Chapter 1: Discovered

Monday September 3rd, 2013

Washington DC

The last 72 hours had left a very bad taste in Natasha's mouth. One second, she was in Costa Rica, working on dismantling an entire drug ring from the inside out, and the next she was getting an encrypted message from Maria Hill saying that Hydra had infiltrated Shield and that Fury was heavily injured and needed backup. She had made her way straight to DC and the coordinates given, ditching the rest of the Shield members that were on assignment with her because she couldn't trust one of them. When she found the bunker, Fury was barely conscious, so Hill filled her in on most things. The Lumerian Star, Hydra, Rogers, and the Winter Soldier. Her heart dropped at the mention of the Winter Soldier. Her past intertwined with the assassin and her experience with the Red Room. Plus the fact of his identity not being revealed to Rogers right away was devastating. She was very familiar with Steve Rogers. She was on guard detail with Coulson when he was brought out from the ice, overseeing the defrosting project and making sure that America's most treasured person was kept safe. When he awoke, she donned the photostatic veil to try and ease him back into things, which didn't work well at all. It was the last time she had spoken to Rogers, and he didn't even know who she was. She couldn't help what she was starting to develop, a small level of attraction.

Then New York happened. She wasn't there, and she was pissed at all hell because of it. She was on a mission in Russia, which was very important she knew. But an alien invasion came barreling into New York, and Fury called up the team, which was supposed to include her, but she got left hanging. She spent the next couple of months working missions and training recruits, seeing Steve in the halls of the Triskellion when he joined Shield, but never saying a word to him. She was sent on a long mission about a month ago that Fury felt that STRIKE didn't need to be involved with, and then this. The second after Hill finished explaining, she sent Natasha out on a medical supply run while Maria went to get Rogers and the rest of them. She hadn't any issue with her mission, a small local hospital was nearby and it was easy enough to swipe the supplies. She was sure that the doctors and nurses there would understand why if she was caught, she just knew it wasn't the right time to tell them, should they ever get in trouble. She was back at the bunker when she heard voices in the main area. She kept to the shadows and looked out to see Fury out sitting at the table with Hill, across from Steve Rogers, Terra Montgomery, and a man that Natasha didn't know.

Natasha recognized Terra easily. She was an Agent of Shield, known as the Knight. She was one of the Avengers that fought at New York and she was powered up, able to absorb any metal and cover it with her body, also enhancing herself with it. That came in handy when your notably best friend carried around a Shield with the strongest metal on Earth. She went on a mission with Montgomery once in her past, to Odessa. That was when they were both attacked by the Winter Soldier and barely made it out, failing in bringing the scientist back. After that, she refused to go on missions with Montgomery anymore, knowing that she didn't want her past to harm anyone else at Shield. Aside from her past, she knew only what she heard about the Knight. She helped Steve a lot after New York, started a relationship with Bruce Banner, was pretty decent friends of Tony Stark and Pepper Potts, all good things really.

"Why do you think we're meeting in this cave?" Fury said, interrupting her thoughts and holding his hands out at the less than luxurious hideout. "I noticed."

"Not soon enough," Natasha heard Terra murmuring around the straw of fluids that had been given to her. It appeared like she had a gunshot wound, probably from a fight with Hydra forces, maybe even the Winter Soldier.

"How many paid the price before you did?" Rogers said harshly, not missing a beat. He was pissed, about a lot of things Natasha could tell. His frustration and anger matched Natasha's own when she first heard about this. She decided now was the best time as any to make her return public to the rest of the group.

"He's right Fury," Natasha said, stepping out of the shadows. She tossed a large first aid kit on the table with a bang, the doctor that was probably working on Terra nearby scrambling up to grab in and look over what she had brought. He probably didn't have a lot to work with here to begin with. "I didn't trade the KGB for Hydra," Nat said, sitting down across from Hill.

Natasha could see that Terra and the man both jumped at her sudden entrance, and even Steve looked suprised. Terra nearly spilled her drink.

"Holy shit," she gaped, her straw falling out of her mouth.

The man just looked confused, obviously never meeting her before and if he had known Montgomery for any point in time, Natasha wasn't exactly a talking point. "Uh, who's that?" he asked sideways to Terra.

"That is Natasha Romanoff," she replied in an excited whisper. "She could kill you with a toothbrush."

The man contemplated that for a moment. "...Hairbrush?"

"Dead."

"Teddy-bear."

"Dead."

"Floss."

"Now you're just making it easy for her."

