(For disclaimer, etc. – see chapter 1)
Chapter 2
"You're not gonna like this."
Somehow, Bucky just knew that was coming. It wasn't only the look on Sam's face as they met each other virtually across a computer screen, though it had given him away just a little. From the moment he saw Nat with her husband, Bucky couldn't really believe there was going to be an explanation he would appreciate.
It was wrong. His Natalia by another name, with another guy, with no memory of Bucky himself or the Avengers or anything at all that she ought to be aware of. None of this added up to anything that he liked, so he was hardly surprised to hear what Sam had to say.
"Tell me," he said sharply, knowing he just had to hear the news, however bad it was.
Sam sighed. "So, this guy was not easy to track from the name alone. I mean, you know there are a million guys named Jones in the world, right? Anyway, given what you said about her, the whole amnesia thing, that gave us a little something to go on. Hospital records, police files, there has to be stuff like that in cases like these."
"Get to the point, Samuel," said Bucky with a look, trying not to glare or be snippy, knowing he was failing terribly at both. "Is it her?"
Slowly, Sam nodded her head. "It's her, or at least, we're pretty damn sure."
Bucky wasn't sure himself if he was slamming his hands on the table out of frustration or relief or what, but it happened. It was a good thing said table was solid and metal, or it might have given out completely, sending the laptop crashing to the ground. It had taken him such a long time to understand how to use the damn thing, he would not want to have to start over with a new one.
"From what Torres could find, seems Nat was picked up by medics after someone dialled 911. She was passed out in an alley, no injuries to speak of, zero head trauma, but she was out cold. No drugs in her system, no alcohol, nothing to account for the lack of consciousness. Now, from what Barton told us about how she went out on Vormir, all I can think is that, after Steve put back the soul stone, some funky space mojo spat her back out of the beyond. The memory wipe, I got no explanation for."
"What about the husband?" asked Bucky, the words tasting bitter on his tongue, but he had no choice about using them. "The kids?"
"This is the part you're really not gonna like." Sam admitted awkwardly, flipping pages in a manila folder between him and the camera. "Seems Damien Jones went down to the hospital and claimed Nat as his long-lost bride. Played the part to perfection, somehow had enough info on her to fool the docs into handing her over to him, very few questions asked."
"Why? There's no way they're actually married."
"No, they are not," Sam confirmed, giving Bucky at least one brief moment of relief.
The fear of the whole family set-up being for real had kept his heart clenched in chest for days now. Not that he would ever want to deny Nat that kind of happiness, if it had been manufactured to her wishes or something, but that wasn't it at all. He was sure something was wrong with the picture and Sam had already confirmed that much. If this Jones was bad news, at least they should be able to do something about it. That part made Bucky feel better.
"So, Jones did have a wife a while back, which is where the kids came from. In 2015, she was in Europe visiting family in a place called Novi Grad when she was tragically killed."
Bucky's eyes closed as he let those words sink in. "Sokovia. She was a civilian, caught up in the crossfire..."
"When the Avengers had to take out Ultron," Sam finished for him. "You got it."
"So, he's Zemo all over again. Trying to get revenge on any of the Avengers he could lay his hands on."
Bile rose in Bucky's throat just from thinking what that really meant. This guy was with Natasha, living with her, faking a marriage with her. She seemed happy, for now, but he had to be in it for the long game. He was planning revenge of some kind, he had to be.
"Yeah, far as we can tell, he's basically pulling an Overboard."
That phrase got Bucky's eyes open and the confusion must have shown on his face, even through the webcam, because Sam was soon explaining without him ever having to ask.
"Oh, come on, man. Watch a damn movie, would you?"
"I watch movies," Bucky muttered crossly.
"So, Overboard. This real bitchy, stuck-up white chick screws over the poor guy, right? Doesn't pay him for his work or whatever, so when she falls overboard from her fancy yacht, smacks her head and gets amnesia, he goes and claims her as his wife. Sounds creepy, I know, but as far as the movie goes, it's all just wacky fun. Making her take care of the fallin' down house, the chores, the kids that are just like total terrors, you know what I'm sayin'?"
Bucky shook his head. "I don't care about any of this," he said, sure that ought to have been obvious by now. "Okay, this guy has Nat literally in his hands. She has no idea who she is, never mind who he is or why he has her. He could do anything, Sam, and nobody would even know."
He felt sick. He also felt like smashing up everything in the room around him would make him feel so much better. Not as good as smashing this Jones guy into next Thursday, but it would do for a start.
"Hey, I get it," Sam said, all placating gestures and tone to match, "but we gotta play this smart. Okay, you go bustin' into the perfect little suburban life they have goin' on, pin the guy to the wall with your metal arm or something, you're gonna scare everybody half to death. Also, trying to explain superheroes and space magic to her will only make you sound like a certified crazy person. So, right now, Nat thinks she's livin' in The Donna Reed Show, which is good. It means Jones didn't make his move yet. Seems to me, the best thing we can do is just play it cool."
"Cool?" Bucky echoed, scoffing at the very idea. "What does that even mean?"
"It means no punching our way out of the problem. That therapist you saw taught you to use your words, right?" Sam reminded him. "Torres got me everything on Nat 2.0, her address, her schedule, the works. So, I'm thinking you go be where she'll be at. You run into her again, make nice with the big blue eyes and that smile you tried on my sister that one time I wanted to tear off your knee caps. You can win Nat's trust, like a friend, then when trouble comes, she has somebody safe to run to at least. Could be our best shot."
