It was a bad plan from the start.

"You've got to be kidding!" Clint had burst out when Fury had first explained the situation. "You're sending her in there alone, with no extraction plan and no idea what kind of security they have? She'll be blind."

"Clint." Natasha said in a level voice. He stopped talking, but he didn't look any less incredulous.

"It's just recon." Fury continued. "We need to know what they're protecting. All we know so far is that it's Asgardian, and potentially dangerous. I'm not comfortable sending in a less experienced agent -" Clint made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat, and Fury shot him a look - "and to send in more than one person would risk blowing our cover."

"Of course." Natasha replied calmly, silently willing her partner to shut up for just this once.

"If you're sending her in alone, at least let me go as backup." Clint persisted. "I'll stay on the sidelines with the comms in case anything goes wrong. They won't even know I'm there."

Fury was silent for a moment. "Fine." He acquisced. "But Barton, if you put so much as a toe out of line, I will have you assigned to regulatory ops for as long as necessary."

Clint nodded his agreement, and Fury looked down at the papers on his desk in a clear dismissal.

As soon as they were out in the hallway, Clint turned towards her.

"Don't say it," Natasha warned.

"I just want you to be careful, alright?" He said doggedly.

"We've done much more dangerous jobs than this easily." Natasha reminded him.

"Yeah, we. Not a solo operation. Not going into enemy territory completely blind."

"It's recon." She was getting exhasperated now. "And you'll be there anyways, in case I get into trouble."

"I have a bad feeling about it."

"Really, Clint? You want me to quit a job because you have a hunch?" Her words came out harsher than she intended.

"I'm not asking you to drop it, I just want you to triple check every step you make. We don't know what these people are capable of, or what kind of weapon they're protecting."

"I promise I'll be careful." She said finally, and Clint grinned.

"That's all I was asking for."

It was less than 24 hours later when everything went wrong.

They'd arrived in Bangkok using one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. jets, and Natasha had done her first walk-around of the place before heading in. The security was impeccable, so rather than creating a fake persona she instead was going to have to use the less-foolproof way and fight her way into the building, and once inside she would have to blend in.

"Be safe." Clint reminded her one last time before she went in, and she gave him a crisp nod before he blended into the crowd.

It didn't take her long to sneak up behind a guard and knock him out, using his ID card to get through the first level of security. After that she snagged a lab coat that was hanging over a chair and looked like every other person on the floor. Now she just needed to find out what they were hiding behind all of the lab testing. She strolled through the area casually, noticing which areas had more security than others. When she reached those areas, she'd repeat her earlier method of grabbing one of the high-access personnel and using them to get past the increasingly difficult security measures - fingerprint and retinal scanners, DNA tests, etc. When Natasha came through the fifth door, the hallway on the other side was empty, with a single door at the end.

"I think I found it." She said into the comms, striding down the hall and kicking the door open.

"Keep me updated." Clint replied, but his voice was staticky and clipped in and out. Natasha wasn't too worried - either they had something to keep outside interference from this room, or the object itself was making this happen. Either way, her comms would start working again once she was out.

The door swung open to show a large, dark room with only a pedestal in the middle. As she walked closer, she saw something swirling not on the pedestal but above it - a cloud of what looked like dark energy. Damn. She needed something else, something that said something about what it was. She glanced around the room, but there wasn't so much as a desk in the room. She glanced at her watch. She had approximately a minute before the people she'd knocked out and stuffed in various places would wake up. So if she just -

The door slammed open, and Natasha whirled around. There were five guards coming toward her, led by a woman with long brown hair. Six in total; she could do that. So much for recon, though -

The thought stuck in her mind as she looked a little closer at the woman's face. Her hair wasn't brown after all, it was a dark auburn, and how had she missed that familiar smirk?

"Hello, Natasha." Ivania said coyly.

"I've gotta say, I wasn't expecting to see you, Ivania." Natasha replied smoothly. "It's been what, eight years?"

"Nine." The other woman corrected. "And it's nice to see that you still aren't able to keep your nose out of places you don't belong, like always."

Natasha's brain was going haywire, calculating her escape probability. It didn't look good.

"So this is what you've been doing recently?" She asked, stalling for time. "Studying Asgardian technology?"

"Oh, this isn't technology, dear." Ivania drawled. Her accent had changed over the years - Natasha could only barely pick up on the slight hint of russian underneath the english accent. "And what else was I supposed to do after the Red Room? Run off and play vigilante, like you? No, I stayed with the group. You should have stayed with me - you can't even imagine all of the possibilities we've had our eyes opened to."

"Well, I'd love to hear all about it, but as it happens I've got an appointment." Natasha quipped, and then immediately ran at one of the guards, kicking him in the head and propelling herself into another one, cutting off his airway with one arm while knocking the feet out from another guard. And then she was settling into the rythm of duck, punch, twist, snap - it was like a dance. Until Ivania joined the fight.

