In The Line Of Duty (September 2012)

On the outskirts of St. Petersburg Russia...6:48am, September 26th, 2012.

Logan and Kate were in a treeline just east of the complex when it suddenly exploded. A fireball that could have been seen for miles ballooned up and even they had to duck for cover as debris from the building began to rain down all around them. Kate had been looking through binoculars when it happened and they both had no doubt what had caused it...Natalya. Logan’s eyes gaped as he saw the flames and he swallowed hard and shifted to get ready to run in to find her. Before he could though Kate grabbed hold of his shoulder just as several vehicles began to converge on the fiery rubble. Fire trucks, agents and russian police were everywhere in minutes.

“She might still be alive!” Logan growled as he continued to stare at the fire as his eyes filled up with tears.

Natalya had agreed to the job. Her mission had been to infiltrate the SSB complex under the guise of an agent that had a stockpile of the special ammunition. She had worn a wig and had had a special piece of technology that changed the appearance of her face. However, even with all of this she had been discovered. She had fought, but there had been too many and they had overcome her and then drugged her before moving her out of the complex along with their stockpile. They then destroyed the building in a giant explosion.

Kate just stared in horror at the building that was engulfed in flames. She tried desperately to reach Natalya through her comm link several times, but received no answer. Her worst fears had been realized. She had to grab Logan by the shoulder to keep him from running into the building after her. They both knew there was no way she could have survived such an explosion. Then, what was left of the building collapsed in on itself.

She just stood there a moment before she looked at Logan with tears in her eyes. "I...I'm sorry Logan."

“It doesn’t mean she’s gone Kate!” he said in a deep rasp as Kate’s comms went off. “We’ve seen here come out of worse,” He snapped.

“Kate, we can see the fire from here, report your situation,” Steve said. Steve, Pharaoh and Isabella had gone to another complex and had been successful with destroying those munitions with the special explosives Tony had developed to destroy them. Tony was away with Thor as they spoke to Bruce Banner. Happy had stayed to watch over William. Steve’s voice sounded urgent and it was tinged with fear for her. For her and for Logan and Natalya.

Kate jumped a little when she heard her comm go off. When she heard Steve's voice she stepped away from Logan. She knew he was in denial about Natalya and she was going to need help getting him away from the complex.

"Logan and I are fine," she told Steve as she stepped further away. She kept an eye on Logan though. "But Natalya...she...she was in the building Steve. The building is a raging inferno right now and most of it has collapsed. I can't get a hold of Natalya. I'm certain that she's...dead."

There was silence on the other end of the comms. Steve had come to appreciate Natalya though they would never really be friends. He considered her a co-worker and a member of their team. “You and Logan abort. Do you copy? Abort,” he said plainly. They had a central meetup location but it was over a mile away.

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Признание лица говорит, что она предатель Наталья Соколова, мы должны немедленно связаться с SSB (The facial recognition says she is the traitor Natalya Sokolova, we must contact the SSB immediately) A voice said though it sounded as if it was fuzzy as if she had been hearing it through a wall. As sense came to Natalya she felt immediately that she wasn’t tied down. It smelled like old urine, rotten feces and stale sweat. That and dried blood and rotting food of some kind. Нет! Она МОЯ пленница, Серджи, мы встретимся с ней по-старому. Теперь иди, подготовь ее. (No! She is MY prisoner Sergie, we will interogate her the old way.now go, prepare her.)

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Natalya knew the drug that they had given her. It was beginning to wear off but even with her bodies increased systemic filtration not soon enough most likely. Already she heard keys turn in a nearby lock and as she opened her eyes just a sliver a man with black pants and a blue shirt came into what she could only assume was her cell. He was followed by two other men in a similar dress and before she even moved she felt a powerful shock in the small of her back that made her limbs go limp.

