Author's Note: This is my first time writing a Clintasha fic (more in later chapters) so I hope you like it!
Disclaimer: I do not own Avengers or any of it's characters.
Natasha woke with a jolt, immediately aware of the hospital smells and lights around her. She scrambled to remember what had happened-where she was and why this time-when she found pieces. Gunshots raining down on them. Viserov falling dead. American soldiers yelling, storming the warehouse. Red Room agents-herself included-fighting back against them with everything they had. Explosions shaking the building. Men muttering with sad eyes and pitying tones. A dart hitting her neck. Pulling it out to continue fighting. Being hit with four more. Finally hitting the floor with a thud, blacking out with the image of two American soldiers carrying away Taisia.
Looking around, eyes squinted against the harsh fluorescent lights, she realized she ws the first to wake up. She was in a hospital bed-they all were-eight along each side of the long room. She felt cold air against her inner thighs and lower back, telling her she was wearing a medical gown without having to look down. She was standing before she even realized, her bare feet cold against the tile. Her heart rate monitor began to beep furiously. A constant, shrieking BWAH BWAH BWAH. A few of the older girls began to stir at the noise, so she ripped it from her arm, taking the IV with it. Eyes wide, she searched the room frantically for anything she could make into a weapon. A butter knife on one of the nearby food trays was her first grab and she gripped it forcefully, with the kind of desperation that screamed fear. It was fine. This wasn't anything she couldn't handle. Another country, another agency, another lie to be told. It wasn't them she was worried about. It was the other girls.
From the closed door, she gathered they were locked in rather than handcuffed individually to their beds. This was not good. It could have been worse-she had fought more men with more guns and won before-but these weren't men with weapons. These were Red Room girls and they were the weapons. Watching carefully from where she was crouched behind her empty bed, she waited for any sign of life. If her body had run through the sedatives already, then so had theirs. It was only a matter of time.
A hitch in breathing to her left caught her attention and held it. Of course it was Vasya. The tall, slim girl was a year older than Natasha but a rank lower-something which constantly pissed her off and made her lash out at Natasha any chance she got. Her plain, unnoticeably average features scrunched in a tiny mask of what resembled pain but it was instantly gone. Vasya sat bolt upright in the bed, ignoring the hiss of monitors beside her and ripping tubes and sensors from her body just like Natasha had minutes earlier. The girl made it to her feet and stumbled, revealing a cast on her left ankle, before she caught sight of Natasha.
"Так так так. Если это не Маленький Красный." Little Red… she hated that nickname. Little meant weak-it was an insult, and the one thing Natasha would never allow herself to be was weak. Red was a reminder of her hair-what made her stand out from the others and what made her memorable, a quality no one in the Red Room was praised for. Often times, she was jealous of Vasya and her forgettable, subtle beauty. It gave her an edge in the field. But, more often, the other girls were jealous of her and her vibrant sex appeal because it made the men of the Red Room like her. They slept with her more than any of the other girls and gave her what the others called special treatment-what she called higher standards.
"No guards here," Natasha mused, forcing her voice light despite the burn it produced in her throat. "No one to stop me from killing you." Two more girls rose at the voices and took to their feet, dancing on the balls with their arms half raised just waiting. They knew the fight wasn't theirs-not yet. Vasya threw something metal-maybe a screw or a letter opener?-with a flick of her wrist at Natasha's chest but it wasn't strong or accurate. Vasya was playing with her.
Behind her, the metal object collided with the shoulder of a sleeping girl and woke her. The blonde crept up to join the circle behind Natasha, silently picking sides. They were betting. All the girls were betting, taking their chances on loyalty. Those who bet against Vasya risked her cruel, sadistic wrath should Natasha lose. But those who bet with Vasya feared even worse. By the time the first punch was thrown, all but two girls were awake. One was the youngest, the other had had their throat slit.
It wasn't any different than training fights back at the Red Room, really. There were objects and potential weapons but both girls stayed away from them for the most part, trusting the damage they could do with their own body more than any toy. Vasya paced in half circles, staring Natasha down like prey, but she met those cold brown eyes with steel in her own and refused to be the first to blink. When Vasya did finally blink, Natasha landed a hard kick to her ribcage. She only took half a step back before recoiling for another jab at Natasha's face but the whole room had heard the snap of bones. It wasn't enough to slow her, but it was a weakness Natasha could use.
Two more solid kicks to the ribs before Natasha received a sharp, blinding punch to the temple. She was off the floor before she realized she'd gone down-the throbbing and dancing black shapes across her eyes a sign that Vasya had gotten a lucky hit. None of the girls behind her moved to pull her up or steady her-help was a sign of weakness, and this wasn't their fight-but girls on Vasya's side began to jeer and twist their faces up at her. She ignored them.
She didn't know how long they fought. It wasn't easy necessarily, especially in her condition, but it was a lulling sort of comfortable that let her mind lose awareness for time. Fighting was what she was good at. Vasya was taller and stronger, but Natasha had always been better. A natural, Viserov had called her. She allowed her focus to wane from the room, centering on Vasya and every movement of her body, until she was what could only be described as in the zone. Again and again she blocked and evaded, almost like a dance she'd been rehearsing for years, and she was content to stay locked in the rhythm of it until Vasya dropped. To her surprise, the girl stayed down, on her knees and rasping a wet, bloody cough. Had she punctured a lung?
