Archive of Our Own ^beta

Steve meandered down the long back porch of the house, and looked out over a five acre backyard... his backyard, if he wanted it. Needled pines and knobbly oak branches met and mingled, and gave way to open meadow and the inlet of a larger lake. All were bathed in the enchanted slanted light of a chilly January sunset. He let himself imagine what it would be like to walk outside his kitchen every morning - for years - to see this… birds enjoying the water, and rabbits darting for tall patches of grass.

He stood on the back porch with his hands resting in his pockets, his phone and car keys feeling somehow foreign against his fingers, like inhabitants of a different universe. He closed his eyes and breathed slowly. The scents were different here too, and the quiet was strange and comforting.

It was so quiet, he could hear what must be Nat’s rental car pull up the gravel drive on the other side of the house.

As he walked through the house, Steve found he enjoyed the solid thunking sound of his shoes on the hardwood floors. When he reached the front porch, he found Nat standing in the driveway, wearing a thoughtful frown as she took in the house and the land it stood on. He leaned against the door frame and gave her a minute to look around.

The front porch was as long as the back porch, with plenty of room for whatever it was that people could do with their porches. So far in his life, Steve’s main use for any space he had right outside his front or back door had been primarily laundry-related. But the laundry room here was sizeable and well-furnished. So he had no plans yet for what he’d do with these porches. Sam had suggested rocking chairs. But judging from his tone of voice when he said it, Steve thought he’d never hear the end of it if he actually made that purchase. Nor would Steve really know what to do with them if he did.

“What do you think?” Steve finally asked.

“It’s quiet,” Nat said neutrally.

“That it is. The owners have agreed to let me rent it for a week, to decide.”

Nat joined him on the empty porch, carrying something in a white plastic bag. “You’re considering buying the place.”

Steve nodded.

Nat raised an eyebrow, looking as skeptical as Sam had. “And you’d do… what, exactly?” she asked.

“With what?”

“With yourself.”

Steve smiled. “Enjoy the quiet.”

Nat eyed him suspiciously as she headed through the front door.

“What’s in the bag?” he asked as he followed her in.

“I brought dessert. What’s for supper?”

“Burgers.”

“Fantastic. I’m starving. This place does have a kitchen and everything, right? We’re not cooking over a campfire?”

“Nah, nothing like that,” Steve chuckled. “It’s burger tartare, I’m trying that raw diet thing,” he said.  “Supposed to help you live longer.”

-=-=-=-=-

The chunky wooden dining table held a generous spread of hamburger ingredients, salad options, potato chips, corn chips and iced tea, with plenty of room to spare. Steve thought his medium-well patties turned out pretty great. He and Nat were way past standing on ceremony with one another, and had just reached across each other to keep dressing their burgers and filling their plates.

Midway through the meal, one of Steve’s records ended and another began. Nat gave him a practiced look, and he immediately got playfully defensive.

“Hey, I like Glenn Miller, okay?”

“You’re hopeless, Rogers.” Nat grabbed some more chips as she switched into a work tone of voice. “Alright. Let’s get business out of the way, then. I know we’ve got ourselves a situation. Fill me in.”

With a nod, Steve talked around his food to explain the primary reason he’d called her.

“There’s a P.I. group out of Harlem that’s contacted me. Very long story short, they believe they can trace some criminal activity in the city to a couple of Soviet agents last active in the 1970’s.”

“Hunh,” Nat said curiously.

“I don’t suppose you know any, besides the obvious one?”

“Not really gonna be my wheelhouse, unfortunately.”

He continued. “There’s evidence to believe a couple of them were in cryo just recently.”

“Oh dear.”

“No idea who they’re working for. It’s a worrisome situation unfolding, and I think it’s worth seeing if Bucky has any useful information.”

“And if he does, that’s a good way for him to help somebody.”

“I thought so too.”

Nat furrowed her brow and polished off her chips. “Is it time to wake him up again? I know they’re particular about that.”

