Author's Notes: Heyyyy! Welcome back for another chapter. Thank you to everyone who continues to read and review and favorite this story. It's one that I'm very proud of, in a lot of ways my strongest story to date, and of course my OTP. So keep telling me you like it! ;)

This is also one of my favorite chapters. Prepare for fluff. Also, bit of a warning. Parts of this chapter really earn the M rating for cursing. Because Bucky.

Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel.

Chapter 11: Present

No matter what Steve says, this is definitely payback for Coney Island, because who in their right fucking minds decides to zipline off a mountain onto a speeding train in the goddamn snow? But he does it, and he lands on top of the train with more balance than he thinks he should. The wind stings his face and the cold bites his skin but he doesn't shiver, almost as if he recognizes the cold but doesn't feel it in his bones.

Bucky shakes the thought away. He doesn't have time to think about how he's . . . changed. The mission comes first. Zola comes first.

So he follows Steve into the car, and it's quiet. Too fucking quiet, and when it bites them in the ass he's not surprised, but he is fucking pissed. HYDRA just couldn't make it easy, could they? Now he's trapped in a goddamn fucking train car with three of these bastards, and he's running out of ammo fast. One he hits in the chest, the second takes a ricochet to the head, and he knows he's the best shot on the Front but fuck him if he can't find a clear shot for the third Nazi bastard. They trade shots until he hears a telltale click.

And he has a moment when he thinks he's done, that he's finally going to die, and it's still the fucking scariest realization in the world because he doesn't want to die. But his hands don't shake. He checks the clip in his gun knowing it's empty, and tries to come up with some kind of plan that doesn't involve dying.

Of course it's just when he's come up with nothing that Steve decides to show his pretty face, the dramatic little shit that he is, and saves the day.

"I had him on the ropes."

"Yeah, I know you did."

Then there's the mechanical zap of a HYDRA weapon being discharged. It bounces off Steve's shield but sends him into the side of the car, leaving the shield right in front of Bucky who picks it up to prepare for the next volley. He gets off two shots that ping off the bastard's armor, but it doesn't matter. Suddenly he's in the air and metal screams and it's hot and then the wind is biting his skin again.

It's luck that he manages to grab onto the outside of the train.

He hangs there in shock, and then Steve is there yelling at him, making his way to him, and goddammit, that punk is going to get himself killed . . .

"Bucky! Take my hand!"

But the metal gives way, and then he's falling . . .

Cold. He only knows the cold and the pain. He feels the snow seeping into his clothes, watches the steam rise from his left arm as his hot blood hits the frozen ground. He gets colder as he keeps bleeding, and he wants to laugh because he can literally feel the heat leaving him, draining from him like a fucking faucet. Finally, he's sleepy. The cold starts to fade to numbness, and it's blissful.

"Sergeant Barnes . . ."

"James!"

James's eyes snap open and fuck, he can't breathe. He can't breathe. He can't fucking breathe.

Hands on his face. Small. Calloused Familiar.

"James, breathe with me. C'mon, soldat."

Natalia. He knows that voice. Breathe. He feels her heartbeat against his, so steady compared to his galloping pulse. Her breaths are slow and measured. He feels them on his collarbone. Her head is tucked into his neck. Her hair tickles his nose.

"Breathe," she repeats.

James breathes. He focuses on her heartbeat and begins to count. One. Two. Three. Four. Breathe. One. Two. Three. Four. Breathe. One. Two. Three. Four. Breathe.

Natasha waits patiently as he calms. She ignores the crushing metal grip of his hand on her hip and the way his flesh fingers dig into her back hard enough to bend her ribs. She'll be bruised purple as soon as he lets go, but she's had far worse. The marks will be gone in two days, tops. She has her soldat to worry about.

Another minute and his hands lose their strength. One hand gently runs up her back like an apology before settling at her hip. His left hand rests on her thigh. These touches have become normal. Natasha lifts her head so she can gauge James's awareness. Sometimes the line between memory and reality is still blurry after he wakes.

"James?" She touches his face. "You with me?"

His eyes close and he sighs. "Yeah."

