and do you not bleed?

J knows how awesome he is and that he'd be nothing without me, Tony insists at her next message.And I can see that Barnes is a threat. He paused for a moment to imagine the hell he would have caused if he had thrown something at Natasha. Mayhem, blood, pain - yeah, sometimes, that survival instinct came in handy.

If you stuck Stark into the cogs of modern society, like many people seemed wont to do, he'd just jam everything up--probably because he was three leaps and a bound ahead of cog-based technology, and already working on the next improvement. Simply put, Stark was a battery, while the rest of the world still ran on steam and clockwork gears.

To be honest with herself--as Natasha was with no one else--she rather liked that. He was an outlier, an abnormality, something unique, in a world where she traced people's actions from their past into their future without a second's hesitation. But with Stark, he could be anything or do anything from day to day, and though she had gotten a handle on many small parts of the whole, she still couldn't reliably predict his behavior. The uncertainty was almost refreshing.

The uncertainty of the situation with Barnes, however, was most certainly not.

Admittedly, Tony was still kind of amazed that despite having two previously brainwashed assassins in his kitchen, he wasn't freaking out. Normal people would freak out. Tony Stark invites the assassins in for coffee and pizza.

He stifled a yawn, eyeing the data feed from JARVIS. There was no sign of Rogers yet. When Natasha's text came in, he nodded almost imperceptibly. JARVIS is using all of his awesome and incredibly advanced tech to find Cap. In the meantime, since we've got him here it'll probably be best to track him. Which is what I was going to do regardless of whether or not you'd found out he'd been here and decided he was a threat.

In all seriousness, though, it was a good thing that Stark was perceptive enough not to throw things in her direction (much less in Barnes' direction). No matter who it was, her automatic reaction to airborne projectiles would always be "catch it and hurl it back (except fatally)," which could only end badly for the person on the receiving end.

And I'm sure JARVIS would argue he contributes his own unique kind of "awesome" that he most certainly did not inherit from you. It's too sophisticated for that.

She took a sip of her newly-poured coffee, then rolled her eyes and picked up her phone from the counter again as the screen lit up with a new message. Her eyes flickered over the text, and she nodded absently in agreement. Rogers was notoriously hard to find when he didn't want to be found (at least the SHIELD techs thought so), given his propensity to forgo any and all kinds of typical technology in his wanderings.

Rogers was a simple solution, obvious really. Call him up, lead him to Stark Tower, to the residential floors, have him talk to Barnes and convince Tony and Natasha that no one was getting assassinated or mauled.

But getting in touch could prove difficult. Tony wasn't sure if Cap had a cell phone, let alone carry it with him. It was a bit of a long shot, but JARVIS could try to find him. I can try to get him here. No guarantees.

And with that, he began typing up commands on his phone for JARVIS. Every available resource would go to finding the captain. Fury probably wouldn't like JARVIS hacking into their database again, but Tony was already sick of waiting for explanations. He wanted this done with yesterday. Any accessible cameras in the area were hacked into and monitored for Steve.

Judging by his expression, Barnes must be very lost by now, she thought with the slightest twinge of satisfaction. Even if his memories of the Red Room were as muddled and hazy by this point as hers had become, she was willing to bet they both remembered training sessions where he had continually left her in the dust--both mentally and physically. The opportunity to repay him in kind, petty as it was, was undeniably satisfying.

She would never admit that aloud.

Sauntering into the kitchen to refill her coffee mug, Natasha tapped away at her screen, silently snorting to herself at the idiocy of messaging a man who was standing less than six feet away from her. Now on his second round of coffee, Stark was looking much less like a walking corpse than he had ten minutes ago, which was a decided improvement. He's still going back to sleep after this, she decided, and pressed send.

He read through her message, rubbing the rim of his mug thoughtfully with his thumb. Of course she wanted a tracker. He’d been working on one already, and had been counting on Bucky coming back so that he could fit it into the prosthetic. The tracker connected to his satellites, and they’d be able to get his position just about anywhere in the world.

He’d been working on some for the rest of the team, too. They were little, easy to hide and could withstand a whole hell of a lot force. Maybe he’d stick them into the comm systems, next time they fought together. Keep an eye on them when they weren’t around. 

