Chapter Text
Natalia is angrily wrestling with the zip of her hoodie when Yasha thunders down the hall, Steve racing behind him. Pietro, who is by far the more affable one of the twins, is still on the phone with her mom’s Chief of Staff, leaving Wanda to raise a pointed eyebrow at Natalia and sigh in that very put out way she uses to show just how unhappy she is with the way things are unfolding.
Unlike Yasha, Natalia has never begrudged or resented the people put in place for her protection.
Unlike Karpov and Rumlow, they read the job description.
She makes it out into the hall and has to veer around Wilson. He curses, checks he’s not body slammed her into a wall, and hurries after Yasha and Steve. She takes that to mean everything downstairs is going as well as expected.
As soon as Pietro finishes his call, she needs to get to work. That doesn’t mean she’s leaving without making sure stupidity and anger don’t win out over common fucking sense.
By the looks of it, Yasha’s booked it straight to the upstairs office. It’s not a surprise. There’s more than one bottle of very expensive brandy sitting on the shelf behind the desk, and Yasha’s never been picky about what he drinks when he’s upset.
She’s bitterly resentful of herself for not clearing the whole building out while he was unconscious. If they’d been at her house and not Steve’s it wouldn’t have even been a consideration.
But now Steve is playing catch-up, all soft voice and doe eyes, and as much as she pities him, as angry as she is with him, she can’t even say his approach is the wrong one.
“-nobody is saying that,” he says evenly. “I believe you. Fuck, we all believe you.”
By the time Natalia enters the room, Yasha has a bottle in his hands, but has yet to open it. That seems to be all that’s keeping Steve from vibrating out of his skin. Wilson skirts the edge of the room, taking advantage of the fact that, as always, Yasha only has eyes for Steve. If he goes for the drink, it’ll be Wilson that intervenes.
It’s hard not to think of the sheer number of times she and Yasha have been blindingly, blackout drunk in each other’s company, and now they’re at a point where a single glass of scotch could actually kill him. Somehow, that’s more frightening than anything else that’s happening.
They can deal with external threats. It’ll be messy and dangerous, but they can handle it.
Stopping Yasha from self-destructing is by far the greater challenge.
“Why?” he demands, waving the bottle in an arch. “Why the fuck would anyone believe me?”
Steve scoffs. “Why would you lie about it?”
She’s starting to think that she and he might be far more alike than either of them appreciates. They see the world from drastically opposing perspectives, but their convictions are ultimately rooted in a singular understanding of people.
Their problem is that they have both been under the illusion that Yasha is just like them. That he understands the world as they do, one way or the other, and he interacts with it in the way he thinks best.
It’s why she’s always loved him. Why they clicked together so quickly and have never really moved out of that initial endorphin rush of connection. In Yasha, she found a man who understands the decadence and danger of the world they both live in, but somehow slipped into a space no one else has ever occupied. He’s all the power, privilege, and arrogance to be the kind of man who makes the rooms they move in so much worse. The kind of man who would seek to make sport out of someone like Natalia, but who instead finds his fun poking lions instead of gazelles.
He's never been a threat to her. Never touched her, or looked at her, or spoken to her in a way that’s registered as anything remotely sexual. And she’s sat in his lap in her underwear before. They share a bed. Hell, they make out in dark corners when they know someone with a camera is looking for a quick buck.
She means what she said to Rumlow. It’s such an incredibly rare thing for the two of them to enter a room and not be looked at with some kind of envy or desire. People want them, or they want to be them. That’s a currency she’s learnt the hard way how to spend.
She’s always assumed the same for Yasha. That he knows how to turn that desire into leverage, and that he has fun doing so.
Now… now, Christ above, she’s not so sure.
“People lie, Steve,” Yasha snaps, jarring her out of her spiral and back into focus. “I lie. Literally all the time.”
Steve cocks his head to one side. “See… I don’t actually think you do.”
She waits for Yasha’s response, already sympathetic for what she knows will be a biting, possibly even cruel reaction. She can see the build of it coiling inside him, in that sharp, terribly prescient way of his that she’s always taken as a calculated strategy and is only now realising is beautifully disguised terror.
