"Hey, how are you feeling?"
Ksenia's head whipped over to the voice and cringed at the sudden movement. "Well I was fine," she admitted to Loki with a halfhearted smile. Seeing his face fall, she backtracked and apologized. It wasn't his fault her head hurt. "I'm sorry, I'm just in a bad mood."
Loki understood. Each time she went down into the lab, everyone rushed her with questions that she didn't have the answers to. When they thought she wasn't looking, they would stare at her with sad eyes, pitying her. They had done the same thing to him when they had learned of his close connection to Natasha.
"Hey," she asked randomly when he sat down on her bed, finally finding the courage, "why did you do it?"
Why did I do it? Oh, she meant it... New York. Of course, everyone wants to know. He knew that she had been trying to find the nerve to ask him, she had tried several times before chickening out and changing the subject. Never would he have ever shared his reasoning, but to Ksenia, he didn't mind.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked," she said fearfully. She didn't want to anger him when they had grown so close, but she couldn't stop wondering.
Instead of getting angry though, he smiled, telling her that it was okay before guilt crept into his heart once more. He had never told anyone, and it would feel good to get it out. "No one knows how much I have cried over that day," he admitted before sighing. His black hair fell, hiding his eyes for a moment before he composed himself again. "I had finally reached my breaking point. After...after losing you and Natasha all those years ago, a piece of me died. I had felt so much that I started to feel nothing, and I was ready to end all of humanity for taking my happiness from me."
Ksenia understood but was a little confused. "But Natasha was there..."
Loki gave a small laugh. "Had I not created my own world, I would certainly have died in someone else's. It was better that way, a little lonelier...but better. I thought that if she were gone, I would finally be free of all the memories that I was drowning in. Eventually though, Natasha was the one who stuck that scepter into the machine, closing the portal and putting a stop to it all. She kept fighting when it seemed like the world was going to end, and she made me want to do the same. I saw her smile and then..."
Flashing back to that day, the feelings overwhelmed him once again. His broken soul was screaming, and no one could hear him, not even his own brother. He was drowning in the deepest ocean, the weight of his sadness pushing him deeper and deeper, the pressure threatening to crush him. After fighting the pain for so long, he instead relished in it while his mind screamed in agony at the sudden change. His broken soul kept on believing that his misery would lead the soul of him into another soul that he was desperately needing...and it did. He gave up when he saw her triumph. How could he destroy the things that SHE loved in order to make himself feel better? Her smile, though not aimed at him, sent chills down his spine. It was the same smile that he had been granted countless times in their cave. He was in love with a memory that was drowning him. Everything that he had done to her world for her, he realized, he had really done for himself. The one thing he had succeeded in destroying...was himself. So, he gave up. Sure, he had more tricks up his sleeve, but he kept them hidden and allowed himself to submit. Natasha saved the world that day, and she didn't even know it. Being that close to her again made him feel a little more alive, and little less lost.
Ksenia understood because she felt it. His emotions were so strong that she felt everything that he did, and it made her want to rip her own heart out from the way it was hurting. She put her hand on his shoulder and when he snapped out of it, he knew he didn't have to explain any further.
"I'm sorry," he said when he realized what had happened "It's all starting to come back after the damn powder bomb.
"No," she began, cutting him off. "Don't apologize for feeling, not with me at least," she said and gave a sweet smile, the same smile that Natasha had always given him. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes when he grabbed her into a hug, but she loved the feeling.
"Ahem, so," he said, changing the subject, "how is your head feeling?"
Ksenia laughed but answered anyway at the change of subject. "It hurts but I'll heal. It's only been a few days since I had a bomb removed you know." When Loki gave her a look, she realized that it wasn't him that she needed to convince. With a sigh, she brushed past him and made her way to her...Natasha's bathroom, and took her medicine. "Tell them that I'm fine and taking my medicine. And please tell them that if they really wanted to know, they can ask me themselves."
"That's exactly what Darcy said," Loki recounted with a laugh as he leaned against the door frame. "That SHIELD team has been walking on eggshells since they've arrived."
Ksenia gave him a look through the mirror before turning to face him with her eyebrows raised.
