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Chapter Text

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. 

Chapter Text

3 weeks later:

So far so good. No one was asking questions which was just as well but all in all he was happier and more relaxed than he had been in a long time now.

Steve - naturally - had been curious but he'd just brushed it off as having a better time lately than he had in a while with his mind which was true enough. Things were slowly starting to fall back into some kind of discernable order and he knew more or less most of the key events over the last 70 years and that was something. it was a whole hell of a lot than he'd had a few months ago when he'd been running for his life framed for bombings, being responsible for literally tearing Steve's life apart and a bunch of people winding up in prison. That hadn't been fun, he was still trying to find a way to make amends for that.

Tony didn't treat him like shit anymore either so that was also a good thing.

He'd worked with whatever professional that had asked him to work with them over the last few weeks to figure out just what he was and what they'd done to him over those years which involved tests and more psychological 'talks' than he'd ever wanted to endure in his lifetime but he'd done it anyway simply because he wanted people to stop believing he was some volatile monster.

So far so good.

When he and Natasha were around everyone else true to their agreement they acted as nothing but friends, occasionally she'd show an interest in whatever was going on at that particular point because Steve involved her in the conversation but for the most part they didn't press the time they spent together in public because - as they'd learned quickly - it could be trying at best and the tensions had almost made them break a few times.

Steve seemed happier that they were getting along anyway and he was glad that as spies, they could lie better than anyone else in the world because after all it was what they were trained to do and their secrets - in this case - were worth protecting.

He had an apartment now which he appreciated, he'd moved in just under two weeks ago and he was thankful for his own space. He hadn't minded staying with Steve but it made for some explaining when he went 'Running' at 2am. He'd mostly managed to pass it off as sleeplessness provoked by nightmares but he was glad for the chance to have his own place it'd make things a whole hell of a lot easier to see her.

Neither of them was ready to confront any of the drama that came with everyone knowing anything about them.

They were far happier when it was just the two of them and in truth he had been down a path before where people had known about them and they'd been torn apart, he wasn't willing to take that chance ever again and it seemed as though she wasn't either but he knew they'd have to take a chance on the people they trusted eventually because literally keeping it a secret forever seemed slightly excessive even for them.

It wasn't that they didn't trust the people they were around it was just past experiences left scars that neither of them had understood the intensity of until recently. They were intensely protective over whatever it was that they had because of that and both of them were sure once people actually got to know about it they'd understand why they'd been reluctant on letting it become public knowledge for however long.

They hadn't really talked about what exactly it was that they were but they'd settled into a sort of comfortable routine and he quite liked it. They spent three days at his place, three at hers and one alone just in case friends or whatever happened to want to do something which in her case happened to be a weekly movie night with Clint, a routine she'd had now for a good few years, this was naturally agreeable and switchable if something should come up in the meantime.

They had the kind of life that seemed to thrive on unpredictability so it was hard to actually keep to anything and they both knew it but for the last few weeks it had been peaceful.

Tonight was another she was spending over at his place and that was why he'd made an excuse to leave the Avengers facility after his latest bout of tests and he'd made his way home again. He entered his apartment with a lazy yawn as he shrugged out of his jacket and hung it up. His eyes fell on the beautiful redhead laid lazily on his couch with her head resting against an oversized cushion that she'd made him acquire when they went to Walmart a few days ago for junk food at 4 in the morning.

She peered up when he walked in and she offered him a calm smile, yawning as she sat up she fought through the haze of sleepiness.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you." He walked over and placed a kiss against the top of her head.

"Mm, it's okay. I didn't realise I fell asleep." She glanced up at him as she spoke. "How'd your tests go?"

She sounded worried naturally, she had every right to be of course. She knew that the tests he was undergoing would put a whole hell of a lot of strain on him. She couldn't imagine how many flashbacks it'd be giving him from what he went through but he did every single one of them without complaint because he knew it was what they needed him to do so that they could trust him.

It was what he needed to do so that he could start to trust himself. 

She knew he feared being triggered more than anything else, he'd told her that plenty of times when she'd soothed him through the worst of his nightmares and done her best to console him. He told her that he appreciated having her there and that she quieted the ghosts inside of his mind and he needed that. She felt far calmer than she had before because the weight of living under a lie as intense as the one she was telling her friends was eased with someone else sharing that world with her.

She was glad it was him. She was glad he finally knew who she was and how much they'd mean to each other.

He marveled at the normalcy they'd managed to achieve in just a few short weeks, it was like falling into a pattern as familiar as breathing and one that they wished that they'd had the chance to have years before now, being with her was so easy for him. This, the whole life that they were slowly constructing together was something new entirely but being with her was was easy. 

This life of theirs made him happy in a way that he'd never thought was even possible.

"They went well, so far there's nothing really notable. They send all the results back to Shuri so she keeps track of everything so she'll contact me if there's anything different." He was glad for that, he trusted Shuri.

"That's good, she's a good kid." The smartest kid Natasha had ever met.

"How was your day?" He sat down beside her as he spoke.

"I got groceries?" She offered with a small shrug. "I got a call off of Tony too, he wants me to go by the compound tomorrow to test out something new he's made for me." 

Bucky rose a brow and chuckled as she spoke, He leaned over to pull her into his arms.

"My place tomorrow remember. I have some stuff I need to deal with anyway." Leaning her head against his chest, Natasha released a content sigh.

"Yeah, I know but if its deal with your demon cat you're on your own, that thing hates me." Bucky smirked playfully as he spoke.

Natasha glanced up at him and shook her head.

"She doesn't just hate you, she hates everyone. She's grumpy, don't take it so personally." It was probably why she got along with the damn thing so much.

Liho was grumpy and quite liked isolation unless she chose otherwise which was something Natasha was appreciative of. She was the same, she only ever really reached out for company when she chose to and that was something that seldom happened by choice, most of the time it was just people showing up after deciding that she'd been alone for far too long. Usually it was always Clint. He was always so worried about her spending too much time alone which was something Steve seemed to adopt too.

"So what's up?" He wasn't prying, she knew him better than to think he'd do that.

If he was worried about anything he'd tell her outright, he'd always been exactly the same; Bucky Barnes wasn't the kind of person that tiptoed around anything at all he wanted to say especially not when it came to her. He knew her better than almost anyone else in the world. 

At least he had once... That was something they were still working their way back to.

"Boring Avengers stuff. We need to finish wiping out this whole accords business. We have a final meeting with Ross tomorrow to make it clear we're all out." She seemed happy about that.

He was glad. He knew the damage that threatened to do and it had surprised him to think for even a second that she was willing to fall under the jurisdiction of any government at all after everything that she'd been through, he was glad that she wasn't willing to put herself through any of that again. He was glad that all of them had realised it was a horrible idea. 

"You're all doing the right thing. That sort of stuff will hurt everyone."

"I know." She replied before she leaned up to kiss him. "Enough shop talk though?" 

Tomorrow was work. Tomorrow was business but tonight and here and now was just them. Tonight and here and now was just two people spending what little time they could steal away alone. This was just them being a regular couple.

"That sounds like an amazing idea." He agreed. "What do you wanna do for dinner?"

"You sound like you have an idea..." She rose a brow dubiously at him as she spoke.

"I'd like to take you out for dinner but you seem utterly resistant to the idea." He rolled his eyes almost dramatically.

She pulled back to sit up and looked at him, she studied him before shrugging her shoulders gently. 

"Okay. Okay I'm in."

"Wait, you are?" Okay, he hadn't seen that coming.

"Yep, if you wanna go on an actual date I'm in." She wrinkled her nose slightly though.

This could be a hell of a bad idea or it could end up being the best one either of them had in a while, she had no way of knowing but she did know that if they were going to keep trying for this normalcy they'd somehow attained so far they were going to have to do things regular couples did and that meant dates too so if it was what he wanted to do, she'd happily go along with it despite her reservations on the idea.

She'd never really been on an actual date before though, they'd never really gotten to do anything like that before... They'd never gotten the chance to have anything even close to what they had now before all of this. He found himself happy to have just this chance but it seemed that both of them feared losing it. Public wasn't something they were ready for but there were hundreds of places they could go out that wasn't anywhere near where anyone they knew would frequent.

That was the silver lining of a city this big with as may boroughs as it had he supposed. Most everyone was in the facility in upstate New York anyway. He just wanted to give her some kind of normalcy and that was exactly what they'd managed over the last few weeks.

"Okay so, do you wanna go home and change first or?" He rubbed the back of his neck as he spoke.

Natasha smiled and nodded her head.

"Yeah, pick me up at 8?" 

Holy. Shit. Okay... Okay... Well, he hadn't taken anyone - absolutely anyone - on a date since the early 1940's and he was damn sure that the protocol had changed a whole hell of a lot since then but he found himself nervous about it anyway even if it was he and Natasha. He knew Natasha, he knew she wouldn't expect anything from him and that she'd be perfectly happy with just spending time with him just as he was her but... To him this was a hell of a big deal.

"Yeah, okay. 8. I'll see you at 8." James Barnes actually sounded nervous.

She fought the gentle laugh that threatened to break her lips as she stood up and padded toward his bedroom to retrieve her actual clothes, there was no way in hell she was going to be able to go home in his t-shirt and her socks that was for sure. He might very well have been quite content to state otherwise though but she wasn't about to turn it into a debate of absolutely any kind which was why she ignored his sound of protest when she got dressed.

"Nope, we have a date and both of us need to get ready. This was your idea so don't sit there and complain now that I've got to leave." 

As she walked back toward him she reached out to tug him forward before she leaned up to kiss him. 

"See you in a few hours." She spoke the words softly.

"Can't wait." He replied releasing a sigh as he watched her leave.

Okay first things first: Reservations then shower. This was probably the first time in all of this that he wished someone knew about them because at least he'd be able to ask for advice, he hadn't been on a date in years and he sure as hell had no idea what to do anymore. It would be probably the only time that he'd sit there utterly clueless and hope like hell him winging it would be enough because he was way out of his depth here. 

Okay.

Okay.

He could do this... He could He had to. This whole thing was his idea and he wasn't going to let her down, she'd have the perfect night that she deserved and he'd do this damn best for her just like he wished he'd had the chance to do all those years ago.

Chapter Text

What exactly did one wear to a date?

He hadn't been on a damn date since... Uh... Well since before he'd ended up enlisting in the army and all that crap. Normal had pretty much ceased to exist for him from that moment on and while he'd managed to find some semblance of love for himself in amongst all of that he hadn't ever had the chance to take her on a date. He hadn't had the chance to do anything remotely normal with he and Natasha because it had been all sneaking around and trying to keep what they were a secret from people that'd punish them severely for their love.

They had, too. She'd been implanted with false memories and he'd been wiped completely and thrown back into Cryo until he was useful for them again.

He'd lost her and she'd lost him but eventually she'd started to break through her programming and remembered who they were to one another and she had to live with that while he had his mind toyed with and dismantled and manipulated over and over and over again. He'd been sent to kill people for decades like he was nothing but a weapon, they didn't see him as a person and no one had since her. No one had since he'd lost her.

No one had seen him as a person until she did while he was in that hell. 

He'd loved her oh so much, more so than he ever should've and he knew it. They both knew what they were facing if their handlers found out and the consequences had been just as brutal as they'd thought it would be but at least none of them had been killed for it or he'd never have this chance now to have the normalcy that they'd been deprived of.

Granted they were back to the whole secret relationship thing but this time it was a choice. This time it was them choosing not to let their relationship become public knowledge because they wanted to find their way in all of this for themselves. They wanted the time to rediscover who they were without having to worry about the pressures of dealing with that around everyone else, too. He was still learning to fit in but she - once again - had become his safe haven.

He wasn't sure what he'd done to deserve her love and he figured he probably never would but that didn't mean he didn't value every second that they got together.

But an actual, legitimate date was actually kind of public which was new and most definitely uncertain waters for the both of them. He was both excited and nervous about it and he hoped like hell he could make tonight at least to some degree special for her, he hadn't done this in far too long and so it was mostly improvisation and he knew Natasha better than to think she'd expect a huge bouquet of flowers or anything like that when he went to pick her up but he wanted to attempt some kind of normalcy.

So, James Barnes settled for a shirt and a decent pair of jeans because he wasn't the kind of guy that really liked suits. He didn't even own a suit. He had no use for anything like that, it was still hardwired into him that whatever he wore had to be in some sense practical in case he might need to fight for whatever reason not that he was expecting tonight to end in a fight but the need for practicality remained in his mind anyway.

She tended to be the same, casual and sometimes formal in her own way but she wore nothing that couldn't conceal weapons even to this day it still stuck with her. He found himself remorseful over that too if he was going to be honest. He'd never tell her that of course. He'd never tell her that because he didn't want her to know that he hated himself for what she'd gone through and how he'd failed to protect her but he knew she felt the same about him.

Perhaps that's what it was to love someone, you felt the pain of not being able to stop evil touching their lives even if you had no control at all over it.

Getting to her apartment building wasn't hard, he'd walked over here plenty of times in the last few weeks and the walk helped him to clear his mind, it helped him to find some calm and he quite liked the fact that the noise of the city drowned out the inevitable noise in his head. He found himself far calmer and with a lessened sense of nervousness than he had before he'd set off. Stopping outside of her apartment instead of just walking in, he knocked gently against the door.

Flowers of course in hand. She'd probably find the cheesiness worthy of an eye roll but he didn't care.

