AN: Connected to chapter 10, 11, 12 of "Alternatively", and chapter 10 and 16 of "The Alternate Handler".

Natasha is trained to handle crises. Black Widow is cool and calm under pressure. She is always in control. Panicking and jumping the gun is liable to get someone shot, and it was not a trait encouraged in her youth.

That being said, her edges are frayed by the time she faces Zola in an underground bunker. She had awoken at midnight to find Fury murdered by the Winter Soldier, and now she is more or less on the run with Steve, trying to figure out what has gone afoul in SHIELD.

Apparently a Hydra infestation is to blame.

"You should be grateful," Zola drones, the eerie green light of his pixelated face flickering sickeningly. "Hydra can bring peace to six billion people, by sacrificing three million."

Steve is standing stiff and motionless beside her, and it is she who marches forward and yanks the USB out of its port. The angry set of her shoulders is obvious as she spins around, but she doesn't care. She is too strung out to keep a grip on her tongue.

"Be grateful I don't have anything to blow you up with."

Steve scrambles to follow her back to the elevator, and she gives herself the ride to fume. She can have that long before she has to try to cope or plan. Even so, her exhausted brain tries to fall instinctively into the usual critiquing tones of her Mistress. Emotion blinds. Bonds are a weakness. Love is for children.

Even after years of practice and relearning her habits, those words still rise up.

It isn't until she is back in the car with Steve that she begins to wonder why she is the only one virtually losing her mind at what they had just learned. Zola had revealed that Hydra was alive in SHIELD all along, and that they are planning to use the Helicarriers to murder millions of people, and Steve...had barely reacted.

She keeps silent in the car ride, plucking away at the mystery.

Steve brings them to the house of an acquaintance to lay low and plan. They don't really have a lot of options, and Natasha is too tired to do anything but agree.

"Sorry to do this to you," Steve says to the man at the door—a Sam Wilson, a veteran and V.A. counsellor according to him. "But we need somewhere safe to lay low."

Natasha's voice is rough and revealing as she sweeps her eyes in a scan of their host, cataloguing what little she can see of the room behind him. "We can't trust anybody right now."

For the first time in a long time, she wonders if that phrase applies to Steve as well.

She keeps her thoughts to herself as Sam offers them a shower and a meal, but the more she thinks of it, the more she is certain something is happening behind the scenes. She is still reeling from the knowledge that SHIELD is a sham, and that Fury had been targeted for his own suspicions in that area. She hasn't even had time to process that, and her mind won't leave Steve alone.

That is what she had been trained to do. Spot the web, follow the thread, untangle and pick apart the seams, and then spin it into something she can use.

Except she had been the one caught in the web all along. She hadn't even realised there were strings, let alone puppeteers controlling them, and Steve… For some reason she can't shake the feeling that he somehow knew about this before she did.

Her emotions are hard to pin down on a good day, and the turmoil is unidentifiable now. She stands in the shower, staring blankly at the blue tile, unsure how to feel and therefore refusing to try.

Except, of course, she knows that the majority of the storm inside her consists of hurt, confusion, and desperate justifications for what she suspects. And all of it is pointless because she doesn't even know if she's right. She could be making something out of nothing, and the uncertainty just fuels the chaos.

Tame it, little spider, a voice hisses in her ear, and she reaches out and switches off the hot water, letting the shocking cold block out the words. She leans her forehead against the wall and breathes in. Her hand goes to her belly, brushing habitually over the scar on her abdomen, and she breathes out.

I am in control, she reminds herself. Control is something she had given herself once she had left the Red Room, and even with the world falling out from under her feet, she still has that.

She stores her emotions in an icy vault when she confronts Steve. Getting upset or throwing a fit will do nothing. She needs information, and she needs to know what Steve knows. She can deal with how she feels about it later.

"You guys in trouble?" Sam asks, his eyes darting between them as they sit in his living room..

