Chapter 53
The Red Room Extended
Brief mention of sex slavery! Be warned!
It was on the third night that Bucky was woken up again by crashing from the lounge and he was ready to dismiss it, when he heard May scream.
"God make her shut up!" A man's voice came from the lounge as Bucky slowly opened the door to Peter's room. He heard what sounded like a hand slapping skin, and a soft gasp. He pressed the little warning button on his earpiece, to alert the others, then he moved out of the room and into the lounge, careful not to make any noise. He moved to the side and opened the two windows nearby, before slowly moving towards the front door, which was wide open; a quick glance into the hallway revealed that there was no one waiting outside.
He waited as one of the two men in the kitchen left to go towards May's room, then he raised his pistol and quickly fired once into the remaining's man's leg, sending the men dropping to the floor.
"Hallway." He told May, who nodded and ran outside, where she stood and shook, trying to hold herself with her arms.
"Issue downtown, I've got Clint and Loki on their way to you, I think Coulson as well." Tony came over the earpiece. "I have no idea why Coulson is going."
"Good, I'll keep an eye on these two." Bucky said as the other man raced out, and was quickly knocked to his feet by a bullet to his lower leg. A few moments later there was movement and voices in the hallway; the others had arrived.
"Police are here." Clint said into the room. Bucky lowered his weapon and let out a breath he'd been holding since the first shot. "We've got May outside; I'll send the officers up to you."
Clint headed downstairs, finding the officers and letting them know they could head up to the apartment. Clint saw Loki and gave a quick nod to the man.
"Only people hurt are the ones who broke in." Clint said.
"She was struck across the face but besides that, physically she is unharmed." Loki said.
"Thank god." Clint said, glad it hadn't been worse than it was.
"Yes, we are luck-" Loki cut himself off, ending mid sentence and jumping ahead towards Clint, pushing the man aside and throwing out a handful of green light, which threw the person who had been falling towards Clint into Coulson's car with a loud thud.
"What the shit was that?!" Clint shouted, looking at the huge dent in the side of the car.
"Barton, what did you do to my car?" Phil asked, stepping out from the apartment building.
"I didn't do it! Why am I always the first suspect?!"
"Would you like an answer?"
"...No."
"My apologies, I attacked quickly to prevent this…person, form attacking Agent Barton from above." Loki said, adjusting his coat.
"From abo- oh for the love of mother." Phil said, sighing when he saw the young girl leaning back against dented car.
"Barton, you suck." A man said from the apartment building doorway, where he was sitting on the small step out front. "She had my last cigarette."
"I told the both of you that smoking would kill you. What do you want?"
"We were the distraction." The man said, shrugging.
"…She's inside, isn't she?"
"Coulson, take her into custody." The SHIELD agent from the other day said, stepping out into the street, dragging the woman from the rooftop behind him by her arm. "She's interfering with an investigation, as well having been on SHIELD property during the event the other day."
"God you're a pain in the ass. I'm here for something else, not whatever these guys are up to- ow!" She said, shouting when the man tightened his grip on her arm.
"Ah, Agent Robertson. It's good to see you." Phil said, helping the young girl to her feet. Her hair was shoulder length and curly and incredibly red; it reminded Loki of The Black Widow.
"Thanks Mister Coulson." The girl said softly, looking at the ground between her feet. "Can you tell Mister Barton I'm sorry?"
"I'll do one better, we can go get pancakes if you want." Phi said, rubbing her shoulder gently. She grinned, wide and bright at him before looking at who they now knew to be Agent Robertson.
"Barton, are you going to tell Stark I attacked a child?" Loki asked, glancing at Clint, who was smiling.
"You know it. You also get to tell him that he has to buy Phil a new car."
"Great."
"Robertson, leave her with me, I'll take this car back to headquarters and file a report. I'll take the others as well."
"You guys got showers?" The man asked, standing up slowly.
"Yes, get in." Phil said, pointing at the now dented car.
The man gave a quick nod to Clint and Loki, before walking over to the car and climbing into the back seat and closing the door behind him. Roberston walked the woman over and waited as she climbed into the car as well and slammed the door shut after her. He turned and walked back towards Coulson, who was speaking to the young girl, who seemed distracted by something to her side. She was glancing at Loki every now and then, careful not to look when he could see her doing so.
"You can show him if you want, we've got time." Coulson said, assuring her of something. She gave a quick nod and turned slowly, then walked over to Loki and Clint. Loki didn't notice her until she was tugging on his coat sleeve to get his attention.
