Wow, yay! I wanna thank each and every single person who's taken the time to read this and seem to be enjoying it so far. And I've made my mind up.. The winner of this is... BUCKY YAY! Something just clicked while writing this. I decided that maybe if I show the human side of him, not just the Winter Soldier side, that could make things hella intense and really interesting, especially when she finally gets released? -bites lip-
I'll definitely keep working on this one because so far (fingers crossed) you guys seem to actually like it, and I'm not screwing up royally.
Thanks again for all the support and reviews, I love you guys so much!
CHAPTER 05
"You're not cutting my hair. Nope, Blondie, not gonna happen." Bucky said firmly as the curvy blonde made her way closer, brandishing scissors, an intent look in her eyes as she said quietly, "If you want to stay hidden, James Buchanan Barnes, you're going to shut the hell up, sit down and let this happen. It's bad enough there's not much in the way of hiding that arm. The hair is only going to give anybody with eyes, ears and a functioning brain all they need to positively id you as the Winter Soldier."
"Thought you were hell bent on ditchin me, huh?" he muttered, his green eyes locking on her eyes, holding her gaze intently as she licked her lips and stammered, started to say something. "I am. But I'm not going to leave you vulnerable. So shut the hell up, sit down, let's get this over with."
He eyed her as she gently placed her hand on his chest, right over his heart, shoved him back into a ladder back chair at the kitchen table, biting her lower lip as she bent slightly and began chopping away at his hair, fully focused on her task.
"Still don't see how a haircut's gonna change me, doll." Bucky muttered quietly as she looked at him and said in a quiet voice "It won't. But this way, Hydra won't make a positive id or something.. Look, go with this, okay? I'm not like, a superspy or something. If you wanted an expert you clearly should've grabbed my sister and not me." as she stopped to look at him a moment.
He chuckled a moment and then said with a shrug, "Good point." falling silent, watching her, trying to think about baseball, anything other than how it felt, the way she was sitting just on the edge of his lap to cut his hair. Their eyes met and she dropped her gaze quickly, as usual. He bit his lip in thought and then asked her quietly, "You okay?"
"Just thinking." Natalie said as he looked at her and asked "About?"
"Oh nothing but how I'm not fucking important enough to anyone to be saved. How I might as well just give in to everything, forget my sister ever coming for me. How your cologne smells soooo fucking yummy and how amazing it feels when your skin brushes against mine. How being on the run with you for this long has been the scariest, most adventurous thing I've ever done in my entire life and about how I probably won't ever forget you when this is all finally over.. How I sort of don't want parts of it to be over.. Take your pick, James Barnes." she thought to herself before finally answering "Nothing.. It's really not important. Let's just focus on me not gapping up your hair, okay?" in a slightly testy tone of voice as she looked at him, eyed him for a few intense and long silent moments.
"Yeah, good idea." Bucky said calmly as he looked at her a few more moments and thought to himself 'She doesn't look like she was thinking about nothing. Looks like she had a lot on her mind right now. And naturally, I'm not makin it any easier, not letting her go, not letting her at least call her sister to let her know she's alive. A call wouldn't hurt.. Right?'
He dismissed the thoughts quickly and then coughed as she shifted a little on the edge of his lap, moving to stand and work on the back of his hair. "Your hair.. It looks nice." he admitted as she gave him a raised brow and then said quietly, "Thanks. I've always wanted to give myself bangs and go lighter blonde, just never had the courage or a good excuse." while holding his gaze a moment before moving to stand behind him, humming to herself as she worked on cutting away the long matted hair.
"You're probably gonna want your old look.. Right?" she asked as he gave her a thumbs up and then said "So.. Planning a big escape or something?"
She froze a moment, then shook her head and quietly said "No. No, I don't think so, actually." while shrugging. He turned to look at her, brow raised as he asked "Why?"
"I'm just not, okay? Why bother? You either catch me, or I'd be going back to.." falling silent as she bit her lip and put down the scissors, having finished his haircut, picking up a silver handled hand mirror, holding it out to him.
"Not bad." he managed a smile as he looked at her and then asked "You'd be going back to what?"
"I'd rather not talk about it." Natalie muttered as she said " Besides, it's not really your business." and held his gaze firmly.
"Besides, you said you'd let me call my sister when it was safe. I trust you.. Or something." Natalie added a few moments later, before turning to walk out of the room. He stood behind her, stopping her in the doorway, asked her quietly, "Where are you going?"
"To my room."
"Ya don't have to."
"Oh yes, James, yes I do." Natalie muttered as she bit her lower lip, felt his hand resting on her hip for a few moments. She turned and found herself chin to chest with him and gulped, biting her lower lip as she looked up at him.
