we face a crossroad never knowing what's in store; (CLOSED)

[assassinat]

Who| Natasha and Steve Rogers.
What| Avengers stuff.
Where| District 8 floor.
When| Week 5, after Steve kicks it in the Arena. Before everything else that's going on currently.
Warnings/Notes| I'm sorry this log is going to hurt ewe but we're gonna fawn over our bucks now.

[ Having kept herself busy enough with watching over the more unruly men in her life, Natasha admittedly had little time to keep up with the matters of the Arena. At the end of the day, she would sit down and catch up while the rest of the world slept; until then she kept herself busy. Tallying up the deaths and cataloging the methods each combatant aired on the screen used, she built a foundation of knowledge previously denied to her. In the end, she was better suited to stay within the Capitol and rebuild herself, so she did that by absorbing the culture, the people, and anything else she could pick up with her eyes and ears.

No matter how many times she watched the people die, it never got any easier. At one point in her life it was easy to not feel anything by it, but that was the dark past better left behind. So when she sees friend or child fall in the Arena, it only further fuels an agenda hidden to her. There were opportunities if she sought them out, but between babysitting Tony Stark while keeping her best friend from going mad, there was little time for her own hobbies. Even if she somehow managed to make it, another wrench would be thrown into the works. Last night's wrench was in the form of American patriotism as the news of Steve Roger's death. A hot topic that made it uncomfortable to sleep well that past evening.

Something stirs and leaves her restless in the middle of the day. Instinct. Natasha's always believed in herself above everything else or with as much trust as she could spare for anything these days. Just enough to cause her to leave the bedroom she was staying in to catch up on the Arena news during the day. No party tonight, she's decided because how she could justify celebrating the death of a Captain America? Steve might not be her Steve, he might not be her Bucky, but he was still a leader she respected.

So it shouldn't come as big of a surprise that he might have felt the same way enough to pay her a visit. ]

Comments

[aboveangrybees]

[Steve could say he hasn't seen Stark like that, that he knows about it only from a file and what he's heard from others, but he doesn't. Just gives her an amused smile before she changes the subject and it fades.

He moves to sit near her, a seat left between them, his face neutral of emotion other than how his eyes keep trying to squint in thought.

And how was this not easy to say? It felt like a confession not informing her of how the situation changed last minute. But he knows what state Bucky is in and he's not there to help or stop the man. Hell, he still could think this is a mission. He tried to tell James, but blood and pain and death tore that chance from him

Now his allies were left in the lurch.]

The Bucky from my world arrived. In the arena.

[assassinat]

[ That's what they call a sucker punch, Steve. For a moment there all other sound is drowned out as instinct takes over, the sound of her heart beating inside of her eardrums being the only thing she can hear. While she was warned of this, that there was another one, she didn't stop to calculate the chances of that man showing up.

In all honesty, she should have been prepared for this. Maybe a part of her was because while she could swear up and down that her heart just stopped at the news, she's still able to maintain her composure. On the outside, she seems as lethargic as she was when he first walked in. ]

That's just our luck, isn't it? [ Spoken with a calm, deep breath following it. Inhale, hold it, exhale.

She's mastered the art of remaining calm when her world collapses down around her. Her heart can hardly take everything so far and while she's a tough broad, she's not tough enough to keep rolling with the punches. Not like this. ]

I need to know everything you know about him. I also need to know everything you suspect about him.

[aboveangrybees]

[Yeah well, she asked to cut the pleasantries. He was trying to lead up to this gently.

He watches her closely, wondering how much the news would bother or affect her, it concerned a Bucky and she was involved with James, so it made sense that this would impact her on some level. And when she gives no reaction at all, just stays absolutely as she was, well, that's a reaction in of itself.

Maybe because he's gotten honest reactions from her in the past, the utter non-reaction speaks volumes of the impact. Though the actual depth of it is still lost on him.

But he says nothing on the matter, just shifts his eyes to look just passed her.]

He's the Winter Soldier. [Steve doesn't want to elaborate too much on Bucky's past, the Capitol is listening. But he could say things the Capitol already knows.]

The only thing they told him before sending him in was that it's death match. He was convinced it was Hydra giving him a mission or test. [Steve tried to correct that notion, but who knows if it stuck.] He has no sense of self still, I asked him to wait a minute and when I returned he hadn't moved an inch, he was exactly as I left him.

[assassinat]

Leave him to me. [ If he's the Winter Soldier, then she knows how to handle the situation or so she thinks. He's her comrade, a comrade, it should be easy. ] Once he returns to the Capitol, I can.

[ Natasha stops suddenly, wondering what she can do. When it came to Bucky, to James, she knew how to play him. They knew intimate details of each other that no one else in the world would ever be privy to so it made sense to request that he leaves his friend to her.

His friend. Right. There's no chance in Hell that's happening. His opinion of her skills may be lessened due to her hasty death in the Arena, but Steve Rogers should still know what the Black Widow is capable of. There's no way. ]

I rather enjoy a whipped man. Makes my job easier.

[ The jest is meant to lighten the mood, to deflect her own and to give the overall impression that things are okay between them. Both of them returned from the dead and there's two James Buchanan Barnes in their death arena world. Everything is okay. ]

[aboveangrybees]

[The jest does get a small quirk of his lips, but it's forced, more a show that he appreciated the effort. He uses humor to lighten moods and break tension all the time, even in the heaviest of situations. It's something he learned growing up, if you can still laugh about your horrible situation, then you can survive it.