They continued to bicker/whisper while Fury just sighed and tried to refocus the group. "Captain, Agent Natasha Romanoff, can we get back to the matter at hand here?" Nick looked back at Steve and then dropped a bomb that hit Natasha hard. "Look, I didn't know about Barnes."

So Rogers knew the identity of the Winter Soldier, and by the looks of it, he found out by himself. Rogers didn't even address her, as the mention of the named made him even more upset than he already was. Fury was definitely on a roll here with making the greatest soldier of all time very upset with him.

"Even if you did, would you have told me? Or would you have compartmentalized that too?" Steve spat, not sparing any mercy at this. Natasha was actually getting a kick out of Fury being chewed out and having to sit and take it. "SHIELD, Hydra, it all goes."

While Fury and Steve were hashing it out, Natasha leaned over to Terra. "How are you doing kid?" she asked quietly, worrying about a gunshot wound that she didn't know anything about.

Terra gave a shrug with her good shoulder, and Natasha could tell that she was trying to hold something back. Whether it was admiration or surprise, Natasha couldn't tell. "Ah, you know how it is. I would rather go on about my day without being shot in the shoulder, but beggars can't be choosers, eh?"

Natasha's attention was brought back to the other conversation when Fury's right hand, possibly his most trusted agent Maria Hill uttered two words. "He's right," she gave a small smile, agreeing with Rogers and basically giving her permission to end Shield.

Nick looked at Sam and Terra.

"Don't look at us," Terra mumbled around her straw.

"We do what he does, just slower," Sam finished.

"And with a lot more complaining."

Natasha saw it in Fury's face, he was beat. He had nowhere to go, and no way to get out of this. But Natasha knew better, and Fury wouldn't take this lying down. He already had a secret team that the Avengers didn't know about. How do you keep the resurrection of Phil Coulson from the Avengers without them making a huge uproar, well you just don't tell them and let him work in secret with his own team. She had been asked to think about joining, but she outright refused to even consider until Fury told the Avengers about Coulson, which he refused to do as well. So, they hit a standstill.

Fury sighed and looked back at Steve. "Well, looks like you're giving the orders now, Captain."

Natasha saw Steve deflate just a little bit. Might not have been noticeable for anyone else, but she saw it plain as day. Now that he won this small battle, his mind obviously went back to other things, and Natasha could guess who was at the front. Squaring his shoulders, Steve returned to holding his head high. "From here on out, we are not affiliated with SHIELD. We are just people trying to stop something very bad from happening. We are Avengers." He sent Terra a little secret smile. "We may not be able to search every carrier for innocent SHIELD agents, but we can get them to run or help if we can get them a message. Terra, Sam, Maria, and I will head to the Triskelion and access the P.A. system, broadcast a message to every shield agent in DC. If they make it out, great. If they help us, even better. Maria will stay behind to keep watch over surveillance and activate the virus once it's been planted into every carrier. Terra, Sam, and I will each take a chip and work on a separate carrier. Pierce is going to try to stop us. He's having a meeting with the World Security Council tonight. We have to infiltrate that meeting and make sure Pierce doesn't get away. We'll need his access code to hack into the SHIELD database. I want every secret SHIELD ever told, and the ones it never did, on the Internet. No more hiding. No more compartmentalization. No more working from the shadows." He turned to Natasha then, and looked her right in the eye "Miss Romanoff? Would you be up to the task?"

Natasha was suddenly hit with a fit of dread at what her orders were. Dump everything on the internet, and expose her very bloody past. She had given Shield a lot when she defected, and she knew that those files were behind a high level of clearance. But to give Shield that much, she had to sacrifice her own secrets as well. And while her deal absolved herself of those crimes with the other information and the contract to work with Shield, the rest of the American people may not be so kind. "I don't know Captain," Natasha said carefully. "There are a lot of things that SHIELD has on me that would make others very angry. My past isn't the cleanest, well that's an understatement. There will be an arrest warrant out for me for sure if I do this. With SHIELD compromised, I don't have anywhere to turn. My web is in flames because of Hydra."

"I understand that," Rogers said, equally careful. "But if we don't do this, Hydra can crawl back into the shadows. It can masquerade as SHIELD. Everyone gets confused. Who's SHIELD? Who's Hydra? Who can I trust? This is the best way to get Hydra - we cut off their biggest head, maybe even their heart, and hope it will be enough. I'm sorry, Natasha, but if you need a place to lay low, I know Avengers Tower will be open to you. No one would ever suspect it either. And if Mr. Stark has a problem with that, he can take it up with me."

