Chapter Text
Mramor. Marble. The ceremony is necessary. Pain courses through my body, tearing me apart from the inside. I thought nothing could be worse than the flaying, I was wrong. This pain, this invasion, is worse than anything I have experienced. I clench my teeth, refusing to give any indication of my suffering. Showing pain makes you weak, Natalia. You have no place in the world.
“Nat!”
I jerk back violently, my vision snapping into focus. My bathroom swims into view. I steady myself against the sink, clenching the edges of the basin until my knuckles turn white. Clint is leaning against my doorframe, staring at me.
“You ok Tash?” he asks, eyes sweeping over me with concern. I nod, mentally scolding myself for my slip and allowing my usual apathetic mask to slip into place. I zip up my catsuit and make my way over to him. Clint catches my arm as I pass, forcing me to make eye contact.
“You don’t have to come on this mission, Nat,” he says seriously, “It’s only a recon, we’ll be fine without you.”
I roll my eyes.
“I’m fine, Clint. Really,” I insist. “Let’s go, Sam and Wanda are probably waiting for us.”
It has been almost eight months since Ultron. I spent the aftermath with Steve, setting up the new Avengers’ compound and trying to mould the newest members into something resembling a team. I had buried myself in case files and paperwork, thrown myself into every available mission; in a desperate attempt to distract myself from the new torrent of nightmares waging war in my head. My lack of sleep is the reason Clint is here now, instead of at home with baby Nate, although he is claiming he just misses the field and wants some action.
Living with the other Avengers had only served as proof that I still wasn’t normal, no matter how desperately I pretended otherwise. Looking around, it was easy to see the difference. How the others don’t flinch whenever they are touched, don’t assess every possible escape route as soon as they enter the room and, as I found out after an awkward trip to the Met, consider one gun sufficient protection, instead of the two handguns, set of throwing knives, four Widow’s Bites, pair of batons and garrotte I had brought.
Steve says he doesn’t lie because your lies become a part of you, and then you can never escape them. It’s a childish sentiment, in my case, at least. I have been lying for so long it would be almost impossible to discern which parts of me are a lie and which are real, let alone extract them. I tell the world I’m an avenger, but really in essence I am nothing more than an assassin, a murderer. I’m a monster, and it’s futile to pretend anything else.
The halls are suspiciously deserted as Clint and I sneak towards the labs. It is a simple data recon, retrieving the formulas for an illegal experiment on human DNA, but even so, this is suspiciously easy. We haven’t encountered a single guard so far, even as we scaled the perimeter fence.
“Uh, guys, you’re gonna want to see this.” Sam’s voice comes in over the comms.
We meet him in the security office, where he was meant to be disabling alarms. Instead, he is staring intently at one of the screens, his face illuminated eerily in the fluorescent light. He beckons us over and points at the footage.
My eyes flicker over them. Beside me, I hear Clint suck in a breath. The footage from the labs shows ten scientists, all with a bullet in the forehead. Somebody else is here for the formulas. We switch the footage over to the corridors, only to be met with about thirty guards unconscious or dead. That would explain why it was so empty. I check the alarm system, it has already been disabled. Whoever this is, they are not messing around. I scan the screens again. I begin to think the thief has already left the compound and we are too late, but then a shadow flits across one. I follow their movements intently, watching as they come into view on the nearest screen. Surprisingly, it is only one person, rather than a team. She has her back to the camera, the only thing I can see is a mass of long curly hair and the back of a simple combat suit. As she rounds the corner, I catch sight of a logo on her arm.
“Stop!” I command, leaning closer and zooming in. Recognition flashes through me and dread pools in my stomach. This cannot be right. It is impossible. No. I lurch backwards.
“Tasha?” Clint squints, trying to make out the logo for himself. “What is it?”
“The logo on her suit,” I mumble, inhaling shakily. “That’s the Red Room’s logo.”
Sam and Wanda look confused, Clint is shaking his head in disbelief, though there is dawning apprehension on his face.
“It can’t be.”
“It is,” I insist. There’s no mistaking it, the image burned into my mind after all these years, the image I had to salute and submit to every day of my childhood. But it can’t be. We shut the Red Room down years ago, with SHIELD. How can it be back? Was that even real? I’m not sure anymore, but if it was some elaborate test, I definitely failed. I remember killing them. Pulling the trigger and watching as the bullets embedded themselves in their skulls. Bad, Natalia. So bad.
“What should we do?” Wanda asks, “She will compromise mission.”
Clint tries to catch my eye. I shift uneasily, already knowing what is coming. He has never been able to resist the belief that everyone deserves another chance. On the Red Room mission, he was ready to adopt every girl in the facility. The handlers didn’t give him that chance. That is probably what is playing on his conscience now. Wanting to save one in place of the eighty he couldn’t.
“We should bring her in.”
My mind swirls with anxiety at the thought of bringing a part of the past I had tried so hard to bury back to the compound, the closest thing I have to a home, but I nod in affirmation. He did it for me.
“Wait, who exactly is this chick?” Sam is staring between me and Clint. This is the moment I have been dreading. When they finally realise what I am.
“We think she is from the Red Room. It’s the same organisation that took Nat when she was a kid.”
And there it is. The other boot coming to stamp down on me. Wanda’s eyes go wide.
“ So the vision, what I showed you, that was,” she trails off.
I nod, looking away.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.” I hate how shaky my voice sounds.