She opened the door half standing behind it as she assessed him and the flowers in his hand, raising a brow before she let out a soft chuckle and smiled at him anyway. She took the flowers he held out before she stepped back to open the door properly and let him inside. She placed the brightly colored bouquet on the side as he closed the door behind him and turned to study her, her head tilting softly to the side at his awestruck expression.

"What?" She questioned.

"You look incredible." Really, she did.

She wore a black dress that skimmed two or three inches above her knee that tied in a neat bow beneath a curtain of loosened red curls that - much like the ends of the ties from the bow - lingered down her bare back, shoes that - while heeled - ensured that she'd be able to move in them if it was required and crimson red lips that complimented her whole appearance perfectly. Truly, he was taken aback by the sheer effortless beauty of the woman stood before him. Still he noted that his thoughts had been right, she could still conceal a gun on her thigh if she chose.

A gentle blush settled across her cheeks and she shook her head gently at him. He - she noted - looked handsome in one of those casual kinds of ways and she knew that he'd probably spent a hell of a lot of time trying to figure out what was suitable to wear while still having full maneuverability if he needed it. It saddened her to know that much like her, he'd never shake that need, that conditioning that told them they had to be able to fight at any given moment.

They didn't have to fight for their lives anymore or at least they weren't supposed to have to anymore but they still couldn't shake that.

"Thank you." Her voice was soft and quiet.

"We have an um, reservation at a little Italian place in Queens. I figure it'd be away from everything or any potential to run into anyone we knew..." 

He wrinkled his nose as he spoke, when he said it out loud like that it sounded quite sinister, it sounded like they were some sordid secret that one of them was ashamed of even though he knew that wasn't the case and so did she. They were simply two people too afraid of being torn apart again to risk anything. She seemed naturally to pick up on his discomfort because she made her way toward him and took his hands in hers before she kissed him.

"There's nothing to feel bad for." She assured him. "We both made this decision."

They had, they had both chosen to protect what they had and ensure that this relationship they'd been denied for so many years was protected from whatever damage the world might have done to it, they had both chosen not to let the world knew what they were to one another until they were absolutely certain that no one would want to tear it all apart again. They both knew they should've been able to trust their friends and they did but they didn't trust the rest of the world.

"I just think you deserve better." He admitted with a sigh. "You know I love you, right?"

She did. He knew she did but he needed to hear her say it anyway. A gentle smile spread across her lips and she nodded her head.

"Of course I do." She placed her hand on his cheek. "And I love you."

He couldn't help but smile, every time he heard her say it he could feel his heart racing. It was - to him - the sweetest sound in the world. She wasn't like this with anyone else, she wasn't this normal or this tender but when they were alone and it was just the two of them a side of them came out that was reserved for them and them alone. He loved the fact that he got to see something of her that no one else did.

Around one another they were different people entirely because around one another, they could be Human. They didn't have to pretend, they didn't have to put on a face or meet expectations and it was like both of them could truly breathe. He wondered - as did she - what would happen when this was exposed to everyone else but they both hoped that it wasn't going to be something out of their control.

They wanted it to be something they decided on together, they deserved that at least...

"We should go or we'll be late." He took her hand and brought it to his lips placing a soft kiss there.

She nodded her head in agreement. Date night. Why the hell was it seemingly making both of them so nervous? It really wasn't much different to any other night save for the fact that they were going out to have something to eat rather than sitting either at her place or his. It was nice - he supposed - to have the chance to give her a decent night, one that didn't make him feel like he was making her hide away until they figured themselves out because Natasha was not the type of woman you wanted to hide from the world. 

She was incredible, beautiful and something else entirely and she didn't deserve to be treat like she was just anyone, to him she'd never be just anyone. She was the love of his life and he'd do anything in the world to make sure she knew that every day they spent together.

The restaurant was a quiet little place with subtle lights that looked romantic, the wine - he thought - could've tasted better but it was probably the fact that he hadn't touched a drop of decent alcohol since the '40's and he'd been having a drink with Howard and Peggy to toast what should've been their success on the mission that they were going on, the one that had gone so terribly awry and cost him his life as he knew it.

The one that had saved him in a way that he didn't even know he needed saving until he met her. As evil as that life was, it brought him to her and so he couldn't find it in himself to resent it or hate it the way he probably should. He loved Natasha and he'd be willing to pay that price a hundred times over just to have her in his life.

She seemed relaxed, radiant and in probably the best mood she'd been in all week; it had been a stressful week with training and one problem and another along the way. Missions that she turned down and so did he simply for the fact that neither one of them thought they were going to turn into anything useful and they'd been right. It had been utterly pointless and had given them absolutely no useful intel beyond exhausting a few resources that they didn't need to waste.

They talked about that on and off pointing out the obvious rookie mistakes that came with Tony trying to run things when it came to spies, Tony Stark was a brilliant man that was undeniable but he had no idea how to do all of this spy stuff successfully. He did his best though.

Steve had taken to the cloak and dagger stuff which was interesting to both of them, he'd been such a boyscout for such a long time now that him being a legitimate bad ass actually threw them both. 

Then they'd moved onto the obvious talk about their relationship and the eventuality that they were actually going to have to stop lying to their friends and everyone they cared about but at the same time they discussed their obvious apprehension. Both of them had been through losing one another too many times to risk doing it again even if they trusted the people around them who - and what - they were to one another and the fear of losing that outweighed everything.

They knew that they should be able to trust the people around them, their friends were almost family especially to her and he knew that she trusted them but both of them had to deal with their fears someday and given the messes they kept finding themselves in as a team it would be sooner than they really wanted.

When their conversation drifted back to their memories though, he couldn't help but smile; the nostalgia was something that wasn't painful for either one of them because that had been the one light that they'd had in all of that darkness. They'd had so much pain in that time, so much torment and the only true light that they'd had was the love they'd found in stolen moments and a life otherwise stolen from them.

"You know I wish we'd left that night, right?" She smiled over the top of her glass.

He nodded his head, he did too. After all of this, after all of the hell that they'd been through he wished that they had too. They'd had one chance, one single chance before their handlers had known anything at all about them and that one chance was one that had slipped through their fingers like sand faster than any of them could've thought it would. 

"Me too." He replied quietly. "We lost years." 

He knew she didn't need to be told that, he knew that she'd lived all of those years being aware of who he was and trying to track him down but getting nowhere only to come face to face with him on a few occasions to have him look at her like she was nothing and like he didn't even know her and the thought provoked a shudder. He hated to think that he could've killed her. He hated to think that one shot could've been all it took to take the love of his life out of the world.

"I'm sorry I hurt you." He sounded broken as he spoke.

She shook her head though and reached out to brush his hand with hers.

"You could've killed me but you didn't. We both know you're better than that, you never missed unless you wanted to so a part of you knew. A part of you knew not to take the killshot." Whether that was just what she wanted to believe or not though was something none of them could be sure of.

"I could have. I could've slipped deeper into it for just one second and-" 

"And nothing. I'm not some rookie, James. I know how to get my ass out of the firing line. I know how to move." 

He'd been instrumental in making sure of that, he'd trained her too over the years. He'd been not only her partner and her lover but her mentor and her friend. He'd been one of many, many people over the years that had sharpened her skills into the deadly knives that they were now. She was one of the most lethal creatures on the planet and she wore it like a shield around most people but not around him.

"You don't have to put on a brave face, Natalia. We both know I-"

"It isn't a brave face." She interjected. "I'm not some unskilled little girl anymore. I could've taken you too and you know it too. We both held back."

She hadn't wanted to hurt him though she could have, she could've made him stop and she could've rendered him unconscious regardless of his counters and they both knew it but she didn't want to hurt him. It wouldn't have done either one of them any favors, it wasn't like with Clint she couldn't just hit him really hard in the head and hope he'd come out of it because what had happened to him was far more complex than that. He wasn't the first person that had held back despite what they'd been told to do.

Do you know what it's like to be unmade?

You know that I do...

A soft shudder shook Natasha's form as she thought about it. She never wanted to go through that again, she didn't want anyone she cared about having to go through anything even close to that. Loki had been mind tricks, a stone that was more dangerous than they'd understood at first but what they'd been through was worse, it was so much worse. It took you away, it locked you in a box and made you watch the things you were made to do while you screamed and fought and got nowhere.

It made you watch yourself become a monster and remember every second of it when it all wore of. It was messy, it was painful, it was hell in itself and she wouldn't wish it on anyone not even if she hated them. 

"What?" He questioned. He was worried.

She tried to smile.

"Just- I'm just so tired of people screwing with me or just screwing with the people I love." She admitted. She didn't want to but she did.

"They won't, they won't do anything to either of us ever again or to anyone else and we'll make sure of it. I don't know what the hell we've got to face yet or how bad it's gonna get but I do know that I'll fight for you no matter what. You and me just like it used to be. We can get through anything." He was trying to reassure her and she appreciated that.

He was right, none of them knew what they had to face from hereon out or how bad the chaos in their world would get but they both knew one thing for sure: they weren't going to ever lose one another again without a hell of a fight and that was one fight she'd gladly take. That was one battle she'd fight gladly because she'd be damned if anyone or anything was going to tear her life apart again without a good amount of hell on their hands.

They lived in a world of chaos and they both knew it but even chaos had moments of calm just like this.

"Enough of the serious talk, we're ruining date night!" He announced with a smile. "So lets drink a whole hell of a lot more, pretend we can actually get drunk and just be normal people."

"I miss being able to actually get drunk..." She responded with a smirk.

"Oh me too, darlin'." It had been far too long... "But we can at least act normal for one night."

For her? He'd do anything.

Chapter Text

It had been a nice few months, almost four to be exact and each day things had gotten a little easier. They'd fallen into such a normal, familiar routine that it was far easier than he wanted to admit to  find a sense of normal. When they were together the rest of the world simply ceased to exist. It was something that both of them needed more than either of them realised until it was there. She had never really had a normal life and neither had he.

This was the best things had been in his life for... Well for years.

They'd been hauled into the Avengers compound mostly to spend time with everyone else, no one knew they were together yet but they'd at least had a serious conversation about what they were going to do about that and when they were going to sit them down and talk to them about it, or at least how they'd probably take a divide and conquer approach to it because getting everyone together in the same place just seemed too overwhelming for him.

He was still dealing with a lot. His mind was still slowly reforming itself into something that even remotely resembled Human but he was doing far better at it with her help than he had been alone and he was glad for that, just as she'd always been she was his calm. She was his home. She was the stability and the safe haven that he'd sought out all these years without truly realising it and found nothing but emptiness because she wasn't there anymore.

Admittedly though, today Bucky Barnes was troubled. He'd spent a good most of the day in between training and general chit chat with everyone else trying to work out what the heck he was going to get Natasha for her birthday. It was in three days time and he still had no idea. She'd told him that it didn't matter and that she didn't bother at all with her birthdays but he'd told her that it was the first in decades that he got to spend with her and so he wanted to make it special somehow.

It was the somehow though that was proving to be a problem. He had no idea how he was going to do it but he was determined in the fact that he was. He needed to do something for her because she'd spent decades pretending her birthday didn't matter when it did.

She deserved to feel loved and appreciated and like someone was glad she was around. He was glad she was around. He was glad she was there and he was glad the two of them were back together where they belonged but this whole human thing was still quite the problem for him especially when it came to buying people gifts. 

He hadn't done that since Steve's birthday just before he'd joined the army in the 1940's and even then he hadn't been really good at it, that kind of thing was never his strong suit but Rebecca had always loved to help him. She loved to shop... He could never understand why personally, he loved his sister but he'd never understood her enthusiasm for shopping. 

Then again he hadn't complained when she'd dragged him along with her either, he was a good brother... Or he tried to be. He missed her more than anything now though.

He found himself wandering again, his mind racing this time though through fear of not being able to live up to the expectations that he'd set himself in his mind, he knew Natasha didn't care. She was still adamant that the whole thing didn't matter but it did to him. It mattered to him and he wanted to do all he could to make her birthday as good as he could.

Or try to. So far it was proving a harder task than he'd thought. 

He rounded a corner almost bumping straight into Wanda Maximoff, Bucky stopped then to assess her and he offered her a small smile and reached out his arm to steady her just in case he'd actually knocked into her with any force, she seemed more or less okay though albeit taken aback by everything and she smiled at him. The two of them held some common ground, both aware of what it was to be used as a weapon and neither of them aware of the full implications of it even to this day.

Some - like some of the government types he'd been trying to avoid beating the shit out of - said that Wanda chose what she did but he knew otherwise, he knew that she was a scared child that had watched the world around her end, a child that had been buried in the rubble of her home for days until she was offered a helping hand from people that she couldn't have possibly understood. It was exactly the same thing that they'd done to him after all.

They'd found him at his weakest most vulnerable moment and they'd promised him that they could take it all away, they'd done the same to her and they'd promised her that she didn't have to be a victim to anyone else again, she wanted to be strong again and so had her brother and her brother had paid the ultimate price for it and Wanda hadn't stopped paying her penance every day ever since, he could see it in her eyes. He knew that look better than anyone else did, she'd never feel wholly comfortable with these people...

She'd never feel wholly comfortable with anyone until she learned to trust herself first and that would take time, he was still working through it himself. He took a step back and he allowed his hand to fall back to his side but still, the softness on his features remained. He related too well to Wanda Maximoff. 

"Sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you." Bucky studied her again as he spoke.

She shook her head though.

"You didn't, I'm fine." She appeared to give herself a onceover anyway just to be sure. "I didn't mean to intrude."

Bucky laughed slightly as he shrugged.