Natasha's ears perked at Rogers calling her by her first name. Not many people did that, especially after having just met her. Not that she allowed it most of the time, but with Rogers it felt different. For one of the first times in her life, she felt like she could trust someone she just met. Some might say it was cheating because this person was Captain America, but she was going to count it nonetheless. "Avengers Tower huh," Natasha said with a smirk. "Well the last time I spoke to Stark he wasn't too happy about finding out who I was, but if I can get under his skin that way, then I'm in. Besides, it will be nice to take orders from someone older than me for once, if only by ten years."

One of the things that Natasha had kept from even the Shield files was her actual birth date. For the records, she was born in December of 1984, but in actuality, she was born in December of 1929. She was orphaned in World War 2, brought to the Red Room and trained, and given a version of the Super Soldier serum. Weaker than Rogers and the Red Guardian for sure, and even weaker than the Winter Soldier, but enough to slow her aging and give her slightly enhanced abilities.

"Mr. Stark is currently... away on business." Rogers said, obviously having trouble finding the words to explain Stark's situation. "I'll make sure to explain the situation to him when he comes back." He offered Natasha a small, reassuring smile. "Going undercover as one of the council would probably be most effective. I'll leave that part up to you, since this is what you do best." He returned his attention to everyone else in the room. "Is everyone clear on the plan?"

Terra also looked uncomfortable when the plan was to reveal everything on the internet. Natasha knew a bit about Terra's past and what was in her file, and it wasn't overly pretty, but she fought through it. "Yup," Terra popping the p.

"Wait, wait," the other man looked skeptically at her. "You can't do any fighting or chip-placing with that shoulder, I wouldn't let you lift a potato chip."

Terra waved him off. "If I put my armor over it, I'll be fine," she assured. "Good as gravy." Then she paused in silence for a moment and wrinkled her nose before looking at Fury. "You! I don't care how good of a reason it is," she slammed her gatorade bottle down on the table next to her and set her clenched hands down in her lap, her eyes piercing at Nick's. "Screw you for letting me think you were dead, Nick!" Fury was silent at that and at least had the decency enough to look a little ashamed at one of his secrets that genuinely hurt someone. "Yeah, that's what I thought!" Terra grumbled.

Natasha nodded as well, a plan forming in her mind on how to infiltrate, and actually being inspired by Steve in the room. Specifically the first time she met him. "You still have a Photostatic Veil lying around," Natasha asked Fury, wanting to make sure she didn't have to make another supply run before all of this.

"In the backroom. You should all gear up on whatever you need," Fury said and then Rogers left the room. Natasha could tell he had some thinking to do and it wasn't her place to go and talk to him at this point. Natasha started walking back towards the direction Fury pointed her in. Natasha began getting into the mission mode, gathering her equipment and looking for the Veil. She finally found one and had to dust off the cover of it. She was skeptical of it really working, but she didn't have much of a choice at this point. Nat made her way back into the main room, completely restocked on ammo and supplies. She was also carrying the box with the veil in it, getting ready to start calibrating it to the certain member on the world security council she was thinking of. She had to find out one thing first. She walked over to Fury and sat down in front of him and asked him straight away.

"Nick," Natasha said. "I need you to be honest with me. Completely honest. How many missions that I carried out were Hydra's. How many times did Pierce or someone else send me to do Hydra's bidding?"

He looked up at her approach and sat back, folding his hands together. He closed his one eye, and let out a breath. "As many times as me." He opened his eye to stare her down. "As many times as Montgomery. As many times as all the other agents of SHIELD because every operation we had? They had their own. Not every operation had... evil backgrounds or they would have been found out much sooner, but..." Nick sighed and shook his head. "It's impossible to tell. Not until everything had been spilled out." Then Fury seemed to harden himself. Now wasn't the time for a pity party, and Natasha knew that. He leaned forward and locked eyes with one of his best agents. "I may not be your boss anymore. But I need you to turn your back on what you did and focus on what you're going to do."

Natasha closed her eyes and clenched her fist that wasn't holding the veil. She wanted to yell some more, and wanted to say that she put faith into this organization and it crushed her and everything she was trying to undo. But she had a job to do and start to fix things again. "Fine," she relented. "But I'm not naïve like Rogers. I know you are going to reestablish Shield in some fashion. I'm out. This is the last time I'll take my orders from you."

