brushpass | threads

"You already said that," Natasha points out with a smile. "I wasn't talking about work. But if that was your nice way of telling me to fuck off out of your personal life, it was well done." There's a sparkle of mischievous humor in her eyes that makes it clear she really means it. It's funny too that all of her extensive training never prepared her for this. Maybe she can forgive herself her missteps - first not looking at him at all, then looking too much. There was no happy middle ground.

Her expression shifts back into something like neutrality when he asks if she had been close to the other Bucky. Maybe he didn't - understand how Vormir worked. It's entirely possible Clint has never explained it thoroughly in this world. It had certainly taken her a while to make an account of it. For just a moment, she thinks about lying to him, but again draws the conclusion that it would be unforgivable.

"When you get the soul stone from Vormir, it's in exchange for the soul of someone you love." It's an answer from an oblique angle - he'll draw the conclusion that he draws, and he can ask her for more information if he really wants it.

He's taking a bit to think on how he wants to respond to that accusation as he takes another swig of vodka before setting the glass down and looking at her directly. He's about to say something about how he doesn't have a personally life, everyone he knows is dead but then she hits him with the information from Vomir.

"I didn't know that..." he mutters softly still looking at her. Barton was married though, that means it was different right? Clearly this other version of Natasha could have platonically loved a version of him, that's all that meant right?

Why is his brain tell him there's something more, hiding behind lock and key in his mind.

"When I found out she died, I was sad, but I didn't know why," he says softly. Surely this can't be too bad of an option, she's going to go back to her world or something right. Maybe she was sent here to make him understand.

Something about the way he says it makes her think that he means 'sadder than he should have been.' It's quiet for a moment as she mulls that over, taking another sip of her vodka. It's an odd thought for her to wrestle with. Even if there was something locked away in his memory, she's not the Natasha that would be in there. Would she just be dooming him to mourn her all the more acutely? The way that his ghost from another universe walks everywhere in her shadow? And he's certainly had enough people playing around with his memory to last him nine lifetimes.

But at the end of the day, she knows what the answer is. If their roles were reversed, she'd want him to try.

"Can I try something?" she asks finally. "If you were sadder than you thought you should be, there could be something in your memory. I'd have to move closer to you and touch your prosthetic arm. You can tell me to stop at any time." She doesn't know if it will work. They're both - quite literally - different people. But maybe there are echoes, somewhere out there in the universe.

He desperately wants to be able to hold his attention on her but there’s something that makes him keep looking away. He finds something in him to glance back but then on eyes dancing about the room, not focusing on any specific thing.

When she asks the question he looks down at his hands, takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.

“I don’t really understand, but okay,” he agrees.

He’s used to dealing with enough holes in his memories after Wakanda. Yet, somehow it never seems to get any easier.

Natasha sets her glass down on the counter before she moves closer. Even though she's not usually one for speeches, she talks as she moves, not wanting to startle him. Her voice is low and even. Like she's approaching a wounded animal. This too is painfully familiar. How many times has she bailed the other him out of the wreck the chair turned him into? Even if there's nothing there to uncover, maybe this Bucky still needs someone willing to try.

"There's a couple of things. We used to have fun, sparring together. By the time he joined my training, no one else had been a challenge for years. But there was still a tap out code. Here." One of her hands takes his prosthetic one gently, sliding around to cup the underside. There's no hesitation in the way she touches him. Her other hand moves up, her fingers pressing against his forearm in a slow, deliberate pattern.

"Later on, when I started breaking through his programming..." she trails off, not exactly sure how to phrase it. Her fingers move, stroking lightly down the length of his forearm and over his palm.

With his eyes closed it's easy to just concentrate on the feelings, trying not to think too deep of meaning. It'd been something he'd learned about over the time since he'd been in Wakanda, just letting familiarity take over his mind. He tries to imagine what it might be like to be in those sparing times.

"Lucky dog, getting to spar with a pretty girl..." he mumbles half under his breath, even though she can her him, it's pretty obvious it's a half subconscious thought he's voicing while trying to imagine memories.

The last comment is what makes him open his eyes and frowns.

"You broke through his programming? Not Shuri and the team in Wakanda?"

Her mouth curls in a half smile when she hears his quiet comment, though she doesn't call him on it yet. It's clear that he's deep in thought and she doesn't want to interrupt the process. No matter where it ends. Honestly, if she'd had time to think about it, she would have expected this to hurt more. But there's something - it's not nice, really, but something right about trying to help this version of the man she loves look into his memories.

