Time is Dancing, an Avengers + Edge of Tomorrow Crossover fanfic

AN: Okay, important little nugget of info: while it isn't necessary for you to have seen Edge of Tomorrow (cool film though), it should be known that I took some liberties with the 'rules' of the time resetting ability, as well as one or two other schematics (i.e. where the characters end up - I Google-mapped, but I had to make the location largely fictional in the end). All for the good of fiction though, and I'm sure they're only minor details in the grander scheme of things, no?

Anyway, I'm back for BuckyNat Week again! [BuckyNat Week 2015 was March 19th - March 25th] Very excited this time around, as I also had the honour of having this piece 'illustrated' with some kick-ass graphics by the super talented red_b_rackham, so please take the time to have a look at them over on Archive Of Our Own (would link them in, but can't figure out how to...?). This was much tougher than last year, and while I'm relieved it's over I have enjoyed pushing my creative drive, and I hope the end result is worth it! :D

(Title taken from a song of the same name by Ben Howard.)

Time is Dancing

"Get me a partner," Bucky says to Fury, and Fury comes back with a Russian woman.

"Natalia Romanova," she says, introducing herself. She's of a slight build with vibrant red hair already held in a ponytail, her face a polite mask, deep green eyes never leaving his face. The way she settles into a fighting stance – almost casually, limbs effortlessly and perfectly poised – has Bucky intrigued.

"James Barnes," he returns, and takes up position opposite her. For a moment, everything is still, something Bucky only notices because he's used to facing an opponent who wouldn't stay still for the world. Mimics don't stay still either – and with that thought, he makes the first move.

They fight conservatively to begin with, trading blows the way one would engage in small talk with a new acquaintance: he throws out a fist, she parries with her foot, which he blocks before responding in kind. It's rhythmic, unhurried, right up until the moment Fury, watching from the side-lines, gets impatient. The pace changes almost instantly; Bucky is acutely aware that the moment he begins striking to hit Natalia reveals her true skill, and it's unlike anything he's ever seen. They never agreed on any ground rules, but the way she fights is almost balletic, and Bucky works his hardest to keep her from pinning him whilst looking for an opening that allows him to do so. Their fight becomes so engaged that neither of them hear Fury calling for it to halt until he whistles, loud and sharp, and they jump away from each other in surprise.

"I think the two of you will work well together," he says, and leaves.

Bucky and Natalia grab their towels, chests heaving. He watches her as she stretches her arms, her eyes closed as she regains control of her breathing. "Where did you learn to fight like that?"

"My school," she says, her speech almost devoid of any accent. "I was trained from a young age."

"Yeah? Which school was that?"

"One in Moscow."

"Might I have heard of it?"

Natalia smiles. "No."

"Oh." Not knowing how to continue, Bucky pulls of his sweat-soaked tank and pulls out a cleaner t-shirt from his bag. He's a second away from getting on when he feels a chill go down his back, and he glances across to Natalia.

She blinks, moving her gaze away from his shoulder. "I've never seen technology like it before," she murmurs.

Bucky covers his metal shoulder up with the shirt, regretting not bringing something long-sleeved. "Because it's one of a kind."

"Is it too soon to ask what happened?"

"Yes." He shoves his towel and tank top into his bag and zips it up, avoiding her as he grabs his water bottle and heads for the door. "I'll see you in the briefing."

Fury had called in two 'experts' for Bucky and Natalia's benefit, though as one of them immediately states on such an introduction: "We're not experts."

"What he means," his partner says, "is that we're just two people who happen to know a lot about Mimics, though not enough to be called experts, per se."

"Dr Bruce Banner and Tony Stark are the two leading minds on the Mimic invasion," Fury clarifies. "They've studied the things for years –"

"Ever since their first little visit to us actually," Stark interrupts, oblivious to Fury's glare. "They've grown up so much. I feel like a proud parent."

"Grown up?" Bucky echoes.

Banner steps forward. "The Mimics appear to have evolved – or at least, that's what we think. In the past, they've touched down in fewer numbers, and we've managed to eradicate their presence, although it's been subsequently harder each time."

"Mimics weren't always 'mechanical'," Stark continues, and Fury sits down. Tapping the table, Stark brings up a series of eight drawings, each one similar in a subtle manner. Bucky recognises the last drawing. "As you can see, these early creatures were pretty much entirely flesh, but each version afterwards is either more thickly-skinned or reinforced with some metallic, or at least metal-like, substance."

"Like the ones we're familiar with, although these versions are still inherently biological." Banner taps the latest drawing, and Bucky's muscles instinctively tense as the image zooms in. "Despite their speed and strength, it's still possible to penetrate that armour, and as far as we know, Mimics breathe and bleed in a similar manner to most life on Earth."

"Of course that's just speculation, seeing as we haven't been able to study a live sample." Stark makes a pointed look at Fury.

"Have you ever been close to a live one, Stark?" Bucky asks, irritated by the man's attitude.

"Not as close as I'd like to have been."

"Then you weren't far away enough," Natalia growls, surprising everyone. Bucky shares her sentiment though – the only reason he'd ever want to get close to a Mimic is to kill it.

"Dr Banner," Fury says in the silence; "Why don't you explain how Mimics operate?"

Banner nods, fiddling with his glasses. "So, from what we've been able to see, and from what Agent Barnes has told us of his past experiences, Mimics come in two, uh, 'categories', if you like – there are orange ones, and these act as pawns, or foot soldiers, the type you're most likely to see. Then there are bigger, blue ones –"

"We call them Alphas."

"And they're rarer, much more like commanders."

"And then there's the Omega."

"Hang on," Natalia says. "You said there were just two?"

"The Omega's different," Stark says. "All these Mimics are connected by some kind of hive mentality, and they're all linked up to this huge, individual organism – the Omega."

"We believe the Omega is what has the ability to loop time. That ability appears to be triggered by the death of an Alpha."

"But someone threw a spanner in the works."

Stark gives Bucky a strange smirk, and he bristles. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Our theory is that this ability can only be carried by one individual at a time." Banner gestures towards Bucky, continuing: "At the moment, that individual is you, Agent Barnes."

"You're the One, Jimmy."

"Don't call me that."

"What does this mean for them?" Fury says, directing the conversation back.

The doctor half-shrugs. "Uh, our guess is that we have an edge over them, for now. As long as you both retain the ability, you should be able to keep going until you find the Omega."

"Both?" Bucky says, raising an eyebrow. Banner hesitates, looking towards Fury.

"The plan is for the two of you to be the ultimate attack force," the Director says. "The more you both know, the more you can outmanoeuvre the enemy and hit their weak spots. We believe you can only do that if both of you have the looping ability."

"But they just said only one person can have it," Bucky points out.

"Keep your hat on, Barnes, you're still the Chosen."

"That's the theory," Fury says, "and we're going to test it."

"How?"

He shares a glance with Banner. "We're going to synthesise your blood, Agent Barnes."

Bucky feels his world tilt. The colour drains out of his vision, and he can barely hear himself say "No," under the ringing in his ears.

"Barnes –"

"No." He stands up, lilting to the left as he tries to step away from the table. "No more tests, you promised –"

Fury stands too. "This is not a test."

"You can't do this to me."

"Barnes –"

"Not after what they did."

"What we are doing is nothing like –"

"I decide what happens to my blood, that was the deal!"

"Then hear us out!"

"After you lied to me? Do you really think I want to?"

"Would you two like some privacy for your little family drama?"

"Can it, Stark."

"Agent Barnes –"

"Give me one good reason, Fury. One good reason –"

"Is the fate of humanity not reason enough for you, soldier?" Fury snaps, taking a step closer. "Or would you be content with dishonouring Rogers' ideals?"

It's a deep cut, and Bucky looks away, immediately ashamed. He's had enough needles in him for one lifetime, and the idea of willingly submitting to even one more makes him nauseous – but then so does the idea of breaking a certain promise. Really, it's no contest. Knowing he only has himself to blame for giving Fury that ammunition (and the Director must have been waiting to pull it out on him), Bucky relents, and drops back into his seat wordlessly. He feels almost every pair of eyes in the room boring into him, but he curls his shoulders and glowers at the table, channelling his anger at the picture of the Mimic still visible.

"Romanova will be given a synthesised version of Barnes' blood," Fury continues, "and once we've determined whether or not she has the ability to loop time with him, we'll send you out to Europe with a STRIKE force. You'll receive a final briefing before you depart." And with those words, the meeting is adjourned. Fury and Stark leave together, the words "weapons development" going with them, and Banner intones softly for Natalia to follow him.

Bucky glances up to watch her go and finds her gaze is still on him, almost unreadable. She looks like she's working something out, a puzzle that's missing a few pieces, and he squirms under her scrutiny. But he doesn't let it show, and meets her stare with one of his own, daring her to look a little longer. He's about to snap at her when she turns away and goes with the doctor, not even sparing a word for him as she leaves.

The relief at finally being alone is unexpected, but Bucky sighs, letting his head fall into his hands. He didn't think he'd feel so unhappy with the idea of being part of a team – especially after suggesting it himself. The sense of betrayal was marred by the grudging acceptance that Fury was right; they would need as much of an advantage over the Mimics as they could get, and if that meant a small sacrifice on his part, who was he to say no? Steve would do it in a heartbeat.

At the familiar grief clouding his thoughts, Bucky forced himself up, his limbs heavier than usual, and headed out towards the main compound. He needed some air – and maybe a reminder of what he was fighting for.

"How much are you going to take, exactly?"

"Only a vial."

"Vial sizes can vary."

Dr Banner gives Bucky a wry smile. "Agent Barnes, there's really nothing for you to worry about. You'll have plenty left to use your ability."

"It's not my ability," Bucky grunts. "And that's not why I'm asking."

"You're worried Fury's going to use it for other purposes." Surprised by the doctor's insight, Bucky gawps a bit, and Banner chuckles drily. "I know the Director a little better than you think. I wouldn't put it past him to do something like that, either."

"You'll make sure he can't then?"

Banner uncaps the needle. "Of course." He positions himself by Bucky's bare arm. "Ready?"

Breathing out hard, Bucky tries to clear his mind, tries to relax. "No, but go ahead. Want to get it over with."

Mercifully, it's easier than he anticipated to stay grounded. Banner talks to him, telling him what he's doing, asking how he feels, and the room is so different to the old basement he associates with this sort of thing that just letting his eyes wander helps more than keeping them closed. He isn't restrained, either, though he knows that would never happen under Fury's roof. Yet there's still a needle in his arm, and his blood is disappearing into a syringe, and that's too familiar for comfort.

So of course Natalia Romanova would choose the moment he was hunched over a bucket to walk in.

"Are you alright?" she asks, voice carefully concerned.

Bucky wonders why she's asking. "I'm fine."

"You don't like needles."

"No."

"I don't either."

"Whoop-de-doo, we have something in common." He lifts his head from the bucket and turns to Banner. "How long do we have until show time, doc?"

"Around twenty-four hours," he says, sliding the vial of blood into a clear plastic bag. "I've been studying your blood for a while now, Agent Barnes, and if I can work without interruption, I'm confident it won't take longer than that. You should probably rest up. Both of you."

"My thoughts exactly." Dropping the bucket by the chair, Bucky leaves with one destination in mind: his bed. The old drink-and-pass-out plan is ready to be implemented, and he's pretty sure he has enough pent-up anger inside him to be able to kick his excuse of a television into actually giving him a decent picture, maybe even a choice of channels.

"Do you want to spar again in a bit?"

He comes to a complete standstill in the hall. Looking back he finds Natalia directly behind him, her face the mask he's already accustomed to. "No."

"Why not?"

His arm throbs as he gestures back to Banner's office. "We were told to get some rest."

"You're going to sleep for twenty-four hours?"

"God willing, yes."

