Chapter Eleven
AN: I figured I should post this trigger-warning up here. While I'm not overly familiar with self-harm or any of the likes, I'd rather not take any chances.
By the time Tony was finished laughing his ass off, Mira had already left the room. Another awkward silence followed when Beck left to go find her. That was no surprise. Given how close they were, it was a wonder they didn't consider themselves a couple.
"Alight, back to business," the genius, playboy philanthropist said, clasping his hands together as he went over to the monitor looking over the common room. "I've been digging more into her memories, back when she was on the Grid." Everyone gave him looks of shock, and Tony just shrugged as if this was something he did on a daily basis. Which he probably did in his spare time. "Okay, look, we all want to know exactly why she is the way she is. Plus, I had Jarvis record the whole thing just for kicks."
"Tony, I'm not sure this is such a good idea." This time it was Natasha everyone stared at in disbelief. Finding intel on anyone was her thing, but if she was cautious about this, then she knew something wasn't right. Mira had been through enough for them to make things worse than they already were. "We're all aware that she doesn't trust anyone, and understandably so."
"Well, after the way you dumped her, who could blame her?" Clint muttered.
Though, his voice so quiet that hardly anyone heard him. He was still bitter over the fact that Natasha had kept this from him. While he understood why she had gone to such lengths to keep Mira a secret, it still hurt to know that she had suffered so much because of that one secret. Her life on the Grid could have been avoided had he known about her. Maybe he could have done something to prevent any of this from happening.
Tony just rolled his eyes and pulled up a few interesting looking files he'd managed to dig up.
"This was found while she was unconscious, in Clu's prison," he explained. "Apparently, he thought he could get away with running experiments on her."
It wasn't until they started reading the files that they realized just how much damage Clu had caused, and how much torture he had committed upon her. It was a wonder that she trusted anyone after what she had endured while on the Grid.
"That son of bitch was using her as a guinea pig?" Now, Clint was furious.
He may not have known her for that long as his biological daughter, but what gave this 'Clu' bastard any right to treat her that way? No one deserved to suffer whatever fate he threw at them. And the more Clint thought about it, the more he realized how similar Mira's fate was to Natasha's. Though, it sounded as if Mira's trust in others would need more work than ever after everything that had happened to her.
"And, apparently, whatever enhancements he ran on her were successful," Bruce put in, his voice cold with realization and shock.
"He probably would've gotten away with it too, if that ISO hadn't interfered with his plans," Tony explained as an image of Quorra appeared on the screen. She seemed to be one of the very few programs who actually cared for Mira before she met Beck and Tron. "I tried contacting ENCOM about all of this, but I haven't been able to reach anyone."
None of them had noticed at that moment that Natasha disappeared. What Tony had discovered only put her over the edge. She blamed herself for what had happened. She was going to make things right, one way or another.
…
It didn't take Beck long to find her in the gym. Luckily, Tony had given him a tour of the whole tower (much to his displeasure), and it gave him the opportunity to map out every important location. He suspected that this was where he would find Mira. He knew her well enough to know that when she was feeling frustrated or bitter, she would take it out on whatever simulations she or Tron made on the Grid. What he hadn't planned on was finding her in the state she was currently in.
His eyes widened in alarm when he saw a hole in one side of the wall. Broken pieces of glass covered the floor, and huddled in one corner of the room was Mira. That moment of alarm was replaced with panic when he saw her wrists for the first time. They were covered in bruises and fresh blood. Her arms were wrapped around her legs as she stayed huddled in the corner when he crept forward. He had already seen her at her lowest point. Seeing her now only left his mind churning with pity.
"Mira…" Finally, she looked up, and Beck was stunned to see the haunted look in her eyes. "Why are you doing this to yourself?"
He found it hard to talk after seeing what just happened. And, despite the fact that she shouldn't be doing this in the first place, he couldn't blame her for her actions. Everything was happening too fast. She had been through so much, and there was only so much one could take without losing control.
"I don't know," she whispered, burying her face into her bloodied and bruised hands. "I just… I just wish that things were back to normal. I keep thinking that maybe this is all a horrible nightmare, and I'll wake up on the Grid where everything is fine."
Again, Beck couldn't blame her for wishing that. He too wished that things were like the old days. Back when everyone was carefree and there wasn't much to worry about other than the occasional gridbug. He didn't understand what she was going through, which only complicated things. As much as he wanted to understand, he knew he never would. She was a User, through and through. Users weren't created the same way programs were.
