I Missed You (Bucky x Reader)

~Chapter 42~

After rescuing your team at the Raft prison without being caught, not everyone decided to stick together. Scott and Clint decided to come forward so they could come to some sort of agreement and stay under house-arrest instead since the two of them had a family to come home to and being on the run with you and Steve wasn't their best option. Wanda stuck with you for around a week before she made a deal with you and Steve: letting her go into hiding with Vision in Edinburgh as long as she didn't give out any information about your whereabouts and contacted you twice a month to make sure everyone was okay. Sam was the only one who decided to stay with you since nothing was holding him back.

Now, it's already been a month since you rescued the team, and being on the run for this long was harder than you ever expected. So, your admiration for Bucky for being able to stay hidden for two years only grew.
You had to leave the place you were staying in every three or four days because- well, more than half of the world was looking for you, and you couldn't take your chances of being caught by staying too long in one place.

~•~

After double checking nobody was seeing you enter the building, you unlock the door and enter the main lobby.
You had just gone buying some essential groceries at a small 24h supermarket at 5 in the morning while Steve and Sam went out on a run. Even though you were hiding from the government, you still tried to live your life as normally as you could.
You had been staying for the last two days in a town in deep Romania, where you made sure the news of you being chased by the government didn't arrive.

After finishing walking up the staircase, you're about to grab the keys to unlock the small apartment's door but you stop abruptly when you see the door partly open. This immediately sends blaring alarms to your brain and without hesitation you grab the small gun you were hiding in your boot. Steve and Sam wouldn't be so careless by leaving the door open and they weren't even supposed to be back from their run yet, so something was definitely wrong. Your heart keeps beating faster as you open the door fully and step inside the apartment, taking quiet and small steps at a time. You hear some noises coming from the kitchen, so you stick close to the wall before quickly turning around and pointing the gun to whoever was in the kitchen. Your entire demeanor changes the second your see her and the tension in your arms as you hold the gun up relaxes before you slowly bring the gun down.

"Nat?" you ask, shocked. "What are you doing here?"

You slowly approach her as she pours herself a drink.

"I didn't have anywhere else to go." she says as you take a seat in front of her.

"What happened to your hair?" you ask, noticing her now-blond hair.

"Comes with the undercover part of the job." she says before gulping down the vodka shot and the two of you fall into a long awkward silence. Even though she did help you escape, the two of you didn't really end on good terms, and it was taking a toll on your easy-going relationship.

"How'd you find us?" you finally ask.

"After I got out of New York before they could get to me, I went back to Russia for a while to attend some unfinished business I had over there. Once I was done, I didn't know what to do. I was lost. For the last ten years of my life I've had a home, a family, a.... a purpose. Now that it's all gone, I didn't know how to keep going, so I decided to look for you. I was able to follow some trails around Europe until they finally led me to you." Natasha explains. You open your mouth to speak but she beats you to it. "And don't worry, I erased any clues or trails anybody else could use to find you. We're safe."

"You signed the accords, you sure you can't go back and find some way to get back in?" you ask.

"I broke the accords the second I helped you escape." she smiles softly. "I'm not really on their good side anymore either." she says, and you look down, not sure of how to approach the situation. Natasha sighs. "Look, I understand if you don't want me here. I broke your trust and if you want me to leave.... that's what I'll do."