Archive of Our Own

The bag sat in a hidden compartment at the back of Natasha's closet at the Avengers compound: black, nondescript, no logo or zipper tags. It was packed with two changes of clothes, cash, passports, a gun and spare ammo, two burner phones, and a few other necessities. No matter where she was living, no matter how unlikely it seemed that she might have to leave in a hurry, still she kept her go-bag ready, just in case. As she stepped into her room -- quickly enough to be comfortable, not so quickly as to attract notice -- she opened the closet door, shoved aside the shirts and pants that hid the false back, and pressed down on the thumb catch.

And stared, as the panel swung open to reveal an empty compartment.

"Looking for this?"

Natasha leapt up and spun around to see Maria Hill sitting on Natasha's bed, the go-bag balanced in her lap. "Nice work," Natasha said. "Of all the people to get the drop on me..." She tipped her head sideways and considered Maria's calm stare as she reconsidered her thought. "Well, I suppose you're not actually near the bottom of the list."

"I heard what happened at the airport," Maria said. "So, you're leaving." It was not a question, her voice betraying no more emotions than her face.

"Well." Natasha shrugged. "I hadn't quite decided yet. But I wanted to consider my options."

"And this is an option?" Maria stood up and tossed the bag at Natasha, who caught it by the handle. "Far as I know, you signed the Sokovia Accords of your own free will. I thought that meant you wanted to stand up and take responsibility for the consequences your actions."

"You aren't wrong." Natasha set the bag down at her feet. "But who do I feel responsible to? Society at large? Some UN advisory board that didn't even exist until a week ago? Whatever we pretend is left of SHIELD? Steve, Tony, you? Clint?" She fought the wobble that came into her voice as she spoke that last name, and forced herself to go on. "Or the Avengers?" She shook her head with a hard chuckle. "I think it's safe to safe to say the Avengers are off the list."

"For now," Maria agreed. "Maybe not forever."

"Maybe not." Natasha raised an eyebrow at Maria. "You've been scarce, these last few days. I know it's not your lookout, since you don't qualify under their definitions, but what do you think of this whole business?"

"Of the accords?" Natasha nodded, and Maria lowered herself back down on the bed. "God, I don't know. It's a tough call. Who's to say that we aren't creating SHIELD all over again, with the same potential for corruption? Then again, I suppose it was inevitable that someone would come in and demand oversight. So I'm with you, I think. Better to sign on and become part of the process than to have something imposed on you."

"I'll tell you one thing," Natasha said, an edge of bitterness creeping into her voice. "Thunderbolt Ross never wanted to give the accords a chance. It's not about accountability, for him -- it's an excuse to lock up powered people. Otherwise he would never have put Tony in such an impossible position. Or dragged half the Avengers off to the Raft without so much as a hearing."

Maria snorted. "No argument there. It'll be a long time before I trust a Secretary of State again."

At that, Natasha had to laugh, and Maria glanced up at Natasha with a half smile, which quickly faded. "I don't blame you for not trusting Tony to shield you," Maria said. "I'm not sure I want to stay on, either, after everything."

"You can go, though. No one would try to stop you."

"I guess." Maria looked off into space. "But I don't know where else I would go. SHIELD was my whole life, and then the Avengers. Yeah, Tony would find me some division of Stark Industries to run or something, but is that really my skill set? Board meetings, annual reports, power lunches with Pepper?" She sighed. "Somehow I'm not really seeing it."

"You'll step up to whatever you want to do." Natasha picked up the bag and hefted it to her shoulder.

"Where will you go?" Maria asked.

"Not sure yet." Natasha allowed herself a small smile. "I'm pretty good at starting over. Or at finding people, if I want to." She caught Maria's eye. "I-- you know I've never had much of a family, anywhere. Not in my childhood, not with the KGB. SHIELD, a little, with a few people, but the Avengers even more. Maybe I want to see how much of that is left, out there." She thought of Clint pulling his punches, of Sam walking off to the prison jet, hands cuffed behind him, without so much as a look backwards, of Steve's expression when she'd let him go. "Out there, I think there's a chance. In here?" She looked around the room, out the window at the mist coming in over the low green mountains. "I think too many trusts have been broken here."

