A/N: This fic is co-written with the lovely you-cant-just-import-answer who read my original drafts and went, "Great, but what if…"

Standard disclaimers apply. We own nothing.

Bucky Barnes heard the clock in the main room chime three times and cursed. He'd been lying in the guest bed on Steve's floor of Stark Tower for four hours now, unable to fall asleep. He'd tried every relaxation technique Bruce had taught him, assumed every possible sleeping position from his side to his back to his stomach with varying positions of his arms and legs, and had even tried sleeping on the floor before his back, which had now grown used to the comfort of the modern day mattress, began to ache. No matter what he did, there was this uneasy feeling in his stomach keeping him awake. He'd learned long ago to not ignore these feelings, so he had walked around the floor twice, examining every nook and cranny for a security leak. After also examining the lock on his door, he was fairly confident that his current gut feeling was not the kind where his subconscious had recognized that an attack was imminent and was trying to get his active brain to realize the same.

Which meant it was something he'd done that was keeping him awake, perhaps a lingering memory of how he had acted incorrectly in a particular situation. He exhaled loudly and mentally reviewed the night, hoping he'd come across the source of his discomfort.

He and Steve were in Manhattan for three days to celebrate Christmas with the Avengers. Since Clint, Sam and Rhodey were expected to be with their own families on the actual holiday, Tony and Pepper had arranged a team celebration on the 23rd, attendance mandatory, no exceptions. He and Steve had arrived late on the 22nd and had hit the rack on their designated floor without running into anyone. Steve had a knack for gently correcting Bucky when he said or did something wrong so, since that hadn't happened once either on the subway or in the cab to the Tower, that day was out of the running for his current predicament.

The team had trickled in that next morning, which had been spent playing video games and watching movies just barely in theaters on Stark's absolutely enormous projector screen. Sure, Bucky'd beaten almost everyone, even Steve, at almost all the video games once he'd figured out the complexities of the small plastic remote, but he was (almost) certain that wasn't what was keeping him up.

In the afternoon, he and the rest of the crew disbanded to make (or purchase) the side dishes they were supposed to bring to dinner. Apparently it was tradition for Tony and Pepper to have a homemade Christmas dinner, with no external help involved but, given that the party would be so large this year, they'd asked everyone to bring a side dish or dessert, while they handled the turkeys themselves. He and Steve had used that time to walk down to the corner bakery and purchase a few varieties of pie. They'd arrived back just in time to help set the massive table with more dishware than Bucky had ever seen outside a department store. The food had been excellent and the opening of presents everyone insisted they didn't need was rather fun.

Bucky had recognized this as the perfect occasion to show the Avengers how much he appreciated all they'd done for him and had used the money Fury was working on securing him, now that he was just "missing in action", to buy everyone something meaningful.

For Natasha, who had been one of the first to accept this new version of him and had gone out of her way to make him feel welcome in the modern age (even though she had casually informed him in the middle of sparring practice that she'd also end him if he hurt Steve again), he'd purchased two tickets to the Nutcracker at the Strathmore.

For Clint who had let him spend time with Lucky the Pizza Dog and who had introduced him to volunteer dog-walking at the shelter once a week, he'd secured five vouchers to Disneyland.

For Coulson who distracted him with Star Wars while the rest of the Avengers were on a mission, he had broken into the SHIELD agent's office and signed his framed Bucky Barnes trading cards.

For Sam, who'd quickly encouraged Bucky to try therapy, supported him until he caved a month ago, then helped him find someone who wasn't going to be scared off by his history, Bucky had bought a Falcon action figure and paired it with an 8x10 of a group of school-aged kids all in Captain America and Falcon gear who had trick-or-treated by the Tower last Halloween.

For Tony who had allowed him to stay in the Tower and who had fixed his arm when the servos started to wear, he'd knitted (yes, knitted. Sam was encouraging him to use his hand for good and he had discovered he had killer small stitches when he led with his left) a hat with a blue reactor on the front, as well as a scarf for Pepper, who sat quietly with him in the common room and listened to the stories he remembered about the good ol' days.

For Bruce, who had taught him how to meditate and how to not let his anger control his life, he made sure there was a variety of tea in the Tower, never the same one brand or flavor twice.

For Thor, who wasn't around much but who Bucky would have felt bad not having a gift for, he'd gotten a book of idioms.

