Extraction of Alexei Shostakov
Location: Volgograd, (former. Stalingrad) (former. Tsaritsyn) Volgograd Oblast, Russia
Proceed with caution.
Natasha presses her lips into a thin line as she reads over the briefing. It isn’t a surprise to her, but she couldn’t help dreading it. Hill had warned her that Shostakov would be there, warned her that the confrontation might dig up some dirt that Natasha had kicked under the rug. She had agreed, anyways, because she knew that that was exactly what Shostakov wanted. (She heard her own voice, calling out Alyosha, because she knew that Alexei hated that nickname. He never cared when it was her saying it. She got away with a lot of things like that.) Natasha had blown all her covers and all of her secrets during the fall of SHIELD, but that didn’t mean she wanted strangers in her business like this mission would require.
She feels Steve’s eyes on her, as she tucks the mission statement away and pulls out a knife instead. She sets to work on sharpening it, languidly, without any real concentration. Steve’s empathy makes him perceptive of a lot of things, Natasha knows. The questions hang in the air between them, heavily.
“A ghost from my past,” Natasha says, at last.
Steve regards her, for a moment. “You won’t have to deal with him for long.”
“He’ll want to see me,” She looks up from the knife, and into Steve’s caring blue eyes. “While our history says otherwise, I was supposed to marry him.”
“You make it seem like you were forced to.”
“I was,” She sighs, running a hand absentmindedly through her hair. “The KGB wanted me in my place, and they knew Alexei could that. I still have the stupid wedding ring around and everything.”
“Jesus, Nat,” Steve says, shaking his head. “You know, it’s unfair, how little I know about you. You probably know me better than I know myself, after all.”
“Oh, I do,” She says, leaning her head back onto the car seat and smirking at him. He rolls his eyes. “But, if we’re being honest with ourselves, my past isn’t a bedtime story. It’s long, complicated, and classified. You’d probably get bored.”
“I’ve got time,” Says the man so famous for being out of time. “Seriously, Natasha…if you ever need someone to talk to, I’ll listen.”
She tucks his offer away in her mind, even though she knows she’ll never burden their friendship with the weight of the god-awful things she’s done.
“Noted.” She slips the knife back into its holster, and pulls the keys from the ignition. “Come on, old man. My fiancé’s up to something.”
“He’s lucky I didn’t get a chance to give him the shovel talk,” Steve says, jokingly. Despite what everyone else thinks, Steve jokes. A lot. Ninety percent of the time he does it with a straight face, which Natasha finds especially hilarious.
She snorts, getting out of the car and shutting it as quietly as she can. Alexei has to be waiting for them, for her. The plan is to at least get into the building before he knows she’s there.
They make it through the warehouse relatively easy. Natasha gives wandering HYDRA operatives the Widow Bite, Steve hits them with his shield, or either one of them strangles the struggling soldiers into unconsciousness. It’s too easy, Natasha knows, and she prepares herself for the worst. To say the least, her and her ex have a bit of bad blood between them.
The door slams, locks, behind them.
“I can see you are still not much of a blushing bride, Natalia.”
The barrel of her gun is pointing towards the source of the noise in an instant, her eyes searching for Shostakov. She doesn’t have to look hard, because her former fiancé doesn’t seem to be hiding. He’s sprawled out on a dusty couch, spinning a knife dramatically between his fingers. He turns his head, icy eyes meeting her, a cat-like smile on his lips.
“And I see you aren’t much of a gentle groom,” She quips. She steps halfway in front of Steve, sensing the impatience under his skin, the worry.
“Fair enough.” He takes the knife and stabs it into the couch, smiling when a few tufts of cotton fly into the air.
“Lyoshka,” She says, taking pleasure in the way he growls at the nickname. She lets what’s left of her Russian accent bleed through, and she can admit it feels relaxing to drop the vocal façade. “What is it that you want, dearest?”
He grins, again. “I want my betrothed back.”
