Disclaimer: The Avengers, its characters and The Marvel Cinematic Universe belong to Marvel Studios and The Walt Disney Company, among many others. I'm only a fan, writing this for love of this film franchise and personal pleasure.

A.N.: Set during CA:CW, on the Quinjet while Steve and Bucky head to Siberia.


To Build a Home

11. Reds, Blondes and Brunettes

As he activated the stealth mode and auto-reflective panels, Steve set the course on autopilot for the location of the secret HYDRA base in Siberia following Bucky's coordinates then he got up from the pilot seat to check what was in the Quinjet in terms of firepower. No doubt there would be at least a couple of handguns and maybe even a rifle, as he knew Natasha liked to keep stashes basically everywhere. He had teased her for being so paranoid, but now he was actually glad that she was always so prepared. And he was immensely relieved that he hadn't had to fight her in Leipzig.

His heart had dropped for that one second he thought she would attack him─and he would've let her, he hadn't even raised his shield to defend himself as he hadn't had it in him to actually fight her, anyone but her─before she actually shot at T'Challa and told them to go.

He'd just found a case with one of her favorite rifles when Bucky walked up to him and it was almost like he'd read his mind as he inquired quietly. "That woman who let us go, the redhead? Who is she?"

The corners of Steve's mouth turned up as he lifted the rifle and inspected it. Perfect working condition and recently cleaned, just as he expected. "She's a friend. Natasha Romanoff."

Bucky watched him for a moment before Steve lifted his head and passed him the weapon. He furrowed his forehead in thought. "I think I know her." He said softly. "I remember she was with you in D.C., and I think I saw her somewhere else, on another mission." There was something about a mission, many years before. He remembered a mark, an Iranian man, and a road in Ukraine. He thought he shot her, but she'd been far away, he hadn't really looked at her face. But when he'd seen her at the airport and then up close in the hangar, something clicked in his brain but he still couldn't quite place it. "But there's something else…"

Steve watched him for a moment, as Bucky shook his head and continued furrowing his brow in frustration. "You probably knew her in Russia as Natalia Alianovna Romanova."

Bucky's eyes snapped up from the rifle to his friend's face. Hearing that name brought a rush of memories to him, like so many pieces of a puzzle falling into place in his mind to complete the picture that was missing. "Natalia. Yes." He said, his blue eyes widening with recognition. "I remember now. She told you that?" He asked, a tone of wonder in his voice.

Steve nodded solemnly at him. "She remembers you. Said the Winter Soldier was one of her handlers in the Red Room."

Bucky's eyebrows shot up in his forehead. "She was KGB? They used me to train some of their elite agents." He still only had bits and pieces of his memory, but he knew that much, that HYDRA had been deep in the KGB, as well. Focusing back on the present, he shook his head despondently. "God, I'm so sorry, Steve. I can't believe I almost killed your girl twice. Well, three times now, actually." He furrowed his brow once more, thinking of that moment during his mad escape while he'd been brainwashed when he'd almost choked her to death.

Steve frowned at him then. "She's not my girl. I told you, we're just friends."

"Really?" Bucky said and raised an eyebrow at him.

"What?" Steve raised an eyebrow right back.

Bucky felt the corners of his mouth turning up almost instantly. "Uh, I may have been out of your life for a long while now, Steve, but I know you." God, it'd been years, a lifetime since they'd talked like this, but it was just like riding a bike. "There's something going on between the two of you."

"There isn't." The blonde man countered at once, almost with a sigh. "She's actually one of my best friends. We've been partners for a long time now. We were running our team together."

"Yet she took Stark's side?" Bucky frowned in confusion at this. He still didn't understand all that had happened with this whole Sokovia Accords situation, but he'd expected someone who was Steve's best friend and partner to stand with him on this. That Wilson guy, as annoying as he'd been, had at least had Steve's back there.

Steve's jaw tightened and tensed up. "She had her reasons."

"Hum." Bucky merely murmured, quirking one of his eyebrows up as he read his body language. He could feel that was still a complicated and possibly sour point for him. "Then she let us go."

The tension seemed to leave his frame a little at this. "She did."

"I see." Bucky whispered, still looking attentively at his friend's face.

Steve didn't know what exactly he was seeing, but if there was someone who could probably read him like a book, it was Bucky. And possibly Natasha, he thought, internally rolling his eyes to himself. "What do you remember about her?" He asked, moving about the Quinjet once more in search of firearms.

Bucky placed the rifle back in its case and followed Steve's movements with his eyes as he thought about it for a moment. "I remember training her in combat techniques and sharp-shooting. Running a couple of ops with her when she was starting out right after the Red Room. Why?"

