Chapter Text
It all kept coming back to Skip.
Skip was a regular at Pearl’s, the diner a block down from Natasha’s apartment in D.C. An old-timer, and the embodiment of everything you’d associate with that term. He ate the same tuna sandwich and the same slice of Pearl’s famous cherry pie every day and sat in the same corner booth by the window. He flirted with the waitresses and used the same old-fashioned lines on every woman he came across. He wore the same high-waisted trousers and slicked his thin white hair to the side with pomade.
He called Natasha “Red” whenever she dropped in for a cup of coffee. “They tell me that red means ’stop,’ but I’m colorblind.” He’d say, his face creasing in a smile. Or “You’re as pretty as a water fountain in the Sahara, Red.”
The quaint, friendly flirting was a world away from the lewd suggestions, groping, and aggression Natasha had to deal with in her work, and it charmed her. World Wars aside, the 1940’s seemed like they must have been a much better era to be wooed in. More civil.
Anyway, her thoughts turned to Skip a lot in the months after Steve found the Soldier. Or the Soldier allowed himself to be found. Natasha was fairly certain Steve’s investigative skills had little to do with it.
Barnes moved into the Captain’s spare bedroom and Steve, in his godforsaken humble and self-effacing way, had asked Natasha if she could stop in and keep an eye on the Soldier when Steve needed to leave on missions.
“A lot of times he just talks in Russian and I can’t figure out a word of it,” Steve admitted. “And I think you probably understand what he went through better than I do. Reminiscing about childhood memories only goes so far,” he added ruefully.
Of course Natasha agrees, because of the debt, and the unspoken plea in his sad-puppy blue eyes.
Natasha had learned the lesson (a hard lesson, like every lesson that mattered) years ago to always listen to your fear. Fear tells you how to stay alive. And so it went against all of her instincts to enter Steve’s apartment the first day he needed her to babysit. To spend any amount of time in close quarters with Hydra’s deadliest weapon was madness. But she owed Steve, and Steve trusted her to be able to handle it.
“Great! You’re here.” Steve said breathlessly as he pulled open the door and ushered her inside. Immediately he returned to rushing around, finishing packing and making sure everything was set up for his time away. He was clearly nervous. That made two of them. Natasha surveyed the area and quickly concluded that the Soldier was in the back room. Silent and invisible, compared to the Captain’s star-spangled whirlwind of energy.
“I’m probably going to be gone for about three days. I won’t be in cell phone contact, but if you need me, call Tony and he’ll be able to pass any information along. Bucky’s been pretty quiet the past few days, so you might not even see him. There should be plenty of food in the fridge. Ah…” He shouldered his duffle bag and looked around one more time, catching his breath. “Is there anything else I missed?”
“I got it, Cap. Don’t worry,” she said. “I can handle this kind of thing.” Was she reassuring him or herself?
“Thank you, Nat. Really. You’re a good friend,” he said earnestly, squeezing her shoulder. As he strode out the doorway and down the hall, he shouted over his shoulder “I owe you one!”
She closed the door, and the apartment was suddenly very silent. Natasha stood still for a moment and listened, but there were no signs of movement from the back room. She took a few deep breaths to calm her nerves and then settled on Steve’s couch. She considered and rejected Steve’s very modestly sized TV (“If I want to go to the pictures, I’ll go to the pictures! Who needs a screen that big in their house?”) and instead pulled a novel from her bag. It was a copy of Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita in Russian, one of her favorites, and let the hours steadily melt past.
Eventually the sun started to set and as the words on the page began to blur in the fading light, she set down the book and acknowledged her stomach’s mild entreaties. In the kitchen, she stopped again to listen for signs of life from Barnes, but all was still quiet on the Bucky front. Nonetheless, a light prickling on the back of her neck reassured her that she was not alone in the apartment.
Steve’s pantry was well-stocked. He must have a grocery delivery service since she knew he still was easily overwhelmed by supermarkets. She found a nice-looking steak in the fridge and heated up Steve’s cast iron skillet. In a few minutes it was sizzling away and the rich aroma of red meat filled the air.
Like magic, she heard the door down the hall open.
She couldn’t hear his footsteps, but the air changed subtly in the kitchen. She forced herself to move casually and non-threateningly as she turned from the skillet to look.
There he was, the Winter Soldier. Much smaller-seeming in track pants and a sweatshirt, but still intimidating. He held himself cautiously, like a wild animal, suspicious yet drawn by the prospect of food, and stared at her closely from under lowered brows.
