All rights go to Disney's Marvel and their respective partners. This story is rated M for strong language, graphic violence, and sexual content. No non-con. Full author's note located at the end of every chapter.

1

The Truth is Relative

"Anna… Anna. Wake up."

Anna lifted her head, eyes squinted and vision blurry. The room swayed to and fro until the grey walls came to a still. With a few blinks, Anna's vision focused and she found a red-headed beauty sitting calmly behind a white table with arms folded across her chest.

"Natalia," Anna greeted, the hoarseness of her voice grating even to her own ears.

"The effects of the truth serum will wear off in twelve hours," Natalia assured, her American accent smooth and impeccable.

Anna glanced at their new surroundings. A few hours earlier she'd been cooped up in a stuffy interrogation cell at a S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarter, and now she sat in a room with decent ventilation and actual wallpaper.

"Lovely," she deadpanned. Behind Natalia's lithe figure loomed a door with an intricate palm reader for a handle and the wall to Anna's right beamed with bright surveillance monitors that hovered above a busy control panel. She quirked an eyebrow at the monitors. "I did not know S.H.I.E.L.D. had such good taste," she remarked, referring to the luxurious furniture resting in the dining room section of what resembled a quaint apartment. Her eyes narrowed. "Is that a Persian rug?"

"We're at one of my personal safe houses," explained Natalia, her eyes never leaving Anna.

"Oh!" she chirped. She sat back in the metal chair, making herself comfortable. "I am flattered."

"You should be. I broke fifty-two S.H.I.E.L.D. security protocols and thirty-eight international laws to move you here. If I still have a job by the end of this, I'll be lucky to be doing front desk."

"Ha!" Anna clucked. "Now that I would love to see."

Natalia shot her down with a hardened stare. Anna rolled her eyes and slumped back. How many times would they interrogate her?

"What do you want, Natalia? Why am I here?" she asked, exasperated. "I have told your S.H.I.E.L.D. agents all that I know of the Hand and Hydra. I am officially a dead woman. So if you do not mind I would like to spend my last days in a country, not in the western hemisphere."

"This is a secure location. You're safe."

Anna scoffed. "Since when did you become so naive?" She rested the back of her head against the chair frame, her gaze roving around the room once again, looking for any possible exits. She spotted a vent in her peripheral, located at the left-rear corner of the room. "And when did you begin working for S.H.I.E.L.D?" Too narrow, she decided, even for her size three figure. Her eyes flicked back to the red-headed woman who'd been an incessant pain in her side for as long as she could remember. A smirk crawled across Anna's face. "Or are you working both sides again, Natalia? Impressive."

"Can we begin?" Natalia huffed. "Or are we going to be amateurs today?"

Anna tilted her head to the side. "Someone's in a hurry."

Natalia provided no comment, verbally or physically. Whatever she wanted answering couldn't wait and even Anna understood the repercussions of testing the great Black Widow's patience. So she sighed and then sat up straight in the chair. She stretched her neck and rolled her shoulders, limbering up for one of the worst pains she'd ever endure - or so they said. The truth serum in her veins would apply a strain on her body when she resisted. Some people claimed it felt like a horrible cramp. Others claimed it was like infusing battery acid. With any luck, she'd simply faint from the shock.

"What would you like to know?" she said. "I am, as they say, an open book."

"I want to talk about the man in the black mask."

Anna frowned against her will and to her surprise. Damn, that serum was good stuff. She took in a deep breath and refocused. The truth could be manipulated, twisted, and turned within its own relative terms.

"There are many men in black masks," she deflected with forced calmness. "You're going to have to be more specific."

An eight-R sized photograph landed on the table and Anna held her gaze on the other woman. If she so much as glanced at an actual photo, she would be done for.

With a manicured fingernail, Natalia tapped onto the photo. Tap-tap.

"The man with the metal arm."

Anna's resolve slipped in the form of a single eye twitch. "There are many men with metal arms." Her thoughts skimmed through mental images of known associates with the description. She grimaced at the memory of a particular individual. "Even Wolverine has metal beneath that coat of fur he calls arm hair."

Natalia's flawless visage cracked in the form of a smile. "That's good, Anna. The more you resist the serum, the harder it'll be to stop the truth from spilling out when it does."

Anna turned away to the monitors when Natalia's elegant hand reached for the photo. Is that a Don Felipe armoire?

With a turn of her wrist, Natalia turned the photo face-down before reaching beneath the table. A manilla folder landed on the table with a flap.

Her eyebrows furrowed. How in the world did she manage to build an entire folder on him? Oh, blyad! There are many men with metal arms, she reminded herself. Wolverine. Colossus. Cable. Doctor Doom-

"Who is he?" Natalia demanded, the sternness in her voice leaving no room for argument.

Anna breathed easy and faced forward, her shoulders relaxing. She had an answer. A simple and easy one: "I do not know."

Natalia's face remained unchanged, stoic and beautiful, like a portrait. However, Anna could sense the vexation rolling off her like steam. "And yet he was protecting you."

She shrugged. "Secret admirer, I suppose. I have quite the Twitter following."

