A/N: To the five people who followed my story, thank you. Now I can tell my mom I have fans! Also, in case it wasn't clear, I have been and will be updating every day until around chapter 13 or so which is what I have written, then probably every week after that. I have absolutely no idea. But clearly there are five people out there who like my story so I will continue to update. Review please! WARNINGS: Language, violence, blood.
The blindfold was pulled off of her face violently and she blinked. She was standing straight up against some cold, metal bars that she was tied to. She looked around and guessed that she was in one of the rooms in the corners of the big room. Sidorov was lurking in the shadows, and Seth the Boss was right in her face.
"Hello. Natalia is it? Or do you prefer Natasha? Or the Black Widow?"
"Hi there Seth." She said with a little smile. He frowned, confused at being called by name. She scoffed at how stupid everyone seemed to be here.
"You literally just figured out that I was the master assassin you've all heard about. So why are you surprised that I picked your useless locks and tricked the idiot "guard" you'd stationed at my door that I just wasn't supposed to be suspicious of? You also totally weren't suspicious with the whole "7pm" thing."
Sidorov ran at her like a charging bull with his hand ready to hit her, but Seth stopped him. He smiled at her, his smile not much less disturbing than Sidorov's.
"Well, let me lay this out for you, Natasha. Can I call you Natasha? Ok. Well, we knew who you were this whole time. Woah, twist! I know, right?" He laughed coldly and continued. "We knew about SHIELD's plan since you got on that plane. You sent agents in to attack us, so we conveniently bugged your supervisor's office. Nicholas Fury… hm, he has bad taste in sandwiches."
Sidorov brought over a small tablet with footage of Fury at his desk, eating a ham sandwich. Natasha tensed. Fury probably knew about the cameras, but still.
"Now, only the people in this room are aware of your identity. That being the two of us. So when you started asking the others questions, we needed to stop you. Even just being curious about what was in these rooms started to make poor Alexei suspicious, so we had to cut your job short. So sorry, we were still hoping to get you to dust off the tables in room 15. Darn."
Seth then took something from Sidorov. Her vitamins. Clint had put them in a regular vitamin bottle to disguise them, but it clearly hadn't worked.
"We found your tablets and phones, but we also found these. I had Sidorov look at these yesterday and they are definitely not vitamin C. We did some research, a little testing, and found that they're actually prenatal vitamins." He looked at her for a moment and she had to focus not to retreat away from his stare. "Congratulations." He smirked.
At that moment, a young woman came in. She looked probably about 13 or 14. She was wearing plain black clothes and boots. Seth beckoned her over.
"This is my daughter, Sarah." He said, and Natasha tried not to flinch at the fact that this gross man had a daughter. But the girl looked nothing like him. She had dark hair and pale skin, whereas Seth had blonde hair. He probably had pale skin too, but he had a pretty nasty spray tan.
"She'll take you to your cell. Obviously away from the others." He said, and walked away. Sarah untied her and put handcuffs on her wrists. Natasha didn't struggle because she knew that she had nowhere to run to.
Once Natasha was in her cell and her handcuffs had been removed, Sarah paused.
"I'm sorry." She whispered, with a slight Russian accent. Natasha frowned.
"Why are you sorry?" She asked quietly. Sarah looked behind her and tucked her dark hair behind her ear. It really was beautiful hair, cut into a long bob and slightly wavy.
"I heard Seth- I mean, my… father, talking about your baby. I think they want to do something with it. I do not know what, I am sorry. Also, you are in a cell. That is not good."
Natasha's heart raced. They wanted her baby. She couldn't let that happen, but she didn't have any idea what she could do about it. She looked up at Sarah, who was still standing awkwardly in the doorway.
"Come in. Close the door." She said to the girl. Sarah obeyed. The door was made of steel, and the only light in the cell when Sarah closed the door was coming from the tiny window. Honestly, the room wasn't too different from her original room, except that it was significantly smaller and had less stuff.
Natasha patted the bed beside her and Sarah sat down. She looked extremely apprehensive.
"How long until they get suspicious?" Natasha asked, wondering how long she had to talk to the girl. She felt sorry that a child had to be here.
"Probably five minutes." Sarah responded. Natasha nodded.
"Tell me about yourself Sarah. Don't worry, I won't hurt you."
"Well… my name is actually Sasha. Sasha Ivanov. I just turned 14, I think. That man is not my father, but he adopted me. He has made me help him with… tasks. I suppose it is better than where I was before… sorry. I shouldn't be telling my life story to a stranger."
"It's okay. I asked you." Natasha looked at her closely. She was about the right age, and she had a thin frame, with pronounced muscles and a sad, haunted look in her eyes.
"Are you… did Seth take you from the Red Room?"
Sasha paused. "Yes." She said quietly. Natasha softened slightly. Sasha reminded her so much of herself.
"I'm sorry."
Their eyes met and Sasha saw from the look on Natasha's face that the red room was not new to her. An understanding passed between them, and both women softened slightly. They shared a terrible past.
