If you like this, please consider checking out my original work. The link is on my profile page, since this site won't allow external links.

The attorneys were ready to give their closing arguments, but their final witness was late.

Steve had warned Natasha not to take a mission in the middle of Bucky's trial, but she'd asked Bucky's attorney, Matt Murdock, to call her as the last witness. He'd argued, (of course he had; he was a lawyer), saying that they needed to save the most impactful testimony for last, and that was Steve's, but not even Murdock could change Nat's mind once it was made up. Steve still hadn't forgiven her, even as he understood. It was life or death. It always was.

Nat strolled into the courtroom just as the attorneys were starting to discuss a setover. He could hear the chopper taking off outside the courthouse, but somehow, not one hair on Nat's head was out of place. Steve still didn't know how she did it.

There was a rip in the arm of her catsuit and a spot of blood on her cheek, but she appeared unharmed (Steve didn't doubt for a second that the blood belonged to someone else.)

She was sworn in, spelling her name in Cyrillic. "Natalia Alianovna Romanova, Н-а-т-а-л-ь-я А-л-ь-я-н-о-в-н-а Р-о-м-а-н-о-в-а." She said she wanted the record to be accurate, but Steve knew that she was filibustering, giving herself a few extra seconds to transition from mission mode to- Witness? Friend? Steve didn't know what to expect from Nat's testimony, although she was more predictable than Tony, who Steve had to admit had earned major bro points by testifying on Bucky's behalf. Steve still wasn't really sure what bro points were, but he knew that Tony was keeping track of them. He had a chart. And a PowerPoint. Steve still wasn't really sure what that was either.

Nat was also more composed on the stand than any of his friends. She was a hell of a lot more composed than Steve had been. The prosecuting attorney would have a hard time manipulating her, like he had Steve, making him talk about his friendship with Bucky and then using it to claim bias. He wouldn't be able to do that to Nat. Steve would never forget the first time he saw her interrogate someone while she was tied to a chair.

On the other hand, Bucky had shot her.

The prosecuting attorney was a man named Harvey Dent, who always made sure he was standing so the jury could see his good side. Steve hated him.

"You were with Steven Rogers and Sam Wilson when the Winter Soldier attacked the Southeast Freeway in Washington DC, correct?"

"Correct," said Nat.

"But you had met him prior to that, correct?"

"Correct."

"Tell us about that."

"In 2009, I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran. Somebody shot at my tires near Odessa. We lost control. Went straight over a cliff. I pulled us out, but the Winter Soldier was there. I was covering my engineer, so he shot him straight through me. Soviet slug. No rifling. Bye-bye, bikinis."

She sent Steve a flirty smile, and he wondered where she was going with this.

"Did the Winter Solider kill- What was the name of your engineer?"

She smiled sweetly. "That's classified."

"Did the Winter Soldier kill him?"

"Yes."

"By shooting straight through you, as if you weren't even there."

"No."

Dent looked confused. "Didn't you just say that he shot straight through you?"

"Yes," she said. "But not as though I wasn't there. If I wasn't there, the Soldier could have taken a certain kill-shot to the head or throat. Instead, he was forced to shoot my engineer in the stomach. That was the only way that he could shoot through me without hitting any vital organs or arteries. He was trying not to kill me."

"We've heard countless instances of civilian casualties during the Winter Soldier's murders-"

"Objection." Murdock stood up. "It violates the order prohibiting counsel and all witnesses from referring to the deaths as a "murder" during the trial."

"Sustained," said Judge Dredd. "Rephrase your question, Mr. Dent."

Dent straightened his tie. "We've heard countless instances of civilian casualties during the Winter Soldier's attacks, and you expect us to believe that he tried to save you while he was shooting you in the gut?"

Dugan sat on Steve's left, Dernier on his right. One ninety-eight, the other ninety-seven, and they'd both flown to DC for the trial. When the guards marched Bucky into the courthouse, three of the four remaining Howlies had saluted. Bucky couldn't salute back, because of the handcuffs, but he'd given them a small smile. The picture had been on the cover of the New York Times the next morning.

They were the only thing keeping Steve from leaping out of his seat and punching Harvey Dent in the good side of his face.

That and the fact that Bucky had turned himself in. This was what he wanted, and he hadn't been allowed to have what he wanted in seventy years. He hadn't even been allowed to want.

"I believe so," said Nat.

"What possible reason could he have for doing that?"

"Probably for the same reason he stopped fighting Steve on that helicarrier. Well..." she gave Steve that flirty grin again. "Not exactly the same reason."

Steve was starting to see where she was going with this.

"What do you mean?"

"The Winter Soldier recognized me," said Nat. "You didn't ask me if that was the first time we met. You only asked if we'd met prior. The first time we met, I was thirteen years old, and he chose me."

"He chose you?" repeated Dent. "For the Red Room?"

For a moment Dent looked delighted, and Steve felt sick. If they added child abduction to the charges, Bucky would never see the sky again.

Nat gave Dent a pitying look. "I was much younger than thirteen when I was chosen for the Red Room."

"Then what do you mean? He chose you romantically?"

