Lost in that last goodbye
He didn't sleep, not a bit. He couldn't stop the screaming in his head for long enough to sleep and he couldn't count the number of times he'd thought about going back just to try to find a way to say something to her but nothing inside of him made any sense; he'd thought he'd known what it was like to hate himself before but that was nothing compared to this. He was no stranger to the fact that he'd done terrible, unforgivable things but this? This was a whole new low. She was going to hate him, of course, she was going to hate him.
Natasha was very good at being angry but it made it worse to know that they'd probably both hate him for what he'd done.
The situation should have been impossible. They'd both always known that this situation had supposed to have never even been a factor because it was never supposed to be possible but he should've known better, nothing in this world was impossible. She was there, his impossible girl just as beautiful as her mother and just as convinced of his death as her mother was too.
Years and years of perfected self-loathing had nothing on what he felt now.
A part of him wanted to go see Clint Barton and demand to know why the hell he hadn't said anything to anyone about this but he knew that it'd have done no good. He was supposed to be dead, he wasn't supposed to show up at her best friends door demanding answers he had no right knowing. Logan had done the one thing he'd always sworn he'd do: Protect Natasha, he knew that if she'd forbade him from saying a word about it he'd have kept her secrets because she was important to him and he was thankful for that, he knew how much Logan cared for her, they were like family.
The closest thing that Natasha had to one these days anyway aside from the team she'd worked with over the years but even then she'd kept at arm's length and this had proved that better than anything else, Natasha protected herself well even when she knew people cared about her...
Well, had would be more accurate now wouldn't it? Logan had been the closest thing she'd had to a family aside from Clint who seemed to be the only other person on the planet Natasha genuinely trusted until she'd had their daughter and now she had a family all of her own.
A family that he should've been a part of had he not been so stupid and so intent on facing the demons that lived in the dark on his own.
Come morning, he was faced with a few choices: Go back to see Steve see if he could come up with a rational, easy way to broach this whole mess and fix it (He knew there wasn't one so it was pointless going to see Steve and spending all day debating over something that wasn't going to help even a little bit while Steve went over and over possibilities that he already knew weren't going to make even the slightest bit of difference to try to ease both of their consciences, there was no easy to way to fix any of this and Bucky already knew that), sneakily tail Clint Barton and Logan to the zoo just so that he could find out who his daughter was or go and see her mother.
Both of the latter options was painful, each in its own way a heartbreaking possibility and both of them were potentially hazardous, there were few people that Bucky Barnes hated direct conflict with but Logan was one of them and Logan would be smart enough to know when he was being tailed even if he was distracted by a child, he knew that he could try to do it the easy way and just stay out of the way but the only way anything would even begin to get fixed was if he went to see Natasha.
That option was likely to end in him getting either shot at or beat the hell out of, both of which he knew he deserved.
Still, no sane person on the planet would opt for any of those things regardless of how much they may or may not deserve them and Bucky Barnes did indeed deserve whatever punishment Natasha would decide to dole out to him but that didn't mean that he was in any way enthused about facing said punishment. It was going to be painful.
Natasha wasn't exactly the kind of person that laid down and let someone do what he'd done to her and do nothing about it, either way, this was going to hurt in some manner or another and a whole hell of a lot at that.
It was about mid-afternoon before he'd worked up the nerve to go see her, it wasn't that he was being at all cowardly but it seemed entirely rational to be at least a little bit wary of a Russian assassin when you were about to go and tell her that you'd spent nine years lying to her leaving her to raise a child alone in the process when you faked your death, she was bound to be angry about that and so caution was probably about the only rational part of his non-plan.
He didn't climb in through the window this time but he didn't knock either. He probably should have. The moment that she heard the door open she wheeled around and held a gun pointed directly at his chest, the stuffed animal she'd been holding fell to the floor.
He glanced at the stuffed animal instead, there was no use paying attention to the gun.
His blue eyes moved to her though when he heard her take a step back and the gun click as she turned off the safety. He watched the way that she studied him, the pain in her eyes, and the way that she held to the cold metal in her hands like a life preserver in a raging ocean. It wouldn't help in the long run but it was all she had at that moment.
