"I think you're going too far, Barnes."

Natasha hummed while she rinsed the dishes, and though the hot water almost burned her skin, she quite enjoyed it. The simple repetitive task of running a plate under water and placing it inside the puzzle called the dishwasher helped keep her mind off of things; helped her know she wasn't in The Red Room anymore.

She was happy when she washed the dishes, so she volunteered every time, to Clint's joy. She almost considered stopping at one point, just to spite him, but it was fine since it helped everybody in the long run.

So she washed the dishes now, putting them in the dishwasher as she hummed random tunes of jumbled lullabies and listened to the sound of men fighting.

"Me? How the hell am I going too far?"

"You need to stop treating this like a personal matter and treat this like a regular mission. Interrogate, find out more- jesus, I can't believe I sound like Fury."

Natasha frowned as she listened, momentarily pausing her humming when she heard Tony grumble. Even when she wasn't looking at Stark, she could imagine him pacing around with his hands rubbing his face. She shook her head at the image, drying her hands with a handcloth.

"Interroga- I just met a friend that I never knew I had and found out he was tortured like me, and you're telling me that I'm going too far?"

Peter. They were arguing about the kid they found at the HYDRA base.

Her grip tightened around the cloth as she continued listening, tight lipped. "That's not what I mean, I just-" She hears him stutter for a bit, before he scoffs. "Listen, it's not that, it's just- what if he turns? What if he's just trying to soften you up? You know, or what if he becomes…"

"Like me?"

There was a silence, and Natasha felt her stomach tighten to a knot.

She'd been tortured before. Beaten down. Of course she has, she's Natasha Romanoff; trained in the Red Room with the other Black Widows. From the age of nothing she's been told she was only ever worth something when she succeeded in murdering someone, and when she didn't succeed…

And though she felt angry- furious, even- at Stark for even implying that, there was a sad truth in his words that she didn't want to admit, because they didn't know for a fact that the kid was okay. He barely talked, and even then, he only ever talked to Barnes.

She didn't want it to be true, but they were right. They had to get answers out of him, even if they had files and books to turn to, because who knows how many people he's killed when conscious, when he was awake and when he knew what he was doing and still did it.

The kid was probably gonna go to the Raft.

"You don't get to decide that," Bucky's furious retort snapped Natasha out of her thoughts and back into reality, where she was still holding the dishcloth tightly with her good hand. "He's terrified, Stark. He can barely hold a conversation yet you want us to interrogate him?"

"Fury told me to!" Tony snapped, and though Natasha knew he would never admit it, she could've sworn she heard his voice waver the smallest bit.

"Since when do you listen to Fury?" Natasha called out, turning the kitchen tap off before finally approaching them. Tony was standing with his arms closed, holding a laptop to his side while Bucky glared at him from the couch. She fought the urge to roll her eyes.

"Since today."

Natasha tilted her head in confusion as she watched Tony place the laptop down, plugging in a small USB before the screen filled with footage of the HYDRA base's first basement floor. The same empty halls were there, filled with rooms with only bars separating them from the others, only this time the lights flashed with red blaring lights with the date of the footage as the tenth of June this year.

Natasha watched with horror as she noticed Peter standing in one of the cells, his body stained with dirt and blood and mottled spots of black and blue. She swore she even saw a thin line on the palm of his hand before he had curled his fingers around one of the bars.

She wanted to stop watching.

She wanted to throw up.

She almost did.

Natasha listened to them speak, the boy's voice quiet yet almost emotionless before he began to put on his suit. She kept a special eye on his wrists as he snapped on what looked like a bracelet.

"Don't hold back."

The footage ended there, as the cameras seemed to have shut down after that. Natasha looked over at Barnes, who, up until this point, hasn't said anything since the video started. She sat down beside him, holding his non-metal arm in hopes of comforting him.

His friend had been ordered to kill him.

She knew it was not the time, but she really wanted to make a joke about Clint.

"James, you're okay, it's gonna be okay, it's not his fault-"

"There are more videos," Tony started, swallowing heavily before he continued to speak, "of him doing his… missions. He wasn't brainwashed like you for half of them. And even if he was, we don't have any proof of that."

James only seemed to close himself even more, his metal arm clenching into a fist tightly. Natasha wanted to glare at the billionaire more than anything else in the world.

Stark hesitated before speaking again, his voice quiet. "Unless you want to see what he can tell us, it's over. We have to turn him in."

Suddenly, FRIDAY announced, "boss, Peter seems to have spiraled into a panic attack."

Zemo realized almost too late that company had arrived- he had been looking inside a large and empty room, one he had found downstairs when he was searching for a filing room in hopes that HYDRA had physical copies of their work. Fortunately, he eventually found a different file folder, filled to the brim with photos of a small boy that couldn't be older than twelve.

Darkened photos of a boy laying down unconscious on a metal table while people crowded around him, pictures of people lying dead on the ground. He didn't have time to look through all of them, though, before he heard muffled voices from rooms away from him.

He kept the files close to his side, stepping over a comatose body before slinking out of the room, hoping that he could avoid being seen. His other hand hovered just above the gun in his back pocket as he snuck around, though he didn't want to kill anybody.

At least not yet.

"Har, d'you see that truck when we were walking in?"

"No, what truck?"

His truck.

Zemo quickly slunk out of the building before running to the truck, almost throwing himself inside before driving away. When he was sure he had gotten out safely, he finally let himself breathe, not realizing that he had been holding his breath.

sorry for the long wait ! i had a lot of trouble writing this chapter. im sorry its short, but i think you're gonna like the next chapter even better :-) let me know what you think so far!