"I figured you guys were more likely to have vodka than pinot noir," Natasha answered with a spark of humor as she slowly crossed the floor to join him in the kitchen. She'd been running on pure adrenaline for so long that all of her various aches and pains had started to return now that she'd let herself be still. She took the tumbler in hand with a quick, automatic smile, and lifted it as she said, "I won't make you sit through a Russian toast, at least. Cheers." There was a hint of irony in her voice, like she recognized that there wasn't a whole hell of a lot to be cheerful about.
She knocked back a sip and made a face after she swallowed. True to his word, it tasted like antiseptic. "I've had worse." On one memorable occasion, she'd been forced to try somebody's bathtub gin to keep from blowing her cover. It felt like a knife that had been sitting in a block of soap for six months.
Her head dipped in a nod to acknowledge his statement, and she rolled the tumbler back and forth between her palms as she watched the remaining vodka slosh around inside. She knew that she had to rip the bandaid off. But he was one of the few people alive that would recognize what it meant when he saw what was underneath. There had been enough overlap between the programs they'd both been forced to work for. Not just overlap, but exchange of information. Training. Testing. Always testing.
It was cruel the way the ghosts of the past refused to stay there.
"Well," she began as she looked back up at him. Her mouth pulled to the side a little, a quick twist of her expression, like she wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or cry or scream. Maybe all three. "It's the Red Room that's after me." She chased the statement with a draw of vodka long enough to make her eyes water. The tumbler came to rest on the counter as she met his eyes. "Dreykov's still alive."
Natasha slammed back that drink like she was disinfecting her mouth, like she could scour loose the words she'd just had to utter. And when they landed — hanging heavy and poignant in the air between them, 'Red Room' like an invocation, the name of a ghost, a haunting — she could see those barbs settling under James' skin, too, the way his expression went still and silent. He'd been mid-sip, and his hand with the glass went motionless in front of his mouth. A pause, a ticking-over, while his brain processed that information.
Then, like a machine humming back to life, his hand moved again and he took his own long draught of the vodka. A deeper drink than he'd meant to take; he needed to burn out those words, too. After he swallowed, when he spoke again, his voice was a little cracked.
"I thought you killed him," he said, tripping over the same piece of information she had not that long ago. He sounded more surprised about the revelation about Dreykov rather than the Red Room still being in operation. Bucky, more than most, knew that if you cut off the head of the beast, another usually took its place; part of him had cynically half-assumed the institution had just gone underground again years ago, with some lieutenant taking up the general's mantle.
Natasha wasn't sure if she felt steadier after she knocked back the drink, or if it was just the sharp burn of it all the way down that had her distracted. Just not distracted enough. She had to look away when her announcement wiped the expression off his face. It was a familiar trick. Sometimes it was easier to feel nothing. She turned the tumbler in a circle on the countertop and bit back the urge to apologize. What good was sorry when the blow had already landed?
"So did I," her answer came quickly as she looked at him out of the corner of her eye. The words were all wound. Not the sting of mission failure, of a shot that she'd taken and missed and had to cover up. No, her words were the raw red of a completed mission that had also taken out people that didn't deserve it. It was quiet for a moment as she folded her arms tightly and turned, leaning against the counter. Instead of meeting his eyes, she surveyed the shabby little apartment. Exit points. Likely weapon caches. A good spot to hide if someone kicked the door in.
Her silence wouldn't do him any more favors than an apology. She forced her jaw to move. "Barton and I had him in a building. I had a direct line of sight to his office. I was watching the window when I gave the go ahead to blow it up. There was no way he could have gotten out. There was nothing left from the floor he was on to ID." She knew better than to count someone as dead without a body. Maybe it had just been her desperation to get out that shored up her conviction all these years. "Except he did."
The corner of his mouth twitched, rueful, and they both knew the risks of a missed step like that. Probably the reason she hadn't revealed that particular detail before, besides the fact that Nat played everything close to her chest.
"Feel like I'm duty-bound to point out that even I'm, like, a walking case story in not making assumptions if there isn't a body," he said, with an attempt at levity.
James Barnes had fallen off the train and into the Danube, and everyone assumed the man had died in that frozen river. (In a way, he had.) America hadn't had anything to ship home, not even his dog tags. They'd settled for his clothing from camp, eventually used it to deck out a Howling Commandos exhibit in the Smithsonian decades later, but it was a far cry from closure; from a cold corpse; from ashes or a coffin.
He shook his head, drained the rest of his drink. Already thinking and considering what to do next, and what this revelation meant. "So they're hunting you again?" he asked; confirming, even as his gaze went to a still-healing, cleaned-up scrape by her temple. Evidence of a fight.
"Just because you're the blueprint for 'always check for a body,'" Natasha grumbled at him with a hint of a smirk at the corner of her mouth. It was less genuine complaint and more bleak Russian humor. An attempt to siphon some of the tension out of the room. There was likely upward of two dozen weapons between them, the last thing either of them needed was a sudden noise out in the hallway to trigger a full tactical response.
Unless it was warranted. There was a very real chance it could be warranted.
"Yep," she agreed. With that, she took the liberty of picking up the bottle. She twisted the cap off and took a swig directly from it. As she swallowed, she angled her head so he could get a better view of the scrape on her temple. It was a small gesture, but it meant that she was laying all the cards on the table. "My sister did that. We worked it out." She wondered if he remembered her. She was a few years younger than Natasha, but Natasha was only a little younger than he was. Despite his frost limned longevity. "Yelena," she clarified after a beat. Using the hand holding the bottle, she pointed over to the coffee table as she passed him what was left of the vodka.
"That's an antidote. One of the widows from an earlier generation developed it. Dreykov perfected chemical subjugation. All of the younger widows are under the influence. Yelena has the other half. The guy they have hunting us is called the Taskmaster. He can mimic anyone's fighting style." Finally, she looked back over at him. Her expression was shuttered as she held the promise of the antidote tightly. Tried not to blame herself for what had happened to the younger women. "Even yours." With that, she'd laid out all the puzzle pieces she had. And no part of her doubted that he'd be able to pick up on what the picture was going to look like at the end: her taking down the Red Room for real, no matter the cost.
