IC Voicemail, Driftfleet:

[tothefly]

[There is no recording, just a few clicks and a beep.]

[Leave any IC voice messages or texts for Natasha here.]

Comments

[redactions]

Spoken. I don't think they let him write, much, he holds everything like he's about to stab somebody with it.

[ He scrubs a hand down his face, but he too has eased up unconsciously, mirroring her. ]

Orders are always necessary at this point. He wouldn't even eat until I said so. [ What kind of master does that? ] It's going to be a long, long time before we can break that. Priority is convincing him the mission is pointless and HYDRA doesn't have his best interests at heart.

[ Waiting for his shot. He's patient. Spiders are patient, too. ]

I thought it'd be harder, but it's like he just — doesn't want to. [ A soft huff. ] He's adjusting way easier than I did, anyway. I don't think it's an act. If it is, it's a very good one.

[tothefly]

[She listens as he talks about his observations, what the Soldier is here. She can admit to some of that being self-preservation, the predator looking for a weakness. But some of it...some of it's for that 'we,' the plural she can't quite seem to contradict. She may not be able to help him outright, but this much she might be able to do. Besides she owes a debt to Steve. Even if he isn't here, maybe this will help to pay it.]

[A decision, then. Made with a sharp, decisive motion of her head.]

It isn't an act. He wasn't taught to act. Just to fight, and to take orders. They took him apart and put him back together so many times he's forgotten how to be human. They made him a weapon. Anything left of the man...it's pieces at best.

[The words aren't intentionally cruel. Just honest. She's that with him, at least, as much as she can be. Evasive, but she hasn't lied to him outright.]

[redactions]

[ Do her reasons really matter, if she's offering plain and honest (useful) advice like this? He listens raptly, expression calm but thoughtful. ]

I don't need him to be Bucky.

[ It's a firm correction of the trajectory she's seeing. He can't in good conscience box in another man, not after what HYDRA's done to him. ]

He might be James Buchanan Barnes. Who that is, it's up to him.

[tothefly]

[He takes her words for what they are, and it's enough. Whatever his expectations are, he's got them under control, it looks like, and she tilts her head again, looking at him with unblinking eyes.]

And what if he wants to be someone other than James Buchanan Barnes?

[He's never going to be Bucky again. Bucky died in the war, would have died even if he came back. Every soldier died on their first battlefield, in some way. It's the price of war. But what if he decided he wanted to be the Soldier? What if...]

[redactions]

[ She says, what if he decides to hurt us? and it stops him in his tracks. He's silent, listening, calculating — ]

It'd be his choice.

[ And wherever that led, they'd do their best to be ready for it. ]

If it's us or him — [ he sighs, heavily ] then we do what is necessary.

[ Even then, he doesn't know whether he'd be able to pull the trigger on his alternate. If he hurt Steve or Nat? Sure. Otherwise... it just seems unfair, not to give him as many chances as he can. He's not at fault for what they made him into, but if he chooses the same, does that make it different? ]

[ Bucky huffs, irritated, and quietly, admonishing, ]

Not what Steve would do.

[tothefly]

[He does her the courtesy of considering it, at least. Looks like he is, anyway, and she isn't necessarily expecting anything from him, but what she doesn't get isn't top of the list of responses she'd give him. It doesn't make her look less. It makes her look harder, that look she's had with him since the first time--like he's a puzzle she's trying to work out. Putting together the pieces of a stranger, seeing what the bigger picture is.]

[Unfair, yeah. She gets that. It would be unfair, to not give him the chance--the chance to hurt them, an inner voice says, screams against it with decades-worth of instincts--but her life has never been predicated on fairness. Still, here, she can afford to give him a chance. To give this James Barnes a chance, anyway, to make the Winter Soldier a man again. And she'll plan, for the just in case. He knows she will.]

You'd be surprised what Steve would do, if necessity called. He'd hate himself for it, but if there were no other option...[She shrugs. He might not kill the Soldier, but he'd make sure no one innocent would be hurt, either. If the Soldier went rogue, if he chose to become the Soldier willingly and fully, and no longer at all James Buchanan Barnes? He wouldn't take that risk.]

[redactions]

[ It's not a new reaction, someone trying to puzzle him out, and wearily, he lets her, dropping his shoulders, scrubbing a hand down his face. She's a Natasha. The debt he owes Nat demands honesty on his part, as close as he can come to it. I was drafted. I am thinking about killing a man who's suffered unbelievable pain, because that's the one choice that will hurt worse. ]

[ She will plan, for the just in case. She owes nothing to either James Barnes, one of whom might not be at all. Except two bullet holes, and the Widow pays her debts. ]

[ But she's giving him a chance, to make something of that wreckage. To build and not destroy, when she's caught a glimpse of the cold that lives in him. That's not nothing. ]

[ He smiles, wanly. ]

I'm referring to the regret.