“It could be. There are certain… windows. They tell me there’s cryo cycles, just like our sleep cycles. And Bucky’s doctors would be agreeable to starting an awakening process in about 20 hours. They… well… they…” Steve’s breath caught, and he paused. He hadn’t meant to say any more just yet. His excitement got the better of him. He tried to wave it away and find another topic to move on to, but he didn’t find one fast enough.

Nat raised an eyebrow. “Steve. You can’t stop there. You’re nearly vibrating.”

He took a deep breath and tried to stay calm as he said the words.

“T’Challa’s team thinks they may have cracked the trigger programming.”

Nat paused, eyes widened slightly with the weight of Steve’s statement.

“They don’t know for sure,” Steve continued. “They wouldn’t consider waking him up yet, based on just what they have now.” Steve paused to take another breath. “But they *may* have undone the programming around Bucky’s trigger words.  Since we’re waking him up anyway, they can test and see if they’re right. If he wants to. If...” Steve shuddered, as the ramifications of what he was saying washed over him yet again. “If Bucky wants to, they could… they could see if they’ve fixed the problem that’s keeping him under.”

Steve knew he was visibly shaking and he didn’t care. It was Nat.

“So there’s that,” Steve tried to say flippantly.

Nat was much calmer than he was, probably thinking more clearly, so Steve hoped. She would be more objective about Bucky, without much history. Her insight could be useful here. She carefully folded her napkin and sat it down on the table near her. “If he’s untriggerable now, and he knows these guys, he might want to go after them himself.”

“That’s a possibility, but I think we could talk him out of it.”

“Why talk him out of it?”

“He’s not exactly mission-ready,” Steve laughed.

“Why not?”

“Nat.”

A stern look settled on her as she reached for her drink. “You hauled him off to a Siberian missile silo not long ago.”

“That was an emergency. And was traumatic enough for him. Nat, he needs rest now.”

She took a sip, and seemed to nearly say something, and then thought better of it. She sat her tea back down.

“I’m ready for dessert. You ready for dessert?” She looked at his empty plate.

Steve was puzzled, but rolled with her change of subject. “Sure. It’s getting a little chilly. Let’s move closer to the fireplace.”

-=-=-=-=-=-

With a few button presses, a fire began warming the homey living room. Steve didn’t mind the ease of the gas fireplace at all. He brought a blanket to Nat’s chosen end of the couch as she sat a pastry box and napkins down on the coffee table. He perched on the edge of the nearby recliner while she opened the box.

“What’s this?” he asked, leaning in.

Steve thought at first he was seeing some of the marshmallowy rice cereal treats that Maria and Clint sometimes bought as snacks. But these mashed together bits were shaped into balls and pyramids instead of squares, and their texture looked a bit different. Nat took one of the ball-shaped clusters and tore into it. Steve took a pyramid and bit it in half. It tasted of honey and fried dough.

“It’s called chak-chak,” Nat explained.

“I approve,” Steve nodded.

They took another bite in silence.

Steve knew Sam and Nat were both wary about the plans he was pursuing.  But he felt such a deep comfort right here, chatting with an old friend in his own quiet living room - or what could soon be his. If he wanted it. He had rarely felt so comfortable anywhere. And Bucky… with all the upheaval, the running, the terrible places he’d been kept. Bucky needed beauty and fresh air and quiet. Steve thought this must be the right way to go.

Nat seemed to read his thoughts.

“It is beautiful here. How big did you say this house is?”

“4000 square feet. There’s another fireplace in the master bedroom. And lake access to the west.” He couldn’t help but smile. “It’s already dark, or I’d give you the whole tour. Are you staying tonight?”

Nat nodded. She seemed pensive about something. Steve wasn’t sure, and Nat wasn’t the easiest person to read. Over the years, he’d gotten some practice with her subtle signals. And she was less guarded than she used to be, at least around him. To his eyes, something troubled her tonight.

