AN I don't own Marvel or any of its characters.

Romanoff is down. The call rang over the com system-accidentally, probably, but he still heard it. He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing, searching for a sound he could recognize among the jumbled nonsense in his brain. Wheels of a gurney on cement. Steve's voice, telling her to hold on and to stay with them. The slam of a door. And then, nothing.

Lying there, he felt like he couldn't breathe. His shoulder ached where it met the metal and his entire left arm throbbed. It was reminder of his punishment. Of her. Not knowing if she was okay ate at him like acid on his skin and he forced himself to slow his breathing and his heartrate so he didn't set off any of the monitors. The metal cuffs bit into his skin. Wrists, arms, shoulders, neck, stomach, thighs, everything that could possibly move was battened down to the metal table as if they thought he was still a threat. He didn't really care, though. Because he was still a threat in the wrong hands.

He made himself wait. He knew the routines now and the rotation of the guard shifts, but he waited until he heard people leave and slam that same door behind them. Again, and again, until he heard Steve leave. Then, he inhaled deeply.

In a flash, he strained his metal arm against the restraints and snapped them one by one. He grabbed for the others and slowly freed himself, making sure that the metal cuffs didn't clang onto the cement and alert the guards. Quietly, he braced and pushed against the metal bars of the cell. He didn't break them-that would be too loud-he just bent them enough to slip through. No alarms went off, though, so he stepped out and moved towards the hall.

Being trained as a shadow had its advantages, and he was shown that yet again as he slid past a patrol of guards in a fully lit hallway. Didn't matter, though, he was focused on finding a door solid enough to slam. Most were identical and too thin, too light, to slam closed but he reached the end of the hallway and turned face to face with a huge, thick metal slab of a door. He swiped the stolen keycard through the lock, and opened it.

He was in a hospital wing. The smell of antiseptics and bleach flooded through his nostrils and he almost tripped because it made him so unsteady. He balanced with a hand on the wall, forcing himself to focus past the nausea and the pounding of his heart. He hated hospitals, had ever since the fall. But he needed to see for himself that she was okay.

The other patients and nurses were either asleep or busy and he managed to slip past them with relative ease, even though most of them were armed and there were security cameras. He didn't really care about getting caught, he just wanted to see her. So he slunk past them all and towards the end of the room where the private, secured hospital rooms were. She was threat when she was scared or disoriented, he could imagine, and when she was medicated probably more so-it made sense to restrain her. But he still didn't like the mental image of her being cuffed to a hospital bed.

There weren't many rooms to choose from but he got it right on the first try. It was the only one with monitors beeping and whirring inside. Silently, he slipped through the door. With the light from the hallway shining on her face, he was able to see her every feature as well as the damage she'd taken. It took his breath away.

"Natalya…" He couldn't help it, the nickname just slipped out into the air in place of some expletive or display of anger. She was asleep, dreaming, but it looked peaceful so he didn't wake her. His eyes zeroed in on the restraints, though, and he couldn't just leave her like that because he knew how panicked she would be when she woke up so, carefully, he unfastened them and freed her limbs. Somehow, he managed not to wake her up in the process. She was probably still heavily medicated.

He sat in the chair beside the bed, fully aware that they would be coming for him at any moment, but he couldn't make himself run. He didn't want to run. At the very least, shield didn't seem to want to control him as the Winter Soldier and that was more than any other group had promised. Steve seemed dead set on making him remember who he was before Zola. It wasn't bad, though, and they hadn't hurt him yet so he was content to go back to his cell and be restrained again, even if they hurt him in the process. He knew they would, but he didn't care. He just had to see that she was okay.

