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not-close-to-straight · 4 years

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You Give Love a Bad Name (Three)

MASTERLIST

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Chapter Three: Somewhere Between “Oh Shit I’m Gonna Die” and “Ho Ho Holy Crap I’ve Never Been So Horny”

“Hon?” It was late by the time Bucky made it back to the house, his head spinning from the shock of it all, the information overload that began with Natasha and ended somewhere fuckin’ crazy. His fingers were shaking on his gun but he held it anyway, his nerves were shot but he walked through the door anyway, his heart breaking but he forced it away so he could be cold and calculated and everything the Winter Soldier always was.

“You’ve got twenty four hours to make that woman disappear or the company will step in and do it for you.”

“That’s my wife, Rumlow.”

“Does it matter?”

“...No.”

“Hey Tasha, did you make it home yet?” He called faux cheerfully, easing the safety off on his gun. “Sorry I missed dinner, but I can’t wait for left overs! Your cooking is always mm-mm-good!”

A quiet laugh from somewhere in the house, up the stairs and echoing in the hall and Bucky closed his eyes for a split second because Christ he loved Natasha’s laugh, but right now it was just a precursor to what promised to be a painful death at the hands of the Black Widow.

“Oh hello darling.” Natasha called and in the quick silence that followed came the unmistakable sound of a shot gun being loaded. “I skipped making dinner tonight, thought we could order take out!”

“Take out.” Bucky darted across the open hall and took cover again behind the huge china hutch. “Is that some sort of assassin joke?”

“I don’t know, is you demanding to keep the house at some frosty sixty five degrees some sort of Winter Soldier joke?”

“Natasha--”

“You lied to me!”

BOOM a hole the size of Bucky’s head tore apart the wall in front of him, and he yelped, ducked and rolled out of the way.

“I lied to you?” He shouted in disbelief. “Tasha, they literally call you the Black Widow! How long was it going to be until you killed me anyway? Strung me up in some web of last seasons jewel tone scarves and ate me for dinner?!”

“I’ll have you know I never once killed a husband, and honestly I’m offended you think so.” Natasha loaded another shell and blew out a deep breath, counted to ten so she wouldn’t burst into tears. “My worst crime against you is being hot enough to make your brain short circuit so you missed every sign of me not being a housewife!”

“Yeah, and my worst crime--” Pop pop pop Bucky lay down cover fire as he advanced through the house and tried to get closer to the stairs. “--was apparently being hot enough to attract your attention! What exactly did I do to deserve you stringing me along for three years?”

“Stringing you along?” Natasha cursed when a bullet whizzed by her head, then vaulted over the railing and down into the living, tucking and rolling to lessen the impact. “And how exactly was I doing that? By having dinner ready every night? By buying you new toothbrushes?”

“Newsflash sweetheart.” A quick flash as Bucky ducked into another room. “Your cooking is fuckin’ terrible. Pot roast on Tuesday was so tough I needed a damn chain saw to get through it.”

“Newsflash, sweetheart.” Natasha swallowed back the devastation clawing up her throat and snarled, “I’ve never cooked a day in my life! I order in catering and my world famous pies come from a bakery in Jersey!”

“Oh, so she shoots and she lies.” Bucky picked up one of those infernally shiny decorative trays Natasha had always insisted on and in a rare moment of gratefulness for his wife's horrible taste in decor, used it to peek around the corner to see where Tasha was posted up. “What else don’t I know about you? Are you really a 34 B cup?”

“My love.” Natasha caught sight of the glimmer at the corner and leaned further out of sight. “If you’d spent more time getting to know the girls instead of rabbit humping away at the final destination, you’d be fully aware I am a perky two sizes bigger than a B-cup.”

“Damn it.” Bucky rubbed his hand over his face because damn it he was not going to laugh right now. Not when he was trapped in his house with the Black Widow and fighting for his life. He was not going to laugh, even though the sarcasm from Natasha made him think of that one night in the hotel and how she’d been so funny and so damn sexy all at once. He was not going to laugh even though this was the first time in almost three years Natasha sounded like the woman he’d fallen in love with.

