InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "You put your right foot in!"

mr. bucket; buckets of fun (sgt_barnesjb) wrote in snapthread,
@ 2019-05-21 09:31:00

Entry tags:

!partner thread, bucky barnes (mcu), natasha romanoff (mcu)

WHO: Bucky Barnes (MCU) and Natasha Romanoff (MCU)
WHAT: In depth talking about difficult things
WHERE: By the lake
WHEN: Evening, around sunset
RATING: TBD but probably not high?

Venturing out after being a shut in for so many days was still a daunting task. The ache in his chest was still very prominent; emotional healing wasn't something the serum helped to speed up. Bucky didn't do well with that and as a result all he'd wanted to do was stay hidden away in his house. Natasha and Clint had sort of put a stop to that when they came over with cake, and that had gotten him moving and functioning again. He was showering, eating, keeping up with his clothing. In other words, going through the motions. He was in survival mode, which was better than no mode at all as he'd been before they came to check on him. But it wasn't really living. Bucky wasn't going to be able to do that until he really faced what happened with Steve so he could put it behind him and move forward. That was what he'd said he needed to do, and what he knew he needed to do, but it was hard.

Hard, but maybe not impossible. One of the reasons he and Steve had finally faced each other with the truth of what was going on in their hearts was because they both had developed feelings for other people. In Bucky's case, two people. To complicate it a little more, Bucky knew that Natasha and Clint had feelings for each other too. It was what it was. None of them had really kept it a secret from each other. He and Clint were still kind of feeling each other out, and Bucky was really wanting to keep that going and see what happened. But he also knew that his feelings for Natasha were already there, left over from years ago, and he wanted her to know that. But to do that, she needed to know everything and that wasn't an easy conversation to have. He didn't put any expectations on what would come of it. In fact, he didn't think anything would. She cared about him, they shared a pretty intense past, but he also knew that she'd found Clint here, and if that was what she wanted and what he wanted, then he wanted he wanted it for them both. He just thought that, after spending so much time not talking about his feelings with Steve and how that ended up, that he needed to not let history repeat itself.

They'd agreed to meet by the lake, so Bucky left his house and walked to the lake. She was already there, near the water, and for a moment he just stood there and looked at her. It was so different, seeing her this way, outside. She took his breath away. His heart was still broken, not yet mended but that didn't mean a good part of it didn't belong to her. Bucky approached her then, and tucked a bit of his hair behind his ear.

"It's still weird," he said. "To talk to you outside."

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hourglasss
2019-05-21 10:44 pm UTC (link)

It was almost exactly a month from her arrival in Starklandia, and in the last few days, Natasha had been....she wasn't sure what the word for it was, really. Overly reflective? Taking inventory? A month wasn't very much time at all, when you got right down to it; a month was a span of time that could pass in the blink of an eye, how often was that a thing people said? I can't believe it's June already. Who gave October permission to start? Still: it was thirty more days than she had expected to live. Something had bought her thirty more days - if a person came to the end of their life, what wouldn't they do for the promise of thirty extra days? How would they spend them?

And all things considered - Natasha thought she'd spent them well. She'd told the people she loved that she loved them. She'd found some kind of work to keep her busy, even if it wasn't quite perfect. She'd tried to make some new friends. Nothing had felt like a risk anymore, but in the place she'd come from, they had all been impossible risks and here she'd been able to reap the rewards. Most of all, she'd mended some old wounds - though the converse was that maybe she had opened some new ones, in other people and in herself, but maybe that was just part of the calculus of being alive. Everyone left at least a little bit of damage behind them.

She had nightmares. She hated that she had nightmares and that it was always the same one, hated that it made her feel stupid and weak and a little bit sullen, which was probably why she'd only brought it up to Carol. But again, a little residual trauma seemed like a reasonable price to pay, for those thirty days.

James and all the rest of this was still another one of those wounds to address, and it was a little harder to know where to begin: some parts of it were so old, and some parts of it were so fresh. Where did she start scraping out and where did she start cauterizing? When he met her at the lake, she was twisting her necklace around in her fingers, staring at the water in a way that made her feel sort of like a character from a soap opera, but it was calming, the way the sun was sinking into it. And she had a smile for him, when she turned. A very real one.

