Summary: In which Bucky is one of the leading mobsters in Moscow and dating Natalia, a socialite who looks suspiciously like the youngest Romanov. It's a shame two of Bucky's soldiers kidnap her off the streets and an even further shame that Bucky's not in a good mood.

Natalia was having a shit day. She'd woken up with a banger of a headache and nearly wrung the neck of a man who had the audacity to whistle at her on the sidewalk. By nine in the morning, she had to cancel her evening plans with James because her godfather―of all the goddamn people to ruin her evening―was having an engagement soirée and she was expected to go.

If she hadn't resigned herself to have a miserable Friday by then, she certainly had an hour later. When her assistant called in sick and with a list of things that needed her attention that very day, it was inevitable that her day was going to suck.

Just because she expected it to suck, however, did not mean she couldn't be angry about it. When, by three in the afternoon, her headache still refused to leave and instead moved from the base of her skull to behind her eyes, she decided enough was enough.

Her godfather could live without her attending the soirée that was sure to be full of stuffy socialites. Besides, he was more likely to try and set her up with anyone he deemed eligible rather than enjoy the evening himself.

For all Ivan did to hide her after her family's death, he had a strange way of keeping her from the limelight. Sometimes, she wondered if he stepped too close to the limit on purpose, as a way to remind her which one of them held more power now.

Rather than call Ivan and tell him she wouldn't be coming, she sent him a text. As she pressed send, however, her phone screen stuttered, froze, and then powered off. Dead.

With a strangled curse, she stuffed the device in her handbag. At least now no one could bother her after she left the office.

Reaching for her long winter coat, Natalia draped it around her shoulders and reached to wrap her scarf around her neck. It was December and despite the sun being up, Natalia knew she'd freeze as soon as she stepped outside. With a grumble, she pulled on her leather gloves and stepped out of her office.

Downtown Moscow was as busy as expected, but Natalia didn't hail a taxi. It may have been colder than hell was hot, but she was not about to sit in the back of a public cab. Besides, she was getting hungry and needed to stop somewhere to eat if she wanted to avoid snapping at the next poor passerby who stared too long.

There was no reason for Natalia to turn down the street she did other than a sudden craving for a very specific pierogi. One that she had only ever eaten at the rundown shop James had shown her. For all the shine and glimmer of the restaurants she tended to frequent, none of them even compared to the little mom and pop place.

By the time she finally stepped into the cramped restaurant, her fingers were stiff with cold and her stomach was empty. She'd eaten lunch only a few hours earlier, but the cold always managed to sap her energy in a way that tended to leave her needing to eat twice as often.

She was greeted as soon as she stepped through the door, rubbing her hands together through her gloves and tucking her handbag under her elbow.

"Natalia!" There was a rustling from around the corner and soon an elderly woman appeared with a wide grin and her wrinkled hands outstretched. "How are you, tsarina? How is James?"

"Hello, babushka." Natalia accepted the hug, pressing a kiss to the woman's cheek. "We are both doing well. Working hard."

While Mrs Chenkova didn't know the full extent of James's work, she knew enough that she huffed exasperatedly. Natalia smiled and before the old woman could scold her about how she really should spend time with men of her own class, Natalia asked after her husband.

With another huff and a wave of her hand, Mrs Chenkova said, "Busy with his pierogis. I assume that's why you're here."

Natalia's smile widened and after a short few minutes, Mrs Chenkova handed her a handful of fresh, warm pierogis.

"I put an extra in there for James," she told her, watching as Natalia bit into the first. "I can only imagine you're going to see him if you're in this part of town."

While that would often be true, it wasn't this time around and Natalia told her so.

"I've had a headache since I woke up," she explained, rubbing at her temple. "I'm on my way home, actually."

Her headache had started to come and go, but never fully disappeared. Even talking with Mrs Chenkova was a chore and for a moment, Natalia considered borrowing the woman's phone to call her chauffeur after all. There would be questions about why she was in that part of town, but if it got her home sooner, Natalia supposed she could live.

Unfortunately, Mrs Chenkova's phone line was down.

"I will send Dmitri with you," Mrs Chenkova offered. Natalia shook her head.

"No, don't worry about it," she said. If she needed to, she would call a taxi. "Let him be with his pierogis."

Mrs Chenkova agreed reluctantly, but only if Natalia sat and ate first. Since she wasn't too eager to go back out in the cold, Natalia did just that. As soon as she finished her pierogis, though, she kissed Mrs Chenkova's cheek and bid her farewell.

"You feel better soon, tsarina," Mrs Chenkova hummed. She patted Natalia's cheek and smiled before sending her out the door.

Back out in the cold, Natalia had two choices: turn back into town and search for a taxi or cross through James's district to get home. As much as she hated the cold, she hated the idea of riding in the back of a taxi more.

Stuffing her handbag under her elbow and shoving her hands in her pockets, Natalia turned down the street to walk home.

