InsaneJournal

He didn’t know what time it was. Really, that was half the point. It was somewhere between midnight and a few meandering, aimless laps around Mount Weather, and that was completely fine with Bucky.

Each step was closer to dawn. Then, he knew, he wouldn’t have to try to keep his mind occupied. There would be a job to do -- and people would be awake and conversational. Both would keep his thoughts from falling quiet and still. It worked, of course. He’d done it most nights.

The door to his left was one of the science labs. Bucky paused for a second, eyes closed as he leaned back against cool stone. One of the side effects of trying to stay awake was that, despite best intentions and focus, you still got that red-eyed drag of exhausted nipping at your heels. He raised his one arm and rubbed wearily at his face.

In that moment, he thought he could hear footfalls. He trained his hearing on the sound, not moving from the spot. It was only growing louder, which meant that someone else was up and lurking. He didn’t move. It could be a distraction. He’d take that.

Natasha Romanoff was not being sneaky for once. Her footfalls were deliberate as she made her way toward through the corridors or Mount Weather to find Bucky Barnes. The last few nights, she'd watched him under the guise of Systems Administrator to make sure that the computers for surveillance were working at peak potential. It was something she did from time to time, but where one or two nights might have sufficed, she made it a point to check them out for the last week.

Sure enough, he'd been out the past few nights. Not going anywhere in particular. Wandering. Natasha knew that walk well; she'd done it herself. The weeks and months after she defected to SHIELD had seen her going over her past, trying to make sense of it. She'd been tested for triggers, and couldn't stand the thought of what she'd done. It was always relief whenever Clint would show up with Chinese food and wanting to talk. That was how they'd become best friends; late night talks in which Natasha was vulnerable and unsure of herself and her place in the world.

We have no place in the world..

She could still hear the words in her head as if it was yesterday and not a whole dimension away. So yeah, she knew a little about what Bucky Barnes might be going through right now.

Around one final corner, she caught sight of him. She paused her footfalls for just an instant before deciding to make her way toward him. It was calculated, as most things Natasha did, but she wanted to give him time to duck out. If his body language said go away, she'd smile at him and keep walking.

Mount Weather’s lighting was always dim, but energy conservation meant it was even more sparse. Bucky’s eyes were more than adjusted to the darkness, and that made it easy to spot the approaching figure. The silhouette was hard to mistake given that he’d held down a fair amount of conversation with Natasha so far, but that glint of red hair was pure telltale.

He could turn and go. He could, and there was always that flighty instinct, but Bucky let gravity sway his mind. No, he could use a chat.

When she was in closer range, he gave a short nod. “You enjoying the stars, too?”

That was as close to an invitation as she could get this late at night. (Well, not completely, but we're talking about talking.) Natasha made a show of glancing upward, tucking her lips into the corner of her mouth with a laugh. At the same time, one shoulder rose and fell in a shrug. "I hadn't given it any notice."

She paused in the corridor in front of him. "Couldn't sleep?"

Bucky gave an easy shrug. “Insomnia,” he answered, feeling it wasn’t a complete lie. It hadn’t been so easy getting to sleep overseas during the war, either. There were images that played whenever you closed your eyes, but then you go up the next day and fought back against that. This? This was a forfeit. He didn’t know how to fight back against something that hadn’t even happened.

“And speak for yourself. Your boss over in technology running the group of you into the ground with night shifts or something?”

Natasha's response was a dry smirk, followed by, "Insomnia."

It wasn't a complete lie for her either. A good night's sleep was often out of her grasp, and sometimes, Rocket snored. The little guy wasn't so bad most days, though, but Natasha still wasn't used to living with so many people. "I was going to head down to the gym, see if I couldn't wear myself out."

He tilted his head just a few degrees to the side, noting her smirk and acknowledging it with a mild one of his own. “Long way around to go to the gym” Bucky tossed back, giving a glance down the hallway that went on and on. This place was full of long, dark corridors. You could easily get lost in them, but Natasha had been here long before he’d turned up. She wasn’t fooling him much, but he suspected that wasn’t her intent, anyway.

