The shock of discovering the empty grave was huge. This revelation in combination with the fact that a photo existed of a girl with the same violet colored eyes gave Natasha hope that Ksenia was out there. They all made a promise to Sif that they would fill her in on everything that would transpire since she had to leave for Asgard. After she left in the portal, the team started to make their way back to the compound.

After talking more with Dove about his old mentor, Natasha discovered that the child in the photo also had red hair strikingly similar to hers. Their next step was to try and contact the man who had taught Dove everything he knew and get ahold of any information they could in regards to the mysterious Lazarus Project.

"You know," Darcy said as they walked back to the compound to escape the weather, "lazarus refers to being raised from the dead, so this could mean good news right? The only thing is though, is it even possible?"

"What do you mean 'is it possible.'" Bobbi said as she caught up to her. "My team just started dealing with the impossible, 084's, inhumans... and look at the Avengers! Thor and Sif are gods, Captain America and his abilities, the existence of aliens...do you really have to ask if it's possible?"

"Alright fine, you win," Darcy said with a sigh, "but I guess what I'm really asking is how someone found out about her being there in the first place. Loki and Lady Sif were the only ones who knew about the grave, right? And if Lady Sif hasn't ever been back to it until now...that leaves Loki."

"It wasn't him," Natasha said from the front of the group. "Loki can be a lot of things but I don't think it was him."

Thor joined her at the front as they continued on. "How can you know?" he asked.

Natasha stopped, halting the group for a moment before the climb up a snowy covered hill. "I mean that Loki had to of been followed, it's the only other explanation. Think about it, Ksenia was...dead. Project Lazarus had to of been about the person who found her and brought her back to life, if that's even what happened at all."

Everything started making sense but there were still more questions than answers.

As they started the climb, Bobbi panted as she dragged behind and lagged with Dove. "Your being awfully quiet again, something on your mind?"

Dove shot the SHIELD agent a glare and ignored her. He still wasn't over the confrontation from earlier as well as the stories he had heard about one of the greatest HYDRA infiltrations that she was solely apart of. The things that she had to do to climb the ranks and stay undercover was everything he was against.

"Oh I see, the silent treatment. I get it, I made you mad. Would it help if I said I was sorry?" She said it with slight exaggeration, though she didn't really mean to. The long trek they went through today was taking a lot out of her. Though her injuries were healing, a little slower now, she was still not feeling like herself yet. She was over exerting herself but kept pushing her body, wanting it to return to her usual fit self.

Dove continued to ignore her as they walked and sped up so he didn't have to listen to her halfhearted apologies. When she started lagging further behind though he started to get a little concerned.

They only had about a mile or two to go before they got back to the compound and everyone was lost in their own little theories of what had happened to Ksenia. It made Natasha smile, everyone wanted to help her figure out the mystery and she didn't even have to ask. It sucked trying to be strong for herself, but now she had others who would give their lives to help her.

Thor caught up to her and they began discussing where to go from there. It was decided that he would draw too much attention to their little group so he would be returning back to the tower. Natasha threatened him to not talk about anything that had happened at all. She wanted it to be as if Thor had never met up with her, and he was in Asgard the entire time. Darcy joined in their conversation so that left Dove and Bobbi alone.

Dove slowed his pace until he was just ahead of Bobbi, with the other three further up ahead. They walked in total silence until Dove decided to break it. "So now your giving me the silent treatment right?" When he didn't receive an answer, he looked back over his shoulder and saw that she was focusing on her breathing and didn't look so good.

"Hey are you okay?" he asked in concern as he dropped back to her side, all tensions forgotten for the moment.

"Peachy," she panted as she brushed passed him.

"Hey I'm just trying to help; you don't have to be so rude."

The only comment he got was a quick "I'm fine," which pissed him off again.

"Whatever," he said as he sped back up and joined the rest of the team up ahead.

Darcy was the first to notice his sullen demeanor and asked him what was bothering him.

He rolled his eyes at her before answering. "Is she always this passive with people? I was only asking if she was feeling okay before she rudely brushed me off. She looked like shit." He then knew something was wrong when Darcy, and Natasha who had heard, stopped in their tracks before hurrying to Bobbi's side.

"I told you to stop doing this Barbie!" Darcy scolded as she put her arm around Bobbi to support her weight, though Bobbie tried brushing her off.

"I'm fine, just a little winded," she said to which no one believed.

Natasha brushed the snow away from under a tree canopy and then made her sit down.

The pained look in the agent's face told Dove that something had happened that he was not aware of. "What did you tell her to stop doing?" he asked Darcy in confusion.

"I told her to stop pretending like she was fine all the time and to let us know when something was bothering her," she answered. Turning her attention back to Bobbi, she asked her how long she had been feeling like this.

"Relax Sparky, I told you I'm just winded."

"Let me see it then," Natasha said as she lowered herself to Bobbi's level.

Knowing she wasn't going to win, she unzipped her heavy coat and then noticed that she had some blood on her shirt. "Ooops, don't know when that happened," she exclaimed knowing that a few of her stiches must have popped. She pulled her shirt up the rest of the way to expose her huge scar and discovered that it had indeed reopened a little. It wasn't bad but for that to happen, Bobbi must have been pushing herself way too hard.

