How You Live And Breathe, 1/3. NC-17
Title: How You Live And Breathe
Series: #20 in Ready For The Siege
(#1 - Look Over Your Shoulder, #2 - Armed Up To The Teeth, #3 - Misery Inspires, #4 - Broken Underneath, #5 - Change Is Coming Soon, #6 - Lick Your Wounds, #7 - Bitter Sparks, #8 - Father's Will, #9 - To Feel Safe Again, #10 - Hit Your Prime, #11 - Open Your Eyes, #12 - Can't Be Ignored, #13 - Make You Ill, #14 - Aim Straight, #15 - Not The First Time, #16 - Friendly Fire, #17 - Relieved, #18 - Release, #19 - Never Noticed)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Loki/Natasha, Natasha/Bucky
Disclaimer: Not mine! Some comic backstory is incorporated into characterizations, but this is still primarily movieverse.
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-Avengers, AU to the rest of MCU. References events in prior stories as well as Red Room mindfuckery, PTSD, violence.
Title and series title from "The Royal We" by Silversun Pickups.
Summary: Catching the Purple Man doesn't even make a dent in figuring out daily routines. Should it?
One - Backtrack
Wednesday afternoons were once again spent at the VA in Brooklyn with Sam's group. Loki felt absurd and ridiculous and resentful to be there, and had waited until the last minute to rend time and space with a portal to show up. It startled some of the group participants, but they had been well aware of who he was and what he could do. Most of the regulars were there, and he was startled at the recognition he felt and saw in return. Even Therese, who normally scowled at him and seemed indifferent, nodded at him. Her shoulders relaxed, as if his absence had been worrisome to the group.
Sam merely looked at his watch. "I'm sure we all wish we had that trick when running late," he said with a smile. "But I think it's a good time to start today. Thanks for coming in." Looking around the room, hands on the podium, he let the smile slide from his face as he looked at an empty chair in the front row. Loki couldn't remember who usually sat in it, and something like regret knifed through him.
"I got confirmation with the family that it's okay to talk about it. Rusty died last Friday night, complications from his asthma. It was a nasty flare, and there was nothing they could do about it in the ER."
"It wasn't suicide," someone in the group said, relieved.
"No. Which is why I asked Rusty's wife for permission to discuss it. We knew he was wobbling, that he was having trouble carrying his load. But we were his rock, Rochelle was his rock, and he never once thought about it last week. The good Lord decided it was time to bring him home last Friday, and it wasn't his memories, it wasn't his depression."
One of the servicemen pressed a tight fist to his mouth and looked down, as if struggling not to cry. Loki assumed it was a close friend of his. It made him feel more awkward, more like a stranger faking it with these people. He tried to tune out his thoughts, focus on sounds-there was a baby at the clinic, crying in hunger in someone's arms, there were murmured voices of the reception staff, there was something banging repeatedly into a desk-but even that felt false and unworthy to the memory of a fallen soldier.
Someone touched his arm, gingerly, and looked at him in concern. "You okay, man?"
Loki blinked and turned to face the soldier. His face was worn, lined, gray threaded through the neatly trimmed Afro. This man had seen much, suffered much if he was here, yet still had concern for his wellbeing. It was generosity he couldn't understand.
"I suppose. I am... I didn't know him well."
"Me neither," the soldier admitted. "Feels weird. He was a face. Constant. Now he's gone. But I don't feel it. Just..."
"Nothing. A bigger piece of vast emptiness," Loki supplied helpfully.
"Yeah. Like that."
Someone up front was talking about Rusty, about the way he had listened to stories of the Iraq bombings, the callousness of the system, the inefficiencies in the VA. Loki sighed just listening to it. "I'm a fraud."
"No more than the rest of us in the back," the solder pointed out. He stuck out his hand. "I'm Chris Marquez. Retired army. Served back in the first Iraq war."
"Loki." He shook Chris' hand firmly. "But you knew that."
"You're recognizable, yeah. Others said you belonged here, though."
"I have fought before," Loki murmured, letting his hands fall into his lap. His palm itched for a spear or some kind of spell focus. That would calm his stirring panic.
"I wasn't here when you started," Chris continued, unaware of Loki's unease. "They clued me in later when I thought I'd take a chair to your head."
He turned in his seat to stare hard at him. "Why do you tell me this?"
"'Cause they said you actually can be helpful." He smiled at Loki's snort of derision. "Yeah, that was my response, too. I guess I wanted to see if it was true."
"And?"
Chris paused. "Still deciding. I get the feeling you are, too."
Loki didn't have a good response to that. The man was entirely too accurate for his liking.
***
Natasha met Melinda at a café in Greenwich Village and hugged her tightly. "All by yourself?" she teased. "I'm so impressed."
"I leveled a glare and scared the rest of them off. Sometimes the badass reputation helps," she admitted. "I could say the same for you. What happened to your shadows from the party?"
She waited until they were seated to answer. "Loki is... Well, he's Loki. That one's never an easy answer, though he's not quite the homicidal sociopath he used to be. It's contained, I suppose, though I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop."
"Probably wise, given his history," Melinda agreed.
"And James..." Natasha's voice faltered a bit. "How much do you know about him?"
"I did some digging since we last met," Melinda admitted. "I figured out he must be the Winter Soldier, since the appearance almost matches the last sightings, and he wore gloves for no discernible reason. But the files themselves are black boxed, Level 10 only."