She could feel it all over again, that fresh wave of pain that washed over her and sucked all of the oxygen out of the room and she held to the gun in her hand because she didn't know what the hell else to do. She didn't know how any of this was possible, standing here face to face with a dead man even in their insane world seemed like the worst sense of madness that she could imagine, her mind was playing the worst kind of trick on her and she couldn't let herself get lost in the grief.
She couldn't bring herself to fall to it, not here and not now. Natasha's legs were weak not that you'd see it if you looked at her; she masked her pain with a fierce look of adamant refusal and she took the safety off, fully prepared to shoot who - or whatever this was. A Doombot? No, no that one was stupid but desperation didn't make a person think rationally... Some kind of Shape-Shifting... No, that didn't work either. She had no one that hated her enough to want to hurt her like this that could do anything close to that kind of thing that she knew about.
Had she fallen and hit her head? No. That hadn't happened either, at least not that she could recall. Maybe she had, maybe she had and she was laid unconscious on the floor and she was trapped inside of some kind of twisted dream now. Nothing, nothing made an ounce of sense to her. Her grip remained so tight that her knuckles were as white as the wall she stood beside.
She felt like she couldn't breathe but she wouldn't let it show.
"Who the hell are you?" Her voice was strangely measured considering what she was going through.
The fact that she was asking questions meant that she was more curious about getting answers than she was about ending whatever threat this may or may not be to her, she wouldn't have even given whomever that chance once.
Now she was though, now she wanted to know who wanted to hurt her so badly that they'd resort to being as cold as this. She wanted to know who'd stoop as low as this in order to get her off balance and if playing into whatever little trick they were trying to set up was the only way to do it then fine, she'd make them think they were winning.
Natasha Romanov played people better than almost anyone else.
"Nat, it's me." He wanted her to believe him but he knew better. It looked like him. It sounded like him.
She wouldn't take anything he said as it was, he knew that something had brought her back here but Steve hadn't told him what that was, he'd told him it was too much and too cruel to drop him into that hell on top of everything else he'd learned last night and that was why he was supposed to go back today but all he'd been able to think about was seeing her and fixing this. All he'd been able to do was want more than anything else in the world to tell her he was sorry and that he loved her so damn much.
She shook her head, the fire in her eyes matched the fire of her hair and in that moment he couldn't help but smile; he'd always loved how beautiful she looked even when she knew she was the most deadly creature in the room. He knew her well enough to know that she was working off of her own plan here and that he'd have to wait for her to work through whatever the hell it was that was scaring her first.
Fine. He had time. Her though? She didn't.
She walked over and studied him, her pain growing worse by the second as she noted every scar that she knew all too well, every freckle, every line on his features that she'd spent hours and hours memorizing over the years and she placed her gun to his temple. It wasn't the first time that something like this had happened to him, hell it wasn't even the first time it was her doing it but it was the first time that she'd done it where she was her. She wasn't emptied out, she wasn't someone else, she wasn't under any pretenses she was just broken-hearted and he couldn't blame her at all for that.
This was her, one hundred percent her pointing a gun at him this time around and doing it of her own volition.
He didn't know that she was fighting so hard not to reach out and allow herself to believe for just a second that this was real and that he was here and that she wasn't going to have to face any of this alone any more. He had no idea how much she wished inside that it really was him so that she could just stop running and fighting and struggling through each day all on her own and have the one person she'd wanted by her side all this time really, actually there with her.
She wanted too badly to believe it and that was exactly why she refused to allow herself to do so.
"Natalia, it's me, it's James." He could see that she knew that, a part of her did anyway.
She was fucking terrified of it though. She held the gun to his head, she wanted more than anything else in the world to believe that he was stood before her simply to end the crushing sense of loss that had never got even a second abated for all these years but it wasn't possible. Her eyes glistened, tears dusting her eyelashes that she refused to allow to fall. Natasha didn't cry if she could help it, she'd been trained to use even that kind of emotion to root out a weakness in someone else but never show it in herself.
