Occurring at the same time as the previous part

"Thanks for letting me tag along," Emery said when the four of us had piled into Pepper's car and headed downtown. With Pepper's connections in the business industry, she was able to get us into one of the most exclusive dress shops in San Francisco. It paid to have friends in high places.

"Well, any friend of Nat's is a friend of ours," Pepper replied as she merged onto the interstate.

"Yeah, we haven't seen you around very much this last month," Wanda contributed.

"With Alexei underground and the MIA status of Kristina Sokolov, it's been pretty hectic. My orders come directly from Nick Fury, so I'm not around as much as I would otherwise be," Emery explained.

"We enjoy having you around, Em," I said.

Emery smiled. "Thanks, Nat."

A few minutes later, Pepper pulled the car into a parking garage and we headed toward the shops. Once inside, we went around separately to find our respective dresses. Emery caught up to me as I considered a blue dress.

"Hey, Nat," she said.

"Hey, Em. Have you found anything for the party yet?"

She shook her head. "Not yet. Thought I'd see if I had any luck over here. You?"

I helped up the dress. "What do you think? Honest opinion."

"Hmm," she said, reaching out to touch the fabric.

"Not my color?" I asked.

Emery laughed. "Nat, everything is your color. I just think this one is not...well, it's not exactly your style."

I wrinkled my nose. "Yeah, you're right. Let's keep looking."

We spent a few minutes silently browsing through the dress racks.

"I'm sorry I kicked you out of the room last night," Emery said, finally breaking the silence between us.

"Em, you don't need to apologize. But I feel like I need to ask—is everything alright with you and Bucky? You seemed hesitant to talk about it yesterday and I don't want to push if you don't want to talk, but I just want to make sure you're ok," I said.

Emery sighed. "I knew you weren't gonna let that go. Here's the thing, Nat. There's some stuff that Bucky has been helping me with ever since the incident at Alexei's apartment. Some of it...I don't want to get into right now."

I nodded. "That's understandable. Is there...is there anything you do want me to know?"

Emery gave me a soft smile. "You know me too well, Natasha. I don't think Katya knew what was going on yesterday."

I snorted. "Yeah, that's for sure."

 Emery shook her head. "No, you don't understand. Katya wasn't...Katya."

Upon seeing my raised eyebrows, she turned back to the dresses and continued talking. 

"I think that Kristina manipulated her. You—you left after lunch with Tony. I was there until the end of the day. I followed Katya to an apartment complex on fifth. I shouldn't have tailed her unarmed, but I had no choice. When I got up to her apartment, the door was unlocked and she was unconscious. Leaning over her was a figure. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say it was Kristina. She cursed—in Russian—when she saw me and fled. I stayed with Katya to make sure she was stable."

"And?" I was no longer interested in the dresses in front of me.

"She's fine, just shaken."

"Who else knows?"

"Just Bucky. I'm sorry I didn't tell you before."

I nodded. "I understand why you did it. Do you think Katya would agree to talk to us?"

Emery shrugged. "I don't know. But Fury is considering putting her in protective custody."

I shook my head. "We need to talk to her."

"Tony would never go for it."

"If she really is part of Kristina's manipulation, then she could be in danger. More danger than we're in."

Wanda and Pepper found us in the shop at that moment, smiling.

"Hey, you two. We were gonna go out to lunch once you've found dresses for the party," Pepper said.

Emery and I exchanged glances.

"Sorry, Pep. We got distracted," I told her. "Give us a few more minutes."

She nodded and left us.

I turned to Emery. "Em, I think we need to discuss this further. With the rest of the team. It affects more than just us and Katya."

She nodded. "I agree. We'll regroup later, ok? For now, let's find some dresses."

After a bit longer of searching, I found a beautiful emerald green dress and Emery picked a strapless black dress with a peacock design on the bodice. Once satisfied with our choices, we found Pepper and Wanda waiting outside. We went out to lunch, with plans to return to the shop for a final dress fitting in a few days.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Once we'd returned, I headed down to Tony's workshop where I found Shuri and Bucky waiting for me. I'd promised Shuri before my shopping trip that I'd stop by so she could use the technology she'd developed with Bucky to assess my memories.

I took a deep breath.

"Nat, I'm gonna be by your side the whole time. I promise," Bucky said.

I nodded.

"Agent Romanoff, do you give your consent for me to look through your memories?" Shuri asked.

"Yes, I do."

She helped me onto the table and pressed a button into my hand. "At any point, should you want me to stop, just press this and it will terminate the simulation."

I took a deep breath. "Walk me through what this does again."

Shuri nodded. "The machine is going to scan your hippocampus and amygdala—those are two of the regions of the brain that store memories. The amygdala holds memories associated with fear. We are looking for any connections to Kristina Sokolov in your memory. The first time we will pick an easy memory. Then we'll move on to a more involved memory. That way, we don't overload the brain. Are you ready?"

I nodded. "Yes."

Bucky squeezed my hand. "Just breathe, Natasha. We're right here with you in the room. And if you need us, just press the button."

I reached out to touch his cheek. Not a romantic gesture, but simply a gesture of reassurance. He was nervous for me, I could tell. And I understood why. We'd both been brainwashed before, so neither of us knew what memories could be lurking in the depths of our subconsciouses.

"Let's do this."