Disclaimer: For entertainment purposes only.
A/n: I've had this idea for a while, but nothing really concrete. In light of AU April at The Beta Branch, I thought I should actually do it, and as a bonus, one of my glorious pals who is a huuuge Bucky/Nat fan is having a birthday so I was like, HEY I should DEFINITELY do the thing. Major thanks to Inky, Cariadne, Shaz, and VLeRoux who speed-betaed this for me! Remaining mistakes are all me. Happy Birthday, milady Stars!
Hello Night
Honestly, he had no idea how the hell he wasn't dead. That was pretty much his first thought.
Last he remembered, he was steering a plane straight down into the ice. Last he was awake, it was 1945 and it was World War II.
They tell him a lot of science-y stuff that blows right over his head – he's still kinda in shock and he keeps staring at his hands like they're gonna tell him what the hell happened. Of course, he wishes Steve were here because he'd be probably have the sense to ask for all this in layman's terms. But Steve died in the war before Bucky crashed the plane, and besides, Bucky doesn't really care about the how or the why behind it all anyway.
He's always been a bottom line kinda guy, and the bottom line is that it's 2012 and everybody he knows is long dead.
The people who found him in the ice call themselves S.H.I.E.L.D., and he learns that Howard and Peggy founded the thing and it grew from there. They've assembled sort of a super crime-fighting team – complete with an alien demi-god, fella who can change into a giant green rage monster, guy who can shoot arrows and guns like nothing Bucky's ever seen, and a snarky billionaire in a fancy metal suit.
They give him Captain America's – Steve's – shield and want him to join the team. He supposes it's because of the unnatural stamina and strength he got from the experiments Zola did on him while he was a POW, but he still feels pretty damn out of place. He knows Steve would want him to wield the shield if anyone did, but it still feels wrong to Bucky to hold the thing up and put a mask on and take up the mantle of Captain America.
He absolutely vetoes any spandex tights.
S.H.I.E.L.D. finds out where his family is buried. Bucky takes his time at all seven headstones – Mom and Pa, his three sisters and two brothers. It doesn't feel real to see their names carved in the stone, doesn't feel real that none of them made it this far. None of this seems real, and he has half a mind to seek out his parents' old place because he's sure he'll find them sitting at the table with the newspaper, waiting for him to come home from the war with big smiles and a fresh pie in the oven.
When he gets back to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarters, they give him the file on his old flame, Natasha. He supposes they're probably trying to help him adjust, but it takes him several months before he can bring himself to open the file. He not only lost his family and friends in one day, he lost his entire world, and losing her too could prove to be far too much to bear.
Late one night, he inevitably can't sleep (was the city always this bright? He can't remember). He hates that he actually misses his paper-thin, army-issue cot and the snores of his friends. With an aggravated sigh, Bucky throws off the covers and pads into the kitchen, flipping on the light as he goes. He squints at the manila folder on the counter and with another sigh, he braces himself, and opens it.
It was her hair that caught his eye first, he remembers – a brilliant, fiery shade of red.
He was sitting there with a dislocated shoulder and blood dribbling into his eyes, but he couldn't stop watching her gracefully maneuvering around the crowded med tent. He'd be lying if he said he didn't have a crush on nearly every nurse that ever tended to him, but he could tell in an instant that she was different.
She had zero patience for his slick, practiced charm, and it wasn't until she'd deftly popped his arm back into place and his eyes were watering and he was swearing up a storm that she cracked a smile. She settled onto the stool beside his bed and began stitching up the wound over his eye.
"My name's Natasha," she said, and he was surprised to hear a hint of Russian in her voice.
"Bucky," he replied in kind.
She cocked her head to the side and smiled at him. "Not James?" She'd taken his full name from his chart.
He wrinkled his nose in disgust, and she let out soft, amused chuckle.
"You call me James, you're gonna have to buy me dinner first, Red."
"Think you got that backwards, soldier."
"I'm not callin' myself James or buying myself dinner," he quipped.
She rolled her eyes and finished his stitches. On his way out of the tent, she pinned him with those gorgeous green eyes of hers. "See you 'round, James."
After that, he didn't mind being called James so much. And if he maybe frequented the med tent a little too often with minor cuts and sprains and mysterious maladies that seemed to vanish, well, it wasn't like he was the first one to try. He just happened to be the one she fell for.
After that, Steve called him a hopeless romantic, which Bucky thought was a little rich coming from the guy who was blatantly in love with Agent Carter. Dugan maintained that the only reason Natasha was going out with Bucky was to get closer to Captain America – he knew he wasn't true, but he loved teasing Buck about it nonetheless.
