Cheated of feature by dissembling nature;

[grimvisaged]

Earlier today, he'd stood barefoot in his post-shower fog and stared down the hazy figure staring back at him through the filmed bathroom mirror: Dark, bedraggled, indistinct. Fueled by a nameless compulsion, he'd snatched up the razor from its place amongst the neat line of complimentary toiletries, and didn't wipe the steam from the mirror until he'd finished.

It was a poor job, with patches of stubble and shaving cream overlooked, and he can't say whether he feels more or less like himself, not knowing what that feels like in the first place. All he knows is that it felt a little like relief to look into the mirror and see someone different there.

Hair still hanging in a damp and stringy curtain around his freshly-shaven face, he's now sitting in the corner of her room, a figure half in shadow, waiting for her to return.

Unlike Rogers, she almost always knows when he's watching her. She's patient and does not force his hand, but there is volumes to be read in her silent acknowledgment of his presence: The subtle stiffening of her posture or casual flick of her gaze. They speak the same rarefied language, they two, and there is a certain thrill which accompanies the knowledge that he is, in fact, not as singular as he had once believed.

Unlike Rogers, who comes packaged with a compelling yet overwhelming burden, she demands nothing of the man he is nor of the man he used to be. She is simply waiting for the day when his resolve breaks and he does more than watch her from the shadows. They both knew it was coming; it's been coming since he first laid eyes on her, here. It should bother him more how futile it's been, resisting her inexorable pull.

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[grimvisaged]

"Not too short," he abruptly replies, shying momentarily away from the stroke of her comb as if she had scissors at the ready and might not wait for his answer. His entire body is tense despite the soothing tug at his hair, acts of gentleness and kindness so far beyond his personal experience that he struggles to process them as anything but an assault.

Despite this, there is a familiarity to the brief skim of her fingers where they touch his neck, his scalp. Something that has lingered, first acknowledged in that tense moment in the hall, but much older than that, a niggling memory that refuses to take a solid shape. To him she is vapor, oblique and intoxicating.

"Have you done this before?" he quietly asks, held tilted obediently forward from an instinct he wasn't aware of having, another of Barnes' gifts.

[regimes_fall]

Natasha’s control was firm at hand, a weapon she reached for easily and automatically. While there was a part of her that wanted to linger over his hair, wanted to watch as she wound the dark strands around her fingers and felt the full weight of it, she kept her touches no more lingering than necessary. To fall down the rabbit hole of all she suspected but could not remember in full, to chase old feelings out of hiding that were so alarmingly accessible only to examine them in a new and harsher light would’ve helped neither of them as they were just then.

Still there was a quiet undercurrent to her thoughts that she could not stop or control. She had no way of knowing if most of the pictures that floated through her mind were products of her imagination or actual memories, but they were unending. There was an image of his hair smoothed away from his face in the steam of a shower and his face so close to hers that she could count the water droplets that had gathered in his lashes. Another of a cool, metal hand gentle on her waist and slipping over the skin of her back. A newer, fresh, and very real memory of that same hand tight around her throat. She blinked at his words and shifted his hair toward his cheek, showing him without saying outright how short she planned to cut it. “Not too short,” she agreed.

It was not the first haircut she had given, as it was a necessity in tight and trying times when a change of appearance was of upmost importance. She usually gave haircuts to herself, though not exclusively. “I have,” she said as she drew the first, thin section of his hair up at the proper angle between her first and middle finger and snipped cleanly beneath her fingertips. “It’s been a while, but my haircuts are usually pretty passable so hopefully I can do okay by you.”

[grimvisaged]

"I don't think it could be any worse," he says, and the statement surprises him a little—Not for its content, which he'd been well enough aware of for months, nor the sound of his voice, which delivered it in low, coarse syllables. Rather, it's the readiness which is unusual, words tumbled outward with an ease he's unused to, and which compounds the dizzying sense of deju vu that always manages to accompany this woman.

