"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." - Robert Frost


Chapter 9: Procedures

Natasha and Steve walked out of the gym together, leaving Clint staring after them, confused. She started planning out what to tell him, but she wasn't given much time to do so because he stopped her out in the hallway, his hands going to his hips and his jaw squaring. He was already preparing for a fight, which was actually pretty smart of him. However, she could be just as stubborn as him when she wanted to be.

"What's up?" she asked innocently.

He raised one eyebrow at her, unimpressed. "Well, for starters, you've been avoiding me."

"I wasn't avoiding you, Steve, I was just-"

"Nice try." He didn't even let her finish that lie. He knew her too well. And this, this was why she didn't let people get close to her. "What happened earlier, with Bucky?"

She glanced away, shrugging. "It wasn't… He was just confused."

Steve didn't look quite convinced. "Then why skip dinner just to avoid me?"

"I didn't know what to tell you. Besides, it's Shark Week." Normally, she would have reminded Tony and they all would have watched Shark Week together during dinner, but she didn't want to just admit that Steve was right and she had been avoiding him.

Yeah, he was just not fooled by any of her bullshit. The longer they were friends, the better he understood the way she dealt with things. Besides that, he had a natural ability to read people. "Natasha…" he sighed, narrowing his eyes. "Bucky is my best friend. If there's anything we can do to help him, I want to know about it." He hesitated, then looked down. "He called you Natalia. That was your old name. How did he know that?"

Now that he had her backed into a corner, he was less stubborn, almost pleading with her to give him the answers he wanted. She didn't have any particularly good lies left, so in a last ditch effort, she begged, "Steve, I just don't want to talk about it, okay? It wasn't important."

His expression softened, and he switched his hands from his hips to his pockets, but he didn't back off. "Tasha, I think I need to know."

He probably did, too. She just didn't want him to know some things about her yet. However, she sighed and started explaining. "He trained me for a while. In the Red Room." She didn't know what to do with her hands, so she crossed her arms as if to defend herself. "He was called Kiryanov then. Didn't talk a lot. Headmistress – my handler, sort of – she introduced him to us by having him kill one of the other girls." She stared at the floor between them, trying to keep her expression impassive. "I don't think I was afraid, I just… Anyway, he trained me most out of any of them. He was…" She searched for the right word. "Cold and intimidating. But we trained together a lot. We made a good team. And then…" How was she supposed to do this? She almost turned and ran, almost lied. She didn't want to do this. Steve would hate her, maybe. She kept her voice cold and professional. "We needed each other. It was a hard place to be, the Red Room. Our handlers weren't kind. So we…" She shook her head vehemently, didn't want to say the words. It was none of Steve's business, anyway. "We slept together. A few times. But then one day, Kiryanov – Bucky, I mean – his handler was trying to flirt with me. Generally being a creep." She smiled thinly. It had been only the first occurrence out of many like it through the decades. She'd grown to hate men like Lukin, but it wasn't a problem anymore. She wasn't called the Black Widow for nothing. "He, um… Bucky got really angry. I guess both of us had gotten too attached to each other… He attacked his handler." Steve raised an eyebrow in some surprise. "He was cursing Lukin up and down with a Brooklyn accent as thick as potato soup." Natasha still couldn't stop a small smile at the memory. It had been invigorating and humorous, at the time. "I think he would have murdered Lukin, but his conditioning was too strong. His handler got away, yelled some kind of trigger word at him. He stopped fighting right away." She tightened her jaw, closed her eyes briefly. Kiryanov's screams still echoed in her memory. "They wiped him and they made me watch. It's a procedure… I'm sure you saw it in his files, but they put him in a chair and electrocuted him until he passed out. When I saw him next, he was blank." She dared to look up at Steve's face with a little shrug. "He didn't remember me."

The Captain looked heartbroken, and for once, Natasha wasn't sure what he was going to do. She waited for him to say something, to ask her why she hadn't told her sooner, to reprimand her for lying to him. But he didn't. Instead, he shook his head and looked down.

"I'm sorry, Nat. I shouldn't have made you tell me about all that."

She blinked. "I…" How did Steve keep surprising her? At this point, she should know the way he thought. "No, you needed to know," she finally sighed. "I'd rather you hear it from me than anywhere else."

His ocean eyes were tinged with grey compassion. She stopped looking at them.

Steve reached out, tentatively, and pulled her into a hug. She was startled for a moment, but then she relaxed, accepting the comfort. Those memories were ones she didn't like to think about, all of them cold.

