Chapter Text
"The past is a lighthouse, not a port"
-Russian proverb
The little village was about ten miles west of the Dniester River, a cluster of bright blue and green buildings surrounded by farmland, mostly vineyards. The rough roads made the '91 Lada Sputnik she had picked up in Chisinau bounce and creak. She parked it on a small street off the main road, taking her only bag with her as she walked towards the church at the center.
It was a market day, and the streets were heavily trafficked by farmers with carts and small trucks and other residents looking at what was for sale. More than once she had to wait for geese or turkeys or goats to cross the street. There were a few tourists, mostly there for the wine, but not many. No one paid any special attention to her. There wasn't anything besides the streak of white in her red hair that anyone would find particularly memorable.
She found him behind one of the market stalls set up in the town square, right in front of the church, selling fruits and vegetables out of old milk crates. He wore a smile as he spoke in Romanian with a customer, wishing them a blessed day as money changed hands. The customer, a small elderly man, gave him a hug and returned the blessing before walking towards the church. As she watched from across the square, other villagers passed, and he greeted them by name. They would smile back and looked over what he was selling, many buying from him.
He looked cleaner than he had when he'd been living in Bucharest. His hair was short and well-kept, his face was shaven. He wore a pristine white apron over his clothes. He looked fuller than he had when she had seen him last, less gaunt. Instead of gloves, he'd hidden his metal arm under a modern prosthetic.
After a few minutes, she crossed the square to his stall. "Good morning!" She greeted him over the throng of voices. Her Romanian had a hint of a Russian accent that she had never been able to shake. "What fruits are you selling?" She asked.
He paused for a nearly inperceivable second before he answered. "All kinds, ma'am," he answered, polite and unfamiliar. "Plums, cherries, pears, apricots, as well as potatoes, beets, and carrots. All grown right here, all profits to the church." There was pride in his voice, especially when he mentioned the church.
"Very generous of you, sir," She recalled something Steve had told her about the two of them working as altar boys at a church in their old neighborhood in Brooklyn. "A bag of plums, please." She pulled her wallet out of her backpack. "Thank you, Mr...?"
"Iacub," he said.
James.
"Mr. Iacub. And perhaps you could tell me where I could get a drink?"
He smiled and told her about a place that a friend of his owned that was just a few minutes' walk away that was a cafe in the day and a pub in the evening, and wished her a blessed day as she left.
_____
Twenty minutes later, Natasha was sitting at a streetside table outside a small restaurant, a cup of tea and a small glass of home-distilled wine infused with plums and cherries in front of her. The teacup was empty, but she was still working on the wine.
He probably grew the fruit in this, too, she thought .
She was unsurprised when she saw him walking towards her. He was being casual, as far any untrained observer was concerned, just a man going for a drink at his local bar, but she saw the caution, the awareness, the poise in him.
But as she watched, she noticed something else. He was on his guard, of course, but there was still an element of comfort to it. He didn't look like he was being hunted, she realized.
He had taken off his apron, but he was carrying a small duffle bag that she hadn't noticed at the market. It looked like Russian military surplus.
He set the bag down as he took a seat opposite her. "I'll admit, I have mixed feelings about seeing you," he said in Russian. "The last time I was made, a German counter-terrorism unit stormed my apartment. I'd be pretty upset if that happened again." He gave a wry smile. "My fruit trees might get damaged."
She returned the smile. "Well, Mr. Iacub, I can't say I'm planning on anything like that happening. It's certainly not why I'm here."
"Yeah, I'm sure you came for more than the wine, Miss...?"
"Natalia," she said. "Natalia Morozova. And you're right, the wine was a simply pleasant accident." She set the glass down. "I've come with a proposition."
She saw a glint of interest in his eyes, but the rest of his face remained carefully neutral, his mouth shut.
"There are a lot of bad people left in the world," she continued. "Bad people we used to work for. I'd like to do something about it."
He turned away from her, contemplating. She counted a full minute before he broke the silence.
"Why me?" He finally asked. It wasn't in self-pity or disbelief, just simple curiosity. "Surely you have other options for a partner-in-crusade." He gave a sharp exhale that may have been a laugh. "And do I really have the resume you'd want for this?"
Why him?
Well, that was the million-ruble question, wasn't it? She had been thinking about it the entire drive from Bucharest. Why the Winter Soldier? Why not Nick Furry? Why not Steve Rogers or Sam Wilson? Why not any number of qualified operatives or mercenaries who owed her a debt?
Part of it was that he knew the environment, physical, social, tactical, and human. No other potential partner had his intimate understanding of HYDRA or the former Soviet Union, at least not any she would trust.
As for the resume, there was something to that. HYDRA and their friends in the KGB and FSB had used him for all manner of violent and covert tasks, mostly self-serving, but precious few of them had required the type of rigorous tracking and intelligence gathering this would call for. Sure, he was good at it, but that wasn't what the Winter Soldier had been built for.
"I'm a good enough spy for both of us," she eventually said, earning a shrug of agreement from him. "And I wanted someone who wouldn't have to work hard to blend in in this part of the world." She leaned towards him. "Are you in?"
He reached across the table and took the wine glass, taking a sip. "Hmm, Igor does God's work with this stuff," he said, smiling wistfully at the glass. He looked back at her. "Who would we be working for?"
"Ourselves. This is unofficial, unauthorized, and off the books." She leaned back in her chair. "Some of it may even be illegal."