He had obediently lifted his chin again for her, but his gaze remains steadily forward as his mind darts, piecing together wisps of memory. For a moment, the pulse becomes a loud rush in his ears, and it isn't until he hears the soft, familiar click of his arm recalibrating that he realizes his fingers are clamped white-knuckled over the arms of the chair. Taking a measured breath, he slowly and deliberately uncurls his fingers and places them in his lap.

"We've done this before," he says, almost a whisper.

[regimes_fall]

Natasha is no artist, but thankfully it required little creativity to look at the softness of his hair and map out the pattern of the last hair cut he’d received and improve upon it. She worked efficiently but not rushed, moving from one section to another when his hair was falling short and smooth and considerably lighter against the back of his neck. His words made her smile, both at the near wryness of them and the fact that he’d offered them to her at all. “Well, I could’ve tried shaving your head,” she said lightly, “but you’re safe from that. I wouldn’t like it any more than you would, I think.”

At the sound of the creaking chair arm and the mechanical whir of his arm she looked down at how he’d gripped her chair and slowed, but did not stop. In the silence that followed his next, whispered statement, she looked at the back of his head as though it were some sort of substitute for looking into his eyes. The memories came in a hazy, painful jumble, and she exhaled slowly through the ache. “Yes,” she said, also soft. “It’s hard for me to remember, but yes. We have.”

[grimvisaged]

"I don't remember," he clarifies, the syllables stretching out on the last word as if he can't settle on whether he's making a statement or asking a question. Both, maybe, when his memory can't catch onto anything solid except emotion. He knows, now, with an unsettling level of personal clarity, that she has always held the power to unmoor him and send him adrift.

He is sure he must have loved her, once, but this version of himself isn't sure what love even is.

"Do you know what they did to you?" he asks, eyes unfocused, fixed on the middle distance.

[regimes_fall]

She had been taught to think under fire, taught to work through pain and she called on every lesson she housed inside herself in that moment to continue methodically working through his hair. It was the sort of conversation that might’ve driven her to stand in front of him, might’ve driven her to take his hand if he were the sort to allow it or she the sort to offer, but that was the case for neither of them. For all she instinctively knew the fit of his body inside hers like a hand in a glove, there was a gulf between them now. He was not hers to touch, to comfort, or even really know, if he didn’t want it.

“I don’t know what they did exactly, no,” she said as she moved on to one side of his head and snipped the first strand of hair so that it lay against his cheek. She could look at his face in profile then, but she very carefully did not. The retelling of one’s personal war stories was not the time for intimacy. “I’ve been able to piece it together a good deal of it, though. With time. The longer I was away from them, the clearer things became. Is it that way for you?”

[grimvisaged]

"Yes," he answers, a neat, clipped word for something so untamed. She looms on his periphery: the glint of the scissors, the elegant taper of her wrist, and her face just beyond, focused carefully upon the task at hand. His fingers itch with the impulse to reach for her, but remain dutifully in the cradle of his lap.

"You're not as old as I am," he says, not a fact he knows so much as an instinct he feels despite her fastidious restraint and aura of capability. He and Rogers, they're the only ones. Anomalies, freaks.

[regimes_fall]

“Not quite as old as you, no,” Natasha said softly, honestly, watching the wet glint of his dark hair as it shifted through the scissors and fell to the floor around her with little splinters of hair clinging to his cheeks, his shoulders, the front of her shirt. His hair was three quarters of the way done then, and when she looked down at him, it was to notice the uncanny beauty of his face, and not for the first time. His is a classic face, a breathtaking face, and she knew without having to ask why Hydra hid this face behind masks and bushy hair for so long. He is breathtaking and utterly remarkable and she wanted to tell him so, but words were paltry and she kept her mouth shut.

