WHO: Natasha Romanoff (MCU) & Bucky Barnes (616) WHEN: Tonight WHERE: By the blast door WHAT: Bucky cheeses it. WARNINGS: Low, I think. Bucky didn’t swear too much.
His footfalls were silent. Years of training and years of scouting had added up to a precision of step that made it so easy to slip out of the housing area. The pack was secured to his back, and there wasn’t one glance backwards as Bucky climbed upwards and forward.
He was getting out of this place. Whatever the gig was, whatever weird cult these people were part of, he hadn’t wavered from this one goal: get out. They said this was Washington D.C. Alright, he had a map and a compass. If nothing else, he’d find his own damn answers -- since the ones he was getting were placating at best. If he had to hear one more time that no one blamed him for not believing this future-other-world shit, he’d probably blow a gasket for good. Everyone was so resigned and calm. Maybe they’d give up their will to whatever was running that place.
Get out. Find Steve. Head back and get everyone out. That was the plan. And all that stood in the way of that plan was one blast door. Bucky leveled his gaze on it. It was gonna make noise no matter what. If he could do this fast, it wouldn’t make a difference. Get it out, run, cover his tracks. He inhaled a breath, readying his reflexes to start that inevitable sprint.
Natasha had been eyeballing this kid ever since he'd put up a good argument that Steve wasn't Steve. That alone made Natasha suspicious, but then he'd been so goddamn stiff and full of rage that Natasha knew she wasn't going to sit this one out. She'd been following him on the security footage, one of the benefits of being a systems administrator. She watched him move from place to place until he was almost outside of the computer system's location.
She waited until just the right moment, then opened the door. Leaning against it, she told him, "You should have gone for the lower exit. It's through a staircase and out a door. No giant blast doors, no armed guards just outside. I can show you if you want."
Bucky paused, but it was all of a sliver of a second. Fine, so he had some company, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t pull this off. Her voice and the clink of a door’s mechanisms gave him exactly where to aim a kick. Sure enough, his heel struck the door between them, slamming it shut. “Maybe next time!” he called through the metal panel. Jesus, half the compound was gonna wake up now. And a shut door wouldn’t hold anyone off-- he fished in his left pocket, pulling out a dinner knife. It wasn’t gonna do more than stall her, he knew, but he crammed it into the hinge with enough force to buy that precious minute it would take to deal with the main exit.
“Shit, shit -- c’mon,” was all of a rasp through his teeth. The wheel was sticking, forcing him to really throw his body weight into getting the goddamn thing to budge, but he’d exited this way before under less strained circumstances. He had the count on rotations. Five more, four…
Damn. Natasha hadn't counted on the little shit playing dirty. It also told her his very clear intentions. It only took a second for her to recover, opening the door. A good thirty feet between her and the kid. With a groan, she took off after him. Why did they always run?
The last quarter turn down, Bucky thrust his shoulder into the door. It swung out a little more slowly than he would have preferred, but at least the cool nip of nighttime air was proof that he was on his way. He just needed to lose this woman, and that was gonna be cake. Forget the door -- forget trying to reverse the momentum carrying that solid metal outward on the hinges.
He ran about ten feet out into the open, then stopped, turning to face the redhead. Natasha, it had said on the network. Romanoff. “You’re gonna wanna turn around,” he started, his right hand sliding behind him to get his knife, just in case.
He underestimated her. That was good. Most people did. Natasha didn't normally cut a formative figure in plain clothes, standing just a little too tall and a little too soft for anyone to really be scared of her. She often used that to get close to people, give them a false sense of security. Better to play into it than argue against it. She got a lot more done and in a faster amount of time that way.
"Is there something more interesting behind me?" She was tempted to turn, just to look and give him a slight out, but he was too skittery, jumpy for that. She'd have to keep her eyes on him, at least until she got this damn device on him. It could fit inside a shoe, a pocket, a sock without drawing attention to itself. Raven Reyes had come up with it. "Are you — are you going to fight me?"
“Sure ain’t askin’ you to dance, so why don’t you head back inside and we’ll forget this whole thing happened?” Bucky asked. He gave a short nod for her to go on. He didn’t trust her enough to turn his own back and give an open target. The knife was flipped into his grip, though he kept it concealed from her sight. “Tell whoever it is you’re working for to cram it while you’re at it.”
"Well, all right, but you know as well as I do that my boss doesn't like being told to cram it. He's not really fond of that kind of language." Natasha stepped closer with the air of someone who didn't particularly fear for herself. It wasn't hard, even if she could see that he had some sort of weapon — likely a knife of some sort — in the hand he held behind him. If it had been a gun, he would have pulled it on her by now, keep her from walking any closer. "So why don't you tell me why you're running?"