The wind was biting and blew her coat around her ankles, but Natalia kept her head down and marched forward. Despite having walked these streets often enough with James to know the quickest way across town, the angry wind and below-freezing temperatures made the walk drag on.

She hadn't even made it halfway when she had to duck into an alley just to get out of the wind for a minute. With her head still down, she pulled her hands from her pockets and rubbed them together vigorously.

"By god, what's this? A Romanov?"

At the voice, Natalia's head snapped up. Her eyes landed on two men standing across from her in the alley, watching her with too much interest to mean anything good.

As her eyes met his, the second man's eyes widened just slightly and his lips twitched.

"Of course not," she hissed, "they're all dead."

The men were not put off. Buried under a thick scarf and shivering in the cold, Natalia doubted she looked very intimidating anyway. She still scowled when one of them stepped towards her with a sly grin.

"You look an awful lot like Tsarina Alexandra," the man said, moving to block her exit from the alley. "I could earn a pretty penny for you."

Natalia's eyes narrowed.

"It's an unfortunate coincidence," she told him sharply, "but I am not."

If he wanted to try and earn the bounty on her rumored head, he had another thing coming. She may not handle weaponry, but she knew someone who did. Someone who would not be thrilled to learn that she'd been threatened while crossing his distract.

"Turn me in and you'll get laughed out of the city," she snapped at the man. "The Romanovs are dead."

The man's lips curved into a wicked smirk. "We'll see, won't we?"

He moved fast, but Natalia was faster. While he lunged towards her, she ducked out of the way and spun. The second man was in front of her as she stood up, but he too lunged too high. His arms reached for her, but she twirled out of his reach. As she leapt towards the entrance of the alley, however, her scarf came loose and one of the men grabbed it.

Natalia choked as he pulled her back. Before she could loosen the scarf, the second man was upon her and pinning her to the ground.

Letting out a frustrated scream, Natalia kicked at the man on top of her and rolled. He didn't let her go, though, and the first man still had ahold of her scarf. With a painful thump, he joined his partner in sitting on her and tied her scarf over her head, effectively blocking her vision.

They tugged her to her feet and although she was still cold and her head was still hurting, Natalia had never been more furious. All she had wanted was a pierogi and a night in, but apparently, that was not what she'd be getting.

The men snickered between themselves and taunted her the entire walk, but Natalia bit her tongue. There was no point in making things worse for herself. After all, it was very likely she was on her own for this.

Goddammit, she should have taken James up on those combat lessons. She could throw a knife with the accuracy of a trained sniper, but her handbag had been lost sometime during the fight and with her scarf wrapped around her face, she had no hope of hitting anything.

By the time they arrived at wherever the men deemed safe enough to hide her until they collected their bounty, her fingers and toes were numb. Her nose was beginning to run and her headache had returned to a consistent and dull throbbing at the base of her skull.

"What the hell is this?"

A third voice. Wherever she'd been taken, there were more people involved than just the two men she'd had the misfortunate of running into in the alley.

"Get us an audience with the Boss and you'll find out," one of the men replied.

Natalia sneered under the scarf but stayed silent.

She was steered through a narrow hallway, pressed between the two men that had brought her in.

"He's in a bitch of a mood," the third voice grumbled. As the space widened, there was a click, and the room she'd been brought into lit up. "This better be worth it."

"Oh, it is," one of the men said. Tauntingly, he said, "We found the missing Romanov girl."

There was a bark of laughter and then― "Oh, you better be right or he's going to skin you."

"Even if we're wrong," the second man said, "she'll be worth his time."

Someone swatted her ass and Natalia lashed out on instinct. Her elbow connected with the sternum of the man on her left and he coughed. The second man, however, stopped her before she could twist and jam her knee into his partner's gut.

"She's feisty enough," the third man muttered, "at least he'll like that."

She heard someone walk away―presumably the third man―but the two others stayed at her side.

From somewhere down the hall, she heard a muffled shout followed by someone marching in her direction. As the footsteps neared, the man on her right shoved her to her knees with a painful crack. The pain made her grimace, but it also made her angrier. They'd already ruined her winter coat in the alley fight. Did they need to ruin it further?

The angry steps came to a stop in front of her, but the new person didn't say anything.

"We brought you a present," the man on her right said.

Natalia nearly barked at that. She was not a goddamn gift.

"So I hear."

Oh. Oh, these guys were fucked. If she'd been worried before, she wasn't anymore because even without seeing his face, Natalia knew it was James who was standing in front of her.

"We found the Romanov girl."

There was a tense silence where Natalia had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. She would kill to see James's face but at the very least, she hoped he'd let her see the men's faces when they realized just what they'd done.

"What the fuck did you just say?" James hissed.

A shadow fell over her and a second later, the scarf was removed from her face and she was staring up at James. His face was hard, but she was grinning.

"Hey, Soldat."

James turned his attention on the men at her sides and his face hardened.

