AN I don't own Avengers/Marvel or any of its characters! Just the OCs.
Trigger warning: mentions of rape and implied noncon, D/s implied.
Ismaylov Kvetki, 39 years old, Russian national. Natasha didn't need the briefing or the introduction to him but she sat the table with the rest of them just the same. And, when it came time to interrogate him, every set of eyes went to her. Of course, why would it be her? She was the one he knew, the one he had repor with, the one who knew how he worked and what made him tick. It made sense. But that didn't make it any easier to step into that room.
The second she did, she felt his face split into a smile of recognition that made her want to slap it off his face. There was a terror attack being planned, he was spearheading it, and they needed to know as much as they possibly could before hundreds of people were killed by anthrax. She just had to get him to talk. Make him angry, manipulate him, whatever it took to get him to talk… but she couldn't torture him. Shield policy. And he clearly knew that. Tied to the chair he should have been less confident or at least a little more open minded and willing to please to his captors but she knew he wouldn't be. Not while he thought he owned her.
"3-84K in the flesh and blood. 84B swore the mob did away with you years ago, yet here you are." Natasha shrugged, stepping further into the light where she knew the camera could see her. 3-84K… no one had called her that in years. Three to indicate which Red Room facility she was at-they ranked from six down to one in order of threat level containment-and 84 to indicate her training group. K was her letter. With twenty six girls in each training group, no trainer was ever going to learn that many names so they called them by letters that were randomly assigned and printed on their clothes.
Even so, she hadn't been called K since her second op. They said that when trainers and operatives began to know your name, that was how you knew you were a success. They'd all known her name. But Kveti called her by her ID tag on purpose, maybe to jar her or distance himself from their relationship? She hated him, now, but she hadn't always. He'd been the closest thing to a father she had when she was little and she'd looked up to him, worked her ass off to please him. He was only ever pleased when she was beyond perfect.
"You've been busy." She glanced pointedly to his shoes where blood still stained the material near the toe. He shrugged and stepped closer to her.
"What can I say? Idle hands do the devil's work, no? Come here, let me have a look at you." Immediately, her body obeyed. Her mind hadn't even processed the command-or that it was a command-but her body knew his voice and remembered what happened if she didn't obey.
"You've grown, мой маленькая роза. So beautiful…" My little rose. He had always called her that-only ever when he was proud of her or when he took her back to his bed. It had been years since she heard it, though. It was more jarring to hear after so long than her ID tag had been because it came with so much more emotion attached. Slowly, tenderly, he admired her from where he sat.
"My little rose," he mused, grazing his eyes down her body and back up. "Or, should I say, babygirl?" Her stomach dropped. Her chest seized. She tried as hard as she could not to let the fear show in her face, even if it was coursing through her at the speed of light. She was good at hiding fear, she always had been, but Kveki knew her. Fuck she was so screwed!
"I don't know why you would." But her stomach churned and she wanted to scream at him to never use that name again. That name was only supposed to come from one person, and only after hours in the tender moments that got caught between dusk and dawn but never from Kveki. He grinned at her, though. Coulson barely even knew about that nickname! And only because he'd heard Clint use it to keep her conscious after she took two bullets in Myanmar! How had he found out?
"How long have you been watching me?" The question made her want to hit something. She wanted to see the slice of her blade as it slid cleanly into his flesh, wanted to see blood drip from his body just to prove he was human-that he was breakable too. But she took a breathe and made herself stand still. Clint was watching, she knew, and if she showed too much discomfort not even Coulson would be able to keep him out of the interrogation room. So, she just set her jaw.
"Pathetically long. You should have noticed it earlier, my little rose, the teams weren't even that good. You were just blind. But I've been watching long enough." Kveki let it hang without explanation in the air. He'd done that since before she could remember and it always gave the distinct impression of being a test with no right answer. If she didn't ask, he would never tell her. But if she did, he would have the satisfaction of knowing he had information that she wanted.
"Long enough?" His face split into a shit-eating grin.
"To see what they turned you into. I mean, come on! Babygirl?! You let him belittle you-infantilize you-like that?! Aw, you didn't think I knew about your little prince charming? I've watched you both and he is not the kind of person you bend to, he is the kind of person you break! And yet you kneel at his feet like he is… Well, like he's your handler." Her cheeks flushed in embarrassment and she thanked god that she'd put on so much concealer that morning because she knew Kveki couldn't see it. "Honestly! Babygirl? Of all things?" She felt, instantly, the need to defend Clint rush into her veins. It was stupid and emotional and anything but smart but-
"It was my choice." The grin evaporated. In its place, a little frown of disapproval and disappointment cemented itself on his lips, only giving way for a dark, bitter laugh. The sound thudded into her like fists. He was... amused?
