Author´s notes: Hello! Here goes another chapter! Just an observation that the lines spoken in Russian are in Italic.

I´m reviewing the previous chapters for any misspelling and grammar error, but without someone to proof read them for me, it´s a little difficult to correct all my mistakes. So, I ask you again to be patient with my English.

Thanks for the reviews and support! See you! ;)

CHAPTER 15

Russia – Moscow

Natasha wakes up abruptly when she feels the ice-cold water that hits her head and flows down her body. As an instinct, she gasps for air and tries to wipe her face with her hands, but she can´t because they are tied up behind the chair she is sitting. She shakes her head and blinks a few times to get the water out of her eyes and when she manages to open them, her vision is blurry but she can see the silhouette of a man standing in front of her.

The man puts the empty bucket he is holding down and speaks in Russian: "Natalia Alianovna Romanova, welcome back."

Natasha squints and her eyes start to focus again. She can now see the man in front of her. He is a tall and lean old man with grey short hair, straight nose and thin lips. He is wearing a black suit and his arms are crossed on his chest. She wonders why he looks so familiar to her and then she remembers: "Boris Bykov?"

The man smirks and replies: "I´m impressed, you have a good memory Natalia. I was just a rookie agent when you were already the Black Widow. But now, it´s director Bykov."

Bykov pulls a chair in front of Natasha and sits very close, staring at her: "When I heard that the Black Widow was back in Russia, I had to come and see it for myself. You haven´t changed a bit, you still look young and beautiful. Too bad they had to shut down the Black Widow operation when too many subjects died after getting injected with the serum. If they had perfected it, I would gladly accept an extension to my lifespan too." He reaches a hand to touch her cheek, rubbing his fingers against it and continues: "You´re are unique Natalia, the only one that survived the effects of the serum, the one and only Black Widow. I wonder whose lies you are telling now that your precious S.H.I.E.L.D. is gone."

Natasha turns her face away from his touch, his words cut deep into her soul, so she says bitterly in her native tongue: "I´m not getting back to KGB if that is what you want, Bykov."

Bykov rises from his sit making his way to a metal table on the center of the room as he speaks: "Too bad. But I still need to know what brings you back to your homeland." He looks down at many types of torture tools that are on the table and grabs a stun gun. He continues: "I know that it´s not an easy task to get information out of you, so let´s go up a notch on the interrogation tactics." He turns around and tests the stun gun in front of Natasha; it sparks with electricity as he says: "So, do you want to tell me something or shall I test this on your wet body?"

Natasha gets chills down her spine, she knows that getting electrocuted while wet is not only hurtful, but it is dangerous too. Despite that she keeps her calm expression and replies: "I missed the local cuisine."

Bykov gives her a half-smile and presses the trigger of the stun gun, touching it on her chest.

Natasha grits her teeth and feels an excruciating pain as all her muscles contract at once, but she doesn´t make a sound.

When Bykov pulls away the stun gun, Natasha´s head falls forward and she grimaces. She has a hard time to focus her mind so she closes her eyes tight and tries to concentrate. She takes shallow breaths. She feels that her muscles are not quite responding and her heart is beating faster than normal.

Bysov paces in front of her and says in a calm voice: "So Natalia, are you going to tell me what you´re up to?"

Natasha tries to look up at him, but her muscles are not working properly. She only manages to lightly shake her head.

Bykov takes that as a negative answer and presses the stun gun against her abdomen this time, on the right side, near her recent injury which wasn´t fully healed yet. That makes Natasha want to scream at the intense pain, but what comes out of her mouth is only a groan because she can´t even make a sound as the electricity runs through her body.

When Bykov stops, Natasha struggles to stay awake but she feels her mind drifting away, her body going numb and she faints.

Bykov notices that her body relaxed and raises an eyebrow in curiosity saying: "The Black Widow I know is not that weak, come on Natalia, don´t play games with me!" He grabs her chin pulling it up to look at her face, which was covered by her red hair, and sees that her eyes are closed. He thinks that Natasha is faking being unconscious, so he slaps his hand across her face so hard, that it splits her lower lip, but her head just falls to the side. He lifts up Natasha´s t-shirt where the stun gun touched her and sees the fresh scar on her belly. He puts two fingers against her neck, to check if she isn´t dead, and feels a weak pulse. He snarls and pushes her chair down to the ground in anger.

Natasha´s body falls with the chair, since her wrists and ankles are tied up on it, and there isn´t a hint of reaction from her. So Bykov curses and leaves the room.

