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. ([info]hourglasss) wrote in [info]snapthread,
@ 2019-04-29 13:29:00

Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:bucky barnes (mcu), natasha romanoff (mcu)

Who: Natasha Romanoff and Bucky Barnes
What: I have an emotional bomb, you have an emotional bomb, everybody's got an emotional bomb!
When: A day or so after Natasha's arrival.
Where: A walk in the woods.
Rating: Moderate, maybe some swearing! Also BIG WARNINGS FOR ENDGAME SPOILERS.



I remember everything.

Of all the things that had happened in Natasha's life over the last forty-eight hours - and it had, admittedly, been a hell of a forty-eight hours. When all was said and done and she looked at the final tally, she figured it wouldn't even be a contest, it would end up being the absolute most eventful forty-eight hours of her life entire - this was the thing that had put her down hardest and quickest.

Everything-everything. I just never got to tell you before Thanos.

The idea of it floored her. James Barnes had been the first scar that that had ever been sliced into her heart, long before she'd been aware that a heart was anything she'd had in the first place. And it had always stung, in some small, quiet place, to know that Steve had stayed somewhere in his mind while she'd been blotted from it entirely. It was nobody's fault, of course, nothing deliberate; that was the way of these things. Natasha better than anyone else knew that was how it ended up sometimes. There were things nobody got a choice in. It wasn't as though she'd spent the rest of her life pining, agonizing, never moving past it, never loving anyone else again.

But she had carried it. She'd carried it for both of them, and even she wasn't immune to moments of wistfulness every now and then. The RMS What Might Have Been was a ship that Natasha tried not to sail too often on a lot of fronts, not just the James front. This, though, this was another thing that dying had thrown into perspective: what could have ever been gained by suffering nobly in silence? Why had she never brought it up? Never even hinted at it, or offered him the choice for her to tell him herself, long before Shuri had fixed what Hydra had done to his mind? It wasn't that anything would have had to have come of it, exactly, but with it all unspoken - how had her own private grief over so many things ever been of service to anyone, especially herself?

He was here now, though. And so was she. Five long years since last she'd seen him, and when she reached the wooded area he'd told her to come to - told her to hurry, even - there he was.

It had been emotional with Clint, with Tony, with Carol. So far the last forty-eight hours had been a nonstop rollercoaster of vodka and emotions, but if the alternative was death, she was taking it, and gladly. "You're very late, James Barnes," she said, and if her voice was aching, the smile that split her face was nothing but genuine. "What took you so long?"


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[info]sgt_barnesjb
2019-04-30 02:47 pm UTC (link)
The tricky things about memories for Bucky, was that he could recall the moments, but it was harder for him to remember the physical aspect of everything. He could feel the emotions attached to the memories, and for the life he'd lived, they were pretty powerful emotions. Sometimes it was good, other times it was overwhelming. It was part of why he chose isolation so much, because on the overwhelming days it was sometimes all he could do to even move. Remembering her, remembering the way they were, everything they'd found with each other and everything they lost when they were ripped apart had been incredibly difficult. Those memories hit him hard. And her, having lived through it with her memories intact -- well, it stood to reason to him that she'd move on, that she'd leave it in the past and possibly want nothing to do with him. How was he supposed to bring that up to her in the brief interactions they had in Wakanda?

But they were most definitely talking about it now, and he was so grateful for it. Even though it was still hard; there was so much to say and process, Bucky could only feel grateful and he wished on every star he'd talked to her sooner, before Thanos. They needed this; they deserved this. To finally have that chance to embrace in the open, without fear of death or what he honestly believed had been worse than death when they'd been caught before. Even if they spoke now and never brought it up again, this moment meant the world to him.

"I'm grateful," he said, his voice heavy with emotion he was trying to keep together so he didn't fall to pieces on her -- like she needed to see that. Jesus. He didn't even like to let Steve see that and she was coming from a time when she'd been through far too much. For her, he needed to be strong, and he would. Even if she could hold her own, he needed her to know that no matter what happened, whatever happened after this embrace, he would be a pillar for her. He would be whatever she needed him to be. That was something he could do for her, something he wanted desperately to do for her.

