onlyapassenger | [for Natasha]

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[for Natasha]

He can't sleep. This isn't, in itself, that unusual. Hell, given the amount of time he and Jason actually spend in their house, it's a wonder they have one at all, their nights generally spent elsewhere (and in fairer company than each other). That Bucky's once again found himself sitting crouched in Natasha's window is little more than a bad habit, the only thing speaking to some deeper trouble being his timing and his attire. On a normal night, he might show up in pajamas and combat boots, minimally armed, with his hair already mussed from an attempt at rest that he knew would surely allude him.

Tonight, though, he's dressed in uniform, the shield strapped to his back. Backlit by the moon, the figure he cuts is more imposing than playful, a pronounced tension in the set of his shoulders. His timing leaves something to be desired, as well; it's much later than he usually shows up, and it's clear from the flush in his cheeks that he's been outside for some time, though his purpose doesn't immediately present itself.

Eyes falling on Natasha, he allows himself a small, tired smile, even as a sigh that speaks to weeks of unneeded stress escapes his lips. His fingers itch to reach out for her, but he performs the courtesy of toeing off his boots before he goes any further into the room, pulling down his cowl as he begins to undress. His heart feels tight in his chest.

"Sorry I'm late," he murmurs, slipping into Russian for no other reason than wanting the reminder of something that was uniquely theirs. (His sweep of the perimeter was clean; there's no one listening in -- he's not being paranoid, though life has given him every reason.) "Needed some air."

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She's not been waiting. They keep their own hours and always have, but Natalia is awake the moment he lights in her window, rolling onto an elbow to watch him slip inside. The uniform is a surprise. To her knowledge - which may yet prove itself incomplete, James keeps his secrets well - he's not worn it since the fall of Rapture, but he wears it now, blue stretched over shoulders bent with a fatigue that troubles her.

"You don't look as if it helped," she replies, on her knees and reaching for him. What solace the open air could not provide, Natalia is determined she will.

The shield's the next to come off, though he takes more care of it than he did with his boots, setting it down on the ground so that it can sit propped up against the wall. It's followed by his belt, loaded down with the Winter Soldier's weapons, if only because he'd been stripped of those that he used as Captain America before his arrival. Left only in the bare bones of his uniform, he kneels onto the bed, peeling off one glove before he cups her face, fingers sliding up to thread through her hair.

"It didn't," he admits, as free as he ever is about his emotional state -- which is to say, not very. "Nothing to fight but shadows."

Natalia hums, taking a moment to enjoy the simple pleasure of his hand in her hair. Time with James is more easily found on the island than in any other space they've shared, but still, she's not certain these quiet moments will ever feel anything but stolen.

"You sound disappointed," she says, pressing her fingertips to the worried crease of his brow. "Not even another child of Gotham to chase away?"

"Not tonight," he says, eyes fluttering shut, though the reminder of his small network of stalkers keeps him from relaxing entirely, deepening the crease between his brows, instead of easing it. He's used to being followed, to being watched, and while there are days he simply lets it happen, doesn't try to run, they are becoming few and far between. The island is small enough already to induce a certain claustrophobia without the addition of his network of followers, and he's come so close in the past couple of weeks to snapping, to taking out his frustration on children. (And Stark, but at least he's done more to earn Bucky's ire than watch him from the trees.)

"I know they're just kids, but..."

"I often wonder if there's any such thing," Natalia muses, leaning forward to kiss his heavy eyelids. He's tired but far from sleep, more thoughts in his head than Natalia can guess at, though she hopes she won't have to.

"Come," she says, slipping her hands into his. "Tea? Or vodka?"

"Vodka," he says, the response accompanied with the sort of dry laugh that implies she needn't have asked at all. He's too wound up for tea, and while a part of him is reluctant to leave the bed, he voices no complaint as he pulls himself up back to standing. The drink would surely serve him well, and the bed will be there when they return -- perhaps with fewer layers of clothing.

Natalia smiles, leading him from the bed and to the table still dressed for sleep. She pushes him into a chair, fingers combing through the mess the cowl has made of his hair after. She studies him even as she soothes, pressing here and there against his scalp to chase away the headache.

"Something more than children is bothering you," she observes as she releases him, pulling down two glasses and a bottle from her meager pantry. The vodka is...borrowed, and Natalia unrepentant as she pours. What use is there in being a spy if she can't enjoy the perks, after all.

"C'mere?" he says in lieu of an answer, voice quiet, catching Natasha's wrist, intent on pulling her into his lap. There are few things in this world that he enjoys more than the easy way she touches him, as though through her fingers alone she might take away some of his burden, and in the relative private of her home, he sees no reason why they need the distance of two separate chairs.