He accepted the bottle, took his own deep swig from its mouth — this news had them past the civility of glasses, past pretending they were simply having a dignified nightcap, this was the sort of news that needed a stiff drink — and paced over to the table while Nat spoke. With his metal hand, he picked up the antidote to scrutinise it closer, the vial glowing red like blood. He listened to her rundown like he was at a tactical briefing, taking note of all the pertinent details and filing them away, already mentally preparing himself to go into the field with this intel. Because there was no chance he was letting her dive into this one alone. And there must've been a reason she came out here to find him, after all. Reaching out for help, even if she wasn't usually the type.
But then she went and said chemical subjugation, and Nat could see the muscles in the back of James' neck tighten, the shoulders stiffening. The man going still again, processing that information. Under the influence.
It all sounded too familiar. The Red Room with its boot on the younger widows' necks, like HYDRA had had their boot on his.
He swallowed. Breathed out. Looked over and met her shuttered expression. They were mouthy when it mattered, but ultimately, they were both quiet people. There was so much they could communicate between each other with a nod, a knowing look. He likely wouldn't need to explain why he wanted in on this one; this new insidious turn to the programme's operation was like a fist driven into a still-healing wound.
"You never told me much about your sister," he said after a pause. Nowadays, he knew vaguely there was one widow in particular that had been closer to Nat than the rest, but back then, the Winter Soldier wouldn't have been able to pick Yelena out from the gaggle of anonymous girls run through the grinder. Human weapons with the serial numbers filed down during Red Room training.
Then, Bucky added, "You're gonna need backup." An offer, flat and automatic. "Speaking from experience— mind-controlled assassins are hell to wrangle."
The Red Room and HYDRA had been circling each other for decades. Almost like they were sister companies, sharing information to improve their products. Like their products weren't people. As she watched his muscles tighten, Natasha found herself wondering how much of what had been done to him had been poured into the research for the Red Room's chemicals. Or if they'd tested the early versions of the chemicals on the people in the Winter Soldier program. It wouldn't surprise her, given the apparent instability of some of the other's under HYDRA's control before Zemo got to them.
It seemed like there was no end to the people that were hurt by her failure to take Dreykov out. Yelena. Bucky. He'd been a constant, unchanging presence every time she cycled through the Red Room. Though she couldn't remember the extent of their interactions, she knew she'd recognized something of a kindred soul in him over the years. Two weapons made flesh. "It wasn't safe to let her be my sister," she answered. Anyone close to you could be exploited as a weakness. They would have tortured Yelena for years to ensure Natasha's compliance if she'd let on.
She was quiet for a moment as she studied his face. It was hard not to let her eyes be pulled to the red glow of the antidote in his hand. It was dangerous to hope. All these years, she'd hoped she had finished it only to find she'd made things worse. "We're going to have to go to Russia," she answered as she crossed the room to face him. Her head tipped a little as she reluctantly tacked on, "and break someone out of prison. He's the only person I can think of that might have a line on where to find Dreykov now." There was a beat as she looked at him. Her fingertips lightly touched his forearm. "We'll make sure there's nothing to go back to." A smirk twitched up the corner of her mouth when he said that mind-controlled assassins were hell to wrangle. "Yeah, they've had their moments."
As Nat stepped back into his personal space, he reached out and carefully set the antidote back on the table in its case. Those metal fingers of his could so easily have crushed the glass with a twitch, a flicker, but he handles it like delicate china; like the rare and precious treasure it is. There's only so many samples available for them to use.
"Burn it all down?" Bucky asked, with a rueful tug at the corner of his mouth, a tired smile. The last remnants of the Winter Soldier programme — or so he thought — had been destroyed. Their dead bodies floating in those cryo vats. Each of them annihilated.
He hoped it ended better for the widows.
As her fingertips grazed his forearm, his right hand drifted up to gingerly brush against that scratch on her temple, the slowly-forming shape of a bruise on her face. Nat had cleaned up, and she had that ironclad composure buttoned up as she always did, but he could see where the edges were fraying. He knew her well enough for that.
"You're gonna need some rest first, if we're gonna be flying to Russia and staging a jailbreak."
"Salt the earth," Natasha agreed, almost matter of factly. Almost. There was too much banked emotion behind it. Like a tidal wave was coming and all she could do was watch the water that would soon drag her under. She didn't have any high ground to stand on this time. Just the same old mantra that had carried her for years when things got rough: she had red in her ledger. She wanted to wipe it out.
Her head tipped when his fingertips touched the cut on her face, the tender edge of a blossoming bruise. "Yeah," she answered, her eyes closing for a moment. It didn't exactly sound like an agreement. Her hand ghosted slowly up his forearm and down again before she opened her eyes. Dreykov was cruel. A well-connected bully that had used his wealth and resources to exploit women for decades. Maybe a little bit of a sadist. Sometimes she could still hear the casual way he'd have girls disposed of if they cried, if they refused to comply. At the end of the day, he would have just been a man. But Natasha had made him dangerous when she killed his daughter in her desperate bid for freedom. It seemed monstrously unfair that she'd disappeared into the red heat of that explosion when he'd been able to claw his way out.
"Promise me that you won't try to get between me and Dreykov." Her eyes searched his face as she spoke, as if she could ferret out the tell if he lied to her. Everyone had their monsters. Dreykov was one of hers. But it was less that and more that she knew he wouldn't stop at anything to get to her. She couldn't let anyone else fall victim to a score she should have settled years ago.
Her fingertips ran up his arm, and he was hard-pressed to suppress the shiver rippling its way up his spine at the touch, unaccustomed to the close contact. And he considered that promise, and only had to chew it over for a moment before saying, "Deal."
Maybe others in their group would've tried harder to talk her out of it. If Steve had been the first man back to the safehouse tonight, he might've had wiser words to say to rein them in: probably something about redemption, being a good person, choosing the higher road, saving the state of her soul. But the widow and the soldier had the same brutal bloody pasts, with similar Russian bogeymen at the heart of it, and so if anyone understood her position— it was James.
"If I'd had the chance to get at Karpov myself, I would've done it," he said flatly. "Turned out Zemo beat me to it. So... I know what unfinished business feels like, Nat. I'm not gonna be the one to stop you. If you think he deserves to die, then he deserves to die."
Sometimes being a hero meant doing the brutal thing, he thought. It was something he was still coming to terms with. But he trusted her.