"Having this, this time to tell you now, to feel this, you," Bucky felt like he was babbling but it was impossible not to. "Thank you." He wasn't even sure who he was thanking; her, or the powers that be that brought them both there. That fear was still there, that they'd be ripped apart if someone saw but he was able to quiet it because no, no one was going to hurt them. They might be shocked, but no one would do what was done to them in the past. And with that realization, he finally let himself relax and just be with her. It felt better than any memory.

But for as wonderful as this was, there was more he needed to know. Selfishly, he didn't want to know right now because he wanted to indulge in holding her and knowing it was okay for him to feel the way he did about everything. He couldn't be selfish with her, though; never with Natalia. She was too important. "I need you to tell me about those five years after the snap. I know I didn't make it. Steve told me, about what happens when Thanos arrives. But I need to know more. What you said -- about you. Natalia, you have to tell me."

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[info]hourglasss
2019-04-30 08:51 pm UTC (link)
He couldn't be selfish. But she was.

It crashed into her abruptly, as though she was a child playing at the edge of the ocean who hadn't noticed the wave building up behind her and was shocked when it broke over her head. Selfish. It was a loaded thing to think when she had tried for a very long time to be anything but in an attempt to keep tipping the scales. Maybe it wasn't fair. Maybe it was her being too hard on herself in the wake of what had been a devastating day for anyone, had they been in her position on Vormir.

But selfish was the word for how she had broken the news to people. Wasn't it? Maybe not Clint: Clint she could forgive herself for, she had crashed into his shop actual moments (for her, at least) after telling him what she had believed to be a permanent goodbye. She would not take those moments back for anything, because if she had been too much, he had caught her in it. He had held onto her through it, joined her in it, and they were allowed for that moment to belong to the two of them exactly the way it unfolded. Even now, she couldn't think of another way she would have been capable of handling it. And Carol too, but this Carol didn't have all those years of friendship backing it up, not yet, it had landed hard on Carol, but it hadn't been a thing badly done.

But the way she had told Tony.

It felt like shame. It felt as though she had dropped it on him blithely and expected everything to be fine, for his world and life to keep on moving exactly as they had even when she'd explained the circumstances. She'd done it over text. She had tossed it off and Natasha Romanoff - Natasha who thought of everything, who saw every angle, who prided herself on being able to understand the way the world looked to almost anyone - hadn't let herself believe that this was a big deal. That this could hold the potential to break a heart. She'd denied Tony his feelings about it at every turn, too, in a way that was easy to do, when you weren't looking directly into someone's eyes.

And now James was standing in front of her. Now she had to do it looking someone in the eyes: someone from her own home world, who had been there in Wakanda the same as she had, someone who understood her life and the players in it. Someone to whom she hadn't realized she mattered, and looking at him now, the full force of what had happened to her, what she had to tell people, struck her for the first time. She would be grateful, later, that he had shown her that this was the way she needed to tell Thor. The way she would need to tell Steve.

But right now, she had to tell him.

"Yes," she agreed quietly, and she did not let her voice waver, because Natasha Alianovna Romanoff had gone to her death with clear eyes and a fearless heart, and if this would hurt, if this would be hard, she would step into this the same way.

She stroked his face once, with both her hands. An apology, a preemptive one. She hadn't realized she owed it. "Five years later, the world hadn't moved on. Steve hadn't. He tried, but he was - still limping along through life, it was awful to see. Thor had PTSD, it was awful to see, Clint was - " Her breath hitched, when she remembered what Clint had become, without the people he loved. Even when he'd still had her. He always had. "I was trying to keep the Avengers running. New team, you know how there's always work to be done. And then one day, we got a shot to put it right. Tony worked out a way we could manipulate time to get the stones before Thanos and set it right. Pull everyone we lost through time, like for them, they never would have been gone. We each went after a different stone, and there was - "

Another breath. She would look him in the eyes. She would look him in the eyes. "The one that Clint and I went after couldn't be taken without an exchange. A soul for a soul. And he had the possibility of his family - he'd had a wife. Kids, three of them. So I decided it would be me." She paused. "I like to think it was enough. I like to think they were able to pull it off, after. I suppose I won't know unless one of them turns up, but I like to think so. You're here in front of me, you remember me now. It seems like it's okay to let myself believe the best."