He also realized - not for the first time - that he still hadn’t managed to question Nat in any depth about her visit with Bucky. That troubled him. He would try, and every time, he’d come away with almost no detail. She had only said that they had worked out some loose ends and that he was doing well. Steve was eager to know so much more. Had they talked about him shooting her? Could she forgive him, and would that help him understand he wasn’t at fault for all those missions they sent him on? And what did she really think of Bucky’s current state? Steve thought he was being fair in his assessments. But maybe Nat had a more unbiased view that would help arm Steve for what may come. Somehow Steve never found himself pursuing any of those questions he had for Nat. Or when he did, Nat would deflect.

But something had clearly been on her mind tonight. Before bothering her about Bucky, Steve decided he’d let the conversation lull a bit to see if she’d share what weighed on her.

After a second piece of dessert each, she spoke softly. “I had an ulterior motive in getting us chak-chak,” she admitted with a small smile.

“Oh?”

“I’ve been thinking a lot lately of my first love affair. And... I guess I wanted a consumable reminder of the *good* thing I had in that chapter in my life.”

Steve wasn’t expecting something quite so personal. “You’ve never told me that story,” he marveled quietly.

Natasha nodded. “I was twenty,” she said carefully. “He was a trainer of mine.”

“A trainer?” Steve didn’t fully understand the program Nat grew up under, beyond it being terribly cruel. But he had been under the impression that her trainers were not actually on her side in any measurable way.

“Mhm. His situation wasn’t really any better than mine,” she said in reply to his confusion. “He was just more skilled. Hand-to-hand combat, field interrogation. Sniping.”

Steve couldn’t think what to say. So he waited, and very much hoped she’d continue.

“Once,” Nat said, as she gave just the smallest chuckle, “not long after we’d met… well, he was a lot like any other trainer, at first. And I didn’t like any of them. But one day I got very angry with him. I don’t even remember the details of his offense. Some psychological game his handlers had him playing with me. Just more people trying to break me.”

Her brow furrowed and her jaw tightened. Steve realized he didn’t know any stories about anything loving ever happening in Nat’s early life.

“He was what you might call an intimidating guy. And his handlers were worse.” She briefly met Steve’s gaze. “I don’t know why I was so brazen that day. The safe thing would have been to back down. Know my place. But I didn’t. I was so mad, I got right up in his personal space. In front of his handler, even. I met his eye...”

“Mhm,” Steve breathed in anticipation, suddenly feeling very worried for her.

“And I told him he needed a haircut.”

Steve’s eyes got wide with surprise, and Natasha grinned.

“And he smiled at me.”

Steve gawked.

“The most absurdly guileless smile on this master assassin.” Her voice cracked softly with quiet laughter. “He was delighted that I hated his hair.”

It was Steve’s turn to chuckle. Nat seemed to be searching for more to say, but she was silent for some time, curled up in her own arms. Steve was so touched Nat would trust him with a story like that, and still worried a bit that she might bolt or shut down if he pried too much. But he chanced a little prod for more.

“And that was the beginning of something wonderful?”

Nat nodded. Her face lit up. Her eyes were focused somewhere very far away.

“I quickly had this... this wild, foolish trust in him.” She shook her head in disbelief, remembering. “He was the first person I ever trusted.”

Steve marveled at her ability to trust anyone now. This relationship could not have ended well. Steve’s stomach hurt just from filling in the blanks.

“How long did you have with him?” he asked gently.

“Measuring time from that insult forward,” Nat said with a sly, sad smile, “we had seven weeks, three days.”

“That’s enough to change everything.”

“Yes.”

“He must have been very important to you,” Steve offered.

After a few moments she nodded… first slowly and thoughtfully, then more quickly, as though she’d just come to a decision.

“I loved him. I know that much now.” Nat came out of her reverie and turned to look at him. “I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

What a gift it must have been, Steve thought, for her to find somebody who cared about her.

They held a companionable silence for several minutes.

Then Steve had a thought.

“Oh. You need to see the view from the back porch, right now,” Steve offered.

-=-=-=-=-=-

It was a clear night, and Steve thought he might never have seen so many stars at once. They had walked out away from the house, so they could look straight up at the dizzying expanse of the Milky Way.

“Look, there’s Orion.” He pointed.

“Orion’s easy, everybody knows Orion. The question is, can you find Lynx?”

“Lynx? You just made that up.”