Everything about Steve is set and ready to absorb the blow. He’s rooted, solid, unflinching in his stubborn belief that he can love Yasha hard enough to somehow offset all the bad things that have happened.
And Yasha, truly clear headed for perhaps the first time in as long as Natalia has known him, sees it, too. The tension melts from his shoulders, and instead of lobbing a bomb, he collapses into the chair behind the desk. That’s a relief, at least until he goes for the stopper in the bottle.
Wilson steps forward, only to run into Steve’s outstretched arm. The speed of both of them stops Yasha mid-action. He stares up at Steve with wide eyes.
“Nobody is touching him,” Steve’s voice is low, and carefully even, but it’s clearly an order, not a suggestion.
Wilson is smart enough to know it. “I’m not here to hurt anyone,” he says, matching Steve in both tone and expression. “But you know why I can’t let this happen.”
“He’s not a child.” Steve breaks his gaze from Wilson and looks and looks at Yasha. “You’re not gonna do anything stupid, are you, Buck?” Again, it’s an order. Again, Natalia waits for the explosion.
The room is silent for almost five fucking minutes. Just Steve and Yasha locked in a silent conversation, while Wilson and Natalia wait for something.
It’s not so much a battle of wills between the two of them, but when Yasha eventually slides the glass stopper back into place, his hands trembling, she’s once again reminded of just how much power Steve Rogers so unknowingly wields. The one thing, the only thing, that Yasha has ever wanted is Steve’s attention. So long as he has it, there’s not much he isn’t willing to do to keep it.
That’s fine for now, but god help all of them if Steve ever decides it’s too much.
Wilson stands down, and Steve’s smile turns him into a human ray of sunshine, so proud Natalia is willing to bet exhaustion is the only reason Bucky hasn’t burst into tears again.
She takes a tentative step forward. “Yasha?”
He startles at the sound of her voice, tunnel vision dropping, and he’s on his feet in a heartbeat, rushing across the office to sweep her up into a hug she’s not in the least bit ashamed to admit she desperately needs.
“I’m sorry,” he breathes, tucking her head under his chin. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Are you okay? Please be okay. I shouldn’t have left you with him.” The words, and the language he speaks them in, are for her alone. He’s seen her, briefly, since Rumlow was shot, but the glossy sheen of sedation and trauma in his eyes back then makes it clear he’s still not got the clearest sense of time.
She rises on her tiptoes to press a kiss to each of his cheeks. “You’ve nothing to apologize for.” When she settles back down, she takes his hand and squeezes, switching back to English more for the benefit of the others in the room with them.
There’s so much trust in his eyes when he looks at her that the shame threatens to swallow her whole. She hesitates, uncharacteristically lost for words.
Then the door opens, and Clint steps quietly inside the room, and her confidence rushes back in a way she’s neither the time nor the headspace to examine.
“I was thinking,” she says, squeezing Yasha’s hand. “Maybe you should come home with me. Go back to Varshak. They helped, didn’t they?”
It’s not really a surprise that Wilson recognizes the name. Their client list might be the world’s best-kept secret, but their reputation is worldwide, especially for someone with his experience. “It’s a treatment center in Moscow,” he explains to Steve, who immediately tenses at the suggestion of Yasha leaving.
Yasha looks at the floor, color spilling high on his cheeks. “Tasha took me. After you sent me away.”
There’s a whole riot of reactions fighting for dominance in Steve’s expression, but either he’s getting better at concealing his devastation, or it’s simply been one too many hits to his heart in too short a time, because he swallows back what is clearly a reaction to a statement he disagrees with and focuses on the important part.
“You were in rehab?” he asks. He’s coiled so tightly Natalia has to let go of Yasha’s hand and take a step back, leaving the space clear for the two of them to gravitate back together as they both so clearly need to.
She finds herself standing closer to Clint, who stays silent by the door beside Wanda, yet keeps up her gentle encouragement. The difference those weeks had made to him can’t be overstated. “You liked it there, remember?”