Steve was the hardest. Nothing he found seemed good enough for the man who'd searched tirelessly for him for years. (Bucky still felt kinda bad about that, but he hadn't been in the right place to be a full part of Steve's life; there had been too many things he still needed to figure out, too many things he'd still needed to overcome.) He'd ended up buying Steve a holiday sweater and a box of art supplies. He knew neither item was the greatest gift but he'd put legitimate effort into both of them, trying on every sweater in the department store searching for the warmest and fluffiest one there—the fact that it had a shield on it only made it more perfect—and researching the best brand of art supplies before making his purchase. Steve's eyes had lit up as he'd opened them and he'd genuinely thanked Bucky, so the former assassin couldn't have been that far off track.

Then what was the problem?

You could go ask Steve, his brain offered, but Barnes quickly shook his head. He'd inadvertently woken Steve too many times over the last few months with his nightmares; he wasn't going to rob his friend of an opportunity to sleep through the night, especially for something as trivial as this.

So he grimaced and flopped onto his back, hoping that his reminiscing would appease his overactive brain enough to allow him to sleep.

Ten minutes of conscious misery later, he opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling.

"JARVIS?"

"Yes, Sergeant Barnes?" the disembodied voice responded.

"Did I do something wrong tonight?"

"Not at all. Your actions were appropriate and well-timed. I do believe your gifts were well-received too."

"I thought so." This being his only chance to gauge his new friends' reactions, Bucky had watched them closely after they had unwrapped their gifts, looking for any sign that he'd made a mistake, but he had found none—in his considerable experience, everyone seemed to genuinely enjoy their gifts.

"So what appears to be troubling you?"

Bucky was quiet for a long moment. "I guess it just didn't feel like enough," he decided.

"If I may, sir?" JARVIS spoke up after a brief pause. When Bucky nodded, the AI proceeded, as his protocol dictated he was allowed to see into a room if its occupant spoke to him first, "Not all gifts have to be purchased in a store."

In that instant, Bucky could almost physically feel something click in his brain. JARVIS was right: very few of the things the Avengers had given him were physical objects. Most were their time, acceptance and trust. If he wanted to repay that, he needed to find something on that caliber: a moment, an experience, a show of gratitude, not a token.

His heartbeat slowed slightly and he felt an odd feeling, one might call it peace, wash over him. That was it then; that was what had been bothering him. Now that he'd identified the source of his comfort, he could begin to fix it...tomorrow. Even super-soldiers needed their sleep.

"Thanks JARVIS," Bucky said as he rolled onto his side and fell asleep almost instantly.

He began this mission as he would any other: with copious, almost excessive, amounts of planning. With so many gifts to arrange and only a year to do it, he was going to have to really work to pay them all their due diligence.

Grabbing some loose-leaf paper from the office, he wrote one name at the top of each page, underlined it, then folded the sheet in half vertically. (In the past, he would have just written on a wall but apparently that was frowned upon. Also he'd be leaving in two days so he needed a solution that was portable.) He'd written Coulson and Thor's names down as well but Coulson's gift fell well within the parameters of his new mission and he wouldn't know what to get Thor if his life depended on it, so he'd quickly crumpled up their sheets and lobbed them into the trash can with perfect accuracy.

Then he sat down in the middle of his room, the sheets spread around him like petals on a flower and brainstormed, and began recording all the things that would show how grateful he was, on the respective pages. He scribbled down whatever popped into his brain, trying to stay away from the physical things and focusing on things from the heart. When he was finished about twenty minutes later, Tony's page was almost empty, as was, surprisingly, Steve's—nothing Bucky could think of would begin to repay everything his friend had endured to bring him back.

Bucky stared at them for another moment, his brow crinkling as he thought hard about ideas for both of them. When he still came up with nothing, he moved the two sheets to a pile off to his right. He'd save those two until he could come up an idea that was really worth doing.

Then he looked at the rest of the papers: Bruce's had a few ideas, but nothing that jumped out at him, neither did anything Clint's, so he added them to the "later" pile. That left Sam and Natasha.

Bucky picked up Sam and Natasha's sheets, one in each hand, and stared at them. Both were filled with very solid ideas that the recipients were going to love. When he could find no other means to pick between them, he evaluated them for difficulty and length. In the end, he chose Natasha, as hers required the most long-term planning.

He had a feeling he hadn't been wrong about getting her the ballet tickets—he'd seen how her eyes had lit up, despite her effort to hide it. He'd been clued into that gift by quick flashes of a young ballerina in his dreams, spinning, smiling, laughing, her moves effortless despite all that was being taught to her. He wasn't immediately sure it was Natasha but the first time they'd made eye contact after the dream, he'd recognized her unmistakable green eyes.