Maria raised an eyebrow and lowered her voice. "You really think you can break them out of the Raft, singlehandedly?"

Natasha met her eyes, and with a flick of a button on her wrist, she jammed the internal surveillance signal. Subtly -- it would be at least a minute before Friday noticed. She held up her hand and caught Maria's eye; Maria nodded in understanding, then stood up to lean in. "Well. Not singlehandedly. But I have ideas about where to find help. Steve is still out there, and Agent 13. Barnes, if he can be trusted. And I might have other allies to call on." She lowered her and looked straight at Maria. "I bet you do, too."

"Hmph." Maria crossed her arms and tried to look forbidding. On anyone else, it might have worked, but Natasha could see that her eyes still twinkled. "He's been scarce since the helicarrier rescue in Sokovia. You really think I know where he went after that?"

"Yep," Natasha replied. "I really do."

Maria looked at her for a moment longer, then dropped her arms with a chuckle and shake of her head. "Give me a week," she said.

Natasha responded with a slow nod. "One week," she repeated. "Then I'll call."

"Don't tell me what happens between now and then," Maria said, and she headed for the door. Then she reached out a hand, and Natasha took it with a quick squeeze. "Good luck."

"See you soon." Natasha smiled, and as the door closed behind Maria she kicked aside the area rug that hid the trap door she'd constructed in the floor.

-x-

First off, Natasha bought a Chromebook with cash. Next, she found the nearest Starbucks and logged in using one of her many anonymous Google accounts. Then she set up all the relevant news alerts, buried within dozens of innocuous ones, and set all her database searches to running. Preparations complete, she sat back, sipped from a cappuccino that barely deserved the name, and waited.

The results on Captain America, the Winter Soldier, and the Avengers were pretty much useless. Too old, or too speculative. No useful reports from the airport, either. She tapped the side of her coffee cup with a sigh. This plan was dead in the water if she couldn't find out where Steve and Barnes had gone. Sharon might have the details, but Sharon also knew how to go dark -- not a single relevant result on her name. Natasha thought back over the events at the airport, the hints that Steve had dropped, his desperation to escape at the end. Who had fought at Tony's side, and who had returned with them to New York -- and who hadn't. Leaning forward, she added T'Challa, Black Panther, and Wakanda to the search patterns. Within moments, she had a hit: a report from Warsaw air traffic control, granting permission for T'Challa's personal plane to clear their airspace. That hit was followed by others, and Natasha tracked the path in an all-too familiar direction.

"Damn," she muttered, tapping the map. "HYDRA."

Memorizing the details, she dropped the search results into a secure location, then slammed the computer shut. Getting to Siberia wasn't going to be easy, but at least it was a place to start.

-x-

Two days later, as Natasha slouched in an uncomfortable plastic chair in the Rotterdam airport, her phone rang. She glanced at it from underneath the baseball cap she had pulled half-down over her face. The number that flashed on the screen was an old SHIELD code; after a moment's thought, she answered it, lowering her voice and adding a bit of scratch. "Yeah?"

"Nat?"

It was a voice she knew well, although not one she'd heard much in recent years. A fellow agent -- former agent, if you believed the recent rumors. "Hey, Bobbi." She shifted in her chair, looking further down to foil anyone who might be trying to read her lips. "How'd you get this number?"

"Maria." There was a long pause at the other end of the line before Bobbi Morse spoke again. "I hear you're in the wind."

"I hear the same," Natasha replied.

Bobbi sighed. "Yeah. Long story. I'll tell you when I see you. Which is why I called. Can you talk?"

Natasha glanced around at the crowds that bustled past her, noted the bored, frazzled, and annoyed travelers who sat around the terminal. "Not really."

"Can you get to Dubai by tomorrow?"

She glanced up at the nearby departures board. Her tickets were for Moscow, but it would probably be easy enough to change them. "Sure."

" Meet at the old drop point," Bobbi said. "Thirteen hundred."

"Got it." Natasha clicked the phone shut and left it cradled in her palm. After counting off two minutes, she got up and feinted toward the change counter, dropping the phone in the nearest trash can as she went. Next stop, Dubai.

