The Masks that Monsters Wear - Beardsley

[rabid-bookwyrm.livejournal.com]

I just discovered (to my sorrow) that this fic has been deleted from AO3. It's a dark MCU AU, intercutting between past and present, as the Avengers are picked off by the Winter Soldier, one by one. Natasha and identity and the Winter Soldier - more details below the cut. If anyone has a copy, I would really like to get it, or contact info for Beardsley. The rest of Beardsley's work is still up, but I couldn't find an LJ or DW account for them to send a PM, and it felt weird to comment on a different story just to ask about one they'd clearly taken down.

Thanks!

Natasha is a Red Room operative; she works with the Winter Soldier. They are the best, but she slowly notices his conditioning breaking down. Eventually, he cracks and she kills him, and is rewarded by her handlers with the Winter Soldier call-sign. Her work at SHIELD and with the Avengers is a very long under-cover mission for the Red Room. As the Winter Soldier, she kills the Avengers (including faking the death of SHIELD agent Natasha Romanov), and returns to the Red Room. The story is told by intercutting the modern under-cover operation (where the reader does not initially know she is the Winter Soldier) with the narrative of her past with the original Winter Soldier, James Barnes.

Comments

[endeni]

The fic is still available via the Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20121205022147/http://archiveofourown.org/works/577323?view_adult=true

[rabid-bookwyrm.livejournal.com]

You are the winner! Thank you thank you!

[endeni]

Eheh, you're welcome.