Chapter Text
i.
She's digging a bullet out of her arm with tweezers and a fifth of vodka in her stomach. On the rim of the bottle Natasha can taste the copper taste of blood.
Her stomach stirs and her eyes close. It's my last job, she swears to herself, I’m done after this. I'll find a tiny cottage and a nice partner. She smirks and sighs because people like Natasha never find 'nice' partners.
They find addicts and lowlifes and sleeper assassins. They find back alley drug pushers and hoodlums with hearts of gold and empty pockets.
So she stitches herself back up with black thread, wincing only out of habit and tries not to sigh at the sound of her joints creaking.
Natasha is only twenty-six but she's already broken both her knees, one leg, a wrist, an arm and the worst of all, her collarbone. Most of them occurred when she was younger, swinging out of buildings and tumbling from moving cars because it was fun then.
She had a purpose; her country, her motherland and best of all vengeance on the tip of her tongue. The perfect little assassin.
After another swig of the vodka bottle with her good arm and looks at the CCTV on the monitor beside her; the two marks enter the Chinese restaurant below her room right on time, she’s been watching them the whole week. They drink, they laugh and they leave. She bought out the tiny studio flat above two weeks ago when she first got the call. The security guy found her fake passports a few hours ago and planted two bullets in her arm.
She gave him a bite that would last a long time but not too much to kill him before tying him up and throwing him into her closet. After being mercilessly hunted down by various governments she knows 'collateral damage' doesn't translate well in any language.
ii.
Out of the corner of her eye she sees the first mark; he's skinny with a bad peroxide dye job and a prosthetic scar on his cheek.
The man beside him nods and leers at Natasha at the other side of the bar, he’s homely and his muscular figure grotesque but she musters a smirk and looks away. The other looks hard, or has modelled himself to look it at least, but she knows to take the larger one down first.
So she walks over to him and shoots twice into his skull, it's messy, her face is drenched with the red of his blood and the pink and grey bits of his brain. Natasha is used to the stench, the sound, even the taste as some blood dribbles into her mouth. As always she berates herself for not wearing a mask but knows in the pit of her stomach she won't ever wear one (it's impractical).
The mark doesn't look surprised at all by her being there, or that parts of his friend’s head are laying in his lap. He grins warmly and places his hands together.
"So they finally found me?" His voice is calm amongst the chaos around them, people race to the restaurant doors, screaming and cursing.
Natasha only nods and puts the gun to his forehead. It's worse like this, she thinks, when you have to put your hands on their shoulders and feel them shudder so they don’t struggle, the heat of their last breath.
Her finger hugs the trigger, until he looks at her and grins wider, unfazed.
"Don't you remember me volchitsa?" He asks, quietly now that everyone's fled.
She's surprised but hides it under her stoic gaze, her lips pursing. "Don't you know pretending to be a dead man is punishable by death?"
He throws his head back and laughs, it's worn and desperate and for a moment she thinks that maybe it could be him.
"Natalia, I'm already dead, I've died two times in my life," Natasha slaps him. "Your bite still stings I see."
She saw Bucky die, saw his heartbroken friend pull him out from the ashes and rubble.
She thinks of him now, Steve, she wonders if he knows Bucky's back. She wonders if he's always known, even from the first time.
"I thought you'd be better with disguises." She says and Bucky stops smiling and runs his fingers through his hair.
"You didn't recognise me? I'd say I was successful."
Natasha knocks him out with the handle of her gun as sirens pour into the street. Her arm still aches but she throws him over her shoulder with a groan and slips through the back door.