The last time he sees her out of the red room, he remembers everything: the war, the assassinations and the horrific events that took place inside those crimson walls. Except now he is no longer the Winter Soldier. She is no longer his Natalia.
They stand at odds, gazing unsurely at one another. He finds himself mildly taken aback by her appearance. He remembers their many run-ins and resulting quarrels, but he must not have gotten a very good look at her before now, because he's surprised by how… womanly she appears. Her petite frame has grown from small and delicate to strong and curvy, her wild red locks curling in a subtle frame around her heart-shaped face. She's always been pretty, but standing before him now she is impossibly beautiful. He feels a slight tugging in his chest at the realization that his little Natalia has grown up.
He picks at the urge to apologize, to ask forgiveness for all the times he'd hurt her, for all the times she'd risked death because of him. He knows that he wasn't truly at fault, but deep down he still feels the guilt eating away at him. He wants to tell her how happy he is to see her alive, and that he remembers every intimate moment they shared in the red room. He wants to ask if she remembers as well, the long nights they spent wrapped up in each other's arms, listening to the sound of one another's breathing. He wants to tell her he still loves her, even though he's never admitted it before ("Love is for children…"). He wants to tell her that he's always loved her, and that it's okay if she hates him. He would hate him if he were her too.
He wants to tell her all of this, but he can't bring himself to say anything. She doesn't look like she's expecting him to, anyway. She tilts her head slightly to gaze at him, and a strand of her vibrant red hair falls into her face. He feels his fingers twitching with the urge to brush it behind her ear, but he keeps his hands glued to his sides. She lets it stay (much to his frustration) and takes a hesitant step towards him. He isn't sure what to expect, but then she gently reaches out and whispers softly, "James..?"
He looks at her for a moment before his gaze drops to his feet. "You've never called me by my name before." He mumbles.
After a brief silence, he sees her delicate hands reach out to gently rest on his rough, metallic palms. He looks back up to see her smiling softly at him, green eyes unreadable. "I didn't think you remembered me, milii moi." He returns her smile with a boyish grin, relief passing through him. His happiness is quickly replaced with sadness though, as he stares into her cold green eyes. He remembers a time when they would light up, just for him.
Without a word, he pulls his hands from her grasp. She doesn't look hurt, and he hadn't really expected her to. He averts his eyes from her questioning gaze by looking off in the distance. Numerous agents and technicians pass them by, chatting idly without a second glance. S.H.E.I.L.D. isn't quite sure what to do with him yet. He knows he's only alive due to Steve's stubborn protesting and Natalia's logical insight. He knows she'd convinced S.H.E.I.L.D. that his skills could prove useful to their objectives, but they don't trust him, not yet. He can't really blame them.
"Things have changed, haven't they?" he asks, trying to hide the sudden guilt tearing at him from the inside. But she—damn her—knows him too well, and places a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Things are always changing, James." She says, and he decides he likes her calling him that. It seems more intimate than if she called him Bucky, like everyone else (something he was still getting used to).
After a moment, she says softly, "It wasn't your fault." He doesn't mean to cringe, but he hates how she can read him like a book. "Do you know what it's like," he growls, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, "to have your brain messed with? To have your mind removed and someone else's put back in?"
She does not react to his anger. Instead, she slips her fingers through his and says, "You know that I do."
The third time he sees her outside of the red room, he does not recognize her at all. There's a part of him that thinks he may have seen her somewhere before, but he brushes it off and proceeds to fire off bullets in her direction. She dodges them all -something that does not occur often- and runs, yelling at civilians to get off the streets before he finally lands one in her shoulder. He's about to fire off a kill shot when she disappears behind a car. Blyad, he thinks, before ordering his men after the blonde man so he can deal with her himself.
She seems eerily familiar, but he assures himself that he wouldn't forget an adversary this skilled. Still, she itches at his mind in a way he doesn't like. It's not enough to distract him though, and he quietly creeps up to the car, wanting to finish her off so he can return his attention to the blonde soldier. He's suspicious when he hears her calling for backup just a few cars away. Silently, he unlatches a grenade and rolls it under the vehicle to where she's hiding, not the least bit surprised when there's no sign of her in the debris of the explosion.
