A/N: Okay, this fanfic is a Romanogers one, however, there will be some mentions of Bucky (James/The Winter Soldier) here and his romance with Natasha and Steve finding out before they finally get involved. I mean, they can't just go and start kissing out of nowhere (they can but it would be no fun hehehe)
-Enjoy :3
~X~
Finally the day they most expected and feared came. After two weeks of sharing her apartment, Natasha finally decided Steve was the perfect roomate, he was clean, minimalistic, organized, he helped with the chores, he didn't mind the time she arrived at home, he never asked questions and he usually didn't stay up waiting for her.
Perhaps staying in Paris with him wouldn't be so bad after all. Truth was, Natasha didn't mind sharing, she really didn't, actually, she liked company, but spending too much time with her meant some serious damage, his life could be put at risk and, to her, the life of her friends mattered more than hers, so much more, they were like her family.
But, of course, they didn't know that, she'd rather keep people away than to lose them after, she had already lost too much.
She helped him with getting ready. Absolutely no idea of how he could change styles, she helped him.
"You will be a business man today, Steve." He smiled and got the suit he had bought as a part of his disguise wardrobe. "We'll have to practice your walk and the way you talk."
"Sure." He nodded and took a shower before putting on the suit.
"You have to seem busy, uptight. Always talking on the phone while in the line or in the waiting room." Natasha paused for a moment, "You speak French, right?"
"Yup." He nodded.
"Then you'll be a French businessman." She said, "1 sec." Natasha rushed to the room and made a phone call, speaking in Russian. Then she rushed back to where he was.
"Now we're in the French system," Natasha said, "You are Pierre Bertrand, a French businessman."
"Good!" Steve said, "And who are you?"
"I am Béatrice Dubois." She smiled and continued teaching him how to be a French businessman.
She put on a plain brown wig, basic makeup and clothes and got her suitcases. She knew a few people in the airplane, so she could take some of her weaponry with her. She made sure that both her and Steve looked as plain as possible so they wouldn't be stopped by immigration, but she also took her punk outfit with her, she loved it too much to let it go.
~X~
"Are you ready?" She asked with a mysterious smile.
"Yeah, are you?" He replied.
"Yup." She bit her lip, "Are you sure? If you do this there's no going back."
"Nat, I'm not leaving you, I don't want you to be alone and plus, I need this too."
"I just wanted to make sure." Natasha ran a hand through her wig and put on her sunglasses.
They got on the cab and left to the airport.
As expected, everything went well and the boarded the flight, Emirates first class. She knew a lot of people who owed her favors, so she managed to get the best of everything.
~X~
It was night when they arrived in Paris, and they were very tired so they went straight to her apartment. Back in the time when she was rich, Natasha bought that apartment, it was on the 16th arrodissement, one of the best areas of Paris, it had three bedrooms, one living room that was the size of her apartment in New York and one fully equipped kitchen. It was fairly big and she had time to decorate it when she lived in Europe.
There was a coat of dust covering everything, from the ground to the ceiling, after all those years, and she was happy to see that no one had tried to break in.
"It's a nice apartment." Steve sighed looking around tiredly, "Where do I sleep?"
"Here." She chuckled as she led him through the hallway and opened the door of the second room.
"Good night, Nat."
"Oh, Steve, I forgot to tell you that both of our rooms are suites, so if you want to have a bath or use the bathroom, take your time, I have one bathroom of my own."
"Thanks, Nat." He closed the door behind him, "Good night."
Then she was all by her self and had time to let it all sink in.
Once, she shared that apartment with James, when they worked together – more than worked – and they had some time to settle down and make that their Headquarters. Both of them were trained assassins and know all over the world, they knew how to defend themselves and everyone knew that they were together so there was no problem in doing couple stuff, like decorating apartments.
Natasha walked to the living room and chose one of the books from the shelf, Anna Karenina, a unique copy written in Russian and given to her by James, he even signed the book. That was their favorite book, sometimes they quoted it when they spoke. Memories... She smiled a little as she opened the book. His scent still clung to the pages. She closed it and put it back in place, right next to a picture of them together.
