Into The Red

.Echos of the past.

Chapter 9.

The cold steel walls of the Red Room never seemed to relent. It was always the same—quiet, sterile, suffocating. But tonight, there was a subtle shift in the air. It felt as though the silence itself was waiting, stretched taut with something unspoken. Something that neither Natasha nor Bucky could ignore for much longer.

It had been weeks since their last fight. Weeks since that heavy tension between them had felt like it might snap. Yet here they were, standing on opposite sides of the room, in that same charged quiet. Training had become more frequent, and the instructors had started to pair them together again—closer, tighter, with each mission coming at them like a storm. The only thing that had changed was the space between them, the one that neither dared close... until now.

Natasha's footsteps echoed in the long, empty hallways of the complex. She didn't even know where she was going—just that she needed something. Something more than the repetition of violence, the cold distance from the other agents. Tonight, the quiet felt louder than usual, too loud for her own thoughts.

She pushed open the door to Bucky's room without knocking, finding him at the small desk, papers strewn about and a half-empty glass of something dark on the table. He didn't look up when she entered, his eyes fixed on the documents in front of him.

"You got a moment?" she asked, her voice sharp but without a trace of the usual edge. It was an invitation, not a command.

Bucky looked up slowly, his eyes dark, unreadable. There was nothing welcoming in his expression, nothing soft. He simply nodded once, like he didn't really care either way. "I always have a moment."

There was something different about him tonight. He was tired in a way that didn't show on his face but crept into the way his shoulders slumped, the weariness in the way he looked at her—like he hadn't seen anyone in years, like she was just another part of the Red Room's endless cycle. Natasha stepped into the room fully, closing the door behind her.

"I wasn't sure if you'd still be here," she muttered. "Thought you'd be off somewhere on a mission."

"Not tonight." His tone was clipped, but he didn't seem bothered by her presence. Still, the space between them felt wide, too wide, and Natasha couldn't put her finger on why.

She leaned against the wall, folding her arms as she looked around the room. "You've been quiet lately."

Bucky's gaze flickered briefly to her before returning to the table. "That's what happens when you don't have much to say."

The words cut through the stillness like a blade, but Natasha didn't flinch. She'd grown used to the way he spoke—sharp, guarded. It was part of who he was now, and she wasn't foolish enough to think it would change.

"You ever think about what you're doing here?" Natasha asked, her voice quieter now. The question was a thread, one she wasn't sure she even wanted the answer to. She knew better than to ask such things, knew better than to dig into the pasts they were both running from. But there was something about Bucky tonight—something that made the silence between them more oppressive than usual.

He didn't respond immediately, his eyes narrowing just slightly. "What do you mean?"

"Here," she repeated. "This place. This life. Are you really okay with it? The missions, the killing... all of it."

Bucky set down his glass and leaned back in his chair, a dry laugh escaping his lips. "Not sure 'okay' is the word I'd use. But it's what we do, right? It's what we're trained for."

"Yeah," Natasha said, nodding once, her eyes distant. She could feel the weight of her own past pressing against her chest. "I know that feeling. It's like... it's the only thing you can do. It's the only thing they ever let you be good at."

She glanced over at him, catching the fleeting look in his eyes before he masked it again. There was something raw in his gaze, a reminder that they were more alike than either of them wanted to admit. A shared history, a shared pain that neither of them had ever truly escaped.

Bucky exhaled slowly, leaning forward. "I don't talk about it much," he said, his voice lower now, quieter than before. "But there was a time... I thought there might be more than just this. Thought maybe I could... escape it. But then they found me. They always find you."

There was a weight to his words, a heaviness that Natasha could feel deep in her bones. She understood what he was saying more than she ever cared to admit. They were both products of a system designed to break them down, mold them into weapons, and strip away anything that made them human.

She stepped forward, her fingers brushing the edge of his desk. "I don't think they ever let anyone escape."

Bucky's gaze flickered to her hand but didn't move. "Maybe not. But it's not just about escaping, is it? It's about trying to find something... something worth fighting for. Even if you're not sure what it is."

The words lingered between them, charged with an intensity that neither could fully place. Natasha didn't say anything. She didn't need to. The quiet was deafening, but this time, it didn't feel like a wall between them. It felt... shared.

"Tell me about your family," Natasha said suddenly, the question coming from somewhere deep inside her that she hadn't known existed.

Bucky's lips tightened, his expression hardening. "What do you want to know?"

"Just... what they were like. Before all of this. Before everything."

Bucky was silent for a moment, and for the first time since they'd started talking, she saw the ghost of something in his eyes. A shadow of the man he had been before the Winter Soldier took over. His hands clenched on the desk, his knuckles turning white.

"They were good people," he muttered, almost as if he were speaking to himself. "I was... I was a kid. Just like anyone else. Before they..." He stopped, exhaling sharply. "Doesn't matter. It's all gone now."

Natasha nodded slowly. She didn't need to ask for more. She could see the pain in his eyes, the memories that would never fade, no matter how much he wanted them to.

"I had a family too," Natasha said quietly, her voice almost a whisper now. "But they were gone long before they took me. By the time I was old enough to remember, I was already a soldier. There was no one left to fight for."

She didn't say more. There was nothing else to say.

They stood in silence, two broken pieces of a puzzle that had never fit. Neither one of them spoke of what they both knew was there—the shared ache of a past that couldn't be outrun. They didn't need to say the words. The silence between them, heavy and suffocating, told them everything.

After a moment, Natasha turned toward the door. "I'll see you tomorrow, Barnes."

Bucky didn't reply. He didn't have to. The unspoken bond between them, forged in shared trauma and silence, was all they needed. Tomorrow would come. And when it did, neither of them would be the same.