Shadows and Secrets (A MCU FanFic)

Chapter 28: Files

Nat's POV

"Who are you texting?" Nat said, trying to look over his shoulder.

"What—Natalia! How did you get in my room?" Bucky glared at her, shoving his phone in his pocket.

"The fact that you don't know is disappointing. You are not worthy of my time."

"You got in through the air vents."

Nat glared at him. "Fine. You win this one." You annoying emo geek. "But you have to help me!"

Bucky sat up straighter. "What's wrong?"

"I'm trying to piece things together. Have you heard of a foreign informer that goes by the alias 'The Banker'?"

"No, I don't think so. Why?"

Nat nodded to herself. "Come with me."

He looked perplexed, and Nat rolled her eyes. Bucky followed her to her room, where she had already gathered Clint and some supplies.

Nat locked the door and joined Clint and Bucky on the floor. "You're probably wondering why I've gathered you here."

Clint and Bucky glanced at each other. "Uh, yeah?" Clint said.

"Well–" Nat uncapped a marker and picked up a sticky note, starting to write– "I was suspicious of Fury keeping things from us, so I looked through his computer."

Clint and Bucky glanced at each other again. Nat ignored this and continued. "Fury is very careful not to leave a large digital footprint, so I could only recover some code words from his emails.

"There is a person I believe to be a foreign informer called 'The Banker,' and an acronym: 'HAEIW'. I'm not sure what it stands for.

"From the context of the emails it seems like Fury does not have all the information yet, but is looking into it. Using this information, I assumed that there must be a SHIELD file, however incomplete, so I have a copy here."

Nat picked up a file and flipped through it, showing it to the two boys. "It is shockingly empty.

"I think that we might have a new enemy organization on our hands." Like Hydra wasn't enough. And then there were aliens, androids, and wizards... they had way too many enemies.

Bucky's frown deepened and he appeared lost in thought. "If I've ever heard of them, I don't remember."

Clint picked up the file and flipped through it. "...It seems that we have no solid intelligence, just blant speculation."

"Yeah..." But Nat knew that all of Fury's speculations and vague suspensions came true, at least loosely. "But I think the missions Fury has been sending us on is to gather intelligence on ...HAEIW." Yeah, that acronym is not it.

Clint put down the file and looked at Nat. "What was on that file anyway?"

"I don't know. I gave the drive to Colson when we got back."

Clint frowned and Bucky raised an eyebrow skeptically. "You made a copy, right?" they said simultaneously.

Nat chuckled. "You guys know me so well." She dangled the flash drive from her finger.

"Have you looked at it yet?" Clint asked.

"No. I was waiting for you two."

"Nice of you," Bucky said dryly.

Nat rolled her eyes. Secretly, she was glad of his sarcasm. It meant that he was starting to come out of his shell. Bucky was more present recently; more involved in the group. (Still not very much, though.)

He hadn't been talking the first month they got him back. Bucky had only said one-to-three-word sentences, and only when asked a direct question. Most of the Avengers had given him space and avoided Bucky.

The only ones that made a large effort to get him to talk were herself, Steve, and Marjorie. At the time, Nat had been confused by this. She and Steve already had connections to Bucky, but Marjorie's only prior interaction had been in a fight. Also, it had seemed out of character. Marjorie seemed to be shy around new people.

Maybe, Nat hypothesized, she had just had a crush on him. Actually, that probably explained a lot of things. Statistically, Marjorie talked way more if Bucky was there. Otherwise, she was more in the background.

But that didn't happen very often; Bucky was practically glued to Marjorie. He followed her around like a bodyguard. It was honestly really sweet how protective he was of Marjorie.

They were practically made for each other.

Nat had pulled up the file on her computer. It had one of those stupid loading bars and was stuck at thirteen precent. "We might be here awhile."

"Great," Clint said sarcastically. "And here I thought we would actually find something out today."