She resists the urge to squirm, uneasily under his gaze. Steve nudges her hand, the gesture covered by his shield. She shakes her head, infinitesimally.
“I hope you know that I would sooner die,” She says, beginning to round him, like a cat prowling around its prey. He stares back, with a venom. Alexei had loved her, she knows, but through their entire debacle, she had never felt anything towards him. She knows that he knows this. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Alexei says. “But I’m afraid your choice won’t matter much, if your head is buried under….” His eyes glimmer with things she doesn’t know. She pulls her knife from the holster.
“…пепел.”
Ashes.
The ashes that fell like snow when Stalingrad was attacked. The ashes of buildings she had burned, to kill those who slept in them. The ashes of New York, and then of SHIELD.
Natasha’s blood runs cold.
“No,” She whispers. There’s no bomb. The building doesn’t crumble to ash, but Natasha’s mind will.
“потерял.”
Lost.
Lost, like she had been as a parentless child. Lost, as she had been when Clint Barton upended everything she knew about herself. Lost, as she had been when SHIELD fell.
“Nat?” Steve asks.
“No, no, no,” She says, broken. Alexei never knew the words, the words that could break her. He couldn’t. He shouldn’t. “You have to get him to stop, Steve, I—"
“паутина.”
Spiderweb.
Natasha’s weapon, the spiderweb. Her words, carefully crafted, sometimes spoken to build trust or to instill anger, sometimes to seduce.
Natasha screams, in rage, in fear, and Steve’s shield whips past her, heading at full speed for Alexei. Alexei side steps the shield like it’s nothing.
She runs, then, her knife in hand. The shield flies back to Steve like a boomerang. It all melts into the background for Natasha. The only thing she cares about is this knife in Alexei’s jugular, before he can say those words, before he can destroy her—
But her would-be husband isn’t stupid, isn’t defenseless. He blocks the blade with ease, pulling a handgun from his pocket and firing.
“малиновый.”
Crimson.
Like Natasha’s hair, like the Red Room, like blood splattering onto the floors, the walls.
A few more bullets fly past her, and she knows Alexei doesn’t want to kill her. He just wants her still, so he can say those words and she won’t fight back.
“Stop!” She screams, lunging again. His foot connects with her face. She sets her jaw, and gets back up again.
Steve throws the shield to her, running for Alexei himself. He has no idea about the words, no idea what they’ll make Natasha do…she holds the shield, spitting blood onto the floor, throwing the shield towards her enemy with everything she has.
He ducks, and Steve manages to catch the shield as it flies over his head.
“убийца!” Alexei yells out.
Assassin.
Squinting through a scope. Stabbing a knife through someone’s heart. Natasha pressing the barrel of a gun to someone’s head and firing. Blood splattering on floors, on clean, pressed suits. Bodies crumpling to the floor. Screaming. Natasha walking away with nothing on her face, blood on her hands, and a success for her handler.
She feels the first tendrils of red beginning to wrap around her mind. They fog her brain, starting to strangle her thoughts, her autonomy. Natasha hates it, hates all of it, and the terror that courses through her is unbridled.
“The words,” She says, with a gasp as a fist connects with her stomach. “The words. Steve, he can’t—”
“амброзия!”
Ambrosia.
The drink of the Greek gods, gifting them immortality. A scientist stabs a syringe into Natasha’s veins. We replicated Stark’s supersoldier serum, a voice says from her head, you will be our best soldier, even more now. Natasha Romanova stops aging at 22, frozen in time just like Steve Rogers.
Her thoughts are harder to control, they break apart before she can even finish processing them. Her mind slips. Why is she fighting Alexei, again?
Oh, maybe because he’s trying to brainwash her. Natasha pulls a gun from its holster and fires.
“Shut up,” Steve growls, seeming to catch on. He tries to wrap his hands around Alexei’s neck. Alexei shakes him off.
“тени.”
Shadows.
