Author's Note- Just to clarify, this happens just after Natasha's fight with Steve, once she returned to the ballet room. I admit that it's slightly repetitive, but Steve already had his go around with her; let's see if Thor fairs any better. After all, somebody has to go get her, right? She's already whooped Steve.

"You must not be beautiful, Natalia." My trainer's fingers lift up my chin even farther, somewhat roughly, but it is a touch without reproach. "You must be beauty itself. You must enrapture them. You must ensorcell them all."

My body is bent to his will; I can feel his arms tracing along mine, stretching them out farther to hold my stance more perfectly. My toes have long since bled through my wooden toed satin slippers, but I do not dare take the pressure off. The only rest my aching body will ever receive is in death. That will come sooner or later, but only after there is permission. Nothing comes easily. Nothing comes without pain. As his nails rake along the skin, not quite breaking through, but only daring me to drop my pose, I barely even dare to breathe.

The release comes long after; finally I am to move. The room twirls as I practice as I am told, as he barks "échappé"

"vole"

"gargouillade!"

"relevelent!"

"hortensia!"

I do everything as he demands, a puppet pulled from its strings, and I dance wishing with all my heart that I really could be a puppet with no feelings. The toe in my shoes are wooden. Why can't the rest of me transform thus? Why can't I simply be a perfect porcelain music box ballerina?

"Pirouette form grande plie!"

My ankle gives as I finish this, causing me to plummet to the wooden floor. I know it is very bad. I know what the punishment will be for such a transgression. Yet, even as my body automatically prepares itself for the pain that is sure to follow, I catch myself in the cracked and dirty mirror. It's just for a moment.

I can see myself.

For a moment I am porcelain. I am glass. I am defiled grace. Strange. I didn't realize before that I am beautiful. I cannot, I dare not, but I want so much to reach out to the mirror ahead of me. I want to know if I'm really alive.

There is a long moment in which I silently keep eye contact with the girl in the mirror there... the girl who has no expression and looks like a porcelain doll.

But then he comes to me with his long cane and I know the girl is about to be shattered.

I see him beating her in the mirror there. I see the body break. But I do not move. I do not feel. I am not her. I am not anyone.

My body may not rest. My soul is another story.

"Clean yourself!" He grunts, the man in the mirror who walks away, leaving the broken doll behind.

I feel her stand, as I feel someone's hand who is not in the mirror on my shoulder. It is difficult to look away from the mirror and the world there. I leave it regretfully to stare at the hand. My gaze is slow. Time is misty. The skin that I follow ends with a metallic sleeve...oh God, Bucky?

"Bucky?" I turn quickly then, finding a different set of blue eyes than I half expected. What manner of training is this? I've already fought and won...

My toes are still bleeding...the satin ruined.

"It is alright." The stranger's voice says to me. So confident. So large. Surely they cannot expect me to-

But yes, of course they do. There will be no rest. There cannot be any rest. My thighs are at his neck in an instant, my body firmly insisting him down, though he cannot be moved. He is a statue of blonde and blue. His eyes pierce me as I am firmly removed and held to the wooden boards of the floor.

It is another test. It is another inquiry of my worth. He is inspecting me. Evaluating whether I am worthy enough to be allowed to eat tonight. For what seems like the thousandth time I seriously wonder whether it is even worth it to live another day in this wretched world.

But something I can't put my finger on, a voice that belongs to someone I can't name, comes into my mind. He promises me chances. He promises me things I could never never have...

Clint?

No, no. I don't know anyone by such an American name as that. I take in a breath and grit my teeth.

I must show him.

I roll my sides over, throwing my thighs over his shoulders once more and clenching them for all they're worth. The moment that his grip loosens I swing myself over in a move that should have broken his neck. Instead his hand grasps me around the waist and I am torn away.

