A Sorta Fairytale

The Girl Had Come Undone

Natasha Romanoff was not a teacher. She'd never been an instructor and taking people under her wing was not her job. Becoming the best in the Red Room had required honing skills for competition, not cooperation, and SHIELD had never insisted on pairing her with anyone who wasn't at least comparable in terms of abilities. Usually, she'd worked with someone who had complementary talents, and each of them had done their own thing before regrouping.

The Winter Soldier was a Soviet specter, his image carefully crafted to intimidate both sides, and she'd been taught to fear him from an early age. To work with him would have been an honor in her prime. But now she wasn't one of the Widows anymore, and he wasn't a ghost. He was the tortured remains of Bucky Barnes, Western hero and martyr, and she had no idea which version of him would manifest itself once they were in the field. At first, he'd seemed to be the Soldier when she'd rescued him, but had quickly reverted back to Barnes – HYDRA wouldn't have allowed him to make jokes when describing a mission, after all.

So it was with some trepidation that Natasha waited for her partner in the briefing room. She was early, as usual, and neither Fury nor Barnes had arrived yet. An uncharacteristic nervousness was twisting her stomach and she was trying to determine the cause when the door opened. A look of surprise, and maybe relief, crossed her face before she could stop it when she saw that it was Steve.

He gave her a quick smile and shut the door behind him. "Hey."

"Are you trying to stow away on my mission, Rogers?" she teased.

The jest made him pause to look amused before seriousness took over his features. "I just wanted to talk to you ... about Bucky, before you guys left," he explained haltingly.

She patted the chair next to her invitingly, and settled back to listen. It was unusual to see him be as awkward as he was when he sat down, especially in the briefing room. This place was generally somewhere he used his Captain America voice.

"He's been doing – well, about as well as you'd expect. He gets nightmares a lot, and sometimes he wakes up and doesn't know where he is." Who hasn't, Natasha thought, but didn't interrupt. "I've had to restrain him a couple times since he got back, since he didn't recognize ... anyone." Unspoken was Steve's anguish that Barnes hadn't even known his best friend.

This time she did stop him. "We've all been through a lot, Steve. It's fairly common for people in our line of work to wake up confused, to try to walk through walls because they think it's just dense undergrowth, to forget we are safe at home, surrounded by our friends and loved ones. I know I have," she offered when Steve didn't look particularly comforted.

He nodded slowly. "I know he has to branch out from just working with me, and I'm glad it's going to be with you. You're good at helping us old soldiers figure things out," he told her with an almost-shy smile. "Bucky was pretty excited last night."

A stab of guilt went through her upon hearing both statements. She'd never felt all that helpful; more impatient than how she imagined a teacher should be. Most of her teachers as a child hadn't been gentle or patient, and look how she turned out. If Barnes was thrilled and Rogers was appreciating her instruction skills, it didn't seem like either of them knew her at all.

"I'll do my best," she told him belatedly, realizing he was looking at her with some concern.

"You always do," he responded, teasing, and she forced a smile to cover how much the sentiment meant to her. "Anyway, he should be fine while he's on the job. He's pretty focused, and good at really anything I've asked him to do on a mission. But downtime is going to be something of an issue, and I know there's a lot more of that on your kind of missions than on mine," Steve continued, back to business.