"If we're going to work together, we should spend at least a bit of time around each other."

"You wanna watch me get blackout drunk and kick a television to death, be my guest. It's not as exciting as it sounds." He starts to walk away.

"I could use a drink."

"Then go to the squaddies. They've got their stashes."

She follows him. "Maybe I want what you've got."

He stops again, turning back to her despite his growing impatience. "You don't know what I've got."

"Whiskey."

Her accuracy unnerves him. "Squaddies have whiskey."

"Not your kind," she says, and before he can come back with another retort she goes on to say, "An old brand. Strong, more burn than taste, and probably quite rare these days. A gift – from Director Fury, perhaps."

Bucky stares at her. "You've been through my quarters?" he hisses.

"No; that was a guess." The corner of her mouth is raised slightly, humour tinting her eyes, and Bucky finds himself believing her.

"How did you…" Grudgingly impressed as he is, he isn't sure he wants to know.

"Why are you afraid of medical tests?"

That's the final straw. He's already in a foul mood because of that history, and the whole point of the blackout plan is so that he doesn't have to think about it any longer than he has to. "Why can't you take a hint?" he snaps, and turns away from her for the last time.

"I can take it. I'm just wilfully ignoring it. Why won't you answer my question?"

"I'm wilfully ignoring you."

There's no sound of a reply, no footsteps echoing his; he makes it to his quarters, locks the door, pulls out his whiskey and fires up the television. The alcohol burns a little more fiercely then he remembers, but after enough swigs it's still quick to numb the impact of his foot against the useless box.

In the morning – or rather, the afternoon – Bucky decides he needs food, even if it's a trek from his quarters to the mess. He doesn't see Natalia on the way, and one part of him is glad while the other feels guilty (and another feels too shitty to care). The sun is out but the day is cold, and he groans at the sensation, on the verge of shambling back to bed when a voice calls his name across the compound.

"Do you know how good your caveman impression is right now Barnes?"

Bucky rolls his eyes, and grumbles out a response; "Still only half as good as yours, Barton."

Clint Barton just laughs, patting Bucky on the shoulder. "Come on, man, eggs are waiting."

"Are they hot?"

"At the moment."

"Are they alone?"

"You might get a muffin and some bacon if you hustle."

"Hustle for me."

Barton snorts. "You got the officers to give you the special treatment, Barnes. Come to our mess, you play by our rules, remember?"

"Fuck you."

"Yeah, yeah, fuck me," he repeats with more laughter. It's not too annoying. "Your TV still in one piece?"

"Just." They're close enough to the tent that he can smell those heavenly eggs, and his stomach roars at the premise of food. "Not so sure about my head."

"There's a remedy for that," Barton says, pulling aside the entrance flap. "It's a beautiful concoction known as coffee, and I'm recommending to you an extra strong cup to accompany those eggs you're drooling over."

His teasing only distantly registers with Bucky, who's spotted someone over in the corner of the tent he hadn't exactly wanted to see so soon. "Christ."

"What?"

Picking up a tray, Bucky moves to join the line, and very pointedly does not look at Natalia. "That red-head in the corner," he says to Barton.

Discreet as ever, Barton takes a good long look over his shoulder. "What's she like?"

"Don't really know. I kind of… maybe yelled at her a bit last night."

He turns back to Bucky with a grin. "Please tell me she whooped your prideful ass on the mats?"

Bucky gives him a look. "Nobody's ass got whooped. We were too evenly matched. She's supposed to be my partner for this upcoming attack on the Mimics, only last night she… asked a few questions I wasn't ready to answer."

"So you took it out on her, the whiskey, and the TV," Barton guesses. "Smooth, Barnes. Nothing quite says 'Let's be partners' like a rebuttal in favour of alcohol and appliance abuse."

"Thank you, Doctor Barton, for reminding me how fucked up in the head I am."

"Hey, better an appliance than a human being. So what are you going to do about it?"

Tray loaded with everything he might need to feel less like a caveman, Bucky cringes. "Ignore it and hope it goes away?"

Throwing an arm over his shoulders, Barton guides him around the tables, and Bucky – who really just wants to eat his eggs – lets him. "Seeing as Sam isn't here to tell you how idiotic that idea is, allow me to channel his spirit and say: that idea is stupendously idiotic."

"Sam doesn't say 'stupendously'."

"You're apologising to her."

"Can't I have my eggs first?"

"You can have your eggs while you apologise."

"Wait, what do you –" Bucky realises exactly where Barton's taking him. "Oh, no, Barton –"

"Excuse me ma'am?"

Natalia barely moves, save to flick her eyes up towards them. Barton seems oblivious to her hostility and smiles.

"Hi. I'm Private Clint Barton of 616 Unit, and this is Special Agent Barnes – with whom I believe you're already acquainted." She spares Bucky a cursory glance, and he tries not to avert his gaze (too much). "He'd like to make amends for his behaviour towards you the other night, and I'm here to help make that possible." With those words, Barton practically yanks Bucky down into the seat opposite Natalia, grinning at them both once more before saying "Have a good day!" and leaving with a whistled tune.

Alone with Natalia again, Bucky tries to smile and mumbles, "Sorry about him." She just focuses on her food. He attempts to do the same, but after only a few seconds he can't stand the cold atmosphere between them. "Uh, look, about last night," he begins; "I didn't mean to snap at you like that. I was in a bad mood, and was on my way to take it out on my TV, but you kind of… stepped in first. So, yeah. Sorry."

Finally, she looks up. "Are you saying it was my fault?"

"What? No!" he says. "It's all on me, seriously."

Natalia regards him for another moment, then nods and continues eating. Feeling oddly relieved, Bucky does the same, and an almost comfortable silence sits between them until she's cleaned her plate. "Director Fury told me Stark had a demonstration for us while we wait for Banner to finish synthesising your blood."

"He did?" Bucky groans internally. He just wants to go back to sleep for a bit.

"We're to meet them in the simulation hangar in thirty minutes."

"The simulation hangar?"

"Yes." Seeing his expression, she frowns. "Is there something wrong?"

Reaching for his coffee, Bucky merely says, "I think I know what kind of 'demonstration' he means," and hopes he isn't as hungover as he still feels.

Thirty minutes later, however, he probably feels worse than he did when he woke up, only because he was right – he knows what's coming, and he knows he won't enjoy it. Much. Fury and Stark meet them in the hangar as Natalia said, Stark tinkering with a ferocious metal contraption suspended from a complicated piece of machinery lining the ceiling above them. "That," Fury explains, for Natalia's benefit, "is a simulated Mimic. It recreates their movements and fighting styles based on what little data we have on them, and is only to be used by those with the looping ability." Here, he looks at Bucky, and the agent sees the exact moment Fury realises he's not at his best. "Agent Barnes is going to demonstrate why."

There's no room for argument, Bucky knows, so he picks up a nearby sabre and takes position in the centre of the hangar. Stark doesn't move away from the robot. "What's he doing?" Bucky calls back to Fury, but it's Stark himself who answers.

"He is upgrading it to make it more lifelike. He wants Miss Romanova to know precisely what she's up against and he wants to see Barnes fail spectacularly."

"Great. Thanks."

"Don't take it personally – I generally prefer machines to humans. Much more cooperative. Less backchat too."

"Stark," Fury says from the side of the 'arena'.

"Also less impatient." Stark steps away from the drone, pocketing his tools and gesturing towards it with a smirk. "All yours, compadre. Go nuts."

Not intending to 'go nuts', Bucky takes a deep, steadying breath, clearing his mind as much as his hangover will allow and lifting the sabre into a ready position. Before losing his arm, he'd found the weapon uncomfortably heavy, but now the specialised prosthesis took most of the weight and let him wield it more fluidly. Guns are still his preferred weapon of choice (Natalia was right: the further away from a Mimic you were, the better), but taking down a Mimic with a reinforced length of metal holds a certain satisfaction to it that guns just didn't possess.

At the press of a button, the drone whirrs into life. Spinning, pointed limbs flailing wildly, it moves jerkily towards Bucky, twitchy and unpredictable like a real Mimic – and faster than he's used to, hangover hindrance aside. Stark really does want to see him lose to a machine, and Bucky doesn't doubt it will happen. The first few times, anyway. In this opening round, it's purely a case of swinging the sabre, landing in a few lucky hits and then getting his torso shredded, waking up a second later to find himself facing the immobile thing again. This time, he lasts a little longer, gets in a few more hits before his throat is crushed, and he's back at the start again. In his third fight, his skulls caves in. In round four, his heart is pierced. Round five, it's his head again. This goes on and on, Bucky memorising every killing blow (or seriously damaging blow – in one round, his spine breaks but he doesn't die, and he has to ask Fury to finish the job) and learning how best to avoid it. On top of that, he figures out where and when to strike the drone himself, timing and precision counting for everything – until finally, Stark starts the drone up, and Bucky has it beaten in just thirty seconds.

Well. Thirty seconds and twenty deaths, if he was to be specific.

"How did you know it would do that?" Natalia asks, frowning at the wreckage at Bucky's feet.

He spins the sabre casually. "It's what the blood does."

"Agent Barnes is capable of resetting his timeline after death," Fury explains.

"The Mimic ability Banner spoke of," she says, understanding properly for the first time. "How many times did you fight it?"

Bucky shrugs. "Enough to know how to stop the thing."

"That's… useful."

He laughs humourlessly. "If you want to look on the bright side."

"Everyone loves an optimist," Stark quips from beside the drone. "And I'm optimistic I can get this fixed by the time our lady friend is suped-up on Wonderboy's blood."

"Good, then get to it. In the meantime, Agent Barnes – you'll take Miss Romanova through some basic strategies and techniques. I want both of you to be on more or less the same level when you face –"

Mountains, covered in forest; a lake, grey and still; an abandoned quarry; deep into the centre; a writhing mass, blue-white, fizzling with energy, a glowing core, humming, whispering, "Where are you?", wanting what was stolen, "Not yours," hiding, waiting, "Mine.", a challenge, a game, a promise.

When Bucky blinks back out of the vision, everyone is staring at him. Fury looks knowing, Stark looks curious, and Natalia looks… concerned? "Change of plans," Fury says. "Barnes, you're going to Hill. Find Romanova after you're done there."

"Yes, sir." He doesn't wait another minute.

"A quarry by a lake?"

Bucky nods, eyes focused on the maps in front of them. "Mountainous terrain," he says, "quite foresty. Didn't look like this continent."

Maria Hill gives him a puzzled look. "How could you tell?"

"Too green? I don't know, something about the picture was familiar. Like I recognised it from the last vision."

"But it wasn't the same?" He shakes his head. "Alright. So Europe again?"

"Possibly."

Hill taps one of the maps, bringing a map of Europe into closer focus. "Green would indicate a more northern country," she speculates.

"Could also be Italy," Bucky points out as she cuts it from view.

"Could be, but I was thinking we might want to check Scandinavia first. Plenty of green mountains up there – if we can rule that out, we narrow our search."

He sighs, running a hand through his hair. "I don't even know that it was Europe."

"It's a start," Hill says, twisting in her seat to look at him. "We've done this twice already, remember? We know the drill."

"Doesn't mean it's easier." He leans in. "Alright. Let's try Norway."

Using a satellite Bucky's pretty sure is hijacked, the two of them scour the Norwegian landscape, seeing a few lakes and finding a few quarries but never together, and never matching the vision. They search thoroughly enough that a couple of hours pass before they finish checking both Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland, and a few minutes into looking at Iceland someone interrupts to tell Bucky the Director wants him back in the simulation hangar without delay. Once there, he finds Stark's Mimic drone back up and running, and Natalia stood in the crossfire, sabre held loosely by her side. "She got it?"

"Your blood? Yes," Fury says. "Now we'll see if it works."

