AUTHORS NOTE: I'm back! and with 100% more Buckynat because I am scum. There's more general Marvel/Bucky one shots on the way - but I got stuck on the one I started and wrote this instead. It's not very long but I'm working my way back into things. Now ship, my nerds, ship!
"Begging didn't make a difference. Running didn't make a difference. Screaming didn't make a difference."
Bucky listed, staring forward with grey eyes that swam at the memories. Natasha focused on the ends of his hair at his shoulder, trimming it with kitchen scissors as she listened. She'd only asked if Hydra agents had ever given him a haircut. She didn't mind. If he needed to vent she would listen. She was going to make sure Bucky's support network would be a damn sight better than hers had been. It wouldn't make it easy. But they sat together still.
"Age didn't make a difference. Not a damn difference, Nat. You know what I did to people when they were stood in front of a target. Sometimes they didn't make it." He'd kissed the scar where that bullet had gone like it could make it better. It was still there. Nothing could ever get any better. That fact was stuck in his head. It made his head fuzzy and his throat weak and his stomach sick. It wouldn't get better. "It didn't matter either way to me. Some targets had kids. They wouldn't tell me but age wouldn't make a difference anyway. God, I…People keep telling me it wasn't me. It was."
"It's just like you've forgotten how to turn off auto-pilot and all the doors are locked?" Nat guessed. Even if it wasn't actually a guess. Their eyes met for a moment. Bucky didn't look away as he finished the analogy.
"And you're heading for a 50 ft drop. Only you don't die when you go over the edge. You just hit another road."
Natasha didn't say anything else. She just nodded and stood so she could cut the back of his hair.
"Steve wants me out in the field. For some reason he thinks it'll do me good." Bucky said, after a pass of comfortable silence and the snip snip snip of Natasha trimming his hair. Nat let her fingers drop through his hair so a few more stray cuts fell to the floor.
"You don't want to go yet?"
"I do." Bucky shook his head as Nat played with more of his hair to figure out where each strand naturally fell. "I want to be able to do something good for once. I just don't think people should trust me out there. I don't. Given what happened before…"
"I know the feeling." Nat took a few more snips. "But if other people are prepared to make the call. You should trust them. Even if you can't trust yourself yet."
Nat came back around to sit in front of him, measuring the front strands of his hair between two fingers on each side to check they were even. Bucky took in the focus on her expression. The way she bit her lip a little and her algae eyes glanced between his hairs. His next breath came out as a content sigh - even if the content feelings he got always felt suffocated.
"Will I be as wise and controlled as you are when I grow up?"
Natasha laughed. It made the corners of Bucky's mouth pick up.
"You're older than me." She pointed out. She folded his fingers around the scissors and sat the other way on the kitchen chair. "Now you do me."
Bucky sighed and slipped some of her red hair through his fingers. He began to snip. She didn't really need a haircut. Neither Bucky nor Natasha were that good with words. Despite having their conversations in a dozen different languages they were fluent in. They'd bicker about what to order for dinner in Japanese. They'd send each other pointless texts in German. They'd whisper sweet nothings in Russian. Gossip about the other Avengers in Oromo while they were sat in front of them. They didn't express feelings well. Not when it came to their relationship anyway. It was meant to be a little addition to the talk about going back into the field. Natasha trusted him. Giving him pointy objects and baring her back was her way of saying that.
Snip. Snip. Snip. Natasha turned back around so he could cut the front. It was her turn to watch his concentration. His tongue stuck out between his lips and he furrowed his eyebrows in a little. He looked like a lost puppy. She tried not to laugh. When he was done he put the scissors down and kissed her forehead.
"Wake me up early, Nat." Bucky stood up and tied back his freshly cut hair. It was late. He wasn't expecting to sleep long. Nightmares normally shot him awake screaming - he'd be the one waking Natasha up. But if he couldn't wake up – if the hold the dreams had on him were too strong and the sleep paralyzed him – he needed someone to save him from that. Nat always saved him.
AUTHORS NOTE 2; I'VE RUN OUT OF SUBTITLES THAT SEQUELS HAVE: I had something else to say. I've forgotten what it was. This is just here until I remember and can edit it. Review and fun if you want anyway :)