Hey! Welcome to day 28, only two more after this! I'm gonna miss writing every day😥 enjoy!
Translations:
Vy gotovy podchinit'sya – are you ready to comply
Da madam – yes madame
Natal'ya, ty otdayesh' sebya Krasnoy Komnate – Natalia do you give yourself to the red room
Vy budete sluzhit' Krasnoy komnate – will you serve the red room
GAGGED
Natasha had no idea how the mission had gone to shit so quickly.
They were in Russia, going after one of the last Red Room heads left.
Natasha had been tracking him for months and had finally got the go ahead from Fury to go after him.
Clint had obviously gone with her, saying she wasn't alone anymore.
It had gone well enough to begin with. Natasha had played her Natalia card and met him alone in one of the very first training camps she'd lived in.
He believed that the Americans had burned The Red Room down to the ground and it was the perfect way in. She spun her tale of the Americans coming for her, torturing her and sending their men to Russia.
She told him how she'd escaped so she could come back to him and fight as his side as the queen of the Red Room.
"Alexei." She'd grinned, trailing her fingers up his arm. "Aren't you glad I'm back?"
"Oh Natalia, you always were the best of them." He'd pushed her against the wall, his lips fire against her neck.
Then she remembered nothing, waking in the dark with a gag in her mouth and her wrists and ankles bound in chains.
Natasha lifted her head, squinting to try and peer in the darkness.
It was impossible to see anything, but she could hear grunting off to her left.
Her stomach fell.
Goddammit. Alexei had gotten Clint too.
Stupid, Natasha, should've known he wouldn't fall for it. You've lost your touch.
She couldn't speak around the gag, just let out garbled words to try and let Clint know she was there.
The sound of chains rattling caught her attention as Clint tried to get over to her.
A soft grunt of pain and a slam on the floor.
Natasha winced, sighing and pulling at the chains. They would not bend, would not break, she knew.
She'd been chained to her bed every night for eight years and even when she had rubbed her wrists bleeding and raw, they would never move.
Her heart hammered in her chest, fear crawling it's way through her body.
She shouldn't have come, or she shouldn't have agreed to let Clint come with her.
Alexei was brutal, cunning and deadly.
It was a testament to him that even Natasha hadn't know they were being played right back.
She sat in the dark for a good few hours, just thinking and thinking.
When the door opened, she heard rustling and then bright, harsh overhead lights were flooding her vision.
It took her a few seconds to adjust and when she did, her eyes fell on Clint.
Her partner was sprawled across the floor, chained to the wall. He was covered in blood and she couldn't even find where he was exactly bleeding from.
A growl tore itself from her throat as Alexei strode into her view.
"Now, little Natalia. I have someone who has been dying to see you again." He crouched down, stroking the side of her face and sliding the gag from her mouth.
Natasha was sure her heart just about stopped when the woman walked through the door.
"Madame." She said quietly, her voice venom. "I thought you were dead."
"And I, you, Natalia." The woman purred, fingers gripping her jaw and forcing her head up.
"Hmm." The woman hummed, eyes appraising her. "You are beautiful, Natalia. I always knew you would grow up to be the best."
Alexei had said virtually the same thing in her last memory.
"I'll show you just how good I am if you take these chains off me." She growled.
She got a hard slap for that and in that moment, she was right back as a child, being scolded for not shooting fast enough.
She inhaled shakily, squeezing her eyes shut.
"Now behave, Natalia. I wouldn't want to hurt your friend over there. Again."
Natasha opened her eyes, glaring daggers at the two bodies in front of her.
"He has nothing to do with this."
"Oh but he does.'' Madame grinned. "We found the bow and arrow in your room. Amazing tips, they had. Poison, explosives, very impressive. I assume they were meant for us? Or rather, Alexei over there." She tutted, nails digging into her jaw.
"He had fun roughing up your friend. He put up quite the fight." She hummed.
