Shoutout to ShadowRascal for following!
The black training bag swung wildly as it was met with an enraged punch, barely completing a full arc before it was hit yet again, this time with a strangled shriek. Natasha stared at the bag as it swung, breathing heavily. It'd been fifteen hours since May and Coulson had told her Bobbi was missing, and she'd spent most of her time back at headquarters whaling away at this very bag, landing hit after hit while trying to comprehend the rage that was currently racing through her veins.
Natasha threw another punch at the bag, hoping that with each blow, the angry confusion would dissipate, Bobbi would come back safe and sound, and that she'd finally stop wondering why she was so torn up over one person.
She took you in, and this is how you repay her? a voice in her head asked. By leaving her in the middle of a fight and letting her get captured? Another strike at the bag. She took you in, gave you a new home, a new name. You gave her nothing in return. Natasha struck at the bag again, squeezing her eyes shut tightly against her tears.
You don't deserve to have a friend like her.
Natasha screamed out once more as the chain on the bag finally snapped, the bag hitting the wall with a tiny poof before it slid to the floor. She stared at it, breathing heavily, before striding over and giving it a hefty kick. "Stupid, stupid, stupid!" she berated herself as she kicked at it repeatedly. Her toes protested each time she kicked at it, but it was nice to let herself feel pain for a bit.
Go home, Natalia, the voices whispered. Who do you think you are, pretending with this name? You'll never be rid of all that you did. Ever. It isn't that easy. Nothing is ever that easy.
"My name is Natasha," she muttered out loud, not caring if she sounded like a lunatic to the cameras she knew were watching. "Natalia is dead and gone."
Ah, yes, to sight she may be. But she remains in those you have killed, the eyes that stare blankly as you take their life without a second thought. After all, it's what you were meant to be, isn't it?
"No," Natasha grunted, clenching her fists.
So much blood in your past. So much red. So much you cannot atone for. Why bother? "No," she repeated, shaking her head madly. "That isn't who I am anymore." Her breaths came shakily, and she bit her lip so hard she drew blood, its bitter tang a reminder of her past. "I am not an instrument of war." Despite her inner turmoil, she continued to kick at the bag.
No, you are an instrument of destruction. Made to destroy. Incapable of feeling. A machine, tuned to precision. Tune to kill. Without mercy, without hesitation. Without emotion. You were made for blood, Natalia.
"No."
You are death to those around you.
"No!"
A monster. Void of humanity.
"I'm not!"
Worthless. The last word was drawn out maliciously. And her blood will be on your hands.
"Shut up!" Natasha screamed, sinking onto the fallen punching bag with her head in her hands. The shout only cleared the swirl of voices in her head for a moment, and they continued to descend, each one of them more cutting than the one before.
You think they will forgive this? You lost Maria's best friend. She shuddered as the hauntingly familiar grit of her coach's voice echoed in her head. You lost the woman Melinda sees as a daughter. They will never forgive you.
In the hands of the mafia? You know their strength. She will be dead within hours.
You have ruined her, Natalia. Do not try to hide behind that false name of yours.
At the end of the day, you are still a coward.
Still worthless.
Still useless.
They never intended to be your friends.
You were only a prize to covet.
"No," Natasha whimpered, pressing her fingers to her temples. She was nearly sobbing by now, crushed under the weight of the whispered criticisms. "No, none of it's true..."
So weak. You were trained better than this. Or has time with the Americans made you soft?
"Nat?"
Maria's hand on her shoulder nearly made Natasha jump out of her skin, and she looked up to see Maria with a thermos of coffee in her hand, a concerned expression on her face. "May was watching the cameras and she said you were shouting at thin air?"
"Please don't, Maria," Natasha whispered, cringing away from the gentle touch. "It's not worth it." Maria's eyebrows furrowed. "I fucked up, I know." She looked away, staring forlornly at the wall. "I understand."
"What - what the hell are you -" Maria shook her head in disbelief. "Nat, what the hell are you talking about? It could've happened to anyone."
"I lost her, Maria," Natasha was talking more to the wall than anyone, but Maria figured it was better than nothing. "I was supposed to make sure she got out safe, and I abandoned her to the mafia instead. Tell me that isn't worse than leaving her there to die."
"Nat, no one's blaming you," Maria insisted. "If anything, we should've done better. Brought more backup or something. Used more explosives. I don't know," Her voice cracked then, and Natasha turned around to see her friend's blue-gray eyes hollowed with pain. She'd done this. She'd been the one to lose Bobbi and put Maria through such pain.
"I'm sorry, Maria," Natasha choked out. "I lost your best friend. I lost May's surrogate daughter. I lost an exemplary SHIELD agent." Words from earlier swam into her mind. "Her blood's on my hands," she said self-deprecatingly. "They were right. I'm not made out to have friends."
"Nat -" Maria was about to intervene when there was a voice from the door.