"I suppose I should feel grateful. Or impressed that they're locked up so tight." She gave Melinda a wry expression. "Clint has a friend who could get you those files if you wanted."
"Skye's a hacker. I'm sure she could find them if I wanted them." Melinda gave Natasha a slight smile and shrugged. "But it's better coming from the source, isn't it? Whatever SHIELD has might be sanitized, or filtered through whatever agencies were in charge of the information."
Natasha sighed and leaned back in her seat. She waited until after their lunch orders were put in, using the time to gather her thoughts. "My own files are pretty heavily redacted, the actual files are all black boxed, too. But I've told you a few things over the years." Melinda nodded and waited, knowing Natasha was still weighing how to put her thoughts into words.
"He was an instructor at the training facility," Natasha said slowly. "A replacement to train the Elites. The prior one had been killed by another of the girls before she cut her own throat. I heard he had been very inappropriate, and nothing had been done about it because of his connections. It hadn't been his only indiscretion." She looked down at the table, at her fingers splayed out on the tablecloth. "There was no name for the Winter Soldier. Asset or American, maybe. But no actual names, not until this time around."
"But you don't need a name to love someone," Melinda said softly.
Lifting her eyes, Natasha nodded. "They punished us, of course. He went back on ice, I was stripped of memories and sent out with personality overlays. There were other kinds of physical punishments. It wasn't meant to be pleasant. It was meant to remind me that I didn't belong to myself, that I had no other identity or purpose other than what they wanted for me."
"Until you broke out."
"I thought I killed him. I burned it all to the ground, and I thought I killed him. And the only one I saved that night couldn't remember me. So it seemed all for nothing."
Melinda leaned back in her seat, digesting that and clearly comparing it to what she knew of the situation. "The information in the databases is lacking on that. But I assume that's Agent Sitwell's doing, not that you didn't disclose that."
Natasha grimaced. "I was as honest as I knew how to be at the time, but I never mentioned James on the initial interrogations. There was no point if he was dead. I didn't talk about Yelena, because there was no point if she wanted nothing to do with me and would have killed me on sight if I pursued her."
"Things changed," Melinda guessed, watching her closely. "I assume, based on the timing of things, that it was the very public display of you as Ambassador to Asgard." She nodded after Natasha's confirmation, and sipped at her water glass. "You're still Ambassador, right?"
"Yes. And apparently Sif is, too, because she's still here."
Melinda's lips quirked at the mention of the warrior. "I liked her when I met her. Very to the point, able to get the job done." At Natasha's questioning look, she grinned. "Sif had to track down Lorelei, a sorceress that manipulated men to do her bidding."
"Of course you caught her."
"Of course. But then, you know a thing or two about having a harem." At Natasha's incredulous look, Melinda rolled her eyes. "All those people that care about you, marks, whoever. People are not immune to your charms. You just don't use them to rule over the realm."
"No," Natasha murmured, seeing their waiter arrive with their lunch. "I know better than that."
"Nat," Melinda began. She gave the waiter a polite smile and waited until he left before leaning in to say something else. "You have made a difference both in this realm and on Asgard. You know you have. What you were trained to be is not what you are."
"Then what am I? I'm trying to come to terms with it. I was trained to be a killer and a spy. It's what I know how to do. I've done that for SHIELD. And when it came to people I cared about, I was supposed to protect them."
Something shifted in Melinda's features. "What happened?"
"I killed Yelena. I slit her throat and held her in my arms as she died."
"There's a story there," Melinda said softly. When Natasha opened her mouth to speak, she reached across the table and tapped her wrist. "I don't need to know it unless you want to tell me about it. But knowing you, there was no other way. You're not a remorseless murderer, Natasha. You don't get joy out of it, you don't look forward to it. Unfortunately, in our line of work, sometimes we can't avoid it."
"If I had done something different, maybe I could have."
"We don't know that."
Natasha's shoulders slumped. "I'm sure that you know she was a killer."
"In the same way that you were."
"Are," Natasha murmured with a heavy sigh. "She loved me. I suppose I loved her back, but not enough. Not how she needed me to. I don't think I ever could have been enough for her. She was too broken by what they did to her."
"Love doesn't save people," Melinda murmured, sympathy in her tone. "Not like that. Not like the movies have it. It's complicated and powerful and makes people do really stupid things sometimes." Her lips quirked slightly when Natasha looked up at her. "Nobody's immune, as much as they would like to be."
"No, I suppose we're not," Natasha sighed again.
"So I understand why you pulled away," Melinda continued in that same tone of voice. "But this is the worst thing to do right now. Isolating yourself will just magnify the pain. I told you, you're supposed to learn from me. That means using me as a negative role model as much as using me as a positive one."
Her laugh was tinged with bitterness. "Better than the ones I had growing up."
"Ever think that you might be a role model for others?" Melinda asked quietly.
The thought paralyzed Natasha. "What?"
"There are some newer agents that look up to your legend within the organization. You've overcome so much, you're capable of so much, you don't take any shit... Why wouldn't you be a role model for them?"
She almost wanted to shake, but Natasha kept herself very still. "I don't see myself as a positive thing for them to be."
"Of course you don't. You were trained not to."
Natasha paused, letting the words rattle around inside for a while. "That could be it."
