Scarlett
Part 1
by Rondabunny
Agent Romanoff came into Fury's office and closed the door behind her. She didn't know what her next mission would be but Fury sounded concerned, so she got intrigued as usual when she had something important or extraordinary as being undercover, working for Stark or helping S.H.I.E.L.D. to get Hulk on board.
"Nat, sit down, please. I have a difficult task for you." Fury pushed a tablet towards the agent which she caught and touched screen to see information on this "difficult task" as he noted.
"Not long ago we discovered that Hydra is trying to produce some new and yet unknown biological weapon. So, we started digging and found some ancient Catholic cathedral on Pantelleria Island near Italian coastline. First, it didn't seem as anything special just a male's cloister on a volcanic island but a week ago things started to get ugly and we interfered. Unfortunately for us a lot of agents died because of a badly thought out operation. Say nothing but good of dead. One of the Hydra's men escaped after blowing up the facility most of which was underground. There was no trace of biological weapon, but we found this specimen." The man pointed at the photo of a girl that was on the screen.
"So what, if I'm a woman, I should babysit?" huffed agent Romanoff.
"I wouldn't describe it as babysitting. I said we didn't find the biological weapon but I'm sure you are familiar with Russian's classical literature better than I am. There's a poet, Pushkin I think his name is and he has an interesting fairy tale that runs like:
'Your tsaritsa, sire, last night
Was delivered of a fright–
Neither son nor daughter, nor
Have we seen it's like before.' "
He cited.
"Wow, I've never heard Pushkin in English, that's amazing how lame it sounds, I got the point, though. What's wrong with her? She seems like an ordinary child. Ok, not pretty but nothing special," the woman concluded looking at the picture.
The child was really ugly: big, droopy green eyes on a square face, a straight nose widening out in the end and small mouth with lower lip a little bit bigger than the upper one. A massive jaw, protruded cheek bones, expansive forehead made her look more like a boy than a girl. Her ugliness was framed with messy, wavy, red lashes of hair. She was skinny and it didn't add much to her appearance either.
"Play the record. You'll see how ordinary she is."
Romanoff touched the screen. There was an emergency room on the video. Nothing special, a usual room where she herself been many times before. The girl was lying on the examination table. She was pale and definitely dehydrated. Her right leg was badly injured one inch above the calf because Natalie could clearly see the cracked bone. A doctor and a nurse fussed about plugging the child to different tubes and equipment. The nurse took some blood and then the doctor started examining girl's leg. The kid was obviously in pain but she wasn't crying. The doctor told the nurse to make an injection and after some minutes the child went nuts. Out of nowhere she grew fangs and claws, her eyes turned yellow and she attacked the nurse ripping the artery on her neck. It seemed as if the girl didn't feel pain in her broken leg. When the nurse fell down and the doctor set an alarm the kid jumped on the woman leaving deep scratches on her arms and body. Blood immediately started dripping from the gashes. Only three trained guards managed to tie her up.
"She killed the nurse and put the doctor in the intense care unit. This is after three days under debris of the blown up cloister without food or water. She couldn't move because a huge stone crashed down on her leg and she was on the third floor underground. Everyone died except this… girl."
"What do you want me to do? I'm not a scientist. I don't know how it works. Ask Dr. Banner or Stark," she put away the tablet.
"We made all the tests. The scientific department has already taken everything they could to do as thorough research as was possible. This girl is here for two days but she hasn't eaten anything. We tried to feed her as prisoners on hunger strike. You know, this isn't a very pleasant process but she somehow manages to throw up everything that gets into her stomach," he said with concern.
"So, you want me to feed her?"
"I want you to recruit her. I need to know how many creatures like her Hydra has created because we found a lot of graves with babies with different anomalies. If a nine year old can easily kill an adult, I need to be prepared for any challenge this planet could face in the future," he emphasized the last words.
"Why do you think I'm the best for this job?" She asked with a note of skepticism in her voice.
"Only you are fluent in Latin."
"That would be a lot of fun."
Agent Romanoff stood up and left the room.
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Half an hour later she opened a metal door to a small cell where the girl was kept. Natasha put a tray with food on the bed-side table and looked at the girl. The child was lying on a metal bed tightly strapped to it. A tube of the dropper with some kind of liquid was injected into her arm.
"Salve! Quomodo vales?" the woman asked. (translation: Hello! How are you?)
"Abi!" the girl replied hoarsely. (translation: Leave me be!)
"Do you speak any other language except Latin?" Romanoff continued in Latin unbuckling child's feet and hands.
The girl didn't say anything. She slowly pushed her fragile body up, sat on the bed and took the needle out of her slim arm.
"Wanna eat?"
"Some water, please," the kid answered in Latin and Natasha made a conclusion that this girl really doesn't know any foreign languages.