There was that damn look in those damn gorgeous eyes of his again. The only thing missing from this sappy moment, she mused to herself, was the love song from Top Gun or one of those other equally sappy and really cliché movies she loved so much playing in the background.
No guy had ever actually looked at her like that before, but she reminded herself mentally, 'It's only because your time is so much different from the one he came from, the one he's used to. It's not because he wants you or you're beautiful, or anything, he's just curious and probably a good 70 plus years horny.' before making herself walk out of the room, get away from him on very, very shaky legs.
–
Baron Von Strucker paced the base, arms crossed, intent scowl as he stared at the intel gathered on his screen and wondered aloud just how one of their weapons had managed to elude capture for nearly 3 weeks by now. It was as if Bucky Barnes, aka their Winter Soldier, had dropped off the face of the Earth.
They knew he wasn't dead, of course, because Bucky made one very stupid mistake and came out of hiding while some Hydra agents were about to attempt an assassination of the Avenger agent Black Widow. During that time, he'd managed to take the younger sister of Black Widow hostage, but since that night, he hadn't been seen nor heard from. Von Strucker was furious, to say the least. Was their weapon defecting?
And just what would happen if the serum and the electroshock wore off?
"Find him now." Von Strucker growled impatiently at a nearby agent who nodded and gulping ran from the room, down the hall to the scientist's lab.
–
"We've been looking for him for 3 weeks, Fury. Why haven't we managed to find him? Are you even doing anything? She's my little sister, damn it, Fury. And she's being held hostage by a madman." Natasha fumed, lightly punching a wall as Fury reminded her solemnly "She wouldn't be in captivity, Natasha, if you hadn't called her and met up with her. I'm doing what I can. This man's good at disappearing, you of all people should know that."
She nodded, bit her lower lip and Steve spoke up, stated matter of factly, "We'll get him. Sooner or later, he'll mess up again. He can't hide forever."
"You don't know that, Steve. Hydra could've assigned him the job of grabbing her. She hasn't called... I'm starting to wonder if she's even alive anymore."
"If she weren't, we'd know it. And I think, Ms. Romanov, that Hydra is as baffled as we are currently, as to where he might have gone. The cabin in Indiana was deserted, it looked as if nobody had been there in years. So he obviously left that so called clue to buy himself more time. And we know his operating chip was taken out, the field agents found that in his old apartment here in New York. He's good at manipulating things. Better than we originally thought, apparently."
"All that means nothing. It still makes no sense.. Why take my sister? She had nothing to do with this part of my life, not until that night.. And I wouldn't have contacted her if I hadn't thought she was in danger and I was the only person who could keep her safe. You all heard the voicemail. And since then, Hydra's been making veiled threats, attempting to take anyone else connected with us, with the remaining loyal agents." Natasha paced as she stated all of that as calmly as she could.
"Would you sit?" Tony Stark asked as Natasha glared at him. He gave her a solemn look and then reminded her, "In case you have forgotten ,we're all in the same boat right now.. Well, all of us but Capsicle and the angry green giant, they don't have families or people they want kept safe." Natasha glared at Tony and throwing her hands up in the air pointed out in exasperation "And as usual, Stark, you make this all about you."
"Calm down." Fury said as Tony looked at him and rubbed his chin then asked "She does pose a valid question.. what in the hell are your guys doing about all of this? I mean call me crazy, but I seem to remember you swearing we were all 'safe' that we were all 'untouchable', and what do you know.. Hydra's been right under our noses the entire damn time."
Eyes turned to Fury who said calmly, " All of you knew the risks."
"Not all of the risks, because as usual, Fury didn't tell us the entire story." Banner grumbled as Steve nodded and said quietly " He did what he had to do this time, Tin Can."
"Stay out of this, Capsicle."
Dr. Banner spoke up and said solemnly, "I'm working on a tracking algorithm, Natasha. Maybe that'll turn something up. With all the government red tape since the end of the trial, it's really a wonder we have any agents left employed."
Fury nodded and then said calmly to the room, "We're going to find them all, flush them all out. I have a few plans.. But first, we need to get the hostage away from Winter Soldier."
"Finally, he's going to get off of his ass and do something about my sister being a hostage." Natasha grumbled to herself in the Russian she spoke fluently, before turning on her heels, s torming out of the room. Steve stood up and walked out behind her, catching up to her easily.
"You okay?"
"Not really, no. I was trying to keep my sister out of this shit. Now she's right in the middle of it. I mean I stayed with Dad when we were kids because I knew to some degree what he was.. I knew what he did, how dangerous his life was. I didn't want Natalie in that. Our mom wasn't much better.. I just wish sometimes, Steve, that I'd taken my sister, cut my losses and ran instead of getting sucked into my dad's line of work."
Steve studied her carefully and then nodded, said quietly, "Hey.. You were doing what you thought was best. You didn't know your mom was going to expose your sister to everything she did."
