'Drakov's daughter, Sao Paulo, the hospital fire... You ledger is dripping, it's gushing red!' Loki shouted slamming his fist against the glass wall. The impact of the punch startled her and she retreated a few steps as he continued with the speech she had heard dozens of times before, "I will make him torture you in every way he knows you hate..." Well, Clint didn't exactly know the tortures she hated, she hard never told him that so she had nothing to worry about.

Then, in a swirl of red, orange and blue, the vision switched to one of her standing on a rooftop. She gazed down below, the city was painted white, pure white because of the snow that intensely fell from the dark sky. Natasha wore a white and thick fur coat and white pants to both protection from the cold and camouflage. She held a sniper gun in her hand as she knelt and prepared to shoot. She had a perfect aim and wouldn't miss the shot, Drakov's head. She was almost pulling the trigger when a new command sounded through the communicator on her ear. She was to take her target's daughter and torture her for information.

She scowled at the voice, but obeyed either way. Natasha waited until all of the lights in the house had been turned off before making her way silently towards it. She knew Anya – that was the politician's daughter name – slept on the third floor and she had no problem in breaking in without making any noises. The blond girl couldn't have been more than six years old, perhaps five, she didn't have time to ask her. It was all so quick. In no time, she entered the room and escaped with the girl. Anya was locked in one of the cold and scary interrogation rooms of the Red Room facility.

It was as if they were trying not only to torture the small girl but also Natasha. Well, it wasn't like she minded torturing people at the time, much on the contrary, she loved to do so. She was truly cold, even colder than she was now, some might even call he wicked, so she didn't mind torturing Anya. The sound of the high pitched screams that left her mouth were like music to her ears. She remembered watching the senator cry as she slowly inserted thick needles underneath his daughter's nails, making small dark red droplets of blood dripped on the floor, staining not only the cold gray concrete, but her ledger as well. The man finally spit out the info they wanted, just in time to see Natasha put a bullet inside his little girl's skull.

Anya, she was 5, maybe six and Natasha was 15. Only ten years older and, technically still a child, even though her innocence was long gone.

It all turned blue then. She was laying in the cold, wearing only a thin white hospital nightgown. It did nothing to stop the cold that bit through her skin and made her shiver. She sat upright and noticed that her feet were tied to the table, still, she tried to recognize where she was. She realize she was sitting on a cold metal surface. She looked around those familiar beeping noises. She was back in the Red Room facility. There wasn't even an option in which she wouldn't remember that place, the one room in the entire base she feared, the one everyone feared. The metal door facing the table she was sitting on slid opening revealing a group of five scientists.

"Now, Natalia, lay down. Be calm and nothing's going to happen to you." One of the scientists, with a strangely familiar voice said as he approached her. The blinding light they put right in her face made it impossible for her to see who he was, who they all were.

More of them walked towards her and each one took hold of her arms and legs, so she couldn't struggle too much. She was pined down to the table so she couldn't look up. Then she felt a needle rip the soft skin of her arm and a thick liquid enter her veins. Then she started to convulse, she could feel it running through her veins, it felt, at the same time, burning hot and freezing cold, she couldn't think straight, the pain was numbing her mind. But, for more excruciating that the pain might be, she wasn't allowed to black out, as if something was stopping her body from doing so. She was forced to feel the pain from the moment it started until it ended.

When they were done with the procedure, the scientists left the room and she was all by herself. She closed her eyes, her body ached so much she couldn't sleep, she couldn't rest, she couldn't abstract herself from the pain – something she had mastered many years before. Yet, she felt stronger, younger, better, different from the skinny and frail little girl she had always been. It was weird.

"Well, Natalia." A man walked into the room, but her vision was too blurry for her to identify him, all she knew was that he was the same one who had spoken to her before, "I can see that this serum does work. I have not been fooled. You can start your training... Now." He said.

It all turned black. And then, in a burst of light, white. It was all white. She could only hear the voices echoing through the empty space, voices of everyone she had ever met, friends, foes and some who she couldn't even identify.

"You are nothing but a liar!" She heard Clint say, she looked around, but couldn't see him, all that surrounded her was white.

"Yeah, a liar and a killer." Tony spoke.