Natasha counted Steve as one of her closest friends. But if he'd been the first one back at the safe house that night, she would have curtailed the story. There wasn't a single part of her that doubted that he would have took it onto himself to handle the situation. Even if it meant nabbing the antidotes and running off on his own. But it wasn't a job for a man with a shield. There was no redemption for Dreykov. After everything he'd done, everything that happened, he'd never willingly set aside his empire of human suffering. If they packed him off to jail, the best case scenario was that he'd break himself out. The worst was that he'd set all the widows to self destruct and laugh while they died hundreds of miles away.
No more.
The world needed a hero with a shield, something to believe in. But sometimes it needed a knife in the dark just as badly.
Her hand squeezed his arm in silent acknowledgement when he said he would've taken care of Karpov himself if he had the chance. She then let her hand fall from his arm as she offered a half smile. "I appreciate that. But I meant that literally. Don't try to stop him if he comes after me. I'm going to have to get into his head to take him down." Her phone pinged and she pulled it out of her back pocket to check the screen. "I've got a plane." Her eyes lifted to meet his, and despite the shadow that lingered over her, there was a familiar spark of humor in her gaze. "Want to come break my father out of prison?"
He understood that darker necessity. Even before he was the Winter Soldier, Bucky had been crawling across enemy lines during the war to deliver a knife in the back, a sniper bullet in the back of the skull: the dirtier work that Captain America, their country's golden child, couldn't be seen doing. So his own half smile echoed hers, knowing.
"Yeah, of course—"
He was on autopilot, already prepared to say yes and sign up for the mission, and back her up. But then he seemed to fully absorb the impact of her words and he straightened, his mood pivoting to startled surprise and flash-in-the-pan amusement. Nat was always so cagey about the more intimate details of past, played her cards so close to her chest, that this came as a bombshell.
Natasha turned as he answered so she could pick the antidote up and tucked it into the bag she'd brought it in. She looked back at him with a quick, half smile as she settled the bag over her shoulder. It was clear that she was trying not to laugh. "Not biologically. And don't tell him I said that, he'll be insufferable." He'd probably be insufferable anyway. She wasn't looking forward to seeing Alexei, exactly. But it was a necessity. He was the only person she could think of that had connections with the Red Room. As long as they avoided talking about Ohio or the profound betrayal she'd felt when he let her and Yelena cycle back into the ranks. They were going to end up re-opening a lot of old wounds to bring Dreykov down.
"Alexei Shostakov. The Red Guardian." Her voice took on a hint of amused disbelief as she shared his pseudonym. "He was Dreykov's lapdog. He's been in prison since 97." There was a beat, her eyes focusing on his face as she turned to look at him fully. "Did you ever meet him?" She sincerely doubted that Alexei would have been party to anything to do with the Winter Soldier behind the scenes. He liked boasting too much. But a contest of strength? That he would have absolutely been interested in.
It took a moment, and his expression went a little blank and distant as he thought over that question. The man had a habit of faraway stares even at the best of times, and it was more pronounced when he had to remember something from those long cold decades: it was like having to flip through a mental rolodex and extract a particular file, a particular memory. When Bucky's answer came, his voice was slow and thoughtful.
"No. I was familiar with him, but we never crossed paths." Then, with a ghost of humour, he added: "You gotta admit, though, it stings a little that he was known as 'Russia's only super-soldier'."
There was a clear-cut difference between the two: the Winter Soldier had operated in the shadows, classified and confidential and his operations always struck from the official record. James wasn't even Russian-born, either. And then the Red Guardian had relished his status in the spotlight, plastered on propaganda posters and on television broadcasts and in action figures, strutted about for national pride. They were both different tools for different purposes.
"I had no idea the two of you even knew each other."
Natasha didn't even realize that she'd tensed up while she was waiting for his answer until she had it and felt her shoulders relaxing with relief. It was one thing to ask him to help her dismantle the Red Room, knowing full well that it would likely lead to him having to confront some of his own ghosts. But it would have felt like another thing entirely to bring him face to face with Alexei if any of their missions had been entangled. An unaskable thing. Her mouth curled in a half smile, though there was little humor in her eyes as she looked at him. Russia's only super-soldier indeed.
Part of her had wondered over the years, as she put together time lines for the Winter Soldier and the Red Guardian, if Alexei had served a dual purpose. He'd been the perfect propaganda package, to be sure. But his showboating also made for a mesmerizing sleight of hand trick. No one would think to look twice at the work the Winter Soldier was doing if they were preoccupied by the Red Guardian's flashy missions. A knife in the dark.
"Yeah, when Yelena and I were kids we were sent to Ohio with Alexei and an older Widow named Melina. Our cover story was a family." Her mouth pulled to the side, and she was quiet for a moment before she continued. There were ghosts in every corner of her past. Red on every page of her ledger. This one was no different. "We were there for three years. Their target was the North Institute. Part of SHIELD." Which was to say that at the time, it was probably also part of HYDRA. And whatever it was Alexei had pulled from the data banks, it had certainly gone toward improving Dreykov's control over the Black Widows. And likely HYDRA's control of the Winter Soldiers.
"I won't hold it against you if you bail," she began, her fingers tightening on the strap of her bag. Nothing in the world was more important to her than getting the antidote out to the Widows. Several floors below, she could hear a door bang open in a way that set her teeth on edge. "But if we're going to go, we should go now. If that's the guy that was chasing Yelena and I earlier, we can't fight him off with this many civilians around."
His mouth thinned upon hearing the North Institute.
One of the greatest curses about his time as the Winter Soldier was that he remembered everything. No blurry smeared glass, no convenient fog drowning out all his years under HYDRA's thumb: he remembered it with crystal-clear recollection as if it had been him doing it all, like it was his own hand on the trigger (which, yes, it was). So that name pinged some distant memory. Bucky had heard that name back in the 90s, overheard from the scientists while the Winter Soldier stood silent watchful guard in the corner. A break-in. Valuable intel, taken. Their own program compromised, but they had deemed it an acceptable loss at the time, not enough to bring the entire thing screeching to a halt.
All of which meant the connection between the Widows and the Winter Soldiers was even closer than he'd like.
