our common goal was waiting for the world to end. ( open )

[atoner]

Who| natasha romanoff + open!
What| a spy lands in the midst of the capitol.
Where| the training center, shopping districts
When| post-arena
Warnings/Notes| tba

So here's what she knows.

First, that whoever's in charge of this place had access to technology that happens to be lightyears ahead of anything that exists on Earth as she knows it. Better than Stark's technology, better than SHIELD's. Somehow managing to get the drop on her right after handing Barnes' file over to Steve is probably the least of their capabilities.

So, you know. That's good.

Natasha wakes up on a cot and finds herself being escorted somewhere by a group of guards that probably would have been able to take down if she weren't so sure that there were more to come. So she chooses to bide her time instead.

It's almost surprising when they choose to leave her alone in a plush apartment. Out of all the times she's been captured by enemy forces, well. That's definitely new.

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They leave her alone, and Natasha figures that she owes it to herself to figure out where she's allowed to go, and what kind of access is restricted. She goes up - all the way up on the elevators, stepping out onto the rooftop so she can get a better view of the place. Maybe figure out how big this operation spans.

The elevator doors open and she whistles, low and quiet. It's impressive, she'll give them that. But even despite the great view, what grabs her attention more is the subtle shimmer around the roof's edge. She stoops down to pick up a rock and tosses it lightly towards the refracting light in a perfect arc.

When it gets thrown right back to her, Natasha raises an eyebrow.

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It's not as if Natasha doesn't appreciate a little bit of pampering. She drives a fancy car and dresses herself in nice clothes on days when the tactical jumpsuit isn't a requirement. After years of being on the run, it's probably the closest thing to stability that she's ever really had. Still, shopping isn't really the purpose here. It's the people. Some of them are really odd looking, all decked out in strange fashions or body modifications she's never seen before. Natives, she figures. Some of the guards were the same.

Everyone else, though? The ones without any kind of ornamentation? Those are the people Nat figures are in the same boat as she is. Which is why she watches them with interest, even as she pretends to look at a display of dresses in a shop window.

Comments

Roof top

[tookthewheel]

The roof is one of the few places he could, in some way, admit to enjoying.

When the sun is shining and there are few or no other tributes, avoxes or anyone else in the vicinity it feels relaxing. Almost safe except for the eyes and ears that are always watching them and those he has learned to accept as background noise, an uncomfortable prickling he can ignore because he has no other choice.

It's not all that different from being under HYDRA's thumb in the end.

There are a few spots he favours, ones he scoped out as rarely visited by other people or hidden away and forgotten. In the aftermath of the arena it's good to visit one of these, settle and pass a couple in as close to a doze as he'll allow himself -- never true sleep, it's too risky and besides, risking a nightmare in public space feels worse than in the security of the room at night.

Pzt.

He sits up at the noise, then stands, moving to push aside foliage and get a view at whoever is testing the forcefield and stops at the sight of the redhead with her back to him.

They'd said she was gone.

His appearance will be familiar to her. Since dying his hair is long again and he has not allowed anyone else to cut it but he is clean shaven. The major difference is that one side of his face is marred by the Capitol brand, one his cheek, just below his eye. Bucky addresses her as soon as he steps out of his hiding place, "Widow?"

[atoner]

Natasha knows that there are others up here. She can hear the tiny noises that they make and is generally aware of their movements to the point where she'll know well in advance if she's about to be attacked. Which is a default state for her, a sort of extra sense imbued by training and experience that ultimately keeps her alive. It helps her react a little bit faster, gives her a few extra seconds to prepare when she needs it - seconds that mean the difference between life and death, sometimes.

She knows that there are others here, but she's not expecting him. The Winter Soldier. Steve's about to embark on a near-obsessive journey to find him and here he is, standing right in front of her eyes. The man who shot her twice and nearly killed Nick Fury. Probably countless other SHIELD agents, too.

Not that Natasha really bears him a grudge. She's read his file - those favors that she called in from Kiev. There's no way she'd have something like that in her hands and not take a peek at them. She knows that he's basically been a weapon for the past 50 years. Just following orders. Doing what he was told.

The fact that he's addressing her now is a new development, though. Natasha turns slowly, arms folded across her chest. He's like she remembers him, except the brand across his cheek that resembles some of the icons she's seen stamped on the official-looking buildings here. A mark of ownership, maybe - like he's their weapon, now.

Or maybe it's a punishment. A warning for others.

Natasha stares him down as she decides on what to address him as. Soldier. Asset.

In the end, she settles with: "Barnes."

[tookthewheel]

As soon as she turns round he knows he's made a mistake to address her with familiarity.