"Let her go right this fucking instant," he snarled, pulling a revolver from his waistband. He raised it towards the man on her right and both men scrambled away from her.

Free of the two men, Natalia got to her feet and brushed off her knees. Fortunately, she hadn't torn a hole in her tights and her skirt was merely wrinkled, but her long black coat was covered in dirt and mud. She'd need to go to the dry cleaners this weekend after all.

"What happened?"

James was addressing her, but his gun was still trained on the two men that had brought her in. The third peered around the hall corner, wise in keeping hidden but still too curious for his own good.

"We found her in an alley―"

"Not you!" James interrupted coldly. The man shrunk and Natalia's lips twitched into a small smirk.

"They found me in an alley," Natalia echoed, moving towards James more out of a desire to see the men cower than a need to be comforted. "Accused me of being a Romanov. Threatened to turn me in and fuck me if that didn't work out."

"Which one?" James's arm curled around her, drawing her to his side as he clicked the gun's cylinder in place.

"I don't know." She rolled her eyes. "I was blindfolded, James. I couldn't tell."

"That's alright, doll." His eyes narrowed and Natalia glanced towards the third man―still peeking around the corner―as he fired the gun twice.

Two bodies thudded to the ground behind her and Natalia kept her eyes on the third man until he turned and hurried away from the room.

Without a word, James pulled her out of the room and away from the bodies. They passed the third man who stared at her a little too long, but James sent him to take care of the bodies before he could stare longer.

Ducking through a nearby door, James led Natalia into a small room that she immediately deduced was his "office". The door clicked behind them and James slid the lock in place before turning to look at her.

"Goddammit, Natalia." His breathing was erratic and angry, but he still pulled her into his arms and buried her in a tight hug. "What the hell did you do?"

Melting into his arms, Natalia murmured, "I had a horrible day."

She buried her face in his neck and took a stuttering breath before telling him exactly what had happened.

In all honesty, her day hadn't been too horrible, but her persistent headache had made it seem worse. She'd never liked business meetings and she'd had three that day―two of which involved someone sneaking in a lewd comment when speaking with her. At that, James's hold on her tightened, but she continued without pause.

Her assistant had called in sick, Ivan was forcing her to attend his engagement soirée, and her head had hurt so badly that she actually lost her vision for a moment during lunch. When she'd finally decided to quit, her phone had died and she couldn't call her chauffeur to take her home.

"The one good thing," she muttered, "was Mrs Chenkova's pierogis."

"You went to pierogis alone?" James asked. For a moment, she thought he was just upset she hadn't brought him any. Before she could tease him about it though, he said, "You walked into my distract alone, wearing this jacket and your Louboutins?"

"What? Did you want me to change?" she retorted. James didn't say no. "James, don't be ridiculous."

"You look like a socialite when you wear them," he grumbled, pulling back to look at her. "I love you, Nata, but you're fucking stupid."

Natalia scowled up at him. "Hey, I have a headache and I was starving. Forgive me for not thinking it through."

"I won't." He would, but she knew he'd be annoyed with her for a while before then.

With a sigh, Natalia dropped her head back down to his shoulder and buried her face there. He smelled nice and she was exhausted from both her headache and everything that had happened. Being kidnapped had taken more of her energy than she had expected.

"You okay?" James murmured. He brushed a kiss to her head and adjusted his arm around her.

She nodded. "Just tired."

"Stay here."

As far as she could tell, he didn't have a couch anywhere nearby to sleep on, but that wasn't enough for her to say no. Friday evenings were usually spent tucked away in his arms in a rundown motel anyway. She'd been disappointed they would have to change their tradition for Ivan's party, but now that she had him in her arms, she was going to take advantage of it.

Unsurprisingly, there was no couch or bed anywhere in James's oh-so-secret hideaway. While Natalia didn't complain, James still pulled them both away and up to his one-bedroom apartment just down the street.

It was unnecessary but sweet, and Natalia was never one to overlook her boyfriend's kindness so she didn't tease him about the way he seemed to hover or the scribbled to-do list hanging on his fridge. However, he was lucky she loved him because his bed was not comfortable and all she wanted to do was sleep.

"Not all of us can afford deluxe mattresses," James teased as she struggled to get comfortable.

With a grunt, Natalia rolled until she was tucked into his side and nearly unable to move.

"I'll buy you a new one," she grumbled, closing her eyes. "Then I'll actually stay over more."

James didn't argue which was good because her headache was back in full swing and it hurt to blink. Fortunately, she didn't have to because shortly after she closed her eyes, she fell asleep.

Waking up would mean charging her phone and facing a handful of texts from Ivan, but it also meant she didn't have to search out James to enjoy his presence. Instead, he was snoring softly underneath her and had already plugged her phone in for her. She scanned the texts from Ivan, responded to one, and then curled back into James's side.

Perhaps getting abducted off the streets of Moscow had its perks.