She wants to ask what he remembered, but she doesn't. Instead, Natasha gives him a weak smile and says, "I'll leave you to it, then."

James wants her to stay. He nods. "Thanks."

Natasha goes back to her room, and he opens his notebook. It's his second one, and already he's halfway through it. Out of habit, he rereads some of it as he flips to a fresh page.

My sister's name is Rebecca. She was a pain in the ass. Followed me to the dance hall one night and got drunk. I carried her home. She puked on my good shoes.

Steve used to draw. I bought him a sketchbook for his 14th birthday.

Why the fuck did we hitch a ride in a goddamn freezer truck?

Coney Island.

1942. Saw the Dodgers play. We won.

I have another sister. Bridget. She made me learn to braid hair. I pretended not to like it.

My favorite color is red.

I fucking hate bananas. Slimy bastards.

Alice. Youngest sister. Blonde. She made me play tea party. I wore a crown.

I owe Peggy Carter $125.00 with inflation from a bet. Can't remember the bet. Maybe a good thing?

They're all Bucky. No missions, no Soviets, no HYDRA. Just him being Bucky Barnes, brother and friend. Writing down the details of his fall feels like losing that innocence all over again, but he writes about the train and the cold and the pain and the last time he was Sergeant Barnes. He snaps the notebook shut once he's finished and moves toward the kitchen.

When Natasha feels as though she's given him enough time to recover, she finds him slaving over the stove with a bowl of batter and a growing stack of pancakes. She rolls her eyes behind him even as her lips lift in a faint smile that flirts between sad and fond. "I should buy you an apron," she says to announce her arrival.

It's unnecessary; unnecessary, but polite. James has been aware of her presence from the moment she stepped foot on the stairs, but he nods along.

Natasha hops up onto the counter next to the towering plate of pancakes. She folds her legs beneath her like a child and steals a cake from the stack, folding it in two and taking a bite. He shoots her an annoyed glare. Her eyes dance. "Got any plans today?" she asks, nudging his hip with her toes.

He could grab her foot and crush her ankle with one squeeze. She's on his left side. She's almost always on his left side as if she's either daring him to try something or trusting him not to, and the longer he's with her—and it's been three months now—the more certain he is that she does, in fact, trust him.

At least enough not to break her foot. Or worse.

He purposefully keeps his thoughts logical and detached. Natasha trusting him is a large pill to swallow, and he tends to choke anytime he remembers the night she'd lain in his arms and fallen asleep. It hasn't happened again, but then they have yet to have another Netflix night. He wonders about the reason, wonders if maybe waking up feeling so . . . ridiculously content . . . had disturbed her as much as it had disturbed him.

James had woken first, hazy and disoriented like he did when he was released from cryo, but instead of feeling cold and numb he'd been warm and safe. Safe. What a fucking novel feeling that, ironically, scared the shit out of him. He can only assume Natasha felt the same, since there was only a sweet second when she nuzzled closer to him before she froze and abruptly went up to her room. He'd pretended to still be asleep to be polite. He thinks it was a ploy that Natasha appreciated, as neither have brought it up since.

But she's more open now. There are little touches. On his arm, his shoulders, his chest, his back. Little, absentminded touches as she reaches past him for something or when she drags him out of the cabin and into town for "practice", which is essentially a euphemism for acting like he's not a brainwashed assassin.

He's knocked out of his thoughts when she kicks lightly at his hip. "You're gonna burn your precious, soldat," she says, and he can hear the smirk in her voice as he curses and flips the cake. Just in time, too.

He glares at her without heat, and she smiles. His lips twitch. "I read that one, you know," he says. "Ma saved up and got it for my birthday the year it came out."

Natasha's smile melts the way it always does when he slips into what she inwardly calls "Bucky Mode"—the times when he's relaxed and his Brooklyn accent comes out and his eyes lose a bit of their ghostliness. He looks younger, softer. Less hurt. She loves it, and only feels a shiver of guilt that she's meeting pieces of this smart, mischievous man with Steve none the wiser.

"Oh, yeah?" she says. "I'll spare you the pain of watching the films."

"They made films?"

"Regrettably."

