A/N: I wrote this story for a project my friend created, called That Song. This is a story for the medium level and the song I used was Born To Die, by Lana Del Rey.

Super very special thanks to my friend Sammy that helped me when I wasn't inspired! She wrote me a gigantic email with topics, songs and images I could use to get a plot bunny.

Goethe beautifully said that "every author in some way portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will." Well, this time I was fully conscious that a lot of me was going into this… But you didn't need to know that.

Born To Die

"Feet don't fail me now; take me to the finish line. Oh, my heart, it breaks every step that I take."

Natasha Romanoff hadn't been the same ever since the Battle of New York. She had been compromised as she had stated. She had been compromised due to the nature of the relationship she shared with Clint. The Captain had caught them together at the helicarrier but what he didn't catch – what no one caught – was how deep the infamous Black Widow was compromised.

Not all the training in the world could have prepared her for what had happened, not even all the brainwash by the Red Room; she was feeling because of Clint. She felt worry when Coulson informed her that he was compromised, she felt anxious when she heard Loki's threat, felt scared during her fight against the Hawk Eye and most of all she felt pain when she learned that Clint's innocence had been tainted by Loki's mind control, just like the Red Room had done the same to her.

Natasha was fully aware that Clint was not innocent, that his childhood had not been a happy one and that just like her he had once worked to the other guys but at least she "felt" happy that he hadn't been "unmade" as he well put it. No one should experience this lack of control of their own minds, Natasha thought.

Though with all these new found feelings, the Black Widow opened herself to different kinds of horrors.

SHIELD had sent her to a solo mission. Everything went downhill. Natasha always thought that if things were to do downhill that at least the beginning would assemble to be easy. But no. Everything was a little off and she chose to ignore the signs, ignore her intuition, her better judgment and for that she was caught. What happened exactly she would never be able to explain but without her realizing, her mission's target drugged her. When consciousness came back she found herself skillfully tied-up, no way to escape the ropes if no one helped her. The ropes were tight and that meant no way to escape, no way to fight back.

Karlson – her target – was far more dangerous and devious than SHIELD knew. At least she preferred to think that way because if she found out that information like that had been kept from her then she would be glad to torture and kill every single one of the agents that prepared the mission for her, including Fury and especially Maria Hill. Karlson was far more sinister than what she was told. He beat her, but she had been beaten before. He took aim at her mind, but she had been tortured like that too. It was easy to block him out of her mind, at least until a certain point.

Like I said, Natasha Romanoff hadn't been the same ever since the Battle of New York. It is easy to block your emotions before you find something worth feeling for, after passing this point of no return, one can only block so far. And her resolve started to crumble when he started to caress her. She knew life only too well to think that he wouldn't have sex with her. What was making her come back to reality was the fact that except for the Red Room, no man had ever touched her without her consent. Everything she had done in her life, during her work, she had done willingly; and now this imbecile would rape her and unlike the times when she was at her own personal inferno at the Red Room learning to suppress her feeling, this time she wouldn't be able to block it.

At the Red Room she had the goal to go numb, to suppress what she felt until she could no longer feel at all, but she couldn't do this now because she knew only too well that if she managed to go numb from this assault then she would indeed stop feeling altogether again. On one side it would be comforting to stop feeling confused when she was with Clint and stop trying to analyze what she felt and searching for the name of each emotion but she didn't know what would be the impact on her relationship with Clint. The Red Room training had prepared her to take any blow she could receive and still come out victorious and survive, but Clint showed her that there was no point in simply surviving. Cling taught her the meaning of the word living; he taught her that ever since the first time they met when he should have killed her, but gave her a way out. He showed her that people had different thoughts and took different directions than what she was told; he showed her that when he gave her asylum and refused to receive something in return, receive her body in return. That night in that dirty hotel so many years ago when she barely spoke English and offered herself to him and he refused was a new beginning for her.

If she blocked everything out that meant having to start all over again, going back to the beginning of the game with the possibility of not having the will to play it again. A few days before, she feared how much she had changed since she met him and considered if she should go back to her old self, but now all she could think about was how many innocent people she had killed because of this damn training, how "normal" people went through this kind of terror every single day and managed to overcome it. With a last thought she made her decision… After all, she had red in her ledger and she'd like to wipe it out.

"Don't make me sad, don't make me cry. Sometimes love is not enough and the road gets tough I don't know why."

Her logic had been rather simple: she had made people suffer; maybe if she suffered too then she could begin to wipe out all that red. They did say that empathy was the solution, didn't they?

As many other victims she felt betrayed that she didn't get help when she screamed for it. And she had indeed screamed. Karlson had already finished with her and was standing on a corner of the room, watching her, but she couldn't bring herself to acknowledge him, her entire focus was on herself. She took notice in the soreness in the back of her throat – from screaming and because of Karlson's hand on her neck, during a point he started choking her, laughing the entire time –, the ache she felt on her breasts due to his groping but what made her feel her heart skip a painful beat was the throbbing she felt between her legs. She could feel a mixture of blood and semen coming out of her and it only served to make her bruises sting. Her mind went back to the Red Room and she came to the conclusion that her previous assaults had never been as brutal as this one, at least they didn't feel that way to her. She could feel her lower lip tremble but she wasn't about to cry. In fact she never cried once during the entire ordeal. Unlike many who in her position didn't cry to just don't give their rapists the satisfaction, Natasha didn't cry because she just didn't know how to. Since she was brainwashed she had never once cried because she felt the need to let her emotions out, she did it during missions when she was required to but that was artificial, it was an act and as phony as a two dollar bill.

