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 21

"I know, you get everyone out of here and I'll try to knock out Ross and then we'll locate the nuke." Eva said quickly.

"No way! I'm not leaving you… we talked about this!" Bucky protested.

"No one stays behind alone." Steve agreed. "Bucky, stay with her, we will move everyone to safety." Bucky nodded, he knew that getting every one out of the building was a priority, it was going to collapse at any minute, but he wasn't about to let Eva do it all on her own, not after last time.

While Natasha and Steve helped Clint out to the street, Eva began throwing everything and anything at Ross, trying to slow him down as he roared at her and made a move to punch her. Eva dived out of the way and levitated herself in the air, before her eyes took on a dark purple tint and Ross's eyes turned purple for a minute as she showed him his worst fear. He stood still for a moment and she sighed in relief, when he suddenly snarled enraged and rounded on her then, his eyes a frightening yellow before he grabbed her by the throat and threw her out of the shattered glass window and onto the street where the rest of the team had been helping civilians, they jumped in alarm when Eva hit the side of a black jeep then, crumpling in a heap and let out a groan then.

The Red Hulk followed her out and right behind him was Bucky, who lept up onto a vehicle and threw himself at the beast, plunging his knife into its shoulder as hard as he could, before being thrown to the ground near Eva.

"Hey! Red prick!" Tony shouted angrily. Ross roared at him and he started firing his repulsors, when Ross threw a piece of wood at him, knocking him out of the air, when Eva quickly lifted him back up with her powers so he wouldn't fall.

Screaming was heard and they saw a family were cowering in their house as Ross stormed over and started tearing it apart, the family cried out and tried to flee. Eva did her best to use her powers to momentarily paralyze the Red Hulk while Sam, Tony, Pepper and Rhodey all flew in scooping up each family member and flying them to safety.

"I can't hold him much longer." Eva said through gritted teeth as she struggled to keep him still. Quickly the other members of the team launched a combined assault. Natasha came running in with her knives, plunging them into his tough skin as hard as she could while Steve used his shield to strike the Red Hulk in the face with all the force he could muster. Bucky collected his high powered rifle and fired a shot at extremely close range into his chest while Steve threw Sharon up into the air and she struck him with her fighting staves.

As Eva's hold on him faded the Red Hulk dropped to the ground injured from all the simultaneous blows. With him unable to fend them off with his giant arms they each were able to inflict some damage to the beast. But it didn't take long for him to climb back to his feet and let out an almighty roar, angrier and louder than ever.

"Nothing we can do is enough!" Natasha said worriedly.

"What do we do Steve?" Sharon questioned.

"Tony... any ideas? Please tell me you have been working on some new tech?" Steve asked quickly.

"Well as it so happens Cap, the good Doctor Banner and I had been working on a little side project, but it's yet to be properly field tested." Tony said a little worriedly.

"Well, we're out of options so... now's a good a time as any." Steve told him.

Tony launched a small device from his suit and the beast staggered back as a miniature robot injected him with a serum that slowly began to shrink his back down to normal size and his skin turned back to its normal colour.

"What the heck was that?" Steve asked, a little surprised that it worked.

"Just a little something Banner and I had been working on to try and neutralise the Hulk if we ever needed to. To be honest I'm a little surprised that it did the job myself." Tony almost chuckled.

But even though his strength had gone Ross was laughing at them, a cold, dark chilling laugh that made the hairs on the back of Bucky's neck stand on end as Thaddeus Ross stared at them.

"You insignificant fools! I've won by doing this!" He shouted gleefully and held up a detonator and smiled evilly, his blue eyes cold. He pressed the trigger as huge cracks began to appear then in the ground, causing people who hadn't been evacuated to scream in fright and flee then. The bridge that led to a town, was splintered as vibranium made androids began firing at them, causing Eva to throw up an energy shield then.

"Do you see the beauty of it? HYDRA's new order will arise now! You Avengers have failed this time!" Ross shouted proudly as a huge android robot began firing at them along with all the others.

"I've got a trick up my sleeve too, Ross!" Tony called out smugly and called his Iron Legion to help them.

"Take them to church!"'

All of a sudden out of nowhere dozens and dozens of Tony's creations appeared and began blasting away the vibranium androids. It didn't take long before they were all destroyed.

"I can't hold this much longer!" Eva called out as her powers began to weaken while she held up the bridge and tried to contain the bomb simultaneously. The smaller bombs had gone off throughout the city, but she kept her powers focused on the nuclear bomb, making sure it didn't detonate until it could be disarmed.

"I've got just the thing." Tony said. "Igor... stabilize that bridge." And with that a huge robot flew towards the bridge and standing beneath it, it locked itself into place and held the bridge up and Eva was able to let go as she focused on containing the bomb blast with her powers. Using her telepathy she was able to read Ross's mind and discover the location of the bomb he had just tried to detonate. She quickly relayed that information to Tony and he flew to the bomb. It took him a few moments but he was able to use his new tech to neutralise the bomb and stop it from receiving any signals to be activated and avoid any more damage and casualties.