"That's even worse! Don't you remember who you were? I made you a weapon! You were better, faster, stronger, smarter than any of the other girls and you were lethal! Governments cowered in your shadow! You were unstoppable! But now look at you. You're fragile and human with little cracks in your armor that never would have passed back home and for what? For him? You're no warrior, not anymore. Now you're just somebody's babygirl." She could feel Clint's anger from where she was standing, an entire layer of bulletproof glass between them. Surprisingly, though, Kveki's words didn't hit her like they were supposed to. Her hands didn't clench into fists, she didn't try to prove that she was still the best, and she didn't make a move towards him to slit his throat. Instead, she folded them together in front of her.
"You're right." Kveki was surprised but he didn't let it show. There was an uncertain, distrustful little smile on his face though that said he didn't know where she was going with this. It felt good, honestly, to be the one in control for once but she almost had to laugh at how she;d gotten here. She hadn't taken it by force or by rising through the ranks. They'd told her that was the only way but no, instead she was standing here nudging one of her former superiors off balance simply because she'd come to terms with her past.
"You're right," she repeated, nodding when he looked suspicious. "I was lethal, I was a weapon, and I was very good at it. I could have served you and the others very well for years and I would have been your golden girl, your little rose. But I'm not. You're always somebody's something and that little girl you put hours and hours of training into? That was your little rose. And I'm standing here now, completely in control, because I'm not that little girl. Frankly, I don't give a shit what you say or what you think of who I am now because I'm not yours anymore. It's killing you inside, I can tell, to know that I'm this powerful without you." Slowly, the more she spoke, the more anger seeped into his features until they were hard and murderous. But she wasn't scared.
"You're not powerful." He didn't explain or elaborate, he was too mad to say anymore, but that only made her smile.
"No, Kveki, you're not powerful. You're not my handler, you're not the one who can throw my name around in higher circles like you're threatening to let your dog off its leash. I made you powerful, not the other way around. And it's killing you, now, because I'm not your little pitbull on a leash-I'm his babygirl." She watched the blood drain from his face with a smile on her face. He was beyond angry, beyond the point of threatening to kill her or raping her to make her remember who was in charge. Not just because she'd rebelled and turned traitor to the Red Room, though. She could see, now, that most of that fury was because she'd ripped her leash from his hands and, rather than tearing it to shreds, she'd placed it in the hands of another man. That was what got to him. That was her leverage.
"You're jealous," she mused, confident now and not fighting the urge to surrender to her handler. "You thought I was yours, thought all those beatings and all those times you dragged me off to your room at night would be worth something. You thought that if you brushed my hair or wiped away the tears afterwards I would somehow become your loyal little lap dog?" She tsked at him, stepping forward now because it was her turn to cup his jaw and make him look at her. He was absolutely shaking with rage, but she wasn't scared.
"See, that's what kills you inside, isn't it? Not even that I stabbed you in the back and turned traitor on the Red Room, it's him." Slowly, it dawned on her. He wasn't just jealous, that wasn't strong enough to put so much hatred in his face and so much uncontrolled emotion in his fists, there was more. Her face broke into its first real smile.
"It's him, not me. I'm one of thousands and you could have shrugged me off like all the other failures but you didn't. Not because I was special or because I meant something to you, because of him." He spat at her feet but she didn't move. An intimidation play, anything to get her to back up and stall for time, but she wasn't having it. After so many years at his mercy, she knew his tricks and she knew him-this was her turf, not his.
"The fuck are you talking about, K?" Oooh they were back to ID tags. She just smirked, though, because she knew she was getting to him. He was trying to change the subject, to distract her, but for the first time in her life she was the one who had the power and he was the one backing off. No way in hell was he going to get out of it.
"Him. You spent every single day with me for years, Kvetki. You threw me in the tank, you starved me, you wouldn't let me sleep, you tortured me, you used every trick up your sleeve to try and get me to break. That's why you fixated on me. The other girls broke, truly broke. They were loyal because they surrendered everything they were to you. I just learned to play the game, you never got that look of utter worship from my eyes and it drove you crazy. You spent day after day fighting me, breaking me down, and when you got control over me? It was by force, not choice. And you could have maybe lived with that if it was just how I was but the second I got out of that place? You watched me give myself over to another man completely. No fight, no arguing, just surrender. He got what you spent a third of your life fighting for and he didn't even have to try."
He was seething, red in the face and howling obscene curses at her in Russian, but she just laughed. This was what she'd waited so long to see. Him, powerless and emotional, at her mercy and aware of it-even if it made him furious. Like a game, now, she slowly circled him until she came to a stop behind him where they could both see her in the reflection off the glass. She flashed him a grin and dipped down to whisper in his ear.
