So, my usual writing schedule is one chapter of Malenkaya, one of Endurance in order to keep both updated equally. But since Endurance is wrapping in a few chapters and this one is just getting started, I'm doing the next chapter of this one first. Let's give Endurance a break—let it stew for a bit.
Now, without further ado, Malenkaya!
Disclaimer: What would I do if I owned Loki? ...ahm, well yes, anyway, I don't own anything!
Chapter 5
Russia, 1917
"What is your name?"
Her head was throbbing. She could feel the dull ache of pain ebbing through her entire forehead, radiating, centrally, from her temple. Her vision was blurred, her body heavy, and her speech slurred—when she spoke at all.
Right now, she didn't. Not because she didn't wish to, but simply because the question was impossible to answer. The woman sitting in front of her was intimidating, to be sure, with her hair pulled into a harsh bun, yanking the skin around her eyes and cheeks back, and giving her a drawn, taut look. Horn-rimmed glasses slid down her nose as she examined the child with a scrutinizing gaze.
Behind her stood a young man dressed in a nice, three-piece suit, a strange grin spread across his face, one hand in his pocket, the other cradling a manilla folder close to his person.
The room she sat in was dark, cold, and empty, save for the table she and the woman were separated by, and the two folding metal chairs that they sat upon, chilling their bones on that cold, October morning.
Again, the woman asked: "What is your name?"
Crystalline tears welled in lost blue eyes and then fell, like rain, down porcelain cheeks as she shook her head. She opened her mouth, and spoke in a slurred, child's voice, "I don't know."
The woman nodded and then stood. She moved to the young man, and she watched as they whispered to one another, but could not hear what they said.
At the other end of the room, the woman—the newly established Red Room's doctor, a woman named Katinka Slovoski—approached her employer, Ivan Petrovitch, and shook her head. "She remembers nothing. It is most definitely the Grand Duchess, but she does not remember it."
Ivan's grin widened. "How very fortunate for us. The last of the Romanovas, here in our midst. In our care. Right under our distinguished leader's nose." He turned his head on his neck, only slightly, glancing at the woman out of the corner of his eyes. "And she's a clean slate. How very, very fortunate."
"Sir, should we not turn her over to Lenin?" Slovoski commented, glancing at the child.
"Oh, no. No, no, no." He 'tsk'ed softly, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth before smirking. "No, my dear, we will use her. She is a silver platter, waiting to be filled with all of our ideals and our workings. And just think how much proof of success she will be if Lenin does ever find out who she is—and how we've conditioned her for his purposes. How we've broken her to his will. She will be my greatest success."
"Sir?"
"Of course," Ivan said, turning to leave. "That is only if he finds out. Until that time, we keep this to ourselves. As of this moment, she is not now and will never again be Anastasia Nikolaevna."
"No longer a Romanova?" the woman asked
"Oh, no," he murmured, smirking, and then twisted his head on his neck and looked at the child. "She is still a Romanova. Our very own Romanova." At her curiously furrowed brow, he grinned, handed her the folder in his hand, and turned to walk out, the heavy metal door slamming behind him.
The child looked at the woman as she opened the file and read the contents, before tensing as sharp eyes snapped to her. The doctor knew what was to be done next. Most of the girls who came through here needed to be unmade before they could accomplish Ivan's vision. But this one already had been. Now, it was time to remake her. For his purposes. In his image.
Sitting down at the table yet again, the woman placed the folder down and folded her hands in front of her atop the table's metal surface, and let her eyes bore into the child. Again she asked, her tone different this time—leading:
"Would you like to know your name?"
Natalia Romanova. That is what they had told her. Her name was Natalia Romanova and she was Ivan Petrovitch's niece. Her parents had been killed in a fire in St. Petersburg, and she had narrowly escaped. She'd hit her head breaking into the old, abandoned palace, looking for a warm place to stay for the night.
That's why she remembered nothing. And that is precisely where Ivan's men had found her.
Something deep within her heart tried to reason with that information—something about it unsettled her. But the more Ivan spoke to her, showing her around his facility, speaking softly, compassionately, to her, the more she came to believe his words as truth.
He paused, suddenly, laying his hand on her shoulder—it was warm, and it unnerved the deepest recesses of her heart, but she shook that feeling away, looking up at the man.
"I will teach you to defend yourself," he said, finally, as he gestured to the other girls—older girls, younger girls, all working their bodies in ways little Natalia had never seen before. But as they moved in strange, new ways, before her eyes, an urge to be strong—to be a warrior—to prove something hidden and just out of reach to herself and others welled deep within her.