Never willingly anyway. She had a plan and yet it was slipping. She was struggling to just breathe but she would not let that show, how could she? All it took was one moment of exposed weakness and she could be dead.
He kept his eyes on hers though, he could see the pain there and it killed him to see that she was hurting so much knowing that he was the cause of it. He wished that she'd do something, he wished she'd do anything at this point. Hit him, scream, shout, anything but stand there.
"Impossible," Natasha spoke just one word and it was barely more than a whisper.
Impossible.
She had wanted it to be possible so badly once upon a time that she'd have given absolutely anything for him to be standing there before her now safe and well but that had been nine years ago, nine years he'd been dead and gone and there was nothing that she could do to fix it and no amount of wishing was going to change that either; once upon a time she'd have given anything to change that, once she'd have given everything just to have had one second to say Goodbye but that was a long time ago.
He wasn't here now. This wasn't some miracle. Miracles didn't happen to people like them, in her experience pain was more likely than anything else and she'd had more than her share of it.
Hell, they both had but he wasn't here. He couldn't be here.
"I lied, Natasha. Steve and I lied. We faked the whole thing because there was something happening I didn't want you to have to face. I lied, Natasha. It was all fake." Well, the dying part of it all was fake anyway. The fact that he wished he hadn't done it was very real.
The pain that he'd caused her as a result of that was very, very real and it was something that he hated having to live with. It was something that he truly hated himself for even causing now more than ever.
"I'm sorry Nat please, believe me, I'm so sorry." With a gun pressed to his head, what reason did he have left to lie?
The pain in his voice had him breaking clean in two but he watched her, all he cared about was her; he watched her falter as the tears sprang from their perfect perches and chased patterns down her cheeks as she shook her head. No. This couldn't be possible. All she'd wanted for as long as she could remember was him back and now that she'd finally come to some kind of peace with what had happened, she was forced right back to feeling that sense of loss and devastation all over again.
He had no right to ask her to forgive him but he'd settle well enough for her just believing him.
"Steve told me to come by last night I- I saw you. I saw you and her and I just-" He probably should have chosen his words more carefully.
He watched immediately as her expression shifted and her whole demeanor changed in an instant. The anger exploded from her like a firework, hot and bright and alive.
She took a swing, knocking him clean off balance with a blow to his cheek that had an angry red welt appear beneath the skin almost immediately; he'd forgotten just how hard she could hit. She had always been as quick as she was powerful. All he had the time to do was inhale before she swung out again and he caught her wrist this time, within a fraction of a second though she had the gun under his chin.
"Stay the hell away from my daughter." There was a fierceness in her voice, a strength that went contrary to the agony on her features.
She had always been such an impressive creature even when she was breaking in one way or another she held to her strength.
"Natasha, please. I won't hurt you, you know me. I wouldn't ever do a damn thing to hurt you. I know that I screwed up, I know that I didn't- God, Nat I messed up so bad. Just give me time to explain, okay?" What right did he have to even ask her that?
Well, apparently she didn't think he had much of one another either because this time he took a blow to the stomach that knocked the wind out of him with a thud that brought tears to his eyes, he was glad it wasn't just a little higher because no doubt she'd have broken a rib if it had been she hit out that hard with her knee. He didn't mind in the slightest. She had to work this out in her own way and he had to let her. Bucky slowly straightened himself out with a series of coughs as he fought to get his breath back.
"No. This isn't possible. No." She took a step back, the gun dropped to the floor. Stupid. Stupid.
He caught her with an arm looped around her waist right before the stuffed animal on the floor had her fall.
"Natasha, I'm so sorry. I didn't know. It wasn't supposed to be for that long I thought I could handle it and explain why I did it when I fixed everything but it wasn't as easy as that. It wasn't as easy as going in and stopping the monsters and by the time I got back, you were gone. No one know where you were and I tried to look but I couldn't find you. I tried for a couple of years over and over but Steve thought you were dead. He kept saying you were dead, I didn't wanna believe it but I couldn't find anything. You disappeared and I tried like hell to find even a trace, I thought I did a few times but it led me nowhere. I tried to follow you." He wanted her to listen.
