Work Text:
It was a long shot. There was every chance of the whole thing ending badly. Maybe if she was the kind to believe in miracles, Natasha would have put her faith in the time of year and hoped for the best, but she really wasn’t the type. Life had kicked her in the face too many times for her to expect good luck or even something resembling it.
When it came to tracking down James ‘Bucky’ Barnes, she was, by necessity, well and truly on her own. Natasha knew she could have let any number of people be a part of her search. After all, Steve and Sam already had their own side mission, looking into where the Winter Soldier had run to after the Triskelion disaster. Stark could have been a great help, if she had a mind to talk to him about it. Clint was her partner and the closest she had to family, so there could be no harm in sharing with him. In spite of all the connections and possible assistance, Natasha remained on a solo mission, for a lot of reasons, but none more so than one.
She loved him. There were times when she would have told anyone who cared to bring up the subject that love was for children, not something the great Black Widow had any time, room, or need for. She made it seem as if she had always been that way. Cold and hard. An ice queen was probably what Tony would’ve said.
It didn’t matter what reputation she had. In fact, Natasha liked it better if the world presumed she had a heart of stone. If she didn’t love anyone, there was nobody who could be threatened on her behalf, made a hostage, used against her. She trusted very few and she loved even less, but this guy, he came from a time in her life before she knew how to be so aloof.
Actually, he originally came from decades before she was born, but that was a different story. When Natasha met the guy that most had always known as Bucky Barnes, he didn’t even have a name. For a long time, he barely even had a face. He was just a presumed monster in a mask, probably not even entirely human, or so the girls in the Red Room had thought. It wasn’t long before Natasha found out he was so much more than that.
Only the best got to train with Soldat. As if she hadn’t been high enough in the rankings before, Natasha worked all the harder when she knew she could get closer to him, and more often too. From the first time their eyes met, she knew he was something different, someone special. She could never have explained it, but she knew. She just knew.
It was the same now as it was then. Just a few short months ago, when he was pointing a sniper rifle at her from a bridge, or when he rushed her and she ended up with her legs around his neck, fighting off the attack of his fists, both flesh and metal, it didn’t matter. One look in his eyes and she saw the man beneath the mask and the monster. He was still in there. He could be saved.
She didn’t know how to talk to Steve about it, but the hope in her chest only swelled when she found out that, in the end, the so-called monster had done the right thing. Pulling Steve from the river, he may have left his old war buddy on the bank and walked away, but he still saved his life. All was not lost.
Once again, the tinny muzak flowing out from the nearest store reminded Natasha that it was Christmas. That was supposed to signify there was hope, and even if the time of year ought to mean little or nothing to someone like her, she couldn’t quite help herself. She did hope, she did want to believe, if not in God, then certainly in him, in James.
When she saw him walking home, hood pulled up over his long hair, eyes moving left and right all the time, she started to wonder if he had an idea she was on his trail. If anybody should know when they were being tracked, it was someone like him, like them. The only thing Natasha knew for sure was that she wasn’t being watched or followed herself.
She wished she also knew how best to make her approach. The last time she and James came face-to-face, he didn’t know her. He didn’t even know Steve then, though by the time he saved his life, Natasha had to believe he was getting something back. If not his memory, then his instincts anyway. Not the programmed ones, the real ones. The man behind the monster.
Taking a deep breath, the cold, crisp air stinging her lungs that were out of practice after too many years in warmer climes, Natasha pressed forward out of her hiding place. Timing her steps perfectly, she walked right into his path, reaching out to clasp his human arm just as she met his eyes.
“Don’t run,” she told him in a low voice. “Please, milli moi.”
She didn’t know if it would work. The simple epithet from what felt like a million years ago sometimes, the same he may not even remember, or at least might prefer not to. Still, she took it as a good thing that he didn’t throw her off or bolt at all. His gaze showed an undercurrent of fear beneath the confusion, and then, at least a little clarity in the clear blue, at last.
“Ne zdes,” he replied, shaking his head slightly.
Natasha nodded her agreement. She didn’t want to do this in the street any more than he did. When he shifted to take a hold of her arm and started to lead the way, she let him, unafraid of a double-cross, sure she was right let this happen. That being said, she was still a little on her guard. She trusted James, she didn’t trust what had been done to him.
Two minutes later, they were walking up the stairs up to a tumble-down apartment. It was no worse than some Natasha had found herself holed up in over the years, for one reason or another. Honestly, the location was all the same to her. She came for James, to see if she could find him, to see if she could help him. His decor didn’t matter, though even then, she couldn’t help the small smile that pulled at her lips when she realised that one of the stained walls of his living space was illuminated by a string of coloured bulbs.