‘They were kind,’ he’d said to her after she picked him up, color to his cheeks and several degrees less frantic anxiety in his eyes. ‘I’m not… it wasn’t what I thought it’d be.’
“That’s not an easy thing to do,” Wilson says kindly. “You should be proud of that.”
She doubts any of them are expecting Bucky to burst out laughing.
It’s not a funny laugh, but a sharp, dry squeeze of air, and after a beat, it grieves Natalia that she can't recall the last time she actually heard him laugh and believed it was real. “Sorry,” he mutters, and shakes his head. “I- that’s not... sorry.”
He leans on the edge of the desk with a white-knuckled grip, pinching the bridge of his nose in an attempt to stave off a migraine. His voice is small and hoarse. “I liked it there,” he admits. He sounds so tired. Worn down to the bone. He looks up at Steve, then at her, then shrugs with limp limbs. “I slept through most of it. Did a bit of yoga. Two shots of vodka at breakfast, two at lunch. Three at dinner.”
It takes all of them a beat to understand what he’s saying.
Natalia freezes.
Steve hesitates. “Aren’t you supposed to… not drink at those places?”
You’re supposed to be clean as a whistle. That’s the whole point. They have all the medical expertise to get someone off whatever substances they’re abusing safely, and the specialists to try and sort their heads out so they don’t go back down that path. It had been the coke that had worried her, not the drinking, and she knows a few weeks can’t really fix the kind of problems that Bucky has, but she thought… “No. No, I checked them out. I know-” fuck, so many people who have been there, come out singing their praises, many of them going back again and again and-
Yasha looks across at her, something kind and gentle and irrevocably broken in his eyes. “I did like it there. They just owed a favor to someone higher up the food chain.”
It’s Clint who asks, “Who?“ The rest of them are too struck dumb by horror. It’s a rolling fucking cycle of a nightmare that never seems to end.
Bucky’s jaw tightens stubbornly, reminding her of exactly what it took to pry the name of his rapist out of his mouth.
But the secret that’s been killing him for years now has an audience, and there are too many people - too many clever, experienced, paranoid people - caught up in the web that they don’t actually need to wait for Bucky to give them an answer.
Wanda, who in the years she has spent with Natalia has said maybe three words in public, cocks her head to one side. “Ivan Gregorovich. I wondered why he was there.” She and Pietro had been the ones to take them there in the first place. Pietro had to carry Yasha out of the car.
Yasha is a terrifyingly adept liar on a good day. Today is not a good day. She sees the surprise in his eyes and locks on a target, right before the reality of what that means fully hits her.
God, she’s going to be sick,
“Who the fuck is Ivan Gregorovich?” Clint demands, adding another name to a long list of people he wants to kill. She backs up until she hits the wall and slides all the way down to the floor.
Yasha says nothing, just folds in on himself and stares sullenly at the floor.
Steve… Steve’s a smart man. It takes him a second to place a name he shouldn’t really have any context for, and she watches in real time as what little color he has left drains from his face.
Wanda must really be done with all of them, because she speaks again. “Ivan Gregorovich is my boss’s boss’s boss,” she says dryly. “He is head of the FSB.”
Steve collects himself first. He’s got that posture, spine braced against bad news, chin up and daring the world to throw another punch. “Why would Russia’s security services care if you got clean?” he asks.
Yasha sniffs, then laughs. It’s so dry even Wanda gives him a look. “They don’t,” he says.
“Then why the fuck would they get involved?” It’s a fair question. One Natalia doesn’t have to spend too long answering. She looks across to Wanda, who holds her gaze for long enough to make Natalia’s skin prickle. Wanda then nods and slips out of the room. She’s going to Pietro, understanding faster than any of them what kind of shit they’re stepping into.
“Bucky,” Wilson asks quietly. “I’m going to ask you a question, and I need you to be honest with us, okay?”
Yasha doesn’t meet his gaze, but he does nod.
Wilson takes a beat, looks at Clint, then sets his shoulders square. “Other than the people we already know about, is there anyone else who knew about Pierce?”
Yasha swallows. “What are you actually asking me?”
