Her mouth curled in a half smile when he answered her, not opening her eyes at first. Part of her wasn't entirely convinced she'd make it out of this mission alive. Maybe she didn't think she deserved to. She'd been running on borrowed time for years. That was just the price of the work she did. And moreover, it was a price she'd earned a thousand times over.
It was hard not to be maudlin, in a room full of ghosts. Maybe a full night's sleep would clear some of them out from the corners.
When he continued, her head lifted so she could look at him, an amused look on her face. "Careful, Barnes, I'll hold you to that. You'd look good in a Hawaiian shirt." Which was to say he'd probably look grumpy and annoyed and she'd get a real kick out of it. It was an impossible dream, but a nice one. Neither of them could really claim that they did a good job of relaxing. So she picked up the thread of it as she mused aloud, "bet I could find a private beach somewhere."
“I’ve broken into military installations, private homes, international embassies, factories, prisons,” Bucky rattled off contemplatively, like itemising most of a century’s worth of ugly work and missions conducted in the dead of night, “and on one really bizarre occasion, a carnival after hours. A man got eaten by a tiger.”
It had been an unconventional way to see the job through, for sure.
Which might’ve been appallingly dark humour around anyone else. He couldn’t levy it around just anyone — Steve would have blanched — but now that he’s with Nat again, he gets to drop some of his hackles. Resurrecting his ability to find that absurdist, tragicomic streak in it all; peeling back one more layer, and behaving more himself. The himself that he’d become.
“So if we need to sneak onto someone’s private beach afterward, hell, that’s nothing.”
Her brow quirked as the list of places he'd broken into grew, until finally a mischievous smirk curled her lips. Eaten by a tiger indeed. "Get a lion and a bear and you've got a full theme. Oh my." That was certainly an unconventional way to see a job done. It might even have her bested for most unconventional solution. Certainly for assassinations, but maybe not for spy work. But that dark humor was a horrible necessity to the line of work they'd both been in. If you couldn't laugh about it, there weren't many other tolerable responses.
"Well, we might not even have to sneak. I've got a few favors left I haven't called in. I'm sure one of them is with someone that could land us on a private beach somewhere. Maybe even a private island." Which would be ideal. She could do with a little peace and quiet. So much of her life had been spent looking over her shoulder, and the last few months hadn't exactly been a break from that. It would be nice to plant herself in the sand for a while.
If she ever got there.
Her head leaned on her hand as she nodded over toward the kitchen. "What kind of soup did they leave this time? The last time I had to use a safe house it was all clam chowder." The sentence was punctuated with a nose scrunch to illustrate exactly what she thought of that dietary option. It was a ridiculously light hearted topic, given everything they'd face the following day, but it served the same purpose as that dark humor. They'd have plenty of time to dig into planning. This might be the last chance they had to catch their breath for a few days.
“Chicken noodle. I’m making a double batch, if you want some.”
It was something so banal: standing in a kitchen with Natasha Romanoff, cooking dinner for him-slash-them, the quiet Russian night sitting heavy outside their dark windows. He wished that was all it was, and that they could just sit tight and enjoy it properly without some masked monster blowing up the whole street to get at them. If he squinted, this could just be an evening in with a friend, with no further concerns haunting them, no complicated mission waiting for them at the end of the road.
Which, speaking of those complications.
Bucky glanced back at her. Wanted to keep the conversation light, frothy — private beaches and holidays, he wasn’t above teasing the idea of Nat in a bikini — but the curiosity was digging beneath his skin like a thorn in his paw, and so he had to ask.
“So it was a family cover story, right? But you still call him your father?”
"Yes please." It was a simple answer, but she was hungry. She couldn't remember the last time she'd stopped long enough to eat something. If the kitchen only held clam chowder again, she probably still would have bolted down a bowl.
It was nice, to let herself get lost in the tide of light conversation for a while. She could almost picture the bleached white shoreline, the warm ocean water, the sun over head. Just about as far away from a cold Russian night as you could get. When he asked about the family cover story, the fabricated beach in her mind's eye faded, replaced by that sandy landing strip in Cuba. There was a momentary pause before she said, "family's complicated." The ring of soldiers. Melina laying on a stretcher. Her last desperate attempt to protect Yelena.
It was quiet again after she said that. She'd known, she'd always known, that their lives in Ohio had been a fiction. But it had been a beautiful fiction. One that a child that grew up learning how to be a weapon couldn't help but want to believe. It had been harder for Yelena, she knew. She'd been so young.
