Make You Ill, 5/5. NC-17.
Title: Make You Ill
Series: #13 in Ready For The Siege
(#1 - Look Over Your Shoulder, #2 - Armed Up To The Teeth, #3 - Misery Inspires, #4 - Broken Underneath, #5 - Change Is Coming Soon, #6 - Lick Your Wounds, #7 - Bitter Sparks, #8 - Father's Will, #9 - To Feel Safe Again, #10 - Hit Your Prime, #11 - Open Your Eyes, #12 - Can't Be Ignored)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Loki/Natasha, Natasha/Yelena, Natasha/Winter Soldier
Disclaimer: Not mine! Some comic backstory is incorporated into characterizations, but this is still primarily movieverse.
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-movie. Read the other stories before this one, because it does refer back to events in them. Additional warning for underage sexual situations, drug use (with and without consent), dubcon, noncon, mindfuckery of various flavors (hello, Red Room!) and detailed descriptions of violence.
Title and series title from "The Royal We" by Silversun Pickups
Special thanks to phoenixrising06/
romanovasledger for plotting and characterization discussion. :)
Summary: Natasha's past is starting to haunt her and Loki refuses to leave well enough alone. Unfortunately, the Red Room never did take no for an answer.
Prior chapters:
One - Evaluating Threats
Two - Smoke and Mirrors
Three - Hazy Shadows
Four - Beyond Numbers
Five - Memory
The Black Widow program didn't carry that name among its residents. They only knew that they were the best and brightest of the Academy. A limited number of slots were allowed into the Elite program, and rumor had it that only twenty-eight girls could ever be in the program. New cadets were admitted only when the Elites graduated.
Natasha had nowhere else to go, and she was well skilled in whatever she was taught. Her first kill had been at age seven, after all. The recoil on the Makarov hadn't been so bad, not really. She had compensated for it on the second kill. Her instructors had been pleased, and by report, her sponsor Ivan Petrovitch Bezukhov had also been pleased. She simply wanted to repay him for saving her as a child. She recalled fire, arms and the chill air beyond the window. Bezukhov had caught her, had promised her mother that she would live. Natasha also had to live up to that promise. He had reminded her of that often enough.
Yelena had been sent to the Academy by her parents. For the good of the country, they had said, but Natasha knew how to listen at shadows. Pyotr Vasilievich Starkovsky would promise her parents anything, and had known that she would be easily given up. The Belova family had far too many children, and too little money. It was a no brainer to trade one pretty little girl for a life of ease and comfort, even if Starkovsky seemed a little too eager to have said pretty little girl under his control. Natasha knew what those looks meant, the way they tracked Yelena and the rest of the girls in the Academy. Natasha was too cold for Starkovsky's tastes, for all of her red hair supposedly meaning she would be a spitfire, but Yelena had round cheeks, blonde hair and blue eyes. She looked like a delicate china doll.
Stealing a glance into Starkovsky's office years later only confirmed that he liked china dolls. He had pictures of his protégés on the walls, all tender blondes that looked like Bru dolls. Yelena never stood a chance once he saw her. If her parents hadn't complied so readily, he might have arranged to have them killed.
Knowing that years later made Natasha wonder if Ivan had been behind the fire that killed her parents. He never had sexual intent toward her, and he always behaved in a rather fatherly kind of way. It was the same with his other protégés as far as she could tell. She wanted to believe that he had taken advantage of coincidence, seeing it as divine providence. It was kinder than thinking he was every inch the same kind of predator as Starkovsky.
"This is another test," the girls were told. "Find out what they know, however you need to."
One by one, at irregular intervals, Academy girls were taken for the test. It went in alphabetical order, so Yelena was the first one to take the test.
She was locked in a room with an older boy. Tall, lean, and proud of himself, stating that Yelena was his graduation present. He expected Yelena to part her legs for him, never mind her obvious younger age, and grew angry when she didn't simply lie back or cower before him. They fought, but there was no way Yelena could win against him. He had seven or eight years on her, seven inches in height and at least sixty pounds. But she fought anyway, screaming as he smashed her face into the floor and raped her, making sure to be as cruel as possible.
As she lay on the floor afterward, he had laughed and gloated. He saw it as a sign of his prowess, that he was truly one of the best in his class. Yelena had coughed and mewled in pain, then asked what he had done to deserve the honor. He had scoffed at first, but she looked pathetic and weak, and simply asked again. So full of himself, he talked about the missions he had run right before this "graduation present." He never even noticed that she was removing one of the pins from her hair, jaw set with determination.
So it was a complete surprise when she swept his legs out from under him and jammed the pin into his eyes.
He howled and she immediately set to pounding on his solar plexus. As he gasped for breath, she caught him in a scissor lock to break both his arms. Pin pressed against his throat, Yelena very painfully extracted the details of every mission he had ever run as part of his program, every name he could think of for his classmates and supervisors. Only when he was out of information did she cut his throat and let him bleed out over the floor.
An hour later, the door opened and Starkovsky had been there, a slick smile on his face. "Very clever, playing the innocent. Very clever indeed."
She had seen the erection in his trousers. Indeed, he made no effort to hide it. Yelena didn't even get up from where she crouched opposite the door. She was covered in blood and bruises, her thighs ached and she was sure that if it hadn't already been removed, her uterus would have been damaged by the rape. "Shall I recount the information you required?" she asked, voice as even as she could make it.
"Not necessary." His smile was like a shark's. "One last component to your test, my dear."
Still Yelena didn't move, watching as he brought in a chair and undid his pants. Starkovsky ultimately had to grab her and force her mouth to his cock, nearly choking her with every deep thrust into her. While she thought about simply clamping her teeth together, biting it off, she also knew that it would signal her death.
"I knew I had to get back to you," Yelena whispered later. "I did whatever I had to do to survive, to come back to your side." She had crawled straight into Natasha's bed from the showers, bruises livid on her pale skin. Natasha had held her tight as she recounted her exam. The other girls hadn't wanted to listen. They thought Yelena was lying, that she had come up with an elaborate story in order to explain away the bruises.
Natasha believed her. Natasha always believed her.
They huddled together in the dark, watching as other girls took their tests. Some returned, some didn't. The ones that returned could never look Yelena in the eye.
And then it was Natasha's turn.
Just as Yelena said, she was taken with the instructions to find out whatever her target knew, by whatever means necessary. Natasha knew that the benefactors all watched, and had guessed that the boys were part of Department X's answer to the Academy. All boys vs. all girls, all of them trained to be the eyes and ears and hands of Mother Russia.
She was not going to let them do to her what they did to Yelena.
There was a boy in the room, just as there had been for Yelena and possibly the other girls. She watched the boy look her up and down. She gave him a serene smile. "What's your name?" she asked, her youth making the sultry note in her voice sound silly.
He was startled a little by that. "Alexei."
Natasha beamed at him. "I like that name."
It eased him a little. "You do?" She nodded brightly and approached him with an easygoing manner. "Hm. I was told that my reward would be waiting for me here if I was good enough."
"Aren't you good enough?" Natasha asked, cocking her head to the side. "I was told I was going to meet someone strong, and I would have to learn from him."
That lie bolstered Alexei greatly. Puffed up and full of his own importance, he gestured for Natasha to sit on the bed beside him. It was little more than an army cot with a thicker mattress and downy comforter, but those were riches compared to the Academy barracks. She couldn't help but pet the comforter with a wistful smile on her face. "Oh, yes, you are very strong, aren't you? Real blankets? They must value you very much."
And just like that, he was all too willing to "teach" her secrets, and with very little urging on her part went into great detail about his missions to prove his point. When he started touching her arm, she didn't shrug him away. Instead, she leaned in a little closer and kept her eyes wide, as if she was so impressed by his prowess.
Alexei licked his lips a little nervously. He had never even asked for her name, after all, but that didn't stop him from touching her thigh. "It gets lonely in the field. You work alone, you know, and there are few comforts to be had."
"What comfort would you need?" she asked, continuing to feign ignorance.
He was actually very gentle, and pleasantly surprised that she was willing to palm his erection to get him ready, and let him take her virginity. Better him than someone like Starkovsky, she figured, and her instructions never said to kill him. Once he was finished, she suggested that they sleep, claiming to be worn out and tired. Again that fed his ego, and he didn't consider her a threat at all. Natasha remained awake, and once Alexei was truly asleep, she slowly crept from the bed and made a show of retrieving his belt and tying it into a noose. "I can slip it over his neck and kill him if you like," Natasha told the room without waking Alexei, "but that's a waste of good talent and resources."
The door slid open. To her surprise, Starkovsky was there, a thoughtful look in his eyes. "I have underestimated you, perhaps."
She followed him as directed, hoping that Alexei wouldn't be killed for his stupidity. Once she was in a separate room alone with Starkovsky, Natasha dared to speak. "I thought I would report to Comrade Bezukhov."
Dark amusement glinted in his eyes. "Ah, yes. Your benefactor. He has been... indisposed for a time. You report to me today."
Standing at strict attention, Natasha made sure she was more than an arm's length away from Starkovsky. She ignored his ravenous gaze as she made her report, detailing all the missions Alexei had been on. When she was done, she remained at attention. He licked his lips and beckoned her closer, one hand moving to unzip his trousers.