Natasha stared out across the deck they stood on then said quietly, "She thought I hated her though.. I never actually got the chance to tell her I didn't."
–
Natalie sat up in bed, gasping for air, her hand over her heart as it beat like it were going to leap right out of her chest and run away. She scowled when she realized that she'd been having a nightmare, and she blushed all over when the light came on in her room and Bucky stood in the doorway, looking at her, a puzzled smirk on his face as he raked his hand through sleep mussed short hair.
"You alright Blondie?"
"I'm good.. I just.. I have bad dreams."
"About?"
"I've always had them, James."
"Stop callin me that. James is dead, remember?" Bucky insisted, a bitter tone to his voice as he snapped. She looked at him with a raised brow and then asked "What do I call you then?"
"Bucky."
"Nope, not gonna happen." Natalie said as she looked at him for a few moments and then said weakly, "I'm fine, I just.. You can go back to sleep, really. I'll be okay."
He studied her a moment. Every since earlier in the day, after the moment they had when she'd been cutting his hair, she'd been walking on eggshells around him, and avoiding him twice as much as she had been before. He walked across the room slowly, sat down on the edge of the bed and said quietly, "I get 'em too. I got 'em then, I get 'em twice as bad now."
She looked at him, perplexed as to why he wasn't just walking out. She'd told him she was fine, she'd tried everything to reassure him of that very thing. She knew if she spent too much time around him, she'd wind up giving in to her urges where he was concerned.
And she was beginning to be unsure as to whether that was a good or a bad thing. She moved closer to him, cautiously, carefully keeping the blanket wrapped around herself as she did so. He snickered and then shook his head and she glared at him and asked pointedly, "What's so damn funny?"
"Not like I didn't see ya when I had to sew you up the night I grabbed you." he mused as she looked at him and said with a shrug "You didn't see much then, huh?" while dropping her gaze to her neon pink painted toenails, noting how they stuck out against the starkness of the white bed sheets and the heavy gray comforter.
"Depends on who you ask." Bucky said as he choked a moment then looked at her and thought to himself 'Hell with it. Worst that will happen if I kiss her is she'll deck me. Won't be the first time that's happened to me either. I'm just too damn tired of having this robotic iron clad willpower, damn it. And she's probably the least confusing thing about my whole situation.'
He leaned in and gripped the back of her neck, his fingers on the human hand tangling in her hair as he pulled her to him, started to kiss her, sucking and nibbling at her full lower lip. She gasped, because it shocked her and most definitely caught her off guard, and her eyelids fluttered open, she looked at him with a shocked expression on her face and he shrugged.
'Okay, now that was not what I was expecting. The hell did he do that for, even? I mean I wanted it but... Okay, if I wanted it, why not kiss back?' she thought to herself before counter arguing mentally, 'because, Nattie, you fucking idiot, he's the bad guy. He is holding you hostage.. you do not kiss the man who's holding you hostage.. nor do you fantasize about him. In what fucking world, in what normal plane of reasoning, Nattie, do you fall for the guy who's holding you hostage and at any second could kill you?'
She muttered something and moved to sit on his lap, pressing her body against his as she looked at him for a moment as if working up her nerve, licking her lips. Then she leaned in and laced her hands together across the back of his neck, pulling him into a much deeper kiss than he'd pulled her into to begin with, and groaning she muttered as the kiss broke, "Why in the hell do you do that? How do you do that to me?"
"What?"
"You confuse me." Natalie admitted nervously as he looked at her with his brow raised and said "And you annoy me most of the time."
"Not on purpose."
"Yeah? Well trust me, Blondie, the stuff you do to me is annoying as hell when I can't get you out of my head." Bucky said as he held her in place on his lap, preventing her from moving back, getting away by putting his hands on her lower back, gripping as tightly as he could.
"This is not supposed to happen.. It's not.. It's not normal, damn it. You're holding me hostage.. I'm not supposed to be having all these curiousities about you, I'm supposed to be scared to death." as she turned facing away from him in an attempt to get up. His hands gripped her lower back tightly and she bit her lower lip, wondering yet again 'In what fucking world is this normal? That wasn't supposed to feel right or good. Or exciting.. And it felt like all three things.'
"Maybe it's because you realize I'm not the worst of the bad guys?" he wondered as his lips brushed the back of her neck. She shivered and turned to look at him for a moment. If she really thought about it, could she honestly say he was a bad guy? He'd saved her life.
He hadn't hurt her, even after 4 escape attempts.
He smirked and then leaned in, added in a smug whisper, "Besides, Blondie.. You don't have to lie.. I know ya kind of liked it."
She didn't answer, just sat there stunned by herself, this situation, and everything else she'd been through in the course of almost 3 weeks.