She felt herself being hauled up then her hands shackled into the back of a metal chair. Her ankles were shackled as well then they began to cut her clothes off. Кстати, ты смотришь на нее, Александр, я думаю, может быть, у тебя не было женщины в какое-то время, хахахаха (By the way you look at her Alexander, I think maybe you've not had a woman in some time, hahahaha) As one of the men began to ‘touch’ her, her mind went somewhere else.

Kate hadn't been sure about Natalya when she first met her, but over time she had come to really like her. Natalya was a woman that had truly deserved a second chance and had proved herself to be someone the team could trust and rely on. Natalya was the fiercest fighter Kate had ever known. She was truly fearless and would risk her own life over and over again to save the lives of the teammates...her family. The team would not be the same without her.

New tears came to Kate's eyes and trickled down her cheeks as she heard what Steve said. "I copy."

She looked at Logan. "Logan...we have to go...now."

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Natalya was fading in and out of consciousness. She was aware of two voices, both speaking in Russian. She realized that she was shackled to a metal folding chair. Her body ached and the drug she had been given made her feel sick to her stomach and dizzy. As the men began to cut her clothes off and begin to touch her she forced her mind to go somewhere else...to a pleasant memory...

It had only been a week since she had been brought into the Tower by Logan. The rest of the team didn't seem to trust her as far as they could throw her...including Steve. Natalya felt alone and incredibly lonely. Her mind was a wreck as it tried to heal itself from all that the SSB had done to her.

That night she had suffered a horrific nightmare. She had begun yelling in Russian in her sleep and even though she punched him, Logan remained with her. He got into bed with her and held her as she trembled in his arms. He hadn't spoken a word, but had just been there for her. It had been that night that had truly changed their relationship.

What the men did to her was both disgusting and degrading but it didn’t last long. Still, because she had starting to become her own version of ‘normal’ her old training did not protect her as much as it used to. Part of her cried inside at what they did. And a seed of anger toward them began to build inside of her.

The men hooked her up to a car battery and they attached the clamps painfully to her nipples and also something else that they put...inside of her. It was the old way alright, these men were not SSB agents of today. Maybe excommunicated KGB? She could not be certain but they were working for the SSB. Probably contracted out for security.

“Hahaha, so this is Natalya Sokolova?” Valentina said mockingly. “How pathetic,” she said disgustedly as she looked at her from outside the small holding cell. “This woman used to be my equal and now look at her...how far you’ve fallen Natalya,” she said. “Sergie, you can ask her questions but I doubt she’ll give you an answer. Still. I shall watch for a while. Something pleasant to drift off to sleep to,” She said.

“What were you here for?” Sergie asked in russian as he pulled her head back by the hair and then forced an eye open. “Oh yes, your awake, we know that now. You will tell us or you will know pain this day,” he said and just to prove it to her he nodded to someone behind her.

Her body jerked uncontrollably as electricity shot through her body. Her breasts felt like they were burning as well as whatever they put inside of her. She had seen this done before though crude and usually ineffective as it was. If the interrogation went on too long the damage to her flesh would be irreversible. As she jerked in extreme pain she heard Valantina laughing uproariously.

Natalya yelled out in pain as the electricity pulsed through her body. She could smell burned flesh and knew it was her own. Still, when Sergie asked her again what she had been there for she just spit in his face and kept her mouth shut. While the part of her training that allowed her to shut herself off to the disgusting and degrading things that the men had done to her had been worn away over time, the part of her training that kept her from revealing information had not.

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Four days had passed since the incident at the complex in Russia. The rest of the team had returned to New York, although getting Logan away from the complex had not been easy. Since returning to New York Logan had shut himself away in his room and was barely seen. An official statement regarding Natalya's death had been released by the team, though details about her mission had been kept under tight wraps. A memorial service was going to be held for Natalya tomorrow. Despite her checked past, the outpouring of love and appreciation from not only the city, but the world for Natalya had surprised the team. Flowers, letters, pictures of girls dressed up like her poured in as everyone processed the first loss of an Avenger's team member.

Isabella walked down to Logan's room and knocked on the door and waited a moment before opening it and walking in. She closed the door behind her and looked at him. "I just wanted to check on you and see how you're doing."

