She didn't make it far, just a bit past Fort Wayne, before she could no longer keep her eyes on the road. She pulled over from the interstate and found a motel, that turned out a bit less dingy on the inside than it seemed from its curb appeal, rented a single room then crashed onto the floor the moment she was through the door.

She didn't bother with beds anymore. She kept on postponing that step for "after" and – as the "after" got pushed further and further back – she got used to the thought. It might be weird, but people had stranger quirks. Those added character, right? Some collected vintage postcards, some lived with seventeen cats and Natasha Romanoff slept on the floor. No big deal.

Despite the tiredness, the sleep refused to claim her. Meditation would be a futile attempt considering how the last try ended just a couple of hours earlier, so she just lay there, thinking.

The Winter Soldier was a mystery that multiple generations of agents cut their teeth on. A mystical creature, almost. An urban legend. And there he was, waiting for her on the top of that roof, a broken man with a mind that was put through a blender. Over and over and over again, from the looks of things.

She wasn't sure what made her certain it was truly him. She should be questioning it; the age didn't match, and he hasn't been seen for more than a decade now. Yet there was no doubt in her mind that it was. One look and she knew. And the rest must have an explanation.

Age was easy, she only needed to look in the mirror to find the answer to that, a theory further confirmed by his quick reflexes and strength. It could be even the exact same formula, the dates and locations matched, roughly.

The other details were more of a mystery. Why did he reappear now, after years of inactivity? Probably again, if it really was him, back in the nineties. Where was he when he wasn't active? Were Hydra the ones to control him all this time, or did they snatch him somewhere along the way and used the same tech they manipulated Cole with on him, making him a pawn?

What would happen to the man now? Did she do enough for him to regain his sense of self and start a recovery process, like Cole finally managed, at least to some extent? Or was it not enough and the tendrils of control would crawl back into his mind and drag him under? And, even if they don't, would he be able to stay out of Hydra's gasp or would they find him and put him through the process again.

Now that she saw the machine's effects on the brain for herself, she understood Loki's revulsion all the better. It was one thing to hurt a person's body, but to invade one's mind in such a way was a hundredfold worse. She also understood why Loki thought it was even more cruel than the scepter's control. Where – according to what Loki told her – the staff's spell took one's mind and pushed it aside, Hydra's machine pulled it out and shattered it to pieces, replacing the remains with harsh, repeated training until not a hint of the original personality was left.

And so, yet again, it turned out that the worst enemy to mankind are the humans themselves.

A few nights of more or less restful sleep and a couple of decent meals later Natasha could with a high degree of surety say her body no longer felt like giving up, curling into a ball, and sleeping until winter. Which was right about time because she stayed in one place far too long already. Her mind wasn't as quick to recover and any attempt she made at reaching for the trace still culminated with a splitting headache and – on one occasion – even blacking out. So, as much as she was eager to try to reach out again, that had to wait.

Again.

At least now she knew Loki was still out there, somewhere. She kept on pushing the insistent thought that he might be dead already and she was just chasing shadows to the darkest, deepest corner of her mind and focused on other, more productive pursuits, but it was there, nonetheless, lurking and waiting for a moment of weakness. The brief glimpse helped to silence it, for now.

There were no more signs of the Winter Soldier, so perhaps he did manage to slip his masters' grasp and disappear into the woodwork. Natasha found herself hoping he did.

That didn't ease her anxiety, not fully. They found her, time after time, no matter how well she hid her tracks, no matter how cautious she was. She only took two jobs since the mishap at the border and it was weeks ago, her last contact broke up abruptly and she's been laying low since then. Yet, they still got to her, somehow. And, even if the Winter Soldier were no longer on her tail, they still had enough people and resources to keep chasing until they eliminated the threat, and that deadline depended only on how good she was at avoiding the pursuit.

She already checked her car for markers and scanned her devices for tracing software, multiple times, with exact same result – nothing. That also did little to make her feel safe. No matter how far she ran, as long as she stayed around other people there was always a risk of someone recognizing her. Her face was made public not once, but twice. First during the invasion and then later, when she was publicly named a fugitive from the law and every news channel ran a material about it, burning her image into the mind of every American who didn't live under a rock. She was good at disguises, but not that good. If only she learned about illusions from Loki… That would have come pretty damn handy right about now. The topic never came up though, it wasn't important to what they were trying to achieve, and she had no basis, no angle from which she could even begin to approach the subject.

Leaving the country and going far enough away to a place where people didn't concern themselves with US affairs was the only way that would guarantee at least some peace, but she couldn't do that. So, she kept on moving.

She moved on now, too. Five days in one place was already pushing it far enough.

The bag landed in the trunk and she paused, one hand on the hatch, the other over her gun. The shrubs rustled again.

"You can come out. I know you're in there," she called.