“You’re the Widow,” he muttered. “Steve told me you were coming.”
“You can call me Natasha,” she said with forced lightness, turning back to the skillet and jabbing at the steak to test its doneness. “You hungry?”
The way his eyes darted past her to the steak was all the answer she needed. She removed it from the skillet to a cutting board and halved it, dropping the slightly larger portion onto a plate and handing it to the Soldier, along with a fork and steak knife. He looked at the fork and knife for a long moment, before setting them aside and seating himself at the kitchen table. A hunting knife appeared in his hand from some unknown location on his person, and he used it to quickly divide the steak into chunks before spearing one on the tip and shoving it into his mouth. Natasha sat across from him and started working on her own half.
They ate in what might be termed companionable silence, until Bucky finished his meat and stood. He flashed her the barest ghost of a polite smile, like an old habit on its deathbed.
“Thanks, Red,” he said, and walked out.
The second day was much like the first, the apartment silent and Natasha puttering around looking for things to occupy her. She worked out with some of Steve’s weights for a while (the few she could actually lift, at least), took a shower, made breakfast. She wondered if the smell of frying eggs would also lure Barnes out of his room, but apparently not.
Late that afternoon, after she’d finished her book and methodically looked through all of Steve’s drawers and cabinets, trying to find something she could tease him about later (a failure), she settled on pawing through his record collection. It was all 1940s pop and swing music (no surprise), so Natasha picked something at random and put it on the record player.
I’ll never smile again
Until I smile at you
I’ll never laugh again
What good would it do?
The smooth, ghostly strains of Frank Sinatra’s voice poured out of the speakers and Natasha eased back into the couch, closing her eyes. She didn’t even sense another presence in the room until the Soldier spoke.
“This is the last song I danced to, before.”
She jumped in surprise and twisted to look at him. He was standing in the doorway, staring at the record as it revolved slowly on its spindle. His face betrayed no emotion.
“A long time ago, huh?” She said, regaining her composure.
“Doesn’t seem that long.”
She waited for him to say something more, but instead he just sat down stiffly in the straight-backed chair in the corner (a good line of sight to all of the exits) and listened to the music as the next track started, staring steadily at the record player.
When they finished the A-side Natasha went over and flipped the record, very conscious of the Soldier’s eyes on her. When the album was done, Natasha asked “Another?” and he nodded shortly.
They spent the rest of the afternoon like that, alone in their separate thoughts while the music of another lifetime poured into the air around them.
“I’m hungry,” she announced as the last chords of “The Chattanooga Choo-Choo” faded away.
The music seemed to have calmed Barnes somewhat, because he was slouching a little in his chair, his hands resting relaxed against his thighs. He glanced at her and nodded minutely, perceptible only as a slight ripple in his lank hair.
She was in the kitchen perusing the fridge when he drifted in and planted himself in the corner.
“Do you have anything in mind?” She asked, glancing at him over the door. He shrugged. “You want steaks again?”
“Okay.” The speed with which he replied brought a little smile to Natasha’s lips which she hid by straightening to root through the freezer.
“We’ll have to wait for these to defrost,” she said, filling the sink with water and dropping in the vacuum-packed steaks. Natasha boiled some potatoes and green beans while Bucky observed silently, then cooked the steaks the same as yesterday. This time he made an attempt with the fork and knife although he held them awkwardly, as if they were weapons. In his hands, she supposed, they were.
This time when he finished, he lingered, staring out the window into the dark.
“The last time you danced, before,” Natasha broke the silence. “Who was it with?”
“It was—“ Barnes halted abruptly, as though the words he’d expected to be there were missing. The blank expression he’d worn all day twisted into something human—confusion. “I don’t remember. A dame. I’ve…I can hear the music, and feel it, but there’s no face. There’s no words.”
“I’ve got some years missing too,” she said softly. “They took them. Sometimes I have memories that end half-way through. Or flicker in and out like a bad signal.”
“How do you live with it?”
Natasha shrugged. “You make new memories.”
The third day he came out for breakfast, too, although he refused Natasha’s offer of coffee and toast. The shadows under his eyes looked deeper than usual, and she wondered how much he slept.