Natasha keeps her eyes on Steve, her hands clasped in her lap. "Steve and I work for a government organisation called SHIELD," she explains bluntly. With what had been revealed today, keeping that confidential is rather pointless. "Today we found out that it's actually a front for Hydra." She locks eyes with Steve. "Except… it seems to be more of a shock to me than it is to Steve."

Steve looks uncomfortable, but he doesn't deny it. Instead she listens as he admits to knowing about Hydra for almost a year. He had been working undercover with them almost since the alien invasion, and Tony had been in on it too.

And they didn't tell her because they hadn't known if they could trust her.

The pain is a glass knife through the sternum, even as the rest of her can see the logic to it. Of course they had to be cautious. She was a member of SHIELD. They knew SHIELD was compromised. They were trying to fool Hydra. They couldn't risk outing themselves to her. Not with the stakes that high.

And it isn't as if they singled her out in particular. They didn't tell anybody. Not Clint, not Fury, not even Bruce.

Knowing all that doesn't make the hurt go away, but it allows her to put it aside and listen to the rest of what he has to say.

To be honest, from an objective perspective, she is impressed at all he had managed to accomplish. He is vague on how he had convinced Hydra he was one of them, but he had been able to keep up the ruse for almost a year.

When going into lengthy ops like that, she usually has a whole team behind her, plus her own training. She usually has weeks or months to prepare, and an extraction plan should things go south.

Steve had only had his own tactical experience from the war, and Tony's brainpower to try to keep him alive and out of any suspicion. The fact that he had seemingly managed to gain Hydra's trust—enough that they had sent him after her today—is no small feat. Especially considering who he is.

And that isn't even taking into account the kinds of things he must have had to do for Hydra. Natasha's own comfort zones are hardly ever an issue on missions. They had never been allowed to be. The very reason Fury had sent her to gather SHIELD intel secretly from the Lemurian Star is because she is 'comfortable with everything', and he hadn't wanted to deal with any pushback from Steve.

She hides a twitch of her lips. The idea seems laughable now. Apparently, like her, Fury had been blinded by the Golden Boy image of Captain America. Of course that airbrushed version of him is nothing more than a comic book character. He is as much a soldier as she is. She won't forget that again.

She is reminded of that fact all over again when Steve begins to explain who the Winter Soldier is. At first the mention of Fury's death makes her blood run cold, and her thoughts are off spinning even before Steve continues.

She knows now that Hydra had orchestrated Fury's death. And she knows Steve had been undercover. Oh. Oh. He had known about the assassination. He knew the Winter Soldier. He knew who killed—

"It's Bucky," he bursts out, and her racing thoughts freeze in incomprehension. "The Winter Soldier is James Buchanan Barnes. He didn't die, he was captured by Hydra."

Natasha sits mute with shock as she listens to Steve explain the situation, a painstaking expression on his face. His face is drawn, bags heavy under his eyes, his knuckles white in his lap as he speaks.

"They wipe his memories," he admits hoarsely. "They've conditioned him to follow orders and nothing else. He thinks I'm his handler. He doesn't remember anything else."

Natasha may not have grown up with Captain America the same way American children had, but even she knows who Bucky Barnes is, and what he meant to the Captain. Steve had been acting as his handler for months, inside Hydra, and she hadn't picked up the evident distress he is displaying until now.

Or, maybe she had. Everyone in the Tower knew Steve worked out a little too often in the gym. Everyone knew he got edgier and stiffer before and after a mission. The signs had been there. But she had attributed it to regular PTSD, to an adjustment period, to military discipline.

She had so many answers she hadn't even known what questions to ask, so she had filled in the blanks herself.

She is never going to underestimate Steve Rogers again.

They leave to try to fool Hydra into believing Steve is still loyal to them, only to find themselves rescued by none other than Maria Hill. Natasha is a little worried that Steve's cover with Hydra will be blown if they escape, but they manage to piece together some semblance of an explanation as Maria drives them to a safe house.

