Untangling a Memory

Won't be found

Once the arrived back at their apartment after their chat in the garden, Bucky allowed Steve to update Sam briefly on the Natasha situation. Sam offered to help with the search as well, but Steve told him it might be best if he handled it with Bucky. After their chat, Steve could tell that Bucky was pretty disturbed by whatever had caused Natasha to leave and the support of his best friend was likely as much as he could take.

The rest of the night, Steve made every effort to distract Bucky, since there wasn't much to do now that it was pitch black outside. Steve encouraged Bucky to eat some dinner, even as he wasn't hungry. He suggested a movie and when Bucky's attention seemed to be drifting from it, they switched to playing board games. Anything to keep Bucky's mind off of the situation.

At one point, Bucky thought to himself about the way Steve looked after him. In a lot of ways, it was the same way he took care of Natasha when she wasn't herself. He wondered whether it was a pattern of behavior he had learned from Steve or something that just ran deep in both of them.

When it was clear that Bucky would be going another night without sleep, Steve stayed up with him. They hit the gym, plotted out their course of action for the next day, and even made some meals they would be able to leave out for Natasha. Steve hoped that the combination of working out some anxiety and doing practical things to help the situation might be enough to take some load off of Bucky's mind. There was no way to get Bucky to stop beating himself up, the only thing to do was to try to help him in other ways.

Once the sun finally rose, they had a quick breakfast and headed on their way. Sam said he would stay at the apartment all day and let them know if Natasha showed up, though it went unsaid that none of them expected this to happen.

Bucky led Steve on his path from the previous day, as well as a couple of other spots he had thought of. Steve and Bucky took their time walking through each location, looking for any sign of her. While Bucky usually would have been the more astute observer of the two of them, right now he was a bit frazzled and had some trouble noticing the finer details. He was finding that having the second set of eyes was turning out to be quite helpful.

As they moved from the market to the hills, the valleys to the lakes and streams, there was no sign of Natasha. Even as they walked from the patch of flowers to the row of trees, to the particular beach and the spot in the deep grass, there wasn't any indication she had ever been there.

Bucky had originally felt uncomfortable about walking Steve through Natasha's favorite places. When Natasha had told Bucky about them, it became secrets they had shared and he didn't want to give up how special that was to him. But Bucky was desperate to find her and showing Steve felt unavoidable. So, the best he could do was not to reveal why they were going to those locations and why Bucky felt so fondly about them.

The day ran both slowly and quickly as they moved from place to place and found nothing. In some more promising locations, Bucky and Steve left the food they had prepared, sealed tight in weather-proof packaging. Even if Natasha wouldn't return to the apartment, they just hoped that she would have enough to eat.

Finally, as all hope was running out, Bucky took Steve to the final location. He'd wanted to completely avoid taking Steve to the waterfall, a last holdout of his time with Natasha while the others were away, but it was his last option. Bucky had realized after returning there the previous evening how much he cherished the memory of them going there together, maybe above anything else since he had come out from under HYDRA's control. To bring Steve there felt like ruining the secret. The moment would have finally and truly passed.

Bucky led Steve through the wooden tunnel. Steve thought to himself about it's beauty, but didn't dare say anything. He saw how defeated Bucky was becoming and it wasn't the time to bring up such things. As they walked out into the open of the rock walls surrounding the pool, Steve finally couldn't keep the sense of wonder off of his face.