Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes and Hawkeye watch the surveillance tapes that show the brainwashed Black Widow in Manhattan. She is seen in pursuit of a speeding car before bringing out a rocket launcher and blasting her quarry to bits. She then smiles for the camera letting Bucky know this has been staged for his benefit. Bucky and Clint join Maria Hill and her SHIELD team as they have identified the dead men in the car. The crooks were part of a gang who had attempted to break into the Baxter Building The rest of the crew has been found dead in the workshop of weapons designer Marvin Martin. They deduce that Leo Novokov sabotaged the Baxter heist and lured the crooks to Martin’s lab in order to kill them and then set up a trap….
At his hideout, Novokov shows Martin to his new workshop and, in answer to the gunsmith’s questions, reveals that the Black Widow is not his lover; he wants to earn her love like the Winter Soldier did….
Mentally reviewing the evidence found at the murder scene of Novokov’s handler, Bucky realizes they are being pointed toward a dead drop in Gramercy Park. Bucky and Clint reach the place and find a slip of paper bearing the address of a secret munitions cache—and the paper has Natasha’s fingerprints on it. Another trap. The two heroes fly a Quinjet out to the munitions dump and discover a team of A.I.M. agents on the scene. Hawkeye fires on them with arrows while Bucky crashes the Quinjet into their craft (thus stranding everyone). They fight their way into the facility and reach the main vault; all the shelves are empty, except for an old hard drive. A screen activates and Leo Nokokov addresses them, explaining that the hard drive contains a mission to be downloaded into Bucky’s head—or he will never see the Black Widow again….