-x-

The bad thing about Dubai as a meeting place was the prevalence of surveillance cameras. On the other hand, not many people had access to those cameras, not even for a price. So Natasha felt as okay about meeting Bobbi at the Mall of the Emirates as anywhere else in the world right now, especially in the ski area, wrapped in a rented parka with a wool hat pulled halfway into her eyes. As she took the lift up to the top, she looked around, scanning for friends and foes while also marveling at the wretched excess that led a society to build a ski run in a shopping mall in the middle of a desert. It was obscene, even offensive. But it made a perfect enough cover that Natasha wasn't above taking advantage of it.

At the top, she jumped off the lift chair and balanced herself at the cusp of the slope. One of the ski instructors waited there, similarly bundled up; her blue eyes met Natasha's, and they exchanged a minuscule nod before the woman approached and helped Natasha adjust her stance.

"Two-thirty," Bobbi muttered as she positioned Natasha's shoulder back. "Back of the food court."

Natasha nodded again, then took off down the slope, taking the run with a deliberate awkwardness. And a few more times, to keep up appearances. Maybe she'd try to catch the penguin show.

-x-

Bobbi slid into the booth where Natasha sat at the back of the food court, coffee in hand. "How was the penguin show?"

Natasha took a sip of her drink, then set it down. "Pretty cute," she said. "Especially the kids watching the penguins."

Bobbi smiled. "Always with an eye on the crowd, yeah?"

"Yeah." Natasha set down her drink and laid her arm on the table next to it. She pressed the jamming button, then leaned forward. "We should have about three minutes."

"Right." Bobbi lowered her eyes. "Not enough time to tell you how we ended up here, then. Later. More importantly, what's next?"

"Hunter with you?" Natasha asked, and Bobbi nodded. "You trust him?"

She shrugged. "As much as I ever have. But you won't see him, he's out on a job right now, won't be back for a couple weeks."

"Gotcha." Natasha glanced at her watch. "Okay. My short version: I'm tracking Rogers by way of T'Challa, who best as I can tell went to Siberia. Given the context of Steve's company, I can only assume the trip is HYDRA related. My inside info on what it might be is limited, but whatever, it can't be good."

Bobbi nodded. "You're hoping to help him?"

"I can't imagine I'll be in time," Natasha said. "It's been four days; if the world hasn't blown up by now, it's probably not gonna. No, I want to find Steve for other reasons. The rest of his team is locked up, including Clint, and it's partly my fault. I want to help get them out."

"Ah." Bobbi leaned back. "I've been enough out of the loop that I only have a vague idea of what happened. But from what I do know..." she raised an eyebrow. "You really think Captain America, of all people--"

"Oh hell yeah." Natasha had to smile. "He took down all of SHIELD when it couldn't be trusted; he defied the United Nations to keep Barnes out of hostile hands. You think he's above a little breaking and entering to get his second best friend in the world out of jail? To rescue people whose only sin was following his lead? Yeah. He'll be there, once whatever threat is taken care of. And I want to be with him when it happens." She had to laugh. "Otherwise he'll try to do it on his own. He might be able to pull it off, but I'd rather he didn't have to."

"Sounds like you've picked your side." Bobbi looked at Natasha, hard. "You sure?"

The same images that Natasha had been worrying over for three days swam in the back of her head. "I'm sure."

"Okay." Bobbi stood up. "I probably can't go with you, but I've got some intel that might help -- intel, and an ally. Come with me." Natasha finished her drink and got up to follow.

-x-

The safe house was located in one of the more nondescript apartment towers in Dubai's Marina District, standing on the artificial shore among the ranks of steel and glass. Taking in the beige carpets, taupe upholstery, and stock footage photography, Natasha decided that the decor was nearly as generic as the architecture. "Who furnished this place, a set dresser?"

Bobbi chuckled. "Lance knows someone in management. This is the demo unit, which has been conveniently relabeled on the building map as an elevator equipment room."

"Clever." Natasha took a look out the window at the Persian Gulf -- Arabian Gulf, she reminded herself. At least on the UAE side. "So Hunter's out of town?"