He is surprised, however, when she's on him in an instant, yanking a wire up against his throat in an attempt to suffocate him. It doesn't work, however, as he easily throws her down and after a brief spar, tosses her over the side of the bridge. She lands on her feet, of course, and he finds himself admiring her abilities, and how similar they are to his own. He doesn't give it too much thought though, before hunting her down once more, only to be knocked off his feet by the blonde soldier. He has to admit, once the fight takes off, that the American is good. Very good. After a series of flips, hits, and kicks the blonde manages to land a blow that knocks him through the air. He's on his feet in less than a second, though he'd lost his mask in the impact and now stands fully exposed. This startles the blonde, who stares at his face in shock.
"Bucky?" he asks, voice small and unsure. The name sets something sideways in him, and he glares furiously at his blonde adversary. Somehow, he thinks, he knows him, knows his face. But he cannot match the face with a name, and it enrages him. "Who the hell is Bucky?" he spits, and a haunted look flickers across the American's eyes.
He takes the opportunity to escape, but the incident follows him. Soon he begins to remember—not full memories, but bits and pieces. He can see a smirk, a laugh, two friends fighting in the dirt. He sees the American, smaller, skinner. He has visions of men in military uniforms, and dark laboratory-type rooms. He remembers being strapped to a table and injected. He remembers snowy mountains and a train. And he remembers the horrible feeling of icy air against his skin as he plummets to the cold rivers below. Most of all, he remembers that damn name, Bucky.
He has no idea what the hell's happening to him. But he knows he's missing something. Something important. He tries to put the pieces together but just winds up with more fragments of memories. A dark, red room. A red star on a metallic arm. A shock of wild, red hair. Red, red, red. And he realizes that the blonde American is not the only one troubling him, he and the red-haired woman also knew each other, once upon a time.
He doesn't mention her when they strap him back into the chair, but he does bring up the American. He sees the look on their faces when he insists he knows this man, and realizes they're afraid. He knows that he's not getting the answers he wants when one of them suggests putting him back there, back into that machine. Back into the cold abyss of darkness and pain, and he knows there's nothing he can do. He wants to be angry, he wants to fight back, but instead he stares helplessly at Alexander Pearce, as though the older man will possibly sympathize with him. Disappointment washes over him when Pearce turns to leave the room, and he closes his eyes. The last thing he sees is a flash of wild red hair before the agony comes and covers him.
The second time he sees her outside the red room, she's standing between him and his assignment. He doesn't remember her name, but her face strikes his fancy, and he knows he's seen her before. For some reason, the thought of hurting her fills him with sadness. He does not understand why. As they engage in their dance—a routine of flips, kicks and jumps that only they could possibly know—he is struck with the unsettling feeling that he knows this girl, and this dark, violent ballet that they've performed a number of times before. It's familiar to him, the way her body moves in response to his, graceful and merciless. She is beautiful in the deadliest sense of the word. She lands a series of hits and kicks and he retaliates with strikes of his own. He remembers this, remembers her shock of red hair trailing behind her as she twirls around him, arching her back like a twisted ballet dancer in response to his hits. He remembers her cold green eyes shooting daggers through his skin. He remembers the irresistible pout she always pulled her lips into when she was deep in concentration during a fight. How perfectly she fit in his arms whenever they shared the same bed. How she would throw herself at him over and over again, refusing to give up her battle.
He remembers his Russian princess, how those agonizingly perfect lips would turn up into a mischievous smirk as her delicate hands moved up and down his entire body, and how stunning her bright red hair looked splayed out over the pillow beneath him.
He steps away from their violent dance to look at her. She returns his gaze and those green eyes cut through him. Observing their positions, he realizes that she stands directly between him and his mission, with their transportation hellicarrier only a few yards back. The engineer cowers behind her, terrified to move, having barely survived the Winter Soldier's wrath once before.
He understands that she will defend this man to the death. And he can't allow that. He raises his gun to her head and she tenses, waiting for him to shoot. An odd feeling of de ja vu passes through him, as though he's been in this exact situation before, but he brushes the thought away before returning his attention to the task at hand.
She yells an order to the engineer and he runs, heading desperately for the hellicarrier behind them. She blocks the assassin's aim, probably thinking she can buy her assignment some time, but she's underestimating him. He doesn't want to hurt her, but he's Winter Soldier. And he has a job to do.
