I will not run
He wasn't supposed to be doing anything when it came to this side of life again. He'd promised himself that when he was out he was out but that goddamn girl had an unparalleled talent for getting herself into trouble. She'd always had the same goddamn talent even way back when though he swore she'd done it on purpose just to throw him into the fire with her just to see what he'd do when she did. She had been young and arrogant and back then he'd tried his best to temper that.
She had a spark inside of her that refused to let him break through her defenses so easily and wouldn't let their handlers break her down, she challenged him and didn't make anything easy and he'd loved that about her.
He'd hated it too but he'd loved it all the same, she was fiery, she was wild and she was a hurricane and he hadn't realised back then just how much that'd gotten past his defenses or even how quickly. He didn't think then when he'd first been partnered with her that she'd come to mean anything close to what she had to him. He was supposed to be cold and unfeeling and empty just like she was but there was just something... Something about her that changed everything.
Something about them that broke through whatever was forced inside of them and awakened something human.
If he was going to go back into hell then he was okay with it being for her, if there was ever anything that he'd willingly risk everything for it was fitting it should be her. He'd spent the last 24 hours trying to piece together as much as he could about them and their past and all he knew for sure was that seeing what happened to him had been what broke her and that she'd want revenge. If she was broken now then she was broken but free and she could fight back for the first time in her life without being afraid of the consequences.
Natalia had always been so fearless. Natasha was more disciplined, the person ironically that they'd probably have wanted her to be rather than the firecracker of a girl they'd had. It was funny in its own way and sad in another. She'd fought so hard to become different that she had the practiced discipline now that they'd tried to make him instill in her years ago.
He was aware and painfully so that he didn't known her anymore but he knew he'd be able to find a trail faster if he didn't have to babysit Steve and Clint too. He was aware they both cared for Natasha and they knew the person that she was now but that wasn't the person that was out there.
He knew they didn't grasp that they were looking for Natalia, they weren't looking for who she became rather who she was to begin with and who had become free when Natasha's carefully sculpted defenses came crashing down. He knew Clint had met that girl but at the end of her tenure there and not so early in it like this was. This was something that took her back to before Clint had convinced her to come in, before she'd even been through half of what she'd had to endure following it.
He knew those were stories that Clint Barton did not know because he'd have said otherwise. Clint would've been more use in all of this had Natasha told him more about her past but she kept her pain to herself hidden behind carefully constructed walls trapped in little boxes with keys that she thought no one would ever be able to find but she hadn't accounted for her programming. He doubted she even thought she had anything anymore.
If he'd have been more aware before now he'd have said the same, he'd have sworn there was nothing buried that deep in her head, not after all this time but he'd have underestimated their cruelty just as much as she had. What they'd done to her was nothing short of evil, pure, unfiltered evil. She didn't deserve to ever be forced to relive that pain and she didn't deserve to be turned into something she'd fought so hard to get away from because they'd made it into a trigger for her.
They were determined to keep using him to hurt her and a part of him hated himself for that almost as much as he hated them for it.
Jumping from heights didn't bother him in the slightest but the shock of the sudden temperature drop in the air and as he hit the ground did, it knocked the wind out of him and he knelt for several moments on the ground with one hand buried in about a foot and a half of snow that swallowed most of his knelt body and the other on his bent knee, it wasn't the place to stop and rest and he knew that but he'd been trained like she had to endure through things like this. He needed a second to get his bearings.
His first stop - just as she'd predicted - was his weapons drop, she'd left him a note inside and he wasn't sure whether to take comfort in it or whether to be concerned, it almost sounded like she was saying goodbye, it was almost as though she didn't expect to live through what she was trying to do but he wasn't going to let that happen to her. She was going to live through this. He wasn't going to let her fall. That was never going to be an option. If she was going to do this then fine, he probably couldn't talk her out of it and he knew it but he could help her and deal with whatever he needed to deal with later.
It'd be like going back to what he'd been before at least to a degree only this time he'd be choosing it just like she did; Bucky Barnes would be in the darkest parts of the world all over again only this time - and for the first time - he'd be making his own rules. They were both free and this time - for the first time in decades - they could choose what they wanted to be and where they went from here only this time there was no threat of being taken back because they'd fight like hell to make sure that didn't happen. They weren't going to let that happen. Freedom this time was theirs and he wasn't willing to let her lose hers and he'd be damned if he lost his either.
