psl for Steve, Nat, and Bucky OT3

[advanced]

[The Winter Soldier had killed hundreds of people over seven decades, a flawless weapon that obeyed without question and was capable of amazing feats. And yet it had only taken one week trying to kill Steve Rogers for all of that to unravel and splinter into nothing, leaving him in the wind and running for both his life and his freedom.

He ought to have known that no matter how good he was, there were others in the world just as good.

The Soldier had always been an assassin first and anything else second, so although he was good at infiltration, he didn't have spy level skills for simply disappearing off the radar. HYDRA had usually taken care of his exfiltration. He had skills, and desperation bred ingenuity, but he should have known that Romanoff would be able to find him and that she'd lead Rogers right to his location.

He's in Paris.

He's found an empty apartment waiting to be let, all stark white walls and polished wooden floorboards, and set his sleeping bag up in the corner. He knows they're coming, but he's been running for weeks and he's tired. So hungry that he could pass out, and so exhausted that his eyes keep drooping. He doesn't have it in him to run any more, he'll wait and face them. If it ends in a fight, so be it.]

Comments

[natalia_vdova]

[It's the second time she's done this: trying to track him down. But this time it's not just whispers she collected in a manila folder. By the time she'd started to put together the shape of who he was, the ghost that had left that scar on her abdomen, the trail had gone ice cold. The very nature of how he worked meant that she couldn't even leave a meaningful flag for a signature.

That was what her file was made up of, in the end: deaths with no culprit, no trail, and no identifiable pattern. Thin pages in a safe box in the wall behind one of the cabinets in a safehouse she has in Virginia. Not the one from Kiev that she'd given Steve, but one born out of that moment in Odessa. A recognition of something-- that he was dangerous in a way she understood, and that was chilling. She'd never asked for the file in Kiev, not for herself. It was something she could do for Steve, but not herself. Not when she had a file in Kiev, too.

This time she's not alone for long. She calls Steve in once she tracks Bucky to France. And Steve might not be a spy, but he's a soldier, and a good one. With the two of them working together, things are never easy- Bucky is too good for that- but they don't lose the trail. Eventually they manage to track him down to a place in Paris.

Steve's getting food because his first worry is for Bucky's well-being. Natasha's first worry is what it means that Bucky's stopped running. So when Steve's not there the exact second when she told him to met her, she moves in without him. How many times has she given him Hell for starting without her? Not something she's thinking about as she slips in through the window. Steve will probably take the front door when he gets here. She's dressed down and casual, no guns, but she has her widow's bite under the sleeves of her jacket and a knife at the small of her waist. She's not looking for a fight, but she's prepared for one, anyway.

She holds her hands up, in that gesture of surrender as soon as she gets her feet. Green eyes cataloging for threats, and the target from the moment she made her entrance.] Bucky?