"You couldn't even stop me when I needed you to. You are puny, defenseless. You are just another worthless killer."

"All you know is how to drink and try to forget your past."

"You think yourself so much better than anyone else, o much smarter, stronger... You're not. In fact, you have nothing special. I am strong and smart, even more than you are, Bruce can turn into a monster, Clint has the perfect aim, Tony is a genius and Thor is a god. What are you? A cold-blooded assassin, a useless spy. You are not worthy pf being in the team. Fury just let you join because you're his lapdog." It was Steve who said that, and his words broke her more than anything else, the simple fact that it was him who was saying it was enough to tear her apart.

"Stop it." Her voice was a murmur and she repeated those words as if they were a prayer to a God she didn't even believe in. But the voices got louder and louder.

"STOP IT!" she screamed at last.

Natasha woke up screaming and panting. She had tossed and turned in bed, so she wasn't covered by the sheets anymore. Her hair was mated to her neck and small droplets of sweat gathered above her brow. She could feel Steve's strong arms grip on hers. She had woken him up.

"Nat?" He asked, "Are you okay?"

Natasha was speechless for a moment, trying to process her nightmares, she simply stared into Steve's deep blue eyes, she could feel the knot in her throat tighten. 'I'm not going to cry, I'm not going to cry...' She repeated on her head, but she found herself unable to do that and, before she even had time to realize, a tear slipped down her cheek and even more of them threatened to fall from her eyes and trickled on her eyelashes, making them shine. She tried to wipe them away, in an effort to hide her face so he would not see her in such frail state, but the tears kept flowing.

Her breath was caught in her throat at the feeling of it, his strong arms wrapped around her body, his scent suddenly so much stronger than before and it all felt so much warmer. At first, her body tensed, his touch was something she longed for, something that was almost foreign to her and she simply closed her eyes, buried her head on his chest and allowed herself to cry. Natasha, who was a master in hiding what she felt, couldn't do that anymore. Not at that moment. She could pretend that nothing happened in the morning.

"Don't worry, Nat. I'm here for you." Steve whispered in her ear. His tone was caring, just the opposite as the one he used in her dream and that made her cry even more. "I'm here."

His embrace on her tightened and Natasha closed her eyes and wondered if the words she heard in her head were what he actually thought of her, what all of her friends thought of her. Slowly, she drifted to sleep in his arms. That time, she had no dreams, no nightmares, nothing. She just enjoyed his warmth.

~X~

"Steve?" Natasha groaned when she opened her eyes.

"Yes, Nat?" He replied, his deep voice sounded like honey in her ears and her lips curved into a small, subtle smile.

"Good morning." She said and then realized that he was spooning her. She didn't remember how that happened. Then the images of the night before came back to her.

"Are you feeling better?" Steve asked.

"Yes." She replied and stretched, somewhat on purpose. "Steve, what time is it?"

"Ten a.m" He replied calmly, as if he didn't mind the fact that they were late for their mission.

Natasha suddenly stood up, "But we have to go to the base!"

"Nat." Steve stood and walked to her, placing both of his hands on her shoulders to keep her still, "We're not going today."

"But we have to-"

"Nat, no." He said firmly. "You had a rough night and we have to wait a couple of days before we can go. After they discovered me."

"But... I can't allow a personal problem get in the way of our mission." She said, running a hand through her hair nervously. Everything had to be executed with perfection. Anything less than perfect was not enough.

"Natasha, calm down. We are taking the day off and it's not only because of you." He said, "It's because of many things, you need res, I need rest and we are being hunted down in that base."

"Right." She sighed finally calming down. He let go of her arms.

"Right." He nodded, "Since we won't be able to enter the place looking as we do right now, why don't we take the next two days off, plan our disguises and do something?"

"Sounds like a good plan." She nodded, "Now, I'll take a bath so we can go out."

"Sure." Steve nodded and she went to the bathroom.

'What just happened, Natasha? You just had a nervous breakdown in front of someone?" She scolded herself the moment she closed the door behind her. 'You can't let that happen again." But then she remembered the feeling of his strong arms around her, his hot breathing against her neck and how good it had felt waking up with him that morning. Surely, she wouldn't mind that happening everyday.