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[info]sgt_barnesjb
2019-05-01 12:24 pm UTC (link)
From what Bucky had observed over his time in Starklandia, no one was coming from the exact same moment. That meant there were always stories to be told, information that needed to be exchanged whenever someone new arrived in town. Bucky had been quietly reading exchanges between others, gathering information when he felt he needed it. But no one thus far had come from as far ahead as Natasha. No one really knew the full aftermath of what Thanos had done and how the world was coping with it until she'd arrived. All Bucky knew was that he was one of the ones removed from existence when Thanos snapped his fingers. He'd been angry when he found out, but even that news paled in comparison to what Natasha began to unfold for him.

It took some time, understandably, for the remaining Avengers to try to figure out what to do to 'fix' things and bring back those they'd lost. As he listened, it took a decent amount of self control for Bucky not to turn his head toward one of her hands and brush his lips to her palm. The urge was there, but he kept his composure while she spoke -- a first.

Of course Steve couldn't move on. That was Steve. He was going to hold onto the pain of what was lost for the rest of his life unless it was fixed. Hearing about the others wasn't surprising either, but it was still upsetting knowing they seemed to be stuck in an endless loop of guilt and not knowing what to do to keep moving forward. Hearing that she'd thrown herself into trying to keep the Avengers going wasn't surprising either. Natasha wasn't going to be able to stop. It had deeply bothered him, knowing what he knew of his own fate and that he'd not told her he remembered their time together before it was too late. He felt awful about that, but even that couldn't compare to how he felt after she continued her tale.

Hearing that the remaining Avengers had come up with a plan to get everyone back was really pretty humbling for Bucky. Of course they'd want to restore the universe, and those who were unjustly taken away. But knowing there were people out there who were working tirelessly toward finding seemingly impossible solutions because they wanted to bring them back was pretty amazing, really. What wasn't amazing? Finding out the cost someone had to pay. Namely, her.

It took Bucky a few seconds to really believe what she was saying, that she'd given her life on the chance that they'd succeed in bringing back everyone else. In other words, she'd killed herself and was hiding that fact behind the cloud of the greater good. Given that they were looking into her eyes, Natasha would see the realization come into his gaze, followed by the stormy flash of anger rising in him.

"You what?!" He said, his tone shifting from disbelief to accusatory. "What the hell were you thinking?" Bucky didn't let her go at first; he held her tighter. "How could you do something like that?! Your life is not invalidated just because he had a wife and kids. That's not worth you losing your life!" He did let go of her then and took a step back, rubbing his face with his human hand. "Jesus fucking Christ." Bucky had seen some dark shit go down but this really hit a nerve. "You want to tell me you did it for the greater good? Is that it? Because I'm not seeing that when it turns out with you dead. There's no 'best' scenario if you're not in it."

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[info]hourglasss
2019-05-01 07:42 pm UTC (link)
Natasha was shocked.

There wasn't really another word for it: whatever reaction she'd expected from James, it hadn't been anger. The way his hands tightened on her and the step he'd had to forcibly take back, like she'd belted him in the gut with something too heavy for him to absorb. Tony had been angry - but she'd parried her way around Tony's anger and deflected. Clint was Clint, but he wasn't the one she'd forced to let go of her hand on the side of a mountain, and when she had run to him first-thing on arrival, there had been too many other things swirled into that meeting for anger to be the one that floated to the top.

In the face of James Barnes's raw, visceral anger, she came up short, for the moment at least. If she had seen the Winter Soldier in soldat mode plenty of times over the years, the last time she had seen this, James, James the person this furious had been before Steve, the Avengers, any of the rest of it, on a joint operation between the Red Room and Hydra when she had been pinned down. When it had looked (when it had felt) for a moment as though she had no hope of making it out, but the job still would have been complete and a dead Black Widow would have been acceptable collateral damage. Until the Soldier had strayed from parameters and burst back in. Until he had carved the heart out from the chest of the man who'd almost meant her end in a much bloodier show than had been necessary, in a way that had finally aroused suspicion among their handlers.

That was the last time she'd seen this look.

Shit.

But she gathered herself, because it was her decision, and it had been her choice, and it was not an indefensible one. "No one's saying my life was worth less. James - look. Steve would say it was worth it when he put his plane down in the ice. Clint was a wreck of a person, and he was - aside from you, he's the only one that's ever counted, for me, and besides that, the rest of the team was counting on it." She appreciated Carol right then, for giving her the words she could reach for. "Was it fair? Of course not. Was it worth it? If they pulled it off, of course it was worth it. I've known how to do a cost-benefit analysis since I was six."