"Thanks for doing it anyway," she said, though she knew he didn't mean it was uncomfortable. Just weird. "I just - I don't want to slink around in dark corners anymore." She tugged at the chain once more, then told herself to stop fidgeting, dropping it back down around her neck. "Do you want to go first, or should I?"

They may as well cut to the chase. They could do that, with each other.

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sgt_barnesjb
2019-05-21 10:58 pm UTC (link)

That was just it, wasn't it? Where did they even begin with all of this? Where did they start? Where did he start? There was a lot to say, and a lot of it revolved around things that were going to cut through wounds that were only just now starting to begin to heal. But despite that, Bucky had to tell her everything, especially about his conversation with Steve. Some of it, yes, he wanted to keep just between him and Steve but he knew that if he was going to be honest with her about how he felt about her, he had to be forthcoming about everything revolving around Steve. Whatever transpired, she deserved to know. That was the bottom line.

Even though he didn't know exactly what it was she had to tell him, Bucky was aware enough to know that she had things on her mind, likely weighing on her heart too. It'd been a long time since he'd tapped into the bond they shared, but that didn't mean it wasn't still there. It didn't mean he didn't still know her, even if she'd changed since those days.

It was a welcome change, being out in the open. Anyone else in town could see them if they were nearby, and Bucky didn't mind it. While he didn't necessarily want anyone else to hear this conversation, he doubted anyone would interrupt them. His lips tugged into a slight smirk when she asked the question so boldly. That was Natalia -- Natasha -- she'd always be Natalia to him, just as he knew he'd always be James to her.

Bucky released a shaky breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and looked down at the ground, then up again to meet her eyes. "I think you should, and you should know that whatever you say isn't going to change what I have to say after."

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hourglasss
2019-05-22 12:28 am UTC (link)

Well, that was ominous. Really meant this thing could go one of two ways, though Natasha could wage a guess, after the scene that she and Clint had walked in on when they'd come to pry him off his back porch and nudge him back out into the land of the living. Still, it meant James was coming into this with a targeted list of specific points he wanted to hit, and Natasha could appreciate a targeted list. He looked - upset, though. He looked upset, too, that deep breath, the way he'd looked away from her eyes, and she stretched out a hand to touch the side of his face, soft, reassuring, but only for a moment. She didn't linger over it; she didn't like to make promises in advance.

He'd asked her to go first, and she'd come here to be honest.

"All right," she agreed. Hers was fairly straightforward, anyway, it was just the one thing, and she thought - she imagined, anyway, that it may not come as too much of a surprise. She and Clint had hardly been slinking around in dark corners about it. If anything, they'd been overly open. Braggy, even, was the term Natasha had used when they had discussed it, and maybe it would tamp down a little so they didn't end up annoying the holy hell out of all the rest of their friends and fellow citizens, but - she was entitled to that, wasn't she? Weren't they both?

She had never been able to show it before. With anyone. Her whole life. It was addictive.

"I told you when I showed up here, that I loved Clint," she said, because whatever James's news was - and maybe, well, maybe there was a chance he'd thought about it and had decided he'd like to leave her in the past, maybe that was what he didn't want her to change his mind about. "I thought at first that maybe he was just - indulging me, or he missed his own version of me, or he felt guilty for the fact that where you and I come from, it wasn't returned. Lots of things. I thought it would settle into something more like - what I'm familiar with, that it would burn out pretty quickly. But I think." She bit the inside of her cheek.

It was a strange thing to say to James. It was a harder thing to say out loud, to herself, because believing it meant there would something to lose, now. "I think he means it when he says he loves me," she said. "I think we might - we might both be serious, about each other. I wanted to be upfront about that."

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sgt_barnesjb
2019-05-22 01:18 pm UTC (link)

Of course he'd known about Clint. What he didn't know was that things had progressed further than the sort of conversation they had on the net where they kinda put some of it out there and left things open ended on everyone's part. That was the best way to do it, he'd thought at the time and still held that belief now. It allowed them all to feel what they needed to feel and figure out what to do about it. From the sounds of it, she and Clint had begun to figure it out.