Wilson’s got more nerve than most people Natalia knows. Maybe he’s got just enough distance from the situation to find it easier, or maybe he’s just fearless. “I’m asking if the US Secretary of State asked the head of a foreign security service to interfere with your private healthcare.”
“We’re not allies with Russia,” Steve shakes his head. “Why would Pierce even ask that? Why the fuck would they say yes?”
She knows exactly why.
Yasha squirms in his seat, and Natalia wants to cry. “Like I said. It was a favor.”
“Last I checked, we weren’t doing the Russians favors. Or them us,” Steve says.
As seems to be the pattern, it’s Clint who takes control of the situation. “Yeah, starting to think none of the people we’re dealing with give much of a fuck about borders these days,” he grumbles, crossing over to the desk. “Okay, kid, here’s what’s gonna happen. It’s been a really crazy day, so Natasha is gonna take you downstairs, and Sarah’s gonna make you something to eat-” he holds up a hand to stop Yasha before he can start to protest. “Not up for debate. Choice comes next, okay?” He waits until Yasha nods sullenly. “You’re gonna get some sleep. Up to you whether you want Sam to give you something to help with that.”
Yasha shakes his head, a quick jerky motion that sends a lock of dark hair falling across his bloodshot eyes. " No."
“Okay, that’s fine. You change your mind, you tell him.” Clint reaches over and squeezes his shoulder. “Now tomorrow, I want you to call that lawyer lady you spoke to at SHIELD.”
“Jennifer?”
“That’s the one. Phillips got her number?” Clint asks.
“No, but Darcy does.”
"That's great," Clint nods. "Good. Go on then, go with Natasha."
Clint's eyes flick toward Steve, lingering just a second too long. His jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. It’s clear to her that he wants to talk to Steve. He’d be the obvious choice to stick with Yasha. It says everything about how much she trusts him that she doesn’t protest.
Steve’s not sure there will ever be a time when he’s willing to let Bucky out of his sight ever again. The second the door closes behind him and Natasha, something cold cinches around his throat and squeezes. It’s not until Barton is shoving a glass of whiskey into his hand that he even remembers how to breathe.
“No, he says, pushing the glass across the desk. “If he can’t, I won’t.”
Batron studies him carefully, shrugs, and downs the shot in one. “Fair enough.”
“I should go with-”
“In a minute,” Barton stops him. “I need to bring you up to speed.”
“On which part?” Karpov? Rumlow? Pierce? The fucking Russians…
Barton leans over the desk, voice pitched low. “How much do you know about his finances?”
The question stuns him completely off his axis. “His… what? Bucky’s?”
The answer, embarrassingly, is not much. Bucky’s money isn't so much invisible as irrelevant. If he ever wants something, he buys it; if a bill appears, it vanishes. The Barnes family is filthy rich, and everyone knows it.
“So you’re not gonna like this,” Barton continues, his smile a wry, mean thing that doesn’t reach his eyes. Somehow, Steve doesn’t get the impression that anger is being aimed at him for once.
He laughs bitterly. “Not sure I’ve liked a single damn thing that’s happened in weeks.”
“Well, it’s gonna get worse, because I need you to marry that kid.”
Steve blinks. “What?”
He stares at Barton, words stuck behind a wall of old Catholic guilt and new panic, and tries to piece together the words in the right order. "That's a fucking joke," he says finally.
Barton doesn’t smile. “Wish it was.”
"Jesus. You think that's what he wants right now?"
“What he wants isn’t my priority,” Barton says, voice scraping low. “We need the two of you hitched. Preferably yesterday, but tomorrow will do. And we need it airtight.”
Steve tries for a laugh, but it doesn't come out. "I'm not - Christ, Barton, he’s scared out of his fucking mind right now! I am not going to throw a proposal at him so his name can change on a fucking spreadsheet."
“I don’t care what name he takes,” Barton says angrily.
Wilson steps in before Steve starts throwing punches. “What are you getting at here?” he asks, more patient than the situation deserves.
Barton drags a shaking hand through his hair, looking more distressed than Steve has ever seen.
“I don’t know what’s going on with Pierce. I don’t know what’s happening there, and honestly, I can only deal with one fucking crisis at a time right now.”