“For one,” Bucky started, leaning his weight onto one foot, “no one casually walks up to a guy in the middle of the night tryin’ to start a conversation unless she’s distracting him from something else.” Once she’d gotten within mere steps, he pressed back completely, using his full bodyweight to lunge forward with the knife, which landed deftly in his grip after the small fanfare of a flip over his shoulder. He lashed at her, not particularly trying to gouge, but just back her off to get a clean break. Most people spooked when they realized he wasn’t screwing around.
“Why don’t you tell me why it’s so important I stay, дорогая?”
Natasha barely flinched, though this kid's movement caught her attention in a big way. The flip was a standard knife move, usually meant to intimidate. Maybe if she was anyone else, she might have been, but no, this reminded her of James. The rough grip, the careless way he didn't seem to care about his own hand. Her James. The one who had been turned into a weapon by HYDRA and then set in cold storage until they needed him. The use of the Russian word for darling didn't make her cringe the way it made other people cringe. Russians just weren't big on their terms of endearment.
"She might if he seems in a hurry and she's working late." Never mind that she'd been working late to keep an eye on him. She held out her hands, showing him that she was unarmed. "It's not safe out there, and if you break our truce with the inhabitants here, there's gonna be hell to pay."
She wasn’t batting even an eyelash. This felt like a stall. She was going to take advantage of his reluctance to take a real swing, and then the cavalry would turn up. Fat chance. Bucky grit his teeth. Her hands were out, and he hated to hit a lady, but time was wasting. He swooped low, his leg swinging out to knock her feet out from underneath -- the knife flipped upwards, only being snatched from the air by his teeth, sharp edge facing out. He’d need his hands to right himself fast and book it. He’d get that knife back into its sheath only after that hasty retreat was being beat.
This kid was really wanting out of her something fierce. His disbelief in this place must have been strong, but Natasha had thought that if nothing else, Janet Van Dyne would have been able to soothe him somewhat. She seemed to have that way with Bruce. Why not this guy? What was it about this kid that nagged her?
Natasha caught the trajectory in time, and used the move to hop into the air, and though she didn't want to, she swung her elbow into the kid's face, intended to throw him off his guard. Maybe get that knife out of his mouth.
Years of fighting close-quarters meant the reflexes and instincts took over. Bucky saw the elbow coming in, and threw himself backwards, letting the woman catch nothing more than air. In the same fluid motion, he snatched the knife from his mouth, thrust it into the ground blade-first, then pulled a quick flip to get back on his feet. From there, it was a neat flick of his boot to get the blade back into his ready and waiting hand.
And he couldn’t help a slight smirk. She wasn’t half bad. Something about this felt a little like sparring with Steve; it was a little more dance than fight. Training didn’t have to be about drawing blood, after all.
He took a quick survey of the area. Shit, she was in the direction he needed to go. DC was that way, and he’d be shooting himself in the foot to cut a wide path. With enough people on a manhunt, the radius of safety would go to hell quick. His boot knocked against a fallen branch. Alright, Plan B it was. “Look, maybe we got off on the wrong foot,” he began again, holding his hands out as she had done moments earlier. But in the beat before his next word, he hooked the branch upward and thrust it straight at her. “[Give my best to the Kremlin!]” was called back as he rushed past, not daring to slow his pace one bit to make sure she wasn’t following.
Everything about this was wrong. Really wrong. "Bucky?"
Natasha moved into a sharp jerk to the right to avoid the branch. Not that it would hurt, but it at least put her closer to his path. If she wasn't going to have any luck dissuading him, then she could just tag him with one of Raven's bugs. She reached out, as if she was going to grab him, but missed and got the tag in his back pocket. There was nothing in it, so she doubted he'd even notice it.
"[Damn you! You're not supposed to leave!]" She took off after him, but only enough that he wouldn't think she'd planted anything on him. Natasha paused and leaned over as if her side hurt. "[Come back here!]"
When he was out of sight, a slight smirk was all she gave before heading back toward the bunker, walking at a slow pace. No need to run when she could monitor his every move. Still, she'd better get back and report this to Steve.
Her shouts were fading into the distance, but he couldn’t help but come back to one thing. Bucky. She knew his name? No one had pried at it during the 24 hours he’d given the place, and it sounded almost like she’d been taken back by the thought herself. He shook his head, kept it down, and kept running.