Natalya was one of the few people he could still remember from any point in his life. Even the people he reported to or the doctors who made his arm or constantly repaired it blurred in between cryo freezes and mind wipes. He felt like he should remember Steve, but he didn't yet. His mother came to mind if he really tried to think about her, but it was never memories of her from when he was young or when she'd raised him it was only watching her die. Punishment, for failure. But Natalya…

Natalya, he remembered. Not well, at first, because they'd tried so hard to make him forget her, but she came back to him more and more by the second. A little girl in ballet slippers, straining and struggling to stay on her toes while balancing the gun in her hand. A teenager in skin tight black material, fighting for her life. She'd been strong, then, and he knew she couldn't have changed much. But most vivid was the memory of a young woman, maybe nineteen, who had started as a face in a file but had become so much more.

He'd been sent to kill her when she failed to complete an assignment. Discipline, and then terminate. Code for torture her to death as punishment. But he'd gotten there, followed her up to her hotel room, and he'd been so ready to attack her but he'd just stopped. They'd warned him about her charms-she was a widow, he couldn't let himself fall prey to that-but he'd never been very sexually minded even before the mind wipes started so he wasn't worried. His mind existed in a dichotomy of success or pain.

She hadn't even put up a fight. She'd noticed him lurking in the dark hotel room and offered him a drink. At his silence, she'd just downed the vodka herself. I know you're probably here to kill me, she'd told him, but do you mind if I shower first? I don't want to die with blood on my hands. That one sentence struck him like a fist to the face, for some reason. She didn't wait for his response, either, she just undressed and slipped into the shower. He stood there, shocked, listening to the water run from the bathroom, for over ten minutes. Why the hell couldn't he just kill her?

But he couldn't. For whatever reason, he couldn't make himself step into that bathroom. Maybe it was the apathy in her voice or maybe it was because she understood the idea of dying with blood on your hands, but he couldn't do it. When she emerged from the bathroom, he was still standing there. She got dressed in clean clothes and kept looking back at him as if trying to get a read on his expression through the mask, but didn't seem concerned.

"Mind if I make soup?" He didn't respond, so she went to the kitchenette and opened a can of tomato soup to heat in the microwave. "You want some?" She pulled the steaming bowl from the microwave and sat down at the table to eat it, motioning to the other chair. There was no harm in eating, right? Clearly it wasn't poisoned because she was eating it too and if she wanted to fight back she could have already. So he sat, and took the other spoon from her. They ate the soup in silence.

"You're getting blood and dirt everywhere." She took his jacket but didn't even flinch at the metal arm or the soviet star. Instead, she tossed him a clean towel and a pair of sweats. She must have worn severely oversized sweats because they fit him, somehow, but he didn't complain he just rubbed the blood from his skin and sat back down at the table. She just moved around the kitchen, cleaning up the mess. For some reason, she didn't seem to be afraid of the mask.

"Here." She handed him a warm washcloth but didn't move away. Instead, she reached for him. He caught her wrist and started to fight but she just let him pin her against the table. When she didn't struggle, he let her go. She reached again for his hair but he let her this time, pulling a knife discretely against the base of her spine just in case. She simply undid the clasp on his mask and set it on the table. She moved back, unconcerned with the knife in his hand.

"You're welcome to shower if you want. I don't know if it'll make you rust, though." He just stared at her. How the hell was she being so nonchalant about this? He was clearly there to kill her, but she was treating him like a damn houseguest? At his confusion, she offered a smile.

"I'm not surprised you don't remember me. But I remember you." He just stared, unblinking, because he did not understand in the slightest. "You trained me off and on in the Red Room." That sinking feeling set in, the one that weighed on his shoulders when he felt like he should remember someone or something but couldn't quite get there. She looked familiar, but then again so did anyone who looked remotely Russian.

"I'm Natalya, by the way." Right, he knew that. He had a whole file on her and he knew that her name was Natalya Romanova but it didn't click until she said it with that Russian emphasis that made it sound more like Natal'ya than Natalya. The little girl with red hair whose arms shook with exhaustion when she held the gun. In his mind, he saw his own metal hand reach out and steady her before their director could see and punish her. He'd never believed in punishing them for struggling, only for disobedience. They were children.

