To Go Unseen (A Natasha Romanoff Story)

22 [Odessa, Ukraine]

He was fast, whoever he was, so fast that she could almost mistake him for someone she used to know and ghosts became her, flashes of frantic kisses with flirting hands, sparring so passionate it was borderline intimate and hauntingly empty brown eyes. Natasha swallowed back her own heartbreak, where she had never felt closure, and fought back against the dangerously fast masked man.

And yet she still saw the ghosts. Every move he made into her was familiar and suddenly, they were dancing in a fierce, graceful back and forth that she’d never had with anyone but him. Hit, dodge, hit, dodge. It is your job to go unseen. Don’t let me catch you. Don’t let me grab you.

James Barnes.

Natasha flinched at the thought of his name, and with her hesitation, he grabbed her, snatched up her wrists like he had once before, dragged her to him like he had once before, but without the love, without the playfulness. He was fire now, fire and sharp teeth. Natasha gasped with the attack of pain inside her heart and the pain in her right wrist as his left hand squeezed and she knew without a doubt that it was him.

James had wrath in his eyes, stood up like a cardboard cut out in front of the emptiness, and Natasha felt like she was staring into the abyss as she was yanked up into his face, their noses inches apart.

“Oh,” she gasped. “Oh, James.” She watched the flimsy cover inside him waver at the sound of his own name. “James.” She said it again, deliciously English, regrettably unused. “My darling, please.”

Natasha felt James’ grip on her wrists slacken and she used that split second to tear away from him and point her hand to his chest and activate her Widow’s Bite. It was out of desperation, for self preservation, and she hated herself for it but she would do it given that she had to. James was strong. He could handle it. Blue light jumped and Natasha grit her teeth and looked away from him, dancing backwards and his scream was unbelievably familiar to her, even muffled as he was behind his mask as her own weapon electrocuted him. When Natasha looked back, he had one hand hovering over his shoulder, where he had been shot, and other gripping his head and his eyes were wide in fear.

“I’m sorry!” Natasha called to him. “I’m sorry, forgive me, I had to.” James’ eyes were different now. The emptiness was there, and the wrath, but she had done what she’d always been able to do. She’d drawn something out of him, dragged it up from the abyss, but this time, it was the true wrath and she watched as his shoulders hunch and he clenched his fists and he looked to her engineer, in the rover behind her, and Natasha glanced back behind her and gasped.

It should have been a race for the rover, but James didn’t run. He pulled a gun out from a holster at his back and cocked it and Natasha tried to run faster. She flung herself at the car and the man inside was weeping in fear and Natasha started it and they were off, the gas pedal pressed flat against the floor and Natasha trying to swallow and trying to stop her shaking.

“Who is he?!” The engineer cried.

“He’s dangerous!” Natasha called back and then she heard an explosion and in her rearview mirror, she saw a burst of fire and the back end of the rover began to lift. He’d shot out the tires, they were flipping! Natasha grabbed the engineer and pulled him to her as she kicked the door open and threw herself out with him. They hit the sand in a cloud of dirt, Natasha’s arms around the man in her charge and she took the fall for them both, gasping to breathe in the cloud of dust as her panic mounted.

She didn’t hear him approach. He truly was like a ghost; he appeared before her through the cloud in an instant, following her, a second gun cocked, and the man behind Natasha screamed. Natasha looked up at him, gasping, and he reached down with his horrifyingly powerful left and grabbed her by the collar and yanked her towards him again. Natasha found herself staring into his eyes for the second time, imagining she could read the emotions there that had been dredged up as she evaded him. He was glaring.

“James,” Natasha said and she reached up to touch him, but before she could, his eyes hardened further and he prodded the barrel of his gun into her side, aimed towards her engineer’s head beneath her and Natasha gasped. “I-,” she said. “I-I’m not afraid of you!” She said and James didn’t respond. She heard the click as he pulled the trigger and suddenly everything was hot and the bullet tore through her body. It burned and Natasha let out an anguished scream. James dropped her and began to back away into the rising dust and Natasha grabbed at her wound, torn all the way through her, and there was so much blood. She turned to see another pool of dark, dark red and a hole in the center of the engineer’s head. His eyes were open. Natasha looked back up to where James had been and suddenly, she was angry too and he wasn’t going to get away. Gasping in pain, steeling her resolve and gritting her teeth, Natasha pulled herself to her feet and began to stumble after James until she was out of the wall of risen sand and dirt and could see again into the dunes.

He was there, just yards away from her, grabbing the hanging ladder from a black helicopter suspended in the air and he was looking after her as she stumbled towards him, as if he was waiting.

Natasha screamed at him, going from English to Russian, rapidfire, screaming at him the things he should know.

JamesJamesJamesJamesJames

She was staggering, both hands over the hole in her gut, wondering if she would die and wondering if it was all worth it anyway.

JamesJamesJAMESJAMESJAMES

And he stood there silently, waited for her, listened to her, until she was so close to him that she reached up with one, blood-dripping hand, to rip the mask off his face, but before she could, he backed away from her and looked up and the helicopter began to lift off.

“No!” Natasha screamed at him. “James Barnes!! Jaaames!”

Natasha was beginning to see spots, and the Winter Soldier looked down after her and watched her collapse and Natasha awoke with a horrible start into the darkness of her hotel room.

Of course, she didn’t mean to jump away from James when she noticed his arms wrapped around her, when she saw his face, sweet and relaxed in sleep, inches from hers, but she did anyway reflexively and James stirred. He looked over at her with eyes unfocused and squinted. She was on the other side of the bed, her body was tense, and she was starting to relax again, but the nightmare of Odessa had been so horrifically vivid that the white scar on her hip seemed to burn with the memory.

“‘Talia,” James murmured tiredly and she could see him through the dark, sweet and tender, always gentle, lovingly protective, with wounded eyes and a hundred things on his conscious that weren’t his fault and through the memory of wrathful and empty eyes, he seemed a stark comparison. She began to bring herself to him again, regretting the subconscious panic from nightmares of brutality.

“Yes,” she said as she settled back into him. It was her favorite way to sleep, with James so close that she could feel his breath on her skin, the way he wrapped himself around her and they hardly needed blankets because they kept each other warm. He didn’t scare her. She loved him.

“You okay?” James asked and Natasha nodded.

“Yes,” she replied again quietly.

The Winter Soldier didn’t make her breakfast in the morning. The Winter Soldier didn’t offer to drive even before she was tired and he didn’t kiss her cheeks or hold her hands or look at her like she was perfect. That was James and she wasn’t afraid of James Buchanan Barnes, but the Winter Soldier, well…

When she looked him in the eyes and told him she wasn’t afraid, it wasn’t the Winter Soldier she was talking to.