A's note: Just a reminder that I have jumbled and smashed together the timeline, so things are going to happen out of sink with the actual mcu :-D So with that said...

Wolves at the Door

There were wolves at the door. HYDRA was trying to infiltrate SHIELD and Natasha Carter would be damned if they succeed. She'd been on the hunt since Belarus, tracking down leads, looking for the heart of the monster to slay it. She got a bit distracted by the Battle of New York, but now she was back at it. There was information on a ship that she needed, but that ship was full of pirates and hostages. She would need back up, back up that couldn't know the real reason she was there. They had to be careful of who they trusted, keeping the need to know circle as small as possible. The part of Natasha trained by Nick Fury knew what needed to be done and was willing to do it. The part of Natasha raised by Peggy Carter really hated lying to Steve Rogers. The part of Natasha that was the Black Widow was getting really tired of Captain American trying to save her when she didn't need saving. She understood why he was doing it, she was her mother's daughter and he was trying to protect her for Peggy's sake, but it was really starting to piss her off.

"You have to stop doing that!" She yelled at him once they were alone on the quinjet. "If I actually need help that's one thing, but you have got to stop stepping in when I don't! I don't need to be bloody rescued, I'm not some helpless chick you know!"

"Natasha, I…"

"I was seventeen when Fury recruited me, Rogers." Natasha growled, poking her finger into the white star on his chest. "I am one of the best there is. I don't need you to babysit me or protect me out of some sense of obligation you think you have to my mother."

"Your mother never lied to me." Steve said heatedly. "What's on the drive, Natasha?"

She stared right into his eyes. "We don't know yet." It was an honest response. "You'll know if and when you need too." She was going to leave it at that but she just couldn't. She growled softly in the back of her throat as she pinched the bridge of her nose. Then she sighed and looked him in the eyes again. "It's for her, Steve, everything we're doing. It's for her."

Steve looked into her eyes for a long moment and then finally he simply nodded.

They went their separate ways when they got back. Natasha took the drive to Fury and then went back to her apartment. She checked in with her mothers, fed Goose, fell asleep in the bath, and had dinner with her neighbor and her neighbor's nephew. It would be the last peaceful night Natasha would have for awhile. Fury had been right about this cluster of information being the final piece to the puzzle, which set off a halestorm when he tried to access it. Natasha was in New York, Fury had been in D.C. so he'd gone to Steve who was living in D.C.. So apparently was Sharon, who'd been the one to call her in. HYDRA were after anyone that had that drive on them. Thankfully Fury was hard to kill. They needed a way to access the information without triggering whatever failsafe had led them to Fury. He passed the drive over to Natasha and Steve, knowing Natasha would figure it out and Steve would keep them safe.

Natasha has an idea about where to start, but she's going to need access to a computer, and cover to slip by whoever comes looking for them. Steve doesn't like it, it's putting civilians in harm's way, but Natasha insists, so they head to a mall. When they reached the Apple store she warned him they would have less than ten minutes before they had HYDRA on their asses and then plugged in the drive and got to work. Seeing Rumlow leading the team hunting them down turned Natasha's blood to fire. She wanted nothing more than to snatch the pistol at the small of her back and shoot the treacherous bastard right between the eyes. But that would have to wait, they needed to crack this wide open and they were on a time limit. She's able to break through the failsafe, cracking open the encryptions, and gains access to the files but they can't do much more than that here. Time to go.

"Kiss me." Natasha says as she turns to face Steve as they get on an escalator going down while Rumlow is coming up towards them.

His eyes go wide and he squeaks, "What?"

"Public displays of affection make people uncomfortable." Natasha says as she reaches for his face and draws him into a kiss. When they pull apart Steve's beat red, his blue eyes darting around as if he were expecting to be struck by lightning. She manages not to laugh as they make their way to the parking garage where Steve hotwires a pickup truck. She gets lost in her thoughts as Steve drives. Rumlow. Who else? Who else was out there laying in wait to bring down her mother's legacy? Whoever they were, their days were numbered. She would take each and every one of them down all on her own if she had too.

"Nat?" Steve said softly. "You alright?"

Natasha turned to look at him, his face showing her all of his concern, and she smiled. "I'm fine." She lied. She wasn't fine, but he didn't need to worry about that, worry about her. Besides, she didn't want to talk about it. "So, where did Captain America learn to hotwire a car?"