"Nah, you're not intruding on anything. I'm just walking honestly. I'm discovering that trying to figure out even the most simple human things is a lot harder than I remember." He wasn't sure why he felt as though he could be so honest with her but he did.

She gave him a look then that told him she understood, a gentleness spread across her features. She was so young, so lost to even herself and he could relate to that, it was a pain that he'd hope he'd never see on anyone's face again not after his own and Natasha's but life was cruel and people like HYDRA always found someone new they could use.

"What're you struggling with? Perhaps I can help or-" She glanced behind her and her brow furrowed.

Or she could find someone that could. The truth was that Bucky didn't want to attempt to explain why exactly finding a birthday gift for someone was stressing him out so much because then he'd have to try to do it without explaining that it only mattered so much to him because he loved Natasha and that was just... He wasn't ready for that conversation and so instead Bucky Barnes had been trying to figure out what to do about it on his own.

And doing a terrible job too apparently.

"Yeah, maybe you can." Bucky replied, maybe Wanda's insight simply as a female would be helpful for him.

She was observant, she spent time with people learning about them and she didn't make it overly obvious that she was doing just that. She made it easy to talk to her and she projected an air of calm that even he'd found actually soothing if he was going to be honest. She was genuine and she cared and she was just trying to do her damn best with the mess of her life and he knew that battle all too well.

Wanda grinned then, she apparently found his offer for something to do with herself to be a good thing because she looked considerably happier and much less stressed than she had before. It seemed as though she was craving distraction, he made a mental note to find out why. 

"I need help with a birthday gift." Bucky admitted quietly.

Wanda tilted her head to the side as she studied him. 

"For Captain Rogers?" She questioned, Bucky shook his head though he supposed she already knew that she just wanted him to confirm it.

"Alright!" She clapped her hands together. "A female someone?"

She spoke it in a way that was not at all mocking, there was nothing invasive about her tone and there was nothing that would make him think for even a second that she was trying to learn something she could run back and tell anyone else, she was simply trying to figure out the best way to help him and she seemed quite happy to be able to do so. Wanda Maximoff didn't look for the deeper connection there simply for a way to help him with his immediate problem. 

See? She was a good kid.

"Yes." He replied with a small laugh. He was nervous.

She offered him a sympathetic look. She became contemplative as she mulled it over, her eyes assessed him carefully. She could see it was troubling him quite a lot and that - naturally - made her curious on just who it was he was fretting so much over. He could tell that she was trying to mull over options in her mind and trying to work out who the heck he could be dating but if she came up with anything, she didn't say.

"Well, perhaps if I knew who..." She rose a brow, it just reaffirmed his suspicion that she already had her own ideas on the matter.

Bucky frowned at her but laughed anyway.

"Just someone I know."

Hm. Curious.

She shrugged, knowing better than to push it. It wasn't her place and she didn't know him well enough to be asking him questions that personally. She did care for these people, they had become family to her following the death of her brother and the fact that they'd offered her a home, protecting her and nurturing her, helping her to learn about herself and her abilities and helping her to find a safe place in the world. The very last thing she wanted to do was jeopardize that not that she thought he'd take her asking questions terribly personally and yell at her for it, he didn't seem that kind of person.

"Jewelry would be the stereotypical option." She offered.

Bucky rose a brow and shook his head in a definite no. She smirked almost like she'd suspected as much.

"She's not the kind of person that really wears a lot of that." He knew that she did wear the occasional piece - Clint's arrow necklace for example - but she wasn't big on it.

He supposed something small and meaningful would be fine though. He was trying for something a little more personal for her but still he thanked Wanda for the suggestion, he'd considered it himself but then he was bouncing backward and forward between a few different ideas in his head and so far he just seemed to be chasing himself around in circles with it. 

"What does she enjoy? Perhaps she collects something?" She suggested with a light shrug of her shoulders.

"She doesn't um, I mean she does collect some little things so actually that's a really good idea." He did know she did collect a few little things. That could work.

He watched her though, the way that she shifted from one foot to the other, the way that she kept her arms wrapped around herself almost like she had something she needed to protect her from, the way that she'd unconsciously chew on her lip and the way her eyes seemed to flick around the moment she heard the slightest noise. She seemed on edge.

"What's going on with you? You seem kinda troubled." He figured the least he could do was try to help her.

Wanda released a sigh, her shoulders sagged and she shook her head. She looked troubled once again and he felt a pang of regret for asking her, perhaps he shouldn't have after all. He was though still trying to figure out the more modern social cues, things seemed so different than they were when he was younger and free from the craziness of HYDRA and the whole brainwashed assassin-thing. He was glad that she at least had never been forced into killing anyone.

He wasn't sure she'd live with that too well. She seemed like such a gentle person and as powerful and different as she was, she seemed so very human.

"You don't have to talk about it." He amended with a smile.

She looked thankful for that but still, she chewed her lip anxiously.

"Maybe it'd help if I do." She admitted. "I'm afraid I'm losing control of my powers."

"What makes you say that?" He questioned softly.

She breathed out a sigh as she studied him almost as though she was deciding whether or not she could trust him. She knew if anyone understood the imprisonment and the pain that she'd been through in that horrible place it would be Bucky, she had no reason not to trust him; he too was someone brought in from the dark just like she was. 

"Every time I get angry or super it's like- There is something inside that crumbles just a little more and when it does I can feel a surge and a screaming inside of me to let it all out but I'm afraid if I do that, I might hurt someone again like I did last time. I was trying to do the right thing and I hurt people. I do not want them to be right about me being dangerous."

He understood in that moment that Wanda Maximoff was a scared young woman who was afraid of what she was and what she'd been turned into and that was something he could relate to better than almost anyone else. She wanted so badly to do the right thing but he understood how emotion could make you reckless, especially if you had powers. It reminded him of Natasha putting her ass on the line for him trying to save him from Cryo again.

She was strong but she could've gotten herself killed.

"You aren't dangerous, Wanda. You're trying your best to deal with something someone else did to you. You're trying your best to find who you are for yourself now that you've got to live with what they did and you're doing a hell of a good job with that, you should be proud of yourself. We all have our moments, no one is in control all the time. Maybe you could ask Tony to build you a special place you could use your powers or maybe the Xavier school? They could help you with control?" It seemed the two safest options for her in his mind anyway.

"Or you could train with me? I mean, it isn't controlling magic or whatever but it's good to vent a little frustration sometimes if that's what's causing you to lose control?"

He shifted his weight so that he was leaned against the wall instead of merely leaning on the arm that was pressed against it. It wasn't his prosthetic so it was starting to ache.

Wanda looked thoughtful, she was clearly mulling over both options though he could tell that she wasn't all that keen on asking Tony for anything  because the moment he'd mentioned it she'd wrinkled her nose in clear distaste which was something he could relate to, but the other two ideas didn't seem to provoke any negative reactions from her which - he had to admit - made him feel a whole heck of a lot more useful than he had all morning. Who'd have thought that trying to figure out a birthday present for someone could be so stressful.

"I think I'd like that. Maybe learning to fight might help me." She smiled as she spoke, just slightly though.

If you weren't paying attention you'd have missed the slight curve in her lips entirely.

"Alright then it's settled. Next time I'm in the gym I'll come get you?" 

She nodded her head at the offer.

"Thank you, Sergeant Barnes." Wanda spoke in a quiet, gentle voice. She seemed altogether calmer.

He was thankful for that.

"Just Bucky is fine." He chuckled.

He knew that she called Steve Captain Rogers and he didn't want her to feel like she had to address him formally when Sergeant Barnes wasn't someone he'd been for a hell of a long time now. Bucky was... Familiar in some manner or another but Sergeant Barnes wasn't, not anymore. It almost felt to him like that man and all the good he'd done was just a dream but he never told anyone that, well no one bar Natasha anyway.

He told her everything though. He didn't want to say anything to Steve but James felt more like who he was than Bucky was, the person that Natasha knew felt like the most real side to him after everything that he'd been through but he knew Steve remembered the person he'd been before all of that and he was... Trying. That was probably the best way to put it: He was trying to get back to that person and slowly but surely, he was. Maybe Bucky would become just as familiar to him as James was.

No one called him James but Natasha though, everyone else settled on Barnes or Bucky. Or asshole in Sams case.

"I'll let you get back to your contemplation but remember, the best gifts are personal. Anyone can buy something generic, get her something that's personal to her." She squeezed his arm on the way past and Bucky nodded his head.

Finally, he had a goddamn idea what to get her. Thanks Wanda.

Chapter Text

After his talk with Wanda, he had a sort of plan which was better than he had this morning so he'd made his way back to find everyone else. Well, almost everyone anyway. Tony, Steve and Clint sat in the room that could literally only be described as a den, it had everything in here from a TV to a dart board so it made for a good place to hang out, Tony had put in a bar which wasn't all that surprising at all.

He couldn't get drunk and neither could Steve or Natasha but Natasha played along and Clint and Tony could. He'd seen it.

It was an amusing sight. Tony reminded him of Howard when he was drunk.

Clint was playing darts, or at least he was until Bucky walked in and then he decided to toss them idly between his hands as he turned to regard him with a nod and a slight wave. Barton didn't seem too overly bothered about Bucky or his presence; Tony however seemed on edge even if it was far less than he had before which was at least good. He still gave him a weak smile and a hello by way of greeting which seemed to make Steve happy at the very least.

He knew how much the conflict between his friends had bothered Steve.

Steve though glanced at him as he sat down and he smirked, Bucky had seen that look before and it had him grimace. He'd guessed that Steve had spoken with Wanda and she had - harmlessly no doubt - told him about Bucky's 'girl trouble' for lack of a better term. Bucky rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"Alright, what?" He was trying to act like he had absolutely no idea what Steve was looking at him like that for.

"Who's the girl?" Steve had an amused smile on his lips as he spoke.

Bucky honestly at this point wanted to whack him upside the head. It was probably the brotherly instinct he had but instead he settled for rolling his eyes. He was trying - and failing by the way - to think of something that he could say just to brush it off because he was worried anything he did say could be misconstrued and hurtful in some manner or another toward Natasha so he didn't want to sound overly dismissive. He ran his hand through his hair.

He was quite frustrated by it all and he was internally cussing out Wanda. She meant well he was sure. He'd probably have done the same if he was honest, if he thought it'd help her figure out her predicament because he had been quite bothered by it and she knew that everyone was worried about him, Steve especially.

"Just someone I know." Bucky sighed as he spoke.

Steve immediately looked quizzical. He wasn't going to take that as an answer and Bucky knew it. He huffed out a sigh and rolled his eyes once again at his best friend. Bucky instead grinned at Steve and shrugged his shoulders; he was going to regret what he was going to say next no doubt because it was far from true anymore.

"I always did do better with the girls than you did, buddy." He wasn't that person anymore.

Still, he hoped the small hint toward him remember more of his past would satisfy his friends curiosity. It didn't, but Tony made his way over and sat down assessing both of them with one of those arrogant smirks he usually wore. 

"Who's birthday is it?" Clearly he'd been listening to at least some of the conversation.

Both Steve and Bucky looked at Tony who rolled his eyes at them looking clearly exacerbated at the pair of them.

"You were talking about gifts thus given that it's nowhere near Christmas would dictate it's someones birthday so, who's birthday is it? Anyone I know?"

"It's Natasha's in a few days." Clint offered as he walked over swiping a beer off the table.

Immediately Steve's brow cocked and she studied Bucky who shot him a glare and shook his head. Nope. Don't even go there. Steve shrugged his shoulders and turned to look at Tony. It didn't take a genius to work out what the next words out of his mouth were going to be.

"Great! We'll throw a party."

Oh, that was not going to go down well with Romanoff. She hated that shit. Clint was the first person to pipe up and shook his head.

"Naw, Tasha wouldn't go for it." He shrugged.

Bucky agreed wholeheartedly but considering he was supposed to be acting like he was casual friends with Romanoff and not in a relationship with her he simply shrugged his shoulders indifferently. He wasn't one for parties and he was glad no one bar Steve and Natasha knew when his birthday was, it didn't surprise him one bit that Barton knew when hers was though, they were best friends. 

"Who doesn't love a party?" Tony shot back immediately.

"The angry Russian assassin who will literally kick your ass if you even try it?" Clint replied with an incredulous look.

Tony didn't look bothered in the slightest. He clapped his hands together and grinned.

"So it's settled: We're having a birthday party for Romanoff." 

Oh that was not going to end well. Bucky rolled his eyes and stood up clearly looking at Tony like he was absolutely certain he had a death wish before he made his way over to the bar and reached behind it to pluck a bottle of Vodka up before he sat on one of the bar stools turning to face the rest of the group; Steve made his way over after less than 20 seconds and Bucky sighed. He glanced sideways at Steve who leaned against the bar and shook his head.

"I can tell when you're lying or deflecting, you know that right? You might be the superspy but I know the person you were before and I can tell when he's lying to me." Steve didn't sound angry which was a good thing, more amused than anything else which he thought was quite interesting.

"I'm not lying." He muttered. He didn't sound remotely convincing.

"It's okay if you wanna get your friend a gift, Buck." Steve looked thoughtful then.

Ah. He'd seen that look on his face before. Bucky grimaced. Penny drop. Steve turned to him with blue eyes that studied him in a way that simply provoked a frown and Bucky shook his head immediately knowing where he was going with that look.

"Don't. Don't even go there." He warned. 

"You and Natasha are-" Steve spoke but Bucky cut him off immediately.

"What? No. No. I just- Like you said we're friends and I wanna get her a gift. She's been good with helping me since-" Bucky shrugged.

