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A faceless man stood before me. He was tall and wide and when he moved so that the light hit his mouth I saw the sneer. He was speaking, he was saying something but for the life of me I couldn’t focus on his voice because that smell—that terrifying smell that was wrapped around me like the echoes of my parents screams, it wouldn’t leave.
“Natalia.”
I saw a flash of red or orange or I didn’t know and then I saw it again—the flames that ate my home from the inside out—the way they licked at the walls that had kept me safe and how they latched onto the couch where my parents had clapped when I danced for them and oh god the smell, the smell—and it had me—those flames, they were on my head, and the smell, and I was being eaten alive by the flames and then he moved, and the light no longer reflected off the hair that had fallen over my eyes, and it returned to the dull red of my ash covered hair. But the smell still lingered.
“Natalia,” the man repeated, this time his voice cutting through the chaos in my mind with its hard edge. He crouches down to be at my eye level. “If you don’t stop screaming, I will rip out your throat.”
It took me a second to realize screams were, indeed, coming from my own mouth. I stopped.
I saw a flash of approval in his eyes.
“Natalia, what is wrong?”
I hesitated, feeling the screams still waiting on my tongue, so I swallowed them, and I wouldn’t scream again for many, many years. “My mom and dad…”
The man’s face twisted into a kind smile. “They’re fine, Natalia. No need for you to worry.”
I watched him, confused, unsure. And that smell, that smell still wrapped around me. And then I remembered. It was the smell of burning flesh. “The fire.”
His face remained twisted into that smile. “Your parents are fine, Natalia. Don’t you trust me?”
I watched him, his twisting face, the way it twitched with the effort of continuing to smile. The smell of my parents being eaten alive by flames closed in around me. “No.”
His face twisted again, this time the smile predatory. Pleased. As if he’d been waiting for a child like me.
--
My body is a wasteland. It is a forgotten battlefield. I was chosen as prime location to stage the battle on, and I was deformed and molded and perverted into whatever they wanted me to be; into whatever would be of the most use.
Trenches were dug and filled with blood—long scars in the land that hid faces and names and memories long past.
And men died.
Their corpses were not cleared away.
Their blood saturated the earth and became all that I was.
And then the day came when the war ended.
I ask you, what use is a battle ground if there is no battle to be fought?
--
The hotel room is dark. The only light is the glow of the city venturing through the window, glinting off the two pairs of unmoving eyes on bodies that lay side by side on the bed.
I’m vaguely glad that I was able to maneuver the bodies to lie flat on the bed before rigor mortis set in.
I find nothing so painful as clichés, and after I had slit their throats they had fallen to the ground in the most clichéd of poses—arms outspread, legs bent to one side, mouths open.
Organization is key, they had always told me. Be organized, but never recognizable.
They no longer held my reins or dictated my every move, and yet they remained in my head. Always.
I sat opposite the bed on a comfortable desk chair, positioned so I could see both the bodies and the door. My legs were crossed, hand rested demurely on my knee, like a lady, because it is important to always keep up appearances.
The door opens and light floods the room momentarily, illuminating the small girl and the older man who lie prone on the bed, features alike enough to be identified as family.
Three men walk in and the door is closed again. One of the men has an automatic aimed at my face while a second turns on the lights, and the last goes to look at the bodies.
I don’t bother moving.
The man who had gone to check the bodies turns to me.
“Black Widow,” he says. “You have lived up to your reputation. I trust there were no problems?”
I nod.
He holds my gaze for a few moments, then turns to nod to his men and goes to leave.
“I still require my payment. Eight hundred thousand euros was the agreed upon price. You gave me four hundred to start. You still owe another four hundred.”
He smiles, and turns again to leave. “That’s no longer part of the plan.”
I take a deep breathe. “Then we’re going to have a problem.
I made my way out across the roof twenty minutes later, leaving twenty bodies, without my money, and with police sirens blazing.
This was not the life I had imagined when I had escaped the Red Room.
This was not it at all.
--
My body is a wasteland. A forgotten battlefield. Devoid of life. Barren.
Until an arrow sinks into my soil.
It is quiet and flawed and unassuming. It is scarred.
It’s gentle. It’s familiar.
It’s deaf, and I relish the silence.
And then it begins to set down roots.
--
Sleep eludes me.
Nine months.