That door slammed down below, and he saw the way Nat's spine stiffened. And then, like a switch had been flipped, he seemed to make up his mind. On his feet and crossing the room, a pen and a pad of paper, scribbling a coded message for Steve — analog, because they were both old-fashioned guys, and texts could be intercepted. Went out for pierogis. Back later.
And then Bucky went for the closet and grabbed a canvas backpack, and slung it over his back. The go-bag had already been packed and ready long ago (fake passport, cash, gun, spare ammunition, a burner phone). He was used to being on the move, needing to hit the road quickly. Supplies obtained, Bucky turned back to her.
"Lead the way, Romanoff," he said, and there was something brisk and quick and unthinking about it. No hesitation. Not even considering the question of bailing.
Sometimes Natasha had to wonder if the Black Widow name was a little too apt. It seemed to her that everything that happened in her life before she defected was all interconnected. Every time she tugged one strand of the web the Red Room had kept her in, she could watch the vibrations shimmer all the way down to other people, other programs. The North Institute, HYDRA, SHIELD. Shadow ops organizations circled each other for decades and chewed up everything that got in their way. And the youngest generation of Widows were next in line.
She watched as he made his way across the room to leave a note, grab a bag. A flash of relief scorched through her, followed by a hard twist of guilt. It was selfish to drag him back into the web. But she couldn't see another way out of it if she wanted to spare the Widows from Dreykov's cruelty. When he passed by her, her hand caught his right forearm and she gave it a quick squeeze as she looked up at him. If she tried to thank him, he'd just shrug it off. So for now, that fleeting touch would have to suffice.
"Do you have a ride?" she asked as she pushed the window up and went out of it onto the fire escape. She and Yelena were playing a game of keep away, desperately trying to stay at least one step ahead of Dreykov's reach. All the while they circled their way towards a method to reproduce and distribute the counter agent. The pain from her various injuries bit at her as she moved quickly down the metal steps, balancing on the ball of her foot to reduce the amount of noise the rusty framework made as she moved.
"Motorcycle," he said, as he climbed out after her and carefully eased the curtain and then window back into place behind them. A bike was more maneuverable, cheaper and easier to obtain and wrangle through those narrow streets, and not quite as noticeable as a car. Plus: he was kind of attached to them, with those sepia-toned memories of buzzing around Europe on his motorcycle with the Howling Commandos. "Next street over. Hope you don't mind sitting behind me."
Considering the way Nat was gingerly carrying herself, it would've been nice if they could've stopped in the apartment and let her rest for a little while, just for the evening — but that could come later. Maybe on that plane to Russia, depending on who was flying, or maybe they could trade off at the controls: swapping shifts where each of them could sit with arms crossed and head tipped back, catching some scant rest. They were both accustomed to having to catch whichever scraps of sleep they could get, even in a desperate situation. Lots of hurry up and wait during the war, or when watching a target for long dull days, waiting for the right opportunity to slip in for the kill.
Bucky waited until she was safely on the ground, to stop the fire escape from screeching beneath their combined weight, and then he slid down after her. Almost like he'd done this before. (He'd definitely done this before.) He was already fishing in the pocket of the duffel for the motorcycle keys as he led the way down the street, moving at a brisk walk. It was a late enough hour that hopefully people wouldn't notice them.
Natasha wasn't sure she'd be able to convince herself to sleep until she made some headway toward freeing the Widows. Not that she'd be much good if she ground herself down to nothing. But getting them to freedom and safety was more important than her feeling well rested, or a few injuries. Thanks to the Red Room, there wasn't much she couldn't fight her way through. She waited impatiently at the foot of the fire escape, poised to move the second he hit the ground next to her. Her head was tipped back to watch the window of the apartment they'd been in.
"Lead the way," she said, without missing a beat. A motorcycle was good - it was easier to get lost in the flow of traffic on a bike. Or to leave it idling between cars to make a run for it. Instinct made her glance back over her shoulder as they hastened down the alleyway, just in time to catch the brief glitter of a scope through the window. "Get down," she instructed sharply as she grabbed his arm and yanked him around the corner just in time for the shot to shatter the bricks where their heads had been.
"Shit," she muttered, letting him go as she hastened their way around the corner to his bike. As she moved, she unholstered her guns and took the safety off. The pain from her injuries surged through her in waves. "Hope you don't mind me returning fire from behind you."
"Wouldn't expect any less," Bucky said with a flicker of a grin, a startling flash of humour despite the situation; even as they heard the familiar whipcrack of a bullet, the clattering of stones and shattered brick right behind them.
This entire thing was familiar: his steady and glacial heartbeat finally kicking into gear with the old thrill of action. He shouldn't like it. It should be a terrible reminder of his past, of days and nights and years as an assassin, mired in the very worst of firefights and hails of bullets and danger—
but ugly as it was, this had been his life, and this was what he knew, and knew better than grocery shopping or paying phone bills.
So Bucky harkened to it like he was coming home. He followed that press of her hand, ducked around the corner and ran full-tilt for the bike. Already jamming in the keys, kicking it off its stand, sliding into place in the seat. He waited only long enough to feel Nat's weight settle behind him, and then he was off: the bike bouncing and rumbling along cobblestoned streets, before he hauled it onto smoother roads.
Behind them, gunfire; his shoulders tightened and he bent lower over the handlebars, making for a narrower profile, a smaller target. There wasn't anything he could do from the front; he'd just have to trust Nat to have their back, and he did.
And this, he reflected, was probably the sort of trouble Steve didn't want his friend to get involved in when they were already on the run — but Natasha had needed help, and there was a certain satisfaction in knowing they were leading their pursuers away from the apartment, away from Steve, even if it meant plunging themselves into danger.
Besides. It was Natasha, and James. They could handle it.
His quick grin was met with an answering half-smirk, her mouth pulling to the side as she reeled in her focus. What else could they do? Either you laughed in the face of danger or you gave in to the fear. Giving in was unthinkable. There was too much on the line. And there was something all too familiar about the rapport of gunfire and the answering surge of adrenaline. Natasha's skills were hard won. There was something to be said for using them to do some good in the world when she could.
There was a rhythm to every fight. Her earliest training had been in dance. It taught them grace, discipline. More than that, it taught pattern recognition. It made finding the beats and then disrupting them second nature.
