Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time;

[grimvisaged]

There are things which he knows, and things which he remembers, but they are seldom both at once. This is the way that it has always been

(no)

understanding kicking up sparks in the empty corners of his brain, woven with instinct to inform him what's true and what isn't

(wrong)

memories distant and unformed, hazy smeared images, impulses that pop and fade like a flashbulb, leaving him dazed, spots in his eyes.

This place he doesn't remember, but he remembers her in it. A cockeyed smile across a tabletop, perfect teeth skimming against a plush bottom lip. When he first sees her here, that shock of fiery red hair brushing a pale cheek, he remembers her through the sight of a rifle and isn't sure why.

He knows who she is, in the obtuse sense: Romanoff, Natasha. Colleague of Rogers, Steve. She's changed her name, and he isn't certain why he knows that, either.

He thinks, maybe, she knows he's there the second before his left forearm presses against her larynx; she's that good. Silently, swiftly, he pulls her from the carpeted hall and into the shadows of an alcove, dragging her back against his chest, arm firm across collar and throat, the soft scrape of metal plate beneath the soft fabric of his hoodie. She could break free if she wanted, and he thinks he'd let her.

She's that good.

"Explain," he says against the warm shell of her ear, voice low and velvet-rough from disuse.

He can smell her shampoo.

He's been here before.

Comments

[grimvisaged]

His reaction is immediate, visceral, eyes widening and darting briefly away and down, body swaying as if the names dealt him a physical blow when they fell from her lips.

James Buchanan Barnes. He's heard it so many times now, from Rogers, from the narration in the Smithsonian, an unassailable mantra in his own head, yet the smokey timbre of her voice makes the words foreign again, as if they have no place living in her mouth.

"Don't," he warns, but it's ineffectual, his focus scattered until it hooks on the rise and fall of Natalia Romanova. Unaware of himself, he echoes it back in a whisper, the syllables like music when he rolls them around on his tongue.

She's been tugging at him this entire time, the faintest wisp of a memory lost in the flood unleashed by Steve Rogers. Ever since Washington he's been searching, preparing for the inevitability of James Buchanan Barnes, but he'd not known to prepare for her.

There's no thought when he reaches for her, only instinct, fingers of his right hand splayed against the column of her neck, the barest threat, his thumb nudging up under her chin.

"Tell me," he says, wild-eyed but unflinching.

[regimes_fall]

The look that splashed onto his face like a spilled inkwell onto paper was expected, but no more satisfying for that fact. She had never wanted to hurt him, though she knew well enough that sometimes pain was more than necessary. Sometimes pain was a kindness, or at the very least not the worst card two people of their sort could deal each other. They had hurt each other, the both of them, on more than one occasion and had been more than kind to each other too, once upon a time. It was hard to recall all the details, but the underlying fact was there.

Even knowing all of this, she felt no better for confounding his situation, for coming to him with a truth that would do neither of them any favors. Her truth was a commodity now for the most part, the majority of her life no more than the flick of a page for some people, and that was fine. She was coming to terms with that. There were, however, no mentions of how she'd once childishly, foolishly, and deeply loved the man that was currently winding his hand around her throat in those reports. No details on how they'd been torn apart, then punished for feelings she hadn't known how to help circulating on the internet somewhere. It wasn't a pleasant truth, but it was one of her last remaining secrets, and one she would share only with him.

"We met when I was young," she breathed, her chin lifting as his thumb nudged under it, her eyes dry. If she triggered something in him and her death came, at last, at his hands, she figured it was only her due. "In Russia. I was working for something called the Red Room, and you trained me. Taught me how to be like you. To fight like you." She watched his face, feeling the mental sting of attempting to access those memories that had been all but cut out of her. "We- We knew each other intimately, I believe," she added, because for all that it felt real, she did not know that it hadn't been a memory that had been planted, wiped, and was now resurfacing at the sight of his face. "But we were punished for it and separated."

[grimvisaged]

Dealing in subtleties has never been his style nor his forte. James Buchanan Barnes had an easy smile and natural rapport with people, but James Buchanan Barnes was gone long ago, and blunt instruments are not known for their nuance. He'd hardly needed it, before now.

Despite this, he can look at Romanoff, Natasha, and know that she isn't lying. The thrum of her pulse is steady beneath his fingers, but more than that, he simply knows. He is picking her out in pieces and can't see the whole of her her yet, but he knows. His body is a well-honed instrument, instinctive, and it betrays him.

He hadn't intended to touch her.

He remembers none of it, but he knows.

It's a very long moment before his hand falls away from her neck, and he can't keep the confusion and frustration from twisting his face.

"I don't remember," he says, looking down and away, straining with the effort to prove himself wrong. Understatement of the century.

[regimes_fall]

The hand falling from her neck distressed her, but she did not move to halt its descent as she wanted to.The familiarity of his touch was enough to drown in, and Natasha had been swimming with her head above water for too long to let it all go without thought, but the temptation was surely there. It was no longer her right to want anything from him or to need him, though it was hard to remember either of those things when he was close enough to feel the warmth of his chest and her body seemed to remember exactly how it would feel to step into his body and feel both arms wind around her, even if her brain could not process the details. Indulgence was not an option, so she did as she'd done for years instead, biting back the childish, vulnerable urges that could all too easily take the place of her well-honed survival instincts if she'd let them, and watched the display of his obvious confusion and upset play across his face with a calm reservation that she did not feel.

"That's okay," she said softly. "I don't remember everything yet, either." There were holes and glitches in her memories, trap doors that lead to fantasy lands built by the hands of her enemies, and she did not think it was ever something that could be undone entirely. She could only imagine what it felt like inside his brain just then, even to him, and her fingers curled once into her palms on the urge to reach out to him, to encourage his body closer and closer until she could hold him as she'd done so rarely in their time before.

"Can I help you?" She finally asked. "I don't know what you need, but I have a room here. I could get you some food, if you need that. A shower. A safe place to sleep." She was sure he could acquire all of those things, likely already had, but she needed to offer it. Needed an excuse to draw him closer, for all that she knew she shouldn't. She was where she was because a long time ago Clint Barton had opted to show her kindness instead of serving her death, and a kind hand may not be something he wanted, but she would offer it anyway "Please. Let me help you if I can."

[grimvisaged]

Spider though she is, this isn't a trap—No hastily-knit web to be lured into—and he knows it. What it is, however, is preposterous, a natural courtesy that is anything but natural for him. Still shaken by her new revelations, it takes him a moment to pull free from the tangled mire of his memories, but when he does, it's to regard her with a tilted head and squinted eyes, as human a gesture as he's managed yet.

(You've got to be kidding me, doll.)

No other answer is forthcoming, save for the way he swiftly and efficiently steps away. He needs answers, but more than anything right now, he needs to be less close to her, this human trip switch who has veered him so far from his original mission. From a safe distance, he watches her from the corner of his eye.

"One thing," he softly says at length, reconsidering. "Tell him to stop looking."

[regimes_fall]

The distance between them was tangible, breathable. In the absence of his warmth she found her feet once more, and she took a long, deep breath through her nostrils to steady the wayward descent of her heart, which had always been all too eager to throw itself at his feet. She could look at him and tell he was preparing to go, tell that he would disappear and she would not see him again until he willed it, and that she could live with. It had always been the way of things.

His one request was one she could easily grant, though he was fooling himself if he thought it would serve him in any way. She knew he knew that, and looked at him then in a way that someone who truly knew her would've recognized as soft and bordering on gentle.

"I'll tell him," she said, then added frankly, "it won't work, but you know that already. I'll tell him, though."