"He killed thirteen S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives in less than five minutes. He nearly killed me." Metal screeched across the tile floor as Natalia stood from her chair and lifted her black, Cordura jacket. A hand-sized gauze covered the area below her left floating rib. A non-lethal target.

If he wanted to kill you, he would have, she wanted to say. The serum made certain of clawing at her skin as she resisted the urge.

"No one has gotten that close," Natalia sulked, pulling the fabric back down.

Ann couldn't help but smile. "Bye, bye, bikinis."

Natasha shot her a look. "Somehow our Intel never picked up on him," she continued. "And no recognition software on the planet can identify this photo. He's a complete ghost. The best I've ever seen."

Anna wondered what the photo looked like. Did they actually capture an image of him? "You, of all people, should know we are all ghosts."

"Not like this."

"I do not know who he is," she said, losing her patience. "That is the truth. Next question."

Natalia sighed. "Plausible deniability. I do miss the basics." She sat back down, pulling the chair under her, and then opened the folder. Anna averted her gaze, humming to the theme song of I Love Lucy in her head while Natalia read through the data sheets. "...but what I don't understand is why the house was already broken into when we arrived. Security was bypassed remotely and the east window was practically dismantled." She turned another page. "Unless…" Her hand paused, and then her green eyes lifted from the folder. "Unless he was there to kill you."

Anna's wrists jolted within their restraints, her hands curled into fists and nails dug into her palms. She squeezed her eyes shut, bearing the excruciating coil of her muscles.

"Why would he protect his target?" continued Natalia, in an even tone as every ounce of Anna's body, from those in her feet to the ones in her neck, tightened into horrible knots until she swore she would snap in half. Her abdomen clenched so hard she wouldn't need another ab workout for the next century. "Why would he go through all that trouble of getting through your death trap of a house only to stop at the last minute?"

A strained scream escaped between her clenched teeth as Anna's head slammed against the chair frame. Battery acid, she decided. Fast-acting battery acid. Her eyes opened, the fluorescent light burning into her retinas as pitiful drops of saline fell down her cheeks.

A heavy silence and her pained whimpers filled the cold room.

"I take no pleasure in this, Anna," Natalia said after a few moments. "But we both know there's a reason why you refused to disclose this information to S.H.I.E.L.D."

Anna let out a pained laugh. If only she knew the kind of roaches that infested her beloved S.H.I.E.L.D.

With tears stinging her cheeks and teeth clenched, she endured the pain for as long as she could.

And then some more.

A long time passed before Natalia spoke again, "your nose is bleeding. Which means in the next three minutes you're going to have a brain aneurysm. And then a minute later it will burst. I can only hope to get you to the nearest hospital before it kills you."

With a shaking body, Anna lowered her head and locked eyes with the placid women; her thick, auburn fringe bringing out the deep, evergreen color of her eyes. S.H.I.E.L.D couldn't be trusted as long as Hydra controlled the inner workings of the organization.

But she did trust Natalia. After all, the spy defected from the mother country for an archer.

"This information does not leave this room," she strained. "Swear to me- swear to me or I will return from the dead. And this time, I will kill you."

Natalia responded with a reverent nod. "You have my word, kuzína."

Anna's body thrust forward as she gave in to the serum. Sweet relief washed over her taut muscles and burning skin like a cold shower on a hot summer day.

"He didn't kill me," she said, her labored breaths blowing at the strands of chestnut brown hair hanging over her face. "Because he is confused."

"Confused about what?"

Anna lifted herself and leaned her head back against the chair, releasing a tired sigh. She stared at Natalia for a moment, trying to deduce whether it was the right or left hand that the palm reader recognized.

"About everything," she said. "I think he is fighting it."

"Fighting what?"

"Whatever poison Hydra put in his head!" She snapped and then the room went spinning again. Her head lolled to the side, nausea and fatigue obtaining the best of her. She wondered if the tile flooring beneath her feet could truly hold the nails bolting her chair down. The thought drifted away as she remembered the warm look on his face when she touched his cheek. "I think…I think he recognized me." He could have buried his twelve-inch K-Bar into her chest at that moment, right before S.H.I.E.L.D. barged into her living room with tranquilizers and restraints.

But he didn't.

"You care about him…"

Anna hadn't noticed she'd been smiling. She turned her head to find Natalia staring at her with a look of candid disbelief, her eyebrows raised and lips parted. Her black-gloved hands rested on the table as she leaned forward, her eyes roving over Anna as if she'd morphed into a completely different person before her very eyes.

"I knew something was different about you."

"You know nothing, Black Widow."

Natalia's eyes narrowed. "Who is he to you?"

Her jaw clenched as the strain returned to her neck and shoulders, and then trailed down to the rest of her like a poured bucket of acid. "Turn it over," Anna urged, gesturing to the photo.

A few seconds later her eyes landed on a blurred silhouette perched on the edge of a scaffold, resembling a dark smudge or casted shadow - both easily dismissable. But the silver tone of his arm remained clear as day.

They had him.

She shook her head. She warned him about the shine but he never listened.