"Don't do that," Natasha said sharply. His eyes narrowed, and she knew she would have to cover for her mistake somehow. But she wouldn't allow Yelena's rapist to touch her that way if she could help it. "The boy," she said, gesturing behind her. "I could not wash, and you wouldn't want to be tainted with his filth."
Starkovsky narrowed his eyes at her, but on the surface of it, there was nothing untoward about her words. "There are other ways to satisfy the requirement," he said finally.
Liar, she wanted to shout at him. But she instead pasted a smile on her face and thought of fire, of standing in a pool of his blood.
Natasha moved to straddle Starkovsky, and moved his hands behind her. "A poor substitute, perhaps," she said quietly. "But clean. You should not have something unworthy of you."
Lies, all lies. But he accepted them and ground against her clothed groin, hands roaming all over her prepubescent body. She made sure to keep her expression pleasant, if a little vacant. He finally grabbed her hair and yanked, making her look at him. "Look at me. You will feel something, Cadet."
"But my pleasure isn't important, comrade," she said sweetly despite the pain in her scalp. "Only yours is."
That was apparently the right thing to say. It flattered his ego and apparently showed deference to his status in the program. Honestly, it didn't matter what Natasha thought, only what he did. Regardless of her performance with Alexei, Starkovsky could still say she failed if he was displeased with her.
It didn't matter what happened to her body. She had to survive. She had to keep going. Her body was nothing more than a tool, a means to an end. That much had been obvious when she was seven, Makarov in hand. That hadn't been too long ago, either.
Natasha eventually made her way back to the dormitories. She headed straight to the showers, not looking at any of the other girls, not looking for Yelena. Instead, she shed her clothes and scrubbed her skin under scalding hot water. She was bright pink and feeling boiled when Yelena found her. "You survived," she said, relief obvious. "And not a mark on you," she added with a hefty dose of envy.
"Not where you can see," Natasha had replied bitterly.
That had shamed Yelena a little, and she went into the shower with Natasha, holding her. "You're here with me," Yelena had said. "We survived. We lived. And we're the ones with top scores, so you know we're moving up to the Elites. The others have to worry. They only take the best, and you know we're the best."
Over and over, a mantra burned into their brains. The Elites were the goal. They were the best, and every girl wanted to be the best. They didn't want to be one of the failures shoveled into a shallow grave in the courtyard.
"If it's not better," Natasha had whispered, "then we have to get out. Elites or not."
The running water had been louder than her words. And Yelena would never have wanted to leave the Elites anyway. She counted herself as a volunteer, and was in constant competition with the other girls. "I'm the best." Unless she saw Natasha's scores. Then there was a hint of a scowl, and she would push herself even harder. Coming in second wasn't good enough. She couldn't be the Pale Little Spider of the Red Room. She had to be the best and only Black Widow, no matter what the cost.
Even for best friends, the Red Room left its mark.
***
Clint flattened out the map of Austria and its surrounding countries for Loki's benefit. The trickster god had helped create portals in and out of Villach, as well as any other place that Clint had wanted to investigate. This was all without the blessing of any intelligence agency, but he knew how to dodge their agents pretty well by now. He marked off all the leads he had been able to collect, though he X'd them out in black when it turned out to be a dead end. Much of Hydra's top brass had been killed rather messily, though it was difficult for forensic experts to say if it was before or after Ophelia's death in Villach. Clint was willing to bet it was after; Ophelia would never stand by and let her top people be killed off in such a violent manner.
"Those mages," Clint said after a while, looking at the map. "It's been over a week since Tash disappeared. There's no ransom demand, no one claiming responsibility for her disappearance, no body parts, no sightings. So Yelena isn't interested in trying to kill her to prove a point, she's not trying to take out SHIELD. If anything, it looks like she devastated Hydra on her way out of there, which actually does us a huge favor."
Loki stood there, arms crossed and expression pinched in displeasure. "Yes. You have a point."
"We thought the mages were enchanting something, right?"
"They were."
"But you can't find a trace of Yelena anywhere. And I may have broken into Interpol's files, they can't find anything either."
Smirking, Loki shook his head. "Useless-"
"No, you don't understand. Interpol is good. They're a data collection and investigations agency, they collect the best agents they can in every member country." Clint stood, jaw set. "So all their forensic experts crawled over that house in Villach and the one in Vienna. You don't realize the extent of their networks."
"So?"
"So? There is no forensic evidence Yelena ever existed. No hair or fibers, no fingerprints, no skin cells, not even photographs." Clint gave Loki an intense look. "Ophelia was in love. She liked Emilia, but she loved Yelena. Hydra and AIM agents remember the fights she had with Ekaterina about bringing Yelena along. She had pictures everywhere. She bought tons of stuff for her - jewelry, clothes, property... I mean, one guy told me how Yelena got to run Hydra's vibranium mine, and that is some serious shit that even top level people didn't always do for Ophelia."
"Your point?" Loki asked, bored.
"So where's her stuff? Where'd she go? How did she disappear like that? There's no forensic evidence. It's like she was able to wipe everything away, erase that it ever existed..."
Loki stared at Clint in surprise, lips parting. "What did you say?"
"Erase that it ever existed?" Clint repeated, brows furrowing in query.
Breath hissing in through his teeth, Loki suddenly was angry with himself. "The scribes."
"What?"
"Those blasted scribes and their bastardized script!" Loki snarled, hands clenching into fists. "Where are their texts?"
"Austrian intelligence."
"I must have them."
"Paperwork," Clint reminded him.
Baring his teeth in a grimace of a smile, Loki pointed to the map. "Where is it?"
"Loki..."
"Show me!" Loki demanded. "I will walk on Yggdrasil and not sully the reputation of your precious SHIELD."
Loki disappeared between as soon as Clint pointed on the map the general location. It was all he needed to start looking for signs of runic magic. His first attempt to get the books brought him to the right place but not the right time. It took several tries to refine the timing, as he had to be sure he caught it just right; if he wasn't paying close attention, he could overshoot his walk by years, if not decades, in either direction, and he didn't want to waste time walking back to the starting position to try again. When he finally did find the books in lockdown, he easily tore through the box to get at them.
The spell he had cast had moved ghostly images of the dead bodies through their final minutes of life. He hadn't thought to actually examine the scribes' books, accepting Clint's assessment of their function because of the placement in the room. Stupid. Yelena had been clever, having the mages in different groupings at specific points in the room, doing multiple workings at once. It allowed an incredible amount of power to build up, even if the mages themselves weren't aware of it, and that allowed her scribes to do something that no human mage should have been able to do.
Change the spá to hide Yelena's presence.
Mortals couldn't find traces of her at all, and even for Loki it would be damned difficult. Clever, clever girl. He would admire her ingenuity if he didn't hate her so much.
"The bitch used magic!" Loki raged when he returned to Avengers Tower. He didn't care that he was interrupting a meeting between the Avengers. "No wonder no mortal could find her. They erased parts of her existence!" He paced, ignoring the worried glances that Clint and Steve sent in his direction. "She'll remain hidden until she chooses to be found!"
"Well, then," Clint began calmly. Loki whirled around, but stilled at the confident look on Clint's face. "We'll just have to make sure she wants to be found."
***
"Someone is looking for her," the Winter Soldier announced as he entered the hotel room. He found Yelena soothing the small of Natasha's back as she vomited violently into the toilet. "The injections are making her worse. The formula must be wrong."
"They're not wrong," Yelena insisted.
"It isn't making her stronger. The triggers aren't working."
"No, they are. Her memory is coming back. We're loosening the hold those bastards put on her," Yelena insisted. She leaned against Natasha's back and curled an arm protectively around her middle. "She's ours, we're making her perfect."
"She was impressive before. This," the Winter Soldier replied, gesturing to Natasha with his flesh arm, "is destroying what we need."
"I would rather destroy her than let someone else have her," Yelena hissed.
"Don't I get a say in this?" Natasha asked weakly, still clutching the toilet.
The Winter Soldier looked at her pale face and shaky limbs. His gaze hardened when he looked at Yelena. "You are destroying our tactical advantage. This ends now."
Yelena bristled. "No," she snarled, letting go of Natasha to glare and snarl at the Winter Soldier, hands in fists. "Don't forget, I found you."
Faster than Natasha was be able to track in that state, the Winter Soldier removed a knife from his waist sheath, flipped it up and grabbed it. He held the knife not far from Yelena's throat, and there was no change in his expression at all. "The mission, Yelena," he said coldly. "Continue in this manner, and you will fail."
Something shifted in Yelena's gaze; she had always been afraid of failure, of not being as good as Natasha. Was that what this was all about?
"I'm out of vials anyway," Yelena huffed. She stalked out of the bathroom without another word, anger clear on her face. Natasha didn't relax until she heard the outer door slam, indicating she left the hotel room.
The Winter Soldier gently picked her up in his arms and laid her down on the bed. "Thank you," Natasha rasped.
"They might be killing you."
Déjà vu crashed into her. She looked at him with hope in her eyes, too exhausted to try to hide it from him. "Do you remember us, then?"