“I did not,” she said smugly.

“Lynx,” he repeated. “Hey, do you know any traditional Russian constellations? Is there a bear? There must be a bear.”

“Of course there’s a bear.”

“You know, Nat.” He stopped, suddenly sheepish. “I didn’t ask before, but… well. The work to do in Wakanda.” He glanced her way, but her head was still in the stars and her back was to him. “We need a native Russian speaker. For the word sequence, you know? And-”

“Steve,” she said abruptly. “There’s a secret I’ve kept from you.”

Steve nearly joked that there were a lot of secrets she kept from him. That was her nature. But he sensed the gravity of her point. He had thought she had unburdened herself with her earlier disclosure, but apparently not. He waited quietly for her to continue.

“I’m not sorry I did it,” she said matter-of-factly. “But...” She turned her body toward him, but kept her eyes on the stars and pursed her lips together. “If it damages your trust in me now, I will regret that.”

“We don’t have to be open books to be friends, Nat,” Steve offered. “We’ve established that, haven’t we?”

Her gaze came back down to earth. “Well at first, it wasn’t your business,” she said with a small smile.  “And then it was. But it made no difference by then.” She was frowning now.

“It’s hard to know when to say certain things, isn’t it?” Steve said with a pang of guilt.

Nat nodded. “It is. But you need to know this now.”

He shifted to look straight at her. “So tell me,” he offered in his friendliest tone.

Natasha met his gaze solidly, and they stood face-to-face in the middle of the empty back yard. “The day we thought Nick was dead.”  

Steve took in a deep breath and blew it out, nodding and bracing himself. That was a terrible day, for so many reasons. Maybe she thought that day had something to do with the events they would be investigating. The day SHIELD fell, could that somehow be connected to the Soviet agents? Maybe that’s why she was bringing it up. He felt a bit lost.

“I didn’t tell you the whole story,” she said.

“What whole story?”

“Odessa.”

Odessa, Steve thought. When she met Bucky. Dammit, I should have checked in with her about their visit before now. It was harder on her than I realized. Steve waited patiently while hard lines etched across Nat’s face again, like they had that day.

He tried to help, to untie this knot. “When you met Bucky. The Winter Soldier, I guess I mean. You told me,” he reminded her. “Was there more to what happened in Odessa?”

“No,” she said flatly. “There was more to what happened before Odessa.”

Her words hung in the air, and for just a heartbeat or two he struggled to understand what she meant.

One moment there was air in Steve’s lungs, and then there just wasn’t, as though it had been knocked out of him. As though a weight suddenly pressed on his chest. He felt dizzy.

“Oh,” Steve said.

He looked back to the light of the back porch, for some reason, and it was all blurry.

“Oh, Natasha,” he whispered.

He realized how hard he was breathing, and then his stomach lurched. He bent forward and put his hands on his knees to try and keep his bearings.

“Your trainer,” Steve said desperately. “He was important to you.” He worked to take in a breath, and let it back out. “The whole story.”

And he knew. Bucky, he thought. Her first love affair. She was talking about Bucky.

He looked up into her eyes. Hers were dry, though he knew now his weren’t. Steven, stop it, he told himself. He couldn’t fathom how many tears she had already shed over this. She didn’t deserve to carry his, too.

Two of his dearest friends. With a bond, a bond she said is still important to her. She’d loved him. He’d been loved. He hadn’t been alone, not for all of it. Bucky had someone. Bucky had Nat. Once.

For a little while. In all that horror. They had each other.

How did it end? The question made him double over again, nearly vomiting that time. But he couldn’t let go of it anymore. It was haunting. What did those monsters do to either of them when they found out? Did they find out? He couldn’t bear to ask. He wouldn’t. Nat was bearing so much of herself just to tell him this, just to let him in. Just to let him into this precious thing.

Steve felt selfish at the tears he knew were on his face. He felt selfish breaking down in front of Nat. But he couldn’t quite bring himself to move. His dear friends, carrying such heavy joy and immense pain.

His heart had broken.