“But if you’re taking the scenic route, I’ll go with,” he continued. “Ma taught me manners, after all. Never let a lady walk herself anywhere at night. Who knows what kinda creep is hanging around, right?”

For an instant, she wrangled with herself over the use of the word lady. Rocket had a habit of calling her that, too. Natasha had to remember that Bucky was from a different era, and Rocket… Well, there was no excuse for him. She bit back any sort of line about not being a lady and instead, went for something completely different.

As she began to shuffle forward, waiting for him to get the hint and take up beside her, she asked, "That why you walked the green woman home from the tavern?"

He gave her a sidelong glance, one brow lifting just the smallest amount. Not that he had been trying to sneak out, but it wasn’t as if most people at The Rose that night would’ve cared where he wandered off to after everyone had gotten their drinks and their stories out.

Bucky shrugged. “Maybe that’s what she walked me home. It’s, what, 2151? I heard times changed.”

He fell into step, but there was a deliberate maneuver that placed him with his good arm facing Natasha. It didn’t do much, but did it make Bucky feel like perhaps this was marginally more normal. Natasha wouldn’t have to deal with the sight, at least.

She knew what he was doing; moving to that side, showing his good arm. It was a classic move by someone trying to hide something, trying to feel better about themselves. The way Natasha saw it, he didn't need all of that, but it meant that he was insecure. On the other hand, Natasha realized that she was sinking here. She was so used to the Bucky who remembered her, and eventually regained his memories of her, that she had left the jealousy slip out with that one poke.

Not that Bucky would know. He didn't remember her, remember?

"Do you need protecting?"

He gave her a step back and away, as if he needed that distance to give her a proper look of disbelief. Bucky raised his good arm, flexing the fingers for her. “I’m down one arm, but I still know how to fight and shoot a gun. I’ll be okay,” he answered, even if he was half sure she was just fishing around for information. It was weird. Something about her made him want to keep talking to her, even if there was no real reason he could admit to for it.

“Besides, the guys that I made enemies of with Steve are long gone. If I’m anyone’s biggest problem, it’s ‘cause of something I can’t remember doing.”

"Something you haven't done yet," came Natasha's reply. He couldn't take responsibility for things he hadn't done in his timeline, even if those people have experienced it already. Case in point: the scars from two bullet wounds from the Winter Soldier. She was lucky that second one hadn't shattered her collarbone.

This was weird. He was more open and expressive than the other two who had been here post brainwashing. Listening to him, looking at him now… The difference was startling. The difference was heartbreaking. She had no right to be here with him now. "Something you may never do here."

Silence settled in. There was a dangling thread here, and Bucky had it in his hands. One easy, fast tug and maybe this song and dance they were doing would collapse under the weight of something bigger. Bucky breathed out, scanning the hallway ahead of them. That much was habit. He was used to maintaining a certain level of paranoia that someone was going to jump him around the next corner.

“Steve said you’re an Avenger and that you’ve been in his corner.” It wasn’t that far out in left field to veer in this direction with the conversation. Everything would have to add up sooner or later, but there were so many damn paths to there and Bucky knew he was working this half blind. She didn’t have to fess up to anything. Still, it was worth a try…

“You know me, don’t you? You’re not just bein’ nice ‘cause you like sound of my voice,” he pushed a bit further.

There had never been the thought that Bucky Barnes was not as smart as the Winter Soldier. They were the same person, and she could see some of the same ticks that she'd noted later in his life. Everything he said was true. She was an Avenger, she was in Steve's corner, she knew him. (The sound of his voice was irrelevant, but she did like the sound too.)

Natasha pulled the collar of her shirt to the side, exposing the scar of a bullet wound. It had been a clean shot, hadn't shattered a damn thing, which was odd given the close proximity to her collarbone. "I've got a few souvenirs."

