Devil's Bone

Chapter 7

Natasha wanted things to go back to how they were with Steve before the Accords and before her miscarriage. There was a part of her that felt like she was betraying Alexei, Melina, and Yelena by loving Steve, but the other side wanted to retire from the spy life. Wanted to retire from everything.

She was tired of the jobs, of keeping secrets from the people she considered family. She didn't even hate Bucky or resent him anymore, unlike Alexei, Yelena, and Melina. She just wanted Steve and the rest of this to go away. She wanted life to feel remotely normal again.

She didn't want to lie anymore to any of them. Everyone had been lied too so much. She was only added onto the drama. Natasha ran herself a bath, pouring in her jasmine scented bubble bath, mixing it with the water. She sighed tiredly, trying to settle into the water, when she felt her phone vibrate. As she looked at it, she saw it was a text message from Melina.

'I need to talk to you, Alexei and Yelena tomorrow in Zagreb, Croatia urgently. It's about her!' The text message said cryptically. Natasha felt a sense of dread wash over her at the text.

'I'll need to make an excuse to Steve, Tony, and the others first,' she texted quickly. Melina replied four minutes later.

'We are your family, Natalia, not them!' Melina had messaged back furiously. Natasha closed her in frustration, breaking down in tears at her dilemma.

"Whoever hired that team to assassinate the mystery girl really wants her dead. Tell Barnes and Carter to get a blood sample from her so we can test it for DNA. Maybe she's in the international database," Fury recommended sternly. Everyone nodded but Tony shook his head.

"We need to send someone else to watch over Barnes, Fury. I personally believe that he's compromised. His judgement is skewed because he's convinced that this girl might be the dead girl from the files. Who knows what he might have done with her if she was in the Red Room," Tony insisted harshly, causing most of the people to look at him in disapproval.

"We can't send Belova or Romanoff? They've been sent on a mission in Zagreb, Croatia to track down a few remaining Flag Smashers. Who else can we send?" Grant asked quietly, his face bruised from his fight with a Flag Smasher during a mission in London, Great Britain.

"Send in Steve. He's become really good at working undercover and Bucky trusts him," Sam suggested diplomatically. It couldn't be him, seeing as the Smiling Tiger was in Madripoor.

Ross had an expression of disdain, while Tony was cold but grudgingly agreed to the arrangement.

"Try not to mess up, Capsicle," Tony said coldly, before walking out of the conference room.

Steve sighs a bit before nodding. "I can do that. I'm sure Bucky hasn't gotten super far. I could help him out together."

Morgan Stark was determined to make her daddy happy.

He'd been sad ever since Captain America's best friend, Bucky Barnes, had been pardoned by the government and found not guilty at his trial. Her dad had gone into a rage, shouting that Barnes was a monster and anyone on Steve's side was to blame for Thanos winning.

So she was going to somehow make him smile again. She was going to build an AI, like he did. She already had a name picked out for him as well. Her dad had explained to her that he had created Ultron to protect the world.

Maybe she could do that again, and somehow bring him back to make not only her daddy happy but the world happy. All she knew was that she was tired of hearing him fighting all the time with the Avengers and she wanted to somehow change that.

Maybe a new Ultron could do that?

She had found his memory core not that long ago. Maybe if she followed his blueprints from years ago…she could, do it? She didn't want any more arguing or yelling…all she wanted was for this to end.

So that was that. She was going to do it. One way or another. Daddy had a lab always near him. It would be the perfect time to do it. Maybe they could finally figure out how to end all the fighting. Maybe she'll be the cause of it.

Daddy would be happy. They would see they were wrong about him. Somehow.

When Steve had arrived in Madripoor, it looked the same as it always had from before, with bright lights and big neon signs drawing in anyone from a mile away. However, his eyes were more focused on trying to get to Bucky's place.

He had talked with Sharon about where to go and she had directed him willingly, leading him towards midtown where a lot of the higher ups in the crime world lived. It was also where the mystery woman lived, apparently.

Hopefully they would be able to get through to this quickly.

He had knocked on the door, and for a moment there was silence. He had been expecting that, considering Bucky was most certainly not expecting anyone to come by and greet him. But he slowly opened the door, and when he saw it was Steve his eyes widened.

"Where the hell did you come from?" He asks as he lets him in, giving him an embrace. When Steve stepped back, he closes the door behind him, turning to Bucky.

