A/N1: This fic takes place post-TF&TWS and is written by someone with no knowledge of the Black Widow movie, but with some knowledge of the comic book version of the Bucky/Nat relationship which, sadly, never made it into the MCU.
A/N2: This idea came to me in May, but I only got around to writing it in the last few weeks and I'm only posting it now because it has been complicated! I drafted, I edited, I edited again... Anyway, here we are. The original concept came to me on the day I finished watching TF&TWS for the first time, and then, almost immediately went onto YouTube and saw someone's reaction video to the song 'Me and Mrs Jones' by Billy Paul. The two things smashed together in my head and this story (in its first form) came out. I wrote copious notes, and then, recently, I seriously started writing. I'm now more-or-less done with the writing, but there's still more editing to be done and the betaing happening, but I hope to post a chapter a week until it's done. So, without further ado, here we go! :)
Disclaimer: All recognisable characters, situations, and dialogue from any film or TV series in the MCU belongs to Marvel and other folks who aren't me.
Chapter 1
"Okay, give that to me one more time," said Sam, shaking his head, "'cause what you just said is... I mean, that is impossible, right?"
Bucky couldn't exactly tell his friend he was wrong. What he just said should be impossible, and yet, it wasn't. Not that anything should seem too outlandish to be real these days, with everything they had all been through. Wasn't Bucky a 106-year-old super soldier, currently playing sidekick to a black Captain America? None of that would've sounded plausible to him at one time, but here they were.
"I'm telling you, Sam, I saw her. I saw Natasha," he repeated, feeling strange just saying the words, just speaking her name. "If it had been just a glance across the room, a face in a crowd, I probably would've assumed I was wrong, but this was... It was her," he insisted, knowing what he said was true.
It was ridiculous, unprecedented, and Bucky had tried to come up with any other explanation for the chance meeting in the grocery store just yesterday, but there was no getting away from the truth. He hadn't been dreaming. It was no illusion, hallucination, or fantasy. It had all been real. She was so very real.
"All I know is I was walking around the store, looking for the produce section, and I literally ran into this woman. I apologised, she apologised, that should've been the whole interaction, but that voice... I looked up and it was her. I swear, it was Nat, every detail. Her face, her eyes, her hair, her smile. Not that the smile lasted long because I was probably looking at her as if she were an alien. Next thing I know, she's asking me if I'm okay, if she hurt me with her cart or if I felt dizzy, because I looked like I was about to throw up. I just had no idea what to say.
"Somehow, I think I told her she looked like someone I used to know. I mean, what else was I going to say? She obviously didn't recognise me, which meant she couldn't be Nat, right? I wasn't expecting her to laugh. She said, 'A year ago, I probably would've been happy to hear you say that.' She told me she had amnesia, but that it was okay, because her husband showed up just in time to help her figure things out.
"I swear, I had no idea what I was supposed to say to that. A year ago, I mean, that was when we lost her, it had to mean something, but what could I say? She mentioned this husband, and suddenly, some guy comes around the corner, puts his arm around her and she's just smiling up at him like he's the best person in the whole damn world."
Bucky didn't want to be mad about it, knew he shouldn't be hurt by the sight of a woman who didn't know him getting close to a man who was apparently her husband, and yet, even thinking of it now made his blood boil in his veins.
"So, it wasn't Nat," said Sam, tilting his head as he stared across the table at Bucky. "I mean, it couldn't have been, right?"
"No, it couldn't have been," Bucky agreed. "Because this woman told me her name was Helena Jones. Because I met her husband. Because... because I met her kids," he said firmly, slamming his flesh and bone hand onto the table just a little too hard. "But it was her, Sam. I swear, it really was."
"Okay." Sam nodded. "I see what you're saying, but all this stuff about her family and her name and all, not to mention the fact she had no clue who you were. I mean, they say everybody in the world has a double, right? Another person that's not related or connected at all, but still-"
"No!"
This time it was the metal hand that came down on the table, so hard that it actually cracked the wood. Bucky winced on realising what he had done and looked a little guilty as he glanced at his friend. Sam couldn't understand because he didn't have the whole story, something he had just clearly realised when Bucky started to lose grip on his temper.
"Hey, man, come on. What is there that you're not tellin' me?"
Taking a deep breath, Bucky let it out slow. His real hand came up to rub at his forehead as he tried to figure out where to begin.
"I know it was her," he said eventually, "I know because I know her, better than anybody. It's a very long story, but the short version is that... that I trained her," he admitted at last, looking over to meet Sam's gaze.
"You trained her? In what?"
"Everything. Nat was raised in the Red Room, part of the Black Widow programme. I don't know how much she told you, all that time on the run together and everything. I know Steve knew a lot of it."
"We shared some war stories." Sam nodded his agreement. "Nothing all that specific."
"Well, a part you probably don't know is that I was there. I was The Winter Soldier, training other soldiers, but also, training the Black Widows. All that crap they put in my head, the brainwashing, the programming, it turned me into a machine, for the most part, but I was always in there too. Underneath it all, I was always screaming to get out... and that part of me knew her, knew Nat. We got close. At some point, we... we fell in love."
It felt strange to say it out loud. He never had before. The only person he might have thought to tell was Steve, but there was never really an opportunity. Not before it was too late.
"You and Nat," said Sam then, drawing Bucky's attention back to the present moment. "When? How? I mean, she's not... You tryin' to tell me she 106 years old too?" he checked, eyes wide with shock.
