—turn over a new leaf for you.

[shonenjump]

turn over a new leaf for you Here's the thing: in the past, you've not been a nice person. Whether you were just a little nasty, you did terrible things, you were forced to be a monster, or your heart was dark to the core, it's understandable why you weren't anyone's favorite. But those days are behind you. Now, there's someone you care for, someone you want to get closer to, someone you lov- Well, they make you want to be a better person. This desire could have been a gradual realization, or you could have suddenly decided one day to improve. In the same vein, you may want a complete overhaul, yet you could also be more realistic and try to work on one thing. Still, you know that you're the only one who can change yourself. How is that going? It can't be easy, as old habits die hard. Do you have a supportive loved one — or someone who wants nothing to do with you, no matter how much you improve? Comment with your character, preferences, and the role you'd like to take on in this meme: so, changing or changed for, if you'd prefer. Reply to others. Thread out what you agree upon.

Comments

[ledger_not_clean]

[Awesome. Okay well I'll get us started off then!]

When Natasha had agreed to take the mission, she figured maybe she'd get lucky and be paired with Steve. Or hell, even Clint. They both knew Russian...though in Clint's case it was barely passable. No, instead she'd been paired with him. She sighed, fingers pushing through her hair as she'd been briefed and told that Bucky would be going with her because he would be the obvious choice. He knew the language, could speak it fluently, and could carry himself accordingly. She just hoped this didn't turn into an absolute shit show.

Currently they were on a quinjet to their first location where they would pick up a car and then head into the city. They needed to get in with a group of thugs, make it seem like the two of them were genuine, which wouldn't be too hard. She knew they could accomplish it. She glanced at him, eyes studying him for a long moment before looking away. She hadn't said more than a couple of sentences to him in over two years, since everything that had happened before the team split up. She honestly didn't see a point in it. He didn't know her. His memories of her had been wiped and she would just have to live with that. "We're landing in 2 hours. So if you need to...I don't know, get ready, you've got the time." She settled back in her seat, pulling her phone out and staring at the screen.

In that moment she was so tempted to message Steve and tell him this was all a terrible idea, but no, she wouldn't. She would get the mission done, get back to Wakanda with Bucky and then she would be in the wind once more until they needed her.

[metaled]

It'd been nostalgic, suiting up for a mission again, but this time on the "other side". Yet he was still as competent as he'd been before; going over every piece of his gear with automatic precision--pistols, knives, and the large assault rifle he'd slung over his shoulder before striding aboard the jet only to find his 'partner' already there, waiting.

It wasn't that Bucky was wary of the former Black Widow--he knew their reputation and knew it well, but there was just something about the redhead; something that continually prickled the back of his mind like claw tips, niggling and irksome. It wasn't her fault; his mind was a mass of broken puzzle pieces on a good day, but it'd made him edgier than usual, having her nearby.

And now they were expected to trust each other with their lives, in order to complete this assignment and make it out alive and in one piece. Wonderful.

He wasn't surprised at the silence between them as they flew towards their destination; he'd expected it, to be honest. And as silence was his preferred state anyway, it really didn't bother him too much. But the sound of her voice jerked him out of his reverie, and Bucky looked up shortly, a little startled. But before he could even open his mouth to answer her, he saw her jerk out her cell phone--irksome invention, that damned device--and focus on it like it held all the goddamn answers to the universe, and he gave up, breath he'd inhaled to reply hissing out on a slow sigh.

So he shrugged, shaking his head. He didn't to "get ready"; he was as ready as he'd ever be.

[ledger_not_clean]

Her jaw clenched slightly the longer she felt him there, knowing he was probably looking at her. She closed her eyes, counting to three silently before opening them again and turning her head to look over at him. "We need to work on our cover. We're suppose to pose as a couple. You're my thug boyfriend, I'm just supposed to look pretty, but once you've gotten in with them I start looking around." She said, pushing her fingers through her hair. She knew it meant she was going to have to change clothes. Which...he actually didn't need to. These guys were considered mercenaries in their region and he'd managed to dress accordingly. She cleared her throat, pushing back at the memories that wanted to surface every time she looked at him like this.

"Their leader likes...pretty things. He has no shame in screwing around with everyone else's girls so thats my in. I know his type, I've been over the files. You just need to pretend to care long enough to make it seem real. It'll make him pursue me more and then once I'm in I'll find out where they're fencing their weapons from. Shouldn't take more than a couple of weeks." She blew out a breath, leaning her head back. Honestly, she should have found a way to get out of this or to get one of the others. Not that she could have without explaining why and knowing Steve? He would have insisted that she talk to Bucky and work past this.

[metaled]

Steve had already given him the mission parameters earlier, making sure that he was "okay with this" and "able to handle it" while Bucky simply stood there and...well, stood. He knew Steve didn't mean anything by it, nor did any of the other "well-wishers", but he wasn't a goddamned inept infant, regardless how much of his brains were currently scrambled beyond repair.

But trying to articulate any of that was simply wasted breath, so Bucky had just nodded in all the right places, given the appropriate affirmatives when prompted, and gone where he'd been directed. That's what he did, apparently; he followed orders. The very thought still made his jaw clench.

Nevertheless, he listened obediently, more than willing to follow her lead on this, for the simple reason that she'd probably try to kill him otherwise, and he didn't want to have to fight her about it. Again. Or something. So Bucky nodded where it was appropriate--he'd started a game with himself about keeping score on this nuance--and kept his mouth shut, opening it only to ask a single question, which was:

"Do we have an out, once the objective's been met?"