Unfortunately, he knew far too well what it was like to acquire skills for an unpleasant purpose. There were things he himself had been taught, things that he might have genuinely enjoyed if he'd learned them under different circumstances, but they were now colored with memories of the past, of why he'd learned that skill in the first place. He didn't want that to be true for Natasha, who had been taught ballet as a means of getting her quickly across borders for missions, especially since he'd seen how beautifully she danced. She really had had a passion for ballet; in a different situation, he was sure she could have made a career out of it.

Therefore, his present to Natasha was going to be to reintroduce her to her love of ballet. What better way to do that than having her actually dance in front of an audience again, to watch as they were entertained by her skill, to dance for no other reason than to feel, and to be allowed to revel in her accomplishment when it was over instead of being whisked away to perform a hit.

He'd immediately started to research opportunities for Natasha to audition and quickly found out that any performance by a major company would be out, as the company would choose within their ranks for a performance. That limited his options to a local theater or troupe. He'd scoured both the Tri-State and Manhattan area before discovering the ad for a local theater's production of Swan Lake. It was the only one that fit the timeline so he didn't really have a choice in that regard, but as he read the description of the ballet, his eyes landed on the bolded text at the bottom of the flyer, "Those auditioning for Odette or Odile will be required to dance both the white and black swan". A wide grin came to Bucky's face as he realized this was going to be the perfect play for Natasha to rediscover what she had lost.

Now came the tricky part: he didn't want to be the deciding force in her decision to audition. If he did so, she might resent him if it went badly or have a different reason for deciding to see it through, other than reclaiming her love of the sport. If she was going to do it, he wanted it to be wholeheartedly her own idea. So he started leaving copies of the audition flyer around the house, buried in the midst of bills or paperwork or junk mail, so as not to be too obvious. JARVIS, upon realizing what Bucky had planned, had even chipped in and programmed the flyer to show up on her internet browser—not too much that it'd be noticed, but enough to plant the idea in her subconscious.

But despite Bucky's desire to remain inconspicuous, he returned to Steve's floor three days later to discover Natasha waiting for him outside the elevator.

"It's you, isn't it?" she asked, holding up a copy of the flyer, her expression daring him to lie to her.

Bucky struggled for a moment, knowing his plan was ruined if he confessed. But he quickly read the set of her posture and the intensity of her glare and knew it wasn't worth lying about.

He took a deep breath and shook his head.

Natasha stared at him for a moment more. "Stop," she stated as she turned and began to walk away.

"Natasha, wait!" Bucky hefted his grocery bags onto his metal arm and hurried after her.

"I'm not auditioning, Barnes."

"Why not?"

Natasha stopped so abruptly that Bucky was forced to slide left to avoid a collision. "Why not? First off, my job. I can't exactly ask for four months off to dedicate to a performance. Two, I'm a publicly known master assassin. The cast isn't going to want someone like that even in the room with them. Three, even if those weren't true, I'm not in shape."

"Natasha," Bucky was quick to reply. He held up three fingers of his flesh hand and ticked them off as he went. "One, SHIELD doesn't exist anymore. You can have as much time off as you want. Two, that'll be their loss, but you have to try. Three, don't injure me for saying this but," he paused to quickly drag his gaze down the length of her body, not in a lewd way, but in a manner of genuine confusion, as if he couldn't figure out why she thought that, "you're in fine shape. They'd be lucky to have you."

Natasha stared at him coolly. Barnes felt a shiver run down his spine but refused to look away.

"Why is this so important to you?" she asked after a moment.

Bucky didn't immediately respond, unable to find the words to describe exactly why she needed to do this. "You deserve to be happy," he finally said, surprising even himself with his directness.

For a brief moment, her façade shattered and he saw the confusion and the question hidden behind it. "Excuse me?" she ground out, as she quickly shoved a blank expression back onto her face.

Bucky cursed under his breath. She was obviously expecting him to make some sort of grand speech here. The big motivating presentations really weren't his style though—Steve had always been so much better at them.

But he was going to have to say something in order to keep this operation on track. He thought for a long moment, then said, "I am not the Bucky Steve remembers. But I'm not entirely the Winter Soldier either. I'm both...and neither...all at the same time. I had to learn how to live with the things they gave me," he lifted his metal arm slightly, almost subconsciously, and curled his fingers into a loose fist. "Don't let them keep ballet from you."

She stared at him silently for a beat, a myriad of expressions crossing her face. "Bucky, I—"

But Barnes just shook his head, unable to take any more emotion today. "Just...think about it, okay?" he implored as he quickly stepped past her and walked quickly toward the kitchen at the end of the hallway.

Unbeknownst to him, she nodded. After all the work he'd put into this, she could at least do that much.

