'Where's Mommy gone?' seven year old Sofia asked as her mother disappeared out of the door.

'To deal with a bad man' Clint replied, picking up his sleepy daughter. 'Are you ok Lena?' he asked the fourteen year old, who seemed to be staring out into space, lost in her thoughts.

'Yeah' Elena replied looking around the room 'I just never thought I would be back here, it hasn't changed much' she remarked glancing around the room.

'Well the technology has been updated, but I guess Fury likes to keep things the same' Clint replied

'Agent Barton would you please follow me to the observation room' a black clothed S.H.E.I.L.D agent stated, standing in the door way.

Clint just raised his eyebrows and glanced at his two daughters, silently asking the man what he wanted Clint to do with them.

'They can come too' the man added reluctantly.

'Sir, will you be coming?' Clint asked Director Fury, who was lurking silently at the back of the control room.

'I'll be along shortly agent Barton' Fury replied 'you go on up'

The agent then led a reluctant Clint, who was still carrying Sofia, and Elena up to the observation room, from which they could watch the threat's interrogation. Clint was particularly interested to hear what his partner was able to get out of the man, he, Captain America and the Ghost were able to apprehend. It had been a really odd mission. Normally when someone was about to bomb a large area, they were fairly secretive about it, but with this guy, it was like he almost wanted to get caught. Clint had a secret suspicion that he only put up half a fight and they were lucky that it was only Irina, the Ghost, who sustained minor injuries. He wondered what the man was up to and who he was working for.

'Agent Barton, why don't you put Sofia down in that chair over there?' a sensible voice suggested and Clint whipped around to find Agent Hill standing next to him.

'Thanks' Clint replied, lowering his daughter into the padded chair, where she continued to sleep, his arms aching slightly.

'Agent Romanoff is almost at the detention bay, everyone ready' Agent Hill, Fury's second in command ordered to her fellow agents, who were all sitting watching the screens which monitored the cell, the large main one which was originally built to house the hulk.

Clint and Lena, who was standing next to him, not believing that she was about to watch her mother's legendary interrogation skills in action for the first time (she didn't count her mother's frequent questioning of who continued to walk mud into the house). They watched as the familiar red head appeared on the screen and walked towards the captured threat.

'Natashen'ka' came the gruff voice of the man, filtering through the observation room speaker system.

Clint looked up in alarm, scrutinising the man on the screen. There had only been one person who had called his partner that and he was meant to be dead.

Natasha's head snapped up and stared at the man standing in the giant glass container. 'There is only one person who was ever allowed to call me that and he's dead' she stated coolly

'Well that makes two of us Natalia' the man replied, looking up at the red haired agent.

'Alexei' Natasha whispered taking another step closer towards the glass 'bozhe moĭ'

'Ah, you recognise me now' the man barked 'I admit I don't look much like my younger self'

'Why are you here, why did you try and bomb Wall Street?' she asked cutting straight to the point, trying to push away the images of Alexei, her loving husband and focus on interrogating the man who stood in front of her; the man known as the Red Guardian.

Alexei, or whoever he had began to twitch, first his left eyebrow and the whole side of his scared face started to move. 'As if I would tell you' he snarled, his personality changing instantly.

Natasha tried to recall at that unexpected answer, having to remind herself that this man, this thing, was not Alexei. 'But we used to share everything' she stated quietly, looking up at him from under her eyelashes, trying to get information out of him.

'You didn't tell me who you were, that we were living a lie' he spat back at her

'How could I Alexei?' she replied 'how could I have told you that I was the Black Widow, that I seduced and killed men on a daily basis, it would have killed you'

'It nearly did kill me when I woke up to be told that both you and our child were dead'

'Who told you?' Natasha asked curiously, though she kind of already knew the answer. There had only been one person inside the KGB who had known about her daughter.

'Director Yusupov' Alexei replied

'Chert yego' Natasha cursed, wanting to dig up the man from his snowy grave and kill him again. He had played her, completely manipulating her, destroying not only her life, but the life of her innocent husband and daughter. 'So do you work for the KGB?' Natasha asked, trying to focus on her mission, getting information out of the Red Guardian.

