Cold as Ice - WinterWidow One-Shots

icebreaker

Summary: When Bucky and Natasha defected from the Red Room together, they were both at SHIELD when Steve Rogers came out of the ice.

There was very little that was keeping Natalia upright as they walked out of the hangar. After a four-day mission―two days of which were spent as an unwilling prisoner and the following day and a half of which she spent without a single minute of rest―she was ready to sleep until Fury himself dragged her from her bed. It did not help that she was also struggling with a dislocated and recently-reset ankle.

James, ever the trooper, had offered to carry her up to their shared room at HQ, but she refused. That did not, however, mean that she was not now using him as a very necessary crutch in order to keep moving.

They'd just made it out of the hangar when they were intercepted by Coulson all but running in the opposite direction. Moments after he passed them, he paused, turning to eye James in a way that made Natalia worried she was about to lose her human crutch.

"You two busy?" Coulson asked. He didn't wait for an answer. "Come with me."

James and Natalia shared a look but did as instructed. With Natalia still leaning heavily on James and both of them all but dragging their feet, they followed Coulson down a winding hallway and through a secure door. He used his badge twice, waving them through after him, and typed in a code that Natalia didn't have the energy to memorize. As they stepped through a third door, they were met by the sight of several agents hovering over a medical bed.

"We found him in the Arctic," Coulson explained, not bothering to look back at them. "While we're positive it's him, we would really appreciate personal confirmation."

His last few words were aimed toward James, much to Natalia's confusion. Whatever personal confirmation SHIELD expected James to provide, she was certain she could provide the same. After all, they'd lived through the same horrors and shared the same memories. Aside from the rumors that James had had a life before Hydra, neither of them had any recollection of it.

"Why just me, sir?" James asked. He stopped by an empty chair, forcing Natalia to take a seat and rolling his shoulder out.

"Only you knew him."

Natalia's own frown mirrored James's, but she was prevented from seeing who Coulson gestured to as James's shoulders moved to block her view. She wasn't sure if it was intentional or not.

"So is it him?" Coulson asked.

His question fell on deaf ears, but Natalia didn't miss the way James's shoulder twitched. He inhaled sharply, his eyes not leaving whatever was in front of him, and Natalia pulled herself to her feet. Limping through the pain in her ankle, she shoved her way past an agent to join him at his side. Eyes wide and brow furrowed, he was staring down at a man enshrined in ice as if he was a ghost.

"Barnes? Can you confirm?" Coulson echoed.

James's brow only furrowed deeper, his eyes darting back and forth as he looked over the man in the ice. His breathing sped up, becoming more erratic the longer he stared, and Natalia could see him withdrawing from himself. It was a defensive habit, something he hadn't done much of recently, and something she was determined not to let SHIELD see.

"James."

She stepped between him and the man, but the movement was too sudden. In a flash of light, he had a blade at her neck and his hand wrapped tightly around her arm. The agents nearest them pulled their own weapons and although her body screamed at her to retaliate―to force their weapons away from her head and off of James's back―she didn't look away from James.

"James, breathe," she ordered softly. It was a risk to use Russian, but with a familiar fog in his eyes and every breath deliberately calculated, it was the only language he would respond to.