A/N: This is easily the darkest thing I've ever written. To be honest, I'm not quite sure where this came from, but I guess I'm just in one of those moods. Oh well. It's fun writing Natasha as a badass. Be warned – the M-rating is deserved.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything having to do with Marvel Comics or any of its creations. I can only appreciate the characters they've given us to work with.
Remarkably Unremarkable
"It sates itself on the life-blood of men, paints red the powers' homes with crimson gore."
The first person Natalia kills is unremarkable.
Cowering, sniveling, the girl crouches on the floor and visibly curls in on herself as if she can disappear through a combination of desperation, fear, and sheer will alone. She's naked, and there's more than one place where the knives that sliced through her clothing slipped just enough to cut.
The slip of the knives weren't accidental.
Neither is the garrote that winds around the girl's throat.
A strangled gurgle echoes in the room. It reverberates off the arched stone ceiling, creeps down the walls, twists around the struggling victim and the steadfast killer and the keen-eyed instructor. Arms reach in vain, flailing around in search of a way to ease the pressure, but Natalia leans back, keeping just out of reach.
Seconds pass, then a couple minutes, and the girl twitches and goes limp. Natalia remains there, knee pressing into the girl's back to push her forward while her arms pull back to keep the tension, for several more minutes. It's what she's been taught, what she's been told, and she knows the price that comes with failure to follow directives. The two-day old burn across her lower back is reminder enough.
The girl slumps to the ground as the tension is loosened.
The instructor emerges from the shadowed corner of the room and approaches.
Natalia ignores the stinging marks the garrote left around her hands.
"Well done, little one." A metal hand settles on her shoulder. They both stare down and admire her handiwork. "Now for your next lesson…"
The seventh person Natalia kills is unremarkable.
The man pleads incoherently in German, but his rambling abruptly shifts into a grating yell as the forceps pry away his thumbnail and drop it onto the shallow bowl that contains the rest of his fingernails. Blood drips from his partially-toothless mouth to pool in his lap. It catches in the hair on his legs, stains his skin crimson, mingles with the stripes that crisscross his thighs.
Natalia trades out the forceps for a slender knife. The act catches the man's attention, and he lifts his head just enough to follow her movements, eyes watering and snot dripping from his nose. As she stands, his chest caves with each shuddering exhale.
"Please, I have a wife… children…" The words are garbled, thick with blood. "What will they do without me? How will they survive?"
Torture is a delicate animal. At least, that's what Natalia's been told. It's effective enough on its own, but it's most effective when accompanied by a stony companion, the hard-hearted visage of indifference. So she wears the blank expression like one of the elaborate hats the man's wife likes to wear when showing off at the opera.
It's a game of prestige at the opera.
It's a game of power in the Red Room.
And all the world's a stage.
"Why…" His voice cracks on the word, forces him to swallow the blood in his mouth to wet his throat. "Why are you doing this?"
For training. That's the only reason. To put to work all she's learned and practiced on a living, breathing subject, to experience how it feels to pull out a tooth around a scream, to watch how desperately a person crawls across the floor in a bid to escape even with severed hamstrings.
But she doesn't tell the man that.
Instead, she reaches between his legs.
"That's enough for this one." The voice stays the knife in her hand before it can castrate the man. Natalia looks over her shoulder to the dark-haired soldier behind her. "Finish him."
The knife clatters on the small table.
The man's neck snaps with a sharp crack.
The ninth person Natalia kills is unremarkable.
It doesn't matter that the girl is a fellow trainee in the Red Room. It doesn't matter that they once shared a bedroom. It doesn't matter that they ate breakfast together not even two hours ago. It doesn't matter that they helped pop each other's bones back into place after being taught how to compartmentalize the pain of having them dislocated.
All that matters now is the win.
Losing isn't an option because to lose is to die.
"No mercy." The director of the Red Room's voice cuts through the anticipation in the room like the knife in Natalia's hand will cut through the girl, but the excitement only increases all the more for it. This is the final test. This is the last lesson. "There can be only one Widow."
They stare at each other from across the floor, legs bent and muscles taut. There's no wanting in the Red Room, but Natalia wants this. She needs it. Because if she doesn't have it, then she's no different than the rest of those that came here with her. She'll be just as dead, just as unremarkable.
So she's ready to start.
She's eager to start.
And it makes all the difference when they begin.
Their knives flash, blades red beneath the dim, tinted light as they weave around each other in a deadly dance, and all their action is offset by the overbearing silence in the room that's only broken by the occasional grunt of a landed punch or shallow slice of a knife.
Neither of them has made it this far by lacking in skills. But Natalia's a little quicker, a little stronger… and a little more willing to let go of their shared moments over the years and bury the knife hilt-deep in the girl's stomach.
So she does.
And the taste of victory is sweet.
The thirteenth person Natalia kills is unremarkable.
Eyes closed and head thrown back into the pillow, the man's breath comes in heavy, halting gasps interspersed with low groans of appreciation. The hands fisted in her hair press down, encourage her to move faster. She allows him the feeling of control for a moment before pulling away and swirling her tongue around the tip of his cock.