So, whenever he could, he simply corrected them or adjusted their stance without being noticed. She'd learned quickly, even as a little girl, that he had full feeling in his metal arm and, whenever they sparred, she was always gentle with it. Not so much that it gained noticed, and not when they were being observed of course. But they'd practiced more after normal sessions or at night because she wanted to improve and then she'd been gentle. When he corrected her stance or the way she held her knife, she let her hand relax so he could readjust it and she let her thumb smooth gently against his palm in thanks whenever she could. She was young, barely six or seven, but she wasn't scared of him. She was gentle, when everyone else had assumed he couldn't feel the metal, and she smiled at him and said thank you whenever he tried to teach her.

He remembered training her off and on. Sometimes, he remembered her and sometimes he didn't it all depended on how fucked his mind was and how much pain he was in. But, on one of the times he did remember her, she was struggling with her hand to hand skills. She was falling behind in the class, receiving more and more beatings, and just struggling so he offered to help her like they normally did. He'd given her a bruised rib that night and left a significant number of bruises all over her body even though she was improving. But she hadn't been angry. When they'd finished sparring and he was sitting on the mat, putting his shoes back on, she'd left and turned the light off. Or, he'd thought she left. In the darkness, she'd come back and sat beside him with her hand resting gently on his metal arm. Only twelve or thirteen, she still was dwarfed by his size but she still didn't seem scared of him. She just smoothed her hand on the metal, knowing he could feel it, and let them sit in the silence.

"Thank you," she'd whispered, just next to his ear so the microphones in the room wouldn't pick it up.

"For beating you up?" But she laughed.

"No, silly. For not going easy on me. I understand it." His silence, evidently, was enough to show his confusion because she leaned back in to whisper again. "I understand. You're trying to protect me, trying to make sure I can handle whatever they throw at me. It's not your fault that this is the only way you can do that." He stayed silent until she left but then, sitting there in the dark, he collapsed back onto the mat and let a few tears slip out. Because right then and there, he realized she was right. He hadn't meant to do it-there was nothing in his training or his orders that even said he was supposed to work with her-but he'd been trying to protect her this entire time. And she'd seen it, before he had. The next time he went into cryo, her little hand on his arm was the last thing he thought about.

Across the table from him in the hotel room, she gave him a little smile and passed him a glass of water that he accepted. Slowly, she set to work stitching up the gash on her bicep.

"You remember me." It wasn't a question, but he nodded. That made her smile again, even through the burn of the stitches, but he just drank the water and watched her. Some part of him couldn't really believe she'd made it to nineteen, that she'd survived that place, but a larger part of him wasn't surprised at all because he knew her. She was fire and iron barely contained beneath human skin.

"You still going to kill me?" She said it lightly, though, like she was making conversation about the weather not about her death.

"I… don't know yet." She just nodded.

"Well, in the meantime, will you let me fix up some of those nasty scratches?" She motioned to his chest, where four gaping claw marks were still buried in his chest from his last run in with the woman in white-a French agent notorious for her claws. They were little blades, secured between her real nails and her acrylic nails, but they were deadly. Only then, still sitting in silence, did he realized she'd actually asked him a question.

"Okay." She stood, gathering medical supplies, but he just reeled. She'd actually asked him. It wasn't rhetorical, she wasn't going to do it anyways, and she'd waited for his answer before doing anything. She'd given him a choice, and respected it. He couldn't remember the last time someone had asked for permission to do something to him, let alone the last time he wasn't just forced or ordered into it. She'd… asked.

"I'm sorry if this stings." The rubbing alcohol did sting, but he didn't react to it. What he did react to was her sitting on the table in front of him, leaning over to reach his chest, deliberately putting their bodies close together. She was a widow, he reminded himself, he'd witnessed her training firsthand. But it didn't feel sexual or like she was trying to entice him somehow. Actually, it felt more intimate than anything. Like she knew he would let her get that close, like she trusted that he wouldn't just snap and kill her. Or, she didn't care if he did.

"Why are you doing this?" On the table, she shrugged and moved to the gravel imbedded in his shoulder, picking it out piece by piece with tweezers.