Steve actually laughed. "The war, your mother taught me."

Sensing that he was gearing up to ask her if she was alright again she decided to cut him off before he could get a word out. "Can I ask you a question? You don't have to answer, but if you don't I'll take it as a yes."

"I'm going to regret this." Steve groaned. "But go ahead."

"Was that your first kiss since waking up?" Natasha asked, not really thinking the question through. She just wanted a distraction. Steve blushed as red as the red on his shield and Natasha laughed.

"I know how to kiss just fine thank you!" Steve tried defending himself. "It's just that I shouldn't have been kissing YOU is all."

He was turning redder by the second and it suddenly hit Natasha, causing her eyes to go wide as she sat up straight and stared at him. "Oh my god!" She said. "Oh my god! The last woman you kissed was my mother wasn't it!?" If he got any redder he was going to have a heart attack. She laughed for a solid three minutes before finally saying, as she wiped away tears of laughter, "Oh Steve, we have got to get you a girl."

"The nurse next door seemed nice until I found out she was a secret SHIELD agent Fury planted to babysit me." Steve replied.

"Nope, nada, net, nein, non, no, absolutely not. Agent 13 is off limits to you, Rogers." Natasha said firmly, all signs of her earlier amusement gone. When Steve turned to look at her with a questioning look she explained, "Her name is Sharon, Sharon Carter, she's my Mum's niece."

Steve looked surprised. "Michael died in the war."

Natasha shook her head. "The Russians developed two programs to try and come up with their own super soldiers. The Red Room trained women to be lethal weapons, while the Red Guardians program tried to turn men into, well, you. Uncle Michael was captured and used as a lab rat. They were never able to create the serum, but they did eventually perfect brainwashing techniques that they tested out on him first. Mum rescued him, and thankfully he was able to be deprogrammed and treated. Things were good for him until the cancer." Bitterness crept into Natasha's voice as she turned to look out the window. "He survised Russian torture and brainwashing only to be taken out by cancer."

"I'm sorry, Nat." Steve replied.

Her anger and bitterness wasn't just about the way she lost her uncle. It was more about how much her mother had already lost, and now there were people wanting to take even more from her? To take SHIELD from her? SHIELD was her mother's life! Her legacy! Natasha took a deep breath and pressed her forehead to the window. She had to stop letting herself get so mad over this, at least until she had someone she could rage out on. For now she needed to stay focused, but it wasn't easy.

It was strange being in Camp Lehigh. It was the setting for so many of the stories she'd heard growing up about the boy whose body wasn't big enough for his massive heart and incredible bravery. Now is was run down, a forgotten relic, and she was walking around the ghostly grounds with that boy whose heart was still to big despite the physical upgrade. When they found the hidden base beneath the base Natasha was thrown right back into why they were here. "This must have been their first base." She said as they passed the all too familiar eagle on the wall. "Where Mum and Uncle Howard started SHIELD."

Their pictures hung on the wall. The fact that her Uncle's was bigger than Phillips' and her mother's made Natasha smile. Howard was a flawed man, he could have done better by Tony for sure, but she still missed him. "They started all of this in your memory you know. She wanted to save the world because it's what you would have done."

"I know." Steve said as he walked over to stand beside her. It was his Peggy in the picture, the way he remembered her, but Natasha saw the woman who had taken her in, had raised her as her own, and who loved her unconditionally. And yet Steve was beginning to wonder if Natasha fully understood who mattered more to Peggy; what that symbol on the wall stood for, or the red headed young woman staring at her picture. "She told me that I was the reason she started, but that you and Angie are the reasons she continued. She wanted to protect and save the world because it's what I would have done, but she wanted to make it a better place because you and Angie were in it." He put his hand on her shoulder reassuringly. "We won't let SHIELD fall, Nat. Whoever is at the top of this new HYDRA, we'll take them down. You don't have to do this alone, Natasha. Peggy doesn't expect you to do it alone, or at the cost of you getting hurt along the way, you know that don't you?"

"You just said it yourself, Steve, she gave so much to SHIELD for me." Natasha said as she began walking away. "I'm going to protect it for her, no matter what."