Natasha had lived as one for almost her entire life. She was born in 1928 and went off the grid in 1932. She committed over two dozen assassinations in her entire life and no one ever saw her coming. She’s lived fifty different lives, as covers, and there’s been very few times she hasn’t gotten what she wanted. The real her is buried so far under shadows of Natasha’s own creation that even she can’t find her.
“Stop fucking talking,” Natasha growls through gritted teeth.
Natasha fires a few missing shots, her mind beginning making it impossible for her fire straight, to see her target clearly. She launches herself upwards, using Alexei’s body to pull herself onto his shoulders. She brings her elbow down on his head, one, two, three times, thighs constricting around his neck.
“балет.”
Ballet.
Natasha’s graceful moves on the wood floors of the Red Room. Lithe, dangerous, as quiet as a slithering snake. A black ballet skirt. Black, silk pointe shoes. A gun in her head.
A gunshot. Steve yelling out in pain, blood blossoming on the blue fabric of his thigh. Alexei flips her over, onto the couch, trying to pin her down. Her hand closes around his neck, and she squeezes, a widow delivering the final bite. He just pushes her shoulders into the cushions, trapping her between him and the couch.
“двадцать восемь.”
Twenty-eight.
Twenty-eight girls in the Red Room who grew up exactly like she did. Who danced, who killed, who were slowly stripped away of everything they were, and built back up to be a weapon.
The fog is almost inescapable now, wrapping around her brain. It plants seeds, thoughts that she didn’t find herself thinking before. A symbol flashes in her mind—a tentacled creature with a skull at the head. HYDRA.
Steve yanks Alexei off of her, quickly delivering a punch to his face. Alexei grunts, blood spilling from his nose and dripping onto the floor. Natasha delivers a spinning kick to the back of his legs, her fist connecting with his face as he falls to his knees.
He gets back up, unadultered rage in his eyes. He wipes his nose with the back of his hand, his dangerous eyes set on Natasha. It takes a couple minutes of fighting her to get what he wants, but eventually his arm is wrapped tightly around her neck, cold metal pressing to the side of her head.
Steve’s chest heaves as he raises his hands in the air, eyes pleading with Alexei not to shoot. She stares back at Steve, wide-eyed, begging him to do something.
Alexei presses a kiss to her forehead, tilting his head so his lips are right beside her ear. She struggles. He holds fast, whispering a single word.
“звезды.”
Stars.
Stars that she would look up to whenever she found her way outside in the Red Room. Stars that she begged to forgive her. Stars that she begged to save her. The star on a metal arm, her star. The star at the center of a shield belonging to a man who…she can’t remember.
Something in her mind snaps under the strain, the walls of her mind breaking like a levy.
“черная вдова?” Asks Alexei, grinning.
Black widow?
“готов соблюдать,” She says, the words rolling of her tongue automatically.
Ready to comply.
“I want you to fight him,” Alexei says, pointing at the man with the shield, whose face crumples when he looks at Natasha. “I want you to fight, like you fought in World War Two, in the Cold War, and everywhere in between. Don’t you dare let me down, Romanova.”
She goes to move, but he grabs her arm. She stares at him, blankly, as he searches her face. He crashes their lips together. Natasha stays completely still, not moving away or being particularly enthusiastic about it. He pulls away, giving her a creepy smile, brushing her hair out of her face and tucking it behind her ear.
“Go, Natalia.”
“Yes, sir.”
The man she’s been instructed to fight looks heartbroken. His eyes are pleading, a familiar sight to Natasha. He holds the shield up and takes a small step backwards, the closer she walks to him. She notices the limp in his step, caused by the bullet hole in his leg. She can’t remember him getting that wound, but she supposes it doesn’t matter anyway.
“Nat,” He says. “Natasha. Please, please don’t make me do this.”
Natasha says nothing.
“God, not you, too,” He’s begging. “I can’t lose you like this. You’re in there somewhere, I know you are.”