When Loki rolled his eyes, she pushed past him and headed for the lab. "Okay," he admitted, "The Avengers too."
"I'm freaking everyone out," she admitted as they walked. "The daughter of The Black Widow and Winter Soldier. I mean, who wouldn't be a little on edge. They went through losing her to finding out about me. I understand that it's a little hard to process, but damn."
"Hey, you know you have me on your team, Darcy and Bobbi too. The others will come around, especially when we get your mother back."
"And Bucky," she added.
"Yes," Loki said with apprehension, "and Bucky. And look, the reason I came to get you is because we found something."
Ksenia stopped in her tracks, she knew what they had found. "They found The Birdcage?"
The smile on Loki's face told her that yes, they had found it. When it faltered, she picked up her pace once again, leaving Loki to catch up. "I know, I know," she said. "They think that Echo moved them, and it would be a fool's errand to go there. You believe it too."
"No, 'Sen, I'm on your team with this one. It's just that everyone else thinks that she's been moved. 'It would be the logical play'," he said with air quotations as he mimicked the very thing that Skye had suggested.
"That's what Echo wants us to think! They 'killed' her so that we would stop looking, they just didn't count on Bobbi still being alive. Like I said before, it would be a suicide mission for us to go in just to retrieve a 'body'. They only did that because you showed up; Echo thinks of everything. They had that powder ready so that it would screw with your senses and your connection to that place if you had somehow found it. They thought that by killing her in front of you would throw you guys off their scent for a while, and it worked. It's still working because they have only just now found The Birdcage. And thank god for Bobbi. If she wasn't connected to my mother, I bet not one soul here apart from you and me would believe that she was alive."
Loki agreed with her, but he didn't show it. They walked in silence the rest of the way and when they got to the lab, Ksenia sighed, not really ready for the anxieties inside of that door.
"Ksenia!" Darcy called when they stepped through those metal doors. Ksenia focused on her and ignored the other wandering eyes of the rest of the teams.
"Hey, Loki said that you guys found it," she said as she looked over her shoulder at the computer she was seated at. It had a map pulled up of the Kolyma mountains with a heat overlay. "There's no heat signatures," she noted as her shoulders dropped. "How deep does the thermal imaging go?"
"Pretty deep..." Darcy said, clearly distracted now. When she noticed the despondent tone Ksenia had, she tried reassuring her. "...but that doesn't mean anything. Our whole system is screwed now that we know Stark's technology is being used."
A new voice joined them and Ksenia flinched, not having ever talked to him before directly. "Our system is not screwed, Darcy, you just don't know what to look for. Ksenia..." Tony asked, "did you ever feel immense pressure while you were there? Headache, nosebleeds, dizziness..."
"All of the above," she answered after steeling herself. This wasn't the Tony she had been observing. The Tony she had seen was angry...and mopey. This Tony was actually being kind as well as looking her directly in the eyes. No one else apart from Loki and Darcy would do that.
"Good girl," he offered as he shot her a smile and gave her some hope. "My scans aren't going to pick up anything that deep. My bet is that they pulled everyone deeper underground to avoid being detected. They knew how far my imaging would detect. I also think 'The Birdcage' is some sort of codename for a Faraday cage or something which is why we can't see any sort of electrical output from the site. It's pretty genius actually; I would probably love the man who had thought of it first. I'd throw him some sort or party..."
"We get it Stark; it was your idea and your design." Darcy groaned, interrupting the small moment. When she looked up and saw them both staring at her, she excused herself and joined Clint Barton at another computer.
Tony sat in Darcy's spot and began clicking away while the uncomfortable silence started pushing Ksenia away. "Not so fast," Tony demanded without even looking at her, "I'm not done with you yet."
Flinching from Yuri having said that exact same thing, she realized what she did and deflected, hoping Tony hadn't noticed. "Excuse me?" she asked, not liking this guy bossing her around after their...moment.
"I'm not...damn this went better in my head." Spinning away from the computer and towards her, he tried again, giving her a look that said, 'I saw that,'. "Let's start over...with everything. I'm sorry for the way my team has acted towards you. Me especially, it wasn't fair. I'm not sure what all Natasha has told you about me, but it was my fault that all this has happened."