They were able to locate a secret room, in the secret base, under the old base, with just what Natasha was hoping for. A self contained computer system that HYDRA wouldn't be able to trace, and the equipment to recreate the files on the drive. Pulling a few 'borrowed' items from the pockets of her hoodie she set to work on slicing a USB port into the old tech. When Steve crossed his arms and gave her a look she shrugged. "I borrowed it." She said, mocking his intention of returning the 'borrowed' pickup truck. "I use to help Tony when we were kids." She explained as she used a pocket knife to remove covering from wires she then twisted together. "I had tiny fingers, made it easier to get at the tight spots in his robot builds."

"You two are so different." Steve said as he watched. "It's hard to picture you together as kids." He chuckled. "It's kind of hard to picture Tony as a kid at all."

"It's why we work so well together." Natasha replied. "We balanced each other out, except for the times when we tilted each other more one way, usually which every way the trouble was in, but thankfully we had Sharon to even things out again when that happened."

"You know when he finishes rebuilding the Tower he wants us all to move in together." Steve didn't think that was a good idea.

"I know." Natasha replied. "He tends to get overly excited when people actually like him and he makes friends, so he's basically building a giant clubhouse to keep us around."

After retrieving the information on the drive and turning it all into hard copies, the pair needed a place to lay low until they could get in touch with Fury and set up a rendezvous. Steve took them to Sam Wilson, who he vouched for without hesitation. Natasha had a feeling Steve wanted help keeping an eye on her now that she had names. She was insulted. Did he really think she was going to go off by herself to kill Alexander Pierce? Of course she wasn't. At least, not until she knew his plan, and why he was doing this. In order to do that she needed to get close to him, and who better to know how to do that than his little pet weasel.

Sitwell trembled on the edge of the ledge as he laughed nervously. "You're not going to drop me over the edge, Captain. That's not your style."

"No, you're right." Steve said with a nod. "It's not my style, but it is hers."

Natasha slammed her boot into Sitwell's chest so hard she bruised ribs for sure, maybe even cracked one. She and Steve chatted a bit, she rattled a few names off for date possibilities. "Lillian from accounting would be a good first time out. She's sweet, not to scary."

"She has a lip piercing." Steve replied.

"Yeah? And?" Natasha teased. "My belly button is pierced." And just because she felt like messing with him. "And that's just the one I can tell you about that won't make you blush, or get back to my Mum that I have."

Steve blushed anyway.

"Ok, so, what about, oh, Emily in research." Natasha nodded her approval at that one. "She's a Brooklyn girl, her grandfather played for the Dodgers before they turned traitor and moved out west."

Steve slapped his hand to his chest and playfully winced as if in pain. "Oh, too soon, Carter, to soon. I'm not ready to deal with the Dodgers betrayal yet."

The casual conversation was cut short when Sam tossed Sitwell onto the ground at their feet. He sang like a little bird. There was going to be an attack using overpowered helicarriers carried out in the name of SHIELD. SHIELD would become public enemy number one, and Pierce would step in with a new agency, one under his control, to clean up and regain order. HYDRA. As for Pierce's reasons why he was doing this, pure and simple, he hated Peggy Carter. She'd been a thorn in his, and so many other 'ambitious' men's side their whole careers. With this plan, not only would SHIELD itself go under, but Peggy Carter could face charges or at the very least be utterly disgraced. When Natasha had enough of Sitwell bad mouthing her mother she punched him hard in the face, knocking him out cold.

"Guess she really doesn't like it when people talk about her boss, huh?" Sam said as they watched Natasha storm off.

Steve trusted Sam, and he believed Natasha did too so he said, "Peggy Carter is her mother."

"Ah." Sam said as he and Steve picked up the unconscious Sitwell. "Guess dude is lucky it was just a fist to the face than."

They would need to get Sitwell someplace safe. He was a coward who would sing to save his own skin when the trials started. Natasha had finally heard from Hill, so the two set up a place to take their little weasel for safe keeping. But when Rumlow came up short on finding them, Pierce had called in a favor. There was a thump on the roof and before Natasha could even think of reacting Stilwell was pulled out of the car and thrown right into the grill of an oncoming semi-truck, which splattered his body all over the bridge they'd been crossing. Pulling her gun from her boot she dove into Steve's lap in the front seat, just as bullets rained down through the roof of the car. She raised her gun and fired back, while instinctively pulling Steve's head away from the flying bullets. When she realized that by pulling his head forward, his face was now in her chest, she couldn't help but laugh. "We should probably never tell my Mum about the things we get up to on missions together."

