Steve and Sam huddled in the kitchen and talked. Natasha headed for the bathroom. Freshly showered, she sat on the bed and tended to the healing cut on her forehead. She rubbed her forehead, the words of the scientist echoing in her head. A mysterious algorithm they needed to figure out posed a serious problem. Fury was dead. S.H.I.E.L.D. was trying to kill her and Steve.
"You okay?" Steve asked from the door.
She raised an eyebrow at him and nodded. Using the towel to wring out her wet hair. Steve sat on the bed next to her.
"What's going on?"
She looked at the ground for a while before deciding she could trust him. "I thought I knew who's lies I was telling."
Steve frowned as she took a deep breath, "I guess I just traded in the KGB for HYDRA. Sold KGB lies because I thought I was finally going straight by working for S.H.I.E.L.D. I can't tell the difference anymore. Who's lying and who's not." She looked shaken. "I'm a liar in the service of liars. How naïve am I to assume S.H.I.E.L.D. was better than the KGB?"
He listened, "KGB huh?" He concluded, not quite sure how he missed the fact that she was Russian. She had no accent. Her name suggested Russian but he had just assumed it was one of her cover names.
She glanced at him, "Master KGB assassin by 18 years old. Started killing at 11. Didn't know you were friends with a monster, hmm?" She sighed and crumbled the towel in her hand.
If he had any shock to what she said he hid it well. "You can't let your past dictate your future. That's no way to live, Natasha."
She stared at him for a while and then admitted, "I owe you." She was quickly racking up debts to these men she worked with. Clint, Fury, now Steve.
He shook his head, "It's okay, don't worry about it."
"If it was the other way around. Down to me to save your life. Would you trust me to do it?"
Steve didn't miss a beat, "I would now."
Breaking into Fort Mead to steal military equipment was fun. Steve letting her kick Sitwell off the roof to get information about Insight was even more fun. They were speeding down the freeway intent on getting into the Triskellion. She hacked her way into filed again, before gasping. "16 hours until launch.. That doesn't leave us enough time." She pointed out to Sam and Steve.
"It's manageable." Steve corrected when a loud thud dented the top of the car. Natasha grabbed her gun from her thigh holster when the window exploded and Sitwell was thrown from the car. Natasha fired through the roof before a metal hand burst through the roof. She threw herself forward, Steve helping her out of the way. She crouched on his lap as she shouted at Sam. "Faster!" She panted, shooting again at the roof.
A hand burst through the windshield showering them with glass, the steering wheel ripped from Sam's hands. A truck behind them rammed into the car. With no way to steer it wobbled dangerously.
Steve kicked the door open and grabbed her and Sam. Using his shield as a barrier they slammed onto the highway below and skied several hundred feet.
Sam tumbled off yard back. As Natasha got to her feet an RPG was fired. Steve flung her out of the way and took the brunt of the blast. He was hurled off the elevated highway. Natasha crouched behind an upturned vehicle and drew her second clip. Her heart hammered painfully. How was he here again, shooting at her? Anger coursed through her veins. She hurled herself into sight and fired. A hail storm of bullets rained in her direction as James loaded another RPG. She sprinted for cover. Hurtling the embankment and sliding across two cars as the explosion threw her forward. She jumped the edge and plummeted to the ground. With a forceful twist she fired a device from her wrist, a hook shot into the bridge and she swung to the ground.
On the ground she spotted his shadow. He was done hurting innocent people. If he had a quarrel with her and Steve. If HYDRA employed him to kill them, then she would draw his attention. His shadow cast over the bridge. In a second she aimed and fired both of her guns at him. A bullet striking his goggles.
Natasha crouched beside a vehicle and waited. Did she kill him? It couldn't be that easy. James leapt over the edge and dropped down onto a car. Natasha felt her stomach roil. He was pissed. Yelling in Russian. Someone else had been teaching him. She emptied her clip again and took his pause to reload to changer her position. She ran, urging civilians to take cover. She had to regain the element of surprise.