Standing next to him as Stark goes to fire up the drone, Bucky folds his arms, trepidation running through his veins. He's never been on this side of the action before, watching to see if someone will die or live against the odds. His mind begins to drift towards the idea of parallel universes, of worlds where people simply saw him die in vain, and hopes that won't happen here and now. Natalia's a good fighter – if they lose her this early on, if the double ability plan doesn't work, they'll be starting from scratch again.

She looks confident though, and when the drone bursts into life, hurtling towards her in its usual frenzy, she reacts perfectly – ducking and rolling out of the way, she strikes it once with the sabre, avoids a sharp limb and hits it again as she stands, blocking the next two blows and jabbing the sabre in hard; as the drone surges towards her she lets go of the wedged-in weapon and ducks beneath it again, straightening up in time to catch the hilt as the drone spins and ripping it out with strength Bucky doesn't expect. Following through, she defends herself again, then seizes the opportunity to attack the exposed wiring for a final time, sparks flying as she all but rips out the drone's core in one swipe.

Thirty seconds have passed. Bucky wonders how many times she died.

"Twenty, I think," she says as they make their way to the briefing room. "Is it always so jarring?"

"You get used to it," he tells her, neglecting to add that that doesn't mean it stops feeling horrible.

"How do you control it?"

He gives her an odd look, flatly saying, "You die."

"I mean how do you know where – or when – you'll wake up?"

"Why?"

"The first time, I woke up twenty-four hours ago. I had to go through your terrible apology all over again."

She's smirking, but Bucky winces. "You have to kinda... think about it. As you're dying, you think about when you want to loop back to, and you'll wake up there. Sort of. Sometimes it doesn't work – the more violent the death, the more likely you are to wake up further back down the line. It's like when you're playing a computer game, and the computer crashes, and you have to load from the last time you saved, or the earliest automatic save you can find. Does that make sense?"

Natalia nods. "I think so. Thank you, Agent Barnes."

"Please, if we're going to be working together, Bucky's fine." He pushes the door to the briefing room open before she can respond, grinning when he sees who's already inside.

Unit 616 are a raucous bunch at the best of times, and with such a mix of personalities wearing the crest it's a wonder they ever succeed in working together. In fact, they're currently S.H.I.E.L.D.'s top STRIKE team, boasting the highest Mimic kill count to date and the fewest casualties along with it. Bucky was partially responsible for that; these people were the ones who rescued him whilst under Steve's command, and he'd be lying if he said he didn't feel a slight sense of obligation to each and every member.

"So," Tim Dugan crows as Bucky and Natalia enter the room, "this is your special lady friend, huh Barnes?"

"Careful, Dum Dum, she could swipe that moustache of yours clean off."

The Unit laughs as Dum Dum says, "Well in that case," and stands, extending a hand towards Natalia. "Sergeant Timothy Dugan, friends call me Dum Dum. Pleasure to meet you, Miss...?"

"Romanova," Natalia says, taking his hand with a measured smile. "Pleased to meet you too, Sergeant Dugan."

"Allow me to introduce the rest of the squad – that's Corporal James Montgomery Falsworth over there, and Gabe Jones; our crazy Frenchman, Jacques Dernier, and our beloved medic Jim Morita; the beautiful but deadly Bobbi Morse, and the equally beautiful but nowhere near as deadly Clint Barton –"

"We've met!"

"And this kid here is Tom Raymond."

"Everyone calls me Toro," the boy says as Bucky sits beside him.

Natalia gives them all that same, manufactured smile. "It's a pleasure to meet you all. I've heard a lot about this unit – it will be an honour to serve with you."

"The honour's all ours," Morita mutters as Natalia takes her seat next to Bucky.

"Have you been through this before?" Toro asks him as he looks around the room.

"No," he responds, distracted. "Where are Jim and Sam? Thought they'd want on board with this?"

"Jim said they'd been asked to work on something different," Toro explains, a slight frown appearing between his eyebrows. "He wouldn't tell me what, though."

"When?"

He shrugs. "A few days ago? It seemed really sudden."

"Aw, c'mon Toro, quit worrying already," Barton says from in front of them. He tips his head back over the back of his chair. "If it wasn't something super-important, they wouldn't have to be all hush-hush about it, would they?"

Toro doesn't look particularly convinced, but at that moment the briefing team arrives, and everyone shuts up in order to hear how, exactly, they're going to die.

They're airlifted out within the next two hours, suited up in the monstrosities S.H.I.E.L.D. calls Exo-Suits and primed for battle, destination: southern Iceland. Opposite him, Natalia looks extremely uncomfortable in her suit, though she's doing her best to hide it. Bucky had pitied her initially, remembering his first time in the suit – how it bore down on his shoulders and dug into his sides (and how, multiple times, it crushed his arm, clamping around the muscles and cutting down to bone). He'd recommended a lighter model for her slim frame, but it was the ammunition that added weight to even the easier-to-wear designs.

"Die a few times," he calls to her across the hold of the plane where they hung. "It'll soon feel like a second skin." Natalia nods solemnly.

Next to them, STRIKE Unit 616 are teasing one another, a non-stop litany of endeared insults and inside jokes that Bucky is now only vaguely familiar with. "Ey, Barton," Dernier says, following on from a jibe about his lack of acrobatic proficiency. "There is something wrong with your suit."

Barton frowns, looking down. "What?"

"It has a dead man in it!"

The rest of the squad laughs as Barton loudly declares, "I'll be popping Mimics faster than you can say 'manger mon short', Dernier, just you watch!"

"Défi accepté!"

"Does that mean you're going out in just your underwear, Barton?" Morse quips, and the aircraft shakes with their laughter.

Except it's not their laughter making it shake; Bucky hears the tell-tale sounds of a Mimic attack outside the hull, and sure enough, the command to drop is given and he's falling, along with hundreds of other Exo-Suited soldiers, hoping to avoid the balls of fire hurtling through the air. He ignores the sounds above him of aircraft being destroyed, and of people not knowing how to drop properly, and trusts that Natalia knows – either by looping or general intuition – roughly what she's doing. The beach below them is black, making it hard to see where the majority of the fighting is concentrated, but the aerial view gives Bucky a chance to work out a route for him and Natalia to take out of the conflict – yet before he knows it, his feet are touching the ground, and he's running head-first into the fray.

Natalia lands beside him, quickly following his lead. They didn't have time to train her with a proper Exo-Suit, though he'd tried to explain the basics. She'll pick it up, there's no doubt about that, but as he opens fire on his first Mimic Bucky hopes she's as good with a gun as she is hand to hand.

"Head to the bank!" he yells, already turning himself in that direction. The Mimic is already making short work of a handful of soldiers, wrapping itself around and through them so fast it was almost impossible to track. It's been a while, but Bucky remembers Steve describing the sight as 'awesome', and not in the cool sense – no matter how often you see them, Mimics are unquestionably terrifying.

Their progress is cut short early on, when a falling piece of aircraft explodes nearby and Natalia falls under the blast. Bucky carries on, only to see how things play out, and after witnessing Falsworth's death when a Mimic surprises him from beneath the sand Bucky follows a similar fate, resetting to the moment he started to run.

"Head to the bank!" he tells Natalia again, this time adding: "And get on my right!" She does so immediately, and he notices her movements in the suit are more fluid. They're coming up to the moment when Falsworth dies, and Bucky tries to think of something to say, of a way to alert him to what lies in wait... And yet he's sure it'll be hopeless.

"We can't save Falsworth," he says, more to himself than to her, even as he continues debating whether to change the man's fate or not.

"I know."

He turns to her, surprised. "You tried?"

She shakes her head. "You did." Then, without warning, she pushes him forward, jumping back in time to avoid being split in two by a black tentacle, the obsidian-like limb whipping around until she shoots through it. Bucky also shoots into the sand, preventing the Mimic from climbing up and killing them both. When his clip empties, he beckons to Natalia and they keep moving.

Bucky falls easily back into the pattern of fight, die, repeat and edit. He grows accustomed to watching soldiers die around him, to passing Toro's lifeless body, and to ignoring a dying Jones' pleas for help. It's a lesson learned the hard way, and he has to forcibly remind himself several times that what happens happens, and that he and Natalia have a greater focus ahead of them. He expects to have to remind Natalia of this, but each time he resets he realises she's one step ahead of him; they begin to communicate flaws and strategies as they go, warning the other about missteps and actions that'll get them killed, and ways to avoid being crushed or torn apart or set ablaze – but he never has to tell her not to try and save someone. Instead, it's Natalia who tells him, "Toro dies before you ever reach him," or "We die if we go back for Jones,", and even "Morse chooses to do what she does – don't stop her." It's infuriating; not only does it sound like he keeps forgetting that lesson when as far as he's aware, he hasn't, but it seems like all his attempts at saving Unit 616 are, or would be, fruitless.

Natalia has no such issues.

"Shoot left!" she calls at one point, and Bucky fires left without knowing why until a Mimic launches itself into their bullet spray. A second later, he realises, and it would have killed her easily. She sets off at a run again without waiting for him, but when he begins to move something grabs his ankle, jerking back and making him fall face-first into the black sand. He calls to her for help, watching as she pauses to look back at him before turning away, leaving him to be dragged under a wet, black blanket and mauled until he resets. The memory lingers longer than the pain, and he starts noticing her behave in a similar manner a few times – seeing an opportunity to save someone and ignoring it, even as they go further than they have before. Bucky, by contrast, puts as much effort into saving her as he does himself (if not more so).

"Why do you do that?" he demands when they finally reach the bank. "You could've saved me a few resets back there, but you didn't – why?'

"You were the one who told me not to waste my effort saving people who couldn't be saved," she returns.

"I'd have thought saving a partner would be a little different."

"A few times, I thought so too. But I soon realised we'd be able to get ahead quicker if I worked out the next steps while you worked out how to save yourself, which I knew you'd be able to. That, and why try saving a few lives when my mission is to save millions?"

"You think we're fighting for ourselves?" he challenges. "We're a team – a partnership, even, and if we aren't thinking of each other we'll never be able to reach the Omega!"

"If you think this partnership means nothing to me, you are sorely mistaken." She looks furious, and Bucky starts to regret what he said. "If I didn't care about working with you, if I didn't think I could do it, do you honestly believe I would have agreed to Fury's request in the first place?"

Her point is well made. "No," Bucky admits. "I... Sorry."

She nods once, saying, "We should keep moving – find a vehicle or something to get us to the mountains more quickly."

"Ditch the suits, too," he suggests, hitting the release button as he speaks and stepping out from the metal confines. Going to stretch, he hisses at a flare of pain from his shoulder.

"You're hurt," Natalia tells him, already out of her suit and staring at him worriedly. Looking down, Bucky just notices a thick, dark red line against the black material of his t-shirt. It arcs over his shoulder, running down the left side of his chest and probably down his back, too.

"It's nothing," he insists as she comes to inspect it.

"James, that isn't nothing –"

"It is, trust me –"

"Neither of us have been this far yet, it could be –"

"It's my shoulder plate." He has to force the words out, but she stops, looking confused until she registers that his metal arm is directly in front of her. "The Exo-Suit does it," he explains. "We can take care of it somewhere else, we're too close to the fighting here." She doesn't seem convinced. "Natalia, really, it's fine. I'm used to it."

He sets about separating his weapon from his suit when she says "Natasha," from behind him, and he stops to ask what she means. "You can call me Natasha."

"Oh." Guessing it's a gesture of goodwill, he pulls the weapon free and reminds her, "I said you could call me Bucky. No-one's called me James in years."

She removes her own suit's weapon as easily as she pulled the sabre from Stark's drone. "Bucky is a child's name."