"Really Nat?" Steve replied as he grabbed the handbrake, sending their attacker flying over the hood. "Now doesn't seem like the best time to be teasing me."

"Stop being such a stick in the mud, Rogers." Natasha smiles. "Have a little fun once in awhile." The sound of scraping metal on the concrete makes her turn her head and look out the windshield, but before anyone can comment they're rear ended. Everything happens so fast after that, that Natasha doesn't have a moment to think until after she's slid across the pavement in Steve's arms as he uses his shield as a sled. The masked man with the silver arm has Rumlow's team with him, the mercenaries he'd had at the mall. Steve is blown off the bridge, and she and Sam are pinned down by machine gun fire. This kind of violence happening in a public space would get back to SHIELD quickly enough, she just hoped the right people got the report. Until then Natasha had to do her best to keep civilians safe, and the best way to do that was to draw the people with the guns away. She ordered Sam to focus on the mercenaries, while she got the big guy's attention.

She nails him right in the eye with one of her shots, but his goggles are bulletproof. "I should get a pair of those." She mutters to herself before she takes off running. It isn't until they're fighting hand to hand, with his goggles now removed, that Natasha realizes who it is she's fighting. "It's been awhile handsome." She quips while trying to strangle him with her thighs. "The shiny new arm is cool."

Apparently he'd rather throw her several feet than talk. Luckily for her Steve was there to catch her. "You know him?"

"Youthful indiscretion." She replies with a shrug while slipping one of the electro-shock disks Tony had made for her from her sleeve. She throws it at the assassin's metal arm, which instantly begins to spark, giving her and Steve time to run. They don't get as far as they'd hoped. The bullet goes clean through her shoulder, same side of the body where he'd shot her last time, the bastard! She stumbles in her run, stopping to find cover behind a car. Suddenly Steve's there, blocking another shot with his shield and then the two men are fighting. Natasha goes for the weapon the assassin dropped in order to fight Steve hand to hand, she can hear the fight as she moves into a better position, she hears the fight suddenly stop and Steve's voice.

"Bucky?"

She hesitates for half a second, why did that name sound familiar? Then Sam flies in, knocking Steve clear, and she fires a rocket at the assassin. For just a couple of seconds the three of them stand there breathing hard, and then a hummer pulls up and Maria Hill rolls down a window. "Get in!"

Hill takes them to one of Fury's hiddy-holes. Steve orders that Natasha be taken to medical as soon as they're inside, but she refuses. She asks for HIll's help shedding her jacket, and cutting away her undershirt. She'd bound some of the files to herself, hidden under her clothes, and the rest she'd hidden on Steve and Sam in the same manner. That way if one of them were compromised, then at least some of the info would still get back to Fury. "Fury needs these."

"You need to stop bleeding all over the place." Sam replied, looking anywhere but at the redhead in her black bra.

"What this?" Natasha looks at the field patch over the wound in her shoulder, a huge red stain in the middle of it. "Just a scratch."

"Whoo, girl, you are intense." Sam said with a shake of his head.

Natasha laughs. Once Hill has the information for Fury, she finally agrees to go to medical, but before she goes she asks, "Hey Maria, just in case some of that ends up on the net or news feeds, will you let the old lady know I'm alright?"

"One of these days, she's going to find out that you and Fury have codenamed her the old lady, and I'm going to sell tickets to her kicking your asses, and be as rich as Stark." Maria teased while nodding that she would make sure Peggy knew she was ok.

By the time Natasha rejoined everyone they were already neck deep in going through the intel. Her gaze went straight to Fury, surprised to see her mentor sitting there looking hurt. "Nick?"

Fury throws down the picture of Pierce he'd been staring at. "Bastard worked with my father. Pops actually called him a friend. I remember he used to say that peace isn't an achievement, it's a responsibility." He shook his head again. "See, this shit is why I have trust issues. Now I gotta go and figure out why my old man was friends with a snake in the grass like this asshole."

There were pictures, reports, and even copies of old new clippings scattered out all over the table. Natasha's gaze raked over it all until it landed on something familiar. Reaching for the file she began to look at it in detail. The newspaper headline read, 'Howard and Maria Stark Die in Car Accident.' what followed were copies of the real autopsy reports, and stills taken from a videotape time stamped Dec. 16th. Fury, Hill, Sam and Steve are still talking, but it's nothing but an annoying buzzing in the back of her head, except when Steve says the name Bucky. That send shivers down her spin like nails on a chalkboard because she's looking at pictures of the man they just fought murder her godfather and aunt.