"Ummm, yeah. Mom has told me a lot about you, but she never once said that any of this was your fault."
Tony's eyes widened in surprise and then it looked as if his whole body deflated in relief. "Wow, are you sure? I mean, maybe she just hasn't had the time yet..."
"Tony, I'm sure," she reassured as she sat on the edge of the desk. While trying to find the right words, her fingers fiddled with something sticking to the underside of the desk and pulled it off, absentmindedly playing with it. "She actually told me that you saved her."
"What? I don't get it..."
"Let me finish," she scolded, sounding just like Natasha. "She said that without you, she would never have found me. She would have one day self-destructed in her quest to end the darkness in her soul."
A smile returned to Tony's lips, but then faltered when he saw what she was toying with in her fingers. "Where did you get that?" he asked, leaning forward to get a better look as if he couldn't quite believe it.
"What?" she asked, not sure what he was talking about. When he reached for her hand, he took the sticky paper that she had been toying with and gave a small laugh. "What is it?" she asked.
Before answering her, he stuck the sticker to the middle of his monitor, directly in the center of the mountain. "Hope."
When he didn't explain further and instead poured himself into the information on the screen, she got up and left him with the sticker still stuck to the monitor. How in the world would Bob the Builder give him hope?
Later that day, it seemed as if the rest of the teams had finally accepted her. They would look her in the eyes now and include her in conversations. She caught Loki giving her a thumbs up, and she giggled at how embarrassing that must have been for him. When she was finally relaxing, she got a bad feeling and jumped up from her place on the couch with Clint Barton. Every time she relaxed for the past few months, something bad always happened, and it did.
Bobbi had made a rare appearance into the room and as soon as all eyes found her, she told them to start preparations. "We need to start mobilizing, now," she demanded.
"The code word?" Ksenia asked with hope as well as a little excitement. "Did you hear the code word?"
The blonde shot her gaze over to her and shook her head 'no' before flinching and grabbing her head in pain. Both Darcy and Loki made a step towards her, but she put up a hand to stop them. "No code word, yet, but something is happening. We need to be wherever we think they are when we do hear it. I don't...just get it done, I need to focus..." she finished while turning to leave. Darcy chased after her but the door she escaped into locked behind her, so she slammed her fist onto the cold metal instead.
"What was that all about?" Ksenia asked aloud.
Loki had found himself at her side and sighed. "She doesn't trust anyone near her. I don't know if it is because of their screw up," he referenced as he nodded to Skye and Jemma, "or if there is something else going on. I think Natasha's feelings are mixing into hers more powerfully."
Behind those doors, Loki was right. Bobbi was trying her hardest to focus but things were coming in waves. She didn't want anyone interrupting her while she filtered through what was going on. Natasha was most definitely awake, and had been captured, again. The day before, she saw the fight she and Bucky had put up. The emotions were so powerful that she could quite literally see through Natasha's eyes if she focused hard enough. A sudden pain through her shoulder had thrust her into Natasha's mind after she had been shot. Yuri had grabbed her outside of a door with dead super soldiers and after a brutal fight, the vision ended when Natasha was knocked unconscious.
Before warning the team, Natasha had just woken up, again. Bobbi felt that her hands were bound behind her and that her entire body was on fire. She squeezed her eyes closed and steadied her breathing as she tried to see what Natasha was seeing. Almost smiling when she made the connection, she carefully made her way to a chair and sat, bringing her hands behind her like she had felt Natasha's doing. Mirroring the position Natasha was in seemed to keep the connection strong, so she gave up control of her body and let the connection guide her.
"How did you do it?" Yuri asked as Natasha's head whipped up in response. She sucked in air as she tried to get her breath back, not quite sure when it had left her. She blinked the sleepiness of the unconscious world away but felt as if someone else was watching. Without thinking, she knew it was Bobbi. Not quite believing it, she let the name slip in a whisper before cursing herself. Her eyes met Yuri's then, and almost sighed when she noticed that he had not heard...but someone else may have. An audible grunt forced its way past her lips when a hand gripped her injured shoulder and squeezed. Arina.
