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Tweak says, "Are you my mummy?"

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
2019-05-26 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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