“You still alive, baby?” Natasha called, mocking and teasing and so damn sad and that was enough to pull Bucky from his more morose thoughts. “Let’s finish this already, I have drinks and pedi’s with Maria in the morning.”

“Call her and tell her you won’t make it.” Bucky breathed in once, twice, then yanked his other gun from his back holster. “Come out of hiding, Widow. vykhodi i poigray so mnoy. Come out and play.”

*************

The battle destroyed the house.

Bullet holes in the walls and through the expensive flooring they’d put in just last summer. The china hutch knocked over and thousands of dollars of dishes shattered. Drywall punctured and a television sized hole contorting a door frame when Bucky hadn’t bothered to check his strength and launched the sixty inch thing towards the hail of bullets from Natasha.

Wires frayed from speakers that had been torn down and used as projectiles. Curtains in tatters after Natasha had launched into one of them and used it as a rope to kick Bucky square in the face. Knives from the kitchen everywhere, the wall of the den missing after Bucky had chucked a grenade, blood smeared on the wall when Natasha cut her hands on glass and lost her balance.

A shotgun snapped in half because Natasha winged it at Bucky and he simply broke it before tossing it away. A dagger in the hall where it landed after carving a line across Bucky’s cheek bone. Thousands of spent ammo cases that glowed copper in what was left of the lights. The door to a hidden safe ripped away because Natasha was far stronger than even the most in depth intel had suggested, the weapons inside turned on the advancing Winter Soldier who had stuttered mid step because he hadn’t known Natasha could do that.

The house was destroyed and when the guns clicked empty and the knives were out of reach, the fight turned physical, master assassins trading punches and kicks, dodges and jabs, retreating and advancing and staring into the face of the enemy with the same steely resolve they’d faced down countless other opponents.

Except Bucky pulled his punches when Natasha didn’t, held back from sure blows when Natasha climbed his body like a tree and threw him to the ground with her thighs clamped around his neck. She was shockingly strong but Bucky was stronger and only when the redhead pulled another knife from somewhere and held it to his throat did Bucky let his strength surge again and grab her wrists in a single bruising grip to force her still.

“Let me go.” Natasha kneed him in the side and Bucky wheezed, but didn’t break his grip even as Natasha rolled them over and got those deadly legs around his neck again, effectively burying Bucky’s face at the vee of her hips and missing the hilarity entirely.

Bucky didn’t miss it though. “Ooh, it’s been a long time since you let me eat you out.” he grinned and Natasha snapped, “Well maybe if you’d done it more often, I wouldn’t be tempted to snap your fucking neck!”

“Take your own advice, sweetheart.” Bucky lunged to his feet but Natasha didn’t let go, he shoved her into a wall hard enough to crack the plaster and the vicious redhead only winced and sassed, “You saying I don’t give you enough blow jobs, Bucky?”

“I’m saying--” Bucky was starting to see spots when her legs tightened at his jugular. “M’sayin’ if you spent more time deep throatin’ and less time doing hot yoga with the girls--”

“You’re such a pig!” she screeched and Bucky only, “Oink oink oink!”ed until Natasha arched her back to break his hold and connected a swift kick to the side of his head.

“Ow! Fuck!” Bucky didn’t mean to throw Nat half away across the room-- or maybe he sort of did?-- but boy howdy did he knew he messed up when she slowly, painfully got to her feet and wiped the blood from her bottom lip, eyes blazing. “Oh shit. Okay. Sweet heart, that was actually an accident. Bullets and everything aside? I’d never just throw you across the room, I promise.”

“Well I fully meant to kick you in the head.” She countered, and Bucky’s heart sank when Natasha reached behind and pressed at a spot on the wall and a handgun dropped out into her waiting palm. “No harm no foul, darling. Both just doing the job.”

“Just the job.” Quick as a flash, Bucky tucked and rolled towards the fireplace, wrenched the sawed off rifle from behind the bricks and whirled around with it ready to fire--

--and met Natasha face to face, her pistol pointed squarely between his eyes.

“Tick tock, husband.” There were suddenly tears in Natasha’s eyes, and Bucky squared his jaw, straightened his shoulder and told himself to be strong. “Either your company comes in to finish the job, or mine does. Tick tock.”