“And me marrying him is gonna help him how?” There’s a small part of Steve that has no idea why he’s arguing. Marrying Bucky has been a dream since he knew what the word meant. It’s easier to drown out that selfish urge now he’s armed with even a fraction of the context he’s been missing for years.
"The day he turns twenty-one, he is going to take control of the kind of money people start fucking wars over. All of it is in his name. And they are gonna take him back and use everything that’s been done to him as an excuse to convince a judge they probably play fucking golf with to sign over all control in a nice, neat conservatorship, and he’ll probably never see the outside of a padded fucking room ever again.”
Steve stares at him. The words do not compute, not for Bucky. He’s traumatized, not crazy. “That’s… there’s no way. He’s not…”
“He’s not what?” Barton’s already folding his bitterness internally. “Not sick enough? You really think all those people - his parents, their lawyers, the PPD, their pet doctors - you think they haven’t been building the case for years?”
Wilson clears his throat. “You want Steve to become his legal next of kin,” he says, not even pretending to be surprised. “If he’s married, they can’t get him in a conservatorship.”
Barton nods, keeps talking over the sound of Steve’s heartbeat hammering through his skull. “They’ll fight it, I’m sure. Say you coerced him into it. And fuck, you probably wouldn’t even win, but it would buy us more time.” His face twists, something flickering behind the grimace. “They’re gonna come for him, Steve. Maybe not today, maybe not even this damn week. But they will.”
Steve has cried so many tears these past few weeks, so many shades of fear and horror and anger and total, unrelenting devastation. He can’t summon the enemy to feel ashamed of them now. “I’ve just found out that the man I love more than anyone in the whole fucking world has had every choice taken away from him. Has been hurt in ways I can’t - I can’t even… that I’ve hurt him. That people made me fucking part of it-” Rumlow’s sneer crashes over him in sickening recollection.‘You know, he'd call your name sometimes.’ “And now, what? We get him out, and you want to make me his jailor? That’s not love, Barton, that’s a fucking hostage trade.”
Instead of looking angry, Barton looks merely defeated. “Then we have to ask Natasha.”
Steve pushes back from the desk and nearly topples over his chair. “Nobody is asking shit.”
“Steve-”
“No! I’m not listening to this. Everyone in Bucky’s life has failed him. I am done. I’m done playing by the rules. I’m done being fucking nice.” He knows Barton is trying to help. He sees it, clear as day, but he’s spooked, and that, more than anything, is what pushes Steve over the edge. This is so far above Barton and Wilson’s paygrade, and they’ve gone above and beyond for Bucky in a way that’s probably the only reason Steve still has any faith left in humanity at all.
But he is not compromising this for anything. He can’t. If he goes to Bucky now and asks him to marry him, Bucky won’t hesitate. He’ll say yes, and it will be just one more thing the monsters in his life have poisoned.
They’re way out of their league. They need help.
And his parents… they’ll try, Steve knows they will. They’ll fight, and he wants them to.
But if Alexander Pierce can pick up a phone and call in a favor from the other side of the planet, then they’re clearly entering a battlefield where the standard rules of engagement mean fuck all to the combatants.
Power speaks only to power, which means Steve needs to level the playing field if they stand a chance of making it through any of this in one piece.
Barton’s bombshell about Bucky’s parents is more of a damp squib. They’re vile, evil people doing what vile, evil people do. He aches at the depth of betrayal, but only for Bucky’s sake. Everything else is numb.
The world as he knows it is unrecognisable. He’s going to have to adapt.
He aims for kindness with Barton who, fuck, has quite literally torn open the stitches on his own heart for Bucky. Steve doesn’t touch him, hasn’t earned that right, not after everything he now knows, and levels him with a look he hopes makes it clear how serious he is. “I will never be able to repay you for saving him. You did what I should have, and I’ll be forever grateful. But if you tell him to do this, either with me or Natasha, I’ll make sure you never see him again.”
Barton blinks, his jaw opening. He still looks more scared than angry. Wilson puts a hand on his arm and pulls him closer before he can move any further.
