AN: I do not own any of the characters or anything in this fic except the ideas that were contributed. This is a collaboration based off of a rp. Hope you enjoy :)
Natasha had been in the gym for quite a few hours now, beating at the punching bag viciously, her knuckles bleeding slightly from the fact she hadn't bothered to wrap her hands before starting her workout. She had woken from a typically restless sleep, and her only thought had been to work out some of the anger and energy that was being pent up for so long. It was as if the innocent bag of sand was the true source of her problems, even though it wasn't. Sleep deprivation wasn't uncommon for her, and it had been growing worse lately, a mission gone wrong that no one seemed to realize had really gone wrong since the information had indeed been gathered and unfortunate events happened all the time. Coffee had quickly become a new friends of hers, even if she barely liked it. As her punching and kicking continued, she could see it was slowly tearing. The chain on the bag eventually snapped, and she slouched forward a bit, breathing heavily and clenching and unclenching her fists to calm down.
She heard the door to the training room open but she didn't even bother to look up. She knew exactly who it was by the slight pause after the door and the recognizable gait. "I don't need a lecture," she said.
"You're letting yourself go Natalia." Natasha's head jerked up. This was not who she thought it was. She looked at her guest as he gave her an award winning smirk. "I know I trained you better than that, Talia."
"James? Oh my God.. I guess he found you after all." she said, quickly covering her surprise. "What are you doing up?"
"Couldn't sleep. Seems like you're dealing with the same thing?"
"Yeah. This seems to help." she said with a shrug, glancing over at the fallen bag with a glare. "It didn't hold up very long though."
Bucky laughed slightly while crossing his arms and shaking his head. "I know you better than that. What's really going on with you? You've never had trouble sleeping."
"Just a bad mission, old memories." she responded, turning away to get her water and grab the first aid kit off the wall to clean out her knuckles and wrap them like she should have initially. "What about you?"
"Well now that I remember all the shit Hydra made me do, it's pretty hard to forget. It's nights like these that I still wish they'd wipe all that away you know?" He shrugged nonchalantly and went over to Natasha to help her clean her wounds and wrap up. He gave another small laugh. "Ah Nat, you remember these days?" He leaned forward and kissed her knuckles. "This is why I'm glad I'll never be wiped again."
"They all started returning slowly after I joined SHIELD." she said, her lips curving up slightly as he began to help with her hands. "I'm glad too, it's annoying to constantly feel like there's a block you can't break through completely."
"Yeah trust me, I know what that's like. I'm sorry Natalia. No one should be put through that and especially not that age they got you. I'm sorry I was part of the reason that happened to you."
"Don't worry about it." she said, giving him a small reassuring smile. "It's useless to sit there and wish things had been different, it won't change."
"Yeah I guess you're right," he said, giving her a sad smile. "So, how would you like to spar hmm? Just for old time's sake?" He gave her another award winning smile, trying to sway her in his direction.
"Sure, if you're up for it." she agreed, still feeling like she had too much energy pent up and needed to be rid of it. Sparring with him might just be a good way to do that.
"Up for it? Oh honey, I could still beat you in a fight," he said chuckling as he got into a fighting stance.
She also got into a fighting stance, sizing him up and waiting for him to strike first.
"Alright, doll, let's see what you got!"
Immediately after he'd finished his challenge, she struck quickly with her leg and knocking them out from underneath him. He looked up at her from the floor. "So that's the game we're playing. Alright, Talia, I can play." Bucky jumped up quickly and struck her with his metal arm. Not hard enough to wound her terribly, but enough to send her to the ground
She grunted slightly at the hit, and quickly shot up from the ground, striking again with her feet as she got up, then getting into the defensive position again. His movements became more rapid as he came at her a second time. He tried not to lead with his metal arm since he didn't want to do any permanent damage. But Natasha kept matching his moves and fighting back harder until they were eventually both sprawled on the ground, with Natasha straddling Bucky.
Natasha smirked slightly as she looked down at him, keeping him pinned there with her weight, even if she weighed less than him. Her breathing was heavy from the exertion, but she seemed to be in a slightly better mood than earlier. "Seems this is how most of our sessions ended."
"Funny," he said as he mustered the energy to flip them over so he was on top. "I remember it being the other way around." He dropped all of his weight on her while saying, "but what do I know? My memory's shit."
"Both our memories are pretty messed up." she agreed, the shift in his weight earning a slight grunt. "I should ask, what the hell have you been eating."
"Eh you know, been trying new things. Your friend Stark recommend some great new thing called schrwanda or something? I don't know, but it's delicious."
She chuckled slightly at the memory of the first time she'd decided to try it, which had been with the rest of the team. "Schwarma. Nice try though, and it is pretty good." she agreed
"Yeah that stuff!" Bucky began purposefully squirming on top of Natasha. "Jeez, you'd think these training mats would be more comfortable."
"You wouldn't know, you're hardly even on the thing." she said, her words sounding just slightly strained from the shifting weight.
Bucky very quickly jumped off of Natasha and on to his feet, causing her to grunt slightly from the weight shift as he got off. He extended his hand towards her. "Come on, princess. Enough training for tonight. You need to get some sleep."
"You're impossible." she scoffed, accepting his offered hand out to her and standing up.
"Only for you, baby," he said leaning in close and then tickling her sides once she was on her feet. She squirmed slightly at his actions and just hit him once in the chest, not with enough force to actually hurt.