She lunges, deadly and effective. He lifts his shield in the air, but she just kicks off of it, into the air, backflipping then landing on her feet. She goes at him for a while, not yet unleashing all that she has. He blocks, time after time, never striking her, only defending himself.
“Natasha,” He gasps. “Please, please, I know you’re in there. This isn’t you.”
“This has always been me,” She growls, flipping him over. He lands on his feet, the shock of it going straight to the wound on his thigh. He stumbles, and she doesn’t give him time to recover before attacking again. Her accent thickens the angrier she gets, the more venom she puts in her words. “The woman you know tries her hardest to hide this side of her, but I’m here now.”
Her hands close around his throat. He stares at her, not even struggling, broken. She slams him back into the wall.
“Stop trying to make me something I’m not.”
“I know this isn’t you, Natasha,” He throws a punch. “The Natasha I know risked her life to save millions of people, more than once, now. The Natasha I know loves her family with everything she has. The Natasha I know is stronger than you.”
“My family is dead,” She spits. Stalingrad burns at the forefront of her mind. Her father screams after her as uniformed men carry her away. “And the Natasha you think you know was terrified of me.”
“Your family is the Avengers,” The man with the shield tells her, blood dribbling down his chin. “You told me that once. Natasha. You know me. You saved my ass more times than I can count. You try so hard to fix the mistakes you made. I tell you time and time again that you’ve redeemed yourself a hundred times over, but you still don’t stop. You told me that when the time comes you’ll sacrifice yourself if it comes to it, and as much as it hurts I know you will.”
She says nothing. Voices pierce the fog surrounding her brain, inaudible but clearly belonging to the man in front of her.
“Your name is Natasha Romanoff, at least to the world. Most of us call you Nat. Clint calls you Tasha. Tony calls you Natalie Rushman, but that’s just Tony,” Her opponent says between gasps of air. “You’re so important to all of us, Nat, if you don’t come home it will devastate us.”
“Then let it,” She hisses, blocking a punch with her hand, and then twisting his arm. “And stop talking about things that aren’t true.”
“It’s all true!” He yells. “I would never lie to you, Natasha, never. You were with me when I fought Bucky. You were with me when we it was me versus the entire world. I asked you how far you would go to help me, once and you just smiled and said, ‘all the way, Steve’.”
Natasha remembers, somewhere in the back of her mind.
Steve.
(They’re in an unfamiliar house. The name Sam floats across her mind, untethered to any other memories. She’s sitting on a bed, head in her hands. She hears footsteps, and slowly looks up.
A man with blonde hair and blue eyes. His face is concerned, and she knows that he cares too much for his own good. He looks tired, above all else.
“You don’t have to do all this, Natasha,” He says, softly. “I won’t ever force you t0 do something like this.”
“I have to,” She replies, voice rough from the sleep she was pulled out of. “I won’t let this happen and sit back and relax, Steve. You know that better than anyone.”
He’s quiet, for a moment. “If you do this,” He starts, slowly. “How far will you go?”
“To help you? To help SHIELD?” A smile grows on her face, reassuring. “All the way, Steve.”
Steve smiles back.)
Bucky.
(The first thing she sees is red. Red, the shade of blood, coating the walls. She brushes her bangs out of her eyes, frowning. At the other side of the room was a man, with a glimmering metal arm and a red star on the bicep.
She smiled, walking towards him.
“Go rest,” Natasha says, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You need it.”
He’s quiet for a moment, continuing to strike the punching bag. “Don’t worry about me, Tasha.”
She sighs, pressing her lips together. “I love you too much to ever stop worrying about you, my star.”
He gives her a small, half-hearted smile. His metal arm is cold against her cheek, when his hands cup her face. He kisses her forehead, and she pulls him close.
“I love you, too, my spider.”)
She flips backwards, landing a few feet away from Steve. Natasha feels Alexei’s eyes on her, boring into the back of her neck.