That… wasn’t a shock. Maybe he was finally starting to lose his edge, or maybe he was just that tired that he couldn’t work up the right reaction. Bucky tilted his head, taking in the sight of the old wound. It was a small, neat band of scarring. Most people wouldn’t even think to ask about it, and he was sure even less would get a truthful answer.

“A few?” It would only take one shot. He knew he was that good, and there was no chance that he’d lost his skill based on everything Steve had said. The list of conclusions to be made from that was short. It turned the corner of Bucky’s lips just a small amount -- not out of amusement, but just small satisfaction that one mystery was getting some answers. “Guess we have history, huh? Especially since you’re not trying to pay me back the favor.”

"You said it yourself: I'm an Avenger and I've been in Steve's corner." That should have sufficed, really, because Natasha was the type of person to go out of her way to save people (that didn't necessarily include herself, even though she didn't have a death wish). Finding out that the Winter Soldier was Bucky Barnes had been a huge revelation to all of them: Steve, most of of all, but it was not an easy thing for Natasha to deal with either.

She dropped her hand from her neck and watched the door down the hallway grow larger the more they walked. "And I know something of what it's like to not be in control of yourself. To have your entire sense of self stripped away and replaced with whatever they want. Whoever they may be."

Not untrue, but she couldn't bare to burden him with the knowledge that they had, once upon a time, been something more than friends or comrades.

“Yeah, but…” Bucky breathed out, trying to refocus his mind. He held out his hand, signaling a small protest of her attempt to smooth over any concerns he was having about what Hydra had in store. Or what Hydra had already done. There was that awkward time gap. Tenses were difficult to maintain.

“I don’t have that. That’s not up here,” he told her, a finger tapping against his temple. “All this? This is after the doc sat me down for some bad news.” He lowered his hand. “Before the symptoms get bad. I get it. My mind is going to go. It’s terminal, and there’s no miracle medicine out there that’ll help.” It felt like an eternity, just saying those few sentences. Bucky knew why: he hadn’t admitted it to anyone else yet. The words were staggered and uncertain, as if maybe he wished he could take them all back the second after they were left dangling out in the open.

“Feels wrong to not be more grateful that I’m alive,” he quietly finished.

Natasha stopped. Her hand moved to rest against his shoulder. Her mind just kept telling her that this was wrong but the right thing to do. The same way pushing Bruce to change into the other guy had been wrong, but the right thing to do in the circumstances. Actions had consequences and looking back, Natasha really knew why he'd left her.

"No, it's not." Maybe in their world, he was going to have everything stripped away from him, but not here. "There may not be a cure-all, but you can and will get your mind back. It's not gone, it's just buried under layers of scar tissue. It can be reversed." She tapped her temple. "Trust me."

If the hand on his shoulder wasn’t enough, the follow-up reply succeeded in making Bucky stop in his tracks. He turned to face Natasha, his expression masked, but underneath the peeling edges was uncertainty. This felt like the other half of a conversation he’d dropped. She had been telling him about being much older than most would think. Being the idiot he was, he’d just walked away from it for lack of knowing how to even form a response.

“Was it Hydra?” he finally asked. “The people who did that to you. Was it them?”

Natasha walked in silence beside him for a long time. When she sought him out, this was not the conversation she'd intended to have with him. It seemed that even when he didn't know her, she still felt comfortable enough to tell him things she hadn't really talked about with Steve or even Bruce. It actually relieved her.

"That's a difficult question to answer." She'd thought it was the Red Room, and then she belonged to the KGB. Maybe it wasn't that simple. "HYDRA was defunct, or so we thought, after the war. It's possible that they were really pulling the Red Room's strings when they infiltrated everything else over the years."

“Right, Steve said -- he told me about that.” It both answered several questions and brought new ones to the surface. Really, though, maybe it wasn’t worth digging at as much. Whatever was happening, there was assurance that he’d probably pull through whatever might or might not happen. It was just a matter of accepting that. Easy, right? That should be easy.

It wasn’t.

“Sounds like a good reason to never get over trust issues.” He paused to think, mouth pulling into a tight and unyielding line. “I heard this place plays with people’s heads, too. New memories, stuff that wasn’t there to start with.”

