Over Before It Started
Barnes had expected her to slam the door in his face, best case scenario. Instead, he found himself sitting next to her spilling old secrets.
“It was a joint effort,” He explained, “Between Hydra and the Red Room. I didn’t know most of the details. Just that I was there to train some of their operatives and run missions with them. Natalia had already graduated and was a formidable assassin on her own. We worked well together, better than any of the other Widows, so they kept sending us on missions together. We, uh, we started to get close. Almost friends. And… it was the longest I had gone without being, frozen. I- I started to… wake up. For only moments at a time,”
Ren made a sympathetic face, Bucky wasn’t sure if it made him feel better or worse. He didn’t want to think about what he felt right now, he was feeling far too many things after not feeling anything for so long and he did not know what to do. Natalia was Natasha and worked with Ren. His old feelings for Natalia seemed even more confusing than they had as The Winter Soldier. Sitting here with Ren was only making him feel stranger. They were so close that he could feel the heat that radiated off her. Talking about his past made his stomach do an awful series of flips, like it was trying to climb up his throat. Still, he continued.
“We, well, we got, involved. Romantically,” He said as flatly as possible. Her expression shuttered, “It wasn’t real though. Not… not fully at least. We were both under orders. Hydra wanted the Red Rooms secrets, and they wanted ours.”
Taking a deep breath he thought back to his long conversation with Natalia Natasha, her side of the story, “Her… the man in charge of her, Dreykov, had asked her to do more than get close to me. She was spying on the Winter Soldier program. Watching the training, taking notes on the operatives, the serum, watching… learning how they kept us, me, under control. She said seeing it, made her begin to openly question the Red Room. Not long after that, she met Barton,”
There was something else she had told him, something she didn’t want him to tell anyone else. It wasn’t a secret per se, but she didn’t need the world to know. To know that Dreykov had her steal some of the remaining super soldier serum. That it had been watered down and administered to her and some of the other widows. He could share his secrets with Ren, but not hers.
“You called her Natalia,” Ren said softly, like a question.
He nodded, “That was her name then, Natalia Romanova,”
“I guess she changed it when she defected,”
“Yeah,” He hesitated again. There was no reason not to trust her, but opening up was foreign to him, “They told me she was dead. After she left. They knew that we had grown close, outside of our missions. If they had known how serious it was they would’ve killed the both of us. But that bond had been useful enough that they allowed it. Until she left. After… after I thought she died, they wiped me. Again and again and again. I didn’t know why, at that point, I could barely think at all. But it makes sense now,”
Now Ren looked downright horrified. It was rare to see her at a loss for words. She rested her hand on his shoulder as she had done earlier that day. He had appreciated it then, the light contact had grounded him. It did the same now.
“Barnes…” She trailed off
He laid his hand on top of hers. They didn’t say anything, but their eyes made it clear. All was forgiven. She was one of the few people he could still understand, one of the few who seemed to understand him. Still, he wanted to be sure, “Are we still…”
“Of course,”
Without warning she pulled him into a hug. This was the most anyone had touched him since leaving Hydra. He found that he didn’t mind it. His arms wrapped around her in response and for a second he felt… like Bucky.
But she pulled away again and the second ended. She rubbed her hands on her bare legs. Barnes forced himself to pull his eyes away from those legs. Yeah, maybe he was feeling like Bucky again. Ironic, given the conversation they’d just had.
The fact that he still remembered all of that, remembered it clearly too, wasn’t lost on James. His treatments had only just begun. They were small right now. Mostly mental exercises and scans, though Dr. Banner had given him some kind of serum that was supposed to stimulate healing in his damaged brain. He’d been reluctant to take it at first.
Even though his memories of Natalia had hurt, he was glad to have them. Flashes of others were coming back. Nothing substantial, not yet, but it was an improvement. Hopefully.
He wanted to feel like James again, like Bucky. Like a person.
Barnes’ contemplation was broken by a banging on the bedroom door.
…
Ren had known about Natasha’s past before. But the more she learned the worse she felt. Standing face to face with the Widow she was trying to reconcile the woman she knew with the past she had endured. While her trust was still frayed, Nat was making a request she was having trouble denying.
“Why me? I’m probably the least qualified person here,”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” Nat responded, “I’ve seen you fight. And you won’t be going in alone,”
“I’m not sure about this Nat, last time I played bait it didn’t exactly go well,”
“We will be right there with you the whole time. You are the best person we have for this,”
She exhaled heavily, “I doubt I’m that high up on Hydra’s ‘Wanted’ list. You or Steve would be more tempting,” Or Barnes, but that was out of the question.
“Steve and I would be too obvious, they would know it’s a trap,”
Turning away from Nat she ran her hands through her hair. Frankly, Ren wasn’t sure if she was ready to go into the field again. The last few missions she’d gone on hadn’t run very smoothly. But Nat had said this was urgent. The base they were looking for wasn’t just another Hydra outpost. There was intel that led S.H.I.E.L.D. to believe they were running human experiments. After everything she had just heard from Barnes, how could she say no?
She could think of at least one Hydra agent who would jump at the chance to capture her again. She had practically agreed when Steve mentioned going after Hydra earlier. She just hadn’t thought it would be so soon.