His flesh and blood fingers trailed down her cheek tenderly. "I never forgot."
Natasha's eyes widened and she grasped his hand to press it against her cheek. "Winter," she said softly. "I never would have left you behind if I knew..."
His gaze shifted; she had no idea what he had been told or what he remembered from the day she had burned down the Red Room. In her timeline, it had been twelve years ago. For all she knew, in his timeline it had been the week before.
"We will not speak of those dark days," he said finally. "They cost us both too much."
"There are no children in the Red Room," Natasha told him softly. "The children are too young, too weak. They die, alone and afraid."
He nodded solemnly. Was he remembering when he had told her that? "Love is for children," he told her, extricating his hand. "What we have are debts. Responsibilities. Ledgers. Balance. Not love or tenderness or compassion. There is no time for emotions. There is only the mission, in completing the part we have to play."
"I know," she said, letting the tension bleed out of her body. She shut her eyes. "It always was something that impressed me."
He chuckled. "Ah, Natashenko. You had always impressed me, too."
His fingers trailed down the hollow between her breasts, then into the curve beneath one. She kept her eyes shut, letting him caress her bare skin wherever he liked. Her breath quickened, and she cracked an eye open to look for Yelena. She was nowhere to be found.
"She was angry and left the room entirely," the Winter Soldier said in dry tones.
As Natasha sat up, she remembered other hotel rooms in various states of disarray. Her lips quirked as she took in her surroundings. The Winter Soldier caught that, of course, and there was a flash of curiosity in his eyes. "Too bad I'm not dressed," Natasha laughed. "The room is entirely too neat."
"We also haven't had sex yet, to be entirely fair."
She caught the laughter in his eyes and couldn't help but lean in and kiss his mouth, one hand coming up to rest on his cheek. "We can fix that problem."
"Yes, we can," he murmured, hands coming to trace her back gently. "It's not the same if we don't trash the room."
"There's still time for that."
Practically tearing off his layers of clothing, they attacked each other as if it hadn't been twelve years since the Red Room fire. Each piece of clothing was tossed aside without care for where it landed or what it knocked into. The Winter Soldier pulled her down onto the bed on top of him, landing heavily and jostling the bedside table. When the lamp tottered and ultimately fell, they both burst out into laughter. "Looks like we can still make a mess," Natasha laughed, leaning down to kiss his smiling mouth. It felt so good to see him smiling at her, to feel his hands on her, to have his eyes light up at the sight of her.
Love is for children, he had taught her. There were no children in the Red Room, and no such thing as normalcy. Still, for a time they could pretend with each other.
Natasha brushed her breasts across his chest as she kissed him. He seized the back of her head when she started to pull back, deepening the kiss. Taking the hint, Natasha reached down to palm his cock rather than take it into her mouth. He smiled against her mouth and let go of her hair to reach between her legs. He stroked her until she came, gasping for breath. She climbed on top of him and mounted him, sighing in pleasure. She slowly rocked above him, his hands resting gently on her hips. Gradually, he urged her to move faster, until she had to reach behind her to grab his thighs for balance. Natasha was still dizzy, but this was worth it. She loved him, she had always loved him. Feeling him inside her again made her doubt where she was, whether it was another dream reliving her past or if she was in the present.
"Natasha," the Winter Soldier growled, pushing up into her. He chanted her name like a prayer, eyes dark with passion as he looked up at her.
She tightened and came, squeezing tight around his cock. He closed his eyes and let go of his control, spilling into her. With a pleased sigh, Natasha slowed and then draped herself over his torso. He was still inside her, right where he belonged.
When she had burned down the Red Room, this was what she had wanted. They were supposed to be together. She was supposed to tease him in between missions or during sparring sessions, smacking his arm or smirking as she called him an idiot. "I wasn't sure what you remembered," she said quietly. "You looked so angry with me in Austria."
"I thought you abandoned us. Me."
Natasha let out a soft sighing breath. "I really thought I killed you. It... between that and Yelena saying she wanted to kill me, I had nothing left. This was all I knew, and it didn't matter who I worked for."
"Those people looking for you," the Winter Soldier began.
"In the past few years," she admitted slowly, "I've collected a family."
"Oh, Natashenko," he said, disappointed. "You know better."
"Yes. I tried not to at first, but..." She bit her lip uncertainly. "They help me, protect me, work with me. They worry about me."
Cool metal fingers traced her spine gently. She had seen him rip out an enemy combatant's spine before, or puncture a chest cavity to remove a still-beating heart. Yet he was always gentle with her, always careful. It was his way of expressing his love for her.
"Then we must show them there is nothing to worry about. You are safe with us, especially now that I will not allow Yelena to continue the injections. Once they see this, they'll back off." The metal fingers ran the length of her spine again, making Natasha shiver. "Then you will belong only to us, as it should be."
"As it should be," Natasha echoed. There was an ache deep in her gut, and she tried to tell herself it was nothing more than residual weakness and nausea from the injections, even if it felt very similar to regret and anguish.
***
They met in an open area late at night. Natasha was flanked by the Winter Soldier and Yelena Belova. Clint, Steve and Loki were already waiting for them when they walked up. "I'm here," she told them unnecessarily, taking on a wide-legged stance that carried the impression she didn't care about their opinion.
Clint stared intently at her. "Are you all right, Tash?"
"You can see that I am."
"They kidnapped you, Tash. Forgive me if I needed to confirm it," he replied, voice even but with some strain.
"She told you she's fine," the Winter Soldier said, his voice hard and pitiless. Steve started at the sound of it, staring at him intently.
"Bucky?" he asked, taking a half step forward.
The Winter Soldier turned his dead eyes to Steve. "Who the hell is Bucky?"
Before Steve could answer, Yelena stepped forward, an irritated look on her face. "Enough. We've come. You see Natalia is fine. She's home again, and you can leave."
Clint stared at Natasha's impassive expression. "Tash?"
"It's like with Drakov's daughter, Clint. Times change," she said dispassionately. Her head shook imperceptibly at Loki when he started to step forward. "SHIELD will have to do without me."
"And Asgard?" Loki asked, a thread of anger in his voice. "What of your duties there?"
"Those will have to be put on hold for right now," Natasha told Loki. While her expression was still a mask, some true regret came through in her voice. "Other deals will have to be suspended for now, as well."
"Oh? Suspended," Loki said with a snarl. "For how long? For you did promise to maintain such an association indefinitely, Natasha. Is your word meaningless?"
Now anger flashed in her eyes and her hands were fists at her sides. "The bargain will resume when possible," she snapped in her domme voice. Then she turned to Clint, her expression softening. "Take them home, Clint. You know what needs to be done."
"Are you sure?" he asked, concern evident. "We can help if you need it..."
"We don't need your help," Yelena said in disdain. The tone clearly said he should be thankful that they weren't killing the agents.
Natasha touched Yelena's arm in a comforting gesture, much the way she usually did with Loki. Seeing it made him want to scream and strike Yelena dead where she stood. It was bad enough he didn't feel their connection anymore, as if something was blocking it. Scrying spells hadn't worked, his locator spells hadn't worked. Nothing, and then the message to meet. This wasn't happening. Natasha wasn't willingly leaving them. These were her friends. She wouldn't abandon those she cared about.
Though she had also cared for Yelena in the past, and the Winter Soldier had been special to her as well. Who did she care for most?
"It's here if you need it," Clint told Natasha earnestly.
"We'll back you up," Steve said.
The Winter Soldier was watching him carefully, no recognition in his dead eyes. "Was there further business?"
Steve stared at him, jaw clenched. After a moment, he shook his head. "Naw, I guess not."
"I will call on you," Loki said, displeasure evident.
"Don't," Natasha intoned. She was warning him away with her voice and expression and stance, and he could tell it was genuine concern for him. Clint grabbed his arm tightly, forcing him to remain where he was.
"Don't follow us," the Winter Soldier told them.
Clint nodded. "We won't." When Loki started to protest, Clint glared at him. "We won't."
The trio remained rooted in place until Natasha, Yelena and the Winter Soldier were gone. Loki whirled around glare at Clint. "You cretin! I could have gotten her back!"
"This is her choice, Loki," Clint said, voice hard and angry. "She's protecting us from them, and there's something bigger going on."
"How d'you figure?" Steve asked.
"The reference to Drakov's daughter."
"She killed her," Loki told them, still furious. "That tells us nothing."
"Shut the fuck up," Clint snarled, and Loki suspected that he had been waiting to say such a thing for a very long time. "It's why she killed the girl that matters."
"I saw it in your mind," Loki told him, yanking his arm away. "Natasha slit the girl's throat."
"Wait," Steve commanded, then turned to Clint. "You know her best from that period. Why'd she put in the reference?"
"That was the job she took when I brought her in," Clint began in a low tone, nodding toward the way they had come. As they walked, he spoke quietly, and the other two men had to keep up with him in order to hear the story. "She was hired to kidnap Drakov's daughter, torture and kill her, in order to show Drakov he couldn't leave the Vory."
"So? She killed her," Loki said sharply.