"I know that things aren't easy, and they probably never will be," he sighed after finally helping her back to her feet. "It may seem hopeless, and we may not have any chances at stopping Clu from here, but we can at least stop Cyrus from hurting anyone else."
For the first time in many, many cycles, Mira actually smiled.
"Well, it would feel more than satisfying to see Cyrus get knocked down a peg or two," she said quietly. "It's what Tron would have wanted."
Now that was the User he had gotten to know as more than just a partner in crime. He felt the same way about Cyrus, especially after seeing all of the chaos the rogue program had committed throughout the Real World. He had no doubt that Cyrus was also responsible for the news about the other Users as well.
Beck was about to say something else when he realized they were no longer alone. His eyes narrowed when he saw Natasha watching them. She was tense, looking as if she was staring at her own reflection when her eyes fell upon Mira.
"Can we talk?" she suddenly asked, breaking the uneasy silence that followed. Beck looked at Mira worriedly, afraid she might lash out at Natasha right then and there. Instead, she surprised him by nodding in agreement. "Alone."
She shot Beck a warning look, and he was about to argue when Mira suddenly nodded in agreement once more. After the way she had reacted earlier, he would have thought for sure Mira wouldn't want anything to do with these Users. But she was full of surprises, just like every other User he seemed to meet along the way.
"Are you sure?" he asked warily.
"Yeah," she replied, glancing at Natasha through narrowed eyes.
He realized that this was something they both needed to get off their chests. And something told him that this wasn't a conversation he didn't want to hear. So he decided to leave them be, for now. That didn't mean he would go very far.
…
Awkward silence filled the room once Beck had left. Mira hardly noticed the pain in her hands as she stared blankly ahead. If Natasha had noticed the new injuries, she didn't give any indications of caring. Eventually, Mira broke the silence by asking a question she had running through her mind since discovering Natasha's secret.
"Why?" was all she could ask, earning a look of surprise from Natasha. "You knew even before all of this that I was your daughter. Why didn't you have the courage to tell me?"
Natasha flinched and let out a sigh of frustration.
"Mira, there are some things about my past that even you wouldn't want to know about," she replied by trying to change the subject. Mira just glared at her as she leaned against the wall and let her shoulders sag. "When I was your age, I was taken in by the Red Room. It was a secret organization run by the KGB. By the time I was old enough, they started sending me out on field missions. But before that, there was a… graduation ceremony."
Mira eyed her warily when she saw the haunted look flash in Natasha's eyes. This was clearly something she hadn't wanted to tell anyone; let alone someone she was supposed to call her daughter. It was painfully obvious that Natasha wasn't even sure how to act around her now. The only thing she did know was that the truth was better than lying.
"Children were nothing more than a distraction. Their method to ensure that never happened was to sterilize anyone who went through the program." By now, Mira felt her blood run cold as she realized what Natasha meant by that. "So you can imagine my surprise when I found out five years later after a one-night mission with Barton that I was pregnant. I knew that if the KGB ever found out, they would take you away. They would have turned you into a ruthless killer."
It took a while for this information to sink in. Mira thought back to the way she was strapped to a chair, her eyes blindfolded as she heard people shouting in anger. Was that more than just a memory? She couldn't shake off the feeling that if Natasha hadn't given her up, she would have met the same fate. At last, she understood why Natasha had done what she did.
"You were only protecting me," she whispered.
"No, I was protecting myself," she corrected Mira, earning a look of surprise from her. "True, in my own way I was protecting you. But at the time, I didn't care. Having a one-night affair with the enemy is punishment enough. I was trying to extract information, which was the easy part."
Mira only smirked at that, having already guessed that Clint would have made an easy target at the time. She let out another sigh after realizing that telling her all of this must have been difficult. It took trust and confidence, which was something that she didn't have.
"Thank you," she said after a moment of silence followed. Natasha looked at her in surprise. "I'm guessing you don't tell anyone that story due to trust."
She understood all too well what that was like. Her own lack of faith in herself had often gotten in the way of how she handled situations. This conversation was just another reminder of the many issues she suffered from.
"Well, it's good to see that you're finally getting along." Both of them looked up in surprise when Clint joined them. "Tony wanted Bruce to run a medical exam on your injuries," he added, and Mira didn't miss the look he was giving her after noticing her injured hands.