"Lady Natasha!" The oaf growls, his voice a thunderous boom. It is no matter. No stranger's tricks will stop me. I will not fail like the others. His hair is a weak point, long for a man's. I grab hold of the back of it and simultaneously jump forward to deliver a kick to his back. The move lands him on the ground, but not before he takes hold of my ankle and swings me around to face him, causing me to land hard against his chest.

"кто тебя послал?" I demand, never allowing my face to admit weakness.

"Lady Natasha, I am your friend!"

"врун!" I struggle to snake out of his grasp, nearly dislocating my shoulder in the process, but that doesn't matter. I'll dislocate many of my body parts on purpose if I need to in order to escape a hold. I quickly roll away as he simply stands once again.

I will not be defeated. This blonde man is huge. I refuse to be defeated and stand for that punishment. He will not get me.

I take in a deep breath as I pose for attack and smile. Bring it. I run at him again and this time I aim my attentions at the hand holding the strange hammer weapon thing, trying to knock it to the floor. It is no use.

I am pinned beneath the strange heavy instrument. What kind of torture tool is this thing? I can't move it away or off of me.

"Lady Natasha, I know you are unwell But you know me! I am your friend, Thor, of Asgard. We are allies. Try to think!"

Thor...Thor...It's strangely familiar, but I cannot place it.

Finally, I'm too exhausted to fight anymore and simply turn my head to stare at the wall on the other end of the room, my body limp. The giant oaf has bested me, so I know that he will be taking his reward out on my body any moment. I know it's going to hurt, probably even worse than last time, judging by the sheer mass of the man, if he's at all proportionate. I stare at the wall and then the mirror at the porcelain girl on the floor with the large blonde man looming over her. Then I close my eyes and suck in a breath as I start reciting the russian national anthem in my head, first in french, then latin. I feel nothing.

Hmm, I'm getting even better at leaving myself than I thought.

When I finish reciting the anthem in italian and english I know that something is off. I open my eyes only to realize that I'm not getting screwed. I'm getting carried over the large man's shoulder with one of his large hands securing the small of my back to the top of him. There's a funny red cape that's hanging over his back like the drapes in the director's room.

And then the air gets heavy and I'm not sure what training scenario this could be, but it doesn't matter because I'm failing.

The next thing I know I'm outside on mission and I remember that I'm not part of the Red Room anymore, or the KGB. I'm on a mission with Hawkeye and everything is warm and we're in Ireland together. It's late and we should be sleeping, but our covers are together and the night is dewy and alive and both of us are much too relaxed to actually go to sleep.

He has a rugged smile as he holds out his hand to me, skin damp from the mist. I stay on my place barefoot on the wooden porch for a moment, taking the scene in. The pub's music from a ways up the road flows past us in the breeze. Guitar strings accompany the grasshopper orchestra in the overgrown clover at my partner's feet. He needs a haircut again, I notice, though the thought of having to cut it once again for him later doesn't bother me. I secretly like the trust he has in me for doing it. It's dark out, but the full moon is behind him and I can see all the little details...the shimmering of the mist droplets at his neck and cheek. The glint in his blue eyes that match the night's sky above and around him. The way he smiles at me like anything at all could happen and he's daring me to take his hand and find out what does.

It's August and I'm not wearing much due to the heat. I have his teeshirt on. The one he gave me the night we met. Sleep shorts. Bare feet. It isn't smart. Not good preparation for any kind of potential threat.

His bow is resting behind me on the rustic floor boards of the porch. We're both relaxed and it's dangerous. It goes against everything I've ever been trained to be or to do, but I'm drunk on the night and him on the wine and, in that one moment, I can't bring myself to care if we do get killed over it. I want to feel alive because I'm living and not just because I'm surviving.

I meet his eyes and and nod at the silent question there, taking his hand and allowing him to pull me out into the overgrown field against him. The grass is wet against the bare soles of my feet and I can't help but appreciate how good it feels as his strong arms grasp onto me. We dance like wild people and he's just as bad at it as ever and I laugh as he spins me away and then back to him and tries to follow the beat carried in the wind only to fail miserably. Clint never could dance, but he was still never afraid of doing it anyway and something about that is astonishing and glorious to me. It makes me smile involuntarily and hang onto him as he butchers every song's rhythm that he attempts to follow.

