onlyapassenger | [for Natasha]

It's a nightmare that finds Bucky awake with a start, right hand clawing at the collar of the shirt he wore to sleep, as though he expects there to be something more restrictive than soaked cotton around his neck instead. It's only when his breaths start to even out that he realizes he's off-balance, his body simultaneously heavier than it was a few hours ago, and yet significantly lighter on the one side; his left arm is missing. For a moment, the disorientation of sleep is enough to allow for panic to take hold of him, a mindless fear gripping his chest with an iron fist, but his memories follow shortly after, filling in the blanks he'd forgotten in dreams.

He's back to normal, then. Whatever spell the Island had him under is over as quickly and as suddenly as it started, and he'll blame it on exhaustion that his first instinct is to be disappointed. He should check on Jason, see if he didn't wake the kid up with his yelling, but it's in pulling himself out of bed to do so that Bucky realizes he's not alone in the room. His fingers find purchase around a knife so quickly it might as well have materialized in his hand.

Who the hell would be--

"Tasha."

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God help her, she waits him out, both her hands balled tightly until the screaming's done. While a tough woman, Natalia has left in her plenty of room to be tender, and she never feels it so acutely than when James is in the thick of a nightmare. Her every instinct and affection screams at her to go to him, to wake him, soothe him as much as he'll allow, but she knows that to do so would mean risking her own life. One does not place a hand on a frightened and angry James Barnes if they wish to keep it.

And so Natalia waits in her window perch, a rare glimmer in her eyes when at last he's aware enough to notice her. It's been a trying pair of days, and in so many ways. She will not fault herself the particularly fragile state of her heart.

"James."

"Jesus," he says on an exhale, tossing the knife back onto the bed with a carelessness that belies his skill. His hand now free, he rakes it back through his hair, finding the front of his head drenched with sweat. With a frown, he pads over to the lamp, switching it on before he turns back to face Natalia, no longer a strange silhouette in the window, but rather a familiar figure bathed in warm yellow light.

"Have you been there all night?"

"Yes." She swings down legs that cramped long ago into the room proper, no apology in her eyes for the fact that she's wearing both gauntlets in the dead of night. Capable as she knows him to be, there was little chance of Natalia not standing one hundred percent at the ready while James was young and vulnerable.

"You said these events only lasted a few days. I was hopeful." She doesn't look at his robotic arm, nor the lack of it on his shoulder. "You changed less than an hour ago." No surprise, then, that the nightmares came soon after.

He arches an eyebrow at the gauntlets, and though his leftover youthful pride flares up at just the sight of them, he refrains from commenting. His memories of the past couple of days are as dreamlike as the nightmare he just left, but the way he figures it, he's said plenty this weekend.

The arm's been tucked into the corner of his room since shortly after the madness started, a gleaming silver reminder of the life that awaited him, and he makes his way over to it, picking it up at the bicep before he sets about reattaching it to his shoulder. Even with the hologram in place, it doesn't compare to the real thing, a thought he hasn't had in decades. He shoves it aside.

"Enjoy the vacation?"

It's maddening. Natalia has been many things by necessity as a spy, more than half of them direct opposites to her true nature. She's been meek, been weak, been little more than a pretty face until it suited her to be otherwise. What she's never been is what James is apparently asking her to be now - deaf, dumb and blind to events that have affected them both.

Though the desire to go to him hasn't left her, to smooth away that messy hair from his forehead and kiss the spot, Natalia holds her ground. If he wants to pretend he's not affected, to roll his eyes and joke, this, too, she can wait out.

"What?" he asks on a sigh, turning on the spot to face her. For anyone else, he might have schooled his expression, but he lets her see the worst of him in this moment, the weariness that extends well beyond one nightmare on one night, let alone the fresh trauma of having his memories erased once more, though trauma, perhaps, isn't the right word for it. After all, hasn't he longed to forget the Winter Soldier? To wipe those memories as surely as they'd been before?

He ought to feel angry for having been manipulated, for having the wool pulled over his eyes once again, and yet, there's a part of him that was almost glad for the respite -- that enjoyed the vacation. He's not sure what to make of it.

"Don't pretend it doesn't matter," she replies, her expression softer now, anger shifting away from him and towards the situation where it belongs. Crossing the room at last, Natalia lets herself touch him the way she wants to, fingers pushing at that mop of sweaty hair like she can take his worries with it. "Not with me. Though I'd hoped..."

She doesn't hesitate, not exactly, but there is a pause while Natalia chooses her words. "Do you remember everything? What I asked of you that first day?" This is not the vacation I would have envisioned for you, but you could enjoy it. By his own phrasing Natalia would guess that he does, and yet she still can't find her answer. If he managed it. If he regrets it now.

"You seemed happy."

He doesn't answer for a long moment, instead letting his eyes flutter shut as her fingers work their magic, a soft sigh escaping his lips. Memories of the very creative ways his younger self had imagined getting her out of the dress she'd worn a couple of nights ago flit through his mind, unbidden, and the corners of his mouth lift in a ghost of a smile.

"I was," he says simply, though the admission is necessarily loaded. "And I do. Remember everything. The past couple of days..." He trails off, opening his eyes to meet hers. "I don't even know where to start. If I should feel angry, or... Or glad."

Natalia looks back, her thumbs sweeping over the restored, familiar lines on his cheeks, and no amount of careful choosing could make the words easy to find this time. "You were so..." she begins. "Everything I know, everything I've read about you as you were then, Captain America's boy sidekick, it didn't compare. You were so spirited, so eager." Her mouth lifts in the smallest of smiles. "Shameless."

In truth, much of it had hurt her to see, not because of any ill on his part, but because it always hurts to see what's been lost, twisted by time and crueler devices. She doesn't wish him to think she longs for that boy, even if, in a way that hurts her too, she wishes life might have let him remain that innocent. "I was glad for you, but I was selfish," she admits. "I missed you."

There's plenty he could say in response to her confession, but it's pure, simple instinct that finds Bucky ducking his head to press a lingering kiss to Natasha's mouth instead, one full of intent he won't act on despite wanting to, the fantasies of his younger self fresh in his mind from their closeness. When he breaks away a few seconds later, he doesn't go far at all, resting his forehead against hers, and drawing in a deep breath through his nose. He doesn't tell her what she already knows, that he was just as dangerous even with the easy smile and go get 'em attitude. Rather, he leans in again, mouth brushing against her skin as he murmurs, "Missed you, too."

[for Natasha]

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