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[info]sgt_barnesjb
2019-05-02 01:07 pm UTC (link)
The anger that rose up within him surprised even Bucky himself. Only because he was still kind of trying to process the fact that he had been deeply in love with the woman standing in front of him. Natasha had the gift of time between when they'd been together in the Red Room and now to sort of move on, maybe heal from it -- though it seemed like she still felt the weight of their love affair, whatever that translated to. For Bucky, these memories were more fresh. The feelings were more fresh, and maybe that was why he had such an angry, knee-jerk reaction to finding out what she'd done.

Natasha had said she didn't make it when they'd spoken over the network. That alone was enough to be very upsetting, but the fact that it wasn't because she'd been fighting and lost but rather she chose self-sacrifice for the greater good -- yeah, that didn't fly with him. It shouldn't have flown with her. She should've been angry about it, devastated about it. But she was trying to rationalize it. There was no way this was ever going to make sense to him. Ever.

"No, see, you don't get to do that," Bucky said, shaking his head. "Steve was an idiot. There were probably no less than a dozen ways I could've got him out of there but unfortunately I missed the flight." Because he'd been lying presumed dead at the bottom of a mountain. "And don't use Barton as an excuse. Whatever happened, whatever he went through, doesn't make it okay for you to die. Stop acting like you don't matter. Stop making it sound like you just let Barton have the last piece of chocolate cake. Fuck, this is your life, Natalia." He balled his fist; god, he wanted to hit a tree. He wanted to punch his fist through the trunk. They always needed more firewood, didn't they?

"You don't even have a guarantee that what they planned was going to work. Stop being dismissive about your life. This isn't just a trade off. It's you."

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[info]hourglasss
2019-05-03 01:01 am UTC (link)
"It's me, or it was him," she shot back, a little startled to feel that her own pulse was starting to elevate, hammer a little harder through her temples, at her jugular. "Do not tell me I'm using him as an excuse. He jumped first, sometimes there's not a choice. You know that much. You don't get to forget that you know that just because this time it's one of yours on the line."

She had been doing an excellent job of pushing the image aside, or telling herself she had, at least. Trying to think about the things she'd found here that were good, that were real, that it would have seemed ungrateful not to make matter more, but it came screaming back to the forefront in a way that whispered this is never truly going to leave you, you know that: the look on Clint's face when he realized she'd won. When he was clutching her wrist and her palm was open in return, the way he whispered please. PLEASE, as though he was breaking -

But he would be fine. He would be fine, ultimately, it would pay off, because that was what whatever it takes meant. It meant that everyone standing on that platform had known what the price would be and had decided together that they would pay it. There were people they owed. James himself had been one of the people they'd owed.

"Steve won't let it be for nothing. You know he won't. He needs you back - he needs Sam, too," she said, fighting to keep her voice calm, because it already felt like she had given him too much ground when she suddenly and swiftly pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes, pushing it back. "It was a long five years, James. And it was a long five before that. The way you looked at me today - nobody has looked at me that way in almost twenty when they're all added up. Don't tell me I'm being dismissive. I didn't want this. I didn't ask for it. But in terms of the ripple effect, you are not going to convince me I had a lot to lose when it's stacked up next to everyone else left that I loved."

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[info]sgt_barnesjb
2019-05-03 01:08 pm UTC (link)
"And you're acting like it doesn't matter!" Bucky snapped. "You're so busy thinking about what you had to lose that you're not thinking about the rest of us and what it meant that we lost by losing you!" God, he wanted to hold her shoulders and get in her face and start shouting you matter at her. "Did you forget that Steve needs you too? That I-- That everyone needs you? You can think you did the right thing all you want but don't think the rest of us aren't pissed and fucking broken from losing you. Goddammit. The price was too high, Natalia. It was too high for anyone to have to pay. You or Barton. Your lives aren't worth less than anyone of us. And I can fucking promise you all of us would've said the same thing."

Bucky was, and had been, a man of few words over the last handful of years. He kept to himself mostly, especially when emotions were involved. It was easier that way, it was better. Steve could usually pull a great deal out of him. Sometimes Sam or Shuri could get him to emote a little. But this? With her? It was the most he'd shown in a very, very long time.

"And if it works? If what you did, what everyone was planning to do works, we all come back and you're not there? Then what was the point?" It hit him that if he came back, and she was gone, they'd never have this. They'd never have gotten to have the better part of this conversation where he told her he remembered her. And that hit him hard right then. Right in the chest.

