The chill in my bones

She felt bad for dosing him... Sort of.

She'd kept her tranquilisers on her just in case she had to dose someone and interrogate them but knocking Barnes out so he couldn't try to play hero was just as good a reason to use it as any. She knew he'd have a hell of a headache when he woke up so she'd left a note apologising for that but making it clear she'd had a reason for what she was doing. She'd made her decision the moment he said that saving her was more important. Saving her would come before the mission and she couldn't let that happen.

She didn't need saving. A part of her wished that she was working with The Winter Soldier at least he knew how to put the mission first but even back then he'd been careful when it came to her, he'd been cautious and protective but he hadn't been so obvious about it because they knew they'd have been punished far sooner if he'd made it obvious that he was forfeiting any opportunity in their mission to keep her safe.

He knew better than to think that she needed constant protection though, he'd trained her better. He'd always told her that she made what they did look graceful and he wouldn't have ever thought that anyone could make killing people look graceful; he'd always said it was like a dance for her and she did it so well it was beautiful in its own way. She couldn't deny that she was amused when he'd told her that but the sound of awe in his voice told her that he was actually being serious.

She knew he'd always loved to watch her fight.

It was a pity really that he couldn't be with her now but he wasn't himself, he was somewhere in between who he was turned into by HYDRA and The Russians and being Bucky Barnes, best friend of Captain America and hero turned villain turned recovering lost soul and she didn't need that person now. That person would try too hard to keep her alive and probably end up either getting himself killed in the process or blowing everything. She needed who he'd been before if she needed any side of him at all and she wouldn't do that to him.

She wouldn't bring him into that kind of darkness again, not when he was fighting so hard to get away from it all, she wasn't heartless and she cared too much about him for that. She reminded herself that what she'd done was for the best a thousand times as she made her way from their hotel to the facility and she settled herself in as far a vantage point as she could find from the actual place so that she could try to figure out which of the many moves she could come up with in her head would be the safest. She didn't want to die out here, this wasn't a suicide mission. 

This was another facility she once knew like the back of her hand so there was no real need for planning in her mind but she did need to be smart about how she approached it; she'd been able to pull up schematics just in case anything had changed and bar a new lab being built just off of the south of the building it had mostly remained the same. The files she'd gotten from the system before she'd blown the other facility were useful enough for giving her most of the information she needed but the rest was working off of her shaky memory which probably wasn't ideal.

She didn't much care about that though.

She wholly intended for this to be brute force anyway, destruction and chaos was exactly what they deserved anyway and in truth it was what she needed to calm the fury she felt toward them for everything that they'd done to her. She needed to get the kids out safely which was her main priority. She wasn't entirely heartless and they were the whole reason she was doing all of this to begin with. They weren't going to turn these girls into what they'd turned her into. She wasn't going to allow them to do it to those kids.

She might not be the best person when it came to kids but she'd been around children before that had reminded her of her lost innocence and she wasn't willing to let them do that to anyone else. No one deserved what she'd been through, no one so young deserved to be destroyed like that.

It was nightfall, dark enough to conceal her slender frame as she moved toward the building itself; she'd decided that the top of the building would give her the best internal vantage point to look around the whole place properly. She knew how to avoid cameras easy enough just like she knew how to avoid tripping any outside security alarms there might be because she'd been trained vigorously by these very people to be able to do that, they probably hadn't banked on one of their own turning against them. They were foolish.

They'd always taught her to expect the unexpected out there and yet it would seem they did not.

They didn't plan for this it would seem. She and Barnes were wildcards, she supposed they counted on the two of them being too worried to come back here and do anything about what they were doing out here or who they were hurting. She wasn't worried. She didn't care. She wasn't on a suicide mission, quite the opposite. She wholly wanted to live through all of this which was exactly why she was being as smart about it as she could be about it all. 

She was light footed which was good, she moved with the skill and lithe of a dancer and stepped as lightly as a feather, she was lethal and dangerous and if they were smart they were going to remember that. They were going to remember how well they'd trained her and what a little monster they'd created just before she destroyed them and burned it all to the ground.

She and James used to play a game, the first one that got spotted by the security cameras bought breakfast. It brought a smile to her lips, sometimes she missed the old days but especially now but he couldn't be here, he wasn't the person she needed him to be anymore and she couldn't do this with someone that wanted to play hero. 

Her heartbeat was as steady as her soft footsteps as she slipped into the rooftop door. She'd mapped out the vents but she'd decided not to use them unless she absolutely had to, confined spaces from the last one were bad enough without repeating that; she didn't need to be setting off any more unpleasant memories after everything else she'd been through. She approached one guard from behind and she wrapped her hands around his neck as she pulled him back against her body and with one swift twist she listened to the sickening crunch as his neck snapped and she guided his body toward the floor, she didn't need the noise of a dropping body.

