A/N: I don't usually place warnings in my author's notes, but Black Widow's past in the Red Room is an especially gritty time to portray, so I'll make an exception. This fanfic includes an implied incident of sexual assault, as well as current torture, brainwashing, and the like. Nothing is unnecessarily graphic, but these themes are nevertheless present. You have been warned.

~x~X~x~

PERSUASION (AND OTHER REASONS WHY SHE BLEEDS)

~x~X~x~

You're way too young to be broken;

You're way too young to fall apart;

You're way too young to play these games,

But you'd better start.

But you'd better start.

~ "Not The One," 3OH!3

~x~X~x~

1.

The overseer of the Black Widow Ops is all muscle, lean and toned; he has the eyes of an attack dog, dark with purely cruel intent. He leans forward across his desk, weighing the Soldier with his gaze. "Subject: Romanova, Natalia Alianovna. Report."

"Her programming is unstable," the Soldier says, inflectionless. "Her functioning has suffered, but she cannot diagnose the cause. She is bloodied and bruised during training. She wakes the others with her screaming at night. She stares into space like there's a message in the air."

"Repair her."

"She is not damaged. Only miscoded."

The overseer's eyebrows form a sharp V on his forehead. "Intensify her combat regimen," he says.

The Soldier makes a fist of his metal hand. "The fault is not in her training, but in her response."

"Then she must try harder."

"What are my orders?"

The overseer leans back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head. "Persuade her," he breathes.

"By what method?" the Soldier asks, cocking his head.

"I find pain," says the overseer, a smile tugging at his mouth, "to be a reliable system of persuasion."

The Soldier takes note of this.

The next day, as Natalia Romanova moves to exit the training mats (last in line, as she always seems to be,) the Soldier closes his hand of metal around her arm and twists. She cries out in surprise, her knees buckling. The Soldier follows this with a swift, solid kick to her ribs. She doubles over, eyes wide, and then lies at his feet, panting.

The Soldier looks down at her with contempt. "Fight harder, Romanova," he bites out, and then he turns away, having completed his objective.

Abruptly, Romanova spits a strangled curse. The Soldier freezes in his tracks. Behind him, her breaths come sharp and staggered.

"Do you enjoy hitting women, Soldier? Does it make you feel like more of a man?"

On instinct, the Soldier lashes out with his arm of metal. The strike is aimed for her throat. She catches him by the wrist, eyes glinting, predatory. He holds her gaze, but she does not flinch.

"I'll fight harder," she says through her teeth, "when these damn fools give me something to fight for."

The Soldier tugs his wrist of metal free. "Fight me, then," he says, and launches a punch at her head.

The resulting exchange of blows is ferocious; they clash like wolves, not soldiers, brutal and animal. When it is over, bruises are already showing all over Romanova, from her face to her legs. But the Soldier's arm of flesh has been lacerated by her fingernails, and it stings as his blood drips on to the mat, achingly red.

The Soldier cannot remember the last time he bled. He cannot remember having ever bled at all.

"Damn you and all the —" Romanova starts to say, but her voice dies as she looks into his face.

The Soldier stares at the scarlet stain upon the mat. He is an asset, and here in the Red Room, a teacher; but he is not a person, and he has only ever seen crimson flow from human veins. He looks, and his hand of flesh is trembling.

Sergeant James Barnes, 107th —

A scrawny boy coughing, leaning on his arm —

A shield with a star and an azure blast and white and white and falling —

"The hell," the Soldier grunts, running the hand of metal over his eyes.

Romanova sets her jaw. "Impressed?" she says as she cracks her knuckles.

— and falling and cracking and bleeding, bleeding, bleeding —

"I'm bleeding."

"I know."

The Soldier blinks. "I don't bleed," he says, barely audible.

"You do if you raise your hands to me," Romanova says. "Or hand, I suppose. Prosthetics don't count."

— into the snow, red red red against blank canvas —

"I can bleed." The Soldier swallows, his head spinning. "I can bleed."

"I can slice you open again, if it would provide clarity."