"I never got to tell you this. And I won't, if we all are returned to where we came from and can't find you if that plan works," he said. The anger was still there, but there was a brokenness in his tone, too. "I should've told you before. Somehow I still think you would've made the same choice, but you should've known."

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[info]hourglasss
2019-05-03 06:28 pm UTC (link)
"You got to tell me now," she said. Partly because it was true, and partly because this felt like safer waters to steer into. It was done, now, she couldn't fix it or take it back, for herself or anyone else, and this was not an argument either of them was going to be able to win. She had seen what happened in her own time when people who loved each other ended up in an unwinnable argument and neither one of them knew, entirely, how to roll over on their point.

Though to be fair - changing the direction of the conversation was not exactly the same as Natasha rolling over on her own point. It wasn't as though she expected Bucky to not pick on that, but he'd thrown her a lifeline even if he hadn't meant to, and she wanted to take it. Maybe more for herself than for him. A person did not expect that when she'd fallen to her death, it was a decision she was ever going to have to defend to anyone; she should probably give herself a break for not being entirely prepared to passionately argue her right to do what she wanted with her mortality.

"You've told me now. And now I know." She stepped forward, hesitantly - he'd backed away from her, but she extended a hand, stopping just short of settling it against his chest, in case he didn't want it or wouldn't accept it. "I don't know, James. I've gotten through most of my life by trying to live in what is instead of what if. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe there's some world out there where everything's fine and we worked it out and instead of sticking with Steve and Sam and Wanda, I hung it up and stuck around to help you farm your goats. We're in this one now, though. I don't dislike it here."

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[info]sgt_barnesjb
2019-05-03 07:01 pm UTC (link)
Bucky was never going to get over this. He was never going to get past the fact that she was standing there telling him that her life was worth less than his -- right? Because he was one of the people she'd sacrificed herself for to bring back. Trading lives was never okay. It was already done with in her time but it hadn't happened yet in his. And if they all ended up going back home with their memories intact of their time in Starklandia, well, he sure as hell was going to do whatever was necessary for him to stop her. For her to think she could tell him what she'd done, even if it was her choice, and for him to just accept it? That just wasn't going to happen and he highly doubted anyone else who knew her would just say 'wow, how great of you to do that, good job' and pat her on the back. And if anyone did? Bucky would punch them in the face.

As emotional as he'd been before, as she talked, stoicism hardened his features. He still felt so much anger inside of him. Anger for her having to be in a position to make such a choice, for actually making that choice, and for her not being most upset about having to make it. The fact that she seemed to think that no one else would have a strong reaction floored him, too. Not just from him, since she hadn't known until today that he remembered her, but from everyone else she knew.

If he was being honest, Bucky didn't dislike it here either. Steve was there, and safe. Natasha was there and safe. He'd met Clint and that was starting to get interesting and he genuinely liked the guy. Younger Steve was a fun person to be around too. Being here meant he wasn't dead, too, which was obviously a better alternative. So no, he didn't dislike it even though it was strange. He didn't flinch or move away when she started to touch him. In fact, he wished she had. She'd diverted from the argument, and he knew exactly what she was doing. It was taking her heat off of her if she focused on what was happening now instead of what she'd done back home. Bucky thought about calling her on it, but he'd laid it on pretty harshly already. She knew where he stood. Running it into the ground wasn't going to get anywhere.

"We're in this one now," he repeated the words and shook his head. "So are you of the belief that this place is another chance for those who've missed it to do things differently?"

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[info]hourglasss
2019-05-03 07:35 pm UTC (link)
"Jesus Christ, you are relentless. No wonder you and Steve get along so well, how else would you have ever tolerated him," she said, and she tried to laugh at the end of her sentence, but it came out a little choked. Her hand dropped the last few inches, settling lightly, still tentative, like she wasn't sure more pressure was welcome yet. His anger was for her as much as it was in equal parts at her; she knew that. But it had been a hell of a few days even before she'd arrived in Starklandia, and since she'd landed, it had just been one thing after the other.

Maybe she'd see if Carol wanted to get her drunk again. Though that was probably the bad kind of feeling the urge to drink, right? Less about the way it had been that first night and more about just wanting all the fucking feelings to press pause on themselves for awhile.