"You were always kind to me, even when you didn't have to be. I'm not as heartless as they say." It felt like a trap or a trick but he honestly wasn't sure if he cared. He'd watched her grow up, watched her become this living weapon, and he couldn't bring himself to shake that hint of attachment that knowing her brought. Maybe it was just because it'd been so long since he recognized someone… But it felt like more.

"Oh, that looks like a bitch." She ran her hand through his hair to move it out of the way so she could get to the cut at the back of his neck, just under his hairline. He realized with a jolt that his eyes had closed. He forced them open again, but everything was tilted. He was leaning into her touch. She carefully pulled shards of glass from the cut and closed it with a few butterfly closures but she didn't pull her hand out of his hair. Why the hell did that affect him so much?

"Haven't seen you around the compound lately. Were you on assignment or…?"

"Cryo." She winced, carding her hand through his hair again as if that helped. But, strangely, it kind of did? The cryo was just something he'd gotten used to and it seemed to put more pain in her face than it did in his but he didn't understand why. What did she care?

"I'm sorry." He just shrugged. Slowly, she stood and moved behind him, keeping her hand tangled in his hair, but he flinched when she laid her other hand on his shoulder. She sighed.

"Been a long time?" Wait, what? He hesitated, uncertain if she was taking this conversation into a sexual topic, but she didn't explain. She just ran her fingers through his hair and smoothed the skin of his human shoulder.

"What?" The hand on his shoulder slowed near his neck and started to massage the muscle there, letting him relax back into her. "Natalya, what?" She sighed again and continued to massage his shoulder.

"It's been a long time since someone touched you, hasn't it? Or at least a touch that didn't result in pain." He swallowed hard and almost choked but she just kept massaging and running her fingers through his hair. Somehow, she always managed to say the one thing that cut deepest to his core. She was right, of course. He could handle punches and kicks and all kinds of pain but she was so fucking gentle that it just broke him.

"Yeah." It was choked, but they both chose to ignore that. She let her hand slip down out of his hair and to his other shoulder, massaging up the sides of his neck and along his spine until his head dropped back against her stomach. He knew he shouldn't be doing this. He would undoubtedly get another round of torture and a mind wipe and probably a good few years of cryo for this, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Every touch shook him to his core and it only resonated so much harder when it combined with that old, familiar relief. She'd been gentle then, and it made it that much stronger now. But she just massaged and occasionally smoothed his hair.

"Do you trust me?" She stopped and moved around to meet his eyes, taking his hands in hers. But the way she held his metal hand-identical to how she held his human hand-snapped back all those times she'd been gentle with his metal arm as if she somehow knew he could feel it and he couldn't lie. He didn't want to lie.

"Yes." She clasped his hands and pulled him up onto his feet before leading him over to the bed. Carefully, she pushed him back to sit on the mattress. She turned out the lights overhead and turned on the lamp beside the bed but, when he hadn't moved from his position, she came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist.

"You can kill me in the morning, Winter." But that wasn't what he was torn up about. The nicknames, the way her touch settled so easily against his skin, the way he caught himself relaxing. It all felt too easy.

"Do you want to lay down?" Again, she gave him a choice and actually waited for his answer. But her arms around him and her chin on his shoulder were too convincing so he just nodded. He fell back onto the mattress when she moved out of the way. Slowly, she settled beside him. The light was dim enough that he could just barely see the outline of her features but he recognized her smile and he unconsciously mimicked it, unaware that she could see his expression completely. She reached out and took his hands in hers, again treating them equally. Gently, she pressed a kiss against the back of each hand.

"Natalya…" But she didn't reach for his waistband or make it sexual so he let it go. The affection of the movement coursed through his veins like some kind of drug.

"Winter…" she mocked, repeating his name in the same tone with a little smile behind it.

"Why do you call me that?" But, in the darkness, it was hard to meet her eyes. She moved closer to press her cheek against his chest.

"Because that was what everyone called you-The Winter Soldier. I didn't know your real name, or if you even had one, but I didn't want to call you soldier. That was what they called you when they controlled you. So Winter it is." She wrapped her arms around him in a loose hug and he did the same, letting his chin rest on the top of her head, but he didn't let it slide.