“Steve,” She whispers, softly.
“My weapon,” Alexei chides from behind her, growling.
“Yeah,” He lowers the shield, his eyes never leaving her. “My name is Steve Rogers. I’m your friend.”
“I don’t have friends,” She retaliates, stalking towards him again. Her hands shake. “Least of all you.”
“You’re one of the only people I trust,” He says, almost dejected. “I won’t leave you behind like this even if it kills me.”
“Then die.”
“Please,” He begs. “I love you, Natasha, you’re my family. You never loved Shostakov, I know that much. Please, you don’t have to go with him.”
Alexei doesn’t seem worried in the slightest.
Natasha delivers a high kick to Steve’s head, or so she tries. He grabs her foot and yanks. She falls, but not for long.
“Alexei is my handler,” Is all she says. “I don’t owe anything to you.”
“You don’t,” Steve agrees. “But he hurt you. He doesn’t want you for you. He wants you as a weapon. He’s using you.”
“I am a weapon.”
“No, you’re so much more,” Steve shakes his head. “And I hate that it’s come to this. Sorry, Nat.”
His fist connects with her face, and everything goes black.
She wakes up gasping.
Panic seizes her, filling her lungs like water. She thrashes, blindly. Someone yells at her, telling her to calm down, putting a hand on her shoulder. She throws a punch in their direction, and they grab her fist to block it.
“Tasha!” Yells Clint.
“Clint,” She breathes. Natasha sits back on the bed, breathing hard. She’s in a hospital bed, bandages covering spots all over her body. A TV drones on in the corner. In pours down rain outside.
“Yeah,” He slowly sits down beside her. “Yeah, it’s me, Tasha.”
“What did I do?” She asks, softly, staring down at her hands. There’s dried blood caked underneath her nails. She feels sore, bruised and battered. “I…don’t remember.”
“He got a hold of you. Alexei,” Clint says grimly. “He said your trigger words. You fought Cap.”
“Oh no,” Natasha trembles, bringing a hand to her mouth. “Oh god, Clint, I never meant to—”
“It’s not your fault,” Clint rubs her back. Tears slip down her face. “It couldn’t be helped. Alexei is an asshole.”
“I could’ve fought him,” Natasha says, finding it harder and harder to breathe. “I should’ve tried—”
“You did.” He turns to face her, grabbing her hand. “You fought so hard, Tasha. But he got you, Steve said he had a gun to your head. There’s nothing you could’ve done.”
“I should’ve let him kill me.”
“No,” Clint growls. “No, you don’t ever say that. We need you, Natasha, more than anything.”
“I can’t just keep letting them turn me like that,” She says, through gritted teeth, then sighs. “Is Steve okay? Where’s Alexei?”
“Steve’s alright. Alexei shot him and you got a few punches in, but he’ll be fine. Alexei’s in Avenger hands. We won’t let him pull something like that again, okay?”
“Okay,” She says, with a shuddering exhale, squeezing his hand. “Okay. Thank you, Clint.”
“Anytime, Tasha,” He says. “I’m glad we got you back.”
She smiles. “Me too.”
Steve finds her in her room an hour after she wakes up.
She’s sitting on her bed, blankly staring down at her phone. With her other hand, she rakes through her wavy, chin length hair. She remembers cutting it, as her way of grieving SHIELD. The way Alexei had brushed his lips against her ear, had kissed her like he had…it makes her want to crawl out of her skin.
“You holding up alright?”
Natasha snorts. “You’re asking me that, you, who I beat the shit out of.”
“Someone uprooted your mind,” Steve says, leaning on the doorway. “That doesn’t even compare to a couple bruises.”
She presses her lips together, going quiet. She turns her head away from Steve.
“I feel…dirty. I feel so angry at him, Steve. I worked so hard to get away from the Red Room, from the Soviet Union and my past, and he erased everything I did.”
