Waking up was hard. Especially when every time the world had started to come back into focus, even before moving so much as an inch, it was all taken away. Over and over, Natasha's body fought off the sedatives, and then was given more to throw her back into the darkness. What else didn't they want her to see? Besides the glimpse of soldiers with strange fluids running into their new supercharged bodies, what else could there be? Eventually, she was allowed to wake, unbound, and the memories of whatever serum was given to her to allow her to return to the world of the living caused her to involuntarily flinch as she shakily rose from her place on the floor. The only thing she could compare it to was when she was given the original super serum. Although no pain in the world could compare to that, this new serum that for sure brought her back was pretty damn close, but longer lasting. Grabbing at her stomach as a sharp pain pierced it, she lifted her shirt to see that she had none of the same injuries that she had collected on the mountain cliff. The pain was where she had felt the blade go through. Oddly enough though, her older scars, like the one she earned from Bucky all those years ago remained. What the hell did they do to her? She thought they couldn't kill her, or wouldn't, but what made them change their mind? Some kind of power play?
When she shook the last of the cobwebs from her mind, she found the room that she was in bare and empty. Not just empty of material objects, but empty of hope; she had been moved. Whatever hope she had for Loki to find her now was all but non existent. The only thing that made her smile now was the thought of Ksenia being far away from this place. She couldn't thank Loki enough for saving her, once again. A few tears of relief fell from her face as she did a quick survey of her room. They fell into a pool of standing water and after the ripples faded away, she caught sight of her reflection for the first time in weeks. Angry, she kicked at the pool and grabbed at her head in frustration. She vowed that the next time she looked at the shell of who she had become, that woman would be gone. She controlled her breathing and felt a small bit of her old self creep back in. She was beginning to realize that other people didn't have power over her, she had power over herself and she needed to get that power back. Ksenia was gone; she could now make decisions that would affect only herself and not ones that would endanger her daughter. After that realization, a wicked smile cracked across her lips and her entire mindset shifted; she felt strong, no longer feeling weak or weighed down. She was going to have to channel herself as well as Natalia if she was ever going to make it out of here. Looking into the pool of water once again, the woman she saw before was gone. She just became the most dangerous woman in this facility once again.
Hours later, a power surge ripped through wherever she was, and the single, dimly lit bulb above her shattered, casting the small space in complete darkness. A groaning sound seemed to echo throughout her prison as the power went out, alerting her to the fact that wherever she was, it was still a large compound. What the hell? She thought as the automatic lock on her door made a *clink* sound; it had unlocked, startling her for a moment. An involuntary twitch almost caused her to turn to guard Ksenia, but Ksenia wasn't there, and neither was the old Natasha. With nothing to hold her back, she crossed the small space but then flinched violently when it felt as if 10,000 volts of electricity hit her. She was forced to her knees as visions of waking up after being brought back again ripped through her mind. As soon as the shock came though, it was gone. Shit, she thought as she pulled herself up and tried shaking it off. She realized that she was still not over the side effects of the serum and it caused her to worry further. She had already pieced together that it had to have been the Lazarus serum. It was one of the few words that she had made out on a computer screen as she was coming to; right as she made out Dove standing next to it. Having no solution to her predicament, she continued on and surprisingly found the door to be unlocked. It was definitely locked before, so she wondered if this was a test, a trap...or something else. Fighting with the decision to stay put, she wondered what she would gain from that. Deciding that she would gain zero intel, she pulled at the handle and the door opened freely.
Poking her head out, she saw no one so she chose a direction and stealthily pulled herself along the dimly lit, wet hallway in search of answers. Emergency lights flickered as she went, causing her head to throb along with the bright bursts of light. Reaching the end of the hallway, she hesitated, but before she could even round the corner, a man beat her to it and shoved his hand over her mouth before pinning her to the wall. Before she could think, she submitted on instinct, knowing that she could trust him. After a set of footsteps seemed to be drawing closer, the man pulled back from her and all but dragged her back into her room and threw her across the small space before being commanded to lie still and pretend to be unconscious. She watched in confusion as he jammed a small piece of metal into the lock and then pulled the door closed, enclosing them in darkness and pinning himself against the wall in an effort to remain unseen if it opened again. When it didn't and the sounds of hurried footsteps passed them by, the man sighed in relief and cracked the door again, letting a little light in before rushing over to her to help her up.