After she finished washing the dishes, she tapped lightly on the table to get Bucky’s attention. “I have something I think you’ll like.” She ducked into Steve’s bedroom, where she was sleeping, and returned holding a well-worn leather case, which she unrolled on the kitchen table. Bucky’s face lit up with something like pleasure.
Inside were Natasha’s “travel weapons,” a selection of knives, guns, and other armaments she brought with her on trips. Nothing compared to the collection she kept at home, but an arsenal nonetheless. “These are in sore need of maintenance. I though you might like to help me.”
The Soldier replied by picking up an old Makarov, racking the slide, and looking down its sights. “They don’t make ‘em like this anymore,” he said admiringly.
“They sure don’t,” she replied with a grin.
None of the guns were loaded, but even if they were, she wouldn’t have been much more concerned for her safety than she was already. The Soldier was just as lethal with a knife as a gun and was enough of a weapon himself that if he got it in his head to kill her, she wouldn’t stand much of a chance.
Anyway, he didn’t seem particularly murderous at the moment. On the contrary, the weapons seemed to have put him in a better mood. Natasha considered herself an expert, but the speed with which he could field strip and clean a pistol put her to shame.
Since he seemed to have the guns under control, she set to sharpening and oiling her knives and they worked in companionable silence for an hour or so.
“You should take Steve to the firing range sometime and give him some pointers,” she said offhandedly as they were returning all the weapons to their places in the case. “He’s a terrible shot.”
Bucky barked out a laugh, which seemed to surprise him. “Yeah. He is. I think.”
Natasha left to return her weapons to her room and when she returned, the kitchen was empty. She assumed Bucky had returned to his room and was surprised to hear music abruptly start playing in the living room. When she walked in, Bucky started and looked up from where he was bent over Steve’s record player. His expression was almost guilty, but he didn’t offer an explanation. Natasha smiled and gestured for him to continue before curling up on the couch and picking up her book.
Today Bucky traded the wooden chair in the corner for the opposite end of the couch. Still a decent line of sight on any possible angle of attack, but certainly more comfortable.
As Bucky’s music selections progressed, it became clear that his tastes ran towards more sensual, suggestive jazz and blues. A few tracks into a Bessie Smith record and Natasha was smiling broadly, her eyebrows creeping upwards.
I need a little sugar in my bowl
I need a little hot dog on my roll
I can stand a bit of lovin', oh so bad
I feel so funny, I feel so sad
I need a little steam-heat on my floor
Maybe I can fix things up, so they'll go
What's the matter hard papa
Come on and save your mama's soul
'Cause I need a little sugar, in my bowl
She turned from the book to look at him, but his expression was, as usual, indecipherable. She thought about the kinds of things Steve had always said about him, back before they knew about the Winter Soldier, when Bucky Barnes was still just a sad, dead American hero. He was a real casanova, Steve said. Five girlfriends at a time, sometimes. Always trying to pair up Steve with a girl so they could all go dancing together.
“Hey,” she reached out her leg to poke his thigh with her toe and his left arm instinctively grabbed her foot in a crushing grip before she could touch him. “Ow.”
He looked down at his arm, as though he were unaware that it had even moved, and deliberately unclenched his metal fingers from around her bare foot. “Sorry.”
Natasha massaged her foot and sighed. “My bad, I guess.”
“What were you going to say?” He asked roughly after a long moment.
“I was just curious if you were really happy to just sit here listening when we could be dancing.”
That seemed to throw Barnes off balance. He looked at her a little quizzically, as though trying to determine whether or not she was teasing him.
“Come on,” she said, standing. “Make a new memory.”
The hard part about dancing with Bucky was getting close to him. He seemed to expect pain from every touch and reacted to each gesture like an attack. With what was clearly a concerted effort, he let Natasha plant his right hand on her waist and put her left hand on his shoulder. He seemed to have trouble getting his prosthetic arm to take hold of her other hand. It twitched backwards like a nervous bird, unwilling to commit to a steady grasp, maybe wary of hurting her. Natasha knew it could be gentle and perform delicate tasks, she’d seen it do wonders with the guns earlier.
Finally, frustrated at how long it was taking to get situated, Natasha grabbed the hand and refused to let go. Eventually, the metal fingers reluctantly curled around hers. “There. Like that. I’m not made of glass, okay?”
Bucky glared at her, annoyed, and seemed about to call the entire venture off. Natasha clamped her hand around his shoulder with her own not inconsiderable strength and held him in place. “Nuh-uh, buddy. We made it this far. Or are you chicken?"
