So here's the second chapter of Red daughter, updates on my other stories should follow shortly. Until then: Enjoy!


Outside the Senate building, Washington D.C.
April 6th 2014, two days after the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D.
2:28PM

After walking out of the senate meeting Natasha went home to quickly change into something a bit less formal before driving to the airport in the hopes that she would be there before Clint and Rose's plane landed.
Although she knew that there was the very real possibility that she was going to be late due to the chaos that had emerged in the wake of the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D., so now she was stuck in traffic.
When she finally arrived ten minutes later than planned she found that she was in quite a bit of luck as she immediately found a spot to park and it was right in front of the airport entrance.

She then hurried to the hall were they would arrive right as the speakers announced that the flight from New York was boarding.
So she still had about half an hour to wait before they would actually be there so she had been worried about nothing.

When she finally saw them Rose immediately ran towards her for a hug while Clint went to get their luggage. There wasn't a lot of that since both Rose and Clint had practically everything twice, once at Clint's farm and once at Clint and Natasha's shared apartment in D.C.

After Clint had found their bags he came towards them and Natasha could practically see the worry edged on his face from a mile away.

"You okay?" he asked.

She nodded.
"Steve woke up this morning and the nurses assured me that he will be able to leave in the morning."

Clint frowned.
"You know that's not what I meant, Tasha."

She sighed.
"I'll have to disappear for a while to let it all die down but I don't think that any of those idiots from the Senate are going to do anything against me."

That's when Rose decided that she had been quiet long enough.
"I can come with you? Right mom? Please, please! I don't want to stay with uncle Clint again. No offense."
For that last bit she turned to Clint who shrugged and said "None taken." before speaking to Natasha.
"She's right, you know. You two could use the time together and no one is gonna look for the Black Widow to be traveling with a little girl."

"Hey, I'm not a little girl anymore! I'm almost twelve!" Rose interrupted looking quite insulted.

Natasha smiled and replied semiserious. "Yes, in seven whole months you'll be twelve." Then she continued more seriously. "But you'll always be my little girl. No matter what age you are."
Then Natasha started herding the two of them towards her car.

There Clint called shotgun and Rose rolled her eyes but didn't argue.
Natasha looked at them as she took place behind the wheel, amused by Clint acting more childish than Rose half of the time.

Once they were back on the road Natasha thought about the plan for that afternoon while Rose and Clint were bickering about something.
While she had slept that night a lot more of her memories had resurfaced, she was now reasonably certain that James was in fact Rose's father but now she was battling with the idea of telling her. She knew that Rose had a right to know but right now she thought that her father was dead and was telling her that he was alive but that he wasn't himself any better.
Maybe she should ask Clint, ask him what he thought. Or maybe she would go to Steve and explain it all to him too somewhere in the near future. She figured that he would like to hear about Rose and her possible relation to James from her and not from someone else. He had been like a brother to James after all.
And that wasn't even thinking about James himself. If, and only if they would be able to get him back than she should probably tell him too if he remembered her. Give him a choice about being Rose's father.

This was going to be a mess, she could tell from beforehand.

Finding a (probably) amnesiac master assassin was going to be nearly impossible, him regaining even a basic knowledge of who he used to be was highly unlikely, especially considering the amount of wipes they must have subjected him to.
She remembered that after about two weeks out of cryogenic sleep his humanity started seeping through very clearly while she had known him, earlier when triggered and his file indicated that in total he had been out of cryo for about eleven months since his recovery after he fell from that train during the forties. Which meant that he'd been wiped at least two dozen times by now. And amount normal people wouldn't even have been able to survive, let alone walk away from relatively intact.


Rose wondered what was on her mother's mind because while it was quite normal for her to not speak during one of uncle Clint's endless rants, it wasn't normal for her to have this faraway look in her eyes.
What Rose could see of Natasha's eyes in the rearview mirror told her that her mother hadn't heard a word of what Clint had been saying since Clint and Rose had stopped 'talking' about Rose pickpocketing Clint's phone to play a game (not her fault that she didn't get a phone of her own until she was twelve).

She could tell that something had happened during the two weeks that they hadn't seen each other, it had been clear to her from the moment that her uncle had come home completely unannounced with a worried crease in his forehead. A crease that only showed when he was worried about his family (she was proud to say that that included her).
But he hadn't told her anything so she could only guess about what had happened based on what she had seen on the news. It had featured her mother together with Captain America and another man who hadn't been named had been arrested by S.H.I.E.L.D., followed a day later by reports about the crashing of three Helicarriers in the Potomac and the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the death of its Director Fury.

She had been afraid for her mother but aunt Laura had assured her that her mother was way too tough to go down like that.

Now she seemed more or less fine, a bit tired and judging by the way she avoided moving her left shoulder probably injured enough for it to be a bit of a distraction but there didn't seem to be anything physical that the Black Widow wasn't able to overcome.
But that look in her eyes… something had happened, something bad if it was still bothering her several days later.

Rose wanted to ask what was wrong but Clint sent her a look that clearly said she had to stay quiet for now.

He rolled her eyes a bit annoyed that he always seemed to know what she was gonna do and that now was obviously no different.
She did as he 'asked' and instead looked for clues as to what might be bothering her mom.

It couldn't be about Captain America since 'Steve' was obviously a lot better than he had been when her mother had called the farm almost panicked because she didn't know what to do and Clint had had to calm her down, he had then promised that the two of them would come over which was the reason they were here.
Her mom wasn't as obviously upset anymore and maybe what she was simply her mourning her boss but it seemed more like she was afraid or something like that. And that wasn't an expression she was used to seeing on her mom's face, in fact she had never even seen it before.