Before he could start replying, another message popped up on his screen. Tony wondered vaguely if Barnes was getting suspicious. But he replied anyway, grinning down at his cup. Way ahead of you. The tracker’s in my workshop. After I install it, J will be keeping tabs on him. And I’ve got Pep working on the SHIELD divorce already.

It had been on a back burner, though, something they were working on when there wasn’t any trouble with the company or Big Bads trying to take over the world. It would have to stay there until Tony had time to relax some. But it was nice to have someone on his side in case of an assassination attempt. And there was no one he’d want on his side more than Natasha. Sneaky, sneaky Natasha.

It was good to know that even though he’d thought she was trying to kill him on Nick Fury’s orders before, when he was dying, that she’d take Tony’s side over Fury’s now. There were a lot of people trying to kill him then. First Stane, then Hammer and Vanko, and—

Natasha took another sip of her coffee, swirling it around in the bottom of the mug as she lowered it to rest lightly against her abdomen. Glancing up at Barnes through her eyelashes, she noted his continued silence and slightly awkward stance in the middle of the room. He seemed to not know how to answer her question about what happened, and instead had chosen to remain silent. Silence was just fine, as she was more than happy to remain silent until he wanted to talk. Outwaiting his patience was easy--this she knew for a fact.

Her phone lit up again, displaying a new message from Stark, confirming both the previous existence of a tracker for Barnes' prosthetic and Stark's (or Pepper's, more likely) forethought into a separate Avengers organization. She nodded in satisfaction. Although Natasha would never voice it aloud, she would be more than content to leave SHIELD completely in her dust. She had joined--and stayed--because of two things. But now, one of them was gone, and the other had been badly used by the organization itself. If the Avengers separated from SHIELD, she knew without question where she would go.

And it wasn't back into the depths of SHIELD's specialist program.

At least he's still following protocol, Tony thinks helplessly, just as Natasha's second text comes through. Well, you are much sexier than Barnes is, he adds to his message. What do we do with him? Find a holding cell? Call Fury and tell him he sucks at assassination attempts?

He very nearly rolled his eyes. Tony was tired of this, the uncertainty and the lack of variables. He wanted to do something, like fix whatever was wrong with Barnes' arm. It would be a shame to let something that nice go to waste. There were a few things that he tried with the prosthetic that he was hoping to use in the armor, too.

Was it your private information he was leaking? I don't see the problem with providing information that could benefit your safety. Besides, it's not like I'd use JARVIS to bypass your own security systems, much less access your private information in the first place. JARVIS has far too much sense to like anyone who'd do that. You taught him well.

Her eyebrows shot up nearly to her hairline at the beginning of Stark's second text. The man had nerve, she'd give him that. She stared at the back of his head as he stood in the kitchen, her gaze boring into the back of his skull. He was very, very lucky he hadn't said that aloud. Natasha didn't take kindly to those who commented on her levels of attractiveness, a habit cultivated over years of using her body as a bargaining tool, and having words she had heard directed at her over the years come from someone she considered a teammate was more than slightly annoying.

I will take that as a compliment for now, she tapped out slowly. As for Barnes, my best idea at the moment is for you to do whatever you need to in order to fix that arm, and include a tracker in it when you're done. Letting him loose for now might be risky, but given time, knowing where he goes and who he's in contact with will give me a better idea of his actual intentions. One corner of her mouth crept upwards in a small, satisfied smirk. And if you can track him, I can anticipate him.

He wanted to pout. He wanted to say, stop being reasonable because you hacked into my systems and JARVIS just let you in because he likes you. Fuckin' JARVIS. Fuckin' Natasha. Fuckin' assassins and super soldiers and brainwashed American icons. Why couldn't he have normal people come by the Tower's residential suites? People he could easily impress with his charm and genius and money?

Well, Barnes had seemed pretty impressed when he'd stopped by, but he didn't count.

She almost snorted to herself as she read his response. Of course his first response would be to retool JARVIS to keep her out in the future. A faint feeling of guilt ran through the back of her mind as she fired off a quick response (but only a faint feeling. She had trained herself out of true guilt a long time ago). She had grown used to thinking of JARVIS as a person all his own. What would new protocols do to the way he was?

Don't rewrite JARVIS just because of me. I have a feeling he was far kinder to me than he could have been. Besides, he's just trying to look out for you. Isn't that what you programmed him to do?