She let out a deep breath. It was shakier than she'd like it to be; he'd disarmed her too thoroughly, on too many fronts. She had never expected this scar to rip itself back open. "I don't know. I haven't really sat down and made a thorough assessment of any theories about what this is. I've been more focused on the people, the....settling. I suppose there's a lot of surface level warning signs I've just completely missed. Huge failing on the part of the guy that trained me, don't you think?"

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[info]sgt_barnesjb
2019-05-04 04:55 am UTC (link)
They weren't yelling anymore and that was probably for the best, but that didn't mean the feelings had gone away. Bucky was upset for a number of reasons. Mainly, because Natasha had given her life for something she wasn't even sure would work, and because she just seemed so okay with it. The idea of coming back and not seeing her there really shook Bucky to his core. She should be there. She deserved to be there. Bucky was powerless to stop her from doing it, too. He supposed he ought to be focusing on right now. She was there, she was alive, and he'd been able to tell her the truth. With that all being the case, he ought to be grateful. And he was. He was immensely grateful. But he was still angry with her and he didn't know if that was ever going to go away.

He was pushing it down right now, beneath the surface, because she wasn't budging on her position and neither was he. Natasha was right; he and Steve were cut from the same cloth in a lot of ways. Stubbornness was a big one.

"Sounds to me like that guy must not have have known what he was doing," he said, knowing full well it had been him.

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[info]hourglasss
2019-05-04 10:33 am UTC (link)
"He had his moments. I'd give him extra style points," she said. Maybe she was only doing the same thing she'd done to Tony, really; trying to deflect more than she should and deny him whatever he wanted to feel about it. She didn't want to do that. But still, she'd prefer to find a halfway point between James feeling as though he'd been understood and Natasha not snarling herself deeper into an argument that would always be unwinnable.

"I thought about this. A lot of times, over the years," she admitted. If it had been further away in the last five, it had never - left, entirely. When she was counting up the list of grievances in the wee hours, this one never fell from the list, not all the way. This moment here, and the fact that she had never hate it, that he'd slipped through her fingers the way half the world had. "I'm not - saying that to try and get out of trouble, or back on your good side. I'm saying it because it's true. I thought so many times about what I'd say if you ever..."

The biggest what if she'd ever tried to put to rest. Back in some other world, they had run out of chances.

Here, she could feel his hand under her heart. "That's a good feeling," she said. Soft. "James. I'm grateful, too. Can we let that be enough?"

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[info]sgt_barnesjb
2019-05-04 12:22 pm UTC (link)
Could it be enough? Could he look at this as a gift? A chance to let themselves explore what had been there and what might still be? They weren't in dire circumstances here. They weren't going to be punished or killed for being human with each other now. They'd always had to treat each moment they shared as potentially their last and that wasn't fair. It wasn't fair for two people who'd loved as deeply as they did. She'd given him the gift of rediscovering his humanity and helped him feel things again. Ultimately that had been their downfall because he couldn't rein it in when faced with the thought she might be killed. But he hadn't been able to stop himself even knowing it might mean his death. So with that realization, maybe he understood why she did what she did. Maybe.

He hated it though, and he was still angry.

"You still think of me?" He asked, softer still. As mad as he was, he couldn't help but be curious. "Of what we could've been?" Bucky lifted a hand to cup her cheek. Looking down at her, he saw his Natalia and his heart both broke and felt full at the same time. This was why he'd kept his memories to himself. It was so much, so powerful. He wondered if it'd dulled for her since she had more time to let it go. But her words gave him hope, and hope was a little bit terrifying. "Lisichka, it's enough." Unable to help it, he leaned down and kissed her.

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[info]hourglasss
2019-05-04 11:11 pm UTC (link)
"Of course I still think of you," she said, with a kind of indignation that came out in both her voice and the flush of color at her collarbone. Such an annoying tell and one that she'd never been able to eradicate; Natasha could keep the world's most neutrally stone-solid poker face, but when she was indignant, her skin would always flush with it just along her collarbone, though at least it would never spread too much higher. Another thing she used to be better at controlling but hadn't had a lot of call to hide over the last few years.

But surely he couldn't think he was the only one who wondered what they could have been. What it would have been like if they'd met in some easier world, or if he'd remembered sooner, or if she had ever given him an opening to tell her that he did, if if if if. So many things dulled around the edges, but love was never something that put up a fight about having the rust removed from it.