She dropped her phone behind a car and left it replaying a recording. She watched James approach the car, his machine gun loaded. She waited as he rolled a device under the car thinking he had cornered her. It exploded and she sprung forward, propelling herself off the roof of a car onto his shoulders. Her legs kicked his gun down and wrapped around his arms. She slammed her garrote against his neck, one of his hands trapping it as she yanked. He reeled backwards and slammed her into another car.
Natasha crashed to the ground. James rounded on her in a second, gun raised. She flung a taser disc at his arm and sprinted, not taking any more risks in getting shot. She hurtled down the street looking for cover. A bullet screamed past her ear. She rolled to the ground as James pursued her. She scrambled under a truck and sprinted back in the direction she came from. Thinking she had lost him she looked for Steve.
A bullet tore through her shoulder, knocking the wind from her as she toppled against a car. Her hand flew to the wound, pain blossoming across her chest. James slid over the hood of the car and aimed at her head. Intent to kill blazing in his eyes.
Natasha was frozen. Out of ammo, out of tools, she scrambled to her knees in a last-ditch effort to run despite the blinding pain. Steve's shield flung over her head and knocked James back.
She ripped her jacket off, ripping the lining out to stem the flow of blood down her chest. She scrambled to a dead cop and grabbed his discarded gun. She rounded on the fight behind her, her right arm useless with a bullet lost in the shoulder. That wouldn't stop her. Steve bashed his shield into James' face knocking the mask off.
It was like the world stopped. Both men stared. Natasha had never seen Steve freeze before.
"Bucky?" Steve said in disbelief.
Natasha surged forward and shot the single bullet left in the gun. It lodged in his armor and broke the weird pause the men had experienced. But Natasha was angry. She slammed into James. Her fist flying. Her knee connected with his ribs. Her elbow cracked against his face.
James staggered and shoved her backwards. The fury inside her made her surge forward again, throwing the useless gun at him. It ricocheted off his shoulder.
"Natasha!" Steve shouted as she flung her foot into the air and grazed his head.
James trapped her right arm and yanked her towards him. Her arm erupted in pain, a desperate cry escaped her lips as she fought the grip. It was like her was trying to shred her shoulder to pieces. She dug her feet into the ground and unsettled his balance, a shove of her hip sent him down. But his grip didn't falter. He growled and pushed her off of him. She was hell bent on proving her point. She dove at him, her fists flying at every inch of him she could reach.
"You don't get to shoot me twice and act like I'm just bullet fodder!" She hissed as she kicked away his only gun left.
James growled and threw her down against the cement. "I'll shoot you a third time, and I won't miss."
"Don't do me any favors!" She slapped him in an effort to break his hold on her. His hand closed around her throat, slick with the blood pulsing from her wound. He squeezed as her feet dug into his sides.
"James…" She gasped. Her fingers prying at his hands. "James!" She wheezed her eyes wide with terror.
Steve slammed into both of them, James rolled away and scrambled to his feet. Natasha shoved Steve and got up intent on striking again. James stared at her and then the blood on his hands. Like he was confused.
"Помни меня, черт возьми, Джеймс!'' She yelled. ("Remember me! Damn it, James!") Steve grabbed her, pinning her against him, not sure what to make of her screaming at Bucky in the middle of a fight. James grabbed the gun and tore off down the street. Natasha was furious as she dug her feet in and laid Steve out on the ground with a simply throw over her shoulder. Her heart pounded, adrenaline filled her. She could catch up. A gun pressed into her back. "On the ground, Romanoff." Rumlow hissed. Helicopters surged over head. She was surrounded. Steve was handcuffed. Sam was being hauled into an armored truck. She twitched and her hand shot upwards to hit him. "Wrong choice, Natasha." He caught her wrist and slammed her into the ground. In minutes she was forced into the truck, bound hands and feet to a seat next to Sam. Steve looked furious. "You don't take orders well do you?" Sam commented, trying to ease the icy situation. Natasha had calmed down now and felt the extent of her injury. She was pale and pain caused a sheen of sweat on her skin. "Ever tried to tell a Russian what to do?" She breathed. "What the hell was that back there, Romanoff?" Steve snapped. Sam frowned, "Now isn't the time." Natasha shut her eyes and breathed slowly. James was under her skin. Now the thought of him