“Some light lunch and some light gunfire. It’s a date,” Bucky said, blue eyes practically twinkling with an edge of mischief. His idea of a date with Natasha Romanoff was largely this: staying on the run, under the radar, having each others’ backs. They were both so similar, in both this and her stubborn persistence and pushing herself through injuries — except that the woman didn’t have his durable body, his slightly augmented healing factor, which made her own feats more impressive.
As they set off across the city again, he measured his pace to hers; not handling her with kid gloves, exactly, but making sure he didn’t outpace her and her injuries. Sam had groused a few times in the past about how both Steve and Bucky could keep up with a jeep on foot, leaving everyone else in the dust.
They kept their conversation to the basics: directions, monitoring their surroundings, pinpointing the right car to steal. His metal elbow, smashing through the window so they could get in. As he drove and Nat kept watch, again, he could sense that she was carrying herself with more strung-taut tension than usual. Something about Taskmaster had her so much more rattled than any of their other pursuers; this whole time, she’d been running cheerful circles around all of SHIELD and the American government.
This was different.
It’s the Red Room that’s after me.
But the rest of the trip was thankfully quiet, and they eventually made it to the airstrip without incident; they swapped off piloting for the short flight; finally let some of their hackles drop once they were safely in the air and chewing up the rest of the distance to Russia.
Russia.
The closer they drew to her birth country and his pseudo-adopted one, the more his own tension mounted. Even after they landed and were on their way to somewhere to rest before the next day’s prison break, Bucky’s watchful gaze took in the street signs, the posters, the Cyrillic. When they let themselves into the next anonymous barebones apartment, the exhaustion seemed to finally visibly sag into his shoulderblades. It was the middle of the night by now, and they’d both been running on fumes.
“Well,” he said. “Home sweet home.”
It wasn’t. The safehouse itself was just like any other anonymous bolthole they’d holed themselves up in, and similar to the one she’d found him in, but being back in this country itself seemed to have settled under his skin again too: hunted, haunted.
no subject
As they set off across the city again, he measured his pace to hers; not handling her with kid gloves, exactly, but making sure he didn’t outpace her and her injuries. Sam had groused a few times in the past about how both Steve and Bucky could keep up with a jeep on foot, leaving everyone else in the dust.
They kept their conversation to the basics: directions, monitoring their surroundings, pinpointing the right car to steal. His metal elbow, smashing through the window so they could get in. As he drove and Nat kept watch, again, he could sense that she was carrying herself with more strung-taut tension than usual. Something about Taskmaster had her so much more rattled than any of their other pursuers; this whole time, she’d been running cheerful circles around all of SHIELD and the American government.
This was different.
It’s the Red Room that’s after me.
But the rest of the trip was thankfully quiet, and they eventually made it to the airstrip without incident; they swapped off piloting for the short flight; finally let some of their hackles drop once they were safely in the air and chewing up the rest of the distance to Russia.
Russia.
The closer they drew to her birth country and his pseudo-adopted one, the more his own tension mounted. Even after they landed and were on their way to somewhere to rest before the next day’s prison break, Bucky’s watchful gaze took in the street signs, the posters, the Cyrillic. When they let themselves into the next anonymous barebones apartment, the exhaustion seemed to finally visibly sag into his shoulderblades. It was the middle of the night by now, and they’d both been running on fumes.
“Well,” he said. “Home sweet home.”
It wasn’t. The safehouse itself was just like any other anonymous bolthole they’d holed themselves up in, and similar to the one she’d found him in, but being back in this country itself seemed to have settled under his skin again too: hunted, haunted.