He read over her note and he assessed every word of it for some clue as to what she'd do next, she seemed to remember things about him that he was only starting to learn about himself all over again but the fact that she was giving him pointers was helpful. She was helping him without even being there... She was filling in blanks and helping him to shape their story into something that made sense and he was thankful for that.
He couldn't stand there all night dwelling on the potential double meaning to her note though, if she was on some suicide mission he had to find her and stop her.
His next stop - naturally - was the facility they'd been held in when he first met her and as he watched the dying blaze he shook his head and sighed, she definitely wasn't going for subtle. She was doing just as he thought she would, she was angry and she wanted them to know that they'd crossed the wrong person when they'd used her all those years ago and taken away everything that she loved. They'd pay for making that a part of her programming.
They'd pay for using her. They'd pay for making him a part of her programming when they'd used that exact same thing to take him away to begin with.
He stood contemplating just where she might go after this, he found himself trying his best to pull together what memories he could right now of their earliest days and while it was hard - and one hell of a headache - he was determined that he was finding her and if he had to endure the headache then so be it. It was the only way he could think of to save her even if it meant saving her from herself. She'd need to rest up after this, he had no idea if she'd incurred any injuries but he hoped like hell she'd survived.
She was being reckless but she was smart and she was strong. She wouldn't go down easy.
They weren't too far outside of Tyumen, if she was going to go anywhere to rest up and resupply it would be there. She knew the city well enough and so did he, one of their very first missions together had been there and while they'd been put in a safehouse set up by their handlers way back then she'd set up one of her own in the late 1950's not long before they'd been found out and punished for what they were.
He wondered if she still kept it all these years later, even back then Natalia had been a girl who knew how to use everything to her own advantage and that meant that she was able to manipulate her handler back then into allowing her more freedom than he probably should've and that was how she'd come to set up what he supposed was her first in a series of safehouses. She could use a hotel too, she always did like hotels.
It was the small sense of normalcy of it or at least that was what she said back then, pretenses though even back then had been solely for the sake of a mission so he wondered now whether that'd be something she'd associate with the things they'd made her do in the past or if she'd learned to move past that. There was always the fact that she'd had an apartment here once but that had been during one of her brief allowances of freedom that he knew had stopped when they'd found out about them...
Hm.
Her apartment. That was his best guess. He knew the safehouse would be the smart option but if she was truly determined to reclaim her past that would be where she'd go. He just hoped that no one lived there that she could potentially harm simply to accomplish that. She didn't kill needlessly for the most part but she wasn't entirely in her right mind right now. He chose to walk the five miles between the facility and the city simply to clear his mind. The walk would be good for him, his head was screaming at him right now and he needed to just walk.
Close to two hours later he gotten to the outskirts of the city and it was then he'd decided to acquire a vehicle to get where he needed to be. He hoped that he hadn't misjudged it but if he did it'd take him less than 20 minutes to get to her safe house if she was even still in the city at all... It was a risk but right now it didn't seem like she was much interested in hiding. She seemed perfectly content with them knowing that she wanted to screw them over as badly as they had her.
He didn't know what he'd find when he did eventually find her but he had to admit that the freedom of flying through the city on the motorcycle had been something he'd missed. He loved the freedom, the feeling of the air rushing against his skin, he loved the way that the engine hummed and roared and the way that it could still make his heart hammer. That could be nervousness too but he had momentary freedom and that was a whole hell of a lot more than he'd had in a long time.
Here he wasn't bound by the need to remember who he'd been before all of this, here he could settle debts and save someone he loved at the same time. Maybe the only way he'd truly be free would be to do exactly what she was doing and hit them right back. Maybe she needed to do this for her own sake and maybe he did too. It was in that moment - he supposed - that he truly, really and consciously decided that he wasn't going to talk her out of it.
The engine died as he cut it and he made his way inside deciding his best option was not to climb through the window with a newly triggered Natalia to deal with and so, he tapped gently against the door instead. He didn't have to wait all that long before she opened the door just a fraction and studied him.
"I'm here alone don't worry. I ditched the cavalry." He studied her, or at least what little he could see.
She looked more or less fine. She'd just gotten out of the shower from the look of her. She studied him though and he could see that she was deciding whether or not she should trust him. She seemed amused by the fact that he had followed her clues whether he'd realised he was or not. She was always good at subtly directing people without them realising she was doing it. She was very talented, the best in her field for a very good reason.
The very best just like they'd trained her to be. Just like he'd trained her to be and she didn't disappoint.
"I'm not here to hurt you, Natalia." He spoke with such a gentleness.