[ledger_not_clean]

Natasha's fingers twitched around her phone before she set it aside and really looked at him. Her eyes locked on his for a long moment, like she was searching for something, which...well, she was. She still didn't quite understand how he didn't recognize her at all. Especially not after everything they went through together. Finally she let out a sigh and slowly pushed her fingers through her hair. There was nothing but what seemed to be irritation and that same blank expression he tended to give everyone else except for Steve.

"We don't have an extraction...exactly. Its a volatile area, so we'll have to get out ourselves, make our way to St. Petersburg, where a team will be waiting to pick us up. The getting there is completely up to us. Also, as much as I know the others wouldn't like it..." She started, jaw clenching a bit before she licked her lips. "After we get the information we need, if something should just...accidentally happen to the leader and the gang? Well, lets not talk about it?" She said pointedly, raising an eyebrow before getting up. "I need to change." She slipped past him. moving to the back before she started removing the tight suit she almost always wore. It wouldn't work for this.

[metaled]

Bucky met her gaze solidly, not blinking or looking away. It was an expression left over from his days as HYDRA's Fist, the unreadable, blank stare. But hell, she'd started it, hadn't she? The tension crackled off of her like splintered knives, sharp and jagged. And every ounce of it aimed at him. Anyone else might have questioned it, asked why, but Bucky had learned better; everyone felt that way around him, although perhaps not quite as sharply, but details.

He'd never be accepted, so he didn't bother wasting his time and effort trying.

An eyebrow did lift at her answer, however, and he nodded; message delivered and understood. This sort of thing was something he was still very, very good at. Then Natasha rose from her seat and headed for the back of the jet, and Bucky pointedly pulled out one of his Sigs and began methodically going over the weapon end to end, outwardly to have something to do, but also to keep his eyes where they belonged, and not casting curious male glances at the disrobing woman not ten feet to his left.

But before he realized the words were even going to leave his mouth, he heard himself asking, "...why didn't you tell Steve?" The snap of the gun's slide was oddly loud. "That you wanted another partner for this mission, I mean."

[ledger_not_clean]

When she heard him speak again she felt the muscles in her back tense visibly and her eyes closed. She sighed, clearing her throat and licking her lips before she finished slipping on the fairly skimpy outfit and then turning to look at him. Once more she locked eyes with him, raising an eyebrow. "Because Steve would have seen through every lie I gave him for why I wanted another partner. Eventually he would have kept on until I told him the truth...and it isn't really a truth I'm ready to tell him or the others." She shrugged then, moving back over to sit down. "He knows I'm not afraid of you. He knows I respect you. Those are really the only two lies I could have given that might have swayed him. Plus...even I know you're the best for this mission. So it was pointless trying to fight with him about it." She tilted her head back, leaning it against the seat behind her.

"Steve is great, but he doesn't know when to leave something alone." She wondered if she just came out and said something, if it would change anything. She doubted he would suddenly just remember her if she did say something, but maybe he would stop staring at her so blankly. Like she was no one and nothing.

Her eyes fell shut for a moment before her lips parted and she spoke, the words coming out barely above a whisper. "I really shouldn't have been hurt that you didn't remember me. That you don't. You spent years with Steve. You grew up with him. You didn't have nearly the same time with me." She opened her eyes, looking at him as if to gauge his reaction. "I know what they did to you...I know about the chair. They'd considered using it on us. The girls in the Red Room...to help condition us, but I guess after a while they thought better of it. Still, they found other ways." She shook her head.

[metaled]

He hadn't been expecting such an outpouring; really, he was surprised she'd bothered to answer him at all. So when she did, and the answer delved even further into explanation than he'd even imagined, Bucky simply sat and stared back at her, carefully processing every single word and his frown deepened the more she spoke.

Finally, she hit him with the last bomb of her monologue, and he visibly started in his seat, jerked upright as if yanked by invisible strings. That was it. Bucky bit his tongue, flesh digits tightening around his weapon because the metal would crush it to nothing.

He was a long time in speaking, but when he did, it was with a perfect Slavic inflection, guttural and coarse. "Natalia Romanova. Graduate - seventeen, Kiev. One of two to proceed, out of a class of twenty-five." Then he grimaced, shaking his head and pressing the heel of his right hand to his temple, fighting the mental whiplash.

When Bucky lifted his head once more, he looked at her with a new sort of recognition, as if seeing a long lost relative again, for the first time. "...does Steve know? Or, anyone else?" Not that Bucky was worried if he did, but it would just make everything...awkward. And he was sick and goddamn tired of awkward.

[ledger_not_clean]

"No. You really think if Steve or anyone else knew that they would have let it go this long without saying anything?" She asked, raising an eyebrow and just giving him a look. "Honestly, if Steve knew we'd had any kind of past, he would have been asking for every detail and then he probably would have suggested we work through it. There's nothing to work through." She bit her lip though.

He did remember, at least some. He remembered her basic information, but that didn't mean he remembered anything else. Anything about her training or what else had happened between them. "You don't have to worry about me telling anyone either. You've been through enough. You don't need to be pushed to remember everything." She looked him over before finally moving closer, though it was only so she could rest her hand over his on the gun clenched in his fist.

"Lets just get through this mission. If you..." And she hesitated for a moment, frowning before continuing. "If you ever want to talk about it. If you ever do remember, we can talk." But then, she wasn't sure how she would handle it. Not that she was telling him that. Things had happened between them that she wasn't sure she wanted brought back up. This was not the man she'd started to feel for back then. The one she'd been foolish enough to think she could run away with.