"He asked you a question, sister," Arina sneered as the grip seemed to loosen, but only slightly.
Maybe she didn't hear it after all, Natasha thought as she focused back on the conversation. She knew Bobbi was watching, their connection strengthened by pain. The fire wouldn't leave her body, but she did her best to push the pain to the back of her mind, silently apologizing to the blonde. "Why should I answer you? You won't like any answer I give you anyways," she spat at Yuri.
"Fine," he said, "then perhaps you should know that they were only a fraction of the army I've already created."
Expecting that sort of answer, she pushed back. "SHIELD will stop you," she said as the grip on her wound tightened. Natasha grimaced but didn't shake it off, she needed Bobbi to hear whatever Yuri wanted to say and Arina was making it easy.
"How can they possibly accomplish that? Ohhhh," he said with a laugh, "I must have forgotten to tell you. No, I haven't forgotten, you just aren't worth the breath to tell you. It's what accompanies my army that will bring the world to its knees."
Arina's nails then dug deeper into her flesh and it took everything in her not to hiss at the pain. It had started to build, and not just around her shoulder. "What the hell do you mean?"
"My real life's work, a secret to even those at this compound," he mocked. "I can't trust it getting out."
"How many people know?" she asked, knowing it was a long shot.
Yuri smiled and shook his head, picking up a syringe lying next to her on a table. He played with it while thinking of what to say next. "Not many," he finally admitted.
Getting smart, Natasha turned her head to look up at Arina. "Do you know? Or are you not a part of his secret club?" The uncertain look in Arina's gaze told her that even The Triad didn't know his plans. Before looking back to Yuri, Natasha for the first time noticed Bucky behind her in a chair similar to hers, bound just the same.
"No, this one doesn't know," he said as he let her in on it, not even calling her by her name. "I couldn't afford even my closest of security in on my plans lest you and your friend over there somehow got it out of them. And to think, James over there even escaped. What if he had taken my secret with him and got off this mountain? Thank goodness he was captured before that could happen." He then grabbed her face and squeezed, "and I swear to you that it won't ever happen again. I can't WAIT to see it all go down in a few days' time."
A few days, shit, Bobbi thought as she backed out of Natasha's mind for a moment. This is when she had alerted the team to start getting ready. As soon as she let them know, she retreated back to her room and resumed her position in the chair, focusing back into Natasha to see if she could get any more information. It was easier than ever to tune back in.
Yuri released her then and calmly stuck the needle into her arm, pushing the plunger down and then tossing the used needle at Bucky behind her. From the sounds coming from around Arina, she knew that Bucky was startled awake.
"What the hell are you doing to her?" He asked groggily before blinking the world more into focus.
A chuckle from Yuri and then a nod to Arina resulted in Natasha's chair being spun around to face Bucky. She had thought the fire already in her veins was enough, but it now started to boil over as whatever was in the syringe did its work. The sweat now covering her body concerned Bucky, especially when Natasha tried not to look at him. He knew that she was trying to hide the pain in her eyes. "Why are you doing this?" he asked, knowing that Yuri had to have had some kind of game plan here.
"Why am I doing this? You want to know why? I just feel like we haven't had the chance to talk much lately. You know, with you both giving us the silent treatment and all. I feel like you would be much more cooperative if we had Natasha here sit in on our little chat."
Natasha then knew where he was going with this. She knew that Yuri wouldn't get anything out of her with Ksenia being gone, so Yuri was going to use her against Bucky to try and gain any intel... or something. He wanted her to submit but knew that it wasn't going to happen easily. He must think that he could try and get Bucky to submit first. "Don't tell him a damn thing," she growled out to Bucky as Arina's fingers finally let go of her shoulder. She should have felt relief, but it was quite opposite of that. The violent flinch that she had no control over startled even Bucky when she cried out in pain. "God! What the hell!" she hissed when it started to subside.
The knowing smile from Yuri's lips told them both that this was going to be a long night. "How did you feel when you woke up after being brought back, Miss Romanova?"
"Don't call me that," she hissed through gritted teeth before subconsciously regretting talking back to him. What the hell? She thought.
