The Winter Soldier tended to remember events and dates based on stimulus he was exposed to. Sometimes it could be a song he'd heard en route to a mission, it could be a mug that a particular target was drinking out of - it could be a train. Trains tended to hold the worst of his memories.

This time it was a vodka bottle.

It brought to his completely scrambled mind a seemingly vague recollection of beautiful red hair and a name to his lips. 'Natalia.'

The first real person seemingly outside of HYDRA he'd been able to recollect besides Steve Rogers.

Was she still alive? His memories tended to come without specific dates - just feelings. And he'd felt younger. In the confusion of his escape from HYDRA he'd never really understood how long he'd been in and out of Cryo-stasis. How long he'd been their pet. And it had been a long time.

Dwelling on it - them - only ever made him angry and that tended to draw out the nastier memories - things he was almost glad to forget. Mostly blood, terrified faces and torture. Sometimes it wasn't even men. It was women and children too.

That was not the man that the target - Steve, his name was Steve - seemed to think he was. He'd called him Bucky and the warmness with which he'd used that name made it apparent this Bucky was a friend.

Later, he'd found out his name was James Buchanan Barnes and he had indeed been Steve Rogers friend. Rogers seemed eager to re-establish the friendship but Winter Soldier just couldn't bear to delve any deeper into that. He had enough guilt hanging over him.

Natalia seemed easily the most logical next step. The next influential person he remembered beyond Steve.

Natasha Romanova had an apartment in New York that very few people knew of. There was always Avengers Tower - but that meant putting up with Tony and the very real possibility that an experiment he and Bruce were conducting could bring down at least three floors - and she liked her beauty sleep.

There was something safe about her apartment. Something all too familiar she would never have in her official residence.

She didn't know why she let Hill convince her and May to do the whole clubbing scene. It just wasn't something that had ever appealed to her - or come to think of it - May. It hadn't been that bad - she'd worn that black halterneck dress that Pepper had given her for Christmas; Something the other woman would surely feel pleased about. She walked the polished wooden floor, heels in hand towards door 616 and home. Looking forward to the comfort of a familiar place with absolutely no-one there to make cheesy pick-up lines and propositions at her.

It wasn't lavishly decorated - there were no pictures on her walls of teammates or ex lovers and she had no family. There were no trinkets or tokens from missions or people either.

The space was as bare as could be and she liked it as such.

Except now it contained one Winter Soldier.

Natasha stood there - one hand on the door handle and the other clutching her killer heels, staring at the gun he had pointed at her face.

'Natalia?' He grunted, clearly confused by her appearance.

She didn't know what she expected to hear from him, but that was not even close to the top ten.

A thousand thoughts made their way through the alcohol. What was he doing here? Was he here to kill her? To get information? ...Was he remembering? 'James?' She asked cautiously.

There was a flicker in his eye, she caught it. He recognised her voice, he recognised her.

'What are you doing here?' She demanded as the gun lowered.

'I...' He shook his head, as though trying to dislodge something.

Natasha took a quick survey of him in his distraction. He looked well built still - but she could tell a few pounds had been shaved away. He was grimy, still in a combat vest and the greasepaint that Steve had last seen him in.

Gently, she eased closer. 'James? James. Perhaps you-' He wasn't paying attention. Her jaw tightened and she slipped into a much older language than English. It had been some time since she'd used Russian. 'I think you need a shower, James.'

A shower was the best place to start she guessed. She could smell him clear across the room.

That snapped him out of it - but not the way she expected. He lashed out, hard. Caught by surprise, Natasha dumped her shoes and fell into a defensive stance.

It may have been years since they had last sparred but there were some things that the body never forgot. She felt - briefly - like she were back in the training ring with him, taunting him. Flirting with him.

He struck out with that metal arm, and succeeded in leaving a fist shaped dent in her wall as she avoided it. Instinct took over and she struck his knee, causing him to fall to one leg and aimed a blow for his face, but he dodged it and grabbed her by the scruff of the halterneck dress.

She was flipped - painfully, but she had long ago grown accustomed to ignoring pain - over the couch and into the wall, leaving another dent in her wake but there was no time to really get her bearings. Training kicked in and forced her up and away from her landing spot just in time to dodge the flesh and blood hand reaching for where her neck would have been if she'd still been in the same place.

Perhaps that would have been the kinder option. She lashed out at him after her dodge but was shoulder-slammed away with his metal prosthesis.

She'd never invested in a coffee table, or much in the way of furniture, and she was glad she hadn't as anything in the floorspace would have been undoubtedly destroyed by now.

He was on her in a second, the metal arm this time around her neck.

Natasha Romanova knew that attempting to use brute force to pry it off would not end well and all it would require was a twist of that powerful arm to snap her neck.

'Who,' He demanded, breathing heavily 'Are you to me?'

If she could keep him talking - if she could force some memories to the surface - then she had a chance to avoid bloodshed. Probably hers. She wasn't as powerful or as destructive as Winter Soldier. She hadn't exactly been a demure wallflower after their separation - but neither had he and he had generally always won their tussles in the past.

Clearly he knew she was someone of importance. If he had wanted her dead from the outset he could have picked her off from a good three buildings away with his sniper rifle the minute she entered her apartment. He wanted answers and he had questions and she could work with that.

'You know who I am.' She replied against the slight choke he had her in. For a minute, he looked as though he wouldn't believe her challenge and she took a risk - grabbed his tactical vest, dragged him down to her level and kissed him.

He froze when he felt her lips on his but slowly, he reciprocated. The metal arm loosened against her throat. When they broke away - he looked a little less uncertain. 'You look...different,'

'It's the shorter hair.' She replied with a tentative smirk. Something had obviously jarred loose.

He did remember. He was just having a hard time reconciling the two images of Natalia and Natasha.

They lay in that awkward embrace long enough for it to be at least sort of uncomfortable with the knot of the dress digging into the back of her neck.

'James?'

'What, Natalia?'

'You know, it's Natasha now.'

'It will always be Natalia to me.' He replied simply. She found herself smirking. Somehow, she thought it would be. It was almost sweet the way he insisted on calling her by a name she had not been called in years.

It was sweet - and it dredged up a lot of memories of her own. Some good - some bad. Some she wished she could never remember at all.

She flipped them while he was feeling nostalgic. 'You need a shower.' She whispered against his lips.

'A what?' He frowned and she found herself doing the same.

'You need to get clean.' She repeated.

He seemed lost. Just what had HYDRA done to him these last few years? She sighed and made to sit up but he grabbed her arms in a hold that would have possibly been painful to anyone but her. 'Let go and I'll help you.' She murmured.

A new hardness had entered his eyes. 'Help me?' He asked dubiously. The fingers tightened on her arms.

She really should call Steve, and then there was that other thing waiting on her laptop for her attention - but James came first.

She smiled disarmingly. 'Just like old times. Do you remember old times?'

'Old times.' He snorted but his hands fell away from her arms and settled on her hips. 'Yes.'

He had...relaxed. He still trusted her. All these years later.

She wasn't sure whether that was incredibly romantic or just plain stupid.

Clearly, he hadn't changed much.

A/N: I mentioned the WinterWidow. Here it is. This has some bearing on what Preying Mantis is - if you just completely ignored the synopsis - but no. Mantis is not arriving the normal way - with those two just having sex. Nor is she one for 'conventional' and Widow is pretty much sterile anyway (broke my heart when I watched it because patently - the woman would love a child. And then I made Mantis a daddy's girl because I'm mean.)