned glance. It wasn’t that he was unfamiliar with feeling concern for her, it was more so that he was unfamiliar with her looking so concerning. So pitiful. She looked terrible. Run down. Her eyes were rimmed with red, deep blue bags slung underneath them that made her pale skin seem ghostly and transparent. Her hair hung limply around her shoulders, usually so bouncy and full. Her lips were dry, cracked.
“Natasha,” Steve breathed out, holding her at arm's length and giving her another once over. Her tact suit was wearing her. “You look horrible.”
She cracked a smile, but it was weak. “You’re not looking so great yourself. Though I will say I’m enjoying the view.”
He had the good sense to look abashed. “Let me go change.”
Natasha’s eyes lingered on him as he walked into the bathroom. She couldn’t help it. She still remembered what that body could do. She silently chided herself. That was not why she was here. She needed to catch up with her friend, to reconnect. She didn’t want to lose him like she had lost everyone else. If that meant keeping him at arm’s length, that’s what she would do.
Steve returned in a pair of sweats, arguably too hot for the humidity of the apartment, but he didn’t trust himself in anything less. Seeing Natasha had been such a relief-- he hadn’t realized how much of his stress had stemmed from not knowing if she was alive or not-- but it also hadn’t been long enough. He still wanted her, in ways he knew she couldn’t provide. Still, he couldn’t help wondering why she had shown up now, of all times.
She was sitting on the edge of the bed when he entered the room once more, her hands folded in her lap and her eyes on the floor. She looked so demure, so docile. So unlike her usual self.
“Can I get you a drink?” Steve asked her. She looked up and another smile traced its way across her lips, only this one looked a little more real.
“We’re both super soldiers, Steve,” she said. “We can’t exactly get drunk.”
He shrugged. “Placebo?”
She nodded and followed him into the kitchen. It was grimy, just like the rest of the apartment. There was only a sliver of counter space between an old tin sink and a coiled electric stove that’s burners sat unevenly against the stainless steel. The door hung crooked on the refrigerator and apparently had for some time, as a pool of water sat beneath it, covering a warped floorboard.
Steve pulled two glasses from the cupboard, paint flaking off as he closed it once more, and took a fifth of bourbon out of the fridge. He traced his finger along the neck, the condensation coming off in a clean line where his skin had made contact.
Natasha glanced around. Old TV, ratty couch, faded coffee table. The sickly beige paint of the living room had faded in perfect squares where three pictures had once hung, their nails still embedded in the wall.
“Nice place,” she said. Steve huffed out a laugh.
“It serves its purpose,” he said. They each took a seat at the wire framed table, Steve’s chair scraping loudly against the hard wood. He passed her a glass and she took a long sip. The burn of the bourbon helped to ground her. She asked the question that she knew would start the conversation she was so dreading. The very one she came here to have.
“So where’s Sam?” she asked, glancing at his bag that was shoved on the wall side of the couch. Steve smiled dryly and watched his drink swish around in his glass. They both knew where this conversation would lead, where Sam was.
“We don’t have to talk about him, Natasha.”
James. She swallowed at the thought. The grim reminder of why they were living separate lives in the first place.
She knew he would come up. Accepted the risk when she got on the plane last night with only a fake name and a backpack. Still, it was hard to think about. She wanted to separate them-- James and Bucky-- pretend they were two different people. But she couldn’t. They were the same person, Steve and her common link. Forcibly torn away from both of them.
When she was alone in France, those few lonely weeks, holding her pillow to her chest and barely touching the thought of James or Yelena, or anyone else, she had a brief, horrible thought:
When they both lost James, he probably left them with the same image burned into their brain. Arms outstretched, screaming their name. Ripped away by HYDRA and gravity. Two things they would never be rid of.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I don’t want to be cut out of your life. Friends, right?”
He laughed dryly. “Something like that.”
She twisted her lips into a familiar, coy smile. The same one she had given him at the hospital in DC, when he had her against the wall, yelling at her about the pirates. It was the first time she had seen him truly angry.
“So where’s Sam?”
“Still out. We failed again today. Bucky-- James, I suppose--,” the name sounded foreign in his mouth, “--he was here. Just yesterday he was here. And I was too late.”
Natasha was quiet for a moment, swishing her drink back and forth around her mouth as though to cleanse it. “It’s not your fault, Steve.”
He stood up and began to pace across the creaky kitchen floor boards. “We were so close just now. So damned close. He was here, Nat. In Buchanan, the dumbass. And now he’s gone off to who knows where and I’m stuck back at square one. Do you know how fucking upsetting that is?”
She did know. She had done the same exact thing a few years ago, chased him for nearly a year. All she had to show for it was a nasty scar and a deep, unsettling sadness.
She kept her thoughts to herself.
“I’m sorry.”