"Nat," Melinda said gently, "you are more than your history."
"I know that," she replied, annoyed.
"Our histories shapes us, but it doesn't define us. Shouldn't define us."
"You don't even know all of it."
"And I don't have to. I know who you are now. I like who you are now. That's good enough for me and everyone else at SHIELD. Why can't it be good enough for you?"
Chewing her food slowly, Natasha mulled over the words. "I used to shove the past into the darker recesses of my mind. I didn't want to think on it. Triggers were out, it didn't have to be my reality anymore. But I was still too conscious of the balance I have to make. I can't let it stay in the red, Melinda. I can't do that."
"I understand. And I'm not saying you stop that part. But the constant atonement? The guilt you haven't let go of? It's time you let go. Move past it, because you were an amazing agent and you are a wonderful person." She gave Natasha a smile that made the corners of her eyes crinkle a little. "And when you call, you're a good friend."
Natasha couldn't help but snort at that. "Says the one that doesn't call either."
"I have an excuse. I drive the bus and keep the newbies safe."
She grinned at Melinda and rolled her eyes. "Oh, you love that," she returned with a smile. "It keeps up the mystique you've cultivated."
"I really don't like the name."
"But you like the way the assholes give you a wide berth."
"Who wouldn't?" Melinda replied with a smirk, unapologetic. "Though sometimes it's a hassle."
"Well, as you've recently pointed out, I'm off book now. I can create an even bigger reputation now. If the infamous Black Widow can outpace the Cavalry..."
Melinda wagged her fork in Natasha's direction. "You're not allowed to call me that, either. Driving the bus or not, I will find you."
Natasha laughed, a tightness easing from her chest that she hadn't realized could ever loosen. As her SO once upon a time, she did value her opinion. It was one thing to say in public that Natasha wasn't a horrible person. But to keep repeating it, even in private, even when she had nothing to gain from it... Melinda was no liar. It had to be true.
And maybe Natasha could even believe it herself.
***
In his dreams, he was in a tight cylindrical tube, about to be flash frozen after being pumped full of various drugs. He hovered between life and death, hallucinatory dreams flitting through his still-conscious mind. Flashes of red and blood, of pain and grief, of trains and planes and fires, of ice and snow and mountains rising up impossibly high all around him.
James didn't sleep much. He didn't need to, given all of the drugs and enhancements he had gotten at Hydra's and Department X's behest. It was just as well he couldn't sleep without the nightmares, with the ghostly press of scientists poking around his arm and keeping track of what his body did in response to their stress tests and field work. He remembered killing, remembered stalking forward with the mission in mind, knowing he was the weapon, he was the fist and gun, he was the one fulfilling the directive.
Natalia kept him human, seeing something more than programming and triggers, believing him to be someone worth loving. He was more than a machine, more than a nameless mass of flesh to do their masters' bidding. In his nightmares, the freezing process kept her far away, erased her from his memory, left him nothing but an empty shell.
And at other times, the memories of horrors kept him wide awake, screaming without a voice, shivering and dreading the licks of dawn against the night sky. Then he would have to pretend to be a human being, to be happy, to be loving, to be more than the sum of fractured parts. Oh, she didn't ask it of him, Natalia never would, but he couldn't worry her. He couldn't be weak in front of the little godling tripping along at her heels. James had looked him up, all the stories and news reports from a few years back. Loki was dangerous, even if he seemed contained, even if he seemed to truly care for Natalia. He was still a wild thing, and James knew all about that kind of feeling. He was alert for dangers all the time, and the caged feeling he had was reflected back in Loki's wild eyes.
Clint knew better than to sneak up on him, and clearly telegraphed his actions if James seemed to be particularly edgy. "I know bad dreams," he had said in a casual kind of way. "Shit happens, and it never really goes away. Wanna hit the range?" he had offered. It had helped a little, throwing knives and even trying a compound bow under Clint's supervision. Guns were too similar to his nightmares, and he would never lose the muscle memory for that. Pistols, machine guns and sniper rifles molded themselves to his palm, too much a part of him to be comfortable when shaking loose a nightmare.
Steve and Sif didn't dance around him or treat him like spun glass, which helped, but sometimes Steve seemed to be part of the problem. How could he let Steve take on his memories? How could the blood wash from his troubled soul onto Steve's? It was bad enough he remembered wanting to punch in Steve's face until his skull collapsed, peeling apart the layers of his body until the spine was exposed and pouring blood.
Thor worried about doing something to set him off, which was irritating; he felt like a live bomb a second away from exploding. Tony was like that at times, as was Jane and Pepper. Then again, they weren't enemy combatants. They didn't know what would trigger James into fight or flight mode, and James tended to fight. It was all that had been wanted of him, after all.
Loki at least appreciated his vigilance. He was able to sleep in James' presence, and he wasn't sure if that was a compliment or insult. Was James not a threat? Or did he simply feel safe enough to let his guard down? There had been a handler like him once, years ago, who laughed as if James' entire history was nothing more than a joke. "I can make you do anything," Tarasov had laughed, eyes glinting with malice. "I can make you be anything I want you to be, and there is no one to stop me."
No one but James, the one time his programming broke, and Tarasov hadn't been worth saving.