Logan was on the floor next to their bed. He held her pillow in his arms and his face and eyes were drawn and red from crying. But now, he had no more tears but his heart still ached for her. For the woman he had known in his bones deserved another chance. He didn’t look at Isabella, he only looked straight ahead.

“When we were watching William that one time...Natalya knew right away that she didn’t have a maternal bone in her body,” he said as he smiled and chuckled at the memory of it. “She sat there with him, her face was all a scowl as she played with him,” Logan said. “When I picked him up though. Just for a moment, a brief moment, she looked at us and she smiled,” he said as fresh tears fell down his cheeks. “It wasn’t for very long, maybe all of a moment but she saw me with him and her heart melted,” he said as he struggled not to cry in front of Isabella. His face fought it and his eyebrows furled down as he continued in pain. “All these years around her and the only thing that made me more happier than anything else in this world,was seeing that woman smile,” he said as he began to cry once more.

Isabella's heart broke as she looked at Logan. She had never seen him like this before...ever. Not only had he changed Natalya, but Natalya had changed him too. He had given her a second chance at life and she had given him the same opportunity. Natalya had touched their lives in so many ways that they hadn't really realized it all until she was no longer there. She and Tony were actually in talks of starting a foundation in Natalya's memory dedicated to helping children in need. They were planning to make a preliminary announcement about it at the memorial service tomorrow. They hoped Logan would want to be apart of it, but didn't plan on asking him yet while he was still grieving.

She sat down on the floor next to him and wrapped her arms around him and held him. "Logan, you made her life so much better. You gave her a chance at a better life when no else would have. You gave her that opportunity to laugh...to smile...to be loved...to be apart of a family that cared about her. She got to experience all of that because of you."

After a time Logan stopped crying and asked to be left alone. The funeral was an elaborate affair with dignitaries, politicians, law Enforcement and SHIELD as well. Logan would not speak and so Tony has spoken for him. For them all. Logan was the first one to leave. He didn’t think a funeral was even necessary since they had no body to bury.

Nick fury had corroborated her death from a news wire about the explosion. In it there was video of the Russian authorities excavating the bodies from the destroyed complex. In the video they had a line of bodies and the camera angle was low enough to pick out Nayalya’s face as one of the dead. Logan still wouldn’t believe it though. For some odd reason he still felt her inside of him and nothing anyone said or did seemed to change his opinion.

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They had abandoned the electricity once the battery ran out of power. They had tried waterboarding, physical violence and raping her though Valentina did not approve of the raping her and she did not stick around for very long anyway. Sergie wanted to go to the SSB with a confession and he begun food and sleep deprivation along with forcing her to take hallucinatory drugs. Natalya did notice though that they were getting sloppy. They took her silent compliance as her being sufficiently cowed though she had to do some very disgusting and disturbing things to achieve that. Gregor was the younger one, a man of about his mid 20s with dark curly hair and blue eyes. He came with his drugs and shot her up every morning and every evening. She acted as if the drugs affected her for a lot longer than they actually did and she had managed to remove one of her sub-dermal tools and had used it to loosen the shackles on her wrists and ankles. This time when he came in and exposed himself to her he’d get something much different than he had been getting.

Right on cue Gregor came in and just like before he unzipped his pants and exposed himself to her expectantly.

Reporters and cameras were not allowed into the memorial service. They wanted some privacy for the service. The announcement of the Natalya Sokolova foundation was well received by the public and already donations were pouring in. The mayor of New York even wanted to put up a statue of her in remembrance of all she had done. Of course, all this talk about her did bring up her past and there were still people out there that wanted to drag the Black Widow's life through the mud.

