For the record, the Soldier looks good in a pea coat.
Natalia's wearing one, too. Hers is green. Makes her look like she's celebrating St. Patrick's Day in the United States or something. The Soldier's is blue and he stares at himself in the mirror of their hotel while Natalia gets all their shit together. She didn't know he could be vain.
All their bags are packed. Old clothes were discarded in dumpsters around the hotel. She tossed a few of their weapons while she was at it — had to make room for the completely normal clothes they now had. And the snacks. Can't go anywhere without proper snacks.
"Time to go, Narcissus," she says.
The Soldier turns away from the mirror, burdens himself with all their bags, and waits for her to lead the way out of here.
They're going on the run but it's not wise to be in a hurry. A train takes them from Århus to Grenaa. It takes about an hour and a half. Natalia has to be Klara again to ward off anyone who wants to sit too close to them. From Grenaa, they board a ferry bound for Varberg. Here she has to get creative. Surprisingly, the Soldier proves to be very persuasive when dealing with the right kind of people.
Then it's another train to Stockholm. She lets the Soldier play with Klara's mp3 player. They end up listening to The Temptations for most of the trip. The Soldier makes strange faces every once in a while. Sometimes it looks like he has a stomachache and other times he looks ready to burst out laughing.
A bus takes them from Stockholm to Örnsköldsvik. It's uncomfortable. Both of them hate it. The Soldier shifts a lot. Natalia leans against his metal shoulder and holds his gloved hand. She doesn't know if she does this for herself or for him. It seems to take forever.
By the time they arrive in the cold, secluded log home Natalia had secured for them a little ways from the harbor, they're both irritated, hungry, and tired. Natalia's shoulder hurts. She changes. Puts on Johanna and goes into town to get them proper supplies. She makes the Soldier stay back. He pouts.
But a few hours later, she's back with real food. They're both fed and clean. The house has a sectional sofa in front of a big-ass television. They each stretch out on a leg of the sofa. Natalia finds a program where kids are singing for a table of mean judges. When that ends, she finds a channel for babies that's only sounds and no words. Both their eyelids droop. She makes sure it's cold in the house and falls asleep right there on the couch.
She wakes up in the red cocoon that she hadn't fallen asleep in. Again. Television is off. The Soldier's side of the sectional is vacant. Natalia goes to the kitchen and prepares herself some hot water. Her toes curl on the hardwood floor. Being cold all the time is going to be awful, but she's willing to endure it if the Soldier can keep it together. As water boils, she pulls on one of the flannel shirts and thick socks. They're striped, alternating two different shades of pink.
Blueberries, oatmeal, and a mug of hot water. She makes toast. Finds thick-cut bacon — she'd prefer a thinner cut but this is what they have. Fries it up. Cooks eggs in the rendered fat. She makes hash browns and prepares baked beans. Fries half a tomato.
It doesn't work: the smell doesn't draw out the Soldier from wherever he's gone off to. So she eats on her own. When she's done, she prepares a plate for him and the requisite hot chocolate. Natalia goes hunting.
He's not on the ground floor. Not in the lower level. Annoyed, she heads upstairs. She finds him in a room that looks like a small library. The walls are embedded with bookshelves. No windows, so it's really dim. Two armchairs are off to the side. There's an end table between them and a two-headed lamp peering over their shoulders. The Soldier has his back to her, standing in front of an ornate phonograph. It's new but meant to look old and impressive.
"Are you hungry?" she says. Her voice is quiet but it fills the space in the same way that a dim light illuminates an entire room just a little bit. "I brought you breakfast."
The Soldier clears his throat. "Thank you." He makes no move to turn.
She sets the plate and mug on one of the bookshelves. Turns back toward him.
"Did you sleep at all?"
"A little," he says while shaking his head.
"Everything alright?"
"Had a dream."
Her spider's legs twitch. It takes everything just to stand still. "A good dream?"
He shrugs.
"What happened? In the dream."
His metal hand is touching the phonograph. She wishes he would turn around.
"Things were blowing up," he says. "I was taking cover in a hole with someone else. The explosions stopped, and the person and I looked at each other. He laughed and said — "
"What did he say?"
Shrug. "Don't know. I woke up." He pauses.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
The Soldier says, "He had blue eyes. In the dream. Blue eyes — and I woke up before he could say anything."
Now it's OK. Natalia takes a step into the room. She moves parallel to the Soldier instead of toward him. "You know," she says, "we can only dream about faces we've seen before."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
From here, she can see the Soldier's jaw working.
"When I woke up. Um, when I woke up, I felt sad. Like — I thought I — . . ." He gives up trying to articulate what he wants to say and shrugs.
Like he could smell food but couldn't taste it? Like he was looking at a picture that he wanted so badly to dive into and live in?
The Soldier clears his throat and says in a more confident voice, "You dance, don't you, Natalia?"
She stops in her advancement into the room. "Yes," she says.
He nods. "I think I used to dance."
"You did a little in the Red Room. With us." But she knows he's talking about before. She knows.
Natalia remembers hands on her sides, below her ribs. She remembers lifts and jumps and turning on her nail-less toes while his hands hovered around her. She remembers being tossed, firing three shots, and being caught in the basket of his arms. The way he did it, the right arm would make up for the cushion that the left lacked when he caught her — when he caught all of them. She remembers her legs tangled around his chest, his shoulders, his neck. She remembers swinging around his body and squeezing endless triggers. There was sparring: Her en pointe, and him balanced on the very pads of his toes. She remembers fouette turns that ended in roundhouse kicks to his face. She remembers seven girls armed with Tokarevs firing at him at the same time — he didn't take a single hit, turning and dancing out of the trajectory of every single shot.
She remembers him teaching her and twenty-seven others how he did it.
Control, control, control. An ironic thing for him to be teaching them.
They were all trained in ballet since the day they first came to the Red Room, but he taught them how to make that body control a weapon. The Winter Soldier dancing ballet wasn't nearly as funny when he dodged your every shot and snapped your neck.
"I remember," he says.
It's safe to move again but she doesn't.
Clears his throat again. "Can I show you?"
"Yes."
There's shifting. A record begins to spin. A soft scratching sound. The Soldier turns around to face her, and he looks human. He takes three steps and holds out his right hand to her while music starts; brassy and bold now that it's out of its time. Natalia takes the offered hand and steps into his hold.
The Soldier leads — but he doesn't move like the Soldier moves.
She's never danced like this. She's never let someone else lead. They sway and bounce, and it feels old like a necklace from your grandmother. Her skin touches his skin. Her hand holds his hand. The metal arm is around her waist and her hand rests around the back of his neck. His right holds her left. Sometimes it switches so that she clutches the metal palm and the flesh arm is around her. It changes as they swing around the room, stepping through decades. She hears big bands, sees long skirts and curled hairstyles. Jazz and Lindy Hop.
The Soldier unfurls her and she spins away from him. He pulls her back in. She spins until she slides into his left arm. In that single heartbeat, when she arrives back home, their eyes catch and there's a real person's cocky smile on the Soldier's lips: a perfect fit.
They have seconds on breakfast in the kitchen afterward.
Note:
They're dancin' to "The Way You Look Tonight." Frank Sinatra's version because duh.