Next Saturday at 8 AM, Natasha stood outside the studio on the other side of town, wearing leggings and a white shirt hanging off one shoulder, revealing the strap of her bright red sports bra. Her newly dyed brownish/blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail so loose, it would have been forbidden back in the day. Back in the motherland, it was high ballet buns so tight she would feel her eyes lengthening or they chopped off your hair so the young girls wouldn't have to worry about it. She'd be lying if she said going to this audition dressed and made-up the way she wanted to be wasn't giving her a certain amount of pleasure.

In her duffel bag were her old shoes, worn and ratty. She probably should have thrown them away ages ago, as they were a liability in her field, a tie to her past jobs, but she just couldn't do it. Barnes was right—there was a part of her that was always going to love ballet, no matter the circumstances under which she'd been taught. And it might actually be fun to pick it up again, now that she had the time to reinvent herself.

It had taken her almost a week to decide to attend the audition but in the end, she agreed to go as long as she kept two promises. One, she wasn't going to practice any more than usual going into the audition—there was no need to get excited about something that might not be—and two, she was going to use an alias. Nadia Reisman was going to be just another woman who enjoyed ballet, cherry-picked to have all of Natasha's best attributes. Any other details she could ad-lib as the situation required.

Was this a bad idea? At moments, it seemed like one, but Natasha would again be lying if she said she hadn't felt a little bit excited when she saw that flyer. As much as she hated to admit it, Barnes was right again: she could at least try.

Maybe the universe would decide she deserved that much.

So she took a deep breath to center herself and stepped into the loud studio.

Three hours later, she walked back in to the Avengers Tower, a stunned expression plastered over her face.

Clint, Steve and Bucky were sitting in the common room, playing Mario Kart on the Wii++ Nintendo had sent to Tony to beta before its release next year. As soon as she entered, Clint, the only person she had confided in about the rehearsal, dropped his controller onto the couch and stood. "Well?" he asked, motioning widely with his hands.

"I got the part," she muttered, finally looking up from the wood floor and meeting his excited gaze.

Clint threw his hands into the air. "You got the part!" he repeated excitedly.

"Who got the part?" Tony asked as he entered from the private stairwell to his lab.

"Me." Natasha smiled and allowed that realization to finally sink in. "I got the part," she repeated, this time more confidently.

"What part?" Steve asked, as he too rose to his feet to congratulate her. He didn't really care what the accomplishment was exactly; all that mattered was the sheer joy radiating from her expression, a look he hadn't seen in a long while.

"Odette," Natasha replied, in almost disbelief. "I auditioned for Swan Lake—a local production, nothing too fancy—and they want me to be Odette."

"Don't do that," Clint ordered, staring sternly at Natasha. "The self-deprecating bit. It doesn't matter who is hosting it. This is a wonderful opportunity for you."

"Who's going to be Odette?" Pepper asked as she poked her head out of an adjacent office.

"I am."

Pepper grinned widely. "That's wonderful. Let me finish up my conference call and we'll celebrate."

By this time, the rest of her team had crowded around her and were hugging (which she discovered she didn't mind as much anymore) and congratulating her.

"You're going to do great."

"Can we come watch?"

"When do you rehearse?"

Then Bucky's voice rang out over the din. "Did you accept?" he asked, from his position on the couch.

The other men all turned to face her.

She nodded, her smile so wide the corners of her mouth almost reached her eyes. "I did."

The celebration ratcheted up a notch and a trip to the kitchen was made to acquire champagne. In the midst of the hubbub, Natasha caught Bucky's gaze and nodded her thanks. He made a dismissive gesture with his hand but followed the rest of the team into the massive room with an equally large grin on his face.

The next few months passed quickly as Natasha rehearsed almost every day. When she wasn't in the studio, she was stretching in the training room or working on smoothing out difficult bits of choreography. On occasion, she even asked Bucky to help her practice her partner routines—she'd made the mistake of asking Steve once and, though he'd meant well, she'd ended up with more bruises on her feet than improvements. It seems that Bucky still had a grasp of what they had been taught back in the day and despite his initial reservations, he seemed to enjoy helping her out in any way he could; also, his super-strength was also very helpful for practicing her lifts.

Apparently the universe had decided to grant her a little bit of favor, for only once in four months did Avenging interfere with her rehearsals. When she'd received the call, she had faked the stomach flu (it would give her understudy a chance to practice, she rationalized) and pulled on the red wig she wore only on Avengers' business. The battle against the enhanced superflys didn't last long, thanks to the modified EMP Tony had built to take down the Doombots, but for the next week she had to spend an extra hour at home daubing cover-up on the bruises that were visible outside her leotard.