"Bucky what the hell!" she whispered loudly as she rubbed at her arm where she fell. When he looked at her in surprise and went to touch her, she swatted his hand away and looked at him to explain himself.
"How are you okay?" he asked in surprise. "You were gone..."
"What's going on? Did you do this? We need to move before they come back..." she tried as she made her way to the door.
"No," Bucky said as he cut her off, "you don't understand. They said that you were brought back but I almost didn't want to believe it. I had to know though that you were okay. That's the only reason I came back to this place."
"James, you aren't making any sense. What do you mean 'came back to this place?' And who is 'they'?" she asked as she switched to his old name. This was all feeling like the old days in the Red Room.
"Natasha, you've been out for over a week," he said, accepting the name but still hardly believing his eyes. "The mole told me to be patient and would let me know when you were awake. My cell unlocked like they said it would and I followed their clues to you so I could get you a message."
"A whole week? A message? When did you and this mole get so chummy? What..."
"Natasha, listen!" He almost shouted. "After you...died, another explosion went off on that cliff before Loki got Ksenia out of there. The explosion, it was so precise that it carried me right off the cliff and onto another outcropping. Like before, I stayed there, under the snow until everything went quiet. When I finally climbed out of there, there was a backpack with supplies and a map inside along with a note. Natasha, I went to New York, I saw Ksenia."
6 Days ago
James Barnes sorely climbed his way out of the snow drift to discover himself alone. He was exhausted and cold, and his mind threatened to take him to a dark place after seeing what they had done to Natasha. The noise of the firefight had long since died down and he was for sure alone. Before he could even make a step, a black bag sat right against the cliff in perfect view for where he would see it. He debated on whether or not it could be a trap, but he really didn't have another choice. Inside, he found a warm set of clothes, food, a GPS mapping system, and a note.
Barnes, find the Black Widow's child and warn her of a SIIED hidden at the uppermost point of her cerebral spinal cord. Get it disarmed without drawing attention to yourself and then return to this precise location as quickly as possible, or face the possibility of your own SIIED detonation. A contingency plan has always been in place for a situation such as Romanova's; she will live. Romanova's SIIED will be used as further leverage.
Under zero circumstances are you allowed to contact anyone except for the daughter with the following message: prepare for extraction of The Black Widow and The Winter Soldier upon correspondence in any form of the codeword: prochnost. The timeline has just been moved up and it is time to put an end to The Red Room. There is an army of super-soldiers that will soon wreck havoc upon the world. We cannot let that happen.
It's time to decide what side you are on.
James's hand subconsciously flew to the base of his neck where he could barely make out the lump of metal planted beneath. How could he have not noticed before? Either way, he had a duty to Ksenia to warn her. SIIED's are no joke and time was ticking. An army of super soldiers would wreak havoc on the world if they got out. Would he be the Winter Soldier that the world knows? Or would he be The Winter Soldier that Natasha and the world needed him to be. But how was Natasha going to be okay? He knew for sure that her life was over...could that have been part of Yuri's plan? Was this some kind of cover up to keep the Avengers team from finding them? Shaking his head and realizing that he was free to make his own choices, he made up his mind. Hurrying along, he followed the map and hoped that in his haste he wouldn't go over a cliff that would end his life this time. How in the world was he supposed to make it to New York and back? The map at least was leading him along the quickest and straightest path. At the end of that path though, a man was waiting for him and it took an enormous amount of self control to not take his head off. He remembered seeing him in this Red Room; he remembered the way that he taunted him about his betrayal of Natasha.
"Before you say anything, I'm on your side," the man warned while taking a step back when James got into his face. "I had to do those things to remain undercover."
