"Did he talk? Do we have any information?" Maria Hill began the barrage of questions before they had even all exited the plane.
"No. Yes." Tony replied, escorting him behind Hill toward the building, shortly followed by Dr. Banner and Steve, who was still in a mild state of shock. Clint and Natasha followed behind, turning post-flight checks over to the SHIELD crew and she leaned heavily against him as they walked. She didn't know if it was blood loss or truly the lack of nutrients in her system, but every step felt like a massive exertion of energy she could not afford to expend. Her foot hurt like hell and she could feel the disgusting mess she had created at the toe of her boots and would likely need a new pair before their next mission.
"I'm going to change," she said to him. "I'll meet you in the debrief room in a few?"
"Are you sure you can make it to your locker and back?"
"Clint, I'll be fine."
"I would feel better if I took you."
"Clint, I'm not changing in front of you. You aren't getting that lucky before we've even been on a date, mister." She said it playfully, with a cheeky and carefree grin that almost had her fooled about her mood. Almost.
"Can I at least take you down there and wait for you outside the locker room?"
"If you insist," she said as he guided them in that general direction. When they reached the locker room, she leaned against the wall on her way in, missing the worried glances of her teammate as he considered her extremely frail state. When she made it to her locker, the room was empty, but she carried her clothes to one of the floor to ceiling privacy stalls anyway. She ripped off a few wads of paper towels and wet them in the sink, letting them rest on the plastic toilet paper cover as she peeled off her skintight suit and deposited it on the floor. The cut was deeper than she had originally thought and the edges of her skin were not quite touching, but the bleeding had subsided, so she wrapped her bloodied sock tightly around the wound and shoved it into her tennis shoe, hoping the bulge was not noticeable. She dabbed gently at the dried blood around her ankles and on her foot, eventually giving in and scrubbing to rid herself of the evidence.
Once she was certain that all the blood was gone, she flushed the wet and bloody paper towels down the toilet and emerged in a loose-fitting long-sleeve t-shirt, leggings that she had tucked around the heels of her feet to cover her ankles, and tennis shoes. She deposited the bloodied suit in the laundry chute at the back of the room and dropped her ruined boots in after. Before she left, she stopped at her locker once more to retrieve a few tablets of ibuprofen and the spare training knife she kept in her locked, which she stashed in the shoe of her unwounded foot.
"Ready?" She asked Clint, giving him a soft, but tired smile. It had been nearly 20 hours since they had left the tower and they were both drained from the mission and flights.
"Is there something you need to tell me?" He eyed her suspiciously and she instinctively pulled the sleeves of her shirt down over the heel of her hands.
"No?"
"You were in there for a while."
"Clint, I'm a bit slower these days…"
He seemed to accept this and swept her into his arms instead of walking at her slow pace.
"Do you promise you didn't do anything while you were in the locker room?" He whispered so quietly into her hair that she barely heard him.
"I promise," she leans her head into the stiff pillow of his chest and he sways gently while he walks. She's so peaceful and calm, comforted by his warmth that she doesn't notice as she quickly drifts off into her first peaceful sleep of weeks. He smiles when he looks down to talk to her and sees her nose tucked into his shoulder, eyelids fluttering slightly, but never opening. On a quick detour to the debriefing room, he places her on the couch in the room next door and dims the lights.
"Where is Romanoff?" Fury asks expectantly as he enters the room.
"Next door sleeping. She's sick, remember?"
"We will need her report first thing when she wakes."
"She only flew the plane and stood guard on it while we completed the mission."
"You know the rules," Hill lightly chastised him.
"So," Fury begins. "Who is he?"
"Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes," Steve says flatly. "Born on March 10, 1917, and served in the US Army, 107th Infantry. Presumed dead."
"Stark, can you pull up everythi-"
"Already on it, Captain Hook."
"So you know him, Steve?" Hill asks, turning to him with an inquisitive, but caring expression.
"He was my best friend."
"Was?"
"Bucky is dead."
"So who is in the holding cell downstairs waiting to be interrogated?"
"Whoever he is now, I don't know him anymore. The Bucky I know would never do this."
"Do what? Risk everything for his country and happen to survive and get captured?"
"He's the one that did it."
"Did what? Someone better start explaining or I'm going to make you all ride desks for the rest of your careers."
"It's not really our place, Nick," Bruce said calmly.
"I don't really give a damn, Banner. Start talking."
"How much do you know about Natasha's time in the Black Widow program?"
Hill and Fury exchanged glances, not responding to his question.
"Unless you already know what we're talking about," Tony says dangerously, his eyes leaving the screens in front of him. "Is there something you'd like to share, Nick?"
"We don't know anything more than you do from Viktoriya."
"But you suspect something."
"Natasha was not the first Widow we've known to escape the program. There was another, from her class. She's officially dead, gunshot to the head."
"How do you survive a gunshot to the head?"
"Our best guess?" Fury nods his head at Hill, giving her permission to continue. "The bullet was extremely narrow, no side-to-side movement in an extremely controlled environment, and high velocity led to minimal damage. That, and a combination of lazy disposal of bodies and good acting. But she was… damaged. She didn't last very long outside of the Red Room and she killed herself a few months after we rescued her."
The rest of the men in the room exchanged another set of worried glances, seeing the parallels being the Widow and Natasha.
"Why is this the first we are hearing of it?"
"The Widow… She left a note. For Natasha. Clint, your rescue of Natasha was not an accident. It was planned."
"Bruce, is this even possible?" Clint breathed, feeling his head spinning.
"I… It's technically possible, though the likelihood is extremely slim. As for the trauma, I think we all know that it is not only a possibility, but extremely likely given what they went through."
"We were never sure, with the one before Natasha, what was real and what was made up from the hallucinations. So, we may know more than you, but we don't know if it's real or not."
"I need to go check on her," Clint excused himself.
"So, what has Natasha said about the Winter Soldier?"
"The person that you have in custody assaulted her, and probably others, repeatedly and violently." Dr. Banner states. "He is extremely violent with his victims and should not be underestimated. If he came down as easily as we think, I think it's safe to assume that they knew we were coming. Viktoriya probably planned this, too."