She didn't really care though because dancing again was worth it. Sure she'd danced since she defected, but it had been mostly for training purposes and never just...because. Now, with each rehearsal, no matter how repetitive, she felt a small part of her coming alive again. This wasn't like when she started experiencing living after Clint had helped her defect, which had felt like the sun coming out for the first time in the spring, but it was touching her soul all the same. Over the years, she'd developed a good handle on living, having an opinion about mundane things and her likes and dislikes, but somewhere along the line she seemed to have forgotten about doing things just because they made her happy. Bucky, however inadvertently, had helped her remember that.

It wasn't all sunshine and rainbows though. It had been a long time since she'd danced this seriously and her body was no longer used to it. Her feet ached constantly, raw, blistered and split, her muscles ached from stretching and regaining her flexibility, her body was one more routine away from quitting entirely, but there was something in all this that felt familiar and she welcomed it with open arms.

Their first show was Friday evening, the first weekend in April. As per usual, she had to be backstage four hours early to deal with last minute costume or make-up choices. Most of this time was spent conversing with her de facto troupe and calming the nerves of the six-year-olds who would be milling around the park in the opening scene. They were sons, daughters, nieces, nephews or charges of the adult dancers. After seeing their bored expressions when being repeatedly dragged to rehearsal, Michael, the director, had worked them into a scene, which seemed to drastically improve their moods. Due to their continued presence, he'd also chosen the Disneyfied version of Swan Lake, where both Odette and Siegfried survived and spent the rest of their years madly in love with each other.

About half an hour before curtain, Natasha heard someone approaching from behind her. She tensed, but relaxed when she heard Michael clear his throat.

When she had turned around and smiled a greeting, he held out a thick program to her. "Here."

"Thank you," she replied, accepting it. She was expecting him to walk away, as he rarely stayed in one place for long, but he remained standing in front of her.

"Look at it," he prompted, a wide grin on his face.

Natasha's gut tightened ever so slightly but she forced herself to keep smiling. "Sure," she said, flipping open the booklet. Her eyes were instantly drawn to what he wanted to show her: there on the first page in the casting notes was the bio she had forged, but the picture she'd submitted of her with her dark blond hair had been replaced with a photo from a few years back of her with long red curls. Additionally, the bio was titled "Natasha Romanoff" not "Nadia Reisman".

Natasha looked up at Michael, unable to keep the expression of betrayal off her face. She couldn't dance now, not with this information out there. When she'd spilled all Hydra's secrets onto the internet, she was more than aware she had spilled her own. But it hadn't mattered—her secrets weren't worth the evil Hydra would have continued to unleash if she hadn't. With the amount of popularity Shieldgate had brought, her name and identity were definitely public knowledge. Which means that more than a handful of people from the printers to the stuffers knew where she actually was.

It was too dangerous for her to stay. She couldn't risk everyone else's lives for something as trivial as a performance, no matter how much she wanted it.

"I have to go," she muttered, feeling tears sting at the back of her eyes. She'd allowed herself to look forward to this, to hope that she was finally allowed to be. And look where it had gotten her: disappointed once again.

"Natasha, wait," Michael said, hurrying to catch up to her. He grabbed her arm before she could hit the push bar on the door but she easily broke his grip.

"Why would you do this?" she asked, fighting to keep her expression neutral despite the tears welling in her eyes.

"Because we don't care about your past," Michael said. "None of us do." As if on cue, a few more heads poked into the hallway and nodded their agreement. "All we care about is you and the joy you bring through your dance."

"You know I can't stay." There was too much at stake. She'd come to like all the people in the company through their long hours spent together and couldn't do anything to risk their lives.

"You can," Michael interjected. "I've already asked Mr. Stark to handle security. With the number of people he brought, nothing is going to happen in the next three hours."

Natasha shook her head quickly back and forth, but she didn't reach for the bar again. As much as she knew she should leave, she wanted this. "No," she said, with less conviction.

"Come, Natasha," he reached out and slowly wrapped his arm around her shoulders. "Stay here. And just dance. At least for tonight."

She felt a soft hand on her other arm and spun around to see Elizabeth, her understudy. "Go for it," she said with a soft smile. "You deserve it."

Though that was not Elizabeth's intention, those words snapped Natasha back to reality. Romanoff ducked under Michael's arm, in the process freeing herself from Elizabeth's grip. "I can't," she muttered, pushing on the door and running out of the theater.

She had made it to the street when she heard a soft voice behind her, calling her name.