Guard two off to her right was taken to his knees with her Widows bite that had his body shake and spasm enough to stop him shouting out and she finished it with a shot through the chin as she skidded low on the floor to avoid three from noticing her, the silencer on her gun was useful for muffling her kills, the fact that her gun was pressed directly against his skin helped too. She wasn't sloppy. Three was taken to the floor with a beautiful move that almost mirrored a pirouette and shot twice in the chest. She could've gone for a few more shots but overkill was a waste of time. The camera turned one way and she slipped easily beneath it.

She slipped around the corner and through a door behind her and she pressed her slender body against it as she closed it quietly behind her; it was sloppy of them to leave their security room unattended though she supposed that was what Guards 1, 2 and 3 were for. They hadn't been a challenge at all. Her eyes perused the cameras laid before her, there were over a hundred of them altogether, they weren't as sloppy as she'd thought they were... Maybe one or two people in here were smart after all.

It didn't take her all that long to set most of them on a loop. She left 12 as they were because she wanted to make a point of showing them what she could do, she wanted to make a point of showing them what their little weapon had turned into.

She wasn't interested in making this secret after all. She just needed to make sure the 'living quarters' if you could call them that weren't being surveilled too heavily while she got the kids out because she didn't need a bunch of kids in the crossfire. She was on the floor above there and her best bet was the vents if she didn't want to end up dealing with about 30 guards between here and there which was just effort she did not need to be expending, not when she had a bunch of kids to deal with. It didn't mean she was in any way happy with it though.

Confined spaces. Who the hell liked confined spaces anyway... 

She quickly removed the screws from the vent above the desk as she stood on the edge of the console for leverage and hauled herself up. She moved silently through her temporary metallic prison, at least prison was the way it felt. It felt like another cryotube. Another locked up suffocating little area that she was desperate to get out of so she tried her best to busy her mind with something else seeing how emptying it simply wasn't a possibility. She thought about James, she wondered idly in her mind if he was awake yet.

It'd probably be hours before he was but still. He was going to be pissed when he did wake up, she didn't blame him in the slightest but he had to understand that she was doing what she was for a reason she didn't need his heroics putting them both in danger because he was too worried about her dying to focus,

Her death may very well happen someday but it wouldn't her here or now or at the hands of these assholes and she remained resolute in that as she moved through the right she vents glad at this point for her small frame and agile, flexible body. They had indeed trained her well, she had no doubt if she were still theirs they'd be impressed with her.

Proud even, the thought was nauseating,

She slipped out of the vent in the middle of a blind spot between two cameras, her movements and skill as always impeccable. She was no fool. Guard four was taken down with a choke hold and a shot to the side of the head, she needed his security key. It was a necessity though she couldn't deny that there was a small sense of satisfaction that another of these sons of bitches wouldn't live through this, it served them right in her mind for turning a blind eye to all of this.

They were just as guilty in her mind as the higher ups were, just as culpable for all of the pain and destruction that these people inflicted on peoples lives and the world around them. They'd turned a blind eye and they'd accepted money for their ignorance. She'd show no mercy to anyone like that.

She slid the security key down the side of the lock and the little button turned green, it was so much like a bad movie in the way it was designed that it almost had her roll her eyes. The security cameras here were looped. She didn't need to be shooting a bunch of assholes in the middle of a bunch of kids. Collateral damage was fine if they weren't children, she drew a line. She'd been forced into enough evil she wouldn't ever inflict harm on a child again.

The thought of it had her hands clench, one into a fist and the other against the grip on her gun her anger made guards five and six go down with shots straight through their heads. She contemplated shots through the kneecaps first just to make them suffer a little bit, they were lucky that she was in a hurry to get this damn job over with and get these kids somewhere safe. She knew a man not too far away that could take the girls and find them decent homes.

She'd spoken to him earlier today and he'd agreed that he'd do it, she'd have to pay him but she didn't mind too much. She hit the button behind her on the wall and each door ahead of her opened and six girls emerged from their rooms with confused and guarded expressions on their features, they were varying in age from 6 to about 12. The older ones would take a little more work than the others would but it was worth it despite the challenges.

It was better than them ever being what she was. 

The older two took immediate stances and she placed the gun back in the holster on her thigh and rose a brow studying them. She rolled her eyes after a moment and laughed. She informed them that it didn't matter what training they'd been through these last few years they wouldn't win whatever pointless fight they were considering in their heads. She was met with defiance which she'd expected. They were then informed that she would knock them out if she had to but she'd prefer not to.

