Chapter 51

Natasha didn't sleep well that night. She had nightmares about the Red Guardian killing Steve in front of her eyes and woke up screaming. Steve pulled her close and stroked her head to calm her. She buried her face in his shirt and breathed in his scent. She needed to find Shostaskov and she needed to kill him. There was no other way. Steve told her to go back to sleep but she didn't want to. Her nightmare felt too real and she couldn't get the image of a dead Steve out of her head.

She got out of bed and walked into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of vodka. Steve followed her and hugged her from behind and kissed her temple. "Natasha sweetheart, talk to me. Let me help you." She emptied the glass in one gulp and filled the glass again. She drank it and turned in Steve's arm and looked up at him. "I'm terrified, Steve."

He kissed her forehead. "He won't kill me, Natasha. I won't let him take me away from you."

She pressed her ear against his chest to listen to his steady and strong heartbeat. "He almost killed you today. I don't what I would do if..."

"Shhh." Steve cupped her face to make her look at him and kissed her deeply. "I'm not going anywhere. He caught us off guard. Next time we'll be ready."

She wondered if he really believed that or if he just said it to calm her down. "I can't believe that on top of that HYDRA bullshit we have to deal with the Red Guardian!" She grunted and kissed him again. "As if we didn't already had enough on our plate with clearing Bucky's name. Now we have to deal with Malick, those super Winter Soldiers and that steriod manaic."

"We'll figure it all out ." He promised and stroked her cheek with his thumb. She closed her eyes and enjoyed it. "We bring Malick and HYDRA down. We stop the Winter Soldiers and the Guardian and get Bucky cleared. And then you and I are gonna take a long vacation. Somewhere beachy where you don't have to wear any clothes and I can admire your beauty. Like a private island."

"What makes you so sure about that?" He actually sounded pretty convinced that they could do all those things. And she had to admit a vacation sounded lovely.

He smiled sheepishly at her. "Because you and I can do anything together."

She huffed a laugh out and let him lead her back to the bedroom where she tried to get a bit more sleep.

Tony called them first thing in the morning to meet him in his lap. Natasha didn't really get much sleep and it was noticable on her face. She shocked herself when she looked into the mirror. She had dark circles under her eyes, bruises on her temple and nose. She looked like shit. She tried to cover it up with make-up but the bruises still shimmered through. She removed her foundation again because what was the point if it didn't cover anything. She changed into a top and jeans and walked with Steve and Bucky to Tony's lab. Steve's wounds from his fight with the Guardian were already healed and gone. She sometimes envied him and his serum.

Tony's eyes widended when he saw her but he made the smart decision not to mention how bad she looked. Steve walked over to the coffee maker and came back with three cups of coffee. She thanked him and took a sip. "Okay, what do you got?"

"I'm no Bruce Banner but I think I solved the riddle why Captain Comrade is so much stronger than our two supersoldiers." He opened a file on his screen and she could see DNA strings. Not that she had any idea what that meant. "He has his own super soldier serum in his veins. Pretty similiar to Bucky's. But there was something else in his blood. Some kind of stimulant."

"So he cheated?" Bucky asked. "That's his upper hand? He's doping? What a prick!"

She felt somehow relieved. Shoskastov was not invincible. He probably wasn't on that stuff 24/7, they just needed to find the right time to take him out. Without his uppers Steve could take him.

"There is more, those stimulants are kind of their own supersoldier serum." Tony continued. "Simmons contacted me and said there was a similiar case back at SHIELD?" He looked at her and Steve.

Wait, that did ring a bell. Wasn't there some kid that wanted to help soldiers but they died after they took the serum? "Rockwell!" She said to Steve. "Remember that mission in Madrid? He created his own replica of Project Rebirth. Yelena Belova used him to get to the serum. Maybe she gave it to Shoskastov."

"Who?" Tony asked and Bucky looked confused as well.

"The Red Guardian's name is Alexi Shoskastov." She explained.

Steve seemed to remember the mission and nodded. "Yeah, but didn't the formula die with Rockwell? So his supply is limited?" He looked at Tony. "Or is it possible to produce it just with a sample?"

"I don't think so. You can't pinpoint every ingredient without the formula. It's safe to assume that he can't replicate the serum."

"But didn't you just say this Rockwell serum kills its users? Maybe Shoskastov is already dead?" Bucky asked.

She doubted they had the luck that the problem would go away on its own.

"It's more than likely that the Guardian's originial serum is protecting him." Tony said and refilled his cup with coffee. "I don't think this steroid serum could kill you or Cap."

"You figured out why your suit was off?" Steve wanted to know.