Be strong, Widow. She told herself, and tightened her grip on her gun. Be strong, you don’t love him, you don’t love him, he’s just a job.

“Tick. Tock.” she bit out through clenched teeth. “Or are you going as stupidly chivalrous as always and tell me ladies first?”

You don’t love him, you don’t love him, you don’t love him.

“Damn it Tasha, don’t test me.”

A shot gun shell locking into place was a sound every person in the world recognized, and it made Tasha’s blood run cold in her veins.

You don’t love him, you don’t love him, you don’t love--

“Tick. Tock.” she said again, mocking and devastated and all the other things she didn’t want to be feeling right now. “Come on, Soldier. Show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”

“Show me--” Bucky huffed what sounded like a laugh and Natasha blinked at him. “Ah fuck, this shouldn’t be funny, Tasha. This ain’t funny.”

“Then stop laughing.” she hissed. “What are you doing?”

“It’s not funny.” the words were whispered now, nearly breathed and Natasha narrowed her eyes uncertainly. “Jesus Tash, this isn’t funny but all I can think about right now is how much I miss you.”

“How much you-- you what?”

“This is the closest I’ve felt to knowing who you are since the first day we met.” Bucky’s gun lowered inch by inch and Natasha’s heart caught up in her chest. “You’re beautiful like this. Wholly in your element, bein’ funny and sassy and fuck, I miss you. The last three years have been packed full’a lies, Tasha but the beginning wasn’t. I love you. And I miss you.”

The rifle dropped away, clattered to the floor and Bucky put both hands up. “I won’t do this. I won’t.”

“Damn you.” Natasha put both hands on her pistol, widened her stance and snarled, “Don’t be like that! You don’t love me and I don’t love you and we are just each other’s jobs! Fight me!”

“No.” Bucky shook his head, took a few steps away. “No, babydoll. If you want this, take it. But I’m not going to do it. I love you.”

“You are not allowed to say that!” Natasha was shouting now, almost screaming. “That night at the beach you were working a mission that I set up! You showed up and you fucked my mission up and I brought a building down on you! You are not allowed to say you love me, because I watched the Winter Soldier through the scope and ordered a building blown around you! You don’t love me. You are supposed to be dead and instead you showed up in New York and I was a job so you made me fall in love with you but you-- you don’t--”

Bucky took a step forward and she jerked the gun back up. “--no don’t you dare. Don’t you come near me. You made me love you--” she stuttered, stammered, bit at her lip until it bled and then cursed, “--damn it, Bucky. You made me love you viciously and now I hate you for it. I hate you for it. This is a job, so finish it.”

“I won’t.” Bucky said hoarsely. “Vy ves' moy mir, you are my whole world, Tasha. I never meant to love you, but now it’s too late and I do. So I won’t do it. You want to finish it, then finish it, but I’m done fighting you.”

“You cannot be the bigger person right now.” Natasha protested, begged. “Three years you’ve been petty and sort of obnoxious, don’t change now. You unscrewed the toilet lid and took it off just so I’d stop bothering you about leaving it up. Do not be the bigger person right now.”

“You said you love me viciously.” Bucky took another step forward, hands up so she wouldn’t jerk away again. “It’s been so long since you said that I almost forgot how good it sounded. Say it again. Please.”

“No.”

“Tasha.”

“I--” the gun wavered, tears slipping out the corner of Natasha’s eyes as her resolve crumbled and the self control she’d been clinging to started to shred. “I love you.”

“Viciously.” Bucky stripped the guns from Tasha’s hands and tossed it away, framed her face in both his hands and pushed her into the wall. “Say it. Say you love me viciously.”

“I love you.” They weren’t sure which one was crying when their lips met, tentative kisses that tasted of sweet sweet sorrow and full of everything they hadn’t ever said to each other in three years of marriage. “Bucky, yes.”