"When they controlled me?" No one knew, really, who controlled him or how. Most assumed that he was a mercenary that could be hired for the right price or the right threat. Others thought he was deeply loyal to the KGB and hydra and became a killing machine because that was what he was. But no one, not even the men who actually did control him, had ever acted like it was against his will.

"Yeah, controlled you. I could see the difference in you, when you were yourself and when you weren't. I never knew how they controlled you but I knew they did." He just nodded, shrugging it off, but that meant the world to him. No one had ever assumed that he was good, that he hadn't chose or even wanted to be the weapon that he was.

"Talya?" She didn't mention the new nickname, but she kissed his chest when he said it so he assumed that she liked it. "Why are you doing this?" He'd already asked her that, he knew, but he still couldn't really believe it was out of the kindness of her heart or any kind of loyalty. Maybe she felt like she owed him a debt? He didn't want her to think she owed him anything, especially not anything like this.

"Because, Winter, I want to. Is that okay?" He hesitated but then he nodded. She lifted her head and met his eyes. Had her eyes always been that electric shade of green? He couldn't remember getting lost in them so easily but surely the Red Room hadn't been desperate enough to change her eye color? Regardless, he was lost in them now. But before he could snap himself out of it, her hand was on his cheek and she was leaning up, reaching for him. She connected their lips and he almost screamed because he didn't know what to do with something like that but she was slow and gentle and let him adjust and get used to it. Tentatively, he kissed her back. It was awkward but it was sweet-chaste. It was so filled with affection and care and anything but pain that he felt like he might drown in it. Until she pulled back.

"And," she whispered, letting her breath touch his lips. "Because I always hated the way you flinched, even though I understood it. I remember what it feels like knowing that touch has to mean pain. I always thought you deserved better than that." For the first time in probably decades, he felt tears behind his eyes threatening to fall. He wanted to believe her, so badly. But he couldn't.

"Why?" She nuzzled against his chest until he hugged her a little closer, but sighed.

"Because you're a good man, Winter." He had to swallow hard to get his voice back, even though she seemed unaffected by that statement, because he wanted to cry. It hit him like a slap in the face. She thought he was a good man. He'd been one of the men who had tortured and trained her in the Red Room, who had made her into the weapon that she was, and she still thought he was a good man.

"Not really, no." She squeezed his hand, as if to protest. "But you're the only one who understands that." That time, she squeezed his hand more in reassurance than in threat.

"I'll always understand, Winter. Always."

And, staring at her on that hospital bed, he felt those same tears from all those years ago well up in his eyes. There was a cast on her leg and enough bandages for a bullet or two through her abdomen, but she was okay. The steady beep of the heart monitor let him breathe. He remembered her.

"Who's there?" He jumped at her voice and at the spike in the heart monitor but he was already going for the door, trying to get out. She would be angry, and she wouldn't want to see him. Besides, he was supposed to be locked up anyways and it would be better if-

"Winter?" He froze. She flicked on the lamp on the table beside her bed and strained, looking for him in the shadows, but he couldn't breathe.

"Winter, there are no cameras in here. You can come out. Please?" Somehow, like always, her voice managed to compel him out of the shadows and into the light. But rather than pinch in anger, her face lit up in recognition. She reached for him, starting to get up, but instantly he was beside her and easing her back onto the bed.

"Hey, easy there Talya. Don't start the bleeding again." She just smiled up at him, though. The longer she did, the more he realized that had been her plan all along-to get him beside her, within reach. Gently, she cupped his cheek. And, just like before, that gentle affection hit him like a blow he never could have seen coming and he sank into her touch with a sigh.

"You remember me." He nodded, incapable of lying right now, but she just grinned. And then she was hugging him, throwing her arms around him and wiggling into his lap until he relented and hugged her back gently.

