AN I don't own Marvel or any of its characters! Oneshot fluff Winterwidow

Most of the team had seen Natasha at least partially naked at some point in time for various reasons. Most were pretty sure she and Clint were sleeping together. Others had their bets on Steve. But Bucky was the one who snuck into her bed each night and always found himself tangled around her every morning. They rarely did more than kiss both because of the crowded tower and their complicated emotional histories but.. it was more than enough. He didn't pretend to understand why she chose him and he wrote it off as just the strength of familiarity and their history together. A part of him wondered if it was the scar.

Natasha slept with people for jobs and it wasn't uncommon. But, Bucky had found, she was shockingly good at keeping people's attention on her body anywhere except her lower back. Because there, slightly off center from her spine, was the scar. As far as he could tell none of the others had ever seen it and she didn't act like they knew-even Clint-but he was certain that even if they did they didnt know the story behind it. It was bright and red and raised like a permanent welt but that wasn't what usually drew attention to it. It was in the shape of a hand.

People had asked her in the beginning how hard she'd been hit to make a mark like that but she never answered as far as he could tell. Coulson,she'd said, knew about the scar from her physical but didn't know the story and didn't ask. And she was more than touchy about it. The first few days he'd watched her in the tower and he couldn't believe how smooth she was about it even for a spy. The way she danced out of reach and darted around hands always making sure that any touch to her body wasn't there.. it was impressive.

But it took approximately one week for that to change. He'd appeared in her room around two in the morning with no explanation or even a hello and she'd immediately somehow known. Shed taken his hand, ignoring how it shook in hers, and placed it against the side of her neck so he could feel her pulse. It helped, but he was still tense. So she guided him easily over to the bed like they were moving on air and eased him down with her and, never breaking eye contact, she turned onto her stomach and lifted the hem of her shirt. An invitation. He hesitated because he couldn't remember how close they were or how they'd left it but he couldn't resist and she was practically telling him to so he did it. He reached out and pressed his hand against the scar.

A perfect match.

She shuddered but kept her hand on his human one, holding it against her pulse point, and closed her eyes as the metal shifted slightly on the scar tissue, aligning into place on the small of her back. When it fit, he finally felt like he could breathe. And she smiled at him, truly smiled, and kissed his palm and pulled him into her, never letting his hand stray from the scar. Even now, it was bittersweet. He was thrown back to the memory.

His metal hand, held in a furnace until it practically glowed. He couldn't feel it, then, with the earlier models so he didn't flinch. But he felt more than heard Natasha scream as they shoved his hand against her skin and it seared into her. She thrashed on the floor and he struggled against the restraints but they were both tied like their entire bodies were muzzled. Like animals. And when they finally pulled his hand away she was barely breathing and blood was pouring from the wound and he saw bits of burnt flesh on his metal hand and he wanted to throw up but they'd punish him for it and he just needed to get away from her screaming. But then it was suddenly silent. They'd shoved a piece of cloth into her mouth.

"See what happens when you let a man get too close, Natalya? When you let yourself care? He becomes more than just a weakness. He leaves a mark on you, permanently, and it will never stop hurting completely because that's what weakness is. A constant, belittling reminder. And his mark will never leave your skin because you were weak. This pain is because you were weak." He heard them throw her to the cement and leave but from where he was bound back in his chair he met those gorgeous blue eyes, clouded with tears, and all he could think was: weak?

She was the strongest person he'd ever met and even now she'd proven it again. She looked at him with so much hatred but he knew. It wasn't for him. She was beating herself, tearing herself down for letting this happen, blaming herself, but he couldn't move and he was still muzzled so he did his best to show her with his eyes how proud he was. She was a survivor and she had to know that. He loved her and she had to know that. She was strong. She had to know that. But she didn't, because they'd beat it out of her. They'd told her she was weak so many times that it actually happened because when you out anything even stone under that much pressure it gives. They wanted her to be weak. Because strong wasn't malleable or pliant. Strong wasn't moldable. But weak was perfect and rebuilding from scratch made the perfect little agents.

But the one thing that wasn't in her eyes that day, even as she choked and sobbed with pain, was submission. There was defiance and anger and hatred and blame but there was no surrender. No weakness. And the next time he woke up drenched in sweat and shaking all over, she was there. Already in his arms and ready to reassure him. He couldn't help it, he remembered feeling so close and so intimate with her that surely they had to have been together right? Not just friends? But he wanted to do it and he wanted to feel her, to know that she was okay and that they hadn't broken her, so he kissed her as fiercely as he could just to prove to himself but she was there.

She kissed him back and tangled a hand in his hair and didn't stop until he could breathe again. And she smoothed his hair and traced patterns on his skin and let his hand settle over the scar so he could feel her stomach rise and fall with every breath and she coaxed him through it. When he did finally collapse back beside her, thank you didn't seem good enough. There were no words for how grateful he was or how proud or how fucking relieved that she was okay after all this time. So he settled for the closest he could get.

"I love you." She didn't panic or push him away though. She kissed his forehead with a smile and whispered back:

"I love you too." And it felt small and normal and practiced like they'd said it a thousand times. He couldn't remember if that was true but it felt true so he acted like it was and she didn't correct him. She cuddled into him and held him just as loosely as he held her, making sure her arms could never ever feel like restraints and that her touch could never feel scientific or calculating. She pressed her lips gently to his chest, just over his heart.

"I've missed you, James." He didn't know what to say to that so he just kissed her temple a readjusted his palm on the scar but she smiled and didn't seem to expect anything from him in return. He couldn't say that he'd missed her because he hadn't remembered her-he still wasn't sure that he did. But he could say that, for the first time in years, he felt like he was warm again. He could say she scared the nightmares away. He could say that every moment he spent lying there with her skin against his own felt like a kind of heaven he didn't deserve. But he settled for kissing the top of her head and letting them both drift off to sleep.

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