Upon closer inspection, Steve realised that the ointment they'd be given was for the lashes on Natasha's back. Stuffed at the bottom of the box were wrinkled bandages, but Steve wasn't sure they were clean.

"They brought medicine?" Steve turned to Natasha with a confused frown. He handed her the ointment to inspect, but she just shook her head. 

"Don't even open that," she told him, pushing the box out of his hands. It clattered to the floor, but Steve didn't bother retrieving it. 

Joining her on the bed, he asked, "Why not? What is it?"

"Makes it worse," Natasha answered shortly. She nodded at the box and said, "It aggravates the wounds and prevents them from healing. I think they expected you to just apply it without question."

"They didn't think you'd recognise it?" That seemed a little naive of Hydra.

"Guess they expected me to be passed out by now," she muttered, closing her eyes. "It's been a while, but clearly they forgot just how well they replicated your serum."

Steve blinked. "They what? How did they manage that?"

"Not sure." She attempted a shrug but only grimaced. "But they did and it was successful."

"So you have a version of the super-soldier serum?" Given their current situation, he was inclined to believe that was a good thing. Nevertheless... "How come I didn't know earlier?"

"SHIELD doesn't know," she said. Clearly misunderstanding what he'd meant, she added, "It was never dropped on the internet."

"I never read those files, you know," he murmured. He knew Tony had and some of the others on the team, but he'd never even attempted to read what had been released on her.

"Your loss, then." Natasha shifted and her breath hitched, but she slowly leaned back against the wall behind her. Catching Steve's concerned eyes, she gave him a small smile and said, "Don't worry, I'll be fine by the time they return."

"Not necessarily reassuring," Steve grumbled, moving beside her.

"Yeah, well, we don't have anything else to look forward to," Natasha murmured, staring at the door on the wall across from her. If Steve was upset now, she wasn't eager to see how he'd react to other tactics the Red Room liked to employ.

* * * *

Just as Natasha said, by the time the Hydra agents returned, her back had already begun to heal. Her abdomen was considerably less sore, but her back was still in pretty bad shape. Although it didn't look like the lash marks were getting infected, they were still bright red and painful.

As the door was pulled open, Steve shifted from beside her to in front of her. Rather than pull him back and draw the men's attention to the motion, she reached for his hand as Schmidt walked into their cell.

"How are you feeling, Miss Romanova?" he asked, stopping just out of reach in front of them.

"Go to hell," Steve snapped.

Schmidt's eyes flickered towards Steve and he looked at him with amusement. Natasha squeezed Steve's hand, but the damage had already been done.

"You really do look for fights wherever you go, don't you, Captain America?" Schmidt taunted. Fortunately, Steve didn't reply. 

At Schmidt's nod, two agents stepped forward. Before they could reach out for either of them, though, Steve was on his feet. He punched the first agent so hard he fell to the ground unconscious. When he turned to do the same to the other agent, the man backed away.

"We were going to do this nicely," Schmidt said with a sigh. Turning towards the remaining agents, he barked out an order in German.

The agents swarmed them and even though Steve was swinging at them wildly, they still separated them. Natasha drove her fist into the face of the first agent who grabbed her. Even as his nose broke under her hit and he stumbled backwards, more agents moved forward and pulled her off the edge of the bed.

Although the agents pulled her up instead of shoving her down, her body still screamed in protest. For a long moment, she couldn't breathe as a jolt of pain ran from her shoulders down to her toes. When she gasped, Steve's attention darted over to her and he was quickly restrained.

He fought against the agents that held him back but every time he began to gain the upper hand, a soldier would ram the butt of his gun into the back of Steve's head. After the third hit, Steve was dazed long enough that the soldiers were able to drag him to the far side of the cell and lock metal clamps around his wrists. 

When he looked up from the chains around his wrists, his eyes landed on Natasha being chained to the opposite wall. Above her, Schmidt waited until she was restrained to approach. She scowled at him and with each step Schmidt took, Steve tugged against his chains.

"Now, now," Schmidt cooed, patting Natasha's cheek. "Angry isn't a good look on you, my dear."

When he patted Natasha's cheek again, she turned her head and bit his fingers. He snarled in pain and Natasha bit down harder until he shouted. As his fingers cracked, an agent standing nearby stepped forward and pressed his boot down on her injured leg. With a gasp of pain, Natasha released Schmidt's hand.

Schmidt sneered at her, cradling his hand to his chest, and turned away. He left their cell without a further word to her, taking his agents with him.