At the challenge, a little bit of life flared into Bucky’s eyes and he abruptly started moving to the music. Bingo, Natasha thought.
The first song was a little bit of a battle of wills. Bucky’s competitiveness and pride was clearly all that was keeping the situation together, so Natasha fueled it by fighting for the lead a little, trying to force him into strange or unexpected steps. He responded in kind, until they were executing a consistent, though slightly combative swing step around Steve’s living room.
The next song was faster, so they had to abandon wrestle-dancing in favor of the more conventional kind. But Natasha kept her gaze fixed on Bucky’s and her implicit challenge remained. She broke away from him for a moment to execute a more complex step and when she returned, neither of his hands hesitated to hold her again.
“You’re pretty good at this,” he commented. He wasn’t out of breath, but his face was lit up and animated like she’d never seen it before.
She shrugged. “Dancing comes easy to me. What about you?”
“What about me?” He asked, throwing her into a spin.
“You’re not too shabby yourself.”
“Well, TV didn’t exist when I was a kid and Ma couldn’t afford a radio.” He missed a step at that, seeming to realize what he’d said only after it left his mouth.
“What?”
His mouth tightened. “I didn’t know I knew that.”
“Now you do.”
“Now I do.”
The next song was slow, and Natasha leaned in closer to him. Bucky began to instinctively draw away again, but she held him in place with another warning squeeze to his shoulder. He responded more readily this time.
The song was about love lost and heartbreak. Natasha liked it. Bucky gazed down at her contemplatively, the warm human aliveness still there in his face.
“What’s a girl like you doing hanging around with a punk like Steve, anyway?” He asked, the cadence of his voice a little strange, but somehow familiar.
“We were work colleagues and now we’re…friends.” She tested the word carefully in her mouth. It felt right.
“Not more than friends?”
She laughed. “No. I don’t think I could stand being around all that patriotism for any length of time. I’d probably get an allergic reaction. I trust him, though.”
Bucky nodded as if that explained everything. “Me too.”
The afternoon was a victory overall, save for Steve’s coffee table which was irreparably damaged by a particularly acrobatic dip. When the last song ended, Natasha sighed, clapped Bucky amiably on the shoulder and thanked him for a fun time before announcing that she was going to watch TV.
Bucky retook his position at the end of the couch and picked up Natasha’s abandoned book while she navigated Steve’s painfully limited cable package.
About a half an hour later, the man himself arrived home, bruised and a little dusty, but otherwise intact. Natasha looked away from the TV at the sound of his entry, and when she turned back, Bucky had disappeared. A second later, she heard the quiet click of his bedroom door closing.
“How’d it go?” Steve asked, a little anxious.
“Fine,” Natasha replied. “He was a perfect angel. Well, I’ve gotta run. See ya.” She hefted her bag and a moment later was half-way down the hallway. As Steve’s apartment door closed, she could faintly hear “What the hell happened to my coffee table?”
A day later, Steve called Natasha insisting they meet for coffee. Natasha invited him to Pearl’s.
“Who’s watching Bucky?” Natasha asked as Steve slid into the booth opposite her.
“No one. I trust him to be alone for a couple of hours.”
“But Sam’s there, isn’t he.”
Steve blushed. “Yeah, he’s just hanging around outside in case there’s a major situation.”
Natasha sipped her coffee to mask a smile. “So, what was it you needed to talk about so urgently?”
Steve leaned forward eagerly. “You’ve gotta tell me what you did while you were there. He won’t say anything except that you cook better steaks than me.”
Natasha shrugged. “I cooked him steaks. The secret is to take them off the heat a little before they’re done.”
“Come on,” Steve groaned.
“And we listened to music, cleaned my travel weapons, and danced.”
Steve gaped. “Danced? Are you serious? You got him to dance?”
“Sure,” Natasha said.
“I just—that’s amazing. Really?”
“Really.”
“How?”
“Asked him if he wanted to.”
“And he said yes?”
“After a fashion.”
“That’s…I’m actually really jealous. I can barely get him to come out of his room.”
“You heard my tip about the steaks, right?”
They were interrupted as Skip shuffled by on his way to his booth. “Hiya, Red.”
“Morning, Skip.”
“What’s a girl like you doing with a punk like this?” He asked good-naturedly. Natasha laughed.
“What?” Steve asked after Skip had passed by.
“Another old man said that exact same thing to me recently.”