Bucky isn't a situation he can laugh about.

Her offer to leave Bucky to her is kind and probably practical in her world, but he's getting the idea that James hasn't shared with her the vast differences in the history Steve and Bucky share. That she still probably has no idea the magnitude of who Bucky is in his life or that she-]

There's a problem with what you're asking, something important you need to know. [The look her gives her says he's sorry for what he's about to say, because it's one thing to learn you share a different history with your best friend, it's another to learn there's nothing.]

Where I'm from, you and Bucky don't share a history.

[assassinat]

[ Silence fills the air between them. If her other world self is half as good as she is, then there's a good chance Steve doesn't know what she does, what she's capable of. Being trained under the Winter Soldier is where she gained her strength in more ways than one, so to think of a world where she never met him..?

No, it's not possible. Steve must be wrong in this matter. Every bit of information she's gathered from him and the others regarding their universe goes through her mind, wondering if it's possible. She's younger, in the eighties wasn't it? If he was a friend of Steve Rogers, then that places Bucky also in his nineties... ]

All the more reason for me to be the one who speaks to him. It won't be personal for either of us.

[ Now that's an obvious lie, but her expression doesn't flicker in any way. ]

[aboveangrybees]

[And Steve doesn't believe that for a second.

For Bucky, yeah, she's probably as good as a stranger to him, but for her? He knows she and James share a long history, how could it not be personal for her? She's amazing at what she does and Steve has the utmost respect for her and her abilities, but she's still human.]

That's not how this works and we both know it.

[Besides, from how he's seen Bucky act, impersonal is the last thing he needs. He isn't a problem to be solved, there isn't any leaving him to anyone. Steve isn't stepping away.]

What's driving you to want to be the one to speak with him so badly? What is it you're hoping to do? [It's mostly just honestly wondering, but if she can read him at all, she could see that he's seriously assessing her. His trust in her could be heavily influenced by what she says. He would ask her to be honest, but he feels that wouldn't change her reply.]

[assassinat]

[ Being honest is what she does, at least when it benefits her. There is nothing to be gained from lying to Steve Rogers, a man who has seen her act soft nor is there anything to be gained from lying to Captain America, the man who helped her own rise from the grave with purpose. There’s something about the shield that just compels her to be upfront, to inform him of what she intends to do. ]

Recovering information is what I was trained to do and I mean trained. Nothing like the youthful lass who parades around with my name in your world, Steve.

If there’s anything the Winter Soldier remembers either from his time under or from his life before, we’ll find it together.

[ She adds on curtly: ]I have already gone through this before, do you think I’m not capable of handling it once more?

[aboveangrybees]

[It's her use of the word "we" that settles it for Steve, she's not trying to shut him out, just trying to do things her way. The honesty rings true to him, so he chooses to believe she means it. Even if he wants to defend his Natasha, he knows they are such different people that he can't quite bring himself to, it's not really the moment.

Though her questioning his questioning makes him frown, because this isn't the first time she's thought he was underestimating her.]

Is my counterpart that much of a sexist? [It's not a pleasant thought, but he's getting that feeling.] Because this has nothing to do with thinking your not capable and everything to do with knowing you're more capable than I probably realize. You said it yourself, you're not a lot like the Natasha from my world and because of that I don't know you all that well and can't put the level of trust I would in her in you. [His ability to trust is still strained. It's not that he doesn't trust her, but it's not to the level he'd trust his Natasha.

Steve looks pointedly at the television like he's looking towards the arena, towards Bucky, but then his eyes are right back on her.] There's very little I wouldn't do for that man, so if you want to work together, I'm willing, but if you're planning to shut me out or have me back off then you've already lost that battle.

[assassinat]

[ Among other things, but she doesn't make mention of it. Admittedly all of this otherworldly stuff throws her for a loop. What good is her knowledge if it doesn't add up to everything that's happened in their worlds? How straight can she keep the details between this Steve and her Steve when this one inevitably becomes her Steve? That's the path they're heading down, one of familiarity not known to her and yet it comes so easily to him.

Funny how the one who is always charming others can't stand it when someone else endears themselves to her. ]

I know. [ Natasha manages with a heavy sigh as she runs her fingers through her hair. To which statement she doesn't specify as her gaze focuses on the man on screen. ]

But I also know what it is that makes the Winter Soldier click. I have witnessed it with my own eyes... and I can't just stand back doing nothing. Not again.

[aboveangrybees]

[It doesn't need clarification, he takes the "I know" as an answer to both. Simple, clear, precisely to the point; he wouldn't expect any less from her. Not with him at least. She's been pretty upfront with him since they met, little to few games, he hopes she stays that way and he'll return the favor.

He wants to trust her like he trusts his Natasha, he wants to know she has his back, but it took so long for him and Natasha to come to that, he doesn't expect it to come easy with this one either.]

And I'm not asking you to do that, all I said is to not ask me to step back either. Because I can't. [He's failed him once already, it can't happen again.

Steve looks at his lap in a silent thought.] I know I can't save him, that's not an illusion I have, but maybe if you and I work together, help each other, we can do more to help him save himself.