The overgrown holly bush parted, and the Winter Soldier stepped out and onto the parking lot. He looked different, no longer clean-shaven, with his hair pulled into a ponytail, and wearing civilian clothes: some jeans, hiking boots and a long-sleeved sports jacket, despite the ninety-degree heat.

His hands were stashed in his pockets and she eyed him cautiously, trying to judge if he had a hidden gun or not.

"I'm unarmed," he said, as if sensing her precariousness. Or simply noticing her glare.

"How did you find me?"

"Your gun," he said and pointed his chin at her side, where her holster was hidden under her sweater.

"You tagged my gun?!" Damn, she didn't even think about that. It also meant that he found it, took it apart and left it where it was, after she stabbed him and chained him to a radiator then fainted like a wilting flower trying to undo some of the damage, leaving herself vulnerable.

"You can ditch all your equipment or your car, but not your weapons," he said, then pulled a device out of his pocket. It looked like a mobile phone and would pass as such in public, but she quickly recognized it as a surveillance monitor. He handed it to her. "You'll want to destroy it."

"Why?"

"I got rid of the rest of my gear but kept this to find you."

Even if the device wasn't being traced per se, it still connected to the satellite network and triangulating its location was an easy job for an organization with Hydra's resources.

She dropped it on the asphalt and squashed it with her heel, then kicked the remainders into a storm drain. "Why look for me?"

"I need answers."

"I don't have that many to offer."

"It's still more than I have."

She sighed. "Get in. I don't want to be here when they come to pick you up. I bet you don't want that either."

They've been driving for a while, without either of them speaking. She watched him discreetly from the corner of her eye. As soon as they left the sprawl and were out in the open road he slumped in the chair and his vigilance slipped. He no longer seemed half-dead like he did the last she saw him and the way he moved didn't betray he was in pain, so the joint venture of her magic and his enhanced body must've dealt with the worst of the injury. He still looked tired.

"So," she started, after the silence turned from uneasy to tense, "did you remember your name?"

"It's… James," he said, trying it out. "I think."

She hesitated. "I'm Natasha." It didn't change much either way. "Perhaps you knew that already."

He shook his head. "I didn't need your name to kill you."

"So… What is it that you wanted to talk about?"

The metal fingers curled and uncurled nervously in his lap. The movement was smooth and felt natural, nothing like the jerky, cumbersome prosthetics from the mainstream market. The artificial limb was a state-of-the-art piece of technology, something that could come out of Stark's lab. Although, she suspected, Stark would go for something less invasive and less permanent if given an option.

"I can't make sense of all the things in my head. I… It's all a blur and there's…," he said, his voice strained. "What you did to me… How were you able to do that?"

She bit her lip, considering. What could she say for him to believe her but not deem her dangerous at the same time?

"I have a small gift of…" There were no two ways around it. "Telepathy. I can sense the surface level of people's thoughts when I touch them. I could see the barrier that was put in your mind and I poked at it and what you now experience is what spilled through that hole." It was basically what happened, only with a bit more magic in the mix.

He frowned but didn't comment, his face drawn in thought. What she said probably didn't stand out as that weird compared to other things swarming in his mind right now. She wished she could reach in and see for herself, but the nape of her neck started to prickle at the very notion.

"Is it real? All of it?" he asked after a moment.

"I don't know," she admitted. "Could be, could be not. What they did to you, with that machine, they did over and over, and I don't know how much survived the treatment and what got skewed or is gone for good. How much can you remember?"

He thought for a moment before answering. "I remember I had to kill you. That was an imperative and there was just no other option. Until there suddenly was. Then pieces. Flashes of some old life I don't remember living. I remember the name, but I can't recognize my own face in the mirror. I can do things I don't remember learning. I can understand languages I can't even name. And there's a lot of gaps, that feel like there should be something but there's not."

"You remembered Pierce," she prompted.

"He gave me the order. And other ones, just like that, before. It was him, always him, whose face is burned into my head to remind me what would happen if I fail. And the name… That's how they referred to him. They thought I won't remember, but I did."

"You don't know who he is?"

"He is someone important and he is the man who made me into what I am and I'm going to kill him for that," he stated, dully. There was absolutely no emotion in his voice, just a cold resolution.

"Well, if you do, make sure to tell him I send my regards before you pull the trigger."

"When was the last time you ate?"

"I stole some bars two days ago," he said.

"Well, it looks like it's the high time for some proper meal then," she said and pulled over in front of a diner.

"I don't have any money."

"Let me worry about that, okay?" she said and turned the engine off. "Now, shall we?"

James went through a bowl of tomato soup, two quarter-pounders, five pancakes and two servings of fries before he started to slow down and she wondered idly if the hole in his stomach wasn't still there, because, seriously, where did he even fit all that?

"Better?" she asked and took a sip of her coffee.