“And now, what? I’m just supposed to pick up the search again? Just supposed to pretend like it’s not destroying me?” He punctuated his words by slamming his glass back onto the kitchen table. Empty. Natasha polished hers off and refilled both of their glasses.
“The closest we’ve gotten to finding him, besides that warehouse in Odessa.” He took a sip and winced, throwing her a pointed look. “Found your little present, by the way.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“That man, in Odessa,” he continued. “One of your victims, I assume.”
“He was no victim,” she said. “That would imply innocence.”
“So he was HYDRA?”
She nodded. “Working for the Red Room to recreate the super serum.”
“I thought they had already done that. With you?”
She laughed again and he saw her guard flicker back up for a moment. “They tried. Never quite got it right.”
“How do you mean?”
“It was a series of twelve injections. One every six months, for six years.”
“And then you were, what? Immortal?”
“As close to it as they could get us. You know my abilities. I can be hurt. I can scar.” The bullet hole on her hip flared up again. “But I can also perform well beyond what I should be able to. I heal quickly. I have… other skill sets.”
“And they didn’t get it right?”
She raised her sleeve up beyond her elbow, struggling with the tight material. He saw a scar on her shoulder he had never noticed before, a small, dime sized indent just above her tricep. He ran his finger across it, a blemish against otherwise smooth skin.
“No.”
“Against what standard?”
She shot him a look. “You.”
He drained his glass again. She echoed him, and poured two more.
“So, what, you killed him to halt the serum production?”
“I killed him to protect James.” He simply raised his eyebrow at that. She continued. “He would have come after him as soon as he could. They would have run tests on him. Reset him.”
“Reset him?”
“They have a set of words they can say, like a code. It shuts off the part of his brain that you and I know. I’m trying to get to everyone who might know it.”
He sat down once more, heavy in his chair. She reached for his hand.
“I don’t want you to beat yourself up for not being able to find him. You’re not the only one he’s running from.”
Steve looked up at her. “It’s like I’m losing him all over again. Like in the alps. He’s just out of reach.”
“It’s not your fault, Steve.”
His eyes flickered down to where she was touching him. “Why did you come here tonight?”
She pulled her hand away, suddenly feeling that sickly feeling of worry in her stomach again. “I wanted to see you.”
“Yes, but why now, Nat?”
“I’m tired of wanting to run,” she said. “I’ve lost everyone. I don’t want to lose you, but I’m afraid I can’t win. Either I stay with you and something happens, or I leave and nothing ever does. I just-- I don’t want to lose anyone else. I can’t.”
He studied her as she refilled her glass. The bottle was near empty. With no makeup and limp hair she looked younger than she was. For a second he saw the little girl she had been when she had started her injections: lost but determined, broken but willing.
Maybe it was Bucky, the sting of his latest disappearance. Maybe it was the sense of abandonment he felt knowing that he was alive and actively running from them. Steve couldn’t take it, the thought of losing Natasha too. He took her hand again.
“You won’t.”
He wanted to believe himself.
------------------------
Natasha stayed the night. It was a no-brainer. They had polished off another bottle of bourbon, the only two Sam had bought during their brief grocery run the night before, and were both somewhat buzzed. Her body hummed with electricity when they stood up, charged as Steve asked if she wanted to stay the night. She nodded, following him into his bedroom.
He pulled back the covers. “You can take the bed. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“I’m not letting you sleep on the floor, Natasha,” he said. “Come on.”
“Then sleep in the bed with me. It’s plenty big enough for the both of us.”
He glanced at the ratty twin mattress, then at Natasha. He wanted to say no, should have said no, but he couldn’t. His brain felt foggy-- from seeing her, from the drinks. He just nodded.
“I have a shirt you can borrow.”
She changed in front of him and he couldn’t help watching her. The way her tact suit stuck to her body as she peeled out of it. The way her back looked in the light of the single bulb hanging bare in the center of the room. He thought back to that first morning after she returned from Chicago. How her back had been cut up by Baker. The scars there had long since healed.
She made brief eye contact with him while she pulled his shirt over her bare chest. She knew he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from looking, for the same reason she would not be able to stop herself from showing. They turned in, flicking the light off and pulling the thin comforter over their bodies. The night chill had begun to draft through the window. Natasha pressed herself into Steve.
His breath was hot against her neck, raising goosebumps across her shoulder. She felt like she was being electrocuted, like a small but steady current was flowing through her body, stemming from where his arms had wrapped around her waist and his leg rested between hers.
She had to resist the urge to arch backwards, to press her body closer to his. That was not why she was here.
His lips were moving, his chin brushing against her shoulder. “I’ve missed you.”
“I missed you too.”
She wanted him to touch her, wanted his lips to finally make contact with her skin. Instead he simply tightened his grip on her. She felt his body pressing into her back and wanted to scream. He was hard. She wanted him so badly it hurt, he clearly wanted her too.
Friends.
Right.
She drifted off into a chaotic sleep.