He was everywhere, the ghost of him, she could feel him staring at her from the corner, she could see him sitting on the armchair polishing his knives. His presence was there and all the memories passed in front of her eyes, they were like a theater being played in front of her. And to know that he wasn't there anymore, that she would most likely never feel him again, his fingertips against her skin, it was terrible.
After all those years without him, Natasha started to actually believe she had learned how to cope, but, as always, her convictions were all proved wrong, the mark he left was too deep for her to let go.
She still missed James and being there just reminded her of how much.
Natasha groaned, she was tired and all those thoughts... it would do her no good. She made her way to the bedroom taking her wig off. When she was finally aware of her surroundings, she realized that James had forgotten his shirt on her bedroom floor. He left it the last time he was there, the last time they had been there, before he vanished.
She had a long shower, as if the hot water would make it all go away, as if it would clean not only her body, but her soul and mind as well. It didn't work.
That night, she gave into the desire of wearing his shirt to sleep.
~X~
"What on Earth are you wearing, Natasha? Whose shirt is this?" Steve gasped when he entered the kitchen the next morning.
"It was just an old rag I found in my closet." She was wearing James' shirt with pants. She had gone to the supermarket that morning and bought some food, she had time to clean the apartment, so the dust was now gone.
"It seems that you've adjusted to sharing the apartment quite well." He smiled looking around.
"I wish I could say the same to you." She took a bite from the pancakes she made and pointed at his bare chest with her fork. "Nice six pack, by the way."
"You've already seen it before, I'm not going to cover it. Besides, it's not like I'm not wearing pants."
"Okay, you've got a point." She gave in, "Want pancakes? Made them myself."
"Not sure if I should trust your cooking skills."
"Come on, Steve, I went shopping this morning." She pouted.
"Okay, okay." He said and served himself. He took a bite, "Those are really good."
"Told you."
~X~
"We're here, we're in Paris, so now what?" Steve asked when he finished eating.
"You go find a job and gather some money so you can buy your own apartment." She looked over her shoulder from the sink where she was washing the dishes.
"Already throwing me out, Mademoisele Béatrice?" He used the name on her passport.
"What can I do, Monseur Pierre?" She laughed.
"And what are you going to do? Sleep until 1 p.m and spend the day out shopping and sightseeing?" He joked.
Natasha set the plates down on the sink and turned to face him, a smirk playing on her lips. "I wish. I'm also working. I already have plenty of things to work with."
"Already? But it's Saturday and we've just arrived, I was hoping we could go sightseeing."
"Sorry, Steve, I have to work."
"And what are you working on?"
"On the things I do best."
"Nat... are you working with the underground mobsters, are you?"
"A girl has to eat, Steve."
"A girl has to respect herself, Natasha. You are so much better than that, you are more than just a killer, Natasha."
"Am I, Steve?" She turned to face him.
"You are." Steve said, "I mean, I'm not being a moralist here. You want to work at McDonald's, go work in McDonald's, you want to be a doctor, go be a doctor, you want to be a prostitute, go and be a prostitute, there's nothing wrong with it. But please, please don't be a killer, don't do this."
"I think you're asking a bit too much of me, Steve. This is the one thing I'm good at." She clenched her fists, she wasn't going to kill anyone, she would only torture.
"Natasha, you're so smart, you are brilliant, why do you think so lowly of yourself?"
The redhead stopped for a second. She knew that what she was doing was wrong and dangerous, but she liked it, she really did. Torturing was one thing she really liked to do, she knew it in some part of her buried really deep inside, a part of her that she didn't allow to see the sunlight she loved to torture people. Plus, she would be hunting her enemies.
"Steve, I must do this, don't you see? I don't have another chance, I can't start over, I'm known worldwide. And I was promised information on Hydra. And that means information on James. We can end this, Steve, we can end Hydra. I can't say no to this oportunty.
"James... Do you mean... Bucky?"Natasha heard him say.
She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but the only word in her head was 'Careless' She had been careless.
That morning, she had woken up early to hide all of the traces of James, of any other male presence, she managed to do that, the photographs, everything, but she'd forgotten to train herslef not say and she let is name slip.
"What? Who is Bucky?" She walked to where he was.
