Happy 11th December. I'm still a day behind as you can see, but hopefully you'll enjoy reading this fic anyway. This one's a little odd and not what I intended when I set out to write it. Thanks for reading and as always, I don't own anything Marvel.
K: Kiss With A Fist – Florence and the Machine
Kiss With A Fist
They were made to be hard. Trained not to feel, not to care, not to yearn. They were taught not to want things, not to reflect on the past and not to dream of the future.
They were moulded to try and make them into the perfect weapons.
Except they weren't weapons. They were human. And everyone knows that humans are flawed.
So when Natalia Romanova and James Barnes met again in Stark Tower – her as an Avenger and him as Steve's long-lost, recently-recovered friend – neither gave any indication that they had met before. It wasn't relevant.
Weapons didn't have feelings.
Each remembered the other, though the memories were distorted by time and pain and ice.
Any feelings between them had been ruthlessly suppressed, squashed deep down so they didn't compromise 'the mission'.
There were moments though.
They were sparring one day when James targeted a weak spot, hitting Natasha square in her kidneys with his metal fist and sending her crashing to the ground in pain.
"Get up and stop complaining," he barked at her. "You left yourself wide open there. Do you think you'd be alive if that had been a knife?"
She knew she wouldn't have, so she worked harder to cover that slip in her offense.
The pattern continued throughout their training.
The week after the kidney incident, he blocked a punch with his arm and cracked two of her fingers. A month after that, he punched her so hard in the head that she ended up in medical with a concussion and a black eye. Two weeks later, he kicked her in the ribs and she could feel the bones grinding painfully against each other every time she moved.
That was the point when Steve stepped in.
"Do you want me to speak with him?" he asked as he wrapped her ribs tightly, hands working quickly but gently.
Natasha appreciated the fact that he knew her well enough to ask before stepping in. In this case it was irrelevant anyway.
"No. It's fine."
He arched a disbelieving eyebrow at her and she felt compelled to explain.
"He's pointing out my weak spots."
"By hitting them?" Steve frowned, but carefully taped the edge of the bandages in place.
Natasha shrugged as carefully as she could. "It's one way of learning. And I haven't taken a blow to face since, so it's doing something."
Steve sat back and looked at her, while she carefully schooled her face into an expression of nonchalance. Eventually he nodded.
"Let me know if it becomes too much," was all he said before leaving.
She appreciate that too.
Especially because with this later attack, she now knew what James was doing. He was showing his care in the only way he knew how, by pointing out her weak spots and tells so she could work on them, improving to the point where their enemies couldn't take advantage of them.
He was teaching her, slowly and painfully, to take care of herself. He was caring for her in the only way he knew how… by making her better. He was helping her to survive – the same way he had taught her to survive when she was just a teenager – and now she was beginning to think that she could do the same.
James was strong, but not as strong as Steve, and on a good day, she could take Steve easily. So the next time they fought in practice, her ribs still twinging from the breaks, she watched him carefully for any openings, any tells.
The next time they fought, she used five of her Widow's Bites to disable his arm and then managed to pin him while he was disabled using a move he had taught her in the 80s.
The next day, he went to Tony – something he had been steadfastly avoiding since he had first arrived back at the tower – and had the mechanics of his arm upgraded.
The routine went on. Every time they fought in practice they did their best to hurt each other, ruthlessly seeking out and aiming for any weaknesses they could detect. In response, both of them trained harder, were more vicious and more effective.
They bruised and broke and battered and cut.
The others just shook their heads at the damage they caused each other. She knew a few pointed comments had been made, but Steve and Clint, who had known both of them for the longest, quickly shut that down.
They made each other better, pushed each other to be the most effective they could be.
And if they had to hurt each other to keep themselves safe… Well, that was just the way they had been trained.
Until the day when they drew the fight when sparring, both so attuned to each other that a stalemate was inevitable.
When that happened, Natasha knew the game would change. She was right, but it was slow going.
They were weapons, made to be hard and unyielding and unbreakable.
Learning to be soft with each other was harder than it seemed.
The Winter Soldier might have been unfeeling, but Bucky Barnes loved to be touched. According to Steve, he had reminded him of a cat in the past, always butting heads against people but curling around them whenever he got the chance.
Black Widow didn't have that past experience to draw on, but she liked the camaraderie of the team – the playful hits and arms slung over shoulders.
The touches between them came slower, a lot slower, than the hits and kicks. The first time he ran his hand down her back, she nearly garrotted him. The first time she took his hand, he froze solid for a full minute.
It was awkward and hesitant.
The other Avengers, Steve especially, thought they were adorable.
Gradually they began to remember who they were before.
And when Natasha was sat eating breakfast one day and James walked into the communal kitchen and placed a soft kiss on her neck without even thinking about it before getting his own food, she was oddly proud.
Across the table, Steve was grinning at her. She glared back.
"Don't you dare say anything," she hissed.
He held up his hands in protest.
Despite her discomfort at the scrutiny, she didn't protest when James came and sat by her, one arm over her shoulders as he ate his breakfast. She couldn't help the soft, pleased kiss she pressed to his cheek before burying her face in his shoulder – Steve be damned.
Natalia Romanova and James Barnes were made to be hard, to be weapons.
Natasha and Bucky, on the other hand could be soft together.
They were human after all.