After that she was just trying to stay alive.

She could've taken Ivania alone - but other guards were filtering in, surrounding them, and with her focus trained on the other assassin she was vulnerable to their blows. She could feel herself getting worn down even as she moved faster than ever to dodge them all. Ivania slipped a kick in that got her right in the rib cage, making her breath come in tight gasps. She was taking out the guards as fast as she could, but for every one that fell to the ground there was another to replace it. She felt her ankle break, and she slid to the ground, rolling over and trying to thrust herself back to her feet, but a sharp pain ran through her head and her vision faded to black.

The first thing she heard when she regained consciousness was the whispering. Too low to make out anything, though. She opened her eyes cautiously. They were still in the room with the Asgardian weapon - whatever it was - except now she was chained to a metal chair. Ivania, three guards, and a man in a lab coat were the only other people in the room.

"Oh good, you're awake." Ivania spoke up from where she'd been whispering to the man. "It's time we get started, then."

Torture. Damn it. She was prepared for it, of course, but a former student of the Red Room was sure to have a few extra tricks up her sleeve.

"I'm sure you know that this is all unnecessary." She said in a bored voice.

"Oh, Natasha." Ivania said with a smirk. "You don't think I would try torture with you? No, I know you'd never tell us anything. We're going with something more...traditional." She gestured at the dark mass still teeming above the pedestal. Natasha's heart sank.

"So what does this do?" She asked, still keeping her calm-and-slightly-bored tone.

"You'll see soon enough." Ivania replied gleefully, nodding at the guards who came and unshackled one of Natasha's hands. She immediately lashed out, but was only able to snap one of their wrists before the other two grabbed onto her hand tightly. They brought it towards the dark energy, and for the first time in a long time, Natasha was really truly afraid.

Her fingers brushed the edge of the mass, and an agonizing pain shot through her. She couldn't tell if she'd screamed or not. And then her hand was plunged all the way in, and her life started to unfold before her eyes.

помогите мне. मलाई मदत. pomozite mi. help me. hilf mir. дапамажыце мне. I don't know where I am. qui sim nesciam.

help me.

She becomes vaguely aware of being marched down a hallway. The lights blind her, and the armed men escorting her won't meet her eyes. Who is she, where is she, what is this place? As they exit the building, one of the guards says something in a strange language, but she understands it. They are words mangling together in her head, impulses moving through her skin. She forces them down as the guards leave her standing in the cool air. What do I do? She turns around just as a man turns the corner and rushes towards her, a worried expression on his face.

"Thank god. I was getting worried when the comms shut off. Did you have any trouble?"

"Trouble?" The word barely make its way past her lips. "With - with what?"

"With the operation. Did you find it?"

"Find what? I don't - I don't know what you're talking about." Tears are threatening to spill over, and the man's expression changes in an instant.

"Natasha, what's wrong?"

Natasha. Is that my name? She should feel some familiarity towards this man, or the name that is supposedly hers, but she doesn't. She doesn't feel anything.

"Natasha, snap out of it! What did they do to you?" She hears fear, raw fear in his voice now. "For god's sake, Nat, talk to me!"

"Nevím, kdo jsem."

"Dammit, Nat, you know I don't speak czech - speak russian, if you need to -"

"I don't know who I am."

There's a thunderous silence.

"What?"

"I - I don't know who I am. I don't know who you are, I don't know where I am or why I keep speaking different languages without realizing it -"

The man's face seems set in stone.

"You can help me, right?" She asks. "You know me. You can tell me who I am - you can help me remember."

There is a long pause.

"Yeah." He says, finally. "My name's Clint. We have to catch a flight."

The flight is long, and terrifying. Clint answers all of her questions with a terse assurance that someone would be able to explain it once they got back. Back where? Home?

They arrived on a landing strip at a large building, which she follows Clint into. They ride the elevator to one of the top floors, and she nearly runs to catch up with him as he throws open a large set of doors.

"Barton, you'd better have a damn good reason for bursting in here like this." The speaker is a man with an eyepatch who looks even more terrifying than the guards who'd thrown her out of the first building.

"They did something to her." Clint says, his voice terse. "She's lost her memory."

"What?" Now the man stands up, pushing his chair back. "If this is your idea of a practical joke -"

"It's Natasha." Clint replies simply, and the other man seems to accept this as an explanation.

"How -"

"It must be the object." Clint's voice now sounds desperate. "We just need to get it back, and we'll be able to reverse it."

"We can do that?" She speaks up, and both men looked over at her in surprise, like they'd forgotten she could speak. Well, at least this time she'd spoken in english. She's pretty sure.

"We'll try." The man replies, nodding at Clint. "Bring her to her room."

Clint nods, and as she's walking out the door, she thinks she hears him say I can't lose her.

She doesn't want to lose herself, either.