"Yeah, he's on the trail of--" Bobbi checked herself, then shot Natasha an apologetic glance. "Sorry. Probably shouldn't tell you."

Natasha waved her off. "About this intel."

"Right." Bobbi gestured her toward a closed door on the far wall. "In there."

Natasha pushed the door open to reveal a study, with the same dull furnishings as the living room, saved by a bank of computer monitors behind the desk and the woman who sat in front of it, frowning. "Sharon?"

Agent 13 -- Sharon Carter, Natasha reminded herself -- sat straight up, then turned around with a smile. "Hey."

"You made it out," Natasha said. "I'm glad."

"Yeah, me too." She pushed the chair back from the desk and reached out to shake Natasha's hand. "Since I didn't have a chance to say it before, I wanted to thank you for coming to Aunt Peggy's funeral."

"Of course." Natasha took the outstretched hand. "I'd like to say she was an inspiration to me, but I didn't understood her true significance to SHIELD until later. I was mostly there for Steve's sake."

Sharon smiled. "Aunt Peggy never got into anything for recognition or glory. And I'm sure she'd have approved of your reasons."

"Heh." Natasha dropped her hand. "So. I assume you're here for the same reason I am?"

"Loyalty to one stubborn and righteous man, name of Steve Rogers?" Sharon shook her head, but her expression was fond. "Guilty as charged. I helped him and Sam break out Barnes, and I liberated the shield and Falcon gear, so I had to make myself scarce. I'm probably not public enemy number one, but I'm probably somewhere on the list." She shrugged. "Still, it was the right thing to do."

Natasha took the stuffed chair in the corner, and Sharon sat back down across from the computer as Bobbi closed the door and leaned against it. "Do you know where he went?" Natasha asked. "I know it was Siberia, but I don't know why."

Sharon raised an eyebrow. "How'd you figure that out?"

"Tracked T'Challa, who was clearly following them."

"Now that, I didn't know." Sharon shook her head. "I hope Barnes is all right, then." She glanced at the hands in her lap, then back up at Natasha. "Barnes wasn't the only Winter Soldier. HYDRA created a cell of at least five operatives, and Zemo was heading off to activate them. Or at least, we assume that was his plan."

Natasha leaned back in her chair with a loud exhale. "Oh, hell."

Sharon nodded. "Now you see why he didn't want to stop and talk? It wasn't just about keeping Barnes out of custody."

"I figured there was more to it," Natasha said. "That's why I helped him get to the jet."

Sharon leaned forward, arms on her knees. "Ahhh. That's why you're here, then, instead of with Stark."

"Yeah." Natasha got up, took a tight circle around the room. There was no way to get to Siberia on time for anything, was the hell of it. All she could do was wait, and hope, and-- she turned to face Sharon. "Do you have any thoughts on how we might get more recent intel?"

"Do you still have the info you used to track T'Challa?" Natasha patted the Chromebook in her go-bag with a nod, and Sharon continued. "We can see about fixing his position. Maybe once he got there and discovered a threat greater than Barnes, he stuck around to help."

"I would hope so." Natasha pulled out the laptop and flipped it open next to the monitor, calling up the most recent search results. "His father's death hit him hard, but he's a good man. I can't imagine he'd let grief or revenge get in the way of that."

"Plus, Zemo is the one who actually planted that bomb," Bobbi said. "Sharon has evidence that proves it." She crossed the room and took a seat in front of Natasha's computer, cracked her knuckles, and then met Natasha's eyes. "May I?"

Natasha stepped back with a welcoming gesture. "You know this system better than I do," she said. "Feel free."

Bobbi smiled. "I'm no Daisy Johnson, but I'll do." She logged Natasha's computer onto the local network, and soon the three of them got to work.

-x-

It was a few tense hours of hacking through systems, sifting through data, and ordering coffee in, but finally Natasha pulled the three of them back onto the tail of the king of Wakanda. "Got you," she muttered, tapping the screen of the flight data of a landing pattern.

Bobbi craned her head around to look at Natasha's screen. "Find something?"