“He didn’t erase anything, Nat,” Steve reassures her. “You are still just as good as you were before. It isn’t like you did any of that willingly.”
“I guess,” She tugs at the old hem of the old MIT t-shirt she stole from Tony. “You alright?”
She feels awful, making Steve watch her forget him just like Bucky had. He has one too many brainwashed friends as it is. And on top of it all, she punched the shit out of him. His lip is split and swollen. Medical tape is wrapped around his thigh. (Alexei shot him but she didn’t exactly help with the healing process.) There’s bandaids and patches littered on his arms and face.
“Fine,” He says. “This’ll all be gone in a few days.”
“I’m sorry,” She whispers. “I’m so fucking sorry, Steve.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” He walks further into the room. He looks so empathetic for her, not even mildly interested in his own well-being, and she hates it. He should hate her. “What happened to you was awful, Natasha.”
“I’m still sorry.”
“And so am I.”
After a moment, he sighs. “I have a question.”
“Shoot,” She says, immediately. “I owe you that much.”
“You don’t owe me shit,” He retorts. “You don’t have to answer at all if you don’t want to. I just…you fought in the war?”
She stops, turns, smiles. It’s small, and a little sad. “Which one?”
Natasha was made for war. World War II, Vietnam, Korea, the wars that the Russians fought in the shadows. SHIELD’s wars, wars with aliens…it never stops. Battle makes her feel at home.
“My war,” Steve answers. “Alexei told you…he told you to fight like you did in World War II.”
She sighs. “You were right. There’s a lot I haven’t told you, Steve, and I’m so sorry,” She takes a moment to breathe, and he waits, patiently. She gets up, walking over to her dresser and pulling out a small box. Inside is an ebony capsule, a dogtag, and a small photo. She pops open the capsule, handing it to Steve.
“Russian IDs,” He says, a little breathlessly. It’s probably been ages since he’s seen anything like it. He pulls out the small slip of paper, reading over it.
Фамилия
Романова
Имя
Наталья
Отчества
Альяновна
год рождения
1928
It isn’t much, just her last, first, and middle name, as well as her year of birth. There’s more information on the slip of paper, but none of it is relevant anymore. The capsules have gone out of production long ago; after WWII the Russians swapped them out for dogtags, which Natasha has, too.
The photo is her, wearing a visor hat with a glistening hammer and sickle in the middle. Her red hair falls down to her shoulders, frizzing out underneath the hat. Her face is blank, chin up. Her face was gravely hollow; it just went to show what the KGB and war had done for her physical health. She’s wearing an officer’s dress uniform, one she only ever wore for picture documentation. She wasn’t an officer—as far as the KGB was concerned, she existed outside of the Russian army; she was a ghost except for when a mission required otherwise. The picture is worn at the edges, having survived 75 years of Natasha worrying at it.
“I was born in 1923. When I was four, I was taken by the Red Room. I was their weapon, and a weapon of the KGB, too. In 1939, I got sent out to war, but I wasn’t on the fronts that much. I was in the shadows, doing the dirty work—the assassinations, the espionage, the seduction. And…in 1942, I met you.”
“What?” Steve breathes, shocked. “You…we met before?”
As far as Steve knows, the first time he’s ever seen Natasha Romanoff in the flesh was on the helicarrier in 2012, talking about Coulson’s vintage Captain America trading cards, Bruce Banner, and the Tesseract. Steve wasn’t supposed to remember every meeting her; her entire job was to be forgotten, to slip through memories like water through fingers.
“Yeah, but it was brief,” Natasha says, staring at the photo in Steve’s hand. “It’s okay if you don’t remember; you weren’t supposed to. It was the winter of 1943, I think. We were all camped out on the Eastern Front, in Czech, it was cold as hell, and morale was dangerously low. I remember your commando unit, drunk off their asses, singing Star Spangled Man,” Natasha smiled, remembering that night. “Your face was warmer than all of us combined.”