Just then Steve threw his shield across the street at Ross who was trying to slip out unnoticed during the chaos. "Where do you think you're going?" He asked. "You have a date with Fury and the President." Steve smiled somewhat smugly.

"There's no talking your way out of this one Ross." Natasha spoke up.

Steve got on the phone to Fury straight away while the rest of the team secured Ross and began making sure that all of the HYDRA operatives were either dead or tied up ready to be transported to SHIELD's holding cells. Tony, Pepper and Rhodey used the tech in their suits to help mend the bridge and make it stable again before the robot Tony affectionately named Igor could remove himself from beneath it.

Natasha and Sharon helped Clint to Quinjet so he could be flown back to SHIELD headquarters for emergency surgery. The shard of glass had done a lot of damage and he had lost a lot of blood. Steve had instructed them to take the jet straight away and get him seen to. More SHIELD agents, including Fury and Hill were already only a few minutes out from their location so they could get a ride back to the farmhouse on another jet.

Sharon stabilized Clint in the back, keeping pressure on his wound to try and slow the bleeding while Natasha got them in the air. "Don't die on me Clint." She whispered under her breath. They had been through a lot together over the years, he meant the world to her and she was terrified of losing him.

As Natasha landed the jet they were met by a few SHIELD doctors as well as a couple of nurses. Clint was dangerously close to losing consciousness as they lifted him onto a stretcher and rushed him inside.

Natasha refused to leave the room as the doctors prepared Clint for surgery, and there was no way that any of them were brave enough to tell the infamous Black Widow that she wasn't allowed to stay, so they let her be. Sharon stood behind Natasha with a comforting hand on her shoulder and watched on as she held tightly to Clint's hand.

The doctors administered a sedative as well as pain relief before they could begin the procedure. The doctors had informed them that Clint's subclavian vein had been sliced and they needed to repair it as soon as possible before he lost any more blood. Clint looked at Natasha with drowsy eyes as the sedative began to take effect. He smiled at her as if to say that everything was going to be ok. Trust him to be the one comforting her when he was about to go under the knife. "I'll be right here." Natasha whispered softly. "I won't leave you I promise… don't you dare leave me." She said, a tear slipping down her cheek. His lips curled up at the corner into a small smile before the drugs took over and he was unconscious.

The two women watched on nervously as the doctors opened up Clint's wound and began searching for where the blood was coming from. It didn't take them long to find it and as one of the nurses mopped away the blood one of the doctors began to sew the vein back up.

Suddenly the monitors Clint was hooked up to began to beep wildly. "He's going into cardiac arrest!" One of the nurses shouted, but the doctor continued stitching.

"Do something!" Natasha yelled in panic.

"I have to finish repairing this artery before we can do anything else" the doctor explained. "If I don't do it now he is as good as dead."

"He's fucking dying anyway! Can't you see that!?"

"Nat… please, they know what they are doing" Sharon tried to reassure her.

"They're letting him die!" Natasha sobbed, tears streaming down her face as Sharon hugged her tightly.

After a few more tense moments that seemed more like hours the doctor declared that the vein had been repaired and the nurses began to defibrillate Clint.

"Clear!" One of them yelled before shocking him. His body arched violently off the operating table before dropping back down with a thud and the monitor continued to flat line with a loud beep as Natasha and Sharon watched on in horror.

"Again!" the doctor instructed.

"Clear!" The nurse yelled once more before shocking Clint again. His body jolted off the table again and the monitor showed no improvement as it continued to wail.

"Clint!" Natasha screamed. "Don't you do this to me Barton! Don't you dare!" she yelled as she squeezed his hand tightly.

"Once more." The doctor instructed.

"Clear!" the nurse called out again and Natasha reluctantly let go of Clint's hand before the nursed jolted him again. The whole room waited silently, everyone holding their breaths, waiting for his heartbeat to sound through the monitor. But once again they were met with that awful droning beep of the flat line.

"I'm sorry Miss Romanoff…" The doctor began. "We have to call it."

"No!" she cried in response. "No, no, no! Clint!... Clint!" She yelled in desperation. "Clint… please." She sobbed as she grabbed his hand once more holding it tightly as she brought it up to her lips. The ringing of the monitor echoed in her head and it seemed as though time stood still. She couldn't believe this was happening. It wasn't supposed to end like this, they had their whole lives ahead of them. Since being with Clint, she had wanted things she had never believed she would have in her life… marriage… children. She wanted a normal life, and she wanted it with him.

"God damn it Clint Barton! I love you!" She sobbed. "We're not done yet!" she cried out as she pounded her fist on his chest with great force. Clint's body arched up off the bed and he gasped in a breath as the monitor began to beep intermittently once more showing his heart had started beating again. Everyone looked around in shock and Natasha laid her head down on his arm as the tears flowed from her eyes. "You bastard. Don't you ever do that again." she whispered as she sighed in relief.