"Not exactly." Bucky smirked, unable to help it. "She doesn't go back as far as I do, but she was always a little older than she looked. She was trained during the Cold War, shot up with some formula, similar to the super soldier serum, I guess. I mean, as capable as she was, how else do you think she survived so long?"
Sam looked astounded, not that Bucky was surprised. Much like him, Nat looked maybe thirty when they last saw her, and yet he was pretty sure he recalled her real date of birth as being somewhere in the sixties. Some of the details were still fuzzy even now and it wasn't exactly a topic they ever dwelled on. They usually had better things to talk about in those days, much better things to do in their stolen moments.
"So, the two of you," Sam began again. "All this time, you've been...?"
"No." Bucky immediately shook his head. "No, when you first met me, when I started remembering, I didn't know her or anything that had happened between us. You know the twisted mess my mind was in, Sam. I didn't even know who I was, not really. I didn't know Steve or Nat, and even when some of it started to come back..."
It hurt, recalling how much he had lost and for how long. Even now, when he had so much of himself back, Bucky knew he would forever be entwined with that persona that was forced upon him. In some ways, he didn't even regret it, because if not for his time as The Winter Soldier, Nat would never have been a part of his life at all. As it was, their romance was brief, and certainly nothing like love's young dream. When he saw her again, he didn't even recognise her. That thought made a sad smile curve his lips.
"She said it to me once," he recalled bitterly. "I was... I was squeezing the life out of her and she said, 'You could at least recognise me.' Even then, I knew there was something, but I couldn't... I'd forgotten her," he admitted, barely keeping the tears from falling as he looked to Sam then. "It seems crazy, to have loved someone that much, and then just..."
Bucky made a random 'poof' type gesture with his hand to signify what he meant, the way his memories had just disappeared, as if vanished by a magician. It was so much uglier than that, all he had been through, but one of the things that hurt the most was remembering Natasha when it was all too late.
"When I was in Wakanda, when Shuri was working on breaking the programming, a lot more memories started to come to the surface. The good and the bad. Just about everything in-between too," he admitted, pinching the bridge of his nose as much to stave off a headache as tears. "One day, when we were going through all these mind exercises, it just... hit me. Like a punch in the face. I actually reeled back, almost fell clean off the chair. Shuri panicked a little, asking me what was wrong. It took a while for me to find the words to tell her."
After taking a moment to compose himself, he looked to Sam again, found his friend looking pained as well as confused. Both those things were what he was expecting, so it was no surprise for Bucky to see them.
"You remembered Nat, and obviously, she would've remembered you, but I guess since we were on the run and you were in Wakanda gettin' all de-bugged..."
"We never talked about it," Bucky confirmed with a shake of his head, running one hand back through his hair. "I mean, when did we really get a chance? Within a couple of weeks of me remembering everything, you guys all came there to fight. It was the end of the world... again."
"Then came The Snap," Sam recalled all too easily, "and by the time we got back for the big fight..."
"She was gone," Bucky concluded, hating the shake in his voice that he simply could not control as the spoke of Nat's death. "God, when Steve told me... I don't even know how I held it together. I mean, away from everybody else, I just didn't, at all."
"Hey, man, I can understand that," Sam assured him, his hand briefly on Bucky's real arm. "I mean, damn, that was a lot for anybody to process, the whole five years' gone thing, and with Steve going off the way he did, and just... everything. It was a lot," he emphasised without pause, "but add to that this whole thing, remembering you loved a woman only to have her be gone too? Damn, I can't even... I don't even know what to do with that," he admitted, rubbing at his forehead.
"And you think I do?" Bucky snapped, immediately washing he hadn't. "I'm sorry," he muttered, turning his face away.
This whole situation was messing with his head. It was why he had come down to New Orleans to talk to Sam about it. As much as they had tried not to become their own buddy cop movie in the making, it had proved impossible to keep on shying away from the connection between them.
They were both dealing with the same losses, albeit in slightly different ways. They had an understanding between them these days, the new Captain America and the former Winter Soldier. Bucky wasn't sure he could ever bear to use the term best friend or brother for anyone but Steve, but when it came to Sam, if he were being perfectly honest, he came damn close to those titles.
"Look, I get it, okay?" he said then. "I get that you really been through some stuff. Apparently, even more than I thought, but this whole thing with Nat being back, don't take this the wrong way, but are you one hundred percent certain it was her?"
Bucky felt his eyes narrow as he looked at Sam then.
"Alright, okay, you're sure," his friend said, raising his hands in mock surrender. "So, I guess the next thing is to see what information we can pull together. You know the name she's operatin' under, that she has a husband and... and the kids. That part is a weird, right?"
"I don't know." Bucky shook his head. "Maybe they're step kids? Maybe that soul stone thing just magicked her a family? I have no idea, Sam, I just know that I met a woman in the grocery store yesterday and it was the best and worst moment of my life all at the same time. I just don't know what I'm supposed to do next."
It was unfair to expect him to come up with an answer, but since Bucky didn't have one of his own, he figured why not ask Captain America, see what he thought about it? For some weird reason, it seemed like something Steve would have an answer for. Sam was just as smart sometimes, even if Bucky didn't intend to tell him that.
"Okay, so like I said, we'll see what information we can find. We'll figure this out, okay, man? You and me, we got this."
It sounded a lot like 'I got your back' which Bucky appreciated more than he had words for. He hoped the tentative smile he gave proved it. He hoped that Sam could use some secret sources or whatever and find out what the hell was going on. Right now, Bucky wasn't sure he would be all that surprised to find he was just losing his mind again, but he really hoped that wasn't true. If Nat really was back, this might just be the chance of a lifetime. Only time would tell.
To Be Continued...