Falsworth said it was because of the little paper flowers Bucky made out of whatever was handy – paper, napkins, cigarette carton pieces – and left at the nurse's station for her.
Whatever the reason, Bucky slid his arm around Natasha and counted himself a lucky man.
He focuses on papers and photos spread before him.
She's listed as "Missing in Action". They never found a body, and she was put down as another casualty of the most terrible war the world had ever seen.
Bucky closes the folder and buries his face in his hands. He tries to remember what kissing her tasted like, and fights off a wave of emotion when he finds he can't.
He wishes he had her letters with him.
He suspects it's mostly because they don't want him miserably brooding around the apartment they set him up in, but S.H.I.E.L.D. gives Bucky missions to carry out. At first, he feels like a fish out of water again. Without the rag-tag team of supers to have his back, the feeling is even more pronounced. But he trains in his downtime and he learns and he works hard. He starts completing missions and for a little while, it's like being back with the Commandos and Steve, taking down Nazis and Hydra operatives.
Until the day it all goes belly up, and hell, Bucky probably should've seen it coming because that's the kind of luck he has.
Turns out Hydra had never really been defeated after all. Turns out they'd infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. from the beginning, and it turns out that Bucky trying to figure out the truth made him public enemy number one.
Turns out Hydra also had an assassin.
Bucky tumbles to the ground, diving for the shield before the assassin can come back after him. She's psycho-fast, and Bucky is bruised and bleeding and fighting for his life. At least he's gotten a couple good hits in. That last one sent her sprawling, the black mask covering her face popping off.
The first thing that catches his eye as she stands is a flash of red hair – brilliant, familiar, fiery red. His breath gets stuck in his chest. He's sure he is seeing things, that this isn't real. Maybe he's in the ice again, asleep, anything…
But she turns, and tugs off the helmet, and there is no mistaking her face.
"Nat," he stutters, his brain frozen. How can this be happening? "Natasha…?"
She slowly cocks her head to the side, regarding him with irritation and confusion. The motion is terribly familiar and foreign all at once. "Who the hell is Natasha?"
He doesn't notice the shield dropping from his fingers. He doesn't see how she got away from the scene unscathed. He can't feel his legs when the agents shove him down and put him under arrest.
Hours later, he can't get the empty look in her eyes out of his head.
What did they do to you?
Luckily, though Bucky's world is crashing down around him, he still has a select few he can genuinely trust and the guy with the arrows proves to be one of them.
Clint breaks Bucky out of custody and together they make it to a safehouse. From there, they are able to come up with a plan with some remaining non-Hydra S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to take back S.H.I.E.L.D. and stop Hydra from killing millions.
He's been hoping in vain that he won't have to face her again, but as Bucky steps onto the catwalk and makes for the targeting computers, Natasha shows up. She slides a pair of knives from her belt.
"You're my mission," she tells him flatly.
Bucky shakes his head, his chest aching. "You're my… Nat, you were gonna marry me."
For a split second, her eyelashes flutter and his heart leaps. In the next instant however, she's charging him, slashing and slicing. She is too fast and she catches him more than a couple times. She grunts when he smashes her with the shield, but she recovers and comes after him again. He is doing his best to slow her down as the helicarrier crashes down around them, but she is determined to kill him. She dives and spins, he counters her attack, and then her knife slips under his guard, driving through fabric and flesh below his ribs.
He holds on, swinging wildly, blood soaking his uniform. An explosion tears through the doomed ship and he goes down. She's on top of him before he has a chance to recover, striking him, over and over…
He's flat on his back, spent, broken, stabbed in the gut. She kneels over him, bloody fist poised to hit him again. Her eyes are wild, unsure, her hand trembling.
"You're my mission," she repeats through grit teeth.
"It's okay," he assures her softly. This was it. "It's okay, Nat." It's stupid and he chuckles because he's inexplicably thinking of the day they met. "You don't owe me dinner, Red."
She blinks at him. She wavers.
An explosion rips around them and then he is falling. He blacks out before he hits the water.
Honestly, he had no idea how the hell he wasn't dead.
He moans and shifts as he cracks open his eyes. He hurts like hell.
"Hey, welcome back," Clint says and Bucky rolls his head to face his friend. The archer offers him a smile and goes back to reading his book.
The next time Bucky wakes, it's nighttime. He thinks he can feel someone in the room with him, but when he opens his eyes, no one is there. Clint left a note saying he'd be back tomorrow morning.
Bucky turns over to face the window, where moonlight is sliding between the blind slats. There on the nightstand beside the window is a folded paper flower.
It's something so simple, so achingly familiar, and more than anything it's hope.
It makes his scabbed lips crack painfully, but Bucky smiles.
-end-