This chapter has a few trigger warnings, so please don't read if you don't like the sound of them:
Though nothing is graphic, there are mentions of/allusions to: rape/non-con, miscarriage, underage, abortion, and general references to Natasha's not so nice upbringing in the Red Room.
"Natasha, sit down"
"Leave me alone Clint. I'm fine!"
"Either get your ass to medical, or sit down and let me look at your hand"
She sighed and dramatically sat heavily on the end of her bed
"You wanna tell me why Shield now has to pay $1,800 for a new door on that ambulance?"
"No not really"
"Nat-"
"Clint. Leave it, please"
Clint looked silently at Natasha's bloodied knuckles. Even now, hours after they'd left Brooklyn; her hand was still gushing blood. He suspected she had some broken bones, but there was no way he was convincing her to go to medical right now.
Instead he settled for bandaging up her hand and waiting for her to talk.
Too bad she never did.
"You're seriously not going to tell me what happened back there?"
"I lost my temper, I punched the closest thing to me and it didn't make me feel any better"
"I got that. Why'd you lose your temper? Come on Nat, you can tell me"
"Clint, please" she sounded desperate, and Clint almost felt bad for pushing her. But he knew something was eating her up inside, and if he didn't get her to open up; it'd consume her.
"Tasha, what happened out there?"
It wasn't a tough mission; the Avengers were called to attend to an alien infestation in Brooklyn. Several hundred slug-like aliens had come through a small portal, and although they weren't vicious; the slime they left behind was disintegrating everything; cars, buildings, the sidewalk... And they needed taking care of.
They were easy enough to get rid of, Hulk throwing most of them back through the portal before Thor closed it with a blast from Mjolnir.
They only casualties had been because of a collapsed bridge; Clint and Natasha had gone over to help get the casualties out while the other Avengers set about helping clear up Brooklyn.
They'd split up, and next thing Clint knew he was being called over to prevent Natasha causing anymore damage.
A few minutes of silence passed before she broke under the weight of his gaze;
"There was a woman I helped out of the wreckage. She was kind, and grateful; she told me thanks over and over and clutched my hand as she was loaded into the ambulance. She was eight and a half months pregnant and was the first to be taken to the hospital' an hour or so later the paramedics returned to take some of the others, and they told me that the baby had died. When I saw her she was all smiles, and then her world had fallen apart..."
Clint sat in silence, allowing Natasha to process her emotions as much as he needed time to figure out what had caused her outburst.
It was sad, sure it was. But it was far from the worst they'd seen.
There was a trigger there somewhere...
"Tasha, I don't-"
"Look Clint, there are things about me not even you know, and I'm sorry; but this is one of those things. I just, I can't. I'm sorry. But I can't"
He nodded silently, respecting her right to privacy. She knew everything there was to know about him, but her past was dark; darker still than his own, and there were just some things she wasn't ready for him to know yet.
They spent the evening talking about inconsequential things; the weather, Shield's new recruits, Tony's latest experiment...
Eventually he noticed she began to get sleepy; her eyelids began to droop and rather than joining in the conversation, she just muttered "yeah" and "umm" occasionally while he spoke.
He went to leave, but her finger's curled round his wrist; so he stayed.
Her nightmares woke him several hours later. They were worse than normal, and Clint couldn't wake her up. She trembled in his arms, sweat gleaming on her face as she writhed and lashed out; muttering in Russian and occasionally screaming.
Eventually she tore herself away from the nightmares that had held her for so long. Sitting bolt upright, she ran from Clint's grasp into the bathroom where she threw cold water on her face. Sinking to the floor to catch her breath and holding her head in her hands; she didn't react when Clint appeared by her side, wrapping his strong arm around her shaking shoulders.
"Natasha, I know you said-"
"Clint, what you're asking me about was the worst time of my life. And you know what shit I've been through; so you know it's not something I'd say lightly"
"You don't have to tell me Tasha, I just want you to know that you can"
"No one knows. It's not even in my shield file or my medical history... I thought I could wipe it away; forget about it and pretend it never happened. I just wanted to erase it; like they did with my memories, but it never goes away... It's always there"
She paused to wipe a few stray tears from her face before she began. This was the secret she swore she'd never tell;
"When I was fourteen, the Red Room started looking toward the 'next generation' of Black Widow operatives. How to make them stronger, smarter, more successful. They needed new ways to keep them loyal, they wanted to start training them younger... "
Clint had an awful feeling he knew where this was heading, and bile rose in his throat.
"They decided the best way to do this was to... to breed them. They chose the best from each class, and confined them each to a small room, only allowed out to participate in various training exercises. The men who worked for the Red Room, the ones who trained us, taught us, created us; they came and, and had their fun..."
Clint clenched his fists and his jaw set in anger, but he didn't interrupt.
"I fell pregnant pretty quickly. But it was a boy; they only wanted girls so they terminated the pregnancy. A few months later I was pregnant again, this time it was a girl. I miscarried at 6 months following a training accident; Ivan was furious, and the girl who injured me turned up dead three days later. The last time, I was kept in my room for the full pregnancy. And then she was born, and taken away. I never even got to see her... By that time they had bred 13 baby girls to mould and sculpt into the next Black Widow generation; the perfect little warriors. They were taken away from the Red Room base, to a new training facility I never managed to find. That was just three months before Budapest, before I met you and you gave me a new life. I thought I could find her once I was out, but when I defected they moved again; went to ground, and I lost the trail."
She was done with recounting the events of her past, the horrors she'd suffered when she was still a child herself. But Clint couldn't bring himself to speak. There were too many words... Or not enough, he wasn't quite sure. All he knew was he was angry; he wanted to make them suffer for what they'd done to her. If they weren't already dead; he'd damnwell make sure they paid.
"Clint?" her voice was worried, and he forced his eyes to meet hers. Whatever she saw in his eyes reassured her, and she rested her head on his shoulder, falling to sleep now the weight of her secret was lifted.
Clint couldn't forget what he'd learnt, and though he wouldn't ever betray Natasha's trust by telling someone else; he was desperate to track down her daughter to find out what had happened to her. Maybe it'd give Natasha some closure? Maybe it'd just give him some.
It was tough going without the know how or equipment of Shield or Tony, but he finally did it.
Natasha's daughter was named Alina, and like her mother; was the best in her class. She was clever too, too clever. The Red Room decided she was a threat and assigned her an impossible mission in Sao Paulo. She died at age 9 after questioning her master about her mother.
Clint compiled a file on everything he could find about Alina and her short life, and gave it to Natasha almost six months after her confession. She thanked him, but never read the file. Just knowing it was there, kept safely where only she knew; having the information at hand made her feel better.
But she didn't want to know, so Clint didn't tell her.
Alina was just one more red page in her ledger.