The feelings that begun to resonate in his broken heart actually surprised him a bit. Bucky felt a bit of longing, absolutely. That longing could've spiraled downward hard and fast, into him becoming distraught over missing out on telling not just one but two people how he felt. The thought did occur to him, but he didn't resent them for that. If anything, it was just on him. He'd stewed around on this whole situation with Steve for so long that it'd prevented him from exploring something to the fullest that could've been amazing. But that was on him, and he could accept that no matter how much it hurt.

Beyond that? He felt a sense of happiness. Natasha and Clint were both amazing people. People he cared about deeply and held in such high regard, who he had feelings for himself. His feelings, he knew, were genuine. With that being the case, how could he be anything but happy for them? He knew Natasha better, knew where she came from and what she'd been through. Of course she deserved to be happy. And Clint was just fantastic. Bucky wanted it for him, too. He didn't want to go rage punch him for stealing Natasha. It wasn't even like that. She wasn't an object for them to compete over or fight each other to win. They were both people he adored.

Bucky lifted his human hand and passed his fingers slowly through her hair, from red to blonde, until he reached her shoulder and let his hand gently rest there. "Good," he said. "I want that, for both of you. You deserve that, so much."

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hourglasss
2019-05-22 03:53 pm UTC (link)

Natasha nodded once, soundlessly. It was - gracious. It was, it was such a moment of grace, and there were so many things she wanted to say. Not that she was sorry, never that: she was in love, she loved someone who loved her back, and there was nothing to be sorry for. But she knew what it was to stand where he was standing. She knew what it was to love someone enough to be happy for them and have that happiness coexist alongside a thousand other things, and what it was to have to figure out a way to make all of them combine into something you could live with. He looked peaceful, though, like maybe for him, it wasn't a thousand other things. More at peace with it than she'd ever been able to manage, and maybe that was the difference. Maybe there was more love and understanding in James Barnes than she'd found in herself; that made a certain kind of sense.

"Thank you," she said, softly. What else was there to say? "It's new, but it's...I want him very much." Which was as close as someone like Natasha could get to flowery, that quiet very much the equivalent of a spill of flowers from someone more inclined to poetry.

She relaxed her shoulders, tried to rein back on the softness in her face. He'd needed her to come talk to him for his own reasons, she suspected; they didn't need to dwell here on hers, she didn't have to go into details of when and where and why and what. She'd been honest. It wasn't a difficult thing to be honest about, even for Natasha. It didn't cancel out the past, the softness and years of ache in the way she felt, for James, but it was real with Clint, now, it wasn't formless and undefined, and she wanted to be absolutely clear. "Well - that was all I had," she said, her hands loose at her sides. "I suspect your thing is a little longer. Do you want to - walk? Sit?"

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sgt_barnesjb
2019-05-22 06:30 pm UTC (link)

What Bucky wanted to make sure he expressed to her that day -- among many other things -- was that during his time of hiding away before she and Clint came to find him, was that he was thinking about a lot. He figured she probably knew he'd been thinking about Steve, and she wasn't entirely wrong. Yes, he'd thought a lot about Steve, but probably not in the way anyone who knew their history would think. He wasn't just depressed over them not being together. It went far deeper than that and that was why he needed to figure out how to explain to her, because that would lead into everything else he'd been thinking and feeling as a result.

Bucky let his hand slid down her arm and laced their fingers, which he hoped was okay. "Let's take a walk," he said. The movement might make it easier to talk. Moving forward, not standing still, wasn't that what he was trying to do anyway? Why not do it literally, too?

"Steve came over, as you know, after he saw us talking on the net," he said after they'd taken a few paces. "And he was angry, about us, about why I didn't tell him immediately once I remembered our relationship. I told him I was still trying to sort through it myself, and that I'd wanted to talk to you first but it hadn't felt like there was time given the circumstances we were in. I'm not saying I was right, because the more I've been thinking about it I should have told you soon after I remembered regardless of the outcome. I'm sorry for that." He paused, not wanting to get of the line of thought he had going because it was hard enough as it was to talk about it.