Natasha cleared her throat and shifted forward so that she could fold her arms along the back of the couch as she looked into the kitchen at him. "My family abandoned me when I was born, so I was raised in the Red Room. Those three years we spent in Ohio were the only time I ever had a family. Even if it wasn't real." She pointed at the bag that contained the antidote, an indicator that he could get it if he wanted to look. "There's photo booth pictures in there of me and Yelena. We both had half of the strip while we were in there. Alexei let Dreykov take us back. But they're all still a part of me." Her mouth quirked into a tired little half smile. "For better or worse."
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no subject
It was hard not to be maudlin, in a room full of ghosts. Maybe a full night's sleep would clear some of them out from the corners.
When he continued, her head lifted so she could look at him, an amused look on her face. "Careful, Barnes, I'll hold you to that. You'd look good in a Hawaiian shirt." Which was to say he'd probably look grumpy and annoyed and she'd get a real kick out of it. It was an impossible dream, but a nice one. Neither of them could really claim that they did a good job of relaxing. So she picked up the thread of it as she mused aloud, "bet I could find a private beach somewhere."
no subject
It had been an unconventional way to see the job through, for sure.
Which might’ve been appallingly dark humour around anyone else. He couldn’t levy it around just anyone — Steve would have blanched — but now that he’s with Nat again, he gets to drop some of his hackles. Resurrecting his ability to find that absurdist, tragicomic streak in it all; peeling back one more layer, and behaving more himself. The himself that he’d become.
“So if we need to sneak onto someone’s private beach afterward, hell, that’s nothing.”
no subject
"Well, we might not even have to sneak. I've got a few favors left I haven't called in. I'm sure one of them is with someone that could land us on a private beach somewhere. Maybe even a private island." Which would be ideal. She could do with a little peace and quiet. So much of her life had been spent looking over her shoulder, and the last few months hadn't exactly been a break from that. It would be nice to plant herself in the sand for a while.
If she ever got there.
Her head leaned on her hand as she nodded over toward the kitchen. "What kind of soup did they leave this time? The last time I had to use a safe house it was all clam chowder." The sentence was punctuated with a nose scrunch to illustrate exactly what she thought of that dietary option. It was a ridiculously light hearted topic, given everything they'd face the following day, but it served the same purpose as that dark humor. They'd have plenty of time to dig into planning. This might be the last chance they had to catch their breath for a few days.
no subject
It was something so banal: standing in a kitchen with Natasha Romanoff, cooking dinner for him-slash-them, the quiet Russian night sitting heavy outside their dark windows. He wished that was all it was, and that they could just sit tight and enjoy it properly without some masked monster blowing up the whole street to get at them. If he squinted, this could just be an evening in with a friend, with no further concerns haunting them, no complicated mission waiting for them at the end of the road.
Which, speaking of those complications.
Bucky glanced back at her. Wanted to keep the conversation light, frothy — private beaches and holidays, he wasn’t above teasing the idea of Nat in a bikini — but the curiosity was digging beneath his skin like a thorn in his paw, and so he had to ask.
“So it was a family cover story, right? But you still call him your father?”
no subject
It was nice, to let herself get lost in the tide of light conversation for a while. She could almost picture the bleached white shoreline, the warm ocean water, the sun over head. Just about as far away from a cold Russian night as you could get. When he asked about the family cover story, the fabricated beach in her mind's eye faded, replaced by that sandy landing strip in Cuba. There was a momentary pause before she said, "family's complicated." The ring of soldiers. Melina laying on a stretcher. Her last desperate attempt to protect Yelena.
It was quiet again after she said that. She'd known, she'd always known, that their lives in Ohio had been a fiction. But it had been a beautiful fiction. One that a child that grew up learning how to be a weapon couldn't help but want to believe. It had been harder for Yelena, she knew. She'd been so young.
Natasha cleared her throat and shifted forward so that she could fold her arms along the back of the couch as she looked into the kitchen at him. "My family abandoned me when I was born, so I was raised in the Red Room. Those three years we spent in Ohio were the only time I ever had a family. Even if it wasn't real." She pointed at the bag that contained the antidote, an indicator that he could get it if he wanted to look. "There's photo booth pictures in there of me and Yelena. We both had half of the strip while we were in there. Alexei let Dreykov take us back. But they're all still a part of me." Her mouth quirked into a tired little half smile. "For better or worse."