Thanks to Clint, Tony was able to find a list of people that could lead them to or be involved in Natasha's kidnapping. Steve had managed to pull himself together long enough to map out locations they would check. Within eight hours of the call, the team was loading the jet and headed towards Novosibirsk, Russia. They had all been informed on what had happened and taken the news with varying reactions. Wanda had gasped, tearing up and disappearing after she'd heard the news and Vision had gone with her. Sam was sitting beside Steve silently, trying to process the fact that one of his best friends had been missing for nearly 48 hours and he hadn't noticed. Tony and Clint distracted themselves with flying the jet.

The flight was long and quiet. As they neared the first location, the jet began to feel too small. Steve fidgeted impatiently, letting his mind run through every scenario it could come up with. He'd long since given on trying to stop it. At this point, he just wanted to stay awake and find Natasha before anything worse happened.

"Alright, team," Tony said, drawing everyone's attention to him. "We don't have a confirmed location, so this is our first stop. We're not sure where they could be hiding, so look hard and be sure when you say she isn't here."

With that, the jet door opened and they filed out of the jet. They split up, taking different parts of the compound. After an hour of thorough searching, they decided the place was long since deserted and moved on to their second location.

* * *

Natasha had to use the wool blanket she'd been given to soak up her blood. She didn't bother wiping her tears as she mopped up the blood from her leggings and on the floor. The blood was still coming slowly, but she'd already passed the baby. It hadn't been long after Alexei left before a little clump that looked more like a blood clot than a baby had found its way to the floor. She'd cried even more at the sight of it and gently wrapped it up in the wool blanket. She tried to rip the blanket to use under her leggings to keep from continuing to bleed through, but she could barely move one arm and it was too hard to rip it with her left arm, so she was left to just sit on it.

She jumped as the door to her room was unlocked and hurried to pull her leggings back on. She barely managed to put them back in place when she was pulled up from her spot and dragged out of the room. Alexei was nowhere in sight, but she recognised the three men from earlier. Two of them looked angrier than usual and she figured it was because she'd killed their partner. She didn't feel at all sorry for them, regretting not killing them in the same move.

"Your American friends have arrived," Alexei told her, stepping from around the corner and leading them down the hall. "It took them long enough, but they are finally here." Natasha didn't say anything back and Alexei glanced at her over his shoulder. He scoffed at the sight of her. "You mourn for a creature that would have lived a miserable life. You no longer have to bear the thought of being as bad a mother as you are a wife," he said. Natasha still said nothing, stumbling along behind him with the help of the men holding her up. They came to the end of the hall and Alexei knocked on the door. It opened and he walked in. The men that had been holding Natasha threw her roughly inside and the door shut.

Unlike Alexei's office, this room was small and grey. A man stood beside the door, glaring at Natasha on the ground as if she was ruining his life just by existing. She pushed herself onto her knees and looked up at Alexei. She'd barely raised her head when a knife sliced across her cheek. She barely felt the pain, letting the blood drip from her cheek slowly as she stayed still.

"They will find you," Alexei promised her softly. "They will find you, and they will watch me kill you."