They need a vehicle. The brisk walk to the nearest village is fraught with tension, exposed as they are, and Bucky at least is just waiting for a horde of Mimics to set itself upon them, shrieking and twitching and distorting the air as they do. He's not entirely thrilled with the idea of using the main road either, but they talked about it, eventually deciding that it didn't matter either way – there was nothing to hide them. Travelling on the road held no more danger than travelling through fields. It would only be easier.

"At least we should be able to see them coming too," Natasha offers.

"Mmh." It's a small comfort.

They comb the village quickly, finding only a few cars and one motorbike. There are also Mimics – just a couple, but they're alert. "Shouldn't be too hard," Natasha muses.

"Oh, so you're an expert now?"

"Well, I apparently learned from the best."

Bucky blinks. "Was that a compliment?"

She smirks. "Take it that way if you want."

He shakes his head, returning his focus to the task at hand. "Don't suppose you've done this before?"

"Stealing vehicles from under aliens' noses? Nope."

"Time to learn then. For both of us. Which should we aim for: shiny blue car or the motorbike?"

"The bike," she answers without hesitation. "Lighter, more manoeuvrable, easier to shoot from, less of a target itself."

"Visually I guess." She makes good points though, and Bucky checks the clip in his gun. "Okay. How do we do this?"

"One lures, one grabs the bike?"

"Yeah… Your choice."

Natasha blinks, rocking slightly where she's crouched. "I'll lure."

Recognising a reset, Bucky raises an eyebrow. "Should I ask why?"

The look she gives him is oddly exasperated. "Your idea of a lure is atrocious," is all she says before she unpins a grenade and tosses it as far away as she can. Seconds later, a small, crumbling house explodes, and the Mimic in their line of sight vanishes.

It's a minor miracle that the bike has a full tank, and they quickly arrange themselves on the seat with Bucky driving. The noise of the bike has them both cringing, but Bucky wastes no time in getting out onto the road, already on the lookout for stray Mimics ahead of them. Unfortunately, he's looking the wrong way, Natasha's cry of "James!" the last thing he hears before the bike pitches beneath him and his skull cracks on the tarmac in a blinding flash of pain.

He loops back to moments ago, Natasha saying "Your idea of a lure is atrocious," and pulling out her grenade. As the Mimics leaves and they head out, he turns and asks, "Can you ride backwards?"

"I think so," she replies, and reaches for his gun, already on the same page. They're out quickly again, and this time Natasha makes short work of the Mimic on their tail. Part of Bucky wishes he could see what the pair of them look like, Natasha wielding two Exo-Suit guns while he drives, but he can't dwell too long on the image before the second Mimic appears in the road before him.

"Going right!" he yells, braking hard and turning the bike down between two low-roofed houses, hoping the creature will try and follow them.

Sure enough – "We've got company," Natasha tells him.

"Give it a warm welcome," Bucky says, even as he pulls the bike through another hard turn, weaving between low brick walls outlining turfed-up gardens. "Shit…" There are more than he realised.

"I can't get a clear line!" Natasha grunts between bouts of gunfire.

"Keep trying, we're almost out."

"James –"

"Just slow it down!"

He feels Natasha twist around as he angles the bike left, hears the gun firing close to his ear, and shortly after the sound of concrete hitting the earth. The Mimic shrieks, hardly slowed by the impromptu roadblock, but it buys Bucky enough time to get them back out onto the road, and when their pursuer emerges from the same exit they did Natasha has an unobscured line of fire.

"Nice shooting," he says, a little breathless from the effort needed to put the bike where he wanted.

"Not bad on the driving front yourself," she returns, and Bucky grins. "See anymore?"

"Road's clear for now," he says, and she shifts back around. "How far d'you think we can go on this thing?"

"Your guess is as good as mine."

"Then I guess we'll find out."

The journey is an uneventful hour and a half before the bike's tyre bursts, and they're left with no choice but to walk. It doesn't seem like too much of a hardship until they're ambushed, and then Bucky finds himself – and Natasha – resetting faster than they're used to.

"We're about to be ambushed," he says the first time, and Natasha responds with the numbers. "Left or right?"

They develop a system, numbering each Mimic after a few resets and calling out whichever number they're going for before they fight. They learn each other's sequences, correcting one another when things seem to go awry and they reset separately, until finally they outsmart the six Mimics and stand victorious, the aliens lying lifeless and dull around them.

"I don't understand them," Natasha says, stepping close to one and crouching beside it. She looks thoughtful for a moment, an expression Bucky feels familiar with already – it's the one she wears when she's plotting a better move, going through the steps in her head to see where they went wrong and how they can remedy their mistakes. Looking back at him over her shoulder, she says, "Maybe Stark was right."

Bucky raises an eyebrow. "Come again?"

"Maybe having one to study would –" Before she can finish the thought, one of the Mimic's tentacles suddenly protrudes from the centre of her chest, the words lost in a pained gasp.

"Natasha!"

It tosses her away with ease, pushing itself up on limbs that tremble more than usual as it fixes its orange glare on Bucky, already reaching for him – but he's faster, the gun already levelled at its body and the clip emptied before it can screech a final time. When he's sure it won't move again, Bucky looks for Natasha, diving through a hedge into a ruined field to find her motionless body crumpled a few metres ahead. The sight hurts; he's seen her die, yes, but always in the heat of battle, when he hasn't had time to dwell on it. Now, there's nothing to kill him in her stead – nothing except…

Kneeling by Natasha's body, Bucky screws his eyes shut and takes a few deep breaths. There was only one way he was getting back to Natasha, and he hated himself for what he was about to do. After Steve, he'd promised – sworn, even – that he wouldn't resort to such methods again. And yet what choice did he have?

He pulls out his handgun, stalling for time by checking both the magazine and the chamber for bullets. The thing is fully loaded, and it will be again once he wakes up. Natasha will be alive again, and he can save her. All he has to do is die.

"Fuck!" he growls, hunching over and pressing his forehead against the cold, dry earth. Sitting back again he takes more deep breaths, closing his eyes and forcing himself to raise the gun, thinking of Natasha and her sharpness of mind, her witty remarks, her beautiful fighting, the shade of her hair, the curiosity in her eyes; "I'm sorry, Steve."

It's an obvious reset – he's panting hard, the feel of metal lingering at his temple, and Natasha (alive, breathing, not bleeding) watches him with concern. "What happened?" she asks.

Before he answers, Bucky shoots the Mimic that killed her, using up all his ammo like he did the first time. "You died," he says tonelessly, "and I had no way of being killed. So I had to –" He swallows. "I had to –"

"Do it yourself."

He can't look at her. She sees through him so easily, he wouldn't be surprised if she could see how utterly ashamed of himself he is, how much of an idiot he feels. As he stands there, fumbling in his mind for an excuse as to why he was stupid enough to kill the Mimic before it could kill him, something squeezes his arm. Initially he flinches, but it's her – Natasha – and she looks… sympathetic. When she softly says, "In the village, the first time we tried to get the bike, you got yourself killed causing a distraction. I hid too well, and the Mimics left before I could goad one of them into attacking me."

Bucky stares. His shame slowly recedes, replaced by the reassurance she conveys through their single point of contact. Natasha understands – at least, she knows how hard it is to do that to yourself. She can't know how hard it is for Bucky, not when he hasn't told her anything about his past. But that she isn't judging him, that she's shared in his experiences almost completely, is a greater comfort than he could have imagined. Letting out a breath he hadn't known he was holding, he nods, moving to brush his fingers against her elbow. "Let's get going."

As they continue along the road, the sun setting on their left and causing an odd, earthy dust to rise up in the fields either side of them, Bucky begins to wonder what Natasha would be like outside the battlefield. He knows her only as a soldier, a skilled fighter with a sharp tongue, but what's she like to socialise with? What are her quirks? Does she have preferences over certain things? Favourite foods? Bad sleeping habits? A sloppy dress sense? Is she a cat person? Would she want a family? (At that one, he stops himself, mildly alarmed at the direction his thoughts are going.) He wonders, too, if he'll ever know.

Walk up, shoot One – half a clip; switch to Three, clean shots; duck and roll right, stand, turn to hit Six; turn again to hit Seven – dammit!

Walk up, shoot One – half a clip; switch to Three, clean shots; duck and roll right, stand, turn to hit Six; turn again and sidestep Seven's arm, grab it, pull it forward for a headshot; Natasha's downed by Eight – shit, Eight first or Nine, Eight or Nine –

Walk up, shoot One – half a clip; switch to Three, clean shots; duck and roll right, stand, turn to hit Six; turn again and sidestep Seven's arm, grab it, pull it forward for a headshot; Natasha's pinned by Eight – go for Eight, but watch out for Nine's –

Walk up, shoot One – half a clip; switch to Three, clean shots; duck and roll right, stand, turn to hit Six; turn again and sidestep Seven's arm, grab it, pull it forward for a headshot; Natasha's got Eight – go for Nine, don't turn your back on Ten –

"Goddammit!"

At what feels like the fiftieth reset, Bucky forgets to choose when to loop back to, and rather than coming-to at the beginning of the skirmish, he finds himself twelve hours back in his past, about to sleep (not anymore) in the old stone barn they'd stayed in a few miles out from another wrecked town.

His exclamation has Natasha roused in an instant, hand going to her handgun before she realises it's only the two of them. "What happened?"

"I reset," Bucky says, dragging his hands down his face. "Didn't intend to come back this far."

She nods, sitting up fully. "Anything I should know?"

"Oh yeah."

With twigs and stones, he tells her everything he can remember – every way she dies, every step he saw her make to avoid that, and every failed plan of action. Together, they hash out a new one, agreeing to attempt it in the morning and loop back to here if they end up being killed. Bucky sleeps restlessly, memories of his past intertwining with present events, and in the morning he's grim. They wake quickly, alert within moments and loaded up with weaponry before they've even swallowed their rations, and then they're out on the road, approaching the blockade with a fresh plan and no small amount of determination. But to Bucky's dismay, the new plan is as solid as the first who knows how many, and they're back at square one embarrassingly soon.

So they try again. And again, and again, and again, making changes ranging from drastic to minor, and still nothing works. They try different angles of approach, different speeds, stealth, close-combat, ranged combat, even taking the battle off-road – but after another reset that leaves him furious with himself and his apparent incompetence, Bucky is ready for the last resort. He can't have events repeat themselves again. He won't.

"What are you doing?" Natasha asks as he checks the ammunition in his handgun.

"Going further back," he says, shoving the magazine clip back into place. "Maybe we can find an alternate route, a road that doesn't take us straight into –"

"You're killing yourself."

Disapproval rings sharp in her tone, and he flexes his jaw. "Yes. Perhaps you should too."

"Are you insane?" she snaps. "We've already come this far, and you're willing to jeopardise that progress?"

"I'm not jeopardising anything, this'll work –"

"You don't know that."

"I know that the longer we stay here, the more we're going to fail. When you end up dying nearly one hundred times at the same event, that's the universe telling you 'not this way'."

"Is it?"

"Yes."

"I don't believe you." He ignores her, cocking his gun and lifting it up until she catches his metal wrist in her hands, staring at him in disbelief. "Killing yourself will only set you back. It's not the answer. Just because it worked the one time you tried –"

Bucky laughs suddenly, tugging his wrist free as he shakes his head. "You think that was the first time I'd done it?" he says, still laughing. Natasha stays silent. "Oh man, you have no idea."

"You're right – I don't." Her words hit him like a whip, and he glares at her through the sting. She just glares back. "So why don't you tell me why this has suddenly become your only option?"

His lip curls. "Everything else fails," he says slowly. "Every time we go out there, I watch you die. I watch you get torn apart and beaten and coated in blood and I swore – I've been doing this for years, and nobody, not a single soul, has understood what a fucking burden this so-called gift is! Everyone else has seen it as a means to an end, something that makes me a tool for them to exploit. The first people who knew about what I could do tortured me for it. They pushed me to my limits, wanting to know how it worked, what I could do with it, how they could use it to – I don't know, take over the world or something. I went from being your average Hydra mercenary to their personal science experiment. When I realised I could escape it all by pulling the trigger myself, you think I gave it a second thought?"