Its like that with Clint, he's always so sure of himself that sometimes I can't bring myself to care if what we're doing is right or wrong. I'm actually dizzy by the time we slow to a quiet sway, holding onto each other like we've only ever done before to put on an act. Here we're alone, all excuses for this long gone and I realize that maybe Clint doesn't just look at me like he does when he's pretending to be in love or when he's acting. That glint in his eye is something that shouldn't happen with us out here alone.

I know he's going to kiss me before he does it and I rack my brain for any excuse I can find to let him. The bushes rustle a little ways off and I tell myself it could be someone sent to scout us, though it's almost guaranteed to be only a squirrel.

And then his lips come down to meet mine and I'm completely absorbed by their warmth and softness and then by how much more skilled his tongue is at dancing than his feet. My legs are up and around his waist before I know it and his hand under my ass, carrying me up to the porch rail and depositing me there only to gain a better angle. He deepens the kiss and I feel like I might honestly loose my mind if I can't have him. I want this man with every fiber of my body. I want to live and die next to him. I want to give him everything.

"Marry me." He whispers in a soft demand, his hands grasping onto me as if I'm the only solid thing that exists. It feels to me more like he is.

I watch him as he reaches under the tee-shirt to my bare chest and kisses at my neck and I take his cheeks in my palms to bring his lips back to mine.

"And what? Run away?" I joke, kissing him like it's the last thing I'll ever do.

"I go where you go." He murmurs against my mouth and we stumble our way backwards inside the run-down cottage, collapsing onto one another after we barely even get inside.

"Tasha?" He asks, his voice soft and sweet. I smile and bask in the feel of his warm palm again my cheek.

"Tasha?" It's a little more firm this time. But it's coming from so far away. I don't want to leave.

"Tasha."

I blink my eyes open to find myself positioned on my stomach over Thor's shoulder, with Clint standing behind Thor staring at me. His hand is at my cheek, stroking the skin there gently with his thumb.

"Clint?" I ask, unsure of whether or not I'm awake or hallucinating.

Tony appears from around Thor's front to stand near Clint with his arms crossed. "Hey Spidey! So are you, you know, you...or are you still feeling psycho?"

I let out a groan. "Depends, which one is more likely to kill you first?" I joke.

He appears to be considering the question for a long moment, his metal covered hand touching the chin of his mask as though in deep thought. "You know, I'm honestly not sure about that one."

I can feel Thor's torso shake with laughter before he lets up with his one handed death grip that previously had my stomach pinned to his shoulder. No one needs to tell me what happened, I remember the bracelet breaking off earlier after getting snagged and have enough common sense to put together the rest. As Thor places me back down on my own feet I take a quick mental roll call of the team. Thor is obviously fine and so is Tony and Clint. Bruce is wearing nothing except Thor's red cape, which he is holding around himself like a blanket, so he must have hulked at some point. That means that I've been out long enough for him to hulk out and then calm back down...so at least half an hour, I'd say. That's not good considering our time restraints.

I look around for Steve next to no avail.

"Where is Steve?"

"I'm here." Steve calls out, sounding very out of breath and looking more than a little haggard as he half stumbles, half crawls in from the open hall doorway.

I blink at him in confusion. "Why are you all wet?"

He says nothing, but bugs his eyes out a little as he redirects his stare to the floor. Then I start to remember a little...Steve and I fought...and I thought he was a guard just like I thought Thor was...and I stripped off my clothes...and then I drug him to the closest interrogation room and water-boarded him for information.

Oops.

"Oh, right." I say, letting him know that it's coming back, though fuzzily and only with effort. Trying to remember these instances always feels like trying to remember what I did the night before after getting black-out drunk. I can mostly piece it together, but not as well as I should. Of course, some of it might also be that I'm not ever sure I even want to know. "Yeah. Sorry about that." I've probably scarred him for life, if not with the water torture, then with the awkward naked moment.