The man began to twitch again, his bloodshot eyes narrowing. 'You're going have to try harder to get information out of me Natalia' he said in a harsh voice

'You're daughter has your eyes' Natasha stated, realising that Alexei was under some sort of mind control, almost like what she had been subjected to when she was in the Red Room, though undoubtedly it was stronger. She hoped that in mentioning personal things he would open up so she would be able to prise the all important information out of him. She could almost imagine Fury pacing up and down the observation room muttering under his breath, wanting her just to get on with it.

'And how do you know that she's my daughter, you skills as the Black Widow are infamous' Alexei replied scathingly

'I was married Alexei!' Natasha exclaimed wounded that even her estranged husband would think that of her. Why did everyone seem to believe that just because she was called the Black Widow, she had no morals? 'Do you remember that night in December in a cheap hotel on the outskirts of St Petersburg, the night before you had to report to the aerodrome?

'The night that was so cold and we only some thin blankets and your fur coat to keep us warm' Alexei stated the memory emerging from the far reaches of his brain 'The last night we were just Alexei and Natashen'ka. She has my eyes?' he asked quietly as Natasha mentally congratulated herself for temporarily breaking him out of his mind control

'Yes your bright blue eyes' Natasha replied taking a step closer towards the man who was the father of her eldest child, and looking into his eyes which were identical to hers, trying to find some resemblance between the man she was married to and the monster, the mind controlled bomber, in front of her. 'She also has your smile'

'Does she have your hair?' Alexei asked curiously

'Yes and my temper to match' Natasha replied with a smile. 'Would you like to meet her?'

'No' Alexei said sharply 'she shouldn't see me like this'

Natasha just nodded, knowing that despite her father's wishes, Lena was probably sitting up in the observation room watching this interrogation take place.

'Why did you try and bomb Wall Street?' Natasha asked again before pressing him further. 'Why did you try and carry it so obviously didn't you and your higher-ups realise that you were going to get caught?'

'I'm dying'

Lena found that as her mother's interrogation of the Red Guardian progressed, her Dad edged closer to her, his eyes never leaving the screens but their shoulders were not almost touching. She could tell that he was concerned just by his body language, but she couldn't work out whether he was concerned about her or her mother. She knew from the way her Dad's hand's where clinched tightly he didn't like the way that the way that her mother was talking to the Red Guardian, who had turned out to be Alexei, her biological father.

To be quite honest she didn't know what to make of it, her real father being alive. Her mother rarely spoke of him, but when she did it was always with fondness and a sad look in her eye. She had always been told that he was a fabulous fighter pilot who had died in a freak accident but now he was, quite disfigured but alive and called the Red Guardian. She had glanced at S.H.E.I.L.D's records on the Red Guardian, over one of the agent's shoulders and had been horrified but the list of atrocities he had apparently committed. Elena knew that several of the agents in the observation room warily and had edged away from her, the daughter of the infamous Black Widow and Red Guardian.

She gave a small gasp as the Red Guardian; she refused to think of him as her father, admitted that he was dying.

'Is that possible, is he telling the truth?' she heard her father, for all intents and purposes, ask Director Fury in a hushed voice.

'According to Dr Banner, who I have just got off the phone with, a more in depth analysis of his blood shows an extraordinarily high amount of gamma radiation in his blood, not dissimilar to what in Dr Banner and Captain America's blood.'

Clint just nodded, there had been rumours over the years that the Russians were trying to come up with their own answer to Captain America. 'But those two aren't dying' he stated

'It seems that the KGB's super serum also contained alpha radiation particles, which the other effects of the serum have kept at bay until now' Fury answered.

'Sir, it seems like Agent Romanoff is engaging the threat in conversation again' an agent reported pointing at one of the screens which was monitoring the interrogation.

'Well let's see what else Agent Romanoff is able to get out of her fellow Russian' the Director remarked, before striding forward to get a closer look at the screens as Clint reached down and surreptitiously slipped his hand around Elena's, give the fourteen year old's smaller hand a reassuring squeeze, letting her know that he was still there.

'What?' Natasha asked, finally finding her voice. She was not normally knocked speechless, but that simple statement had really surprised her.