“So,” she said as she moved to the front of him to work on the last section of his hair, tipping her head down to look at his eyes as she moved close enough to stand between his knees as she worked. “Is there something you would prefer me to call you?” She asks. “I know that’s probably a touchy question, but even if it’s a generic thing like ‘Pal’ or ‘Bro’ or whatever other name you like, I’d like to have something to call you. If you’re up to it.”

[grimvisaged]

His hands move without his consent, settling upon the flare of her hips on an impulse more like muscle memory than instinct. She is warm and familiar beneath the possessive weight of his palms, and bright flashes slice through the haze of his memory as he tugs her further into the space between his spread knees.

(the pale arch of her neck, head thrown back,

a low rumble of Russian murmured against his ear,

a smirk, confident, tossed over her shoulder as she sprints away.)

Chest sharply rising with quick breaths, he stares unseeing at her abdomen for a long, tense, moment, and then tips his forehead forward to gently rest against it, heedless of the scissors. He pushes out a shuddering breath, closes his eyes.

"James is fine," he says, a rough whisper between their bodies.

[regimes_fall]

She didn’t jolt in surprise when his hands lift to cup her hips, though she is taken aback by the action. She had not expected him to reach for her, not then, and perhaps not ever. His hands on her were heavy, but the touch was familiar and non-threatening, and when he tugged her closer, she moved to drop the scissors on the table before taking the steps required to be as close to him as he wanted her to be.

She stared down at the top of his head, the neat part of his uneven, wet hair, the fringe of his lashes where she could see him blinking and looking at her, obviously thinking. She remained still, unsure of what he meant to do but knowing that any abrupt action on her part would break the fragility of the moment they were in together just then, and she did not want that.

When he moved to rest his forehead against her, there was a distinct, very painful tug in her chest and for a moment in a mere wisp of smoke of a memory, she could recall what his smile had looked like, bright and white with his lips still red and wet from her kiss, and above his head where he couldn't see, her chin gave a very brief tremble. She lifted her hands to him, sinking her fingers into the thick of his wet hair for no other purpose than touch that time, and her face smoothed itself into another, gentle mask. She held him against her gently, not wishing to scare him off but not wanting him to feel as though she was attempting to hold him there if he wanted to leave, either.

“I like the name James,” she said softly as she worked her fingers soothingly through his hair, her fingertips and nails gently kneading at his scalp.

[grimvisaged]

For a long, wavering moment, neither of them say anything more, and it is as close to comfort as he can remember ever having. Even the good memories that have begun to filter through remain distant, removed–The story of someone else's life, himself merely the audience. He knows he was happy, once, but cannot now imagine what it was like.

Tipping his head back, he looks up the length of her body to her eyes, his expression going pinched and tormented.

"Did I hurt you?" he asks, despite knowing the answer must certainly be yes.

[regimes_fall]

Natasha's answer was immediate and firm but not sharp in tone as she moved her fingers from his hair to gently cup the rough line of his sharp jaw and hold his eyes with her own. "Not you," she said with a shake of her head. "It wasn't you, James. It was them."

There was no need to specify who they were, and while she now bore two scars on her body that had come from the fire of his gun, they were nothing she would hold to his name. She knew what it was to be chiseled away until there was nothing left but teeth and instinct. Knew that in the instances of murder, it was never the gun that was held accountable but instead the person who had fired it.

Natasha could not speak aloud her suspicion that she was alive then only because he'd pulled his gun up at the last moment both times he had fired on her. She could not bear to examine the ramifications of the suspicion that even when they'd stripped him of everything, the memory of what they'd been to each other once upon a time had been burned into his bones, just as it had with her.

"Please don't do that to yourself," she continued gently, even though she knew from experience that he could not help it.

[grimvisaged]

The memories of his missions are as hazy as those of who he was Before, but he has always been fully cognizant of his own abilities. He was crafted to be both relentless and accurate, and some part of him is aware that this woman is only alive now because he made the distinct decision not to kill her. It's a distant acknowledgment now, however, the remorse and bitter frustration of what he had done blotting everything else out.

