widows_kiss | Appointments Post

"He will be." Bucky replies, which is the truth, if only a portion of it. He doesn't know what else to tell her. Steve might not be the boy scout everyone seems to think he is, but genocide isn't really the kind of thing you shrug off. Not for someone like Steve, and not for someone like Natasha either.

He doesn't stop playing with her hair. "You gonna tell me what's goin' on in that head of yours?"

It's a sincere question. If she doesn't want to talk yet, they won't.

She can feel his eyes watching her and she turns her head slightly until she can stare up at him above her, her expression steady and solemn. "Are you sure you want to know what's going on in there?" she countered instead of answering.

"That's what I'm here for." He replies, just as steady. "You know, besides looking pretty and giving you a boost when we need to get your bra down from the ceiling fan."

She laughs at that, soft and amused, her eyes closing as she turns her head into his light touch, soaking up the reassurance of it. "You're here for far more than that. Although yes, those are a nice added bonus."

It's good to hear her laugh. Genuinely, even. And more than that, it's good to have her solid weight against him, safe and whole in the most essential ways. He knows she can look after herself. It's just a nice thing to be reminded of.

"The foot-warming services are implied." He adds, grinning at her. "Talk, Romanoff. Or am I gonna have to interrogate you?"

She gave a quiet snort at that, lips quirking faintly. "It wouldn't do you any good. You'd never make it thirty seconds," she countered, opening one eye to peer up at him. "There's nothing to talk about. Steve told you the details. We were sent there to do a job. We saw an opportunity. We took it. End of story."

She was totally lying through her teeth, but it looked damned convincing.

"That's true, but it really hurts my ego, just so you know." He tugs gently at one of her curls. "If there was nothing to talk about, you wouldn't be trying so damn hard to avoid it."

"I'll be sure to stroke it some later to make up for the bruising," she countered wryly, batting lightly at his hand when he tugged on her curls. "Am I avoiding it? Hmm. Maybe you're getting better at this interrogation thing after all."

She fell silent for a moment, a long moment, staring off across the room at nothing in particular. When she spoke again, her voice was quiet, subdued.

"We did what we thought we needed to do. We chose the best option out of the ones given to us."

Bucky chuckles, though admittedly that distracts him for just a second. "I've got a good teacher. She lets me cheat."

He lets her have her moment, and he's silent after it too. If he's honest, he doesn't know how he feels about this. Logically, it's sound. It was the best choice they could have made. But when he thinks about a bomb, about that much death, it's just cultist bodies in the place of countless others. It's bombed out buildings and pits full of decay, and the smell of flesh burning. It's not the same at all, but that's his only frame of reference. He doesn't know how any of them made this choice because he's not sure he'd have been strong enough to do it.

There's a moment of silence again after she speaks, before he asks, "Are you telling me, or telling yourself?"

Another long pause and she blinks, her fingers curling into the fabric of his pants.

"I don't know."

He puts his hand over hers, squeezing gently.

"I dunno what to tell you, sweetheart. You're right. You picked the best option you had."

"That doesn't really make it better, does it?" she asked quietly, turning her hand so she could thread her fingers with his.

"No. No, it doesn't."

"I didn't miss this part of it," she confesses after a moment of silence that falls between them again. "Working with SHIELD, for SHIELD... I didn't have to make decisions like this. They weren't about that. I thought I'd left all this behind me. I'd hoped I had."

"I wish you could have, sweetheart." He really, really does, for all wishing will get them.

"You're still not the person you used to be." He's silent for a moment before eh adds. "And you're not a monster, either. You made a choice. A lot of you made the same one. I don't know that there's a moral high ground here. Sometimes it's just... Our people or their people."

"Isn't that what it always comes down to?" She gives a soft laugh at that, but it sounds tired. Not at all herself. She lets her eyes close a moment, too many memories drifting too close to the surface. Faces she doesn't want to see. Then she pushes herself upright abruptly, scratching Lucky's head apologetically for unsettling his position.

"What's done is done. Hopefully there's something good in that bag."

A change of subject, because she's not going to argue with him. Not about this. There's too much he doesn't know and too much she can't tell him. Doesn't want to tell him. He doesn't fully know the person she used to be. Not yet.

Bucky can't say that he knows anymore. It feels like that here, and it used to sometimes, back home. He'd thought things were simple, fighting Hydra with the Commandos, but now he wonders if some of those people didn't have stories like hers, didn't have a choice. Maybe she's right.

Lucky isn't the only one startled when she sits up, but Bucky automatically lifts his hand to let her re-settle. It's not a smooth change of topic, as far as Natasha goes, but he lets her have it. As much as he might have heard, that part of her life isn't a part of his.

"I guess we'll see. You want something to eat?"

"No." She shakes her head, because with the way her stomach feels right now, food's probably a bad idea. Not that alcohol's a great one, but she's not worried about her stomach's reaction to that. "Just a drink. Or two. Maybe it'll help me sleep."

"Cups or bottles?" Bucky teases, but he kisses her temple and gets up to fetch a couple of glasses.

"We'll start with cups and go from there, how's that?" she shoots back, her lips quirking wryly as she watches him get up, cross to the kitchen to get some glasses. "Thank you, Bucky."

He glances over his shoulder and gives her a wry grin. "You're still making the face."

She stuck her tongue out at him, clinging gratefully to this sense of familiar, to lighthearted teasing. Because he may not know everything about her, but he still has the instincts to know exactly what she needs.

"You're imagining things."

"It's a cute face. I think it's my favorite."

Bucky sets two glasses on the counter top. "Pick your poison. I brought over some whiskey, figured you had five kinds of vodka already."

Edited 2013-10-05 14:36 (UTC)

"Whiskey works for now," she answered, getting up and joining him, bringing the bottle with her. She didn't want vodka. Not tonight. It brought old memories too close to the surface.

"There is no face."

Bucky nudges the glasses in her direction.

"Whatever you say, sweetheart."

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