She spat blood, not bothering to wipe her face before turning to gaze up at her handler.
"You," he panted, breathing hard. "Did not follow my orders."
The Wraith licked her lips and spat again. As if she would ever answer him.
Rumlow's promise of punishment was not empty, but he had only just begun before the door was opened, interrupting his 'fun'. They didn't even have time to play that music, the one that featured those infernal violins. Their screeching matched her own at times.
"Rodgers has been spotted, Romanoff is with him. Go," Pierce barked. The corners of her mouth tilted upwards as Rumlow gave her one last, pissed off look before he himself had to follow orders from his own handler.
"You are to study Romanoff's file. I want her and Rodgers dispatched of. They will mess up our plans. And we can't have that, can we?"
Her head barely shifted, but Pierce deemed her answer acceptable. A thick manilla folder was dropped at her feet, pages upon pages of information residing within it's worn cover. A quick glance revealed that a good chunk of the data had been blacked out, the highly classified information no longer available for just anyone to read.
He let her alone with it, leaving the door open. The Winter Wraith picked up the file and began shifting through it.
Natalia Romanov, her true name, was a woman born in the former Soviet Union and eventual, highly successful, graduate of the Red Room's Black Widow Program. She was subject to a version of the super solider serum as well as brainwashing, the former giving her increased life and immunity. Her successors turned her into a living powerhouse, granted her abilities and excessive training, and she still left them and later joined S.H.I.E.L.D.
The Winter Wraith didn't realize how intense her breathing had become until she lurched to her feet, chest heaving. Her metal arm tossed the file to the side, scattering the papers. The words 'false memories' were floating in her vision. The Black Widow had formally believed herself to be a ballerina, but everything she had known as true was indeed false.
Was everything she was being told false?
No. Everything she was being told was not false. Loyalty was extremely important to her, and to read of someone who had thrown it away...
Anger blurred her sight. Natasha Romanoff should not have escaped her servitude. You don't just get to walk away. The Wraith was still here, still following orders. HYDRA had saved her, resurrected her into a powerful being. She owed them her life. Romanoff should be killed for betraying her superiors. The Wraith's prosthetic arm clenched, the sound of metal against metal scraping in her ears.
She glanced over the files again, trying to find anything that could give away where Rodgers and Romanoff would go next. Finding nothing, she stalked out of the room and down a few hallways, entering a small laboratory that was designated for the Winter Soldiers' maintenance and testing.
One of the technicians yelped when she grabbed him by the back of his lab coat, yanking him around and shoving him to land in the chair stationed in front of a computer.
"Find Rodgers. He has that data stick. Trace it," she ordered, speaking more words now than she had in the past week.
The tech was shaking, but he did as he was told. His fingers wouldn't stop trembling until he started typing, becoming more positive that she wasn't going to harm him.
Thirty seconds later and he had it pulled up. The heroes had already begun using it, trying to sort through its data. She could watch as they did it, everything showing up on the tech's screen.
"Go inform Pierce, now," she instructed, once more shoving him away from her and towards the hallway. Chair and all. It would be too late by the time Rumlow and his team arrived at Rodger's coordinates. The information they were receiving would already be leading them away from HYDRA.
Unless she intercepted.
A few more minutes and the screen began spewing letters and number, pictures and graphs. It stopped on a map, pinpointing somewhere in New Jersey before the screen shut down. The Winter Wraith screamed in frustration before shattering the monitor with her metal hand. Everyone that was left in the small laboratory scattered, leaving her to her own thoughts.
Although she wasn't tech savvy, the next computer she sat down at was already logged into and available for her to use. It took time, but eventually she came across a leaked file of a secret S.H.I.E.L.D bunker located in New Jersey. In the next thirty seconds it took the tech to return, all he found was his destroyed monitor and an empty lab.
With Rumlow gone and two fugitives on the loose, the Wraith didn't run into any problems with people questioning where she was going. She technically outranked all of them in both skill, age, and ability. An armed helicopter was already prepped once she arrived out the back of whatever building they had been keeping her within. Within minutes she was in the air.
Rodgers had a head start, but he was undoubtedly on wheels. Forty minutes later and she was circling the area. There wasn't anything about it that screamed 'S.H.I.E.L.D bunker', in fact the facilities present were falling into disrepair. Yet, thermal images revealed that there were indeed two life forms inside, but they had to be at least two stories below ground level. Secret bunker indeed.
Her scanner started chirping, blazing red in her face. Incoming bogey. Sixty seconds. S.H.I.E.L.D had fired it, Pierce must've deemed it necessary to utterly destroy what possibly could've housed invaluable information. She veered her aircraft away, the night exploding with the intensity of the blast. More aircraft were arriving, soaring over the facility with her. The bunker was crumbling.
"Again, then return to base," Pierce's voice spoke within the cockpit, his command heard in each unit he had originally sent out. The team circled around, following her lead, and fired on the whole base. More explosions, less than two minutes after the initial blast.
The Winter Wraith had doubts that even the super soldier could survive the destruction, but there wasn't any reassurance without sending a team down on the ground to scout for bodies.
Yet, no signal came for any team member to do so.
With a heavy scowl, she turned her craft around and left.