"What's your name?" She asked two glasses of water later. The girl remained silent. She put the glass on the bed-side table and lay comfortably in bed.
They have been staring at each other for some time when Natasha broke the silence.
"You know it is impolite not to answer the questions if an adult asks you!" The woman said sternly.
"Would you torture me for it?" the child asked.
"Yes, I might!"
"I'll ask God to bring me a quick death," she said simply and closed her green eyes.
"Listen, I don't want to hurt you. Aren't you hungry? If you eat something, I'll go away." Romanoff changed her tactics because she understood that a 9 year-old ready to die must be a very hard nut to crack. Children don't have a moral code, they don't decipher between right or wrong unless parents teach them. They are instinctive creatures with bare necessities but this one was different. She hasn't been eating for five days in a row and was ready to die. It wasn't child's behavior at all.
"I can't eat that food, it is poisoned," the girl replied opening her eyes.
"What do you eat then?"
"I usually eat porridge. It's a white or grey substance a little bit thicker than liquid. It has all the necessary elements that I need. It doesn't have any taste."
"Humph." Natalie thought what it could be. "Can you bring semolina but tell the cook to make it really watery and without any sugar or other sweeteners," she ordered the guards in English who copied everything she said since she entered the cell.
"Yes, agent Romanoff. It'll be ready in fifteen minutes," she heard the guard.
"Whom did you call?!" asked a strange roaring voice and Romanoff realized that the child bared her teeth. Natasha saw two fangs at each jaw. Nails on both hands turned into two inch claws. The girl was ready to attack. It was so unexpected for Natasha that she felt a strange need to spring up and ran out of the room but she suppressed the feeling and moved her arms a little to have the best shot.
"I asked for the food you eat. They'll bring it in fifteen minutes." she told in Latin. "Why did you attack the medical staff? They wanted to help you."
Suddenly girl's eyes turned from yellow to green, claws and fangs disappeared.
"I didn't mean to do any harm. I think they'd injected me with a sedative. I can't control myself when somebody gives me sleeping medicine." She confessed. "I can cure them, though, if you let me."
"Cure?! How? One of them died, another is at resuscitation department!"
"You sprained your arm, I can heal it." stated the girl.
"What? How did you know?"
"I can see the pain. If you let me touch your finger, the pain will go away."
"Let's try it," agreed the agent. She wanted to see how it worked.
Natasha extended her hand palm up and the child touched her finger cushion. She was mesmerized by the touch. An overwhelming feeling of warmth, happiness and energy wrapped up her from head to toes. Romanoff was in perfect bliss which she didn't want to stop. On the other hand, black tears streamed down girl's face, dropping on child's sleeping gown and leaving black dusty traces on it. Romanoff made an effort and broke this invisible connection. The child was inhaling air heavily as if she couldn't breathe. A few tears dropped down turning into black dust.
"Are you alright?" asked Romanoff with concern.
"Why do you have so much pain in you?" the girl asked shaking with sorrow.
"I'm sorry. When you heal somebody do you always feel their pain?" This unusual ability of the child surprised and worried the woman.
"I feel the pain and I see what happened, like who or what inflicted it."
"Why didn't you tell me?" the woman sounded confused. "How much did you see?"
"A sprained arm, fractured ribs, some knife cuts."
Romanoff exhaled in relief. The child named only the injuries she's got during three previous months.
"There is more than that. It haunts you but I can't return parts that you'd lost." Very slowly the girl lay down on the pillow. She was obviously exhausted.
"What are you talking about?"
"Something happened to you. It hurts the most. It isn't your body…"
A guard with a bowl of some white mesh came into the room interrupting their conversation. The girl pushed up the covers hiding her hands and chest under them as if trying to protect herself.
"Thank you," said Romanoff in English.
The man gave her the bowl and left the cell.
"Eat this," she told in Latin.
"It's hot. My food has never been hot." The girl looked suspiciously at the plate.
"If it is cold, it will be even more disgusting. At least try it."
"It's not the porridge I ate but I like it!" the child murmured in satisfaction.
Natasha couldn't believe her eyes. The child was eating cream of wheat with such pleasure as if it was a Birthday cake. She took a spoon from the tray with food she brought and tasted the white mess. She frowned. It was pure semolina cooked on water without salt or sugar. It was terribly horrible.
"Have you ever tasted real food like that on the tray?" The woman asked out of curiosity.
"Sometimes I ate stuff that you call "real food" and after that I felt sick because of poison in it."
Agent Romanoff didn't understand why the child thought that food was poisoned. She was sorry for this girl, who probably spend her short life underground with people that taught her whatever they needed her to believe in.
"What is your name?" Natalie asked ready to leave.
"And yours?" was the answer.
"Natalie Romanoff, you can call me Nat."
"I'm Scarlett," replied the girl in Latin.
To be continued…