"Lot has happened at the base while you were gone," Steve states with a raised brow. "I'm not longer in charge of the Avengers. Ross gave it to Tony."

Bucky's brow raises. "You're serious?"

"He did. They were upset about our choice in operation of sending you here." Bucky lets out a long sigh, going to sit on the couch at that. "We defended you the best we could, but at the end of the day, they had the last call. Sam suggested I come over here to fill out their needs."

Bucky's brow raises once more. "Which are?"

"Keep an eye on you."

Bucky feels himself groan before standing. "How the hell am I ever going to be an Avenger in their eyes?" He asks, his voice rising a bit in anger. "Everything I do now, even after all the amends and everything I've done, it'll never work…all I want is to prove myself. I know I'm a piece of shit but…I'm fucking trying."

"I know you are, Buck," Steve says gently, letting his hands rest on the man's shoulders. "I know you are. And trust me, we all see it. There are some that are just stuck in their ways that I don't believe are going to change soon. Those are the ones that, when they do inevitably open their eyes, they'll see the most change in you."

Bucky snorts a bit. "That one of your little political speeches?" he asks.

"No," Steve answers, shaking his head. "Trust me, I highly doubt I'm going to be doing much more than you are here. If anything, while I know how to stay undercover, if I get recognized here, it's game over." He gestures to you. "At least with you, not a lot of people know your face. Even this girl doesn't." He glances over at Bucky's hands and notices there seemed to be dried blood on it. "Speaking of that…"

Bucky glances down at his hand and feels his cheeks turn red. "It's not on me, I swear – Maria wanted to interrogate the men that came, and she ended up killing them. Turns out they were sent by a woman named Melina Vostokoff. She wants to end the woman for some reason."

"Well, we knew about the attack but your…hands?"

Bucky sighs a bit. "I went over to help her a couple of days ago after she was attacked. Try and get more info on her. I guess I just didn't clean off all the blood afterwards." He looks up at Steve and shakes his head. "She is a mystery woman…definitely likes to keep her identity a secret."

Steve nods before going to sit down next to him. "I want to ask you a question, and just respond the best you can." Bucky nods. "Are you sure that you don't know her from back then?"

Bucky sighs, swallowing a bit. "I…feel like I do." He glances back at Steve. "If you saw the way she moves, and what she had – I mean, she's like a carbon copy of Nat but she's ruthless. She even had some of the same weapons. She had to be trained in Red Room…but I can't recall her for the life of me. That's why I'm trying so hard to figure out if she's truly Ana or not. Maria seems like a reasonable name but…don't know."

Steve nods quietly. "Didn't you and Nat have a thing back when you were there?" Bucky quietly nods. He didn't like to think about it often. There was so much pain involved in everything there. "Do you think you might have known this girl like that?"

"I genuinely can't remember," Bucky answers honestly, glancing at him. "At this point, all I'm looking for is for some way to figure out if she's truly who she says she is. Maybe after I can search more."

Steve sighs but nods. "We got a lot of work ahead of us, then."

Natasha had waited patiently, her arms crossed against her chest with Yelena. It seemed it would take hours for Melina and Alexei to arrive, but when they did, it felt like ages.

"You two are worse on time than I am, and that's say something," Yelena mutters.

"Quiet, you two," Melina states, looking between them. "We have a serious problem, and I believe you two know what it is."

Natasha and Yelena exchange an uneasy glance, as they look at Alexei who thankfully didn't know what was going on. If he found out Melina had been lying to him for all these years then things would get bloody.

"Why did you call me here, Melina?" Alexei asked suspiciously. He hadn't aged well, and it was clearly showing. Despite having the Super-Soldier, it was a far weaker version than the one Bucky and Steve had running through their veins.

The woman ignored him as she drank from her glass of red wine, her eyes cold and emotionless. Sometimes Natasha wondered if the woman did genuinely care about her and Yelena, like Alexei did, or if she was just using them.

"I believe that despite our best efforts to purge the Red Room, it still exists. Over in Madripoor, a young woman killed the Power Broker, before taking over the city. She's killed several people who tried to break the new rules she implemented as some shot way of a moral code. I refused to acknowledge the bitch, and I tried to kill her…but she defeated me," she said sourly, a hint of bitterness in her voice.

"What did you do, Melina?" Natasha asked warningly, praying that the woman hadn't compromised Bucky. If she had, then Steve would go ballistic and raise hell if Bucky were hurt. Not to mention the others.