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Natalya had figured out their schedule pretty quickly. There wasn't a clock in her cell, but her internal clock was pretty much on the money. They were trying to keep her drugged up, but she had begun to convince them that she was still drugged up long after they had worn off. She had managed to loosen her shackles and now she just waited for Gregor to arrive. With his pants unzipped and him exposed to her he was rather vulnerable. With a glint in her eye she suddenly moved with a speed he had not been expecting. She flung the loosened iron shackles at him and hit him on the side of the head. He immediately dropped to the ground in an unconscious state and she grabbed his weapons. She was weak from the torture she had been put through but her adrenaline was pumping and she was a force to be reckoned with.

Gregor’s clothes did not fit her ofcourse but they were better than nothing. He had a hat half way in his pocket and she bound up her hair and put it on. Unfortunately she had to kill Gregor otherwise as soon as he woke he’d give the alarm cry and the gig would be up. She did have his sidearm and assault rifle though and his combat knife which she tucked into her boot.

His keys allowed her to leave the holding area but as soon as she reached the main hall there were people all over. Some in lab coats and medical attire while others were clearly guards. If she began shooting the guards it would be that same bloodbath she created all over again.

Natalya knew that if she started shooting that it would only bring more people and she would be caught again. She had to try to get out of the building without raising the alarm, but she also needed to get out quickly before it was discovered that she was no longer in her cell. She had tucked her hair up under the hat and she pulled the hat down to try and hide her face a little more. She did not walk quickly, but walked with a purpose. She held her breath the entire time and kept to the perimeter. It wasn't until she was outside that she was actually able to breathe again. She somehow managed to get out without killing anyone but Gregory. Now the hard part began...how to get home.

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Without any money or any way of communicating with the rest of the team, Natalya had been forced to use all of her training in order to survive. She was forced to steal food and stowaway on a ship. She was hungry, weak, and desperately missed Logan. All of the work Logan had done in helping her mentally recover as much as possible was now gone. Every time she closed her eyes she remembered what those men had done to her.

Three weeks after her 'death' Natalya arrived back in New York. She was still wearing Gregor's clothes, but they were horribly dirty and ripped and stained. She barely looked like herself. She tried walking into the Tower, but was immediately stopped by the guards. She tried to argue with them about who she was, but they refused to listen and eventually Tony was notified about what was going on.

Tony was accustomed to surprises but this one took the cake for certain. To see Natalya’s face in the view screen was something he never expected. She was a mess though and quietly he packed a small duffel and rode the elevator down to security where they were holding her.

Natalya had one of those faces that was difficult to forget. Surprisingly unmarred she was a beautiful specimen of a woman but he didn’t want Logan seeing her how she was or he might declare war on Russia itself and no one wanted that. He entered into the security room and dismissed everyone out. When hs esaw Natalya sitting there he knew something had happened to her. She had that ‘cold, distant look’ about her that he had seen before. He set the bag down on the table in front of her and began removing the contents. He had brought her enough water both clean and soapy to wash up and ointments, bandages and bandages for her injuries.

“May I help you clean up Natalya?” he asked not wanting to offend her by putting his hands on her. They had obviously been doing that since she had obviously been captured. When she nodded he gently began removing clothing and washing her up then replacing her clothes for those she was more used to. He noticed the burns in unfortunate places that had gone untreated but he was confident that Isabella and their infirmary could take care of most of those. Once she was cleaned up and dressed in her own clothes and shoes he informed her of what they had done. The funeral, the charity, everything. That and how completely a mess Logan has been since her absence.

“DO you want to go up or do you need more time?” he asked.

Natalya had lost a lot of weight in the three weeks that had passed. She was also dehydrated and had untreated injuries. She barely looked at Tony as he walked in. He would see that she was just barely holding herself together. She allowed Tony to help her clean up and get changed. Thankfully, Logan had not yet been willing to give up any of her clothes, but they were quite loose on her now. She listened quietly to Tony as he told her that she had been declared dead and everything that had happened since then. She couldn't imagine what Logan must have been going through.

She slowly nodded when Tony asked her if she was ready to go up. She needed to get to the infirmary. She wasn't doing well and she needed treatment and fluids. She could barely stand in the elevator and she allowed Tony to help her.