"Don't touch him." Natasha spat. "You're not living long enough to get out of here anyway. I didn't come alone. The Americans will be storming this place before you can make the front door." Natasha glowered, breathing hard.
"Maybe I'd believe that, if I hadn't seen your room. One bag between the two of you, no phones, no wireless devices. You're alone out here." She purred, dropping her face.
Natasha was silent.
Alexei grinned from behind Madame, reaching down to pull the gag back into her mouth.
Then she was left alone in the dark again.
...
Natasha wasn't sure how much time passed. Maybe hours, maybe days.
Alexei and Madame would come in often, sometimes one of them, sometimes both of them.
They would remove her gag and just talk to her, telling her stories from her past, remind her were she had come from, what they'd done for her.
Every time they left, they would throw a kick or a punch at Clint, in front of Natasha so she could see and then they'd be in the dark again.
Natasha knew what they were doing. They were trying to bring Natalia out, get her back on their side.
They didn't know how hard Natasha had worked to get rid of Natalia. The intense re-conditioning she'd gone through. The therapies, hypnosis, and meds. The aversion therapy, the time she spent hours in cryo-freeze. The re-wriring that had been done to her brain, to her very being.
She would never be that girl again. Would never be Natalia.
At maybe the tenth or eleventh time they came back into the room, Natasha was losing her patience.
She'd been steadily distancing herself from Clint's pained moans. Had been sitting up straighter, had stopped looking them in the eyes and had stopped talking back.
Madame and Alexei stepped towards her, the woman bending down and taking her chin again.
She pulled the gag down and spoke in Russian.
Each visit, another code word.
She was actually thanking Shield silently now, actually thanking them for putting her through all that shit.
Because two years ago, those words would have sent her spiralling. She would have lost Natasha and become Natalia again.
"Vy gotovy podchinit'sya?"
"Da, madam." She murmured, her gaze blank and her words clipped and cold.
She saw Clint stiffen out the corner of her eye.
"Natal'ya, ty otdayesh' sebya Krasnoy Komnate?"
"Da, Madam." She tilted her head back.
"Vy budete sluzhit' Krasnoy komnate?"
"Da, Madam."
Madame grinned at her, reaching back for Alexei. He handed her a key and she undid the chains around her wrists and ankles, taking her hand and pulling her to her feet.
That was when Natasha struck.
She attacked with all her being, coiled like a snake with all the grace she'd been brought up to have.
She was a spider, the spider, striking fear into the hearts of all those who opposed her.
She was a force to be reckoned with, deadly and precise.
They may have trained her but they didn't stand a chance against Natasha.
They had taught her everything they knew but she had learned from Shield, from Phil and from Clint.
She was neither what they'd made her or what Shield had made her.
She was Natasha. She was Russian and she was American. She had come from the Red Room and Shield alike.
She was her own person.
And nobody would ever take that from her again.
Three minutes passed and Madame and Alexei lay broken at her feet, as she stood over them, victorious and enraged.
She spat at them, grounding her heel into Alexei's chest.
Clint watched her, and in that moment he knew why she was called An Avenging Angel back at Shield.
Her teeth were bared as she growled, her red hair pushed off her face and blowing in the draft from the door. She was standing tall, her head high.
She was the strongest person he knew.
She slowly turned to him and once he would have been afraid she wasn't Natasha any more. Now, he just smiled at her.
She pulled the gag out of his mouth and he could finally speak.
"Natasha, you're fucking amazing." He grinned.
She tutted and knelt down, key in hand as she undid his chains. She touched his chest and pulled it up to examine his injuries.
He'd been stabbed, and beaten a whole lot but he would be fine. They'd intended for her to kill him, so they'd left him alive.
"Come on." She said softly, winding her arm around his waist and lifting him to his feet.
"Let's get out of here." He hummed, nudging her shoulder. "You okay?"
She looked back at the bodies, blinking and nodding.
"Yeah." She murmured, meaning it.
"I think I am."