"She said something about you." He said casually without looking up from his search through the cabin. "That the two of you may have been involved at some point?"

Bucky's jaw tensed up then. So that was what Steve was getting at. "It wasn't like that." He shook his head quickly.

Steve immediately paused in what he was doing and looked up at him, reading something in his tone of voice. "So you two were together then?"

"No." He shook his head once more, pausing for a moment. How was he going to explain this to him? He knew Steve wasn't a prude and he had been living for awhile in the 21st century now, but talking about the fact that he'd had casual sex after a couple of ops with the girl he was sure his best friend had feelings for, despite his protests, was definitely not how he wanted to go about this. "We didn't do relationships, Steve." He finally said, trying to explain it as best as he could without being too explicit. "We were programmed, being used as weapons at the service of the Soviets and HYDRA."

Steve straightened up and looked firmly back at him. "Okay. But that's different now."

Bucky crossed his arms and raised a rather sardonic eyebrow. "I see what you're doing." He drawled out. "She's not the same person I knew, and neither am I."

"She said the same thing." Steve said softly, the corners of his mouth turning up.

"And it's the truth." He told him earnestly, trying to make him understand. "I knew Natalia Romanova. She was a completely different person than the Natasha Romanoff you know. Natalia would have never let us go in that hangar. She would've killed the two of us before we even stepped close to this Quinjet."

"Then you got a second chance." Steve countered in his own earnest, firm tone of voice. "Both of you."

"First of all, I think we have more pressing matters to handle than me getting a girl," he raised an eyebrow sardonically at him once more, "like stopping some mad Winter Soldiers and getting rid of this damn programming in my head. Second, I have no interest in her like that." He shook his head and smiled softly back at him. "Besides, I'm not the one she wants, Steve."

"You say you don't know her, so how can you be so sure about that?" It was Steve's turn to raise an eyebrow at him.

"Because I know you, and I could see how much you mean to her when she let us go." Man, how could that little punk be so blind? Bucky felt like hitting him upside the head, like when they'd been kids, for how stupid he was being. "I also saw the look on your face that one second you thought she was going to attack you before she hit that guy in the catsuit. She means the world to you, Steve. I don't know why you haven't told her so."

"I told you, Buck. It's not like that with us." Steve sighed once more, crouching down and pulling out a small case from a hidden compartment. "She only sees me as a brother and told me as much."

"But that's not what you want, is it?" Bucky insisted, raising an eyebrow at him.

"It doesn't matter." Steve shook his head, opening the case and finding a handgun inside and a couple of extra clips. "We have other things to worry about right now." He checked the gun, placed it in his holster and pocketed the clips.

"We have a long flight until we get there." Bucky shrugged his shoulders casually and smiled at him. "We might as well use the time and talk about everything."

"I never thought there would come a day you'd be bugging me about the women in my life," Steve said, his blue eyes twinkling a little in amusement at him. "It used to be the other way around."

"Which reminds me, who was the blonde you kissed?" Bucky asked, his smile turning into a smirk.

Steve could've slapped himself on the forehead for that one. He'd walked right into it. Hell, he'd been the one to practically bring that up again. "She's a CIA agent, she used to work for SHIELD. Her name is Sharon Carter."

"Carter?" Bucky's eyebrows shot up in his forehead in surprise at this.

"Yeah." He said, already feeling the heat on his cheeks. "She's Peggy's niece."

He blinked his eyes a couple of times and furrowed his eyebrows in thought. "That's… weird." He'd actually wanted to say 'creepy' but settled on the more neutral term. What the hell was Steve doing with this mess of these women in his life? Clearly he was still as hopeless as he'd been when they were young.

"I try not to think about it." Steve shrugged his shoulders, moving about the cabin once more, checking if there were more guns or ammunition hidden elsewhere. "She and Peggy are completely different women."

"I mean, she's pretty and looks like a nice gal," Bucky commented, bobbing his head left and right, turning around so that he was following Steve's movements as he moved around him. "She brought you your shield and everything."

"She did, at great personal risk." Steve said softly, nodding his head.

"You looked guilty after kissing her." Bucky noted in a conversational tone.

"Wrong timing, I guess." Steve shook his head a little.

"Sure it had nothing to do with the redhead?" One of Bucky's eyebrows quirked up as he smiled gently at him.

"Drop it, Buck." Steve looked sharply up at him. "Nat has actually been pushing me to date Sharon for the past couple of years now."

"The two of you have some very fucked up dynamics there, punk." Bucky said with some wonder in his voice, shaking his head and frowning a little at him once more.