It was time consuming and she didn't want to have to deal with two unconscious pre-teens when she had to get out of here quick with the others. Having an 11 and a 12 year old threatening to kick your ass was undeniably funny though. They reminded her of herself at that age. She gave them two options: Come with her and she'd give them a better life away from all of this before they were turned into mindless little killing machines or stay here and be exactly that to meet a bullet when they'd outlived their uses.

If they even made it through their graduating class anyway and from the way that they acted they wouldn't. They had to toughen up and even she could tell these two didn't have what it took. They hadn't made their first kill yet but they would in about a year and even she knew they'd flunk it just from looking at them. She even outright told them that they wouldn't even make their graduating class and they'd be dead by the time they were 16. She didn't see the point in lying. 

They weren't thrilled about it. The younger four begged them and she informed them that if they didn't move now they'd either get left here knocked out and therefore meeting whatever fate they doled out for them or they could come with her and survive tonight, it was up to them. Self preservation it seemed won out.

She ordered them to stay behind her and if any shots were fired drop to the damn floor quickly and get as far back as they possibly could. If the floor plans she'd accessed were correct there was an elevator at the end of the hall to the right that'd take them down to an underground parking lot which was their best chance of getting out of here without dealing with too many guards. That was the smart play. She wasn't sure exactly what she was going to do with six kids but she supposed she'd be able to find a van down there she could steal.

Guard seven did get a bullet through the knee and disarmed, she crouched down in front of him with a wicked smile on red painted lips and she informed him to tell them exactly what he'd seen today. 

The security card activated the elevator and she ordered her little group of wayward children in, she could tell that they were still reluctant and the younger ones even seemed slightly afraid of her. It would've bothered Natasha but in her present state she didn't have the time to stop and dwell on it, wasted time was another chance to die down here and that was not going to happen. The ride down thankfully took seconds because children were... Well, she wasn't used to dealing with them so.

The elevator pinged open and eight and nine were taken, one by her and the other with the oldest of the group who had pulled a knife from Natalia's boot as she swept low, that earned a look over her shoulder and a smirk, a nod of appreciation. She hadn't killed the man but he'd be in a hell of a lot of pain. She kicked him in the head just to shut him up. Okay, he was unconscious and he'd be in a lot of pain. It was well deserved though. 

She looked around and pointed to a van in the far left corner and told the kids to run. Run as fast and they could as she shot out two cameras. Ejecting the clip, she shoved another in and made a run for it, she ducked out of the way of shots fired from the two guards on the gate that were silenced seconds later. She skidded to a halt and turned abruptly. Uh oh. Not good.

She stared at Barnes and rolled her eyes as he walked over.

"We'll talk about this later." He sounded pissed. 

She fought back laughter. She knew he'd be mad as hell when he woke up but she didn't think that he'd show up like this, she raised a brow as she studied him before she just shook her head at him and crossed her arms across her chest.

"And you call me reckless. Did you even have a plan there hero? You just gonna walk in and hope for the best? You're good but not even you're that good." 

"You have no idea how good I am anymore, move your ass before I shoot you myself." Yep, pissed.

"Yes dad." She replied mockingly before she walked toward the van assuring the kids that the grouchy ass wasn't going to hurt them. 

They seemed to trust him about as much as they trusted her which wasn't a whole bunch if at all but they were all stuck together for now so there wasn't all that much anyone could do about it. It was about a half hours drive from where they were to where she wanted to be but she'd refused to tell him where they were going because in truth it was none of his damn business anyway. He'd just crashed her mission - again - and scorned her like an angry parent.

She hated that kind of shit and he knew it.

As they arrived and the van came to a halt, the engine dying as she loosened the wires she'd stuck together to hotwire the damn thing, she hopped out and opened the back for the kids. She counted each one though she knew exactly how many there were but really she was just checking them for weapons or any injuries in the way out of there. The last thing she needed was for all of this to go sideways. She was in for a world of hurt when they watched the footage.

The problem was she didn't care.

Barnes hadn't let up with the pissed off look for the past 20 minutes and she'd told him he was acting like a moody child which hadn't gone down well. He just kept telling her they'd talk about this later which kept earning him a whole bunch of mocking answers. She was in no mood to be chastised for doing exactly what she'd set out to do. 

As she made her way inside of the building she'd told him to stay outside and he hadn't listened and she huffed out a sigh. The man that stood before her had been a man that Natalia had met during one of her last missions before she'd defected and joined SHIELD. He pulled her into a hug which earned him a wrinkled nose and she pulled back.

