A/N: Alright, so this chapter and the last one are a bit of an introduction to the main plot ^^ Yes, the basis is Steve and Natasha trying to work together but it's not a story without several different events to make the plot reach its climax! One mission to Russia is a go.
When she got back, there was going to be hell to pay and Nicholas J. Fury was going to pay it.
There was anger pulsing through her as she suited up, her standard catsuit with all the toys she had earned through extensive training. She had her hair in curls, comparing admirably to the Iron Man mission she had done, being undercover at Stark Industries. To the people around her, she was the same as ever, the same old Natasha that could kick their asses into next week. But she wasn't as her mind fought back memories of what happened to her at that facility. Serum. Sterilization. James. Training. Elimination. Budapest. Eliminate. Seduce. Kill. The memories managed to keep themselves at bay but she struggled to maintain her anger.
She had left when she was told to, but Nick had sent her back to Russia anyway. What had she done to deserve such a cruel punishment? The pilot announced that they were officially in Russian airspace, making her freeze for only a millisecond before she continued to get ready. She made sure she had the ammo she needed, ready to put the bastards who had screwed her life up six feet under. The Captain had his mission, and she had hers, whether or not he knew both of them was dependent on what Fury had told him.
She was going to pay Fury another visit when they returned. Steve had attempted to make small talk, but Natasha had refused to answer anything he said. She was emotionless and empty, which easily fitted into her Black Widow persona. The enigma spoke up just before they were about to land. "You cannot let morals get in the way of the mission, Rogers. There are girls in there, some as young as six, and they are trained to kill people like us. They will not hesitate to attack you and if you don't react, they will kill you." Her voice was cold, harsh, but determined as she stared him down.
She spoke with her eyes. Do I make myself clear?
The super soldier shrugged her off. "I think I can handle a few little girls." He spoke out confidently, thinking he could handle whatever the mission had to throw at him. The poor soul had no idea, and when he left that mission, he would likely never be the same again. She tried to warn him. They were hovering at 12,500 feet above the facility when Natasha jumped out of the plane, activating her chute when it was time and she needed it.
Steve did the same as he wondered how his new partner knew so much about this facility. He didn't have access to her file; though that was the only agent file he didn't have access to for some strange reason. He was concerned about being partnered with a stone cold enigma. He landed on the ground to find she had already started to move towards the facility. She worked the landscape like she owned it. The fact was that she was good. Even in seemingly unknown territory she could carry herself in a manner that suggested it wasn't all that strange.
He had no idea.
She moved around the place she had been raised in, and her inner hell. She swore to whatever god might be above them that when she got out of this, she was going to pay a visit to the farm to talk to Laura and hopefully Clint if he happened to be there. If he wasn't? She was going to go drag his ass back into action. The Captain lagged behind her, evidently not use to stealth missions such as the one they were on. He's going to get himself killed with the midnight guard shift approaching. She picked apart all of his actions as she spoke through her comms.
"Captain, get down. The midnight change is coming." She hissed with a slight amount of venom in her voice. She stared him down as he spoke back.
"How would you know the guard routines, it wasn't in the file?" Confusion was laced into his tone.
"I've done a mission or two our here before with my old partner. He didn't have a death wish. How do you think Fury got the Intel?" She lied through her teeth, but he didn't need or deserve to know about her past. He was temporary at best.
"I assumed Fury would have taken out the base beforehand if he had the Intel." The Captain challenged as Natalia debated throwing her widow bites at him instead of the Soviets. No, he wasn't worth it.
"You're going to get yourself killed and that is a lot of paperwork for me so get down." She ordered as she continued through the base, knowing the routines of each of the guards, even though the ones that had been around when she was in the program were long gone. She would sneak down the halls she knew too well towards her old sleeping quarters, remaining undetected and leaving the Captain in the dark on what she was planning to do.
He didn't know – the entire mission was specifically need-to-know basis with advanced compartmentalization. He might be a captain, but she was the master spy. She was the one who had trained for this, willingly or not, since she was only five years old.
She entered the room, light on her feet as she stared at the girls resting. It was late enough where they all were asleep, handcuffed to their beds as standard protocol. There was some sort of recognition in her eyes, remembering only a few of them. The others would have been failures when they didn't return, or if they did return and were too injured to continue they would have been terminated. That was what Leviathan had always done best, they terminated. There were new ones too, still in their youth who hadn't graduated.