"Will you truly?" she asked, her voice returning to normal a little. The slurred quality was beginning to diminish.
"I will. You will never again be without the skills to fight back. And you will never again feel the pain of loss. You will never feel any pain ever again."
In that moment, Natalia believed him to be a god—a savior. She had no idea that taking away her pain meant taking away all those things that made her truly human: the natural movement of time within her own little body. And the deep, compassionate workings of her ever-loving heart.
When Slovoski had inferred that little Natalia Romanova had already been unmade, it was a tragic untruth.
To lose ones heart is to be truly unmade.
Russia, 1920.
"Happy birthday, Natalia."
Natalia opened her eyes, the deep, cold blue turning to Ivan as he entered the training facility, smirking. She was on the gymnastics beam, practicing as the other girls watched Ivan move through, and then turned glaring eyes on Natalia. She was always given special treatment—giving Ivan's special attention. They never understood what was so very unique about the child, apart from the fact that she was Ivan's greatest success.
In only three short years, Natalia had surpassed all of her peers physically and mentally. Having already learned two languages apart from Russian, and well on her way to learning a third and fourth, she was also the peak of physical strength. She excelled at gymnastics, rose quickly to the top in martial arts, and mastered ballet in just over a year's time.
But Natalia had always felt the need to be stronger—and she was not about to be the one that Ivan's men harassed. Her first few years, she had been reluctant to perform some of the tasks Ivan wished—to do and say some of the things he wanted her to. To believe some of the words which he told her. She learned quickly, however, that Ivan's word was law inside the Red Room.
After six months and bruises and broken bones, she learned, quickly, that Ivan's words were true. There was no trust between men, and no love lost between even family. The next time she let herself be bruised and broken that way, it was not by the hands of others, but her own—from pushing her body to it's absolute limits. She would never be a victim again.
Ivan's words were truth. He truly was giving her the tools she needed to defend herself, absolutely.
Now, on her eleventh birthday, she scoffed at the sound of her father's voice trailing through the facility. Another aspect of her training that she excelled at was the disconnect between her mind and heart—she did not participate in the pleasantries of life, and the feeble privileges of the heart that society believed themselves so entitled to.
Happy was a frail state of mind. Happiness was a bi-product of love. And all of Ivan's good little girls knew that love was another absolute weakness.
"Make no connections," he would tell them—tell her, "and you will never allow yourself the opportunity for pain."
In essence, if one never let oneself love, one would never feel the pain of loss. That was how Natalia had understood his words, in any case. And he had let her. Of course, in his own mind, he wasn't trying to protect her heart—he was trying to destroy it. Only one who's heart has been switched off, completely, could be the kind of loyal, unfeeling soldier he needed. He needed someone who was willing to do anything for his sake, without fear that the conscience of the heart would get in the way.
Many of his girls still let this fatal flaw trickle through. But not his Natalia. She was his prize. His beautiful blue ribbon. His greatest success.
"I have a present for you," he said.
"That seems unlike you," the child shot back, her voice bubbling with a womanhood that sat just over the horizon. Soon, her body would begin to produce the necessary chemicals to allow such womanhood to develop. Which meant Ivan hadn't much time left.
Ivan smirked, pleased by her reticent attitude. "It isn't a normal kind of present, child. It will make you stronger yet."
Natalia slid her cold, unfeeling gaze to him before bending backwards, pushing herself up on her hands into a perfect handstand on the beam. Ivan watched her with gleaming pride—and the malicious glee of a man who was getting everything he wished for—before she flipped backwards off of the beam and landed on her feet in front of him.
She looked up at him, grabbing a towel from nearby and wiping the sweat from her brow. "I'm listening."
Ivan's grin grew. "Come with me."
"Dr. Erskin, so good of you to come," Ivan said, shaking the man's hand. Natalia followed in after him, her eyes falling on a man of about thirty-five, his body wrapped in a lab-coat, his face decorated with wired spectacles and a few days worth of stubble.
"I suppose I did not have much of a choice in the matter," replied the man, his voice thick with the lilt of a German. "If it is that you can truly smuggle myself and my research out of Europe. Out of Schmidt's hands."
"Of course. I am a man of my word," Ivan replied. "If it is true that you are a man of yours."
Erskin glanced at Natalia, his eyes full of sorrow. Fear danced behind his eyes. "I've been watching your girls, Mr. Petrovitch. You are sure this is the one you wish to choose?"
