"Damn it!" Tony Stark yelled in frustration as he lost the contact with the satellite he had been using to try and find Natasha and Darcy. "You lost it again?" Clint Barton asked though he already knew the answer. The two had been at it non-stop for the past few days when Tony picked up a lead as to where they could have been. Something had been bothering him ever since him and Thor had that talk about trust when Tony busted him for going to meet up with Natasha. "Yeah, I did. Its like as soon as I'm sure I've got something, it just...stops working. Satellites don't just stop working. And this one in particular isn't even in use so I doubt anyone would be monitoring it." Clint sighed in frustration. He wanted to give Natasha some space but at the same time he knew that it just wasn't like her to run off like she had without even telling him a thing. It bothered him just as much as it did Tony. Tony had been at it for days, but Clint knew that he wouldn't find much, Natasha knew how to stay off the radar.

"Any luck?" Steve Rogers asked as he entered the lab where Clint and Tony had been working. Tony glanced up from his computer to give him a look of annoyance which told Steve everything. "They keep moving," he answered dryly, "and every time I think I have something, poof, it's gone."

Steve thought for a moment before offering a suggestion that no one else had really thought of. "What if we aren't the only ones trying to find her? What if Fury changed his mind and sent a team after her?" Everyone in the room paused for a moment before relaxing. "Nahhh, Clint said as he crossed his arms while joining Tony at the computer. "We have contacts that would have tipped us off. And I'm sure Hill would have told me."

"Maria? Why would she have told you and not us?" Tony asked skeptically. "They have a history, Tony, we've been on a few missions together and believe it or not, her and Nat are pretty close." Tony pondered for a moment before returning back to his work. He was getting pretty tired of these dead ends, but he did discover a few days later that Steve was actually right, but only partially.

"Guys!" He yelled over the intercom system of the tower, "meet me in my lab, I found something." As soon as Steve and Clint made it to the lab, they found Tony typing furiously away on his computer. "What?" Clint asked as he hurried over expecting to see video surveillance or even a picture of Nat. He didn't see that, but he did see a lot of code.

"Look!" Tony said as Clint tried to understand what was going on, and Steve was even more lost than him. "I can't stop or I'll lose it, but read it!"

"Its just a bunch of random letters Tony, what are we supposed to be seeing?" Steve asked. When he didn't get an answer, he looked harder and spotted it. Clint saw it first and then pulled up a chair next to Tony who was sweating as he concentrated on what he was trying to do.

"I don't know how much longer I can keep it open, I'm no good at this kind of stuff but look, her name keeps popping up as well as Barnes and someone called Grekov." Clint expected Tony to be more excited, but he was the exact opposite. "What exactly is this Tony?" he asked before the connection was lost.

In frustration, Tony pushed the computer off the table and slammed his hands on the empty space. The crash reverberated around the room and the Avengers waited until Tony calmed down. "You were right Steve, someone else is looking for them, but it isn't SHIELD. I don't know who it is, but they have been piggybacking on what I've found and then kicking me out of the system."

"What does that even mean?" Steve asked. Tony then rounded on them with anger in his face, "It means that I've been leading them right to her, or close to her. I've been picking up whoever Grekov is, not Natasha. Either way, Grekov and Romanoff are connected and if I've been leading them to Grekov, I've also been leading them to Nat."

"How, exactly," Clint asked though he was pretty sure he knew already.

"The satellite. I thought it wasn't working right but I was wrong, someone else was using it and then inactivating it so I couldn't get an exact location. I came across THEM using it just now and tried to peek into their code to see who it was. And let me tell you, whoever it was, they are good, and I mean scary good. I can't even get back in."

"Yeah because you broke your computer," Clint said to try and lighten the mood; no one laughed, Natasha was in danger.

On the other hand, Natasha was fighting to stay strong. Isolation, one of the many methods that the Red Room had perfected as a torture method. Natasha had been moved to a room that had zero light and zero sound. There wasn't as much as a pinprick of light coming from anywhere in the room and the smooth walls offered no relief from the nothingness of the room. The fear she felt of being back in the clutches of evil roared in her ears as she fought to stay sane and in control of her current situation.