"I told him about us, about how we met," he went on to say. "About how we awakened things in each other and how we fell in love. And what it cost us in the end, how they programmed me specifically to try to kill you whenever I saw you. All of it. I don't think he received it very well." That was putting it lightly. They'd gotten into a shouting match neither man had ever engaged in with each other before. They'd both said things out of anger, though Bucky really was mostly trying to convey to Steve that he couldn't have it both ways -- he couldn't yell at Bucky for keeping his past relationship with Natalia private and then continue to not explain to him what was going on with him and Stark -- which, honestly, he never did get any clarification about when all was said and done. It just didn't work that way.

"It brought up a lot of feelings to the surface we've purposely avoided for reasons that shouldn't have been important and were really just excuses out of being afraid," he said. "Steve kissed me, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't kiss him back." He set his jaw; even if he knew this was how things had to be, it didn't make it easy. "I've loved him since we were kids. It started off as me loving him as someone I wanted to protect, and then more like a brother. But when we got older, it changed. I was in love with him; unconditionally, romantically, with everything in me. And I need you to know that, because it was a huge part of me and my life."

Bucky looked out at the water for a moment. He'd never said it out loud before, that he was in love with Steve. He and Steve, ironically during an argument that was rooted in the fact that they'd been in love with each other, still never actually said it. "It's always going to be part of me, but I know that I have to let it go. I'm not in love with him anymore and that was a painful, difficult realization to have, but I've accepted it, and I know it's the truth. I still love Steve. I'm always going to love Steve. It's just changed. I'm not in love with him anymore. I don't know when it changed, but it did. I just didn't know how to understand that because let's face it, I'm still a work in progress after everything."

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sgt_barnesjb
2019-05-22 06:30 pm UTC (link)

He paused, turned to look at her. "I need you to know all of this because I need you to understand that I've been thinking about it since before he and I even talked. I've been thinking about it since I woke up in Wakanda, healed and remembering everything. And it hit home even harder when you got here. I spent a whole lifetime afraid of getting hurt, afraid of hurting someone else, afraid of changing everything by just being honest about what's in my heart. And it broke me. I can't do that anymore. History can't repeat itself. I can't do that with you. You deserve to know the truth. You deserve to know how deeply and truly I'm in love with you. Whatever happens, whatever it changes, you deserve to know how loved you are."

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hourglasss
2019-05-23 12:14 am UTC (link)

Well, she hadn't been wrong. His thing was longer.

Natasha went quiet for a moment. Not an angry silence, or a vindictive one, just...a processing silence. There were a lot of parts to this, there were so many things to unpack, and it mattered that she do it carefully. She didn't want to say the wrong thing, muddle her way through it, clumsily press against a bruise that had already burst to the surface. It couldn't have been easy - not only the things he had to tell her themselves, but this much talking at all, from someone that she knew always preferred action, preferred showing to telling as an easier way to express himself. It made something ache inside, a little, the thought that he'd been willing to split himself open this much for her. She wanted to show the same kind of care in return.

"We're all a work in progress, James," she said, finally a little more sure. And she smiled, a little. Something sad in it, but mostly - accepting. A lot of this wasn't news. "And some of that - not to deny you the absolute courage it took to say all these things, of course, but some of this, I already knew. I was there when he saw you again, after all those years. I saw what he was willing to give up and who he would put aside when you were in danger. I saw the way he pulled into himself and never really crawled back out again, after you - the Snap. And I knew you felt... I knew you remembered him. In DC, he was clear about it, that he was the one thing you remembered. You saw him and it cracked what they did to you in half. It made sense, you know, I'm not too bad at figuring things like this out. It just wasn't any of my business to bring it up."

Besides, she'd worn her heart around her neck for years. She was still wearing it. Be a pretty poor showing if she'd begrudge him loving someone else before her, and then tangled up along with her.

