Author's Note: Aaaannd we're back for another chapter! Again, thank you to everyone who has reviewed, alerted, and favorited this story. It's completely finished, so no need to fret over if I'll ever suddenly drop off the face of the earth. After all, I refuse not to reveal what I think happened in Budapest. God, I loved writing that.

But that's a ways off, so let's focus on the present!

Disclaimer: I do not own anything Marvel or MCU related. Honestly. Cross my fingers.

Chapter 3: Present

And as they continue to dance—because it's undoubtedly what they're doing, he thinks—a feeling of familiarity begins to creep up his spine. This give and take, the sweat and the strain, this is nothing new. Just forgotten.

But his body remembers. He begins to anticipate her moves in a different way. It's no longer about reading her body. It's about muscle memory. It's something in him knowing her style, her moves, better than his own. Then she leaps at him, and it's like they're still dancing but the song has changed. Their moves become lighter, more fluid as they both relax and fall into a familiar rhythm, and naturally, he thinks, that's when things go to shit . . .

He's finally in the position to use his superior strength to his advantage. He has Natasha in a headlock, and that's when his mind slips, when he feels cold and empty, and his grip tightens.

He mustn't show favoritism. He must treat her like everyone else. Already, he is pushing what is acceptable. He'll leave her unconscious instead of killing her like he would another girl. When they ask he'll say it's because she shows the most promise. Not even Karpov can argue that.

Then suddenly he's on his back, head throbbing and ears ringing. Natasha sits on his chest with a knife at his throat, breathing hard, her neck red and bruising, but her eyes are wary and shell-shocked as she stares down at him. "What did you remember?" she asks, voice hoarse.

There's a handful of answers that spring to mind. He remembers the Red Room. He remembers Karpov. He remembers the way her body felt beneath his on the training mats. He remembers needing to break her. He remembers warmth.

But all he says is, "We've done this before. Did you . . .?"

Natasha swallows. "No."

He shifts slightly beneath her. "You gonna let me up, moya balerinoy?"

My ballerina.

Natasha stills, and her voice is suddenly sharp and cold. "Why did you call me that?"

"I don't know." He frowns, too, a tint of frustration in his voice. "It just . . . slipped out."

She gets off of him then, quick and graceful. "I need a shower," she says, and then disappears into the house, leaving him standing behind the cabin, dirty and grass-stained and sweating, with nothing but the damn forest animals and a pang of . . . something . . . he doesn't understand for company.

"Fuck."

He stares at the cabin door for a long moment before he abruptly turns and begins to walk. Reconnaissance. A mission. That's what he needs. Anything other than feeling this goddamn twist in his gut.

The terrain is not as rough as he would expect for the mountains. Yet it feels right. He thinks he must have spent some time in the mountains. Maybe. The trees are tall, the leaves full. They rustle with each breeze and he's suddenly reminded of a sprawling green park. Central Park. New York.

There's a warm, if bittersweet feeling in his chest. Nostalgia. He wonders what's so special about New York. He is from Brooklyn, he remembers. He should look at Barnes's military records. It was stupid to ignore them. He decides he'll read them as soon as he returns to base.

Base. The cabin. Natasha.

Moya balerinoy. My ballerina.

He doesn't know where the words came from, but he's grateful there are no feelings attached to them. He isn't sure how he'd deal with those. Just the words are confusing enough. My ballerina. My. His.

He doesn't have anything that's his. He has nothing. No possessions, no memories, no goddamn name. Yet he called her his.

He doesn't think she liked it. Certainly she would not have retreated so quickly if she hadn't cared. Care. Did she care? He thinks she must. It's the only way her reaction makes sense. Yet what had disturbed her more? Being called his or a ballerina?

James doesn't fully know it, but he secretly hopes that it's the latter. He wants something to be his. He needs something to be his.

He makes a five mile loop around the cabin. There are a few traps here and there, an abandoned storm cellar hiding a tunnel that he's willing to bet leads right under the cabin. Probably the coat closet. A small lookout point gives him a good view of the valley. There's a small town roughly thirty miles away, and it's only when the lights of the town begin to grow brighter that he realizes how much time has passed.