She turned to face Bobbi. "T'Challa flew here," she said, pulling up the map. "Into one of the remotest parts of Siberia, and that's saying something. So now, we pull up the data to see what other traffic entered that zone, and maybe..." She scanned the numbers and call signs, then nodded, pointing to the telltale data. "Yep. Right there. That's the jet that Steve took from the airport. Landed about half an hour earlier, so T'Challa must have followed him there."

Bobbi frowned. "Do I see the info for a third?"

Natasha looked more closely at the numbers that Bobbi indicated with her fingertip. "Yeah, that's..." She squinted, disbelieving. "That's the Iron Man suit. And if I read the coordinates correctly..." She pulled her chair nearer in, fingers flying over the keys as she traced the flight path backwards. "I think he came from the Raft."

Bobbi raised an eyebrow. "You know where the Raft is?" Natasha just looked back at her, and Bobbi dropped her eyes. "Of course you do."

"So how did he know?" Natasha murmured, pushing herself back in her chair.

"Sam," Sharon said from across the room. "Stark must have gotten him to talk somehow." She frowned in thought. "Either Stark changed his mind, or pulled some hard leverage. But I don't know what that would be."

"They didn't release anyone from the Raft," Bobbi said. "Chatter would have picked it up."

"Maybe Tony made some promises under the radar," Natasha mused. "Well, whatever it was, I suppose it's possible that the boys all kissed and made up after saving the world." She returned to the data and scanned the more recent flight tracking information. "Looks like T'Challa left first. Steve's jet followed him out, and Tony headed back to North America a few hours later. So even if they did make peace, they didn't leave together." She called up the latest satellite imagery of the region, and let out a sigh of relief. "Nothing big blew up, anyway. Okay, Captain Rogers, where did you go?"

-x-

Wakanda.

Bobbi had flown her here in a private plane -- how she'd acquired it, Natasha didn't know and chose not to ask -- and dropped her off at the small airstrip outside the royal palace. Her request for landing clearance had been accepted without comment, almost as though she'd been expected. Go-bag perched on her shoulder, she walked into the palace and announced herself under the name on her Nigerian passport. The aide ushered her into a side parlor and closed the door.

She had counted all the books on the shelves twice before her host appeared. King T'Challa, opened the door, approaching her with hands behind his back. "Ms. Romanoff," he said, politely.

"Your majesty." She rose to her feet and sketched a quick curtsey. "So, how did you know?"

"My other guest was familiar with the alias," he replied, then stood aside with a small lowering of his head, making room for Steve Rogers to push past him and into the room.

"Hey." Steve's face was cut and bruised, a spot on his lip torn and healing, a fading shiner beneath one eye, but really he looked no worse than he had after a dozen fights before. Maybe those Winter Soldiers hadn't been so tough after all.

Natasha lifted her chin. "Hey, yourself." She looked back and forth between the two men. "So-- everyone is cool now?"

Steve winced. "Not everyone," he muttered, then cleared his throat. "But everyone in this room? Yeah, we're good." He glanced at T'Challa, who nodded. "We all learned a few things about revenge, and honesty, and working out our issues using words rather than fists."

"About time," Natasha said, crossing her arms. T'Challa nodded to her again before leaving the room, closing the door behind him, leaving her standing in front of Steve, a sudden wave of awkwardness washing over her. "Steve, I--"

He shook his head. "Don't. We both did what we thought was right. You might even have convinced me, if things were different."

"If it weren't for Barnes, you mean." Natasha tapped a finger against her forearm. "Look, I get it. And I don't want to argue now. I signed for what I thought were good reasons at the time. I wanted to give the process a chance to work. It didn't. That doesn't mean a better process can't work again, someday. But for now, well." She glanced away. "I let you go in Germany, and I'm here now. So I guess that tells you where my loyalties lie."

He studied her for a long moment, then broke into a smile. "And I'm glad of it, Nat. Damn glad." In two long steps, he closed the distance between them and pulled her into a fierce hug. Startled, she let him embrace her, accepting the strong arms of a good friend, and finally, she exhaled. She hadn't wrecked the family after all, and neither had he. They could still be teammates, allies, friends. A safe port in a stormy world. And if she and Steve were okay, maybe the rest would be okay, too. Clint--

No. She still wasn't thinking about that. Steve was good. That was all she could control right now, so that was the only thing that mattered.