Not wanting to remember this, he launched himself from Natasha's suite and roamed the hallways and rooms that were open. He was being tested. This was only a test. It meant nothing, not in the long run, it didn't mean he was a failure. Failure wasn't tolerated, so he couldn't be a failure, couldn't run down or break.
James stopped short when he saw Bruce contorted on a yoga mat, eyes closed as he breathed slowly through the pose. He turned to leave, not wanting to interrupt, when Bruce called out "It's okay, you know. I don't use much space in here."
"No, it's all right. I'm not doing anything important."
"Huh. Maybe you should."
Pausing at the door, James frowned. "I'm a criminal."
"Not if you don't actually exist. Sometimes that's an awful, frightening thing," Bruce said, eyes opening. He unfolded himself and then got to his feet. "And at other times, it's actually freeing. You're not bound to who you used to be."
"Yeah, well, you're... You help."
"I'm the Hulk," Bruce said flatly. "You don't have to avoid it out of pity."
Frowning deeper, James shook his head. "Wasn't."
"So what did you mean?"
At those quiet words, James paused. He hadn't really interacted with Bruce much at all. He tended to stay in the labs with Jane and Tony, sometimes coming out to talk with the others. He was certainly friendly enough, and liked the company. There was still a reserve about him, as if he was afraid of confrontation or chaos. It never occurred to James that perhaps Bruce was was still lonely.
"You're one of them. An Avenger. You got a place, and I don't."
"They'd make a place for you. Like I said, you don't exist. I'm sure you'd get all kinds of paperwork and opportunity if that's what you wanted."
James pursed his lips as he thought. "I don't know. I never had the choice before."
Bruce nodded, expression nonjudgmental. "And it's been so long since you had options. It's not freeing, then. It's paralyzing."
"Yeah."
"Nightmares," Bruce guessed. "Flashbacks. Constantly on alert, dreading what will come next."
"Yeah."
"Your body's not your own. Stuff around you isn't real."
"Yeah." James glowered at Bruce. "How'd you know? Natalia wouldn't tell you."
"You think you're the only one here that feels that way?"
That threw him for a bit, and James shook his head. "But it shouldn't be that way for you."
"I turn into a monster. Some of the others feel like one. What's the difference?"
"You're not a monster," James protested, taking in the calm scientist in front of him.
"I know what I am. I've always known. The radiation brought it out of me. The serum-any serum, no matter how they put it together-always magnifies what's there. It makes you more of who you are. It can't augment or transform what doesn't exist." He shrugged. "When you're the most out of control is when it's hardest to remember that. When it feels like everything is falling apart, that's when I feel him closest."
"So then how do you stop it?"
"I had to develop a few tricks to staying calm, not letting the big guy out. I can't let him hurt anyone, you know. And he can. He doesn't always, he doesn't want to, but that doesn't mean he won't. The Other Guy isn't about control."
James thought about how it must feel to be so out of control that there was no stopping the tidal wave of destruction. He'd felt that way before, of course. And surprisingly, there was no anger to go along with that feeling. "But if you control it for him, how will he ever learn?"
That thought seemed to throw Bruce, who paused with lips pursed. "I don't know if he can," Bruce said finally. "He wasn't built for that."
"He doesn't have handlers. He doesn't have directives and programming," James said bluntly. "So he has his own choices that he can make."
"Then so can you."
"But I don't know what I want," James shot back, aggrieved.
"Then maybe it's time you found out," Bruce replied, unperturbed. "I know for myself, I need some activity, some opportunity to sink into my body. Feel it as me, not the Other Guy, something that's mine. Then I feel ready for research."
"Sink in your body," James echoed, brows furrowed as he contemplated the words. They felt right, somehow. Sometimes he didn't feel like he was in his body at all. Or that it wasn't real, it belonged to someone else. The metal arm threw him on those days, a horrible thing that reminded him he wasn't whole, he wasn't himself, he wasn't Bucky or James or whoever else he was supposed to be.
Bruce's words about trauma and his own physical reactions resonated with James. Names of researchers and physicians wafted over his head, but it occurred to him that Natasha mentioned a therapist she had started seeing, however reluctantly, to deal with her own grief and trauma. She had seen the therapist three times so far, and didn't seem to loathe the experience. Bruce hadn't had the opportunities to see a therapist in his world travels, and mentioned massage therapy and yoga as helpful for him to stay grounded.
James abruptly sat down on the floor in front of Bruce. "Can you teach me? I need something to settle this oddness. It's not programming, it's not dysfunction in my body. But it's not something I understand anymore, either. It doesn't always feel like mine."
"Maybe because for a long time, it wasn't," Bruce suggested gently. "I'm not a therapist, you know. I don't know these things for sure. But this worked for me."
"Then it'll work for me, too," James said firmly. "I need to do this, to be good enough outside this tower." To be good enough for Steve and Natasha, to be certain he wouldn't flash back to a time when he had been the Winter Soldier, so he could look at Sam and not feel the horrible guilt for shooting him in Japan.
"Maybe you could be part of the team, too," Bruce suggested. "I can't always go, not when the other guy could be a danger. But you could go in when I can't. You can help then."
Testing the idea in his mind, James waited for a sense of helpless terror. It didn't come.
"Hm," he murmured, noncommittally. "We'll see once I get the hang of this."
Nodding, Bruce started to go through his usual routine, James following suit.
