December 31, 2012
Somewhere in between being carried out of the SHIELD facility, getting into Tony's fabulously upgraded car, and arriving at the shiny new Avengers compound in New York City, Bellona passed out to sleep off the excess painkillers oozing their way through her bloodstream. She awoke, what must have been hours later, in a large, modern bedroom, with floor to ceiling windows that looked out over the dazzling Big Apple.
She climbed out of the king-size bed with cream-colored covers and padded her way towards the windows on the opposite side of the room. Her footsteps were silent on the thickly carpeted floor. She paused just in front of the windows and peered out. Her jaw almost dropped; New York was beautiful, an urban metropolis pulsing with the rhythm of the twenty-first century. The heartbeat of a nation. Even at that hour, a little past one in the morning, the city still seemed alive. Humming with enterprising energy so powerful it permeated the air and could be inhaled like life-giving oxygen. She stood there for a long moment, gazing out over the city and steadying her breathing rate. Something about the constant drumming of the city was incredibly calming and she relished in it, embracing its dynamism and absorbing its strength.
Finally, she turned away, her mind clear, her physical pain alleviated. She glanced around the room; it was simply but stylishly decorated. On either side of the large bed were glass night stands, on one was the remaining chainmail armguard she had kept, another projected a screen onto the blank wall behind it. The time, date, weather, and news headlines were flickering upon the wall. The time, 1:37 AM flashed at her, then the date: December 31, 2012.
2012. She had been asleep for twelve years. It felt like it had been both a lifetime and a mere blink of her eyes. She shook her head, this fact disconcerted her, so she continued studying the room. At the foot of the bed was an expensive looking ottoman, made of black leather, to contrast the cream bed. The windows took up an entire wall, to the left of the bed were double doors, leading out of the room, she assumed. To the right of the bed were two single doors. In between them was a long full length mirror. Upon exploration, one of these doors revealed a luxurious bathroom, complete with full bath and a tub that had to be at least five feet deep and ten feet wide. The other opened up into a walk-in closet, stocked by someone with a taste for black and leather. She chewed on her lower lip before the name she was attempting to recall flashed into her head. Natasha. The Russian redhead. She certainly couldn't complain, as they shared a similar fashion taste. Seeing the rows of clothing made her pause; either this room had already been used by another, or it had been prepared for her, if the latter, then the plans to break her out of the SHIELD facility and to here would have had to have been made almost immediately after her discovery in Siberia.
Staring around at the racks of clothing, she chose the most comfortable outfit she could find from the closet, stumbling upon baggy black sweatpants and a loose blue t-shirt. Then she locked herself in the bathroom and turned on all the taps that poured warm water and multi-colored bubbles into the tub that could have been classified as an indoor swimming pool. The bathroom was soundproof and had speakers installed in the walls, so she lounged in an ample amount of bubbles while toying with a glass screen on the side of the tub that displayed the music options. She opted for the modern pop songs; she found herself bitterly surprised when she failed to recognize any, and her utter perplexion of her environment was further muddled when she discovered multiple scars from what appeared to be gunshot wounds on various spots on her body, along the left side of her neck, above the collarbone, with the worst being directly above her right hip. She attributed the stiffness and occasional soreness of her right hip to this injury.
She walked out of the bathroom, fully dressed, hair braided in her usual long French braid, around 2:45 AM, feeling like she had just washed away twelve years of cryofreeze. Noting that the one thing the otherwise lavish bedroom lacked was a fridge stocked full of food, she wandered over towards the double doors and tugged at a handle. She half expected it to be locked, but was pleased to find it open, so she slipped out into the dark hallway and quietly closed the door behind her. She paused, glancing up and down the hall. Closed doors were on either side of the long hall, which was richly carpeted in a periwinkle blue color. Trusting her instincts, she turned right and softly treaded down the hall. She arrived at a wide staircase and trotted down it, coming to another hall, shorter than the last. She headed down it before coming to a modern glass staircase that led down to wide gathering area. There were leather couches and a glass coffee table under long windows that permitted a bird's eye view of the city nightlife, on the other side of the room was a long bar, stocked with alcohol, but next to that was a wide table and chairs, behind it a large refrigerator and an electric stove. She spotted a microwave, toaster oven, coffee machine, and other appliances further down the counter. Everything was extremely modern, and it made her wonder how far the world had progressed since she had been frozen over.
Bellona hurried towards the food and tugged open the fridge door. It was well-stacked; her eyes roved over cartons of eggs, gallons of milk, juices, creams, meats, fruits, vegetables, anything imaginable. She was overwhelmed, staring into the fridge, suddenly hyper-aware of how much her stomach was grumbling.
"Hungry?" A voice called from the staircase she had just descended from. She whipped around immediately, the fridge door slamming shut from the force of the turn, her right palm suddenly heated and in that moment she knew flames were crackling on her fingertips because of her frightened surprise. She extinguished them in an instant by clenching into a fist the hand on which the fire had appeared. But it was too late. Natasha Romanoff stood on the other side of the room, staring at Bellona Drager in pure shock.
"Uh… Yeah, a bit," She muttered, avoiding the redhead's demanding green eyes by staring down at the expensive marble floor.
"What… Was that…?" Natasha tossed the question into the void. Clearly 3 AM was no time for small talk.
"What was what?" Bellona asked hastily, stuffing her hands into the deep pockets of the baggy sweatpants, not raising her eyes from their spot on the floor.