Natasha tilted her head toward him, her mouth twisting in a flippant, sarcastic smile at that. Trust issues. Everyone had something to say about them. Truth was subjective. Fact was not. There was a difference in Natasha's eyes. "It's not as jarring as you would think. I went to bed one night and woke up with months of new memories. It was like — having a really vivid dream."

Was she making this better or worse? Would Steve be upset that she told him so much?

“Vivid dreams aren’t anything new,” Bucky quietly murmured, but before Natasha could think to ask, he was already pressing on. “More worried about the stopping point. You say a few months worth of memories, but what about…”

Again, his mouth drew taut. There was a reluctance to ask and even qualify the thought. It sounded ridiculous in his head, and he wasn’t looking to get a laugh.

“What if that takes away something instead?”

She may not have asked, but it was pinned away in the back of her mind. She suspected as much with his late night romps anyway. That was all but confirmed. The longer they talked, the more Bucky seemed like he needed a lifeline. He would never say so, because he hadn't hit bottom yet, but he could see it and he didn't like what he saw. Natasha couldn't blame him. The worst was behind her, and looking back brought a sort of panic to the forefront. Wanda, sometimes, was a constant reminder of that.

"I haven't seen that happen before." But never say never. There were all kinds of reasons memories could go, the slow march of time among them. "I remember the deviation and being here, but also being there. If it takes something, you might remember being here and the conversations you've had about it here."

He wasn’t expecting a clear-cut answer. Even if she would have told him that they could make dead sure nothing unraveled, Bucky knew he’d be hard-pressed to buy that at face value. The way it sounded, the difference of months or even weeks was the only reason he was standing here and having a civil discussion about anything.

There was a reason he was dodging sleep. You never knew what would happen when you closed your eyes, let alone who would open them. That was even more cruelly true in this world, it seemed.

“At any rate, guess the good news is that if things capsize, some of you know what to do,” Bucky resigned to admitting. His gaze was locked on the door off to the right. The gym wasn’t that far away now.

"Save you."

The reply was instantaneous (and a little vehement). Steve would know what to do; he could reach Bucky. That much was true. They'd had conversations on both of their meetings. Each time, there was confusion at his name, and then when Steve tried triggering memories. Whether he had succeeded had been up in the air to a point, but the fact that Steve was alive was proof enough for Natasha. Even if it was buried in there, Bucky had saved Steve.

Even with the history she had with Bucky, there was no question that she'd save him. Steve was too important to her, and by extension, so would Bucky. The fact that there was shared history just meant that she was emotionally invested as well.

"That's all there is to that."

Of all the replies Bucky could have guessed at, that instant and resolute one wasn’t in the lot. He ducked his head, trying to digest it before thinking to answer. He would’ve expected it out of Steve, but Natasha? He barely knew her. It caught him off-guard.

And, ultimately, he didn’t answer. Instead, he offered a small smile that didn’t really reach his eyes. “Looks like this is your jumping off point,” he told her, with a nod towards the gym.

She couldn't have answered any question he might have had about that response anyway. Not now, and likely not in the future. (At least when he was without those memories.) She'd already spoken to him as if he had already done the thing he would do, because he had in her eyes. It was a slippery slope, and he didn't owe her a damned thing.

"Sure is. There's a punching bag in there with my name on it." Her laugh wasn't heartfelt, but she was skilled enough at covering that up. It was a quick, smooth movement that saw her lean up and kiss him on the cheek. It signalled a closeness that Natasha reserved for very few people, but that... That was heartfelt. "Get some sleep, will you? They can't get here you."

And there was another unexpected turn of the night. Bucky’s brows lifted slightly as Natasha leaned in, but he wasn’t one to lose his cool. He rebounded with an easy nod and tossed up a brief salute with his hand.

“Ma’am.”

Then, he turned. There was still a long walk back to the housing units. Maybe by the time he got back there, he’d be too tired to even think, let alone to dream.