He still doesn't immediately turn back. He wonders if he should. Perhaps he should keep going, go somewhere far away—like he'd planned before he'd gotten . . . distracted . . . by a redhead. James wonders for the first time just what had made him disregard all logic and follow her to that car in that abandoned lot, what had compelled him to slip into the passenger seat like they'd planned their extraction from D.C. from the start and were merely following through with their plan. He wonders about the long silences that didn't feel lonely and the subtle way she fiddled with the radio stations until she settled on a classics station that played songs that felt . . . safe.

He wonders about the feelings she seems to effortlessly, unintentionally provoke. He doesn't know what they mean, but they're different, and that difference is frightening yet strangely thrilling. And familiar. This entire situation, every fucking minute he's with her, trying to figure her out and failing, feels so goddamn familiar. Like he's tried before.

He wonders if he succeeded. He wonders if that still means something now, sixty years later.

He's too old for this shit.

He almost cracks a smile as he realizes that he finally has the capacity to realize that he is old. Age had never mattered to the Soldier. All that mattered was that he was fit for the mission. He doesn't actually feel old, he thinks. It's the years that he feels. He barely remembers anything of his long life, either as Barnes or the Soldier, but with each minute that passes now that his mind is truly his, he feels the weight of all those years slowly but steadily rest on his shoulders. And it's strange to feel so tired and yet inexplicably strong and youthful at the same time.

As he continues to stare at the glowing lights of the town nestled below in the valley, James wonders if Natasha feels the same disconnect between what is true and what is real. The idea of anyone understanding him is startling. He doesn't think that feeling will ever fade, though he isn't sure whether it's due to Natasha or simply interacting with another person beyond a mission or a debrief. Having company is odd. He's never alone unless he chooses to be, and that is so very different from being alone until someone decides he's not to be.

Such little decisions that are now his to make. Perhaps that is why he's hesitant to go back to the cabin. He has such freedom here in this moment, and he wants to savor it. He doesn't want to think that he may in fact be hiding from Natasha, that maybe he's hesitant to return because he isn't sure he's welcome, maybe he's afraid to be rejected. Maybe he's fucking terrified that he's already so attached to companionship, to having someone fucking be there—no, it's her, it's the fact that it's her, his ballerina with her steady green eyes and mischievous little smirk—maybe he now has yet another thing to lose.

And this time he won't have the twisted comfort of forgetting.

James stares at the little town below, its lights now bright yellow against the darkness, and plans. He could hike down and arrive by morning. Steal a car with out of state plates from some cheap motel parking lot. Make it over the border by evening. Perhaps secure a flight to Europe the next day. Leave that night. Not even thirty-six hours, and he could be gone. Free. His own man with his own memories with his own time.

It'd be so damn easy.

When he reaches the cabin he pauses to watch a thin twirl of smoke curl toward the sky from the chimney. The two windows seem to glow like bright yellow eyes, much harsher than the gentle firefly flickers of the town. Inside, Natasha waits on the couch, legs tucked beneath her and tangled in an old afghan. She absently turns a page in her book as she casts glances at the back door, unaware that James is hesitating on the other side, hand hovering over the door knob.

She shouldn't have reacted to his . . . endearment? Can a name be endearing if the memory of it is lost? Natasha isn't sure, but she knows that it struck something inside her, plucked a string in her heart that she hadn't known was there. Her days as a ballerina were . . . complicated. Real yet not. Haunting yet sweet.

Undoubtedly, though, those days were supposed to be hers. Just hers.

Now they weren't. Somehow, James knew.

And Natasha isn't sure how she feels about that, but she does know that she doesn't want James to leave. She wants him to stay. She wants him to come back.

But she's not going to go after him. Absolutely not. She's not that . . . romantic. Or pathetic. Or insecure. No, she's . . . she's just Natasha Romanoff, and Natasha Romanoff does not run after men. They can make their own goddamn decisions.

Even if they're stupid.

Even if she thinks it would be better if he stayed.

For him.

And for her.

But she won't force James to make a decision. He needs to make it on his own, whatever it is. She won't ever take that freedom from him. Not when she knows how precious it is.

