(For disclaimer, etc. - see chapter 1)

Chapter 2 - 16th November 2013

"You were the one that said you wanted to talk. Strange as it sounded at the time, I went along with it, but here we are, and you haven't said a word in the whole... seven-and-a-half minutes we've been here," said Clint, checking his watch to get the exact timing right. "What gives, Nat?"

He had been leaning back on the park bench, but now sat straighter, trying to see her face which she seemed determined to turn away. It had to be something serious, not to mention something top secret. She had made such a big deal of needing to have this big conversation with him, wanting to be someplace away from everyone and everything, where there was absolutely no chance of a word they said being heard or even lip-read. It was why they were sitting out in one of the less-popular parks in the half-dark of the later afternoon, both in civilian clothes with caps drawn down to hide their faces. She wanted to talk, no, she needed to talk, that was what she said, and yet.

"I thought I knew what love was." Natasha said at last, eyes fixed on the middle distance, elbows resting on her knees as she sighed. "Not before, but... after you made a different call. I guess I figured it was somewhere in the middle between real passion and, well, the kind of bond that we have. You know, maybe that's what all those sappy songs and true love romances are talking about. Something real and bigger than the sum of the parts? Something like... like what you and Laura have."

"And now you're doubting your theory?"

It was the only thing Clint could come up with, but Natasha didn't seem too quick to confirm or deny.

"Maybe," she said at last. "You know me better than anyone, and even you don't know it all," she reminded him with a half-smile that faded too fast when she looked at him. "Sometimes, I wonder if I even do myself, after everything. Not that that's even the point."

"Then what is the point?" Clint was aware his tone was getting a little exasperated, but frankly there was a reason for that. Spies were used to riddles and half-truths, but this was getting seriously stupid. "C'mon, Nat, talk to me," he urged her, turning in to her a little more, encouraging her to do the same. "Whatever it is, you know you can tell me."

When she met his eyes, the truth of his words seemed to hit home. One more sigh, and finally, she got a little confessional.

"James thinks he knows me. Sometimes, he gets this look on his face and I... I'm so sure he's going to say he loves me, and a part of me actually wants that. If he ever does say it, a part of me wants to say it back too, crazy as that sounds." She shook her head, glanced away. "I can't understand it, can't quantify it, and I feel so stupid because it should be the easiest thing in the world. You know, a couple of nights ago, he finally convinced me to sleep over."

"Finally?" Clint was sure he looked as shocked as he felt. "Okay, so I thought..."

"Sleep over as in stay all night and actually sleep," she explained fast. "I never dared before. You know what happens sometimes, when I sleep too much."

Of course, he knew. They had been on so many missions together, stake outs and lay overs. He had seen exactly what happened when Natasha went too deep. He had been the one who had to break her out of the bad dreams, even restrain her when the worst happened. Oh yeah, he knew, and that meant he was starting to understand what the problem might be here.

"The nightmares freaked out Barnes?" he guessed.

The smile that came briefly to Natasha's lips wasn't the response he had been expecting.

"No, not really. A little, I guess, but he handled it like a pro. Like a boyfriend who genuinely cares. I couldn't ask for better."

"And that's bad?" Clint frowned, not following this at all - he really wasn't used to needing to be anyone's girl-friend, least of all Nat's go-to person for relationship advice.

"It's not bad, it's... I don't know. He wanted me to talk to him about it. I've told him other things, some stuff I thought he could handle, but there's always more and I just..." she trailed off, shaking her head one more time. "I don't know, I'm probably making more out of this than I should."

"Maybe, but maybe not," Clint considered, moving to sit as she was, staring out across the darkening view because it seemed easier on both of them somehow. "You like the guy, Nat, anybody can see that. Do you really love him? That's not for me to say, but from what you've said so far, it's sounding that way. Maybe that means you could share with him a little more, if you want to. For what it's worth, I think he'd handle it okay. The guy has seen things, been through stuff. He's not what anybody would call an ordinary guy. Of course, I'm starting to think maybe he isn't your problem."

Natasha's head whipped around and she gave him a look that was half-confusion, half-Black Widow deadly glare. Clint was one of the few who didn't flinch in the face of either part.