She probably shouldn't be surprised when Maria reveals that Fury had survived the assassination attempt. She shouldn't be surprised, and she distracts herself from the shock by watching Steve. She can see the overwhelming relief on his face as he processes the news. She knows what he is thinking—had heard the pain in his voice when he had explained that he hadn't been able to stop Barnes from killing the Director—and she knows what Fury's survival means to him.

She had mostly kept her opinions of the Winter Soldier to herself. Her experience with him is very different and less nuanced than Steve's. Still, she could see the smothered hope in Steve's eyes when he had spoken of him, and she knows what he wants.

Speaking as a former Black Widow operative, and a former SHIELD agent, she isn't sure if that is possible.

oOo

Steve pulls her aside specifically to apologise for not telling her earlier about Hydra, and she is reminded of another thing about him. While it is true he is a soldier, and a tactician, and a fighter, he is also a good man.

The icy wall she had built to deal with the situation melts a little. She had known that Steve hadn't meant to hurt her. She probably would have done the same thing in his shoes. But that doesn't change how learning about all this had affected her, and Steve knows that. He isn't trying to justify it, he isn't assuming she will get over it. Instead, he is apologising sincerely.

"I understand," she tells him, not quite able to express everything that means to her.

They separate after that to mount their attack against the Helicarriers. Despite how Sam claims his wings were used for pararescueing, Natasha doesn't much appreciate her flight strapped to his chest. Calling it a rollercoaster would be putting it mildly. Rollercoasters are on a set track. And they aren't being shot at.

Still, it gets the job done, and Steve is able to get through to the Winter Soldier so they can hack the last Helicarrier. Natasha is a little busy taking care of the STRIKE team (she thinks dropping a building on Rumlow makes them even for how he treated her while trying to arrest her earlier), but it is a relief to hear over the comms.

And then she meets back up with Tony to find the Winter Soldier standing at attention next to him.

She hadn't expected it to be painful seeing him. The worst part is it has nothing to do with the time he shot her. That incident isn't even a thought. Instead his blank expression pushes her back into the Red Room. The rock solid stance morphs into a perfect croisé done under a watchful eye.

Always watching, always waiting for her to break. So she had crafted a mask as real as the one that adorns Barnes' face now.

It had taken her a long, long time to even recognise the full extent of the mask, and it had taken her even longer to learn how to take it off.

Looking at Barnes is like standing at the edge of an abandoned well. She can see how far he has to climb. The idea is exhausting for her to think about, and even if he does manage to drag himself out, she has no idea who he'll be by the end.

It takes her a moment to label the emotion burning in her stomach, and she is startled to realise that it is anger. She is furious. Seeing Barnes and seeing what has been done to him—seeing what people are still willing to do to other people—ignites a coal of rage that smoulders deep in her core.

Things don't get much better when Steve gets there.

"Well done Asset," he says stiffly, before listing off a few restructuring orders to make sure Barnes' can understand what is going on and won't attack them. It sounds like he is inputting commands into a computer.

"Confirmed," Barnes says, and Natasha has to close her eyes and turn away, bile rising in her throat.

Even the Red Room hadn't erased her so thoroughly. Some days they might as well have, but this is a step beyond that.

The scenario repeats itself when they arrive at the Avengers' Tower and get taken down to med-bay. Steve sequesters himself off with Barnes, and Natasha can see the moment everyone in the room understands just exactly what position Hydra had forced him into.

"Mission Report."

Even his voice changes when he is acting as Barnes' handler. It is only to be expected. There is no way he could have survived this mentally without dissociating from himself a little as he was forced to treat his friend as nothing more than a tool, and stand idly while he was abused.

Barnes' voice is even more detached when he replies. "Agent Rumlow came to deploy the Asset in defence of the Helicarriers. The Asset waited on the Helicarrier until the arrival of the Avenger designated Iron Man. Contradictory orders to stand down received and followed. Helicarriers destroyed."

The nausea is back, and in the deadly silence of the med-bay she forces herself to stand. She has to get out of here. She needs to leave.

She gets a nod from Bruce and proceeds to vacate immediately.