She squeezed him back, then stepped away. "Where is Barnes, anyway?"

Steve looked at the ground, the warmth in his eyes replaced by those of a kicked puppy. "Bucky put himself back on ice. The way Zemo was able to trigger the Winter Soldier scared him. T'Challa's people are looking for a way to remove the programming, but until then he doesn't feel safe walking around."

"Ouch." Natasha laid her hand back on his arm for a comforting pat. "Sorry, Steve."

"I tried to talk him out of it," Steve said. "But Bucky... he's stubborn. Almost as stubborn as me." He flashed a quick grin, and Natasha chuckled. "And in the end, I couldn't tell him he was wrong."

"I hope they fix him up soon." Natasha sat back down on the couch, and Steve took a nearby easy chair. "So. I don't know if you're aware, but the rest of your team is in custody. On the Raft."

Steve shook his head. "I figured. I'd rather have gotten everyone out, but Sam convinced me that tracking Zemo was more important. And I thought he was right, at the time."

Something in those last words caught Natasha's attention, an unexpected bitterness. "What happened?"

A long silence fell before Steve spoke again. When he did, his voice was tight, a near whisper. "It was a trap," he said. "Zemo didn't want the Winter Soldier. He wanted to turn Tony and me against each other, to get us to fight to the death, as revenge for losing his family in Sokovia. And it almost worked."

Natasha sat up straight, a shock running down her spine. "What?!"

He wound his hands together and looked down at his fingers. "I-- don't really want to talk about it yet. But that's why Zemo did it. All of it, from the bomb at the UN until the bitter end in Siberia. He twisted up the entire world for his vengeance, nothing more." He let out a long breath, shaking his head. "Anyway, Tony survived, and so did we, Wakanda took Zemo into custody, and there's no other threat, unless you consider the loss of the Avengers a threat." Suddenly his chin snapped up. "Rhodes! Oh God, is he..."

"He made it," Natasha said quickly. "Hurt bad -- they don't know if he'll walk again -- but he survived." Steve let out a breath of sorrowful relief, and Natasha continued. "I don't know what Tony is planning to do about the Avengers. But I can tell you this: I know some of the security codes to the Raft, and I have a couple of allies nearby that can get us the rest. So if you want to break them out...." She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees, lowering her voice. "Then I'm in."

Steve raised his eyebrows. "Well, I suppose it won't surprise you that I want to at least try. But I haven't really formulated a plan yet." He leaned back in his seat. "I've got the jet, but not much else. I don't want to involve T'Challa in this -- better to keep sovereign nations out of a jailbreak. Who do you have?"

Natasha held up her hand and started to tick off allies. "Maria Hill, for one -- she's off trying to dig up Fury."

"Huh," Steve said. "I wonder what Fury makes of all this business."

"No idea." Natasha grinned. "I kind of can't wait to find out." Steve snorted a laugh. "So it's those two, and two former agents. One, I don't think you know, but the other, I'm pretty sure you do." She raised her eyebrows meaningfully, but Steve only looked blankly back at her, brow furrowed. "You know, a certain former SHIELD agent turned former CIA agent?" Her smile widened, along with Steve's eyes, as a bit of color started to stain his cheeks, along with another look of relief. "She never said in so many words, but I think she's looking forward to seeing you."

"Yeah, yeah." Steve relaxed into his seat, shaking his head. "Will you ever cut it out with the matchmaking?"

"Not until it sticks," Natasha shot back

He chuckled. "Glad to hear she made it out, anyway."

Natasha nodded. "So, that's who I have. Will it be enough?"

"It'll have to be," Steve responded as he stood up. "We should get moving soon, I think. But first, I have a package to send."

-x-

Three days later, Natasha sat in the co-pilot's seat of a Quinjet, an ear on radio chatter from the Raft and an eye on the choppy seas below them, and she thanked whoever that Steve had nicked a plane with cloaking capability. In the seat next to her, Maria Hill kept the plane steady through wind and spitting gusts of rain, while Steve and Sharon waited in the back, chutes at the ready. Natasha glanced at Maria, who looked back, eyebrow raised.