Scouring every possible inch of the tiny room and finding nothing was proving to be a dauntless task but she knew she had to stay busy if she wanted to make it out of there with her mind still intact. The only thing she could do was trace over the scars on her body and do small workouts to the best of her abilities as to not reopen her healing wounds. She had dug out a bullet before being thrown into this room and she almost wished she hadn't, as it would have given her something to do. She could hear her heartbeat echoing around the room and the steady rhythm threatened to driver her insane. As quiet as she tried to be, any small movement sounded like rockets going off, so she stopped the workouts and focused on the new scars she had acquired in the past month. As she got to know them, she made more. Just small little cuts here and there, enough for the pinpricks of pain to pull her out of the abyss.

Natasha spent three days in that room, and when the door finally opened, it wasn't her friends that had come to her rescue, it was Ivan and his henchmen. No, not Ivan, it was Yuri. To be able to distinguish between to the two was a victory for her; the isolation room was designed to make even the sanest person go mad, to get so lost in your thoughts that you could suffer from memory loss, and she had beat it.

The tired smirk she gave Yuri almost made him stick her back in there for a few more days, but he had work to do and she clearly still refused to be broken. He watched as she squinted against the dim light in the hallways and scowled as she stumbled along confidently. Was there anything that could break her? She's had no food or water for days, and she had lost so much blood when she was first brought to him. He needed her alive though, he would have to find another way to bend her to his will like his father before him had.

Natasha grunted as she was shoved into a new room and ended up on the floor. Her legs were supposed to catch her, but they failed in her weakened state. The door was immediately shut, and she crawled to the furthest corner of the room and collapsed against the wall. The small sounds of the world around her were like music to her ears. She smiled as she remembered the bewildered look on Yuri's face when she came out of that room; she only hoped that she didn't piss him off too bad to do something even worse. The buzzing of the only lightbulb in the room almost lulled her to sleep but she was snapped out of it when the door opened once again. Expecting to see Yuri, she was disappointed to see a guard enter carrying a small bag. He looked a little startled to see her so alert and all but threw the bag across the room to her before abruptly leaving.

Expecting some sort of trick, she cautiously opened it to see two bottles of water and some sort of unidentifiable block of food, as well as some bandages, alcohol and a new pair of clothes. She thought about not touching any of it in case this was some sort of trick, like the water and food being poisoned, but she rationalized that if she was pulled from that room, Yuri wanted her at least coherent. She knew how empty stomachs worked, so she slowly sipped from one of the bottles and nibbled on the food as she cleaned her wounds with the stinging alcohol. She wrapped what she could and then scowled at the clothes. She would rather stay in her bloodied winter clothes than the tank top and shorts that were waiting for her in the bag, so she did. She instead used the bag with the clothes in it as a pillow and attempted to get some rest.

As Natasha fought to remain strong still in Russia, the rest of her team was getting close to Avengers Tower. They had stopped to refuel once on their two-day trip and debated on whether or not to alert the rest of the Avengers to the fact that they were coming. It was decided not to, and only because they didn't want any information being shared over the airwaves. Echo could speculate all they wanted to but who in their right mind would attack Avengers Tower to get to the child? They had to know that she was with them, and they could probably track them to the tower, but they had to be smart enough not to mess with the Avengers base.

"20 minutes out," Dove called when the jet was nearing the tower. Darcy cringed in anticipation of Tony's reaction. A shot of nervousness flooded her system when she realized that they were still dressed in the same clothes from their most recent battle. They had stopped to refuel quickly and had to get back in the air before their signal was picked up. All three of them were covered in not only their blood, but the blood of the Echo agents from when Thea was taken. She could only imaging what Tony was going to do and hoped that Jane wouldn't be there.

As soon as Darcy and the team hit their 20-minute mark, Tony was alerted by JARVIS that an unknown jet was headed on a track straight for the tower. Upon further investigation, their path hadn't wavered and was indeed on its way. He called Clint and Steve to meet him in the lab as he tried to make contact, but the jets communication system had been cut off. They debated on whether or not to lock the tower down, and they eventually did, leaving only the hangar open so that they could meet their 'guests.' Deep down, Tony hoped that it would be Natasha on that jet, but somehow, he knew that it wouldn't be her based on the circumstances. It just had to be the group that he discovered on the other end of the satellite.

When they made it to the hangar, they kept their weapons hot and within minutes, a small black jet made its landing. It took a few moments but when the door finally opened, a familiar voice calls out for them to put their weapons down.

"Wait!" the female voice called from the darkness within.

Tony immediately relaxed, "I know that voice," he murmured in relief.