The Soldier contemplates drawing a dagger and doing exactly that, but his arm already burns fiercely enough. Breathing hard, he lowers his head. "Thank you," he says, not knowing why he says it. He meets her eyes; they are bright and strong, like flares that signal a plane to land. "Romanova."

~x~X~x~

2.

I am not a person.

They have been something far more than teacher and student for nearly two weeks, but this is the first time the Soldier has found words for his creeping fear. At times like this, he thinks Russian to be a clumsy language, inadequate for the true breadth of these thoughts clattering about in his head; but what other language might he speak?

I am not a person. I am a machine.

In half-sleep, sometimes he hears his mouth forming unnatural syllables — captain, follow, not without you — and though they taste bitter, they sound like home. When he wakes, he wonders if he dreamed them. Then he decides it doesn't matter, so long as the phantom language does not interfere with his functioning.

I am not a person. I am a machine. I will serve my purpose, I will carry out my programming, and then I will be dismantled, turned to spare parts, reborn as a new weapon; and I will not be a person, but a machine. And I will serve again.

Natalia Romanova lifts a damp cloth to his battered face. What a mystery it is, that a woman so deadly can touch him with such grace, such gentleness. The Soldier is beaten and broken all over. He thinks they sent him overseas on a mission, but the memory is wiped clean, like a chalk drawing after a rainstorm; the absence of recollection gnaws at his mind.

Softly, the Soldier turns his fear to spoken words. "I am not a person."

Natalia pales. "Why would you say that?"

"People feel."

"You feel."

"When I wound," the Soldier says, his heart pounding through every inch of him (but not the arm of metal, where flesh ought to be.) "When I peel the skin from someone's body, when put a bullet through their skull... I feel." He blinks hard. "Something."

"That's not the only time," she counters, wiping dried blood from his neck, from the edge of his jaw.

"It is."

"I don't believe that."

The Soldier closes his eyes, leaning forward so that his forehead rests against hers. He lifts his hands, lacing fingers of metal and flesh behind her neck. She tenses, the cloth still pressed to the blood on his face, before she lowers her hand, her trembling lips cutting off the words she might have said.

The Soldier looses a breath. "When I touch you," he says, his voice hoarse. "When you touch me."

"You feel."

"Yes."

"What?"

He opens his eyes; his vision swims. "I don't know," he says, choking. "I don't know."

Natalia draws a fingertip across his jawline. "You are every inch a person," she breathes. "Every single piece of you."

The Soldier looks at his metal fingers, which rest against the nape of her neck. A person does not have a machine for an arm, and surely a person does not wonder if he is a person; a person knows it to be true, like he knows to breathe and to blink.

The Soldier pins her with his stare. "Persuade me."

Natalia grips his hair and tugs, insistent. "With pleasure," she says, pulling his mouth to hers.

The Soldier's pulse pounds as he responds to the kiss, his hands tightening behind her neck, holding her close. Her lips tease his and then withdraw, grazing the dried blood at his throat, her breath hot on his skin, and she calls him James and erases the aching in his chest and he is a person — a soldier, a man — when she holds him like this, her fingers splayed across the muscles of his back, tracing every rough edge like she could smooth them away with her bare hands.

She kisses his doubts away, and he is persuaded.

~x~X~x~

3.

In early summer, the Soldier finds himself severed from his partner for nearly a month.

Natalia is stationed in Kiev, flown from the Red Room without prior notice being sent to the Soldier. The overseers speak of raging ruin and upheaval; they say war lurks beyond the crimson chambers of their training. Natalia Romanova is expected to carve a path through the carnage, returning with critical information on the German army's movements. Bloodshed is to be as minimal as possible, but it is not explicitly forbidden.

Each day, the heat of the training rooms is stifling, the Soldier drenched in sweat. At the sight of Natalia, stepping around the corner with all the grace of a dancer, he feels as though he has been doused in ice water, brought back to life. But he is directing the other Black Widow Ops through traditional drills, and so he is forced to acknowledge his partner solely with his eyes.

Natalia holds his gaze for an instant; then her eyes shutter, and darkness falls like a shroud across her face. She exits faster than is strictly necessary.