After a moment she pulled away, giving him a grateful smile. "He's going to be very confused," she said. "He probably thinks this is Hydra, still, but I'm from the Red Room. We're going to have to use this to convince him that he's not with either of them anymore."

"Do you think he'll listen?"

"With you leveling those puppy eyes at him and my Russian, yeah, he probably will. I just don't know what his reaction will be."

Steve gaped indignantly for a moment, before spluttering, "Puppy eyes?"

"Oh definitely, Cap, they're famous. Ask Tony or Clint, they'll tell you."

"I do not have puppy eyes!"

Natasha laughed at him and punched his arm, then they walked upstairs to look for Bucky.


Early the next morning, Tony was already in the lab with Barnes again, his hair still singed and his left arm still red with several painful burns. He was determined to figure this problem out before Barnes got blown up. So far he'd avoided a lecture from Steve, mostly because Steve probably thought that he'd learned his lesson. Which he hadn't. There was a lot the Star Spangled Man with a Plan didn't know about Tony Stark, but he would soon.

It seemed that the explosives were rigged so that if they were removed from their housings, they'd blow up on a timer. Because everything just had to be more complicated.

"Okay JARVIS, pull up my BuckyArmDISASTER_FixItFelix file, please," he commanded, rolling up his sleeves.

The file appeared at his workstation, neatly organized into categories, containing info on Wolverine's adamantium skeleton, prosthetics made of various materials, Hydra's strange mechanical eye implants… basically anything that Tony thought would be at all relevant to this situation. So far, it was looking like he'd have to directly hack into the technology and deactivate it. That wouldn't be too hard, but there was always the danger of a failsafe of some kind that made the bombs detonate before he could finish hacking them.

Still, better than just leaving the arm as it was. He just had to explain to Steve first what he wanted to do.

"So, Terminator, I have an idea," Tony said to Barnes pleasantly. He always liked to talk while he worked, and while he could have just talked to JARVIS, he wanted to make an effort to be friendly with the Soldier. "And I think I can keep you from blowing up."

Barnes blinked, brow furrowing.

Tony sighed. "Now would be a good time for you to congratulate me as a genius and tell me how glad you are that you aren't going to die."

"Thank you for keeping me alive," Barnes mumbled, his expression blank.

Geesh. Why were super soldiers so hard to impress? Tony started working again, mumbling to himself. If he had JARVIS hack into the main electrical network of the arm and deactivate it, then he could probably hack into the bombs and syringe and deactivate those. Once he did that, he could open up the arm and pull the murder devices out and after that, he could take the arm off and make a stronger, better one for Bucky (although he wanted to keep the same appearance; it looked so freaking cool) but maybe it would be smart not to give Bucky his arm back right away because he was gonna freak out a lot and Steve would probably agree with him, but he didn't care what Steve thought because Steve was just a stupid World War 2 relic with muscles and a pretty face and Steve got in the way of Tony doing what he wanted to do.

"Hey J, can you tell Bruce and Nat and Steve and Clint to come down here?"

"Of course, sir."

Tony occupied his time waiting by running a few last tests on Bruce's stretchy pants. Fireproof, check. Impossible to rip, check. Basically bulletproof, check. Laser proof, sort of check. Vibranium or adamantium proof? He couldn't really test that. Probably not.

"What's up, Tony?" Clint asked, sauntering into the room. He looked like he was tired but trying to hide it.

"We have to decide what to do with our friend Bucky's arm. I have a plan, but I want Avengers approval."

"Oh." Clint nodded politely to Barnes and sat down on one of the many tables in the room. He was holding one of his arrows, twirling it between his fingers effortlessly.

It was only about five more minutes before Bruce, Natasha, and Steve made their way to the laboratory. Tony put down the scraps of wire and metal that he was fashioning into a mini bicycle and crossed his arms over his chest, moving over to stand by Barnes. He noted, briefly, that Barnes' focus shifted from his knees to Natasha when she walked into the room.

"What's going on, Tony?" Steve asked, arms crossed over his chest. The super serum gave that guy some huge muscles. Steve's biceps were as big as Tony's head, for crying out loud!

"Well, Sleeping Beauty," Tony began. Steve rolled his eyes. "According to my research, I can disable the stuff in Terminator's arm. With JARVIS' help, of course. We'll hack into the arm itself and turn off all security and sensors. Then we'll hack into the inner workings of the arm, specifically the weapons, and turn them off. Then I get to figuring out how to get the damn thing off him without hurting him." He took a breath. "If you guys all agree, I'll get started right now."

