Winter Widow One Shots

The Geography of Him

*This one is especially for those who ahve read cold front. Well worth the read if you haven't.

Fair warning there is mention of self harm as well as many injuries.*

"Tell me about this one?" she asked softly, her thumb brushing over a faint, uneven line hardly distinguishable from the labyrinth of horrid scars spanning his shoulder.

He blinked, pulling back slightly to look down at her where she lay curled against his ribs, her hair a splash of crimson against his chest. "Why?"

"I know your new scars. The bullet in your shoulder. The knife that slashed across your back in Turkey. Everyone I've seen or been told the stories." She replied. "But your old ones, before the Red Room, I don't. You couldn't remember them back then."

"Knife wound," he said. "One of my first missions as the Winter Soldier. Target got too close, wedged it between my arm and left me fighting with dead weight."

"You still won," she whispered, a faint, proud smile touching her lips. Though he wasn't sure it was a good thing he'd won. He didn't know the reason he'd been sent after that man, but had he really deserved to die?

Her fingers didn't pull away, instead, they trailed down the muscle of his bare chest, slow and deliberate. "And this?"

Her fingertips came to a stop over a puckered, star-shaped crater near the side of his stomach. Bucky stiffened subtly under her hand before relaxing, wrapping his flesh arm tighter around her waist to pull her flush against his side.

"First bullet I ever took." He looked down at it, remembering the look on Mr. Yesterday's face when he'd realized who he was. "The first time someone recognized me. They gave me the mask shortly after. Couldn't take the risk any more. 

"The target?" Natasha asked, eyes searching his face, unblinking.

"Mr. Yesterday. I never knew his name. He recruited me into the SEO program. Before Cap. Before I really was a part of the War. They wanted to train me to be a spy. Things went south. I ended up back at Camp Leigh. But I guess it happened in the end."

"Were you close?"

"No." Bucky shook his head. "But he knew my face, knew my story, knew that I shouldn't be there, or alive. And that was enough to pull me out of the fog, enough to ask questions. Until they took that away for good."

Natasha didn't offer empty pity. Instead, she shifted closer, sliding her leg over his, pressing the full length of her body against his warmth. Her fingers drifted lower, tracing two identical, faded indentations on each of his thighs.

"That's what these two are from, isn't it?"

"Rostova," he muttered, his thumb stroking her bare shoulder in a rhythmic, unconscious soothing motion. "I learned too much. I saw the files... read about a soldier, a man who was so broken surely anything they were doing for him was only prolonging the inevitable."

He began listing the injuries off from memory, his voice turning hollow, almost clinical, as if describing a stranger. Because when he'd first read them he'd believed them to be. "Broken back, fractured clavicle, femur, ulna, tibia, knee, and skull. Internal bleeding, punctured lung, ruptured spleen, intense frostbite, hypothermia... left arm missing just below the elbow. What remained was too shattered to recover. Replaced with a bionic arm. A man that by all logical means, should have died."

"This was after..." Natalia paused, hesitant. "After Imogene's death, wasn't it?"

He nodded, pressing his lips briefly to her crown. "We found her in a Hydra base. She told me who I was. Tried to warn me. I didn't believe her—couldn't, really. And it broke her. She made a choice that day... I didn't pull the trigger. But I might as well have."

He stopped, his eyes drifting into the dark corners of the bedroom. The silence stretched between them, heavy and suffocating, until Natasha rested her palm over his heart, feeling its steady, heavy beat.

"It was too late by the time I realized," he continued quietly. "I escaped, but the base was deep in the Russian tundra. There was nowhere to go. And Rostova was a sniper, trained in the Great War. I didn't stand a chance. When I kept crawling through the snow after the first shot, she shot again... I lost the battle. I went back under. And when I woke up, they'd completed their copy of the protein inhibitor. I told myself I wouldn't forget. That I couldn't forget. And then I lost everything... until you. And then they did it again. And again..."

Natasha shifted, wrapping both arms around his neck and pressing her face into the curve of his throat, letting him feel the solid, undeniable weight of her presence.

"I'm sorry," she whispered into his skin, her breath hot against his collarbone. "I shouldn't be asking..."

Bucky shifted his weight, turning his head to press his cheek against hers, inhaling the scent of her hair. "I don't mind. Not with you."

She pulled back just an inch, her dark eyes searching his. "You haven't spoken much about her."

A faint, bittersweet ghost of a smile touched his lips. "She was brilliant. Troubled, but brilliant."

"You're attracted to troubled, aren't you?" she mused softly, a faint touch of teasing humor bleeding back into her voice to lift the air.

"What does that say about you?"

Natasha rolled her eyes, but her hands stayed firmly planted against his chest. "I know my history, Barnes. I don't have to pretend."

"No," he murmured, tilting his chin to press a slow, lingering kiss to her temple. "No, you don't."

"And neither do you," she whispered back, her cheek resting over his heart once more.

Her hand slid down to his right wrist, her thumb gently sweeping across a thin, silver line running parallel to his vein. The scar was clean, deliberate, and entirely different from the jagged shrapnel and bullet wounds covering the rest of his body.

He froze. In his mind, he was suddenly back in 1953, holding the cold steel scalpel, begging for death, staring into the unyielding eyes of Rostova.

"James?" she asked softly. She didn't pull away; she simply tilted her head, watching the tension lock his jaw.

"1953." He said quietly. "Before they sent me after Imogene, before they even knew much about her father's work. Memories started to return. I saw the files. I fought back, trying to escape.

"They cut you? There?" She raised a brow, her forehead creasing with genuine confusion.

Bucky looked away, a deep, painful shame washing over his features. "Not them..."

The bedroom fell dead silent. He couldn't bring his eyes back to hers, his throat tightening until he could barely draw air.

"I found a scalpel in the lab," he choked out, the admission tearing through him like shattered glass. "I... I didn't want to be their weapon anymore. I couldn't do it again. And I knew I couldn't escape. So I did what I had to..."

Natasha's hand didn't flinch. Slowly, deliberately, her fingers lifted from his scarred wrist and cupped his jaw, forcing him to look down at her. Her gaze wasn't filled with pity or shock; it was filled with an understanding only someone who had walked through the same hell could offer.

"You don't ever need to be ashamed," she said, her voice steady, anchoring him. "Not with me."

Bucky leaned his face heavy into her palm, closing his eyes. "I begged my handler to just shoot me... It wasn't even the first time. Or the last."

Natasha pulled herself up slightly, pressing her forehead against his, her hands framing both sides of his face. "I'm sorry you had to go through that alone."

Bucky opened his eyes, staring into hers from mere inches away. The lingering horror in his chest slowly gave way to the warmth of her hands on his skin.

"It led me here," he whispered, shifting his weight to press a soft, deliberate kiss to her lips. "It led me to you. I'd go through every single inch of it again if I knew you were waiting at the end of it."