Summary: Bucky is recaptured by Hydra where their scientists conduct more experiments on him. There he meets an unlikely ally, an innocent looking young woman who is hiding a much darker side. Meanwhile Steve has tracked his best friend and discovered his location and is preparing to mount a rescue mission with the help of some of his fellow Avengers. Can they save Bucky before it's too late? And who is this mystery woman? Co – Written with Dixon – Vixen 13. Bucky/OC, Steve/Sharon, Clint/Natasha, Tony/Pepper. Rated M for graphic violence, language and eventual sexual scenes.

Soldiers And Spies

Chapter 5

The following day when things had calmed down, everyone had been patched up and well rested from their fight with Hydra, Eva went looking for Natasha, to apologise for what she had done. She found her resting on a sofa in one of the many rooms of The Avengers Tower. She approached cautiously and sat down in the arm chair across from her as Natasha eyed her curiously.

"Hi Natasha, I just wanted to clear the air between us." She said as she looked intensely at her. "I'm sorry for what I did. Attacking you like that, I didn't know what I was doing and I never wanted to hurt you. Or anyone else."

"I understand. Honestly Eva don't worry about it too much. You weren't yourself. I'm a big girl I can take care of myself." She said as she laughed it off. Natasha wasn't really used to opening up to people. The only person she ever really did that with was Clint. So she used her humour to make light of serious situations.

"Still, I feel bad about it." Eva told her.

"It's ok. We've all done things we regret. I must admit, you have some real skills girl."

"You are pretty awesome yourself. Back in the red room, we all looked up to you. All the girls wanted to be just like you." Eva said a little nostalgically.

"I'm not sure whether to be flattered about that or not. My Red Room days... they were some of the darkest days of my life." Natasha admitted darkly.

"Mine too." Eva agreed.

"Ever since I got out, all I've wanted to do was take those bastards down. Clint and I... we tried once. But the deeper we got into it the more we realized we couldn't do it alone."

"Maybe now we can? I want to help. I want the Red Room to pay for what they have done. To me, to you... to all those other girls."

"Are you sure you want to do this? It will be one hell of a fight." Natasha said.

"If we can get the rest of the team with us, I think it's a fight that we can win." Eva said optimistically as she gave Nat a smile.

"You're one tough young woman, I can see why Bucky found a kindred spirit in you." Natasha told her softly as they both sat in a peaceful silence.

"How old were you, when you broke away from the Red Room?" Eva asked curiously, it had always made Eva wonder how Natasha was able to live without the Red Room coming after her.

"I was twenty four years old, I got on S.H.E.I.L.D.'s radar in a bad way and they sent Clint to kill me...he made a different call, he gave me a chance to redeem myself." Natasha explained quietly. Everything changed for me that day, but I was never truly free of the Red Room. They constantly came after me, but together Clint and I would take them out. He saved my life, in more ways than one.

Eva listened quietly.

"When I was sixteen years old, I was best friends with a young girl called Malia, we would share our bread together. One day, we got chosen to fight two graduated members of the Red Room program, I got picked to fight a young woman called Katrina and Malia got chosen to fight Yelena Belkova, she was very well known among us younger girls. I beat Katrina and Malia was winning against Yelena, when the bitch cheated and killed her by slitting her throat. We all knew that was one of the rules, you weren't allowed to do that. But because she was their golden girl she got away with it." She said angrily. "I promised myself that I'd kill Yelena, for Malia, and I've been looking for her ever since. Damn bitch is a ghost." Eva said darkly as she remembered her time in the Red Room. "It's strange, I can remember that far back as clear as day now, but the recent stuff is still such a blur."

Natasha nodded in recognition of what Eva had told her. Unable to find any comforting words to offer her.

"What did they do to my legs?" She asked quietly.

"Back when we tracked HYDRA to their base in Freiberg, looking for you, we arrived there to find that everyone had cleared out. It would have only been a day or two beforehand. When we searched around Tony came across some x-rays that looked kind of strange. Then one of the guys found a USB drive. It had footage of the doctors operating on you. When the base in Berlin collapsed your legs were crushed... do you remember that?" Natasha asked gently.

"Only vaguely. It's still just bits and pieces." Eva told her.

"Well Tony said that it looked as though they had replaced the bone in your legs with Vibranium. The same stuff that Cap's shield is made out of. So your legs are basically indestructible now."

"Wow... that's weird, but kinda good I guess."

"There's got to be some perks when you're a lab experiment right?" Natasha joked, earning a small chuckle for Eva.

"So, are we really doing this? Taking down the Red Room I mean?" Eva asked.

"If you're up for it, I'm definitely in. I'll talk to Clint, but I'm pretty sure he will be in too."

"Great. I'll go talk to Bucky about it. Thanks Nat... I'm glad you and I are all good after... you know everything."