She saw it in his eyes. He was well and truly interested now. "So we'd be picking our own marks with our own intelligence?" He asked.
She could see that was important to him. It was important to her, too. They'd spent a lifetime doing work for evil men, being told they were doing the world a service. "We may take a job for an outside party from time to time, but it would be on our terms. But that means we'll be on our own in every way."
He nodded, a ghost smile on his lips. It wasn't the wry, humorous one from earlier. This one was hungry, feral. It was the same one Clint had always told her she wore when she was doing her best work.
"On our own, huh?" He stood, grabbing his duffle bag. "Give me half an hour to set some things in order. Then we can be on our way."
"James," she said, reaching out to grab his arm, his left arm. She felt the hard metal and raw power through his work shirt. "There is another reason that I picked you."
His eyes gave a flicker of uncertainty at his old old name, but he didn't move.
"I picked you because you understand hurt. You understand not feeling safe until the people who hurt you are gone. I need someone like that. Like me."
He didn't move for what felt like a long time. Then he nodded slowly. "Yeah, you aren't wrong," he admitted. "I won't deny, the thought of doing something like this has crossed my mind a time or two."
He finished off the wine. "Come on," he said, shouldering his bag and setting off down the street.
_____
She had never seen his apartment in Bucharest, but Steve had told her about it in enough detail, and she had seen the pictures that the authorities had taken after. She'd been expecting his place in the village to be much the same, but she was pleasantly surprised to be wrong.
He lived in a small house next to the church, with his fruit trees and vegetable garden. It was the same powder blue as many of the other houses in the village, same gabled roof, same rustic, pastoral charm.
"How did you find me anyway?" He asked as he unlocked the door. "I could've sworn that I was off the grid this time."
"I never lost you," she told him. "After Munich, I made sure I knew where you were so that I wouldn't lose you a third time."
He stopped and stared at her, the door halfway open. "What do you consider the first time?" He asked eventually.
"When they moved you from Moscow to Siberia, after Dreykov realized we were developing an attachment." She walked past him through the open door. "We didn't cross paths again until Odessa, but there were a few near misses in Chechnya."
He nodded as he closed the door behind them. "Right. I remember fragments of that. Flashes." He shook his head. "They worked hard to try to tear that out of me. It's one of the bigger gaps." He set his duffle bag down at the table and unzipped it before kneeling down and moving a chair and the rug aside.
Natasha wanted to ask more, but she held her tongue. She'd feel safer being on the road, and it would be a long drive.
"What did you need to do here?" She asked as she took in the room. There was some furniture, a wardrobe, and kitchenette, all of it old but clean. If it was anything besides the home of an utterly normal farmer, it was the home of a man who had only recently separated from the military. Certainly not of one of the most dangerous men on the planet.
"Grab some clothes, passports and journals. Weapon or two," he answered from the floor, carefully lifting a board out.
"I had thought that's what was in the duffle bag," She said, peeking into it. She saw a pair of passports (Romanian and Russian), a pistol (a post-1990 Makarov, unless she was mistaken), a first aid kit, a smattering of survival gear (she saw flares, a compass, and a large knife near the top), and what she assumed was a burner phone.
"That's just the go-bag." He pulled a large lock box from under the floor and fished a key out of his pocket for the padlock. "I'd rather have more than just that for what you've got planned."
"Old habits die hard, huh?"
"Especially if they're the kind that you need to stay alive," he agreed.
He dug through the box, pulling out some more passports, some journals held together by string and tape, a trench shovel, two more pistols (a Colt .45 and a Glock 19) with several extra magazines, a Vintorez carbine with a sniper's optic, a Vityez submachine gun with a grenade launcher, a Russian Federal Police uniform, a pair of night-vision goggles, and what looked like surveillance equipment.
"Quite the spread there," she said admirably. "Where did you pick it up?"
"Here and there." He stood up and went over to the wardrobe. "A few old contacts in the FSB, some Wagner Group contractors that gave Igor some trouble, places like that."
She picked up his Colt .45 and inspected it. Meticulously cleaned, no serial number. "Did they know who you are?"
"Don't know, but they aren't around to tell anyone anymore." He closed the wardrobe, holding a few coats and pairs of pants, and an old rucksack. He put on one of the coats and put the Makarov and some of the extra magazines and passports into hidden pockets and concealed holsters, then packed everything else into the rucksack or the duffle bag.
"All set?" She asked.
"One more thing," he said, shouldering the pack. "I need to say goodbye to Father Mihai."
He left the door unlocked as he left, and she followed him to the church. He entered through a small back entrance and climbed a flight of stairs to the priest's office. He stood for a moment, let out a deep breath, and knocked softly on the door.
He and Father Mihai, the small elderly man who she had seen buy fruit from him, exchanged a few words in Romanian. Natasha heard James explain that he was going away, that an old friend needed him, that he didn't know when he'd come home.
Home.
For a moment, Natasha almost told him to stay. What right did she have to take from this place? But then he turned around and gave her a soft smile, the kind he had given her when they didn't have to be what the Red Room wanted them to be, and the temptation died there. She couldn't help but wonder if it was the same smile that Bucky Barns had worn, and how many women it had captured.
There were tears in the priest's eyes as he reached up and hugged the man he knew as Iacub. When they separated, he gave him a blessing. James thanked him, respectful and solemn. Then he followed Natasha out of the church and to her car.
Twenty-six minutes after asking for a half hour, James was sitting in the passenger seat of Natasha's '91 Lada Sputnik as it drove down the rough, potholed road.