“My unit liked to embarrass me, so they pulled that a lot,” Steve said with a laugh. “But I remember the night you’re talking about—I remember Bucky made me stand out in the cold, a little outside the camp just so he could show off with his rifle.”
“You remember that soldier, who took shot your shield dead center and gave Bucky a run for his money?” Natasha smiled, remembering the little competition that Bucky had insisted on, much to Steve’s chargin.
“Yeah,” He says, with mounting realization. “Yeah, I remember.”
“That was me,” She says. “I wasn’t really supposed to, if I’m being honest, but I wanted to show off a little, too. I was the best sharpshooter in the CCCP, or so my unit said,” She tilted her head, grinning.
“That was you?” Natasha nods. Steve stares at the picture, brushing his thumb over it. “I…I remember you! After that battle, we went to some bar, and I remember…you danced with Buck, and then he danced with me. You had the reddest hair I’d ever seen.”
Natasha’s face splits with a grin at the memory, of her star, who she now knows as Bucky. And of Steve, one of her closest friends, who she evidently has known for almost the entire 91 years of her life. She guesses it counts, even if she met them while undercover.
“Yeah,” She says, lost for a moment, feeling herself transported back to Czechoslovakia, 1942. “Who would’ve thought, huh?”
“Not me,” Steve admits. “How the hell are you still here, then? It’s not like World War Two was just yesterday.”
“I got the serum,” Natasha says, subconsciously rubbing at her bicep, where they had injected her. “When I was twenty-two, right after the war, I think, they gave me a prototype of the one you got. I don’t have super strength or anything like that, but I’m currently 91 years old, and I haven’t gotten sick once since I got it. A few other things too, like high stamina and speed.”
“You sure you didn’t get frozen in the ocean right beside me?” Steve jokes.
“Positive,” She says, not adding that there are years of her life that the KGB electrocuted out of her memory. The smile falls from her face, and she steels herself for what she has to say next. “Steve, I…there’s something else I need to tell you.”
He gives her a look, one filled to the brim with support. She supposes that won’t last long. He places his hand over hers, and she gives a small smile.
“I knew,” She starts, swallowing tears. “I knew about Bucky.”
Steve freezes, every muscle in his body tensing up. His face goes blank, the one he reserves for his opponents in battle. It feels like a knife’s been stabbed through her chest. “What?”
“I knew him. I knew him after HYDRA took him, I…we worked together, for a while. I didn’t know his name, I didn’t know anything about him other than…other than the fact that I cared about him.”
“You knew.” Steve repeats, disbelieving.
“Trust me, I…I would’ve told you if I could,” She looks away, staring at the floor with vision blurred by tears. She hears her accent becoming stronger with each word that she speaks, but she can’t really find it in herself to care. “But I didn’t really know, not until SHIELD fell. My memory of my first time meeting him had been wiped, and they made sure I didn’t remember him after he left.
“But I did. I remembered all of it, the moment I saw his face in D.C. I knew he was going to kill you if I didn’t do something, so—” She takes a deep breath, trembling. “So I shot him. And I didn’t want to tell you then, at least not everything. I lost him decades ago but it still feels fresh. I’m sorry, Steve, I’m so sorry—”
Strong arms envelop her in a hug. Steve is crying, silently, trying not to let her see. She is too; shoulders shaking, sobs ripping from her throat. “You didn’t know. You didn’t know, Nat, I don’t blame you.”
She cries harder.
(She’s undercover the first time she meets James Barnes. The name she had chosen for it was Sasha, which is what she tells him. A fur ushanka is on her head, a rifle in her arms. Parts of her uniform is drenched with blood, and melting snow. He grins at her, saying you there, scary Russian lady, come show me what you can do with that rifle. So she does, and she doesn’t disappoint him.