He worked to get control of his lower lip. He became dimly aware that he had turned almost completely away from Nat, in some attempt not to impose his response on her.

Then he remembered something she had said a few minutes ago. Trust. Him trusting her. Some part of her was worried he would be angry at her for this.

Steve immediately stood up, spun around and looked at her. Her shoulders were erect, but had bare worry in her eyes. He took a step over to her and grabbed her up into his arms.

She hugged back, tightly.

Steve had no idea what to say, no idea how to speak over the rush of emotions banging through his head. Two people he loved. Carrying this.

And then he realized.

“Oh God, Nat!” Steve broke the hug to take hold of her shoulders. “I sent you to him! Why didn’t you tell me then? Nat, I could have been a better friend to you. I wouldn’t have insisted… we could have-”

She held up a hand to stop him. “Stop. Take a breath,” she said gently.

He was ashamed again that she had to guide him through this pain of hers. He put everything he had into getting his bearings as she continued.

“I’m glad you needed me to do that. That visit was good for us both, Steve. We met - we really met each other. And we talked. We put all our cards on the table.”

“Are y--” Steve panted as though he’d run several miles. “Is…” He couldn’t form a coherent question. He just wanted to know everything. So he searched her eyes.

“I told you, Steve. It was good for both of us. We have to find a new footing with one another now. And we’re closer to that.”

Steve just kept searching her face.

“We’re okay, Steve. He and I, I mean.”

“Are we?”

Nat was trying to look defiant, but mostly looked scared. “You tell me.”

Steve shrugged. “You’re right. It wasn’t my business, at first. I… you’re both adults! It’s not my business now.”

“Yes it is,” she said gently. “A little,” she corrected with a smile.

“I’m glad you told me. I’m glad to know,” he said. He hands were stuffed as far into his pockets as he could get them. “I can’t imagine… the price you paid.”

She shook her head. “That’s not your burden to carry.”

He nodded. He wouldn’t pry.

“He must not have known you. In Odessa,” he muttered. “They wiped his memories of you, too.”

She shook her head again, and then cleared her throat. “You know what? I could really use a drink. Are there any drinks for us intoxicatable mortals around here?”

“I did, in fact, bring some beer for just such an occasion.”

“Well, it’s definitely time for it.”

They walked back to the house. Nat took up a perch on the back porch railing and had herself wrapped up tight in her sweater, when Steve came back out with two beers. He gave her one and found a post near her to lean against comfortably.

“So, explain to me the plan here,” she said as she surveyed the back yard. “You’re going to defrost Barnes for the last time and the two of you are going to... retire here? Chop wood, carry water?”

Steve shrugged. “Look, I’m done with the public thing, you know? At least until I learn how to live some other way. Plenty of room for us to build anything we want out here.”

“Sure. Shooting range. Helipad.”

Steve shot her a mild look. “How about… a boat dock for the lake. Hiking trails.” Steve shrugged. “Maybe even grow some food. I got a really interesting seed catalog from-”

He looked at Nat and stopped. She looked as dubious as he’d ever seen her. He sighed.

“Look,” he continued. “There’s approved, registered Avengers now. There’s people to rush into the worst emergencies, and more getting registered every day. I can take a break. Maybe I’ll occasionally make some appearances. Fundraisers, that sort of thing. I can draw and paint more often, maybe sell some of that. Captain America’s art should have some kitsch value for somebody, at the very least. Money can do good things too.” He took a swig of beer. “Maybe I'll open a gym in town for the kids.”

“And you think this is the proper environment to raise a recovering assassin in?”

“Bucky needs quiet right now. Stability. Family. He needs what’s been missing from his life all this time.”

“I’m sure coaching Little League will help assuage his guilt.”

“He’s got no reason to feel guilty,” Steve said adamantly.

“That’s a very Steve Rogers way of looking at it.”

“Nat, I’m not being naive. I read the file.”

Her voice was soft, but firm. “I know you read what they did to him, with a great deal of detail. And those events have no doubt left their mark for him to manage. You didn’t read what he did to others with the same level of specificity.”

“You can’t possibly hold him responsible for all that?”