“Look, I hate to interrupt, but if we don’t move she’s gonna make off with the files.”
I shake myself. I need to pull it together.
“Right,” I nod. “Let’s go.”
We send Sam and Wanda on ahead. Clint climbs into the vents and cocks an arrow, ready for her arrival. Forty-one seconds later, a crash followed by a shout of pain crackles on the comms. A dull thud follows it, and then the static hiss of a comm dying.
“Falcon, Scarlet Witch, what’s your position?”
“Scarlet Witch is down.” comes the reply. “Target is almost at location.”
I drop into a defensive stance and listen for the tell-tale sound of footsteps. Thirteen seconds. She rounds the corner, gun drawn and fires two shots at my head. I duck them , spinning on the floor to knock out her legs. She dodges, but is knocked off balance, so I come up and throw a punch. She blocks me, then retaliates with a kick to the head. I duck, only to be met with a blow to the stomach. There is no doubt in my mind now that this girl belongs to the Red Room. Her style is far too similar to mine, and far too precise to be anything else. I land another hit, and she sends an elbow to my ribs, before grabbing my arm and trying to flip me. I lean into the motion, before yanking away at the last second, sending her to the ground. She squirms as I pin her legs, grabbing her arms with my other hand. I nod my head slightly, then spring back as an arrow shoots though the air, embedding itself in her shoulder. Angrily, she yanks it out and gets to her feet, but she is already swaying, and will be out within ten seconds. She seems to realise this too, drawing a knife and hurling it in Clint’s direction as her legs give way and she falls to the ground.
Clint is sitting opposite the girl in the holding cell. She is restrained to the bed, but it would probably take her less than five minutes to break free if she wanted. I stand with the rest of the team behind the glass. They are not-so-subtly whispering behind their hands, probably swapping rumours. Aside from Clint, Steve, as team leader, is the only one who knows what they did to me.
I turn my attention back to the cell. The girl has been awake for the last five minutes, although she is doing a good job of replicating the patterns of REM sleep.
“I know you’re awake,” Clint smirks.
Her eyes snap open and fix Clint with a glare that he pointedly ignores, crossing the room to undo the ties.
“What’s your name?”
“I am the Red Viper.” Her voice is monotonous, devoid of any emotion. I think back to my first exchange with Clint. It is almost identical. Clint chuckles.
“Yeah, and I’m Hawkeye. Your real name.”
There is a beat of silence.
“You’re the Avengers.” she says instead. Clint nods in affirmation.
“I want to speak to the Black Widow.” I feel everyone’s heads swivel towards me as Clint comes out of the cell. I take a steadying breath, and stride in, every inch the Black Widow. No emotion. No weakness. I sit down opposite her.
“Polagayu, priyatno nakonets vstretit’ togo, iz kotorogo ya byl sleplen,” I suppose it is nice to finally meet the one I was moulded from. She quirks her lip; the action is so familiar it gives me whiplash.
“Vsegda periyatno vstretit’ fanata,” Always nice to meet a fan, I quip back. The Russian feels strange on my tongue, I only ever use it for missions now. For most of the team, this is probably the first indication that I am anything other than American.
We take a moment to sit back, each of us assessing the other. She is not like most Red Room recruits. I am not even sure she is Russian, originally at least, although the KGB had been known to take in foreign girls, in order to widen their operating theatre. Her skin is a dark tan, and coupled with mossy eyes and a head full of dark ringlets. Probably Middle Eastern or North African then, I muse. Blood has congealed on the left side of her forehead from where I punched her.
“My zaplatili tsenu pole togo,” We paid the price after you left, she says abruptly, her voice low. “Starshiye devochki skazali mne. I snova, kogda vy prishli unichtozhit' nas. Ya videl, chto vy sdelali s devushkami na ob yekte.” The older girls told me. And again when you tried to destroy us. I saw what you did to the girls at the facility.
“That was the Red Room,” I grit out. Girls lying dead, chained to their beds. Bullets in their heads. Every one in dead centre. Perfection.
She laughs humourlessly. “My mozhem pritvorit'sya, yesli khochesh', no ty monstr, kak i ya.” We can pretend, if you would like, but you’re a monster, just like me. Bile spurts into my throat. I choke it back down. I stagger away from her, fumbling for the door, ignoring the team’s stares. Escape. I need to run. To hide. It is all I know how to do, all I have ever done. Ignore the problem until it is impossible, then run from the world and crawl back a few months later.
Somehow, I am sitting on my bed, staring blankly at the wall. I tug on my necklace, the arrow from Clint, calming slightly at the feeling of the delicate chain coiled around my finger. It was a promise, Clint told me.
"I will always be your partner, Tash. Forever."
"Always."
That will change now, with this girl, contaminating the only real home I have ever had.
There is a knock on my door, and a second later Steve sits down on my bed. We sit in silence for a while.
“She is staying.” I raise an eyebrow. “Clint wants her to stay. Most of the team supported him.” That surprises me. I guess it means they haven't been told what the Red Room does, otherwise they wouldn’t want her here. Or me, come to that.
“What about you?”
“I don’t know. She’s fourteen, Nat. I just-” He cuts himself off. “She’s a kid. And I keep imagining you, at that age and- I think she deserves this. But if you aren’t comfortable with it, we can make other arrangements. She could go live with Clint’s family or,”
“Steve,” I cut him off. It is inevitable. I can’t hide for ever. All fantasies must come to an end. “She should stay.”