He tilts his head away with a stuttered intake of breath, finding he can't look at her any longer, wondering how much of what he remembers of her is from loving her and how much is from when she was his target. The arm of the chair sharply cracks before he's even realized he'd been gripping it again.

He glances down at the silver glint of his hand and then away again.

"I'm sorry," he says, not meaning the chair.

[regimes_fall]

Her own instincts were a painful vice around her heart as unchecked and forgotten words and emotions swelled up in her and she clamped them down tight. The sight of him purposefully turning his face away from her was not one she hadn't expected, and still it stung to see the distance between them measured so exactly. He was not hers to touch, he was not anyone's anymore, and that stung, too.

She took a deep, calming breath through her nose when the chair cracked audibly in the room and his gruff apology followed soon after. It would seem little more than lip service to tell him that it was all forgiven, even though it was. Even worse to tell him that it would all be okay, because she could not ever speak for his life or his choices, even though she thought he could carve a way out in the world over time. She surely had.

"I'm fine," she told him as she moved to pick up the scissors once more, figuring a turn back onto more neutral territory was in order. "The shots healed, and they've never given me any problem since." She touched the final section of hair remaining to be cut, now drying soft and slightly wavy at the tips. "May I finish?"

[grimvisaged]

Having it stated aloud so clearly hurts him more than he might have imagined, even after having resigned himself to his own bloody legacy. Her mouth forming the words is a wound reopened, hastily-sewn stitches popped, and it takes him a moment more to swallow it roughly down.

Ironically enough, it is also her voice which brings him back to himself: Pragmatic, strong, brooking little argument even from him. This is why he loved her, he thinks. This is what sets her apart.

He nods his assent and obediently lifts his chin again, although his gaze refuses to be drawn back.

"Thank you," he quietly allows.

[regimes_fall]

Natasha remained silent as she lifted the remaining section of his hair between her fingers and began to align it for the final snips, her scissors near silent and swift, but not so swift as to be hasty. She knew he would leave her when she was done, and then only God knew when she would see him again. She was not a clingy person, or an overly demonstrative one, but she wanted to hold him close to her. Wanted to ask him to stay, even if they only sit in silence, but she knew that he would not, and she didn’t have the strength required to make herself so vulnerable to him just yet.

It was almost a shame she wouldn’t speak to Rogers about him, she thought. Of the three of them, he was the only one who clearly remembered what it was like to love James Barnes, and be loved by him in return. It would’ve been nice to have her shades of memory confirmed, but it was a luxury not meant for the likes of her, she was certain. If love for the man in front of her was hiding somewhere inside her, she wanted to discover it again for herself.

“There you go,” she said as she took a step back to admire her work, allowing the last, soft strands of his hair to fall to the ground beside him. Before her he was beautiful and bare-faced, and very carefully not meeting her gaze, for all she couldn’t stop looking at him. “You look very nice,” she added on before leaning in to dust the hair from his shoulders.

[grimvisaged]

When he had slipped into this room to wait for her, his goal had been simply to look different. It surprises him a little now to learn that some part of him is pleased by the compliment, a long-buried vanity scratching its way through the layers of his memory. He wonders, but doesn't ask, if she remembers how he looked when they were lovers, whether it was more like one or the other. He wonders if he had stopped caring by then.

His head feels lighter, and he lifts the fingers of his right hand to skim across the freshly-cut ends of his hair, feeling where the strands fall against his cheek. When he stands, he crosses wordlessly to the mirror, trailing pieces of hair across the floor, and then stares at the man beyond, at this hybrid of the two people he used to be. He flicks his gaze over and finds Natasha behind his reflection, watches her as if she were on the other side of the mirror instead of in the room with him. He finds himself always wanting to touch her, but she seems so often like his memory—Distant and unreachable, held carefully behind the glass.