"Don't tell me they fucked it up." Natasha smirks, and James scowls. "You know, just when I think this time ain't so bad, it manages to disappoint me."

"Don't worry," she says. "They made three good ones. It's a sorta sequel to The Hobbit. We'll get the books, too, while we're out."

"We're going out?"

"Yeah. I'm bored."

James looks at his pancakes. "After breakfast."

Natasha wonders how HYDRA would react to knowing that they probably could've gotten the Winter Soldier to comply by simply offering pancakes as a reward. "Of course," she says as she takes a plate and begins building a mountain of carbs and cholesterol. "We may be assassins, but we're still civilized. Coffee or juice?"

Truthfully, Natasha has been planning this particular outing for weeks ever since she saw a flyer in the grocery store. She hopes it's as fun as she wants it to be. It's a little corny, a bit cliché, but it's right up her alley, and she has a gut feeling that her soldat will like it, too. After all, not every ex-Soviet super assassin's favorite film (so far) was Star Wars. He keeps pestering her about the prequels, but she refuses to subject him to that kind of disappointment.

James is quiet while she drives. The silence around them is not uncomfortable, but there is a growing cloud of words unsaid building between them that makes Natasha want to shift in her seat. Strangely, the more of her memory that returns, the more awkward she feels. Memories of training, she can handle. She appreciates the knowledge, even if there is a part of her that's annoyed to learn that half of her moves are actually his.

It's the memories of plums and rooftop meetings that make Natasha uneasy.

And the sex.

She couldn't forget about the sex. Half of her is astounded and profoundly disappointed that she forgot the sex in the first place. Her sex-life suddenly made so much more sense. Always leaving satisfied and yet still wanting. Searching.

Natasha glances at James out of the corner of her eye.

Bastard.

Stupid cocky Brooklyn bastard.

Not that he remembers being one, anyway. He doesn't have the image of his head between her thighs or the feeling of his smirk against her skin burned into his memory.

Damn him.

Natasha shifts in her seat again, and James looks across the console at her with mild curiosity. "Anxious, moya balerinoy?"

It takes every ounce of Natasha's control not to react to his endearment. He's so much freer with them now, and she has no idea if it's intentional or if it's unconscious, but dammit, she can't hear them now without feeling him whisper against her skin. She summons a close-lipped smile and meets his gaze. "Yes," she says.

The key to lying: telling the truth.

She wonders if he taught her that, too.

"I haven't been to one of these in a while," she continues. The last time had been two years ago with the Bartons. "I'm excited."

James raised an eyebrow. "I'm curious and terrified."

"Shut up. You'll like it, I promise."

"You said that about The Matrix, too."

"Oh you know, what? I stand by that movie."

"They looked ridiculous."

"Yeah, well, you don't know what it was like to suffer through 80s special effects, okay?"

James's lips twitch. "You're cute when you're flustered."

"I'll give you cute right up your ass, James."

He chuckles, and her lips twitch as she fights a smile. God, she loves it when he laughs. She likes knowing that it's because of her, and that it's completely natural. She isn't playing an angle or manipulating him. She's just . . . being herself. She's being Natasha. And Natasha can make the Winter Soldier laugh.

Her secret is out once the field is in sight, and James feels a smile tug at his lips. "A carnival?" he repeats.

"A friend told me they can be fun."

"Barton."

"Yep. He started out as a carnie," she says lightly.

"And somewhere along the line became an assassin." James watches the Ferris wheel circle as they walk across the field to the gates. "I've always wondered why HYDRA never recruited from carnivals. Such potential."

"You know, Steve never mentioned you were such an asshole."

"You've met Steve, haven't you? Punk is the sassiest little shit I've ever known."

Natasha smiles as she takes his hand once they have their tickets. She does a quick survey of their new stomping grounds. All the fan favorites are present—Tilt-A-Whirl, Swings, Ferris Wheel—and all the best games. She wants to go to the shooting games. She sees one with a bunch of duck targets that offers a giant bear as a grand prize. That bear will be hers.

Clint never lets her play the shooting games.