"James is. He is Bucky. He is the Winter Soldier, he is the ghost." The look on Steve's face was one of disconcert, she couldn't blame him.
"The one I knew was James, Steve, The Asset, The Winter Soldier" She said, "The Bucky you knew is dead and gone. You watched him die, Steve."
"How... How dare you?" He raised his voice, " How dare you say that? You don't know Bucky, I grew up with him, I watched him die and then rise from the dead, I fought him, I..."
"Steve..." She touched his arm lightly.
"Don't you touch me! Don't you lie to me and tell me you didn't know. Don't you open your mouth if all you're going to say are lies, you're not going to convince me of anything, I'm not like the others I'm not going to fall for your charm." He hissed, "I want the truth, did you or did you not know Bucky?"
"I knew James, I knew the Asset, the machine built by the Red Room. The same way he knew me not as Natalia Romanova, but as Natasha Romanoff as the Black Widow." She told him, "The man you knew, Steve, he changed. The same way I changed and you changed. Just as you, he spent a long time frozen in cryogen, Steve. Things like that, things he and I have gone through, they are mote than enough to scar people for a lifetime, to cause a drastic change in anyone."
"But why didn't you tell me you knew him?"
"I never said I didn't."
Steve groaned in frustration and anger.
"Is this his shirt?"
Natasha said nothing.
"I said, Is this his shirt?"
"Yes it is, but now it's mine." Her voice was dry, "And I don't expect you to understand. I know that you've lost a lot of people that mattered to you, more than anyone should ever lose, but I just couldn't tell you. I just... I just couldn't."
"You're right, Natasha I don't understand."
She could tell by the look on his face that he was in pain, but so was she and he couldn't see it, he failed to see it just like everyone else, he didn't understand that James meant just as much to her as Bucky meant to him.
"Shit..." She muttered as she felt the tears spilling down her cheeks.
Then she realized that there was no reason for her to hold it back anymore.
Steve stopped and looked at her.
"When will you realize, Steve, that he meant as much to me as he did to you? That I have lost just as many people as you have and that I had to watch them die in front of me and could do nothing?" She spat those words, "When will you finally realize that I am how I am for a reason, that everything I do, every precaution I take, every smile I don't give, every single person I don't let in and every person I kill... It all has a reason."
He wiped the tears away from her face .
Alexei, James, Ivan, her mom, all of the people she cared about, all gone and she could do nothing to bring them back, she could do nothing to soothe the pain she felt but pretend that it wasn't there.
"I... I'm sorry, Nat... I... I didn't mean for this to happen." He stuttered, clearly nervous and not knowing what to say. Then he hugged her.
"It's okay to cry, Nat. You can cry as much as you want, I'm here for you." He whispered and that only made her cry more.
It was the first time someone told her such a thing, the first time in a long while that someone seemed to care about her and how she felt, even if they didn't understand it fully.
Then she looked up, straight into his blue eyes. They were as blue as the ocean and the sky, a mix of the two, and she felt him stare straight into her green ones.
And it was like a mix of the ocean and the forest when they kissed. It was so light, so unsure and so certain at the same time, they craved that, they craved that human contact, that emotion. In so many levels they needed each other, levels beyond their understanding.
She let go, it was wrong, that was so wrong. She felt as if both of them – especially her – were taking advantage of that situation of emotional fragility.
But she didn't care, she craved that, she craved him, every part of her body craved his touch, his voice, his taste, she wanted Steve and she could tell he wanted her too.
"Steve," She broke away from his embrace, "Say, let's forget about this, let's forget all of this happened. This is wrong in so many levels."
"Nat... Please." He reached for her.
"I can't take advantage of you like that, not of you."
"But are you taking advantage?"
"I don't know, Steve, it's better if we just stay friends in order for this to work out, even if just for now, Steve." Natasha said and wiped the remaining tears away from her face.
"Natasha..." He muttered.
"I'm going out, now, Steve," She ran a hand through her head, "I have a lot to do before tonight."
"Natasha..." He said again, "Okay, go. Should I wait up?"
"No." She walked to her bedroom and got ready to leave, the wig, the makeup, the clothes, everything.
"See you later, Steve." She locked the door behind her.
"See you." He sighed.