The rest of it, though. That was the part that was hard to take, that was what made the rest of it click into alignment. She had told Steve that she had died, and she hadn't - heard from him, not since he and James had talked. She hadn't expected that, but it made sense, now. Perfect sense, and it made her shoulders slump, a little. You deserve to know how loved you are. "You know - well, of course you know, you were there. They designed girls like me to be disposable. I don't think that ever really bothered me, until DC - until we saw you again, but I think maybe up to some point, you can only do so much about the thing you've been built to be. I think I've been good at that. I think I'm very good at filling in for whoever it is a person wishes they could be standing next to, on the bad days. I probably should have known eventually....eventually Steve would realize that's what I really was. A very good placeholder."

She slid her hand out of his, after a second. It wasn't his fault. He'd said something lovely, there, especially at the end, but in the moment, she didn't want to be touched, and she tucked them both into her pockets. Breathing with it. "Thank you," she said, so quietly. "Thank you for saying that you and I - that it was real." So much of it wasn't, in the end, was it? So much of it was just hope and fantasy and desperation to convince herself that she mattered somewhere, to someone, to know that at least once she had been prioritized, even if it had only been once. Before now, anyway, she amended, out of fairness to Clint.

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sgt_barnesjb
2019-05-23 12:58 am UTC (link)

Bucky didn't expect her to leap into his arms and tell him she loved him too. He didn't expect her to tell him everything was going to be okay. He didn't expect anything. That was exactly why he wanted her to go first. He needed her to know that no matter what she had to say, that it wasn't going to change what he had to say to her. Because he knew, or at least, he had a very strong suspicion, that she was going to tell him more about how she felt about Clint and what had been going on between them. He needed her to realize that not only was he happy for her about that, but that it didn't change the fact that he still loved her. He still had those feelings for her regardless. Maybe it was selfish, because he certainly didn't want her to feel guilty for not returning those feelings. But part of him thought, maybe she did. They'd flirted a little, they'd kissed and that had made him feel a lot. But he he wasn't trying to compete with Clint. He'd never do that. He just needed to be honest. As he'd said, after everything with Steve, he couldn't go through that again.

Her drawing her hand away, it did make him wonder if maybe he'd just been selfish -- that he needed to talk to her about it but maybe she didn't want to hear it. Bucky wasn't the greatest at any of this. Neither of them were.

"Of course it was real," he said, because even if nothing came from his confession, she needed to know that was the truth. "It was more real than anything I've ever felt." And he could say that, because even though he had real feelings for Steve, they'd never come to fruition. "It still is, Natalia," he said. "I know it's been longer for you, I know you love someone else. I'm not.. I don't.. We can leave this conversation here and I won't bring it up again if you don't want me to. But for me, it's still real. What I feel for you, what I've always felt for you. It's real." This was taking a lot out of him. Like she'd said, Bucky was more of an 'actions speak louder' type of person, but he didn't think he could take action here. Not right now, anyway.

"And it's not -- I'm not just saying this because I can't be with Steve. That I need you to know is the absolute truth. I've been wanting to talk to you about it for a year, I've just made excuses that don't mean shit in the long run and I've been beating myself up over ever since you got here," he said. "And I don't expect anything, you don't even have to say anything about it if you don't want to. But I love you. I do, so much."

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hourglasss
2019-05-23 04:14 am UTC (link)

Her face wavered, then. Wobbled with something she didn't know how to define. That had become a thing in the last five years, too; if she could hold a neutral face when she needed to, when it was business, work, jobs, life, death, she'd fallen out of practice at being able to do it - like this. When it was something personal. When it was someone she loved standing raw and bleeding in front of her and it would have been the absolute height of dishonor to give them nothing back but neutrality. His words had landed. His tone landed, the open earnestness in it, the insistence that this was real, and true, that this was immutable fact. That this was not the Winter Soldier reaching through time to grab onto Natalia Romanova: this was Bucky Barnes, wholly himself, and his love was for Natasha Romanoff and not some ghost who lurked under her skin.