"Nat?" Steve's voice calls out. Natasha has gone pale and she's trembling badly. "Natasha?" He reaches for her, but Fury stops him. The other man shakes his head and Steve glares at him.

"Give her a second, son." Fury tells the man gently. "You touch her right now and we'll finally find out who wins the Black Widow vs Captain American bet pool."

"We thought he was drunk." Natasha says when she finally speaks. Tears welled in her eyes and were starting to spill down cheeks flushed red with anger. "All these years we thought Uncle Howard was drunk that night. Tony's spent all this time blaming his father for killing his mother, hating him for taking her away from him. But it wasn't him, it wasn't Uncle Howard's fault."

"He's known as the Winter Soldier." Fury says as he steps up beside Natasha, laying his hand on her shoulder, and gently pulling her against his body. "He's been at the top of our most wanted list for years, but he's a ghost, a myth. The Russians used him in the beginning, but after the Cold War, they started renting him out to the highest bidder. Howard Stark had a long ass list of people who wanted him out of the way. We were never able to tie the hit to anyone in particular, but people had their suspicions." He paused for a moment and then continues. "Tony was suppose to be in that car that night, it was meant to be a hit on all the Starks."

Natasha went rigid. "They'd gone to a charity dinner that night. Tony was expected to show up to those when he wasn't in school. He was expected to smile and be charming, the perfect Stark heir on display. But he and Uncle Howard had gotten into a fight over the holidays, and he refused to go."

"The old lady was pretty sure she knew who had done it." Fury says carefully. "Spent years trying to prove it."

"The person who would benefit the most from all the Starks being dead was Obadiah Stane." Natasha said. Her mother knew. Of course her mother knew. She let them think Uncle Howard did this, let Tony blame him. "He was 17, Tony, he was only 17, so Mum became his legal guardian. She hired a full time bodyguard for him, he hated it, hated her for it for a little while. Tony was a mess for a long time, Stane must have figured he was too broken afterwards, so why bother with him."

"When Stark did become an issue, Stane tried again." Fury continued. "I'd hoped to use Stane to get a lead on the Winter Soldier, but we all know how that ended."

"Not all of us." Sam muttered.

"It ended with Iron Man." Natasha said as she threw the file on the table and pulled away from Fury, stronger and more steady on her feet now. She looked into Fury's eye and said, "Let's finish this, and when SHIELD is safe, when my mother's legacy is safe. The Winter Soldier is mine."

Fury nodded. "Let's get to work."

"Natasha." Steve stepped into her personal space as soon as Fury left her side. "I'm sorry about Howard, about his wife…" He dropped his head. "He was a good man, and my friend." He looked up at her. "The Winter Soldier, he's…"

"James Barnes." Natasha said. "It took a minute for me to remember why Bucky sounded familiar, was kind of busy trying not to bleed out from him shooting me in the shoulder, he was a Howling Commando, I've heard the stories."

"So when you said you wanted his case, you meant you want to help me find him, rescue him, right?" Steve asked.

Natasha picked up the picture of the Winter Soldier with his hand around her aunt's throat and shoved it in Steve's face. "Not what I meant at all, Captain."

She would need to tell Tony the truth, she needed to talk to her mother about all of this, but that would all have to wait. Natasha focused on SHIELD, HYDRA, and the mission at hand. Steve and Sam would take out the hidden hellicarries, while Hill coordinated the take down teams. Sharon was already positioned inside the Triskelion, which is where Rumlow was last reported. Natasha was a little jealous she wouldn't be the one taking him out, but she had her own target. Alexander Pierce.

Men like Pierce were cocky, arrogant, and couldn't help but strut like peacocks when they think they're about to get everything they ever wanted. He'd invited the World Security Council to meet face to face right there in the Triskelion, giving them a front row seat to SHIELD's pending betrayal, and if one or two of them died in the process, well that's just more incentive to demolish SHIELD and put his agency in charge. When it came to a mission Natasha had all the patience she needed to see it successfully completed, but laying in wait, listening to Pierce build the tension before he tried to kill her mother's legacy, was twisting her stomach and she wasn't sure how much longer she could wait.