“Set my scars aside, Steve. Set aside your baggage with Tony. Do you want to insist to Nick Fury’s face that he not hold Bucky the slightest bit responsible for harm done?”

Steve held up his hands. He was angry and emotional but he didn’t want to fight with her. Certainly not tonight. His heart hurt. He gave a conciliatory nod that he didn’t feel in the slightest, and searched hard for some other topic of conversation.

“I need another beer,” she said. “And a warmer place to drink it.”

-=-=-=-=-

The evening had gotten colder, so the coffee table was shoved aside and they sprawled out with blankets on the floor in front of the fire. Three beers later, they were nearly drunk on Bucky stories. Steve told her tales of ordinary days with him: at school, at home with Bucky’s sisters, at Steve’s place where Steve was certain Bucky had a little crush on his mom. Nat had just begun to say more about her time with him.

“I’d never met anyone so gentle. Once he let me in.” Nat took another drink. “He had no idea how to close himself off at all in a romance. He was so… unguarded. He wasn’t programmed to know what to do with me. And… he just...” Nat might have had either a smile or a grimace on her face, Steve wasn’t sure.

“He’s a sap,” Steve said. “When he’s got a girl.”

Nat looked at him, a bit unfocused, and giggled.

“Programming or not. He’s a giddy mess. Always has been.” Steve smiled at the memories, the connections, and Nat’s giggles.

“I gave you…” Nat trailed off. Her whole face distorted with pain. “I gave you everything I had, Steve. To find him.”

Steve rushed to reassure her. “I know that, Nat.”

“I think I did. I don’t think I knew anything else that would have helped.”

“I know you did everything you could.”

“No. No, I didn’t. I had to give up. Eventually.”

“What?”

“I had to give up. I had to.” Her voice knotted into a whisper. “It was killing me. I tried. I tried so hard to find him.” Hot shameful tears welled up in her eyes. Steve inched closer and put an arm around her shoulders.

“After Odessa,” she said. “I tried again. And I failed. I failed him.” Her breath caught and she struggled to stay calm. “I was so worried about you,” she admitted. “I was so afraid, that you’d lose yourself completely in the search. I might have known something more. I don’t know. Probably not. But I’m not sure. I was too frightened to tell you.”

“I understand, Nat. It’s okay. We’ve got him now.”

She rested her head on his shoulder, and they were quiet, until her breath slowly evened out again. He pulled her closer and held her tight.

“Did you get any time at all,” she asked, “to talk with him, about…” She cast around for words, and didn’t finish her sentence. “Did he talk about anything that he needed to do?”

Steve shook his head. “I don’t think so, not how you mean. He’s been in flight mode for two years. All’s he done is hide.”

“If they can wipe that trigger-” she said.

“Then he’ll be free,” Steve replied with a quiet smile.

“Then that hole in his head can’t be exploited,” she corrected. “But-”

“Nat, please,” Steve begged. “I know he hurt you. But you of all people… didn’t you get your head messed with too?”

“I absolutely did,” she said. She sat up and looked square at him. “And that doesn’t make my targets any less dead. That doesn’t undo any results of my interrogation techniques.”

“I’m not disputing the damage. But neither one of you consented to doing any of that!”

Nat exhaled heavily and looked at the fire. She took a drink from her bottle. Then her voice, while still quiet, took on a steely quality.

“Here’s the thing about mind control. About what was done to us, specifically. You're still there. The only you that you know. You’re still making choices. You’re still making decisions from the information that you have. They don’t take that away. The awful ordinariness of making choices. They only withhold information. The better they are at what they do, the less information they need to withhold. And we were handled by the very best at what they did. They surgically suppressed this piece of self-knowledge, frightened away that bit of empathy. There was just a handful of things missing, really. Just a handful of little reflections of… of things that were once real.”

“Truth is a matter of circumstance?” Steve said it more bitterly than he intended. Nat kindly ignored it.