“C’mere.” Tasha was so little and for once Bucky didn’t check his strength when he swooped his wife up, when he grabbed her tight into his body and crushed their mouths together, when he got his left hand on her shirt and just tore it away, breathing a curse over the myriad of cuts and dried blood on her perfect skin. “Oh babydoll, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“It doesn’t hurt.” Natasha tossed her head back and gasped ragged over each tender kiss on the cuts. “But don’t stop, don’t stop, I’ve missed you. I love you.”

“Viciously.” Bucky pleaded hoarsely. “Say it, Tasha please.”

“Viciously.” she half sobbed. “Bucky, I love you viciously.”

Don’t stop.

Bucky didn’t stop, not when they tumbled onto the broken couch and Natasha felt around for a knife to slash at his jeans and shove them off his hips. He didn’t stop when Natasha scored fire down his back with her nails, when her ankles locked around his waist and brought him in deep sooner than either was ready and the burst of pleasure pain popped light behind their temples.

“I’ve missed you.” Bucky dug bruises into Tasha’s waist as he held her down, closed his eyes and hissed when she bit at his pulse, at the hinge of his jaw, when her teeth scraped his tongue in a messy, brutal kiss. “Fuck Tasha, I’ve missed you. Missed my wife. Need you.”

“You weren’t a mission at first.” Natasha promised when they fell off the couch and Bucky brought her up on top of him. “You weren’t, I swear. When Fury told me to chase you I thought-- I thought--”

“Pierce told me the same thing. I know. I know.” Bucky murmured as they moved together, running his hands up her perfect body, over the barely there scars her nightgown always covered, the tense of muscle and flex of power that made him wonder how he’d ever thought she wasn’t every bit as powerful as him. “I never meant to lie to you, Tasha. Not like this. Never like this.”

“I never meant to lie to you either.” she reached for him and Bucky came willingly, sat up to chase a kiss, wound their fingers together and held tight so Tasha knew he would hold her, take care of her, ground her when she fell apart.

Oh I love you viciously.

***********

“I can’t feel anything in my left hand.”

Later, after they’d fought and fucked and finally tore apart gasping for air, later they lay amid the destruction of their home and what was left of their fake marriage and just talked. The comforter from the guest bedroom was spread out on the floor, Natasha wrapped up in Bucky’s shirt, and Bucky with a throw pillow over his dick because he was too hot to bother with clothes.

“No?” he rolled over onto his side and picked up Natasha’s left hand, kissed each of her fingers and then her palm. “Why not?”

“Shrapnel.” Natasha was soft and rumpled, her lips swollen and cheeks still flushed red and Bucky couldn’t resist leaning in to kiss her. She was intoxication and he would never have enough. “Carved into my left side. Took a plastic surgeon to fix the damage but we never fixed the nerves.”

“Ain’t no thang, baby.” Bucky rotated his left shoulder purposefully. “Remember my wind surfing accident?”

“Mm-hmm?” Natasha swept her tongue along the line of Bucky’s jaw and practically purred when her husband shuddered beneath her. “What about it?”

“Not a windsurfing accident.” Bucky tugged a few times to disconnect the cling that kept his silver arm quite literally under wraps, and watched Natasha’s mouth drop open as it fell away. “That building you brought down on me caused some pretty serious damage, and old man Pierce is all about building terminators these days.”

“This is my fault?” Natasha touched the silver limb carefully, up to scars that had been revised at least three different times to make them all but invisible. “Bucky, I--”

“Didn’t say it was your fault.” Bucky shook his head. “Not your fault, just like you trying to take a shot at me yesterday morning wasn’t your fault. Plus it’s not the first time I got good and hurt. See this line right here?” he traced a faint line low on his body. “Botched appendix removal, my body kept trying to heal over mid surgery, I almost died from the shock.”

“Super solder serum saved you?” she guessed and he nodded. “That’s both gross and amazing.”

“Speaking of amazing.” Bucky pinched at her bicep playfully. “I saw you rip that safe door off. You juiced too? Always heard rumors that the Black Widow got a pint sized dose of what they gave me.”

“I’m strong enough.” Natasha said dismissively. “But sure, that’s why we’ve been chasing each other for decades on end. Why most of my scars heal up quick too. This one was Bogota. I fell off a helicopter during a rescue.”