He was trying his best to dismiss everything. He was trying his best to convince Steve Rogers that absolutely nothing was going on but he could see it in his eyes that he wasn't buying it. Natasha's history had to stay private, it was her life, her secrets. He wouldn't expose that by saying absolutely anything at all about their connection or their shared history. 

"You can tell me." Steve was trying to convince him to talk without pressing him to talk.

Bucky shook his head at him. He truly, truly wanted him to believe there was nothing there worth saying. He wanted him to believe that he and Natasha were nothing but friends. They'd reached a point where they'd tried their best to just stay friendly but when they were alone he was beyond glad to just be who he was with her. He was glad when they were alone to just be them. He was glad to just be with the person he loved.

And he did indeed love her which was why it was so difficult to be stood here now next to Steve lying. He didn't want to lie to his best friend but he'd promised Natasha. It'd be their decision together. He couldn't bring himself to expose her. 

"There's nothing to tell." Bucky replied insistently.

Steve looked like one of those wounded puppies you see at the pet store that really wants someone to take them home; he'd had that same look his whole life when he felt like he was being discluded or lied to somehow. 

"You know I don't believe you..." But Steve shrugged regardless. "But it's your call, Buck."

And Hers Bucky added silently in his mind but he poured a shot and held it up to toast his best friend. Clear deflection but Bucky Barnes was used to doing that better than almost anyone else. Natasha, Natasha deflected every single day of her life while she maintained this cover of hers but it wasn't his to blow. It wasn't his secret to expose and he knew the careful balance she had between this life of hers and who she really was and it was hard for her.

All he wanted to do was look his best friend in the eyes and tell him that he loved her but that just wasn't possible. Not right now anyway. 

"Y'know she's gonna kill Tony for the party right?" Steve broke the silence between them up with a laugh, shaking his head.

"Yeah, I think at this point I'd almost pay to see her kick his ass but if we get a free show..." Bucky grinned as he spoke. 

"Yeah, he's doomed."  Steve almost looked sorry for Tony and the hell he was about to unleash from what was going to be a doubtlessly less than pleased Natasha Romanoff.

It'd probably been a heck of a long time since Natalia had last celebrated her birthday, as far as he was aware she hadn't at all since she was a child but then he hadn't asked her about it. He hadn't asked her and he thought now perhaps he should've done. Maybe he would... 

Bucky was playing with the glass in his hand and Steve seemed to notice it because he sighed and shook his head, he patted his best friend on the shoulder which caused Bucky to offer him a bemused look.

"I didn't mean to upset you."

"You didn't." His reply might have sounded automatic but it came with a smile. While he wanted to tell Steve the truth, he knew that couldn't happen... At least not right now.

By the time six rolled around and he was making his way down the hallway to Natasha's apartment he felt exhausted. It had been an emotionally trying day and he felt like he was to blame for the fact that Natasha was now doomed to a birthday party by Tony Stark, a fact that he could tell she was already aware of when her eyes fell on him as he walked inside and she rose a brow at him and huffed out a sigh.

"I hate birthday parties." She stated with a roll of her eyes as she walked over to him. 

He almost immediately offered her an apologetic look. 

"I really didn't mean for that to happen I just-" She made her way over to him and spoke, silencing him with a kiss.

"It isn't your fault Tony is overzealous." She shook her head as she pulled back to stand in front of him. "I still haven't ruled out shooting him for it though."

He traced a line across her cheek with his finger that traced down her neck to distract him from the fact that he wanted to laugh and she released a content sigh. Despite the fact that Tony was insistent on throwing her a party she seemed altogether calm which he was happy about. He grimaced though.

"Steve asked about us too..." He dropped his hand to his side as he spoke. He couldn't meet her eyes then.

"I know." She replied with a easy shrug. "Clint thought it was hilarious when he told me about it. He might not look like it but he notices everything. It's a real pain in the ass sometimes."

Clint Barton - Natasha's best friend - was a bit of a mystery to him if he was going to be honest. He couldn't quite read him the way he might have wanted to, he was a conundrum. One minute he seemed like the serious spy-type thrown in with the hero stuff while others he seemed like a complete and utter goofball. Most would call it idiotic but Clint Barton wasn't dumb. He'd walked in on him tinkering with some new arrows last week and that had made him pretty sure dumb was the last thing he was. 

Dangerous but not dumb. He was a good man though. Natasha was obviously very fond of him and he was glad that Clint had saved her when he had. She deserved better than the life she'd had back in that place. Clint had given her a second chance and he was glad she'd taken it.

"Oh yeah?" He questioned trying his best to sound casual. "What'd he say?"

Natasha immediately picked up on the undertones because she burst out laughing before she offered him a sympathetic look and placed her hand against his cheek. She looked almost sorry for laughing. Almost. 

"He said the thought of me dating was even weirder than him dating which has happened exactly once in the fifteen years I've known him." She placed a kiss against his lips again.

"Barton is suspicious." She stated almost like she were telling him what she'd had for lunch.

Immediately his brow shot up and he offered her a curious look. Honestly, he hadn't known that Clint had had girlfriends or anything but then he really didn't know him at all. He thought he probably should given the fact that he was best friends with the love of his life and all but he'd been so transfixed with trying to fix things with Natasha and Steve and get himself all back to normal - whatever that was these days - that he really hadn't bothered to spend as much time as he should've getting to know everyone else.

When things came out between he and Natasha he was pretty sure he'd have to spend time with Clint so it might be a good idea to get to know him at least a little bit. Hell, maybe they could even be friends. Steve was probably the only actual friend he had unless Natasha counted too. Sam was Sam, Tony was... Just as complicated. 

"He knows I've been doing something lately but I haven't told him what exactly, I mean... He's noticed my free time isn't as free as it used to be." Shrugging, she turned away then and walked back toward her sofa falling down with a sigh.

"I told him we'd talk about it when I was ready to talk, Clint knows better than to push." Not that he would.

He could tell that she was hoping to set him at ease with it all. He could tell that lying to her best friend was no easier on her than him lying to his best friend was on him which was why when he made his way over to her and sat down, he reached out to brush a tendril of her hair behind her ear.

"What's up? Something's bothering you." He could read her.

He knew all too well when there was something on her mind even if she didn't want him to. She tended to hide a lot from the world, it had become something of a habit for her given this life that she'd chosen to live. He knew that it was hard for her to walk in two worlds while pretending to understand only the surface of the other. She'd tried her best to say something to Steve without saying anything at all when she'd told him that going after Bucky was a thread he might not want to pull.

A part of her was afraid she'd be exposed too but she wouldn't be selfish, if that was to be an outcome then so be it as long as he got his best friend back and still, she'd tried her best to dissuade him because in truth she too was afraid to know there was nothing left in there of the man she'd known. It had been hard for her but she'd put aside her own feelings for Steve's sake. She released a soft sigh and shook her head.

"Nothing." She couldn't meet his eyes though.

"I know you better than that, Romanoff." Bucky studied her with a gentle frown. "Talk to me." 

He wanted her to be open and honest with him at the very least but he could tell she was still used to having to shelter herself from a world she feared wouldn't understand her and under any other circumstances he'd know exactly why she was doing it but this was him. He understood her better than anyone else in the world. He didn't want her to feel like she couldn't trust him.

"I'm here. You're not alone so talk to me. You don't have to hide with me." He spoke earnestly.

She flicked her eyes to meet his then and she softened and relaxed. Her posture became far less rigid. Her hand reached for his just as it did lately every time she sought comfort or just wanted to know that he was there. She did the same in the night and it made him wonder if she was aware of doing it or if it was just subconscious. 

"Maybe after the stupid party we should tell them the truth." Her voice was strained and filled with a lot of uncertainty.

It was hard for her to say he could tell. He'd been thinking about what came next all day. He knew sooner or later their world would have to be opened up to everyone else especially if things were to continue the way they were. It was getting harder and harder for both of them to hide it around everyone else. It was getting harder and harder for each of them to keep up their casual behavior toward one another especially when one of them could tell the other was troubled. It was instinct for them to want to comfort one another.

"If that's what you want, that's what we'll do." He leaned over to kiss her on the side of the head as he spoke. There was nothing he wouldn't do for her and she knew it.

She curled into his side, her hand coming to rest over his heart and he placed his hand over hers.

"You know that's yours sweetheart, it always was."

It always would be.

Chapter Text

Natasha had made it abundantly clear to Tony that she did not want a birthday party, Tony had elected to ignore her - his exact words were And I disagree with your decision so I'm choosing to ignore it - and no amount of threats she'd issued had dissuaded him much to her dismay and there had been plenty, if Tony were smarter he'd have probably listened to her.

Her next notable line of defense against his idea of forced celebration was to refuse to go.

That hadn't worked either, Pepper had gotten involved and asked her to just surrender for the sake of giving everyone something to celebrate after all of the bad that they'd been through, Natasha was informed they could sure use it and she could hardly argue; Bucky knew by that point she was internally swearing to herself that Tony Stark would meet an unpleasant end or at the very least a rather brutal ass kicking for this.

She'd conceded for Pepper. She had also made it abundantly clear she was going to hate every second of it. Natasha really did not like parties, she'd never been one for being in a room full of people making fake pleasantries, it reminded her too much of her missions.

Bucky had apologised quite profusely for getting her into this mess to start with as much as he might not have meant to do it, he'd also pointed out in his own defense though that no one would've known a thing if Clint hadn't said anything but that didn't stop any of them sitting in the den at the avengers facility the night of Natasha's birthday while she tried her best to pretend she didn't want to kill Tony for making her be there.

Once she'd gotten over the fact that she'd rather be anywhere but here tonight, she actually started to have fun, they both did. Bucky - clearly amused but not feeling dumb - watched Natasha challenge Tony to a drinking competition. Steve had informed them he simply couldn't get drunk so it was pointless and Barton bowed out because he already knew he couldn't out drink his best friend.

He also informed Wanda that it was a bad idea and to sit it out.

Bucky thought he was smart. 

Tony realised after about a half hour that he'd made a huge mistake and called the whole thing off reminding everyone that birthday parties meant gifts, watching Natasha literally grimace made Bucky feel worse but Tony seemed to look triumphant. Bucky offered her a small smile as she walked past him and his hand bumped hers.

Retrieving a box, Tony handed it to Natasha who studied it curiously before she opened it. Inside were a pair of cuffs that she lifted up as she glanced toward him with a questioning look on her features.

"New weapons." He explained "I'll show you how they work tomorrow when I'm sober."

"Figured that out already, genius." She couldn't help but laugh. "Thanks Tony."

Next, Steve walked over and handed her his gift, he'd gotten her a copy of Anna Karenina in Russian which earned him a hug, not many people knew that Natasha loved to read; she was one of those people whose hobbies were seldom guessed correctly because contrary who whatever Tony Stark might believe, she didn't go around killing people or being as scary as she possibly could for fun, she actually quite enjoyed reading, dancing... She even sung a little occasionally.

When Natasha was comfortable enough to be casual she was very different.

It was clear that she was uncomfortable as hell at being the center of attention but she was also putting up with it because everyone had gone to a whole hell of a lot of effort for her so she didn't say a single word about it, she just smiled. 

Clint and Wanda had combined their efforts to get her customised guns which she also loved naturally, she pulled them out to study them and grinned; there were webs on the grips of each and where her finger rested by the trigger were spiders. It was clever and Bucky found the use of symbolism cool, clearly Wanda and Clint hadn't known what to get her either and then everyone turned to look at him.

He looked around the room with a clear apprehension as he reached down beside him to hand her a box that had been sat by his feet.

She opened it carefully and pulled out a snow globe with delicate engraved words written in Russian below the ball, inside was a ballerina. She studied it with a smile playing on her lips, she knew that no one would understand the personal significance to what he'd gotten her, no one would know that it told a story, a story decades old but still just as important to them this day as it had been back then.

"Touch the bottom." He smiled.

She complied with a curious look, her finger running across a button on the bottom and around the figure inside that moved when she touched the button sprung stars projected from beneath the ballerina with small lights that projected onto the walls around them too. Natasha's eyes widened with awe as she turned on the spot and looked around her.

She looked amazed. He couldn't help but smile. The smile on her face was his favorite sight in the world. Her smile made his heart race.

"The stars as they were the night you were born." He explained quietly, he wasn't looking at a single other person in the room but her.

He'd forgotten any of them were even there.

He'd gotten it specially designed for her, the projection was exactly as beautiful as he'd hoped it would be. He watched the wave emotion on her face as she studied the stars around her and the careful inscription which read quite simply My beautiful Natalia and he could tell she was overwhelmed, he found himself wondering if had gone too far and if this was too personal to have been given so publicly.

She placed it down gently on the table. 

Wordlessly as everyone else stared in clear confusion at how personal his gift had been and they both knew that they'd have a thousand questions about it, as far as anyone was aware the two of them didn't know one another all that well besides a casual friendship but as she moved around the table to place one hand on his cheek as she leaned up to kiss him.

"Thank you James, it's perfect." Her voice soft and filled with love.

James. She never called him Bucky, she did around everyone else but when they were alone she always used his name; it was the first time that he'd heard her call him by his real name around anyone else in... Well, in a very long time.

No one spoke as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a hug and in truth none of them would've heard them even if they did. None of them cared what was happening around them in that moment, she glanced up at him as he leaned down to place another soft kiss against her lips.

"You're welcome, beautiful." His hand brushed her cheek gently with his knuckles.