He laughed at her reaction and then looked at her sternly. "But seriously, Talia, you need some sleep. You look like your head hasn't hit a pillow in days."
She sobered quickly at his words and just shrugged. "Yeah I guess.. I've tried a few times though."
"Tried? Define tried, Talia. I know you, remember?"
"Fine. I laid down for maybe ten or twenty minutes, couldn't get to sleep, so I end up here most nights." she said, averting her gaze slightly.
"Sounds like a great attempt," he said monotonely. He walked toward the door a little, held out his hand for her, and inclined his head toward the door. "Come on."
She just nodded and followed him out of the room, knowing that he was right and that she needed sleep. The only reason she was probably functioning at that moment was the leftover adrenaline and all the coffee she'd been drinking.
He walked her to a room that she'd only ever seen in passing. "What are we doing?" She asked.
"I told you. We're going to bed." He opened the door to a fully furnished bedroom that was obviously his based on the "decorations" about the room. She glanced around the room slightly as they entered, and just followed him over to the bed, sitting on the edge.
"This way," he said as he stripped out of his shirt. "I can at least make sure you're trying. And besides, I've heard that sleeping with someone else can help reduce nightmares. Steve's idea, not mine."
She just rolled her eyes and just undid the shoes she'd been wearing, since she could sleep in the tank top and shorts. "Well then, I hope it works."
"I do too." He leaned forward and kissed the top of her head as he crawled into bed. "Join me when you're ready. You can shower if you want, just through that door," he said pointing toward his en suite bathroom. "Clothes are in the dresser if you need some. Мое место ваше место"
"A shower is probably a good idea." she agreed, deciding to just see what was in his dresser before going to shower. She left the shirt she'd grabbed on the counter before stepping into the stream of water and beginning to wash herself off.
It was about six minutes later when she got out and she quickly towel dried her hair and dried herself off. She grabbed the shirt off the counter and slid it over her head, then walked out of the bathroom and over to the bed. At this point she was having a hard time keeping her eyes open, and just fell onto the bed beside him, tugging the blanket around herself with a yawn. "Goodnight James." she murmured, before sliding her hand under the pillow out of habit and curling up a bit.
Despite the fact both of them had wanted to believe the idea of sleeping with someone else would prevent the same nightmares from replaying, it didn't seem to work so well. She was twitching slightly and her breathing had grown erratic, one fist clutching the blanket. He was woken by her mumbling and a slight kick to his leg, and he woke quickly, looking over to see what the source was. When he saw how pale she'd grown and the way her lips were moving rapidly but without any sound coming out, he instantly recognized the signs of a nightmare and that she was distressed by whatever she was seeing. He quickly began trying to shake her awake, and after a moment his eyes met startled green ones, and she was breathing heavily.
"I'm fine." she said almost automatically, blinking a few times to chase off the lingering images.
"Please Talia I know you're not. What were you dreaming about?" he asked, concern evident in his voice as he looked down at her.
"Nothing. Just old memories, you know how those go." she said, trying to brush it off.
"Yes, I do. Now what were they about, you looked pretty upset." he said, clearly not letting this one go.
"I already told you.. It was a bad mission."
"I've seen you go through bad missions, none of them made you react this way."
She didn't answer for a moment, just moving her head to the side to avoid the concerned look on his face. "I'm fine, alright? Those times I didn't exactly have half the thought process to feel bad about much." she muttered.
He frowned slightly and just moved his hand to the side of her face to make her look at him. "Seriously, just tell me what happened." he said, clearly not going to drop it.
"Fine.. It was a mission, maybe three weeks ago, but.. It went south. I was planning to get the information out of the people when they thought they were interrogating me. My.. my cover.. the girl who was supposed to be helping with maintaining a believable cover, she got wrapped up in it. They tortured me for a bit, usual things, waterboarding, beating, nothing that I haven't been trained for… When they saw that I wasn't so easily affected.. well.. they grabbed her from another room. They tortured her in front of me.. she wasn't trained half so well, she died from exhaustion and pain by the next day. She cried.. she begged them to stop, that she had no information. They didn't care, they knew they could use her against me, that I would possibly crack. When she died so quickly, there was really nothing left to try and protect.. I got out in the end, the information was delivered without them getting any of it, mission was labeled as a success with a minor casualty." she refused to meet his gaze as she spoke, the distress clear in her eyes as she blinked a few times. "I could've.. I could've been less careless, she wouldn't have had to die."
"Natalia.." he cut himself off and just ran a thumb over her cheek. "You can't blame yourself for everything. Missions have risks, you can't avoid them or blame yourself just because of one incident.."
"I know.. I know. I still.. I wanted to protect her.. I fall asleep and I hear her screams and pleading for them to stop.."
He quickly pulled them both into a sitting position and ran his hand over her hair lightly, hoping to provide some form of comfort to her. She just stayed there, leaning into the comfort of his familiar hold and after a few minutes the tension slowly eased from her body. When he sensed that he laid her back down gently and put the blanket back around her.
"Get some more rest, I'll be here when you wake up." he assured with a smile.
She nodded after a moment of hesitation, then glanced up at him once before closing her eyes and trying to sleep. He draped one arm around her after a moment, holding her close and hoping that maybe this time their little trick might work. It was a few minutes later when he heard her breathing finally evened out and the tension leave her body as she succumbed to her body's need for sleep. He followed suit after a bit, resting his head on the pillow and adjusting the blanket over them with the other hand.
Translations: Мое место ваше место - My place is your place
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