"Put your weapons down you idiots, it's me," Darcy called as she poked her head from around the opening of the jet. When she saw that the team was relaxed, she stepped down and half expected Jane to come running from a corner, but she wasn't there. Though she was bummed, the cheerful faces of Tony, Clint, and Steve would be sure to lift her spirits, but the faces she saw was not joyful.

"What the hell happened?" the boys all yelled as they strided over to the disheveled looking girl. As soon as they saw her in the light, the bloodied clothes as well as the bumps, cuts, and bruises sent them into a worried frenzy. Darcy looked confused for a moment until she realized that she still wasn't cleaned off from the last fight. She put her hands up and insisted that she was fine, and they started to relax.

Dove chose that moment to peek his head out from the jet and the boys regarded him suspiciously while trying to read Darcy's now solemn mood. Before she could introduce him, Dove popped back into the jet just as Tony's scanner started to go off, and Darcy knew exactly what it had just picked up.

"Darcy get back! He's HYDRA," Tony commanded as he lifted his lasers back up to the jet. A quick glance beside him showed that Clint and Steve were also ready, but Darcy started pulling him back by his shoulder.

"He's fine, guys. He's ex-HYDRA and has been helping me...us with our...thing. I trust him with my life," Darcy pleaded as she explained his situation.

"Darcy..." Clint began before giving up and starting over, "what exactly have you gotten yourself into."

"A whole shitload," a new voice, Bobbi, chimed in from the entrance of the jet. Dove was carrying her down as he eyed the situation before him warily. He had heard what Tony said, and he trusted that Darcy's word would be enough to diffuse the whole HYDRA situation.

"Bobbi Morse, long time no see," Clint laughed as he strided forward to check her out. "You look like shit."

"Shut up, Barton," she said weakly from Dove's arms.

"We need to get her inside," Clint announced in urgency at the sight of the woman as he moved to take her warily from Dove. Dove on the other hand moved back protectively. "I've got her," he said to Clint as he brushed passed him and hurried after Darcy who had begun to head inside.

"Guy's, what the hell?" Steve asked as he looked just as confused with the whole situation as Tony and Clint did.

"Language," Tony scolded as he shook his head and followed after Darcy and her new team. He then included the hangar in the lockdown and couldn't help but glance back at the now empty jet, to which Natasha never emerged.

Down in the lab, Clint cleared off a table against the wall for Dove to set Bobbi on. She opted to lean against the wall as she grimaced in pain while Darcy hopped up beside her. Dove seemed to stand guard next to Bobbi and watched as Tony and Clint flew around the lab, gathering medical supplies. Steve stood awkwardly near the injured group and watched as Bobbi adjusted herself and realized that she had not once moved her arms from their cradled position over her coat. Tony and Clint rejoined him then and dumped the last armful of supplies next to Dove on a chair.

"Alright, Bobbi first. Can you take off your coat?" Clint asked as he looked them all over, already knowing who was the worst off. When she didn't move and none of them seemed to be able to make eye contact with anyone but each other, he crossed his arms and gave the group a stern look while Tony threw his arms up in frustration.

"Enough with the secrets guys!" Tony yelled in complete frustration. "What aren't you telling me this time Darcy? And don't you dare lie to me," he demanded as the brunette sheepishly looked up at him.

"Lower your voice Tony, or you'll wake her up," she said as all three of the boys stared at her in confusion. She then gave Bobbi a look before continuing. "And absolutely NO questions OR answers until you cut all camera and audio feeds to this room.

"Why would I..." Tony stuttered until a fierce look from Darcy and Bobbi made him rethink his question. After a quick stare off, Tony gave up and then grabbed his tablet, clicking away until throwing it back on a table. "There, now what..." he trailed off as she noticed Bobbi's jacket unzip and her gently hand a sleeping baby to Darcy.

No one said a word for a few moments until Bobbi felt eyes on her. She glared back before responding, "not mine." Eyes then shifted to Darcy who then followed suit, "not mine either." When the boys looked to Dove, he shook his head incredulously and said, "really guys? It's white."

This got a laugh from Darcy and the mood lightened in the room. Clint got to work with Bobbi, and eventually he had Darcy take her into the bathroom to change so he would be able to get to her injuries better. They were all still in their bulky winter clothing. Darcy changed as well, and Tony got Dove a change of clothes too. When Tony saw Bobbi and Darcy in their shorts and tank tops, he realized that the small team must have gone through hell and back. No questions were asked as the Avengers got to work on the group. Clint started to ask Bobbi about her stiches already going across her middle but decided against it when he noticed her eyelids begin to droop. He then started a transfusion for her and over the next half hour, observed the color coming back into her cheeks.