This tenderness, this closeness was something that they kept personal to them and to them alone. They had spent months now protecting what they were, months hiding away in a perfect little blissful existence away from everyone else but that pretense had slipped and fallen away with something as simple as a well thought through birthday gift.

"I love you." She replied softly.

"I love you too." He was speaking solely to his girl, to the woman he'd loved for as long as he could remember.

The only woman besides his mom and Rebecca that he'd ever loved. Bucky Barnes had never fallen in love before Natalia.

She'd never fallen in love before him either. He was her heart and she his. To both of them the outside world seemed to cease existing as he held her in his arms.

He looked down into those beautiful green eyes and a blissful smile touched his features.

"You're so beautiful."

"My gift is beautiful. I love it, it's perfect." She replied. You could practically hear the smile on her lips.

"I wanted to get you something personal to us. Something we'd understand." He explained "And I knew that all I wanted to do was give you the most perfect gift I could."

She kissed him again and then shook her head gently.

"You already did: you came back to me."

After that long and against so many impossible odds he'd come back to her. They could finally have the life they'd wanted together all those years ago...

First they just had to explain this to a group of stunned onlookers. Great. None of them minded one bit, they both knew they were worth it.

If he could he'd have asked her to marry him then and there if this situation wasn't complicated enough, in truth he still hadn't wholly ruled the idea out. It wasn't like this whole situation could get any more confusing for every one else.

As selfish as he thought it made him the only thing he cared about was her. It was her birthday and she was his life. His forever. He'd gladly tell her that there and then too.

Chapter Text

That seemed to be enough for Tony to stand there and practically shout.

"What the hell is going on?!" 

Ah, they'd both forgotten momentarily that they were not alone much to both of their dismay. He momentarily regret giving her something so personal in front of everyone else, so much for that secret relationship thing they had going on before tonight. He released her from his embrace but her hand held onto his.

He looked at her for direction because these were her friends. This was her life and her world; he still didn't feel like he belonged here but she did. She definitely did, or at least the side of her they knew did. He offered her an apologetic look but she just smiled at him and shook her head. 

"I think you should all sit down, we have a lot to tell you." Natasha looked at her friends then.

She breathed out a deep sigh almost as though she were trying to find enough internal calm to begin to explain all of this in a way that made any sense to anyone. She had been contemplating for weeks how she'd tell this story because she didn't want it to be another lie. She didn't want to say it was just something that happened through a natural evolution of friendship which she was contemplating wholeheartedly. She wasn't sure how to explain this.

Hell she wasn't even sure she wanted to, not yet. She thought about sitting them down away from here one by one and telling them her story because she wasn't ready to discuss it yet which was exactly why she turned back to James and mouthed not yet to him knowing that he'd understand.  

"Y'think?!" This time Barton spoke. He sounded somewhere between confused and hurt.

Hurt that his best friend had kept secrets from him, it was the same wounded expression Bucky thought Steve would've worn but he looked something else entirely, something indiscernible. Something in between sort of smug and slightly confused. Wanda was simply smiling and Bucky could tell he was right, she'd suspected as much. Thankfully everyone did as she asked and she tugged him over to a chair where she sat on the arm beside him, he could tell the closeness was an anchor and a safety to her.

"It's okay." He reassured squeezing her hand.

"James and I are... " Natasha's expression became contemplative, neither were entirely clear on the term.

"Dating I suppose would be the word? Though by now I'd say that's kind of obvious." She looked around then. She held to his hand like a lifeline.

"It's a very long story." She inhaled a deep breath as she flicked her eyes back to him for a moment, he offered her a calm smile and nodded.

It was okay. It was okay if she told this story.

"He and I knew each other when I was-" She looked pained.

"As most of you know by now I was raised in a Russian underground operation known as The Red Room, trained would be more accurate than raised but- that was where he and I met. First it was when I was 17, he trained me for a mission; he was still relatively new to the whole thing but he showed so much promise that they couldn't wait to pair him up with their best student. It was the first mission we'd work together so I guess they wanted to know how we'd be as a team."

She hated how they were used but she didn't regret meeting him.

"We worked well, a little too well. He and I became the best of the best, their two most deadly weapons... I'd been on over a dozen missions on my own before that but they seemed to think there'd be something about the two of us that'd work well and they were right." 

She squeezed his hand for support. He knew how much she hated this story. She was struggling and he could see it.

"HYDRA loaned me out to the program because they knew if they did, they'd have better allies. They worked with one another to create perfect little monsters, girls like her and people like me. They had me train her because they needed to know if she'd survive and if I was as good as they thought they'd made me. She was their best graduate, their most promising little star but they needed to know if she could stand up against people like me, they programmed me to make sure I didn't go easy on her, none of us knew that she'd break through my programming or I would hers."

He glanced sideways at her with a smile.

"She reminded me that I was human. She made me feel something. We found something human in each other and we tried to hold onto it. After the mission they put us in separate places again until-" He cut off and looked at her off not wanting to say too much if she wasn't comfortable with it.

"Until about 2 years before Clint convinced me to defect." She offered James a small smile and squeezed his hand.

The two of them would sit everyone down one by one and explain the truth behind their story but it couldn't be today and it couldn't be like this. She was already feeling overwhelmed and uncomfortable enough. She didn't need a million questions about why she hadn't mentioned that she was over 90 years old or why she'd spent the last few years lying to everyone about it...

Or the last 15 in Clint's case.

She had spent so long keeping up this pretense now that it was just as hard for her to say as it would be for the rest of them to hear and so she'd decided it would be a story that she wouldn't tell right now. There were many many reasons that Natasha kept the secrets that she did but the main of which was - and always would be - to protect herself and the people she cared about. She had too many enemies for exactly who and what she was to be public knowledge.

The last thing she needed was for them to be targets used to hurt her.

"I tried to look for him over the years but I couldn't find anything, not until Odessa. The first time I saw the man I loved again in 15 years he put a bullet through me." Natasha watched Bucky wince out of the corner of her eye, she laughed slightly.

"Hey, you could've killed me if you wanted me dead. I take comfort in that. We both know you only miss when you want to." There was a soft fondness in her voice as she squeezed his hand.

It meant he was still in there somewhere. It meant there was still a chance to get the person she knew back but she'd never ever have been the one that put pressure on him to remember anything because she knew already just how damaging that was, she wouldn't cause his mind to fracture more no matter how much she might have wanted him to remember the decades they were still hiding. She'd loved him for as long as she could remember now.

Both of them looked at Steve. He spoke and there was a confusion in his voice that made both of them feel terrible. None of them wanted to lie to him or anyone else in this room but the whole story right now would cause more harm than anything else.

"Why didn't either of you tell me? I mean, I kinda figured something a little more recently but you could've told me."

"Because it took me a while to remember who she was or what she meant to me; I didn't know her as Natasha I knew her as Natalia. It started when she and I fought the second time around. She said something to me that made me start to think about it. I couldn't make sense of why she'd said what she had but the more I thought about it the more I started to remember something. I just wasn't sure what that something was at first. It made no sense to me because it seemed impossible."

She had been the hero, she was one of the good guys; he hadn't put it together that she'd been the girl trapped in hell with him all those years ago that against impossible odds had made him fall in love with her. He hadn't remembered at first, he'd started to remember things with Steve before he'd even remembered a damn thing about the woman he loved and he hated that in his own way.

"We wanted a little time without everyone else knowing so we could find our way back to each other properly. We wanted a chance to rebuild." He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her onto his lap.

He was glad he had started to remember his best friend, of course he was but he hated the fact that something so important was still lost to him even with his fight to bring it all back again. She'd made him start to remember with six little words.

You could at least recognise me.

"She's tough. She never did like to give up and I'm glad she didn't give up on me despite having every reason to do just that." He turned to look at her then and he smiled. 

After a moment though he turned to look at Steve again. A part of him expected someone else to say something but no one did, he supposed they were waiting to hear whatever explanation they had to offer in whatever way they chose to deliver it.

"And honestly I couldn't make sense of what I was remembering so I couldn't find a way to explain any of it. I was trying to figure everything out and see if any of it was even real. She was - she is - the only part of it I wanted to remember aside from you." Bucky spoke quietly.

He still couldn't make sense of half of it because it seemed so impossible to him that she could be the girl he knew from back there. He held to Natasha's hand and he found some calm in knowing she was there with him and just like she always had before she held him grounded there and kept him safe. He was safe because he had people around him that cared and he knew that but he was afraid of losing them all over again.

"I didn't wanna tell you how much he and I were..." Natasha sighed as she spoke. "I didn't want my pain to be a thing. When you saw him that day seeing your pain was bad enough so I decided then to bury my own."

She wanted to give Bucky a break from dragging everything out that he was trying so hard to fight through even now. He didn't deserve to struggle through it alone while she sat silently and allowed him to drag himself over broken glass. She loved him too much to let him do that. Steve and Clint already knew her birth name so hearing it out loud didn't bother her too much. She hadn't ever said it herself out loud to anyone but the two of them.

Steve offered her a small look that told her he understood. He was somewhere between happy for both of them and shocked. Steve Rogers was definitely shocked. Definitely something else too but he wasn't quite sure what that something else was just yet.

She never had. She'd never been particularly open with her emotions; she acted most of the time like nothing at all bothered her around most people but so rarely around Clint, Steve or even Tony. They'd been through too much together to hold to her bravado. Clint was her best friend so she'd never really held to her coldness around him after that first year but she'd lied to him and she'd get it if he was pissed.

"I'm sorry, Clint." Natasha glanced at her best friend. "I get it if you're pissed."

"Naw, not pissed. You're good. You wanna be happy that's cool with me as long as soldier boy takes good care of you." He almost sounded like a protective brother.

Trust it to be Clint to be the one to keep the lightness; she smiled at her best friend. She knew that he'd be on her side no matter what, he'd have questions but Clint had never been the prying type. She loved him for the fact that he was content to let her be. He knew she'd talk to him in her own time because she had so far. She'd opened up about little things, she'd hinted once or twice toward having someone way back when.

She'd never given him specifics but she hadn't told him just how deep that ran. 

"I love you too." She spoke directly to her best friend.

Clint smirked at her and nodded his head. He knew already that she did, she'd been probably the one person in Clint's life that knew his whole story besides Bobbi and she loved him anyways. She didn't judge him just like he didn't judge her; she just cared about whom he was now and he owed her that same thing, it was why he had never pressed her and it was why he didn't ask her too much. He knew she'd been through so much already.

"Thank you, Clint." Natasha studied him as she spoke. "Thank you for just... Being you."

"Yeah well, someone has to keep your ass in line." He grinned then ignoring her glare.

"And I did tell you back then that you'd be stuck with me no matter what you did so, this is me sticking by you like always. You wanna tell me a story? Cool. You don't and that's cool too. You'll talk when you're ready, Tasha. You always do."

He knew her well enough by now to know that just like he knew her well enough to see she was struggling now.

Tony - listening and clearly trying to process everything - stood up and threw his hands up in the air before he walked over to the bar and shook his head as he poured himself a glass of whiskey, evidently changing his mind about sobering up. In truth he wasn't sure what the hell had just happened or what to do with it at all but he couldn't deny that he'd never seen Romanoff this happy. She deserved to be happy.

Granted he didn't like Barnes all that much but she'd been through enough. She'd always tried to help him as much as she could which - for a spy - was actually a pretty decent thing to do. She was a decent person, a trained killer and a hell of a scary person but pretty decent.

"This is way too weird for me." He piped up as he downed his drink. "I don't even know whether to be pissed at both of you or say congratulations."

Tony Stark, speechless. Natasha never thought she'd see the day that happened. Wanda offered him a sympathetic look because even she could see this wasn't easy on either of them, she hadn't particularly been very vocal at all but out of the corner of her eye Natasha watched her move small red sparks between her fingers and she saw the way she smiled and marveled at it. It was nice to see, Wanda rarely smiled when it came to her abilities, and she seemed to be trying to get a better handle on it which was nice.

She seemed calmer. She wasn't sure what it was that had made her that way but she seemed calmer which was good to see.

"You okay, kid?" Bucky looked over his shoulder at her.

Wanda smiled and nodded. 

"I knew it already." She shrugged. "The way you were when you were troubled and the way you look at her when you think no one notices, I already guessed." 

She was nice. A good person and he liked that. She didn't force herself into other peoples lives. She just let people be and he liked that. She was there if anyone wanted her for anything and she was happy enough to offer people friendship, she appeared to see Clint like a big brother which he thought was good. She needed someone. Clint seemed to have a way of collecting wayward people... Natasha and Wanda were both proof of that.

"Which are you?" Tony spoke again speaking directly to Natasha. "Natasha or Natalia?"

"Both, I guess." She frowned. She hadn't expected anyone to ask that. "Natalia is my birth name. The name my mother and father gave me."

It was one of the very few things she still had that came from her life before all of that. She didn't remember much about her parents or her family, she remembered that she had siblings once, she wasn't all that sure what happened to any of them but she did know she was an orphan by 6 and she was taken in by the program after that or more she'd taken the help offered to her by Ivan.

Hell it seemed Loki knew more about her than her own friends which admittedly made her feel ashamed. She should be more open and trusting and she knew it but she knew that trusting people could be bad for you and for them. Trusting people meant that they could be used as leverage to hurt you and she wouldn't ever allow that to happen. 

"I'm sticking with Natasha." Tony informed her. "D'you know how much work it is to update peoples crap on security around here without them changing names on me out of nowhere? No thanks. You're staying Natasha."

She laughed at that and nodded her head. She'd have it no other way with all of them if she were going to be honest, with the exception of Bucky anyway. She was perfectly happy with being Natalia. She knew that they were different. They knew each other as different people than these people knew them as and that was okay. No one needed to know them the way they knew each other anyway.

