A/N: I don't usually place warnings in my author's notes, but in this case, I'll make an exception. The violence at the end of this chapter will not be overly detailed, but its implications will be graphic.

I'm taking a risk with the events of this chapter; I know that. I had this turn of events planned since I finished the scene of Steve and Nat by the Potomac. But now I'm holding my breath, wondering what you'll all think, because I never expected such an immense outpouring of feedback, followers, and support. (I hit 100 reviews officially on fanfic and I can't even express how much that means to me.) Please be honest in your reviews on this chapter, but bear in mind that authors have feelings, too, and be tactful.

Here goes nothing. I'm either brave or insane, or maybe they're both the same thing.

~x~X~x~

The handlers are pacing and cursing. It unnerves the Soldier, though he hardly understands why. It should make no difference to a weapon if its owner is agitated — but nevertheless, a chill creeps across his skin, only ceasing to spread at his arm of metal. A dog is unsettled by an uneasy master; so the Soldier tenses, drawing his shoulders back as a dog would his ears.

"That woman," he says, his heart stumbling a beat. "Who was she?"

One of the handlers answers. "Natalia Romanova."

The name is spoken like a curse, the syllables harsh and cold. The Soldier swallows, digesting its meaning. "Natalia," he repeats. Since awakening from cryo-freeze, he likes repeating things; it's easier than trying to form strange sounds in his numb throat. "Natalia."

"Yes. That's her name, damn it."

"Natalia..." The Soldier's hand of flesh is trembling. "Natalia," he says again, gripping his human wrist with his mechanical arm. Why is he shaking? A rifle would not be shaking.

One of the handlers glares. "Remember the mission, Soldier."

"Mission."

"Yes, the mission. Will you shut the hell up?"

The Soldier blinks, an image swimming before his eyes. A fiery-haired woman, beautiful. Her lips are on his, rough, resistant. Her hand is on his chest, her fingernails grasping at his shirt.

The Soldier blinks again, and a handler is standing before him. "Focus."

The Soldier digs his hand of flesh into his hair. The woman's voice rattles about in his head.

Time changes things.

Don't touch me.

It's your name.

The Soldier coughs. "My name," he says.

The handler freezes. "What?"

"My name." The Soldier taps his chest, where his heart beats. He thinks there must be a mistake; he can't recall ever having a name before. "My name... is James Buchanan Barnes."

"That woman," says the handler. "Did she tell you that?"

"Yes."

"She is your enemy and a liar."

The Soldier closes his eyes, struggling to process. Behind closed lids, all he sees is an angry, swirling red. Red.

(A hidden room, fresh wounds opened during sparring. A sunset on the roof, the liquid on his lip when her teeth break the skin —)

Words build in the Soldier's head, pressing up against the inside of his skull. There are too many to sort through. He chokes. "I think..."

"You don't have to think," the handler says. "That's why we're here to help you."

The Soldier's heart hammers against his ribcage, thump thump thump. He takes a breath, trying to steady himself. A realization wells up in his chest. "I think... I loved her," he says.

There is a split second of quiet before, with a sharp crack, the back of a hand strikes the Soldier's face. Slashes of white light cut through his vision. Pain shoots through his cheekbone and down into his jaw.

The Soldier bites his lip. "Sorry," he says, though he doesn't know what he did wrong. He lowers his head, ashamed. He has displeased his handler; he has failed to fulfill his chief function.

His bottom lip tastes like salt, and he realizes it's bleeding. He touches the cut with a fingertip, and his hand of flesh comes away red. Red.

(Red on his hand of flesh, red on his knuckles where they struck her cheek, and it's absurd because her eyes are bright and laughing, she's laughing, she wants him to fight her, and they're tangled together on the mat, his knee jammed between her ribs, her fingernails at the soft skin of his throat, and their handlers are watching, urging them on, and she's on top of him now, tearing his skin, and it's hell and he only wants more —)

The handler grips his shoulders. "She betrayed you," he says. "She left you."

"Betrayed?"

"Yes."

The Soldier cocks his head. "How?"

"Do you remember your mission, Soldier?"

"Take Steven Rogers alive."

The handler nods. There is no comfort in the gesture, merely assurance that the Soldier has done nothing to merit punishment. "Do you know why we want Steven Rogers alive?"

