dear_mun | au!winter soldier

[ No, this isn't the Steve she knows. Not by a long shot. He's too at ease, he smiles too easy and it doesn't touch his eyes. He's practiced at guarded conversations in a way her Steve would never be.

He assumes she's being obstinate on purpose. Pretending it was an easy choice to make, one she never thinks on. Who knows? Maybe things look different on that side of the fence. But if this is the game she wants to play, he'll oblige her.

Three quietly spoken words, and to anyone else they'd mean nothing. ]

The Red Room.

[That was not supposed to be how things happened. James..

Clearly this was not the world she was from, and she'd seen a great many others but nothing had prepared her to face this. Dual loss of the greatest hero she'd had the honor to know and the one man, weakness, she had to stamp it out before it became a distraction.

Natalia nodded and swept an arm forward in invitation.]

Then this is a discussion best had over vodka, it will be a long one.

[ Is that emotion in your eyes, Natasha? It could be feigned, but he'd know. If anyone knew the difference, he would. ]

I had no doubt.

[ With a nod, he falls in step alongside her. Too easily. They've walked this way down numberless streets, in one guise or another. He could count off the rhythm of her gait in his head if he had to.

Once, in Paris, it'd saved both their skins. ]

[That was how she knew, somehow this man, the man who was Captain America to her, was someone entirely different. Being who she thought he was, it meant they had history...quiet a lot and very serious.]

I was almost concerned you might say no.

[But of course he didn't, The Winter Soldier never would. He'd had days of drinking, or James had. How far back did the past extend with him? It didn't matter really, as she had learned to drink at his knee. As he taught her to fight he also taught her to live. and other far more personal lessons.]

You are still with Red Room?

[They neared her door and she coded them both inside, this was safer. For everyone.]

You know better than most. You never really leave.

You can, if you want to.

[Again, too much allowed in her tone, too much rush to speak. Her hand curled to a tight fist in silent chastising of her childish lack of restraint.

She poured them each a tumbler full of vodka and left the bottle to sit between them.]

There are ways out, other than death.

[ He still can't get drunk. But he still drinks, because everyone drinks. It helps you blend in to get a taste for it, and he doesn't flinch when it pours cool down his throat. ]

You think you're well and truly free of it, then. Of everything.

[ There's no judgement, not in his eyes or in his voice. Just curiosity, as detached as he can make it. ]

[Getting drunk is an exercise in futility for them both, but it's a social thing. From the age they grew up in it was a means to an end. Still she sipped her vodka and toyed with the glass while he spoke.]

No.

I'm out, but I'll never be free of what they did, or what I did for them. They made me what I am and as much as I hate being used, not everything there was Hell.

[ To that, he says nothing at all.

But it's clear from the shift in his eyes just what her saying that means to him. How similar the fates that he and James shared were. Nothing else changes, nothing else given away.

She'll know anyway. ]

[Right now she wished, fir the first time, that alcohol could dull her senses. It might offer some respite from the confusion and thoughts in her mind.

She knows, just as it would be with James, she knows that subtle tell. He wasn't James Buchanan Barnes, but he was the Winter Soldier.]

Steve, [How odd was that name on her lips, and equally strange for his ears. If his life indeed mirrored what she recalled then it was a name not used by anyone but her after his programming.] If you want out, I can help you. I know people, I have connections.

Is it so different on the other side?

[ He's unconvinced. His tone says as much, says he has no reason to give up what he is. ]

It is.

[her hand hesitated and then rested on his.]

You make your own choices, live freely.

As freely as SHIELD allows.

[ He takes another drink, but. But.

His fingers curl, catching the edge of hers. So delicate, and just as stained with blood as his own. Even now it's hard to say if she really believes what she's saying or if she's just that desperate to convince him.

He can't blame her. One day SHIELD will come after him. Maybe send her, the one with the most knowledge of the Red Room and its operatives. That day, neither of them can afford to hesitate.

He doesn't look forward to it any more than she. ]

It doesn't have to be SHIELD, it doesn't have to be anything.

[And there is desperation, not so much that even a God could have noted, but he could. Because as much as he isn't James, he is still Winter Soldier. He knew her too well to mistake it.

Her hand is warm and smooth, deceptively small and soft on his. But that hand had killed, had destroyed lives even without death. She was, after all, the pride of Red Rooms achievements.

That was when the next natural conclusion came to her, one she'd been too blindsided to see before.]

I should have guessed they would send you. It would be only natural for either of us to be sent after the other.

When it comes time, I'm sure they will.

[ Because she's a chink in what is otherwise unyielding armor. Even if he can push past it, and he can, the feeling will remain. It can grow into something dangerous.

Chances are they'll wipe it from him when she's gone. That's some comfort. ]

But tonight's not that night.

I...don't want that. I don't want to live with knowing that I killed you or die knowing it was at your hand.

[That couldn't have been... a tremble? Just the tiniest of vibration in her hand before she pulled back.]

No, tonight is the prelude to the agony. Like cold nights when we trained and there was nothing but each other to stay warm. Happiness at the time but then, later when you were dragged away from me... that was the torture, the coldest I've felt in my life.

Natalia...

[ She never speaks this way. This raw, open confession, exposing a clear weakness...is it a ploy? She knows these things won't stop him, nothing can. He has to have a heart for her to be able to break it, and he thinks they carved that out of him long, ageless winters ago.