Well, because this day hasn't been any better, Mira thought with a roll of her eyes. The infirmary was a place she hated visiting. After receiving several injuries and waking up here more times than she could care to count, this place only meant bad news for her. Bruce and Tony were already in the infirmary when she arrived.
"Alright, before we even get started, I just want to reassure you that everything we're about to say is my fault," Tony said before she could ask what the hell she was doing here in the first place. She narrowed her eyes as she wondered what he meant by that. "After we looked through your memories – and this is the part where you stay mad at me – we decided to run a little test and see just what happened on the Grid."
Her eyes widened in shock when Tony mentioned looking through her memories. And that was when all hell broke loose.
"You looked through my memories?!" she shouted, causing Bruce, Clint and Natasha to flinch. "Do you have any idea just how violating that is?!"
"See, this is where you're supposed to blame me," Tony said halfheartedly. Mira only glared back.
Tony shook his head in frustration before looking at the others, hoping they would help him out of this mess.
"Look, we only looked into them because there were certain… questionable events that occurred," Bruce intervened, wincing at his own poor excuse.
Honestly, he wouldn't have been bothered into looking at her memories. But curiosity about the Grid and what it was like had gotten the better of him, and everyone else in the tower. When Tony finally showed them the footage, they were all appalled and disgusted with what they had seen. Though, it was aimed mostly towards the way she had been treated while she was on the Grid.
"What do you mean by questionable?" Mira demanded, her mind spinning with more questions than answers.
"You really don't know, do you?"
She only shook her head when Clint asked that, then she glared at Tony again as he already had an answer to one of those many questions.
"While you were unconscious, in Clu's prison… he ran experiments on you," Bruce explained before Tony could. "We think this might have something to do with the fact that you healed so quickly after receiving those injuries."
That only left her reeling with shock. A moment of panic suddenly rushed through her as she wondered what else Clu had done to her while she was unconscious. She couldn't help but shiver at the cold realization that he could have committed far worse acts.
"One little blood sample is all it takes for us to find out what he's done," Tony added, sounding a little more enthusiastic than he should.
…
"Does your boss know anything about this?" Mira asked.
She grimaced as Bruce tried as gently as he could to take the blood sample after he'd wrapped bandages around her bloodied hands. She was thankful Clint hadn't mentioned anything about it, other than a stern look that said it all. He wasn't any happier with the fact that she'd injured herself than she was for being stuck in this situation. The only consolation she had was that they would finally figure out what Clu had done to her while she was stuck in his prison.
"He only knows about you," Clint replied. "Any ideas of sharing what happened on the Grid with SHIELD is out of the question."
He glared pointedly at Tony, who merely shrugged as if it didn't mean anything.
"Don't look at me," he said crossly. "I'd be more worried about Romanoff sharing it with them."
Mira felt her blood run cold at that thought. Natasha wouldn't stoop so low that she would share whatever information was gathered her with SHIELD, would she? That was the last thing Mira hoped for. Natasha had already slipped away while they were discussing how to go about taking her blood sample. Unfortunately, she didn't have time to dwell on it as Bruce studied the blood sample he'd collected. His face furrowed in confusion as he kept running scans, and that only left Mira feeling more anxious than ever.
"This is more complex than I first imagined," he sighed. "Your blood sample is almost as complex as the Other Guy. It could take me some time to figure it out."
That wasn't something she had hoped for. But if anyone could find anything about what Clu had done, it was Bruce. She had read enough stories recently about his work to know what he was capable of. All they could do now was wait. And all the while, Cyrus was still out there. His oddly quiet behavior left her wondering if he had given up, or if he was just biding his time. Either way, they couldn't just sit around and do nothing about it.
AN: And there's that chapter. I know it's slightly shorter than the others, but, it also gives an explanation as to why Natasha did the things she did. Also, when I first wrote this, I had no idea where I was going with it. Hopefully I did Natasha's background story some justice - I may or may not have had to watch Age of Ultron a few times just to get the idea in my mind. Thanks again to Retrokill for reviewing!
Retrokill - XD That's okay, I know what that's like. And yeah, when I first wrote this, AOU wasn't even out yet. So, at the time, wasn't even aware of Clint and his happy little family. I might find some way of incorporating that into the next story, though ;)