Why? A rifle does not ask upon whom it is trained. "I do not compute."

"Why Rogers?" says the handler, almost shouting, his breath hot in the Soldier's face. "What did Rogers do to you?"

(Red swallowing up the vehicles on the bridge, red staining her shirt above the gunshot wound, red staining his palm of flesh as he realizes he's digging his nails into his own hand —)

The Soldier grits his teeth. Memories come in a brutal flood: a man on a bridge; the woman, a bullet in her shoulder; the man, braced to defend her, fear alive in his eyes.

There's someone else.

"He took her," says the Soldier.

The handler's eyes are alight, like fireflies. "Yes," he says, waving his hands wildly back and forth, and the Soldier wonders why he is so excited. "Yes."

"I loved her."

"Yes."

The Soldier clenches his hand of metal. His voice is a snarl, pure animal. "He took her from me."

"And you will take him from her," the handler says. "You will bring him to us. We will make him understand that the world needs soldiers. He will fight for us, like you. And you will have her back."

(Red lashes across her back, red wall that keeps him out while she's screaming, red lips to speak that for which words fail —)

The Soldier's lips peel back from his teeth, wolfish. "Natalia," he says, a jagged exhale.

"Take Steven Rogers alive," the handler says. His words are like the rungs of a ladder; each one carries the Soldier further, higher above the onslaught of memory. "Then we can find the woman. You can have her back. But first, you have to take Rogers."

Resigned, the Soldier nods. Regardless of these memories, capturing Steven Rogers is his mission, and he must complete it. Then he can worry about the woman and her touch and why his thoughts of her are red, red, red.

Distantly, the Soldier hears his handlers discussing something about the cerebral cortex and altered processing and manipulation, but he need not concern himself with such things. As his handler said, he does not need to think; HYDRA will think for him.

The Soldier needs only to listen and obey.

Wordless, the Soldier dons his armor and weaponry. He steps out into the cold, cold night. He sets aside his thoughts of love or war. (Is there a difference? He isn't sure. In the end, it doesn't matter.)

A rifle does not become distracted.

~x~X~x~

Black Widow is used to running away. Running is automatic: it is her default programming, designed to keep her alive when combat will not suffice. But this time, she's running toward the danger, and every muscle of her body resists it.

What are you doing? her legs seem to scream, aching with every step. Turn around!

Not for the last time, Natasha remembers San Paulo — the flames licking at her hair (it had been long back then, scarlet curls reaching past her her shoulders, turning her into a child of the flames); the shrieking of a woman in the next room, too ill to flee, as the fumes spilled underneath doors and through blasted-open walls; her lungs spasming and her throat retching to expel the smoke; her mind knowing nothing but the need to escape. Right now, that selfsame need to get away has sunk its fangs into her heart, and it refuses to release.

This isn't about you, her instincts say. People kill, and are killed, every day; keep yourself alive.

But this isn't about people. This is about Steve Rogers.

It's about a man who really didn't have to kiss her back on the escalator, but did (slow and soft until she felt like she was melting.) A man who whispered her name over and over, like a promise or a prayer. A man whose absence has trailed her like a shadow for weeks and weeks, a man whose distance would be unbearable if unbroken.

It's about a man who knows she is vulnerable, but has only ever made her feel stronger. A man who has seen her broken beyond belief, but has only ever built beauty out of her jagged pieces. A man who held her together when everything else they knew was falling apart. A man who knows she lies for a living, but chooses to trust her (even when she's afraid to trust herself.)

Natasha can survive perfectly fine on her own — she can muffle her screams when she wakes from a nightmare, she can put on a brave face for the reporters, she can fake a smile and force a laugh, she can rise like a phoenix from the ashes of S.H.I.E.L.D. — but she has caught the briefest glimpse of something beyond running and fighting and running again, and maybe for once she just wants to feel alive.

And that is what Steve Rogers does. He takes this shell of a girl and breathes life into it with every word, every glance, every unspoken assurance.

Of course Natasha doesn't need him. She has never needed anyone. But losing him would be worse than losing S.H.I.E.L.D., worse than revealing her bloody ledger to the world — because Steve Rogers believes in her, and it makes her want to believe in herself.

Oh, God. Please not Steve.

And so the Black Widow runs, toward and not away.

