Chasing Shadows ;; Steve Rogers

eight.

Warning: there is some mention of torture, and slightly implied rape at the end of this chapter. Please skip the last part of this chapter if that is going to trigger you.

It had taken Tony and Bruce approximately 2 hours to find where Vasili Dassaiev might be. He wasn't seen in any of the known locations. But they had traced an old factory to a shell company in a remote part of his enterprise. He had acquired it recently, and as far as they could tell. It was isolated and far out in the depths of Siberia. It had been a factory for prison workers to work in decades now. Now, it sat silent and empty. The perfect place for a secret lair.

Ana sat on the Quinjet, the Leviathan card in her hands. She had been so sure she had defeated them, so sure they wouldn't be able to do what they did to her to anyone else. Vasili was the financer of the operation, but he didn't deal with the day to day dealings of it, or so she thought. Or she would have killed him too. Was this because of her carelessness?

"Ana, we need to talk," Natasha came to sit next to her.

"What part of no is too difficult for you to understand?" Ana rolled her eyes, clutching the card in her hand.

"It isn't about that," Natasha said. "I know you aren't ready to talk to me about that, and I won't push you."

"Then what do you want?" Ana looked at her suspiciously.

"I thought I killed Dreykov years ago," she said. "I thought he was dead and I was done. Turns out the snake got away." She looked at Ana. "I know what unfinished business looks like."

Ana remained quiet. She didn't want to admit Natasha was right. This was unfinished business for her.

"The thing with unfinished business is that it always comes back to haunt you," Natasha continued. "It's the ghost towns we live our lives in. And if we're not careful, it's the ghost towns we get lost in."

"Are you a philosopher now?" Ana asked. "Was that philosophical bullshit you want to try to teach me?"

Natasha rolled her eyes. "No one likes a smart ass. Ana, what I'm saying is you need to treat this like a mission. Nothing more. Or it will consume you."

"Like you did with Dreykov?" Ana asked, her tone laced with sarcasm. "Tell me, Natasha, does he still haunt you? Do you regret not killing him correctly the first time, knowing you could have saved your precious Yelena years of suffering at his hands? Does it consume you?"

"Dreykov doesn't haunt me anymore," Natasha answered her. "What haunts me now is the regret I have with you. I should have known Madame B was lying. She was lying to us both. I should have found you. I should have protected you."

Ana laughed. "I hope it haunts you until you choke," she said.

"Look, I'm just saying, I know what you're going through right now," Natasha sighed. "And if you need to talk about it, well I'm here. I know it helped me burn down my ghost town, having people to talk to."

"You don't know what I'm going through," Ana said after a moment, the anger bristling in her bones. "And I don't need to talk to you about anything. You want to brag about your weakness, that's your business. We are not the same, Natasha."

"It's not a weakness to have people," Natasha said quietly. "People are better than no people."

"I prefer no people," Ana said, standing up and walking away from her.

She sat down on the other side of the Quinjet, leaning her head back against the wall and closing her eyes. She just wanted this over with. She wanted to move on from this and be on her own again. She just needed to know if it was really Leviathan, if they'd really brought it back. And if they had, she was going to make sure she burned it to the ground this time. Natasha was right. She had unfinished business here. She didn't need to talk about it. She needed to watch it go up in flames.