He'd reset back to the fight that originally pitted him against the Alpha Mimic that unwittingly bestowed him with its powers, and instead of fighting with the other mercs, Bucky had walked away, leaving Rumlow, Rollins, Sinthea, everyone to die. "S.H.I.E.L.D. found me," he continued, sinking into the memories of fatigue and exhaustion and the most glorious sight he's seen to date. "It was a STRIKE team, led by an old friend of mine. I hadn't seen him since we were kids, but he knew me instantly. Took me in, just like that. Told me what he was doing and I didn't hesitate – I signed up with him."

They'd been unstoppable – he'd kept his power secret at first, afraid of being treated the way Hydra had handled him again, but he used it to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s – and Steve's – advantage. "Fighting with him was like breathing," he whispers. "We knew what the other would do before we even did it, gift or no gift. And when things went wrong, I could change it. I could wait to be taken myself, or I could make it happen sooner. Except…"

Switzerland. Fighting Mimcis in the snow was rough. The cold made moving hard, and keeping up with the aliens near-impossible. Bucky had found himself being killed every few seconds even as he memorised the steps and kept Steve alive. To this day, he can't work out what went wrong. "There was one battle," he tells Natasha, "where nothing I could do saved him. And I tried… maybe hundreds of times. But whatever I did, two things always happened: I'd lose my arm, and Steve would die. Even if I blew every last fucking Mimic to the heavens, even when I looped myself back as far as I dared… I told him." He sniffs, scrubbing at his eyes. "I told him what I could do, and what would happen, and he just said, 'So let it. If that's the way I'm supposed to go, that's the way I'm gonna go.' And I – I did."

"Steve?" The Mimics were dead, their bodies strewn around the valley between those of the STRIKE team. Bucky's severed arm was numb, the broken suit not quite letting it fall away from his shoulder. The snow engulfed him where he lay, soothing and stinging his battered body, and he dug into his last reserves of energy to stretch out trembling fingers, attempting to reach his friend one last time. "Steve – 'm so sorry."

His friend smiled, face nearly as white as the ground he lay on where it wasn't red with his blood, breathing laboured. "Keep… going forward," he said. "No more… getting stuck."

"I can't leave you." His tears were freezing to his cheek before they could properly fall.

"Yeah y'can." Steve's eyes drifted shut. "More 'mportant people than… kid like me."

"Bullshit. You're important. You're the most important – Steve?" He couldn't reach him. "Steve?" He couldn't even move. "Steve, please."

At that moment, Bucky Barnes prayed for death – the permanent kind.

A gun would never give him the release he wanted, he knows that now. He stares at it as it lies between his legs, shiny gunmetal grey against the rubble, inviting in its simplicity. "I was addicted," he croaks, wondering if he's really talking to Natasha anymore. "They saved me – S.H.I.E.L.D. did – but after that, I couldn't stop. Every time something went wrong, didn't even have to be on the battlefield, I'd just put a bullet in my skull and do it again. I only really stopped after I got my first vision of the Omega; did it a few more times to convince Fury I was telling the truth and then I sort of, made a promise I guess."

"To Steve," Natasha says gently, and he nods, throat tightening as his name leaves her lips.

"I had a goal," he says, wanting to explain. "And I knew he'd disapprove if I kept being so – so reckless with my own life."

"It's easy to get careless when you feel invincible."

Bucky gives a short laugh, surprised again by her instant understanding. "I thought I'd be smart enough by now to guide us through without getting stuck," he says, sighing heavily. "But it's just happening again."

For a long while, Natasha is silent. Bucky knows he's brought the atmosphere down, and he feels that familiar tug in his gut to pick up the gun and set things right, to make her forget this conversation ever happened between them. He doesn't get that chance, though, as Natasha picks it up and disassembles it smoothly, only handing it back after telling him to "Go to sleep, James."

He frowns. "But, we haven't discussed a plan?"

"We're not going to." She clearly isn't joking. "We're going to sleep for as long as we want, and then in the morning, we aren't going into battle – we'll go back to the town, and we'll find something to do that isn't fighting Mimics or working out how to fight Mimics, because we need the rest." Standing up, she looks down at him, something close to a smile on her face. "We can take the day off and reset when we're ready."

"Really?" Bucky asks as she steps back over to her sleeping spot. "After what I just told you?"

"Especially after what you just told me."

"But what about the Mimics?"

"James, stop worrying. Go to sleep."

Confused, Bucky can't think to do anything else besides what she says. Aware that he probably won't sleep well anyway, he lays down on the ground, the gun parts just within reach, and with a deep breath he attempts to clear his mind.

Despite Natasha's insistence that they take the day off, Bucky finds himself awake with the birds as usual and even more anxious at the prospect of relaxing than he is at taking on a small horde of Mimics. Sam might be concerned, he thinks distantly, and pushes himself up to stretch. Watching as Natasha wakes up too, it's hard not to miss how differently she's approaching the day than he is – her movements are already much more languid, stretches taken slowly and leisurely, and for a while she still looks sleepy and a little dazed. Being so used to seeing her alert and ready to go within seconds, Bucky is surprised by how un-soldier-like she now appears, how… normal (or what he associates with normal; it's not so easy remembering a life before Hydra and Mimics anymore).

She convinces him to leave the weapons in the barn, and soon they're walking back down the road they took so long ago to get here, rations being eaten steadily for once. Bucky decides that's the reason his stomach is so unsettled; he's used to wolfing down the sustenance, not wasting time on savouring something that wasn't made to be savoured in the first place.

"Just like you're used to keeping vigilant about possible Mimic attacks," Natasha comments, seeing right through him again. "We cleared this road on the way up, James, and nothing happened that time we tried to sneak around down here."

"I know," Bucky says on a sigh, unable to stop himself looking over his shoulder. "It's just hard to switch off."

"You're right; but it's possible." She tips her head back, red hair shining brightly as it falls down to her shoulder-blades. "The sun is out, everything is peaceful, there's no need to run or panic or think on our feet – embrace it all. Just enjoy being alive."

Her smile seems genuine, and Bucky sees in her a younger girl, rejoicing in the wonder of life and the world and whatever other sappy Romantic notions seem fitting for the situation. He likes this new side of her, and ends up smiling too. "You like the sun, then?"

Righting her head, Natasha shrugs. "I don't dislike it," she says easily. "It's nicer than the cold. If there's one thing Russia has on a level that nobody else does, it's winter." Bucky chuckles. "Although," she adds, "I've always had a fondness for rain."

"Rain?"

"Mmh."

"It's wet, cold, makes for terrible combat situations, leaves you seriously uncomfortable – what's so good about rain?"

"I like the way it makes the air feel different," she admits. "It gives it weight, gives it presence, reminds you that there's something important inside your lungs. And the way it sounds on the top of an umbrella, too…" She looks back, catching sight of the amused expression on Bucky's face, and her brow knits together slightly. "You remember what that sounds like, don't you?"

"Vaguely," he says, "but that's not – I just never thought I'd ever see you like this."

Quirking her head, she asks, "Like what?"

Laughing, he elaborates: "Like, I don't know, a poet or something? The way you're going on about the rain, it's like that dandelion poem by what's-his-face."

"Wordsworth, and it was a daffodil." Natasha's walking backwards now, her steps as sure as if she was walking forwards. "And what's wrong with a little poetic indulgence?"

"Nothing's wrong with it, it's just… unusual."

The way her smile slips, Bucky worries he's said something wrong. It certainly wouldn't be the first time. "I suppose it is now, isn't it?" she says instead, and returns to walking by his side, head lowered, brow creased unhappily.

Bucky wanted to say something to cheer her up. Teasing aside, he'd enjoyed seeing her so carefree – he wanted to be that at ease too, and doubted he'd be able to if she couldn't manage it any longer. After a few beats of silence, he finally came up with: "So, what do you think we'll be able to do in the town?"

She shrugs. "Depends on what's still there. Looked pretty decrepit the last few times."

"Maybe there'll be books," he says, touching on a topic he thinks she likes. "An old copy of some boring essay on the development of modern medicine or something."

"Not a boring topic at all," she retorts, the light coming back into her eyes. Bucky just smiles, happy to see her happy again.

For a while they strolled down the road, content to just walk beside one another in the silence. Despite the distinct lack of Mimics, Bucky remains vigilant, half-alert as he listens for even the remotest of sounds or looked for the smallest flicker of movement on the flat horizon. Occasionally Natasha touches his arm as a reminder that he doesn't need to, but it's second nature to him; turning off, relaxing, is not. While they aren't talking he struggles to keep his mind away from tactics and possibilities, thoughts often drifting until he's replaying their failed attempts at passing that damned blockade, trying again to work out what went wrong and what weakness they weren't seeing. Numbers have hardly been an issue before, and it wasn't that they weren't remembering the steps –

"James."

He startles, muscles tensing automatically until a raised eyebrow from Natasha makes him stand down. "Sorry," he mutters, and yelps when she punches his shoulder.

"Switch off, idiot." She's smiling again, and points to a broken building behind her (he hadn't realised they'd reached the edge of the town already). "I think this used to be a charity shop. Want to see what's inside?"

That's how their day ends up progressing; the town is barely standing, but it's almost fun to worm their way inside as many places as they can. In the charity shop, Natasha finds some clothes, planting a hat on Bucky's head that he knows makes him look ridiculous, even without a mirror. She finds a dress, a little torn and stained with dirt, but she still manages to pull it off, giving him a mock twirl when he asks. In a convenience store, they find some food that hasn't yet gone out of date, and Bucky remembers the joy of mixing peanut butter with Nutella while Natasha wrinkles her nose at the idea. The antiques shop is completely demolished, and they make a game of trying to find all the pieces of a statuette that looks "quite Greek", as Natasha put it, holding the initial piece way too close to her face for Bucky to be able to contain his childish side. Eventually, they wind up at the town bar, each delighted to find a bottle of their preferred poison still intact amidst the wreckage, and they end up perched at the half-broken counter with barely-clean glasses and said bottles within grasping distance. Bucky finds the whiskey loosens his tongue quicker than he thought it would, and without prompting, begins telling Natasha about the better days at S.H.I.E.L.D.

"… and Steve just says, 'You had to ask,' and he gives this guy this fucking deadpan look –" He all but collapses with laughter, wobbling dangerously on his stool without quite coming close to falling off. "I swear, Nat," he continues when he can breathe; "You've never seen anyone do deadpan like Steven Grant Rogers."

Natasha's grinning, on the verge of laughing maybe. Perched on the bar itself, feet on a stool, neat vodka poised in front of her, she could be some artistic figure from the Renaissance, or a Monet, hell even a Picasso, though Bucky thinks none of them could ever capture her right. Steve might've been able to. He'd try, that's for sure, and he'd do it so carefully, so painstakingly, putting just as much thought into each pencil line as he did his strategies…

Bucky's laughter peters out, and he becomes still on his stool. Steve should be here. "I hate them for that," he says lowly, raising his glass. "Every fucking one of them." His words bring with them a heavy silence, and Bucky sees Steve in the wood grain and the whiskey. What was the use of his 'gift' if he couldn't use it to save his best friend?

"They took my family."

He jerks his head up, blinking to focus better. Natasha is no longer smiling, staring blank-faced into her vodka instead. He's reminded of how fortune tellers of old would stare into crystal balls to see your future, an intense focus to let you know what such an act was costing them. The woman before him, hers is a calm intensity, the cost unknown to all but herself. Four words, and he's mesmerised.