~x~X~x~

Steve Rogers wakes to a smashing sound. At first, he thinks it a figment of his drifting mind. Then it sounds again, louder, and its identity registers — bare knuckles against wood.

With a start, Steve comes fully awake. He jolts upright in bed, his chest heaving, his eyes flying wide. Blinking away the blurry sheen of sleep, he all but leaps to his feet. The shield. He needs to find the shield —

There are footsteps in the hallway.

Gasping, Steve stumbles across the room to seize a chair. He jams it securely against the door. His heart is pounding, the same thought looping over aand over in his head. Who would want to kill me, who would want to kill me —

A cracking sound: bone against wood.

Steve throws the closet open, fumbling for his shield in the dark. In his panic, he has forgotten the light switch.

Another crack, but then a scream. "Steve!"

Steve freezes. His blood runs hot and cold, his whole body locked in place, immovable. He takes a breath. "Natasha?"

"I know it's been weeks, Rogers," she says through the door, "but you could at least get my name right."

Steve pulls the chair away. "Natalia," he says, swinging the door open. And she really is there, more striking even than in his dreams, and all other words die on his tongue. "Natalia," he says, unable to think; and then again, "Natalia," and he throws his arms around her. He can feel her rapid breathing against his chest, proof that she is truly here, and as it dawns on him he holds her tighter, afraid that he'll find himself holding a skeleton again.

"Steve," she says. There's an edge to her voice, but he doesn't notice it.

He takes a step away. "You came back."

"Steve." Her hands are shaking; it doesn't make sense. "Steve, I have a car. You need to grab your shield and come with me. There isn't time —"

"Make time."

"Steve —"

"You owe me that much," he says, even though he knows it's cruel (because she owes him more than she'll ever repay.)

She tenses. Quietly, she says, "I found Bucky."

The words take a split second to sink in. Then Steve grips her shoulders, a headache building in the back of his skull. "Is he all right?"

Natasha bites her lip. "Steve —"

"Is he?"

"Steve, he joined a HYDRA splinter cell."

Steve recoils, his chest collapsing in on itself. "What?"

"He's been assigned to capture you. He'll do it tonight."

"How do you know?" Steve shouts, his anger flaring. For days, he searched for Bucky, and there was no trace of him, not even a footprint left behind. "How did you find him?"

Natasha swallows. "I lied to you," she says, laying a hand on his arm. "About a lot of things."

Steve takes a step away. "Then tell me the truth," he says, his voice low. "How did you find him?"

"Steve —"

"How, Natalia?"

She chokes, her hands clenched into fists. "I knew him," she says, her eyes wild. "I knew him, Steve, and he came looking for me, and I sent him away —"

Steve stares blindly, like he's seeing a stranger. "You sent him away?"

"He's coming for you."

"Let him."

"He nearly killed you once," Natasha says. "Please, Steve." She takes a step closer, pressing an open palm against his chest, above his heart. "Don't do that to me again."

"He remembered," Steve says. "Before I fell. He saved me, Natalia. He remembered —"

"They wiped him again."

"He'll remember again."

"Steve," she says, her nails digging into his shirt. He can feel her breath on his neck, hot and fast. She lowers her head. "For once in your life, you have to run away from a fight."

Steve stands, torn in two. Gently, he lays a hand on her cheek, lifts her face to look at him. "I can't," he says.

"You have to."

"I can't."

She shivers — a visible trembling, from her head to her feet. Steve's blood roars in his ears. He wants to demand the whole truth from her; he wants to take her face in his hands and kiss her until nothing else matters.

Then a window shatters, and he doesn't do either of those things.

~x~X~x~

As shards of glass explode across the room, Natasha breaks away from him, braced to defend. But what enters the room is neither a metal arm nor a HYDRA operative; instead, it's a sleek black cylinder. The device, terribly small, rolls to the center of the floor and stops. It's a grenade – and Natasha's blood is racing so fast, her heart is pounding so hard, that she can't process what type of grenade it is – but if it is as she fears, than accidentally or not, it will reduce Steve Rogers to flame and blood and shrapnel.

She cannot allow that to happen.

There is no way to stop it (but yes, there is, there is there is there is –)

Time seems to stagger, tripping over itself, its progress moving in slow motion. Barely breathing, Natasha looks at him, and everything she has ever felt wells up in her voice and in her eyes.

