1964-03-30 - Winter Amnesia
Summary: Natasha seeks out the Winter Soldier and… gets more than she bargained for.
Related: NA
Theme Song: None
bucky natasha 


One of his handlers, specifically one of the techs who decants and refreezes him between missions, has a punner's sense of humor - his nickname/informal code name is "Ded' Moroz" - Grandfather Frost. And thus the name he's going by now, an identity constructed by the Red Room: John "Jack" Frost. IT was with this identity that he was dispatched a few weeks ago, to return to his duties in New York after some tuning and reprogramming. You can't find the engineers needed to repair a vibranium prothesis down at the corner garage, after all.

…..and in the ensuing weeks, there has been radio silence. He stepped off the boat in the port of New York, and apparently vanished into thin air. Customs has him coming in under that name, but he's nowhere. No check-ins, no dead drops, no chalk sign left where a Widow's eye might find it. One of the stashes in the city's been emptied, of both cash and ammo. So he's armed and not wholly destitute. But nor has he been seen in his usual haunts….and certainly nowhere about Stark's holdings.

But Widow knows him, knows his training, and knows his instincts, perhaps better than he does. She's got one long continuity of memory, rather than scattered shards and fragments of recall like a broken mirror. And spiders are nothing if not patient hunters, so it's not so long as it might be that she finds traces of him moving through the city: a purchase here, the mark of a boot on a rooftop. And finally, in an old factory already chalked for the wrecking ball, a squat, rigged up in the rafters. Barely more than the kind of platform a kid would have for a tree house….though most kids don't have assault rifles spread out to clean on a makeshift workbench. Which is what he's doing when she finds him, a tiny lamp supplying light, his shoulders hunched against the echoing dark in the rest of the empty building.

*

There's a fine line between caution and risk and spies often skirt that line. Balanced steps bring the Widow, decked in her black nylon-esque costume, to the factory. Her paces silently make it to the would-be treehouse, and its imminent lockdown. Nat carefully peeks about the room, silently assessing rather than actively engaging for several moments. Getting shot isn't on her to-do list today. But lack of memory might inspire something else.

When she rounds the corner she's been using to spy on him, she does so with incredible deftness and slyness that not many would catch the motion.

How she tracked him this far is anyone's guess. But the way she treads into the light is telling. She's woman who knows how to mitigate trouble, whatever its appearance. Lowly, her voice hums through the small space, "A lot of rifles considering you can only use one at a time." Her lips twitch into a smirk that is probably supposed to resemble a smile.

*

She caught him. And he does something she's quite likely never seen him do before - he actually startles. Oh, he's got a pistol in hand with that magician's swiftness, rounding on her, but….it's a beat slower than usual. The rhythm of the old dance is off.

Did someone back in the wilds of Siberia slip with a scalpel, or turn up the voltage just a little too high? Because while his face is mask-like, the pale eyes are wild….and there is no recognition there. He doesn't ask her who she is, but he's almost braced against that little bench, poised to see what she'll do.

*

And the extra moment does grant Natasha some pause. She recoils, spinning around with the sharp precision she'd acquired the Widow status for to knock the gun from Bucky's hand. Her hands lift in front of her, forming two fists as she lands back on her feet.

Her lips purse into a small circle, and her green eyes narrow into self-determined slits. She's light on her feet, wholly aware and capable of defending herself. She stares at him. "If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead," she observes blandly — a particular cadence that doesn't exactly reflect her posture. "I surprised you. I'm more skilled than that."

*

That's the twenty one foot rule - the distance you need to make sure you can fire before an opponent on foot can reach you….and do exactly what Nat just did. He's got a knife in hand, now, edged back towards the side - the squat's built into a corner, two sides the brick outer wall, the other two open to a vertiginous drop to the factory floor, albeit via girders, supports, and the remnants of old flooring. Dangerous enough to warrant the 'Condemned' signs plastered on the outside. He licks his lips, another little sign of control lost. It's as if he's reverted to the barely coherent construct the scientists handed off to the Room. "What do you want?" he asks, finally, that stare unwavering.

