ostavil | 001 wakanda

001 wakanda

There's peace in Wakanda. Bucky had spent a little while under the ice while Shuri figured out a way to work on his deprogramming and while it's been a painful process, it's a necessary one and he's glad for all her work on the tangled knot that's HYDRA and the mess inside his brain. It's all wired incorrectly, a bomb that never went off but still needs to be defused, and he's scared every time she goes in there that something will go wrong and he'll attack her; it hasn't happened yet.

When he isn't working with her or Ayo, he has a little hut to himself where there are goats and sometimes children come visit him to see the curious white man who has taken up on the fringes of Wakandan society. Steve has visited a few times but when they announce a visitor this time, it's apparently not Steve. They're still at the palace being received, though, so Bucky takes the time to tidy up where he's been staying as much as he can one-handed; he's neat by nature but he also isn't used to having company come by either.

Who could it be? Sam? Sharon? Bucky isn't sure who would come to visit him aside from those two and Steve. Tony Stark certainly wouldn't and he isn't sure the Wakandan government would even let him in. Would Wanda come to see him? He's not certain. He imagines she's in hiding the same as he is, trying to avoid the Sokovia Accords and their inevitable consequences on her. It seems she's suffering more from them than anyone else, even himself, so he doesn't think she'd risk coming to see him.

He catalogs the other people he knows and he comes up with Natasha. He's got a strange history with her. He's shot her twice while the Winter Soldier but curiously, both times, he'd shot her non-fatally. It's almost as if he'd known that she needed to live even if he didn't know her and that's not what the Winter Soldier does. He doesn't leave loose ends. He kills whoever is necessary, even an innocent bystander, and Natasha has been actively opposing him both times he's encountered her. Even when he'd been activated by Zemo he'd attacked her but didn't take her down. There's something in him that protects her and he wonders why that is and always has. He doesn't know why she'd visit him but he wouldn't turn it down, either, so when he hears someone at the door he calls for them to come inside.

"Come in, I'm not busy." He's just finishing up wiping down a counter in what counts for his kitchen and when he comes into view of the visitor, he sees that it is Natasha. Curious.

"Hi."

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"That was a lucky someone," Bucky says. It's hard to think when Natasha is curled up against him like this and he can smell the faint scent of her shampoo and feel the softness of her hand against his chest. He wonders what it would be like to be her lover. Not one of her marks, one of those people that get seduced for information, but her lover. He wonders what it would be like to be the person to have her heart.

But Natasha flirts like breathing and while she's said she'd be with him if he'd ever wanted it, that she'd go on dates with him and that she thinks he's handsome, is it real? Are there emotions there or is it just physical? At one point in his life, physical was enough, but he doesn't think it is anymore.

"I'm not the kind of guy who can do this without feelings," he blurts out and he feels like he's made a mistake as soon as he's said it. He can't take it back now. "I'll get hurt."

"He was pretty great..." she says off handedly. It's casual like she's not ready to put much thought in it. Instead she's just enjoying his touch, the softness of his skin, the feel of being close to him again after all these years.

After all they had been through. Yet he doesn't even know that they had been through half of it. When he says he'll get hurt she always blurts out that it was always him, that this isn't lacking feelings, that those feelings never left.

They stayed with her every day she was without him. Even the years she thought she'd never see him again. Until that time he attacked her again.

"I told you, James. I'm here for as much or as little as you need, that I'd let you lead."

"I know, you did say that, it's just...Natasha, I'm a mess. I'm fragile. I can't take it if it doesn't work out, you know? I was under too long to want anything but the real deal but people aren't perfect and you...you've got a lot of options. That's all."

Still, she's chosen to be in bed next to him and not out there pursuing any of those options so maybe he should just shut up about that and just enjoy how it feels to hold her. It feels good to have someone pick him over other people, to choose him over all the better bodies they could have.

"I want someone I could love someday and that could possibly love me back. That's a lot to ask of a person."

The way he talks makes her want to get out of bed and run far away. It feels like he's judging her even though he knows it's more complicated then it being simply that. She tightens a little bit as she listens to him.

She pulls back just enough to look down at him slowly, carefully taking in each part of his face and his concern.

"Some day you're going to think back to this conversation and think you were a real idiot for saying this to me, just so you know."

Her face is soft after she says it and she leans back in to tuck down against him.

"I said whatever you want, and need and I fucking meant it. Don't make me say it again, James."

Bucky realizes now that she'd taken what he'd said as a judgment on her and not on himself and now he's embarrassed and apologetic all at once. She's settled back against him and he sighs heavily enough that she can surely feel the movement of his chest.

"I wasn't judging you, Natasha. I was just...I don't know. But it wasn't a judgment on you at all."