"Those images Banner and Stark showed us of early Mimics, do you remember them? I'd already seen the earliest ones. They came to Russia, about twenty years ago, and they made their way to Moscow from the east, destroying everything in their path. Including Manuylovo."

"Manuylovo?"

"My hometown." She finishes the vodka, taking her time to refill the glass before continuing, her movements steady. "I was five years old. My parents and I lived as any Russian family did at that time – working, earning our livelihood, keeping our secrets strictly to ourselves. The Mimics were unexpected, naturally, but they came so suddenly there was no time to call anyone. They were nothing like they are now, but they were still… monstrous. My father sent my mother and I inside the house. We weren't there for long before it was attacked, demolished like every building in sight. She protected me from the falling debris, and she might have survived herself if the fire hadn't started. The whole town was consumed by it, and the Mimics moved on."

The glass met her lips for a long drink, her eyes as clear as the liquid inside it. "I was found by one of the chief agricultural labourers, and he took me and other survivors west. He wanted to see if there were other survivors, or if the Army had been mobilised at all. Eventually, we came across the corpses of the things that had attacked us, and learnt from the radio that Moscow had come under attack. It survived with minimal damage, incredibly, though many soldiers were lost. We were tasked with helping to clean up the destruction, and it was during that time that I was found by the KGB. Once I'd told them my story, they asked me if I wanted revenge. I said yes."

"Your special school?"

Natasha scoffs lightly. "An apt name, I suppose. They called themselves the Red Room; they were a branch of Department X, which in turn was a branch of the KGB, and they wanted to prepare people for the sole purpose of defending Russia in a way no-one else could. They were determined not to let something like that happen again – 'Moscow cannot fall,' Karpov would say. 'If Moscow falls, the Russian Federation falls, and you will fail the Motherland. Her ruin, and the desolation of her people, will be on your shoulders.' He also promised us the chance to avenge our lost ones, and at five years old, I had no reason not to believe him."

"So they taught you how to fight?"

"At first," she says. "We were given the highest education a child in the Federation could possibly ask for, but it came with great expectations. Failure was unacceptable, yet success was rarely rewarded. We were always striving to do better, be that in our studies, in combat, or in our accompanying professions." The briefest of smiles flickers over her lips. "I was a ballet dancer. I first chose it for childish reasons, but as I grew I began to see ways I could incorporate certain aspects into my fighting; it made me stand out, and I caught their eye. Karpov promised me I would be allowed to follow my career once my training was complete, but he died before I graduated. His successor had… different ideas about what the Red Room should be used for."

The bottle was picked up directly, the empty glass abandoned on the bar. "For a while I didn't realise what it was I was doing. Lukin would give me somebody's name, tell me they were an enemy to the state, and I would eliminate them – all in the name of the Motherland and harmony within the Federation. 'It's practise,' he would say, 'for when you are called on to perform your duty.' But the Mimics were going elsewhere, and his assignments were becoming increasingly questionable." She hesitates, and Bucky might be drunk, but he's not so far gone as to recognise when Natasha's about to say something powerful. "After a fire in a children's ward I left. Using what they'd taught me I travelled to America, stole my way into New York City and caught the eye of General Fury. He offered me a job that would utilise my skill set for good, and for three years I did his bidding." Finally her eyes move to Bucky's, and she ends her tale. "The last thing he asked of me was to help one of his own take down the Mimics for good."

All Bucky can do is stare at her. How she sits there, back straight, bottle of vodka held delicately in her hands, not a trace of emotion on her face, is beyond him. Her story is incredible – and he knows incredible stories – yet she seems no worse off for it. "You just… left it all?" he asks, struggling to comprehend. "Your home, your beliefs, your friends?"

Her eyebrows come together marginally. "Friends?"

"Yeah, at your school – the, the Red Room."

"I didn't have friends at the Red Room."

She says it so casually he has to backtrack and confirm he heard her correctly. "You didn't have any friends?"

Natasha shakes her head. "Sentimental attachments were forbidden. You fought for the country, not for any one person." Her lips stretch upwards in an affectation of a wry smile. "Remnants of an ideology long abandoned, but still effective when impressed upon the right individuals."

Bucky feels weak. Not physically, not as if there's something wrong with him, but next to her he's pathetic. Natasha lost her family and her home, and she was ready to fight to get them back – and when her means became compromised, she found new means, never losing sight of her goal. Bucky, he gave up. He just decided he couldn't save Steve and he gave up. He couldn't get past that stupid blockade, and he was going to disappoint Natasha –

"James."

He'd let down Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. –

"James."

All the people he cared about would get hurt –

Natasha takes hold of his face, suddenly and firmly, and Bucky is trapped by eyes of green fire. "Stop this," she snaps. "Stop this now."

Sniffing, and gradually becoming aware that he's crying, Bucky shakes his head. "But it's true, Nat," he says. "I can't do it – I can't work out how to get to the Omega, just like I couldn't work out how to save Steve, and not lose an arm."

"You tried everything you could."

"And it wasn't good enough!" His tears burn better than whiskey. "I'm not good enough – not compared to you. Not… Not compared to Steve."

Unable to bear looking at her, at the world he can't save, Bucky squeezes his eyes shut. He thinks back to the day he gained this god-awful ability, forgetting for a second that he has no way of looping back, so he imagines it instead: imagines letting that Alpha destroy him the way it did Rumlow and Rollins, never giving Steve reason to be disappointed in him, never wasting Natasha's time, never letting the world down.

"James. Buchanan. Barnes."

The blood leaves his face in a heartbeat. The rejection is coming, and he isn't ready. (Why did it have to be her?)

"If you think you are anything less than the perfect man for this mission, you are completely and utterly wrong."

Bucky opens his eyes. With a frown, he tries to dispel the watery veil in his eyes so that he can see Natasha's face better, because he's confused – that didn't sound like a rebuttal.

"From the day we first met, I had no doubt in my mind that you were the right man for this project," she continues, a steel to her tone that makes every word sound true, "and time has only confirmed that belief. I know you feel responsible for Steve, and for the lives of so many more, but if you didn't? That would make you weak. That would make you a coward." He parts his lips to stop her, but she holds back his words with barely a tilt of her head. "You are not a coward – you are the man who keeps saving me time and time again. You are relentless, you are strong, and you care deeply enough that you want to do good, and you will do anything to help millions – without thanks and regardless of the cost to yourself." Her thumbs brush over his cheekbones, clearing away the last damp smears of tear tracks. "You are the bravest man I have ever had the honour of knowing, and I would have no other by my side."

Bucky kisses her.

And the second it dawns on him what he's doing, he feels a gun against his forehead.

No matter how many times he's been shot in the head, it always comes as a surprise to Bucky how vicious it feels – that split-second sensation of his skull shattering suddenly feels like a distant, fading headache, and the echo of a gunshot still lingers in his mind's ear. So when he awakens back in the barn with a start, his initial reaction is to groan and clutch his head, which is completely fine. He's no longer drunk, but the memories are clear, as well as the fact that he might have been something of a colossal idiot.

He sits up, hand still on his head, noticing Natasha do the same out of the corner of his eye. "In case you don't know," he says, "you just shot me. In the head." Not wanting to say why, he stands, wondering if some fresh air and space will help him sort out his… 'muddled' feelings. Natasha follows suit, eyeing him sharply through the gloom. "Look, if I've ever done or said anything to offend you, I'm sorry, okay? But don't you think shooting m-"

Natasha kisses him.

Unaware that she'd even moved, Bucky is at first taken by surprise; but then it all just slides into place, and he kisses back. And it's strange: up until the moment he kissed her in the bar, he hadn't even considered that he might have developed feelings for her – but as their kiss shows no signs of stopping, as Natasha's thumbs trace the underside of his jaw and Bucky's arms wind around her waist, he can't ignore the rush of giddiness that sweeps out from his core, something like joy registering in the back of his brain. Natasha is kissing him, seconds after she shot him for doing the same thing, and it feels so right he can't find it in himself to wonder about that.

But soon (much too soon) their kiss ends. They stand close, still touching, her breath warm on his chin, and he's on the verge of asking what was happening when she says, "I wanted to make sure it wasn't the alcohol." She lifts her eyes up to his, and for the first time he can remember she looks anxious, afraid. Vulnerable. "Tell me now – was it real?"

Tightening his hold on her, Bucky grins. "Every second."

Little changes between them. They plan with the same determination, fight with the same fluidity, and take each reset in stride, as always. The only noticeable difference is that when they aren't separated by Mimics, they're constantly in each other's space: sitting together as they plan an attack, linking fingers, indulging in spur-of-the-moment kisses, sleeping in a close embrace, giving gentle squeezes or fleeting brushes before another round of fighting begins. Maybe it's because they watch each other die so often, Bucky speculates, and they need that reassurance that the other still lives, that their heart beats inside their chest. At least, that's how it is for him. If anything, seeing Natasha killed gets harder and harder every time it happens, and even after their 'day off' nothing seems to have changed to make that cycle stop. The blockade isn't showing any signs of breaking, and sometimes it's all he can do not to pull the trigger on himself.

Natasha knows. Often, when he's battling his demons, crouched against the wall with the gun held between his knees, one hand carefully covers his as the other guides his face round, and she kisses him softly until he gives in and lets her take the weapon. Without her, he knows, he would have put that bullet in his head a long time ago – but for some reason she thinks he's stronger than that.

"When I shot you in the bar," she says after another failed attempt, her head on his shoulder, neither of them able to sleep, "let's say that was the last time either of us reset without due cause."

"Due cause being…?"

"If one of us is dead, and there's nothing else to do the job for the remainder."

He gives it a few seconds of thought, making himself promise internally before agreeing out loud. "No more suicide." It's the first time he's ever called it that, he realises, and wonders what that shows about his attitude towards such an act in the past. Natasha squeezes his hand, as if she can sense his troubles.

While he retreats into his thoughts for the moment, her free hand drifts across his lap and rests lightly on his metal forearm. Her fingers stroke the scarred yet smooth plates, and Bucky resists the urge to pull it out of her reach. "You said you lost it every time?" He nods. "Yet you survived."

"I don't know how. Guess S.H.I.E.L.D. must have been close by." Another way he failed Steve – couldn't keep him alive long enough for them both to be rescued.

"Do you like it?"

Her question throws him, and he frowns, murmuring, "What?"

"Your arm."

Staring at it, watching his silver fingers move so Natasha can thread her delicate flesh and bone ones between them, he can't help but think how easy it would be to break them just by squeezing. "I have two arms," he says eventually. "I can't complain about that. But it's… not perfect. It hurts still, sometimes, and that's not even taking the memories into account. So, I guess you could say I have mixed feelings towards it."

"It goes to your shoulder," she half-asks, untangling their hands and tracing the still-visible line of red from where the Exo-Suit had been too much for the support plate to handle. "Who designed it?"

"A couple of scientists in R&D. They did the best they could, and really, S.H.I.E.L.D. can't spare the materials to make it a little more comfortable. That and… I don't particularly enjoy going under anaesthetic."

With a soft noise of understanding, Natasha lets her hand drop back to his hip. He carefully plays with a strand of her hair, concentrating on not getting it caught between the interlocking sections of his fingers. "I have the same feelings about ballet," she says suddenly.

"You do?"

"Mmh. I loved dancing. Those lessons were some of my favourite during my time in the Red Room, gruelling as they were. I wanted so badly to be a professional, at the Bolshoi."

"I bet you'd have been good enough," he says with a smile.

She chuckles. "Karpov certainly thought so. Lukin, not so much."

Her silence is uncharacteristically sad, and Bucky shifts to wrap an arm around her. "Dance for me one day?"

"You mean, if we succeed?"

"After we've succeeded." He nudges her chin. "Thought I was the pessimistic one here."

Smirking, she says, "Of course, my mistake. The crown remains yours."