The next time she sees him is a few days after, when they’ve packed up the camp and found themselves in some seedy bar in Bratislava. She had been in a black cocktail dress, one that had done her figure plenty of favors. Some pop song from the time had been playing in the background, but she can’t remember; not over the way she had felt when she had laughed and danced with Bucky.
The next time she meets him he is the shell of the man he once was. HYDRA has stripped him down to nothing and rebuilt him in her image. She can’t remember ever seeing him before thanks to the KGB; she guessed that they agreed to wipe her memory so she wouldn’t compromise HYDRA’s weapon. She cares for him regardless, helping him through memories he can’t understand and pressing kisses to his forehead after nightmares.)
“You loved him,” Steve states after a moment, muttering into her hair.
“It wasn’t love,” She admits, shaking her head. Natasha pulls away from Steve to look him in the eyes. “It wasn’t love, what we had. I couldn’t have loved him, I know that now. There was too much of both us that was missing…it wasn’t love. But…I cared about him more than anything in my entire life, Steve. When he left…I remember it broke my heart. They had to wipe me again.”
Natasha shifts on the bed, and takes Steve’s hand. “But you loved him, you still do. I know that you care about him more than anything in this world, Steve. I saw it during the war and I see it now, too.”
“Thank you, Natasha,” Steve says, wiping at her eyes. “Thank you, for trusting me enough to tell me all this.”
“It’s long overdue,” She says, with a small smile.
(The world stops spinning, for a moment. Time seems to freeze. Natasha’s eyes go blank, and she feels herself remembering, feels herself being transported to a cold night in 1973.
“I…remember a man,” Bucky starts, in Russian. His head is in her lap, staring up at the almost clinical ceiling. She gently cards her fingers through his hair, soaking in the few moments they had alone. “He has blonde hair, and blue eyes. He’s small, scrawny, like the wind would knock him over. In my memory, we…we were in Brooklyn, I think. We were in an apartment. I think it was mine. I think he was important to me.”
Natasha hums, listening to him speak, holding onto his memories to help fill the absence of her own.
“Talia,” Bucky mumbles, turning to look up at her. “I think that I loved him.”)
“Steve,” She whispers, like she’s seen a ghost. “He remembered you.”
Steve’s eyes meet her panicked ones. He looks over, confused. “He…remembered me?”
“Yes, yes…I remember it. He was describing you, and it was before you got the serum. He said that you were in his apartment, and he told me…he told me that he remembered loving you.”
Steve’s mouth opens, once, twice. No words come out, other than a soft, “Oh, Bucky.”
Natasha feels it in her soul.
Later, Natasha finds a black hat sitting on her bed. In gold letters it says WORLD WAR II VETERAN, and in the center, the ribbons that American soldiers would receive as awards. There’s a note, leaning against it. Natasha pics it up, a smile growing on her face.
Nat,
Sorry. I couldn’t find one for Russian vets. Guess this makes you a fossil just like me. We should go to the Smithsonian sometime, turn ourselves in.
I found a few photos after doing some digging. I think you’ll like them as much as I did.
She turns her attention to the photos, that are about as old and worn as she would expect them to be. She recognizes the faces: Dugan, Morita, Jones, Falsworth. Steve has his arm wrapped around Bucky’s shoulder, smiling from ear to ear. Bucky has his head thrown back in laughter, the butt of his rifle in the snow. The shield is leant up against Steve’s leg. Towards the edge of the group is her, ushanka on her head, rifle held snuggly in her arms. She’s smirking, hip cocked out to the side.
Natasha smiles at them, tearing pricking at her eyes. She misses it, she misses the time she was supposed to have lived and died in. She misses Bucky, who she had known as my star. She misses Steve, happy Steve.
She knows it will be alright, somewhere in the back of her mind. She won’t have to miss Bucky for long. Steve has his heart set on finding him, and he has Sam to help him. One day they’ll see each other again, and Steve will be happy then, with Bucky. And maybe Natasha’s mind can heal, maybe they can work on getting the KGB’s garbage out of her head.
One day.