Nine months spent in the company of people who would rather I were dead, in an airborne aircraft carrier where it is nearly impossible to be entirely alone and out of sight of surveillance.
I passed every psych eval they gave me and aced every strategy and physical test, too, and yet eyes followed me everywhere. Not that I blamed them. They were smart to be wary. Yet, it is hard to sleep when those eyes are so assured in their hatred and distrust.
I lie awake in my efficiency dorm, dozing for five minutes at a time, and it feels as though I am slowly losing my mind. I sleep less and less.
Back in the Room, sleep deprivation was a common event. But it’s been so long since the exhaustion of endless testing had managed to knock me out for the first few months of my residency.
So I rise, and I leave my room. I walk down an empty hall, turn left, and eventually come to a stop outside another door. There’s a button set into the wall, where a doorbell might be on a normal house.
I pull a bobby pin from the strap of the tank-top I wore to sleep, and slipped it into the lock, wiggling.
The door opens before I can finish.
He looks faintly surprised to find the Black Widow at his door in a pair of yoga pants and a tank-top. His hair is tousled and flattened on one side. He’s shirtless, wearing only a pair of shorts. I allow myself a moment to appreciate the picture he makes.
“Nat…?”
I look down the hall. I wasn’t avoiding his eyes. Just, you know, making sure no one’s watching, or whatever. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“You gotta look at me, gorgeous, I took my hearing aides out. Is everything okay?” He steps to the side to let me pass.
I contemplate forcibly reminding him I do not appreciate such names. I look at him. “Everything’s fine,” and I walk past.
His room is dark, but larger than mine, with a small kitchen and room for a couch and TV.
“Nat?” His voice is questioning.
I ignore him, and walk to the bed against the far wall.
I curl myself into a ball on one side.
He hesitates, still by the door though he has closed it now and is engulfed in the darkness. Then I feel the bed dip as he rests his body next to mine. A firm hand rests on my hip for a moment, and then leaves.
I wait for his breathing to even out. His scent wafts over me. My eyes grow heavy.
I let sleep pull me under.
--
After a disaster an area can find itself devoid of life. Once fertile land altered until it is seemingly uninhabitable. But there are certain species of plants called pioneer species. They cling to what is left, and slowly, very slowly, they begin to feed life back into the earth.
--
It’s the click of the door closing that wakes me. There was a time and place when the slightest movement would have me on my feet, weapon drawn, but that is neither now nor here, and so I sleep until the door clicks closed.
I roll over into the warmth he’s left behind, and I allow myself to give into the clutches of sleep again as his scent washes over me.
I wake again some time later. The room is still dark—his room is always dark. I throw the sheet from my body and swing my legs off of the bed. The carpeted floor is warm under my bare feet.
My clothes had been picked up from the floor and folded on his dresser. One of the many ways I am reminded that he is a soldier, before anything else.
I dress without breaking the silence, in the same short athletic shorts and old army shirt of Clint’s I had worn the night before.
I allow myself a moment to adjust to the sunlight when I open the door into the hall with its wall of windows. It takes a moment for the elevator to open, and I stand motionless inside as it takes me down three floors to the commons.
The doors open to a familiar sight.
The table is full. Clint sits at one end, plate piled high with pancakes and fruit, half of it already gone and leaving behind a sticky mess of syrup and juices. Across from him is Bruce, his own plate held a moderated amount, in comparison, and he picked at it while studying the data sheets situated between him and Tony, who also was only occasionally bringing a bite to his mouth from his half empty plate. Despite his distraction, he had apparently felt it was necessary to help himself to a second plate that sat untouched at his side. On Tony’s other side sat Pepper, with the healthiest breakfast on the table. Steve sat across from Pepper, his plate even more full that Clint’s, and between Steve and Clint was an empty seat.
I smile.
Five faces look up from their meals, and theirs a chorus of grunts and a mumbled “Mornin’.”
Clint gives me his unguarded smile, and Pepper invites me to the salon later, and Tony awkwardly pushes his second plate at me.
I offer him a confused look.
“Cap was trying his best to eat everything so I saved you some.”
I look around the table, and I am happy.
--
My body was a wasteland. It was a battlefield.
But the battle has ended.
The earth is bursting with life, now.
Things grow.
There are still bones buried below. The land dips where it did not do so naturally. And yet, things grow.