To Go Unseen (A Natasha Romanoff Story)

12 [a hotel somewhere in Nebraska]

Later that evening, Natalia didn’t join Bucky in bed, even though it had been such a long day and he knew she was exhausted and he begged her just to lay down. She was sitting in a chair across the room from him, the glow from her computer lighting up her face, and Bucky stood in his boxers and bruises next to the still-made bed because he didn’t want to sleep without her.

“You need to rest,” he said, for the millionth time that night, and his voice was growing weary. He was growing weary. He sat down on top of the sheets and turned to look at her. She didn’t look up and Bucky didn’t know what to do.

“I will,” she said. “I’m busy.”

She was working. Digging up info on Belova while they had some time. She’d already told him this, as he’d begged her to put it up. It’s important, she had insisted, as though she thought he might have forgotten that earlier that morning, he’d been drugged and tied to a post and though he might have forgotten that Steve’s life had been threatened and had forgotten that this was their life and it was important.

But it was late. He was tired, and becoming irritable and frustrated and more and more exhausted and it  was important, but he didn’t want it then.

After all, it had been a hard day. He knew it was important, but he just… Well, to be honest, there was nothing he could imagine that could be more comforting than being held by her, and just being touched. But he didn’t know how to say that and he didn’t want to sound pitiful because he already had so little pride to begin with, so instead, he sat there, his eyes growing heavier, his shoulders slumping further, and a sadness growing in his chest that told him that maybe, it would have been best if they hadn’t come.

And Bucky thought, in his tiredness, of something more restful than the life they were living. That maybe there could be something happier, one day. He didn’t like the threatening, he didn’t like the momentum, he didn’t like the fear. It had been his life for years and now, well, to be honest, what Natasha had repeated back to him about what Yelena Belova had said didn’t seem so horrible. American dream, she had said. Marry the Winter Soldier and dance off into the sunset. That couldn’t be so awful, now could it?

It wasn’t the first time he’d thought of this idea presented by Belova, of normalcy and happiness and daring to even think of a dream he’d had years and years and years ago, back when it seemed plausible. Something normal. A family. Somewhere surrounded by love. A nice home. Being a husband. It seemed so ideal, so picturesque, as though he could move on from the hell that had become him.

And he wanted to be with Natalia. For as long as they lived. He wanted something so solid as to marry her. And he hadn’t exactly said anything, but he knew that it wouldn’t happen. He almost sighed out loud with the heaviness in his heart. It wasn’t something she wanted.

At 3:20 AM, Bucky couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer and he fell into sleep alone.

At 4:50 AM, he became noticeably fitful, and Natasha, still awake under the lamp across the room, looked up from the information she was sifting through to see him stirring. She stood up and set her laptop down and hurried to him on the bed. He was mumbling, and moving, unsettled, until she sat next to him and put her hands on his skin, gingerly avoiding the black and purple colors of pain across his bare chest. By morning, they would be almost gone, but it hurt her to see them regardless. She leaned down and kissed his hair and rubbed her thumb against his flesh until his goosebumps disappeared and he stopped twisting.

“Come on,” she whispered to him. “Come on, shh.”

When James was alright and when he had quieted down, Natasha stood up again and went back to her work.

She hadn’t been able to find much. This Yelena Belova was good, and Natasha was afraid that she didn’t have the materials to conduct the sort of real, thorough search she wanted to. But she had found something, or at least hints of something.

There were photos online and in the databases she searched. Most of what she came up with were blurry or corrupted, as though Belova had searched first and cleansed the world of her footprint. Natasha hated the way it reminded her of herself, but she got an image or two. A shot with a recognizable face in the corner, and the photo labeled only, ‘Moscow’. An tourist picture with a head of blonde curls in the distant background from 2005. She found scraps like these but rarely anything truly helpful. After all, she didn’t need Yelena Belova’s portraiture.

Then, finally, after hours of searching, she found something real. A photocopy of a scratched out birth certificate, but through the blacked-out portions she could almost read a name in smudged Russian, and a year. Yelena Belova. Born in Russia in 1993. Natasha would have celebrated, if she had let herself.

But before she could continue, almost without warning, James began to scream in his sleep. Natasha jumped and her laptop fell and James was thrashing and yelling, as though a switch had been flipped. Natasha reacted as fast as she could and she ran to his side, narrowly avoiding his swinging metal fist.

“Ah!!” James screamed and Natasha, scared now that they’d be kicked out of the hotel and that James could be hurting himself, grabbed his flesh hand, the one that couldn’t use super strength to pull away from her, and tried as best as she could to hold him down.

“James!” She cried and reached up to grab his shoulder. “James Barnes, wake up!”

It took a frighteningly long time to rouse him, but even once Natasha had James awake, his panic didn’t subside.

We’ll have to leave the hotel, she thought. They’re going to kick us out, as fast as they can get up here.

Her search for Belova was almost entirely derailed. She’d hoped for more, but that was all the work she’d be able to do that night and she knew it now.

She was kneeling on the bed next to James and he was sitting up, his face buried in her neck, his arms tight around her, even though her bruised ribs protested, shaking violently. He was breathing heavily and he’d keep screaming until she squeezed him and put a hand on his head.

There was no question about his panic, because she knew it was nightmares of torture and murder, although it had been a long time since he’d had a night as bad as this. It was the sudden stress, she thought. The kidnapping by Yelena, the threats, the beating. It wasn’t supposed to happen. There should have been a way out. They shouldn’t have come.

“Oh, my darling,” Natasha breathed into his hair as he clung to her. “I only wanted to make you happy.”

As Natasha had expected, in minutes, there was rapping on the door and yelling and James held her tighter, consumed with fear, until she calmed him enough to let him go for just a minute before the security guards threw the door down.

They must have been an awful sight, all tired eyes and sweat, and James was undeniably recognizable the instant the guards saw the metal climbing into his flesh.

Out. On the street outside, with their bags at their feet and a blanket around James’ bare shoulders and a threat to call the police if they didn’t leave. Natasha thought she’d never been so tired. Not in a long time.