Pepper. She and Tony must have just arrived. Natasha ignored her friend and kept walking, unable to coax her legs into a run.

"Natasha wait!" The Widow heard the clicking of heels against concrete but didn't slow down. "Please stop!" Pepper shouted.

Natasha wanted more than anything to keep going, but her gait slowed of its own accord, allowing Pepper to slide gracefully to a stop behind her.

"Where are you going?" she asked. Natasha turned her head, knowing her thick makeup was smeared all over her face, even though she'd refused to let any actual tears fall. Pepper had obviously caught a glimpse though, for Natasha felt a hand rest on her shoulder. "What's going on?" Pepper asked softly.

Natasha still couldn't form words, thoroughly embarrassed that she was letting this affect her so strongly, and thrust the flyer in Pepper's direction. She hated being this emotional, but she justified it by saying she was allowing herself to be human, to feel, for once in her life, instead of bottling it up and pretending that what she wanted didn't matter.

"I know, Natasha," Pepper shifted two steps to her right so she was in Natasha's eyeline. "Michael asked us if it'd be okay."

"How could you?" she choked out. "You know what I used to do."

"That doesn't matter." Pepper reached over and brushed Natasha's bangs out of her face. "Natasha Romanoff deserves this."

"Stop saying that!" She was growing to hate that word: deserves. Most people never got what they deserved—good or bad. It just wasn't how the world works.

"Why not?" Pepper asked. "Look at all the good Natasha Romanoff has done over the past few years. She deserves," Pepper was sure to put extra emphasis on that word, "to be happy.

"These last four months are the happiest we've all seen you in a long time. Nothing short of a nuclear blast is going to keep you from this show. Tony already hired a full security staff to blend in, his suit is in the car if we need it, and all the Avengers are here. We've got this. You just dance. Leave the rest of it to us."

Natasha looked up at Pepper, as she considered her options. She knew it would be selfish to stay, but she also knew she wanted this to more than anything in the world. If something did happen, she had no doubt the combined force of the Avengers could handle it.

"It's not a choice," Pepper stated. Natasha looked up to see the redheaded CEO struggling to keep a straight face, obviously recalling the very detailed stories Clint had told about using that phrase to get his children to cooperate. After a moment, Pepper's expression caved to the silent laugh she was choking down and Natasha felt her face lift as well.

"Okay," she agreed hesitantly.

"Wonderful!" Pepper wrapped her arms around Natasha's shoulders and led her back to the company's entrance. A few nosy reporters, who must have been following the Stark vehicle, pushed their cameras in Natasha's face, but all Pepper had to say was "Happy?" before they instantly disappeared.

When they reached the door, Pepper gave Natasha a quick hug. "You got this," she whispered.

Natasha just nodded, feeling overwhelmed with emotion for the second time that day. No matter how long it had been since she defected, these gestures from her family still threw her off-guard.

"No more tears," Pepper ordered as she pulled back. "This is your day."

Natasha smiled as she swiped her hand under her eyes, her fingers coming away dry but coated in make-up. "Yes, ma'am."

"That's more like it," Pepper rubbed her shoulder quickly, then headed back toward the main entrance. "Break a leg!"

Natasha took a deep breath then walked back into the theater, to find Michael, Elizabeth and Elaina, the volunteer make-up artist, waiting for her.

"I'm sorry," she said softly.

Michael just smiled warmly at her. "No need. We shouldn't have sprung it on you like that, but we knew you wouldn't have shown up if we'd told you in advance."

Natasha lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. She couldn't deny that, not after her aborted escape attempt.

"How did you know?" she asked Michael.

"I've always been good with faces," he replied. "I thought I recognized you in auditions, then when I found out that you had the stomach flu the day the Avengers were called in and..." He shrugged. Then he looked around comically, over-dramatically, before cupping his hand around his mouth and adding in a stage whisper, "Besides, you do your arabesque like a Russian."

Natasha shook her head in disbelief. It was such a small thing, an element she hadn't even considered, but it apparently defined her as much as her physical features.

She shrugged wholeheartedly this time, a lopsided grin coming to her face. It appeared to have been the appropriate response for Michael's face mirrored her expression.

He took a step back. "Now let's get you ready for your show."

"Stand back, everyone," Elaina commanded, grabbing Natasha's arm and dragging her through the backstage to the make-up corner. She brushed past the children who were waiting in line and pushed Natasha down in the chair.

"This is supposed to be a happy day for you," Elaina stated, wiping all the old make-up off Natasha's face then going to town with a large white foam wedge covered in foundation. "No more sadness."