sent her into a blind, stupid rage. The way she acted in the fight was beneath her. She let him get a hold of her emotions. That cool reserve she maintained shattered around him. She wasn't the only one to see that. Steve saw it all. Sam watched blood trickle from the wound on her shoulder. "Through and through?" He asked her. "No." She grimaced. Sam turned to the two guards in the truck with them. "She needs pressure on that wound our she'll bleed out." One guard looked at the other and then suddenly tasered the second one. Natasha jerked at the restraints, figuring they were going to be next. The guards helmet dropped to the ground and Steve laughed. "What do you say we get out of here?" Maria Hill smiled. The next hour was a blur. When the vehicle stopped, Maria got them out safely and undetected. They rushed deep into the woods nearby and entered the drainage pipe under an abandoned bridge reclaimed by nature. It seemed to be a safe house of some sort. Sam was applying pressure to her shoulder as they moved the whole time. Inside the compound, Maria led them to a room. Natasha didn't believe her eyes. "How is it that a defected Russian master assassin is always the one getting shot?" Fury asked from a hospital bed. "Because her temper is as red hot as her hair." Steve said quietly. "Do you have a problem, Rodgers?" Natasha quipped back quickly. "Okay, children…" Maria interjected and nodded to a doctor to motioned for Natasha to sit on a bed. As everyone discussed how Fury somehow managed to be alive, the doctor was setting up supplies on a tray. "Take this." The doctor handed her two pills. "What is it?" She said softly. Her mind reeling over James. "Pain killer, and an antibiotic." "No painkillers." She offered the pills back and the doctor reluctantly took the larger white pill away. "It's not going to feel good, Natasha. I've got to dig the bullet out. It's shallow." The doctor insisted. "No." Pain would clear her head. It would chase James away back into the depths of her memory where he belonged. He held slender surgical pliers in his hand. Everyone else in the room seemed to be chancing peeks at her. Twice she caught Steve watching, and once Sam. Maria and Fury were sneakier about checking up on her from afar. The doctor extended her should back and slid the pliers into the wound. She grit her teeth. It took him several moments to find the bullet. Meanwhile she wished she hadn't been dumb enough to deny painkillers. The pain was sharp, it took her breath away. It made James disappear. She gasped as her eyes flooded with tears. The emotional trauma of the day setting in. He had shot her again. Threatened to do it a third time because she dared to live each time. A strangled sob escaped her lips as she hung her head. If there was truly any shred of James left in him, he wouldn't have said something like that. Her James wasn't this monster. Fury nodded at Maria and Sam who left the room as she started to sob. Fury himself got up and shut the door to his room proclaiming something about sleep. Steve gently took her hand and held it firmly. She leaned into his chest. Despite being angry with her earlier, he wasn't going to let her suffer whatever seemed to be bothering her. Steve cradled her head against his chest as the doctor worked. She kept crying and crying, Steve was flabbergasted. "Can't you do something for the pain?" Steve asked after a few minutes. "She denied them." The doctor replied and extracted the bullet. He scanned the area with a device and concluded there was no major internal damage. He cleaned and stitched the wound. Wrapping a generous amount of gauze around the wound and stabilizing her shoulder with tape to prevent movement. Natasha had been eerily quiet since the bullet had been pulled out. Steve could see her breathing quickly. "Romanoff…" He said softly, letting go of her gently. She stiffly sat up and used her left hand to wipe her wet face. She shook her head, denying him. "I'm calling in that debt. Start talking." He said quickly. "Why did you call him Bucky?" She said quietly, she lifted her green eyes and waited. Steve generally foresaw that when he called in the favor that he'd be asking the questions, not her. "I know him." "What?" Natasha said in disbelief. How could they both know him by different names. It clicked in her head. James would be nearly the same age as Steve. "Before the war…" "Yeah.. How did you know that?" Steve seemed shocked that she pieced it together. "You're not the only one who knows him." She grabbed a chunk of gauze and wiped at the dried blood on her arms. "I just know him as James." "No one called him James, unless it was a girl he was chasing." Steve said with an odd expression on his face. Then he realized. "Oh, but I don't understand. You were born in what, the 80's?" Natasha nodded. "The KGB tried