Nat and Clint were playing a game as they sped down Highway 13 in a borrowed black Mazda, a tight little car that had made good time on the five or six freeways they had traveled as they went from Manhattan to Chesapeake.
"Now, that is the saddest hitchhiker," Clint said.
"Which—oh." Nat stared, then slowed down abruptly. "No, that's him."
"We're gonna pick him up—?"
"Tony said it's your mess, you come find him."
The Mazda made an impossibly tight u-turn on the highway to turn the same way as the hitchhiker, a man in his late twenties or early thirties, wearing a long-sleeved coat despite the warm weather. Nat pulled up alongside him and coasted as Clint rolled down his window.
"Hey soldier. Want a ride?"
"Barton." Bucky stared at him, then at the driver. He seemed to stop functioning then; if there was a way for him to look more lost, yet more found, there was no way to express it. It was the face of a child at the bottom of a well, looking up to see a caring adult with a flashlight. He didn't say her name though and, caught out in the expression, shifted his gaze to the back of the car.
"You got room?"
"Door's unlocked."
Nat, Clint had discovered, had figured out who Bucky was to her weeks ago. Months now. She had closeted herself away with missions and kept away from the hunt for Bucky because she didn't know if he would ever remember her. Even now, she let the Winter Soldier get in the back of the car with hardly a flinch, thought her posture still sang with tension. For Bucky's part, he laid down across the three back seats, facing the ceiling. Clint couldn't blame him; the sky had a kaleidoscope of colored clouds and it was less terrifying than watching Natasha drive.
It was forty-five minutes before the assassin spoke again.
"God, Natalia, I tried to kill you."
"Yeah, I didn't recognize you either," Nat said. "Get some sleep."
#
Edit: Please convey your gratitude to Cassy and Fire Fly Freiya, who were kind enough to point out that this whole chapter posted as html gibberish and I suddenly remembered why and I don't always get along. : \ THANK YOU BOTH.
Original author notes: Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I had to rework it in order to try and end it, and this is as far as I got really.
Sorry. (Also, post-credit scenes kind of ruined me for imagination station. I just want it to be Civil War time.)
Thank you SO much to everyone who enjoyed, reviewed, and/or pointed out things that made no ever-loving-sense, you helped me try and make this fic better. J And oh my God, some of you have been waiting for a conclusion since like December. If I stumble upon a better way to tie it up, I'll post it, but most of my energy has been into making this more understandable and plot-consistent. Hopefully it works better now.