"I promise," Natasha said. Then, seeing the concerned faces of the children who were still milling around, she grinned over-exaggeratedly, drew an 'x' over her heart and winked at the children, who giggled loudly and repeated the gesture.

As quickly as the performance had begun, suddenly it was over and she was running on stage to take her final bow. She heard a loud thumping, which she recognized as the sound of the seats in the chairs in the theater folding up as people stood, and loud clapping and whistling. She grinned widely, then stepped back in line with everyone else for the curtain call.

Thirty minutes later, she stepped out of the back stage door to find the Avengers and the Bartons waiting for her.

Something crashed into her legs and she looked down to see Lila hugging her tightly with one arm, a large bouquet of roses in her other outstretched hand. "You were great Auntie Nat!"

"Thank you Lila," she said, taking the large bouquet and cradling it in her arm.

"She sure was," Clint said, stepping forward and hugging her. "Right Coop?" he said, giving his son a pointed look.

"She wasn't terrible," Cooper said reluctantly.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Natasha bent down and kissed the boy on the cheek, leaving a large smear of lipstick. He shrieked and immediately began scrubbing at the spot with the back of his hand.

"You were wonderful," Laura said, embracing Natasha in a sideways hug so as not to squish Nathaniel who she held against her shoulder.

The rest of the Avengers took this as their cue to congratulate her. The only one who held back was Barnes though he did smile and nod in her direction.

Natasha parted a path through her friends and walked over to him. "Prepare yourself," she said, holding out her arms.

Barnes shook his head quickly back and forth. "No. Natasha if you hug me—"

But it was too late. Romanoff had already wrapped her arms around him. "Thank you," she whispered in his ear.

He let himself relax slightly in her grip, and even patted her once on the back. "I didn't do anything," he whispered back, his voice only slightly strained.

She pulled back and looked him straight in the eye. "Yes you did."

Tony had taken them all out to dinner that night and offered them all a place to stay at the Tower, so they could attend a future showing if they wished.

The next day, stories of Natasha dancing were all over the news, one of the biggest Avengers scoop since the Sokovia incident. The fact that it'd been undetected for this long was unprecedented to the media and she found herself fighting quite the crowd to get to the stage the next day.

As she approached the stage door, it swung open to reveal Michael standing directly in the center of it. Natasha went to walk past him, but he caught her arm and motioned for her to stand beside him.

"Mr. Kransinski—" one woman began.

"Yes, I knew," Michael interrupted. He smiled at Natasha as they pulled the door closed in the media's face.

Not half hour later, she was sitting in her dressing room when she heard her name being said repeatedly in the hallway. She stepped into the hallway and watched the news bulletin playing on the main TV.

"Sure we went out after rehearsals," the cast was saying, looking rather nonplussed by the media attention. "For like drinks and stuff."

"And you weren't scared?"

"Well, I personally just found out, but I don't care," Kalista had replied. "She was fun."

"Fun. Natasha Romanoff?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, she didn't do the whole giggling thing that plagued the rest of the girls, but she sat with us and bought drinks and on occasion, really smiled. Like genuinely. And to us that was a great as a laugh."

Then the image onscreen shifted to a little girl, who was missing a front tooth and subsequently had a small lisp. "Nadia's the bestest! She boughts me Peeps." The blond girl held up the half-empty packet of the brightly colored chicks and shook it in the reporter's face.

Natasha looked down the hall to her left when the little children were playing some sort of rhyming game. "You said that about me, Brittney?"

The little girl nodded. "'s true!" she managed through a mouthful of marshmallow.

Natasha was truly surprised by these positive comments: she hadn't expected everyone to be so accepting about who she had been.

"See," she heard a deep voice say. She spun around to see Bucky standing in the hallway, his hands shoved into his pockets. "This wasn't so bad, was it?"

"How'd you get back here?"

Bucky shrugged. "I kinda know Odette."

She shook her head in mock disappointment.

"Now everyone knows who you really are," he said, on his original tangent. "And they must like it, cos I think—"

"SOLD OUT!" Michael shouted, sprinting down the hallway. "We're sold out! We've never been sold out." He grabbed Natasha's shoulders and kissed her forehead. "This is wonderful!" he sang as he continued down the hall.

Bucky pointed at Michael's retreating form. "That."

Natasha just shook her head in amusement. She opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the stage manager fast-walking past.

"Curtain in ten," the elderly woman said without stopping.

Natasha looked at Bucky. "I don't know how to thank you," she said quickly before they could be interrupted again.

Bucky stared at her, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. "For what?" he responded honestly. "You did all the hard work."