Her rooms are calm and dimly lit, but her hands shake on the zipper of her uniform. She peels it off and digs out the loosest pair of sweatpants and the floppiest hoodie she owns. She buries her nose in the neckline of the sweater, and she can feel her heart begin to slow as she slips into the comfort clothes.

Dressing with the Red Room had rarely ever been about comfort. It had always been about how it looked, how easy it was to kill in, and how easy it was to get out of.

She curls up under her blanket—the fullest, comfiest comforter she could find—and reaches a hand up to touch the tiny golden arrow hanging on a chain around her neck. When she had first been brought into SHIELD, Clint had insisted on taking her shopping. She realises now that that had been part of her rehabilitation, but at the time she hadn't seen it that way. She didn't think she needed to be rehabilitated. She had been trained with a specific skill set, and she was good at it.

She hadn't seen the trauma until much, much later.

(On her first shopping trip with Clint, she had only bought professional, or attractive clothes. Things she could wear on a mission or at work. It wasn't until several months later that she first stole Clint's hoodie, and it was even longer before she finally bought her own.)

oOo

Things get better once Clint arrives back at the Tower. She knows he understands just by looking at her what is going on in her head, and he pulls her aside after their group meeting to spend a good hour video chatting with Laura and their kids.

Even after that she doesn't spend a lot of time around Barnes. She sees too much of herself in him not to feel haunted, and the stress of worrying about his recovery forces her to keep her distance.

She keeps her eyes open though, and what she sees gives her comfort. She hadn't known what to expect from Steve in his position as a handler. She knows without a doubt that he is in a difficult position. He is acting as the commander of his closest friend, and said friend doesn't even remember him, and had been conditioned to fear his authority.

Anyone would struggle coping with that.

But it quickly becomes clear that Steve is good at his role. He understands implicitly that he can't simply turn Barnes loose now that they have taken him away from Hydra. He doesn't try to tear down his programming too quickly. He is willing to be the handler he needs, while patiently showing him it is safe to grow.

She knows he is on the right track the day he comes to them and asks them to help rehabilitate Barnes. Giving up that kind of control, and understanding that he can't do everything for Barnes, that that isn't the best for him, is an admirable display of self-awareness.

It is partially that show of faith that allows her to feel comfortable spending her own one-on-one time with Barnes. At first it is just a little thing, a walk every few days in the park. She knows from what Steve has told them and from what she can deduce from Barnes himself that he isn't accustomed to operating outside of mission parameters. He has almost no experience walking among civilians, or crossing a busy street, or seeing children play in the park.

Once she is certain he is more comfortable with the busy, chaotic motion that is life outside the Tower, she decides to take him on a special trip.

Barnes follows carefully and quietly as she guides him down the sidewalk. He pays no mind to the passing storefronts, but Natasha keeps an eye out. They reach the hole-in-the-wall bookstore that is her goal and she pulls the door open for Barnes.

"Let's go in here," she says, aware that this is probably the first time he has been inside a store in any capacity.

Barnes remains as silent as a ghost as he slips inside, scanning the perimeter with soldier-like efficiency. Natasha keeps a close eye on him, but he doesn't appear overwhelmed yet. She had scoped out the store earlier and chosen it specifically. It has what she wants, but it is small and lacks the crowds and rowdy children other bookstores attract.

The display she wants is in the back, and she guides Barnes along, trying to appear more confident than she is. That guise is an old friend, and she knows it is crucial when handling Barnes. He is already nervous enough, he doesn't need to feed off of her nerves too.

They reach the display near the back. A collection of journals sit on a wooden table, held between two bookends or sitting on display stands. Some have artistic, handmade styles, while others are plainer, or made with recycled paper. She pauses and hovers her hand over the selection, looking back at Barnes.

"What's your favourite colour?"

She has no idea how he will respond. She doesn't even know if he will respond, but she has several distinctive memories of Coulson or Clint asking her various questions such as these. They didn't even care if she lied, only that she expressed an opinion that had nothing to do with them.