"Did you do this?" James asked instead of hitting him. Instead, he threw the bag at him but Dove shook his head no.
"I was instructed to meet you here and get you out of here, I've got a jet lined up if you trust me to take you to it. I was hoping that you survived and that plan didn't backfire."
James snorted to tell him that no, he did not in fact trust him, but he had no other choice. And what plan? Was part of his escape orchestrated by the mole? With little other choice, he followed Dove's lead into a dark tunnel out of the mountain and within a few days made it to Avengers tower as instructed. His adventure was short lived, he had to get back to the mountain to be 'captured,' as to not raise suspicion.
Back in the present, Natasha couldn't believe her ears. "Dove?" Natasha asked flabbergasted. "No, you can't trust him. He was there after I was brought back."
James shook his head as he was clearly on edge. "You weren't supposed to see that, he's supposed to be dead. No one knows he's here, Yuri can't know. He was able to finally find this place on his own but now that he's in here he has to remain invisible."
"You aren't making any sense, James. Dove betrayed us, he almost killed my teammate and I would bet my life that he was the one who sold us out to Yuri. He can't be the mole after all of that."
"You've got to listen to me Natasha, we have to trust him!" he whispered loudly as he shook her shoulders in an effort to understand. As soon as he touched her, another violent twitch caused her to back away from him as she saw multiple people attempting to hold her down as fire ran within her veins. And then there was the computer, Dove standing right beside it with his finger pressed to his lips to silence her.
"Are you okay?" he asked in concern, worried that he hurt her. He moved closer and saw that she was seeing something that he didn't, but almost as soon as he saw it, it was over. "What the hell was that?"
"It wasn't so easy coming back, James," she muttered quietly as a shiver went down her spine, chasing the fire away.
"Was it that bad?" he asked as he moved closer and lifted her chin towards him. Her haunted gaze turned to surprise as she forced herself to move away from him and change the subject. "Why is Dove helping us now? How and why is he the mole? Clearly he could have gotten us both out of here by now if he really wanted to help."
"No, Natasha, he's not the mole, although he knows who is. He did this for me to find you and tell you to keep his name out of your mouth. We can't let anyone know he's here. With him being a ghost, he can get messages in and out without compromising the actual mole. They needed to get me out of here before...another phase started."
Dread flooded her body, she knew what the 'other phase' was and shuddered. "Then why did you come back?"
Natasha..." he started before stopping himself.
The look of hesitation got the best of her. "What?" she asked. "What are you not telling me?"
"You have a bomb in your head, and so do I," he put bluntly. When she said nothing in response, he continued. "Ksenia had one too, that's another reason I was allowed to escape. They knew that they could use that against you, against us, as leverage. I also was sent to give her a message."
"What? What message?" she asked as she closed the space between them. The concern in his gaze told her it was bad, even before he uttered the words.
"The mole's timeline to get us out of here just moved up...Yuri is creating an army of super-soldiers out of your blood."
The look Natasha gave him told him that she already knew, but the horror at the realization that the game had gotten even more dangerous thrust him back to the look Ksenia gave him when he told her the same thing.
4 days ago
"Who's there?" a threatened yet confident voice echoed into the shadows. James couldn't help but admire how much this young girl acted like her mother. Hesitating on answering, he instead watched her brilliant lavender eyes scan the shadows in search of the intruder. He was inside of Avengers Tower, having broken in via a 'backdoor' left in the security system planted by Dove during his escape after 'killing' Bobbi. James had entered alone; Dove not wanting to risk running into anyone there.
"Ksenia?" another female voice called as they entered the dark living room. "What's wrong?" Skye had entered the room in an attempt to finally apologize and noticed how on edge the young girl was. Skye's body tensed in response but then relaxed again when Ksenia turned to her like nothing had happened. In reality, Ksenia had finally seen who was lurking in the shadows and it made her stomach feel like butterflies. James put his finger to his mouth in an attempt to have her keep quiet, and he silently relaxed when she turned away from his hiding spot and assured the brunette that all was okay...kind of
"Everything is wrong, Skye," she said with an annoyed sigh in an effort to distract the agent from the other body in the room. She had to get Skye out of there before The Winter Soldiers cover was blown. For some reason, he didn't want to be seen.
