Lover's Pursuit

3. Truth

Natasha's POV.

"So there's two?"
Clint hung up the phone, shaking his head to answer my question. He tapped his finger against the first page of her file, neither of us attempting as of yet to tackle the papers following.
"How did she even become involved, I mean...up until now I'd assumed she was still in the Red Room."
Clint was sifting through the information he'd been sent with regards to The Winter Soldier Project. It was a highly secure, HYDRA operative that had close to no digital footprint. There were no identifiable links between James, Y/N and The Project, it was more word of mouth between victims. I wanted to find the revelation improbable, though some part of me knew that it was most definitely her.

"I just can't believe it..."
The more time I spent with Clint, the easier it became to read his varying expressions. I inspected the look upon his face as his eyes darted from corner to corner of the screen. I sensed the worry, the distress.

He was disinclined to share much of the information he'd come across with me. He told me bitted facts and unimportant details, avoiding my questions as we delved further into her years alone.
Eventually, I had to stop and force myself into peering over his shoulder. We scanned the account of 7 parted years and with each passing fact, my heart grew dim at the thought of her. Was she even the same girl I once knew?

She'd been subjected to experimentation, similar but not an exact match to James Barnes - who had much more information stored about him to be consumed on the web. She's had serum implemented, like the patriot on the news - Captain America. Further down, we found evidence of a cybernetic limb, attached in place of her left arm. Still, no recently establishing photos of her, or her face to be found.

I lifted the file into my hand, flicking through the following pages as the deplorable picture unfolded before me. She'd been brainwashed and abused, now completely under the control of HYDRA. I wasn't entirely sure what this meant, there was little material on it and much less provided about her recent years.
The underlying fact became the realisation that she had become a deeply dangerous individual. The longer I stared at the recitals of her trauma, the more I realised that The Winter Solider was no one I knew. She was different, the complete dichotomy of my girl.

I could kill this version of her. I could kill her and be free.

Clint and I spent the entirety of that day surrounding the table as we dissected the features of my target. He eventually called it in and sent himself to bed, which I half-heartedly copied.
I lay awake beneath my sheets, laid on my side with my mind stuck in one predictable place. I'd spent these years drawing a pretty picture of what her life had become. I'd convinced myself that she was flourishing, living as she'd hoped. The unearthing of her true state brought forth the darkened marsh that plagued my futile painting. The entirety was completely untrue.

If only I'd stayed. If only I'd said goodbye.

I suppose that part of me knew I was wrong. I covered my own tracks by claiming that I loved her and my love was too strong to face her rotted existence. I tricked myself into a façade when I was merely terrified of what had sprouted from the one girl, the one person, I'd truly die for. Now, who is she?

My mind and body twist and turn.
She's no longer herself. She's part of The Winter Soldier.
She's my final mission.