"Does that make you angry, Kvetki?" She looked up to meet his eyes in the reflection but she knew Clint was there, watching, and Coulson too. "Does it piss you off to think about me kneeling at his feet the moment he says so when it took you three years to force me to the ground?" He growled at her but she was enjoying this too much to stop. To hell with the information or any kind of tactical strategy, this was personal. And she was drinking it in.
"Aw, it does! Look, you're all red in the face that vein right there is all purple and angry. You remember how long it took to get me to obey? How many beatings it took? You poured so much energy and time into making me surrender, making me obey your every command, but he just… did it." She could see his face in the reflection, red and angry, but not angry enough to talk. She gave him a smirk, lightly scraping her nails down the side of his neck.
"Mmm, Kvetki. You remember the first time you dragged me into your room kicking and screaming so hard I broke two of your ribs? He didn't have to drag me, I asked for it. And, if you don't like that, then I suppose you really don't want to hear about what happened after we made it to the bedroom? You see, he got the one thing that you always wanted and he didn't have to torture me or starve me or beat me…" She stepped up, dipping lower and closer to his ear while she chewed her lip.
"You settled for my obedience because that was all you could get but you never got what you really wanted. While you tied to the bed frame so I wouldn't break any more of your ribs, he watched me drop to my knees and obey every command. And, while you were busy gagging me so Chiatovich wouldn't hear me screaming for help, he pressed a finger to my lips and I never made a sound. But, best of all? While you had to pry my legs apart and force yourself on me, angry that I only tolerated it, he got to watch me beg. Watched the words tremble off my lips, watched me plead, promising anything he could ever want if he just didn't make me wait another minute. He even made me switch back to Russian, and you know how fiercely avoided that. Can you picture that, Kvetki? Me, on my knees, begging in Russian to be fucked..." The heady moan from the man strapped to the chair gave her that answer. He was clearly aroused, pleased by the mental image of it.
"And that's all for him. Thirteen years you spent trying to get me to submit and you never could. But he can-he does-and I love it."
"Go to hell!" For the first time in her life, his anger made her smile.
"Oh, honey, I would but then who would fuck me? No you, clearly. Besides, I belong here because I belong to him. I'm his babygirl, remember?"
"Go to hell, whore!" The Russian made her smile, too, because it meant he was getting angrier. "I'll throw you in the tank for this! Fuck you til you bleed and make you remember that you're mine!" She grinned at him, lapping up his fury like it was the sweetest syrup she'd ever tasted.
"Make me remember that I'm yours?" she repeated, cocking her head. "That's incredibly romantic, I must say, but honey I never was yours. Don't you see? All that fight, all the fire, every bone I broke and every drop of blood I spilled fighting you? That was him, honey. That was the man I truly belong to fighting for me before I even met him. Even then, I was his-not yours."
"Go die in the tank for all I care!"
"I know that bothers you but I just can't understand why. I'm his, Kvetki, and it's his feet I kneel at and it's his commands I obey-not yours. I belong to him, not you. And he didn't fight me for it or take it from me! I gave it to him!"
"Go to HELL or better yet!? Go to church this Saturday and maybe then you'll remember who the fuck you belong to, bitch!" Instantly, she stopped. Her smile disappeared and she backed off, coming around to face him.
"Why would I go to church this Saturday, Kvetki?" His face hardened into a glare but his entire body was still shaking with leftover adrenaline and he looked like a boxer who was down on the ground in a fight but refused to tap out. He spat at her but missed.
"Is it because that's where you're planning the attack? Anthrax, we know, rather outdated in my opinion but you always were one for the classics. Which church?" He sneered and spit again, this time all over the glass with blood mixed in. But she didn't care. They knew the target, the TTAC unit could figure it. And they knew the time, which meant they were safe for now and gave them more time to narrow it down. She smiled, though.
"Doesn't matter, really, I was just hoping you'd make it easy. Easier, I should say, because getting that out of you was pretty damn easy. You call yourself a handler? The Red Room girls will eat you alive after this, if the feds don't get to you first." She turned to walk out the door but he stopped her, defeat playing at his expression finally.
"Natasha, wait. You were manipulating me, I get that, but how much of that was a lie?" He sounded desperate, like he was clinging to the idea she'd lied about her relationship with Clint. He was hoping it was all a lie.
"How much was a lie?" She smirked at him, more confident than him for once. "Absolutely none of it, Kvetki. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have places to go and people to see. After all, I am somebody's babygirl."
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