He really, truly wanted her to listen.
"I never wanted to stop looking but I figured either you were really gone or you just didn't wanna be found. I love you. You know I love you and you know I'd die before I hurt you but Natasha please, please. I did what I thought I had to do. I know I messed up. I know I did the wrong thing and I swear, I swear I'd take it all back if I could but please, please don't shut me out, okay? Please let me explain."
Explain? What exactly could he say that would make even a little bit of this any easier? She shook her head running her hands through her hair. No, he needed to leave. It didn't matter what he had to say because not a damn thing he had to say would make any of this better. Not a damn thing he could say here and now would make any of this any easier at all, he'd lied. He'd faked his death and he'd left her alone.
He'd left them alone.
"Nothing you have to say will fix anything. You need to leave." Lies she could handle, she lived a life where lies were a necessity but this? This was torture. Telling him to leave was the only thing that she could do to stop herself from losing what little remained of her composure right now, she had to be strong if not for her own sake then for the sake of a poor, innocent little girl who'd have her heartbroken by this.
This was pain that none of them needed. This was pain that would break a little girls heart and no matter how much she loved him or how much she wanted to listen to him or hear him out she knew that she couldn't do it because it wasn't just about her anymore. He was a pretty story that she told to a little girl and that story was better than the chaos that this lie would unleash on her life, she didn't deserve that. She was just a child.
"If you were here last night and you know about her you know that you didn't just lie to me you lied to her and you left a little girl thinking she doesn't have a daddy here for her and you need to leave and leave her alone. You can't do that to her. I won't let you do that to her." She knew that would hurt. It would hurt him to hear it as much as it hurt her to say it.
She knew it would hurt like hell and in truth she wanted it to just so he could feel an ounce of what she did. He had no goddamn idea what she'd been through and he had no idea how hard it had been to raise a baby on her own all these years that thought her father was gone before she'd even met him.
"She deserves better, Barnes. She deserves better than you. Get the hell out." She didn't mean it, not a goddamn word of it but the pain inside of her was so overwhelming.
"You tell her about me, you tell her stories," he replied quietly.
She shoved him away from her. She shook her head vehemently. She had to protect their daughter.
"So what if I do!" she snapped.
"What did you think was gonna happen, that you'd just come here and tell me everything was fake and I'd forgive you? Screw you! You left me to raise a kid on my own for eight years. Eight. She's a goddamn kid. She's been a normal kid all this time and I won't have you march in here acting like you've got a damn right to be here just because you decide you're not playing dead anymore. She's not going to be hurt, not by you or anyone else. Leave."
Ouch, He understood she was angry but that? That hurt like hell; he knew he was going to have to let her get through all of this in any damn way she needed to get through it but that didn't mean that it wouldn't hurt, that didn't mean that it wouldn't affect him and that he wouldn't hate every damn second of it or wish he could change every word she spoke to him because he did, every goddamn word she spoke cut like a knife and he wished he could've changed that but he deserved her anger. He deserved it ten times over and they both knew it.
"I know I messed up I should've-" He didn't get the chance to finish.
"You messed up?! Are you serious? Alexei is threatening OUR CHILD and you're going to stand there feeling sorry for yourself and telling me how you know you messed up? Go to hell!" she interjected, anger bleeding from her voice with every word.
"Wait, what?!" He sounded alarmed.
What the fuck.
Natasha watched the way that he reacted to what she said and she shook her head. Steve hadn't told him, of course, he hadn't told him. Natasha let out a short, humorless laugh as she shook her head.
"What, you thought I wanted to come back to New York? I left because I wanted her to be away from every goddamn person here that could hurt her or lie to her or put her in danger. I came back because my past - our past - is still haunting me and I needed to find somewhere safe with people I thought I could trust. No one stays dead anymore." She spoke that last part pointedly.
Cold? Absolutely.
"What happened?" He didn't care about absolutely anything else, not at that moment.
"Natasha, tell me. Please." She was right, it wasn't about him.