Steve leaves them to it. He checks his phone and the hundred-plus missed calls from Tripp, Peggy, and Sharon. Word of his DD will likely be out already. It is what it is. He has no intention of calling any of them back.
Bucky’s half asleep at the kitchen table, leaning against Natasha, who is keeping up a quiet string of nothingness with Steve’s mom to fill what would otherwise be an awkward silence.
Steve stops at Bucky’s elbow and waits for him to blink up at him blearily. He reaches for Steve, sweet and clumsy. Steve catches his hand and presses a kiss to his knuckles. “I need to head out for a bit,” he says, careful to hold Bucky’s attention. “I’ll be back in the morning.”
Bucky’s fingers are trembling where they lace with Steve’s, the crust of a healing cut snagging against Steve’s thumb. Steve wants to brush away the film of panic behind Bucky’s eyes; instead, he squeezes his palm as tight as he can without hurting him. Bucky, for all his bravery, looks ready to shatter at the prospect of Steve leaving.
“Don’t,” Bucky says, nothing left in him to soften the word. Even his lashes are wet. He’s so exhausted that his body can barely keep up with the fear.
“Not going far,” Steve says. He bends and presses his mouth to Bucky’s forehead. “Promise. I’ll be back before you even have a chance to miss me.” He’s lying: the missing will start right away. For both of them.
Bucky sucks in a breath, so shaky it trembles as he exhales. “If you’re not back by tomorrow, I’ll…” He looks around the kitchen, at Natasha, at Steve’s mom. He doesn’t finish. It doesn’t matter; Steve already knows. If Steve disappears, Bucky will follow. Find him or die trying.
“I’ll come back,” Steve repeats, “and I won’t do anything stupid.” He says it loud enough for his mom to hear. If she’s angry about his leaving, she doesn’t show it, just rearranges her face to a serene, diplomatic neutral. She’s the anchor in a hurricane. He wonders if he’ll ever be that strong.
Natasha rakes her fingers through Bucky’s hair, all casual grace and zero condescension, murmuring in Russian that Steve can’t begin to parse. She meets his gaze over Bucky’s head and gives the tight, fractional nod of someone who doesn’t need to be told what to do.
“Tell dad,” he asks her, in one sentence admitting more than he really wants to. He’s a little in awe of how much she trusts him, despite everything.
She holds his gaze across the kitchen. “I love you. You will be careful,” she says, proving she knows him better than anyone, perhaps even Bucky.
“Love you, too. Promise.”
On the porch, the evening is sharp with cold, and the sky is already bleeding pale at the horizon. He stands, breathing the air, letting the last of his composure freeze back over the bone-deep dread. He’s awake now, and clear-eyed if not fully clear-headed.
He doesn’t notice his father approach until the man is right beside him, the porch creaking, a larger presence at his shoulder. Steve doesn’t flinch. The two of them stand side by side, arms folded, eyes tracking the moonless yard that slopes toward the pool. For a minute, it could be just another evening. Safe, domestic, normal.
His father’s warm hand closes around his keys and slides them into Steve’s palm, then leans in and lowers his voice: “If you’re going to do this, do it right. Think with your head, not just your heart. That boy’s not the only one they’re going to be gunning for. Don't-”
"Give them an excuse?" Like they've ever needed one.
His dad snorts. "Get arrested."
"I'm not going after Pierce." Not yet.
Steve tightens his grip on the keys. They're heavy and familiar, not an invitation to run away but a means to do what needs to be done. His thumb presses hard into old engraving on the fob, and he feels a burst of loyalty that nearly knocks him over.
His father looks at him then, face deeply tired, lines sharp in the porch light. “Are you going to tell me where you’re going?” It’s almost gentle.
“If it works,” Steve says, “you’ll know soon enough. You going to tell me not to go?”
His dad’s hand lands on his shoulder. “Be careful.”
He nods. He can’t say it, but he hopes his dad knows anyway.
He takes his dad’s car.
It’s less than four hours to New York. If he’s lucky, he’ll be back before Bucky wakes up tomorrow morning.
He just really, really fucking hopes Tony Stark is home for once.