No, Natasha's body didn't know that crying was a way to relieve the tension, the pain; after all it never before had to learn this information.

Her body shook with that thought and she took a deep breath thinking of redemption. When she blinked herself back to reality, Clint was already on his way to her, having already killed Karlson with his bare hands instead of his trusted arrows. It overwhelmed her to see him there and for a few seconds she couldn't form a coherent thought.

Clint Barton took notice of the state she was in and produced a knife out of thin air to cut through the tight ropes that had dug through her skin. After releasing her, he took a step back to watch what her reaction would be, fearing he would soon see that deadly girl he met so many years ago.

Without thinking she let her body turn to the side and curl up, her arms coming down to embrace her torso and her legs moving up to her belly. She looked up at Clint with such vulnerability that he fell to his knees, by her side; waiting for the moment when he could help her.

Suddenly she felt like her ribcage was being pulled from the inside and the air wasn't entering her lungs; she couldn't breathe. It was a weird feeling that she had never felt before and she wasn't sure of what was happening to her and then it all made sense as wetness blurred her vision. Natasha Romanoff was about to cry.

"C-Clint." It was all she could utter with her hoarse voice as she felt her throat constrict painfully and uncomfortably. She felt the cry building up inside her and let out a sob as Clint hugged her.

"Lost but now I'm found; I can see but once I was blind. I was so confused as a little child, tried to take what I could get, scared that I couldn't find all the answers, honey."

"Take me to the Tower, Clint." She meant Stark Tower which was home to the Avengers now. When Clint was about to argue that SHIELD doctors should examine her, she gave him a look that spoke volumes. "No one needs to know about this, Clint. It will ruin my reputation and I wouldn't be on solo missions again."

Her voice was quiet and still hoarse, her eyes red. Eventually he couldn't bring himself to argue with her and took her home, calling Fury in the meantime to debrief him.

Arriving at the Tower, Clint helped Natasha, because of her injuries, and they went straight to the 86th floor – where they all lived. As it turns out Tony was there, at their living area, hanging out with his BFF, a.k.a. Bruce. They rushed to the assassin's side immediately, wide-eyed and deep in concern for the battered Natasha. By the way her clothes were, Clint's rigid stance beside her and the way she flinched away from them, it wasn't hard to guess what had happened.

"What happened?" Though it was hard to think that something like that had happened to her and Tony felt the need to ask just so that she could look at him in the eyes and call him crazy for assuming she had been raped. No such thing happened.

She was bombarded with questions, to which she only shook her head, saying in a broken voice that she wanted to rest and would talk later. Looking up to Clint she spoke in a voice so different than her own that she didn't want to be alone in the moment. He could only comply with her wishes and stayed with her. Once in her quarters, she took his hand and made him follow her to the bathroom. He stood next to the door, watching as she took all of her clothes and turned on the shower. He watched as she scrubbed her skin raw and watched as she sank down to the floor sobbing. Clint considered comforting her, but if she wanted him to comfort her she would have asked. Right now she only needed him to guard her, to keep her safe.

It took her a week to finally want to talk to the Avengers. During this time she came to think about how she should act around them. They had all begun to warm up to each other but Natasha always kept some "Red Room distance" from everybody. She was in contact with her feelings now and all felt very new to her from this new perspective. She reasoned that after the rape, she didn't feel scared around them, but she didn't feel secure around them either; not like the way she felt around Clint. She figured they needed to trust each other completely. They were a team after all.

She called for a meeting and explained what had happened. She may have let a tear or three fall from her eyes and their hearts may have clenched painfully for her.

"Lady Natasha," Thor stood up as he spoke to her. "You are the strongest woman I know.¹ I reckon not even Lady Sif would be able to be like you."

Natasha smiled softly at the god's words as she knew he considered Sif a great warrior. "Thank you, Thor."

After a while, she came to realize that even though she didn't have triggers to what had happened, she wasn't very fond to being in close distance to her teammates and neither she enjoyed being touched; with people she wasn't close to she had no problem though.

She spoke that out and not one Avenger reacted like she assumed they would react. Tony let his trade mark grin show.

"Don't you worry, darling. We'll help with this so you can feel safe again. In no time you'll want to touch me again."

The other Avengers tensed with those words, not knowing how Natasha would take them. They all started breathing again when they heard her words.

"Keep dreaming that, Stark. And call me darling one more time and you'll never have babies with Pepper." She had a very relaxed stance; it was in that moment she realized how much it was worth living.

"You wound me, Natasha." Tony put a hand over his arc reactor.

"I think sometimes you forget you have a heart, Tony." Bruce pointed out to his hand and Stark rolled his eyes and started explaining his metaphor to Bruce. Soon their conversation turned into science stuff.

Clint approached Natasha and put his arm over her shoulders. "Are you okay?"

She considered everybody for a few seconds and then turned to answer him. "Yeah. I am."

The End.

¹ "You are the strongest woman I know." I found this sentence in this amazing tumblr called Project Unbreakable; it's an amazing photography project created by Grace Brown, she works with survivors of sexual assault, photographing them holding a poster with a quote from their attacker. An anonymous submitted this quote, a quote from a male friend that supported her after learning she had been raped. I found it beautiful and the other quotes this woman submitted were equally touching.