After training's conclusion, the Soldier finds her outside the debriefing room. Her eyes are rimmed with scarlet, her face drained of color; she has never looked so beautiful or so haggard, and words evade the Soldier, despite his desire to speak.

"James," she says, staring blankly at the wall.

"Natalia." The Soldier cracks his knuckles of flesh. "You look like hell," he says, because it's true.

She presses her lips together. "Thanks."

The Soldier swallows, searching for better words. "It felt wrong," he amends, because this is also true. "When you were gone. It was wrong." Wrong like his arm of metal, like the Russian tongue on his lips; wrong like something he never knew he had until it was lost.

Natalia does not meet his eyes. "James," she says, the barest tremor shooting through her hands; and again, more fiercely, "James," and then she throws herself into his arms, like all the world's a storm and he's the only shelter to be had.

The Soldier chokes on a breath. He lays his hand of flesh against the small of her back, steadying her. He thinks of comforting phrases, those he uses on new initiates of the Red Room. It's okay. You're safe. No one will hurt you. They feel hollow even while unspoken.

"I'm here," the Soldier says, barely audible, because it is the only truth he knows. "I'm here now."

"Stay."

"Natalia..."

"Stay," she says, gripping the muscles at his back. "Please."

The Soldier traces her cheekbone with a metal finger. "Always," he says. This is less than true; it does not dull his will to believe it. He waits alongside her for the debriefing to begin, at which point the overseer forces him to depart.

When the debriefing is over, Natalia emerges all the more pale. Her steps falter as she crosses the threshold and returns to the corridor.

The Soldier pierces her with his stare. "What happened, Nat?"

"That's classified."

"I'm your teacher."

Natalia twists her fingers into a knot. "This is over your head, James," she says. "I'm forbidden from discussing the details."

"Tell me."

"James —"

"Let me help you," the Soldier says, and in desperation, he reaches for her arm. "Let me know where it hurts —"

Natalia screams, then; a real scream, as if she were struck across the face. She stumbles back from his outstretched hand so suddenly that her back collides with the wall. When she looks at him, her breathing ragged, he sees that her eyes are faraway. He is not the true cause of her fright; this terror of his touch is an echo, an aftershock.

The Soldier's chest clamps. "What happened, Nat?"

Natalia lowers her head. Softly, she says, "There was a man in Kiev. A subordinate of the German I was sent to contact."

No. The Soldier's stomach twists. No, no, the hell the hell the hell —

"After I retrieved the intel, this man asked to speak with me privately. He spoke well of the training program. Complemented my skills. Asked about my experience in the field of combat. And suddenly we were half a mile from the others, all alone, and he grabbed me by the wrist, and he said I was so beautiful..."

I should have been there should've protected her should've torn off his hands one finger at a time —

"I reached for my pistol but he moved so fast, and he had a knife, and I was so beautiful, he kept saying it, I was so beautiful that he couldn't stand it..."

I should've been there should've stopped him should've killed him —

The Soldier's throat is dry. "Did he...?"

"Touch me?" Natalia says, her voice breaking on a sob. "Yes. Yes, he did. And he would have done far worse, but something inside me just... snapped." She pauses, takes a breath. "I dug my teeth into his hand, and I ran. Straight to the helicopter out of Kiev."

Darkness licks at the edges of the Soldier's vision. "What was his name?"

"Hrolf." Natalia sets her jaw. "His regiment and such is all in the intel."

The Soldier nods, then pulls her into his arms. They stay that way for a long moment, breathing hard, hearts pounding. He rests his hand of flesh against the nape of her neck; she tightly grips his hand of metal, more comforted by the pieces of him that are a machine.

"I'll never let anyone hurt you," the Soldier says. He doesn't know that she wept in his arms until she has already gone, and he finds tearstains on the shoulder of his shirt.

The following day, the Soldier is dispatched on an unclear assignment that his overseers do not recall designing. He takes a helicopter to Kiev, bringing only scarce rations and a cruel, curved knife. After almost a week of his grating absence, he slips back into the training compound at an unholy hour.