"I hate hugs." She stated flatly. "Personal space is good."

"You owe me that at least for taking in your strays, Natalia." He replied with a grin. He could tell she was trying to refrain from hitting him.

He chuckled.

"The older two will need some deprogramming." He studied the girls in turn.

Natalia sighed but nodded anyway, she'd expected as much because they'd been through it longer than the younger kids had. She knew deprogramming was rough because she'd been through it at SHIELD. It was horrible and painful and her headaches had lasted for weeks, the nightmares for months but she'd been in it a whole hell of a lot longer than they had so it wouldn't been as bad for them.

"Make it as gentle as you can?" She requested quietly. "I don't want them hurt."

She wasn't heartless. He nodded his head and reached out to place a hand on her shoulder as he gave her a onceover then to try to see if she was hurt. He wanted to ask her so many questions but he knew that now wasn't the time. She'd told him the basics and that had to be enough for now.

"I'll check in when I can." She turned to him and smiled. 

"Don't go getting yourself killed out there, hm?" He looked toward Bucky as he finished speaking.

"You look after her."

This time it was Natalia who pulled the man into a hug as she thanked him and she turned to each girl telling them that they'd be safe now and that they had to trust that the life they were about to find would be far better than the one that they'd have had back there, she could tell they were reluctant but what choice did they really have? She felt terrible she couldn't do more for them and so she apologised and turned to leave, Bucky followed her wordlessly. He'd watched the whole thing but all of it been her show. He didn't need to be intruding on that, besides he was already mad as all hell at her for her little stunt and the moment he got her on her own she was about to know that. 

"We're not staying back at the hotel." She stated simply as soon as they'd driven away.

He'd guessed as much, it would end up being another burned location and he was glad for it in his own way. While he wasn't opposed to stopping and staying still for once just so that he could actually get her to stop and talk to him properly he knew it wasn't going to happen, not there at least and not while they were so close to what she'd just done. He understood why she wanted to save the girls he really did but she was stupid.

She shouldn't have gone in alone. She'd done brilliantly and he was proud of her but he hated that she could've put her ass on the line with no backup because she'd dosed the only person out here who could help her at all. It had been a reckless move and she should've known better. She'd been trained better than that. 

"You were stupid. You were reckless and stupid. What would you have done if you'd gotten into something you couldn't get out of alone? I taught you better than that and I damn well know SHIELD did too." Yeah, he was goddamn angry.

She looked at him and glared.

"Do we have to do this now? We need to get our stuff and get the hell out of here then you can be pissed all you want." She understood, she really did understand but it was bad timing.

"You need to answer me, Natalia. What the hell do you think you were doing?" Ah. She could read between the lines.

He was worried she'd end up dead.

"Because I didn't want you to try to save me. I had the schematics, their security teams suck but then they've always sucked ever since we were there and they don't make half as many adjustments as they should in case people like us go rogue and go back to screw them over the way they screwed us. They didn't exactly make it hard to do." 

"You're over-confident again. You're acting like you're invincible just like you did back then but you're not. You're just as able to be killed as the rest of us are and you know it. You promised me this wasn't some suicide mission so what the hell are you doing? All of that could've done sideways fast." He wasn't scornful anymore, he sounded worried.

"I never had an extraction plan with SHIELD either. I can handle myself. I get that you're worried James I really do. What do you want from me? I had a job to do and I couldn't risk you trying to save me and throwing that out of the window. If you'd try to save me more than you focussed on the mission it could've gotten us both killed." She looked at him as she spoke. They pulled up to the hotel.

"Or one of the kids. I got in and out with no complications but there could've been if you tried your heroics and once you knew that. Once you knew that the mission had to come first and I needed that side to you not Captain America's best friend." She sighed then, she felt awful for admitting that.

Even in her present state she felt awful for admitting that. 

"Natalia, I can't be that person again I'm sorry. I know that you don't need saving sweetheart but I won't watch you play with your life either." He reached over to hold her hand in his.

"Fine, you're right: I was an idiot. I should've thought it through but I still got my job done James. I still succeeded. I did it right and I didn't get anyone hurt. I get that I scared you and I get you're worried but c'mon! You can't tell me I screwed up if you're not willing to tell me at least I didn't entirely fail. Constructive criticism from my teacher? Sure. Worried ranting from- I don't need that."

He studied her as he spoke, he could tell that she was struggling with everything. He could tell that what was going on with her superseded anything she was used to dealing with in either of her two lives. He squeezed her hand for reassurance.