Clint nodded pretty fast. "Sounds like a good idea. What do I know about technology? Anyway, I gotta go do something." He took off before anyone could say anything.

"Okay….." Tony drawled. "Bruce, I'll need your help after I get the arm disabled."

"You have it," Bruce said firmly. He adjusted his glasses and sent a kind smile in Barnes' direction. Barnes was still staring at Natasha.

Sam shrugged. "I'm good with it. Steve?"

Steve and Natasha looked at each other, then Steve nodded at Tony. "It makes sense. Worth a try, I guess."

"Okay, fantastic! I'm gonna go ahead and get started-"

"Oh no you're not." Everyone, except for Natasha, froze. Tony groaned inwardly and began writing his own eulogy. Pepper Potts marched into his lab in her three-inch black stilettos, business suit and skirt immaculate as always. He really wanted to kiss her, except she was furious. "Anthony Edward Stark, you have a lot of explaining to do. I needed you at that meeting the other day, and in case you forgot" – she came straight up to him and shoved him back a few steps – "We had a dinner date last night. Which you did not attend. The press is already eating it up. PR has a lot of work to do to keep this one from spreading, you wasted perfectly good dinner reservations, and you didn't tell me that Bucky was here." She put her hands on her hips and glared balefully at him. "I want an explanation and I want one now."

"Uh, hi, Pep." Tony cleared his throat, shuffling his feet. "I didn't mean to forget the date, I was trying to keep Bucky from blowing up."

Pepper just raised one perfect eyebrow at him. He kept explaining.

"See, his metal arm has bombs in it, and poison, and a tracking device, and I have to get all that stuff out before I can even take the arm off of him. And I was digging around in there and I just forgot – you know how I am while I'm working, Pep, so please don't be mad – and yesterday afternoon I almost blew up and…"

"That's enough, Tony," Pepper finally sighed. "We'll talk more later, alright?" She directed her piercing green eyes at Steve. "Would you introduce me to your friend?" she asked him.


Bucky watched the newcomer to the lab nervously. From the way his handler spoke to her, very kindly and deferentially, and the way the technician, Stark, was almost afraid of her, he suspected she was a very powerful person around here. He thought that was strange though – women didn't have strong positions in Hydra; neither did blacks or Jews or other minorities. Why should they?

But the Red Room… that was different. And Natalia wasn't afraid of the woman. On the contrary; she moved forward and hugged her. He was so confused.

"Hey, Nat," the woman said, smiling. "How's everything going?"

"Oh, not bad," Natalia chuckled. "Lots of testosterone."

The other woman nodded sympathetically. "What do you say we go out for coffee?"

"Good idea." Both of the ladies turned and walked out of the lab. As soon as they were gone, Captain Rogers burst out laughing.

"Tony, you should have seen your face. You looked like you were facing a firing squad."

"Hey, don't joke about that, I might still have to," the technician muttered.

The Captain just laughed harder.

The Soldier frowned, slightly puzzled. Normally, his handler talked about not hurting anyone and not punishing him… now he was laughing because the technician might die. Then again, he and Stark had been fighting yesterday, and then something blew up; maybe the tech deserved it.

"Well, I better get started while I still can," Stark muttered, and the Captain stopped laughing, his face smoothing into a grim smile.

"Yeah. I'll stick around."

"You do that."


It ended up taking Tony exactly two hours to disable the arm. Although it was a touchy process, with a few moments of unnecessary panic, the job was done faster than anyone had expected.

"Now, your arm is going to be a dead weight until I can take it off; sorry about that. I just can't finish working on it tonight; I owe Pepper a date and a night in, probably."

The Soldier, naturally, didn't respond, but Steve nodded. "Great. Okay, Buck, you've got some free time now; if you need anything, I'll be in the gym."

Steve straightened from where he'd been leaning on the wall and strode out of the lab; Tony started cleaning things up and straightening. He heard Bucky get up to leave, but didn't pay much attention. He had projects to get to.


A/N: I finished this chapter a long time ago and then I didn't post it... for some reason. Soooo... Anyway. Here's a chapter for you, which I'm pretty sure I like but I haven't actually read it in a while because as I said, I read it and edited it forever ago.

Love ya'll! Please review!


Edited May 30, 2016.