***
***
To Chapter Two - Dealing With Nightmares
Series: #20 in Ready For The Siege
(#1 - Look Over Your Shoulder, #2 - Armed Up To The Teeth, #3 - Misery Inspires, #4 - Broken Underneath, #5 - Change Is Coming Soon, #6 - Lick Your Wounds, #7 - Bitter Sparks, #8 - Father's Will, #9 - To Feel Safe Again, #10 - Hit Your Prime, #11 - Open Your Eyes, #12 - Can't Be Ignored, #13 - Make You Ill, #14 - Aim Straight, #15 - Not The First Time, #16 - Friendly Fire, #17 - Relieved, #18 - Release, #19 - Never Noticed)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Loki/Natasha, Natasha/Bucky
Disclaimer: Not mine! Some comic backstory is incorporated into characterizations, but this is still primarily movieverse.
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-Avengers, AU to the rest of MCU. References events in prior stories as well as Red Room mindfuckery, PTSD, violence.
Title and series title from "The Royal We" by Silversun Pickups.
Summary: Catching the Purple Man doesn't even make a dent in figuring out daily routines. Should it?
One - Backtrack
Wednesday afternoons were once again spent at the VA in Brooklyn with Sam's group. Loki felt absurd and ridiculous and resentful to be there, and had waited until the last minute to rend time and space with a portal to show up. It startled some of the group participants, but they had been well aware of who he was and what he could do. Most of the regulars were there, and he was startled at the recognition he felt and saw in return. Even Therese, who normally scowled at him and seemed indifferent, nodded at him. Her shoulders relaxed, as if his absence had been worrisome to the group.
Sam merely looked at his watch. "I'm sure we all wish we had that trick when running late," he said with a smile. "But I think it's a good time to start today. Thanks for coming in." Looking around the room, hands on the podium, he let the smile slide from his face as he looked at an empty chair in the front row. Loki couldn't remember who usually sat in it, and something like regret knifed through him.
"I got confirmation with the family that it's okay to talk about it. Rusty died last Friday night, complications from his asthma. It was a nasty flare, and there was nothing they could do about it in the ER."
"It wasn't suicide," someone in the group said, relieved.
"No. Which is why I asked Rusty's wife for permission to discuss it. We knew he was wobbling, that he was having trouble carrying his load. But we were his rock, Rochelle was his rock, and he never once thought about it last week. The good Lord decided it was time to bring him home last Friday, and it wasn't his memories, it wasn't his depression."
One of the servicemen pressed a tight fist to his mouth and looked down, as if struggling not to cry. Loki assumed it was a close friend of his. It made him feel more awkward, more like a stranger faking it with these people. He tried to tune out his thoughts, focus on sounds-there was a baby at the clinic, crying in hunger in someone's arms, there were murmured voices of the reception staff, there was something banging repeatedly into a desk-but even that felt false and unworthy to the memory of a fallen soldier.
Someone touched his arm, gingerly, and looked at him in concern. "You okay, man?"
Loki blinked and turned to face the soldier. His face was worn, lined, gray threaded through the neatly trimmed Afro. This man had seen much, suffered much if he was here, yet still had concern for his wellbeing. It was generosity he couldn't understand.
"I suppose. I am... I didn't know him well."
"Me neither," the soldier admitted. "Feels weird. He was a face. Constant. Now he's gone. But I don't feel it. Just..."
"Nothing. A bigger piece of vast emptiness," Loki supplied helpfully.
"Yeah. Like that."
Someone up front was talking about Rusty, about the way he had listened to stories of the Iraq bombings, the callousness of the system, the inefficiencies in the VA. Loki sighed just listening to it. "I'm a fraud."
"No more than the rest of us in the back," the solder pointed out. He stuck out his hand. "I'm Chris Marquez. Retired army. Served back in the first Iraq war."
"Loki." He shook Chris' hand firmly. "But you knew that."
"You're recognizable, yeah. Others said you belonged here, though."
"I have fought before," Loki murmured, letting his hands fall into his lap. His palm itched for a spear or some kind of spell focus. That would calm his stirring panic.
"I wasn't here when you started," Chris continued, unaware of Loki's unease. "They clued me in later when I thought I'd take a chair to your head."
He turned in his seat to stare hard at him. "Why do you tell me this?"
"'Cause they said you actually can be helpful." He smiled at Loki's snort of derision. "Yeah, that was my response, too. I guess I wanted to see if it was true."
"And?"
Chris paused. "Still deciding. I get the feeling you are, too."
Loki didn't have a good response to that. The man was entirely too accurate for his liking.
***
Natasha met Melinda at a café in Greenwich Village and hugged her tightly. "All by yourself?" she teased. "I'm so impressed."
"I leveled a glare and scared the rest of them off. Sometimes the badass reputation helps," she admitted. "I could say the same for you. What happened to your shadows from the party?"
She waited until they were seated to answer. "Loki is... Well, he's Loki. That one's never an easy answer, though he's not quite the homicidal sociopath he used to be. It's contained, I suppose, though I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop."
"Probably wise, given his history," Melinda agreed.
"And James..." Natasha's voice faltered a bit. "How much do you know about him?"
"I did some digging since we last met," Melinda admitted. "I figured out he must be the Winter Soldier, since the appearance almost matches the last sightings, and he wore gloves for no discernible reason. But the files themselves are black boxed, Level 10 only."