"Don't sweat it, we're cool." Nat said with a kind smile.

Eva smiled back at her and watched as Natasha left to go and talk to Clint, she then went in search of Bucky.

Bucky was doing some push ups while his mind drifted to Eva, she had been talking to Natasha and he had a feeling, he knew what it was about too. The Red Room. He was kind of glad that they had that in common. At least she could talk to someone about it who would understand

He knew the damage it had done to Eva and Natasha mentally and psychically, both of them had been psychologically scarred from that ordeal. He wanted to help her. Just then he saw Eva enter and get on the treadmill.

It was then, he noticed a faded scar on her right arm. It looked like a stab wound, he was guessing she had gotten it during her days working for the Russian Government.

"I wanted to talk to you." Eva said quietly as she looked at him, getting off the treadmill then.

"About what?" He asked curiously as she walked towards him.

"The Red Room."

"I thought it might be that." He stated plainly. "Is that what you and Natasha were talking about before?" He asked catching her off guard and she looked at him a little shocked. "I had walked past on my way to the gym, I wasn't listening in or anything." He assured her.

"We talked about that, among other things."

"Oh yeah?"

"I apologized, for attacking her. I felt real bad about it, but she understands that I wasn't in control of myself. She was really good about it. I like her" Eva smiled. Feeling like for the first time in a long time she might have made a friend. Other than Bucky of course.

"So what about the Red Room?" He questioned.

"Nat and I... we want to take them down. We don't want them to keep doing to other young girls what they did to us. It's time someone stopped them." She told him.

"And you think that someone should be you?"

"I think we are the best ones to do it, the only ones. We both have inside information, we know what it's like there. We know how they are all trained. And now that I have these powers, we will be stronger than they are."

"Then I'm with you."

"You are?"

"100%."

"Thank you Bucky."

"Anything for you." He smiled.

Natasha found Clint in his favourite perch, sitting on a ledge above the door on the balcony, overlooking the city.

"Hey Clint." She said as she sat down on the bench below and looked up at him.

"Hey." He replied as he leapt down and took a seat next to her. "You okay?" He asked, observing her somewhat uneasy demeanour.

"Yeah, I just... I wanted to talk to you about something."

"What is it?"

"Eva and I, we just had a talk... about the Red Room. We want to take them down."

"Nat, you're sure about this? You remember last time right?" he reminded her.

"I do. But that was just you and I. This time it's different. We have Eva on our side, and you've seen what she can do. She will probably have Bucky too and maybe we can convince Steve, Sharon and Tony to help out too. I think this time, we can put an end to them and all the pain they cause. I can't go on knowing that the things they did to me, they are doing to more young girls every day. I can't live with that knowing that I could have tried harder to stop them" she told him, a stray tear slipping down her cheek that she had tried so hard to hold back. "I know you don't owe me anything, in fact I owe you my life, but please Clint, will you help me?"

"Where you go, I go." He smiled.

"Thank you." She whispered as she pulled him into a hug. "Thank you for everything. I don't know where I would be without you."

"My pleasure." He replied wiping away her tears before she got up to leave.

Taking a chance Clint stood up and grabbed a hold of her hand. "Tasha wait..."

"Yeah?" She asked as she turned back to him.

"If we are going to do this. If we are going to enter the fight of our lives, which could possibly get us killed. There's something you need to know." He told her as he stared into her eyes.

"What is it Clint?"

He didn't answer her with words, instead crushed his lips against hers in a passionate and desperate kiss, pouring all his emotions and feelings into it. He pulled away and smiled at her, chuckling a little at the shock on her face. "I love you Nat. I always have. I just needed you to know that, in case we don't make it out of this one. God knows Loki and New York was bad enough. I never thought I would see you again. I never thought I would get the chance to tell you."

She looked into his gorgeous blue eyes and all she could see was truth. He meant every word he said, and she found herself feeling something she wasn't sure she had ever felt in her life. Complete. She had always had feelings for him, but had kept them buried deep inside. She wasn't even sure that she knew how to love, after being turned into a cold blooded killer by the Red Room. But the more time she spent with Clint, the more she became the person she wanted to be.

"You wanna maybe run that by me one more time." She smiled.

"Absolutely." He laughed as he pulled her close and kissed her again, slowly this time as they both savoured the moment.

Natasha laughed happily and leaned into him, her green eyes sparkling and he smirked at her.

"Then let's go kick some ass, Nat." Clint declared and she smiled as they went to tell the others the plan of taking down the Red Room.

To everyone's surprise, Steve and Sharon wanted to help along with Tony who had agreed instantly and was now locating the Red Room Academy with intel from Natasha and Eva.

Eva had lost her best friend there, Natasha felt sympathetic as she thought of the few friends she had made during her find there and how they had died in the training programs too. Weakness wasn't tolerated by the Red Room, and she knew who Yelena Belkova was. The woman was a master spy and dangerous, and it's no wonder Eva wanted her dead. They were going to make the Red Room pay for what they had done to them.