It sounded so stupid to Bucky's ears. Make friends with some oblivious version of Natalia? Basically lie to her to win her trust? He probably could do it, even if it did end up killing him by degrees, being close to her and not being able to tell her the truth, at least not for a good long while.
"You can do this, right, man?" Sam asked then, alerting Bucky to the fact he had been unresponsive for too long. "I mean, from what you said, the whole charming the girl, gaining her trust and all, you did it before, in your Winter Soldier days. You know how."
The Winter Soldier days. Sam had no idea, but Bucky couldn't blame him for that. He only had the footnotes on the life Bucky had led when he was under the control of the Russians and HYDRA. All the bad and the little pieces of good, it would live with Bucky forever, too much to ever share or even fully deal with, even though he was doing so much better with it these days.
"I can do it," he said eventually, barely looking up at all, certainly not seeing Sam, only the memories that danced inside his mind. "I hate it, but I can. For her, I'll do anything. You know, back then she was... She made me feel human, at a time when I never felt less like myself. If I can do that for her, if I can give her life back to her, somehow, I will. I'll do it."
Two days later...
"Oh, I'm sorry... You again."
The smile that lit up her face when she looked at him then made Bucky's heart skip a beat. She was always beautiful, and not just on the outside, but after so long of missing her, dreaming about her, telling himself he was exaggerating the whole situation, she proved him wrong in that moment, with that smile.
"Hey," he said awkwardly. "Uh, I was just... Well, honestly, I was hoping to run into you again sometime, you know, in the neigbourhood," he told her, wondering when he suddenly turned into pre-serum Steve around women.
Maybe it was just this woman and these crazy circumstances. That would certainly account for it.
"Oh, well, that's sweet, I guess," Nat told him, pushing her hair back behind her ear, "but you do remember when we met last time that I had a husband with me, right? No offence, I mean, you're cute and everything, but I'm not the type to-"
"I didn't think you were," Bucky cut in fast, so afraid of losing her from the conversation and screwing up everything before he had hardly begun. "Actually, I should probably apologise for that whole thing. I was having a weird day last time we met."
There was that smile again, the one he remembered, the one that never failed to knock the breath out of him. It took everything Bucky had not to just blurt out the truth, to tell her everything, but Sam was right. She couldn't handle it, she probably wouldn't want to, not after everything. Better to gain her trust, to just be there when things with Jones inevitably took a turn.
"I guess we all have our weird days," she said, looking uncertain even as she said it. "You're okay now, right?"
"More or less," Bucky told her honestly. "It's just that I don't exactly have a lot of friends around here. New to the area, not exactly sociable," he explained of himself. "Since fate seems determined to throw us together, how about I buy you a cup of coffee? I mean, that would make up for running headlong into you twice now..."
"Oh, really, you don't have to do that." Nat shook her head, glancing away. "I mean, again, no offence, I'm sure you're a great guy, but I can't just go someplace I don't know with a stranger."
"Not even to a public place with a guy you already met twice?" Bucky asked hopefully, hating himself for following Sam instructions to the letter, turning on the charming smile and wide blue eyes, just like he used to back in the day with all the nice girls who loved a soldier. "Please?"
She looked up at him, seemed to search his face for something, though he couldn't have said exactly what. Evidence of a lie? Of the truth perhaps? Whatever she was hoping to figure out, she must have done so pretty fast. Nat was always good at reading people. Bucky wasn't surprised to find that those kinds of instincts still held true, even without her memories to rely upon.
"Since you asked so nice, and I don't have any place else to be for the next half hour, one coffee," she told him. "I must be crazy," she muttered after, even as she walked with him in the direction of the coffee place on the corner.
Bucky tried to keep the triumphant smile in check, even though he was sure she wouldn't have been surprised to see it. Wasn't a guy who just scored even a brief coffee date with a beautiful woman supposed to be happy about it? Still, it seemed better to stick with the friends thing, as Sam had suggested, not to flirt or push too hard. He needed to be her confidante, not a potential affair to her fake marriage.
In the half hour that followed, they sat across a small table by the window, drank over-priced coffee, and talked. Really talked. She asked him about himself and Bucky chose to tell as much of the truth as he possibly could without freaking her out. He gave the age he physically was, instead of blurting out 106. When she questioned the gloves he wore, he said an accident led to the loss of his arm, that he had a prosthetic now, which was mostly true at least.
When he started to ask her questions about herself, her life, her family, he knew everything she said was what she believed was the truth too, and as much as he hated what was happening to her, the lie she was living, but it was all too easy to just get caught up in the moment. To talk to her, to be with her, to love her like he always had before.
To think of how he struggled with other women, to be friendly, to date, to even function like a person in the world. With Nat, it was so simple, so damn easy. If this was as close as he could get to her, Bucky thought maybe he could deal. He had missed her so much. It was better than being without her altogether, and every once in a while, she would look at him a certain way and he could almost fool himself into thinking she knew what was really going on. That any second now she would admit she was just undercover on a mission. That in a while, when it was over, they could be together again. It was such a stupid dream, but Bucky had to hold onto it. He didn't know any other way to cope.
To Be Continued...
