The lost Widow - Natasha Romanoff x Female

Chapter XI

Warning: slight mention of violence

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The silence was loud as they all four stood behind the glass that only they could see through. Steve seemed particularly affected by the failure, his hands were clenched into fists and it almost looked like he was trying to crush the air between his fingers. Wanda was silent, as she had been the whole time, watching. She was good at that, at observing.

  "We have to keep going," Bucky said. He, too, was not thrilled that they had wasted over an hour without getting anything remotely resembling an answer to their questions. His gaze bored through the glass and into the captive's head, who looked back down at her lap. For 15 minutes. You might as well have put a straw doll in her place. The question arose in Bucky's mind as to whether Steve had perhaps done something wrong. What could he have done differently? What would he, Bucky, have done differently? He thought about it and shuddered at his own thoughts, at the idea of interrogating the stranger himself. Bound hand and foot, his hands tied behind her back against the wall.
  He would question her, demand answers and if he didn't get any, he would act. He would start lightly, perhaps with a slap, a punch in the stomach. The fist of his artificial arm would leave bruises, burst open the skin above her high cheekbone. And he would hear nothing but the contact he made with her body, how the air was squeezed out of her lungs. But it would drag on, because she was tough, he could see that immediately, Hydra made sure that none of her men (in this case woman) buckled. So, he would have to resort to harsher means at some point. He would strip her of her clothes, her jacket, her T-shirt and her tracksuit bottoms. The underwear would stay. He would ask her once more, gently running the knife over her skin without exerting any pressure. But she would resist, would refuse to say anything. And then he would cut her. Not deeply, perhaps first on her hip, or a small cut on the back of her neck. She would sense that he was serious.

  "Hey, you okay?" Bucky pulled himself out of his thoughts and looked down at the pen lying shattered in his hand. He quickly dropped the splinters in the rubbish. "Yes. Yes, all good." How could he lose himself like that? "What do we do now?"
  "The others are all busy," Steve pondered aloud, seeming to ignore Bucky's behaviour easily.
 "I'll go back inside. She can't do more than keep quiet."
  "Alright," Bucky replied. Still slightly winded, he saw Steve leave the room and close the door behind him before reappearing on the other side of the window a few seconds later.
  "So..." The rest of what he said went past Bucky's ears, because only now did he feel Wanda's gaze at his back, making it impossible for him to concentrate on the conversation in front of him. Bucky opened his mouth to say something, but Tony, who had also been staring through the glass, was quicker. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave for a moment, Bruce needs help in the lab. If anything happens should she-" he pointed at the blonde girl, "cause any problems, just let me know." Bucky nodded absentmindedly and Wanda only looked at Tony for a moment as he said goodbye and then disappeared through the door. Now there were two of them and the silence in the room was tense to breaking point.
  "What's going on?" Bucky finally asked.

When Wanda became part of the team back then, the two had hardly spoken to each other, there just never seemed to be the right opportunity. But after a while, when Wanda had settled in a little, they trained together for the first time, admittedly not entirely voluntarily, and got talking. Wanda knew that Bucky had also once been captured by Hydra, but she hadn't known the exact story before. Bucky's stories about his time with the organisation made her realise a few things and her sympathy for the man grew. Now they could almost be called friends. They had found someone in each other with whom they could talk about their thoughts, about their past. Bucky had Steve and Wanda had Natasha, both of whom always showed that they were there for their friends, but it was just different to talk to someone who had been through the same thing.
The coldness in her gaze shrank. "Nothing, nothing. What's should be wrong?" The witch wasn't bad at lying, not really, but this time it had been too obvious. "Are you sure?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.
  "Yes." Wanda laughed briefly. "Sure, what could be wrong?"
  "Nothing, right."
The silence hung thick in the air again, but at least Wanda was no longer icing him. Had she read his mind? It wasn't impossible, but Wanda was very respectful, especially when it came to the privacy of others, and strictly refused to simply go for a stroll in their thoughts.