"Can we - ?" she said, and she gestured to the sand, because she wanted to sit, now, walking and thinking at the same time was too much. And when he followed her, after a moment, she leaned her head against his shoulder. It seemed less loaded than holding his hand, she'd needed that beat after learning why, exactly, Steve had gone cold on her, but - well, she was allowed to change her mind, she thought. She was allowed to want to be next to him while they unknotted this rope. "You don't have to say anything, how very you, James. Of course I'll say something. I would never leave you in this alone."

She drew circles in the sand with her other hand, her fingertips trailing out little patterns. "It would have been a lovely year, wouldn't it?" she said, so wistfully - not to hurt, but God, God, she had thought about it, too. "I would have made the absolute worst farmer's wife, I wouldn't have gone near your goats, it would have taken about two days before I'd have begged Okoye to - I don't know, put in a good word so I could have interned for Shuri, maybe, but I thought about that, every now and then, when I wasn't torturing myself about plenty of other things."

Natasha lifted her head to look at him, shoulder still pressed tightly to his. "Of course I love you too, James, that's not a question. It shouldn't be, at least. You aren't - are you kidding me, of course after all these years I'd still... you were the first real thing in my life, too. Until now - Jesus, James, until I showed up here, no one but you did ever love me again. You and I were the standard everything else was held up against. I carried you with me. Odessa - after Odessa, when I woke up in the hospital, they had to sedate me after I came out of surgery, because when I remembered who shot me, I tore out the IV and pushed myself out of the hospital bed to see if the trail hadn't gone cold yet. I couldn't even walk yet. I ripped all my stitches back open, they had to operate twice. Clint screamed at me for almost an hour the next time I woke up."

She dug her other hand into the sand, deep, like her fingers just - needed to clench around something, right then. "A few years ago, I was ready to settle for a friend. For companionship, and kindness, and someone who maybe wouldn't touch me all that often just so I wouldn't have to - be so fucking alone all the time. You - when I look at you, I burn with it. But - Clint. It's like that with Clint, too, he means everything, and - it makes me feel like a monster, James, it does, it makes me feel like the most selfish being to walk the planet that I can hold that in me for more than one person at a time. I love you. And I love him. And I would cut my own hands off before I would reach for anyone, even you, if it would cause him a second of doubt, or hurt or pain, and I don't - I don't know how else I can - I don't want to hurt you, either, do you know that? Please know that."

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sgt_barnesjb
2019-05-23 01:25 pm UTC (link)

Not many people could understand the weight and gravity of the words 'I love you' in the way that Bucky and Natasha said them to each other unless they were in the same sort of situation the two of them had been in when they fell in love. They hadn't meant to, obviously. Neither was exactly in a position to even feel emotions, let alone the strongest of all in love itself. They'd been drawn to each other, curiosity turning into something that was agonizingly irresistible and undeniable. Those feelings culminated into a love that grew between them under the watchful eye of those who owned them at the time. And it wasn't the sort of love that was fleeting and unstable. To say you loved someone was one thing. To say you loved someone knowing and truly believing you'd one day die for it and still continue to act on that love was another.

That was what they'd meant to each other in the Red Room. Every time they stole moments in locked closets and when he would come to her room at night, every time they would spar even in front of those who'd just as soon put a bullet between their eyes and still let their gazes linger a little too long, they still did it even knowing they could die as a result.

And it was fucking worth it. Loving her had always been worth it.

What ended up happening was arguably a fate worse than death, and though they ought to have really considered something like that was possible, they'd been so convinced they were knocking at Death's door whenever they were making love that it never occurred to them that a far worse punishment was in store for them when they finally were caught. Of course, though; it made the most sense. HYDRA would never kill off their prized weapon in the Winter Soldier. Though they'd been creating more Winter Soldiers, none of them were perfected the way James Barnes had been. They wouldn't risk wasting him. And her? For her it was a lesson learned and paid for the hard way. Forcing her to watch while they forcibly put him through the brutal, violent reprogramming of his mind, burying his memories of her under a vicious trigger to murder her upon sight should they ever come in contact again -- yes, Bucky would've preferred the bullet between his eyes.

But then, if that had happened, he wouldn't have been able to tell her everything now. And she never would've gotten a second chance to love, with Clint. And so for that, maybe, he guessed he ought to just be grateful.