"Yes."
"You remember what I told you about Schmidt, do you not?"
"I do."
Erskin nodded and then looked at Natalia again. Finally, he turned his eyes on Petrovitch and murmured, "Give me ten minutes with the child. Then we will begin."
"What is your name?"
Natalia hated that question. Rolling her eyes, she murmured, "Natalia Romanova."
Romanova? Erskin was a little put-off my the name but continued, "And why are you here?"
"For my birthday present." The child spat the word like venom from her small, pretty mouth.
Erskin frowned deeply. I would never forgive myself if this child ended up like Schmidt. "When I say the word 'courage', what is your first thought?"
"Fearless."
"Compassion?"
"Weakness."
"Strength?"
"Power."
"Love?"
"Lukas."
The word spilled from Natalia's mouth before she even had time to stop it and her eyes widened. Her brow furrowed and Erskin raised an eyebrow at her, murmuring, "What is that?"
"A name," she said, again speaking out of instinct.
"Whose?"
Natalia tried to call up a face but it caused only deep pain in her head, and in her heart and instead she scoffed. "I don't know. And I don't care. I meant to say childish. Love is childish."
Erskin looked down at the notes he had been carefully making, and he smiled a little. There is still hope in your heart, child. And I know this world you are trapped in is not of your own making. I pray the ideals buried deeply in your heart by this cruel place will be the ones magnified—instead of the other.
The name was proof. She still had love in her heart—and the quickness of her other answers gave Erskin reason to believe they were trained answers—that in the deepest recesses of her heart, they were not what she really believed. Nodding, he stood. "Very well. We may proceed."
"Well?" Ivan asked upon returning. Erskin gave a curt nod and then gestured toward the cold, metal operating table that had been crudely set up in the middle of the empty room. Natalia looked at the table, and a small semblance of fear welled in her heart. She squashed it, immediately.
Erskin led the child to the table and watched as she hopped, easily, up onto the tall surface. Now at eye level with her, he carefully connected the singular medical machine settled next to it up to her. With a cautious understanding, and a father's touch, he placed each monitor plunger on her, starting with her head, arms, legs and finally, carefully, over her heart.
Natalia was not used to being handled so gently and her brow furrowed at him, as he finished his work. He turned to Ivan, picking up a single tube of a viscous blue liquid. "This is the only completed version of the formula in existence. The one Schmidt took was incomplete."
"I'm indebted to you, Dr. Erskin," Ivan said with a tight smile. "That you would give my little Natalia such a present as this."
"Well,:" Erskin said, "I must retreat somewhere safe to continue my work." It is merely a means to an end. And maybe someday, child, you will prove yourself worthy of the gift I give you.
"Now, Natalia, lay back," Erskin said to her, softly, smiling gently at her, before he leaned in and whispered, "And don't lose sight of who you are—who you truly are—ever."
As he connected the tube to a syringe, and pressed the needle, carefully, into her arm, he whispered, "Do not forgot let your heart forget Lukas."
Natalia's eyes widened as a swift flash of green eyes entered her mind, and her heart beat with something that had long since been made unfamiliar to her—the twist and tug of long-buried love. Feeling the course of the formula swimming through her, she tried to push the feelings down, to ignore the quick and quiet memory of eyes unfamiliar to her, but it would not vanish. And as her small body convulsed on the table, and she began to foam at the mouth, her heart could only cry out to one person.
One stranger.
Lukas!
And the answer was a voice, in the distant caverns of her mind—a voice that was hollow and hard to recognize—calling back, softly, to her. Calling only one, simple Russian word.
Malenkaya.
Ivan was shouting—calling Erskin all kinds of names in Russian that any normal child would never be allowed to repeat. Erskin, meanwhile, was trying to stabilize the girl, his eyes focused on the wild beat of her heart on the monitor.
Finally, Natalia went still. Completely.
"What have you done?" Ivan snapped, as he pushed past the man and shook Natalia. She lay deathly still. Unmoving. Unflinching.
"I told you, Petrovitch," Erskin said, panting from the excursion of trying to calm a seizing child. "The formula magnifies not just the physical—but the inside. I told you to choose carefully. You may have destroyed her simply by allowing her to become so devoid of everything."
"Shut up! She is perfect," Ivan bit back, and looked down at the girl. "You told me the dose used on Schmidt was unfinished!"
"It was," Erskin said, simply, and when Natalia moved, just a fraction, coughing and coming too with a hard gasp, Erskin closed his eyes, filling with relief. He pushed past Ivan and helped the child sit up, examining her, carefully, from head to toe, checking each of her vitals with scrutinizing precision.