She is different. Her hair could be explained away, the Capitol is fond of changing looks and the stylists for the tributes are always trying to force them into different styles. Length, shape, colour, it could all be changed with ease. The thing he cannot explain away is the lack of the brand on her face.

Just like himself, the other suspects and failed rescuers she had been scarred and if he had woken with his brand still intact the logic followed that hers should be there too. The Capitol would not allow her accused crime to go forgotten.

So there is only one explanation he can find, she is not the same Black Widow. He thinks back to the hours before the Insight Mission and the files he had been given to study in his prep. She looks more like the woman in those photos.

Then he has to blink because for a split-moment he has double-vision, an overlay that makes him shake his head before registering her return address to him. He has to make sure and clarify the information before he can decide how to proceed.

"You're different. When did you get here?" This Widow recognises him, that's something to be noted.

[atoner]

Steve wants to save him. Save him, or stop him - sometimes the two are the same thing. In some way, she understands. But she also wishes she could prepare him for the idea that sometimes, people can't come back. Not from 50 years of mental conditioning and torture. Clint only just managed to pull her back from the brink, and she wasn't even conditioned in the same way that Barnes was. SHIELD would have put a bullet through her head first.

Mercy is an odd thing. But that's Steve's call, he's his ghost. Right now, Natasha just wants to make sure that he's not going to attack her. Because she knows that she can't fight him off. It had taken every single one of her wits and resources to stay alive the last time they faced off, trying to keep one step ahead of him.

She remembers the way the fear had settled into her bones, pushed aside with practiced ease.

"A couple of hours ago. Were you expecting someone else?"

Maybe it's a product of his faulty mind, a memory glitch or something. Remembering things that aren't true.

[tookthewheel]

"Yes." he answered promptly, keeping his gaze focused on her. That this Black Widow was unknown made him wary of her even with the rule of fighting being forbidden outside of the arenas hanging over their heads and there was good reason for that. The Natasha he knew before had made her introductions to Bucky by laying in wait in his assigned room, resulting in an encounter which ended in a fight that only avoided Peacekeeper intervention because Steve got there first.

Right now he has no intentions of picking a fight with her unless she chooses to attack him first. Bucky is more interested in information than violence right now.

"There was a Black Widow here before." he carries on, words low and measured. "She was marked," he touches the glove covered finger of his cybernetic left hand, now fully-functioning again aside from the restrictions he had become accustomed to, to the scarred flesh of his cheek, "you're not. So you're new."

He doesn't come closer, comfortable at this distance where they can hear each other well enough. Beneath that apparent calm there's a feeling he determines is disappointment. He realises he wanted it to be the other woman and that is a revelation.

[atoner]

The only thing is that Natasha doesn't yet know about other universes. Of course, she does in the way that they exist in her own - as separate planes of existence. Asgard, and wherever it was that the Chitauri came from. But the idea that there were other versions of herself wasn't exactly a logical conclusion based on the facts that Natasha knows. More likely is...memory augmentation. Some sort of false memories, or an imbued reality. Like what HYDRA used to make Barnes forget that he was a human.

Only, maybe these people have perfected that. The rest of their technology is already leaps and bounds ahead, so maybe that's possible, too.

She doesn't like to think about the possibility that she's been compromised like that. But it wouldn't be the first time.

"You knew her. You addressed her first. Why?"

The only contact she's ever had with the Soldier was as a target. Something's obviously changed.

[tookthewheel]

"I did." he confirms first.

Not well, no. She was closer to the other man who bears his name, the one with brown eyes and a few less inches in height. Bucky thinks they came from the same universe though he doesn't know the extent of how close they were, if he did he might have been surprised but he focuses more on his own interactions with that Natasha and the things she did for him than anything else.

"I wanted you to be her." the admittance comes without much difficulty as he rubs his metal thumb against its neighbouring finger. The next words follow a small pause, "She helped me." the way he speaks is like he is half talking to himself as well as her, sounding out thoughts he had not considered before.

Things have changed with the Winter Soldier since HYDRA fell.

[atoner]

It's an admission that sounds like he doesn't expect it from himself, which is something that Natasha takes careful note of. The idea of herself, any version of herself having a positive relationship with the soldier - with Barnes is a little bit of a ridiculous prospect.

But stranger things have happened.

"How did she help you?"

[tookthewheel]

With a poker face like the Soldier's it can be hard on a normal day to tell truth or lie from Bucky, today though that mask isn't glued on especially tight, helped by how much this unexpected development has thrown him.

"Maintenance." is how he phrases it at first and then grimaces at the term he just used. It's not correct, maintenance was what they had done. "With this." he indicates the brand on his face.

There's more to his relationship with the previous Widow than that but the part with the brand is what he chooses to tell her. He might tell her more if she pries deeper but for now that's it.