'Steve.'

He looked up, muscles tensing for a fight, only to see Natasha coolly staring him down from his own (somewhat worse for the wear) couch. Steve felt a sigh building inside. He'd only come to lately-wrecked apartment to grab a few things. And here was Natasha, as inscrutable as ever. He felt weary, deeply weary, no patience left for her mindgames.

Steve turned toward her, releasing the sigh, trying to keep his tone civil. 'What is it?'

'You're going after him. Going after the Winter Soldier.' Straight to the point, then.

'His name is Bucky,' Steve replied automatically, a weight settling in his stomach. Natasha stood, wading through the debris to stand before him, her eyes dark.

'He's only going to hurt you,' she swallowed, looking away for a moment. 'There are things that no-one can go through and come out the same person.'

'He saved me, Nat,' so many times, 'I owe him the same.' Two boys chased each other through the dusty Brooklyn streets in his mind's eye, the hazy sunlight drifting down on both. 'Besides, he's my friend.' The ghost of a smile tugged at his mouth.

You just don't know when to give up, do you, punk?

Natasha's brows drew together. 'He's not your friend anymore, Steve. Don't delude yourself. We don't even know if it was him that pulled you from the river.'

Steve let a dry, mirthless laugh. 'There's no way I could saved myself.'

'Because he hurt you so bad!' Her voice broke around the words and she stopped abruptly. The silence was deafening as he stood there, looking anywhere but Natasha's face.

'That process cannot be reversed,' she whispered at last. Then, 'He's not your friend, anymore, Steve.'

'Natasha –'

'He's not your friend. He's your enemy. The Winter Soldier is going to kill you.'

Steve tried to shrug off the weight of her words. 'He never gave up on me. So I'm not gonna give up on him.'

It sounded simple when he said it that way, so simple: he'd find the Winter Soldier, convince him to come back, to remember, and they'd be Steve and Bucky again, just like before, before the fall.

But part of him knew that Natasha had a point.

The dark voice crawled in the back of his head: How far can one fall and still come back?

What changes a man into a monster?

Why do you still believe?

'You're not giving up on him, Steve. James Barnes might as well be dead, and that man died for his country, for his friends. You did everything you could.'

'No,' Steve nearly choked on the irony, 'No I didn't.'

Pictures and words from Bucky's file flashed behind his eyes – the cryo chamber, Bucky's frozen face, Subject retains no prior memory, the device used to steal everything that made Bucky himself...

If I had known, I would have come for you.

Two boys' laughter echoed in the sun-soaked street, laughter and dust, rain and light, and then – Oh. Oh, it always hurt – he was coughing his lungs up again, but a warm hand slid across his back, rubbing circles in his threadbare shirt. Bucky was always there, always helping, always protecting.

'You're only hurting yourself.' Natasha broke through his memory with a small, cold hand on his arm.

'It's my choice,' he shot back, 'And it doesn't matter if I get hurt.' Bucky hadn't shot him or punched him or stabbed him. That had been the Winter Soldier. Bucky had pulled him from a burning river. Bucky had saved his life. Again.

'It matters to me, Steve.' The quiet words stopped him and stared down at her for a long moment, studying her deep gray eyes and the soft something that hung there.

'Thank you, Natasha,' he put on a hand on her arm, their poses mirroring. 'But this isn't about me.'

Her lips parted, but nothing came out. A beat passed. She shook her head and let out a string of muttered syllables, Russian and most likely obscene. Jerking away, she bent and handed him the bag he'd been using to collect his belongings, now full.

'Then go. Save him if you can. Don't be stupid. Don't die.' The Widow spun across the floor, cleared the window sill, and disappeared with a soundless ripple and a crimson swirl.

Steve watched her go, straightened with a sigh, and moved toward the door, his many wounds complaining, half-healed. The road ahead would be long and painful, dangerous and uncertain. But still. Bucky was worth whatever it would take to save him. Steve owed the man. But more than that, James Barnes was a good man. And now he was alone, lost, hurt, and probably terrified. Steve had been there. He wouldn't wish it on anyone, let alone his best friend.

Wait for me, please. I'm coming.

. . .

Hidden in the apartment building's gray shadow, Natasha watched as he strode away, broad shoulders weighed with an invisible weight, classical face hidden under a faded baseball cap. An unfamiliar worry gnawed at her. She was letting him walk to what could very well be his doom, but then again, there was no dissuading that mind once it chose a course. She wanted nothing more than to drop everything and run after him, to follow him, and to watch his back. But the Black Widow would be a critical part of taking down HYDRA and putting something resembling SHIELD back together. Duty came first. And he would come back. Steve would come back.

That didn't make any easier to stand there and watch him do something incredibly stupid. The Winter Soldier was single-minded, deadly, heartless. Natasha didn't understand how Steve could still believe that his friend was in there. She didn't understand how he could be so blindingly, stupidly good.

But still. He was coming back.

Fury would tell her that he would come back because they need him to. The world – SHIELD and everyone else – needed Captain America. They needed men like him. They needed good men, the kind who made the hard calls and did the right thing.

The thought of losing him Captain America terrified her.

But Natasha needed Steve. And that terrified her even more.

More Winter Soldier fall-out. I think that Steve/Natasha really isn't a thing (yet?) given how the canon turned turned out, but Natasha definitely cares for him... Those two have such a nice dynamic that I had to write this. Scratch that, it practically wrote itself.

Set between Says the Ironhearted Man and The Falling Light. I have still have plot bunnies. These are turning into a 'verse. I need to come up with a name. ;)

What do you think, though? In-character? How was my dialogue? It's really my writing weakness and this is the longest sequence of dialogue I've ever written.I'd love to hear your thoughts!

-RandomCelt