"Mister Loki?" Her quiet voice said and he looked down at her. "Mister Coulson said you can do magic…"
"He is correct."
"So can I!"
"Is that so?"
"Yeah! Can I show you?"
"…I suppose."
"Okay, watch closely." She said, pulling a small gold coin from her pocket and holding it on the flat of her palm, then waved her other hand over the top, to reveal that the coin was no longer there. She looked up at Loki, nervous but excited.
"That is very good, you must've practiced a lot." Loki said, not quite harsh but not overly friendly. "I like your hair, it's very bright."
"Really? I got it done last week." She said, smiling.
"I told you it looked good." Phil said; the car doors were open and the backseat was empty. Phil looked over and stared at the car. "Oh dear, they've escaped."
"Yes, may I look at it closer?" Loki asked, crouching down so he was her height, she nodded happily and spun around, so he could look at the back of her head and all of the very red curls. "Yes it's very nice, Coulson is right. It reminds me of Lady Natasha."
Clint noticed the pinched look on Robertson's face when the girl turned around and squealed.
"Really?!"
"Definitely, if you were a little taller I would almost mistake you for her."
"How'd it go?" Clint asked, seeing the police coming out of the building, the two men cuffed and being lead to the police cars nearby. Bucky was standing in the doorway, May hovering near him.
"We'll get them to the station and start the rest of the process, we've got Mister Stark as the first point of contact, so we will contact him as soon as we're ready." An officer said before saying farewell and leaving with the other officers.
"Coulson, what are you playing at?! How did they get out?!" Robertson shouted, seeing the empty car.
"I believe they might have used their hands; I didn't realize they could use handles, how foolish of me. Pancakes?"
The girl grinned and skipped over to the car, then climbed into the front passenger seat and waited, fiddling with the radio and seatbelts and lights and whatever else she could reach.
"You're trying to cross a line Robertson." Phil said once the girl was out of earshot.
"Oh am I? By questioning Fury's ass kisser?"
"By going after someone who is off grid."
"It's our job!"
"It's your job to avoid a repeat of Paris."
"She's a danger!"
"She had been inactive with zero sightings for months before she was seen recently. She was removed from the area by the Avengers. That is enough."
"Coulson you-"
"Oh hang on, I recognize you." Bucky said, cutting the man off. "You the guy who called Natasha a whore?"
"What?!" May shouted, appalled. "How dare you!"
"Ma'am-"
"Don't you dare ma'am me! I have met Miss Romanoff and she was exceptionally kind, far more than yourself! I saw the look on your face when he said the young girl looked like her. I can't imagine you would be stupid enough to make a comment here, surely. I need a shower and a coffee, thank you all for your help this evening." She said, nodding her head and stepping back into the apartment building, Bucky following after her.
"Damn. Coulson, can she be an Avenger?"
"Can she keep Stark in line?"
"He's terrified of her."
"Perfect." Coulson said giving them a quick nod before climbing into the driver's seat of his car and pulling away into the street.
"Would you like to call a car, to return home?" Loki asked, once he was alone again with Clint.
"I suppose so, ugh, it's so late too. A car's gonna take ages to get here." Clint whined, pulling his phone out.
"…Would you rather I teleport us?"
"…No…but I also don't want to wait for a car." Clint said, trying to pick which he preferred. There wasn't much time to think since Loki reached out and grabbed his arm and everything went dark, and a little cold, then they were standing in the lounge back at the tower.
"What the-" Tony shouted, dropping his coffee cup to the ground when he grabbed the dining table to stop himself falling backwards. "What the fuck?!"
"Hey Tony!" Clint said, smiling.
"…Barton, did you fucking teleport?" Tony asked, then noticed Loki. "Did you let Loki teleport you?"
"Yep, I gotta go, I'm definitely gonna throw up." Clint said and rushed off to his bedroom, letting the door close loudly behind him.
"Well. That certainly wasn't what I was expecting." Tony said, looking down at his new broken coffee cup. "Dammit."
"Next time you see Barton, ask to see his footage from outside of young Peter's apartment building from this evening." Loki said, pulling his coat off and throwing it to the side, where it disappeared into nothing in the air.
"…Why?"
"You will enjoy the footage, I believe." Loki said and headed to the room that had been prepared for him.
The next morning, everyone was gathered in the lounge to watch the footage; Clint insisted everyone be there, even Natasha herself.
"Holy shit, go May!" Tony shouted at the screen, while Steve and Bucky burst into laughter.
"I asked Coulson if she could be Avenger, he didn't say no." Clint said, grinning.
"…You knew what he said?" Natasha asked the group.