"You didn't answer me, and for that..." he trailed as he motioned to Arina behind her, "is why she has to do this..."
Back in the lab of Avengers Tower, Loki started to get a weird feeling, and it was coming from the room Bobbi had retreated into after warning the team. He was feeling pain, as well as a trace of Natasha...Oh no. Not realizing that he did it, he apparated into the locked room and saw Bobbi sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, hands clasped behind her back. The sweat pouring from her skin told him that she was seeing Natasha again, but this time... he could feel the redhead. He made his way over and put his hand on Bobbi's arm only to jerk it away when a wave of pain enveloped his senses. There was no way Bobbi was feeling this and not reacting, but then he noticed her clenched jaw. She was trying to squash it down in order to focus. Maybe he could help...but then she gasped as if she couldn't breathe; she needed help. Rushing to the locked door, he unlocked it and then used his mind to send a message to Darcy to get in here, but not draw suspicion; Bobbi needed to focus and a group of worried teammates was not going to work. The rubber band-like snap of pain that flicked inside of his head reminded him that he still isn't back to normal and he cringed.
As sneakily as she could Darcy snuck her way into Bobbi's room, not even realizing that Loki had somehow gotten in. She knew something was wrong, and she was right. "Loki what's going on?" she demanded when she took in the scene. When Loki put his finger to his lips and kneeled to Bobbi's level, he responded. "I think she's trying to focus; she's actually there and not just seeing glimpses. I saw it for a fraction of a moment, but I still can't get through."
When Bobbi couldn't take it anymore, she slumped over in pain for only a moment before pinning her back against the chair once again, still focusing. "I'm going to try and ease her pain so she can work around that."
"Yeah," Darcy agreed as she hit the floor next to Bobbi. "I've never seen her this focused before. Something is going down."
Loki did his best, but whatever pain Natasha was feeling went further than his powers of relief would allow.
Back in the Red Room, Natasha's retaliation earned her only more pain. For a moment, nothing came, but when it did, every nerve in her body screamed with her as a knife tore through her side. Normally, she could control this kind of pain, but for some reason, every little movement was amplified. Not only that, she could feel everything in the room crashing into her at once. The minimal clothes covering her body felt as if they weighed a ton, the cold in the air that licked at her skin felt like she would get frostbite in a matter of moments, but for some reason, the heat flowing through her veins threatened to boil her alive.
Her scream startled Bucky and as he fought against his restraints, he threw curses at the spitting image of Ivan Petrovitch. "What the hell was in that syringe?" he yelled when he ran out of swear words to throw.
"Oh that?" Yuri asked as if it was unimportant, "that was nothing, honestly."
When Natasha got her breath back, she tried to speak but her words were lost in more pain. All Arina was doing was trailing her fingers down her arms, but they were igniting tendrils of fire beneath the delicate touch.
"Whatever you are doing, stop," Bucky commanded. "What do you want from us?"
Though she couldn't speak, Natasha managed to shoot him another glare that told him to keep his mouth shut, she could handle this; but could he?
"I'll make you a deal," Yuri offered as he walked over to Natasha. "If you answer a few of my questions, truthfully, I'll give her a little relief and tell you my plans for the evening. How does that sound?"
Meeting Natasha's gaze one more time and seeing the threat in her eyes, he declined Yuri's offer. "I'm not giving you anything. You know we were trained not to break, even though the worst of tortures. So, why even try?"
The disappointment in Yuri's features made Bucky crack a smile in triumph, but only until his face twisted into a knowing grin. "My first question was going to be an easy one. I was going to ask if either of you had ever heard of The Lazarus Serum before? A simple 'yes' or 'no' would have sufficed." He then traced Natasha's bruised cheekbone before she threw her head back to escape what felt like a sledgehammer striking her cheek. All Yuri did was simply touch it.
"What the hell was in that needle!" Bucky yelled when Natasha groaned and became disoriented from the pain in her body.