He stashed the last couple of fries into his mouth, licked his fingers and nodded. He was eating using only one hand, keeping his metal limb under the table and out of view the whole time. He was aware enough to understand it makes him stand out.

"I have some gloves in the trunk," she said. "You can borrow them later."

He crooked his head and looked at her with a frown. "Why are you doing this?"

"Doing what?"

"This." He gestured around. "You had me in a clear shot, but you didn't shoot me. You only stabbed me after I attacked you and then you helped me, when you could just leave me on that roof. And now you're buying me food."

"I'm not a huge fan of killing people who don't deserve to die," she said. "And I hate to see people go hungry when they don't have to."

He regarded her for a moment, trying to grasp the simple meaning and apparently only partially succeeding. "Why do they want you dead?"

"Well, I've been going after their secrets for some time and it looks like I've learned enough to warrant a price on my head."

"Why?"

"It started with them taking someone I… a friend. Then I found about the rest, so now I'm working on bringing it all down."

"You have someone helping you?"

She glowered. "We are not there yet," she said lightly. She was convinced he wasn't actively working for Hydra anymore, not consciously. But there was still a chance he was a plant or had an activation switch buried deep in his brain. And then, if that weren't the case, there was still a possibility he would be recaptured and there would be nothing stopping him from spilling her secrets once they put him through the machine again. "No hard feelings."

He nodded and looked away, through the window onto the darkening sky. His eyes were steel blue and not green, but the forlorn, lost look in them still reminded her of Loki so much it hurt. She had a knack for attracting reluctant villains, it seemed.

"You done eating? Because if you are, we should scram," she said, then added, more quietly, "the waitress has been eyeing us weirdly since we came in and now she disappeared in the kitchen. She might be calling the police as we speak."

They stopped at another motel eighty miles west. She considered taking two rooms then decided against it. She would be better off if she kept an eye on him.

When she emerged from the bathroom James was sitting on the bed with his shirt off. He was prodding the wound dressing on his side. It was applied with sufficient efficiency but showed some wear, as if it wasn't replaced in a while, which, well, it probably wasn't. He had no bag or anything else that could hold any supplies. No money, either,

"That looks like it needs changing," she said and pulled her replacement first aid kit. It wasn't as fancy as the one she left for him, but that was a piece of military-grade equipment, and this was one she got at a drugstore. It still had some disinfectant and gauze though. "Let me."

"Who was that friend?" James asked, as she was cutting through the old bandage. "The one they took."

"Someone I deeply care about." She weighed her options. She could stop at that and learn nothing, but not risk her motive being revealed. But if James knew something… Besides, they probably figured it out already anyway. It wasn't that hard to guess and Fury just straightforward knew. "Name's Loki."

She gauged his reaction but there was nothing. "Have you met or heard about anyone with that name?"

James shook his head. "If I did, I do not remember it."

Oh well, it was worth a try.

The wound was still healing, but it was stitched up properly and didn't show any signs of infection, so it looked like he got away with that. It was going to leave a nasty scar, but… She chuckled. It roughly matched the location of the mark he left on her, decades prior. She wondered if he had the recollection of that then quickly decided he probably didn't and there was no way to tell how he would react if she reminded him.

"Do you have any friends?" she asked to mask her reaction. "Any family?"

"I don't know."

"Maybe it will come back, with time."

"Maybe."

"You can take the bed." He looked at her with suspicion. "You look like you need it more. I'm going to keep watch; we can switch later." There was no need to go into details.

He sat down on the edge of the mattress then looked down at his mismatched hands. "You want to handcuff me again? In case…"

She scoffed. "Oh please, like it helped the last time. You'd just ruin the headboard and I'll have to pay for it. Besides, you destroyed my last pair."

"I'm sorry."

"I'll live."

He laid down. She settled in an armchair by the window.

"You know, it's generally advised to take off your boots before you go to sleep. That's what a regular human being would do. Also, you'd probably be more comfortable under the duvet."

He got up and took off his shoes, then crawled under the covers, only confirming her suspicion that he learned most about functioning in society from careful observation and not from the disjointed bits and pieces in his head. "It's better that way, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"It's been a while since the last time you got to sleep in a bed, isn't it?"

His silence was an indicator that it was just another thing about himself he didn't know.

"You want me to turn off the light?"

"No."

She sighed.

He lay there, his eyes open and turned to the ceiling.

"Do you remember where they were keeping you?" she asked. "When you were not out on a mission, I mean."

He shifted and turned to his side to look at her. "I don't know. I… It was cold. And dark. And I was there for a long time."

"Well, that might make a shitty motel a welcome change of scenery at least."

It was maybe half an hour after he fell asleep that he stirred, yelped, and sprung up, then got caught in the sheets. He kicked and tossed around, like the duvet was a living thing trying to smother him.

