[Bucky Barnes, Cast; R] In Derelict Sidings The Poppies Entwine Character/Series: Bucky Barnes, Cast; Marvel Cinematic Universe Rating: R Notes: Bucky doesn't know what to make of Natasha just yet, but that'll change. Natasha kinda grows on you. Like a fungus. Title: In Derelict Sidings The Poppies Entwine: Chapter 5 Author:yuuo Word Count: 3932 Summary:"So I figured you could use my help," Natasha said, sitting at the table with Steve, while Bucky made dinner.
"So I figured you could use my help," Natasha said, sitting at the table with Steve, while Bucky made dinner.
Bucky didn't feel comfortable around Natasha. The fact that he'd shot her twice probably didn't help his paranoid suspicion that she might not be comfortable around him, either. So, for both their sakes, he stayed out of the conversation, trying, and mostly succeeding, to alter a recipe to accommodate a third person for their meal, occasionally glancing over whenever the food didn't need immediate and constant attention.
"Well, that explains why you're here," Steve said. "But that doesn't explain what you think we need help with. Or how you got in."
Natasha tilted her head slightly, and if she'd had glasses, she would've been looking right over them at Steve. "You left your window unlocked."
Steve looked over at the window over his shoulder. "We broke it, actually," he said. "I'd forgotten about it."
"Why'd you break your own window lock?" Natasha asked, raising one eyebrow. "That seems like a security disaster."
Steve looked at Bucky briefly before turning back to Natasha. "We were avoiding the press. They had the front door swarmed."
"So you jumped the roof," Natasha said, less of a question and more of a statement. "And then forgot to have the window lock repaired."
"We had other things on our minds," Bucky said, a bit distracted by glopping dough balls into the chicken broth cooking on the stove, and hoping he sounded less invested in Natasha's line of not-questioning than he actually was.
Natasha looked over at him. "So I've heard. Did you spend the day in Annapolis?" At Bucky's cold stare, she shrugged with a dismissive expression. "Stark's not the only one who can read the news. I found your brother in the white pages, not exactly hard. When you weren't here, I figured you must've gone to visit. Steve doesn't know how, but you've managed to keep your head down for two years in plain sight, so I assumed that you'd know better than to chance running into the press unless it was for good reason. Family's a good reason."
Steve gave her a wounded look. "I feel insulted."
"You probably should be," she said, giving him a little smile that reminded Bucky vaguely of the Mona Lisa. "Which is why I'm here. There's some evidence, mostly rumors, that the Winter Soldier was responsible for all those kills I told you about. That information gets out, you're going to have to get underground until we can figure out how to prove his innocence, and let things blow over."
Bucky looked back to the food, giving the broth a bit of stirring, pretending to not really care about the question he was about to ask. "'All those kills'? You say that like I'm a mass murderer."
"No," Natasha said. "Just a very good assassin. Over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years, not a bad record in the business, given that you were a ghost that nobody believed in."
That made Bucky pause, and look over at her, forgetting about the food. "Is that the official count?"
Natasha raised her eyebrows. "Is that wrong?"
"A bit." He went back to tending the food.
"You might want to tell us these things, if anything gets leaked, so we know how much we have to work against," Natasha said.
Not something Bucky wanted to do, but he couldn't logically argue that, and as awkward as he felt with Natasha, she made a good point. "I was working longer than fifty years."
"So more targets. Where were you operating?"
"The Soviet Union, mostly. At least at first. Then we expanded to the western allies." Bucky dumped the mostly cooked, deboned chicken he'd set aside after shredding it into the pot with the broth, noodles and dumplings. He left the food to simmer, leaning against the counter next to the stove and crossing his arms. "First ten years were mostly test runs of the reset procedures. They put me out almost as soon as my arm healed and the chemicals had gone to work."
"About seventy years, then," Natasha said, sounding impressed. Bucky wasn't sure why that was something to be impressed by. "How often were you on the job?"
"Couple times a year, in the early days," Bucky said, glancing at the food to make sure it hadn't tried to boil over without his supervision. "History needed a bigger nudge at first. After that, the dominoes went down on their own. If my memory's to be trusted, that number should be somwhere between fifty and a hundred, counting eliminating witnesses."
Both Steve and Natasha looked disturbed. "A hundred? That's a lot of assassinations, are you sure about that number? The intelligence community couldn't have been that wrong about your count," Natasha said, sounding more horrified than she probably wanted to let on.
"Not every target was a major public player," Bucky said, trying to act unaffected, not really wanting to show much emotion to Natasha. As if it didn't bother him. As if he wasn't anyone she should turn her back on. "Some were staged to look like accidents, which means nobody would be looking for a killer. And some were just people who happened to know the wrong thing at the wrong time."
Natasha was the first to visibly recover from that upsetting news. "Hydra did a number on you."
