I was a one man army

Bucky Barnes flexed his hand, it was strange not to have the soviet arm he'd been provided all those years ago. He was still getting used to the new addition to his body though he had to admit it was a hell of a lot more maneuverable than what he'd had before, Shuri and T'Challa were intelligent people. He thanked them profusely for all the help that they'd provided him over the last two months. He was beyond thankful for the chances that they'd taken on him.

Especially after their somewhat rough meeting. He was glad that no one blamed him for the death of T'Challa's father anymore. He was a lot of things but he wasn't that person anymore. He was something else entirely these days but he wasn't sure yet what that something was. Steve had taken him back to New York about three hours ago and he couldn't quite shake the nerves he felt about being here though he tried his best not to let it show with casual light conversation with his best friend.

Eventually though he'd decided to explore the facility simply to give him something to do with himself and a way to clear his head. He was still working through all of the things he was starting to remember though half of them he was still trying to work out if they were even real or parts of whatever implants were still buried somewhere in his head and it was confusing to say the very least.

He noted the whole time that he was in Wakanda every single time that he'd come across Natasha Romanoff when she'd been with Steve, she'd regarded him almost with a soft indifference and she'd never look him in the eyes which he found curious. She seemed to refuse altogether to be in a room alone with him and when that came close to happening she'd find an excuse to leave. He could hardly blame her though, he'd shot her, threw her into a table and pinned her by the throat...

Still, the words that she'd spoken that day haunted him and he'd wanted to ask about it now for weeks. You could at least recognise me. Did he know her already or was it just from what Steve had told him from when he'd shot her in Odessa during one of his missions? That didn't settle right, he felt like there was more to it than that. He couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to it than that but he hadn't been able to catch her alone to ask her about it.

The facility was almost nostalgic to him, Tony had the same ostentatious flare that Howard had and though the thought hurt him knowing what he'd done to his friend now, he was somewhat glad that not every memory he had regarding Howard Stark was haunted by the memory of his death. He had been friends with him once, they'd shared drinks and stories and harmless bets over girls in bars. They'd been coworkers, they'd fought side by side, Howard had designed the equipment that Bucky had that day on the train when he'd...

He shuddered at the thought, he reached out for the wall to steady himself as his other hand moved to his head and he shook it. He sought so desperately to dispel the thought because all he could see was himself falling into the cold and bleeding out in the snow with haunting faces looming over him that promised to take away all of the pain, he hadn't known then that they'd take everything he was away with it and that they'd use him for decades as a mindless assassin.

The memories that he had from that life were still haunting him now and that was why he'd chosen his isolated walk. Every night it was the same thing, nightmares that had him waking up in a cold sweat only to pretend that nothing had happened the next day and flashes that burned into his mind all day every day regardless of how much he fought to stop it. He was a haunted man and he feared now that would be all he'd ever be.

Steve had been reassuring though, assuring that he had a place in the world now that wasn't what he'd been before and he wanted to believe that perhaps so badly that it almost bordered on foolish, he had never been a particularly foolish man.

He pushed himself away from the wall and shook his head one final time before he started to walk again; it was the kind of place where your footsteps echoed when you walked because it was that big and open that the acoustics would've been impressive under any other circumstances. It'd be good for music though if he at all played. He could, it was one of the many skills he'd been taught for what he could only guess was undercover benefit but he wasn't likely to do so... Who knew. He had no particular destination in mind but the facility was big enough for him to at least get lost for a good few hours alone which was what he needed.

He needed silence. He needed time to himself where he didn't have to pretend everything was okay when in reality it wasn't. Fighting so hard to remember who he was was far more exhausting than people knew.

Steve wanted so badly for him to come back though that he felt almost like he owed it to him to fight through it all no matter how painful it was. Steve Rogers had been his best friend since they were children and that much he knew. 

He stopped again by one of the west facing windows and he noted that the sky was starting to turn all kinds of pinks, oranges and purples to mark the sunset and he found himself smiling at that. He was glad that now he got the chance to stop to appreciate a sunset again. He had always thought that they were beautiful since he was a boy. He drew sometimes and even painted but that was something no one knew about him.

Wait. He...

Was that real? His brow furrowed as he thought about it. Was that real or was that a part of another implant that they'd put into him over the years? The thought of it being an implant made no sense at all. They'd have no use for such a trivial skill but still he made a note to find paper and supplies at some point and try it out or buy some anyway. 

His head leaned against the glass and he breathed out a sigh, his breath fogged the glass in front of him and he pulled back drawing a star in it with his finger before he wiped it away and turned around again to continue his aimless wander. He watched a door open just north of him and he supposed it'd be yet another member of staff in this place or one of the many heroes that seemed to inhabit the place on and off. Steve had warned him that a lot of people tended to be here sometimes.

He wasn't all that bothered by it because he'd also been promised that he didn't have to deal with any of them if he didn't want to. He kept his head down making no note at all of the person that had stepped through the door until he brushed their arm and a shudder was sent through his body like an electric shock.