Natalia laughs in surprise, just able to catch the neck of the bottle before she's pulled away. She falls into his lap with an easy grace, the two glasses forgotten as Natalia takes a swallow straight from the bottle. "You could have spared me the cleanup," she says, pressing lips burnt pleasantly warm to his mouth.

He sighs against her mouth, the kiss he returns imploring, but not particularly heated. That he wants to take his time before the conversation inevitably loops back to her earlier observation is transparent, but he hopes the distraction will spare him her judgment, even if it is undoubtedly earned by this point. If he hadn't taken so long to air his grievances, kept burying them in a place where they don't bother anyone, is half the reason he's so wound up tonight to begin with. Natasha isn't the source of any of his troubles, but she's the only person he trusts to listen, should he ever get around to actually talking.

"I'll put the glasses away," he promises, breath warm against her skin, if only because he can't be bothered to pull away until he needs to, reaching to take from her the bottle so that he, too, can take a drink. "Hell, I'll even make the bed in the morning."

Natalia pulls away to allow him the drink he so sorely needs. There's a drop of vodka at the corner of his mouth, still pink from kissing. The flush on his cheeks has deepened, the hair she'd smoothed newly wild from her fingers, and Natalia finds herself shaking her head.

"Perhaps I'm no great fan of neatness after all," she says, reclaiming the bottle. He's delaying, she knows, but she trusts that he will tell her eventually. If not tonight, then soon. Given James' habit of bottling that which troubles him most, he'll explode long before she does.

Bucky licks at his lips, all but willing himself to relax as he lets an arm circle around her waist, his hand coming to a rest on Natasha's thigh.

"Or maybe I just wear messy well," he suggests, teasing, and to his relief, it doesn't feel forced.

"You wear everything well," Natalia says with a halfhearted roll of her eyes, even as her arms mirror his own, sliding around his neck comfortable and loose. "It's one of your most irritating qualities."

"Or charming," he suggests as an alternative, brows inching higher. "Could I sell you on charming?"

"You could sell me on most anything," Natalia laughs, "and you are only proving my point." She angles the bottle over his shoulder, tipping a larger swallow into her mouth. It's not enough to inebriate her, not by a long shot, but it serves to warm her head to toe.

"Can you charm this bottle back?"

"I could steal it," he offers, though he makes no move to do so, instead gently tipping her chin upwards with the bridge of his nose, and ducking his head to place a kiss on her throat. They've sparred and trained and fought often, but he still has moves she hasn't seen (a boast she can undoubtedly lay claim to as well, if in reverse). Acquisition rarely played a part in his missions as of late, but as a child living on an army base, he was known for getting whatever it is the boys needed, rarely through honest means.

"That counts, right?"

"Certainly not," insists Natalia, though she knows perfectly well he may yet, and with a smile so handsome many women would thank him for the offense.

She angles her head, freely granting him access to the vulnerable skin of her throat, content for now to enjoy his good humor. "Or do you think me so easy?"

"Never," he says with a sudden grin, his teeth a flash of white in the darkness. There is precious little about Natalia that he doesn't love, and that she can take as much as she gives is among his favorite of her qualities. She's a formidable woman in spirit as well as body, and as beautiful as she is, he wouldn't be half so interested were it not for her ability to hold her own when trouble comes knocking. He's too far gone to make it as a civilian with any success, something that his presence here tonight can surely attest to. What would he possibly do with someone whose greatest tragedy in life was spilled milk? What could he ever have in common?

Natasha understands him in ways no one could ever imagine; it's not something he takes for granted, and even if he remains reluctant to share what brought him to her window so late.

"You're perfectly difficult."

"You're making another attempt to charm it away," says Natalia, but she looks pleased all the same. She knows too well the reasons why they fit together, and while she could mourn the cruel turns that fashioned them a match, with James warm beneath her she prefers to count them lucky. They found each other not once, but twice, when some find no one at all.

"But I will concede," she adds, tracing a finger along the curve of his cheek. "I like to see you smile."

He turns to drop a kiss into her palm before her hand moves too far.

"Sometimes I think you're the only person who sees it," he says, thinking aloud more so than confessing. If considering only the past few weeks, it isn't much of an exaggeration, but then, he hasn't been under such constant surveillance in a year.

"Sometimes," says Natalia, her own smile losing some of its ease, though it holds, "I think you're right. The smile you show your ITF is decidedly more wicked, but..." She traces along his lips now, her fingers swift lest his tongue dart out and distract her. "I see it, here and there. When your young friend manages to do something sensible, and," she adds, more carefully now, "with Steve."

"Yeah," he agrees, tone turning almost absent. His gaze stays locked on her, though it drops down to her fingers for about a moment before flicking back up to her face. "Sounds... about right."

"James," breathes Natalia, too throaty to be a sigh, but only just. Placing the bottle on the table, she lifts her hands to his face, fingers loosely framing his too tight jaw. "Will you tell me?" she asks, thumbs sweeping over his skin, rubbing at the creases the cowl has left behind. "You've been so troubled, surely I could not make it worse."