She says that he'll think he's an idiot for saying this to her one day and he doesn't quite know what that means but maybe she means she's willing to put a hell of a lot of investment into him. That makes absolutely zero sense - he's got a lot of work to do before he's healthy enough to be a good partner - but she keeps insisting she's there for anything he needs. Instead -

"What makes me special to you, Natasha? Why are you fighting so hard for me?"

It's tempting to want to say so many things to him. To explain things so she just sighs a little bit and stays quite while she's thinking about it.

"How much do you want to know about that?" she asks curiously. It's only a moment before she adds to it though. "Because I know what it's like to be controlled and used, and I know that under all that rust of it that needs to be knocked out there is a wonderful man underneath it all."

It makes sense, relating to him on a base level because she's been a Widow and he was the Winter Soldier. Nobody else has the experiences they have and no one else can understand them. Sure, they can say they sympathize and say sorry and say they wish that you hadn't gone through them but they don't know. They don't know what it's like to have to murder without a choice in the matter.

Natasha does.

"That's why you feel safe when you're with me? Because you get it? Because I'm pretty sure you're the only person who can get it."

"It's some of the reason that's for sure..." she explains voice soft a hand stroking along where his metal arm meets the flesh of his shoulder. She pauses for a moment, thinking of words before adding.

"Everyone says they don't know me, they can't know me, because I'm too many people or pretend to be. It feels like you see me though, James." She doesn't add that it always felt like he could see her over the years.

"I don't really know how to explain it all though."

"The most important things can never be explained by something so inadequate as words," Bucky says. She's touching him still, hand stroking at his shoulder where it fits in with his metal arm. It's sensitive there but no longer painful after being fitted with the new arm and he closes his eyes. He wants to make noises that are absolutely inappropriate but he bites the inside of his cheek to keep them in.

"L’essentiel est Invisible pour les Yeux."*

The French comes easily, accented well even if you can still tell he's an American, and he gives her a little smile.

*( What is essential is invisible to the eye. - The Little Prince. )

"Where'd you hear that quote from?" she asks curiously. She's surprised but it's not unwarranted, his brain is like a filing box with everything tucked away in a way that brain. She knows that some of it will start to unpack and make sense in his head.

"Just let the feelings," she reassures him and just brushes his shoulder a little bit more. "Close your eyes, just relax, and let the feelings have you. Try not to even think about it..."

"It's a book. A children's book, I guess, but surprisingly deep. I guess when I was learning all those languages, they gave me a bunch of things to read and didn't really care what they were. Immersion is the best way to learn one, anyway, so a children's book might be a good place to start. I think it was called Le Petit Prince."

Sometimes he knows things and he doesn't know why. Quotes from books, pieces of art, facts about places that you can barely pick out on a map. It's something new every day and Bucky's learned to just go with it.

Just like Natasha's inviting him to do now. She wants him to go with his feelings. His feelings want him to do a lot more than just lay here and relax, though, so he doesn't quite go with them. He does, however, close his eyes and try to relax.

"It's started to come back, you know. Desire. It wasn't there for a long time after I escaped. Now...well, now I feel it sometimes."

She blushes a little bit against his shoulder nuzzling into his shoulder to hide it a little bit. It's comfortable to hear that though, and makes her feel nice even if she wasn't expecting it.

"That's natural, you know. And it's okay," she says softly against his skin eyes already closed like she's relaxed against him. "But tonight let's just stay like this okay? I want you to be able to be comfortable and trust me, when you act on it."

Part of her is afraid he'd have sex with her and then freak out and never want to see her again, she's not really ready for that either.

"Oh God, I wasn't coming on to you," Bucky says, mortified that he'd even brought it up. He hadn't meant to make Natasha think he was going to jump her or something. He doesn't know what he intended, honestly, except he was relaxed and felt like being truthful instead of holding everything in.

"Not that you're not...you're beautiful, you know that, I just would never pressure you for that and I was just talking in general about...you know. Progress and stuff."

"Shit." Yeah, that just about sums it up.

She listens to him fumble his words and just presses up on one arm so she can lean in and give his lips the softest of kisses to shut him up from his fumbling of his words that he's tripping over.

The kiss is soft, and only lasts a moment before she's tucked down again next to him. She wants him to know that it's okay if he wants her, that it's just a lot right now.

"Don't worry too much, like I said, just relax and feel things out."

Bucky squeezes his eyes shut. He feels the kiss, soft against his mouth, and part of him wants to deepen it and really kiss her and not just play at it. She doesn't want that right now, though, so he doesn't chase it. She's settled back against him quick enough that he couldn't have caught her in the act anyway.

"I just didn't know if I still could physically, that's all. But I can. That's all I meant to say. It wasn't a proposition."

