Author's Note: This chapter is mostly informational. I made most of it up, i.e. not from the comics. I just wanted to give you guys (and the team!) full knowledge of what they're dealing with. Next week will be back to full swing action.
I would love to hear what you guys think of everything so far. Reviews just make my day. I'm so thankful for all the encouragement, subs/favs, and love I've received, it means a lot to me, thank you.
"Now just 'cause you guys saved New York—"
"The world," Tony interjected. Fury's death glare wiped the smile from his face before the director continued.
"It doesn't mean you get to do whatever the hell you want, you're still under my command. I let you take care of Agent Barton amongst yourselves because frankly, y'all are too stubborn to listen to me anyways."
"That whole super genius technology thing helps too," Tony spoke up again, smirking before he added, "Sir."
"Stark I will personally close that mouth if you don't," Maria Hill spoke up from the corner.
"Dinner first?"
The whole room rolled their eyes at the billionaire.
"Like I was saying," Fury said sternly "your team spirit is cute and all, but you can't just decide to take on one of the most powerful organizations in the world. Did you really think—"
"Sir, the Red Room made an attack on Natasha in public, almost killing Ms. Hill and Ms. Foster and endangering civilians, we just wanted to bypass all this frankly pointless briefing and get to work taking them down once and for all," Steve said. His interruption was so out of character Bruce and Fury were gawking. Natasha smiled warmly at him; she appreciated his zeal for taking them down.
"And how do you expect to take them down? You can't just walk in there like you did to Hydra, Rogers. You guys only have so much firepower."
"We were going to borrow some," Clint said, shrugging. The Director's face displayed his lack of amusement like a billboard.
"And to be honest, walking in there might be our best bet," Natasha spoke without realizing she'd said anything until she noticed their stunned faces focused on her.
"Excuse me?"
"They want me. We'll let them catch me. Lapse in security or something. Let them take me without MUCH of a fight. If I don't fight at all, or just give myself up they'll know it's a trap. But if they take me alive, they wont kill me."
"How can you be sure?" Steve said, worry apparent in his voice.
"Why would you kill your best asset? They'll try to bring back Natalia."
"I don't understand," Thor's eyebrows knitted. Most of the team nodded in agreement. She looked to Fury for permission to let the secrets spill. He nodded tightly, face drawn into a stern yet sorrowful look.
"You know I worked for the Russians, and that the Red Room is a program for assassins, correct?"
They nodded, waiting with baited breath. Beneath the table Clint reached for Natasha's hand. She gripped it firmly, drawing courage from the contact.
"My parents were killed in a political war when I was a child, they government took me to the Red Room, I was six. The Red Room is not like boot camp," she looked at Steve, "It is not like a school," She looked at Tony and Bruce, "It is not training with your fellow warriors," she looked at Thor. "The Room is life or death. My first day they shot the other three girls brought in with me, one for sneezing without permission, one for not standing straight enough, the other just because they could. If you didn't run fast enough, you died. If you didn't excel in your studies or training, why waste the resources?" She took a moment to glance at the horrified faces. Clint squeezed her hand. "As incredulous as it sounds compared to what I just told you, fear is not their main control over occupants of the Red Room. They indoctrinate us to believe we are the reason for the horrors there, we are nothing but killing machines bred to be the best of the best of the best of the assassins in the world. Unfailing loyalty to Russia and the Rooms. To die or take our own lives before giving up or revealing any of their secrets."
"Rooms?" Bruce asked, voice strained with disbelief.
"In addition to the Red Room, which is for assassins and spies, there is the Blue room which specializes in thieves and code crackers that would make the boys at the NSA look like toddlers. There's the Green Room, which is where the brightest minds whom lack the body to match go. You ever wonder why so many brilliant scientists come from Russia? We make them. The spetsnaz fall under the White Room, it's a general purpose training program. The Russian Green Barrettes. Anyone in the Rooms is imbued with the same rhetoric: Russia above all, your life is not important, only your mission is.
The other Rooms are rough, but nothing like the Red Room. I should have died there a dozen times, I have a bad habit of taking things into my own hands," she smiled sadly. "But they couldn't kill their top student, not someone with so much promise and skill. The comrades at the Green Room came up with new drugs, things that our three letter acronyms would sacrifice our standing army for; mind control drugs. They remade me from Natalia Drakov into Natalia Romanova. Compliant, addicted, emotionless, passionate about their ideals, and the perfect assassin. If I didn't die in the field, I'd be the master of the Red Room in ten years. They named me Black Widow when I was 14, already on field missions, seducing men and women alike for information and luring them to their deaths. I was their Captain America, the picture of Russian military perfection."
"Jesus Christ…" Tony was speechless for once.
"How did you end up with SHIELD?" Thor asked.
She looked to Clint, who smiled weakly at her. It was his turn to speak.
"It's hard to keep such a prolific spy under wraps. Especially when she's stolen half the country's vital information in four inch stilettos. We tracked her for months. But she kept evading us, too good at her job, she always saw us coming. So Fury pulled everyone on the mission except for me. She would expect an army, but not an army of one."
"My mistake," she sighed, but smiling.
"it was battle that nearly killed us both, but I had the edge. She was suffering from with drawl from whatever psychotropic poison they loaded her up with. She still wouldn't give up. I don't know if it was all the blows to the head or the real Nat shining through the darkness, but with an arrow in her face she said 'Go ahead. Real hell is better than where I've been. I welcome your arrow.' She said that, while still attempting to kill me by the way, clearly beaten and bleeding out. She wouldn't give up her life easily, but she couldn't let herself go back. I had direct orders to kill her no matter what. But I couldn't. Not something so tenacious and stunningly resilient. I didn't know if I could help her, if SHIELD could help her, but I gambled my life that there was enough humanity left her to salvage."
"I defected, and went with him. But it took months before I trusted even Clint. Almost a full year before I could be called 'stable.' Fury gave me the opportunity of a new identity, a new life, and a new career."
"The Red Room seemed to have accepted her as a traitor and as dead to them," the Director's voice suddenly jarred the team in his direction. "Up until the eight months or so. This is the second confirmed attempt on Agent Romanoff's life, something much more public than they're known for. They are suddenly very, very concerned with taking her down, and we don't know why this is, but its concerning to an extreme degree."
"They're not going to stop until they have me back or dead."
"We're not going to let that happen, Natasha."
"I know, Bruce. But the only way to get into the Red Room is from the inside."
"And you tell me I have bad ideas," Clint mumbled.
"That would be akin to suicide, what if we cannot get you back out?"
"You'll just have to take me down then."
"Fuck that, we're getting a new plan."
"Clint, it's the only way."
"Bullshit!"
"Yeah, come on Charlotte, there's enough brain power in this room to out think them!" Tony said.
"But there's only one person in this room that knows how they operate."
"She's got a point," Bruce said, begrudgingly disagreeing with her. The room was silent as they all thought of the consequences and frantically searched their brains for other ways.
"You will follow Agent Romanoff's plan," Fury announced suddenly and with great apprehension. "Even if it's the worst fucking plan in the history of strategic operations, there really is no other way."
"NO!" Clint slammed his fists on the table.
"You will follow my command or you wont be a part of it at all, Barton." The Directors face held no sign of bluffing. "Understood?"
"Understood."
"Now, Agent, tell us this spectacularly asinine plan of yours."