"Hey!" Natasha just laughs at his indignation, and Bucky laughs with her, heart leaping at the sound of her happiness (temporary as it might be). "Have faith, Nat," he tells her when they've both calmed down. "It's all we appear to have left."

"What, no hope?"

"That too," he agrees, ducking down to kiss her just because he can. She responds in kind, but what starts out as a tender gesture meant to lift spirits soon turns into something much more passionate.

Bucky can pinpoint the transition as easily as he can determine how long they've been in a relationship, but he isn't going to protest when Natasha moves into his lap, straddling his thighs and slipping her hands underneath his shirt. His body reacts instantly, instinct kicking in in a way it hasn't for a long, long time, and he can't get enough of the woman in his arms. The feel of her touch, of her body against him, underneath him when he moves them – it's something he craves, a feeling he relishes more and more with each indistinct passing second. He wants Natasha to feel it too, thinks maybe she does as he presses his lips to her throat, eliciting from her a gasp unlike any other sound he's ever heard her make; and from that moment on he goes where she directs. He works out how to spark more sounds out of her, how to make her writhe one instant and giggle – actually giggle – the next, and he enjoys being able to do so. And Natasha returns the favour readily enough, lighting up his nerves in ways he'd forgotten possible and reminding him how alive he is. Everything peaks when they finally move together, and in the aftermath, holding her against his chest as he tries to form coherent thoughts, Bucky doubts there'll ever be another moment in his life where he feels as blissful as he does now.

Nothing needs to be said in the aftermath. They loosely arrange their clothes atop themselves, and simply drift to sleep.

"When you dance for the sake of dancing," Natasha says that morning, "you don't think – you feel, and the steps come out naturally. Maybe that's what we need to do."

So that's what they do.

For Bucky, fighting has always been a process of ongoing calculations: where the enemy is, what they might do, what he can do, how his weapons are faring, etc. Not even with Steve and the STRIKE team did he ever just 'let go' like this. His movements flow from one to the other, each one intuitive and without thought, and in the back of his mind he's aware of Natasha doing the same, moving with that deadly grace he first encountered back at S.H.I.E.L.D. One by one, the Mimics fall, but he doesn't even realise until he turns and finds himself staring across at Natasha – and only Natasha.

He goes to her quickly, dropping his gun and reaching out to take her by the shoulders. "Are you hurt?"

"Not badly," she says, shaking her head. There's a cut up on her forehead and her cheek is smudged with dirt, but true to her word she appears okay. "You?"

"I'm fine," he says quickly, and pulls her against him. They're alive, he realises, and the road ahead of them is, for the first time, open. Grinning, he breathes, "We did it," stepping back to cup her face. "We finally did it!"

"We did," Natasha agrees, beaming back at him. She stretches up for a kiss, then picks up his gun and starts walking. "Now come on – let's not lose the momentum." Following after her, Bucky makes sure to cement the victory firmly in his memory. No way are they ever going to be able to choreograph something like that ever again.

Though riding the high of success, both of them remain vigilant as they head towards the lake now visible on the horizon, the mountains and the quarry entrance looming on the far side. They find an upturned pickup truck by the roadside, and after struggling to get it on its wheels they're relieved to see it still has fuel and isn't beyond repair. Sure it will carry them most of the way at least, they take it with them, glad for the opportunity to rest a little and gather their strength. It's also an opportunity to talk a little more, and they exchange further stories of their pasts: Bucky opens up about Hydra and his scant recollection of childhood before then, a childhood he isn't sure is his anymore it's so different to his life now, and Natasha speaks of the hardships she and other girls endured in the Red Room, how she struggled to maintain her own morals and values as they shaped her into what they wanted. Though the subjects are tough, they bring Bucky and Natasha closer still.

Half a tank of fuel gets them a little beyond the edge of the lake, so they ditch the truck and walk the rest of the way. There's a disturbing lack of Mimics, Bucky notes, as he relays his vision of the Omega's whereabouts to Natasha. "It doesn't make sense," he mutters. "You'd think they'd want to protect it better than this."

"Perhaps they didn't anticipate anyone getting this far."

"Maybe, but I don't like it."

"Would you rather the place was teeming with them?"

"Well… No, but –"

"Then stop looking the gift horse in the mouth, James. They could easily be waiting inside."

"True." His nerves don't settle, but they carry on anyway. Sure enough, as they reach the entrance to the mine, Bucky senses activity deep in the tunnels.

"Right in the centre?" Natasha clarifies as they step into the gloom.

"Yeah," he says. "Keep your guard up."

"How do you know which way to go?"

"Uh…" He shrugs, even though she might not be able to see. "We'll figure it out."

"You're taking 'don't think, feel' a bit too seriously now, aren't you?"

"Hey, you suggested it, and it worked the last time." She sighs, and Bucky grins into the dark.

The quarry tunnels echo. Helpful as that is in locating the Mimics, it isn't obvious whether they're at the same disadvantage or not; thus, as they near what seems to be the centre of activity, Bucky and Natasha move painstakingly slowly, desperate to hold whatever edge they still have over the aliens. Yet the closer they get, the more Bucky becomes aware of an odd humming filling his ears. It doesn't sound like a mechanical hum – it's too musical for that – and as he focuses on just the sound it triggers something in his memories.

As quickly as he dares, he moves closer to Natasha. "Do you hear that humming?" he whispers, and her hair brushes his cheek as she nods. "That's it."

She turns to him. "The Omega?"

"Yeah." The same sound had filled his vision of the thing, blue and white light and a distinct, loud humming. "It's close."

"Can you tell how close?"

"No, but it'll be much louder soon."

"That might mean Mimics, too."

He exhales slowly. "That will definitely mean Mimics."

They keep creeping along the tunnels, following the noises of Mimic activity until Natasha points out that the walls are glowing slightly, and sure enough, they round one final bend and find themselves standing at the edge of a cavernous pit – deep within which sits the creature Bucky has only seen in his mind. The Omega is… breath-taking. So much bigger than he thought, and brighter. It looks nothing like the other Mimics, its tentacles extending up from the glowing centre that appears immobile. He likens it to a nerve centre, the central system of the hive mind Stark and Banner theorised about, and then it hits him: take out the centre, take out the agents. The mission might almost be over.

Natasha nudges his elbow and points opposite them. On the walls are Mimics. Not as many as they feared (which continues to rub Bucky up the wrong way), and only the grunt variety, but enough to rule out a stealth approach. Having been largely unprepared to get to this point any time soon, Bucky wonders how many approaches that leaves them with. They retreat back into the tunnel to discuss their options. "Stealth is out of the question," Natasha says, and Bucky agrees. "Is there another way we could get onto the ground without being detected?"

"Not unless you want to go back through the tunnels."

"That would take time, but it's doable."

"We could get lost, Nat, or discovered by scouts – we've no idea how many of them are in this place, but I'm willing to bet my right arm it's far more than we just saw in there."

She raises an eyebrow. "You think this is a trap?"

Bucky sighs. "Maybe? I honestly don't know. I just – why would it show me where it is? Why would it lure me out here if it didn't want to be found?" Shaking his head, he adds, "It doesn't make sense."

"We can worry about that later," Natasha says. "Right now, our priority is getting close enough to cause some damage to that thing and this is no time to deviate."

"I know." He wipes a hand down his face. "Okay – could we launch the explosives from where we stood earlier? Throw them into the core from above?"

"Would we be able to throw them far enough? And what if the other Mimics see us in the process?"

"They'd sacrifice themselves, probably."

"Yeah. Could we split up? One of us lure them away while the other sneaks in after it's clear?"

"We don't know these tunnels that well, and we don't know how well they know them. Plus, I still think there are more than we've seen – there's no guarantee that luring out the 'guards' would be making the coast clear."

With a frustrated huff, Natasha says, "Then the last option is we head in guns blazing and make our way down as we go, though I don't see how that's any better than causing a distraction."

Bucky smirks. "Worked last time."

"James."

"I don't see us succeeding any other way, Nat," he says. "You were the one who told us to feel instead of thinking, and we annihilated that blockade – who's to say we can't do it again?"

Natasha's expression isn't happy, but she picks up her gun, checking the chamber and asking, "You're really sure about this?"

He helps her to her feet. "Knocking on the front door was one of Steve's favourite tactics," he tells her, shrugging a shoulder. "Only failed him once."

Her expression softens, and she briefly presses a palm to his cheek. "Then let's go knock."

They knock hard and fast, and the Mimics flock towards them; some stay ranged, hurling twists of fire their way and trying to separate the two of them, while others head towards the sloping ramp that leads to the ground. Bucky and Natasha's progress is quickly halted as they defend themselves from all angles, and just as he suspected more Mimics reveal themselves from under the stone. They're fighting from feeling again, ducking and weaving and shooting as fast as they can, and for a while, they live. Bucky doesn't like it, but there's no time to dwell.

Everything changes when, behind him, Natasha cries out in pain.

"Nat!"

A spiral of fire hits the rock at Bucky's feet, and before he can react he finds himself falling. He bounces off the stone ramp several times, plummeting towards the pit floor with no means of stopping. He curls in on himself, thinking of the moment he and Natasha launched their attack – but he hits the ground with a crunch, pain streaking out from his left shoulder and the air in his lungs vanishing. Stars swim in his eyes, the world darkening at the edges as he claws for breath, slowly and painfully finding enough air in his bloodstream that he's able to think again, but then he makes the mistake of moving, and his left side screams. Blood runs hot from his shoulder plate, the remaining bones of his shoulder grinding against one another, and a wave of agony from his ribs threatens to punch out the air he just got back. His neck, hip and back all hurt too, and his vision is shaky as he gingerly tries to push himself up – because Bucky Barnes will be damned if he goes down broken and unable to stand.

Except getting onto his knees takes a hell of a long time, and he's still alive. Gingerly, he looks up, not finding the rain of fireballs that he thought would be aimed his way or the swarm of Mimics intent on ripping him to shreds; instead, they're still on the cavern walls. They're clinging to the stone, watching him, tentacles twitching and flexing like they want to attack him but won't. He's powerless against them, they have to see that, and yet he's still alive.

Why?

"Nata-" Calling out for her hurts, but he has to know if she's still there. "Natasha?" He receives no answer, and he's too far down to see anything, but from what he can tell the Mimics have completely stopped attacking. If Natasha's dead, she's reset, and he's on his own. If they won't attack him, he'll have to reset himself. A pained moan escapes him at the thought, and as much as it twists his stomach, he searches for his gun – and that's when he realises where he is.

The base of the Omega sits barely fifty metres away. Bucky's hand flies to the explosives strapped to his waist. Two feel damaged, but the other two could still be used, and with that thought, he forces himself onto his feet. Either the Mimics attack him and he resets, or they don't and he kills the Omega.

'Then what?' a voice in his head asks. 'You reset? You go back to the moment you and Nat began the attack? You kill it again, and what, reset?' He's closing the distance, pulling out an explosive as he stumbles forward. 'Nobody knows what'll happen after you blow this thing sky-high, but it's likely you'll be stuck in a loop forever – you'll live, you'll die, you'll repeat.' He primes the device. 'Is that what you want?'

Halfway there and Bucky feels something hard and solid wrap around his midsection. The ground disappears from beneath his feet as he's snapped backwards, thrown onto the rock and left gasping again as his ribs and shoulders flare up from the unexpected onslaught. He cries out, grip tightening on the explosive in his hand as he thinks furiously of the beginning of their attack, the tunnel they were in, Natasha's stance, the way the light played on her…

The ground is shaking. Bucky opens his eyes, watching on his back as one, dark tentacle is joined by others, and more, until out from the stone rises the familiar electric blue maw of an Alpha Mimic, its heavy limbs hauling its large body up and over Bucky's, caging him in like the four pillars of the Earth itself. And, just like the other Mimics, it does nothing.