Odessa was a painful memory. He still felt horrible, tremendous guilt about it. He'd looked her right in the eye and shot her. But the one thing about it that made him wonder if maybe -- maybe -- there had been a flaw in HYDRA's programming was that he'd not made a kill shot on her. The Winter Soldier wasn't exactly known for missing, and definitely not for mercy. He'd been programmed to kill her, and he hadn't. Did it mean anything? Maybe it didn't matter, but sometimes it was little glimmers of hope like that that let Bucky sleep at night, or eased some of the crippling guilt he carried from having caused so much death and destruction for half a century.

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sgt_barnesjb
2019-05-23 01:26 pm UTC (link)

"I know, lisichka," he said after she'd assured him she never wanted him hurt. The warmth and weight of her leaning into him was a comfort he embraced even though he was sitting perfectly still. "And if that's all this can ever be, know I'm forever grateful to have your love as it is. I'd never, ever ask you to compromise what you have with him. I wouldn't do that to him, either." Bucky had told her in so many words that he had come to care a great deal for Clint, more than a little bit. He felt a connection to him that he was still trying to work out and maybe he needed to stop that, too, since he knew Clint was in love with her. Clint had been the wrong person to try to fall on his own arrow to take himself out of the equation. Bucky was the one who needed to tap out.

"I care about him too," he said. "You know that. I need to tell him, right? He should know?" Because it was possible that maybe it'd be better for Clint if he didn't. They'd only kind of started feeling each other out before Natasha came to town and though they'd really hit it off and he felt a connection there, they'd not acted on it or done more beyond some innocent flirting and just kind of being there. They could call it a day and still get away with it, only having that 'what if' feeling creep up every now and then.

He looked at her, and raised his hand to lightly touch and hold the arrow charm on her neck. "Or maybe I should get one of these, too." To that, he smiled a little.

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hourglasss
2019-05-24 09:54 pm UTC (link)

Natasha laughed - a quick laugh, a small one, but a laugh nonetheless as his fingers circled the arrow that lay in the hollow of her throat. If anyone else had touched it, it would have felt like a trespass, like something that had always belonged so entirely to Clint. She knew the affect it had on him the moment his eyes had landed on it, the way he'd kept his thumb over the imprint it had left in her skin, the way he liked to kiss her just beneath it. It should have been off limits, but James's hand on it - that made sense, to her. That seemed right. It wasn't a surprise, somehow, either that he would want to touch it or that it would not upset her, when he did.

"Yes. He should know," she said, complete agreement on that, because a person ought to have all the information. Because if she was done carrying her private grief and pain and longings around with her, she would never ask anyone to do the same thing. Not now; it had taken dying for her to learn that it was worth nothing, that silence, that festering, that ache. James cared for him, and Clint should be aware.

She wondered, for a moment, just one fleeting moment, if it would be enough to change Clint's mind, and then she put it aside. He loved her, she was sure enough of that, but if it would, it would. Neither of them would ever say it, but in a way, Natasha was the one who had intruded, here. Who had burst in from her own world - not by her own choice, but still - and as a result, she had burst into their lives at the exact moment that something might have happened with them. They deserved to be able to put that on the table, too.

"If there's one feeling in the world I can empathize with, it's being besotted with Clint Barton," she added, and curled her fingers around his wrist, still tangled up in her chain. "I've lived a lot of years knowing what it's like to never - be able to tell him. I wouldn't wish that onto anyone, James." She squeezed his wrist. "And if he feels the same, if that's a chance he wants, too, don't - don't deprive yourselves of each other by using me as an excuse. Promise me that, okay?" He'd been - so gracious here, he'd been the bigger person. She could offer him the same. It would be hard. Impossibly hard, maybe, but she had done it before. She'd be able to do it again. "Promise it."

