It's not what it seems

3

I woke up, still in the red room. The only other people there were dead. They must have thought I was dead too. I tried to push myself up, but my knee had other plans. I remembered being shot and I wanted to look at it, but I heard sounds coming from the hall. I got up as quickly as I could, and that was pretty slow, and hid myself behind the door, for lack of a better hiding place. I grabbed a gun from a nearby body and checked if it was loaded. It still had four bullets, not much, but hopefully enough. Someone walked into the room, he looked around and he saw me. I killed him before he could do anything, then, when nobody came to look. I slowly crawled out of my hiding place to get out of there.

It was night already, what day, I didn't know. All I knew was that I was walking, or at least I tried to walk, it was more some sort of limping, through the dark alleys of Moscow. At some point I heard people talking, one voice came my way. I saw a flashlight. "I'm sure I heard something here," a male voice said. I quickly pulled the hood of the hoodie I stole over my head. The flashlight shone on me. "Oh damn," the voice said, and it sounded oddly familiar. "What's wrong?" a woman's voice asked. "Nothing, just a woman with a gun." "A what now?" The man approached me. "Calm down, I'm not going to hurt you, oh wow, uh, her clothes are bloodstained." "Tony get away from her!" Tony? "Why? She doesn't look dangerous." I now recognized the voice as Stark's. "You said she has a gun." Pepper walked into the light of Tony's flashlight. She gasped, "Oh my god." "Yeah, she looks a bit horrifying." "A bit, Tony, she's got blood all over her clothing and she clearly got stab wounds." I looked down at myself. "That's why she needs help." "I don't even think she understands you." I rolled my eyes. Please, I can understand you perfectly. "I'm just wondering what happened to her. Maybe it got something to do with that alarm going off somewhere in the city." "That would be too big of a coincidence Tony." I smiled. "Well then," I said in a hoarse voice, "this is too big of a coincidence." They both looked at me. "She understood our whole conversation," Pepper said, looking slightly surprised. Tony on the other hand looked as if he saw water burning. Pepper looked at him, "Tony?" "I... I thought I... her voice..." "What's with her voice?" "It sounded familiar to me." In the meanwhile, I was leaning on a wall to my left, my left foot slightly from the ground. Tony slowly walked over to me. "Tony don't!" He did it anyway, because Tony never listens to anyone. Well, not never but, oh well, you know what I mean, he's a stubborn idiot sometimes. He lowered the hood of my stolen hoodie and shone his with his phone flashlight right into my face. I quickly closed my eyes. "Natasha," I heard Tony whisper. "Natasha? You mean Natasha Romanoff?" "Yes, it's Nat. Natasha?" I opened my eyes. "What happened?" I suddenly felt dizzy and I also had a terrible headache, signs of a concussion, which wouldn't be too weird, since I was pretty sure I hit my head on something hard. But I didn't remember what exactly had happened. I shook my head, "I don't remember. Or at least not all of it." I suddenly felt sick. He looked at me. "Pepper, call an ambulance." "No, please no!" "Nat, you need one." I sighed, he was right, but I didn't want to explain what I did know. "If they ask you what happened, just play dumb," he told me. I nodded, "Already planning to do that." Pepper called an ambulance and it arrived quickly, turned out we were close to the hospital. I needed surgery, the bullet was still in my leg and it needed to be taken out. The rest of that day passed in a haze of sleeping and throwing up. Not one of my best days, let's keep it on that.

The next day I felt better, I still had a headache, but I could live with that. Since my wounds weren't life threatening I was free to go. And since I had nowhere to go Tony took me to a house he bought somewhere in Russia, just outside Moscow. "It's more of a summer house really, we're only decorating it a bit right now. And why are you in Russia?" "Long story." "I'm sure we've got enough time." "You know, I'm surprised you didn't turn me in yet." "Natasha." "Okay, I'll tell you. We were on a mission." "We? You and who?" "Steve." There was silence for a few seconds, until I realized, "STEVE!" "What's whit him?" "He's still there, I didn't have time to warn him, this is not good, his cover is blown." "Okay, please calm down and tell me what happened." "Well, we were on a mission to take down a KGB base, which was also their headquarters, but that's not very relevant now. Anyway, we had a plan, but I'm pretty sure the leader, Anastasia, found out, because she poisoned me." "But you're still alive." "Not all poisons kill, this one only slowly paralyses. So, I was sure she was going to kill me when I was paralysed. To make sure that wouldn't happen I stabbed her right through her heart, but she pushed some kind of alarm button, which created complete chaos. After that I only remember being shot in my leg and hitting my head on something hard." "And Steve was in that building too?" "Yes, he was undercover as a Hydra agent." "Hydra," he said, he tried to hide his shock, but he failed. "The KGB formed a pact with Hydra, so yes, he was dressed up as a Hydra agent, but I'm pretty sure they knew about that too. He must be captured." "Dammit. Where do you think they're keeping him now?" well, since Kiev was the second biggest base, my bet is on Kiev." "Kiev huh?" "Yes, Ukraine once belonged to the Soviet remember, they got bases there too. Tony, we need to go there." "We don't need to do anything." "Tony I can't leave Steve there." "Sorry, I meant you are going nowhere. I'm going alone." "Tony are you crazy?" "No, maybe." "I'm coming with you." "No you're not, you can't fight, you got a shot wound, seven stab wounds and a concussion remember." He was right, I couldn't fight. "I can handle it." "Tony, you don't know how dangerous they are." "I've dealt with terrorists Natasha, I can handle it." I sighed, "Fine, can you give me a piece of paper and a pen?" "What do you need that for?" "So I can draw you a map of the building." "Oh," he handed me a pen and a piece of paper and I drew him a map.