It wasn't about them, it was about the danger that their child faced and a monster that the two of them had thought they'd buried a long, long time ago. She was right, no one stayed dead anymore. Natasha released a sigh as her hands shot toward her face and she fiercely rubbed the tears from her face before she marched toward her desk and pulled out the pictures, holding them out to him as she released a small sigh as he took them and she explained what little she knew so far which - admittedly - wasn't much and both of them were frustrated by it.
He knew the last time that she'd seen him, they'd ended up going toe to toe and Alexei had come off worse but then Natasha didn't go down easy, she never did. She was a hell of a fighter even when the odds were stacked against her and usually that was when she was at her most dangerous. She found herself releasing a sigh as she thought about that day, things had seemed simpler back then when she was fighting for her life than they did now.
It was a strange thing to think about the fact that someone trying to end your life literally made more sense to her than any of this did, it was masochistic in some way she was sure of it. She shook her head as she released a sigh. They spent about 20 minutes tossing around every useless theory that she'd come up with herself over the last 24 hours but none of it made any damn sense. She didn't understand why nothing had happened and neither did he.
It was almost like she was being baited into something but she couldn't see the whole chessboard clearly just yet, he was rarely one step ahead of her for this long. He was predictable, his ego made him predictable but this time around she was in the dark for way longer than she wanted to be and that was what was scaring her the most, it felt like she was being pulled into a trap all over again and she hated it, there was no semblance of safety even around people she knew would never let anything happen to her willingly. He could see that even having her child away from her was causing her physical pain but she fought it brilliantly.
"She's safe with Logan and Clint. I need her to think that things are normal so to her they're just taking her out for the day so that she can see the animals, she's obsessed with animals she has been since she was a baby." Natasha sighed as she made her way toward the kitchen. She was talking simply to try to ground herself at this point.
"Tea?" she spoke through gritted teeth.
"Coffee. It's been a long night," he replied weakly.
She nodded her head, she could understand that all too well; the bags beneath her eyes were far worse than his, he could tell that she hadn't slept a wink since she'd gotten this threat and it was unlikely that she would willingly do so until she found a way to ensure their child's safety. She made her way back in with two cups, handing him one before she sat down as far away as she could manage without literally being in another room. He sighed but he supposed it was better than her trying to shoot him or hitting him again.
He wanted to ask her about it, he wanted to ask her when the last time she'd gotten a decent nights sleep was or even when the last time she'd allowed herself to relax was but he knew that it'd take her a long time to think of an answer, he knew her well enough to know that she probably hadn't truly, completely relaxed once in their daughter's life and she probably hadn't gotten a restful nights sleep once during that time either unless she hadn't been alone.
Maybe during one of the times, she'd had someone there with her if she ever had... He didn't know. There was so much he didn't know but he did know that she was exhausted and she was walking a fine line to keep fighting because she didn't know what else to do with herself. He did know that she'd fight till her last breath to make sure that their daughter would be safe no matter what that meant for herself and he knew that scared the hell out of him. Natasha was strong, she'd always been strong but she was trying to face the world alone again and she was going to end up running herself into the ground trying to do it.
He wanted so badly to ask her to let him help. He wanted so badly to ask her to let him start to make some of this right but he knew her well enough to know she'd refuse. He hadn't earned that right yet and it was really up to her if she ever gave him the chance to do so.
She opened her mouth to say something but immediately she slammed it closed again as she heard footsteps. Shit. What time was it?
Her eyes widened as she turned to the door, hearing the handle push down as she quite literally sprang over the back of the sofa knocking her coffee cup over in the process, and darted toward the door just one split second too late.
Just one.
Stood in the open door frame was a small girl with reddish-brown hair and bright blue eyes wearing a pair of shorts and a hoodie that immediately looked past her mother and toward him and an excited smile spread across her features as she held in her hand a toy wolf that bobbed around as she quite literally ran forward and Natasha looped her arm around her and pulled her back.
"Daddy!" The gleeful tone that broke her lips had Natasha look more alarmed than anything else he'd ever seen in his life.
The child wriggled in her embrace.
One word had her look more panicked than any amount of danger than she'd ever been in had.
Oh shit.