Natasha meets his eyes when he looks at her, head tipping thoughtfully as she considers his question. Her fingers are still moving idly along his arm. "We did. I think I was the fault in the code," she answers, sounding amused by her choice of terminology. "We never got rid of it completely, but it wasn't functional anymore. Were the Wakandans able to remove it entirely?" she asks, scanning his face as she gives his arm a gently squeeze. "That's incredible."

He bites his lower lip at the comment, it's weird to imagine some places so different and yet so the same. She knew who he was right when she saw him yet it sounds like their worlds weren't so close at all.

"Yeah it took a while at it was tough, but they got it," he explains. He leans just the slightest bit into her touch, not sure why but it feels relaxing. It'd been a long time since he felt anything like that, the gentle touch of a friend. No one had really cared about him in a long time. At least not since before Steve left and even that was complicated. Not that he blamed Steve for leaving.

"Who's left in your world?" he asks and his face shows the curiosity but also because he feels very much alone in this moment.

It's interesting, the way he leans into her touch like that. So subtle. Almost like he's only subconsciously letting himself. And it's funny to think that it's something that is only so familiar to her because she's seen it in some mirror of him a hundred times or more over the years. That he probably has no idea she can see it. She wonders if that's fair. If it matters.

There's a thoughtful look on her face as she considers his question, one hand still gently clasping his arm as the idly traces a slow, circular pattern over his palm with her thumb on the other hand. "The people that are left are really scattered. I was talking to Clint pretty regularly but he's still out on the farm. I was mostly working solo. Helping out with things here and there."

"I have no idea where he is, we never really got along here..." Bucky mutters. He wonders if that's true of many worlds or even why that might be. It's all so unclear but he's not surprised to hear that Natasha would be close to Clint anywhere.

He slows his talking just to take in the pattern she's tracing. There's something familiar about it but he's not really sure what it is or how that could be.

"That feels like something I should know," he adds softly.

"You boys were always taking shots at each other in my world too," Natasha answers, sounding oddly fond as she says it. Though she does tack on after a moment, "verbally." She wouldn't want to see a situation where they got in an actual fight, because she's pretty sure they'd manage to one shot each other and then she'd have to go find them in the afterlife and kick both of their asses.

It takes her a second to realize what he means, and she smiles a little as she looks at him, her fingers still moving in the same idle way. "Like a memory or something you just like?"

Somehow the idea that another version of himself is annoyed at Clint isn't surprising, but he doesn't have time to dwell on it when the next question is being asked. It's a good question and not one he's particularly sure of. His eyes stay closed as he thinks about it before opening them and look up at her.

"Familiar? But also not quite right, like maybe I used to be used to something similar, but not that specifically?" it's a half question, half statement and the words 'just like you' hang on his lips because he can't bring himself to speak them.

Though she can't tell specifically what he's thinking, she knows there's something there. It's in the way the end of his sentence is clipped, like there's a second half he's not quite sure he knows how to dive into.

"Well, I am from a different universe." Her voice is all wry humor, like an unspoken recognition of how profoundly weird it is that she's been dumped here in the middle of a mission. "How about this?" She releases his prosthetic arm and lets her fingertips trail lightly down the length of his other forearm instead.

"The fuckin' multiverse..." he murmurs quietly while letting her take his hand and guide those fingers up his arm. It feels nice, which seems like a bad idea. He's not supposed to enjoy things like that, especially not from friends of his friends.

He should send her away, go back to his quite life in this shitty apartment and hope the world forgets him again. He can't bring himself to do it though, something about her seeing him, being here makes him feel alive in a way he'd forgotten he even could be.

"How did you and him get to know each other? I've barely spoken 10 sentences to the Natasha who was here."

"The fuckin' multiverse," Natasha agrees, her mouth quirking into a little smirk. It's all a little unbelievable. A little ridiculous. She always seems to find herself at the business end of some dangerous situation. Honestly, it's sort of nice to just have to deal with ridiculous instead.

Though she's sure the danger is still coming.

"Didn't have much of a choice. The Red Room contracted him to help with our training at first. Then he and I started going on missions together. That gave me time to navigate around the programming and get to know him." There's that same tone that's always there when she talks about the Red Room, like she's dutifully going through it because she knows it's better to talk about it. But there's a peculiar hint of nostalgia there too. "He'd sneak into my window at night. Said he slept better there."

"That sounds a lot more fun then sleeping in a cryo tank for hydra," Bucky muses and a grin he doesn't even know is forming starts to curl around his lips. He hasn't smiled like that in a long time but it's hard not to smile at the pretty girl who seems to have made him happy in some other world.

"He sounds like a lucky guy, Is it bad that I'm apparently jealous of myself?"