"Thank you," she told him quietly before the elevator reached the living quarters floor.

The main floor looked almost exactly as it always had. No one was looking in their direction and only Tony knew, for the moment, that Natalya was alive. Tony led her toward the kitchen. “Pharaoh’s not here at the moment,” Tony said softly as they walked. Steve was watching football when he turned and saw them. He was out of the recliner in an instant as he moved up to them as Tony got her a cold water.

He wasn’t surprised when she downed the whole thing and he opened and gave her another.

“Steve I think we need…” Kate began and then saw them there. She was holding William who continued to grow and at first she thought Natalya was someone else but her black waves of hair was unmistakable. “Natalya?” She said loudly from across the rom. Loudly and with more than a bit of guilt and shock. She covered her mouth with her free hand as tears rolled down her cheeks.

Isabella was in her office and she heard What Kate said.

Natalya didn't know why, but she felt...nervous. She allowed Tony to lead her into the kitchen and she gratefully accepted the bottle the water. She opened it and drank the entire thing without stopping. She didn't even realize Steve had walked up until Kate walked in and she saw them both looking at her with shocked expressions. Natalya, to be honest, wasn't really feeling like herself after all that had happened to her and really just wanted to sit alone in a dark room...no, not alone...with Logan. He was the only one who could make her eventually feel like herself again.

Isabella heard what Kate said and she quickly looked up from her computer screen. Had she heard her correctly? No...she must have misheard her. She got up and quickly walked out. She walked down to the kitchen and was stunned to see Natalya standing there...alive, but not well. She immediately turned and walked back down the hallway to the gym. Logan had been spending a lot of time in there these past three weeks. The dark circles under his eyes showed that he really hadn't been sleeping well.

"Uh Logan...I need you to come to the kitchen."

Logan was bench pressing when he heard Isabella’s voice. He sighed as he wondered what it was and lowered the weight back down with a metallic thud. He sat up and idly smelled the air. It hit him quickly and he frowned as he smelled the air again.

Logan flew up the stairs and he didn’t stop to think that he could be mistaken. He knew it was her and he hopped up and stopped dead when he saw her. Oddly he looked at the others as if they weren’t seeing what he saw. He tried to keep his calm but his heart raced a million miles a second and he couldn’t stop his eyes from watering. He could see she looked...thinner. As if she had been out in the field for weeks which she had been.

He stopped just short of her and looked her over briefly. “I will take her to the infirmary, she’s hurt,” Logan said as if no one else saw what he saw. It was strange he knew what he was saying but he felt as if he were living a dream right then. And he desperately fought to hold himself together in front of everyone, especially Natalya.

Natalya looked over at Logan and she wanted to cry, but the tears wouldn’t come...they couldn’t. She was too dehydrated but one look into her eyes and Logan would know how she felt. She let him pick her up and take her to the infirmary. She was put on an IV and given some food. She could only eat in small amounts so she wouldn’t get sick. Isabella came down and helped Logan treat her wounds. She was rather horrified by what she saw. Natalya then slept for a few hours. She hadn’t talked yet about what had happened but Logan would know it was bad and had likely set back her mental recovery he had been working on since he first found her.

For some of the triage and application of medicines, poultices and the like Isabella asked Logan to step away. He did but he didn’t go far. He would not as long as he knew Natalya needed him and if he knew her at all, which he did it was obvious that she had been through hell. By the sounds behind him he knew that Isabella had Natalya disrobe. He tried to think of all the kinds of torture that Natalya had told him of and he began to feel anger pour into him like a flood. That emotion, it had rose to white hot levels would not help them here and so he brought it down to a dull simmer inside his head.

Isabella had put a thick layer of salve on her breasts. It was excellent for burns and for the pain they caused. “I think that won’t be...permanent Natalya,” Isabella murmured softly. She looked at her middle as well and injected a similar substance into her there. “We’ll need to reapply this several times a day Natalya. Just come and get me or I can teach you how to do it yourself,” she said. The wounds made it obvious, to Isabella anyway what had happened to her. Besides the bruises and cuts anyway. She had been tortured which meant she had been captured and the destruction of the complex was only a ruse.