And then James Barnes was kissing her.

James Barnes was kissing her, even though she was so much older now than when they'd met and there were lines around her eyes that had never been there before. James Barnes was kissing her even though she had jumped from a cliff to save the only other person she'd loved with no intention of survival. James Barnes was kissing her even though the world had ended and she had watched it claim him as one of its casualties. James Barnes was kissing her even though he'd shot her through the gut and left her to bleed out in the dirt. James Barnes was kissing her even though she had seen him with the metal bite between his teeth and his tortured eyes fixed on hers as though he was trying to scream I won't forget, I will not, come find me even as though both knew it was useless, he would, he would, she wouldn't.

Her fingers twisted and curled in his shirt, gripping the fabric so hard that she was almost surprised that it didn't tear; as it was, it would be hopelessly loosened and wrinkled later. How could she have done anything but fall into it, let it be what it was, it was a kiss that she did not realize she had spent twenty years of her life waiting for him to come back and claim. Should she feel guilty? Did she feel guilty? Was it a dead woman's right to maybe be a little selfish about things like this?

She didn't know, but when she finally had to draw back from his mouth, her eyes were wet. Again. The overspill of emotion was going to get so old, and she stroked her hands against his chest, once. "I remember that," she told him. If not the first person she had ever kissed, he was the first person she had ever kissed because she had wanted to kiss him, but he knew that. The idea of kissing as its own pleasure, that had been something she'd learned from him.

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[info]sgt_barnesjb
2019-05-06 07:50 pm UTC (link)
Bucky hadn't come to meet her with the intention to kiss her. There was a lot that they needed to discuss. His memories, what she knew of her present and his future, and anything else that came along with those memories of theirs. He hadn't gone to those woods with any sort of preconceived notions or expectations. He would've been lying if he said there weren't feelings in his heart on the matter, and now that they were bringing all of it up and he was finally able to actually feel those feelings rather than just remember them it was damn near impossible not to become overwhelmed and consumed by all of it. At first he'd thought maybe his feelings were as they were because they were still so fresh. But, the longer he stood there with her Bucky didn't think it would've mattered if it'd been ten days or ten years. He still would've felt as he did right now, in this moment, standing there with her.

Bucky knew one of two things would happen. Either she was going to kiss him back, which was what he'd hoped for, or she was going to shove him off and maybe punch him in the face or knee him where it counted. The way she was clutching at his shirt and responding to him had his hopes fulfilled, and the realization that he was kissing her outside in the middle of the day hit him hard. They weren't hiding. They weren't flaunting it by any means, but it was the first time they'd shared a kiss that didn't have impending, looming danger surrounding it.

And it felt amazing.

"Me too," he said softly. Unable to help it, he pulled her into another embrace. The desperation was still there; after learning her fate how could it not be? "I'm still pissed off," he added, but didn't let her go. He pressed a kiss to her hair, her temple. "Can't you tell?"

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[info]hourglasss
2019-05-07 07:16 am UTC (link)
"Oh, that came shining through. Angriest kiss of my life," she assured him. Still just the right height for her to be able to tuck her face into the crook of his shoulder as he bent his to her hair. She remembered this, too, the ease in it, the way they were holding onto each other down to the placement of his arms, her hands: if she had closed her eyes and ignored the fact that they were in the sunlight, she would have thought she'd slipped sideways into some other time entirely. Woken up in the past, maybe, and she'd find it was only a few weeks before she'd lose him and it would set off the chain of events that would turn her into the person who could take the choice Clint offered when he brought her before SHIELD.

She breathed in, a shaking, shuddering breath, and mouthed along his shoulder for a moment, her hands tightening on him. More people had kissed her since she'd arrived here than had in the last several years of her life, which was - another sobering thought, a bit, on the back of wondering if there should be guilt and enough to pull her up even just a little, but really, how could she have predicted this as an additive into an already new situation?

At the moment, though, there was nothing to do but let it lie. It would be a dead woman's right to be selfish about it, for the both of them: this was theirs, this kiss in the sunlight and his face in her hair, and whatever came next, this was a moment they both deserved to breathe in, exactly as it was. Everything else could be what happened after: this would be this.

"Try not to be too pissed off at me," she murmured. "The smile's newer than the scowl. I'd like to have a little more experience with it."

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