Natasha paused as her screen lit up again, displaying a second message from Stark, probably written on the heels of his first. Her eyes slid up to Barnes standing in the room, staring with faint confusion into the bottom of his coffee, then continued in their slow surveillance of the surrounding space.

JARVIS silenced them before the alarm could sound throughout the house.

If JARVIS had human emotions, he would say that he was impressed with Natasha’s skill. It was rare that anyone had the guts to hack into his system, and rarer still that anyone would get that far. But he didn't, so he focused most of his resources on the security protocols Tony had set up in case of such a situation. He recorded the incident, compressing the information into a single text sent to Tony's cell phone. The rest of his processes went to monitoring Tony's vital signs (normal breathing elevated blood pressure elevated heartbeat), and searching through the database for James Barnes the Winter Soldier.

Tony's phone gave a nearly silent beep, and it took most of his self control to not jump and scream profanities. But it had been muffled by his pocket, so neither of the assassins in the room had heard it. At least, he hoped they hadn't. He casually reached for it, taking a long sip from his mug, and discreetly scanned the text JARVIS had sent him.

He gripped his mug a bit tighter, and hoped that he wasn't reacting too obviously. It wasn't the right time or place for that sort of conversation, and definitely not for the reaction he wanted to have. But honestly, the reaction he wanted to have, which included a lot of yelling about Natasha staying out of his toys and a multitude of curses, probably didn't have a right time or place. Assassins, he mentally scoffed.

Tony took another long swallow from his mug, hoping that he was disguising his slight nod at one of the cameras. The damn AI really did like Natasha, for whatever reason. Tony just hoped that whatever information she was looking up, it would be useful.

These are the currently available results, Agent Romanoff. Judging by their contents, however, some are missing.

There was a small list below the text, mostly references to Captain America's sidekick in someone's reminiscing about the "good old days" or a historical review. There were even fewer mentions of the Winter Soldier, mostly from highly classified intelligence databases, many of which would not appreciate knowing that JARVIS could access their systems. (She was too amused by this knowledge to alert them to that fact. Besides, it could be useful in the future.) Only one result stood out.

"The Adventures of James Barnes' People Watching: Report 1," it read (an odd title, no matter what it was), and it was stored in a little-used server floating around the outskirts of SHIELD's network--the server had linked with the network a ridiculously small amount of times, but its contents had been recorded all the same. A private server, she mused, or a personal one. But what on earth could that odd title indicate?

She tapped the file with one finger and watched the text unfold on her screen.

This...was not what she had been expecting.

It was a long and rambling report about how the writer had spent days waiting to shoot a particular man in a particular marketplace. And it was purportedly written by James Barnes himself. What was this?

Natasha scrolled through it again, more carefully this time, and her left eyebrow quirked upwards as her eyes flicked through the words. The writer--who was possibly James himself--sounded almost as if he were whining as he complained about the drawn-out lead time of the mission. Complaining, and colloquial, and firmly American in his language and his tone. This man is not the soldier I knew, she decided as she reached the end of the report. That should have been a good thing. But a strange pang of loss echoed in her chest as she thought, The soldier is gone.

Maybe he had been telling the truth about working for SHIELD. Maybe. But even then, where were SHIELD's records of his surrender, his employment, his existence, anything? Someone, somewhere, was trying to keep secrets. Natasha's lips flattened as she pressed them together, already plotting her next move. More than a few SHIELD offices would be rifled through in the coming days, not to mention strategic bugs in certain key locations.

Nobody kept secrets from her.

Raising her eyes from her phone, Natasha noticed Stark's white-knuckled grip on his mug and hand slipped partway into his pocket, fingers undoubtedly resting on his phone. JARVIS had alerted him to her actions, she realized, and he didn't seem to be pleased. Under any other situation, she wouldn't have blamed him--but her carefully prepared in-case-of-the-worst contingency plans had all fallen by the wayside, so he would have to deal with the fact that she would take her help where she could find it. Her fingers darted across her screen as she hastily composed and sent a message.

The most important difference between dead girls and ghosts — perhaps the only one you need to know — is this: The dead girl still has a heart.

Take the parts of yourself that make you uncomfortable — your weaknesses, bad thoughts, vanities, and hungers — and pretend they’re across the room.

It’s too ugly to be human. It’s too ugly to be you. Children are afraid of the dark because they have nothing real to work with.

Adults are afraid of themselves.