It's still midmorning, and so the crowd is relatively light. There are a few early risers with small children hoping that the morning excitement will leave their kids knackered in the afternoon, along with a handful of stoic dads with steaming cups of coffee that are only present to win teddy bears and hold tickets. The air smells like hot dogs and funnel cake and Natasha bounces on the balls of her feet, her hand in James's, and starts to lead them toward the swings.

"So," she says. "You remember Steve."

"Is this what this is? You trying to lure me into talking by distracting me with carnival rides?"

"No, I'm just asking."

"Hmm," he hums like he doesn't believe her (and he doesn't, not entirely) but he says, "I remember . . . enough. He was a friend. I know that much."

"Is that why you dragged him out of the Potomac?"

"No," he shakes his head, "I just . . . I knew that I had to save him."

"Protect him."

"From what I do remember of Steve, that fits."

"You make him sound like he picked a fight with half of Brooklyn."

"From what I remember, he did. You wouldn't believe how many alley fights I remember pulling him out of."

Natasha's eyes light up. "Try me."

They drift from ride to ride, silently agreeing to save the games for last, and as they wait in lines and walk across the field, they talk. Sometimes it's about their memories, and both make an effort to focus on the lighter ones. James shares a simple memory about his littlest sister, Alice, a girl no more than four with blonde curls and big green eyes. All there is to the memory is feeling her little hand slapping his bicep in the middle of the night and the sound of a teary, shy voice asking if she could sleep with him because there was a monster in her closet.

He doesn't tell her about the fierce wave of protectiveness that had flooded him. He doesn't talk about how he remembers Alice wriggling under his arm like a fish and wrapping her hands around the chain of his St. Christopher's medal. He doesn't mention the warmth that he remembers flaring in his chest and the way he'd tugged her closer just in case that monster in her closet tried to snatch her. He doesn't talk about the fact that the more of these memories he gets, the more he misses his sisters.

He doesn't say any of this, but he thinks Natasha hears it, and that's enough.

But for the most part, they set memories aside and just talk. Natasha makes a game of analyzing the people around him, and nearly lets out an undignified snort when James points out a pot-bellied man in a straining, grease-stained white t-shirt and a newsboy cap and says, "Fat bastard just couldn't make it in ballet."

They talk about movies and books that James remembers. Natasha is beyond jealous that he saw Casablanca in theaters, and she spends half an hour fielding his questions about The Lord of the Rings and how it's a sequel without being directly connected to The Hobbit. "It's just a story that takes place after Bilbo goes to Erebor, James," she insists.

"That defies the definition of a sequel."

"Fine! It is a series of connected films."

He smirks a little and she tries to crush his hand in retaliation before she remembers that she's holding his metal hand and all her effort is wasted. "You're winding me up on purpose, you ass," she accuses.

"I told you, moya balerinoy. You're cute when you're pissed."

"I am the Black Widow."

"I'm aware."

Natasha scowls but hauls him toward the concession stand. "C'mon," she says. "I need food if I'm gonna put up with you. Ever had a funnel cake?"

He smirks a little. "Not that I can remember, no."

"Well, we'll fix that."

They wind up eating two whole funnel cakes, and Natasha could care less that she's covered in powdered sugar, but she has to laugh at the way it clings to James's stubble to the point that he looks like he's rabid. She caves and grabs a napkin. "You're a mess, you know that?" she says as she wipes his mouth.

He stares at her for a long moment as he feels the heat of her fingers through the thin paper napkin. "Yeah," he says honestly. "I am."

"Gettin' better though, don't you think?"

James isn't entirely sure about that—if anything, the days grow more and more confusing—but he supposes anything is better than being mindless. "Guess you're right," he says.

"I usually am."

He smiles, then stands, and for the first time, he's the one who tugs on her hand. "C'mon," he says. "I have a vague memory of being good at carnie games."

"Oh, are you going to win me something?"

"Somethin' tells me you can win your own prizes."

"Well, yes, but where's the fun in that?"

The fun is when James goes straight to the shooting game, sets the highest score on record, and hands her the ridiculously huge bear she'd had her eye on the from the moment they had arrived. And to her horror and frustration and secret joy—Natasha blushes like a schoolgirl when he grandly gives it to her to the applause of the carnies working the booth. Yes, she thinks, Bucky Barnes is in there somewhere beneath the Soldier and the man she'd known as James.