"Not then," Clint snapped in reply. "She pretended to be the girl's new tutor to get her, but she changed her mind and protected her. The Vory had to put out word they needed new mercs, that's when I got there. I tracked them, they were tracking her. When I caught up to them, there were six mercs left that were about to brutally kill the both of them. I recognized two or three of them by their rap sheets, and it wasn't going to be clean or easy."
Loki blinked. This part hadn't been seen years ago. "Wait. I don't understand."
"She's the best. So when the Vory didn't hear from her, they sent a dozen men. She was already hurt by the time I got there, six men left. The girl was bloodied, too. And I call her a girl because she was only twelve or thirteen at the time. They talked, I don't know what about because Tash never told me. But that's when she slit the girl's throat. She knew what was happening, Loki. The girl wanted Tash to do it, not those guys." Loki merely stared at him dumbly. "And while the mercs were stunned, Natasha took them out as badly as they would have killed her."
"Christ," Steve murmured, taking in Clint's expression.
"When I got there, Natasha was cradling the dead girl in her lap and sobbing. She wanted me to shoot her, practically begged me to, saying the death would never stop if I didn't kill her. It was all she knew."
"But you didn't," Loki murmured, still confused.
"No, I didn't. She was tired of death, tired of killing. She knew sometimes there had to be a hard sacrifice. So did the girl, even then." Clint gave Loki a hollow-eyed look. "Tash is doing that now. She's sacrificing herself to keep us safe."
Steve looked at Loki's stunned expression. "You didn't know that. You were in his head four years ago, though..."
Loki glared at him and Clint. "You resisted, then."
A smile suddenly broke out on Clint's face. "Huh. I guess I did." He picked up his pace a little more as they approached their car. "C'mon. We need to regroup and plan. Those two are all that's left of the Red Room, and those guys were nasty."
"You said we weren't going after her," Loki accused.
"He's not lying if we're going to stop the Red Room from opening shop again," Steve said, catching Clint's meaning.
Loki blinked and regarded Clint critically. "You are perhaps more devious than I ever gave you credit for, Hawk."
Clint nodded and opened the doors. "I'll take that as a compliment. We need to meet Fury again. Odds are, we'll need SHIELD resources to track them down."
"I can't find Natasha the way I used to, but I can find a way to track her down," Loki said sulkily, sliding into the back seat. It wasn't his favorite place to be in, but Clint was the one driving and never wanted him in the front passenger seat.
"But not Yelena and the Winter Soldier," Steve said. "If they separate at all, we won't catch them, and we need to."
"We need Natasha," Loki said, managing to avoid sounding as desperate as he felt.
"No arguments there," Steve said firmly. "We need to do this the smart way."
Swallowing down his resentment, Loki acquiesced and followed their lead.
***
Back in the hole in the wall motel room they had spent the day in, the Winter Soldier rounded on Natasha. "What message did you give them?"
"That this is my choice," Natasha told him evenly, not flinching at his gaze. "It was my choice to join SHIELD eight years ago, it's my choice to leave now."
Winter stared at her, but her gaze didn't waver. He nodded sharply. "Fine. Why did that one call me Bucky? What is the import of that?"
"You look like someone he knows," Natasha replied. She knew who it was, ever since she had looked into Steve's file, but Bucky Barnes was likely gone. She had never seen the Winter Soldier act in a way that was similar to Steve Rogers or his descriptions of Bucky over the years she had known him. Being a tool of the Red Room, Bucky Barnes had likely been scoured clean and emptied of Steve's friend. She had thought it a kindness never to talk about the Winter Soldier with him before.
Yelena was pacing back and forth, agitated. "They won't take you away. I'll kill them all first."
Natasha yanked on her arm, halting her progress. "You promised me, Yelena. They kept me safe until now, and they do care for me. They'll help us if we need it."
She yanked her arm away from Natasha. "We don't need them," Yelena hissed.
"The Red Room burned to the ground ten years ago," Natasha hissed. "We're talking about rebuilding its reputation from scratch, and there are organizations out there that will stop us."
"I disabled Hydra," Yelena sniffed.
"There's still AIM, Project Centipede, Black Spectre, the Hand, the Ten Rings, any solo acts wanting to make a name for themselves... We can't afford to throw away potential allies."
"She's right," the Winter Soldier intoned, cutting off any protest Yelena wanted to make. "Her friend thinks of me kindly, and they are concerned for her wellbeing. They won't stop us."
Yelena scowled, but deferred to the Winter Soldier's opinion. She had always been subservient to him on missions they ran together, and had only been in competition with Natasha. As much as she loved Natasha fiercely, she constantly felt the need to prove herself a proper Black Widow. Natasha thought it likely had to do with the last bout of conditioning she had been subjected to before the Red Room was destroyed. SHIELD therapists and agents had eliminated all of the triggers that had been in her head, but there was no such help forthcoming for Yelena or the Winter Soldier. Plus, whatever experimentation she had done with Hydra might have destabilized her further. Natasha knew she had to tread carefully around her.
"Who the hell is Bucky?" he asked her. "He called me Bucky. Why would he do that?"
"His best friend in the war was James Buchanan Barnes," she told him honestly. "He was called Bucky, and you look just like him." Natasha paused. "He fell in the Alps in '44, but there had been some experimentation done before that..."
"So you think I'm him."
"It's a possibility."
The Winter Soldier stared at her impassively. "You think I'm him."
"You could be. I don't know." She held his gaze; there was no point in lying when he could always tell if she was. "Do you feel like a Bucky?"
"No."
"Or James?" she prodded.
The Winter Soldier opened his mouth to reply, but paused. "I'm not sure. Winter doesn't fit."
"You never let me name you," Natasha murmured. She looked at him closely, ignoring Yelena snarling in the background how none of this mattered, that Steve would die if he tried to separate them all. "James," she said, voice soft and intimate, the way she used to say Winter to him. It felt like the name could curl around him, like it fit the jagged pieces of what Department X had allowed him to be.
"I can be James," he said after a moment, and she could almost see the warmth in his eyes.
"You will not go to those creatures," Yelena hissed, jerkily pacing the length of the room behind Natasha. "You belong with us, Natalia."
Natasha didn't turn, and kept eye contact with the Winter Soldier. James. "I remember what we used to be," she said softly, pitched more for him than for Yelena. "I remember what never could have been, but what we wished for. I remember lives I never lived, lives I never saved, everything that was twisted and polluted and destroyed."
Yelena stopped her pacing, at least. But it was the Winter Soldier that Natasha wanted to reach, and he touched her chin with his metal hand. "How do you remember? They would have unmade you. They would have scrubbed you clean."
"They did. Often." She tilted her head, until her cheek was in the palm of his metal hand. "But it filtered through in dreams. The longer I was away from them, the more fragments I could remember. And the injections now... It's clearer in many places."
There was a flash of uncertainty in his eyes, as if he couldn't tell where she was going with the admission. He got up abruptly and went to the bathroom. Yelena sat down in his place, a slick smile stretching her lips, her eyes glittering with madness. "You remember, then. The Red Room. Us. All of it."
"I remember many things," she said slowly, treading carefully around Yelena's agitation. "I don't know what you remember."
"Then I'll show you," Yelena purred, leaning in to kiss her. Natasha sighed and let her; it was simply easier that way.
For a brief moment, Natasha allowed herself to entertain the fantasy of running away. She could slip away in the middle of the night. But then what? Go to a hospital or domestic violence shelter and pretend to be an ordinary girl abused by her lover? Yelena would find her, would show up with automatic weapons and threats to shoot innocents in order to get her back. Natasha wouldn't be able to escape, not that way.
She sacrificed herself for so many reasons, what was one more? She had offered herself willingly to Loki to assuage his ego and save Earth from his chaotic wrath, and that was when she had nothing but anger and loathing for him. Why not do the same for someone she had genuinely cared for when she was younger? Natasha and Yelena had been friends in the Red Room, lovers when possible. Cold comfort in a chilling place, but for Yelena it had been true love. Natasha's love had centered around Winter, and she knew he felt it in return.
It was just as well the Red Room's program was called Black Widow. It was an intricate web that tied them all together.
Yelena was a snarling mess, James would follow where they wanted him to go. He needed a mission, he didn't know how to be whole. There were too many holes in his mind, too many blank patches in his personality. Yelena was far too volatile to be left alone.
They needed her, these beautiful, fragile, dangerous people. They needed her and loved her and would fall apart without her. Allowing them to fall apart would be cruel. She could be, if she needed to be, but this was not one of those times.
"I have the perfect first target to get us back on the map," Yelena chirped when their kiss broke, beaming at Natasha widely. "Ekaterina Sarkissian won't be a problem without her mages. I very helpfully got rid of them when I left Ophelia. I think you should have the honors."
Ekaterina had been very careful to avoid getting caught in legal traps. SHIELD couldn't touch her, even though she had been on their radar for years. Natasha had almost been killed on her whim, and her survival would have been much more iffy without Loki's help. Ekaterina was too dangerous to live, and there was no legal way to take her down. This was the best and only way to eliminate that threat, destabilizing AIM and their hidden terrorist agenda.
Natasha allowed herself a small, sinister smile. "Yes. That's perfect, Yelena." She leaned forward, eyes glinting dangerously. "And I know just how to do it."