“He wasn’t asleep, Steve. You need to understand this if you’re going to help him at all. It was all in his hands. All that death. He heard people beg for their lives, and he still decided where to put the knife blade to silence them. He trained a lot of other operatives - so many people - to do what he did. It was all, all of it, full of choices he made. Impact that he’s had on the world. If he’s half the man you believe him to be, he made thousands of choices he remembers and regrets now. And there isn’t a Steve speech that’s going to erase that.”

She let that hang in the air, and Steve couldn’t get his mouth open to say anything.

“Maybe James Barnes would never have chosen to do any of those things,” she said. “But then again maybe he would.”

Steve looked up in shock.

“What’s the line between the two men?” She mused. “What individual pages would have to be torn from his book, to turn the Howling Commando into the Winter Soldier? How few pages would it take... for anybody, really?”

“No. I just can’t believe that.”

Nat took a quiet breath. “Be that as it may. He’s got red in his ledger, same as me.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“He didn’t have to.”

Steve reached for the bridge of his nose and sighed. When that didn’t help, he put his drink down beside him and put his head in his hands. Surely Nat was exaggerating. Her experience was so different to Bucky’s. Maybe. Mostly.

And maybe if the Bucky he knew really was in there anywhere at all, he really would carry all these things as heavily as Nat was suggesting. And maybe there wasn’t much Steve could do about that.

“Maybe we've got to work together,” Steve said. “You and me.”

Nat pulled her gaze away from the fire and met his eye.

He offered more. “Maybe you and I have each kept pages of him safe. Pages that we can give back to him now. Let him decide what to do with them. All of them.”

Nat’s demeanor shifted, and Steve couldn’t place why. She looked off to the side, unreadable, mulling something, and looked back at him. Then she lifted her bottle and offered it to him.

He picked up his own beer, and they clinked the glass together.

“Deal,” she said quietly.

They both took a drink.

-=-=-=-=-

It had gotten late. Steve shooed her off to the master bedroom to sleep. He eventually spread out on a twin mattress in a much smaller room. They’d need to knock a wall out, combine two of the smaller bedrooms to give each of them a master bedroom of his own.

Steve pondered what Natasha had said. He wondered what Bucky needed to do from here on out, to feel better, and he worried himself to sleep a few hours later.

-=-=-=-=-=-

Steve managed to have quite a few pancakes and some eggs fixed by the time Nat joined him for breakfast. She looked a little bedraggled.

“Morning,” he chirped. He threw a few more eggs in the pan for good measure. “Oh, orange juice is still in the fridge. Coffee’s ready over here.”

Nat blearily fixed herself a mug. Steve noticed the shirt she slept in had Connor Barton’s baseball team emblazoned on it.

“Go Wildcats!” he said.

“Mrrmph.”

“The greatest secret the Black Widow carries,” he said dramatically, “is just how many of us owe our lives to her restraining herself when we’re too chipper in the morning.”

“I’m getting older and grumpier. Don’t press your luck on that one.” She hitched herself up on a kitchen barstool.

“How did you manage to remain so staunchly NOT a morning person through all the work you’ve done?”

Nat shook her head and stirred cream into her coffee. “In a perfect world, there would be no need for espionage before noon.”

Steve finished up the last of the eggs and brought all the food to her at the kitchen bar.

“You growing boys are gonna need eggs. Are you gonna raise chickens here too?” Nat said mockingly.

“Believe it or not,” Steve smiled. “I actually have some experience caring for chickens.”

Nat blinked at him. “What?”

“Mrs. Castellano kept chickens on the roof of our tenement building.”

“In Brooklyn?”

“In Brooklyn,” Steve smiled. “But she didn’t always get around so well, so I helped in the afternoons. Got a few eggs out of the deal too.”

Nat chuckled at the absurdity.

“It’s an exciting life I’ve led.”

Nat looked around the place. Then she got serious, and laid a hand on his arm.

“Steve, it’s not my desire to hurt you. Pushing you like I did last night.”

“On the house?”

“No, you deserve to be mocked for this idea.”

Steve winced good-naturedly.

“I mean Barnes.”

Steve looked at his plate and shook his head. “You want me to know that Bucky... and the Winter Soldier... aren’t really two separate people. I get that.” He looked her in the eye. "I hear it.”