to train super soldiers. Like you. They had serums, they used them on us to in the Black Widow program. One day he showed up at the Red Room. Metal arm and all, looking as young as the rest of us." Steve rubbed his head. "Wait what year was that?" Natasha shrugged her shoulder stinging, "Probably 2000-ish." "He fell from the train in 1945… I thought he was dead. Dead, until today. I looked for ever for him." Steve said in disbelief. This was fascinating news, Natasha needed more. "He told me once that he woke up. He remembered the war and then he woke up. He had the arm and didn't remember how he got it. They used him in my training. He's impossible to beat." Steve recalled that she mentioned the Winter Soldier before and withheld all this information. She claimed she saw him in Odessa, not Russia. "Why didn't you tell me this back at the hospital?" He asked. "It wasn't necessary… I'm.." She stammered and ducked her head. "You're what…" He continued. "I'm trying to forget him." She cleared her throat and shook her head forcing back another wave of tears. "Because remembering him does this to me." She gestured to herself. "What did he do to you? The Bucky I know wouldn't hurt someone like this." Steve pressed. Natasha looked at him. "I fell in love with him. In a place that punished you for love, for hope, and any other thing that didn't directly involve killing. I was so in love. He was kind. He made me better. He was everything to me. I gave him everything. Every part of me, and I let it make me foolish. Both of us. We thought our love would survive the KGB and somehow it would hold us together." Steve watched her eyes glaze over with tears. His hand gently held hers. The only gesture he could think of that would help her. "The girls loved him back in the day. He was chivalrous. He listened to them, most men didn't Women weren't treated the same back then. You two ran away? How does that end up with him being under HYDRA's thumb and you working for S.H.I.E.L.D.?" He asked. "I asked him to run away with me…" She admitted. "He wouldn't let me run from my problems. He helped me face them. In the end we were punished for it. They discovered I was… pregnant, and tortured us until they had the truth. They wiped his memory and made me watch. I saw him a few times after that. They messed with my head too. I remembered somethings but not all. I tried to make him remember me... But he's gone, Steve. The machines they have and use on us. There's no coming back from that." He squeezed her hand as a tear trailed down her cheek. Steve suddenly understood why she was the way that she was. The trauma she experienced. He heard stories of what people had learned about the Red Room and KGB assassin training. It was inhumane. She survived it all, a testament to her strength. She used sarcasm and flirtation to deflect others from looking too closely at her because they'd see the pain. He could feel the pain radiating from her. Pain that caused her to have a built fished out of her body with no painkillers just to combat it. He didn't want to cause her anymore pain but he had a million more questions. "Did you have a baby?" He asked quietly. Was Bucky a father and he didn't know it. Natasha huffed, "No…" she said morosely. "I was 18. When girls graduate from the Red Room… We're sterilized for our own good. That's how they found out. They took care of it, before I had a chance to even know I was pregnant." Steve looked away. How much trauma was she going to reveal? "I'm sorry." "Don't be." She whispered. "I can't miss something I never had." "That's not true. You're allowed to want those things." He tugged her in as her lip trembled. Truth of the matter was, she denied it for years. But she wanted that baby. The one she didn't know she had. "I did… I really wanted it. I wanted a family, and a whole bunch of kids. With him I saw that, at 18 of all ages. I saw my future and they took it away." Steve was quiet for a while, "You still can, Natasha. Medicine has advanced. You never know they could maybe reverse what was done to you." She leaned into him and shut her eyes. "You're a bad liar. But thank you for lying to me. I just wished I could believe it." Steve watched Sam and Maria walk into the room. "We have a plan, Rodgers." Maria said quickly. Sam went over to Natasha. "How's my favorite redheaded badass?" "I'll live." She admitted after a second. "Good to hear it, we've got a job for you." Sam smirked and handed her a blue suit jacket and skirt. "Oh, you sure know a way to a ladies heart. A tweed suit?" She huffed. "She's still actively bleeding she can't possibly be up for this." Steve interjected."Relax, Rodgers. You'll be doing all the actual work. She's going undercover." Fury entered the room and motioned for everyone to follow him. "We've got 3 hours to bring Insight down."