After getting Bobbi stitched back up, he moved to Darcy, who instead of handing the baby to the waiting Steve, handed her back to Bobbi. Steve then grabbed a blanket and covered Bobbi's shivering form and offered her and Dove some coffee. Dove accepted but Bobbi refused as she instead leaned against Dove and rested. When everything was done, the group expected to be berated with questions, but it was Tony who suggested that they all get some rest, that the questions could wait until morning.

"No, they can't," Darcy said in determination. "We came back because we need your help, Natasha needs your help."

Dread filled Tony's heart, he knew where this was going. I led them straight to her, he thought.

"She was taken, and we have no way of knowing where they went. We have got to get her out of there before it's too late..." she trailed before Clint cut her off.

"I'm sure she's fine. Natasha knows how to handle herself in these kinds of situations," he said unfazed

Darcy, Bobbi and even Dove glared at him in such anger that he shut himself up. "No," Darcy told him, "its back, and this time it's not going to let her go."

"What's back?" Steve asked as the air in the room seemed to thicken. In a sudden moment, they all knew.

"The Red Room." Darcy's answer hung heavy in the air as the anxiety and nervousness came off of her in waves. When asked how, she didn't know where to begin, or even how.

Not knowing what questions to ask, they instead waited until Darcy began talking.

"It all started in the original Red Room with the Black Widow Program. The only part you guys know is Phase One, where Nat was injected with the original Super Soldier Serum. The part that was taken from Natasha's memory was Phase Two."

Understanding, Tony added in his theory, which was correct. "So that's what Loki was all about. He took the memory of Phase Two from her mind, which eventually led her on the path to here."

"Exactly," Darcy said as she nodded. "Phase Two was all about continuing the legacy of the Super Soldier Serum, to see what it could overcome, to see if it could be...passed on."

Dawning rained upon the boys in the room as they all subconsciously took a step back, staring at the child in Bobbi's arms. "Wrong," Darcy said as she knew what had the boys all freaked out. They relaxed, though only slightly, all grabbing seats around the tired looking group.

She avoided looking at anyone as she continued the next part, she couldn't bear to see the hurt in their faces. "I, mean, kind of wrong. It took many trials but eventually, it worked. She, Natasha got...pregnant, and it was only the beginning of her hell. When she found out, she made a vow to protect it with her life..."

"No, that's just..." Clint couldn't continue. He looked to Tony for support, for anything, but he found the man staring down at his hands in disbelief.

After the disruption, Darcy continued. "It changed her from being the cold-hearted assassin that she used to be into a more compassionate and caring human being. Later on, she overheard Ivan Petrovitch talking about taking the baby from her before it was even born, so she decided to run."

"Stop," Tony said finally, "this doesn't make any sense." After a glare from Darcy, he backed off and let her continue the story. He couldn't grasp at how no one could have known about this.

"Ivan and the doctor, Andrei, I think it was, had been giving Nat these injections that kept her weak, so it was a hard trek through the woods. She eventually made it to the cave that she had been secretly meeting Loki in and went into labor. Long story short, Doctor Andrei found her and convinced her that he was there to help but cut the baby out of her and ran."

Darcy ignored the sounds of anger coming from everyone in the room, though she still couldn't meet their eyes. "Nat recovered just enough to get Ksenia back and killed Andrei, though she was shot as well. She almost died out there until she found another cave to shelter from the blizzard. Loki found her then with two dead Red Room guards and Natasha made him leave her and take the baby somewhere safe. He couldn't take them both, so he honored Nat's wish and took her to Asgard where Lady Sif took care of her until he could return, Thor was also there and met the baby, but he never realized it until a little while ago. Loki went back to where he left Nat and she wasn't there; some guards had found her close to death and were taking her back to Ivan. Loki got to them before they could and killed them while saving Nat with an adrenaline shot compound made by Dr. Andrei that had some of the serum in it, or something like that. He carried her away until they were attacked again by more guards, and eventually Ivan. Some more things happened but all you need to know is that Nat recovered enough to knock Loki out and she set out for revenge on Ivan by herself. She almost didn't make it, but she literally tore Ivan's head off with her adrenaline infused serum and stuck it on a stake, right in front of the Red Room compounds front door."