Well not yet anyway. That was a story for another day entirely.

"So you literally got busted by a birthday gift." Clint commented offhandedly. "That's actually funny."

"You and Morse got busted because she told you you had a nice ass on a mission." Natasha replied playfully.

"Okay y'got me there." Clint shrugged. "Wouldn't change it though."

Bucky looked confused but then so did everyone else.

"Does everyone have a secret significant other around here?" Tony asked clearly exacerbated.

"Naw, Bobs is my ex wife. She's cool though. I think you'd like her, she's super smart. She's a biochemist and an agent. Badass and smart as hell."

He hadn't seen her in about three years now but he missed her. They still kept in contact with calls, emails, text messages... It just depended on the day really or how busy either of them were at that point. She tried her best to make sure she knew how he was just as he tried his best to make sure he knew she was.

"So, we have happy birthday, Barton has an ex wife which shocks me because I didn't think anyone would be able to put up with your annoying ass."

Clint glared but Tony just rolled his eyes and looked back at Bucky and Natasha.

"Oh and you two are a thing." Tony recapped on them. "Since we're spilling secrets and all tonight, anyone else have anything they wanna throw out there or are we all good now?"

No one said anything though. Tony seemed relieved then. 

"Alright good, I already have a headache." He glanced at each one of them in turn.

Bucky and Natasha exchanged a look and both of them smiled. Tonight altogether had been weird as hell but they'd deflected the worst of it by condensing their story enough so that they told most of the truth without exposing themselves too much to the world.

Chapter Text

Both of them were glad to be back at her place by the end of the night. It was a relief from all of the craziness of the evenings events and she looked utterly exhausted. He took note of the way that almost immediately after she walked inside she fell down on the couch and let out a groan.

She was clearly still stressed out and he couldn't blame her a little bit. He still felt awful for all of it so he remained quiet as they walked inside. He didn't want to end up making this worse if she did in fact view it as a bad thing.

If he hadn't been so personal in his gift choice their secret would still be that: A secret. It was still half at the very least, there was still so much their friends didn't know about them and he was actually a little relieved about that. He knew how difficult her story was to tell. She didn't need to be telling it to every single one of her friends all in one room on one night, not when she already had so much to endure that day. 

He knew her well enough though to know that all she needed was some time to process everything and she would in her own way. This was one of those things that Natasha would need her time to work through because everything had changed for both of them in a heartbeat.

He made his way into her kitchen after he deposited his jacket to make her a hot cup of camomile tea, he knew that she loved it when she'd had a trying time; her favorite would always be strawberry or maybe even lavender depending on the time of day. Lavender was always her favorite at night. It was good for stress and anxiety, he remembered Wanda talking about it a few weeks ago when he'd been telling her he really didn't understand it but it was a tidbit of information he was glad he'd learned.

It wasn't like they'd been afforded such small and simple luxuries when they were together before but he liked to know the little details about her just as much as the bigger ones.

He'd preferred coffee back in the day anyway. It took a whole heck of a lot of energy to keep Steve Rogers from throwing himself into danger all the time. Most people thought that Bucky was the mischievous one when they were younger but it was Steve, it was definitely Steve. Bucky was just the muscle and a bit of a flirt. A jokester too but he was nowhere near as bad as Steve was.

He was quite content in letting everyone think that Steve had been the good kid his whole life. It beat the hell out of telling them and it kept it a private joke between him and Steve which he kind of liked. Natasha knew some of their stories too but then they'd spent the last few weeks trading stories over their nights together, he'd missed a lot of her life since she'd left and he told her the stories he could remember from when he was younger though it was more he was telling her all over again while he pulled his mind together again.

It wasn't like the stories he had to tell once he'd last saw her were positive ones so they didn't delve too much into that for too long, it took too much of a toll on his already fragile mind and he knew no one wanted to do that. The heat of the cup beneath his hands reminded him though that he was human and more importantly, he was free again. He was free to be with the woman he loved and with his best friend and free to be where he chose to be. He made his way into the living room again and placed the cup on the table in front of her as he offered her a careful smile.

She turned sleepy eyes up toward him and reached up to take his hand to tug him toward the couch. As he sat down, she moved to curl into his side and lay her head against his chest. A soft yawn broke her lips as she let out a surprisingly calm sigh. It seemed as though the days troubles didn't matter right now and he was glad for that.

"Are you okay?" he questioned quietly.

She reached up to put her hand on his cheek before she moved to kiss him, as she pulled away she nodded her head. She was without a doubt bothered about everything tonight but she felt content too. She didn't have to lie that much to anyone anymore, none of them did and that was a good thing in its own way. She still kept secrets, they both did but there was time to figure that out later.

Tonight wasn't the time for it. Tonight was supposed to be about her birthday and as much as she'd sworn she'd hate the whole thing she actually hadn't even with them having to tell at least a little of their story, she didn't hate it. She supposed she could but she didn't. Tonight was exactly what she'd needed without even realising it and so she was thankful for it. 

"Yeah," she replied softly. "I'm good. Are you?"

"Better than I thought I'd be. I thought you'd be pissed..." he admitted sheepishly.

"No." She brushed his cheek with her thumb. "What you did tonight was beautiful. I mean granted everyone finding out was- Not what I expected but it could've happened in a worse way."

There were a thousand ways that could've gone far worse. She was glad that a lot of the truth had been condensed to enough of an explanation to satisfy most people but not exposed enough to have them answering a million questions for the next six months. That was why she'd thought the divide and conquer approach would be a better one when it came to that.

It would be way less of a headache if it was one of them sitting someone down one at a time and getting all questions out then and there from each person because she knew she couldn't cope with it all at once, her life had been so carefully sculpted to both give her a future and protect her from pain that she could neither deal with nor escape from.

It was just easier. Both of them had more than enough to work through both together and on their own after everything they'd had to endure already. She sure as hell wasn't ready to tell their story in its entirety and she doubted he was, tonight it felt as though they may have to but she'd waded through those deep waters beautifully and told only enough to keep the from outright lying to their friends but not enough to throw them in at the deep end.

"I just wanted you to have something beautiful, you deserved to have something beautiful," he spoke so softly. So quietly.

It almost sounded like he was whispering.

"I love you." He kissed her on the top of the head. "I'll love you forever and I wanted you to know that, I wanted you to see that."

It had been a promise that he'd made her decades ago and one that he'd keep, one that he'd always, always keep. It didn't matter that they'd taken it away for so long it didn't make it any less true or real, it didn't take it away because deep down he'd always known.

"I know," she whispered, "and you made tonight perfect, I don't regret it James. What you did for me was wonderful, it was personal, loving..."

"Happy birthday, beautiful."

He kissed the back of her wrist before he wrapped his arms around her again. He knew that they were going to fall asleep like this if one of them didn't move and he didn't care in the slightest, it seemed as though she didn't either because within moments, the steady rise and fall of her chest told him what he already knew: She'd fallen asleep in the one place she knew she was safest.

She woke up to about 12 text messages off of Clint, 3 off of Tony (Largely unintelligible because he was drunk and that made her pity the AI he used to send them) and a voicemail off of Steve apologising if he upset her at all last night and that he didn't mean to. Clint's messages had mostly been rambling about pretty much everything. Somewhere in between all of it was an I'm happy for you, Tasha. Still, a large part of it was ranting.

Clint ranted better than he did almost anything else. 

She was almost dreading having to go in as they rode in together that day, she knew that there'd still be a whole bunch of confusions and questions and that was fine but she'd told them all she was willing to tell them for now and she knew that'd have to be something they were happy with. She turned to look at him as they stepped off of the elevator and he turned to kiss her. 

"Have a good morning, beautiful." 

"You too," she replied with a smile as she made her way to find Tony who'd promised he'd teach her how her weapons worked.

He'd probably have one hell of a hangover today and the thought provoked a smirk on her features that he noted as she walked away and he shook his head with a laugh. He knew she'd give Tony a hard time because she'd told him she would, she fully intended to get her own back for his party and he wasn't going to get off lightly with it either. He was attempting to find Steve which didn't take all that long. Steve was - just as he'd predicted - in the gym. He'd been running drills from the looks of him, once a soldier always a soldier.

"Morning Buck." Steve came to a halt in front of his best friend. "You good?"

"Yeah, much better now," he admitted. "Less stressful."

Steve seemed to understand because he put his hand on Bucky's shoulder and offered a reassuring squeeze, he was glad Steve wasn't mad at him. There were a lot of things he could handle but the thought of his best friend being mad at him when things in his life were just starting to pull together wasn't one of them.

"I'm glad you're happy." Still, there was an undertone to Steve's words that had him frown at study him carefully before he released a sigh and leaned back against the wall.

"Okay whatever it is spit it out already." He did not want his best friend to be mad at him. He didn't want that at all. He truly wanted everything in his life to start to come together properly.

"Nothing I just- I wish you guys would've told me," Steve admitted with a sigh of his own; there was an evident lilt to his voice that told Bucky he was still dealing with the shock of the situation.

"You could've told me." They were supposed to be his two best friends and he'd had enough of people lying to him. "I thought we were past the whole lying thing."

"C'mon, lets find somewhere to go sit down and I'll tell you about it all now, deal?" Bucky offered with a half uncertain smile.

Steve nodded in agreement which was what had the two of them make their way out of the gym and toward the lounge. In truth he spent the whole time they were walking mulling over exactly what he wanted to say and what kind of questions his best friend would have for him.

As they sat down he found himself studying Steve like he was trying to use all those years of training to figure out what his best friend might say but he knew that he was going to have a million questions so guessing which of those was going to come first was probably an impossible task. 

"So, how long have you guys been doing the whole secret-thing?"

Steve's first question was an obvious one and an easy one which was good. Simple questions out of the way first would be a lot easier than doubling it around from the complicated ones.

"Almost six months," Bucky answered simply.

"We started trying to fix things the day I got back to New York. My memories were fractured at best but I knew her. She said I could at least recognise her when- When we were fighting and I uh, it was after that that I started to really think about it and I searched through my mind for weeks until I came to something that made sense but didn't at the same time so I just decided to ask her, not outright because she'd been avoiding me but I found a way to ask her without actually doing it. A way that I knew was personal to us and one I knew she'd be the only one who could understand," he explained. 

"I lost her once I couldn't stand the thought of losing her again. She's- She's my my anchor my- my home. Everything good that I held onto for all those years was because of her. I love her more than anything else in this world and I couldn't stand the thought that I could lose her again. We wanted to figure out where we went and what we were and we just needed that time to ourselves to do that, we needed time to know we were safe and that no one was gonna tear us apart again. When I look at her I see light. I see hope. I love her and I don't know what I'd be without her and I don't want to. Not again." He had so much to lose both then and now.

Steve noted the loving expression on his best friends face because a gentle smile spread across his own.

"Being with her, getting to hold the woman I love in my arms again and know this time that there's no punishment waiting for us is a feeling I can't explain," he sounded wistful; there was so much he failed with back then.

"I get to fall asleep at night with her in my arms, I get to wake up and know that I can see her beautiful face when I do. I get to tell her I love her without the repercussions of that this time and I needed to hold onto that for myself for a little while," he continued with his explanation. "I love her. I've loved her for a long time and honestly I don't think I'll ever stop. I don't want to stop. I've lost so much time with her already and I don't wanna lose another second."

Steve could see just from the look on his best friends face that he meant every word and he hadn't seen him this happy in... Well in ever but especially not since he'd been brought back and seeing him so happy and so at peace now was something he was glad for. It was clear that Bucky loved Natasha and vice versa, granted there was a massive amount of shock that he had to deal with but there were more important things than that.

"So you knew her from before? From when you were...?" Steve's awkward tone matched the smile on his face, he wasn't sure if what he was asking was okay evidently.

"Yeah, I trained her. She was good, the best actually..." he sounded proud, apologetic still but proud. "She's everything I trained her to be and I'm glad that her training kept her alive."

He wished it didn't have to be that way and that he'd been by her side to fight those battles with her but he hadn't been but he sure as hell would be now and forever. 

"She's certainly tough," Steve agreed "Sometimes a little too tough."

"She was always the same," he laughed and shook his head. "She was mad as hell when they threw us together, she thought they were telling her she was incompetent by getting me to train her."

She'd challenged him every step but back then he'd been cold, inhuman and lost in programming and he'd been hard on her and he hates himself for it now.

"I wasn't me back then and she was whatever they turned her into. Like some doll it was... They told me to train their most promising graduate but no one bet on us falling in love. We both reached through the programming and touched something in each other that was human. We didn't think we'd fall in love, no one did."

Not even them but he was glad they did.

"She's my forever, Steve. She's always been my forever." Ever since the moment he'd met her. "I will spend the rest of my life loving her and I couldn't ask for a better life than that. Natalia Romanova is the love of my life and that'll never change."

"Natalia is her real name?" Steve asked, he was trying to get everything in line in his head.

"Yeah, Natalia is her real name," Bucky explained "She was Natalia when I knew her, she's someone different now but I'm just- I guess it's just what I'm used to calling her."

Steve nodded, he was obviously doing pretty well at sorting things out in his head which was good. He needed to figure it all out before it started to give him a headache or just push him back to the point where he thought the two people he trusted most in the world didn't trust him because that wasn't a fun state of mind to be in, he really was happy for both of them but there wasn't all that much he could do about his shock. It had been something that he hadn't expected and his head was still spinning. A few dates, that's pretty much all he thought but nothing like this. 