The timing had to be perfect. Cut one head off, two will grow in its place. The way Hercules solved this problem was to have someone cauterizing the monster's necks as he cut off each head, but Hercules only had his nephew to help. SHIELD would act with precision, taking each head down and burning the neck all at the same time, leaving the heart of the monster open and vulnerable.

In the main control room Agent 13 watched Agent Rumlow closely. He was getting antsy as his gaze darted all over the maps tracking active SHIELD aircraft.

"Why haven't the refitted helicarriers been launched?" Rumlow finally demands.

The nervous tech tapped at his keyboard. "I… I don't know, Sir."

"Well find out!" Rumlow demands. "And get those carries in the air! Now!"

"Is there a problem Agent Rumlow?" Sharon asks the man calmly.

He shoots her a look. "Not your concern, Agent 13."

"I'm the commanding agent on duty." She replied. "So it is my concern, Agent Rumlow."

"Sirs!" The tech squeaks out as warning lights start going off. "The refits, all of them, they're shutting down, going completely offline. They're under lockdown."

"Lockdown?" Rumlow growls. "Under whose orders?" The tech sputters and Rumlow draws his weapon, pressing it to the man's head. "Under whose orders?"

"Dir...di..rctor..." The man stutters.

Sharon draws her side arm just as Rumlow does, pressing it to the side of his head. "Drop the gun you treacherous, hydra fucking, bastard."

Rumlow tenses for a moment and then laughs low in his chest. "You're on the wrong side of victory on this one Agent 13."

"Carter." Sharon replied with a smirk, wanting the man to know who was taking him and HYDRA down. "My name, is Agent Sharon Carter."

Rumlow lowers his arm, and slowly turns to look at her. "You the daughter?"

"Niece." Sharon answers just as his gun hits the floor. He draws his knife, slices her arm, and the fight is on.

From the shadows Natasha watched as Pierce pressed his thumb to his phone screen. She smirked at the look on his face, the confusion when nothing happened, the anger that came next. One of the council members asked if he was alright, and Pierce replied he was, there was just a bit of a snag which he would need to take care of himself. That's when he took a sidearm off the guard to his left. Thankfully Natasha didn't have to wait any longer. She easily disarmed Pierce, and took out his men. With her weapon trained on Pierce she deactivated her disguise and smiled, "Oh, sorry, am I making that snag of yours worse?"

"Agent Romanoff, how lovely to see you." Pierce replied, not even trying to hide the fact that he was a bit dumbfounded by the turn of events.

Natasha rolled her eyes without taking her gaze from Pierce or Rockwell. She drew a second weapon which she pointed at Rockwell. "Mr. Singh, Mr. Yen, if you two would step over there, please. Rockwell, stay where you are."

"What is going on here?" Rockwell demanded.

"Didn't you know, Rockwell?" Fury said as he walked into the room with a huge grin on his face. "It's HYDRA hunting season."

Every screen in the room suddenly began scrolling through the evidence linking Pierce, Rockwell, Gideon Malick, and even Senator Stern to HYDRA.

"It's takin' years, and a whole lot of moves in this game between us, but we finally have checkmate, you sons of bitches." Fury laughed.

Pierce responded by killing Singh, Yen, and even Rockwell by using the name badges he'd given them upon their arrival. Just like many other men he overlooked the woman in the room, trying to skirt past Fury. He didn't even spare her a second thought until the bottom of her boots were slamming into his chest, and he was being dragged into a chair. With her own weapon and Fury's now trained on Pierce, she leaned down and smiled as she said, "Oh, we can't let you leave yet. Someone has some questions for you and we've been ordered to keep you here."

Pierce's jaw twitched, the struggle to look away from the Black Widow was real, his heart rate spiking, the vein in his neck pulsing. He forced himself to look away from her and over to Fury, who was sitting at the conference table with his feet up. "And just who gives Director Fury orders these days?"

Fury smiled as a helicopter landed outside the windows behind him. He watched Pierce shift his gaze just over his shoulder to watch, to see who was disembarking. He took a great amount of joy in watching the other man's face twist when he realized who it was. "She does."

Pierce shot to his feet as she entered the room and growled. "Carter."

"Hello Alexander." Peggy replied coldly. "This has been a long time coming."

"Yes, Margaret, I suppose it has been." Pierce replied as he glared at the woman standing at the other end of the table.