"I already told you, it wasn't anything that directly inflicts pain. Honestly, we tried to be nice and block some of the effects from the Lazarus Serum we gave her. Now, I un-blocked it and she's dealing with the side effects." Looking down at the red head, he grabbed her by her injured shoulder and then pressed into her torn side. "Can you feel it? All of your nerves on fire? Pain is increased tenfold, and I don't think even you can ignore what is happening." Her determination to stay silent was broken when the pain became too much, and Natasha started hyperventilating.
"Now," Yuri said while stopping his task and turned to Bucky for interrogation. "What exactly did you tell that God when he came to rescue you?"
Bucky's jaw set but he knew he couldn't stay silent. Natasha finally calmed her breathing but was starting to get a faraway look in her eyes. "I didn't tell him anything apart from 'get Ksenia out of here.'"
"And?" Yuri asked as he picked up a blade next to where the syringe had been.
"And nothing you piece of shit," he spat, but then instantly regretted it.
Yuri took his time as he drew his blade across Natasha's chest and felt giddy when her body shuddered at the pain she was fighting so hard not to show. When she released the breath she had been holding and started to pant, the blood ran faster and started soaking into her tank top, staining the white a shade of crimson that turned Bucky's stomach. He knew that he shouldn't let it get to him, she was trained for this and so was he, but for some reason, seeing Natasha being tortured broke through one of his walls.
"Don't you lie to me Buchanan. What else did you tell him?" Yuri snarled as he flicked the blade across her cheek next.
"What else would there be!" he yelled as a warning from Natasha's eyes told him to shut his mouth. "I don't know where we are, I don't know what your plans are, and I don't know what else you expect me to say!"
His answer seemed to satisfy Yuri for a moment, but he knew that he was getting at something. "That's fair, but I have another question. How did you survive the mountains before being 'captured' again? We saw no evidence of a fire to keep warm...you should have frozen to death out there."
Bucky sighed and lied his way through it. "I almost didn't, which is why I allowed myself to be captured again. I knew I wouldn't be able to find a way off this damn mountain, so I had no other choice."
"Fair," Yuri admitted, before pointing the knife at Natasha's thigh, "then why did your daughters SIIED go offline only days after your so called 'escape?'"
Shit, was he caught? When he hesitated, Yuri pushed the knife into Natasha's thigh as slowly and painfully as possible while he was forced to keep a straight face. The pained groan that escaped the red heads lips forced him to at least say something. "How the hell would I know! Maybe they gave her a checkup and found it? Maybe she noticed it? Hell, I discovered mine weeks ago!"
"Found mine too," Natasha choked out with a laugh to mask the pain, which only seemed to infuriate Yuri even more. These aren't the answers he was expecting, maybe he was just being paranoid? Either way, he was here tonight to cause pain and do what his father had failed to do, so he twisted the knife and grinned when Natasha finally screamed. "I want you to submit."
Pain shot through the hearts of Bucky, Loki and Darcy when Natasha and Bobbi screamed in unison.
"Shit, fuck!" Darcy yelled back at the Tower in slightly above a whisper when she clasped her hands over Bobbi's mouth to stifle the scream. When no one entered the room, she sighed in relief and removed her hands and backed off, letting Bobbi focus. Whatever was going on, Bobbi obviously was going to go along with it...but could doing that eventually kill her?
After several more rounds of torture, Natasha and Bucky stuck true to their training. Natasha's nerves were on fire and the pain she was feeling was now the worse she had ever felt in her life. After one particularly bad round, Bucky screamed with her in frustration as he watched her body fight to hang on. A serrated knife had been forced into Natasha's side, but her cries never once turned to begging. She didn't want him to give Yuri anything, so he didn't, no matter how much it was killing him. Natasha earned a major amount of respect from him as she succeeded in keeping her own mouth closed. Long before this though, she managed to push Bobbi from her mind to spare her any more pain. She didn't even know that she could, but once the emptiness filled that part of her mind, she relaxed knowing that at least she could protect her.
Yuri on the other hand knew he wouldn't win this way. Pain was not the way to get Natasha or Bucky to submit. He had a vague idea to get into Bucky's head before just wiping it, but this was more fun. He had another plan for Natasha but wanted to drag this out just a little more to test his theory on Bucky.
