He frowned thoughtfully. It was obvious there was far more to their relationship than he was aware of, and he didn't like that. It had him all on the wrong foot. He knew better than to ask outright, though. So he waited.

She looked up at him, as if aware that this was what he was doing. In truth, she probably was. She'd been the one who'd taught him the technique. People naturally want to fill silence. Sometimes all you have to do is wait, and they'll tell you everything you want to know.

"It's not what you think. And it's probably exactly what you think." She took a swallow of her drink. "Ja—Bucky was a trainer in the Red Room. We were together, briefly, before they caught us. It wasn't even a relationship. Just… an escape. Then they put him on ice. To punish us."

He knew without a doubt that Buck didn't view Nat as merely an escape. Not the way he'd talked about her. Not the way he'd smiled. They'd never been after the same girl before. Buck always got the girls, and when Peggy came along, she didn't have time for anyone or anything else. Now, he finally had Bucky back. And he had Nat. The fact that they had a history was both unsurprising and too much to absorb, all at the same time. Instead, he frowned.

"How is it possible?" He shook his head.

"How is it possible that he trained me in Soviet-era Russia, when the Soviet Union was dissolved in ninety-one?" She smirked. "How is it possible that he trained me before they completely scrambled his brain?"

He was rusty on his political history, so he just nodded.

"I've got a great skincare routine."

He stared at her. "No."

She shrugged.

"That would mean that you're—" He thought for a long moment.

"So it would seem." She took another sip of her drink.

"Hell, Nat."

"I guess you're not the only fossil." She grinned.

He sat down heavily. It didn't change anything, not really. But the weight of what she'd gone through, what Bucky had gone through, and what he had gone through hit him all at once. In some ways, it was easier to deal with your own past when you were the only one who experienced it. It was easier to avoid, anyway. He felt a wave of shame at how kind, how gentle his own past had been in contrast, and how much help he'd had to reconcile it. Nat and Bucky had been used and brutalized all the while he'd been asleep under the ocean.

"I'm sorry."

She shrugged. "We can't change what's already happened."

"No, but I wish we could."

"We have today. And the future." She moved to sit next to him. Her small form pressed against him, and he put his arm around her.

"What do you want your future to look like?" It was a loaded question framed as an innocent one.

"I told Loki once that love is for children." She looked down at her hands as her fingers brushed his larger ones. "Love was something you couldn't risk before. You had assets, you had targets, and you had allies." She took a deep breath. "They pitted us against each other. Did I tell you that? The one who survived was the one who got to leave."

He looked down at her. He felt an anger rising inside of him that was hard to temper.

"Of course, they weren't going to let all that work go to waste. They did a good job of patching us up and sending us right back in once we'd healed up. The fights got more brutal. More desperate. Everyone wanted out."

He pulled her closer.

"I don't know how many times it took. I lost count. There were girls I swore I'd never turn on. Girls I swore I'd protect, even if it meant… especially if it meant sacrificing myself. But in the end, they all just became obstacles to overcome.

I hated myself for a long time. Hated what I'd done, what they'd driven me to do. They'd eroded almost every part of me that was me, and that was the point. So for a long time, I didn't think I deserved love. It wasn't that love was for children, it was that love was for people who were capable of if. And I wasn't."

She looked up at him.

"What James and I were, what we had, was not love. It wasn't even lust. It was just a stolen taste of freedom. The faintest hint of what life might be outside. I care about him in a…" she swallowed. "In a removed way. I want him to find peace, I want him to find happiness. But I'm not a part of his story. Not anymore."

Relief washed over him, and he hoped it wasn't too obvious.

"As for the future…" she ran her fingers over his, tracing along his knuckles and over the veins in his hands. "I want to be capable of love."

Nat talking about her capability for self-sacrifice and love? Foreshadowing, oh no!