To Go Unseen (A Natasha Romanoff Story)

43 [hotel room]

Bucky stirred in his sleep and woke sometime in the night, bothered by an irksome inability to sleep and a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that something was wrong. He turned to Natalia and realized with a breath-taking shock that her side of the bed was empty. He sat there for only a second, staring, dumbfounded, before scrambling out of the bed and stumbling around the room in a panic.

He was at a loss. What to do, what to do, what to do?!

Where was she? Was she okay? Had she been taken? Had she…

Had she left him?!

He put his hands on his face and in his hair and stared at the bed.

“Relax,” he told himself for a second. “Relax, relax, relax. It’s p-probably… Nothing. Maybe she’s coming right back.”

He reasoned with himself. Maybe she went downstairs to the lobby for some reason? Maybe she was getting something from a vending machine across the hall? Maybe she…

Her weapons were gone. Bucky stared at the empty space across the room and realized that the pit in his stomach was right and something was wrong.

He took his phone and sat with it on the edge of the bed and tried calling her cell phone and it went straight to her voicemail every single time. Bucky’s mouth was going dry with fear. He dialed Steve immediately.

The other line rang only a few times before Steve picked up, a mumbly, familiar voice on the other end and Bucky thought he’d cry.

“Buck?” Steve said. “Somethin’ up?”

“Nat,” Bucky gasped. “Natalia’s gone. She’s just… She’s gone.”

“What?” Steve said. Bucky could hear him sitting up. “It’s…”

“Four,” Bucky said for him. “AM. And she’s gone.” He swallowed. “Her stuff is gone; her cell phone, her weapons, her shoes.” He stared at the carpet in shock. “I-I don’t… Understand.”

Steve took a while before he responded.

“She’s gone,” he repeated, as though he were processing this. “She’s just gone.”

“Yes!” Bucky exclaimed. “I’ve called her phone and it’s dead or turned off or something, but she doesn’t answer. And I don’t understand…”

Then, as he woke more and more, Bucky remembered the events of the previous day and let out a groan.

“What?” Steve said.

“Steve, I asked her to marry me yesterday,” he said.

“Huh?” Steve said. “I thought you were just gonna mention it!”

“It went badly!” Bucky cried loudly, probably too loudly for a sleeping hotel, continuing on instead of explaining everything to Steve. “It went really, really badly!! And now I’m almost thinking it went worse than I’d thought!”

“Bucky, there’s no way she just up and left you because of whatever happened yesterday,” Steve said.

“Then where is she?!” Bucky cried. “She left by herself, that much is obvious. All her stuff is gone. But she told me nothing!”’

It was about now that Bucky fit the phone into the crook between his neck and his shoulder and started frantically pulling on clothes. First, his shoes, then a shirt and his pants from yesterday. He didn’t even bother with his gloves, and he was out of the room and running down the hall and out the hotel and onto the street.

“What’s happening?” Steve cried.

“I’m gonna find her!” Bucky said. “Something’s wrong!” Then, “Steve?” He said quickly.

“Yeah?” Steve said.

“Stay on the line? Please?” Bucky begged.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Steve said and Bucky started to run again.

He had no idea where he was going. He took a few hard spills when his sneakers slipped on the water and he was too frantic to be cautious and he was just minutes away from crying, turning down alleys and running up sidewalks and feeling hope every time he saw a female figure nearby and feeling it crushed again when he realized it wasn’t Natalia.

A few minutes later, in an alley a few blocks away from the hotel, Bucky spotted the red. He skidded to a stop and he felt fear eat him alive and Steve was asking in his ear, ‘what’s going on, what’s happening’, but he couldn’t answer.

Bucky found Natalia collapsed and dropped to his knees next to her, in puddles of blood diluted with rainwater, and he dropped his phone and

and the last thing Steve heard before the phone short-circuited in a deep puddle of water Bucky’s horrified screaming.