As the sessions dragged on, Bucky had to look away as a crimson stream flowed from her wounds and another tortured scream echoed around the chamber. This one was much worse than the last and he actually felt sorry for her. That scream made him want to hurt anyone who had ever hurt his former comrade. He wanted to hurt them like they had hurt her. He wanted to...take her place; he was breaking over her. "Stop!" he yelled as his heart tore, pierced by Natasha's tortured screams. "Ask me another question!"
"D-don't..." Natasha choked out. "I'm h-handling it," she managed through her clenched jaw, not wanting him to actually give away some of their intel over her.
Getting what he wanted, Yuri stopped and made his way over to Bucky, being sure to wipe the blood from his hands all over Bucky's shirt. "One last question, and no one in this room will lay a hand on her."
"I'm not falling for that," Bucky shot back as he looked for loopholes. "What about the rest of the Triad? Or your asshats with guns?"
"Fine," Yuri responded and walked away from him. "The Triad and 'asshats with guns' won't touch her."
A glimmer of hope shot through him but when he looked at Natasha, that hope turned into concern as she started shivering violently. Every nerve in her body was on fire and it was a wonder she hadn't passed out by now. Something as simple as a fly landing on her skin would feel like shards of glass pressing into her. It couldn't get any worse than this...could it?
"What do you want to ask?" Bucky offered as he mustered up as much hate into his glare as he could.
Yuri's expression seemed to change as his eyes quite literally went black. He darted across the room with superhuman speed and grabbed Bucky by the throat, lifting him along with the chair, and slammed him into the ground. The chair shattered so he immediately used his free hands to try and break the grip around his throat...but it wouldn't budge. What the hell?
"Will you submit to me?" Yuri seemed to growl as he lifted him once more and threw him across the room and into the wall behind Natasha.
So many things were going though Bucky's head through the shock of the moment. If he didn't and Yuri used this kind of power on Natasha... He didn't even want to think about it. And if he eventually killed her from it, he would bring her back and they would be right back where they started, over and over in a vicious cycle. What would he have them do if they submitted? Lead the army to take over the world? Be Yuri's own personal assassins? How the hell would he guarantee that they wouldn't find a way to defect? And then he realized it. Ksenia. But how? There was only one way to find out. "Yes. I'll follow you without protest if you leave them alone."
Yuri seemed to like the usage of the word 'them' and flipped a switch. "Good. Now come, we have work to do."
Bucky pulled himself up from the cold stone floor, flexed his metal arm, and followed Yuri bitterly. He risked a glance at Natasha and was relieved when he saw that she had finally passed out from the pain. Tearing his eyes from her peaceful form, he continued with Yuri, all the while noticing how confident Yuri was with his back turned to him. Arina followed behind them and once the door creaked shut and they turned down the adjacent hallway, confusion flooded Bucky's mind. "What the hell is this?" he asked as they passed by the parading girls on their way to the room they had left Natasha in. An older woman with silver hair and a scarred chest led six very young girls in a single file down the hallway, and Bucky couldn't help but notice how disciplined and...trained...they were.
Yuri slowed his pace and stopped, watching the girls go by before turning to Bucky with a prideful and mischievous look. "I said that my Triad and 'asshats with guns' wouldn't lay a hand on her, I never said my own little Widows wouldn't."
Bucky tensed his body, ready for a fight...but then he gave up. He wouldn't win and he didn't want to risk Yuri going after Ksenia in retaliation. Not when he had some sort of secret plans up his sleeve.
When Yuri saw that he had given up, he smiled and continued down the hallway. "See what happens when you follow me? You learn things. I doubted I could get either of you to submit to the Red Room by following my father's ways, but I have my own. With you, I use Natasha against you. You feel some sort of connection with her after meeting your daughter, am I right?"
As much as Bucky hated to admit it, he was right, but it was the thought of Ksenia losing her that disturbed him the most. The way the girl was around Natasha sparked some kind of instinct within him to protect his own. And his own was Ksenia and Natasha at the moment. "What are they going to do? Where did they come from?"
Yuri glanced back over his shoulder in amusement before he answered. "And here I thought I asked a lot of questions." He pondered for a moment, and then came to the conclusion that it couldn't hurt to tell Bucky a few things, especially with where they were going. "Those girls have been under my training for the past 3 years. All orphans, no one was ever going to miss them, and the ones that did obviously never looked too hard."