"Did you honestly think you could bring down SHIELD once I was gone?" Peggy asked. "That it would be easy as pie once your Carter problem was out of the way? Too bad you didn't realize your Carter problem was bigger than you thought."

"Clearly." Pierce gripped. "You never actually left, you've been pulling Fury's strings this whole time, I should have known."

"Oh, no, Alexander, I really did retire. I promised my wife I would, had a bet with her actually, but more than that I actually love and respect my wife." She taunted. "How many mistresses have you had this year alone? Six?" She heard Fury snort and could feel Natasha watching her.

"This legacy of yours won't last Margaret." Pierce warned, his eyes trained on her. "If not HYDRA than someone else will take it down brick by brick and you will watch it burn."

Peggy hummed softly as she came to a stop just a few feet away from him. "SHIELD is my life's work, yes, but my legacy is it not. No, my true legacy is what protected SHIELD from you, my true legacy is who brought you down, Alexander dear."

"What are you talking about?" Pierce demanded.

"All these years we've worked together Alexander, have I never introduced you to my daughter?" Peggy smirked, a dangerous kind of smirk. "Oh, my apologies. Alexander Pierce, I would very much like for you to meet Natasha Carter."

"Hi." Natasha replied with a wave of her free hand.

"Oh and while we're at it," Peggy continued as Sharon, bloody, and covered in soot, walked in. "You should meet my niece Sharon as well, though she is a bit worse for wear it would seem. Alright darling?"

Sharon nodded. "Rumlow's been apprehended, if he survives his injuries, terminated if he doesn't. Hill reports all teams have checked in, all targets apprehended or eliminated."

"Splend!" Peggy replied, turning back to Pierce. "Do you see now Alexander? You're Carter problem never left, it doubled."

It was the coward's way out but he wasn't going down for this, he wasn't getting taken out by that insufferable woman. "Agent Romanoff, or Carter, or whoever the hell you are, you're still wearing Hawley's name tag I see. Good." Snatching his phone from the table he held it up so the others could see his thumb hover over the screen. "You my dear are going to help me walk out of this place, and your mother is going to watch, or I'm going to blow a nice sized hole in your chest right where your heart is."

"Yeah, no, I don't think so." Natasha said while activating the electro-shock disk in her hand.

Pierce watched the girl fall, surprised and confused, until he felt the heat in his chest. He didn't even fully register the sound, but there were three holes in his chest quickly soaking his shirt red. When he looked up, he'd expected to see Fury standing with weapon raised, he'd been the only one other than the Black Widow who'd had one. But no, the gun aimed at his chest still smoking from the barrel was held in Peggy Carter's hand. The last thing he saw was Peggy Carter's wrath and rage, compared to that hell would be easily suffered.

"Natasha!" Peggy called out as she rushed to her daughter's side, dropping to the floor beside her. "Natasha!"

Fury was right behind her. "Nat, wake up! Girl, don't get me killed alongside that mother fucker."

Peggy held her daughter's face in her hands. "Natasha, come on darling."

"Ow." Natasha moaned as her eyes slowly fluttered open. "Those things really do sting."

In that moment all Peggy could do was laugh as she helped her daughter to sit up. "Are you alright?" She asked, and when Natasha nodded she turned to Sharon. "And you?"

"I'll be fine Aunt Peggy." Sharon replied, hiding her blood soaked sleeve behind her back.

Fury laughed as he leaned back to sit on the edge of the table and shook his head. "After this, any more wolves try to get up in this hen house, are out of their goddamn minds."

"Those are foxes, Nicolas dear, foxes raid hen houses." Peggy smiles warmly as she helps Natasha to her feet. "Not wolves."

SHIELD was safe, the new HYDRA defeated, but there was a lot of damage left it's wake. Damage to her family, her friendships. Fury had asked her if she were really ready to handle what this whole operation might end up doing to them when she first got involved, and Natasha had said yes. But now, standing in the aftermath of it all, the discoveries she'd made weighing on her shoulders, Natasha wasn't so sure.

"Darling are you alright?" Peggy asked as she watched her daughter closely, her concern growing with each tick of the clock. "Do we need to follow Sharon and the medic to medical?"

"No, Mum, no I'm not alright. I'm far from alright." Natasha answered. Looking into her mother's eyes, Natasha put as much steel in her voice she could. "We need to talk about Uncle Howard and the Winter Soldier."