"Hey," she said and helped him untangle his limbs from the fabric. "It's okay. It's just a blanket."

Now if that wasn't familiar, Natasha didn't know what was.

He swung his legs over the side and sat up, panting, his head down. "I was a soldier," he whispered and wiped the sweat off his forehead. "In some great war."

Great war? How old was he, exactly?

"Is that what you dreamed about?"

"There was… a fight. I got hit and… it felt like I died, but that couldn't be right, could it? I'm still alive." There was something in his voice that said he wasn't all that sure about that.

"You are."

He nodded.

"Go back to sleep," she said. "You need it."

He did fall back asleep, eventually, and it looked like this time it was going to stick.

She waited a moment longer, then pulled out her laptop. There was not much to go on from: James, considered dead in one of the world wars. He spoke with a vague, Russian accent but did slip into a New Yorker drawl a couple of times. It might be something he was taught for a mission, of course, but, along with his Anglosphere name, it made her suspect he might have been an American, once. How would an American end up working as a hitman for KGB was still a mystery though, and the name could be just as fake as the accent, or perhaps just an English translation.

She still put the information in the dossier. She brought forth her contact list and typed away.

The query came up just as empty as the bed in the morning. Neither was much of a surprise.

There was no note this time. She waited till noon, just in case he came back, but he did not, so she packed up and headed on.

As much as she was tempted, she didn't leave any contact info, there was no way to do it safely in case someone intercepted the message: phone number can be traced the next time she uses it, email can be hacked into and there simply was no address she knew she'd be at, even if giving such details in plain text wasn't a terminal stupidity.

Besides, it would be in vain anyway. He wouldn't come back to look for her here. Even without his memories he still seemed to have quite a well-functioning survival instinct, a legacy of his training, perhaps.

Too bad he didn't stay. She hoped he would, even if he had the vibe of a wild animal caught in a trap when he was around other people, and it didn't surprise her in the slightest that he skipped. They could both benefit from a partnership. He needed someone to ease him up into the world of the living again, she needed company.

She spent most of the last months on her own and was used to it, but the brief encounter reminded her how nice it was to have someone to talk to. Even if that someone was an amnesiac assassin. He wouldn't be the weirdest companion she went on a road trip with, would he?

She left the town driving west, without any particular destination in mind, but that direction felt… incorrect. She should perhaps go to Chicago, where it would be easier to get lost in the crowd, or even further North, across the border, just for a bit, to lay low and observe what comes down next. She could work on contacting Loki again anywhere, it's not like she had any idea where he was kept. She could wait out the worst of the heatwave that was currently rolling over the continental US that way, too. Yeah, that was a good call.

She turned around and drove to New York instead and if someone asked her why, she wouldn't be able to clarify the issue.

Life has returned to the city and it would be hard to tell anything like the Battle of New York ever happened when one walked through the streets. Still, being back was disappointing. She expected it to feel at least a bit like coming back home after a long trip, but it did not. The metropolis lost its luster in her eyes and was just as dirty and smelly and crowded like any other big city in the world. She used to think she made her home here, but it was never true and now she could see it better than ever. She didn't have a home, just a string of temporary shelters. She moved from one apartment to another, never bothering to even paint the walls the colors she liked, knowing all well that something will force her to move on soon enough. Only her work with SHIELD kept her here and now this tie was severed and there was nothing left.

She stayed in a surprisingly nice Airbnb in Brooklyn. The studio flat was small, but tastefully furnished, with painted brick walls and fluffy gray carpet covering the hardwood floor. No nineties décor in sight, no flowery curtains and there was no bed, just a convertible sofa, which meant more floor space. It even had air conditioning and she turned it on the moment she stepped through the doorway. She didn't regret spending half of the money she has left to rent it for a week. She needed to find work soon anyway and saving the few hundred bucks wasn't worth making herself miserable, again.

Besides, she deserved a treat from time to time and today was a special day, after all.

It was also the day she finally makes it. She could sense her core awakening slowly and tuning back on since the morning and the headache was just a dull afterimage after she pulled it out, so she felt ready for another go.

The carpet was as soft and lush as it looked, and she kicked off her boots and sat down, dragging over a couple of the oversized throw pillows from the couch to prop herself up in front of a full-height window.

She closed her eyes and the trace shimmered on her eyelids, brighter than ever, welcoming her like a long-lost friend. She let it wrap around her, become one with her mind, share its energy.

It was like nothing she has ever felt before. She could feel her body solidly on the ground, sitting on the floor of the Brooklyn apartment, rooted in reality, while her mind was scattered among the stars, walking on the old paths, running along the filaments of the cosmic power, like a signal in a fiber wire.

It was freedom in its purest form.

The space roiled and changed and swirled around her with a brilliance of impossible colors. Then her mind snapped back into her body and she stood on a white ice plain and the low, heavy clouds stormed above her head.