Well, on the bright side now he can honestly say he has at least seen a naked woman before, though I don't think he enjoyed it much. I make a mental note to set him up with someone when all this is over with. It can't just be a date either. He's the type of guy to want to marry a girl instead of just screwing them, like normal guys like to do. I need to find him a wife so he can get laid before another century passes with him left out in the cold.

"Oh, no..it's- it's fine." I can tell that he's doing his best to make it all sound like it's no big deal to him. He's failing so miserably that it's comical.

I smile and chuckle at him. I also need to remember to teach him how to lie.

The exhausted and beaten soldier looks to Clint and Tony. "Did you get it?"

I hold my breath. Did they?

"More or less." Tony replies lightheartedly as Clint sheepishly holds up a partially burned manilla file envelope. I snatch it on impulse and Clint does nothing to stop me. The folder has my Red Room Number written on the outside. I flip it open to notice that all the papers inside are also burned and missing a couple inches off the bottom. I can't believe it. This file has everything. I continue flipping through to all of the procedures in order by the date they were performed on me.

"Can you still use this?" I ask the doc, both thrilled that any record at all even exists and terrified that it will be useless because of the missing parts.

Bruce comes to stand just behind my shoulder and glances through it with me for a few seconds. "There's some stuff missing. I'm sure it will help though. If nothing else maybe it will at least give me a basic idea."

"How long have we been in here?" I demand, looking to Tony. I know his suit can keep track of stuff like that.

"An hour and fifty three minutes." He replies calmly.

I nod and begin walking, however tired and heavy my legs already feel. "Okay, then we got seven minutes. We need to move."

"What happens in seven minutes?" The thunder-god asks, keeping pace right behind me.

"Until the computer sequence designed to kill us turns back on."

Steve's expression is one of pure uncomprehending shock. "But it's been trying to kill us!"

I shake my head at him and raise my eyebrows. "No, no it hasn't. Whatever you've been experiencing is just normal Red Room programming. The stuff programmed to happen automatically from day to day to keep us on our toes when I was in training here. The murder sequence I programmed in hasn't turned on yet."

The super soldier suddenly begins walking so fast that he's nearly jogging in his haste to get out and, when he notices that I can't possibly keep up and the rest of the group is staying with me, he makes a u-turn to come back and physically scoop me up to his side.

"Sorry about this, ma'am." He mutters in a rush as he all but throws me onto his back in a piggyback like position and begins running, holding his shield up in front of him as if he's expecting...honestly I'm not even sure. But he's definitely in a rush to leave.

I turn back to Clint, who just shrugs and shoots me our "I don't know" sign. Tony's laughing his ass off, but keeping pace with the captain along with everyone else. I would normally never let Steve, or anyone, pick me up and run with me on their back so childishly, but after everything I put Steve through today I figure I'll give him a pass just this once. After all, I did knock him out with his own shield earlier.

I give directions to Steve as he sprints down the halls, but even so we aren't fast enough. As soon as the group makes it into the cafeteria and Tony informs us of the two minutes we have left I know we aren't going to make it.

The red room is slowly coming back to life...the corpses on the floor clutching their trays standing back up. They're staring at me. Are they dead? Did I kill them? Or was that all a dream? I look around to all of them surrounding me. They're all staring, eyes wide open and looking through me. They know my betrayal. They know everything.

Oh, god, they are going to drag me back down into hell with them!

I focus on controlling my breathing and quickly remember that I'm being held onto someone's back. What the hell-

Steve! The flag! Captain America!

THANK GOD!

I hug onto Steve's back tightly. Maybe if I can keep a tight enough hold on him these horrible visions will go away. They can't be real.

"They can't be real" I repeat in a breath, not realizing that I say it out loud until it's out and Clint's back up in my face, holding my head with his hands as if that alone could shield me from whatever is happening.