Whoever had captured the photograph must have done so by accident. Maybe a tourist taking pictures of random structures or a foreman documenting progress. Otherwise, if he had classified them as anything other than civilians…they would have never returned home that day.

Her wrist tugged at the leather restraint as she tried to reach for the photograph. So close, yet so out of reach.

How symbolic, she thought.

An ache grew deep within her chest the longer she stared at it. Anna could sense Natalia watching her, studying her, but she didn't care. What did she know? A Black Widow only ever cared for herself and her mission. Isn't that how the Red Room trained them to be? Objective, calculative, and cold? Wasn't that how she was supposed to be?

Anna swallowed hard, trying to rid the knot forming in her throat. Maybe…if she'd been more like her training, she wouldn't have failed him...

Tears fell down her cheeks for the second time that day. She'd never cried so much.

"He's nothing to me," she said in a low voice. "And everything."

"What's his name?"

"I do not know his true name. But Hydra calls him their Winter Soldier."

"Hydra was eliminated in the 40s," Natalia corrected.

The corner of Anna's mouth quirked upward. "Were they?"

Natalia's gaze dropped to the table as she pondered the question. After a moment, her eyes flicked back to Anna. "Tell me more."

Anna hesitated. Hydra had eyes and ears in every crack and corner of the world and as good as Natalia was, she couldn't avoid the consequences of knowing too much. Even spies had pay-grades.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are being compromised and assassinated across the globe," Natalia persisted with a forceful tone. "By someone that doesn't leave witnesses or traces." Photographs, data sheets, and incident reports shrouded the table top as Natalia tossed them out like candy. "Intel tells us that it's not A.I.M. or H.A.M.M.E.R." Anna skimmed over his work with an unfazed demeanor; although, she had to admit he was working rather fast. "But someone's dog is off their leash."

Anna shot her a warning glare. "Do not call him that ever again."

"He's slipping through our fingers," she continued, unperturbed. "And I know nothing about him, Anna. No one does. I need your help."

"Why would I help you? What do I care about all this?" Anna gestured to the table. "What do I care about S.H.I.E.L.D?"

Natalia looked at her for a moment. "He's not after S.H.I.E.L.D." Anna held her gaze for a long time before turning away. "But you already knew that…didn't you?"

"Let him come," Anna huffed with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I am dead already." But the ache in her chest grew at the thought of seeing him again. Did he think of her?

Of course, he did. He thought about her right now as he scoured the planet for her head.

"Anna…I know you have no reason to believe me when I say this. But your safety is all I care about. I will protect you."

Anna sat in silence as her mind grasped at fleeting memories of their time together in the Red Room. Images of dark corridors and cold rooms appeared along with the scent of cedar wood. Fluffy, pink skirts swirled and twirled, and then a loud snap! The sound of a cane hitting bone echoed from the back of her thoughts. She licked her dry lips and let out a sigh. "I have told you once before, Black Widow. The person you knew is gone. Anna Ivanovna died in Japan all those years ago."

Natalia shook her head. "I refuse to believe that. Especially now that there's a chance you've regained a part of your soul." She lifted the photo and examined it for a moment. "Because of this Winter Soldier."

A smile stretched across her face. His mind knew no other form of existence other than completing his mission but the carnage he left behind was too conspicuous. Too emotional. Which meant Hydra's grip on their most valuable asset was slipping.

After a moment, Natalia slipped the photograph into the folder before setting it aside. Her gaze became stone once again as she continued the interrogation. "Tell me about him. Tell me everything."

"Very well," Anna began, finding no point in prolonging the inevitable. She faced forward to meet Natalia's determined gaze. "The Hand and Hydra had a very short-lived alliance in the late fifties. Together, they developed a program. The Osiris program."

Natalia nodded thoughtfully. "Abducting and murdering mutants to build a zombie army." Anna quirked an eyebrow. She thought Hydra would've buried that information in the deepest bowels of hell. "Fury asked me to look over some classified archives when I first joined S.H.I.E.L.D," Natalia elaborated. "I didn't understand why at the time…but now I do."

Fury and his little secrets ran deep it seemed. "I objected to the alliance, of course," she continued. "Hydra could never be trusted. But my Master thought otherwise. Therefore the Hand sent their best asashin and Hydra sent their best soldat to collect them."

"Crimson Widow and Winter Soldier."

Anna smirked. "We made quite the team."

"If that's true, why is he hunting you?"

"I betrayed them."

"Why?"

Anna paused. "It…it is a long story."

"We have time." Natalia gestured to the door. "Should I make us coffee?"

A smile stretched across Anna's face. No, they didn't have time. Not when it came to the Winter Soldier. "Only if it is Russian," she replied.

And Natalia Romanova, the Black Widow, smiled back.

To be continued…

Hello! Welcome to my new story Love in a Hopeless Place. Storyline takes place prior to Captain America:The Winter Soldier which is during Bucky's time as Winter Soldier. OC is based on Yelena Belova and Elektra Natchios.

Thanks for reading and don't forget to leave a comment!

P.S. I don't speak Russian and I'm not familiar with their customs, therefore I'm sorry if the wording or information is incorrect.