“Christmas cheer undercover, huh?” she remarked.
James didn’t say anything, just shucked off his jacket and threw it unnecessarily hard at the couch where it landed with a dull thud. When he turned around to face her again, his fingers were pushed back into his hair and his skin was too pale.
He was afraid. Not of her, at least, Natasha was pretty sure. Probably more about what it meant that she had found him. That and she suspected the guilt was awake again, crawling around in his mind and his heart, the way these things tended to, Natasha knew.
Shaking her head, she approached him cautiously, reaching to pull at his hands until she held them in both of her own.
“Breathe,” she urged him. “Just in and out, just breathe.”
He did as she said, and then, she led him to the couch where they sat down together, though his fingers slipped from her own and he seemed to make sure to put as much space between them as the furniture would allow.
“I know all the words to Silent Night.”
When he spoke so suddenly out of the blue, saying perhaps the last thing she had expected to hear, it took all of Natasha’s training not to appear startled. Swallowing hard, she just looked at him and waited for more, not exactly surprised to find he wasn’t looking back at her, just staring at the stained carpet a few feet in front of them, as if trying to see through it.
“There was a band outside playing it and people singing. I didn’t even know I was doing it, but I was joining in with them and, and I knew all the words, in English, obviously, but still. That night, I dreamed of a church, and people, and, and Steve. We were just kids...”
He was remembering. Little bits and pieces, fragments of things, but it was all in there and fighting valiantly to come to the surface. Natasha wanted to tell him it was a good thing, but she knew better than to try. After all, if she could take away a lot of the memories locked inside her own head, she was sure she would. Even the better ones could hurt, sometimes more than the bad ones, actually.
“It was the snow that reminded me of you.”
For the first time since they sat down he looked at her, something almost like a smile pulling at his lips, though his eyes remained sad.
“A tracking exercise,” she said, nodding her head. “I remember. We were alone in the forest, out back of the facility...”
She didn’t know how to say the rest, but that was okay. Natasha saw in his face that he recalled the whole memory exactly the same way she did. That was the night they had kissed for the first time. There would be two more occasions similar to that one, before they were caught. The memory of that wiped all potential for a smile or joy from Natasha in an instant.
James looked away. Running his hands over his face, his whole body slumped. He looked a broken man, but a man nonetheless. Strangely, that gave Natasha more hope than anything else. He knew her and he knew himself, every part, the good and the bad. It was a starting point, even if it was a long way down, with a very arduous journey ahead to get back to something good.
“I brought you a gift.”
She felt stupid enough just saying it. When he looked at her then, she felt doubly so, and yet, it was impossible not to smile any time his eyes were on her and he wasn’t shying away.
“You celebrate Christmas now?” he checked, as close to humorous as he was likely to get.
Natasha rolled her eyes. “Stranger things have happened.”
Slipping her hand inside her coat, she pulled out a folded piece of paper and held it out for him to take. James hesitated just for a second, then he took it. A frown crossed his face, furrowing his brow in a way that was so achingly familiar.
“Co-ordinates?” he checked, glancing at her.
“It’s where the plane will be, at midnight,” she confirmed, “to take me home. I hope to take us home.”
He opened his mouth, probably to protest, but no words came out. It didn’t matter, the shake of his head was enough for Natasha to know she hadn’t quite convinced him yet.
“Yes, it will be hard,” she told him fast. “Harder than almost anything, and we both know I understand how hard everything has already been for you, but amazingly, with people around who care, you can do it. You can get through this and come out of the other side.”
If her voice sounded as if it cracked at all, Natasha was going to blame the cold, because she wasn’t about to cry, not now, not ever, if she could help it.
“I wanna help you, and I know Steve does too.”
“It’d be a miracle if anyone could help me,” James told her softly.
Shifting closer along the dilapidated couch, she put her hand around his own and squeezed.
“Isn’t Christmas all about miracles, good Catholic boy?” she teased him gently.
Her heart grew three sizes when she saw she had made him smile.
“Mostly it’s about hope,” he told her, turning his hand over to take a hold of hers, letting their fingers intertwine. “Thank you, Natalia,” he said, raising their joined hands then and kissing the back of hers.
“You’re welcome, James,” she told him, letting her head fall onto his shoulder, “and for what it’s worth, Merry Christmas.”