Steve and Sam are on the top of the opposite building from KGB headquarters, as Natasha had instructed. They are suited up, Steve has his shield on his back and Sam has his wings.

Sam is looking at the KGB building with binoculars and Steve is behind him, pacing from side to side.

Sam can hear the soldier pacing and says without turning around: "You´re going to make a hole on the ground, man."

Steve exhales and stops, looking at his wrist watch for the tenth time, he sees that it´s still 10:42 p.m. He feels so useless and anxious that he keeps looking at his watch every passing minute. He curls his hands in fists and wishes that he could just punch something to stop wondering what could be happening to Natasha right now.

Sam takes the binocular down, letting it hang on a line that is around his neck, and rubs his hands together saying: "Wow, what a cold night! I wouldn´t be surprised if it started to snow!"

Steve looks blankly at Sam, he is so nervous and tense that he doesn´t even feel the cold wind that is blowing.

Sam turns around to face Steve and notices that he is far away in his thoughts, so he calls him: "Steve! Are you with me, man?"

Steve blinks and this time he really looks at Sam: "Huh? Sorry, did you say something?"

Sam knows that there is nothing he can say to Steve to make him feel better, he feels distressed with the situation too and so he just shakes his head: "Nevermind" and turns around taking the binocular to his eyes again, inspecting for any suspicious movement on KGB headquarters.

Steve looks at his watch again and this time he taps it to see if it´s working properly because, in his mind, time is passing too slowly.

Natasha wakes up and looks around. She notices that she is alone in the room. Her body aches all over and she starts shivering because she is still wet and cold. Her mouth is dry so she licks her lips, tasting blood from her cut as she does that. She frowns because she doesn´t remember how that happened. She tries to move from her uncomfortable position, lying on her side, tied to the chair, but a sharp pain on her abdomen reminds her that Bykov had the luck to find a weak spot on her. She wonders how much time she has been out and curses herself for fainting.

Natasha takes a deep breath and tries to control the shivering as she extends her fingers to reach the inside of the waistline from her legging. She manages to grab a knife that she had hidden there before. She cuts the binding on her wrists and then on her ankles. When she is about to get up, she hears someone unlocking the door, so she hides her knife between her fingers and pretends that she is still unconscious, moving back to her previous place.

A man walks in speaking in Russian: "Darling, time to wake up, the director in not finished with you yet!" He has a bucket of water in his hand and he throws it at Natasha.

Natasha again gasps for air as the ice-cold water hits her. Her eyes open wide and she looks up angrily at the huge man in front of her. He has a smirk on his face and was about to say something, but before he can make a sound, Natasha throws her knife, hitting him on the right eye. There is a dull sound as the man falls dead to the ground.

Natasha gets up quickly, but she stumbles when her head starts to spin. She presses her hand against the nearest wall to balance herself and closes her eyes tight. She feels weak, but she has to get out of there, as fast as she can, so she rubs her eyes and looks at the dead guy, slowly making her way to him and kneeling beside him. She searches his body for anything useful. She grabs a handgun, an access card and his phone, checking the time on it. She sees it´s 11:34 p.m. She lets out a breath of relieve knowing that there is still time for her to do what she came here to do. She hopes that Steve got her message and that he doesn´t try anything stupid before midnight.

Natasha notices that the man is wearing a dark green jacket. She is freezing, so she takes off her wet t-shirt, squeezes her dripping hair with her hands to take out the excess of water and takes off the jacket from the dead man. She puts the jacket on and zips it up. The jacket is oversized on her small frame, so she folds up the sleeves so that her hands are free. She puts the phone and the access card inside the jacket´s pocket and then rubs her hands against her arms, trying to warm up a little before she tries to get up again.

She takes a deep breath to gather what has left of her strength and slowly gets up. When she is steady enough, she makes her way to the door and opens it slightly to take a peek. There is no one around, so she gets out with the handgun on her hand, and drags herself to the end of the hallway. She peeks again and sees the elevator. The way is clear, so she makes a run for it and presses the button to call it. She keeps looking around as she waits for the elevator to arrive, which doesn´t take long. Once inside, she uses the access card to be able to use the elevator and pushes the twelfth floor button, which is the top floor because she knows that the offices always were on the highest floors of the KGB building.

When the elevator stops and opens the door, she peeks again and sees two guards coming her way, so she quickly pulls back and leans on the side wall of the elevator, waiting for them to come with her gun at her hand. But luckily they just pass by and don´t notice her.