"You wanna know what I really think? I think you have it in your head that you don't deserve for him to love you and maybe even that you don't know how to love anybody. And what I know for sure is that that's not true, not any of it. Natasha, you... you started out on the wrong side, nobody's denying that, but that's over now. Most of it isn't even on you, you know this. The way they raised you, what they did to you... but the second you got a real chance to change, you did. I made a different call, but you made a right one, a good one. That's what really matters."

There were tears glistening in her eyes as she stared at him then and he watched her swallow hard before she spoke. "He said something similar to me once. Sweet as it seemed, I knew he didn't really know what he was saying. He didn't know me well enough then, I'm still not sure that he does."

"Well, I do" Clint reminded her, "and I'm saying the same thing. Nat, seriously, if you feel like this about the situation, that has to mean something. Trust me, I know," he said definitely, sure she had to understand.

After all, she knew how it was for him and Laura. She knew very well that people like them could fall in love and could find happiness, against all odds. Clint only wished she looked a little more like she believed it, as she thanked him for his help, then got up and walked away.

"I know we're all going through our own stuff. Hell, the way Stark reacted after everything in New York, that was pretty intense, and it's not like I don't understand what it's like. You and me both, Steve, we lived through the war, we know how it plays on your mind. The losses, even the victories, given the cost they come at, and then New York... I get the whole nightmares thing, I honestly do, but this was just different. This was... She was terrified. I have never seen that look on her face. I never wanna see it again."

Steve looked like he was almost feeling the same pain that Bucky was when he had heard everything his friend had to say. The problem was most likely neither one of them really knew what to do about it, a fact Steve confirmed in the very next moment.

"I wish I knew what to tell you, Buck," he said, shaking his head, "but I just don't. If Natasha doesn't want to talk about it, you can't force her."

"I know that." Bucky sighed, running his hands over his face. "And I'm sorry to just show up here like this. You must be sick of me by now."

"Come on, you know that's not true," Steve assured him, a hand on his shoulder. "You're welcome here any time. You know, I never left New York to get away from you. I just didn't see myself living with Stark, and when Fury suggested having one of us based in Washington might not be the worst idea... But like I said, you're always welcome. As far as I'm concerned that spare room is your room, permenantly if you want it."

It was a kind and generous offer, as if Bucky ever expected Steve to be anything else, even before his Captain America transformation, but they both knew he wasn't going to take him up on it. New York was home, not just because he was born and raised there, but because of what it meant to Bucky since he arrived in the twenty-first century too. In the last eighteen months and more, he had gotten used to his place at Stark Tower, to the facilities and JARVIS, to knowing that it was one place of a few that Nat called home too.

"You know, when you showed up here again so fast, I half-expected to be told to suit up," said Steve then, reaching across the coffee table for the laptop and showing Bucky the last thing he had been reading still on the screen.

"This is London?" he checked, eyes widening as he read through the information and saw the photographs that went along with. "But from what Stark and Banner told me..."

"Thor wasn't expected to be seen back here any time soon." Steve agreed, nodding his head. "Apparently, he defied expectations, which is probably normal for a guy that some people used to worship as a god."

Bucky nodded along, sure that made sense, but he was shaken all over again by the sight of what seemed to be alien spacecraft cutting a piece of Greenwich in half like it was nothing at all. Maybe he would never be able to make sense of all the strange things that were happening in the world in this modern era. Honestly, he would settle for just understanding what was going on with Natasha.

"When we fought together in New York," he said, eyes on the laptop for a few seconds more before he glanced up at Steve again, "you saw the way she was. Natasha, and Clint too, they're not like the rest of us. They're not super soldiers, they don't have Stark's suit or Thor's powers or Banner's... whatever that is," he said, sure he would never entirely understand it. "It didn't seem to matter. They just fought anyway, no hesitation, no fear."

"Just because a person shows no fear doesn't mean it's not there," Steve reminded him, a fact that he obviously already knew, but still. "From the little we do know about where Natasha comes from, what her life was like before SHIELD, it wasn't good. I hate to remind you of this, but she was on the wrong side of the fight then. And yes, I know, it wasn't all her fault, and even if it were, she's atoning. I'm not blaming her for anything, but think about what that must be like, having done the things she's done, and not even in the name of right and good. That's going to play on anybody's mind, and it's not exactly going to be their favourite thing to talk about."