"It's just petty crap," he says, allowing himself to properly sink into the chair. His head tips against the backrest, digging into the base of his skull, but he doesn't move, otherwise comfortable for having Natasha in his lap. If he's going to talk -- and given where 'Tasha put the bottle, he accepts it as a sign he should at least give her something -- he won't make a big deal out of it.

"Jason's family reunion. Being followed all the time. Stark. Steve's... preferred method of dealing with Stark. This place screwing with Lucy, again."

He sighs. "I've been here a year."

Natalia's smile is almost sad. "It is a long time to be in one place. Unusual for our kind." In the weeks following their reunion, she'd been quick to learn what soothed him, though it'd taken her a month to trust the effect was real. Such were their lives at home, and at times, it feels no better here, the dangers fewer, but the reasons a man might posture just as great.

Natalia returns her fingers to his hair, stroking it, as much to comfort herself as the man beneath her. "We will take them in turns. I can...dissuade the children, if you like." That much is easy. "And Tony..." The expression she wears then is decidedly sad, and takes longer than Natalia would like to remove. "I do not believe that man can be forced to see reason in any universe. I only hope that it will come to him in his own time. And Steve..." Natalia is not ashamed to admit, at times that man is her last hope, James' loyalty to him immovable. If there is tension there, she could almost despair for how to mend it. "Tell me, what does he do?"

"No, I'll take care of the kids," Bucky's quick to say, shaking his head in a movement so sharp he may not have been relaxed at all. The matter's so trivial that he doesn't feel the need for outside assistance, barely sees the need to voice the concern; he spent decades flying under the radar. He can deal with Jason and Damian.

"But Steve... He's waiting. And I understand his reasons, but that sure as hell doesn't mean I like them."

Natalia has fought with Steve for many years now, never more closely than when she joined his secret team. She knows him well, knows that he is the best kind of leader, both level-headed and without fear. He does not balk from danger, neither does he court it. He waits. He plans. He thinks things through, and he protects his own. In battle, she would follow him anywhere. But here, in matters between close friends, particularly those with as long and complicated a history as he and James, Natalia finds herself uncertain how to proceed. It is not a feeling she enjoys, and not for the first time, she finds herself wishing that Sharon were here.

"Waiting on Tony?" she asks, short nails skimming along James' scalp. "To become the man we used to know? Or something else?"

"To screw up," says Bucky, coughing out a quiet, disbelieving laugh. "Stark's face needs a good meeting with someone's fist, but Steve's patience draws from a deeper well than mine."

Natalia cannot help the sigh that escapes her. "Why do men," she says, still carding her fingers through his hair, "always see that as the first resort, rather than the last? And when Steve is done waiting, what then? What sin of Tony's will be too great to ignore?"

"I'm Steve's Achilles' heel."

The statement's delivered with no lack of awareness; he'd never say as much to the man himself, perhaps, not without due cause, but that doesn't make it any less true. The quickest way to manipulate Steve, to anger him, is to make a slight against Bucky in some way. Of course, the same holds true in reverse.

"Though frankly, if Stark's going to make noise about me, I'd rather just take care of it myself."

It's true that James is many things to Steve, not least of which is beloved to the point of contingency, but she does not like to think of him in those terms. Neither is Natalia much compelled to think of anything at the moment that does not involve seeking out Stark and terrorizing him to the limits of his sanity.

"What noise?"

"The... How'd Steve put it," says Bucky, annoyance creeping into his tone, and he eyes the bottle on the table, suddenly thinking he'd rather just take another swallow of vodka and get the both of them back into bed than continue further with this conversation, but knowing he's said too much to back out now.

"'Wrong quip.' There's no noise -- not yet, not that I know of -- but that's what he's waiting for. Given that I doubt I so much as register on Stark's radar, though, my guess is that Steve'll be waiting a while."

"You are telling me," says Natalia with a deep breath, "that Steve is waiting for an excuse to punch Tony, and that he means it to be you."

Laying her head against his shoulder, she breathes out a curse that suggest acts of great physical improbability, the depth of which would be lost in translation back to English. "I take it back. A fistfight would do them both some good."

Bucky smiles, just a bit; Natasha's creativity is just one of the many things he loves about her, but in this instance, it's easily his favorite. There's some comfort, though, in knowing he's not alone in thinking that Steve and Stark ought to just go a round, and be done with it, that he's not speaking out of bias alone.

"My thoughts exactly."

Despite her better efforts, Natalia feels some of her ire drain away at that hint of a smile. "Perhaps we will lock them in a room together," she says. "For the good of all. They will...probably survive it."

"Yeah," Bucky replies on the edge of laugh, head tipping back to look up at the dark ceiling. "Maybe if Stark suits up first."

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