"Anything yet?" Maria asked.

Natasha shook her head. "No indication they know we're here." She checked the radar. "And Fury's ship is in position." A small enough craft to avoid notice, large enough to ride out the waves. And their backup in case anything went really wrong.

"Good." Steve's voice came over the comm. "We're heading down. Start the hack."

"You got it, boss." Natasha cracked open her laptop and started the infiltration program running, powering her way through the old SHIELD defenses using all the tricks she knew: password patterns, backdoor pathways, and the newer codes that Bobbi had passed along. A few more keystrokes, and she had installed the worm that would unlock the door and shut down the security cameras, at least for a little while.

She closed the computer with a snick and slid it back in her bag before putting the bag under her seat. The go-bag and its contents had fulfilled their purpose -- she would stand or fall on her own, now. Maria glanced over as Natasha stood up. They caught each other's eyes with a nod, and then Natasha vaulted over the seat and into the back, grabbing her chute and shrugging it over her shoulders on the way out the open back. She gathered her legs beneath her, then leapt forward, stretching out into a swan dive, following the parachute many feet below her, its grey fabric camouflaged against stormy sky and sea alike. Natasha counted off the seconds as the drizzle spattered her face, then deployed her own chute, aiming for the platform of the Raft.

Steve and Sharon had worked quickly: two guards were already down and the security door was half-open behind them. Natasha couldn't see Steve, but Sharon was there, locked in a grapple hold with another guard. She positioned herself behind him, and kicked him in the back as she landed; he didn't quite go down, but Sharon took the opportunity to break out of his grasp and elbow him in the midsection. With that, he was flat on the deck, gasping. Sharon clocked him across the temple and he relaxed into unconsciousness.

"There," Sharon said, barely audible over the wind. She pulled her pistol out of its holster and took a defensive position by the door, then raised her voice. "Steve's already gone in. I'll watch the door and wait for Fury's signal."

Natasha flashed Sharon a thumbs-up and ducked inside, out of the drizzle and into the fire. The Raft didn't have a particularly heavy guard most of the time -- thanks to its remote location, SHIELD had always been more concerned about keeping its prisoners inside than with keeping potential intruders out. Still, Ross had to know that Steve was going to try something like this and might have staffed up accordingly. So Natasha stayed on alert: guns drawn, eyes around every corner before moving forward. She passed two guards, both sprawled unmoving on the floor, before catching up with Steve just outside the entrance to the main guard station. He stood to the left of the closed door, hands down at his sides, and he nodded to her as she took position on the right, holstering one pistol while leaving the second at the ready.

"Any trouble?" he asked.

"Nope." She risked a quick glance through the window, too quick to really see anything. "How many inside?"

"Between voices, footsteps, and the camera feed Bobbi found us, I make ten." Steve held up a hand and counted off on his fingers. "Three for you--"

"Five for you, and the other two also for me," Natasha shot back. Then she finally noticed his empty hands, and did a double take. "Hey. What happened to the shield? Leave it somewhere?"

He closed his eyes and flexed his fingers into a fist, leaning his head back against the doorjamb. "You could say that," he murmured. Then he opened his eyes. "It's not mine to carry any more. Long story. But I can manage without it."

Not for the first time, Natasha wondered just what the hell had happened between Steve and Tony at that compound in Siberia. "I should make you tell me the whole thing, not let you keep it bottled in the way you always do." Steve snorted, and she flashed a grin. "Raincheck," she said. "For now, let's go rescue the friends we have left."

Steve nodded, opening his hand again to count down from three. Three. Two. One. Then he jumped up and kicked the door open in a single fluid motion; Natasha burst in behind him, tumbling to the floor to avoid a sudden smattering of pistol fire. She came out of her roll right next to the closest guard, throwing an uppercut to his jaw on the way with her free hand, ducking his wide punch, and whapping him over the temple with the butt of her gun. Avoid lethal force, that had been the plan, but she hadn't been comfortable forgoing a gun entirely. Just in case.