Natasha gets out of the elevator and runs the opposite way that the guards went. She stops in front of a large wooden door and uses the access card again to enter the room. She spots a computer on the top of a desk and makes her way to it, closing the door behind her. She sits on the black leather chair in front of the desk and turns on the computer. As she is waiting for the computer to initialize, she gets the phone from her pocket and sends a text to Steve´s phone because she knows she will need a quick way out of there once she hacks into the system.

Steve is leaning on the railing of the rooftop, looking intensely at KGB headquarters when he feels his phone vibrates. He picks it up from his pocket and reads the text message: 'Are u up there? Is Falcon ready cause I´m gonna need a ride!'

Steve can barely stop himself from smiling. He feels so relieved that Natasha has finally made contact with them that some of tension on his body disappear as he shows the message to Sam.

Sam nods at Steve and watches as he types the reply on his phone: 'Yes, ready to go!'

Steve sends the reply and some seconds later he receives another message saying: 'I´m coming out from the twelfth floor in 5! Catch me!'

Steve eyes go wide and he feels the tension growing on his body again. He mutters: "Oh God."

Sam is beside him and as he finishes reading the message on Steve´s phone he has a serious expression on his face. He goes to the edge of the building and checks his wings, spreading them. He says without looking back at Steve: "Once I get her, wait for us at the car, you´re the designated getaway driver!" He flies off the building.

Steve keeps looking at the KGB building in front of him, counting the floors. When he finds the twelfth floor widows he just stares at it. A few minutes later, he holds his breath as he sees a chair breaking through the window and falling off the building and a few seconds after that, Natasha jumps out. Steve´s heart is racing as he sees Natasha falling, but Sam swiftly flies by and catches her in midair. The alarm of KGB goes off and several guards come running out from the entrance of the building, with guns in their hands, looking around.

Steve quickly turns around and runs to the fire escape stairs, skipping several steps as he climbs down. Once on the ground, he runs as fast as he can to the car. They had parked it a few blocks away. As he turns a corner, their black car comes into view and he sees Sam landing beside it with Natasha in his arms.

Sam puts Natasha down and notices that she kept a hand for support on his shoulder, so he puts a hand on her back and asks her in a worried tone: "Are you okay Natasha?"

"I´ve been better…thanks for the ride, Sam." Natasha answers, meeting his eyes.

Sam replies smiling: "Sure, no problem!"

Then, they hear footsteps approaching. Sam and Natasha look forward to see that Steve is crossing the street to get to them.

Steve stops in front of them and exclaims: "Natasha!" He grabs her waist and pulls her to him, hugging her.

Natasha is too weak to hug him back, so she just leans her body against him in response. That worries Steve so he pulls her back, holding her arms to look at her. He notices that her hair is wet, her face is pale, her eyes look tired, her lips are purple and she has a cut on it. She´s wearing a jacket that definitely don´t belong to her but before he can ask her what happened, Natasha says: "Steve, we gotta get out of here."

Steve still has a worried expression on his face, but he nods at her saying: "Right" and opens the back door of the car for her.

Natasha gets inside and lies down on the back seat of the car. She is getting dizzy again and her energy is drained out after the adrenaline rush she just had, so she just lie still and closes her eyes.

Steve sits on the driver´s seat and Sam goes around the car to sit on the passenger´s seat.

Steve glances at Sam saying: "Nice catch, buddy!"

Sam just smiles at him as Steve quickly drives away.

Sam turns up the heat from the car and then turns around to look at Natasha, he asks: "Natasha are you hurt, do you need a hospital?"

Natasha replies without moving: "No, I´m just…tired."

Sam continues: "Did you get the information we needed?"

Natasha replies with a sleepy voice: "Yeah, got it all in my head."

Steve is far from KGB´s headquarter now and he doesn´t notice anyone following them, so he adjusts the rear-view mirror to check Natasha at the back seat. When he can see her face, he says: "Tasha?"

"Hum?" She replies.

"Do you know where we have to go now?" Steve says looking back at the road.

After a few minutes of silence, Natasha replies softly: "On a road trip to Saint Petersburg."

Sam is looking out the widow, noticing that most of the signs are in Cyrillic alphabet, so he picks up his phone saying: "I´ll put the route on the GPS. I can´t understand a single word on those signs."

Steve nods at him then looks at Natasha through the rear-view mirror again; she hasn´t move and her eyes are still closed: "Tasha, are you sure you´re okay?"

"Yeah, I just need to rest a little bit." Natasha whispers and, in a few minutes, she falls asleep.