"Steve," she says. "I'm sorry."

And Steve reaches for her (because of course he does,) and he screams her name (her real name,) knowing what she's about to do (because he's the only one who ever believed she would.)

Eyes closed, Natasha throws herself upon the grenade.

There is a split second of heavy silence, of terrible waiting, of her knees curled to her chest and her hands covering her eyes – and then her world is fire.

~x~X~x~

It was a flash bang grenade. It was meant to disorient him.

Steve Rogers knows because, if it were a standard grenade, Natasha's body would be splattered on the wall – but instead, her body has absorbed the blast of white light, the ear-splitting bang that should have deafened him, and the heat that was most definitely not intended for contact with human flesh.

Natasha is on fire. She screams, rolling wildly back and forth, back and forth. It takes several seconds for the flames to go out; then she lies still, and he can finally see (what is left of) her.

Steve stares (and stares, and stares) at the thing that should be Natalia Romanova, but all he sees is blood and blackened flesh. He blood flows relentlessly, a fierce red stain upon the wooden floorboards.

Steve drops to his knees beside her, his shield forgotten. "Natalia...?" he breathes, barely audible.

She says, "Steve" – his name something between a plea and a shriek, like it could knit her ruined flesh back together – and then the pain must hit, because she opens her mouth and she's screaming and it's the worst sound Steve has heard in his life.

There are words in her unbroken scream. "RUN! STEVE, RUN!"

"No!" Steve clenches his teeth together. "I'm not leaving you. Natalia, I'm not leaving you –"

Her scream rises in volume, so loud that it seems to fill his whole world, and his voice dwindles into silence because there is nothing to say in the face of this. A few seconds pass before her scream cuts off and she simply lays still, her chest rising and falling in an uneven rhythm, tears leaking out of her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I'm sorry."

There is a crash as the door is ripped from its hinges. In the entryway, the Winter Soldier stands unflinching, twin pistols holstered at his sides.

Steve stares at him, disbelieving. "Bucky?"

"Steven Rogers." The Soldier draws a pistol with his hand of metal. "Put your hands behind your head."

~x~X~x~

A/N: I know that Natasha could survive a flash bang grenade because 1) she had the Red Room's equivalent of the super-soldier serum and 2) I did a ton of research and happened upon this news story in the process:
January 25, 2005—NY
Eighteen-year-old Rhiannon Kephart is hospitalized and in serious condition after she receives severe burns during a pre-dawn paramilitary raid on a Niagara Falls apartment.
Kephart–who wasn't the target of the raid–suffered second- and third-degree burns on her chest and stomach after the flashbang grenade tossed through a window by the raiding officers landed on the bed where she was sleeping. The grenade ignited the bedsheets, setting off a fire in the apartment.
Source: Dan Herbeck, "Woman Hurt in Drug Raid Still 'Serious,'" Buffalo News, January 24, 2005, p. B3. – Quoted from Botched Paramilitary Police Raids, Cato Institute

I promise the next chapter will be uploaded ASAP (assuming that the readers do not in fact kill me.) This is the longest chapter to date because I couldn't find a way to rightfully convey all this in fewer words. I'm fairly certain the US government thinks I'm a terrorist now, thanks to my googling flash bang grenades like a crazy person.

Now you know why "Somebody to Die For" by Hurts is a song for this chapter – I chose it with this scene in mind. Take from that what you will. (I will not post spoilers, although I suppose you're welcome to PM me if you're desperate.)

I have several reasons for taking the story in this direction. One, Steve truly believed that Natasha would save his life ("would you trust me to do it?" "I would now") and I wanted to give her the chance to do so. Two, I wanted to move the action forward with the characters' relationships in mind, and pitting Bucky against Steve with Natasha between them puts everyone's vulnerabilities in play. Three, I can't imagine that Natasha would go back for Steve unless it was under very tense circumstances (or unless it had been an incredibly long time,) since I believe she was afraid of whatever she might feel for him.

Basically, I just want to make it clear that this was my plan from the beginning, cruel as it may be, and I did think it through. I guess I say this because I've had books that hurt me deeply with needless cruelty to characters – and if that's how you feel about this chapter, you're entitled to your opinion, but I want you to know that I considered this thoroughly before going through with it.

That's all for now. Please give honest (but not unkind) feedback if you review. Readers, I love all of you.