How that young girl found her way into that hollow space left behind, he'll never know. ]

Everything ends. Even us.

Things ended because I was weak and foolish.

[She'd also been young and in love for the first, perhaps only time in her life. For him that was exactly how it had happened and now she was starting to see that it wasn't James or Steve that made the difference, the program had made them all into puppets and each had played their parts. She would have given her heart to Winter Soldier, regardless of who he was. The thought made her feel ill, she had thought there was a truth to them. Now she could only wonder if she had been far more successful a product of Red Room than anyone ever imagined, had she seduced herself into believing she was in love? Was there a chance it had been real?

Maybe there was, maybe....too many maybes. She simply nodded in reply.]

Of course. We know better than most how ends come to everything. This should be no different.

You are different. You always were.

[ It's as close to admission as he feels he can come, but then words are cheap. Words are for lies, for weaving stories, they form the backbone of an operative's arsenal. They've been trained to pour themselves into the molds set for them, until even they might believe to a point who they were pretending to be.

But this -- them -- was never supposed to happen. Their punishment made that abundantly clear.

He can see the vulnerability there, and wonders if SHIELD brought it out of her. The tumbler is set down next to the vodka, abandoned like a piece of the game that's no longer required. ]

If it were anyone...

I was trained by the best.

[No small bit of irony in the statement, or the bittersweet smile that delivered it. He had trained her, at least for some time. This she did recall clearly, training to infiltrate and fight against the man in the American suit. History was blurring for her, but memory was just another form of deception.]

I was given to Alexi, you were taken away. We each reaped our reward for disobedience.

If. That word is meaningless nostalgia. We were lovers, we had something more than what the program allowed. Tell me I'm wrong, tell me you did not feel something more back then.

You know I can. We have history. I trained you, you surpassed my expectations, and we found comfort from the cold winters with each other because we were alone. Nothing more.

[ The hardness in his gaze doesn't relent, sharpening to an edge. A step advances him towards her, closes off the distance, and those fierce eyes of hers still don't quite fit that young face. His hand lifts, slow, giving her time to react before metal sheathed in synthetic skin grazes her cheek. ]

I could just as easily say what you want to hear, Natalia. That they punished us because we found freedom. We loved each other in spite of them, or maybe to spite them, and found something more.

Which would be the lie? Can you honestly say?

[After so much time, how could those words still hurt her? How could a touch she knew so well hit her like a gut punch and all but drive the breath from her.]

Then that is all I can ask of you, the truth as you see it. I have done this far too long to think that there is only one truth, there are as many sides as people involved.

[Why was she leaving herself open and vulnerable like this? He could move more quickly than most, possibly more quickly than she could. If he chose, those steely fingers could clutch her throat as easily as they touched her cheek. She knew this and yet she stood her ground, it was no longer that there was faith he wouldn't end her, but if he did maybe there was some poetic justice in destroying his own creation.]

I'll stick with my truth, I know what I felt, what I feel. I'm not cold anymore.

[ She's not the only one thinking it. It's entirely cruel how appropriate it would be, either dying at the other's hands. But he spoke the truth; he isn't here to harm her. He wanted to see her, the one face he can honestly say he's glad to see. An encapsulation of stolen, happy moments in a life that doesn't require them.

Anyone else bearing their heart like this would pay for it dearly, and swiftly. Instead he closes the distance between them and pulls her into his arms, letting the warmth of her sink in. There's a sag to his shoulders, instinctive tension relaxing as his head rests against hers.

Of course she isn't cold now. She's with them, walking in the sunlight. He's not entirely sure it suits her, but it was her choice to make. ]

[She doesn't fight it, she moves with the pull and though the body is different with planes and angles, the feeling is the same. There was a depth to the connection that could not be shared with someone who had not lived what they had. All of that seeped into the embrace, years of contact missed, decades of yearning for something that was not supposed to be wanted and never needed. Two people who were complete and whole and strong on their own that somehow managed to complete each other when together.

But it would be fleeting, as it always was,he would realize what he was allowing, what weakness he exposed in himself by this. He would be the stronger one and walk away. Stronger, smarter, faster... he was all he had been made to be, just as she was a product of a very specific design.

She had leaned to him, letting the warmth be shared, but she was not a passive woman for long. Her arms circled him for a tight hold, to let them both know this was indeed real and solid. Only after she was satisfied with that could she pull back and let her fingers traces the strong line of his jaw, his cheek, slide back into that silk of pale hair...]

Stay.

[One word, simple and yet the most complex question in it.]

[ He remains quiet as her fingers trace his face, thoughts racing. Calculating. They will look for him. He's their best asset, of course they'll come looking for him. They will come and find him in the heart of all that Natalia has built up around her and called home, all these years, and they will burn it to the ground. He will let them. He might even kill a few of her new allies himself.

It's enough of an incentive to consider to request on its own, but it deviates from the mission. There's been no such order, and he doesn't act without them anymore. Not generally. He hasn't had to go into cold storage for a long while now, and he doesn't want to do anything to earn a trip back there.

A very small, still human part of him wants to stay simply because she asked it of him. ]

I'm not you. They won't trust me, and they'd be right not to.

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