Fury gave a terse, "Understood." And Natasha stood up, keeping her rock steady glare at him. "You need to find a helicopter and land outside the World Security Council floor," Natasha said. "Bring my suit and don't you be late." Without waiting for a response, she walked out of the room and headed towards her objective.

Ronald Regan National Airport

Natasha arrived at the airport and donned a striped hoodie and skinny jeans. Hydra could be anywhere at this point, and she didn't want to alert them that she was working with Rogers to take down Shield. She sat down outside the terminal that the councilwoman was set to arrive and just waited. She grabbed a magazine that had an interesting headline on it and began reading. It was about Stark and how he hadn't been seen in a while. Natasha chuckled as she thought of Stark's face when she showed up with Rogers to Stark tower to live there. She looked up and saw the council woman exiting the terminal and pushed that thought to the back of her mind. There would be time to brood later, right now she had a job to do. She tailed the group for about five minutes, to baggage claim and back. Just before they were about to leave the airport, the councilwoman stopped and turned towards the bathroom.

"I'll be right back," the council woman said and she was followed closely by a female guard.

Natasha walked forward and hid her face from the other guards standing outside, and ducked into the bathroom. She looked in and saw the stall that was holding the council woman, and the guard that was posted just outside. She walked behind the guard, all the while pulling her garrot out of her wrist gauntlet. Once she was safely past, she pulled the cord tight and spun around, wrapping it around the guard's neck. It only took a few seconds to knock out the guard, and once she did, she stuffed the guard in a closet and locked the door. Natasha turned back to the stall and waited for the council woman to finish.

The council woman flushed the toilet and stepped out and immediately met Natasha's eyes. Natasha moved forward in a flash, and pushed the council woman inside the stall and locked the door.

"Do you know who I am," Natasha said, taking down her hood.

"Agent Romanoff," the council woman said in realization.

"Very good," Natasha said. "Now, I don't have a lot of time, but here is the deal, Hydra has infiltrated SHIELD. Captain Rogers is innocent and is headed to the Triskellion right now to shut down Project Insight."

"How do you know about Project Insight?" the council woman demanded.

Natasha just raised one of her eyebrows and the council woman realized it was a stupid question and started putting the pieces together. "If Hydra has control of those helicarriers, that means..."

"You, I, and millions of others are dead," Natasha said, finishing for her. "Now Captain Rogers has a plan, but that includes me impersonating you, and infiltrating the Triskellion right under Hydra's nose."

"Why do you need to do that?" the council woman asked.

"Rogers wants all of the Shield files dumped on the internet," Natasha said.

The council woman was about to protest when Natasha silenced her with a glare, "these are the Captain's orders. You can either go along willingly, or I can force you."

The council woman thought and finally nodded. "What do you need me to do?"

"Put this on," Natasha said, handing her the veil. "And I'll need your clothes, don't worry I brought spares."

The council woman nodded and put on the veil. Natasha pressed a few buttons on the side and she could see the veil begin to calibrate to the council woman's face. The council woman began to take her clothes off as Natasha produced another pair.

"You are going to wait in here for an hour," Natasha instructed. "Then you are going to take a cab to the Capitol building. They should be able to take care of you there."

The council woman nodded and Natasha shredded her clothes, her scars showing to one of the few people that will get to see them. She quickly grabbed the council woman's clothes and slipped them on. They were a tad big on her, due to her small frame, but nothing noticeable. She then gently pulled the veil off of the council woman's face and put it on her own. The council woman was in shock as soon as the veil adjusted to Natasha's features and displayed the council woman's face.

"Remember what I said," Natasha said.

"You are a good agent," the council woman said, as Natasha began to walk out.

Natasha stopped and looked back. "I'm not an agent anymore." With that, she walked out of the stall and out of the bathroom. When she emerged, she was met with curious looks.

"Where is Agent Danbury," a man asked her.

"She was feeling sick," Natasha said. "Said she would meet us at the Triskellion and to go on without her."

The men found that acceptable and continued on. Natasha followed in their ranks, staying calm and remembering her training. They exited the airport and found the car waiting for them. One of the guards opened the door for her and she stepped inside, settling in the back seat.

"Is there any place you need to go first Ma'am," the driver asked.

"No," Natasha responded. "Continue on as usual."

The driver nodded and began to drive towards the Triskelion, and towards Hydra.

A/N

There's chapter one. Uploads probably won't be this frequent, but I wanted to get a good size chapter for you after a shorter prologue to give you a good idea on the style of writing. Next up, the Battle for DC. Contributors to this chapter were A Velvet Rose and SarahCon.