"Yeah?" Skye asked after noticing her tone, although a little on edge. Only minutes ago, the young red head had shot her a look of disgust before storming from the lab after their more recent argument about Bobbi. The events from them pushing the morphine only happened a few hours ago, and Ksenia hadn't calmed down much since then, choosing to stay away from the team who wouldn't stop staring at her. "Look I..."
"Save it," Ksenia said, still not fully liking this girl. She needed to get her to leave so she could find out why Bucky was here...and how he was here; and the best way to do that was to piss the girl off. And with how she was feeling towards this young agent, it wasn't going to be that hard. "Look, I need to cool off for a minute before I get pissed off anymore. Like I said before, you don't know the full story, and you and your team fucked up our one chance for Bobbi to see. It was HER choice to use that syringe, she knew the cost."
"Here we go again." Skye's jaw set as she fought to bite her tongue, but eventually, she couldn't hold back any longer. "Well excuse the fuck out of me. You seriously would rather see her suffer rather than alleviate her pain? What kind of person does that?" she yelled.
"The kind of person who respects others wishes!" Ksenia yelled back. "We tried to tell you and you go and point a gun at us! Trust me bitch, get in my way again and I won't hesitate to deck you in front of the entire team." Ksenia looked dangerous, and it made James smile.
"Fuck you," Skye spat through gritted teeth. "And to think I came up here to apologize..."
"Apologize? You're going to need to work on your definition of apologizing," she shot back. "Now back up, if karma doesn't hit you then I fucking will." She almost reveled in the look of anger Skye was giving her. It felt good to vent, and everything she said is what she felt deep in her soul. When Skye turned on her heels and left, she sighed in relief and smiled. That felt good, she thought.
"You're just as fiery as your mother," the voice called from the shadows, causing her to jump in surprise. She had gotten so caught up in the moment with Skye, she almost forgot about why she had to get her out of the room.
"Bucky!" she yelled. "Where is my mother? Is she okay?" She closed the space between them and almost hugged the man in relief, but she hesitated. Stopping short of the shadows, James uncomfortably shifted past her and closed the door to the room, trapping them inside and grinning at his nickname. Ksenia whirled to face him and her breath hitched when he grabbed her gently to turn her. She felt her hair being lifted and a finger trace the back of her neck, to which she flinched.
"Shit," he breathed before releasing her and grabbing onto his head in thought.
"Bucky, what's going on?" she asked as she felt where he did, and was surprised to feel a scar there. "What is this? How did you..."
"Hey," he said as his demeanor switched. He suddenly became calm but a sense of urgency had creeped into his voice. "Natasha is going to be okay. According to our mole, she should have been brought back by now..."
"She was!" Ksenia confirmed. "Bobbi Morse, she's connected to mom somehow and she... she felt it all."
Mom, that just sounded so strange to him. And he was her... James seemed to tense up but sighed in relief at the news before a sense of urgency pulled him out of this little celebration. "Ksenia, you have to warn the Avengers that their time is coming to get us out of there."
"Get us out of there? We're going back?"
"I'm going back; I have to make sure she's alright. She isn't going to be able to get out of there by herself. As soon as she is able and strong, the mole is going to contact you with the code word 'prochnost.' The timeline to get Natasha out of there has just moved up and the window is about to open. Yuri is creating an army of super-soldiers out of Natasha's blood; the likes to which the world has never seen."
"Why did you have to come all the way here to warn me? Why couldn't the mole just contact us himself?"
"Communications out of there are being heavily monitored. They only have one shot, and as soon as they do, covers will be blown and this whole thing will crumble. The mole is our only way out of there, and you guys have to be close when it starts."