"How do you feel, Natalia?" he asked.
Natalia turned a hard glare on Erskin, and then offered Ivan a victorious smirk. "Stronger."
Erskin's heart sank, but it seemed, apart from the convulsion, no other adverse affects had made themselves present. For that, Erskin was grateful. For that, Erskin was hopeful.
There's hope for you yet, Natalia Romanova. The question is—will you seize it?
Natalia hopped down from the table and approached her father—father and mentor. "I am ready to continue my training."
"Actually, you should rest for-" Erskin was cut off by Ivan's grin stretching wide, as he placed his hands on Natalia's shoulders and squeezed.
"We will put you back to work immediately, then! You will be the best of us, Natalia. The best," he said, and turned to walk out, pausing only briefly to turn and look at Erskin. "The preparations for your departure are being put into effect as we speak." His eyes jolted to Natalia. "Come, Natalia."
Natalia followed him, but she could not keep her eyes from turning to glance at Erskin with a softness she had not let flitter into her eyes in years.
Who is Lukas? She wanted to ask. Did he even know?
But more importantly...
Who...is malenkaya?
Russia, 1937.
Stalin had seized power in 1927, and had nearly destroyed every inner-working of the Soviet Union that Lenin (and by extension Trotsky) had built. However, despite his much more dictatorial rulership, there were still a few men of Lenin's he trusted, exclusively.
Like Yuri Drakov.
He had been one of Lenin's most trusted comrades. He was often the one who offered Lenin advice in times of strife, and his advice usually met with positive results. He had spoken against Ivan Petrovitch's Department X, at first, but with no proof to go upon, he as unable to sway Lenin away from Ivan's twisted idealism. Upon meeting his wife, he had settled down, started a family and tried to let go of some of his responsibility to the Union. His wife had a hard time bearing children and so he focused much of his time and energy on her. And when little Katarina Drakov was born, they had given her the world.
Katarina was sixteen when her father learned what Department X truly did. Sixteen and beautiful, when Yuri found out about the Red Room—about the children. There had been reports for years now of children—particularly females—disappearing from orphanages around the country. It was true, not many cared what happened to the life of a parentless child. Most assumed they died from exposure or ran away from the poor conditions of the halfway houses.
It was the winter of 1940 when Drakov learned the truth.
And as letters began to pour into Ivan's office from him—threatening to expose him to Stalin, who still trusted his judgement as Lenin had, if he did not shut down his "monstrous" facility—the man seethed, and realized that Yuri Drakov was going to be more of a threat to him than he initially realized.
So, in his desperation and pride for his greatest creation, his beautiful, brilliant success, he called in the best. His best.
It was almost a month of successive letters later that Natalia Romanova—the Black Widow as she'd come to be known as because her most powerful asset was her seductive quality and intensely ethereal beauty—stood across Ivan's desk, waiting.
"I have a job for you," he said, nursing a tumbler of vodka, his eyes averted from her.
"I assumed," she replied, her long crimson curls pulled into a high ponytail, a stealth bodysuit tucked under the thick fur coat she wore, trying to keep the freezing chill of the harsh Russian winter away. She hated the cold. Hated it.
Without turning his swivel chair to face her, he pushed a photograph toward her, his lips wrapped around the edge of his glass, sucking the burning liquid into his mouth, his body radiating with irritation—and anger.
Natalia stepped forward, picking up the picture and studying it. "Who is this?"
"That," he said, finishing his drink and slamming the cup down on his desk. Still, he did not face her, "is Katarina Drakov. She'll be seventeen tomorrow."
Natalia was silent. Her eyes were focused—stern, devoid of emotion. She kept her heart hard, and her mind clear.
"I don't want her to reach seventeen," Ivan said, and finally turned his eyes on her. "I want you send Yuri Drakov a message—help him to see reason. If he wishes to try and deprive me of my girls, then I will deprive him of his. Am I making myself clear?"
"Yes, sir."
"Tonight, my Black Widow," he said in smooth Russian. "Tonight."
Natalia nodded, and then turned, swiftly, and left.
"And Natalia."
She turned to look at him.
"You know what will happen if you fail me."
"Don't worry. You know," she began, "I never fail."
Katarina Drakov was alone in her room when Natalia swung herself through the window. It was an easy enough task to disengage the flimsy locks and open the glass pane, silently.