"Teasing little whore…" His grip on her chin is firm, forcing her to look up at him. "You're a temptress, aren't you? A fucking temptress…"
It is just one of the many things Natalia is. Outside of the mission, she is no one. Within the mission, she is whatever she needs to be whether it be innocent girl, ballet-dancing wife, or seductive temptress.
She's a blank slate, a bare canvas.
Paint her and she's a work of art.
The hand on her chin loosens as she shakes her head and tuts, but the chastisement is made ineffective by the playful glint in her eyes, the wry smirk she throws his way. "All good things come to those who wait." And really, she's already won because he's too distracted with watching his cock slip in and out of her mouth to notice anything else.
When she slides up his body, he leers and reaches between her legs.
When she slides onto his cock, his fingers dig hard enough into her hips to bruise.
And when she slides the syringe that had been planted in the side of the mattress the day before into his neck, his eyes go wide and reflect the crooked smirk on her mouth.
The eighteenth person Natalia kills is unremarkable.
Inside the house, there is warm light and laughter and cheers as the group of people raise their champagne glasses as one. Across the street, there is only the cold and the quiet as snow settles on a black-suited figure lying prone on the rooftop.
Natalia watches a woman pass by the window, the rifle's crosshairs tracking her movement from one side to the other. Blonde hair, glittering dress, and sparkling diamonds linger just behind the window frame, occasionally swaying into view as she talks, but Natalia waits. The crosshairs follow the woman's progress once more when she crosses the window again.
"If you watch her pass one more time without acting, I'll have to consider you inclined towards her."
The voice isn't startling, not when Natalia's been aware of his presence since he stepped foot on the opposite end of the roof, so she remains where she is, smooth stock of the gun pressed to her cheek, attention fixed through the scope at the invisible target that sits on the woman's back.
"She wouldn't be the first woman I've slept with for a mission." Her lips curl into a smirk, and she concedes. "She wouldn't be the first woman I've slept with by choice, either."
Snow crunches beneath boots as a dark figure moves to sit beside her. "It's been a while, Widow."
"Yes, it has."
"You're not so little anymore, are you?" His question isn't really a question, so she doesn't bother answering. "You look different."
Natalia spares a glance for the dark hair, the grey eyes, the black attire, the metal arm. "You don't." A smile tugs at the corners of his mouth, but she's already back at the rifle, peering through the scope.
Six more inches… that's all the target needs to move for her to take the shot.
The orders were to kill only the woman, no other casualties necessary. So now that the man who's been shadowing the woman all evening has finally left her side, Natalia is free to take a deep breath, let it out slowly, hold it mid-release, and squeeze the trigger between one heartbeat and the next.
Screams erupt from the building as a crimson flower blooms behind the woman's head, but Natalia isn't watching. She accepts the Soldier's proffered hand, allows him to pull her to her feet, and together they disappear into the night, shadows within shadows.
The twenty-second person Natalia kills is unremarkable.
Hot and humid, their breathy exhales fog in the air between the man's mouth and hers. His lips trace the long line of her neck while his hands flit over her body, kneading her breasts, dipping in at her waist, flowing out over her hips, squeezing her ass. He drags his body against hers, but instead of giving in, her hands settle on his shoulders as she plays the cautious woman he believes her to be.
"What if someone sees?"
"They won't…" The brick building is rough against her back. "Can't see us…" The nearby dumpsters smell of rotten fish and filth. "Too dark in here…"
But then, Natalia already knows that.
Coincidence hadn't made her lean over to whisper suggestive phrases in the man's ear a few meters from the alley. Just like coincidence had nothing to do with her choosing to wear the bright red lipstick that she knows is his favorite.
The devil's in the details.
Knowing from experience just how much he likes it, she lets her head fall back against the wall and moans the man's name. And, as expected, he grabs a fistful of her hair, abandons her neck, and captures her lips with a growl.
It doesn't take long for the man to realize his mistake. His body goes rigid, his eyes fly open in accusation, and it's only with a little help from Natalia's hand against his chest that he stumbles back. Slanderous curses spill from his mouth only to be replaced by frothing bubbles. Then, he's collapsing, falling to the ground in a twitching heap.
"You finished early."
"He was more eager than I expected." Natalia straightens her clothes, plucks the kerchief from the dead man's pocket, and wipes the red from her mouth. The color comes off easily. Poisoned lipstick always does. "I didn't know a few dirty words would have quite the effect they did."
"Dirty words, hm?" A metal arm slides into view. The Soldier's hand, cold in the evening air, wraps around her forearm and pulls just enough to make her step back and face him. "Is that how the Black Widow ensnares her victims? Is that how she weaves her web?"
Natalia meets his hooded gaze without reservation. "Whatever it takes."
"You know…" One set of fingers trail up the back of her arm while the other set finds their way through her belt loop and tug her closer. "We still have a while before they'll be here to extract us."
"I wonder what we'll do to kill the time."
Those cool fingers ghost up her neck, outline her jawbone, tangle in her hair, and her own find purchase in the straps of his vest. Relenting, so it seems, is such an easy decision for Natalia to make, what with the fire burning through her veins.