And she likes him.

In her own way, she likes all three of them.

Isn't that a hell of a thought?

She throws softballs at stacks of bottles and wins him an equally silly stuffed animal—a hilariously blue elephant that James (appropriately) names Dumbo.

They finish the day on the Ferris wheel. It's a tight squeeze between the two of them, Dumbo, and her bear, Berretta. She'd laughed at her own little pun for a solid minute and then continued to snicker under her breath for the next five, much to James's silent amusement. He watches her eyes as they slowly begin to climb to the top. The car is wobbly and cheap and feels like it'll break any second, but Natasha just relaxes into him, leaning against his metal arm like it's a pillow, her hand still wound in his.

Her eyes follow his, and she lifts their twined hands slightly. "Can you feel this?" she asks curiously.

James frowns. "Yes," he says. "In a way."

"Is it warm?"

"You are," he says. "But not like it'd be with my other hand. It's less feeling and just knowing."

"So sensors," Natasha picks up their hands again and rotates his arm slightly as if she can see the metal plates beneath his red hoodie. "They register the heat and that goes to your brain."

"Yeah. Same goes with pressure. I can crack an egg or a skull."

Natasha hums. "I remember it looking like a regular arm," she says. "Like a hologram."

"That trick hasn't worked since the sixties," he says. "It was useful when they used me more as a spy. But after our . . ." He looks away. ". . . I guess they didn't trust me around people. They made sure the closest I got to anyone was through the scope of my rifle." He looks sideways at Natasha. They're near the top of the wheel now, and between the lights of the carnival and the emerging stars, her hair glows like an ember. "You've remembered more," he says.

"Hmm, so have you," she says as she takes in the bright lights beneath them. She can just see the town's lights through the trees, like a flashlight beam in the dark. "Mine all came back at once. Or maybe it didn't, I don't know. I just woke up a last week and," she shrugged, "remembered. Most of it, anyway." She looks at him then, a devious smirk on her lips. "The sex was great."

She's both teasing him and testing him, and that infuriates him and yet leaves him flustered and fighting a grin. But the longer he meets her gaze, the easier it is to see past her teasing and discover the vulnerability hiding in corners of her eyes like he remembers Alice hiding under his arm. And there's the same urge to protect, a sense of responsibility, of loyalty, that quietly demands he soothe her, and Jesus Christ, she's beautiful tonight.

"Well," he says. "That's good to know. I'm jealous."

A grin threatens at the corners of his mouth, but Natasha grins easily. "You don't have to be, you know," she says. "We could fix that easily enough."

In that moment, James has never wanted to remember more, because Natalia is looking at him like she knows him—in much more than the biblical sense, as his Ma would say (he thinks)—like she's seen and held and known him in a way no one else has, and he fervently wants to understand how. Yet there's still that light in his chest burning as bright as the lights of the carnival as he stares at her challenging green eyes that are just inviting him, daring him to play her little game. And it feels familiar. Natalia pushing and pushing and pushing little by little until he's hopeless to resist her challenge.

Memories or no memories, now is no different.

He smirks. "You couldn't handle it, vozlyublennaya."

Sweetheart.

Natasha's eyes widen in delight, and though part of her desperately wants to push him further, if only to satisfy her own curiosity, she forces herself to lean away from him—when had she moved in so close?—though she keeps her smirk in place. "Now, you have no way of knowing that," she says teasingly. "I'm the one that remembers handling you."

James is glad she's moved away. He thinks, to his slight shock, that he'd been two seconds away from kissing her. He almost chases her, nearly uses her hand that's still in his to pull her to him and kiss her like his life (or sanity) depends on it, but the ride suddenly jerks to a stop, and they have to go. "Well," Natasha says as they walk back toward the concession stand. "I say we get ice cream and then head back." She grins. "Ever had Dippin' Dots?"

Well, we're halfway through the story. Seems like our favorite Soviet Spies are looking up and romantic. Yay.

Things heat up next chapter. *wink wink

Chapter 12 Preview: "What are you afraid of?" - Natalia

See you Friday,

AC