So she watches the door out of the corner of her eye as she tries to read the next page of some insipid romance she picked up at the gas station. After another ten minutes pass, she gives up the pretense entirely and gets up to add another log to the fire and heat a kettle for tea. She sets aside the honey as she waits for the kettle to whistle, and rips the foil off one of the many candy bars she has sitting on top of the refrigerator.

She's pouring her tea and halfway through her second candy bar when James finally comes through the door. Though her heart seems to throb with relief, she only smiles slightly and says, "Sorry about earlier. You caught me off guard. Tea?"

James stares at her for a moment but she doesn't meet his gaze, casually continuing to fix two mugs of tea. He sits at the table and decides to wait her out, unaware that Natasha has already decided to do the same as she makes tea, and so there's silence between them until the tea is ready and Natasha sits one of the mugs in front of him. She curls into the chair opposite his, propping her mug up on her knee as she meets his gaze and pointedly takes a drink.

She smiles into her second sip when James mirrors her action without any of the hesitation he'd shown a day earlier. They sit and drink their tea in silence, quietly observing the other even as James keeps his eyes trained on the flames dancing in the fireplace and Natasha pretends to read once again. When James drains his mug, he says, "I can't remember the last time I had tea."

Natasha smirks. "You can't be surprised."

He blinks in shock, and perhaps . . . amusement. Yes, amusement. "Guess not," he admits.

"Do you like it?"

"It's good."

"That's the honey. A little recipe I picked up in Kathmandu."

James looks away from the fire. His eyes settle on hers. "I remember training you," he says. "It's . . . foggy. There were other girls. I killed them. They were weak. But not you."

It's an olive branch. A spy's version of one, anyway. He's offered information, and she's expected to return the favor. It's the only way James knows to get information, and Natasha is glad to fall into an old routine. It takes the emotion out of what she reveals in trade.

"I was a ballerina," she says simply. "It was my cover in the Red Room. They gave me memories of a whole other life." Her smile is bittersweet. "I remember taking lessons. I remember every pirouette, every plié. I remember having a fiancé, Alexi. And I remember him dying, and I remember willingly entering the Red Room to avenge him." She tilts her head. "Traded in one skill set for another." Her eyes pierce him. "I've never told anyone that. It's in my file, but I've never told anyone."

"You told me."

"Apparently."

"I guess it made sense, then."

"I think it makes sense now." James frowns but Natasha doesn't elaborate and rises from the table, leaving him to wonder what exactly she meant as she crosses into the living room and retrieves a notebook from the coffee table. "I went out while you were taking your walk," she says as she returns to the table. "I thought it might help."

She slides a plain black notebook toward him. James stares at it for a moment before his eyes flicker back up to hers. Natasha thinks she sees a flash of gratitude in his eyes behind the confusion that she's once again done something thoughtful, something kind. She remembers the patience Clint showed her and tries to summon the little smile he'd always given her that she had never found a lie. "Writing it down helped me keep things straight," she says. "And it's not a bad backup plan."

If you lose your memories again.

James knows that he needs to do something to reciprocate her kindness. There's a give and take here that he's forgotten. He has nothing to trade, nothing to give in return, but he's so damn grateful and relieved to know that someone understands. He looks up at her, and she's got this little smile on her lips that he believes without question. That should unsettle him but he finds comfort in it, some semblance of trust, and that feeling is worth any consequences.

"Thank you," he says, and his chest swells when Natasha's smile grows a bit wider. "Got a pen?"

They each stay up late into the night. Natasha makes soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, a skill that she's mastered due to her many experiences of dealing with sick Barton children. She burns the crusts slightly out of habit because that's how Cooper likes it best and little Ava worships him too much to protest. There's only a second of hesitation when she sets the plate on the table, and James stares at the slight black edges of his sandwich, and she wonders if she managed to fuck up a simple grilled cheese, but then James devours it in three bites and she's no longer worried.

. . . And maybe a bit pleased.

She orders him to dry the dishes as she washes them, and he obeys the order without pause. They develop a good system, but she notices that James seems to have a subconscious memory of doing such menial tasks, because he always double checks the dishes after he dries them, as if checking to make sure they'd been properly cleaned. It almost makes Natasha snort until she remembers showing Steve how his dishwasher worked and the look of utter relief and sheepish joy that flooded his face.