The overseers of the Red Room find a corpse outside their bedrooms in the morning — artfully mutilated, its lips carved into a permanent grimace, its German army uniform dark with blood. The standard issue jacket is torn wide open, bloody letters etched into the bare skin of the body's chest.

They spell a single word. Persuasion.

~x~X~x~

4.

Natalia is screaming, and the Soldier cannot make it stop.

James Barnes presses his forehead against the door, teeth gritted to lock in a violent curse. He digs his hand of metal into the barrier, fingers splayed like claws to no avail.

Natalia's scream is primal, ripped from a soft, raw, pliable part of her that the Red Room has deliberately not forged into armor. It's a noise unfit for a human throat — it rattles the floor and walls alike, seizing the Soldier's heart like a predator's jaws.

"Stop!" he howls, beating the door with fists of both metal and flesh. "Stop!" The hand of metal rings with every impact, useless; the hand of flesh is crusted with blood, the knuckle-bones nearly showing through. He bares his teeth.

Still Natalia screams, endless, unrestrained. He can hear the electric shock over her broken pleas — no, stop, sorry — and his every bone is on fire, his vision dipped in shades of red, his hand of flesh gushing scarlet as he throws his whole weight against the door. "Damn you!" His throat is raw, as though her wild shrieks are his own. "Damn you all to hell!"

When it is all over — when they hurl Natalia to the cold tile floor of the corridor like a defective rifle, when the Soldier gathers her into his arms and her muscles are spasming, fingernails digging into his shoulders for balance, her mouth still open in a silent scream — a Red Room handler looms, throwing them both into shadow.

"The sharing of mission details is forbidden. The hacking of overseer systems is forbidden. If these rules are broken, there are consequences. Consider them, Soldier, before you act."

Natalia shakes and sobs, her face buried in his shirt. The handler exits without a second glance, his shoes clicking on the tile.

The Soldier understands that this is another example of persuasion.

~x~X~x~

5.

Natalia inhales sharply, drawing her shoulders back. "I think I'm dreaming while awake."

The Soldier blinks. "What?"

"I remember things. A girl named Nadia, who called me a friend. An apple fresh from the tree. Dancing in ballet shoes."

The Soldier's eyebrows lift, curious. "Memories are human."

"I don't know what color Nadia's eyes were. I don't know what a fresh apple tastes like." Natalia leans against the wall, her gaze sliding away from his. "And I tried to dance last night, after training, just to see what it would feel like, and there's... nothing. I don't know how."

Natalia twists a strand of scarlet hair around her finger, then untwists it. Slashes of shadow and light play against her porcelain skin.

The Soldier crosses his arms of metal and flesh alike. In a low, husky voice, he says, "You were a beautiful dancer."

"How do you know?" Natalia sighs.

"You move like a dancer — with a knife, with a gun, with your fists. It's like watching a river spilling over rocks. Effortless. Graceful." The Soldier smiles. "Dance is in your blood."

Silence floods the space between them.

Biting her lip, Natalia meets the Soldier's eyes. "Persuade me," she breathes.

They move like puppets on a performer's stage — sharp, elegant, synchronous — legs and arms sliding as if guided by strings. A machine is efficient, not careful, and yet the Soldier is gentle. He dips Natalia in his arms, and she sighs as he presses his lips to her neck, his kiss soft, lingering, tasting her skin. In this moment, he is a person. He is the boy who loves Natalia Romanova.

It is enough for now. He thinks it may be enough for forever.

~x~X~x~

6.

The Soldier sleeps in a cramped, private room. His handlers say it is a small reward for his dutiful service; he knows it is because he is feared, especially when he lurks like a devilish spirit in the dark.

Natalia is the exception to this rule. She enters his room at an absurd hour, barefoot, her scarlet hair curling in all directions. Her eyes hold a haunted sheen.

"It's back," she says. "The nightmare."

The Soldier sits up in bed, disentangling the sheets from his bare, chiseled chest. He clenches his jaw. "It's not real."

"My head knows," Natalia says, blinking hard. "My lungs scream."