"She's not dead yet,"
They both looked up to see May, armed and ready. "Tech got a lead on one of her trackers. Suit up." Her face was deadly. "I want you both with me on this op."
Bobbi was roughly shaken awake, and her vision came into dim focus as she realized she was once again tied to a chair. This one was metal - no chance of smashing it to bits this time. The bullet wound throbbed in her side, and she realized that it'd been crudely taken out, the stitching on it haphazard and messy. She'd have to have it looked at when she got back to SHIELD.
There was a scrape of a chair, and suddenly, the same man from before was sitting in front of her, his hand in his chin contemplatively. "I see you've decided to patch me back up," she said sarcastically. "Pity none of your men are actually trained."
"That is the flaw in your assumption, isn't it?" he asked tauntingly, and the bright glint of metal flashed through the air as he spun a knife in his hand. Bobbi gulped, shifting her tied wrists slightly to see if there was any room to move. The burnt skin on her wrists protested, and she let out a silent hiss under her breath. "All of these men had potentials. A future. This man," he pointed at one taking up the guard position at the door. "was going to be a doctor." Another point. "A lawyer. All ruined with the help of your so-called government."
Bobbi sighed. It was always about the politics with these people, wasn't it?
"That is why you are going to help me take them down." The man's gray eyes took on a new fervor, and the knife was now pointed straight at her. "They will never see it coming, a force of destruction from the woman they trusted."
"And because you're pointing a knife at me, you think that I'm going to agree just like that?" Bobbi snarled. "You really are an idiot, aren't you?" He sighed just as petulantly as she had a moment ago.
"I was hoping the knife would motivate you enough, but I see we will have to resort to...other matters." He nodded, and suddenly there was a blur as she was jabbed in the side, paralysis rushing through her system. Incomprehensible sound must've flowed out of her mouth, for the other man laughed before saying,
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that, Barbara," The disgust at her full name roiled at full strength along with her terror. "It wears off soon, and by then you'll be our fully willing subject." It was true, she thought sluggishly, already feeling her rationality already slipping away. Bobbi struggled to grasp into it, mentally lunging for the last threads of her sanity. If only she could hold on until someone got here - it shouldn't be much longer...
"Don't try to fight it, it only makes it worse." The man's voice, which had grated against every fiber of her being earlier, was already sounding much more appealing, sinking into her skin like a balm. "No one's going to come for you, Barbara. They've already written you off and left you for dead, so why bother?"
Maybe it's true, the pessimist in her mind offered. After all, they've got Nat, don't they? May's a legend in herself. Do they really need you? Do they really need that weak, worthless girl who's still only a scientist at heart? That couldn't even fight off a gaggle of frat boys at a party?
Maybe he's right, even after all these years. Bobbi slumped defeatedly, releasing the last bits of her control. Nothing. Useless. Good for nothing. Even as she admitted it to herself, a calm descended over her mind, blanketing any leftover rioting thoughts she had.
"There, isn't that better?" The man's voice came from somewhere seemingly far away, and she nodded, the earlier pain of the injection beginning to smooth itself out. "They'll never know what hit them."
"Fuck," Maria cursed as she looked over the display one more time. "May?" she called. "May, you're going to want to come see this!"
May hurried over, one hand planted on the back of Maria's chair concernedly. "What's going on, Maria?" The other girl hurriedly pulled up the heat scannings of the past few minutes.
"See that?" She pointed to a heat signature that was immobile, save for the faintest of shifts. "That's Bobbi right there. She's tied to a chair, I think, but she keeps moving - I think she's trying to test her bonds." She hit the fast forward button, slowing it down to when one of the other heat signatures flashed, briefly interacting with Bobbi's before moving away again. Bobbi's silhouette seized, arching upright before slumping into the chair once more.
"Fuck," May swore right along with her, running a hand through her hair. "And we have no idea what just happened?"
"Not a clue," Maria answered. "If I wanted to hazard a guess, I'd probably say some sort of drug to induce shock. That's the only way she'd have a reaction like that."
"Tech just pulled up records of an experimental drug they've been using," Coulson called as he rushed up to them. "It's supposed to induce temporary paralysis as a motivational factor. The more they resist it, the more it hurts." He frowned as he looked over the screen. "It's a mix of inhibitors that's supposed to reduce rationality and induce servility, along with repressing dopamine levels."
"So, basically, mind control," Natasha cut in. "I do my reading," she said when everyone looked at her. "And Agent Coulson, the dopamine repressors - if she's got any seriously traumatic memories, any negative emotions - those are going to be out in full force." She looked at Maria, then, raising a slight eyebrow.
"Motherfuckers," Maria swore, realizing what Natasha meant. She sent May a look, nodding as if to say 'that night', and May's face twitched in outrage.
"We're going to need our best medics on standby. I have the feeling this isn't going to go over well."
DUN DUN DUN...