After the War

Trouble

Natasha

The next morning someone knocked at my door again. I wasn't surprised when I opened the door to find Bucky. I had expected him to come back for an explanation. I actually thought he would have broken down the door the day before, when he came knocking at my door and I slammed it shut in his face. However, that hadn't happened and he only came back to me now. "What is it you want today, huh?" "Can we... can we talk?" I honestly didn't really feel like talking with Bucky, but I guess I had to give it a go, since he was Steve's best friend and all, and me having some kind of feud with Bucky would complicate things between me and him... I didn't want things to get more complicated between me and Steve. I sighed, but told him to come in. He seemed surprised but did as he was told. "You want coffee?" "Uh, yeah, I guess." I made coffee for the both of us, "Want any milk or sugar?" "One sugar cube. Please." I added a sugar cube to his mug. Then I handed him the coffee and sat down on a chair facing him. "So, what's it you want to talk about, huh?" "Well... it's uh... kind of about what happened yesterday." "I thought so..." "Yeah... That's not surprising." "Look, I'm sorry about being such a bitch-," "No, you're not. Not really." Oh really? "Excuse me?" "I'm, starting to think you have good reason to be a bitch towards me." "And that is?" "I bet you know it yourself, it's why you behave like this..." "Maybe I'm just being a bitch because I've been through a lot lately, you don't know me well enough to know." "I'm starting to think I know you better than both of us remember."

That comment surprised me a little. But only just a little. "Oh, really? And what makes you think that?" "My dreams... or more like nightmares. The ones I had last night." There was a short uncomfortable silence where we stared into each other's eyes. Eventually Bucky looked away as he spoke again, "I dreamed about... a time I can't really remember. I... I was the Winter Soldier and I... I think I worked for the KGB. I helped them train some of their girls for a special... a special project. Eventually there was only one girl left... it was the girl I saw in my dreams... I trained her. I thought her to fight, to kill and... I thought her more than just that. Things I don't even want to speak of..." Yeah, me neither. "And when she misbehaved, when she stepped out of line... I had to... I had to torture her. And then suddenly there was another dream, or more like a memory, they were all memories, but this one was much later. I was still the Winter Soldier, but Hydra was no longer lending me out to the KGB I think... and the girl was a woman now... and she didn't work for the KGB either, she worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. now." "I there going to be a point to this?" He looked a little hurt when I asked him that, I might have sounded a little snappy. "Yeah, there is... I saw her face and she... she looked like you..." "What happened next?" "I shot my target... right through her..." "Odessa," I whispered. "Wait... that was you?" I nodded, "Yeah, it was... All of it. The little girl, the woman you shot. I got into a lot of trouble thanks to you. You weren't always so bad, you were nicer in the beginning, but they wiped your mind more and more... It started when you... kind of broke out of it. When you tried to get me out of the KGB. That was also the moment they decided you'd be my personal trainer in pretty much everything they thought there. And that you should discipline me whenever I stepped out of line. That's when I kind of started to hate you." "Oh."

He looked shocked and even slightly embarrassed. He didn't dare to look at me, that's how embarrassed he was. Embarrassment looked weird on him, since he was usually such an easygoing guy, especially when it came to women, if I had to believe Steve. "Bucky?" He looked up, he had the nerve to look hurt, as if what had happened had hurt him, "Yes?" I couldn't believe I was actually going to say what I was about to say, "It wasn't your fault. You were brainwashed. It was the KGB and Hydra... not you." "You want to believe that as much as I do, huh? Cause it would mean that you didn't do any of the things you did yourself, right?" I shook my head, "No, that's not it... I wasn't exactly brainwashed... I did what I did because... well...to survive. And maybe I didn't really know that what I did was wrong. It was hard for me to separate right from wrong once." "Really?" "Yes. That... and maybe I had some cruel sense of justice. I part of me wanted to take revenge... revenge on the world for what it had done to me... for what it had made me." He only looked at me now, as if he didn't know what to say. I have to say, I did make it sound like I was a horrible person once. And maybe I was. "And then I met Clint... Just as I was figuring out that what I did was wrong. He was send to kill me and to be honest with you, that was a time I wanted to die. When I saw myself as some kind of monster."