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“You have to do it, Natasha.”
They’re chained to opposite ends of the cell, and James was straining against the shackles around his waist and wrists to make his point. They were both relieved of their armor upon being captured - save, of course, the decorative plates of James’ metal arm, which cannot be removed except by magic. It would be quite startling for anyone to learn to that it’s hollow up to near his shoulder. In exchange, they were given threadbare rags that match the filthy brown of the stone floor.
She glances up at him from where she sits, back leaned against her wall. “I can’t,” she says, soft because it’s an apology but only for his ears, “James, there’s got to be another way.”
He tugs on his shackles with all his strength: the iron clang reverberates throughout the small chamber. On his left palm the runes glow icy blue for a moment. Natasha lets herself hope just in time to see their light fizzle and die. James tries again, grunting with the strain, but it does not happen a second time.
“I’ve- got to-” he grits out, letting his hands fall to his sides at the futility of it. Tries to catch his breath, “They’ve - the chains’ve got to be enchanted.”
Natasha looks over at him again. At the sweat dripping from his forehead, at the determination in his eyes, and tries to placate him, “When it’s time, they’ll need to move us. We can make our escape then.”
“They’re going to kill us, Natasha.” He’s angry now. The vein in his temple throbs as he hisses, “I can’t use my magic. You’re the only hope we’ve got.”
There’s a knock on the bars of the cell. Aleksander Lukin is standing there, flanked by four guards in blackened armor and full-faceplate. He presses his fingertips together and grins, “You two must be enjoying your last moments together.”
“Fuck you,” James spits at his feet. Three of the guards make a move to draw their swords but Lukin waves a hand.
“It’s alright. Hold onto that anger, Mister Barnes, I hope it makes you feel more alive while we finish building the pyres.”
Natasha watches James’ eyes widen as he slumps to sit at the foot of his wall. She’d been expecting a gallows of some kind; from his expression, so had he. James is the more religious out of the two of them, although he plays it close to his vest. A funeral pyre means no bodies, it means that their souls will remain untethered after they die, that they would have no chance at an afterlife in the eyes of any god. He truly means to ruin them.
“A fiery death is appropriate, don’t you think, for the Winter Soldier and his pet spider? After all,” Lukin steps forward and his lips curl back in a vicious snarl, “There is no Heaven for deserters.”
James is staring into the empty space in front of him, not reacting at all as Lukin and his goons turn and leave. Silence falls between them. Natasha doesn’t know what comfort she can even offer.
“They’re going to burn us alive,” James whispers.
“The bars. On the window,” she says suddenly, “You can break them, can’t you? If we get you free.”
“How?” He says, and his chains rattle when he shrugs. There’s no hope left in his eyes when he looks at her, “You have to turn, Natasha. It’s the only way.”
And now it’s her turn to be angry. Not at James, but at the situation and their dwindling options and his hopelessness. She bites out, “The last time I came back to myself I nearly lost my memory. The time before that, you lost an arm!”
“I don’t care!” He yells. The words echo in the cell, in her mind. She can smell the fear on him as plain as she can see it in his eyes. Softer, he adds, “You don’t deserve to die.”
“Neither do you.”
“Then do it,” urges James, leaning forward again, “I trust you.”
Natasha nods and offers him a small smile. He returns it.
She leans back, closes her eyes, and reaches deep into herself.
The wolf awakens.
It’s always unpleasant. The blood boils, the skin stretches as her bones crack back into place. She has long claws, pointed fangs, stronger than any man alive or dead.
The men are wrong about her. This is her natural state of being.
She is wild.
The iron snaps as she quickly grows too large to hold. She rears up on her hind legs as she takes stock of the small room. There’s a man standing right across from her, affixed to the wall by the same metal ropes she had been.
He is in awe. He is unafraid. No, underneath that. There is something else.
He is familiar.
The wolf paws forward to sniff at his restraints. She does not know how she knows him. Perhaps it is the other side of her, the woman with sharp teeth like a wolf. Perhaps this is why the man holds no fear of her: he already knows her nature.
“Hey there, big girl,” he says gently, and his voice is soothing even to the animal rage bubbling in her chest, “Think you can bust me outta here?”
She huffs. The soft puff of air blows at his hair a little and he smiles. Offers the chain on his wrist, pulling it taunt.
A swipe of her claws and it’s shredded. He gets to work freeing the rest of himself, pulling the pins on his bonds to step free. One of his arms is aglow with cold markings. Frost distorts the air around his fingertips.
“Guess I’ll get the door,” he says, and the iron bars are suddenly frozen, encased in clear ice. Easy to break.
The wolf charges into them, and they shatter without much effort. The space outside the cell is narrow, a small corridor with a single door at the end. She has to hunch to fit, sniffing at the corpses in the cells they pass as the man spies through a crack in the wooden door.
“There’s about a dozen that I can see,” he whispers. She growls softly at him. Numbers mean nothing, not when she’s been trapped inside herself for so long.
He flashes his teeth at the wolf and pulls it open, “After you, then.”