"But how..." Ksenia began again as dozens of questions buzzed inside her head.
"Ksenia, I'm sorry, but we don't have a lot of time. I just needed to get here to warn you but I need to get back into the Red Room to warn Natasha and get her ready. As soon as you are contacted, things are going to go south until you get back up there. I told Loki where we were, but it's a code name for god knows where in the mountains. You have to find The Birdcage, I know you can do it."
"My neck..." she began with fear as she started understanding the severity of everything he was saying. "Im leverage against you and my mother, aren't I?"
Crumbling, James cupped her face and stared into the deep, lavender orbs. "I would never let anything happen to you. I had a choice; I could have ran as soon as I was able. I made my choice and came here, to you, and now I am going back to warn your mother."
With tears gathering at her eyes, she asked why, but he didn't have a physical answer. Instead, she found everything she needed to know in his gaze before he broke and hugged her close. His hug was short lived before he pulled away from her as if even he had surprised himself, but his movements around her had changed. He was softer and less guarded, as if he were...human.
"Right," she agreed. "Let's get you out of here, and me to the lab." Ksenia followed him out as fear started creeping into her throat. Now was not the time to get panicky about a bomb in her head. Escorting him as far as a few levels down, he grabbed her hand and gave it a promising squeeze before turning and leaving her alone once again. He had to get back to Natasha.
After Bucky left, Ksenia rushed towards the lab and interrupted another argument, this time between Skye and Darcy. "Uh guys?" she asked as all of the eyes found her once again. After what had happened earlier, she had fled from the lab and roamed the tower, not really wanting to be picked apart by the Avengers team. Now that they really saw her, she noticed how uneasy she made them all. "Sorry to interrupt, but I kind of have a little problem."
"We all have problems," Fitz mumbled as he banged his malfunctioning gadget on a table, "get in line. According to this, there is Echo tech here."
More arguments broke out and a pang of regret shot through her heart as she watched Jemma tending to Bobbi in the back of the room. She hated to pull her away from there but right now, her issue sparked precedence. "I have a bomb in my head," she announced a little too loudly, but that was the point. All of the arguing stopped and once again, eyes focused on her.
"What did you say?" Tony asked as he came closer, "did I just hear you right? You have a BOMB in your head?"
"Yes, and...Fitz? Is it? Your tech works, it's just trash at this point," she relayed matter of factly. "Echo tech came from Stark tech, they stole it. Now, about this bomb?"
Everyone seemed to jump into action at once. Stark faltered at the mention of his tech in the hands of the enemy, and the moment Fitz confirmed that yes, she did have a bomb in her head, she was pulled into emergency surgery to attempt to remove it. She only hoped that it would be successful.
In the present, Bucky looked at Natasha and gave her the rundown. He could tell that she was relieved to know that Ksenia was safe with her team back home. Speaking of home... "Hang in there Natasha, we are getting out of here soon."
"Well I can't just sit around here with the power failure," she responded as she brushed past him and peeked out of the door. "I'm going to find out what I can while this door is unlocked. Something is going on."
"Natasha...wait!" James whispered loudly as she pulled the door open and slipped out. He caught up to her and grabbed her shoulder, becoming very aware of how close they were as they shared the shadows. "We need to lay low, we could get caught and if we get hurt, it could delay whatever escape plan this mole has in store for us."
Natasha scoffed and narrowed her eyes to the blinding, blinking lights as she slinked her way back down the hallway and away from James. Knowing that he couldn't resist gathering intel, she shot back a smirk which earned her an eye roll from her old comrade. "I knew you wouldn't be able to resist. Besides, what's the worst that could happen, they kill us?"
"Nat... Natasha," he corrected himself; they weren't friends, only friends called each other by a nickname. After the torture he had put her through, he didn't deserve the right. "Natasha, whatever they gave you to bring you back doesn't seem like something you would want to go through again. It looked like torture when I grabbed you earlier."
"I'm fine, James," she whispered as she continued down the unfamiliar halls. "It was just a trigger I guess, it should pass. I feel fine apart from that."