She does snort then, happy to know that the Great and Good Steve Rogers is terrible at something as simple as dishwashing.

James casts a sidelong look at her, but she just chuckles as she hands him another plate.

He retreats to the kitchen table once their task is done and glances at his file that Natasha had placed there as soon as the table had been cleaned, as if she'd known exactly how he would spend his night, but she surprises him when instead of retreating to the couch (despite the book in her hand) she sits at the kitchen table with him and glances at his file. "You didn't read your military records," she says.

"How would you know?"

"I wouldn't want to," she offers with a shrug before smirking slightly, "and the pages haven't been handled."

"You snooped through my file?"

"Old habits."

His lips twitch. He isn't sure why her eavesdropping amuses him instead of infuriates him, but that warm feeling in his chest is back as he stares across the table at her. "You assessing me, malen'kiy pauk?" he challenges.

Little spider.

Neither react to the endearment because neither notices. James isn't aware of the words leaving his lips, and Natasha isn't aware of hearing them—the sort of thing that one expects from two people who know each other intimately and take such things for granted. Natasha smiles. "Someone has to keep an eye on you," she says. "You're trouble."

"You like trouble."

She shrugs. "Keeps life interesting," her smirk falls into something understanding as she looks once again at his file. "Afraid of what you'll find?"

James stares at the file. "I'm not him."

"But you were once."

"I can't go back."

"No one's asking you to do that, James."

He looks up at her name for him. James. He doesn't mind the name. It holds no meaning to him, but he doesn't mind it. It's better than Barnes. He hasn't been a Sergeant in decades. And it's sure as hell better than Bucky. He's not . . . he's not him. The friend, the brother, the war hero. That's not him.

But James . . . James is safe. James doesn't come with expectations.

"Look, you either read it or you don't," Natasha says. "But you and I both know you will. Who knows, maybe some things will start to make sense."

She leaves him then, going up stairs into her bedroom and leaving him to himself. He appreciates it. Looking through this file feels so damn personal even if he barely recognizes a word of it. He doesn't waste any more time hesitating. He opens the file and begins to read. He takes stock of each mission report, every sniper shot he ever took. He learns more about his life before the war—how he'd grown up in Brooklyn, graduated top of his class, worked at the docks. He's the oldest of four with three younger sisters—a thought that still manages to make him shudder despite the fact that he doesn't even remember one of them. His mother was Helen Buchanan. His father was Lieutenant Thomas Barnes who died from alcohol when James was a teenager. Untreated shell shock, the file says.

The file paints Bucky Barnes as a tough kid who grew up too fast, who learned early to survive and protect. A likeable guy with a ready smile too loyal for his own good. But James sees beneath it. He sees the steel beneath the smile, the fierce set of his shoulders in a picture with his sisters. And he sees . . . resemblance. There's something there beneath it all that he recognizes as him.

It hits him then that he is Bucky Barnes.

He just isn't that Bucky Barnes. The one in the file. The one touched by war but not consumed by it. The one who hasn't been weaponized and used and wiped. No, he's a different Bucky. An older one, a haunted one, a lost one.

James thinks that's even worse.

He spends hours taking notes, writing it down in his notebook, adding bits of feelings and random thoughts that may be memories. He isn't sure he cares either way. Writing it down feels constructive, and he writes until it's three in the morning and he has nothing left to say or remember.

When he sleeps, he dreams of screams and bullets and red.

Bright, scarlet red.

Aaannddd, we're done here. This chapter was very internal, I know, but I just loved trying to get into Bucky's head as he tried to work out . . . well, everything. Plus, this helps set up the foundation of finding his identity again, and to do that, he needs to know who he was. Next, chapter is fun! We've got a Natalia Romanova with a plan that involves our favorite Soldat. :)

So, let's see . . . who gives our itsy spoiler this time? Aha! James, it is . . . and forgive me for this one . . . "Hail HYDRA."

*hides from an angry Steve Rogers*

See you Friday!

Lot's of love,

AC