When Dove saw the large angry wound, he was ashamed of himself for not noticing something was up sooner. He was trained for these sorts of things and he let his emotions cloud his judgement. "What the hell happened to her?" he asked as Natasha pulled the first aid kit out of Bobbi's bag.

They ignored him as Natasha patched it up. He stood with a dumbfounded look with Thor until Bobbi was back on her feet.

"Your right, you just overdid it," Natasha said. "I don't think it's anything to worry about but we should take it slow the rest of the way."

After a short break, the team pushed on though much slower this time. Dove walked with Bobbi and apologized for his actions.

"Look, I'm sorry about before. Once I realized it was you who was the HYDRA mole last year, I got angry. The things I heard about you goes against everything I've been working towards."

Bobbi smiled at the apology. "For the record, I hated every minute of it. I did everything I could to protect the people that I hurt but I was there for good reason. I gave SHIELD as much information about HYDRA plans as I could so that we could use that against them. I sent many people into hiding who would have been killed otherwise. I was never loyal to HYDRA, even for one second. Once I was tipped off that another SHIELD agent had blown her cover, I dropped everything and got her out of there. I saved her life, and then she saved mine."

She said the last part as she gestured towards her stomach. She had saved Jemma Simmons life when HYDRA discovered that she was actually SHIELD under cover. They went on a daring breakout from the HYDRA base and then that was the start of her joining the team.

Dove started to understand more. Maybe he should have given her more of a chance to explain herself. "So what happened to you anyways?"

"Internal bleeding. I got hit pretty hard not to long ago, broke a few ribs and then hid it for about a week; didn't tell anyone. Last week though I saved Natasha from a HYDRA attack and got hit again. The next morning it got really bad so I was in and out for a while, coughing up blood, all that fun stuff. They had to call in some friends to fix me."

"Last week? And you are out here now? Are you crazy or do you have some sort of death wish?"

Natasha who had been listening in turned around at that part and gave Dove a warning look. She knew why Bobbi had kept her condition hidden, it was personal. Natasha and Bobbi both had spilled everything, all the secrets back in their hotel room. To say that it was a death wish or crazy had nothing to do why she kept it to herself.

"Okay fine," Dove said throwing his hands up in defeat while Natasha turned back around, "but you have friends who seem like they would do anything they could to help you, so let them."

The rest of the walk was in silence. The pace was slow but Bobbi was feeling a little better; she felt as if she could use a long nap. It was now late in the day when they got back to the compound so after a rest, they left the phone they brought for Dove and said their goodbyes, bringing Thor with them. They made it back to the truck in good time and the rest of the daylight was used to drive back to their room.

When they parked, everyone started piling out of the cramped truck and Darcy happily jumped from Thor's lap. "Thor, I love you buddy but even with sitting on your lap you take up a lot of room."

Thor laughed in his booming voice. "I told you I could get here just fine without use of the truck, but if I recall, it was you who insisted on me riding with you."

Darcy worked out the kinks in her legs before saying "yeah well, next time I have any bright ideas like that feel free to remind me of this moment exactly."

Thor left not too long after that and made his way back to the tower. Natasha, Bobbi, and Darcy all turned in for the night so that tomorrow they could form a plan as well as gather information on where to go next.

It took Natasha hours for her to fall asleep. Now that she knew Ksenia was missing, it felt like a part of her went missing with it, a part different from the loss she felt before. She had no idea how much more she could stand to lose in this life. Turning her head to see the sleeping face of Darcy next to her, and hearing the breath of Bobbi across the room, she wondered if the world would be cruel enough to take them too. And what about her team back home at the tower? Everywhere she went, death always followed. She debated on whether or not to just get up and leave to protect her friends, but that thought was quickly crushed by the realization that those were her friends she was talking about. They followed her all the way to Russia knowing that there could be danger at every turn. She didn't ask them to, they wanted to simply for the fact that they all cared for each other. She never realized just how much until now. Natasha was then able to fall asleep easily knowing that they would all be together and not give up, ever.

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Back at Avengers Tower the next day, Thor was awoken to Tony standing over his bed with his arms crossed, staring at him.

"Where were you Thor?" he asked suspiciously.

Thor was confused for a moment, where was he? It took him a minute to really wake up and then the events of the past few days came rushing back; he had to lie for Natasha.

He got up and pulled on a sweatshirt to cover his bare chest and tried to casually stretch as if he didn't think anything was wrong. "What do you mean my friend?"

"Where were you these past few days?" Tony asked again, his eyes following him around the room as he watched Thor nervously shuffle around.

"I told you," he began, "I was in Asgard. There has been trouble there and I had to assist Lady Sif with one of our armies."

"I know that, but where were you after that?" Tony asked accusingly.

Thor wasn't sure what to say. Tony was a master at fining information. "I was here..."

"I call bull," Tony interrupted. "You found Natasha didn't you, and don't you dare lie to me."

Tony couldn't say anything, he only looked away. He didn't want to lie but he didn't want to answer him either.