Bucky flicked a glance to Steve, forcing himself to look Steve in the eye, even though he really didn't want to. "Maybe." Steve didn't look mad, he looked like he was mourning something intangible, something long since lost. "I killed more people in the war."
"So did I, Bucky," Steve said, trying and failing to be comforting. "That's how war goes."
Bucky chose to not argue. Steve didn't and couldn't understand the difference between being a soldier and firing an M-1 at a crowd of enemy soldiers and downing several at a time, and being an assassin or a sniper and making the kill up close and personal.
"You two are making me feel like a slacker," Natasha said, not sounding terribly serious or hurt by that.
"That's not something you want to excel in, Natasha," Steve said. "You're a spy, not a soldier."
She gave him that subtle little smile again. "I can be a soldier on demand. Unless you forgot about New York."
"I think New York's going to stay with me awhile," Steve said. "But that was different, and you know it."
While they talked, Bucky turned off the heat on the stove, and carefully grabbed three bowls out of the cupboard.
"We spies kill people, too," Natasha said, sounding completely unaffected by this fact.
Bucky wanted to grab them both by the shoulders and shake them until they stopped trying to compare kill counts like a bunch of teenage boys having a dick-waving contest. "Food's done," he interrupted, setting the bowls down on the counter by the stove.
"What did you make?" Natasha asked, getting up and walking over. "I smelled the chicken."
"Chicken noodle soup with dumplings. Basically." Bucky stood back out of the way to let her and Steve dish up first.
Natasha looked at him, a pleased sort of surprise on her face. "Chicken and dumplings? When would a Brooklyn kid learn a Midwestern dish?"
Bucky motioned for her to get some food before Steve decided he was hungry enough to forgo chivalry. "My aunt lived in Iowa," he said. "She'd make it every time she came to visit. Fed a lot of people."
"Can't argue that," she said, serving herself a rather impressively large bowl of soup and dumplings. "My god, these dumplings are huge. I don't know if I need a fork or a spoon here."
Bucky grabbed some silverware out of the drawer and handed her one each of a spoon and a fork. "Use both," he said.
"I'll take the advice of the expert," she said, taking the offered silverware, then headed back for the table.
"I don't think you've made this since you moved in, Buck," Steve said, stepping over with a full bowl and taking some silverware from Bucky.
Bucky grabbed the remaining bowl for himself. "I haven't made it since before I went to boot camp," he said. "Pray I didn't screw something up."
"Should I cross myself?" Steve asked.
Bucky glanced over at him to see that Steve looked way too amused for his own good. "Only if you want me to laugh at you," he said, going back to paying attention to scooping a portion of soup and dumplings into his bowl. "Besides, I thought you weren't Catholic anymore." He joined Steve and Natasha at the table.
"You were Catholic?" Natasha asked, looking at Steve. "I didn't know that."
Steve idly stirred his soup, letting it cool. "My mother was an immigrant from Ireland, she raised me in her church. I sang in the choir and everything, growing up." Then he gave her a stern look, pointing at her. "I know what you're going to say, and no, I was never left alone with a priest. Those were the altar boys."
Natasha choked on her food, trying to cough without spitting out a mouthful of chicken and noodles. Bucky had to bite his lip to keep from laughing at her, and Steve wasn't bothering to even try. Natasha took a deep breath, her fist lightly smacking the table as she chewed and finally swallowed. She glared at Steve. "I owe you for that, Rogers."
"Can't wait to cash in," Steve said, flashing her a bratty smile. "I'm sure you'll make it creative."
Bucky raised an eyebrow, but said nothing as he watched their exchange. He hadn't seen Steve exchange that kind of banter with a woman since Peggy had died earlier that year. Steve had been largely unsuccessful with the dating scene, and now Bucky was idly wondering if it wasn't because of Natasha.
He'd have to ask Steve later.
"You expect anything less from me?" Natasha said, still giving Steve a dirty look. "I'd be insulted if you did."
"I expect nothing but the best from you," Steve said, stabbing a dumpling with his fork. "Now eat, and try not to choke on it this time. Bucky worked hard on that."
Natasha looked at Bucky. "You dumped dough into chicken noodle soup."
"Don't look at me," Bucky said. "He doesn't speak for me. He shouldn't even speak for himself."
"I stand up for you and that's my thanks?" Steve said. "You're on your own in the future. Word of warning, she's a tough opponent."
Natasha and Bucky studied each other across the table for a moment, both of them sizing each other up and ascertaining threat levels. Bucky had a feeling she couldn't be as bad as Tony, nobody was as bad as Tony, but she was easily keeping up with Steve, who had a very sharp wit. Usually. Sometimes something went by him.
Finally, Natasha smiled, stabbing a dumpling with her fork and holding it up. "You worked hard on it," she said, taking a bite.
Bucky decided he liked her. At least for the moment.
