Natalia was in the trashed living room, staring at a cellphone as though attempting to come to some sort of decision. Winter Soldier watched her through the crack of the bedroom door.
He'd known she'd left the bed almost the instant she'd gotten out - despite her obvious attempts not to wake him. He'd lay there making sure she had no intention of returning before he stealthily got up and dressed to find out what she was doing. Radioing in his position to back-up, perhaps? Captain Rogers? Or someone to whom she'd had longer ties?
He couldn't allow himself to be recaptured. He had missions to complete - targets to kill and he would not be put off.
In the last few months of total confusion, with a lack of memory input about this past his former target Captain Rogers seemed to elaborate on - Winter Soldier had done some digging with what he knew and had come to a decision.
No more. He would not be listening to his handlers or HYDRA any longer.
He was still wary of facing Captain Rogers again. He'd proven to be formidable - and a manipulator. "With you til the end of the line" was obviously designed to appeal to his sentiment. If Winter Soldier had had any sentiment, it had long ago been burned away. Or maybe it was some sort of conditioning word - designed to render him safe or turn his loyalties. Whatever it was - he was not sure what The Captain was.
Natalia had seemed like a good choice for an ally, now he wasn't entirely sure she was. She made another attempt to call someone - The Captain, probably - but strangled the urge at the last minute. Soldier wondered why. It wasn't like Natalia to hesitate at anything. She had always been completely and utterly devoted to whatever course of action she had chosen and he liked that about her.
He loved her.
He shook his head. Couldn't afford the concentration issues in such a potentially deadly situation. He looked away from her hesitating frame and towards the only other piece of furniture in the room besides the bed - the desk.
And on the desk - a computer.
He recognised the blinking light as the computer's rest-mode.
gently, he tapped it to wake it up.
Password?
He thought for a second. Winter Soldier had been taught many things - including how to hack a computer. Sometimes HYDRA wanted files held in secure vaults that only he would be able to access.
Natalia's computer should not be too difficult. He knew quite a lot about Black Widow - far more, he suspected, than anyone else - so cracking her password seemed an inevitability.
He spent a few seconds trying out various passwords until he hit on one that worked. Bolshoi. Of course - the famous theatre.
The password granted him access to what she'd been doing last. She'd been trawling through the breached data she'd released to the internet on something called Project Preying Mantis.
Why was she interested in this particular project? Soldier frowned. Of all the things he had possibly expected out of Natalia - what was her interest in this particular file rather than covering her own - more violent - files?
He skimmed the information expertly but paused when he heard her pace close to the bedroom door in her dilemma.
When she passed, he stood back and stared at the monitor with something approaching...concern.
HYDRA had began work on an artificially made human being. Not a clone - more like a laboratory created child. With two different donors. Winter Soldier and Black Widow. The project's main goal was to provide HYDRA with a replacement Asset should Winter Soldier fail or become unmanageable.
She was "born" roughly six years ago in a facility somewhere in Ukraine.
He had a child.
A daughter.
He knew what lay ahead of her if HYDRA were allowed to keep her. The physical scars were nothing compared to the mental ones. He would not allow them the satisfaction of creating another Asset. He would not fight some poor thing like him.
Worse than him. She wouldn't know anything but HYDRA.
He had a child.
There wasn't much on Project Preying Mantis. Most of the information on her project location and current activity had been redacted or corrupted in the transfer to open waters - probably some kind of defense mechanism - but it held enough to have captured Natalia's attention - enough to catch his own.
Suddenly, he had a new priority mission. Hunt down HYDRA bases in the Ukraine until he found the one this child was inhabiting.
Natasha returned to the bedroom, cursing her cowardice. Steve deserved to know that Bucky was here - that he remembered her. But she could not work up the courage to open such a wound. Besides, she liked it when it was just the two of them. It seemed a lot less complicated that way and a lot safer. He was still the man she'd fallen in love with years ago.
And then there was the thing on her computer. She wasn't entirely sure how to approach that. Again - going to Steve or Stark seemed the simplest option. Involving her friends - but that would bring around a whole host more problems; The can of worms she'd opened when she'd dumped all of their files into the internet.
'James-'
She turned to look from the wrinkled, Barnes-less bedsheets to the awake computer and then to the window of her apartment - open and allowing the curtain to blow into the night. She instantly knew what he had done. She cursed in Russian and dialled a number.
'Steven.' She sighed heavily. 'I...need your help. It concerns Winter Soldier.'