"I suppose I should feel grateful. Or impressed that they're locked up so tight." She gave Melinda a wry expression. "Clint has a friend who could get you those files if you wanted."
"Skye's a hacker. I'm sure she could find them if I wanted them." Melinda gave Natasha a slight smile and shrugged. "But it's better coming from the source, isn't it? Whatever SHIELD has might be sanitized, or filtered through whatever agencies were in charge of the information."
Natasha sighed and leaned back in her seat. She waited until after their lunch orders were put in, using the time to gather her thoughts. "My own files are pretty heavily redacted, the actual files are all black boxed, too. But I've told you a few things over the years." Melinda nodded and waited, knowing Natasha was still weighing how to put her thoughts into words.
"He was an instructor at the training facility," Natasha said slowly. "A replacement to train the Elites. The prior one had been killed by another of the girls before she cut her own throat. I heard he had been very inappropriate, and nothing had been done about it because of his connections. It hadn't been his only indiscretion." She looked down at the table, at her fingers splayed out on the tablecloth. "There was no name for the Winter Soldier. Asset or American, maybe. But no actual names, not until this time around."
"But you don't need a name to love someone," Melinda said softly.
Lifting her eyes, Natasha nodded. "They punished us, of course. He went back on ice, I was stripped of memories and sent out with personality overlays. There were other kinds of physical punishments. It wasn't meant to be pleasant. It was meant to remind me that I didn't belong to myself, that I had no other identity or purpose other than what they wanted for me."
"Until you broke out."
"I thought I killed him. I burned it all to the ground, and I thought I killed him. And the only one I saved that night couldn't remember me. So it seemed all for nothing."
Melinda leaned back in her seat, digesting that and clearly comparing it to what she knew of the situation. "The information in the databases is lacking on that. But I assume that's Agent Sitwell's doing, not that you didn't disclose that."
Natasha grimaced. "I was as honest as I knew how to be at the time, but I never mentioned James on the initial interrogations. There was no point if he was dead. I didn't talk about Yelena, because there was no point if she wanted nothing to do with me and would have killed me on sight if I pursued her."
"Things changed," Melinda guessed, watching her closely. "I assume, based on the timing of things, that it was the very public display of you as Ambassador to Asgard." She nodded after Natasha's confirmation, and sipped at her water glass. "You're still Ambassador, right?"
"Yes. And apparently Sif is, too, because she's still here."
Melinda's lips quirked at the mention of the warrior. "I liked her when I met her. Very to the point, able to get the job done." At Natasha's questioning look, she grinned. "Sif had to track down Lorelei, a sorceress that manipulated men to do her bidding."
"Of course you caught her."
"Of course. But then, you know a thing or two about having a harem." At Natasha's incredulous look, Melinda rolled her eyes. "All those people that care about you, marks, whoever. People are not immune to your charms. You just don't use them to rule over the realm."
"No," Natasha murmured, seeing their waiter arrive with their lunch. "I know better than that."
"Nat," Melinda began. She gave the waiter a polite smile and waited until he left before leaning in to say something else. "You have made a difference both in this realm and on Asgard. You know you have. What you were trained to be is not what you are."
"Then what am I? I'm trying to come to terms with it. I was trained to be a killer and a spy. It's what I know how to do. I've done that for SHIELD. And when it came to people I cared about, I was supposed to protect them."
Something shifted in Melinda's features. "What happened?"
"I killed Yelena. I slit her throat and held her in my arms as she died."
"There's a story there," Melinda said softly. When Natasha opened her mouth to speak, she reached across the table and tapped her wrist. "I don't need to know it unless you want to tell me about it. But knowing you, there was no other way. You're not a remorseless murderer, Natasha. You don't get joy out of it, you don't look forward to it. Unfortunately, in our line of work, sometimes we can't avoid it."
"If I had done something different, maybe I could have."
"We don't know that."
Natasha's shoulders slumped. "I'm sure that you know she was a killer."
"In the same way that you were."
"Are," Natasha murmured with a heavy sigh. "She loved me. I suppose I loved her back, but not enough. Not how she needed me to. I don't think I ever could have been enough for her. She was too broken by what they did to her."
"Love doesn't save people," Melinda murmured, sympathy in her tone. "Not like that. Not like the movies have it. It's complicated and powerful and makes people do really stupid things sometimes." Her lips quirked slightly when Natasha looked up at her. "Nobody's immune, as much as they would like to be."
"No, I suppose we're not," Natasha sighed again.
"So I understand why you pulled away," Melinda continued in that same tone of voice. "But this is the worst thing to do right now. Isolating yourself will just magnify the pain. I told you, you're supposed to learn from me. That means using me as a negative role model as much as using me as a positive one."
Her laugh was tinged with bitterness. "Better than the ones I had growing up."
"Ever think that you might be a role model for others?" Melinda asked quietly.
The thought paralyzed Natasha. "What?"
"There are some newer agents that look up to your legend within the organization. You've overcome so much, you're capable of so much, you don't take any shit... Why wouldn't you be a role model for them?"
She almost wanted to shake, but Natasha kept herself very still. "I don't see myself as a positive thing for them to be."
"Of course you don't. You were trained not to."
Natasha paused, letting the words rattle around inside for a while. "That could be it."