He's glad he didn't properly come on to her, though, because being told to relax and feel things out if he put himself out there probably would have stopped him from ever trying again. At least it isn't that situation.

That feels bad, wrong. He thinks things because he doesn't remember and it makes her insides churn a little bit like she's holding it away from him and it's bad. That's one of the reasons she's not ready to be intimate with him until he understands that.

She reaches for one of his hands and entwines their fingers before saying in the softest voice she could muster.

"I already knew that you could."

"Because of Steve?"

That's the only other person he knows that was subjected to the serum and frozen under ice for decades. If Steve could, it stands to reason that he could too and maybe he'd talked to Natasha about it. They are friends, after all, and while she says it wasn't romantic, she did say she tried to set him up on dates. If Steve was with people without problems, maybe that's why she knows.

"That's the only person I know in my...unique situation. But it'd make sense if you knew because of him."

"Just to clarify, I absolutely never slept with Steve," He doesn't ask more specifics, but she wants to make sure that he doesn't think there's anything going on with her and his best friend.

She squeezes his hand after she says that before just melting into him a little more. It's awkward, still, feeling like she shouldn't be saying things like this to him. She has no right but she just adds.

"Some of the Widows used to talk about their missions with the Winter Soldier, and how fun he could be. I was pretty sure they were making it up but..."

Bucky's eyes fly open at that. He does not remember ever being around Black Widows during any of his missions. He'd been aware of them, naturally, but the Winter Soldier was a solo operative. He'd never worked with anyone. Bucky has all these memories of all these kills and never once had he worked with anyone.

"Wait. I never worked with anyone. I've never...the Winter Soldier works alone. The Winter Soldier doesn't cooperate. He can't. He's programmed with orders and carries them out and there's no flexibility. To work with someone you need flexibility. He definitely wasn't fun. They were lying. About all of it. Maybe they saw my picture and made up a story but there's no way they ever saw me. It's not possible."

She drops his hand a that, shifting away from him she moves to sit up in the bed, pulling her knees up close and her arms hug around them and she sits quite for a few moments while he processes that. She doesn't even look at him but is instead looking off in his little hut.

"You were wiped a lot by hydra after you left the red room, it made you unstable, and into that. It wasn't always you James."

"So I was myself and I chose to do those things. That makes me even worse than I thought I was. It was bad enough when I thought I had no control, when all my memories are being locked inside my body while I carry out orders. Now you're telling me that I was fun. That I was me. I did those things as me."

God, it makes him sick to his stomach to even think about it and he gets out of the bed and shoves a hand through his hair while he paces in tight circles around the room.

"So which ones did I choose? Which people did I kill with a smile on my face? You seem to know. You knew. If I thought it would kill me, I'd put a bullet in my brain right now. I was me. Some fucking hero I am. I'm even more a monster than I thought I was."

"Stop it. STOP it." She says firmly but she moves to crawl out of the bed and goes to get her clothes from the bathroom because she is not having this discussion, argument, whatever it is in a t-shirt in bed. She doesn't put them on though and the second she walks out of the bathroom she looks at him with a glare.

"Is that what you think of me? That I was killing people for fun, because I can fucking remember. That I wasn't manipulated at all and it was just fun, because I worked in a team? Fuck you, James." She starts to pull on her pants glaring at him.

"Widows are different and you fucking know it. You don't have a choice as a Widow. They condition you from birth and it's like being in a cult. You're so programmed that you'll do anything even if you're aware of everything around you. It's not the same as me. I was a soldier. I didn't grow up like that. I would have fought."

Not that Natasha wouldn't have fought - she did, eventually, and got herself out.

"I would have killed myself before I hurt anyone because I knew a life outside of HYDRA. It's not the same as you and I don't think that about you or any other Widow. You're all manipulated."

"Stop being such an idiot." She says buckling her pants clearly getting ready to leave because she's frustrated. That's what Natasha does when things go rough, things are too tough. This is why she doesn't do people, why she likes to work alone.

"If they programed you to be a machine they could program you to think that your job was a fucking killing machine for a different program, that you could work with a team to do things. Stop being so stubborn."

She doesn't change the shirt she just goes to grab her bag she'd brought with her.

"So much for being here for me. Gets tough, you get out. And yeah, I'm a fucking idiot. I knew it wasn't real. Who the fuck would want this mess? When did I become the mark? Who asked you to do it? Steve? The Wakandans?"

Bucky has no idea why he would be useful as a mark at this point. He'd told Steve everything he remembered, forward and back, and if there was more information that they wanted he would have happily gone into a debriefing. This just seems cruel.

"Who asked you to come and try to put sad, broken Bucky back together again? Because you almost did it, you know. I was falling for you. I was eating it up. I was beginning to think that a beautiful woman might be willing to be patient for me. I thought I mattered."

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