“You’ll need to wait to take a shower, just a couple of hours, then we’ll reapply this, alright?” She said softly and put Natalya’s hair back into a ponytail. She looked over at Logan then back to Natalya. “He feels a tremendous amount of guilt for not looking for you. Now, perhaps, you both can heal,” she said then gave Natalya a squeeze on her shoulder. Look just stood there with his back to them as the two women looked over at him. It was clear that he was agitated and on the brink of exploding. But at who or what was impossible to determine.

Natalya allowed Isabella to put the salve on her. She didn't say anything the entire time. Her eyes had a distant, almost glazed over look to them. It was going to take time for her to not only heal physically, but mentally as well. She would likely not get exactly back to the place she had been before, but perhaps she could come close.

Natalya did not blame the rest of the team for leaving. The SSB had faked her death and the team could not risk their own lives by assuming she had been captured. There had been no evidence to support that theory. They had done what she would have done.

Natalya put her clothes back on and laid back down in the bed. She would have to remain down in the infirmary for a few more days as she recovered. Isabella left, leaving the two of them alone. Natalya looked over at Logan and finally broke the silence.

"There was no evidence to say that I had been captured Logan. You all were not wrong for thinking I was dead and I don't blame you all for leaving."

Logan finally turned back around when he heard her voice and he stepped up to her. His eyes looked tired and he looked as though he had not been eating much. His eyes looked...angry but that was normal for him most of the time.

“Don’t fuckin talk to me about evidence. I knew. I...had a feeling and I didn’t act on it,” he said vehemently as he could not take it anymore. He put his arms around her shoulders and touched his forehead to hers. She felt him trembling slightly and he was warm, very warm to the touch. He kissed her cheek and buried his face into the side of her head and took in her scent.

Logically he couldn’t have gone in to look for her either but Logan didn’t always live by logic alone. He was a man of action and he would have certainly tried to cut through all those police and agents if it meant bringing her home. He still might go back and show them the deadly error they made for hurting his Natalya.

“God damnit!” He said shakily as he fought to keep hold of his emotions as a flood of relief hit him.

Natalya was the only one who ever really saw Logan like this. They could be vulnerable with each other in ways they couldn’t be with other people. Seeing him in this much pain caused her pain and she reached up and gently caressed his cheek. She didn’t say anything but she just let him get his emotions out.

Natalya and Logan had a private moment together as no one else normally went to the Infirmary. Peter was not staying at the tower nor working as an Avenger agent and Serena was at School. After she fell asleep Logan went upstairs to address what happened to Natalya.

Natalya had a certain set of skills but her skills at espionage were used by the team far to much for Logan’s liking. And this last time it had nearly gotten her killed. Well, never again! He decided. They refused to do it the way he suggested. Because ‘Steve’ didn’t want to hurt soldiers or civilians. Well, he was done with this kind of thinking.

He knocked on their room and from the door he heard Kate sobbing. In truth he didn’t really blame Kate either. She was an agent who used Logic and available Intel to formulate her opinions where Logan used his gut instinct more instead. When Steve came to the door Logan backed up and as soon as the door was closed Logan grabbed hold of Steve’s shirt and backed him up against the wall. His face was a mask of anger and contempt for the man. Isabella who was sitting at the Kitchen table saw what was happening.

“So we did it your way. Well, I’m done sacrificing her to save the lives of people who don’t matter!” he growled as Steve shoved him off of him. “She’s not an agent anymore. She’s no different than you or I and I’m not letting you use her anymore like this!” He said in an angry rasp.

“She agreed to the mission Logan and we are what we are, why…” he began but Logan cut him off.

“No! This is an end to it. You want to sacrifice someone, you got somebody, an ‘agent’ right through that door!” He growled as he pointed to their door then stalked away to cool off. Both Kate and Isabella heard the altercation.