She perched on the motorcycle behind him, already half twisted around as the bike shot out of the alley. Their pursuers fired - she wouldn't call it wildly, but they were definitely aiming for maximum coverage. "Try to get onto side roads, they're going to mow down pedestrians if they keep going like that," she called to him over her shoulder. When she returned fire, it was precise, searching for a weak point on a vehicle that was evidently very well armored.
Her mind clicked through their options as she turned in the other direction to fire with her second gun, re-holstering the first in the same motion. "How attached are you to this bike?"
He obeyed without question — it was an old trained instinct, the Winter Soldier responding to his handlers and following their guidance in the field, but it served him well here — veering the motorcycle onto sideroads and further away from the more trafficked thoroughfares. It was a late enough hour that thankfully the streets weren't packed, but they could still take this chase out to the edge of the city. Try to shake their pursuers.
And Bucky fell into operating on autopilot: the shift of their weight on the bike as they tilted into the turns, his hands tightening on the handlebars, the quick-snap reflexes to not slam into a billboard or fire hydrant or parked car, the concentration to ignore the patter of gunfire behind them.
The wind almost ripped Natasha's voice away from them, but his enhanced hearing caught the question. "Bikes can be replaced," he shouted back. "People can't. What d'you have in mind?"
There was something about the way he responded, effortlessly navigating them down a side road as soon as the last word left her mouth, that almost put her at ease. It was a rare thing, to find herself working with someone that she could trust instinctively. Come hell or high water, they'd have each other's backs. And if she went down, he wouldn't stop running until he completed the mission.
Natasha slid her gun away when he responded, and her free hand squeezed his shoulder. "Getting run over." Her other arm reached around to hand him the grappling device the widows used to repel on buildings. The timing would be tricky, but she was pretty sure that the reward would be worth the risk. The vehicle pursuing them was well armored, but the undersides of cars like that typically weren't. If she stuck an explosive to the side of the bike, once he pulled them up off of it, she could detonate it as it slid under the wheels of the car. They needed to buy enough space so she could patch herself up while they ran for their next destination.
sry for the delay as ever, covid knocked me over :[
Once upon a time, decades ago and before the war, hearing this plan might’ve made him blanch. Are you fucking kidding me or Have you lost your mind— except that, well, Natasha Romanoff was always in clear, complete control of her senses and she’d survived no end of batshit insane missions like he had. As time went on, he kept remembering more harebrained schemes that he’d survived with Steve and the Howling Commandos, and jumping feetfirst into the fire and always coming out of it by the skin of their teeth, so—
What was one more?
Bucky took the grappling gun with his left hand. He aimed better with the right, but he just needed to hit a building, which was a pretty big target. The more important part was not losing his grip, and that vibranium hand could hang onto the grapple and easily carry both their weights as they flew up.
“Just say when,” he called back. Not questioning the plan — not asking more clarifying questions, because he’d already pieced together as much as he needed to — just accepting the parameters and saying yes, and.
So he kept driving, and waited for that exact moment when Natasha slapped her hand against his shoulder twice; a clear signal, and he shot for the rooftops, the grappling device kicking in his hand and both of them already shifting their weight, moving upwards, getting ready to leap off the bike and to leave it behind.
If pressed, Natasha would try to claim that all of her plans were fairly straight forward and sensible. With the company she kept, somebody had to have a level head, and it might as well be her. But when push came to shove - well. It was spy work 101. People subconsciously thrived on patterns, on the expected. So when a situation was desperate, sometimes the best thing was to be unpredictable. To break the pattern. And with Taskmaster's ability to perfectly copy everything he saw, well. It was hardly the time to rely on her old tricks.
Once he took the grappling gun, she squeezed his shoulder, a silent gesture of thanks and acknowledgment. But she had to quickly get to work, and she pulled the explosive free from its holster and armed it, then leaned to the side so she could stick it under the seat. Once it was planted, she slapped his shoulder and they were off. She pushed off of the bike as her arm levered around his shoulders, her legs wrapped around him to ensure she didn't go tumbling away as she craned her neck to look over her shoulder and -
It all happened at once. Her finger pressed the button as the bike slid beneath the wheels of the Taskmaster's heavily armed car, and they swung upward with startling momentum. The car lifted below with a muffled explosion as fire blossomed beneath it, and Natasha crashed onto the roof of the building, relinquishing her hold on him as she rolled to soften the blow. She came to a stop on her back and lay stunned for just a moment before she laughed and carefully sat up, looking across at him with a grin. "That was fun. Let's never do that again." They still had a long way to go. But at least with their pursuer slowed down, they might stand a chance of making it there in one piece.
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She knocked back a sip and made a face after she swallowed. True to his word, it tasted like antiseptic. "I've had worse." On one memorable occasion, she'd been forced to try somebody's bathtub gin to keep from blowing her cover. It felt like a knife that had been sitting in a block of soap for six months.
Her head dipped in a nod to acknowledge his statement, and she rolled the tumbler back and forth between her palms as she watched the remaining vodka slosh around inside. She knew that she had to rip the bandaid off. But he was one of the few people alive that would recognize what it meant when he saw what was underneath. There had been enough overlap between the programs they'd both been forced to work for. Not just overlap, but exchange of information. Training. Testing. Always testing.
It was cruel the way the ghosts of the past refused to stay there.
"Well," she began as she looked back up at him. Her mouth pulled to the side a little, a quick twist of her expression, like she wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or cry or scream. Maybe all three. "It's the Red Room that's after me." She chased the statement with a draw of vodka long enough to make her eyes water. The tumbler came to rest on the counter as she met his eyes. "Dreykov's still alive."
whew sorry for the delay, life blew up
Then, like a machine humming back to life, his hand moved again and he took his own long draught of the vodka. A deeper drink than he'd meant to take; he needed to burn out those words, too. After he swallowed, when he spoke again, his voice was a little cracked.
"I thought you killed him," he said, tripping over the same piece of information she had not that long ago. He sounded more surprised about the revelation about Dreykov rather than the Red Room still being in operation. Bucky, more than most, knew that if you cut off the head of the beast, another usually took its place; part of him had cynically half-assumed the institution had just gone underground again years ago, with some lieutenant taking up the general's mantle.
no worries!
