The Crime of the Widow

21|. H.Y.D.R.A. Files

SAM LAID ON the table, eyes furrowed and his mouth turned upside down in a frown. "Why...." He spoke out with a roll of his eyes. "Why did they ban ponytails? That's the weirdest rule I have ever heard."

Natasha ,who was leaning against the wall with her eyes half closed due to how tired she way, jerked her head from her lap. "What? Ponytails? I never knew they ban ponytails?" She said as her eyes traveled over to the Winter Soldier. Apparently, everyone else did the same because he rolled his eyes with a playful smile.

"Some dude tried to kill himself with ponytails before they sent him on a mission, a deadly one. It was for certain you wouldn't come back alive." Bucky had said from where he sat in the spinny chair that Tony had given him not just a moment ago. A confused look came into his face when he looked over to Sam. "Where did you get that from?"

"You know, I don't know at this point." Sam sighed aloud. He placed his hand on his forehead and rolled his eyes before closing them. "I'm kind of done with this whole thing. She's like a ghost. Nowhere to be found."

"Dig deeper guys." Steve abruptly stood up, staring  at each of the tired, broken shells of people who were laid across the meeting room. "Nat released all HYDRA files in 2014, everything is at our finger tips. We just need to know where to look. Look deeper. This woman is killing hundreds of people as we speak. We got... guys.. we got-got to do this.." Steve closed his eyes, throning his fists up in the air in frustration.

"Well..." Tony trialed off, raising an eyebrow and giving his signature smirk and He propped his head with his hand on the table. "We can't find her. It's like she doesn't exists and if you want to spend the next couple hours down here by yourself, by all means, you can do that. I'm getting a drink." Tony happily, even though he looked absolutely tired on the inside, clapped and started to leave.

That's when Natasha had a light bulb turn on. Her mouth was slightly gaped, her eyes were wide open as surprise settled in "That's it." She muttered to herself. "Try Vostokoff. Marina Vostokoff."

"What?" Steve looked at the blonde.

"Try Vostokoff." As Natasha spoke, Tony hurriedly ran to the the computer and immediately typing words in. Everyone held their breathe in, watching the billionaire scurry throughout the internet, meanwhile, Nat was surely surprised, and will be even more if this last name would work. She bit the inside of her cheeks in anticipation, then it happened.

The screen lit up, pictures just flooding in and not stopping, pictures of Marina. Some of them were of her missions, her files, others were of her scarred body and her living area. It just didn't stop, it had seemed that the evil organization had an unhealthy obsession of her.

Natasha's widen eyes wandered throughout the screen, it was overwhelming for her. "Stop." She abruptly said. "There." She pointed to a picture showing Marina in a white tang top, fists ready to attack whoever was in front of her. Blood was dripping down her nose and she already had a black eye, most of all, she looked tired and malnourished.
"When was this?"

Tony looked to the side, reading all the information that Nat was to blind to see. "2010, December 25th. Christmas?" He said in a questioning tone, looking at the picture, studying closely. "She looks like a fifteen year old, not a twenty-two year old. Did they do this often? Not feed you all I mean." The billionaire asked the metal armed man.

"To me? They would feed me once or twice a week, which was very good and rare. I don't know about others..." Bucky spoke quickly, doing the same as Tony, studying the picture; it's surroundings and it's person. "But there was this one person they fed everyday, three meals a day. They treated her as it was her home, gave her a nice room, made sure she was always dressed nicely, gave her all the attention in the world."

"What his name?" Steve curiously asked him. Bucky looked over to the Captain, but quickly broke the gaze as his eye met the ground.

"She." Bucky whispered. For the first time in forever tears started to well up in his eyes. Everyone watched closely as they had never seen this before and was wondering what was going to happen next. "She was Pierce's favorite. Used to call her precious. She was so innocent, she thought that the guards and the HYDRA agents there were her friends, she called me her friend. To be honest, I thought the whole thing was a trick, a scam. I guess not." Bucky breathed out.

"We'll talk about this later Buck." Steve patted his best friend on the back before turning back to the screen, his eyes wandering from picture to picture. "So, how does this help us Nat?" He asked, looking over to the blonde who was still staring at Bucky with curious eyes. Steve had to snap her out of it, raising his eyebrows as he called her name once more. "Nat?"

"Sorry." She muttered, turning to the screen. "I never knew she was at HYDRA. I mean sure, we were all trained by some one at HYDRA at some point." Her eyes instantly met Bucky's for moment, and they both knew what she was talking about. "But, I never knew that she spent most of her time in HYDRA."

"Maybe it was a project? An agreement between the Red Room and HYDRA?" Sam suggested. Of course he was skeptical of the whole thing and kept his fair distance from this, making sure not to ask many questions or talk as much as he used to.

"Maybe. Can you dig further Stark?" Nat asked.

"Sure Rushman." Tony popped a sucker into his mouth and began to click once more. Pictures, Files, and recordings started to show up. Everyone quickly scanned their eyes on each and everyone of them, making sure they weren't missing anything important. "Let me see if I can find the main file." The man squinted his eyes before finding something that he wanted to find. "FRIDAY? Can you print that off?"

The Irish robot agreed with the man and began to print it off. As Tony hopped off of his chair to grab the papers, the rest of them scooted closer to the screen looking at each and every photos. "That one." Natasha pressed the screen and the video became enlarged. It was a little twelve year old Marina, holding a present up as she sat by a tree. A person behind the camera began to speak to her, words full of fake love.

Marina's smile could tell you that everything was real, that it was actually Christmas even though the day read May 21st. But her eyes told you that everything was a lie. Marina began to shake the gift, smiling as she pressed her ear into it. She looked straight ahead of the camera and asked the person what was inside of it which they replied that she should open it to find out.

That's when the clip ended. Nat looked down to the ground, avoiding the puzzled look Sam gave her. "Here we go!" Tony Stark yelled. Everyone looked to the side and saw the man hood a stack of papers in his hand. He began to flip through them and skim the words. "Her HYDRA base is up Moscow, Russia. Her birth town."

"Then that's where we need to go." Natasha had spoke full of confidence and sadness.