Dent looked even more delighted, and Steve felt even more sick. Fortunately, Nat also looked even more pitying. "They didn't allow him to have feelings. I doubt they would have allowed him to have a affair."

"What then?" Dent had stopped looking delighted. Now he looked like he had no idea how Nat would answer his question. Every attorney's worst nightmare.

"He chose me for advancement. The girls in the Red Room had all been trained mentally, but we had not been trained physically. He was ordered to train us, and then select the three best to continue on. As for what happened to the rest, well, they didn't tell us. I don't think they told Sasha either, but we could both of us could make an educated," she emphasized the word, "guess."

"Sasha?"

Nat cocked her head. "I think that was their mistake. Giving him a name. I don't know why they did it. Maybe, as much as they wanted us to fear him, they also wanted us to trust him. Maybe they just thought it was funny to give him a name that Americans only gave to women. We all knew he was the Winter Soldier. They wanted us to know. They wanted us to be scared of him, but more than that, they wanted us to be scared of becoming him. We saw how they treated him. When they tortured him, they made sure we could hear his screams. Yes, it was far more frightening to become the Winter Soldier than be killed by him. Do you know why they tortured him?"

"No," said Dent, and Nat may not have been tied to the chair, but other than that, it was exactly the same as the first time Steve had seen her run an reverse interrogation.

"Because Anya was caught with the chocolate he'd given her. He stole it from the guards. When they took him away to be tortured we heard them joke about how we were cheap dates. Sasha screamed for hours. Me? I think it was not so cheap."

The jury was watching Nat like she was the last season of How I Met Your Mother. She was watching Bucky, and even though Natasha always seemed like she was putting on an act, in that moment, Steve thought she seemed less like an actress than ever.

"Yes," said Nat. "I think the mistake they made was giving him a name. The longer he was Sasha, the less he was the Soldier. He insulted us, the way the guards insulted him, but the first time I insulted him back, it become something... fond. After that, he only called me Cука and I only called him Блядь when I did well. If I did badly, he simply picked me up and showed me how to do better. I owe my life to Sasha. He trained me every time I asked, more than the other girls, which is the only reason they let him choose me when the time came. I was not the biggest or the strongest. Sasha, he told me, 'Size is not strength.'"

She looked at Steve. "I wonder where learned that."

The courtroom broke out in quiet, relieved laughter. This was the first part of the trial that hadn't been about death, or loss, or torture so horrific that Murdock had to warn squeamish people to leave the room.

"No further questions." Dent finally seemed to realize that he would get nothing he wanted from Natasha Romanoff.

"Mr. Murdock?"

"We have no questions for this witness. We request a fifteen minute recess to set up the PowerPoint for our closing arguments."

"Granted," said Judge Dredd. "You may leave the stand, Ms. Romanoff."

Nat hopped out of her chair. She paused in front of the bench. "May I approach the defendant?"

"For what purpose?"

She held up a Snickers bar. "To repay him for his kindness."

"Ms. Romanoff, I hardly think that's an appropriate use of court time-"

"Aren't we on a recess?" Her eyes were wide and innocent and Steve wasn't fooled for a second.

"Yes, but-"

"He's allowed to eat, right? I mean," she actually giggled, "it's not like you're Hydra, feeding him with a tube until he couldn't even share my chocolate when I offered?"

Judge Dredd sighed. He was a quicker learner than Dent. "You may approach the defendant."

Nat sidled up to Bucky.

"Privet, Natashenka."

"Privet, Sasha."

He was still cuffed, but he had enough range of movement to accept the Snickers.

"Spasibo."

"Da," she said. "Блядь."

"Cука," said Bucky, without missing a beat. Natasha laughed all the way back to her seat.

The attorney's began their closing arguments, which Steve barely heard.

Cука.

Блядь.

Punk.

Jerk.

Now he knew exactly where Natasha had been going with it. People understood flirting better than they understood a relationship that spanned centuries and could not be labeled anything so simple as 'friends' or 'enemies.' He was glad they'd saved Natasha's testimony for last. She'd earned major bro points.

"Allocution?" Judge Dredd was saying.

Murdock stood up. "Sergeant Barnes has decided he doesn't wish to address the court-"

"I changed my mind," said Bucky.

The court went silent.

"Go ahead, Sergeant," said Judge Dredd.

"I don't have much to say. This has taken up enough of your time. I just want to say thank you to everyone who testified on my behalf. Steve, and Stark, and Sam, and Natashenka." He met each of their eyes in turn before turning to face the jury, the judge, the court. "And thank you. You can't hold a trial for a weapon, so thank you. Even if you find me guilty, thank you."

They didn't find him guilty.

I didn't come up with the headcanon of The Winter Soldier teaching Natasha and sneaking her chocolate, but I can't remember the name of the fanfiction. If anyone knows, please tell me and I'll either credit the author or delete my story at their request.

I used Cyrillic where Steve wouldn't recognize the words, and English spelling where he might.

Cука Bitch

Блядь Whore

Privet/Привет Hey

Spasibo/Спасибо Thank you