"So did I," her answer came quickly as she looked at him out of the corner of her eye. The words were all wound. Not the sting of mission failure, of a shot that she'd taken and missed and had to cover up. No, her words were the raw red of a completed mission that had also taken out people that didn't deserve it. It was quiet for a moment as she folded her arms tightly and turned, leaning against the counter. Instead of meeting his eyes, she surveyed the shabby little apartment. Exit points. Likely weapon caches. A good spot to hide if someone kicked the door in.
Her silence wouldn't do him any more favors than an apology. She forced her jaw to move. "Barton and I had him in a building. I had a direct line of sight to his office. I was watching the window when I gave the go ahead to blow it up. There was no way he could have gotten out. There was nothing left from the floor he was on to ID." She knew better than to count someone as dead without a body. Maybe it had just been her desperation to get out that shored up her conviction all these years. "Except he did."
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"Feel like I'm duty-bound to point out that even I'm, like, a walking case story in not making assumptions if there isn't a body," he said, with an attempt at levity.
James Barnes had fallen off the train and into the Danube, and everyone assumed the man had died in that frozen river. (In a way, he had.) America hadn't had anything to ship home, not even his dog tags. They'd settled for his clothing from camp, eventually used it to deck out a Howling Commandos exhibit in the Smithsonian decades later, but it was a far cry from closure; from a cold corpse; from ashes or a coffin.
He shook his head, drained the rest of his drink. Already thinking and considering what to do next, and what this revelation meant. "So they're hunting you again?" he asked; confirming, even as his gaze went to a still-healing, cleaned-up scrape by her temple. Evidence of a fight.
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Unless it was warranted. There was a very real chance it could be warranted.
"Yep," she agreed. With that, she took the liberty of picking up the bottle. She twisted the cap off and took a swig directly from it. As she swallowed, she angled her head so he could get a better view of the scrape on her temple. It was a small gesture, but it meant that she was laying all the cards on the table. "My sister did that. We worked it out." She wondered if he remembered her. She was a few years younger than Natasha, but Natasha was only a little younger than he was. Despite his frost limned longevity. "Yelena," she clarified after a beat. Using the hand holding the bottle, she pointed over to the coffee table as she passed him what was left of the vodka.
"That's an antidote. One of the widows from an earlier generation developed it. Dreykov perfected chemical subjugation. All of the younger widows are under the influence. Yelena has the other half. The guy they have hunting us is called the Taskmaster. He can mimic anyone's fighting style." Finally, she looked back over at him. Her expression was shuttered as she held the promise of the antidote tightly. Tried not to blame herself for what had happened to the younger women. "Even yours." With that, she'd laid out all the puzzle pieces she had. And no part of her doubted that he'd be able to pick up on what the picture was going to look like at the end: her taking down the Red Room for real, no matter the cost.
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But then she went and said chemical subjugation, and Nat could see the muscles in the back of James' neck tighten, the shoulders stiffening. The man going still again, processing that information. Under the influence.
It all sounded too familiar. The Red Room with its boot on the younger widows' necks, like HYDRA had had their boot on his.
He swallowed. Breathed out. Looked over and met her shuttered expression. They were mouthy when it mattered, but ultimately, they were both quiet people. There was so much they could communicate between each other with a nod, a knowing look. He likely wouldn't need to explain why he wanted in on this one; this new insidious turn to the programme's operation was like a fist driven into a still-healing wound.
"You never told me much about your sister," he said after a pause. Nowadays, he knew vaguely there was one widow in particular that had been closer to Nat than the rest, but back then, the Winter Soldier wouldn't have been able to pick Yelena out from the gaggle of anonymous girls run through the grinder. Human weapons with the serial numbers filed down during Red Room training.
Then, Bucky added, "You're gonna need backup." An offer, flat and automatic. "Speaking from experience— mind-controlled assassins are hell to wrangle."
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It seemed like there was no end to the people that were hurt by her failure to take Dreykov out. Yelena. Bucky. He'd been a constant, unchanging presence every time she cycled through the Red Room. Though she couldn't remember the extent of their interactions, she knew she'd recognized something of a kindred soul in him over the years. Two weapons made flesh. "It wasn't safe to let her be my sister," she answered. Anyone close to you could be exploited as a weakness. They would have tortured Yelena for years to ensure Natasha's compliance if she'd let on.
She was quiet for a moment as she studied his face. It was hard not to let her eyes be pulled to the red glow of the antidote in his hand. It was dangerous to hope. All these years, she'd hoped she had finished it only to find she'd made things worse. "We're going to have to go to Russia," she answered as she crossed the room to face him. Her head tipped a little as she reluctantly tacked on, "and break someone out of prison. He's the only person I can think of that might have a line on where to find Dreykov now." There was a beat as she looked at him. Her fingertips lightly touched his forearm. "We'll make sure there's nothing to go back to." A smirk twitched up the corner of her mouth when he said that mind-controlled assassins were hell to wrangle. "Yeah, they've had their moments."
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"Burn it all down?" Bucky asked, with a rueful tug at the corner of his mouth, a tired smile. The last remnants of the Winter Soldier programme — or so he thought — had been destroyed. Their dead bodies floating in those cryo vats. Each of them annihilated.
He hoped it ended better for the widows.
As her fingertips grazed his forearm, his right hand drifted up to gingerly brush against that scratch on her temple, the slowly-forming shape of a bruise on her face. Nat had cleaned up, and she had that ironclad composure buttoned up as she always did, but he could see where the edges were fraying. He knew her well enough for that.
"You're gonna need some rest first, if we're gonna be flying to Russia and staging a jailbreak."
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Her head tipped when his fingertips touched the cut on her face, the tender edge of a blossoming bruise. "Yeah," she answered, her eyes closing for a moment. It didn't exactly sound like an agreement. Her hand ghosted slowly up his forearm and down again before she opened her eyes. Dreykov was cruel. A well-connected bully that had used his wealth and resources to exploit women for decades. Maybe a little bit of a sadist. Sometimes she could still hear the casual way he'd have girls disposed of if they cried, if they refused to comply. At the end of the day, he would have just been a man. But Natasha had made him dangerous when she killed his daughter in her desperate bid for freedom. It seemed monstrously unfair that she'd disappeared into the red heat of that explosion when he'd been able to claw his way out.