The first man down, she turned quickly to the second. This one was a woman, gun already drawn; Natasha kicked the weapon out of her hand, then aimed her next kick at the woman's shoulder. Before she could fully land the blow, arms wrapped around her waist from behind, and she turned, attempting to wrench herself out of this new attacker's grasp. She threw an elbow, and it hit bone with a crunch. The man grunted in pain, his grip loosening just enough for her to pull free. She leaped, kicking over into a backflip, her feet connecting with the woman's jaw on her way up, the man's on her way down, and both assailants fell, groaning and clutching their faces.

As she landed, Natasha looked up just in time to see another woman rushing her, black cap falling off her head as she charged. She closed, shoving a shoulder into Natasha's stomach. Natasha gasped but held her ground -- she'd had just enough time to widen her stance and plant her feet, and she pushed back, lowering her forehead to slam it into the guard's nose. But the guard shook off the hit and pushed even harder, worming an arm beneath Natasha's for a throw. Before she knew it, Natasha was on her back, sucking in air as best she could, turning away from the foot that attempted to come down on her face. As she rolled, she reached, grasping the foot in both hands -- she'd lost her gun, somehow, in the melee -- and pushed, hard enough to throw the attacker off balance.

She scrambled to her feet and saw Steve, wrestling one guard that clung to his back and shoulders as another stood before them both, gun pulled, trying to get an angle that wouldn't hit his comrade; Natasha grabbed a shocking disk out of her sleeve and flung it across the room, where it stuck to the gunman's arm. Putting a foot on the prone guard's chest to keep her down, she pressed the trigger, and the gunman cried out, falling to his knees and clutching his arm. Steve threw the first guard off his back, then punched the other across the face. Both went down, and that was it. The room was clear, all the guards down, and she retrieved her gun from the follow before taking up a sentry position at the inner door.

Steve took in the scene, counted bodies down. "Six to four." He threw her a grin. "Looks like I beat you after all." She rolled her eyes, and he turned his attention to the locked inner door. "So, how do we get in?"

Natasha nodded toward one of the panels. "Controls are over there."

He pressed a few buttons, and soon half a dozen locks clanged open.

"You go." She gestured to the door with her chin.

Steve put a hand on the handle, then looked down at her. "They'll want to see you," he said.

She shrugged. "Maybe. Maybe not. I'll just let you go first, 'kay?"

He tipped his head to the side, then sighed with the small smile and headshake that no one else could quite imitate. Natasha was sure that Steve had no idea just how charming that expression was, and as she half-smiled back, she hoped that he never figured it out. "Okay," he finally said, and then he vanished through the door as Natasha kept her gun trained on the half-conscious guards sprawled across the floor.

A few moments passed, and then the team exited the inner cell block one by one: Wanda, rubbing her wrists, followed by Sam and the one she didn't know, holding each other up as they walked through the door; then Steve, and finally Clint, hands behind his back. Clint paused in the doorway, then turned to her and lifted his chin. "Hey, Nat."

Natasha swallowed past a sudden lump in her throat. "Hey."

Sam took a long look around the room. "So, we're out. Now what? I have a feeling we don't just walk out of here."

"Not by the front door," Natasha said. She gestured to a side passageway. "That way."

She started walking -- Wanda holding out a hand to her as she passed, and Natasha let her fingers brush together -- and led the team into the hall. Steve closed the door behind them, cutting them off from any cameras and recorders that might have been able to reboot. "Okay, we're off camera, so we can talk. This hall leads us to the docks. Fury is waiting with a boat to get us all out." She caught Sam's eye. "And I'm pretty sure we go past the equipment lockup on the way."

Sam nodded, a slow smile spreading across his face. "So..."

"So your Redwing awaits," she said, finishing his sentence with a smile.

He laughed. "I knew I'd get you to say his name eventually." Steve led him past and he clapped her shoulder on the way. The rest of the group went by, until Clint stood next to her.

Her mouth went dry. "Clint, I--"

"Don't," he said, and enfolded her in a quick hug. "You're here now. That's what matters."

She could only nod, and they joined together to bring up the rear, hand in hand, heading for Fury's ship and the freedom to decide the next move.