'I'm dying' Alexei repeated

'But how? The gamma radiation?' Natasha asked

'I don't know, the doctor who told me said it was the super serum they gave me turning on itself or something like that' he answered

'So that was the reason why they decided to send you on this suicide mission?' Natasha asked, fishing for more information

'The person told me about this mission didn't know' Alexei replied 'besides I volunteered for it'

'So you could kill hundreds of innocent civilians?' Natasha asked, not even disguising how horrified she was by that thought.

'No, so I could see you again' Alexei stated 'And tell you-' he was cut off as the left side of his face began to spasm and he lost control of his body, falling to the floor.

'Wanted to tell me what?' Natasha asked, abandoning protocol and running towards Alexei, who was struggling on the floor, like he was wrestling with an invisible foe.

Alexei struggled to sit up. 'Lower the glass' he stated, in a moment brief moment of calm, before the mind control took over again.

Natasha hesitated, she knew she had already broken protocol by crossing the line and running towards Alexei, but lowering the glass was another thing entirely. She could almost hear Fury and Hill shouting at her, telling her not to do it. Even her brain, the cold hearted part of her brain, was telling her not to do it, telling her that this was just a ploy of the Red Guardian's, that he wasn't the tender husband she remembered, the one who adored her, even though she could never love him like he loved her.

'Please Natashen'ka'Alexei begged reaching up and pressing his hand to the glass which encased him.

Natasha closed her eyes, took a deep breath before making her decision.

'Agent Barton, what the hell is Romanoff doing?' Director Fury asked whirling around and staring at the Black Widow's partner with his one visible eye.

'I don't know sir' Clint replied quietly. For the first time in his and Natasha's long partnership he did not know what she was up to, she was behaving completely out of character. He trusted his partner and he just hoped she knew what she was doing.

Everyone in the observation room watched with a mixture of amazement, shock and apprehension as the Black Widow, one of S.H.E.I.L.D's greatest agents, raised her hand to the glass, mirroring the Red Guardian's position before typing in the security code with her other.

Natasha mentally began to count down the seconds before the alarms which surrounded the detention area went off.

'What did you want to tell me Alexei?' she asked again.

Alexei just reached into his suit and pulled out an old battered photograph. 'Give this to our daughter' he whispered 'she deserves to see us when we were young and happy, before everything happened'

Before I betrayed you and caused you to turn into a mind controlled killing machine Natasha thought as she turned over the photograph to find her and Alexei's happy smiling faces staring back up at her. God she looked young! She thought as she stared at her and Alexei's wedding photograph. Natasha's attention turned back to her supposedly dead husband as he started to once again thrash abut on the floor. 'Hey, hey, Alexei stay with me' she ordered gripping on tightly to his shoulders to stop him moving about and giving him a shake. 'What did you come here to tell me?' she asked urgently, knowing that she was in a very precarious position and he could go back under the mind control at in any second.

Beep

Beep

Beep

Natasha swore under her breath in various different languages as the alarms around the detention block started to go off, red lights flashing everywhere. She had hoped that Clint might have been able to persuade Hill and Fury to hold off for a couple more minutes – she was finally getting somewhere!

'Alexei, what did you want to tell me?' she asked once again.

Alexei's bright blue eyes looked up in fear as her heard the alarms go off. 'They are come for you' he choked out.

Natasha was momentarily stunned, but quickly pulled herself together as she heard the thumping of the S.H.E.I.L.D agents' boots heading in their direction, no doubt to kill Alexei and arrest her. Instinctively she reached for her gun but instead of shooting Alexei, or at the approaching agents, she shot the control panel.

Natasha took one last look at the security camera, which she knew fed up to the observation deck, before the round glass cell, which contained both her and Alexei dropped out of the flying Helicarrier and plummeted towards the ground.

Hi!

I am so so sorry it took so long to get this chapter out. I have been having a very busy summer which why there has been a lack in updates and I also had to figure out were I was was going with this story because I launched into it without a real plan, but I've sorted it all out now.

I've also started the other sequel to Lena - Sofia - so if you haven't already seen it, please check it out.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter (please review) and hopefully the next one will be up sometime soon!

Many thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, you are all wonderful!

Cherry :)

Translations:

bozhe moĭ' - my God

Chert yego - damn him