To Go Unseen (A Natasha Romanoff Story)

7 [racing on I-70 to get out of Illinois]

Bucky gripped his shoulder hard and now he had more than a few scrapes and bruises from a fight to worry about. He could heal well, that was true, but a bullet in his shoulder was something to worry about.

The pain was dizzying. He was blinking and hyperventilating and panicking.

“We have to find a hospital,” Natalia said frantically. She was gripping the wheel so tightly that her fingers were turning white. Blood was still drying on her face and in her hair. Bucky was beginning to lose consciousness.

“Uuuuugh,” he groaned. Natalia glanced over at him and her eyes widened. He looked down at himself to see blood everywhere. His shirt was soaked in it, both others and his own from the knife wound in his chest, not healing as fast as he wished it would. His shoulder was gushing.

“Try to stop the bleeding!” Natalia said and Bucky looked up at her slowly. He couldn't quite see straight.

“Um,” he said.

“Damn it!” Natalia screamed and slapped the wheel with her hands. Bucky jumped and the edges of his vision were growing black around the edges black edges he couldn’t

see her?

Vision to black vision to black in and out

until

Bucky finally lost consciousness completely and his head dropped against the back of the chair and his hand fell away from his shoulder, smearing red down the upholstery. Natalia screamed shrilly.

He woke up later in a hospital.

“Nat,” he tried to say, or rather, croaked, because his throat was raw and he felt like death all over. He saw Natalia standing above him and then the rest of the world clicked into place; white ceiling, bright lights, cold, thin sheets. He shuddered because he hated hospitals, but it hurt to do so.

“I’m here, James,” Natalia said and dropped down into a chair and he glanced down to see she was holding his metal hand in both of hers and regretted that he couldn’t feel it. He tried to cup her hands in his right, but his shoulder screamed and he gasped and dropped his hand.

“Shot,” he breathed. “Oh. Yeah.”

“It’ll be better soon,” Natalia said. “The doctors said with your serum, you’ll only need it bandaged for a little less than a week.”

“Fun,” Bucky said sardonically. He looked over at Natalia then, with shadows under her eyes and her beautiful auburn hair tied back messily behind her head. He took his left hand back from her to push a chunk of her hair back behind her ear and she reached up and took his hand again and held it to her cheek.

“Natalia,” Bucky said and slipped into whispered Russian. “Who was that. That woman.” Natalia stared at Bucky and pursed her lips and shook her head. She sighed, her shoulders rising and falling.

“I have no clue” she said.

“That stuff, about Steve,” Bucky said. “And the plane tickets…”

“I don’t think she’s bluffing,” Natalia said and she let Bucky’s hand go so she could run her hands through her hair and push it back exhaustedly. Her words were slurring just a bit like Bucky knew she did when she was tired. He wondered how long he’d been out, and if she’d slept at all. “I checked the tickets online and the site I bought them on is completely gone, like it wasn’t even there to begin with. We have no way out. We never did.”

“And Steve,” Bucky breathed.

“I can’t be sure,” Natalia said and she sat up. “But I don’t want to take my chances. I found these left inside the car a few hours ago.” Out of a bag on the ground by Natalia’s chair, she took out a handful of photos and set them on Bucky’s lap. He looked down and sifted through them and began to feel sick. They were pictures of the inside of Bucky and Natalia’s apartment.

“Oh,” Bucky gasped.

One photo had been taken from the couch, and the photographer was sitting in front of the coffee table with a few of Natalia’s books and drinking something from one of Bucky’s mugs.

Another photo was taken standing over their bed. The sheets had been mussed on one side, like the photographer had sat down.

Another photo was of the mirror in the master bedroom, completely covered over in steam as though the photographer had started the shower, and in the steam with their finger had written ‘you’re on the run now :)’ in Russian. However, the figure in the mirror through the steam was only a blur of black.

“It gets worse,” Natalia said quietly and Bucky looked over at her, horrified.

“How?” He said, but the next photo answered that question for him because he recognized the image of those broad shoulders from behind, as blurry as he may be, and that clean combed blonde hair. Bucky felt the breath leave his lungs. His mouth went dry. “No,” he said and the next image was Steve having turned just barely so his face was unmistakable, innocent and blue-eyed and completely unaware of the camera behind him, snapping blurry pictures from the street. “No.”

“I don’t want to take any chances,” Natalia breathed.

“What do we do,” Bucky said and dropped the stack of photos.

“I’ll think of something,” Natalia said after a while.

“We don’t even know who this is,” Bucky said and Natalia grit her teeth.

“I know,” she said. “But I’ll find her, James.”

“We have to warn Steve,” Bucky said. “We have to call him, tell him to get out of there.”

“What if-” Natalia started and Bucky cut her off.

“We have to tell him!” Bucky cried. “He’s in just as much danger as us!”

“James,” Natalia said. “I don’t think she wants us alerting him.”

“Screw her,” Bucky said and he was reaching for Natalia’s cell phone on the table beside them, but she grabbed his hand and stopped him. Her eyes were wide.

“She could kill him for knowing too much, James,” she said.

“How do you know?” Bucky cried and Natalia’s face went white.

“Because that’s how I’d do it,” she said quietly. “If I were her.”