"He had a cryo tank too," Natasha answers, though it mostly seemed to be used on the heels of wiping him after too much humanity leaked through. She knew any time he disappeared for a few months or more what happened. The grin that starts at his lips is unexpected, and her brow arches, though she finds herself smiling back.

And she can't help but laugh a little, squeezing his hand. It's an oddly charming sentiment. And...not really a surprise, no. "No. It's weird to see the way your life could be." Something she's learning very rapidly as she tries to conceive of a version of herself that didn't know him well and ended up dead on Vormir.

The smile stays though he pulls the hand away from her, the touches feel too good. They're too much and he wants to lean into her, to touch her more but he knows he shouldn't, that he can't. She probably got pulled her for some important reason not to come be around him.

He takes a big drink of his vodka before pouring more and looking at her.

"Do you miss him?"

Maybe she's there for an important reason. Or maybe it's just some kind of...multiversal accident. A quirk of fate. She's been through enough weird shit by now to know that saying 'anything is possible' really is only the tip of the iceberg. She sits down on one end of the couch once he pulls back, settling into the cushion as she knocks back the rest of her own drink and holds out the glass for him to refill.

The question takes her by surprise. Her eyes meet his for a moment, and her mouth curls into a sad little smile. "Only every minute."

Something about that way she says it. Her voice is fond, but her smile is sad in a way that he's surprised rouses up something. It's not sympathy exactly, but some sort of feeling that he can't quite put his feeling on. Honestly, he's not great with feelings anyways.

He pours her another drink when she pushes the glass forward before sliding it back over to her with an awkward smile.

"So the universe dropped you off on a roof of a guy who's a version of the person you miss more then anything. Now that seems like it's playing a joke on you, no offense," he says before taking another drink of vodka. She hadn't actually said those words, but that was the vibe he'd gotten from the last comment.

"Wouldn't be the first time I thought I was the butt end of a cosmic joke," Natasha answers as she lifts the glass skyward in a mocking toast. She lowers the glass and takes another quick gulp. It does seem cruel.

Or maybe that's just the mindset she's been in. Adrift out in the world, chasing down enemies that wear the faces of friends. It's necessary work, but lonely.

She lapses into quiet for a moment, a thoughtful look on her face. If it's not cruel, and not random, what could it be? Some kind of accident. Magic. Teleportation. Weird science. What's the catalyst?

"What were you thinking about when I dropped in?"

The comment about the joke makes him arch a brow in curiosity. It's humorous maybe, but also interesting and takes a dip of his drink. He's about to ask a question about what kind of other cosmic jokes she might have been the butt of but she's asked first.

"How do I know that you're not gonna go sell me out with my deep dark secrets if I tell you?" he asks but doesn't wait for the response before answering, clearly joking.

"I was thinking about how empty the world feels with everyone gone."

Natasha's mouth quirks a little, a clear recognition of the humor in his question. And it's a good thing he's not asking seriously. There's no way to say something like 'because I'd sell my soul before doing something to hurt you' and still sound casual. She can feel the warmth of the vodka in her head, a sure sign that she's just on the cusp of too much too quickly, and she sets the glass down on the table.

Her eyes lift to look at him when he answers for real. It's a sad companion to her own world, then. Surrounded by familiar faces and unable to trust any of them. She leans back in her seat before she answers. "I get how that feels." It's not a solution, or advice, and she's fairly certain he doesn't need those things anyway. It's always been about understanding between the two of them.

"You can stay here," he tells her without realizing how strange it sounds at first bofore adding. "I mean, while you're in this world or whatever. I wouldn't want you have to go off hoping that things were similar enough to find a safe house."

It's awkward but gentle, he very clearly doesn't offer that kind of help to people often. Not only just because he doesn't really have much of anything in his apartment, but because he doesn't feel like he owes people things.

So why does he feel like he has to help Natasha?

Look, she likes to think of herself as pretty unflappable. Skrulls? Sure. Getting deposited into a different universe? Yeah, why not. So when she looks up at him, surprise evident on her face, it's pretty immediately clear that she wasn't expecting the offer.

But she is touched by it. Her eyes skim his face, her expression softening as she realizes that he means it. Genuinely. Even after she got literally dumped at his feet and confessed she's madly in love with another version of him.

Because even though he's gone, it's not really the kind of love that will ever become a thing of the past.

"You really mean that, huh?" Her mouth lilts into a little smile, and she leans her arm against the back of the couch so she can prop her head up on her hand. "I'd hate to inconvenience you." It's not a yes or a no. It's just a recognition that it's a lot to offer, and that she won't be put out if he's regretting making it.

She'll find a way. She always does.

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Bleh I missed this tag somehow.

no worries! <3

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bucky pls why was that so cute