"James!"

Bucky cranes his neck, trying to see her around the hulking mass above him. "Natasha!"

The Alpha roars, the sound felt rather than heard – a deep, rippling bass that makes Bucky's ribs feel like they're breaking all over again.

"The fuck do you want?" he yells at it, ignoring the pain the action causes. "If you're not going to kill me, then what?" Was this how his life was going to look from now on? Constantly fighting Mimics, getting close to the Omega, either killing it or not quite killing it, making sure he didn't bleed out and lose this fucked up –

His shoulder was bleeding. It was slow, but he was still losing blood, and the more he lost, the more likely he was to lose the looping ability. "Nat!" She needed to know. "Nat, they're not going to kill us – they want us to bleed out, they want us to lose the power –"

The Alpha cuts him off, roaring into his face again, and Bucky angles his face away from the heat, wishing he just had a way of getting them both out of this situation; and it's then, lying with his head turned to one side, that he sees the explosive still primed in his hand. Stark designed, he knows it'll likely do a hell of a lot of damage, and if it doesn't hit the Omega then at least it'll give him (and maybe Natasha) another chance. He has a few seconds.

Turning back to the Omega, Bucky grins. "Sayonara, basta-"

He wakes up with the sensation of fire still fizzling on his skin. It goes quickly enough, and once his body is sure it isn't dying Bucky takes stock of where is his – and his heart promptly sinks. He's standing at one end of the training room back at headquarters, alone, and most likely waiting to meet Natasha and spar with her for the first time.

They've been looped back to the day Project Reset was born.

Bucky curses into the empty room. The Omega had been there – it was there and within touching distance and the Alpha had stopped him from wiping it out for good. They had been so close, so fucking close, and now they were effectively back at square one. He has to remind himself that they have a plan now, that they know the score and can make it back to the stupid alien in one shot. As soon as he finds Natasha, they'll be off – no wasting time when it's theirs to command.

He doesn't have a watch on, and has no real idea what time he and Natasha first met anyway. Fury might pose a problem, but the two of them could easily convince him of their truthfulness. The Director would see to it that they got to be where they needed when they needed to be there, and might not put them through Stark and Banner's Mimic-101 again. Sighing deeply, Bucky runs his hands through his hair. There's a lot to think about, despite the straightforwardness of the immediate future – and that makes him smile. It's been a long time since the future seemed remotely straightforward.

At the sound of the door opening, his heart picks up a notch. Now that she's here, Bucky suddenly feels excited. They know they can do it. They know they can take down the Omega together and save people. It's within their grasp, and then afterwards… even though he's not quite sure what 'afterwards' means for them, they can discuss one anyway, as a secondary goal, perhaps. It puts a grin on his face as she enters the room, hair tied back, just as graceful and strong as he's ever known her, and he immediately starts towards her. "I'm sorry for what I did," he begins with, reaching out automatically and grasping her shoulders, "I had no choice; but we can do it, Nat! We can destroy –"

There's a blur of motion, pressure at his elbows, shoulder and wrist, and in the blink of an eye Bucky is on his back on the mats, staring at the ceiling. He blinks again, a hard pressure registering where a foot meets his chest, and he angles his head to stare up with no small amount of confusion at the woman he loves. She, in return, looks furious.

"Natasha?"

"You do not have the right to call me that."

Bucky's blood runs cold. "What?"

"Barnes!"

At the sound of Fury's voice Natasha releases him, springing away like a threatened cat. Bucky slowly picks himself up, frowning her way as he tries to work out why she's so angry with him; was the explosion a bad idea? Was she mad that they'd woken up so far back? Had she thought him dead for good?

"What is going on?" Fury demands behind him.

Pushing the hurt to one side, Bucky turns to explain. "Sir –"

"I won't work with him."

"What?" He spins back around. "Why not?"

Natasha isn't looking at him, her gaze cold and closed off as she directs her words at Fury. "He presumes to know me after two seconds. Anyone making assumptions about my character –"

"Nat, what the hell are –"

"I told you not to call me that."

She doesn't know him. As far as she's concerned, this is literally their first meeting. He loves her, he knows more about her than she's ever told anyone, and it's her right there in front of him, except it… isn't. And Bucky thought he knew heartbreak after he'd lost Steve.

"Agent Barnes. Care to explain yourself?"

Dry swallowing, he focuses on not falling apart long enough to convince her that he knows her, and Fury too. Glancing between them, he says, "I know you, Natash- Natalia. You don't know me, but I know you. We've – I've worked with you for, I don't know, several months maybe."

"He's lying."

"No, dammit, I'm not –"

"Director Fury, thank you for offering me this opportunity, but I'm afraid I'll have to decline on the grounds of personal morals. I hope I'm not causing too much of an inconvenience."

"I see," Fury says as Bucky stands speechless. "Then may I thank you for coming all this way on your own time, Miss Romanova. I'm sorry it was a wasted effort on your part."

"It's not a waste!" Bucky protests. "It's a huge, huge success – I've seen the Omega, Fury, and with her, you have to believe –"

"That's enough Agent." Fury has never looked at him so murderously before. "You can explain yourself to me later."

Natasha – Natalia – is already collecting up her bag. As Fury follows her out Bucky tries one last time, pleading with her directly, but she leaves without giving him a second glance. He debates for a second telling her a piece of her past, something only she would be privy to, but he knows it would just make things worse; and just like that, it seems to be over. Everything.

Alone again, Bucky drops heavily onto the wall bench. Waiting for Fury to return, if he even will, he spends the time keeping himself from falling apart.

To say that Bucky spirals would be an understatement.

It begins with a suicidal reset and gradually gets worse from there. He meets Natalia again, reigning himself in as much as he can until they've sparred and she's agreed to work with him. Afterwards, he's eager to spend time with her – too much, it seems, and the next thing he knows his mouth is running off with information he shouldn't possess, and while it doesn't drive her away, it doesn't endear him to her. At all. As a result, Bucky spends more time trying to rectify that than he does on getting to the Omega, and before he knows it the dance has changed and he doesn't know the steps.

So he resets. He stays away from Natasha this time, focusing on remembering the plan and getting them both through quickly, but in doing that he neglects to form a proper connection to her; when they're at the blockade, he tells her about feeling instead of thinking before they've even attempted their first run. He insists she came up with the idea, calling her 'Nat' in his frustration and causing her to close herself off to him for the night, and like before the blockade proves insurmountable. This Natalia refuses to take a day off with him, and an argument ensues – and Bucky doesn't know what he says, only that it ends with her resetting herself and him following suit, back to the beginning again.

And so it goes, over and over again. No matter what he does, Bucky is incapable of recreating the same sequence of events that led not just to their falling in love, but also past the same blockade that gave the two of them so much trouble the first time around. He resets enough times that he's fairly sure a year has passed since he first met her, and he doesn't love her any less (he could never love her less, regardless of how she feels towards him), but she doesn't appear to regard him in any capacity beyond working partner. And eventually, just as it did with Steve, it wears Bucky down.

It happens during another attempt at breaking the blockade – Bucky watches Natalia fall again. He knows what happens next like he knows his own heartbeat, only this time, he's had enough. The Mimics come, and he thinks of a moment further back than he's been in roughly a year.

"Get me a partner," he says to Fury.

Fury raises his eyebrows. "A partner?"

Bucky nods. "Someone I can work with, someone who can help me get to the Omega and get rid of the Mimics for good."

He looks intrigued. "And how would that work?"

"I know Banner has the ability to synthesise my blood," he begins, ignoring the sharp flash in Fury's eye. "If we find someone who's compatible with my fighting style, you can give them my blood and have them possess the same power that I do. That way we have twice the advantage and twice the chance of succeeding."

"Do we now?"

"We do. I can make a list of people I'd be willing to work with, if you like?"

Thinking it over for just a moment, Fury stands from his desk. "No need. I have someone in mind already."

As he leaves, Bucky opens his mouth to protest, to tell him that Natalia Romanova won't do, but the words die on his tongue. He curses softly. The whole point of this extended reset had been so that he wouldn't have to bump into Natasha again, so that he could move on with as clean a break as possible and save her the trouble too. Instead, he resigns himself to one last meeting, deciding that his last memory of her would be better seeing her alive than dying. Knowing that it'll take Fury a few days to organise her arrival on base, Bucky decides to write the list anyway.

Waiting for Natalia to arrive proves frustrating. He tries to distract himself by keeping busy; he talks weapons with Stark, goes down to FitzSimmons for discussions about his arm, learns some calming techniques from Banner, and spends a bit more time with 616. He also discovers what it is Sam and Jim have been roped into: a separate project looking into technology that can get a single man into the air without the need to cater resources for more aircraft. They call it Project Falcon, and swiftly swear him to secrecy – though he tells Toro, just to put the younger man's mind at ease about his friend's behaviour.

Finally, though, the day comes when Bucky finds himself facing a woman who politely introduces herself as Natalia Romanova. His heart aches, but he smiles, says, "James Barnes. Pleasure to meet you," and they spar. He knows each move she'll make now, well enough that he could easily beat her on the mats and have her ruled out as a potential partner for him altogether, yet he can't find it in himself to fight her. Theirs is a dance he wants to memorise from start to finish, and if this is going to be the end sequence, he wants it to be as beautiful as she deserves.

"Well?" Fury asks when Bucky seeks him out.

"She's great," he says, psyching himself up for what he's about to do. It's now or never, and he knows he's ready. He's said goodbye. "But I don't think she should be my partner."

"And what makes you think that?"

Taking a deep breath, he explains, "We're very evenly matched, as you saw. I think you should still give her my blood, but have her launch an attack of her own."

Fury frowns at him, dropping the dossier he holds in his hand and leaning backwards in his chair. "Go on."

Bucky can hear the blood pounding in his ears as his heart pleads with him to stop. "If you had two teams led by someone with the ability to loop time, you could launch two attacks on the Mimics: one on the main force, and one on the Omega. You'd be saving more lives and impacting the invasion twice as hard. Putting me and Natalia on the same team would be wasting our talents. She's good enough to run the gauntlet on her own, or with another person under her authority."

"And you could tell all that from one meeting?"

He sighs. "No…"

Fury listens without interruption as Bucky tells him about their first run. He leaves out the important detail – that they fell in love – but emphasises how subsequent runs failed because there were too many Mimics still with the Omega. He convinces Fury that having a stronger force meet them on the black beach would draw the Mimics away, and eventually, Fury says, "Alright. We'll give it a shot. And if it fails, Barnes, you come back and you make sure the original plan plays out. Understand?"

"Yes sir."

"Good. Now, let's see this list of yours."

It's done. Bucky Barnes and Natalia Romanova will never know each other beyond that initial dance in the training room. At least, that's how it will be for her. For Bucky, their time together is now reduced to memories, and despite the hole it leaves in his chest, he thinks he can let go with time. Until then, he'll take the night to drink in honour of all that they accomplished together, and try not to think too hard about how he never told her he loved her.

Two days later, Bucky finds himself strapping into an Exo-Suit again, ready to fly out to Iceland with his new partner, grim yet confident. As they're picking up the explosives from Stark, a woman with red hair strides past them, heading for the door to Banner's office.

"Who's that?" Barton asks, strapping the last set of explosives to his waist.

Bucky swallows. "Natalia Romanova."

"You know her?"

He nods. "We've met."

Barton gives a nonchalant hum. "What's she like?"

Watching her disappear, Bucky thinks of everything they went through together – the good times, the bad times, and those moments that seemed too dream-like to be real – and as a smile creeps over his lips, only one response seems adequate enough to describe her; "She's amazing."

AN: I would say sorry, but... y'know. ;-) Hope everyone's enjoying BuckyNat Week 2015, and thanks for reading!