"Nat," Melinda said gently, "you are more than your history."
"I know that," she replied, annoyed.
"Our histories shapes us, but it doesn't define us. Shouldn't define us."
"You don't even know all of it."
"And I don't have to. I know who you are now. I like who you are now. That's good enough for me and everyone else at SHIELD. Why can't it be good enough for you?"
Chewing her food slowly, Natasha mulled over the words. "I used to shove the past into the darker recesses of my mind. I didn't want to think on it. Triggers were out, it didn't have to be my reality anymore. But I was still too conscious of the balance I have to make. I can't let it stay in the red, Melinda. I can't do that."
"I understand. And I'm not saying you stop that part. But the constant atonement? The guilt you haven't let go of? It's time you let go. Move past it, because you were an amazing agent and you are a wonderful person." She gave Natasha a smile that made the corners of her eyes crinkle a little. "And when you call, you're a good friend."
Natasha couldn't help but snort at that. "Says the one that doesn't call either."
"I have an excuse. I drive the bus and keep the newbies safe."
She grinned at Melinda and rolled her eyes. "Oh, you love that," she returned with a smile. "It keeps up the mystique you've cultivated."
"I really don't like the name."
"But you like the way the assholes give you a wide berth."
"Who wouldn't?" Melinda replied with a smirk, unapologetic. "Though sometimes it's a hassle."
"Well, as you've recently pointed out, I'm off book now. I can create an even bigger reputation now. If the infamous Black Widow can outpace the Cavalry..."
Melinda wagged her fork in Natasha's direction. "You're not allowed to call me that, either. Driving the bus or not, I will find you."
Natasha laughed, a tightness easing from her chest that she hadn't realized could ever loosen. As her SO once upon a time, she did value her opinion. It was one thing to say in public that Natasha wasn't a horrible person. But to keep repeating it, even in private, even when she had nothing to gain from it... Melinda was no liar. It had to be true.
And maybe Natasha could even believe it herself.
***
In his dreams, he was in a tight cylindrical tube, about to be flash frozen after being pumped full of various drugs. He hovered between life and death, hallucinatory dreams flitting through his still-conscious mind. Flashes of red and blood, of pain and grief, of trains and planes and fires, of ice and snow and mountains rising up impossibly high all around him.
James didn't sleep much. He didn't need to, given all of the drugs and enhancements he had gotten at Hydra's and Department X's behest. It was just as well he couldn't sleep without the nightmares, with the ghostly press of scientists poking around his arm and keeping track of what his body did in response to their stress tests and field work. He remembered killing, remembered stalking forward with the mission in mind, knowing he was the weapon, he was the fist and gun, he was the one fulfilling the directive.
Natalia kept him human, seeing something more than programming and triggers, believing him to be someone worth loving. He was more than a machine, more than a nameless mass of flesh to do their masters' bidding. In his nightmares, the freezing process kept her far away, erased her from his memory, left him nothing but an empty shell.
And at other times, the memories of horrors kept him wide awake, screaming without a voice, shivering and dreading the licks of dawn against the night sky. Then he would have to pretend to be a human being, to be happy, to be loving, to be more than the sum of fractured parts. Oh, she didn't ask it of him, Natalia never would, but he couldn't worry her. He couldn't be weak in front of the little godling tripping along at her heels. James had looked him up, all the stories and news reports from a few years back. Loki was dangerous, even if he seemed contained, even if he seemed to truly care for Natalia. He was still a wild thing, and James knew all about that kind of feeling. He was alert for dangers all the time, and the caged feeling he had was reflected back in Loki's wild eyes.
Clint knew better than to sneak up on him, and clearly telegraphed his actions if James seemed to be particularly edgy. "I know bad dreams," he had said in a casual kind of way. "Shit happens, and it never really goes away. Wanna hit the range?" he had offered. It had helped a little, throwing knives and even trying a compound bow under Clint's supervision. Guns were too similar to his nightmares, and he would never lose the muscle memory for that. Pistols, machine guns and sniper rifles molded themselves to his palm, too much a part of him to be comfortable when shaking loose a nightmare.
Steve and Sif didn't dance around him or treat him like spun glass, which helped, but sometimes Steve seemed to be part of the problem. How could he let Steve take on his memories? How could the blood wash from his troubled soul onto Steve's? It was bad enough he remembered wanting to punch in Steve's face until his skull collapsed, peeling apart the layers of his body until the spine was exposed and pouring blood.
Thor worried about doing something to set him off, which was irritating; he felt like a live bomb a second away from exploding. Tony was like that at times, as was Jane and Pepper. Then again, they weren't enemy combatants. They didn't know what would trigger James into fight or flight mode, and James tended to fight. It was all that had been wanted of him, after all.
Loki at least appreciated his vigilance. He was able to sleep in James' presence, and he wasn't sure if that was a compliment or insult. Was James not a threat? Or did he simply feel safe enough to let his guard down? There had been a handler like him once, years ago, who laughed as if James' entire history was nothing more than a joke. "I can make you do anything," Tarasov had laughed, eyes glinting with malice. "I can make you be anything I want you to be, and there is no one to stop me."
No one but James, the one time his programming broke, and Tarasov hadn't been worth saving.