Her surrogate mother regarded her with a cold expression that would have terrified anyone else. But she wasn't frightened of her anymore, not after seeing what she was afraid of.

"I hired a death squadron to kill the little whore. She won't survive against them," Melina said confidently, causing Natasha to stare at the woman in shock, before her gaze breaks. Fuck.

She had enough and was about to leave, when Melina grabbed her right wrist in a tight grip.

"Remember where your true loyalties are, Natasha. I don't want you to end up like her…who chose HIM over us," Melina said meaningfully, her grip tight. Natasha nodded coldly, ripping her arm away and started walking back to her car, refusing to be intimidated.

'What have I done, god?' She thought bitterly, climbing into her car, and turning on the heating.

Ana had cleaned up her apartment after she disposed of the bodies. She had dumped Diego's body in Low Town, knowing that someone would post it on the internet.

The other three remaining bodies had been dealt with. She hated the Red Room and what they had done to her. but at the very least the teachers knew how to teach all of them in how to dispose of a corpse after killing the individual.

She used a luminal torch to see if any bloodstains remained, relieved when she didn't see any. Despite being near people, she desperately wanted a few furry companions. She needed something to keep her company, other than the people she would meet.

She wasn't naïve. Ana knew that they would be targets but she wouldn't let anyone hurt them. She was going to ask X-Con Security Consultants if they would be willing to install security at her house.

She decided to take a shower and rest up for the night. She wasn't taking any chances now, considering that Melina had tried to kill her twice now.

The older woman still thought she was the same, useless, naive, and helpless little girl all those years ago. She sighed heavily as she trudged upstairs, taking off her bloody, filthy clothes and threw them on the floor. There was no salvaging them. She'd burn the clothes tomorrow.

She stepped into the en suite bathroom, turning on the hot water, as she looked at herself in the full body mirror. Scars decorated her body, mainly on her chest, her right arm and some were on her back, and left leg.

Bullet wounds, knife wounds and there was a faded scar on her stomach. She touched it hesitantly, feeling a strange sense of heartache and loss for no apparent reason.

Bucky had gone into the Brass Monkey club, taking Steve with him as they saw Sharon was there. She gestured for them to join her, as they went to a table at the back, where they wouldn't be disturbed.

"So, I did some asking around and apparently the woman calling herself Maria Kapitonova is using another woman's name. This is the real Maria Kapitonova. And she's been dead for the last six years, Bucky and Steve." Sharon explained grimly, showing them a photo of a young woman with red hair, brown eyes, and a scar on her throat.

Bucky had known that the woman was using a false identity, but this just proved it. Deep down, he knew that she closely resembled Anastasia. Maybe they were related?

"So, she's using the identity of a dead woman whose been dead for the last six years. What else have you got, Sharon?" Steve asked intrigued. They were finally getting a fresh lead.

"Yeah, I was hoping you'd ask me that question. I did some digging, and Fury emailed me these files that he and Hill found at an abandoned HYDRA base in Voronezh, Voronezh Oblast. Turns out, HYDRA and the Red Room were both working closely together on a project," she said meaningfully. "Something we should talk about elsewhere."

Bucky and Steve got her point and left with her to go to her house, leaving behind the bar.

Once they arrived, Sharon continued from where she left off, and handed them copies of the files, closing the door behind her.

"The Red Room and HYDRA discovered that the girls at the Red Room who had the Super-Soldier serum were far more able to carry a child of the Winter Soldiers. There are lists of names who were chosen for the program. The project began in the 1990's, and a lot of the pregnancies resulted in the women dying from complications due to the babies developing quicker than a normal baby," Sharon explained gravely as Bucky read the file.

He recognized a few of the names, but felt his blood run cold when his eyes drifted to two familiar names.

'Red Guardian and Black Widow - viable pregnancy. Scans confirm that Vostokoff is carrying twin daughters. No complications detected so far into the pregnancy. Vostokoff has confirmed that she has suffered no cramping, or any sign of miscarriage.'

"Holy shit, Steve. What if Alexei and Melina were the parents of Anastasia and her twin sister?" He asked quietly. Steve's expression was of grimness and concern.

"That's more than likely, but Natasha never mentioned that Alexei and Melina had kids," Steve said hesitantly. Bucky knew the man didn't want to think Natasha had lied to him again.