"Promise me that you won't try to get between me and Dreykov." Her eyes searched his face as she spoke, as if she could ferret out the tell if he lied to her. Everyone had their monsters. Dreykov was one of hers. But it was less that and more that she knew he wouldn't stop at anything to get to her. She couldn't let anyone else fall victim to a score she should have settled years ago.
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Maybe others in their group would've tried harder to talk her out of it. If Steve had been the first man back to the safehouse tonight, he might've had wiser words to say to rein them in: probably something about redemption, being a good person, choosing the higher road, saving the state of her soul. But the widow and the soldier had the same brutal bloody pasts, with similar Russian bogeymen at the heart of it, and so if anyone understood her position— it was James.
"If I'd had the chance to get at Karpov myself, I would've done it," he said flatly. "Turned out Zemo beat me to it. So... I know what unfinished business feels like, Nat. I'm not gonna be the one to stop you. If you think he deserves to die, then he deserves to die."
Sometimes being a hero meant doing the brutal thing, he thought. It was something he was still coming to terms with. But he trusted her.
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No more.
The world needed a hero with a shield, something to believe in. But sometimes it needed a knife in the dark just as badly.
Her hand squeezed his arm in silent acknowledgement when he said he would've taken care of Karpov himself if he had the chance. She then let her hand fall from his arm as she offered a half smile. "I appreciate that. But I meant that literally. Don't try to stop him if he comes after me. I'm going to have to get into his head to take him down." Her phone pinged and she pulled it out of her back pocket to check the screen. "I've got a plane." Her eyes lifted to meet his, and despite the shadow that lingered over her, there was a familiar spark of humor in her gaze. "Want to come break my father out of prison?"
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"Yeah, of course—"
He was on autopilot, already prepared to say yes and sign up for the mission, and back her up. But then he seemed to fully absorb the impact of her words and he straightened, his mood pivoting to startled surprise and flash-in-the-pan amusement. Nat was always so cagey about the more intimate details of past, played her cards so close to her chest, that this came as a bombshell.
"Wait, your father?"
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"Alexei Shostakov. The Red Guardian." Her voice took on a hint of amused disbelief as she shared his pseudonym. "He was Dreykov's lapdog. He's been in prison since 97." There was a beat, her eyes focusing on his face as she turned to look at him fully. "Did you ever meet him?" She sincerely doubted that Alexei would have been party to anything to do with the Winter Soldier behind the scenes. He liked boasting too much. But a contest of strength? That he would have absolutely been interested in.
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"No. I was familiar with him, but we never crossed paths." Then, with a ghost of humour, he added: "You gotta admit, though, it stings a little that he was known as 'Russia's only super-soldier'."
There was a clear-cut difference between the two: the Winter Soldier had operated in the shadows, classified and confidential and his operations always struck from the official record. James wasn't even Russian-born, either. And then the Red Guardian had relished his status in the spotlight, plastered on propaganda posters and on television broadcasts and in action figures, strutted about for national pride. They were both different tools for different purposes.
"I had no idea the two of you even knew each other."
aaayee!
Part of her had wondered over the years, as she put together time lines for the Winter Soldier and the Red Guardian, if Alexei had served a dual purpose. He'd been the perfect propaganda package, to be sure. But his showboating also made for a mesmerizing sleight of hand trick. No one would think to look twice at the work the Winter Soldier was doing if they were preoccupied by the Red Guardian's flashy missions. A knife in the dark.
"Yeah, when Yelena and I were kids we were sent to Ohio with Alexei and an older Widow named Melina. Our cover story was a family." Her mouth pulled to the side, and she was quiet for a moment before she continued. There were ghosts in every corner of her past. Red on every page of her ledger. This one was no different. "We were there for three years. Their target was the North Institute. Part of SHIELD." Which was to say that at the time, it was probably also part of HYDRA. And whatever it was Alexei had pulled from the data banks, it had certainly gone toward improving Dreykov's control over the Black Widows. And likely HYDRA's control of the Winter Soldiers.
"I won't hold it against you if you bail," she began, her fingers tightening on the strap of her bag. Nothing in the world was more important to her than getting the antidote out to the Widows. Several floors below, she could hear a door bang open in a way that set her teeth on edge. "But if we're going to go, we should go now. If that's the guy that was chasing Yelena and I earlier, we can't fight him off with this many civilians around."
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One of the greatest curses about his time as the Winter Soldier was that he remembered everything. No blurry smeared glass, no convenient fog drowning out all his years under HYDRA's thumb: he remembered it with crystal-clear recollection as if it had been him doing it all, like it was his own hand on the trigger (which, yes, it was). So that name pinged some distant memory. Bucky had heard that name back in the 90s, overheard from the scientists while the Winter Soldier stood silent watchful guard in the corner. A break-in. Valuable intel, taken. Their own program compromised, but they had deemed it an acceptable loss at the time, not enough to bring the entire thing screeching to a halt.
All of which meant the connection between the Widows and the Winter Soldiers was even closer than he'd like.
That door slammed down below, and he saw the way Nat's spine stiffened. And then, like a switch had been flipped, he seemed to make up his mind. On his feet and crossing the room, a pen and a pad of paper, scribbling a coded message for Steve — analog, because they were both old-fashioned guys, and texts could be intercepted. Went out for pierogis. Back later.
And then Bucky went for the closet and grabbed a canvas backpack, and slung it over his back. The go-bag had already been packed and ready long ago (fake passport, cash, gun, spare ammunition, a burner phone). He was used to being on the move, needing to hit the road quickly. Supplies obtained, Bucky turned back to her.
"Lead the way, Romanoff," he said, and there was something brisk and quick and unthinking about it. No hesitation. Not even considering the question of bailing.
Of course he was in.
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She watched as he made his way across the room to leave a note, grab a bag. A flash of relief scorched through her, followed by a hard twist of guilt. It was selfish to drag him back into the web. But she couldn't see another way out of it if she wanted to spare the Widows from Dreykov's cruelty. When he passed by her, her hand caught his right forearm and she gave it a quick squeeze as she looked up at him. If she tried to thank him, he'd just shrug it off. So for now, that fleeting touch would have to suffice.
"Do you have a ride?" she asked as she pushed the window up and went out of it onto the fire escape. She and Yelena were playing a game of keep away, desperately trying to stay at least one step ahead of Dreykov's reach. All the while they circled their way towards a method to reproduce and distribute the counter agent. The pain from her various injuries bit at her as she moved quickly down the metal steps, balancing on the ball of her foot to reduce the amount of noise the rusty framework made as she moved.