“Afghanistan.” Bucky craned his neck so she could see the thin white scar at his hairline. “Bullet about took my head off.”

“Our first wedding anniversary I was so high on tranquilizers to deal with almost getting run over, I don’t even remember the night.”

“S’alright, sweetheart, Valentine’s Day last year when you wore that pretty pink lace thing?” Bucky pointed down at the dick-covering throw pillow meaningfully. “I slid down a banister thinking I was real slick chasing after someone, turns out there was a big ol ball on the end of the railing and it connected with my tenders. I could barely walk much less get it up in the way you deserved.”

“My love, I think tonight has been the first time in years you’ve gotten it up in the way I deserve.” she teased, and Bucky shot back, “Well maybe if you didn’t wear granny night gowns all the time my dick wouldn’t be so shy!”

“I wear granny night gowns to cover all my bruises from work!” she laughed out loud. “What’s your excuse for wearing tighty whities and long sleeves to bed?”

“I like they way they cup my package, and also to hide my arm.” Bucky shrugged. “Why do I get th’feeling that if we’d kept doing the deed like we did at the beach, all this would’a come out sooner?”

“I almost wish it had.”

“Me too.” Bucky wound his finger around a strand of Natasha’s hair and tugged lightly. “Was it you in Saint Paul last winter? One damn time we were sure the Widow had come out of hiding long enough to fuck up my mission.”

“The week I said I was visiting my mother and you said were at Brock’s bachelor party.” She confirmed. “I didn’t know the Winter Soldier was in Saint Paul.”

“Yeah well, apparently wearing polos and playing golf is the world’s best cover. Turned me from Most Wanted to Most Ignored over night.”

“By the way?” Natasha raised her eyebrow, then smiled when Bucky leaned in and kissed it. “I hate your khakis. If you don’t stop wearing them, I’ll burn every last pair.”

“That’s fine, I only wore them so the neighbor women would stop ogling me.” Bucky admitted. “Figured you were the only one I wanted looking at me anyway, plus it’s easier to stay under the radar if no one notices me for any reason, right?”

“Same reason I started wearing modest dresses and got rid of any high heel over two inches.” Natasha agreed. “Easier to blend in if I look like the rest of the pretty plastic housewives.”

“There’s nothing plastic about you.” Bucky brushed over Natasha’s nipple and grinned when it hardened beneath his thumb. “And you could wear a potato sack and still be the most beautiful woman on the planet, Tash.”

“I’ve missed you being ridiculously sappy with your compliments.” she admitted, and Bucky admitted softer, “I miss feeling like you want me to say that sorta stuff.”

And later still, when they’d ordered delivery pizza and laughed until their stomach hurt because the poor delivery kid looked so damn confused over the destruction and then over Natasha wearing a lot of not much, Bucky inhaled most of a pepperoni slice and asked, “Not to put a damper on our sorta spectacular make up sex but um-- you know what I’m thinkin?”

“You’re thinking the same thing I’m thinking, which is that it seems highly suspicious that we cohabited for three years together and somehow never really ran into each other on any missions and that it almost seems too much of a coincidence that we both ended up on the same mission on the same day.” Natasha wiped a bit of cheese from his chin. “That’s what you’re thinking.”

“Actually I was thinkin’ that when you sit cross legged like that I can see all of your hoo-hah.” Bucky admitted and Natasha practically cackled with laughter. “But yeah, it’s sorta weird that we used’ta interrupt each others missions all the damn time but the whole three years we were together, other than Saint Paul we didn’t even check into the same time zones.”

“Last week one of my techs went missing in a quick snatch that literally should have never happened.” Natasha pointed out. “My company has some of the highest levels of security out there, and yet he was snatched and tossed walking home from a bar he’d never been to with a woman he’d never seen?”

“One of our gals.” Bucky confirmed. “No idea how she stumbled on an actual tech for your end of things, but she did, called it in and we moved quick. Easiest kidnapping of my life.” And then after a pause, “Too easy, maybe.You guys couldn’t find him at all.”

“And we tried for the better part of a week.” Nat took a drink straight from the two-liter of mountain dew. “We tried but he was gone.”