He guides them back to the wall, traps her between his body and the brick, and breathes against her mouth. "I have an idea."
It isn't the first time she's fucked a comrade.
But it is the first time she's fucked one in an alley with a dead body a few meters away.
Natalia stops keeping count of the people she's killed after the twenty-seventh.
There's little point when they're all so dull.
So pointless.
So unremarkable.
"You're a hard woman to corner, Natalia Romanova. Or do you prefer Black Widow?"
The voice echoes in the deserted warehouse, bouncing off the metal siding around her, but she's skilled enough to pinpoint the general location of the source. She glances up, searches the darkened rafters. Hawks favor the high ground, the vantage point, and this one's no different.
"I have many names…" There's a soft click as Natalia slides the fresh clip of bullets into place. "But if it's my preference you seek, then I'd prefer you dead and unable to speak any of them."
His laugh is a bark, sharp and loud. "You don't want to kill me."
"Oh? And why's that?"
Hidden behind the rusted panel of an old generator, Natalia keeps her eyes trained on the ceiling as she eases to the left. She can't see him, but she knows he's up there. Wherever he is, though, he either can't see her or doesn't have a clear shot. If he did, she'd be dead.
"Because I'm the only person that's ever tailed you for this long that you haven't been able to shake."
"All the more reason to kill you."
The echoing words are slow to fade so Natalia uses the cover of their sound to sprint the short distance to another generator closer to the bay door at the end of the warehouse. No arrows find her, and she skids to a stop beside the panel, barely registering the pain as the metal's keen edge slices open her palm.
"You're just like all the rest. You're empty, a shell." She gauges the next distance, prepares to run. "They've trained you to be mindless so you can carry out their orders without question."
"It's an honor to serve my country."
There's no hesitation this time, there's only the goal, the bay doors, the figurative light at the end of the tunnel. So her legs push off, her stride eats up the ground, and when she reaches the last generator she's mildly surprised that, again, no arrows have found her.
"No, it's a disservice to yourself. Look at you, Natalia…" The disappointed sigh is almost lost in the rush of blood in her ears, the thud of her heart. "You could be so much more."
Like the two before, she moves to the far edge of the equipment. There, she crouches, prepares. She can feel the blood drip from one palm and the ridged handgrip of the pistol in the other, can feel her pupils contract in the bright sunlight and smell the mountain cedar on the slight breeze that brushes her face.
"But right now you're…"
If she can cross the last bit of space, she can escape through the door. If she can escape through the door, she can lose the Hawk. If she can lose the Hawk, she can…
"Unremarkable."
A black widow doesn't know surprise. The saying is engrained in her very being. Several years spent working for the KGB after the dissolution of the Red Room have done nothing to dampen the lessons learned there. And yet, one simple word is enough to bring her up short.
Natalia stares unseeingly at the landscape beyond the bay door, blinks slowly, and is brought back to herself by the smooth glide of carbon on tightly-stretched fibers. When she stands, her arm hangs heavy by her side, pistol dangling uselessly. When she turns, the first thing she sees is the broadhead.
The wicked point blurs as she looks past it to the Hawk behind the bow. "Unremarkable?"
"Yes." There's a teasing edge to his voice that's out of place in the current situation. It doesn't show on his face, though, only in his eyes. "Remarkably unremarkable."
For the first time in as long as Natalia can remember, she's been bested. She's fast, but not fast enough to dodge an arrow fired at such a close range. If loosed, it will carve a clean line through her skull, enter through one eye and emerge from the other side of her head coated in blood and tissue and brain matter. A nearly instant death accompanied by very little pain.
But where others might despair, Natalia feels nothing.
A black widow is a mystery, an enigma. She doesn't feel pity or guilt or regret. She doesn't know surprise or pain or fear. She doesn't hesitate or show affection or grant mercy. There is no family, no companions, no love. There is only the spider, the web, and the victim.
And so Natalia feels nothing.
She feels nothing except the rhythmic beating of her heart.
She feels nothing except the energy sparking in the air.
She feels nothing except the rush of air flow in and out of her lungs.
But at the same time… she feels nothing except the white-hot fire that burns through her core, consumes the marrow in her bones, ignites the stubborn will buried within her because she is anything but unremarkable.
"And if I choose to defect?" Her fingers twitch and curl tightly around the pistol before she releases it, allowing the weapon to fall to the ground. Both the knife strapped to her calf and the belt around her waist follow soon after. "Would you still consider me unremarkable, then?"
The Hawk's eyes flick down to the abandoned items before snapping back to hers. "My orders were to kill you."
His directive is unsurprising given her past, but she chooses to remain silent. And so they remain there for the longest time, Natalia completely at his mercy, still and motionless, regarding each other intently… until his lips quirk and wrinkles appear at the corners of his eyes and the tension on the bow lessens.
"But maybe you deserve a second chance." The arrow lowers from her face to her torso to her leg to the floor. "If you're interested in working for S.H.I.E.L.D., that is."
Natalia glances down at her weapons, looks back to the Hawk, and weighs her options.
Then, she grins.
"Go on."
fin.