She looked up smiling but saw that none of the boys were. Darcy then glanced at Bobbi who encouraged her to continue.

"Well, after that, wait, no. Oh yeah, during the fight with Ivan, Loki came back, and Nat asked him to go get her daughter so that she could leave that horrible place and start a new life with Ksenia and Loki. Ksenia is her daughter's name by the way." Darcy then heard Clint blow a wave of air out from his mouth as if something made sense to him. When he said nothing, she continued. "When she was done with Ivan, Loki made it back with the baby, but she wasn't doing good. The baby was early and had gotten so cold in the events surrounding her birth, that she passed away in Natasha's arms. Natasha couldn't stand it and tried to kill herself, but she kept healing. She was so ready to die, and Loki knew that she would never stop trying, so he took the memory from her. I think Natasha thinks that she is the reason he's turned out to be so bad. He loved her, and she wouldn't have even recognized him."

Darcy answered some questions and then had to take a small break, going to the bathroom to splash water on her face. Just seeing the looks of the Avengers faces was pure torture. It looked like Tony was taking it hard, like he was blaming himself that this whole adventure started because of him. She had assured him that it didn't matter if he had or not, the people after Natasha would have found out the truth sooner or later. When asked what she meant, she excused herself to take break, promising that she would explain. She wasn't just tired, she was afraid. Natasha was back with the group she hated the most, the people who would hurt her worse than anything else she had faced since her time with the original Red Room. With a sigh, she wiped her face and jumped when Dove barged in through the door.

"Darcey, get in here," he said with fear before running back to the lab with the brunette hard on his heels. When she got there, she saw that Steve had the baby and Bobbi was keeled over in pain with Clint supporting her from falling from the table.

Flashes of red sparked Bobbi's vision as a menacing face glared at her from above. "Why not just let her take the pain? Why take it for yourself? I thought you would heal quicker than this." More pain lashed across her back before a blow to the temple caused her to collapse to the floor. She only laid there for a second when a voice pulled her away from slipping into unconsciousness. "Stop!" It pleaded, "I'll take it, leave her alone!" She forced herself to get up, to move in front of the pleading girl chained to the floor. She glared at the man again and through blood stained teeth, threatened him to touch the girl behind her again. "Don't you tell him a thing," she whispered protectively to the girl, "no matter what they say, or what they do. They can't kill me."

The blanket was now on the floor and Darcy kicked it to the side as she rejoined her friend on the table. Reaching for Bobbi's hand, she found it clenched so hard that her nails has punctured through her skin, blood dripping from the cracks and onto the floor.

"Bobbie what's wrong!" she yelled, trying to get through to the blonde. Her body was so tense that she thought she couldn't even hear her.

"My head," she managed through gritted teeth before releasing a breath.

"Whoa," Dove said from her other side, seeing what they all just witnessed. The icy breath Bobbi released was followed by a pained groan before Bobbi's body went slack.

It felt like forever had passed as she lay back on the cold surface of the blood-stained stone. Cool hands touched her body as she fought against the waves of pain wracking her body. "What did they do to you," the girl whispered gently as she wiped a bead of blood from the woman's face. The woman opened her eyes again and tried to get up, to be strong and show the girl that everything was going to be okay; but she couldn't. She tried to speak, but the words wouldn't come for a moment until she focused all of her strength towards the task. "I made you a promise," she whispered, "before you were even born, that I would protect you with everything that I had."

"Stop," the girl whispered, "Save your strength. I know they won't kill us, but you need to rest...please mom, just rest."

Bobbi came to with a start. It had been less than a minute that she'd been out, but she knew exactly what had happened.

"Easy," Dove said as he helped her relax back against the wall.

"What the hell happened? Are you okay? Darcy asked with concern as she looked her over for signs of what caused the attack.

As Clint wrapped her bleeding palms, she looked to Darcy. "I saw Natasha...and Thea."

Then it clicked. Darcy realized that Bobbi and Natasha were connected, most likely from the blood transfusion Bobbi got from Natasha. Natasha must have still had some of the Chitauri crystal energy still inside her. With that in combination with Loki's magic, specifically the memory kind, their minds were somehow linked. "Guys?" she said with a smile, "I think I know how to find Natasha and Thea."

Tony, Clint and Steve looked at the group in fear and concern until Tony broke the silence. "Okay one, what the hell just happened, and two...who the hell is Thea?"