Hello everyone! This is my first time writing for the Avengers fandom (or any comic-based fandom), so please be kind and leave a review!
Yes, another OC story. I know that I'm busy with Down Came Heaven, but this particular plot bunny would not be ignored.
DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING (but the plot!)
Another day shipwrecked,
Can you hear my prayer?
If you have the answer let me know.
Stolen from another life,
They appeared in mine.
It doesn't feel the same as it did before.
Her first real memory begins with a white ceiling and a metal room. She's lying on a stretcher, or something similar - she wasn't sure. The florescent lights blinded her, the air was crisp and sterile, and her muscles were on fire.
Her limbs are heavy, stiff, and she doesn't think she could move even if she tried. She's saved the trouble, however, when she shifts and feels metal dig into her wrists and ankles. Head throbbing, she is surprised that her neck doesn't creak like a rusty hinge as she struggles to glance down at herself.
For some reason, she's surprised to see herself in a hospital gown. Pushing such thoughts aside, she moves her limbs again, the solid metal cuffs unmoving. She hears footsteps approach the door of the room, and it swings open to reveal an expressionless man dressed as a doctor, holding a clipboard on one hand, his eyes glued to the page as he purses his lips.
"Subject 117. You're alive." He greets her with a voice devoid of feeling. It grates on her nerves, his eyes empty as he regards her with a calculating curiosity, as if she were a specimen to be dissected.
After that the memories blur together. She gathers that she is young - her voice is high, her mind is empty and waiting to be filled, and her shoulders reach the same height as a man's hips. She finds herself in some sort of classroom, where her peers are all young girls her age, varying in height, weight, and appearance. But they all have the same thirst for knowledge, eyes bright with intelligence and chilled by calculation.
They are taught to be organized, efficient, educated and well-mannered. Think first, act after. She is taught how to act and sing and dance. Her etiquette is on par with royalty, her knowledge of politics and history enough to charm the pants off of politicians. They study people as one might study a particularly intelligent animal species: patterns, behaviors, social cues, needs and desires.
They dissect a human body. 'Men are but flesh and bone' The Madame tells them. And not knowing any better, the girls poke and prod the corpse, a few of them squeamish, but overall they see it as just another lesson to be completed. They carve up the flesh of the body like ham at the dinner table, the scalpels flashing ominously between short, thin fingers; little hands belaying their purpose.
She is 12 when she first takes a life.
Her handlers made it easy. She entered a room, empty save for a lone chair in the middle, upon which sat the trembling figure of a man. There is a black bag over his head, ropes bind him to the chair, and his clothes are tattered and smell of blood. The Madame stands behind him, her expression stern and cold. Her teacher makes eyes contact with her, then reaches out and yanks the hood off of the man's head.
The woman's heels clack loudly against the wooden floorboards as she walks over to stand behind her, the sound making the trembling man jump and the ropes strain against his movement. He is muttering pleas and prayers, but they are ignored.
The Madame hands her the pistol, just a small little thing that still manages to dwarf her hand and make her grip appear clumsy. But by now she is familiar with how to hold such weapons, adjusting her grip so that the weight of the metal sits comfortably in her palm, cupping the butt of the gun with her off-hand to steady her trajectory.
She takes aim and cocks the gun. The man across the room whimpers. Seeing The Madame nod out of the corner of her eye, she focuses on her target and pulls the trigger without another watches in morbid fascination as a hole appears in his forehead while the back of his head explodes, blood spraying forth like a broken pipline. Madame pats her on the shoulder, and it's the first time she remembers her lips curling up into a smile.
Once again the years blur together, her only companions being the other girls and their quiet yet intense comradery. Where other girls their age wore push up bras and slapped on makeup, they learned how to sharpen blades and clean their guns. Instead of clumsy teenage romances, they were taught the art of seduction, to separate their emotions from intimacy. People were pawns to be played, everyone became a puppet once one found which strings to pull.
That's all they were – Things. Flesh and bone. Everyone was just a cog in the machine that was society. The useless were discarded, the weak culled. They were all but tools to be used.
She was a tool.
And her targets were nothing more than a mission to be completed - and she completed many.
Everything changed when civil conflict erupted within the Russian bureaucracy. New age extremists purged the government of the old war hawks that continued to hold on to the Cold War mindset, dug up all of their dirty little secrets, and scrapped the programs that they deemed dangerous or unnecessary.
The Black Widow program was considered both.
The new government did not just cut their funding, however. The Black Widow agents were too dangerous, knew too many secrets; had spilled too much blood. There was hardly a country in the world which had not lost a politician to the hands of a Black Widow assassin. If word got out if their origins, Russia would come under fire.
And so they decided to wipe them out.
The Black Widow base is ambushed late at night. All of the girls are tucked into their beds, set in rows in a collective dorm. The building looks like an abandoned factory on the outside, its interior just as much. It is the sum of their lives: blank concrete walls, thin white sheets, and uniform sleeping gowns.
All is silent… until the building explodes with a bang!
She remembers screams and flames and the sound of bullets littering the halls. With veteran efficiency the girls grab their pistols from beneath their pillows and fall into formation.
When they realize that the soldiers firing at them are Russian, they know that they must escape. She remembers someone cursing when they realize they have been betrayed. She remembers running as the smoke fills her lungs.
The air smells of gasoline and burning flesh.
There are large male figures rushing through the flames, faces hidden by oxygen masks.
She needs to run.
She needs to escape.
But all of the exits are blocked or guarded by a troupe of armed men.
One girl falls, a shot to her eye and she's dead.
Another goes down, her torso riddled with bullets.
They go down one by one.
Flesh and bone.
Just things to be used and discarded.
She jumps over the corpses of her sisters. She doesn't dare to glance at their faces.
She feels something stinging on her arm, and idly pats down her sleeve which had caught aflame.
Run.
Hide.
They're coming.
The sound of boots and angry voices seem to fill every corridor that she attempts to turn to. They were coming from all sides. There's a shout, and she knows that she's been spotted.
Run.
Run.
Run.
Her feet are bare and bleeding, and she curses the trail of bloody footprints that follow her. The shouting increases behind her, and then she's under fire. She has one gun, and she tries to shoot behind her, but it's blind and uncoordinated.
Her mouth tastes like ash and her lungs burn.
There was no way out.
Except –there!
She uses a tipped table to boost herself up and uncovers a vent on the wall near the ceiling and hauls her body upwards. The vent is cramped and filled with smoke, but she goes forward. The men are shouting behind her again, and she turns a corner into another vent just as someone sticks their gun into the opening and begins shooting.
Run.
Run.
Run.
So she does.
And she never stops running.
This is just a drabble for now. I'm putting this out there to see how people like it. If I get some good feedback, I'll update. I haven't actually planned very far ahead for this story.
So leave a review if you want to see more!