The End
Series: #13 in Ready For The Siege
(#1 - Look Over Your Shoulder, #2 - Armed Up To The Teeth, #3 - Misery Inspires, #4 - Broken Underneath, #5 - Change Is Coming Soon, #6 - Lick Your Wounds, #7 - Bitter Sparks, #8 - Father's Will, #9 - To Feel Safe Again, #10 - Hit Your Prime, #11 - Open Your Eyes, #12 - Can't Be Ignored)
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Loki/Natasha, Natasha/Yelena, Natasha/Winter Soldier
Disclaimer: Not mine! Some comic backstory is incorporated into characterizations, but this is still primarily movieverse.
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-movie. Read the other stories before this one, because it does refer back to events in them. Additional warning for underage sexual situations, drug use (with and without consent), dubcon, noncon, mindfuckery of various flavors (hello, Red Room!) and detailed descriptions of violence.
Title and series title from "The Royal We" by Silversun Pickups
Special thanks to phoenixrising06/
romanovasledger for plotting and characterization discussion. :)
Summary: Natasha's past is starting to haunt her and Loki refuses to leave well enough alone. Unfortunately, the Red Room never did take no for an answer.
Prior chapters:
One - Evaluating Threats
Two - Smoke and Mirrors
Three - Hazy Shadows
Four - Beyond Numbers
Five - Memory
The Black Widow program didn't carry that name among its residents. They only knew that they were the best and brightest of the Academy. A limited number of slots were allowed into the Elite program, and rumor had it that only twenty-eight girls could ever be in the program. New cadets were admitted only when the Elites graduated.
Natasha had nowhere else to go, and she was well skilled in whatever she was taught. Her first kill had been at age seven, after all. The recoil on the Makarov hadn't been so bad, not really. She had compensated for it on the second kill. Her instructors had been pleased, and by report, her sponsor Ivan Petrovitch Bezukhov had also been pleased. She simply wanted to repay him for saving her as a child. She recalled fire, arms and the chill air beyond the window. Bezukhov had caught her, had promised her mother that she would live. Natasha also had to live up to that promise. He had reminded her of that often enough.
Yelena had been sent to the Academy by her parents. For the good of the country, they had said, but Natasha knew how to listen at shadows. Pyotr Vasilievich Starkovsky would promise her parents anything, and had known that she would be easily given up. The Belova family had far too many children, and too little money. It was a no brainer to trade one pretty little girl for a life of ease and comfort, even if Starkovsky seemed a little too eager to have said pretty little girl under his control. Natasha knew what those looks meant, the way they tracked Yelena and the rest of the girls in the Academy. Natasha was too cold for Starkovsky's tastes, for all of her red hair supposedly meaning she would be a spitfire, but Yelena had round cheeks, blonde hair and blue eyes. She looked like a delicate china doll.
Stealing a glance into Starkovsky's office years later only confirmed that he liked china dolls. He had pictures of his protégés on the walls, all tender blondes that looked like Bru dolls. Yelena never stood a chance once he saw her. If her parents hadn't complied so readily, he might have arranged to have them killed.
Knowing that years later made Natasha wonder if Ivan had been behind the fire that killed her parents. He never had sexual intent toward her, and he always behaved in a rather fatherly kind of way. It was the same with his other protégés as far as she could tell. She wanted to believe that he had taken advantage of coincidence, seeing it as divine providence. It was kinder than thinking he was every inch the same kind of predator as Starkovsky.
"This is another test," the girls were told. "Find out what they know, however you need to."
One by one, at irregular intervals, Academy girls were taken for the test. It went in alphabetical order, so Yelena was the first one to take the test.
She was locked in a room with an older boy. Tall, lean, and proud of himself, stating that Yelena was his graduation present. He expected Yelena to part her legs for him, never mind her obvious younger age, and grew angry when she didn't simply lie back or cower before him. They fought, but there was no way Yelena could win against him. He had seven or eight years on her, seven inches in height and at least sixty pounds. But she fought anyway, screaming as he smashed her face into the floor and raped her, making sure to be as cruel as possible.
As she lay on the floor afterward, he had laughed and gloated. He saw it as a sign of his prowess, that he was truly one of the best in his class. Yelena had coughed and mewled in pain, then asked what he had done to deserve the honor. He had scoffed at first, but she looked pathetic and weak, and simply asked again. So full of himself, he talked about the missions he had run right before this "graduation present." He never even noticed that she was removing one of the pins from her hair, jaw set with determination.
So it was a complete surprise when she swept his legs out from under him and jammed the pin into his eyes.
He howled and she immediately set to pounding on his solar plexus. As he gasped for breath, she caught him in a scissor lock to break both his arms. Pin pressed against his throat, Yelena very painfully extracted the details of every mission he had ever run as part of his program, every name he could think of for his classmates and supervisors. Only when he was out of information did she cut his throat and let him bleed out over the floor.
An hour later, the door opened and Starkovsky had been there, a slick smile on his face. "Very clever, playing the innocent. Very clever indeed."
She had seen the erection in his trousers. Indeed, he made no effort to hide it. Yelena didn't even get up from where she crouched opposite the door. She was covered in blood and bruises, her thighs ached and she was sure that if it hadn't already been removed, her uterus would have been damaged by the rape. "Shall I recount the information you required?" she asked, voice as even as she could make it.
"Not necessary." His smile was like a shark's. "One last component to your test, my dear."
Still Yelena didn't move, watching as he brought in a chair and undid his pants. Starkovsky ultimately had to grab her and force her mouth to his cock, nearly choking her with every deep thrust into her. While she thought about simply clamping her teeth together, biting it off, she also knew that it would signal her death.
"I knew I had to get back to you," Yelena whispered later. "I did whatever I had to do to survive, to come back to your side." She had crawled straight into Natasha's bed from the showers, bruises livid on her pale skin. Natasha had held her tight as she recounted her exam. The other girls hadn't wanted to listen. They thought Yelena was lying, that she had come up with an elaborate story in order to explain away the bruises.
Natasha believed her. Natasha always believed her.
They huddled together in the dark, watching as other girls took their tests. Some returned, some didn't. The ones that returned could never look Yelena in the eye.
And then it was Natasha's turn.
Just as Yelena said, she was taken with the instructions to find out whatever her target knew, by whatever means necessary. Natasha knew that the benefactors all watched, and had guessed that the boys were part of Department X's answer to the Academy. All boys vs. all girls, all of them trained to be the eyes and ears and hands of Mother Russia.
She was not going to let them do to her what they did to Yelena.
There was a boy in the room, just as there had been for Yelena and possibly the other girls. She watched the boy look her up and down. She gave him a serene smile. "What's your name?" she asked, her youth making the sultry note in her voice sound silly.
He was startled a little by that. "Alexei."
Natasha beamed at him. "I like that name."
It eased him a little. "You do?" She nodded brightly and approached him with an easygoing manner. "Hm. I was told that my reward would be waiting for me here if I was good enough."
"Aren't you good enough?" Natasha asked, cocking her head to the side. "I was told I was going to meet someone strong, and I would have to learn from him."
That lie bolstered Alexei greatly. Puffed up and full of his own importance, he gestured for Natasha to sit on the bed beside him. It was little more than an army cot with a thicker mattress and downy comforter, but those were riches compared to the Academy barracks. She couldn't help but pet the comforter with a wistful smile on her face. "Oh, yes, you are very strong, aren't you? Real blankets? They must value you very much."
And just like that, he was all too willing to "teach" her secrets, and with very little urging on her part went into great detail about his missions to prove his point. When he started touching her arm, she didn't shrug him away. Instead, she leaned in a little closer and kept her eyes wide, as if she was so impressed by his prowess.
Alexei licked his lips a little nervously. He had never even asked for her name, after all, but that didn't stop him from touching her thigh. "It gets lonely in the field. You work alone, you know, and there are few comforts to be had."
"What comfort would you need?" she asked, continuing to feign ignorance.
He was actually very gentle, and pleasantly surprised that she was willing to palm his erection to get him ready, and let him take her virginity. Better him than someone like Starkovsky, she figured, and her instructions never said to kill him. Once he was finished, she suggested that they sleep, claiming to be worn out and tired. Again that fed his ego, and he didn't consider her a threat at all. Natasha remained awake, and once Alexei was truly asleep, she slowly crept from the bed and made a show of retrieving his belt and tying it into a noose. "I can slip it over his neck and kill him if you like," Natasha told the room without waking Alexei, "but that's a waste of good talent and resources."
The door slid open. To her surprise, Starkovsky was there, a thoughtful look in his eyes. "I have underestimated you, perhaps."
She followed him as directed, hoping that Alexei wouldn't be killed for his stupidity. Once she was in a separate room alone with Starkovsky, Natasha dared to speak. "I thought I would report to Comrade Bezukhov."
Dark amusement glinted in his eyes. "Ah, yes. Your benefactor. He has been... indisposed for a time. You report to me today."
Standing at strict attention, Natasha made sure she was more than an arm's length away from Starkovsky. She ignored his ravenous gaze as she made her report, detailing all the missions Alexei had been on. When she was done, she remained at attention. He licked his lips and beckoned her closer, one hand moving to unzip his trousers.