"Not really but it had to come from the basement." Tony said. "Rhodey's system didn't shut down outside. Maybe the Guardian had something with him. I'll need to look more into it to make sure that it doesn't happen again."

Bucky and Steve left to meet with Matt and Nelson. She didn't go with them because she was in no mood to deal with Matt's bitching about her ignoring his calls. She needed to make a call herself. She had to talk to the one person who might knew something about Alexi Shostaskov and why he seemed to care about her. He only gave her his number for world-threatening emergencies but she figured Captain America's life on the line fell into this category. She walked back to her floor and got the burner phone out of the boot she was hiding it in. She dialed the only number that was programmed into the phone book.

"I'm still not convinced he's right for you." Fury said when he answered the phone. "Your face is all over the news, Natasha."

Someone filmed the scene in Vienna when she tried to escape with Steve and Bucky and they were caught by the CIA. The video had already over five million views on Youtube and the number was getting higher since the public now knew who the Winter Soldier really was. There were already online petitions that called for Captain America's best friend and WWII hero Bucky Barnes to get pardonned. Even the rest of the Avengers got some good press since they didn't harbour a criminal at the Tower but protected a victim of HYDRA. Malick was probably fuming in his mansion right now. He probably hoped that Bucky would tear the Avengers apart and not give them an image boost.

She was in no mood to talk with Fury about if Steve was right for her or not. She didn't call him to talk about her love life. "What do you know about the Red Guardian?"

"That he's dead." Fury answered way too quickly.

"You sure about that?"

"Natasha, what is this about?"

"I know he's not dead and I think you know that too." She sat down on the chair in her closet. "And I need you to tell me everything you know about Alexi Shostaskov."

Fury sighed on the other line. "Why now? What happened?"

"We ran into him and almost died."

"Are you okay?"

Images of a bleeding Steve in a choke hold flashed through her mind. "No, not really. He's hellbent on killing Captain America."

Fury sighed again and began to talk.

Natasha heard how Steve and Bucky came back into their apartment after their talk with the lawyers. They sounded quite excited so she figured it went well. She was still sitting in her closet and staring at her phone. She couldn't really believe what Nick just told her.

"Natasha? Are you here?" Steve yelled.

She got up and hid the burner phone in her boot. "Yeah, one sec!" She tried to collect herself before she walked into the living room. She didn't really want to think about what she now knew but she knew that she had to tell Steve about it.

Bucky and Steve were sitting on the couch when she joined them in the living room. "How did it go with Matt and Nelson?"

"Good." Bucky answered. "The Atteroney General wants to meet to talk about my case. Wants to hear my side of everything. And Karen Page's purse with her phone had been stolen and she already went to the cops before I got that call from her so it proves that I was tricked and lured out of the Tower."

She gave him a brief smile. She was happy for Bucky that he might be a free man soon. He didn't deserve to be thrown into the Raft for the the rest of his life or being experimented on by the CIA.

"Nat? You don't look so good, doll." Steve looked at her with worry in his eyes. "Is it your head? Do you need to go to the infirmary?" He was already up and walking towards her. She shook her head and sat down on the coffee table and motioned for Steve to sit back down.

"No, my head's fine." She said and folded her hands in her lap. "Don't worry, Steve. It's not that. I talked to Fury. About the Red Guardian."

Bucky and Steve both looked very interested. "Did he know anything?"

"There have been whispers about the Red Guardian being spotted in China in the last decade but since China is not very generous with their intel, nothing could be confirmed. He hasn't been connected to HYDRA so Fury thinks that he works with them to get to you, Steve." She took a deep breath and Steve reached over to take her hand and brushed his thumb over her skin. "He was created to kill American super soldiers. The next Captain America. And since the original one is back, he wants to kill you. To prove that he's the best and superior to you."

"Yeah by doping." Bucky muttered and Steve threw him a look for interrupting her.

"Did Nick tell you how you fit into all of this?" Steve asked her softly. He seemed to sense that there was more.

She sighed. "Russia wanted to make sure that their super soldier was happy. They wanted him to have everything that he could possibly want. He was the Kreml's pride and joy. But he was lonely..." She trailed off to collect her thoughts. "He had no one to share his life with. Someone to make him happy."

"Nat?" Steve squeezed her hand.

"They wanted him to have a wife. Someone who was loyal to Russia and the KGB." She paused for a moment. "A Black Widow. According to Nick, he turned the other Widows down until he saw the one he wanted."

Steve grimaced and pulled her into his lap. "You don't have to keep talking. I think Buck and I know where this is going."

"There are no marriage certificates and I have no memories of a wedding or anything like that so I don't think that we got married in the end. Fury thinks I deflected before the wedding. And then shortly after the Guardian died in an explosion." She hide her face in Steve's neck and faintly heard how Bucky left the room to give them privacy. "It's not enough that the KBG made me whore myself out for Mother Russia, they also wanted to force me to marry someone."