"Whatever; it's never 'just nothing' from you, it never has been," he shot back truthfully as vague memories started coming back to him.
Natasha shot back a knowing smile but then paused as footsteps sounded behind them. Shit, she thought as they picked up the pace and blindly navigated more near empty hallways. There was standing water everywhere, they had to still be underground somewhere. Multiple times, they had to duck into door frames or wait for guards to pass before moving on, but so far, they remained invisible to the occupants of this unknown place.
On one instance, James saved her from walking into a group of guards, pulling her back and covering her mouth to keep her quiet. Once they passed, he gave her, her voice back but held her in place. "I'm sorry," he whispered before finally releasing his grip.
"It's fine," she shot back embarrassed; she should have heard them coming.
"No, Not that," he admitted, causing her to turn in the tight space they were trapped in. More and more guards were coming down that hallway more regularly, probably looking for them. They would have to wait it out.
Their close proximity was making her uncomfortable but the look in his eyes was holding onto a pain that seemed as if it was torturing him. "James...spit it out," she ordered as soon as the last wave of guards passed them.
With a sigh, he gave it a go. "Back outside the Red Room compound...when I stole you from your team from that cave...I'm sorry."
A visible shudder ran down Natasha's spine as she recalled the emotions that she had felt on that jet. Yes, James was torturing her and it hurt, but she was more stuck in her mind at the time and was forced to remember Ksenia for the first time. She had relived the night her daughter was born, and then died. The fresh pain in her heart stung worse than the blade that James used to take out his anger at her. "It's fine," she deflected as her heart ached at the memories.
"It's not fine, Natasha. Who you are now is nothing in comparison to who I thought you were. I hurt you, bad, and you could have died by my hand."
"James, I've been tortured by friends before," she recalled as she remembered being hunted by Clint Barton before she joined SHIELD. "It comes with the territory."
"It's not just that," he said in frustration. "You wanted to die, because you remembered her. You wanted me to do it because this is my fault."
Her green eyes shot up to his and narrowed. "If you think this is your fault then I should kick your ass right now. This is Ivan's fault, Yuri's fault...not yours," she all but growled.
He cocked his head at her but remained serious. "I remember what you said. It didn't click until a few days ago what you had meant. You wanted me to kill you so you could be with your daughter...our daughter.
Natasha's breath hitched when he said it; our daughter...
"If I hadn't kicked you so hard that one day in training, I wouldn't have been shipped off to HYDRA and I could have protected you... protected her."
"James you didn't know... hell I didn't know..." she started before being cut off.
"It doesn't matter. If I had been there then, even if I would have been there mentally that day in the jet...things could have been different. I'm so messed up in the head that I wasn't there to protect you."
There it was. 'I wasn't there to protect you,' referred to both her and Ksenia. That phrase held so much emotion that Natasha was forced to step back into the hall; hell to whoever may be walking down it at that moment. James grabbed her and pulled her back into the hiding place but Natasha tensed up and purposefully put space between them. He could hurt her, he could hurt Ksenia. He wasn't in his right mind all the time. HYDRA had screwed around so much in his head that she believed he could snap at any moment and lash out, forgetting who they were.
"I know exactly what you are thinking," he admitted. "I've thought about it too, which is why I need to get this out... I'm turning myself into SHIELD the second we get out of here. I can't be anywhere near you, or her for that matter. I may not know her the way that you do, but there is just this feeling...I can't explain it. It's like...."
"It's like you would do anything at all for her," Natasha finished. "You would give up your life, you would take any torture, you would DIE for her if it came down to it without so much as a second thought." Yes, that was exactly it. The sorrow and relief that looked back at her told her that he was telling the truth. She relaxed then and in turn, James relaxed as well.
It looked like he had wanted to say more, but a sudden rush of guards tore them from their moment and Natasha pressed further into their spot, not caring anymore that she was right against James now. "I think they realized that we escaped. Lets go," she ordered when the wave passed.
