Part I: She's Been Everybody Else's Girl, Maybe Someday She'll Be Her Own

And Castles Are Burning In My Heart

The license plate belonged to a recently stolen car that was recovered, more or less unharmed, later that same day. So that led nowhere. Kronas was a better piece of information, and Natasha hoped that Jin-Taek wouldn't be punished for saying it. The company supplied oil and had operations in several major cities around the world. None in Odessa, though, so an in-person investigation would have to wait.

Natasha managed to keep her ticket to Warsaw, figuring that AIM wouldn't stick around town after taking Jin-Taek. The two of them had been several hours early for their flight, and she'd done what she could think of on the scene. There weren't any local leads to follow anyway, and maybe Fury could help. He knew why the physicist had been in danger in the first place, after all. So she settled in her seat and considered how many hours she had to rescue him.

It was unlikely that they took him just to kill him. They could have much more easily killed him there in Odessa, if that was the goal. No doubt they had some project that only he could complete for them. Good thing Fury had his cousin, Go Eun, because AIM would be searching out any kind of hostages that might make him work harder, or prevent his trying to escape. According to her intel, there were no such hostages readily available, which would make this easier.

The flight didn't last very long, which was a relief – Natasha hated inaction when there was a problem to solve. Even if waiting was often necessary in her line of work. She had tried to get in contact with Fury before getting on the plane, but was not successful. So she was not looking forward to going to the meet without her companion, and very much hoped that his cousin would not be there waiting. Dealing with her failure would be hard enough without a shocked civilian present.

From the airport she took a taxi to a hotel, walked a few blocks, took another taxi, and walked again until she got to a park. It was small and pretty empty this late at night. In another life, she might have been worried about her safety in such a place. But she rarely worried about that anymore. Settling on a bench, she watched the rare passerby and waited patiently, going over what she would say.

"They got him?" Nick's voice interrupted her, and she looked up sharply.

"Yeah." She was relieved to see he was alone. Well, relatively – it was quite possibly that the other park-goers were his people.

"Where?" he wanted to know, shifting his weight.

"Odessa."

He smiled grimly. "You don't have your best luck there, seems like."

"I guess not," was her quiet response. "What are we going to do about this?"

Nick let out a sigh as he sank onto the bench next to her. "This isn't SHIELD, Natasha. We don't have the resources to track down AIM."

"Then how did you – ?"

"Know that he was being approached? You remember Helen Cho?"

Surprised by the question, she nodded slowly. "The woman who made Vision? Of course. I thought she went back to South Korea after the Accords."

"She didn't. Moved to Arizona with her husband."

"Why?" Given the woman's interest in Thor, she hadn't expected a husband to be in the picture. Then again, it was Thor.

Shrugging, Nick glanced at her. "Could be she didn't like how the Accords might refer to her. Could be U-GIN didn't welcome her back after she left them to work with the heroes. Could be she likes a dry heat."

She snorted. "I'm sure that's it."

"Jin-Taek Choi used to be one of her lab assistants. He did some work on the project before going his own way, but they stay in touch. When he asked her for advice about being harassed, she let me know."

Natasha swallowed to keep her voice neutral when she spoke again. "She knew how to contact you?"

Understanding, Nick was silent for a few moments. "I didn't abandon you."

"No?" she asked politely.

"You chose not to come with me. I let you do your thing for a year, and then, when we met again, you were happy to stay on as an Avenger. I wasn't going to drag you back down into this when you could be a hero. I'm glad Clint put us back in touch after all that with General Ross."

She didn't answer – all the things she wanted to say were piling up and she couldn't pick one.

"I'm sorry, Natasha," he offered after a pause.

"Me too," she replied as she got to her feet.

"What are you going to do?"

She glanced back at him, angry. "I'm going to save Jin-Taek, even if I have to do it alone."

"Natasha," Nick said gently, standing as well. "You don't have to be alone."

"What's my other option, Nick? Because it sounds like you've washed your hands of him," she replied coldly.

He folded his arms across his chest, clearly unused to being addressed like that. "We don't have the resources, but you were always my best agent. If you can find him, I may be able to help you get him out."

Her shoulders relaxed and she nodded. "Thank you, Nick." She held out her hand, and he shook it. "Trail's getting cold – I'll talk to you when I can."

"Good luck," he called after her, and she hurried away, trying not to think about how much the former Director of SHIELD was showing his age.

Now came the unglamorous part, the part where she read files and compiled data. The part where she looked at maps and press releases to figure out where ever AIM had influence. The part where she researched past and present employees and any land they were holding that might be a convenient storage location for a prisoner.

It was boring and it took several days. Natasha stayed in Warsaw throughout, having nowhere else to go in particular. Nick sent another apology – short and to the point, and she supposed she would have to start forgiving the people in her life who had left her or she would be alone for a long time.

Steve had understood her, but caused her to lose the only family she had. Clint had retired instead of dealing with it, and then been on the opposite side. Bruce... Well, he'd left, too. And Nick hadn't trusted her with the fact that he hadn't been killed by the Winter Soldier, and now hadn't trusted her to know where he was while he worked in the shadows after SHIELD fell. It was beginning to seem like this whole friendship thing wasn't working out.

Though research and analyzing had never been her part of the job, she was good at it. Fieldwork was where she shined, but she had served however possible. And, with the Avengers, it was important to hone other skills because she was significantly outmatched by the others on her team in terms of combat abilities. So she methodically worked her way through what most of her peers considered the boring part of the job until she had a good picture of places to investigate.

Then she began investigations in person. She burned through covers as she traveled, flirting at fancy parties, interrogating people of interest (both subtly and directly), infiltrating office buildings and bases, gathering more information from AIM's own databases, until the search brought up a very important revelation: Jin-Taek Choi was nowhere to be found.

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