"What is it Nat? What do you see?"

I blink, hoping it will go away. It doesn't and they're all still staring at me with those dead, soulless eyes, just like they did ten years ago. Do they have souls? Did they ever? Do I?

Did the Red Room take that from me too?

Steve readjusts me against his back to keep a tighter grip on me and it reminds me that my partner is asking me a question.

"I- I think I'm hallucinating. Clint, we really need to get out of here. Do you remember what I told you?" He has to remember. There is no time. "About my first kill?" I rush it out as the corpses revert back to their old bodies right before my eyes. Flesh and blood and uniforms instead of bones. I fight to keep my grip on reality, doing my best to keep my eyes on Clint. I try to focus on him instead of anything else. His grey-blue eyes...but it starts to fade away...

"Clint, please!" I beg. He knows what to do. His fingers go to the back of my neck.

He kno-

everything goes blank.

"Miss. Romanoff." Bruce's voice. Bruce...that means-

I jolt up and look around to find I'm back in Tony's jet, along with everyone else. Instantly, I'm so relieved that I let out a huge breath and lay right back down.

"Hey, Bruce." I reply, wincing at the light he shines into my eyes to check the pupils. Annoyed, I reach up and snatch it away from him, throwing it across the plane so that it very nearly hits Tony in the head before bouncing off the head rest instead. Too bad.

Bruce smirks, even if he does shake his head at me from his place kneeling down beside the seats I'm laid out over. "I'm glad you're awake, because I need you to shallow these." He holds up a handful of pills and I roll my eyes at him. So he does get the last laugh then. Great.

Silently, I hold out my hand to take them and toss them in my mouth before taking the water bottle the doc offers me next.

"So what did I miss?" Everyone obviously made it out okay from the looks of things. Steve's napping over in the opposite corner, Clint's up in the front with Tony, who's letting him fly the plane. I smile to myself. I know Clint's loving that. He loves piloting. Maybe I won't kill Tony after all. Thor is busy eating a sandwich that looks to be about eight inches thick made out of tomatoes and jelly and chicken and bacon and who knows what and he's getting more of it all over the jet's carpet than in his mouth.

"Clint took us up through a duct to the rooftop. We got down and away just before the place blew. I've got the file. Everything is good."

"It exploded?" How did that happen? I thought the boys disabled all the bombs...or maybe I hallucinated more than I thought.

Tony smirks from his seat and he stands up to come back to sit with us now that he's noticed I'm awake. "Oh, I got all of mine. Piece of cake. It was Captain Spangles over there that didn't get all of his. Oh, but you missed all the fun. Cupid went all batman on us and shot an arrow with a cord on it front the roof to a tree and then used his bow to hand-glide you guys down. It was awesome. I think I'm going to get him to let me try that off the tower. What do you think?"

I snort at him as my only response and turn back to Bruce. "How did you and Steve get down?"

Bruce motions his head back to Tony. "He flew me down and Thor toted Steve with him."

I nod, filing that interesting mental image away to laugh at later in private. I'm just relieved Clint understood what I was trying to tell him. It's been such a long time since I explained it to him. The first person I ever killed was on that rooftop and the air ducts connecting the top floor of the building (only a few yards away from the roof access) to the cafeteria was instrumental in how I carried it out. She didn't deserve to die, of course. She was only the same age as me. But it was me or her and I didn't become the sole graduate of the Red Room program by being merciful. That girl could have been me. I could have easily been her. I can't even remember her name now...or what she looked like, except that her hair was blonde.

By taking that girl's life I temporarily saved my own over twenty years ago and then once again today, since that duct is the fastest way out of the building from where the group was. It was our only hope.

But, not for the first time, I'm reminded of my ledger. If Bruce and Tony can get me back to working order, I have to go back to S.H.I.E.L.D. I have to wipe out my ledger.

If they can't, then I'll atone for it the only other way I can.