His head shot up then and his eyes fell on Natasha. She took an immediate step away from him and Bucky released a sigh and he turned to look at her. Her hair red like fire, her eyes like a forest deep and green and beautiful in ways unique to her and her alone. He remembered the scent of her skin, the scar she had on her side from- He couldn't. That wasn't real. That couldn't be real. She wasn't like him. She wasn't there all those years ago.

She couldn't have been there all those years ago.

"Natalia?" He breathed the name.

He wasn't even sure why he'd said it but in that moment it seemed of pressing importance that he tried in his own way to ask her if what he thought was real actually was. He'd never been particularly good with words and he didn't know how to ask her if what he knew deep inside of him was real or not but he knew that. He knew that name and he couldn't begin to explain why. He could remember saying it more times in the past than he could even begin to number. Natalia. She was Natalia. 

She was, wasn't she? That was who he knew... That was who he was sure inexplicably he knew. Was it even real? Was anything he thought he knew about her even real?

Her eyes widened and she released a sharp breath. Her eyes swept over him and she seemed to be looking for something in him just as he was in her only it made no sense. What was there to see? 

You could at least recognise me.

He did. He did but it didn't feel real. It felt almost like some other falsehood forced into his mind for some yet undiscerned purpose or another. She wasn't there. She wasn't as old as he was. She wasn't in that horrible place. She hadn't endured such a cruel life... Had she? She looked taken aback by the name that had slipped his lips though.

"James..." She replied quietly. She was struggling to figure out what to do with herself.

"I know you." He was battling through so much in his mind. "I know you but it's impossible you're not-"

No one called him James, no one. Not Steve, not anyone else. Not since Rebecca and yet from her it seemed like the most familiar thing in the world and it soothed something inside of him that had been in a raging war now for weeks. It seemed like a safe place that had been buried inside of him for too long now. Her expression softened, it was the first time that she hadn't seemed in some hurry to get as far away from him as quickly as she possibly could.

Some of the pain he'd noticed now for quite some time abated in her eyes but he wasn't sure why.

"Do you remember?" She asked as she tugged on her bottom lip with her teeth.

His brow furrowed. Did he remember- She was obviously more than he could possibly comprehend but he did indeed remember something, something that seemed so unlikely that he'd written it off as impossible and put it solely in the category of impossible. He nodded his head despite himself though.

"I think so." He reached out subconsciously, his hand bumped hers. "I remember something but it isn't possible."

"They don't know what I am." She sighed. "I never told any of them what I was."

"What are you talking about?" He was so uncertain but the way she looked at him now seemed both familiar and painful.

She too was silently begging him to remember something just like Steve was and he'd seen it now for quite some time in dreams, the dreams that didn't have him waking up screaming but instead had him waking up with a terrible sense of loneliness and emptiness that he'd tried his damn best to bury because it wasn't possible. He didn't know her, not the way he knew her in his dreams. She was probably talking about him shooting her.

She probably meant when she'd been running from him that day on the bridge...

"You and I." She explained. "I was there when you were- You knew me then. You trained me, we fought together and we were-"

She cut off as she ran her tongue across her lip before she started to tug on it with her teeth again. She wanted him to finish the sentence for her and he knew it. What he remembered was real? What he was seeing was real. He knew her. He loved her.

"Together. We were together. I loved you and you loved me."

She nodded her head softly. 

"Yeah." She looked away then. He reached and placed his hand against her cheek.

He didn't want her to look away, he turned her carefully to look at him again and he found himself searching her face for some inkling of how she felt now. It hadn't been as long for him as it had for her but it had been buried so deeply inside of him that it might as well have been. They really wanted to take it away from him it seemed.

"You were the best thing about it all." He offered her a weak smile. "The only thing that was ever really mine." 

The only thing he'd ever been truly and genuinely afraid to lose and indeed he had. They'd taken it away from him and he found himself wondering what cruel torture they'd inflicted on her as a punishment but he wouldn't ask, not here and not now anyway. Maybe eventually, maybe when they'd both had the time to process all of this properly.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you." His eyes fell to the scar on her shoulder.

She shook her head though.

"It wasn't you. It wasn't your fault." It was orders and she knew that better than anyone else would.

"Why didn't you ever tell them what you were, Natalia?" He spoke curiously. 

That part he did have to know. He had to know why she'd spent decades of life going through what she had and yet she'd hidden it from the people that she was supposed to be able to trust, the very same people she called her friends. The very same people Steve had sworn were all a family and yet she'd been lying to them the whole time she'd been around them and he wondered why.

"Because it wouldn't have helped me to move on if they knew." She shrugged.

"I wanted to leave that part of me behind when Barton brought me in and convinced me to defect. It took me long enough to convince them to trust me without them knowing I was decades old and I'd done more than they could've possibly comprehended."

She'd lost even more. She'd wanted to escape from who she was back then because it brought her nothing but pain. She'd lost the only good thing that she'd had the whole time she was in that hell and she wanted to leave it behind so that she could try to deal with the pain and she wanted so badly to tell him that but she couldn't find the words.

