Haunted By Him

Chapter Fifteen

America is a completely different experience than Russia, the Winter Soldier finds. Everything is new and all the buildings are designed differently. It seems to him as though there is no history here at all.

But there’s no Hydra here either, and so he doesn’t care. He’s safe, at least for now, and his Bucky impression is coming along nicely enough to pay off his end of his and Natalia’s bargain, so he’s beginning to think that life is really looking up.

“Rogers lives in DC,” Natalia says and she shows him on a map as they walk out of the airplane and into LAX. “It’s all the way across this country, so we’ll take another plane.”

During the several hour layover they have to wait, Natalia finds a hairdresser nearby and she drags him out of the airport and takes him there.

“We’ll get you new clothes,” she says. “Dress you up.”

He wonders if it’s hurting her, molding the Winter Soldier into someone she watched die. Someone she still loves. If it is, she hides it well.

He’s never been so pampered as he is at the barber shop, where the hairdresser washes his hair and shaves his face for him. It’s a new experience and he’s a little thrown, but Natalia’s just a few feet away, watching to make sure everything goes according to plan, and when he grins delightedly at her, she smiles a little back weakly. He then remembers that he has Bucky Barnes’ face and none of his light and he stops smiling.

Natalia shows the hairdresser a photo of Bucky with his clean cut, short hairstyle and asks him to do the same on the Winter Soldier. He watches in the mirror as more of Barnes’ face appears in his, especially now that his face is clean and his hair is cropped. When the hairdresser is finished, he runs his hand through it and stares.

My birthday is March tenth, he thinks. I was born in New York. I’m Bucky Barnes.

“What do you think?” Natalia asks, coming up behind him, and her voice is hollow. He glances down at her in the mirror. It is hurting her, he realizes. She’s in a lot of pain.

“It’s fine,” he says.

“It looks better on you,” she replies and pays the dresser and as they walk out, she keeps talking. “We have to find you new clothes now,” she adds. “A nicer pair of gloves. You’ll have to come up with another story about why you can’t show Rogers your hands.”

“Do you want to do it now?” The Soldier asks, looking down at her, concerned. “I mean, we can take a break. If you want to.”

“Do you want to?” She asks, her voice empty.

“No,” he says miserably and she glares up at him.

“Then why would you think I want to?” Natalia demands. “I’m fine. We keep going.”

And keep going they do. She takes him to a suit shop and they tailor him a pretty suit in grey and he looks at himself in the mirror and thinks he’s never seen himself so handsome.

“We could get you a dress, you know,” he mentions to her as the tailor takes pins out of his sleeves. “You could get your hair cut, too.”

“I’m not made out of money, Barnes,” she says and he frowns at her.

“Are you sure?” He says. “It might make you happy.” She looks at the ground.

“And why would that matter?” She asks. The tailor turns him and he has to look at Natalia over his shoulder.

“You deserve to be happy,” he says and Natalia just stares at him.

They buy him a few more outfits off of hangers and he puts them into a carry on bag for the next plane they’re taking and on the way out of the store, while the manager’s back is turned, he slips a dress into the bag as well and runs out before he can trip the alarms.

An hour or so later, as they’re boarding the plane, Natalia says, “that’s a terrible habit you have.”

“What do you mean?” He says.

“You’re a pathological thief,” she says, but she says it to him with a teasing smile thrown over her shoulder. “And that dress probably wasn’t even my size.”

“It’s the thought that counts,” he tells her.

“You’re a romantic,” she laughs, but he watches her sober quickly. “He was, too.”