"You were!" Tony yelled as he found his answer. He knew Thor knew something by the way he was acting. Thor never could lie very well.

"Okay, I was with her, but I promised not to say anything about what she was doing," he spilled.

Tony's mouth dropped open. Thor was the last person he thought Natasha would confide in. "What doesn't she want us to know?" he asked bitterly. "We have been looking for her and Darcy everywhere, not knowing if they were in danger or not and you knew something about what was going on. Why didn't you say anything?"

Thor sighed and sat on his bed. The anger in Tony's face wouldn't leave but he vowed to keep his mouth shut. "She told me not to tell, and I promise you it's for good reason my friend."

Tony's face flushed red, he hated not being in the loop. "What do you mean good reason!" he yelled.

Now Thor was angry and he stood, towering over Tony who only stared back at him in defiance. "Don't you trust her?" he asked the billionaire, trying to remain in control.

Tony seemed to deflate at Thor's comment. He did trust her, so why was he so upset?

"I do trust her," he finally answered.

Thor backed off and sat back on the bed. Tony found a seat next to him and sat staring at his hands. "Why would she tell you what's going on and not me? Or the whole team?"

"Tony, trust me when I say that she will eventually have that conversation with you. I was just there at the right moment when she needed someone, and it turned out that I had some information that helped her with her mission. She wouldn't have told me either if I hadn't been there at that moment. It's just hard for her right now, this isn't some small thing she could say in passing."

Tony sighed as he started to understand. "But we are her friends, we would be able to help her with whatever she needed."

Thor placed his hand on his friend's shoulder. "She wants to keep you all safe; the more you know would put you all in more danger."

"Yeah yeah I get it," Tony whined. "I just don't like it."

After a few more minutes of Tony trying to get more information, Thor finally picked him up and sat him down outside of his room. "Go do your robot stuff, friend Stark, Natasha will be alright.

The last thing he heard was a "whatever" as Tony sulked away in a better mood than before he entered the room that morning.

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"I can't find anything about a 'Lazarus Project' in the files I leaked," Bobbi said as she searched through the electronic database that was set up. SHIELD set it up for her time in HYDRA so that she could keep adding information when she could. She also hacked into some other files thanks to old tricks she knew from HYDRA but she wasn't coming up with anything.

From the other bed in the room, Darcy was reading through the files from Natasha's old backpack that Dove had given them. "Try some other search phrases, like purple eyes, or absorption powers, things like that," she offered without taking her eyes of the file in hand.

Bobbi sighed as she pushed the laptop from her lap. "I've tried everything I could think of, and nothing. The only thing relevant is the guy Dove mentioned, Luka. From what I've found on him though, he clean. His personal life is sparse but then again files never focus on that."

"Does it tell you where he is?" Natasha asked as she was also reading through an old file from the couch.

Bobbi skimmed through her info again before answering with a 'no.' "It says he retired due to sickness a few years ago. Let's see..." she trailed off as she tried to dig a little further. "Bingo, he has cancer, not a good prognosis."

"Damn," Darcy said as she looked up. "Do you think he could still be alive?" she asked as she bounced over to Bobbi's side and sat next to her. She watched the blonde scroll and type in a few more things until Bobbi shrugged her shoulders.

"Not sure, I can't find anything else, it's like he either died or just dropped off the face of the earth. My vote is he's dead." Bobbi inwardly cringed as she mentioned death so casually; it hurt her to say it.

"I'm tired of being cooped up in this room," Darcy said when Bobbi closed the laptop. "Let's go do something, get our drink on."

Natasha turned and gave her 'the look' but Darcy ignored it. "Come on Nat, we need to release some tension. Besides, we have disguises now so no one would ever know."

Bobbi gave a small laugh. "Yea, hats and sunglasses are the new standard issue."

"Come on," Darcy begged, "just one drink and then we can come back and keep looking. We could even ask if Skye could help."

"I said no, Darcy. We have been here to long anyways. If we blow our covers now..." Natasha trailed off, not knowing how else to say it.

"Natasha is right Darcy. And besides, drunk agents on a mission never goes right." Bobbi said the last part with a light in her eyes as if there was something funny that she wasn't telling.

Darcy dropped the conversation after that, knowing that the senior agents knew what they were talking about.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Not too far away in a desolate part of Russia...

"Thea, we have a ping. The database is picking up multiple searches...we have to move... NOW!"

The two grabbed all of their emergency gear as well as their precious cargo and packed it into one of the vehicles.

"I need you to go, get to the next safe house and stay there until I contact you with further information," Thea said to the other gentleman. "Someone is looking for us so I need you out of the way so I can deal with them."

"What are you going to do?" the older gentleman asked the young woman.

She looked over her shoulder as she walked towards her truck, "they don't call me a mercenary for nothing."

As Thea drove, she flipped through the information she had gathered on the hackers. The database she and her partner had set up was set to go off when the information within was searched for. She memorized the location and then set her phone down to formulate an attack. She knew the hack didn't come from HYDRA, they would have let her know if they were going to mess with the file. No, it came from an outside source and they knew about the project. She had to get to them before they got to her.

She felt her blades tucked away at her sides and smiled at the fun she was about to have.