Natasha studied the dumpling on her fork while she chewed. "This is good. What'd you add to that dough?"
"Secret's in the sauce," Bucky said, trying desperately to sound like he wasn't purposely quoting something with that.
No such luck. Natasha stared at him. "You've seen Fried Green Tomatoes."
Bucky couldn't help but laugh a bit, poking at a bit of chicken. "Once," he said. "I'd read the book, decided to see how the movie was. I need to learn to stop expecting good movie adaptations out of Hollywood."
"I don't know," Natasha said. "I thought the movie was okay. But I've never read the book."
"The director thought he'd be cute and try to censor Idgie and Ruth's romance," Bucky said. "I have never understood people's hang up about that kind of thing. Nobody's getting hurt, what the hell does it matter?"
"It doesn't," Natasha said. "But I'm a bit surprised to hear such a progressive attitude from a man who grew up when homosexuality was still classified as a mental illness. Stonewall was about twenty years off from when you died."
Bucky shrugged. "I never grew up with the religious garbage. My family wasn't even Christian enough to show up for Easter services. We had a Bible, but it'd been Grandma's. I think we kept it more as an heirloom than as something we took seriously. I started to read it once, and decided it'd be a good idea if I didn't continue."
Before Natasha could do more than give him a curious look, Steve spoke up. "Why? I know you never liked going to mass with me, but you didn't even want to get the cultural references?"
Bucky gave him a flat look. "Because that book was important to you, enough at the time that it would've just devolved into a fight that I didn't want to have. You know how I get when I have an opinion on a book. Keeping our friendship in one piece was more important."
Steve gave him a patiently tolerant look, and Bucky couldn't decide if Steve was about to bait him, or if he was actually amused for some reason. "And what's your opinion now?"
"I haven't read it, I have no opinion," Bucky said firmly, following his words up with a pointed spoonful of soup so he didn't have to answer any more questions.
"Relax, you can read it if you want to dissect it. I'm not going to be offended. Might've been back then, though, so good call."
"Kinda what I thought," Bucky said, no longer having food in his mouth as an excuse to not answer. He noticed Natasha watching them with that goddamn inscrutable smile. He couldn't tell if he found it attractive or just irritating yet. "Yes?"
She shook her head. "Nothing." She looked at Steve affectionately. "It's just nice to see things go Steve's way for once. Now if I could just get him to find a girl to settle down with."
"I keep bugging him," Bucky said before Steve could do more than make a couple syllable-like noises in protest. "He says there's someone he keeps meaning to ask, but I've yet to see him go out to actually ask her."
Natasha set her spoon down, sitting back in her seat and crossing her arms pointedly. "And which one is this? This isn't Sharon, is it? I told you to ask her out over two years ago."
Steve looked caught between a rock and a hard place, or rather, between two friends who were grilling him on the status of his love life. "We've kept in contact."
"Didn't work out?" Natasha asked, sounding vaguely disappointed.
Steve looked like he was considering his answer carefully, then smiled. "You're going to hate me, but we're too busy." Natasha gave him a frustrated look, but didn't say anything as Steve held up a hand to shush her. "She's doing a lot of field work in her job right now. She joined the CIA after SHIELD went down. And even before yesterday, Bucky and I have been pretty busy off and on the last couple years. There's this thing called schedule conflict."
"Where the hell are these conversations taking place?" Bucky demanded. "I have never once heard you on the phone with anyone."
"I told you, she's in the field a lot," Steve said. "Computer's the only way she has of contacting the outside world sometimes."
"How is it that you've managed to have entire conversations without me even noticing? These have got to be really boring conversations if I haven't seen you reacting to them."
"You get involved in those books and the rest of the world stops existing," Steve told him. "You just aren't noticing."
Bucky desperately wanted to deny that, wanted to pretend that nothing but keeping himself and Steve alive would take that much attention from him to the exclusion of all else, but he couldn't, not without being dishonest. He gave Steve a snitty look. "Fine, you win this round."
"Looks like we both owe him now," Natasha said, and it almost took Bucky a second to even realize she was speaking to him and not Steve. "Care to join forces?"
Bucky looked at Steve, watching him grow more and more nervous. "Depends on him," Bucky said, then went back to his food.
Natasha gave him an approving look, then focused on her own food. Steve gave them both dirty looks, then tried to pretend he hadn't just been caught in a trap of his own creation. Bucky let him have that delusion.
Food distracted them from further conversation for a few minutes, until their bowls were empty. Both thanked Bucky for the food, and Steve offered to clean the kitchen since Bucky cooked, but Bucky waved him off. "Keep her entertained," he said, pointing to Natasha with his left hand, balancing their dishes in his other.