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sgt_barnesjb
2019-05-24 10:45 pm UTC (link)

Him promising her wasn't going to make a whole lot of a difference, and Bucky knew that. He knew, even after getting the confirmation from Natasha that he should tell Clint how he felt, it wouldn't change anything. Bucky knew Clint was in love with her, and if he knew Clint the way he truly believed he did, that wasn't something Clint would just say because he was in lust with her or because he could just say it and not really mean it. They were alike in that sense. And he'd be lying if he said that didn't hurt. Bucky was being honest when he said he was happy for them. He was, and always would be. But he was still hurting inside too. He didn't hold either of them responsible for it, just as he hadn't blamed Steve for them closing the door on the idea of them ever acting on what once had been. There was no sense in that. You couldn't help how you felt about people. Emotions weren't something to be controlled. Bucky felt especially strong about that after having been forced not to feel anything at all for so long.

But it did hurt; knowing that even though Natasha loved him, it wasn't enough. Even though Clint might feel the same way he did, it wasn't enough. It hadn't been enough with Steve, either. How could he not feel inadequate? Would it have changed anything if he'd been brave enough to tell her the truth in Wakanda? Or if he'd told Clint he wanted to maybe act more on those flirtations before she'd arrived? Probably not. The sad thing is, he wouldn't ever know the answers to those questions, and he wasn't going to even bother asking. He had to accept what was, and hope that like with Steve, the pain was going to lessen in time.

"I promise," he said. He lifted his metal hand and passed it through her hair. "But please don't worry about that, okay? It isn't going to be an issue." He let both of his hands drop and stepped back. "And please don't worry about me, if after I tell him you don't see me for a bit. I'm just going to need some time, okay?"

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hourglasss
2019-05-26 05:44 pm UTC (link)

"Time. Of course," Natasha echoed. It made absolute sense. Even if you still wanted someone in your life, after a conversation like this - where old wounds and far-reaching longings were laid bare on both sides and still nothing was going to come of it, of course you would need time to put it side and try to move into the next phase. No matter how much she hated the thought of distance when they'd only just found each other again. For the life of her, she could not imagine what friendship with James Barnes might look like. She couldn't imagine a time when she wouldn't feel this much, when she looked at him. This kind of powerful attraction, for one thing, but also this - this indefinable but unquestionable sensation of mine that she had always felt, whenever she looked at him.

But she had learned how to bottle that. Hadn't she? Since he'd emerged on a highway in DC with his focus aimed at her, at Steve, at Sam - she had learned how to give the appearance that this was a man who meant nothing more to her than what he meant to Steve, instead of the first thing she had ever found herself capable of loving.

She wanted to touch him. She wanted to run her hands through his hair, pull him close, pull his mouth to hers, beg for his forgiveness, explain that it wasn't as though she had moved on so much as it was that other things had moved in, that she wouldn't know how to love like this if it hadn't been for him in the first place -

But it would hurt him more. It would. If she crawled into his lap right now and let her body talk for her - the way they had always used to do whenever they fumbled for the words - it would only do more damage. It would only taste like the future she was telling him couldn't exist for them, even though they had finally arrived together somewhere it could have.

She wet her lips, trying to think of what to say that wouldn't only twist the knife. I'm sorry was all she could reach for, but even that - it would mean she was looking for him to absolve her from something he had to absorb the bulk of the hurt for, and that would be for her, too. "Could we sit here for awhile?" she asked, quietly. "Before time starts. Would that be all right?"

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sgt_barnesjb
2019-05-27 06:13 pm UTC (link)

Maybe he ought to ask her for some advice. Natasha had been forced to carry their history herself for years, before Bucky was able to remember it on his own. He didn't know how she did it. Time, he guessed? Time for her to bury it, to move on. They'd been in an impossible situation that they both knew was going to wind up blowing up in their faces but they also had been under the impression that they were going to die because of it. It'd been far worse. How had she managed?

Like her, he wanted to touch. Bucky wanted to hold her, run his fingers through her hair, kiss her, look into her eyes, all the things he used to do while loving her with every beat of his fucking heart. At least she knew the truth; at least he'd been able to have the chance to say it now, after everything, that he was in love with her. Bucky had to at least be grateful for that, even if it only brought with it immense sadness.

"Of course," he replied. "I was hoping you'd want that." Because if he could cling to just a few more minutes of having her near, where he could zone out and not think about the fact that this wasn't something he could have, then he'd take it.

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