Honestly it frustrated her that she couldn't read anything from her mother, even after living with her for over a year Natasha was still a puzzle to her. And that while Rose prided herself on being quite good at reading people.
Of course her mother was the Black Widow, one of the best spies in the world so Rose shouldn't be able to read her, which creeped her out even more considering that right now she thought she could.

She just hoped that one of the adults would tell her what exactly was going on soon.


Office building opposite Washington Hospital Center, Washington D.C.
April 6th 2014, 2 days after the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D.
3:12PM

The Winter Soldier was watching the man who had told him he knew him, who told him his name was James Buchanan Barnes.
The man he thought he knew too, the man from the bridge? – He didn't know where that came from? – He couldn't remember anything to do with a bridge but then again he didn't remember anything that happened more than two days ago.

It was frustrating and he knew it wasn't right but at the same time he had never known anything else, right?

To be honest the only thing he knew for certain was that that man needed protection and he'd be damned if he wasn't able to do that.

The man's friends were also there but they were clearly distracted, the red haired woman (she seemed familiar, did he know her too?) hadn't even noticed it when he had slipped in to return the man's shield.
Somehow he knew that that woman shouldn't be easy to avoid detection by.

He knew who she was of course, she had been in his briefing file but simply 'Black Widow' didn't seem to capture who she was, he'd rather call her nothing than Widow.

Now the other man, the one who's wings he had destroyed and who Hydra hadn't been able to identify, was in the room with the Captain but the Asset – no that wasn't right: he wasn't the Asset, not anymore… – He saw that the man with the broken wings wasn't paying attention to anything but the Captain himself, even less than the redhead had been so he had to protect the two of them. He was certain of that at least.

Since the woman had left he had already prevented two attacks by Hydra on the hospital and he was sure that more were to come.

Then he heard something behind him and turned faster than he could even process the sound correctly and ended with hid riffle trained on an intruder.

"Hey, calm down kid, not planning on hurting you as long as you extent the same courtesy to me. Although it may be a bit late for that last part." Said a vaguely amused Nicholas Fury, standing there as if he wasn't in the presence of the man who had nearly succeeded at killing him mere days before and who was currently pointing an armed gun at his face.

James, he decided that James was a good enough way to refer to himself, James looked at the man with the eyepatch in front of him and squinted his eyes as if it would help him focus on the memories he had of the man. Memories that always seemed to stay just out of his reach.
They seemed so close and at the same time he couldn't get them into focus but he had the distinct feeling that this man was supposed to be dead.

"Did-didn't I kill you?"
Urgh, he hated how weak and confused that sounded.

The man shrugged.
"I suppose you did a poor job at that so unless you want to give it another try…"

James flinched and lowered his gun before mumbling "I don't want to do that anymore."

The man seemed to have heard him as he nodded.
"Yeah, was already wondering why you hadn't killed any of those goons earlier, knew you could if you wanted to. I'm Nick Fury by the way, late director of the organization you helped destroy."

James looked him in the eye.

"You found them, you found the men who wanted to hurt Rogers?"

"Yes, they are locked up and won't hurt anyone anymore, at least not if I can help it. But that's not why I'm here, I wanted to offer you something." Fury answered thinking about how things could change while still remaining the same, like Bucky Barnes still looking out for Steve Rogers after over seventy years of torture and brainwashing.

"Why would you do anything for me if I tried to kill you?" James asked confused.

"Let's just say that I have enough experience with mind control to not judge people too quickly and the fact that we are having this conversation and that you have been protecting the Captain these past few days tells me that the person I encountered wasn't you, kid."

"So you're just gonna chalk everything I did, whoever knows how much that is, up to being mind-controlled."
He said that with a clearly sarcastic edge to his voice.

Fury arched an eyebrow.
"Weren't you?"

"I – I don't know." James answered, surprised by his own honesty.
Too be perfectly honest he wasn't sure what he had been could be called mind-controlled, much less that it meant he was free of blame. So at the very least you could say he wasn't convinced by what Fury was saying.

"Well I take it you didn't know who you were a few days ago."

Now James laughed but it was not out of joy or amusement and it had a slightly angry edge to it.
"I still don't know who I am, so that doesn't have to mean anything."
He wasn't sure if that was something he should be angry or embarrassed about so he simply settled for looking Fury straight into his eye.

"Well, then I hope you'll consider letting us help you find that out." Fury smoothly replied.

James looked at him skeptically.
"And what would you get in return, because there is no way that you are doing this from the goodness in your heart. That is assuming you even have one."

Fury didn't even look hurt when he answered, more like he was proud that James recognized his offer for what it was: mutual gain for both parties, even if he didn't know yet what Fury hoped to get out of this.
"I'm leaving for Europe tomorrow, officially to disappear but I'd like dispose of some Hydra riddled parts of S.H.I.E.L.D. while I'm there and judging by your actions these past days I'm inclined to think you want the same thing. So I'm hoping we could help each other."

"So you want my help?"

"Yes, but I'm certain we'll both gain a lot from working together."

"Why should I trust you?" James asked, still not convinced that following Fury was the right choice.

Now Fury smirked.
"Let me tell you this kid: You shouldn't! But that doesn't mean we can't help each other."

James nodded. "Okay, fine but I'm free to go when I want, I won't be locked up ever again!"

He received a shrug.
"Don't think I would be able to stop you so fine, do we have a deal?"

When James nodded Fury started walking away and was already out the door when James heard him say something else.

"I'll find you after Rogers has been discharged."

Then he was gone and James was left with just his own thoughts again. After a few minutes he realized that he was actually looking forward to going on a Hydra hunt. To punishing the organization that was responsible for him being the way he was right now.
That while now he only had some vague knowledge about who he was that he had been a blank slate just days before so that it was getting better. That maybe he had, with Fury's help, a chance to find out who he was supposed to be.


Please let me know what you think.
Otje