"You think I'll get in your way?" Natasha asked, raising an eyebrow at him. She was testing him, seeing if he'd say something that sounded more like the Winter Soldier than like Bucky Barnes. An enemy rather than a friend. Is that what she wanted? A friend? From what Steve had told him, she was hard to befriend, hard to trust without having put her through the fire.
Somehow, Bucky doubted she wanted a friend. She just wanted to watch for a knife in her back. Or maybe a bullet to the gut.
"You're a woman, every woman gets in the way," he said, turning away with the bowls and walking to the sink.
"Well, chivalry is dead," she said. Something in her tone said that for the moment, Bucky had passed her test.
He hoped she wasn't sticking around long, so he didn't have to worry about many more of them. Steve had done it a few times, mostly in the early days, just a gentle prod to keep Bucky on the right track towards healing. Steve hadn't done it out of concern for his own personal safety. His tests had been for Bucky's benefit, little pushes to keep him working towards getting away from Hydra.
But Natasha's tests weren't for Bucky's benefit. They were for hers. They'd tangled twice as Winter Soldier and Black Widow, and both times, Black Widow had lost. She knew how dangerous he was, and they'd barely had contact in a real fight. They'd been more predator and prey, with her running and only surviving out of sheer luck. She wasn't his equal. Just because Steve trusted him didn't mean she had to.
But she'd come of her own free will to offer her help, even though he highly suspected that was far more for Steve's sake than any other. She had no reason to care if Bucky was indicted and imprisoned for Hydra's work. So he took that as a tentative offer of an alliance, at the very least, and decided to tolerate a few more pokes. He doubted she was staying long, anyway.
"So where are you staying?" Steve asked. "We can give you a ride."
Bucky grabbed the mostly-empty pot of soup, with all the dumplings pilfered and nothing left but broth and the occasional piece of chicken or stray noodle.
"Right there," she said, and he glanced over just in time to see her point to their couch.
He nearly dropped the pot on his foot. He caught it mid-air, but the metal clack of the pot hitting his left hand was loud enough to draw attention. Natasha looked at him, and Bucky couldn't entirely tell if she was amused that she'd just kicked a hornet's nest, or completely indifferent to any reaction he was having to her inviting herself to stay with them.
Steve stared at Bucky a moment. "Uh..." He looked back at Natasha. "I- I don't know if that's a good idea, we only have the couch, it won't be comfortable."
"I don't know," Natasha said, and now Bucky was certain she was amused. "It was comfortable enough earlier while I was waiting for you guys."
Steve took in a deep breath, looking at Bucky, who made a point of turning away and dumped the pot into the sink, knowing what was coming next. "So this is going to be very unsubtle, but Bucky, can I talk to you?"
Natasha rolled her eyes. "Guys, stop. I'm not here to intrude on your privacy, and where you sleep and why is not my business, I don't care, and I'm not going to be telling anybody. Yes, I know, I found the bedroom trying to find the bathroom earlier. If that's the issue, relax."
Bucky's jaw clenched so tightly, his teeth hurt and his temples began to pound. His face burned with humiliation. She didn't know why his bed had been moved into Steve's bedroom, she didn't care, but she knew it was there. Knowing the what was the first step towards knowing the why, and he would've been just as happy if nobody ever found out the what to get to the why. Even if they didn't care, one might lead to two. If she found out why, she'd find out about his weakness that had led to the arrangement in the first place, and that was unacceptable. He'd rather she just assume that he and Steve had a somewhat dysfunctional relationship going on.
Steve hung his head, his hands folded on the back of his skull, shaking his head slightly. "Natasha, it's not-"
"I wouldn't be here more than two weeks at the most, I have a job I'm skipping out on to be here," Natasha said, interrupting him. "You need me here. If I get a notification from my source that any of the Winter Soldier's activities over the last few decades have been leaked to any governing body in the world, I need to be here to extract you immediately. You can't afford for me to have to travel from a hotel or something. You boys are just going to have to put up with a little extra estrogen around. I promise I won't bleed on anything."
Bucky's nose wrinkled, the embarrassment and fear momentarily forgotten. "You're disgusting."
"At least I put the toilet seat down when I'm done with it," she said with that smile that was definitely leaning towards 'irritating'.
Steve sighed, lifting his head enough to look at Bucky, expecting an opinion on the matter. Bucky hated Natasha's logic, it was obnoxious and also very right. If they needed to run, they couldn't wait for her to catch up to them. It was a preventive measure, nothing to worry about, more than likely, but that little chance made it impossible to ignore the wisdom of her suggestion. So he gave Steve a look that he'd refuse to admit was a pout, then turned back to the sink to rinse the dishes and load them in the dishwasher.
"We have some spare bedding in the linen closet," Steve said. "Not a lot of extra blankets, but I can lend you one of mine, if you need. The bedroom doesn't have a window right next to it like the couch does."
"I grew up in Russia, cold doesn't bother me," Natasha said. "But thank you."