"Don't do that," Natasha said sharply. His eyes narrowed, and she knew she would have to cover for her mistake somehow. But she wouldn't allow Yelena's rapist to touch her that way if she could help it. "The boy," she said, gesturing behind her. "I could not wash, and you wouldn't want to be tainted with his filth."
Starkovsky narrowed his eyes at her, but on the surface of it, there was nothing untoward about her words. "There are other ways to satisfy the requirement," he said finally.
Liar, she wanted to shout at him. But she instead pasted a smile on her face and thought of fire, of standing in a pool of his blood.
Natasha moved to straddle Starkovsky, and moved his hands behind her. "A poor substitute, perhaps," she said quietly. "But clean. You should not have something unworthy of you."
Lies, all lies. But he accepted them and ground against her clothed groin, hands roaming all over her prepubescent body. She made sure to keep her expression pleasant, if a little vacant. He finally grabbed her hair and yanked, making her look at him. "Look at me. You will feel something, Cadet."
"But my pleasure isn't important, comrade," she said sweetly despite the pain in her scalp. "Only yours is."
That was apparently the right thing to say. It flattered his ego and apparently showed deference to his status in the program. Honestly, it didn't matter what Natasha thought, only what he did. Regardless of her performance with Alexei, Starkovsky could still say she failed if he was displeased with her.
It didn't matter what happened to her body. She had to survive. She had to keep going. Her body was nothing more than a tool, a means to an end. That much had been obvious when she was seven, Makarov in hand. That hadn't been too long ago, either.
Natasha eventually made her way back to the dormitories. She headed straight to the showers, not looking at any of the other girls, not looking for Yelena. Instead, she shed her clothes and scrubbed her skin under scalding hot water. She was bright pink and feeling boiled when Yelena found her. "You survived," she said, relief obvious. "And not a mark on you," she added with a hefty dose of envy.
"Not where you can see," Natasha had replied bitterly.
That had shamed Yelena a little, and she went into the shower with Natasha, holding her. "You're here with me," Yelena had said. "We survived. We lived. And we're the ones with top scores, so you know we're moving up to the Elites. The others have to worry. They only take the best, and you know we're the best."
Over and over, a mantra burned into their brains. The Elites were the goal. They were the best, and every girl wanted to be the best. They didn't want to be one of the failures shoveled into a shallow grave in the courtyard.
"If it's not better," Natasha had whispered, "then we have to get out. Elites or not."
The running water had been louder than her words. And Yelena would never have wanted to leave the Elites anyway. She counted herself as a volunteer, and was in constant competition with the other girls. "I'm the best." Unless she saw Natasha's scores. Then there was a hint of a scowl, and she would push herself even harder. Coming in second wasn't good enough. She couldn't be the Pale Little Spider of the Red Room. She had to be the best and only Black Widow, no matter what the cost.
Even for best friends, the Red Room left its mark.
***
Clint flattened out the map of Austria and its surrounding countries for Loki's benefit. The trickster god had helped create portals in and out of Villach, as well as any other place that Clint had wanted to investigate. This was all without the blessing of any intelligence agency, but he knew how to dodge their agents pretty well by now. He marked off all the leads he had been able to collect, though he X'd them out in black when it turned out to be a dead end. Much of Hydra's top brass had been killed rather messily, though it was difficult for forensic experts to say if it was before or after Ophelia's death in Villach. Clint was willing to bet it was after; Ophelia would never stand by and let her top people be killed off in such a violent manner.
"Those mages," Clint said after a while, looking at the map. "It's been over a week since Tash disappeared. There's no ransom demand, no one claiming responsibility for her disappearance, no body parts, no sightings. So Yelena isn't interested in trying to kill her to prove a point, she's not trying to take out SHIELD. If anything, it looks like she devastated Hydra on her way out of there, which actually does us a huge favor."
Loki stood there, arms crossed and expression pinched in displeasure. "Yes. You have a point."
"We thought the mages were enchanting something, right?"
"They were."
"But you can't find a trace of Yelena anywhere. And I may have broken into Interpol's files, they can't find anything either."
Smirking, Loki shook his head. "Useless-"
"No, you don't understand. Interpol is good. They're a data collection and investigations agency, they collect the best agents they can in every member country." Clint stood, jaw set. "So all their forensic experts crawled over that house in Villach and the one in Vienna. You don't realize the extent of their networks."
"So?"
"So? There is no forensic evidence Yelena ever existed. No hair or fibers, no fingerprints, no skin cells, not even photographs." Clint gave Loki an intense look. "Ophelia was in love. She liked Emilia, but she loved Yelena. Hydra and AIM agents remember the fights she had with Ekaterina about bringing Yelena along. She had pictures everywhere. She bought tons of stuff for her - jewelry, clothes, property... I mean, one guy told me how Yelena got to run Hydra's vibranium mine, and that is some serious shit that even top level people didn't always do for Ophelia."
"Your point?" Loki asked, bored.
"So where's her stuff? Where'd she go? How did she disappear like that? There's no forensic evidence. It's like she was able to wipe everything away, erase that it ever existed..."
Loki stared at Clint in surprise, lips parting. "What did you say?"
"Erase that it ever existed?" Clint repeated, brows furrowing in query.
Breath hissing in through his teeth, Loki suddenly was angry with himself. "The scribes."
"What?"
"Those blasted scribes and their bastardized script!" Loki snarled, hands clenching into fists. "Where are their texts?"
"Austrian intelligence."
"I must have them."
"Paperwork," Clint reminded him.
Baring his teeth in a grimace of a smile, Loki pointed to the map. "Where is it?"
"Loki..."
"Show me!" Loki demanded. "I will walk on Yggdrasil and not sully the reputation of your precious SHIELD."
Loki disappeared between as soon as Clint pointed on the map the general location. It was all he needed to start looking for signs of runic magic. His first attempt to get the books brought him to the right place but not the right time. It took several tries to refine the timing, as he had to be sure he caught it just right; if he wasn't paying close attention, he could overshoot his walk by years, if not decades, in either direction, and he didn't want to waste time walking back to the starting position to try again. When he finally did find the books in lockdown, he easily tore through the box to get at them.
The spell he had cast had moved ghostly images of the dead bodies through their final minutes of life. He hadn't thought to actually examine the scribes' books, accepting Clint's assessment of their function because of the placement in the room. Stupid. Yelena had been clever, having the mages in different groupings at specific points in the room, doing multiple workings at once. It allowed an incredible amount of power to build up, even if the mages themselves weren't aware of it, and that allowed her scribes to do something that no human mage should have been able to do.
Change the spá to hide Yelena's presence.
Mortals couldn't find traces of her at all, and even for Loki it would be damned difficult. Clever, clever girl. He would admire her ingenuity if he didn't hate her so much.
"The bitch used magic!" Loki raged when he returned to Avengers Tower. He didn't care that he was interrupting a meeting between the Avengers. "No wonder no mortal could find her. They erased parts of her existence!" He paced, ignoring the worried glances that Clint and Steve sent in his direction. "She'll remain hidden until she chooses to be found!"
"Well, then," Clint began calmly. Loki whirled around, but stilled at the confident look on Clint's face. "We'll just have to make sure she wants to be found."
***
"Someone is looking for her," the Winter Soldier announced as he entered the hotel room. He found Yelena soothing the small of Natasha's back as she vomited violently into the toilet. "The injections are making her worse. The formula must be wrong."
"They're not wrong," Yelena insisted.
"It isn't making her stronger. The triggers aren't working."
"No, they are. Her memory is coming back. We're loosening the hold those bastards put on her," Yelena insisted. She leaned against Natasha's back and curled an arm protectively around her middle. "She's ours, we're making her perfect."
"She was impressive before. This," the Winter Soldier replied, gesturing to Natasha with his flesh arm, "is destroying what we need."
"I would rather destroy her than let someone else have her," Yelena hissed.
"Don't I get a say in this?" Natasha asked weakly, still clutching the toilet.
The Winter Soldier looked at her pale face and shaky limbs. His gaze hardened when he looked at Yelena. "You are destroying our tactical advantage. This ends now."
Yelena bristled. "No," she snarled, letting go of Natasha to glare and snarl at the Winter Soldier, hands in fists. "Don't forget, I found you."
Faster than Natasha was be able to track in that state, the Winter Soldier removed a knife from his waist sheath, flipped it up and grabbed it. He held the knife not far from Yelena's throat, and there was no change in his expression at all. "The mission, Yelena," he said coldly. "Continue in this manner, and you will fail."
Something shifted in Yelena's gaze; she had always been afraid of failure, of not being as good as Natasha. Was that what this was all about?
"I'm out of vials anyway," Yelena huffed. She stalked out of the bathroom without another word, anger clear on her face. Natasha didn't relax until she heard the outer door slam, indicating she left the hotel room.
The Winter Soldier gently picked her up in his arms and laid her down on the bed. "Thank you," Natasha rasped.
"They might be killing you."
Déjà vu crashed into her. She looked at him with hope in her eyes, too exhausted to try to hide it from him. "Do you remember us, then?"