Moving through the room toward the bed, Natalia removed a pistol from her thigh-holster and twisted a silencer onto it. She paused, in front of the bed, and pointed the gun, steadily, at the girl.
The young woman lay there, silent, sleeping soundly, without a care in the world. She would never have known what was coming, except that the urge for water struck her and her eyes cracked open. Upon seeing her assailant hovering above her, she went to scream, but Natalia pulled her from the bed, swiftly, covering her mouth with her hand, and pushing her lips right up against the girl's ear.
"Scream and I will not only kill you but your entire family and house staff," she hissed, and the girl tensed, tears filling her eyes. Natalia spun her out and away from her, standing face to face with the young woman now, the gun pointed with fervent necessity.
But as Natalia stood, watching a sixteen year old girl dressed only in the frills of a young woman's nightgown, her hair down, staring down the barrel of a gun, something familiar struck her. Something sad and terrifying, and her hand shook, suddenly, lowering just a little bit.
Her eyes widened as the clawing scrape of memories tried to punch through to her conscious mind.
Then she heard Ivan's voice ring out like a foreboding warning bell in her mind: You know what will happen if you fail me.
Raising her gun again, she sucked in a hard breath, steadying her shaking hand, and placing her finger over the trigger.
However, as she squeezed the offending piece of plastic, she did something she had never done with another target, and would never do again:
"I'm sorry."
The bullet whizzed out of the gun, burying itself directly in the girl's heart, and she fell, like a sack, to the floor. Natalia lowered her gun, her lips pressed together hard as she pushed the pistol back into its holster and left, quietly, quickly, the way she came.
Russia
In 1941, the Soviet Union entered the second World War, and Natalia spent most of her time doing hits on Allied leadership. By this point, she had stopped aging and could therefore keep herself in peak condition for any fight, any mission. She could gather intel, perform hits, and fight, one on one, without issue. She was the perfect spy. The perfect assassin. The perfect soldier.
Almost. Her hesitation during the hit on Drakov's daughter still startled her, sometimes. After Katarina Drakov, she had to all but retrain herself to feel nothing at the other end of a kill. To understand it was a means to an end. To follow orders without question.
During war, it was easy. Easy to kill and feel nothing. It felt right. Like one was protecting something sacred—something worthwhile.
But it became harder as the years rolled on—as the decades passed. She never aged, but her mind and heart began to feel the toll of her lifestyle—the lies, the deceptions. She could feel the weight of each piece of blackmailing evidence she'd successfully smuggled to Ivan, each child she'd ever kidnapped to replenish the Red Room's recruits, and each life she'd ever taken.
But she kept going. Such thoughts and feelings were weak. And she knew that. And everytime she felt that weight on her heart, she trained harder. She had to release herself from being weak. She had to remove the fear. She obviously needed to be stronger.
For years, that's what she told herself. For decades.
Then, Natalia who served the Red Room, for years even after Ivan's death—and his son's—discovered the truth.
In early 2000, the Red Room and Department X were making the transfer into new hands—the hands of Ivan's grandson, Dmitri, and his wife, Helena—Natalia found something out. Something that made her question Ivan and all of his principles.
As she was rifling through some of the papers in his desk drawer, looking for some documents for Dmitri to sign, she paused, as a secret compartment popped up at the touch of her fingers—so old and used that the wood of the false bottom failed, easily. She peeled off the false bottom the rest of the way and furrowed her brow at the pile of thinly folded letters that lay underneath.
She pulled them out, one by one, and opened them, carefully, one by one. She wasn't sure what had compelled her to do it, but she was intrigued. Each was a letter from someone to Ivan. Most of them were people from other countries, thanking him for the services of his Red Room operatives.
But as he peeled open the last one, she would soon regret her choice.
The first thing that caught her eye was the named signed at the bottom.
Johann Schmidt
Memories from childhood flooded her mind, Memories of Ivan speaking to a doctor—a man named Erskin—about a man named Schmidt.
Yes.
She remembered Erskin. His voice was so soft and caring, the accent lilted German. He had handled her kindly when she'd received the injections that had paused her body's aging process. He had told her...to never give up on who she was. To never forget—
"Lukas," she whispered to herself, her heart shuddering in her chest. She also remembered that Ivan had made a bargain with this man—a bargain in exchange for Natalia's perpetual immortality.
She had always believed Ivan's word to be law. But the letter had her attention now and as she read through it, her eyes widened.
-thank you, Mr. Petrovitch-
-we found Dr. Erskin easily based on your intel-
-Erskin is dead-
Dead. Dead because of Ivan.