"Peter overheard." Tony said, replaying the footage. "Clint's idea was to tell The Doctor about it."
"Bad idea." Natasha said, smiling weakly at the thought.
"So she wouldn't defend your honor?"
"An excuse to go after a SHIELD agent? She'd jump on it in seconds." Natasha said, smiling wider this time. "We never know what she thinks about people."
"She seems to like Peter." Steve said.
"I don't know if I'm happy about it or not." Tony said, turning the TV off and looking over at Steve. "Coulson managed to track down the weird suit lady."
Clint and Natasha wondered off into the kitchen to make coffees and tea for everyone, listening in on the conversation.
"Did she take the gift?" Steve asked.
"Yeah. Not sure if it'll ever be used but, hopefully she appreciated the thought."
"I reckon she did, she's like that." Clint said, joining the group again and passing a cup of tea to Bruce, keeping his own cup of coffee in in his other hand. Natasha joined again as well and handed out coffees to the others.
"Barton, I have a question." Loki said, when he entered the room with Thor beside him.
"Go ahead."
"The red headed girl from yesterday, how old is she?"
"Like…fifteen? I think. Why?"
"She is small for her age. She also does not behave in a way I would have expected someone her age to. The people she was with do not seem to be doing a good job of watching her. Also, the man she was with wasn't wearing any shoes, which I found odd. Oh, thank you." Loki said, accepting a mug of peppermint tea from Natasha.
"She…" Natasha began, lowering herself into an armchair. She tucked a strand of her behind her ear and kept her eyes on the ground.
"Nat-" Natasha cut Clint off with a shake of her head.
"She was…part of a branch of the Red Room. It was abandoned a few years after it was opened. Didn't go the way it was planned so they gave up on it. It was…similar, to my branch but less focused on…murder. It was…the girls were trained from the age of five, that they would be…objects. The plan was to give them to criminals in prison, to keep them distracted, or as a reward for assassins who pulled of particularly hard jobs." She said, sipping on her coffee while she thought for a moment. "The branch was well hidden, as it would want to be. SHIELD couldn't ignore a branch of people training children to be sex slaves."
"When I say the project was abandoned, I mean it in a very literal sense. The girls were put to bed one night and woke the night morning with the power cut off, no running water and every single trainer or person who had worked with them until then, just gone."
"How many girls?" Steve asked.
"Total bed count was twenty but they had eighteen girls at the time they ended the project."
"How did you meet her?"
"By accident. Fury gave me and Clint the task of finding some…base, near where the project was held; at the time we didn't know about the project. It began shortly before I left. We broke into the wrong base, found a group of girls huddled into a corner, starving and about to drop from dehydration."
"Skip, the red headed girl was in the front of the huddle." Clint took over the story. "She was the oldest one there by a couple of years so had sort of become their caregiver. Finding bottles of water that they could drink, trying to find a way to restore the lights. They'd been in the dark for almost two weeks before we stumbled in like idiots. She was also very, very protective of the group, which was pretty understandable once we realized what the hell was going on."
"We asked them where the adults were." Natasha said, gripping her coffee mug as tight as he could with her hands shaking.
"That little girl stared at me, and without blinking all she said was "They've left us." Clint said and Natasha let out a sob.
"But…why act like a kid?" Tony asked, frowning.
"It's only around SHIELD, actually. Apparently the SHIELD therapist said a bunch of mumbo jumbo about de-ageing and age play to help with processing what'd happened to her. Maybe it's on purpose or maybe it's so SHIELD will leave her alone, we don't know." Clint shrugged. "She's shy as all hell, nice enough kid though."
"Do you know who was running the project branch?" Bucky asked.
"Got a couple of names but they've vanished, hard to follow up people if we don't even know if they're alive." Natasha said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
"…I need a breather." Tony said and abruptly left the room, heading to the garage. He didn't really pay attention to which car he drove out and took off along the street in, he just needed to not think about…what they'd been discussing. Something about the fact it had made Natasha visibly sob was enough for him, so he blasted the music in his car loud enough that it hurt his ears and he drove, finding long stretches of road eventually that he could race down, without the danger of hitting another car.
The empty road was a little eerie but the sudden pair of headlights that appeared in his rear view mirror, incredibly close to his car, was a little more worrying. Something exploded and his car swerved to the right, leaving the road and hitting an embankment. The driver side door was yanked open, and hands grabbed his arms, pulling him out. He opened his mouth to shout but it meant that whatever gas they sprayed on him, was easily sucked down into his lungs. He blinked a few times, then everything went dark.