"I'm not made of glass," she chided. "Come on, hug me like you missed me." He had missed her, immensely, and he tightened his hold on her until she buried her face in his chest as a sign of contentment. He hadn't realized until that moment how much he'd missed her, but he had. Her touch, her voice, he felt like he was slipping, falling back into cryo even without the chamber or the gas the longer he let himself forget who he was, but she was like a mug of hot chocolate. She made him realize he was freezing in the first place.

"Please don't go."

"They're looking for me." She nodded, but clutched his hands in hers.

"I know, I'll take care of it. Please stay?" He nodded. She reached for the phone beside the bed and made a few calls. As soon as she hung up, she started to explain what was happening but then the door burst open and men in all black with machine guns and tasers burst into the room and it was all he could do to get up and across the room before they hit him. He didn't even realize that he'd dragged her with him, or that he'd put himself between her and the threat. But the men didn't hesitate to center their sights on him and, it seemed, they weren't opposed to shooting him on sight but then Natasha stepped out from behind him. Guns went down to a forty five degree angle with the floor. She stepped in front of him, shielding him with her body, and glared at the men.

"Get out." They started to protest, but the commotion drew a crowd and soon Tony, Steve, Clint, and Peter were in the room with Fury right behind them. They all gaped. He felt his heartrate skyrocket and started to make a break for the windows but Natasha took his hand in hers and held it, keeping him behind her and keeping her body between him and the guns.

"Nat, what the hell are you doing?!" She glared at Tony, though.

"He's not a threat. Stand down." No one did, but Tony lifted a gloved hand as if to shoot and Natasha quickly spun to block that as well, using herself as a human shield.

"Nat, he broke out of his cell and ripped the fucking metal off its hinges! And he came after you! The one weakened by injury! He's like a fucking lion picking off members of the herd, but you're defending him!?" But Clint was the one who stepped up and lowered Tony's hand, staring at Natasha.

"Steve," he said softly. "You said that the guys who kidnapped Bucky's unit were Soviet?" Steve nodded, still gaping at them both.

"Yeah, why?" In front of him, Natasha steeled herself but just squeezed his hand as if to reassure him that it would be okay. He squeezed back. Clint stared at them both, but mostly at Natasha. He got the impression that the two were close.

"If he was taken by Soviets…" The room hesitated but Tony and Steve didn't seem to get it. "I think they know each other."

"Impossible! He doesn't remember anyone, he doesn't remember me!" But Steve stopped when Tony lowered his arm and took off the glove. Clint slung his bow over his shoulder and relaxed. The whole room just stared at them. Natasha spoke.

"You knew him before he was given the serum, Steve. It's been a long time since he knew you." The silence settled over the room like tear gas, pulling at their throats and forcing confused tears in all their eyes. But he broke it, whispering quietly in Russian to her.

"You don't have to do this. Let them take me back, I should be restrained." They all stared at him, both for speaking and for the Russian, but Natasha just squeezed his hand.

"No, I want you here." Her tone was so protective that he wanted to cry. "They need to realize that you aren't a threat and calm the hell down, but you're fine. It's okay, they won't hurt you, Winter. Not through me." She must have heard the worry in his voice, the fear that she would get hurt because of him or that they would hurt him, but the others in the room just gawked like they couldn't believe what was happening.

"Do you.. Know her?" He understood the English, of course, but hesitated. Steve seemed like a good guy, but he didn't know him. She squeezed his hand though, that he should answer.

"Yes."

"He was one of my trainers in the Red Room, we're friends. He won't hurt anyone and I want him here, with me. Now, if you would be so kind as to dismiss your swat team, I would like to get back into my bed because I think the bullet wound in my thigh is bleeding again." At that, the swat team exited and so did Peter and Clint, but the other three stayed. Slowly, Natasha moved forward and guided him with her, keeping herself between them, but when they got to the hospital bed she hesitated and let him help her up. Carefully, he reconnected the monitors but she didn't let go of his hand.

Thanks for reading! Please review! I've written more BuckyNat and Stucky works lately and encouragement goes a long way in getting me to publish them!