[ He feels none. To hope that he would feels — stupid, somehow. Childish. ]

[ Yes. Hope is for children. ]

[tothefly]

[It might have been true, three months ago, that she owed nothing to either James Barnes. That's still partially true. She owes the Soldier two bullets, but the Soldier isn't James Barnes. And this man in front of her isn't the Soldier. Just someone who might be an ally, who might even be a friend someday. If she can ever afford to have friends in a place like this. It's the kind of place that takes away the second it learns something matters. She's seen it happen to enough people that she doesn't want to risk it. After all, she knows that pain intimately, has no desire to get reacquainted.]

[But she might owe him something, at least, something Steve would give if he were here--help, and honesty, and the chance to change things. She can't give much more than that. She isn't much more than that. But he knows that, doesn't he?]

You'd regret the necessity.

[She doesn't know him, not well, not perfectly--but enough to know that. Not the act, but the need. And he'd still do what needed to be done. That's enough for her.]

[redactions]

[ She doesn't know him, not well, not perfectly, and yet she applies a balm to this — it wasn't even a wound. Bucky drops his hand and he studies her in turn, eyes narrowed, looking for the shift in the puzzle pieces, one more he can write down in the mental category of Romanoff, Natasha. Twelve more steps he has to cross before he catches up, jump a few bridges, fall through some mirrors. ]

[ It's easy to forget she's not his Nat. It's easier still to dance with her. He inhales. ]

I don't want to hurt him.

[ This is the truth, for her to pick apart to its bones. ]

[tothefly]

[She wonders what he sees, looking at her. If he sees just how tired she is, how much work it is to keep up this act, to be so constantly aware of everything around her, keeping everyone just far enough away. Wonders if he notices the tiny lines of frustration, exhaustion, at the corners of her mouth and between her brows. Wonders if he sees her at all, or if all he sees is a ghost. She is what she is, and what she is is sometimes a complicated thing, but she doesn't try to hide that.]

[After all, so far he's known the steps. He's known the choreography, even if he doesn't really know his partner. And he's let her lead the dance. The least she can give him is that look, and the silent answer to it hidden in her eyes.]

But you'd do what needs to be done.

[She's the one who blinks, who looks away, who turns to face the stars and eyes his blurry reflection over her shoulder.]

You aren't the Soldier. You aren't Steve Rogers. I don't even know if you're Bucky Barnes. But you're the one who does what needs to be done, and I appreciate that.

[It's the closest he's getting to a thank you.]

[redactions]

[ If she ever asked, he'd say he sees someone brave. Strong. Impossibly enduring. These are all things that were made, but that doesn't make them less valuable or less admirable. She chose to keep them, after all, when she chose to be the Widow, again, and again. However complicated that choice is. How much it makes the years on her seem far more than they already are. ]

[ Just as he chooses, again, and again, to be either a monster or a ghost. Sometimes both. ]

I understand.

[ You're welcome. ]

Will you teach me Russian?

[tothefly]

если я должен...

[If I must, she says, but more to herself than to him. He isn't forcing. He couldn't. But she has to make this choice. Most people wouldn't look at it this hard. It's just a language, just lessons. But she knows what he's going to do with them.]

My classes aren't easy. Sure you can keep up?

[A callback to their earlier lightness, though neither of them forgets any of this.]

[redactions]

[ He smiles, crookedly. ]

No. I'll do my damn best to. That's a promise.

[tothefly]

Gonna hold you to that, Captain.

[Still the one name that's safe, the one identity she can keep separate.]

Twice a week. Name your place.

[A gesture she's sure he won't miss, honestly, but there are few places he goes that she doesn't as well.]

[redactions]

Your office, on the Windrose.

[ Hopefully she won't see it as charity, but another part of the bridge they're (re)building. ]

[tothefly]

[Not charity. Just familiarity. She might have misread it, another time, but she's learning to take as much as she gives. A dance requires two people, after all. It's a conversation.]

Fine with me. Come by tomorrow, if you have the time.

[redactions]

[ He nods. ]

I will. I'm going to move him to my ship, in case you ever want to visit.

[tothefly]

...You're encouraging the cats and dogs to play together??

[Wry humor, there. He has to know at least a little what he's risking by making the suggestion. Though she guesses it could be a warning, as much as anything.]

[redactions]

[ He smiles wryly at her, something worn and old creasing his brow. ]

I have faith.

[tothefly]

Guess that almost counts as a plan.

[She returns that smile with the ghost of one of her own. They'll see how it goes, won't they?]

I'll see you tomorrow, Captain.