His flesh and blood fingers trailed down her cheek tenderly. "I never forgot."
Natasha's eyes widened and she grasped his hand to press it against her cheek. "Winter," she said softly. "I never would have left you behind if I knew..."
His gaze shifted; she had no idea what he had been told or what he remembered from the day she had burned down the Red Room. In her timeline, it had been twelve years ago. For all she knew, in his timeline it had been the week before.
"We will not speak of those dark days," he said finally. "They cost us both too much."
"There are no children in the Red Room," Natasha told him softly. "The children are too young, too weak. They die, alone and afraid."
He nodded solemnly. Was he remembering when he had told her that? "Love is for children," he told her, extricating his hand. "What we have are debts. Responsibilities. Ledgers. Balance. Not love or tenderness or compassion. There is no time for emotions. There is only the mission, in completing the part we have to play."
"I know," she said, letting the tension bleed out of her body. She shut her eyes. "It always was something that impressed me."
He chuckled. "Ah, Natashenko. You had always impressed me, too."
His fingers trailed down the hollow between her breasts, then into the curve beneath one. She kept her eyes shut, letting him caress her bare skin wherever he liked. Her breath quickened, and she cracked an eye open to look for Yelena. She was nowhere to be found.
"She was angry and left the room entirely," the Winter Soldier said in dry tones.
As Natasha sat up, she remembered other hotel rooms in various states of disarray. Her lips quirked as she took in her surroundings. The Winter Soldier caught that, of course, and there was a flash of curiosity in his eyes. "Too bad I'm not dressed," Natasha laughed. "The room is entirely too neat."
"We also haven't had sex yet, to be entirely fair."
She caught the laughter in his eyes and couldn't help but lean in and kiss his mouth, one hand coming up to rest on his cheek. "We can fix that problem."
"Yes, we can," he murmured, hands coming to trace her back gently. "It's not the same if we don't trash the room."
"There's still time for that."
Practically tearing off his layers of clothing, they attacked each other as if it hadn't been twelve years since the Red Room fire. Each piece of clothing was tossed aside without care for where it landed or what it knocked into. The Winter Soldier pulled her down onto the bed on top of him, landing heavily and jostling the bedside table. When the lamp tottered and ultimately fell, they both burst out into laughter. "Looks like we can still make a mess," Natasha laughed, leaning down to kiss his smiling mouth. It felt so good to see him smiling at her, to feel his hands on her, to have his eyes light up at the sight of her.
Love is for children, he had taught her. There were no children in the Red Room, and no such thing as normalcy. Still, for a time they could pretend with each other.
Natasha brushed her breasts across his chest as she kissed him. He seized the back of her head when she started to pull back, deepening the kiss. Taking the hint, Natasha reached down to palm his cock rather than take it into her mouth. He smiled against her mouth and let go of her hair to reach between her legs. He stroked her until she came, gasping for breath. She climbed on top of him and mounted him, sighing in pleasure. She slowly rocked above him, his hands resting gently on her hips. Gradually, he urged her to move faster, until she had to reach behind her to grab his thighs for balance. Natasha was still dizzy, but this was worth it. She loved him, she had always loved him. Feeling him inside her again made her doubt where she was, whether it was another dream reliving her past or if she was in the present.
"Natasha," the Winter Soldier growled, pushing up into her. He chanted her name like a prayer, eyes dark with passion as he looked up at her.
She tightened and came, squeezing tight around his cock. He closed his eyes and let go of his control, spilling into her. With a pleased sigh, Natasha slowed and then draped herself over his torso. He was still inside her, right where he belonged.
When she had burned down the Red Room, this was what she had wanted. They were supposed to be together. She was supposed to tease him in between missions or during sparring sessions, smacking his arm or smirking as she called him an idiot. "I wasn't sure what you remembered," she said quietly. "You looked so angry with me in Austria."
"I thought you abandoned us. Me."
Natasha let out a soft sighing breath. "I really thought I killed you. It... between that and Yelena saying she wanted to kill me, I had nothing left. This was all I knew, and it didn't matter who I worked for."
"Those people looking for you," the Winter Soldier began.
"In the past few years," she admitted slowly, "I've collected a family."
"Oh, Natashenko," he said, disappointed. "You know better."
"Yes. I tried not to at first, but..." She bit her lip uncertainly. "They help me, protect me, work with me. They worry about me."
Cool metal fingers traced her spine gently. She had seen him rip out an enemy combatant's spine before, or puncture a chest cavity to remove a still-beating heart. Yet he was always gentle with her, always careful. It was his way of expressing his love for her.
"Then we must show them there is nothing to worry about. You are safe with us, especially now that I will not allow Yelena to continue the injections. Once they see this, they'll back off." The metal fingers ran the length of her spine again, making Natasha shiver. "Then you will belong only to us, as it should be."
"As it should be," Natasha echoed. There was an ache deep in her gut, and she tried to tell herself it was nothing more than residual weakness and nausea from the injections, even if it felt very similar to regret and anguish.
***
They met in an open area late at night. Natasha was flanked by the Winter Soldier and Yelena Belova. Clint, Steve and Loki were already waiting for them when they walked up. "I'm here," she told them unnecessarily, taking on a wide-legged stance that carried the impression she didn't care about their opinion.
Clint stared intently at her. "Are you all right, Tash?"
"You can see that I am."
"They kidnapped you, Tash. Forgive me if I needed to confirm it," he replied, voice even but with some strain.
"She told you she's fine," the Winter Soldier said, his voice hard and pitiless. Steve started at the sound of it, staring at him intently.
"Bucky?" he asked, taking a half step forward.
The Winter Soldier turned his dead eyes to Steve. "Who the hell is Bucky?"
Before Steve could answer, Yelena stepped forward, an irritated look on her face. "Enough. We've come. You see Natalia is fine. She's home again, and you can leave."
Clint stared at Natasha's impassive expression. "Tash?"
"It's like with Drakov's daughter, Clint. Times change," she said dispassionately. Her head shook imperceptibly at Loki when he started to step forward. "SHIELD will have to do without me."
"And Asgard?" Loki asked, a thread of anger in his voice. "What of your duties there?"
"Those will have to be put on hold for right now," Natasha told Loki. While her expression was still a mask, some true regret came through in her voice. "Other deals will have to be suspended for now, as well."
"Oh? Suspended," Loki said with a snarl. "For how long? For you did promise to maintain such an association indefinitely, Natasha. Is your word meaningless?"
Now anger flashed in her eyes and her hands were fists at her sides. "The bargain will resume when possible," she snapped in her domme voice. Then she turned to Clint, her expression softening. "Take them home, Clint. You know what needs to be done."
"Are you sure?" he asked, concern evident. "We can help if you need it..."
"We don't need your help," Yelena said in disdain. The tone clearly said he should be thankful that they weren't killing the agents.
Natasha touched Yelena's arm in a comforting gesture, much the way she usually did with Loki. Seeing it made him want to scream and strike Yelena dead where she stood. It was bad enough he didn't feel their connection anymore, as if something was blocking it. Scrying spells hadn't worked, his locator spells hadn't worked. Nothing, and then the message to meet. This wasn't happening. Natasha wasn't willingly leaving them. These were her friends. She wouldn't abandon those she cared about.
Though she had also cared for Yelena in the past, and the Winter Soldier had been special to her as well. Who did she care for most?
"It's here if you need it," Clint told Natasha earnestly.
"We'll back you up," Steve said.
The Winter Soldier was watching him carefully, no recognition in his dead eyes. "Was there further business?"
Steve stared at him, jaw clenched. After a moment, he shook his head. "Naw, I guess not."
"I will call on you," Loki said, displeasure evident.
"Don't," Natasha intoned. She was warning him away with her voice and expression and stance, and he could tell it was genuine concern for him. Clint grabbed his arm tightly, forcing him to remain where he was.
"Don't follow us," the Winter Soldier told them.
Clint nodded. "We won't." When Loki started to protest, Clint glared at him. "We won't."
The trio remained rooted in place until Natasha, Yelena and the Winter Soldier were gone. Loki whirled around glare at Clint. "You cretin! I could have gotten her back!"
"This is her choice, Loki," Clint said, voice hard and angry. "She's protecting us from them, and there's something bigger going on."
"How d'you figure?" Steve asked.
"The reference to Drakov's daughter."
"She killed her," Loki told them, still furious. "That tells us nothing."
"Shut the fuck up," Clint snarled, and Loki suspected that he had been waiting to say such a thing for a very long time. "It's why she killed the girl that matters."
"I saw it in your mind," Loki told him, yanking his arm away. "Natasha slit the girl's throat."
"Wait," Steve commanded, then turned to Clint. "You know her best from that period. Why'd she put in the reference?"
"That was the job she took when I brought her in," Clint began in a low tone, nodding toward the way they had come. As they walked, he spoke quietly, and the other two men had to keep up with him in order to hear the story. "She was hired to kidnap Drakov's daughter, torture and kill her, in order to show Drakov he couldn't leave the Vory."
"So? She killed her," Loki said sharply.
