5/12/17
It starts a little like this. They first meet in Budapest. Except, not really.
It goes a little like this. She shows up in Budapest with a blank mind and a goal. She wakes up with alcohol on her breath and in the arms of a congressman who has a taste for women far younger than him. The mission outline marks out how he defied the red room, and she must set him as an example. She kills him with a knife, making sure the blood splatters on the carpets, the walls, dripping down his body.
She has waited for her contact in an abandoned warehouse for hours when she hears the whiz of an arrow. She dodges, takes out her gun and starts shooting. The archaic weapon in the archer's hand is modified, she dully notes in her head. Some arrows creat a diversion and some are sharper than needles. (She toed the line and they push her over. You don't toe the line with the red room- you only ever pick a side)
The gun she fires runs out of bullets, and eventually the arrows stay true to their target.
( Even with a metal arm, he still has an unwavering aim, and a steady hold as he drags her body away.)
It goes a little like this. His name is Clint Barton, and he remembers her even if she does not. His left hand is metal, and it drags over his elbows and into his chest. He looks at her like a hawk and tries to calm her as she screams.
She bites and swears and lies and begs and eventually sleeps. She breaks her cyanide tooth and finds only hollow shells. Her mouth is bloody by the time he finds her. They fill it back up and they give her water and food and they allow her to walk around in her room.
The room they put her in is white, with blank walls and blank sheets but the air is filled with whispered Russian and countless lies. As she sleeps, there is a tension where dreams of a ballerina and a spy and a husband who died and red, red blood floats through her head, lost as she tries to grasp it in consciousness.
They talk to her, a man and a woman with eagles on their suits and a dead beat in their eyes. They ask her about her skills, about her purpose, who her contacts are.
She is not at all surprise she can't remember a thing unless she's dreaming nightmares.
It goes a little like this. She joins Shield, though wariness is directed towards her every move. She gets a suit, and a new ledger, and she begins to fill it with red again. This time, it is no longer on her hands. He works with her, being the only one who can stand her crude accent and harsh glares.
They work together, side by side, and it feels natural. He seems to know her every move. He knows her habits, whispers to her in Russian without an accent.
She dreams of his eyes, but she remembers this time.
It starts a little like this. She meets him as a child at a traveling circus, a boy with the gleaming arrows and the unwavering aim. Her father next to her, holding her hand as she stares at the flips and tricks the acrobats do. The boy looks at her with a hard smile and cold blue eyes, unnerving and invincible.
Her father says, isn't this wonderful, Natalia?
She replies yes, and lets go of his hands.
The owner of the circus seems surprised as she walks into the tent, and his scream is muffled before he sees the dagger. The man is a traitor to the red room, and her father whispers a command for the fate of the rest of the crew. She replies yes.
( the boy replies no as she stabs the dagger through his shoulder over and over.)
I goes a little like this. Toy soldier
It starts a little like this. He is in a foreign land with foreign men he doesn't know. He sees a girl with red, red hair and a dagger. He sees a man who whispers false promises to him. He sees a hand and a girl with red, red hair and hands with red, red blood.
He goes into a room with red walls and sees red pouring from the other end of his arrows. He talks to a girl with red, red hair and a harsh accent and dead blue eyes. He remembers growing. He remembers more killing, and dying, and the girl who grows closer. He remembers loving her. He remembers planning to leave with her.
He remembers slowly dying as he is dragged away, and the girl with the red, red hair and the blank eyes standing rigidly against a man.
He remembers coming back to life. He decides to not kill her in Budapest.
It ends like this. They first meet in Budapest. Except, not really.