"I'm gonna ask her to marry me." Bucky spoke quietly as he spoke, his eyes fell to his best friend. "I've got the ring and everything I just- I don't know how to ask her."

"She's not into the big romantic stuff." Bucky explained with a frown, he didn't need to explain it though, Steve knew Natasha well enough to know that. "I want it to be special for her but- Not something huge, y'know?"

"You'll figure something out, you'll do something amazing Buck. Look at her birthday gift, you did amazing with that."

"You mean the thing that blew our entire secret relationship?" Bucky shot back playfully. "Not that I'm sorry about that."

"Yeah, I mean I suspected something with you two honestly but I wasn't sure what it was. I thought maybe you two had been on a couple dates but I guess I didn't think it was anything like this..." Steve admitted offering Bucky an apologetic smile. "I didn't think it was anywhere near this-" his words came to a halt as he tried to think of what to say.

"Intense?" Bucky offered.

"Yeah, intense. Intense seems like a good way of putting it." Steve nodded. "But I mean it man, I'm happy for the two of you and I'm sure when you do ask her to marry you? She's gonna say yes and it's gonna be special for both of you."

"I'll marry her in a heartbeat a million times over if that's what she wants."

"You always were a sucker for a redhead." Steve poked playfully. "I knew she was hiding something painful for her, I've known for a while now, I saw the way she avoided you but I figure she was just trying not to be mad about you shooting her or something."

Bucky laughed and shook his head.

"She's not the type to be pissed about being shot, she's been shot that many times I guess she's used to it but she doesn't deal with emotional stuff very well she never did, we weren't trained to be emotional. We weren't allowed to be emotional," he muttered as his eyes cast down; he couldn't begin to imagine how hard burying all of that and trying to deal with it alone must've been for her.

"I could've killed her both times I shot her but something inside of me stopped me making the shot, I never miss." Never, he never missed unless he wanted to. "But I didn't take it, I couldn't. I knew it was crazy so I made excuses on it when I got taken back it was- I could've killed both of you but something inside of me told me the pain they'd give me would be less than the pain of killing either of you."

Steve looked saddened as he listened to his best friend speak, his hand moved to Bucky's shoulder and he offered his friend just the smallest hint of a smile, it was his way of being comforting he supposed. He didn't know what to say, how could he understand what that must've been like? The pain that he'd been through all those years, the pain that she'd buried and pretended didn't matter to help Steve when she knew she'd be dragging herself over broken glass in her mind for doing it and she'd done it bravely, without complaint or hesitation because Natasha was a good friend.

"I was a monster," Bucky whispered softly "A monster lost in the dark without a shred of hope but I still held onto her somehow, memories I had were- I didn't know if it was just dreams at least the time I could dream when I wasn't frozen but when I could I saw her. It was all distorted but the only thing I knew was that I felt something."

She made him feel something without him even realising it.

"She told me that day that I could at least recognise her and I thought it was just some kinda mind game but it- it kicked something up that made me start to make sense of those dreams. I've had them ever since I was back too," his voice remained quiet "I never deserved anything but she thought I did. She wanted me to know I guess because it was too hard for her to endure it anymore and when it didn't seem to make a difference she started to avoid me."

His beautiful, brave Natalia had taken a chance that day to try to reach through to him and make him realise that he really did have something to fight for that had been inside of him this whole time. She was trying to make him connect with something that'd remind him that he was still human and that he had been all along no matter what they tried to do to him.

"She didn't look afraid of me that day on the bridge. She looked amused." He shook his head and laughed. "She always told me she was never afraid of me. That day wasn't the person you knew but the one I did. She was baiting me."

"Then she got hurt," Steve added, Bucky nodded.

"Yeah, she got hurt but I think she actually knew it was coming. She knew I'd take a shot but she wanted to see if I'd kill her." His brow furrowed, he hated how reckless she was sometimes. "She was always the same, y'know? She'd stand there when someone had a gun pressed to her head and she'd laugh and tell them to take the damn shot. She's never been afraid of anything."

"Except losing you," Steve reminded him. "She's afraid of losing you."

"And I'm afraid of losing her. That's why we didn't tell you, there was still something inside of both of us that was afraid we'd be torn apart again. We knew we should've been able to trust all of you but we couldn't bring ourselves to take the chance. We couldn't bring ourselves to risk anything." His eyes flicked to Steve who frowned quite naturally at his words but he looked apologetic regardless.

"We wouldn't have done anything to tear you apart. We won't, none of us. I get that what you've been through is horrible but I promise none of us are gonna do that," he sounded hurt that they could think that.

Bucky picked up on it immediately and he shook his head.

"No don't, don't do that," he sighed, "It wasn't that we thought you'd actually do it its just that life doesn't seem in our favor. It never was, everything the world could throw at us it did and it has. We just wanted to be together and feel safe before we talked to anyone."

Safe, safe when they were in that place was a word that didn't exist.

"The triggers, the nightmares, the handlers and programming and hell that raged on inside of me made me too afraid to trust anything," he explained, "I didn't want to risk something breaking."

Not again, never again.

"But you know that you can actually trust us now right?" Steve asked, "We won't do anything to either of you or stop you being happy."

None of them, hell after everything that both of them had been through they deserved to be happy. He knew the pain of their story even if he wasn't aware that all he knew was a fraction of it and he could see why they just wanted to be happy and hold to one another now they had the chance to do so, he could understand the underlying fear despite his hurt toward his best friends thinking that anyone would do that to them. No one would, he'd personally never allow it. 

"I know and we will, we'll trust you from now on," he promised, "Nat and I just- we needed to come to terms with that ourselves. If we'd have told you before we had the chance to figure out things for ourselves it could've caused damage to both of us."

Especially to his fragile mind.

"But I trust you Steve, she trusts you."

Even if they'd only told half a story the half of it they'd told was the part that mattered: They'd been through hell and now they'd found their way back to each other through hell and impossible odds and he wouldn't lose her again. 

Chapter Text

Natasha's entrance to Tony's lab was unceremonious and loud in order to make his headache so much worse which - from the way he flinched - seemed to have worked. She smirked triumphantly at that and popped the box down on the counter before she folded her arms across her chest. He glowered at her before he rose and glanced toward the cuffs and swept them out trying to keep a safe distance from the potentially angry Russian assassin.

It seemed like the smart play in his head. She had after all threatened to kick his ass for throwing her a party and he knew Natasha well enough to wholly believe she'd stick to it. She didn't seem to move though which was - admittedly - a relief.

"Wasn't sure you'd come in today," Tony admitted as he studied her, "Thought you might be stuck in the honeymoon with Barnes."

Natasha rolled her eyes dramatically at him and laughed as she shook her head.

"No, you hoped I was so I wouldn't come in here and kick your ass for throwing me a party you knew I'd hate," she corrected him, "Don't bring him into this."

Tony shrugged his head though and laughed.

"You seemed to enjoy yourself actually," he pointed out, "after a while you actually seemed to enjoy yourself so technically it was a party you did like and then there was your whole epic romantic moment, it was very cute. ."

That was actually a good point, as much as she didn't want to admit it he had a good point and thus she sighed and nodded her head; Natasha never did like to concede to anyone or any thing but then again she was stubborn that way.

Tony however had a point, once she got past wanting to kick his ass for it she actually did enjoy herself and what had happened with James just made the whole evening perfect. 

It had admittedly been nice to spend time with her friends and nice to actually celebrate her birthday and that was something she never thought she'd say. 

"I don't celebrate my birthday," she admitted with a shrug, "there was never much point, I had a couple of beers with Clint a few times but that's the only thing I've done in years."

Just for that one brief moment, Natasha seemed almost human; she seemed more human than Tony had ever seen her appear and that piqued his curiosity.

He sat down at one of the stools at his worktop and placed her cuffs down in front of him.

In his head, he was mulling over whether or not he should ask her anything at all but Tony Stark - lacking tact in absolutely any manner - decided to do it anyway. 

"Why?" Naturally that was his first question. "Because your boyfriend was still under control?"

That - almost immediately - he wished he hadn't asked because he sighed and offered her an apologetic look.

"Sorry," he sounded genuinely apologetic as he spoke, "That wasn't supposed to sound cold."

"It didn't," she replied as she moved to sit down, "I haven't celebrated my birthday properly since I was a child."

Drumming her fingers idly against the top of the counter she found herself humming a lullaby that she hadn't heard in decades, one that her mother had used once upon a time to lull her into slumber on nights where the wind howled and the rain hammered so loudly against the windows that it had frightened her; it was almost too strange for her to think that something so pedestrian once had scared her so much but then she'd been a child just like any other.

She hadn't been tainted by a world of darkness and evil just yet. There was still innocence in her that had been stamped out mere months after that had last happened.

Closing her eyes, she was back there for just a second as her humming became soft singing and she pictured it in her mind. Her head rested on her mothers lap as she stroked her hair singing to her as the storm raged outside; it had been going on for three days now and each night it just seemed to worsen, her mother had promised her that it would start to ease off soon and she found herself hoping it would because more nights like this would be a terrible thing; she was so small. Her tiny frame shook with the shaking of the windows...

Then she was back.

She blinked a few times rapidly as Tony looked quizzically at her. 

"What happened?" He looked worried; she tried to wave it off dismissively but he wasn't buying it, "What happened?"

"I just had this flashback to when I was a kid, the lullaby, my mother used to sing it to me whenever I couldn't sleep," she explained, "I guess sometimes I do remember things sometimes from before. When I was younger before I got taken into the program I was just like anyone else, I had a family too. I wasn't born there, I'm not some test tube baby."

She sounded almost amused as she spoke.

"For one that kind of tech wasn't possible back then even for people with the capabilities to do what they did to girls like me." 

She had no doubt though if it was possible they'd have literally just created their perfect little assassins that way. She didn't much talk about the kind of life that she'd had before she went into that place.

No one had ever really gotten all that much truth about Natasha from when she was just a child and that was the only information Tony would get but it was something. Clint, Clint was the only other one beside James that knew anything about her.

Everything she'd told SHIELD back then had been pretty much lies. 

"Well! Now that I know you're not a test tube baby I really feel better about things, thanks for that," Tony spoke with a laugh. "So, are we done bonding so I can show you how these things work or...?"

He didn't mind actually getting to know something about Natasha one bit but it didn't take a spy to read the fact that this kind of thing wasn't something that she was comfortable with. Natasha Romanoff wasn't an open book and she never had been, Tony suspected in truth she never would be and that would have to be okay because as her friend it was his job to respect that.

Yes he was the kind of man that liked to know things but Ultron had taught him that there was such a thing as knowing too much. 

"Yes," she replied emphatically; it wouldn't be any use getting into any more of it than she already has anyway.

"Okay good, I was getting uncomfortable. You know how I feel about all that touchy feely stuff." Tony a grin at least made her laugh as he inclined his head back to her weapons. "Let's show you how these things work, hm? Let's not use me as human target practice though."

Weapons were good, weapons were familiar to her, weapons at this point were even a safety as masochistic as it sounded. 

It pulled her back to the here and now anyway so that was good. 

It had been another day that she as glad to get back from this time not because it was stressful rather because she happened to miss him too much, only unfortunately for her she did so a good two hours after James and by the time she let herself into his apartment he looked up at her with a warm smile as he gestured to the table in front of him and the food laid out there. 

"Figure you might be hungry," he sounded so blissful and calm that it made her smile fondly. "So, I thought I'd make you dinner."

She loved him more than she could ever tell him but then she knew he felt the same about her, after all that they'd been through only to find their way back to one another it would probably be hard to find people who deserved happiness more than they did and they'd somehow found it. In all of the chaos and all of the pain and turmoil they'd found their way back to one another and it was something that she didn't intend to lose.

They'd fought so hard for what they had now and neither him nor her would allow absolutely anything in the world to ruin that; they'd been through so much over the years, they'd spent so much time being torn apart and she knew that they'd never let that happen again no matter what happened.

"Thank you, " she replied as she walked over to place a kiss against his lips before she sat down at the table snow poked around with her food. "Did you have a good day?"

"Yeah, yeah I just uh, I just talked to Steve, did a little training with Wanda. Nothing major." He shrugged then. His day had been relatively calm and he was happy for that. His mind was racing enough with his plans for the evening. "What about you?"

"Minor bonding with Tony?" she offered with about small laugh, "which wasn't as terrible about it sounds. I didn't beat the hell out of him so."

He nodded, her spending time with Tony and Tony coming out of it unscathed made him want to laugh and poke fun at her making some playful jibe or another about her going soft but he refrained. 

"Nat, I wanna talk to you about something..." he began uncertainly, he inhaled a deep breath.  "You know I love you right?"

Okay, okay, he could do this. He could do it. He had to...He'd spent so long wanting to and tonight he would. Breathe, Bucky. Just breathe. You can do this.

Immediately Natasha dropped her fork causing it to clatter against the surface of her plate with a somewhat shocked and worried expression she frowned. Nerves rose up inside of her as she fought to read him, she searched his face desperately trying to figure out what might be going through his head right now. If there was something wrong she hoped like he'd have just told her rather than it coming down to something like this. 

No one in the world liked the words 'I want to talk to you about something' or 'We need to talk' because it almost never ended well.

"James what's going on?" If this was a breakup... If this was a breakup she'd rather he just got it over with; given everything that they'd been through she couldn't deny that the pain of even thinking about it was almost more than she could stand. Why would he break up with her after everything? "If you're gonna end it can you just get straight to the point please? Don't drag it out it's not fair."