She stared at him for a long moment, realization sinking in. That was what he had wanted all along, no additional deception, no unseen motivation. He truly had just wanted her to find happiness in a thing she thought she had lost. For that, she couldn't be more grateful.

Her expression must have given away her thoughts, for Bucky squinted slightly at her face. When recognition flashed in his eyes, he nodded, then turned to walk away, his goal accomplished.

"Wait," Natasha hurried over and laid her hand on his metal one. "Come by between shows. I can't leave, but we can see if you're a better card shark than Rogers."

Natasha could count the number of times she'd seen Bucky really, truly smile on one hand. This was one of them; it reached all the way into his eyes, and crinkled the skin around them.

"You're on," he shot back.

"Miss Romanoff," Elaina interjected, standing beside both of them. "I really must ask—"

"I'm going," Bucky replied. "Break a leg!" he called over his shoulder.

Elaina watched him go, then looked at Natasha and nodded her approval. Before Natasha could correct her, Elaina's face sobered. "Go get ready!"

"Yes, ma'am," Natasha returned with a mock salute. As Elaina laughed, Natasha closed the door, then began to slip into her costume, ready to once again show the audience who she really was.

Their production of Swan Lake had a very good run. Longer than was expected actually, but that was mostly due to the increased media attention. Though it had caused its own set of stressors for the cast, the ticket sales alone would keep the company funded for quite some time.

There was a wrap party after the last show but Michael was adamant that everyone needed to be out of their rooms beforehand, so he wasn't charged for the extra day. Therefore, on her break, she was packing up her things when she heard a soft knock on her door. She turned around to see Michael standing there, holding a swan mask in each hand.

"Who do you identify with more?" he asked, turning the masks so she could see them from the front.

"What?"

"Do you identify more with Odette or Odile?"

Before Natasha could answer, he barreled ahead.

"Forgive me if that's a little personal. I've seen hundreds of Swan Lake performances in my day, from youth theater to the undisputed professionals, and even though both parts are danced with astonishing grace, one is always more dominant, no matter how much they work to hide it." He punctuated his statement by lifting each mask in turn. "You mastered both parts beautifully, don't get me wrong, but I would say you identify more with Odile. There's something about how you dance in her scenes that feels more personal to you...like you understand."

Natasha didn't respond, though she was internally debating whether or not she needed to leave before this conversation took an unpleasant turn.

Michael read her silence as an invitation to continue. "Odile's story is full of tragedy, of manipulation, of a misled youth, of a girl putting her trust in those who didn't have her best interests in mind. If I were a betting man, I would put money on the fact that you have a backstory similar to that."

"Michael, I—"

"But that's what makes this so beautiful," he practically shouted as he gesticulated wildly. "I saw the way you acted around the rest of the Avengers: you've found your family, found your happiness. You're not Odile anymore; you're Odette through and through."

Natasha genuinely didn't know how to respond. This was absolutely not the conversation she'd been expecting, but it was all she wanted in this new life, to be seen as more than just her past, and for someone to recognize that after just four months, a civilian no less, meant she must be on the right path to accomplishing it.

Michael smiled warmly. "You're not the only person who found solace in the arts—who found a way to forgive themselves for something that was never their fault in the first place."

She opened her mouth to respond but he shook his head. "You don't have to say anything." He looked at the masks again, then held them out to her. "I want you to have them. Both of them."

She carefully took them, noticing not for the first time, their beauty. "Thank you," she said as she looked up, but Michael was gone.

She stared at them for another long moment, drinking in the whitest white and the darkest black. Something about that dichotomy wasn't sitting right with her. She knew Swan Lake was meant to be allegorical but she couldn't reconcile it with the fact that the world really wasn't black and white, no matter what Rogers, or Michael for that matter, thought.

In a moment of spontaneity, Natasha down the white mask, plucked a few of the black feathers out of the dark one and carefully arranged them along the edges of the white swan's mask.

That was better, she thought, critically examining the new mask. Life was full of greys, of both good and bad. This mask best represented was who she was now: both Odette and Odile, both Avenger and former assassin, all parts resident badass, ballerina, and most importantly, human.

She had successfully reinvented herself, without the Red Room, without SHIELD, and it was time for the rest of the world to be introduced to the real her.

Next up: Clint. (For those of you that are worried, there will be much more team involvement in future chapters. This one is a bit different because Bucky already knew what he wanted for Natasha and that that he wouldn't be needed much once the wheels were set in motion. This isn't the case for future tales.)

Anyway, thanks for reading! We'd love to know what you thought!