“We weren’t even being all that stealthy.” Bucky said slowly. “And he gave up his information real quick. Told me about you being active again and about the hostage situation taking place at the border. I didn’t even have to get scary with him, just threatened to eat him is all.”

“That’s not scary?”

“I’m the Winter Soldier, Tash. You think threatening to take a bite outta someone is my scariest version of torture?”

“Touche.” She took another drink. “So one of my guys got snatched way too easily, you got the information with barely even a threat and after three years of missing each other, you and I were on the same mission, staring at each other through a rifle scope from a thousand yards away. If you were reading this file as an outsider, what does it look like to you?”

“Like the powers that be were fully aware of us but made sure we were never aware of each other until the time came t’knock us both off.” Bucky answered immediately, and then, “Oh fuck me.”

“How much time do you have left on your directive to get rid of me?” Natasha asked quietly. “Cos my clock is down to two hours and some change.”

“Two hours and some change.” Bucky confirmed.

“Shit.”

“So what are we gonna do?” Bucky sat back against the couch and hauled Natasha up into his lap, getting rid of the pillow so he could set her pert butt right against his thighs. “You wanna run? You wanna fight? What?”

“...you want to do this together?” Natasha blinked at him a few times. “Really?”

“You’re my wife.” Bucky smoothed his hand down her back and rested it at the curve of her hip. “And more than that, the first time you pinned me down and rode my face--”

“Bucky!”

“--I knew I’d do anything for you. So what’s it gonna be, baby? Three years of marriage for nothing? Or are we gonna Bonnie and Clyde this shit?”

Natasha looked down at their entwined hands, at the ring on her left finger and the gleam of Bucky’s silver palm. “Didn’t Bonnie and Clyde die?”

“Yeah, right before they went down in the history books as one of the best stories out there.” Bucky nipped lightly at her earlobe. “I could go down in history with you, especially if it means fucking with Fury and Pierce after they tried to trick us into this whole thing. What’d’ya say? Wanna blow some shit up?”

“I could blow some shit up.”

Bucky pulled her into a sweet kiss, slow and nearly tender as the last of the walls between them came tumbling down.

“Shot to the heart.” he sang softly, teasingly, as they parted. “And you’re to blame. Sugar, you give love a bad name.”

“That used to be our song.” Natasha laughed and hummed the next line. “I can’t believe you remember that.”

“It’s still our song.” Bucky corrected. “And we got about two hours before someone else comes and tries to finish the job neither one’a us finished. So why don’t we find some clothes, steal us a car and get the fuck outta here?”

“I’m with you.” Natasha got to her feet, then leaned down to give him one last kiss. “And I’m sorry for trying to kill you.”

“I’ve had uglier people try a lot worse.” Bucky said solemnly. “Finding out you’re a total bad ass instead of a super boring housewife is the best anniversary present ever.”

Natasha tossed her hair behind her shoulder and finger gunned at him and Bucky clapped his hands over his heart, laughing out loud as she ran for the stairs to change, singing along to their song as she went.

Darlin’ you give love a bad name.

********

A mile west of Mr. and Mrs. Barnes’s house, Brock Rumlow sat in the back of a van with a rifle held tight to his chest, watching the countdown clock on his next hit tick down to zero.

“This seems wrong is all I’m saying.” one of the other men said. “I worked with Barnes for damn near ten years now, how come all the sudden he’s on the hit list?”

“None of your business.” Rumlow grunted. “You see the guy, you put a bullet in the guy, you get another mission tomorrow and do the same thing.”

“But it’s Bucky.”

“Yeah, and now it’s Bucky’s time.” Rumlow racked in a round in the chamber. “Personally, I’m looking forward to seeing just how many bullets the mighty Soldier can take before he bleeds like the rest of us. What do you think, twenty? Twenty five?”

“I think you’re a sick bastard.”

“And that’s why I’m next on Pierce’s list of soldiers to super juice.” Rumlow grunted. “T-minus one hours and forty minutes boys. Stay steady.”

***************

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#ncts fics #winterwidow #bucky barnes #natasha romanov

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