look after you × winterwidow & oc

IV. james

"But what about him? James?" Laura asked, while unconsciously caressing her swollen belly.

"I don't know what happened with him for the year since I left." Romanoff started rubbing the star-shaped pendant of her necklace instinctively. "Next time I saw him was in Odessa. And I didn't want to believe it was the same person. He wasn't like this even the first time we met, even after they wiped him before."

"Like what?"

"So... lifeless. It was like looking at a robot, not a human being." Natasha swallowed, trying to get rid of the lump in her throat, and then scoffed. "And yet he spared me and fucked with my head even more."

"I know this sounds weird and you know him much better, but maybe he just missed?"

"No, no way." she shook her head with certainty. "That man does not miss. I saw him fight, I saw him shoot. His marksmanship was almost legendary. There is just no way. And also that wasn't the only time he did that."

"You mean D.C?"

Natasha nodded. The encounter on the highway still caused chills all over her spine. When Sitwell was ripped out of the car, she had a feeling. When she heard the metal scratch the asphalt, she knew it was him. When the metal arm crashed through the car's roof, she wished she didn't. She wished he was a stranger, a threat, a nameless assassin. When she managed to shoot him, she couldn't contain a smirk, her mind prompting what he would say to her if he was himself. Khrabryy malen'kiy pauchok. When he went after her, leaving Steve and Sam to the rest, it was all she needed to know that it couldn't be coincidental.

When she launched herself at him, all she could think of were the hours they spent together, him teaching her everything that she was then forced to use against him, yet he threw her off with so much ease as he did twelve years earlier. Then once again, he put a bullet straight through her. She should've been dead. There should be a hole in her skull, not her arm. She saw him hit much smaller and faster targets precisely where he wanted to. Part of her genuinely wanted to believe that he simply missed, but then he jumped on the hood of another car behind her. If it was anyone else, there was no way they would be able to do this. But for him? It was a clear shot. But he hesitated. The time he had between jumping and noticing Steve would've been enough to pull the trigger.

"Does Captain Rogers know any of this?" Laura asked after a while of silence.

"He knows about Katya, that she's his. He connected the dots himself so I just confirmed what he already knew." Natasha pulled her legs closer and crossed them. "But he doesn't know about our past. He wouldn't understand."

"You think so?"

"He already snapped at me once when I suggested that the man he knew is gone. And if I told him any of this?" she chuckled. "I doubt he would even believe me."

"Alright, but all of this still doesn't explain your neck." Laura pointed to the bruise.

"After S.H.I.E.L.D fell and all that D.C crap, I gave Steve an old Russian file Hydra had on James, to give him something, anything, and keep him busy, while I started to do some digging on my own. I knew it would be easier for me to look for him. I knew what and who to look for. Steve went looking for someone he knew before seven decades of brainwashing, he was looking for Bucky. I was looking for Yasha."

"Yasha?" Laura arched an eyebrow.

"Something I came up with at the beginning when he told me his name," Natasha explained. "James didn't seem right at first so I chose a Russian equivalent and it just kinda stuck."

She cleaned her throat, which has gotten pretty dry from all the talking since the wine run out. "It took me a few months to narrow everything down to one country, then a few weeks more to figure out a city. And bringing myself to go there took the most time."