She is careful not to show any preference for any of the journals while she waits for Barnes to respond. She doesn't know if he will. She doesn't know if he is there yet, but part of her hopes—

"Blue," he says finally, and it takes all her control not to smile brightly or otherwise react overenthusiastically. Barnes needs to learn to make his decisions for himself, and have that be its own reward, so rejoicing isn't in the cards right now.

Instead she rewards him by picking out a blue-covered journal and ducking off to buy it for him. She picks up a basic pen on the way and makes it back to him with everything in a plastic bag on her wrist.

Now comes the hard part.

She can't shake the feeling of vulnerability as she very briefly gives Barnes a rundown of her background and motivations. "There was a time when I was in your shoes." She keeps her gaze on him, not breaking eye contact. "I joined SHIELD and I had a lot of things to unlearn." Her attention is snagged by memories, and she allows herself to look off into the middle-distance as she continues. "It took me a while to learn how to trust my handlers. Even longer to learn that a handler could also be a friend and that friends weren't weaknesses."

She knows, just from looking at Barnes, that he will need to do that very same thing.

Which is why she is doing this.

She offers the journal. "Writing in a journal helped," she says simply, her mind drifting back to a small, black leatherbound notebook that she had kept under her pillow for years. "You can write whatever you want, whenever you want. I found it helped…organise my thoughts a little."

Her very first journal had been from Coulson. It had taken her weeks to even begin to write in it, and it had taken her even longer to trust that it wasn't being used to spy on her. It had taken her months to jot down an honest thought, and even that had been in code.

Barnes reaches slowly for the journal, his eyes clouded as he rubs a thumb over the cover. His throat flexes and he looks up at her. "Is… is Handler-Rogers… your handler?"

The question drops like lead in her stomach, and she feels a flash of pain and sadness for him, for how far he still needs to go. "No," she says softly, wishing she could give the next words to Barnes as easily as she hands him the pen from her bag. "He's my friend."

It is a month or so later when Clint accidentally discovers the shutdown protocol Hydra had implanted in Barnes. According to Tony, he goes down like a brick, and Natasha congregates with the others in the med-bay as they wait for him to wake up so they can discover if the triggering had undone the progress of the last few weeks.

She can see the worry eating away at Steve, his shoulders tense and his mouth a straight, pale line on his face.

Thankfully Barnes wakes up without too much delay, and he passes Bruce's cognitive tests easily. He doesn't regress to the empty shell he had hidden behind fresh out of Hydra, which is a good sign, and Natasha can feel the tension drain out of the room as it becomes clear he isn't in danger.

Clint goes up to apologise for accidentally triggering him, and Natasha gets a glimpse of an unexpected development.

"I swear I wouldn't have said it if I'd known," Clint reassures.

Barnes looks confused, but nods anyway. "Handler-Steve can instruct you on my trigger words if you need them."

The world stops for just a moment, and she turns to look at Bucky. Handler-Steve. Those two words set off a chain reaction in her chest. Pride and relief grows in equal measure, and she isn't able to keep a faint smile off her face.

She thinks... she thinks Bucky is going to be able to come out of this on top.

AN: Writing Natasha's pov was really interesting, because we get her thoughts on both Steve and Bucky. Also, I feel like her internal thoughts are really complex, because she is always watching herself, while holding tight to the reins of her outside reactions.

I was really happy I could slip in that last scene though, that is what I thought was going through Natasha's head during that. I think she was one of the few people to hear Bucky call Steve by both Handler-Rogers and Handler-Steve.

I haven't watched Black Widow yet, so none of that canon is used here, and I don't know if the movie contradicts any of this. I just went with my own headcanons and ideas I had while writing this series.

And finally, this concludes this series of oneshots! It feels surreal, but we are finally at the end of this series, almost two years later. I am sure I will write more oneshots to post here, but the updates will be more sporadic, giving me the freedom to work on other projects!

Thank you for all your support!