Bucky knew that. He wasn't sure why he even came to bother Steve with all his worries and concerns, because he was pretty certain these were the things his buddy was always going to say in repsonse. All the answers were logical and there was nothing else to add, no better explanation, nothing to be done. That didn't change the fact that Bucky wished there were something, anything he could do to help.

"You know, when we were kids, all those years ago, I just thought... I don't know, that I'd grow up, get a job, get married, have kids, like everybody else did. Then the war came, and that was adventure and something to fight for, and sure, it was scary, only a fool wouldn't be terrified going into that mess, but we did it. Sure, we could've died, but I was still thinking that, when it was over, if we made it, if I made it, everything would still be the same. A nice girl, a good job... A wife and kids in a cute little house, all that stuff that everybody else does..."

He trailed off then, knowing how dumb he must sound, knowing how unfair it was to even consider complaining about the way his life had turned out. He was so much better off than most. At least he survived the war, at least he made it through, albeit it he never went home in the way he expected. A man out of time, but at least he wasn't alone. At least he didn't leave the girl he loved most in the world back in '44, only to wake up almost seven decades later, to a woman of ninety that was barely holding on.

"I'm sorry, Steve," he said then, his face in his hands for a moment. "I'm being stupid, I know."

"You're not stupid, Buck, you never were," he assured him without pause, smiling that good old Captain America smile when his friend peered up at him then. "I think maybe you're in love with Natasha, in a way that even you didn't expect, and certainly in a way you never told her about, but you're certainly not stupid."

Love. It was such a strange concept. Bucky never loved anybody before, not in the way a man loved a woman. He liked women, he dated plenty, but not one amongst the girls he had known back in the day was anybody he would've thought to commit to, to marry and settle down for. Then he arrived in 2011 and met Natasha, a woman who was the least likely in all of space and time to ever ask him to do something like that, to promise to be only with her, to buy a house and make a family, and here he was, hopelessly in love, with not an idea what to do about that.

"A man out of time," he muttered to himself. "That's what they like to call us, right? Men out of time? Mostly, I feel like a man out of answers, or a man out of his depth. I don't know how this happened, Steve. I don't know how I met a woman like her and just... You're right, I do love her. I think I fell for her about three seconds after I first saw her, but it's not... She doesn't... She's so different to all the other girls I dated, and I don't just mean because she was born sixty years later."

"I don't know. Red-head who likes a good time and knows her own mind?" said Steve, smirking some. "Sounds right to me."

That made Bucky smile too, knowing he couldn't really deny that he had a type. At the same time, what he said before held true. Natasha really was very different from all the others, partly because of the generation she came from as compared to his own, but perhaps more so because of what she came from, what was done to her, the people who made her into something that no person should ever have to be.

"For what it's worth, I don't think what's between you is all one-sided," said Steve then. "I know I haven't seen you two together all that much, but from things you've said, and the parts I have seen, it seems pretty clear to me that you mean an awful lot to Natasha. Didn't you say you two shared things with each other that you never would with anyone else? Doesn't she show trust in you that she's unlikely to show elsewhere?"

"That's true, all of it is," Bucky admitted, "but that's the thing that's driving me crazy. The way she acts, it's like... it all proves that she trusts me, that maybe she loves me, even though she never said it. We always come back to each other. Nobody ever said we were boyfriend and girlfriend or anything like that, but we just... we always come back. Days, weeks, months apart, with missions and trips and all, but we always head home after, to each other. After a couple of years, that should mean something, but there's so much of herself she's keeping from me. I know there is and I know I should just let her be, but I can't. I need to help her. I have to," he stopped then, looking over at Steve as a thought occurred to him. "Oh, God, is this what it's like to be you? The overwhelming need to help and do the right thing all the time?" he asked, faking a look of a horror, because humour was always easier.

"Because you're such a stranger to that feeling yourself." Steve rolled his eyes and smiled, before turning serious once more. "Buck, you can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped, but maybe, in time, Natasha will choose to open up to you and then you can be there for her. In the meantime..."

"In the meantime, I just have to wait it out, let her share in her own time. Yeah, I know." Bucky sighed. "Because that's just so easy to do."

To Be Continued...