"Shouldn't we go back to our cells before shit hits the fan?" James asked as he followed her anyway.
"Shit has already hit the fan, не будь ребенком, come on." Natasha could feel the stress radiating off of him in waves but she had to find out what else Yuri was planning. Super soldiers were bad, but was that the only plan he had? What did he plan on doing with them? Their search ended at a large metal door, which of course was unlocked. Curiosity getting the best of them, Natasha pulled it open and stepped back in horror just as a familiar groan echoed throughout the halls and the lights came back on. Inside the spacious room were at least two dozen guards...soldiers...no, they were super soldiers. The only thing was...they were all dead, claw marks at their throats indicating a mass panic attack. They were scattered around the room, all laying in more of the standing water that mirrored the flooded halls. A single taser lay closest to the door which told her that it had been used to electrocute them all, the charge fueled and transported to anyone touching the water. There had been...side effects. The taser was not strong enough to kill them all, but it was strong enough to trigger panic attacks in the men who had a very new and untested serum in their systems.
But that isn't what killed them, no, she had seen this before. It was one of the first things they had learned in the Red Room as children. She had only used this method once, many years after, and what she was seeing now reminded her of that moment that had left her in awe. She was on a mission in the Afghan mountains, shortly before James joined the Red Room for the first time. There was a terrorist cell that Ivan had wanted gone, but the cell was acting under orders from the Soviets, so they needed to be taken out quietly. One man in particular out of the dozens or so men was the target she was sent after. Taking out this one man would create a domino effect and eventually cripple the cell, but it had to look natural as tensions were high during this time. To do it, she had used nitrogen gas. Once her target was alone in an office, she released the gas from the air vents and within seconds it had done its dirty work. Nitrogen gas mimics the effects of a panic attack, making it look like death by natural causes, so it worked perfectly for her in that situation.
She couldn't prove it, no one really could, but she would bet her last breath that this is what happened. If only she could get over to that vent...
She never made it. She wasn't even able to move an inch when James suddenly shoved her to the side and a bullet ripped past where her head had just been. Shit, they had been found.
Guards surrounded them within seconds and they were forced to their knees and arms pinned behind their backs. They didn't fight, there was no point with The Triad as well as Yuri standing right before them with an expression that went beyond anger.
"Did you do this?" Yuri asked as he peered behind them into the room with the dead super soldiers. The fury that radiated off of him actually caused a flicker of fear to trickle into Natasha's mind. James remained steeled, but she knew that underneath he felt the same. When no one answered, he took an angry step towards Natasha but was stopped by Yelena, who only gave him a warning look. It seemed to calm him down but right as he composed himself, he flipped a switch and fired a shot into Natasha's shoulder, causing her to fall back, only to be wrenched up from the floor by the guard behind her.
"Leave her alone," James growled as he shook off the hands that held him down and stood. "We didn't do this." He looked over at Natasha and found her to be okay, although he knew that it had to of hurt. He himself was still healing from his daring escape a few days ago, but then again, he wasn't the one who was recently brought back to life either.
"Leave her alone? Why? She's mine and I can do whatever the hell I want with her," he said with a smirk before narrowing his eyes at him.
"Shut the hell up Yuri," Natasha shot back almost lazily, "you don't own me. You messed up and Ksenia got out of here. You do realize that now that she's gone, I have nothing to hold me back."
"We will see about that," he spat as his eyes narrowed. He snapped for his Triad to grab them and follow him to who knows where, but Natasha's steps faltered as she dug in her heels.
James shot a questioning look over to her and was surprised to see a look of sheer determination in her eyes. She looked dangerous, and there was nothing to hold her back now. They were supposed to lay low and ride it out until backup arrived; but something had set Natasha off. Shit, he thought as Yuri realized what was going on. He stepped back behind his Triad and gave Natasha a wink.
"I'll see you again when I have your daughter back. It's only a matter of time."
And that was it before all hell broke loose. Natasha's mind was like a hand grenade, and the pin was just pulled.