The Soldier's heart pounds. In the darkness, he thinks the outline of her body all the more beautiful. He stands, crossing the room in long strides.

Natalia tightens her hands into fists. She lowers her head as his hand finds her neck, resting against her racing pulse.

"It will get easier," he says.

"Persuade me," she says.

The Soldier presses her against the wall, her body flush against his in the dark, and breathes promises on to her lips, into her hair. And she sighs, James, against his mouth — like it's an incantation, like he'll wake up from a witch's spell and flesh will spill over his arm of a metal and he will be a person forever, whole, wanted.

But later tonight, James Barnes will lie alone in the dark (to be seen with her, like this, would be to invite further punishment.) He will stare at the ceiling, words grinding in his brain, his hand of flesh tapping, tapping, tapping out the rhythm of a song he can barely recall (oh, say can you see? by the dawn's early light? what so proudly...? so proudly...?).

In the stillness, the isolation, he is a wounded soldier and nothing more.

~x~X~x~

Give me a shot to remember,

And you can take all the pain away from me;

A kiss, and I will surrender;

The sharpest lives are the deadliest to lead.

~ "The Sharpest Lives," My Chemical Romance

~x~X~x~

A/N: This particular story exists because of Lauralot, who said — in response to "Skinny Love (Young and Beautiful)" — that she would love to see me write some WinterWidow escapades. This story is also upsetting because of Lauralot, whose portrayal of Bucky in her epic fanfic "And I Always With You" has permanently prevented me from thinking about his story in non-heartbreaking terms. (Thanks, Lauren. You broke my soul... in the best way.) My portrayal of Bucky is heavily influenced by Lauren's version of him, but of course, this was done with her permission.

In the comics, Bucky had a mental breakdown when he was sent to a mission in Brooklyn; section two of this fanfic is how I imagine the aftermath of the Brooklyn incident, after Bucky had his mind wiped of the whole affair.

Hrolf means "famous wolf." I went back and forth about the decision to include an incident of sexual assault in this fanfic; thankfully, I've never experienced anything of the sort, so I'm always hesitant about addressing a tragedy that I don't have a personal link with. I want to tread lightly on the sensitive subject. Ultimately, though, after considering my reasons for including the incident in context, I decided that: a) Black Widow was trained to use her beauty as a weapon b) as a beautiful woman, she is automatically a prime target for assault in this twisted world we live in and c) to assume that a woman who essentially knows how to seduce a man and then kill him has never had her sexuality abused by a man is to pretend that we live in a perfect world, which we don't, and I don't want to shy away from unpleasant realities. So the incident stayed.

In the comics, Natasha has had false memories implanted by her Red Room handlers in order to ensure her loyalty to the program (and to Russia as a whole.) I determined these false recollections from scratch, save for the recollection of being a ballet dancer; I took that straight from the comicverse.

I bought a trade paperback comic today called "Captain America and Bucky." It's written by Ed Brubaker, also known as the god of all things Cap, and it chronicles the life story of Bucky Barnes. There's some WinterWidow sections at the end, including a particularly ludicrous scene of Bucky slipping out of bed (where he was with Natasha) and giving a little speech about how she needs to sneak out the window so that no one will find their forbidden love (I'm paraphrasing, but it was absurd.) Apparently, in the comics, the Red Room married Natasha off to a Russian warrior codenamed the Red Guardian, so Natasha's relationship with Bucky was not allowed. I'm sure that WinterWidow was not necessarily looked upon kindly by their handlers, but I don't buy that the Red Room would want a married Black Widow, given that this would send mixed messages to her (yes, sex is an intimate sign of love between husband and wife, but we also want you to exploit your looks in order to manipulate and kill men, so please believe both these things, all right, Natasha?... just no.) I'm choosing to ignore the Red Guardian in my fanfics for this reason. I don't think a love triangle is necessary for WinterWidow to have emotional depth.

And yes, I made Bucky forget the lyrics to "The Star-Spangled Banner" because I am a terrible human being.

Reviews are appreciated; every viewer of this fic is lovely regardless, but feedback is what fuels writers when the chips are down. Thank you for reading.