Eva looked at the suit that Tony had made for her in astonishment and gratitude, it was made from black leather and it had purple piping on it that glowed and holsters, very similar to one she received during her training with HYDRA, but this one was much better.

"Thank you, Tony."

"No problem." He replied happily. He was definitely starting to come round to the idea of his new team mates.

Clint landed the Quinjet just outside of Volgograd, Russia. The team went over there plan one last time while reviewing the blue prints of The Red Room facility that Natasha had managed to get her hands on with some help hacking computers from Tony. Everyone knew where they needed to be, and everyone was partnered up so there was always someone to watch their back. All except for Tony, but he wasn't really alone, he had Jarvis with him as his wingman. They also had a small team of SHIELD agents assigned to wait outside of the building to help round up any young girls who wished to surrender and be free from the Red Room.

The building was multi story, Bucky and Eva started at the bottom, going through the front entrance, while Steve and Sharon took the back entrance. Clint used a projectile grappling hook with his bow and propelled himself and Natasha to the roof, where the two of them entered through the stairwell, along with Tony who had flown up. He branched off and took and elevator down a few floors to start clearing out the middle part of the building.

As Bucky and Eva made their way through they came to the front desk which was set up as a business with a red Room agent posing as a receptionist. She recognized Eva immediately and stood up drawing her weapon. However she was far too slow and Eva used her powers to throw her against the wall knocking her out. Two SHIELD agents came in behind them and secured the entrance making sure no one else could come and go. They continued down a hallway where they were confronted with two more agents with guns drawn who had heard the commotion. Bucky took out his pistol shooting one, while Eva shot the other with her Colt Python.

Meanwhile Steve and Sharon began clearing the back rooms. As they entered a training room they found half a dozen girls that appeared to be between the ages of thirteen and sixteen.

"We are agents of SHIELD from America." Steve told them. "We are here to shut this place down. We can take you to a safe place, however if you are hostile, we will take you out." He said as Sharon began to translate in Russian just in case any of them didn't speak English. Two of the younger looking girls raised their hands to surrender, while the rest of them drew their knives that they had been training with.

Steve cringed at the idea of hitting young girls so instead he pulled out a gun that Tony had given him and shot two of them down with tranquiliser darts, while Sharon fought the other two in hand to hand combat. She threw one to the ground and as the other ran at her, she blocked her attack and gave her one swift smack to the face knocking her unconscious. As the other started to get back up, she grabbed the tranq gun that Tony had given her and shot her too. "If you want to get out of here, take the back door. We have friends out there who will help you. They will take you to a safe place where you never have to do any of this again." Sharon told the two remaining girls, and without a second thought they ran to the exits towards the awaiting agents.

Clint and Natasha descended the stairs to the top story and began making their way through. They came across what appeared to be a large office adorned with Relics of various origins. A large desk sat at one end of the room with a couple of chairs sitting in front of it. Behind the desk was a painted portrait of a man holding two samurai swords. "This is the office of Professor Grigor Chelintsov, he is the one who designed the Black Widow program. He runs this place." Natasha told Clint.

Before she could say anymore a slow clap came from behind them and they spun around to see Grigor himself. "I'm impressed Miss Romanova. I wondered how long it would take you to come back here. I take it you have come to kill me?" He asked. "You have hurt far too many people Chelintsov, its high time you paid for your sins." Natasha said as she tossed on of her Widow's Bites at him, shocking him until he was unconscious before placing handcuffs on him and dragging him to the elevator. Shit hit the button for the first floor and sent him to the agents who had the first floor secured while she and Clint continued to clear the top level.

The whole team converged on the tenth floor and entered a strange looking room. "This must be the laboratory where they did experiments." Steve said as they all cautiously entered and saw three female scientists pulling their guns out, but Eva and Natasha took them out before they could get any shots off

Once that was done, they all started looking through the paperwork while Tony was searching through the files, when Clint found DVD's on every girl that had graduated the Red Room, including Natasha and Eva. These people were very thorough, but obviously weren't too concerned with having a paper trail, or digital trail for that matter.

Bucky found a laptop and clicked the mouse, Eva was looking through some documents when he found a file on a project called PROJECT PSYCHE.

'Appropriate Students For The Program.'

'Malia Alikaev: Deceased.'

'Olga Golovanov: Deceased.'

'Natasha Romanoff: Alive.'

'Eva Nikolayev: Alive - Successful experiment.

"What the hell is project Psyche? And why is my name on here, and yours too Natasha?" Eva asked alarmed as they heard someone behind them.

"I can help answer that, Evangeline and Natasha." A smooth female voice said and they looked up to see their old mentor who had guided them during their education in the Red Room.

Madame B.

So the big reveal.