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Considering the way Nat was gingerly carrying herself, it would've been nice if they could've stopped in the apartment and let her rest for a little while, just for the evening — but that could come later. Maybe on that plane to Russia, depending on who was flying, or maybe they could trade off at the controls: swapping shifts where each of them could sit with arms crossed and head tipped back, catching some scant rest. They were both accustomed to having to catch whichever scraps of sleep they could get, even in a desperate situation. Lots of hurry up and wait during the war, or when watching a target for long dull days, waiting for the right opportunity to slip in for the kill.
Bucky waited until she was safely on the ground, to stop the fire escape from screeching beneath their combined weight, and then he slid down after her. Almost like he'd done this before. (He'd definitely done this before.) He was already fishing in the pocket of the duffel for the motorcycle keys as he led the way down the street, moving at a brisk walk. It was a late enough hour that hopefully people wouldn't notice them.
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"Lead the way," she said, without missing a beat. A motorcycle was good - it was easier to get lost in the flow of traffic on a bike. Or to leave it idling between cars to make a run for it. Instinct made her glance back over her shoulder as they hastened down the alleyway, just in time to catch the brief glitter of a scope through the window. "Get down," she instructed sharply as she grabbed his arm and yanked him around the corner just in time for the shot to shatter the bricks where their heads had been.
"Shit," she muttered, letting him go as she hastened their way around the corner to his bike. As she moved, she unholstered her guns and took the safety off. The pain from her injuries surged through her in waves. "Hope you don't mind me returning fire from behind you."
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This entire thing was familiar: his steady and glacial heartbeat finally kicking into gear with the old thrill of action. He shouldn't like it. It should be a terrible reminder of his past, of days and nights and years as an assassin, mired in the very worst of firefights and hails of bullets and danger—
but ugly as it was, this had been his life, and this was what he knew, and knew better than grocery shopping or paying phone bills.
So Bucky harkened to it like he was coming home. He followed that press of her hand, ducked around the corner and ran full-tilt for the bike. Already jamming in the keys, kicking it off its stand, sliding into place in the seat. He waited only long enough to feel Nat's weight settle behind him, and then he was off: the bike bouncing and rumbling along cobblestoned streets, before he hauled it onto smoother roads.
Behind them, gunfire; his shoulders tightened and he bent lower over the handlebars, making for a narrower profile, a smaller target. There wasn't anything he could do from the front; he'd just have to trust Nat to have their back, and he did.
And this, he reflected, was probably the sort of trouble Steve didn't want his friend to get involved in when they were already on the run — but Natasha had needed help, and there was a certain satisfaction in knowing they were leading their pursuers away from the apartment, away from Steve, even if it meant plunging themselves into danger.
Besides. It was Natasha, and James. They could handle it.
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There was a rhythm to every fight. Her earliest training had been in dance. It taught them grace, discipline. More than that, it taught pattern recognition. It made finding the beats and then disrupting them second nature.
She perched on the motorcycle behind him, already half twisted around as the bike shot out of the alley. Their pursuers fired - she wouldn't call it wildly, but they were definitely aiming for maximum coverage. "Try to get onto side roads, they're going to mow down pedestrians if they keep going like that," she called to him over her shoulder. When she returned fire, it was precise, searching for a weak point on a vehicle that was evidently very well armored.
Her mind clicked through their options as she turned in the other direction to fire with her second gun, re-holstering the first in the same motion. "How attached are you to this bike?"
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And Bucky fell into operating on autopilot: the shift of their weight on the bike as they tilted into the turns, his hands tightening on the handlebars, the quick-snap reflexes to not slam into a billboard or fire hydrant or parked car, the concentration to ignore the patter of gunfire behind them.
The wind almost ripped Natasha's voice away from them, but his enhanced hearing caught the question. "Bikes can be replaced," he shouted back. "People can't. What d'you have in mind?"
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Natasha slid her gun away when he responded, and her free hand squeezed his shoulder. "Getting run over." Her other arm reached around to hand him the grappling device the widows used to repel on buildings. The timing would be tricky, but she was pretty sure that the reward would be worth the risk. The vehicle pursuing them was well armored, but the undersides of cars like that typically weren't. If she stuck an explosive to the side of the bike, once he pulled them up off of it, she could detonate it as it slid under the wheels of the car. They needed to buy enough space so she could patch herself up while they ran for their next destination.
sry for the delay as ever, covid knocked me over :[
What was one more?
Bucky took the grappling gun with his left hand. He aimed better with the right, but he just needed to hit a building, which was a pretty big target. The more important part was not losing his grip, and that vibranium hand could hang onto the grapple and easily carry both their weights as they flew up.
“Just say when,” he called back. Not questioning the plan — not asking more clarifying questions, because he’d already pieced together as much as he needed to — just accepting the parameters and saying yes, and.
So he kept driving, and waited for that exact moment when Natasha slapped her hand against his shoulder twice; a clear signal, and he shot for the rooftops, the grappling device kicking in his hand and both of them already shifting their weight, moving upwards, getting ready to leap off the bike and to leave it behind.
oh no! no worries, i hope you're feeling better!
Once he took the grappling gun, she squeezed his shoulder, a silent gesture of thanks and acknowledgment. But she had to quickly get to work, and she pulled the explosive free from its holster and armed it, then leaned to the side so she could stick it under the seat. Once it was planted, she slapped his shoulder and they were off. She pushed off of the bike as her arm levered around his shoulders, her legs wrapped around him to ensure she didn't go tumbling away as she craned her neck to look over her shoulder and -
It all happened at once. Her finger pressed the button as the bike slid beneath the wheels of the Taskmaster's heavily armed car, and they swung upward with startling momentum. The car lifted below with a muffled explosion as fire blossomed beneath it, and Natasha crashed onto the roof of the building, relinquishing her hold on him as she rolled to soften the blow. She came to a stop on her back and lay stunned for just a moment before she laughed and carefully sat up, looking across at him with a grin. "That was fun. Let's never do that again." They still had a long way to go. But at least with their pursuer slowed down, they might stand a chance of making it there in one piece.
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