"I'm so sorry, Natasha." He kissed her head and rubbed circles on her back to soothe her.

"This is so fucked up!" She whispered against his neck. "What if he wants to finish his mission to get me? He said that he wants to free me from you! I don't think he'll spare you again for me. Defeating and killing Captain America is his life's purpose."

"We'll stop him before it comes to that!"

She looked up from his neck. "Can you stop him? Are you capable of killing him?" Steve hated killing. He became a solider to protect people, not to kill them.

He looked into her eyes. "Yes, I can kill him. And I will kill him before he gets too close to you and thinks he can claim you as his price." He kissed her. "I'm willing to do whatever it takes to keep you safe, Natasha. And I have no doubt that he would go after you the minute I'm out of the way."

She almost wanted to laugh at the fact that they both wanted to kill Shoskastov to keep the other one safe. What a pair they made. "Steve?" She kissed him softly. "Take me to bed."

"Are you sure? You got hurt pretty bad yesterday, Nat." He objected. "And you don't heal as fast as I do."

She brushed the pad of her thumb over his lower lip and he closed his eyes. "I want my boyfriend to make love to me." He checked her face and then nodded. He got up with her legs wrapped around his waist and was on his way to their bedroom when FRIDAY interrupted them.

"Captain Rogers, Miss Romanoff? I'm sorry to disturb you but Agent Ross is hovering over the Tower in a chopper and demands to talk to you and Sergeant Barnes."

Natasha groaned and unwrapped her legs from Steve's waist and he set her back on her feet. Bucky came out of his room and looked at them with uncertanity probably wondering why Ross was here.

God what did Ross want now?! She had been this close to have sex with her boyfriend in their own bed again and then that fucker had to show up and interrupt them. Couldn't he have shown up an hour later? Or two hours later?

Steve kissed her eyebrow. "Later." He promised her quietly and the three of them walked to the roof to meet Ross.

Ross came with Sharon Carter in tow and was pretty pissed that Bucky was allowed to stay at the Tower for the time being. He looked like would have loved to throw him into the Raft. It was kind of hilarious how Ross tried to stand up to Steve who was so much taller and more muscular than Ross. Ross begrudgingly left half an hour later but left Sharon there to keep an eye on Bucky since he didn't trust them to not hide him again.

Natasha offered Sharon coffee and cake after Ross was gone. "I'm sorry for Ross." Sharon said after sipping on her coffee. "He really makes me miss Fury."

"Well, I guess he's just trying to do his job." She could understand that Ross was just following protocol. "You think he's gonna become a problem for us?"

Sharon shook her head lightly. "Nah, I don't think so. He wants to become Director soon. He won't achieve that by pissing of the President. Ellis is the one after all who appoints that postion. So he's pissed and maybe will be a bit bitchy but he'll stay away from Barnes for now."

Natasha took a bite from her cheesecake. "Sorry, you're stuck here watching over Bucky."

Sharon shrugged her shoulders. "It's fine." She looked around. "This place seems pretty nice. And I'm closer to my aunt."

"How is Director Carter?"

Sharon placed her cup on the table and sighed. "There are now full days where she doesn't recognize any of us."

Natasha reached over to squeeze Sharon's hand for a moment. "I'm sorry. I can't imagine how hard it must be for your family."

She smiled sadly. "Thank you. Aunt Peggy has lived a great life. It breaks my heart that she doesn't remember it most of the time."

They finished their coffee and cake and talked about Sharon's stay at the Tower and Natasha asked her if she needed anything. She showed Sharon her rooms and left her to get settled it.

Natasha was on her way to her floor when FRIDAY alerted her that the Red Guardian showed up on traffic cams near Trenton. Fuck, did he already plan on finishing his mission? Trenton wasn't even a hundred miles away. Shoskastov could already be on his way to New York.

She met with the others in their conference room. Steve was already in his uniform with his shield on his back and she felt a rush of panic running through her body. She tried to ignore it and looked at the photos. It was definitely Alexi.

"Wheels up in five minutes." Steve announced and walked over to her. "You should sit this one out, Nat. You're not fully recovered from yesterday."

She shook her head. "No, I'm coming with. Bucky can't go and you need me. You can't order me to stay behind."

Steve looked like he wanted to argue but he eventually nodded. He always gave her what she wanted. Even if it was something he didn't want. "Okay, suit up."

She left to change into her catsuit and took a sniping rifle from the armory. Hopefully a single headshot would end one of their problems. She doubted that the Red Guardian could survive a bullet to the head with or without his extra serum.