"Not then," Clint snapped in reply. "She pretended to be the girl's new tutor to get her, but she changed her mind and protected her. The Vory had to put out word they needed new mercs, that's when I got there. I tracked them, they were tracking her. When I caught up to them, there were six mercs left that were about to brutally kill the both of them. I recognized two or three of them by their rap sheets, and it wasn't going to be clean or easy."
Loki blinked. This part hadn't been seen years ago. "Wait. I don't understand."
"She's the best. So when the Vory didn't hear from her, they sent a dozen men. She was already hurt by the time I got there, six men left. The girl was bloodied, too. And I call her a girl because she was only twelve or thirteen at the time. They talked, I don't know what about because Tash never told me. But that's when she slit the girl's throat. She knew what was happening, Loki. The girl wanted Tash to do it, not those guys." Loki merely stared at him dumbly. "And while the mercs were stunned, Natasha took them out as badly as they would have killed her."
"Christ," Steve murmured, taking in Clint's expression.
"When I got there, Natasha was cradling the dead girl in her lap and sobbing. She wanted me to shoot her, practically begged me to, saying the death would never stop if I didn't kill her. It was all she knew."
"But you didn't," Loki murmured, still confused.
"No, I didn't. She was tired of death, tired of killing. She knew sometimes there had to be a hard sacrifice. So did the girl, even then." Clint gave Loki a hollow-eyed look. "Tash is doing that now. She's sacrificing herself to keep us safe."
Steve looked at Loki's stunned expression. "You didn't know that. You were in his head four years ago, though..."
Loki glared at him and Clint. "You resisted, then."
A smile suddenly broke out on Clint's face. "Huh. I guess I did." He picked up his pace a little more as they approached their car. "C'mon. We need to regroup and plan. Those two are all that's left of the Red Room, and those guys were nasty."
"You said we weren't going after her," Loki accused.
"He's not lying if we're going to stop the Red Room from opening shop again," Steve said, catching Clint's meaning.
Loki blinked and regarded Clint critically. "You are perhaps more devious than I ever gave you credit for, Hawk."
Clint nodded and opened the doors. "I'll take that as a compliment. We need to meet Fury again. Odds are, we'll need SHIELD resources to track them down."
"I can't find Natasha the way I used to, but I can find a way to track her down," Loki said sulkily, sliding into the back seat. It wasn't his favorite place to be in, but Clint was the one driving and never wanted him in the front passenger seat.
"But not Yelena and the Winter Soldier," Steve said. "If they separate at all, we won't catch them, and we need to."
"We need Natasha," Loki said, managing to avoid sounding as desperate as he felt.
"No arguments there," Steve said firmly. "We need to do this the smart way."
Swallowing down his resentment, Loki acquiesced and followed their lead.
***
Back in the hole in the wall motel room they had spent the day in, the Winter Soldier rounded on Natasha. "What message did you give them?"
"That this is my choice," Natasha told him evenly, not flinching at his gaze. "It was my choice to join SHIELD eight years ago, it's my choice to leave now."
Winter stared at her, but her gaze didn't waver. He nodded sharply. "Fine. Why did that one call me Bucky? What is the import of that?"
"You look like someone he knows," Natasha replied. She knew who it was, ever since she had looked into Steve's file, but Bucky Barnes was likely gone. She had never seen the Winter Soldier act in a way that was similar to Steve Rogers or his descriptions of Bucky over the years she had known him. Being a tool of the Red Room, Bucky Barnes had likely been scoured clean and emptied of Steve's friend. She had thought it a kindness never to talk about the Winter Soldier with him before.
Yelena was pacing back and forth, agitated. "They won't take you away. I'll kill them all first."
Natasha yanked on her arm, halting her progress. "You promised me, Yelena. They kept me safe until now, and they do care for me. They'll help us if we need it."
She yanked her arm away from Natasha. "We don't need them," Yelena hissed.
"The Red Room burned to the ground ten years ago," Natasha hissed. "We're talking about rebuilding its reputation from scratch, and there are organizations out there that will stop us."
"I disabled Hydra," Yelena sniffed.
"There's still AIM, Project Centipede, Black Spectre, the Hand, the Ten Rings, any solo acts wanting to make a name for themselves... We can't afford to throw away potential allies."
"She's right," the Winter Soldier intoned, cutting off any protest Yelena wanted to make. "Her friend thinks of me kindly, and they are concerned for her wellbeing. They won't stop us."
Yelena scowled, but deferred to the Winter Soldier's opinion. She had always been subservient to him on missions they ran together, and had only been in competition with Natasha. As much as she loved Natasha fiercely, she constantly felt the need to prove herself a proper Black Widow. Natasha thought it likely had to do with the last bout of conditioning she had been subjected to before the Red Room was destroyed. SHIELD therapists and agents had eliminated all of the triggers that had been in her head, but there was no such help forthcoming for Yelena or the Winter Soldier. Plus, whatever experimentation she had done with Hydra might have destabilized her further. Natasha knew she had to tread carefully around her.
"Who the hell is Bucky?" he asked her. "He called me Bucky. Why would he do that?"
"His best friend in the war was James Buchanan Barnes," she told him honestly. "He was called Bucky, and you look just like him." Natasha paused. "He fell in the Alps in '44, but there had been some experimentation done before that..."
"So you think I'm him."
"It's a possibility."
The Winter Soldier stared at her impassively. "You think I'm him."
"You could be. I don't know." She held his gaze; there was no point in lying when he could always tell if she was. "Do you feel like a Bucky?"
"No."
"Or James?" she prodded.
The Winter Soldier opened his mouth to reply, but paused. "I'm not sure. Winter doesn't fit."
"You never let me name you," Natasha murmured. She looked at him closely, ignoring Yelena snarling in the background how none of this mattered, that Steve would die if he tried to separate them all. "James," she said, voice soft and intimate, the way she used to say Winter to him. It felt like the name could curl around him, like it fit the jagged pieces of what Department X had allowed him to be.
"I can be James," he said after a moment, and she could almost see the warmth in his eyes.
"You will not go to those creatures," Yelena hissed, jerkily pacing the length of the room behind Natasha. "You belong with us, Natalia."
Natasha didn't turn, and kept eye contact with the Winter Soldier. James. "I remember what we used to be," she said softly, pitched more for him than for Yelena. "I remember what never could have been, but what we wished for. I remember lives I never lived, lives I never saved, everything that was twisted and polluted and destroyed."
Yelena stopped her pacing, at least. But it was the Winter Soldier that Natasha wanted to reach, and he touched her chin with his metal hand. "How do you remember? They would have unmade you. They would have scrubbed you clean."
"They did. Often." She tilted her head, until her cheek was in the palm of his metal hand. "But it filtered through in dreams. The longer I was away from them, the more fragments I could remember. And the injections now... It's clearer in many places."
There was a flash of uncertainty in his eyes, as if he couldn't tell where she was going with the admission. He got up abruptly and went to the bathroom. Yelena sat down in his place, a slick smile stretching her lips, her eyes glittering with madness. "You remember, then. The Red Room. Us. All of it."
"I remember many things," she said slowly, treading carefully around Yelena's agitation. "I don't know what you remember."
"Then I'll show you," Yelena purred, leaning in to kiss her. Natasha sighed and let her; it was simply easier that way.
For a brief moment, Natasha allowed herself to entertain the fantasy of running away. She could slip away in the middle of the night. But then what? Go to a hospital or domestic violence shelter and pretend to be an ordinary girl abused by her lover? Yelena would find her, would show up with automatic weapons and threats to shoot innocents in order to get her back. Natasha wouldn't be able to escape, not that way.
She sacrificed herself for so many reasons, what was one more? She had offered herself willingly to Loki to assuage his ego and save Earth from his chaotic wrath, and that was when she had nothing but anger and loathing for him. Why not do the same for someone she had genuinely cared for when she was younger? Natasha and Yelena had been friends in the Red Room, lovers when possible. Cold comfort in a chilling place, but for Yelena it had been true love. Natasha's love had centered around Winter, and she knew he felt it in return.
It was just as well the Red Room's program was called Black Widow. It was an intricate web that tied them all together.
Yelena was a snarling mess, James would follow where they wanted him to go. He needed a mission, he didn't know how to be whole. There were too many holes in his mind, too many blank patches in his personality. Yelena was far too volatile to be left alone.
They needed her, these beautiful, fragile, dangerous people. They needed her and loved her and would fall apart without her. Allowing them to fall apart would be cruel. She could be, if she needed to be, but this was not one of those times.
"I have the perfect first target to get us back on the map," Yelena chirped when their kiss broke, beaming at Natasha widely. "Ekaterina Sarkissian won't be a problem without her mages. I very helpfully got rid of them when I left Ophelia. I think you should have the honors."
Ekaterina had been very careful to avoid getting caught in legal traps. SHIELD couldn't touch her, even though she had been on their radar for years. Natasha had almost been killed on her whim, and her survival would have been much more iffy without Loki's help. Ekaterina was too dangerous to live, and there was no legal way to take her down. This was the best and only way to eliminate that threat, destabilizing AIM and their hidden terrorist agenda.
Natasha allowed herself a small, sinister smile. "Yes. That's perfect, Yelena." She leaned forward, eyes glinting dangerously. "And I know just how to do it."
The End