They held each other’s gaze, and Steve felt comfortably vulnerable. He decided to tell the story that was on his mind.

“One day,” he started, “Bucky and I were walking home from school. It had been a bad winter, and it was supposed to get worse. It was so cold, I remember... my coat, it wasn’t so great that year. We passed one alley and somehow, Bucky saw a stray dog hiding way down the alley in some trash. He always had an eagle eye, seeing things others didn’t.”

Steve turned his coffee mug around and around, but didn’t drink.

“Bucky tried to ignore it -- he didn’t even tell me at first, because he wanted to get me someplace warmer. But he couldn’t leave the dog. We got a block past it, when he gave me his coat and made us turn around.”

He looked up to see Nat was smiling cautiously.

“The poor thing was ragged. And when he first got near it, it would only growl and snarl at us. But he crouched down nearby it, shivering himself. And he waited. If you’d asked me, it was hours that passed.  I was still pretty cold in the coat that was three sizes too big for me. It probably wasn’t that long before the dog came closer. Started to trust him. He waited a little longer than that, waited still and patient, and Ruthie finally came close enough that he could pet her.”

“Ruthie?”

“His sister Rebecca named the dog.” Steve took a sip of coffee. “Ruthie was a mess. One bad eye. Limp. Scrawny. Her fur seemed to grow in matted somehow. But they all loved her. He couldn’t leave her there. He couldn’t leave a shivering creature out in that cold.”

“Steve. I’m very worried about you. Please understand. For your sake, and his, you must be prepared for the possibility that the Bucky you’re describing doesn’t exist anymore. Some things in this life are irreversible.”

“They can’t undo what he chose before,” he said defiantly. “They can’t have that.”

She looked for a moment like she might say more. Steve squared his shoulders and met her eye, and spoke first.

“There’s more to Bucky than there used to be. I know that. There’s probably more to him than he ever wanted there to be. But HYDRA can’t erase the choices he made before they touched him. His freely chosen actions. And they can’t touch who he is now. Who he chooses to become. That’s his, and his alone.”

Nat was unreadable, and quiet.

He continued with a bit less force. “And I find it hard to believe you never got a glimpse of the man I’m talking about.”

Nat looked very much like she was trying to keep something from showing on her face and not entirely succeeding. She didn’t say anything at first. Her eyes sifted through thoughts and memories.

Finally she said, “He's lucky to have you.”

Steve shook his head. They finished eating mostly in silence.

-=-=-=-=-

She tossed her bag into the back of the car.

“Question,” he said.

“Shoot.”

Steve looked around uneasily, almost as though he expected to find someone listening. But of course they were alone. “The Winter Soldier’s victims.”

Nat waited. Steve tightened his jaw and continued.

“Most family members are dead by now. And I’ve read the files on a lot of his targets too. They weren’t all innocent. Many of them could have earned a death penalty in a court of law. Easily. They had demons’ resumes.”

“And…?”

Steve half-heartedly threw up his hands. “What is he supposed to do with all this guilt you say he carries?”

Nat caught some hair the wind had tossed in her eyes, and weighed options. “I have a former colleague who became a priest.”

“That’s probably not going to work for Bucky.”

“Another settled down to raise a big family. Then there’s the hero for hire route. I have… my own strategies. I could make him a list of ideas if you want.” She was smirking, just a bit.

Steve grimaced and nodded. “The question’s not yours to answer.”

“It’s not for any of us to answer. That’s his work now.”

“Of course,” Steve muttered. He still didn’t have an answer from her about Wakanda. “I’ve got transport arranged for Sam and I tonight. Come with us.”

Nat nodded solemnly. “You’ll get what you need from me.”

His relief surprised him. “Thank you, Nat. For everything.”

She brought him in for a hug, and they held each other quite a while.

“Well, it definitely is very, very quiet here,” she said as she pulled away from him.

Steve smiled. “It’s beautiful and it’s quiet. Two things that heal the soul.”

Nat got in the car and pulled away. Steve watched her go, then looked back up at the house.