The doctors continued to clean Clint's wound and stitch up both the entry wound on his back and the exit wound on the front of his shoulder, the shard of glass had done a lot of damage and he would require some physical therapy before he had full use of his arm. They set up a blood transfusion and stopped his intravenous sedation. As he slowly regained consciousness he squeezed Natasha's hand softly and turned to look at her.

"Did it go ok?" he asked groggily.

"Perfectly." Natasha replied with a somewhat forced smile.

"Liar." He said holding back a chuckle. "You're crying." He observed.

"You died Clint." She confessed and he looked to the doctor for confirmation.

"Your heart stopped for a few minutes." He confirmed.

"But it felt like hours." Nat told him.

"You can't get rid of me that easily." He smiled at her.

"Get some rest Barton." She scolded as she lay her head down on his chest, wanting nothing more than to hear the constant beat of his heart so she knew that he was okay.

Once everyone had gotten back to the farmhouse they all took the chance to get some rest as the day had been gruelling for all of them. They had been cleared of any wrongdoing by President Ellis, and Ross had been arrested for his crimes against the US as well as other foreign countries.

The team were going back to the tower tomorrow, now that they were no longer fugitives it was safe to return. Tony was a little nervous about what state it might be in. No doubt Ross and his men had turned the place upside down searching for anything to help track them down when they had fled the city.

Eva was tucked into Bucky's side while Sharon was asleep in Steve's arms, Pepper was running her fingers through Tony's hair soothingly while he rested, and Sam and Rhodey were watching a baseball game on TV.

Clint had his good arm wrapped around Natasha and she was tucked into his side as a dark fluffy grey cat sat beside them, curled up contently. Natasha stroked it as Clint kissed her forehead. The two of them smiled at one another and relished the feeling of being in each other's arms. Clint had been instructed to stay at the SHIELD HQ for monitoring after his surgery, but he had told them as soon as he was feeling better that he was leaving and Sharon and Natasha had promised to keep an eye on him.

The fight with HYDRA had been a long one, and there had been many dangers and injuries along the way. They would be glad once it was all wrapped up. For now they would enjoy their down time and relax in the company of their little makeshift family.

Eva wasn't sure why, but she wanted to find out what had happened to the rest of her paternal family during the Second World War. Since finding out that Natasha was her only living family after believing for years she had no one, Eva was compelled to find out more about her ancestors. So Natasha and Eva had begun researching their family tree, with help from Tony, Steve, Sharon, Bucky and Clint.

Tony managed to dig deep into the Russian archives, which may or may not have been illegal, where he found plenty of information for the cousins. Most of their paternal family had been doctors, nurses and midwives. Their paternal grandparents had died during the Second World War after being sent to the Auschwitz Concentration Camp and had died in the gas chambers.

Natasha choked back a sob when she had read that and Eva wiped her eyes too. Mikhail and Yuri had both survived but had been made to watch their aunts, uncles, cousins and friends being killed or succumbing to illness.

Anastasia Romanova had lost her entire family during the war and had been imprisoned in Bergen – Belsen camp after being caught smuggling children out of the country. Her two twin cousins, who were imprisoned with her had died after being sent to the gas chambers.

Pepper and Sharon were doing their best to stay stoic as Tony read the information from the screen but it was hard, Sharon now knew why her aunt Peggy and Steve along with Bucky despised HYDRA so much and why Steve would get upset when he heard of terrorist groups attacking Israel and other countries, he had friends who were Jewish and of different religions and had suffered discrimination.

Marina Novikov had lost her entire family, her maternal family had been killed in the Riga Ghetto and her paternal family had perished in both Sobbior and Auschwitz.

Tony found out that Howard Stark's aunt and uncle had perished in the gas chambers after being caught trying to flee Germany. His uncle's name had been Anthony too and his aunt's name was Heidi. The couple had been arranged to meet Howard once they escaped Germany but never showed up and it was only after the war had ended that Howard had learnt what had happened to his uncle. Tony had needed a moment because he had started crying, Eva had cried and sobbed in Bucky's arms, Natasha had cried silently in Clint's arms. It was tough information for them all to take in.

Natasha gripped Eva's hand and she held it tightly, Eva was looking through the old articles on the screen, disgusted at the possessions that had been taken from people, watches, jewellery, gold teeth, prams, books, teddy bears and dolls. She remembered how her mother had encouraged her to play the piano and had gotten her one for doing well at school. Her mother had been so proud of her and had doted on her, she was her only child after three difficult miscarriages and a stillbirth, and her parents called Eva their little miracle.

Natasha remembered that she had been called her parents little jewel. She had been loved and cared for, her parents loved her deeply and they gave their lives to keep her safe. She sniffled then before she and Eva embraced tightly. They were the last Nikolayev family members.

Enjoy and review :)