*

Natasha doesn't close the distance. She doesn't draw closer to him or move spots even as he seems like a caged animal more than the person she knows. She sucks on the inside of her cheek, and, rather slowly, moves from her standing position to a squatting one, aiming to take away any source of threat as she does so. She stares at his face, studying him to seek any traces of familiarity. "You didn't get back to me," she says idly. "Those things are a big deal in our world. I wondered if you were made."

*

There's the little furrow, all too familiar, that gets etched between his brows when he's concentrating….or as he seems to be now, puzzled. Sweat on his brow not at all warranted by the temperature, and his jaw works for a moment. No verbal reply, but the incomprehension in his eyes is answer enough. No idea at all what she's talking about, at least at first. The line deepens…..and when recognition, at least of a sort, finally dawns, he simply lunges for her. It's barely more than panic, though his training's left muscle memory enough he's not making any of the immediate rookie mistakes. And carefully aware of the edges - one well-judged sweep of her boot, and he'll be plummeting four stories to the stained concrete beneath.

*

And Natasha has no deep-seated desire to kick the Winter Soldier down to the concrete below. She leaps, rolling lightly to space away from him, granting her some space. She knows most of the many of the moves in his book. She whistles sharply. "Watch yourself, Sparky. I might take that personally," her voice takes on that same low tone, nearly sultry in its vibration. She rises now, opening herself up to whatever he wants to lay on her. Yes, she's inviting it.

*

"Get away from me. Leave me alone." His voice is equally low, that familiar rasp, but with an edge of emotion that's almost never present. His gaze darts, looking for the pistol - there was no clatter of a long-distance fall after she kicked it out of his hand. "Tell them to leave me alone." The Colt's not to be found, and now he's looking past her, plotting routes out and down.

*

"I can't do that," Natasha's voice darkens as does her gaze. She comes back at him with a lunge of her own. Her foot reaches out to sweep against him, fully prepared to take a major fall if it should one to it. Some missions take precedence over wellbeing. Or. All missions do.

*

The sweep's anticipated, just enough for him to seize it with that unyielding, cold hand and yank, full-force. Not enough to pull her right off the edge, but enough to lay her out on the wood planks that make up the flooring of the little room. Then it's a grapple, trying to use greater mass and the strength of his metal arm to pin her. At least he seems to have forgotten the knife in favor of a choke.

*

Natasha gasps for air as her hands reach for her Widow's bite to grant him a small zap to back off. The little electronic devices nip at the Winter Soldier's metallic arm, begging him to release her neck as it does so. She kicks hard, and fights against the pin holding her down.

*

There's that slithery noise of plates scraping and locking, the whine of internal servos protesting at sudden strain. For a moment that arm goes rigid, fingers releasing. Her kick sends him rolling right off the edge of the platform, without a sound. There's a breathless half-second of silence, and then a clang and a phrase of particularly obscene Russian from below, followed by the sound of heavy boots pounding along a steel cross-beam. Apparently the better part of valor is discretion, tonight.

*

Coughing hard, Natasha feels thankful for having more than one trick up her sleeve. Her hand presses against her throat and she attempts to catch any breath that she can. She's going to need to see a doctor.

Or a nurse.

With the distance between them and she's not quite back to her feet, she calls raspily into the space, "…you could at least recognize me!"

*

She's left alone in that rickety little room, just at the edge of the pool of light. Apparently her comrade's frightened enough of her to be willing to abandon what he's stored in this particular squat. It's been used as a hideout, clearly. There's a canvas campcot with a blanket and his overcoat, the makeshift workbench - and yes, there're at least two rifles he's left for her: one the assault rifle dismembered on the bench, the other a Dragunov sniper model, all arachnid elegance in pride of place above it on the wall. Stored food in a milkcrate that's the erzatz pantry. Nothing personal. Well, almost. There's a little notebook on the corner of the workbench…..and chalked on to the crumbling brick of the factory wall, a little cartoon figure peeping over its own fingers. Kilroy Was Here.

But the Soldier himself has vanished, footsteps diminished into silence in the distance.

*

When Natasha finally rises injured form her spot on the floor, her eyes scan the area. She spies the notebook and takes it as well as one of the weapons before heading out. Destined for Hell's Kitchen.

*

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