"There's more. On the second page, according to Dr Lyudmila Kudrin, only three women survived carrying the pregnancies to full term. Vostokoff ended up giving birth on June 18, 1998. It says here that she delivered two twin girls," Sharon said wearily, causing Bucky to frown.

Bucky read more of the file, feeling his stomach roll in disgust, seeing that the project had been a partial success. They had put the project on hold in order to try and create more of the Super-Soldier Serum.

He felt a cold sensation run down his spine, as he thought of Ana then. Maybe she was Alexei and Melina's daughter…possibly.

When the rest of the team had heard back later on what Sharon had discovered regarding the mystery woman, that had sent them on a trip to try and figure out who exactly her family was. Having Sharon reveal that there was actually a twin sister to the girl was an amazing lead.

So, one of the Avengers took it into her own hands once she heard that – namely, Wanda. She knew what it was like to lose a twin, and if the young woman that they were looking after really did lose one, there was most likely a hole there that would never be filled. The least she could do is find out if they were right.

After that, they had searched all over the internet, from typical shit to the dark web, trying to see if they could find some sort of league to get them in the right direction. And soon, it wasn't long before they discovered something. The last name Liukin was associated with a Russian cemetery.

Instantly, Wanda had assembled the team to fly to where it was, Fury agreeing to it nonetheless considering that it was for a mission. Thankfully the quinjet was quick enough to get them there a little faster than the normal airtime. Even so, arriving had Wanda shaking to see if this was real.

They had showed up to the cemetery, stepping in and searching for her name. And it wasn't long before they did find it. Wanda had stood in front of it for a moment, feeling Clint let a hand rest against her shoulder. 'Angelina Aleksandrovna Liukin.' This was it. This was the twin.

They were right.

They had looked all over to see if there was even a possibility of another Liukin, but funnily, there were none under the names they were looking for. It was mainly strong Russian names that had been attached to it.

"I can't believe it," she whispers, looking down at the grave, kneeling down. "There's a lot more to this woman than we realize…she was buried so deep."

Clint sighs softly before nodding. "Sometimes that's the case with these things, but…this is good in a way." Wanda looks up to him. "Now that we know for sure that she exists, we have a DNA match-up. She is most likely in the International Data Base if she was dead. We were able to find her originally. If we can somehow get a blood sample from Maria, we can see if she's really Ana or not."

Wanda stands, pulling her jacket around her tightly. It was still freezing cold here. "Don't you think that's a bit…sketchy? I mean both Steve and Bucky are there. I don't know how they're going to just get a blood sample off of her."

"I'm sure they can figure it out," Clint assures. "We have two of the best super-soldiers in the world. They're not that dumb."

"They're also not that smart," Wanda mutters.

"True," Clint chuckles before helping her stand. "Come on, let's take some pictures and get this to Fury."

As had been expected, they had gotten the proof to Fury as quickly as possible of the life of Angelina. And as they had expected, Fury had requested to Bucky not that long after to somehow get a blood sample from the mystery woman.

To which both Bucky and Steve had sat down for hours, trying to figure out the best way to do so. Because who can just…do that?

Eventually, though, they had settled on something that might spurt up one. "How about you just take her out on a date?"

Bucky's brow raises in response. "You're serious?"

"Yeah, why not? I mean, there's a high probability that you'll most likely get attacked because she has so many bounty's out for her right now. It's the best option you have that's legal in our eyes." He shrugs a bit. "Or you can just attack her mysteriously."

"No," Bucky instantly states. His quick response surprised Steve a bit. "I mean, I…I don't want to hurt her more than she's already been hurt. You can tell from a mile away that she has gone through some shit."

"Okay…don't worry, we won't do that," Steve reassures him, rubbing his back. "But we still need to get that sample, one way or another…I believe you'll be able to do it"

Bucky sighs a bit before glancing up at him. "I haven't been on a date since the 1940's."

Steve snickers. "I think you'll be fine."

After their conversation, it wasn't long before Bucky had asked Maria to come with him on a date, something he had surprisingly been quite nervous to do. Again, it had been so long since he had done something like this, but he knew that it was needed for what they were planning on doing.

And she had agreed after a little bit, deciding that they would head out to a smaller restaurant in Madripoor, one that wouldn't attract so much attention. When he had come to pick her up at her apartment, he had waited downstairs for her to come. When she arrived, he felt his mouth drop slightly.

You know, it was getting really damn hard to do this mission when the subject was so goddamn gorgeous.

Enjoy, and review :)