Her name comes to his lips. "Natalia…" he whispers. He sees the surprise register on her face before lowering himself to the ground and firing. The bullet tears completely through her side, continuing on through the back of his target's neck. She looks stunned; the engineer drops dead behind her.
He leaves her where she stands, blood leaking from her wound. She's in pain, but he knows she'll live. He made sure to avoid any vital organs.
The first time he sees her outside the red room, he's been sent to kill her. He finds her curled up in an alleyway near the border of Moscow, shivering from the cold of the Russian winter. She doesn't look at him when he approaches her, though she must have heard the crunching of his boots in the snow. He steps in front of her and bends down to look at her face. He is surprised by the lack of life he sees in her cold, dead, green eyes. He remembers when they used to light up, just for him. Now they stare at him with bitter resentment and sadness.
"Are you going to kill me?" she whispers, and he can practically feel his heart cave in on itself. She thinks they've wiped him, erased his memory before sending him after her to ensure that she is shown no mercy. She does not realize that this punishment is his. She is a failed red room experiment; she is expendable. He is the Russians' deadliest mercenary, who got too close to one of his disciples. He is a soldier in need of discipline, who saw a world where his little tsvyetok could be free from the horrors of her crimson prison. A world where they could be happy together. He sees now that that world was a fairytale. Even if they left tonight, it wouldn't be long before their old lives caught up to them. No matter what, they could never be happy together. She had asked him to run away with her. And he had helped her escape alone.
She quietly waits for him to answer her question. His silence tells her all she needs to know. She closes her eyes and leans her head back against the dirty brick wall. "Do it fast, milii moi." She whispers. He hesitates, and gently cups her cheek with his metallic hand, causing her to shiver. He leans in, and tenderly presses his lips against hers one last time. Then she does something he's never seen her do before. She begins to cry, hot tears running graciously down her reddened cheeks. He can't stand to see her like this. All of it, he thinks, is his fault. If he'd just stayed away…
He stands up and raises his gun to her tiny, trembling form. He watches her tense, waiting for him to shoot. "Moy angel," he whispers, "I'm so sorry."
He feels sick aiming his gun at her, but he has no other choice.
He hates himself for pulling the trigger, but he does it anyway.
He's grateful when they put him back to sleep, but his dreams are haunted by visions of red. Red falling delicately over pale shoulders. Red walls blending with red snow. Red dripping softly from her fingertips.
So much red.
He thinks of the love he supposedly has for Mother Russia.
He remembers leaving her in an alleyway to die.
The first time she meets him in the red room, she already knows his name. As soon as she sees the metal of his arm, she knows. He is a legend, a horror story, more machine than man. She'd heard the other girls speak of him in whispers, saying he was cold and merciless, deadly and efficient. Like a shadow in the dark.
She sits in the corner of the dark red room, hugging her legs to her chest. He stands in the doorway, watching her silently. She wonders what she must look like to him, pale scrawny limbs curled beneath a flurry of wild, red hair. Must be quite a sight to see, she thinks without humor. After a long time, he walks over and kneels down in front of her so that they are eye level. The first thing she notices is how blue his eyes are, deep azure pools peering at her over his mask. She can tell he's handsome, but she's not about to develop a girly crush on someone who is most likely her executioner.
After a moment, he speaks. "Do you know who I am, little one?"
"Winter Soldat." She responds quietly. She knows she should be afraid of him, but at this point she's all out of things to be afraid of. "Are you going to kill me?" She asks. He stares at he for a moment, then chuckles. What he could possibly find funny she has no idea, but she keeps her mouth shut.
"No, little one," he says. "I'm going to help you." She blinks. "You've shown great potential, but you need training. That's why I am here." He tilts his head to the side. "What is your name?"
"Natalia." She answers, surprised by his answer.
He stands up and offers his hand. "Come then, Natalia," he says, giving her a wink, "let's get you cleaned up, shall we?" She looks at him before hesitantly reaching up to take his hand. Gently, she wraps her fingers around the comforting cold of the metal.
They described him as a lethal, emotionless monster.
She remembers him as a guardian angel.