"We'll talk soon, okay? I'll run up and grab our stuff." He was trying his best to be reassuring.

She nodded her head, a small smile touched her features as she hit her head against the back of the chair out of frustration as he climbed out of the van and made his way toward the hotel. She drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around herself before she buried her head in her knees and chewed her bottom lip softly trying hard to settle her breathing. Her eyes closed and she kept them that way until she heard the door next to her open and she immediately reached for her gun and turned dropping her posture from its retreated state to something far more rigid.

He placed his hand on the barrel of the gun and lowered it gently. 

"It's okay, it's just me." Once again she could read between the lines: You're okay, you're safe.

Safe. Ha.

She smiled at him anyway and nodded her head. She wanted to believe he was right, she wanted to believe the illusion of safety that James Barnes was offering her but she knew it was a bad idea if ever she'd heard one. It would be foolish to accept it because she knew she'd made sure that neither one of them was safe now. If he stayed with her he was facing the same threat she was. If he stayed he was in the same crosshares of the same gun as she was.

"I don't know what you want from me, James." She whispered quietly. "I'm not sorry I got my job done."

She wasn't sorry she saved those girls. She wasn't sorry she'd gone in and she'd gotten her mission done and she wasn't sorry she'd done it without him as much as he wanted her to be sorry for it. She could tell that he wanted her to apologise for being stupid but to her she wasn't. It had been a simple in and out. It had been simpler than it would've been with just her and not both of them. 

"I don't want you to be sorry you got your job done, Natalia. I want you to understand that you could've been hurt." He turned to her placing his hand on her cheek.

"I want you to understand that what you did tonight is you going back to the girl I taught all those years ago not the skilled person I saw that was trained by SHIELD, we went toe to toe and I could tell you were holding back but you were skilled. Disciplined. Today you weren't. Today there was no discipline. Today was reckless." 

Despite herself she leaned into his touch.

"Years might've passed since then but I'm me. I'm her at least in some ways. You taught me. You knew me back then but you don't know who I am now. I don't know you. We're not who we were, James. None of us ever will be again but this? This is who I am for now. This is what I am now, this is what you had to come back to and I'm sorry but that but... I don't know whether this will wear off. I don't know if I'll go back or I'll be like this until it gets me killed but this is what I am. This is who I am." She sounded sad as she spoke.

She sounded sad but she needed him to understand. 

"You can't save me this time." She added softly.

"I don't want to save you. I don't wanna make you go back to who you were again I just want to fight by your side the way I did before. Trust me. You trusted me once, trust me now. I can keep you safe without saving you. I won't throw myself into anything stupid I just want you to stop running into a fight because you're hurting." His thumb drew a line down her jaw.

"I remember enough to know that you and I make a hell of a team." He gave her a ghost of a smile.

"Do you remember enough to know you told me you'd rather die than let me die? Do you remember when we laid there that night and you told me that I was right and we should run? That you-" She cut off with a sigh and turned away from him. 

"Do I remember when I told you we could have a life if we ran? Yeah I remember. I told you that night that I'd rather have a life with you than live forever as their weapon. I told you you were the only thing that mattered to me and I'd run a thousand times over if I could have one more day with you."

"You're running with me now but you're running for your life." She pointed out.

He shrugged though.

"I'd rather run through my life than go back to one without you. I'll run with you no matter what we're running toward or who we're running from."

She couldn't help but laugh at how idealistic and romantic he sounded. He looked at her with a questioning look and she just shook her head before she leaned over and kissed him. It was the first time she had properly, not when he was unconscious and she was trying to say her own kind of apology. As she pulled away he looked more confused and she just smiled.

"What was that?" He didn't sound angry though. That was good.

"A thank you." She replied with a shrug. "C'mon, lets get out of here. We can talk about that later."

"Or on the road?" He offered. She laughed again and nodded anyway.

"Fine, fine. Just drive Romeo." She sounded teasing.

He rolled his eyes at her giving her that not again look. She grinned, even after all this time she could get under his skin. Good. She needed to know that at least. She needed to know that at least a part of him still remembered the way that they were once and maybe a part of him wanted it back even if she was still trying to work out what she wanted herself.

"Where are we going anyway?" He probably should've asked that before he set off...

"Don't know. I'll tell you when I figure it out." 

He laughed but reached over to squeeze her hand. He should've known after everything she'd done today without a decent plan she wouldn't have a whole plan for the rest of this either. A part of him was glad for that... He really had wanted to run with her once and maybe now they could. Maybe now he could convince her she didn't have to do all of this or maybe, just maybe they'd end their hell and find a way to move on together.