"You and I both know exactly what I'm talking about," Natasha Romanoff said, the heels of her tall boots clicked as she strolled forward, sliding into a seat at the round table just before Bellona. She raised her eyebrows as she looked at the dark-haired girl with inquisitive green eyes. "No one is going to hurt you, Bellona. You can trust us."
"I don't trust anybody." It was a partial truth, she had the feeling she had trusted at least one person once before.
"That's a good philosophy to have, but I wasn't lying. We aren't here to hurt you. We broke into SHIELD HQ, indirectly disobeyed orders, then brought you here to keep you from being put in cryo again. You can tell us the truth."
Bellona paused, eyeing her warily for a moment before inclining her head to express her understanding. She turned and walked towards what she believed to be a coffee machine. "Does this make coffee?" She asked Natasha casually and the Russian nodded her affirmation. Bellona stared at the contraption, and then pushed the button with a water drop on it. The machine whirred to life and began to fill.
"I don't really know what Hydra did to me exactly," the girl admitted while watching the coffee machine's water tank fill. "But I've always been able to do…. Other things..." She paused and raised her right hand again, ignoring the fresh brands and snapping her fingers. A tiny globe of flame appeared, dancing between her fingertips without burning her bare flesh. "Like this. And this," she turned towards the coffee machine, where the tank had finished filling. A snap of her left fingers, and steam arose out of the tank; the water had boiled. "Do you want coffee?"
"No," Natasha responded after a moment of looking at the girl with new eyes. "What else can you do?"
Bellona shrugged, beginning at random to open cabinets in search of a mug.
"Mugs are in that one," Natasha informed her. Bellona's hand paused on the one she pointed out. She opened it and pulled out a large mug, plopping it into the machine's platform.
"How does this work?" The blue-eyed girl asked sheepishly, staring at the high-tech coffeemaker, a sense of being out of time suddenly hit her like a punch to the gut.
"You can either use real beans, which are already in it, or use one of those," the redhead pointed at a glass jar full of tiny plastic cups covered with tearable lids. "They're called K-cups."
"We didn't have those in 1991," Bellona mumbled, "which one makes stronger coffee?"
"The beans." At this she studied the machine for a minute then pushed the button that had a coffee bean on it. She supposed that should have been obvious, but she was too busy choking on her sense of anachronism. She gulped her panic away as the machine began to grind beans, mix them with water, and trickle fresh-brewed coffee into the mug.
"I suppose I can do lots of things," Bellona continued their prior conversation. "You know, the usual murder-assassin type things. Kill someone using only a pencil, snipe a target a thousand yards away…."
"I mean enhanced," her questioner clarified, "anyone can learn to shoot a gun."
"Not everyone can learn to shoot a gun faster than their opponent," Bellona said, the smell of coffee a delight to her nose, it sent a wave of calm through her tensed muscles. "But some others things I suppose." At her words she raised her right hand, and flicked her wrist, so her fingers pointed towards Natasha. The Russian blinked with surprise as a whoosh of air drifted the rich smell of coffee over her. "Sometimes I do things like this," Bellona announced, feeling like a child showing off magic tricks, she held up her left arm and snapped her fingers again. From her fingers and the palm of her hand suddenly grew forest green ivy vines. They curled and spun their way down around her bare forearm, hiding both the Hydra symbol and Soviet star, before she brushed her right hand against them and they burned away to reveal her pale skin and the brands that had been briefly hidden.
"What did Hydra have you do with your powers?" Natasha asked after studying the girl for a minute as she picked up the mug full of steaming coffee from the machine and carried it over towards the fridge, which she opened and pulled out the nearest carton of cream. "Oh, you know, the normal Hydra stuff, if I remember correctly," her long braid swept over her shoulder as she watched the cream form intricate patterns in the dark coffee before it swirled together into a solid caramel color. "Murder. Assassination. Espionage. Destruction. Chaos. Sugar?" She asked, glancing around at the cabinets inquisitively.
"That cabinet," Natasha replied, her voice steady, matching Bellona's casual admittance of her past; she pointed at the cabinet directly behind the girl. Bellona opened it and found a covered sugar bowl immediately. Taking it down, she removed the lid, and twirled a hand over it. A small pile of sugar lifted itself up and plopped into the mug of coffee with a slight splash. Returning the sugar, she picked up the coffee and carried it towards the table, where she sat opposing the redhead. Bellona stared at her and lifted an eyebrow. "Where were you trained?"
At these words Natasha Romanoff stiffened, her green eyes flared, and she knew it would be both useless and hypocritical to lie. "How do you know-"
Bellona turned her left arm over and tapped the red star tattooed into her skin. "I recognize another Soviet trained assassin when I see one."
"The Red Room…. Did we…. Ever come across each other?"
"I doubt it, but if we did, you wouldn't remember me. No one ever does," her laugh was like snow, beautiful but cold, "it's perfect isn't it? That way no one knows who you are when you come to murder them." Bellona didn't mention that it was more likely to be herself who would fail to remember having met the redhead before.
"So Hydra had you do their dirty work," the former KGB assassin stated calmly.
"I suppose that's what it's called," Bellona said, "I was always brainwashed after. Or experimented on. Hydra was particularly interested in me. For obvious reasons," she muttered, staring down at her coffee. She twirled a finger over it, and both women watched it stir itself.
"Although," Bellona snickered, placing her left hand around the mug and smiling mischievously, "there is one good thing about all this." Natasha Romanoff watched as the mug froze over briefly, the steam suddenly ceasing from the hot coffee as it froze, becoming completely solid, then melting, fracturing itself back into liquid, but several solid blocks of frozen coffee remained in the mug, floating like ice on the top of the now cold liquid. "Instant iced coffee."