Even though Ivan had sworn to smuggle this man away from Schmidt—away to safety.
You know better, her mind argued. The only good thing Petrovitch ever taught you was to question everything. You know Ivan values information for how much power it can gain him. How much control. You've always known that.
Natalia shook her head, trying to eradicate the thoughts. Ivan had saved her—protected her—made her strong! Ivan had brought her up as his very own, handed her new life and new purpose. Ivan had-
Manipulated. Blackmailed. Twisted.
But never killed.
No. The killing had always been her job. Hers or someone else's.
He's setting you up to take the fall, malenkaya.
Her mind's voice, she realized, was not her own. It was another voice. The voice of a child.
Lukas.
That night, she ran. And, as her past chased her down, desperate to catch her, she vowed she would never look back.
Belarus, 2000.
"You sure about this, sir?"
Clint Barton was twenty-two years old and a reformed criminal. He had committed crimes on a scale from small beans to large time, and had been deemed armed and dangerous on numerous occasions. Of course, armed was up for debate in an age of guns and bullets.
He was a little more...primitive than that. He preferred the twang of a bow string—the snap of an arrow as it left the bow. He loved letting his eyes paint a picture with his bow and arrow. He was good at that—unnaturally good.
Things were different now. After he'd been detained by the U.S. Government for some smuggling charge, and handed over to some special ops group because of his insane marksmanship, he had been given a choice. Join us, they'd said, or we hand you right into a warden's hands.
He made the choice for freedom. Who wouldn't?
And so, he became a steadfast, permanent agent of The Strategic Homeland Intervention and Enforcement Division of the government. SHIELD.
And right now, he was on a mission.
"You questioning me, Barton?" The voice of his boss—Nick Fury
"No, sir. Just verifying."
"You close?"
"Think so. Seen her exit and enter twice now. Hair covered, eyes covered, but general body type and posture as well as facial structure definitely suggest it's her."
"Then you don't hesitate, Barton. You take her out. We've been hunting the Black Widow for over a year. It's time to end this."
"Yes, sir," Clint said into his com, but in his heart, something seemed off. Fury was right. It had been over a year, and the Widow had always eluded them. Always. She was smart, with a physical and mental agility Clint had rarely come up against in the past—either in crime or as an agent. So why, now, was she suddenly letting herself be seen so easily?
Why now was she suddenly so easy to catch?
There's more to this. Clint swung down from his perch high atop a Belarus church spire, and down into the window just below. When he was sure the coast was clear, he then took a running start and jumped into a window across the alley just a few feet below, finding himself on the second floor of the little inn that he was almost positive the Widow was staying in.
Readying his bow and arrow, he left the empty room, pressing his body to the threshold of the door and checking for any signs of movement in the hallway before he stepped out. Utilizing his insanely tuned eyes to his advantage, he checked the floor and walls for any signs that might direct him to her room, and was pleased when, at the end of the hall, he found one of the old wooden doors with a single red curl clinging to the splintered wood.
He smirked. Gotcha.
Kicking the door open, he pointed his bow and arrow at the ready.
The woman did not turn, but by the way she sat up straight and tall, he was sure she knew he was there. Finally, her head twisted, and Clint caught the first glimpse of her beautiful, porcelain face.
"So," spoke the woman's profile, in English, her Russian accent thick, "you've finally found me."
"Natalia Romanova, aka Black Widow. Master assassin and spy extraordinaire," Clint replied. "Under the employ of Ivan Petrovitch and his son Nikolai after him. A product of the Red Room."
"You've got a lot of information on me," she replied, standing, facing toward him finally. His eyes scanned her, quickly, and immediately he realized she was unarmed. He did not, however, lower his bow.
"It's my job," Clint replied, and pulled the bow-string tight.
"Come to kill me?"
"That's the plan."
Natalia nodded and bowed her head, her long red curls falling over the ivory pale skin of her porcelain sculpted face. She spread her arms wide. "Then, do it." I deserve it. Ivan Petrovitch lied to me for decades. And I let him. I was a fool.
Clint swallowed, hard, pressed his thumb to his lip to steady the bow—to aim—and took a deep, calming breath. But as he stared at her, standing, outspread—in a position of complete surrender—he couldn't bring himself to do it. Something within him told him otherwise.
You got your second chance, Clint Barton. Time to pay it forward.
With a shaky, uncertain breath, he lowered the bow, and only one word spilled from his lips after that:
"No."
"Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Romans 12:21
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