She didn't want that to happen but if it was what he wanted then she'd respect it. She had to respect that, she owed him that much. It wouldn't stop her from being blindsided by it nor would she ever stop questioning why but she'd respect his decision if that was what he needed to do.

"I'm not breaking up with you!" The words tumbled quickly from his lips so fast he was amazed they came out in order.

"What would I do that? I love you more than anything why the hell would I wanna lose you?" he protested, he was clearly growing more and more exacerbated by the second cursing himself internally for how he'd started this whole thing to begin with. This wasn't what he'd intended. "I, I'm trying to- Natasha I wouldn't break up with you!"

Okay not going according to plan. Completely pissed at himself for messing up, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a box to place it on the table in front of her because at this point he was desperate to salvage something of the situation. This wasn't going well at all but he was definitely trying to save it; Natasha didn't need to be thinking he was breaking up with her and he didn't need to be losing her.

"I'm trying to ask you to marry me and I'm trying very badly apparently," he murmured sheepishly but his eyes didn't leave her for even a moment. "I had a big plan, speech and everything and this was definitely not it so I guess I'll make the best of this one instead because I'm apparently very bad at this stuff: Natasha, I love you more than anything else in this world, we've fought our way back through everything life's thrown at us and I can't stand the thought of ever losing you again so will you marry me? I don't want to spend another day without you."

Reaching for the box in front of her she flipped open the top to study the beautiful emerald and diamond set ring finding it romantic that he'd chosen the emeralds because of her green eyes and Natasha nodded her head. Tears in her eyes, she nodded her head and she brought her hands over her mouth and fought back a sob.

"Yes I'll marry you," she answered, her voice laced with years of pent up emotion; there was nothing in this world she wanted more than to spend the rest of her life with him. "Of course I'll marry you!"

Within a moment he'd stood up and pulled her into his arms; some of the panic inside of him was starting to abate now though he could still hear his heartbeat so loud it was almost deafening him.

"Yeah? For real?" He looked so hopeful, so in love with her in that moment that nothing else in the moment mattered.

"For real," she confirmed. "I love you James Barnes."

"Oh thank god, I was worried you were gonna say no," he admitted which earned him her frown and she shook her head profusely.

"I love you, this is the life we wanted all those years ago, why would I say no?" She questioned with a soft smile, "I'd never say no. I'd have said Yes all those years ago if you'd asked me, too."

"I don't know, I guess it's just me worrying I'll lose you again somehow,"  he admitted. "I don't want to lose you again."

"Never again, " she promised before he walked over to her and pulled her into his arms and kissed her, it was one moment out of eternity but it was one moment he'd spend with her that he'd hold onto for that eternity.

He'd have asked her decades ago if they'd had the chance to do it and now he had the knowledge that she'd have said yes; he lamented on the fact that they hadn't had that chance at the normal life they'd wanted but they had that now. They had that now and he'd be damned if he was going to lose that to absolutely anyone. 

"I love you, James Barnes," she whispered, "I love you more than anything else in this world."

A breath broke his lips and in that moment he felt as though the weight of the world was on his shoulders. This wasn't quite the proposal story he'd had in mind but it was apparently the one he'd ended up with and it ended in her saying Yes and so it'd be one that he'd take quite happily. She would be his wife and for that this was the most perfect story in the world with the most perfect ending to the chapter and he knew he couldn't wait for the next one. Being with her was the only thing that he wanted.

Being with her was the only thing that he'd ever wanted and now that he had that he'd protect it with all he was. Now and forever.

Chapter Text

It was one of those things that she wished she'd seen coming, it was one of those things he wished he'd seen coming but they were foolish enough to hope that their peace would last a little longer. They should've seen it coming.

The trouble was, none of them had.

For the past few weeks they'd been snowed under, actually snowed under was an understatement but there just weren't sufficient words to describe how exhausting it had been, and he sure as hell didn't know how to explain just how much the whole mess scared him. It was new, Bucky Barnes wasn't afraid of much but these last few weeks scared him to death. It was one of those kinds of situations where you'd replay that whole song 'The end of the world as we know it' in a completely non-ironic way things were that bad.

It wasn't as though they'd had much time to be happy since the night that he'd proposed to her but then there was that whole saying about how you never expected the last time to be the last time. It had been the last time...

The last time for a hell of a long time.

Wakanda was one of the best-defended nations in the world, scratch that it actually was the best-defended nation in the world because not only did it have The Avengers, it had the Wakandan Warriors and the X-Men to take care of it. It was one of the safest places in the world but yet they stood there face to face with an alien armada not exactly on the winning team. 

In fact, they were a divided team, one that many would've rightly argued was probably destined to fail. He wasn't trained to fail. He wasn't trained to falter at all but yet he did. They both did. 

He turned to Steve and he nodded only once, he knew that there was nothing to say right now that'd ease what they were about to go through, there was nothing he could say to any of them that'd make any of this any easier, all they could do was fight and hope and he wasn't particularly good at the latter. Battle was what he was used to, he was used to fighting and so was Steve but they weren't used to losing. 

Steve's eyes moved to his best friend and he had an unreadable expression, Bucky at that moment felt troubled but he said nothing at all as they proceeded with what would be their death march forward. He was trying like hell to push through all of this and keep his head about him while he did. Focus Barnes, Focus. Don't let this get the better of you.

Life and death situations were nothing unfamiliar to Natasha either but keeping her head in the game right now proved to be more of a challenge than she wanted it to be, she looked around at her friends, at the people she'd come to care for and she felt her heart racing so fast it was making her feel sick. It was a distraction from what she needed to do and she knew it, she couldn't afford distractions, distractions cost lives.

She did a perfect pirouette as she swooped low and took out one of the alien warriors once she dropped it to the ground, her hand reached for the weapon in its hand and she threw it hitting another straight through the head that had Wanda in a rather dangerous situation; she was trying to hold evil off at all sides. She needed to get down there. She needed to get out of here. She looked at the kid then.

"You got this?" she asked, Wanda, nodded uncertainly. "Alright, shout real loud if you need help," Natasha added dryly.

She turned and ran from the room at the same time as she heard a loud crash below her and she cursed under her breath before she took a dive straight out of the window landing far better than she thought she would, she found her feet quickly enough and she allowed her eyes to travel back upward before she took a moment to breathe and try to clear her mind.

Find James. Find Steve.

She moved with speed and stealth deployed on those kinds of missions where she knew she'd be outnumbered in the field but she had to find a way to come out on top regardless, she knew this time the chances of that happening right now were unlikely but she did it anyway and took out as many as she could as she moved. Her eyes moved to Ororo as she heard a crash above their heads and lightning lit up the skies. she smirked ever so slightly.

She nodded only once to the woman whose eyes glowed a brilliant white but shone with fury anyway. She ran once again slamming straight into someone who turned to look at her before he rolled his eyes at her. 

"Watch your step there kid," Logan spoke as he assessed her. She looked more or less unharmed. Pissed but unharmed. "You good?"

Natasha nodded her head. "Pissed the hell off but good. We need to move. We're losing this and fast."

She didn't need to say that, she knew Logan already knew that because he looked irritated and like he was about ready to massacre every damn thing he saw which she counted at this point to be a good thing. Logan in a rage wasn't something she'd usually count as a good thing but she'd make an exception for their present situation.

"Who stayed with Wanda?" he questioned as a troubled look touched his features.

"Erik," Natasha replied. "Daddy finally stepping up I guess." She had evident disdain in her voice as she spoke but Wanda needed backup and Shuri - while being smart - was no warrior. Lensherr might be a son of a bitch but he wasn't about to let Wanda die. Logan looked about as happy about that as she was. None of them trusted him even slightly but they needed all the help they could get.

"Where's-" She didn't get the chance to finish her question as they were blown away from each other as the ground between them quite literally exploded. "What the hell was that?!" She shouted over ringing ears.

Logan shook his head as they looked around them for the potential culprit for almost blowing them to hell. She supposed it was probably one of the alien armadas that seemed pretty intent on killing them out here today which made her wonder what the hell they were going to do because they were losing ground as every second ticked by.

"Go find Cap," Logan spoke to her. "We need to find out how many we've lost..."

That was a damn good idea. Natasha moved around the crater to help Logan to his feet who looked more pissed than he did before but she shook her head at him as he clenched his fists. 

"Use it on them," she ordered as she turned and ran back into the fray. They needed to keep moving and they needed to keep fighting otherwise they were dead and she didn't intend to make that easy. She wasn't going down without a fight. Back to back within minutes with her fiance, her glance backward was met with a smile.

It didn't last long though, she ducked low as a fist flew toward her face and she swiped the knife from her boot across the stomach of her attacker. Yanking it free, she took out another with a swift throw to the head landing in the middle of its forehead before she moved to pull it free again.

An agonized scream stopped Steve, Bucky, and Natasha in their tracks as their eyes all moved toward the compound.

"No," Natasha whispered softly to herself. "Wanda..."

They were in deeper trouble now than they were just seconds ago. If that goddamn thing had gotten through Wanda and Erik and killed Vision then it had gotten exactly what it had come here for and the battle was about to get a hundred times worse. They were trying to get through as many as they could but they were fighting a losing battle. The more they killed the more seemed to pop up.

It was like nothing they were doing was making even a little bit of difference. They were killing as many as they could but their numbers seemed to rise more than they depleted which was a problem that none of them could overcome.

Bucky turned to run toward the compound in time to watch Wanda with tears streaming from her face land in front of him, he reached out a hand and he took hers and he studied her before he held her gaze. "We need to fight kid. Use it. It's the only time I'm ever gonna tell you to use your powers while you're angry but use it. We need this tipped in our favor."

Wanda wasn't a weapon to be used but she deserved her revenge and he was no stranger to wanting it. Wanda was one of the strongest people on this battlefield. She could tip this fight one way or another. Barton turned her to face him and for once since he'd met him, he agreed with Barnes.

"We need you, I know this hurts like hell but we need you. We'll fix this we just gotta keep fighting, you hear me? Don't let this thing take us down. We need you," His words were rushed but earnest. He needed to get back to find Natasha and Bobbi. They were out there and he and Bucky were stood here having a conversation they didn't want to be having with a broken-hearted Wanda Maximoff.

They were running out of time and time was precious right now.

Her father could be seen throwing a group back with a simple lift of his hands before he was pinned to the floor and Wanda moved forward sprinting toward him with her hand held out and a bright light broke through the pile of monsters holding her father to the ground.

Bucky and Clint exchanged a look and Bucky nodded appreciatively before the two of them parted ways as Clint took out their would-be murderers with four quick shots.

Bucky paused for just a moment as he watched his friends fighting for their lives and he found himself struggling. Jean and Ororo fought back to back and both were doing their best but their attackers just kept coming. 

He could list at least two dozen names here but they were missing quite a few people too. People he wondered could tip this battle in their favor but he couldn't keep dwelling on that and focus on keeping those that they did have here right now alive for as long as they possibly could. He needed to keep fighting and he knew that even if he died here today he'd die fighting and while the thought of it hurt like hell he knew that it'd be a worthwhile way to go down.

None of them would go down without a fight.

He closed his eyes at the blinding red light that took out a group behind him and he let out an exacerbated sigh as he turned and ran to attempt to find Natasha or Steve in all of this chaos. He couldn't hear a single voice, he could hear nothing but noise and shouting and he couldn't distinguish one shout from the other which bothered him. His senses were supposed to be sharper than this but he was at a loss.

Finding her best friend, Natasha studied Clint. He seemed to be more or less in good shape albeit with a few minor wounds and a look that could kill. He was mad as hell and she couldn't blame him. He informed her that he had to go and find Wanda and do what he could for her before she lost it completely. Natasha agreed wholeheartedly and she let him move past without a word.

And then everything just stopped. It went so silent you could hear a pin drop, the noises of battle that had filled the air just moments before faded now into a silence that she knew was not going to be a good thing. 

Why did they stop?

With a sickening feeling, she stopped still as she watched the monsters around them stop dead. This couldn't be good news. She spun on her heel in time to watch people around her start to disintegrate into nothing. She took off at a dead run to find Steve, Clint, and Bucky. She needed to find her family, her friends, her fiance... 

Skidding to a halt, she watched as Bucky's body started to turn to dust and she dropped to her knees the moment he did and tears streamed down her face as he wasted away into nothing. 

Steve's eyes moved to her immediately and she looked like she was about to lose it there and then but to his surprise, she didn't. She remained silent unable to find the strength to form any words let alone any coherent thoughts at that moment even as she felt a hand touch her shoulder and she looked up.

Wordlessly, she moved to her hand to Clint's and placed it over his. He squeezed her shoulder to tell her that he was there. There was nothing else he could do, he couldn't fix any of this and he had no goddamn idea who else had... Died? Had they died?

He had no idea what the hell had just happened but he knew one thing: They'd lost this battle and the cost of it was more than they'd ever wanted to pay.

Steve moved to kneel in front of her and he studied Natasha's face taking in the broken look that replaced her usual confidence. She flicked her eyes to her lap before she moved her hand from over Clint's and she pulled her ring out from the front pocket of her vest.

"We were gonna get married," she whispered through a choked sob. "And he's gone."

They were going to tell everyone, there was supposed to be a celebration and yet she knelt in the ruins of a battlefield in one of the most protected nations in the world with the man she loved gone.

Just gone and now she felt more alone than ever. Her thoughts weren't on the others that didn't survive this, her thoughts were locked on the same thing as her eyes were: The spot where she'd watched her future disappear into dust.

He was gone.