"I see it in my dreams. I see you and I. I see the times we spent together but I thought it was impossible. You asked me to recognise you that day and it sparked something inside of me that I couldn't escape from. I started to see it all but I didn't think it was real, I thought it was just a hope, a desperate dream for a normal life that I'd never be able to have with someone that'd never love me. I've wanted to ask you about it for a while but you've been avoiding me." He stated with a sigh.

"I wasn't avoiding you." She replied immediately.

"I was avoiding myself. I was avoiding wanting you to remember who I was so that I didn't have to be the only person who remembered what we lost anymore. I looked at you and I knew it all but you didn't. You looked at me like you didn't know me and it hurt. It hurt like hell so I started to stay away from you so I didn't have to see it. It was easier if I didn't have to see it."

Her voice dripped with pain as she spoke. 

"Do you still love me, Natalia?" 

She fell silent for a long moment after he spoke and he found himself wishing that he'd never asked. Why had he been so foolish? Of course she didn't love him anymore, why should she? He was a part of a past that she'd said herself she needed to move on from. He dropped his hand from her cheek and shook his head as he stepped back away from her. He opened his mouth to speak, to tell her to forget he'd ever asked and apologise for doing it when she flicked her eyes back to him.

"Yes. Yes I still love you." She whispered. 

That was exactly why she'd stayed away from him because she didn't know how to process loving him when he looked at her like she was a stranger to him who meant nothing. She had thought for so long that she was over it and that it would never matter because they'd never be thrown together in moments where he knew who he was ever again. She'd tried her best to say goodbye to it because she'd had no choice in it. 

A gentle smile ghosted his lips as he reached for her hand to tug her toward him. He could feel it inside of him, he loved her so damn much back then and that hadn't faded. She'd been his home, his safe haven in hell itself and the one reason he had to hope for a life outside of it all and they'd stole it all away from both of them like it meant nothing. Their feelings were a liability and a loyalty that wasn't to their handlers and he knew they wouldn't have abided that.

"I can't." She shook her head. 

They hadn't been this close in decades. She wanted so badly to just give in and melt into his arms and that was exactly why she couldn't do it. She wanted to believe that there was a chance that they could save what they were when he'd started to come back and remember piece by piece who he'd been back then but it wasn't fair on him for her to hope that. He deserved to move on with his life if he never remembered who they were or what they meant to one another and he wouldn't be held in place by her feelings for him.

She wasn't that cruel.

"Do you trust me?" He asked.

She nodded anyway.

"Good."

The very second after the word slipped his lips he leaned forward and kissed her, pulling her into his arms as he allowed himself to get lost in her and just what they'd been to one another. He allowed himself to get lost in years of memories of that one beautiful thing that he'd ever had that was truly his. He broke their kiss gently; his fore head pressed to hers and the end of his nose bumped hers, she had a smile on her lips that was so familiar to him that it made his heart race. It was a smile she had for him and him alone.

"I love you." He spoke those three words with more strength than he'd spoken anything in months now.

It was the most real thing he knew. She was the most real thing he knew and he'd fight like hell to make sure he didn't lose that all over again. He couldn't lose that all over again not when he'd just gotten her back, not when he was still working through the pain inside of him and fighting to find his way back to the few things he had in the world that meant anything to him. No matter how hard they'd tried they hadn't been able to take her away, his memories might have been buried deeply inside of him but they weren't gone.

They were never gone.

"I'm not ready for them to know who I am yet." She responded gently.

He pressed another soft kiss against her lips before he pulled away but held her hands in his and he nodded his head. He wasn't ready for anyone to know absolutely anything just yet. He wanted this - whatever this was - to be theirs. He didn't want it to be put under the scrutiny of other people. 

"I want this to stay ours for a little while." He spoke carefully. 

She grinned though and nodded her head.

"Yeah, me too."

"Can we at least act like we're friends instead of you avoiding me though?" He asked with a raised brow.

She let out a small laugh and shrugged.

"Then you'd better act like you're trying to befriend me."

"I think I can do that, my social skills are a little rusty but..." He smirked playfully. "If I can get you to love me, I can get you to be my friend."

"Oh yeah, you think so?" She was toying with him and he knew it.

He laughed.

"Yeah, I think I can charm you." 

"Oh, always so arrogant." She leaned up to kiss him.

"Be my friend around everyone else and we'll figure everything else out on our own."

He nodded then. He could do that. He could do that because it beat the hell out of wondering what they were to one another if anything at all and feeling a pain he couldn't explain for her avoiding him like the plague. He didn't want her to go back to that. 

"I love you Natalia Alianovna Romanova." For the first time in a while, James Barnes shone through.

"And I love you James Barnes." She replied gently.

But around everyone else, they'd just be friends and he could handle that. He could love her no matter what but they'd keep their secret for as long as they need to do so because finally after all these years they'd truly found their way home.