The Captain caught up to her, walking into the room and making a ruckus without a clue as to what he had just done. The girls started to move and Natasha turned to shoot daggers at him before moving to work. Instantly she aimed for the older girls, the ones who were trained and graduated. She would make quick work of ending them because they fought at a disadvantage but she knew all of their tricks.
There was an alarm. Shit. Natasha thought to herself as she ended the full-fledged Black Widows before moving towards the ones too far gone to save. There were a few who looked new and fresh, too young to be brainwashed into serving Leviathan or Department X or whatever the hell they happened to call themselves at the time.
"Cap, get the young girls, only the last row, and get them out of the building now." She ordered him to do something and he did it, but only after shooting her a questioning glance. "What about the older ones you haven't killed yet?" The condescending tone he used when he mentioned the dead girls made her positive that she was going to be questioned later.
"They're too far gone. Now go." She ordered through only a whisper as she kicked open a side door that led to a different part of the base. The older girls followed her out into the training arena that she knew too well. They all looked ready to fight them off and she just smirked.
"You really think you can beat me?" She asked with a challenge as she threw her widow bites onto the ground, shocking three of them to death before moving ahead with her krav maga training to take out the remaining four. The first two were quick work. The fact that they had been intimidated by the bites made her confident they had yet to go through their fearlessness training. They didn't start that officially until they were fourteen, though they looked about eight. They were old enough to know what fear got them in the Red Room.
The remaining two were trickier. They knew about the same amount as her, though they underestimated her as some government agent. She worked them, making them wear out until they slipped up. She looked over one of their shoulders for a brief second to find that Cap had gotten the young children out and he was taking out guards.
Good, he was listening, and that was a start. She would propel off of one's stomach, knocking her back in slight confusion at technique, to get a good height against the other to use her unique skill: the thigh lock. The fighting technique might be the only good thing she had gotten out of the Red Room. She snapped the girl's neck, leaving only the confused girl. Natasha took out her gun and shot the remaining girl when communication came in.
Widow, we've got to get running. The base is starting evacuation. The orders came through, leaving her little time to complete her part of the mission. She ran down the familiar halls, shooting guards or instructors when it was needed as she headed towards the old file room. She opened the door, her eyes narrowed as she aimed for one particular cabinet; she grabbed the files inside, all of them, and shoved them into a bag that was lying on the ground. It was a go-bag used by assassins who went out for more than three days.
She picked up the bag, turning to leave. She thought she had been in the clear, unaffected by what was going on around her as she compartmentalized her emotions, sorting them into what she should be feeling and what she shouldn't, until she saw him.
She knew him.
At one point in her life, she had loved him. She knew his true identity, but the Captain who was fighting him didn't. "James, enough." Natasha would scold in Russian, knowing the programming they did on him to make him obey. Her eyes were kept at a steely gaze as the assassin and soldier froze, staring at her.
"Natalia? I thought you were dead." His voice shelled out disbelief as Steve hit him over the head with his vibranium shield before he could say another word.
He looked at her, remaining confused as he eyed her bag. "Get to the plane, now." He ordered her, but she didn't listen. She strapped the backpack around her back before picking up the Winter Soldier, carrying him out of the base and towards the quinjet.
She was going to take him with her, and she was going to remind him of who he really was, but there was no way in hell she was going to reveal his identity. That was strictly need-to-know and Steve didn't need to know that James Buchanan Barnes had turned into a monster like her when the Cap went into the ice.
That was her vulnerability, and that had been her mission. Recover him.
"I could have gotten him to come willingly, so why did you hit him?" She accused as she dragged him out, Steve picking up his feet when he realized she wasn't going to let the assassin go.
"He's the enemy. Our mission was to eliminate all threats!" He echoed back the mission objectives as Natasha scoffed.
"He's not a threat and that was your mission, not mine." She remembered being stopped by Maria Hill in the hallway and pulled into a conference room where she was informed about her objectives. She was given a completely different file detailing the Winter Soldier, which of course was outdated compared to her knowledge and was ordered to bring him back alive.
She told Maria to tell Fury that she would be the only one to talk to him once he got back, and if anyone else tried she would kill them. They knew better than to mess with threats Natasha threw their way.
They boarded the plane, taking a look at the facility before the jet blew it into the sky. One of her demons, a part of her past, was one. But one was lying on the floor to the jet with a face mask on. When the Cap went to remove it, Natasha stood between him and the assassin.
"Don't touch him."