She recoiled and he watched the emotion flicker across her features for just a brief second, if you'd blinked you'd have missed it. She was always so composed, she never let anything slip for very long. She knew what punishment waited for her if she did that. She remained there quiet for a beat, studying him through the gap in the door before she stepped back to open it. She had a gun pointed at him though.
He laughed and shook his head.
"Still think you can take me all these years later, Little Spider?"
She regarded him with an amused smile as she lowered the gun and tossed it on the chair standing with her arms spread and a smirk on her lips. She looked - he noted - radiant in the moonlight and so much like she had the last time they'd been alone together, her eyes alight with the same fire she'd always had, the same fire that had made him fall in love with her to begin with... He noted too though the quickening of her breath and how she watched him and every move he made.
She stood there in a t-shirt and a pair of pajama shorts looking casual and comfortable just like she had the last time they'd been truly alone together and truly themselves. That made him sure she wasn't afraid of him and he knew it, he was thankful for it because it meant that he didn't have to convince her that he wasn't going to hurt her all over again, he wanted her to know he was there to help her just like he should've been all along.
"Other way around I think..." She teased. "I know I can take you, I've just chosen not to so far. Do you wanna test me?"
Half truth, half bravado. He couldn't help but chuckle as he nudged the door closed with his foot before he looked up at her and stepped forward. She didn't move, her hands dropped though and he reached out to take her hand and pull her toward him.
"I was never interested in hurting you, Natalia." He looked down at her as he spoke.
She was so small compared to him but lethal, so so lethal. She was the deadliest creature on the planet and he'd be stupid to forget it and he knew she knew that too. He'd never underestimate her, he never would either. He'd always known what she was and what she was capable of. Their roles had reversed over the years though, he had been the hero fallen to the darkness, she had been born to the darkness to rise from it a hero.
Now she was somewhere in between who she was and who she became. Deadlier than ever but composed and disciplined in a way she hadn't been when he'd known her. She still looked so very much the same though. Her heart still quickened when he was this close to her, she still tugged on her bottom lip to take her mind off of the fact that he always made her nervous in the best kind of way... She was still so very much the same in some way but so so different in others.
"I know." She breathed, her free hand moved to his cheek. "I missed you."
Sadness flickered across his features and he released a sigh. He might've lived with the emptiness but he hadn't any idea what it was that he was missing for far too long and he hated that. They'd done such an excellent job of burying what he felt for her deep inside of him that it took literally being confronted with her name and what she was dealing with to make him begin to piece together what it was he was remembering and for him to decide it was indeed real.
"I missed you too." There was such a pain lacing his voice.
They'd took everything away from him and from her over the years and he hated it. He hated just how torn apart they'd made them inside and he saw the cracks and breaks inside of her whether she wanted him to or not. She wasn't throwing up her defenses the way he feared she would. Natalia, the girl that she'd been before knew that he was the one person in the world that she could truly trust back then and it seemed she still felt the same now.
That was good, that was very good. That gave him a place to start that didn't mean he was going right back to the beginning.
"How'd you know they'd pull me out again?" He was curious and naturally so.
She just shrugged and released a sigh. She hadn't been 100% sure but she'd hoped Clint would be smart enough to figure it out.
"Watching what happened to you was what made me like this, I knew Barton would figure it out and they'd wanna know why. He knows me, well her but I suppose we're the same person in some way or another, or at least as well as she wanted him to. He knew how to read what was going on and she knew he did. He's smart that one."
"He's irritating is what he is." Bucky muttered. "But you're right, that is smart."
He hadn't thought that Clint would've been able to read that much into it but it seemed he knew Natasha better than Bucky had initially thought he did. He knew how to see what she was seeing, he knew how to read her and watch what happened to her and assess what he was seeing tactically. It was actually impressive. He knew how to assess the situation so that he knew just what had happened to her and watch the moment that she broke. He knew that must have been hard to see...
Clint had been right though, turning to him had been the smart play though he had no doubt that he regret that now. He was sorry for what he'd done to Clint and to Steve but he'd done what was necessary to do right by Natalia and she was his first priority right now.
"Your turn: how'd you know where I'd go?" She shot back.
He watched her carefully, he could tell she was trying to read the situation and trying to figure out exactly why he'd come for her, she wasn't even sure he'd even ever remember, she was glad he did though... Him not knowing had hurt more than she'd thought it would.
"I figured you'd go one of two places: back to where it started with us and where it ended or back to the place we were last together and happy, this was my best bet. This was the place most tied to your pain." He explained.