"Three years? One of them looked like she was 6 years old," Bucky sputtered in horror. She was Natasha's age when she had first joined the Red Room. And this girl had been here for 3 years already?
"Yes, the oldest is 12, I think. It doesn't matter, we don't celebrate birthdays here very often. Anacostia, the woman leading them to their new task oversees most of their training, along with The Triads."
"An old woman in charge of assassins? What's so special about her? And what are they going to do in there? What are they going to do to Natasha?"
Yuri came to a halt outside of another type of lab. They entered and Bucky stopped in his tracks. Before them was a machine that he was all too familiar with. It was similar to the one HYDRA always used to wipe his mind.
"Sit," Yuri ordered and motioned to the chair.
If he had any other choice, he would have fought, but he knew that Yuri would overpower him and with Arina's help, subdue him quickly. "You're telling me all of this because you are going to try and wipe my mind, aren't you?"
Yuri didn't even bother answering because Bucky knew he was right. So, he continued with his plan. "This is only a small step before I bring the world to its knees. After I have you and Miss Romanoff under my control, my life's work will begin, and the world will tremble in fear. As for Anacostia... she just wants to see Romanoff pay for her crimes, and then control her future ones. She hates Romanoff almost as much as I do." He finished by strapping Bucky in and sitting on a stool next to him. "And to answer your question about my Widow's, there are going to break Natasha's mind in a different way. You see, I have my fathers old mission records. Natalia Romanova was very detailed in her debriefings, so that in combination with a little research of our own, Anacostia has devised a quite brilliant plan to get her to break. With the effects of The Lazarus Serum, Romanoff's mind will be very open to suggestion. Anacostia figured that we could use the girls to illicit guilt so terrible in nature, that Romanoff's mind will snap and shut off her humanity just so that she doesn't have to feel that kind of emotional pain. My father was never able to completely break her of that, and that is why he met his demise." The confusion in Bucky's gaze disappointed him, but only slightly. It wasn't like Romanoff had shared all the minute details with him back when they were partners. "The girls will play the part of the orphaned children whose parents died at the hands of The Black Widow."
Yuri's plan suddenly came into focus and Bucky froze in horror once more. The last time Natasha relived a part of her past, she had wanted to die. And it was him who had tortured her to that point. What would happen if she were tipped past that point to where it would just turn her emotions off? She would basically become like the robot she was in her early Red Room days. And he was afraid that it was actually going to work, because it was brilliant. And then...it hit him. Yuri was going to use him and Natasha to bring back Ksenia. And Ksenia would trust them, only for that trust to be betrayed when they hand her and themselves back over to the Red Room.
"You know that this could work, don't you?" Yuri asked with a knowing smile. "After all, you have already been through the same thing..."
When Yuri trailed off and gave Bucky a strange smile, he realized that there was something Yuri knew about him that he didn't even know himself.
"Shall I explain?" When Bucky didn't answer, he explained anyway, it wasn't like he would be remembering it after his memory was wiped. "Your unit, the 107th, was captured by HYDRA in '43 and you were experimented on by Zola, am I correct?"
Again, Bucky didn't say anything, but he had a feeling of where this was going.
"Red Skull took a liking to you and your sharpshooting skills. You were tagged for a new project, but then Captain America himself had to go in and save you and the Commando's. Later, after your unfortunate fall from that train, everyone thought you had died, but Zola's experimentation had allowed you to survive. HYDRA took you back in, but had trouble bending you to their will. After a mission gone wrong a few years later...you died, and HYDRA didn't want all of those precious skills to go to waste. You were a prime candidate of the new Lazarus Serum that had just been introduced. Your mind was so malleable after that, bending you their will was finally successful and The Winter Soldier was born.
Bucky's mind started racing due to the revelation, but his thoughts and fears ended when the switch was then abruptly flipped. The black hole he had lived in for most of his life swallowed him back like it had been waiting for him, clawing at him every time he let his guard down. This time though, he couldn't remember why he had ever fought it.