It didn't matter. For the moment, Vasya was occupied and that was all it took for her supporters to riot. They saw their regime beginning to crumble and were terrified of what the Black Widow had in store for traitors like them. She didn't plan to do anything-she didn't care-but they reacted with the same visceral fear as if she'd threatened them. They surged on her, suddenly seven against one. She wasn't greatly concerned, merely annoyed and disappointed it had come to this, but she understood her situation had just significantly worsened. There were two bullet wounds in her side at least and she could feel the warm blood starting to soak the inner bandages. It had to end soon.
She kept the hoard at arms length for a good few minutes before her supporters joined the fight, either equally annoyed by the unfair sparring rules or just eager to get their share of blood on their hands. It was even matched, then, as the last girl-or at least the last one living-woke and joined the fight. The girls were younger than Natasha but they were good. They were ruthless and bloodthirsty, the kind of feral that only the Red Room could create, and she left them to fight amongst themselves. It wasn't her fight anymore.
Instead, she made her way over to where Vasya was lying on the hard floor, blood dripping from her mouth. She coughed again and spit out more blood, confirming the punctured lung. With nothing short of hatred, Vasya looked up at Natasha and spit but missed, ended up in another coughing fit. Natasha didn't fancy herself a humanitarian and she wanted Vasya to suffer. This was the girl who had terrorized her for four years, who had grinned when she saw Natasha's torn underwear, and who had made it her mission to tear Natasha down. But she didn't like watching slow deaths-it was dull, and boring, and there was too much begging. She knelt beside Vasya's still form and looked her dead in the eyes.
"I told you, Vasya. I will always win." Vasya moved to spit at her again but Natasha jammed the butterknife she had between the girl's ribs and watched her collapse before she could. She checked for a pulse after a moment, pleased to find none. Wiping the dull blade on Vasya's hospital gown, she turned to face the war raging on the other side of the room. With Vasya handled, she was beginning to feel lethargic and faint but the fight wasn't over. Her supporters had backed her, now she backed them. She crept up behind one of the girls as yelling erupted outside the door, drawing all of their attention briefly, before closing her hands around the girl's throat. She felt the muscles pulse and twitch, trying to fight for air, as the girl tried to grab at her hands but her grip was strong.
Natasha didn't mean to let go, but she faltered when she saw a flash of blue uniform through the door. Immediately, the group silenced and stopped their fighting. There was a common enemy, now. The door flew open, revealing maybe twenty guards with syringes, but they all went down in a few minutes. The girls were better than any trainer they could have ever learned from-they didn't have a chance. Again, another group was sent in, this one with M29s and SWAT uniforms, but they went almost as quickly. Whoever was outside the door seemed to realize at that exact moment that they had just provided the girls with automatic weapons-to which Natasha scrunched her eyebrows in disapproval. They locked the door again.
For a brief instant, the fighting resumed and the girl Natasha had tried to choke went for her jugular with a pen. She managed to gouge out a sizeable chunk of Natasha's shoulder before being tackled to the ground by another girl who tore at her hair and scratched at her eyes. White gas began pouring out from the vents but not a single girl changed their actions-fighting just as hard and almost appearing blind to it. Natasha was mid-kick when she first inhaled the gas. It made her kick weak. She looked to the girl she was fighting, one of her original supporters, to see if the kick had done any damage at all but the girl was on her knees, a glassy look in her eyes. It was some kind of drug, she guessed, but she refused to go easy like the others. She forced her breathing slow and shallow and searched the room briefly, her butterknife clutched tightly in one hand.
It was too strong, though, and she had a feeling they were just going to pump in more and more until they saw every girl on the floor. So she lay down, her eyes open and her breathing shallow, and waiting for them to come. It was almost ten minutes before sleep tugged at the corners of her mind but she refused, pushing herself to focus-to listen, to gauge distances, anything but give in to it. Chemicals, though, in high enough doses were hard for anyone to resist. Her eyelids fell shut and her brain fogged, listening rather than trying to see because the gas burned her eyes. She heard footsteps-ten pairs if she had to guess-and heard them moving the unconscious girls around her.
When Natasha woke again, she was restrained. Heavily. It seemed every joint and muscle in her body was strapped to the medical chair-she couldn't even lift her head. So they'd learned.
"Hello, Miss Romanoff," a male voice greeted her in Russian, his American accent thick. It surprised her but she didn't let herself jump. She couldn't show weakness, especially not to the Americans.
"As you can see, we've taken precautionary measures. You are restrained and within a glass cell which, let me assure you, is stronger than it sounds. I will be speaking to you from the other side of this glass via a microphone. Do you understand?" She didn't give him the satisfaction of a response.
"My name is Agent Coulson. Welcome to SHIELD."
Hope you liked it! Thanks for reading! I promise more Clintasha in later chapters! As always, please read, review, and follow!