She looked down as he spoke but nodded anyway to tell him he was right.
"All things considered I didn't think it was your sentimental side that was going to win out, it took a hell of a lot of thinking for me to remember as much as I do right now and even then it's fuzzy and fractured but I'm trying, I'm trying like hell for you because I can't leave you out here alone, I won't do that." She mattered too much to him, he sounded strained as he spoke but sincere.
"If you're going to try to talk me out of this James, don't bother." She sighed as she stepped back out of his embrace just to make sure he knew she was serious, she flicked her eyes up again to hold his gaze.
"I'm not gonna talk you out of it I promise. I'm not here to tell you you shouldn't do this because I know there's no point, once your mind is made up you're a huge pain in the ass and trying to talk you around would be an even bigger headache. What I am here to do is tell you that I wanna help you. You're not gonna let me talk you out of it so let me help." He knew her better than to think she'd listen to him if he told her not to do this.
She needed to do this. She needed to do this to settle with their past and find some peace. He could understand that because if he was going to let himself be really, truly honest he wanted revenge just as much as she did.
"If this is some stupid trick to make me talk to Barton and Rogers just don't. I can't. They don't get it. They won't get it and I need to do this." She sounded serious.
It was kind of sexy... Nope. Not the time.
"It's not a trick. I'm not here for them I'm here for you and you know that. You know I'm on your side, I was always on your side." He might not have remembered it all along but he was.
He was always on her side and he wished he'd remembered that when he'd hurt her rather than it taking her going through this. He hated himself for hurting her. He hated himself for causing her any harm but she seemed to forgive him, if only he could forgive himself so easily.
"It isn't about Barton or Rogers or your friends wanting to save you, Natalia. It's about me being by your side through everything just like I should've been all along. Let me be by your side, let me take on this fight with you. Let me end this with you for your sake and mine." It was their past and their demons and they should fight together.
It made more sense for them to fight together than it did for her to fight alone. He tugged her toward him again and bowed his head to rest against hers. His hand brushed across her cheek. It was a soft sense of intimacy in a purely non-sexual way, the kind he hadn't felt in a long time. The sense of closeness and warmth that he needed more than he knew.
He wondered in the back of his mind whether she really was okay and she was going to trust him and let him help or whether she was just playing along because she could play people better than anyone else he'd ever met... It seemed almost like he doubted himself. It wasn't her. She'd hated it when he'd been toyed with in the past and he distinctly remembered her promising she'd never do it to him.
"I don't need you to save me..." She breathed softly.
"You never did." He replied as his nose brushed hers. "You were always the stronger one out of the two of us."
Brave, strong, determined... He'd always admired her even if he'd never told her. She was so alluring and he knew that she knew that but she didn't use the charms they'd taught her with him. With him it was always genuine. With him it was always real and he knew that meant so much to both of them. That wasn't programming, that wasn't anything forced into either of their minds it was actually truly them making their own choices and they'd chosen each other.
"Mm, I'm not sure that's true..." A coy smirk played on her lips. "You were always very impressive."
He knew her flirty tones all too well by now and he sighed. He was frustrated but then she'd always known how to push his buttons better than anyone else. She'd always been the single most impressive creature he'd ever encountered even all these years later. It seemed indeed like that had never changed. As much as he was going to regret his next words and he was sure of it, he said it anyway.
"Not now, we have work to do..." He wanted her, of course he wanted her...
Now just wasn't the time. She'd started a chain of events that were going to catch up to her soon and he knew it. They needed to move from here before she got herself into more trouble. If they stayed one step ahead they stayed alive... If they moved, if they stayed one step ahead it stayed their game. She'd started all of this and he wasn't about to let her guard down even for his sake, hell especially not for his sake. He wasn't here to put her in more danger, he was here to help her end this once and for all.
He was here to keep her alive because he didn't want to learn how to be without her. Not again, not when he was just getting her back... He had no idea what the road ahead of them held but he did know that she wasn't going to get hurt by letting her guard down for his sake.
"Well that's disappointing..." She pulled back and smirked.
"Later." He sounded almost stern.
"Oh that's just teasing..." She replied before rolling her eyes. "But fine, have it your way."
His way indeed... If it were up to him he'd give in but he knew that they were in danger if they didn't get the hell out of there fast. They needed to stay one step ahead. They needed to keep moving until they had a better plan for what they were going to do because he knew they'd need one. They'd need one if they were going to survive. They'd need a plan to make sure that this stopped once and for all and that they truly found freedom.
Focus Barnes, both your lives are in danger...