Not wanting to remember this, he launched himself from Natasha's suite and roamed the hallways and rooms that were open. He was being tested. This was only a test. It meant nothing, not in the long run, it didn't mean he was a failure. Failure wasn't tolerated, so he couldn't be a failure, couldn't run down or break.
James stopped short when he saw Bruce contorted on a yoga mat, eyes closed as he breathed slowly through the pose. He turned to leave, not wanting to interrupt, when Bruce called out "It's okay, you know. I don't use much space in here."
"No, it's all right. I'm not doing anything important."
"Huh. Maybe you should."
Pausing at the door, James frowned. "I'm a criminal."
"Not if you don't actually exist. Sometimes that's an awful, frightening thing," Bruce said, eyes opening. He unfolded himself and then got to his feet. "And at other times, it's actually freeing. You're not bound to who you used to be."
"Yeah, well, you're... You help."
"I'm the Hulk," Bruce said flatly. "You don't have to avoid it out of pity."
Frowning deeper, James shook his head. "Wasn't."
"So what did you mean?"
At those quiet words, James paused. He hadn't really interacted with Bruce much at all. He tended to stay in the labs with Jane and Tony, sometimes coming out to talk with the others. He was certainly friendly enough, and liked the company. There was still a reserve about him, as if he was afraid of confrontation or chaos. It never occurred to James that perhaps Bruce was was still lonely.
"You're one of them. An Avenger. You got a place, and I don't."
"They'd make a place for you. Like I said, you don't exist. I'm sure you'd get all kinds of paperwork and opportunity if that's what you wanted."
James pursed his lips as he thought. "I don't know. I never had the choice before."
Bruce nodded, expression nonjudgmental. "And it's been so long since you had options. It's not freeing, then. It's paralyzing."
"Yeah."
"Nightmares," Bruce guessed. "Flashbacks. Constantly on alert, dreading what will come next."
"Yeah."
"Your body's not your own. Stuff around you isn't real."
"Yeah." James glowered at Bruce. "How'd you know? Natalia wouldn't tell you."
"You think you're the only one here that feels that way?"
That threw him for a bit, and James shook his head. "But it shouldn't be that way for you."
"I turn into a monster. Some of the others feel like one. What's the difference?"
"You're not a monster," James protested, taking in the calm scientist in front of him.
"I know what I am. I've always known. The radiation brought it out of me. The serum-any serum, no matter how they put it together-always magnifies what's there. It makes you more of who you are. It can't augment or transform what doesn't exist." He shrugged. "When you're the most out of control is when it's hardest to remember that. When it feels like everything is falling apart, that's when I feel him closest."
"So then how do you stop it?"
"I had to develop a few tricks to staying calm, not letting the big guy out. I can't let him hurt anyone, you know. And he can. He doesn't always, he doesn't want to, but that doesn't mean he won't. The Other Guy isn't about control."
James thought about how it must feel to be so out of control that there was no stopping the tidal wave of destruction. He'd felt that way before, of course. And surprisingly, there was no anger to go along with that feeling. "But if you control it for him, how will he ever learn?"
That thought seemed to throw Bruce, who paused with lips pursed. "I don't know if he can," Bruce said finally. "He wasn't built for that."
"He doesn't have handlers. He doesn't have directives and programming," James said bluntly. "So he has his own choices that he can make."
"Then so can you."
"But I don't know what I want," James shot back, aggrieved.
"Then maybe it's time you found out," Bruce replied, unperturbed. "I know for myself, I need some activity, some opportunity to sink into my body. Feel it as me, not the Other Guy, something that's mine. Then I feel ready for research."
"Sink in your body," James echoed, brows furrowed as he contemplated the words. They felt right, somehow. Sometimes he didn't feel like he was in his body at all. Or that it wasn't real, it belonged to someone else. The metal arm threw him on those days, a horrible thing that reminded him he wasn't whole, he wasn't himself, he wasn't Bucky or James or whoever else he was supposed to be.
Bruce's words about trauma and his own physical reactions resonated with James. Names of researchers and physicians wafted over his head, but it occurred to him that Natasha mentioned a therapist she had started seeing, however reluctantly, to deal with her own grief and trauma. She had seen the therapist three times so far, and didn't seem to loathe the experience. Bruce hadn't had the opportunities to see a therapist in his world travels, and mentioned massage therapy and yoga as helpful for him to stay grounded.
James abruptly sat down on the floor in front of Bruce. "Can you teach me? I need something to settle this oddness. It's not programming, it's not dysfunction in my body. But it's not something I understand anymore, either. It doesn't always feel like mine."
"Maybe because for a long time, it wasn't," Bruce suggested gently. "I'm not a therapist, you know. I don't know these things for sure. But this worked for me."
"Then it'll work for me, too," James said firmly. "I need to do this, to be good enough outside this tower." To be good enough for Steve and Natasha, to be certain he wouldn't flash back to a time when he had been the Winter Soldier, so he could look at Sam and not feel the horrible guilt for shooting him in Japan.
"Maybe you could be part of the team, too," Bruce suggested. "I can't always go, not when the other guy could be a danger. But you could go in when I can't. You can help then."
Testing the idea in his mind, James waited for a sense of helpless terror. It didn't come.
"Hm," he murmured, noncommittally. "We'll see once I get the hang of this."
Nodding, Bruce started to go through his usual routine, James following suit.
***
***
To Chapter Two - Dealing With Nightmares