For the next month, Natasha woke each morning with a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach. She had some fleeting morning sickness, but it quickly went away. She felt tired all the time despite the fact that she lay on her bed basically all day, except for when she practiced her fighting skills. Sometimes Oksana would come in and give her clean clothes, or replace her toilet paper or something. But that definitely didn't happen enough, and Natasha was pretty sure that all of her stuff had been burned. Nonetheless, this was better than most places she'd been held captive. At least she had a toilet.
Sasha brought her food every day, and sometimes Natasha would teach her a thing or two, some moves that never would have been taught in the Red Room that she'd learned from the Avengers. It was clear that she was hiding this from Seth, however, because he never mentioned it when he came in. Although sometimes Sasha had bruises on her face that made it clear that someone had hit her. Natasha was worried about whether Sasha was really better off here with those monsters.
It was pretty obvious that they were just keeping her here until she gave birth. They weren't trying to get anything out of her, (except her baby) so they just kept her in the cell. With almost nothing to do. And over the past month she was pretty sure she'd gone insane because she'd started talking to herself as though she was another person. She missed her Avengers family, and wondered what they were doing. The only thing she looked forward to were Sasha's visits.
One morning, Natasha woke to the sound of her door being unlocked and opened. (She couldn't pick it because all of her hair clips had been taken away from her, and besides, she wouldn't be able to pick this lock.) Natasha opened her eyes to see Sasha come in. She was carrying the usual tray of food, but this was earlier than usual.
"Sorry to wake you so early Natasha, but I have to go and I won't be back until tomorrow and I don't think they were planning to give you food."
She set the tray of bread, cheese and vegetables on the only table in the room, which was small and metal, and picked up the tray from yesterday. She began to leave but Natasha stopped her.
"Where are you going?" She asked, noticing that instead of her usual skirt, Sasha was wearing black leggings and a tight sweatshirt instead of a t-shirt. She also had a thigh holster and leather gloves. Her hair was pulled back. It didn't take a genius.
"I have a mission that Seth and Sidorov are sending me on." She said, a cold look in her eyes.
Natasha knew what kind of mission this would be. She'd been younger than Sasha when she'd first killed someone, but it looked like Sasha had been doing this since she was ten. She nodded at the girl. She had nothing to say to her. When Sasha looked right at her, Natasha smiled understandingly. Sasha took a deep breath, and left, locking the door behind her.
For the rest of the day, Natasha just kicked her wall. There wasn't much else to do. She really wanted her foot to be her head, but she had to keep herself alive. Not that it was hard, but it was just so boring. This was one of the longest times she'd ever been held captive because everyone who would otherwise come rescue her thought that she was still a secretary. Not that she needed rescuing… but she kind of did. The only way she could sneak out was if Sasha helped her, but she'd rather be held captive than land Sasha in trouble. That just showed how much she'd changed. But her brain and body buzzed to do something about her situation.
"I see you're using your free time productively." Sidorov drawled, strutting into her cell. She tensed at his voice, but didn't respond, just stared at the wall. Seth came in every once in a while to waste her time, but she hadn't seen Sidorov since she'd been locked up.
"I am going to ask you questions, Natalia, and you will answer them." He stated, approaching her. No I won't, she thought, but stayed silent. He put his cold, clammy hand on her shoulder and she couldn't stop herself from flinching.
"So sensitive, Widow. Is that child making you weak?" He growled. She continued to stare at the wall. "Who is the father?"
Natasha almost laughed, because obviously the kid didn't have a father. It was a machine. But she knew that Sidorov thought it was someone like Steve or Vision, who would probably give the kid powers that Sidorov would try to weaponize. She tried to think of some lie she could tell, but she decided she might as well tell the truth. She would be so satisfied when he got mad but realized that he couldn't hurt her because she was carrying the baby that he wanted.
"It's no one." She said truthfully. His eyes flashed, and he sharply slapped her face. She held in a gasp, holding her ground.
"Who is it?" He snarled, his voice dangerously quiet. Natasha calmed herself, remembering that he wouldn't injure her - the worst he could do was punch her.
"Like I said, no one." She flashed an infuriating smile, and he growled. This time he properly punched her, and she felt her cheek split slightly. But she'd expected this, so she straightened herself and elaborated. "Tony Stark made a machine that was able to make artificial life, and apparently it was more powerful than he thought."
He didn't say anything for a moment. He put his face inches away from hers, and she stared at him despite the swelling beginning on her left cheek. "You must have done something to reverse the surgery. What was it? It is not possible."
"Like I said, the machine was more powerful than we thought." She said, raising her eyebrow, knowing she was making him angry. He wanted answers, and she wasn't giving them up easily. He snarled, punched her hard one last time, and left. She was surprised, she'd expected him to continue until he got his answer. He was probably planning something.
Fuck you, she thought.
After making sure her jaw wasn't broken, she wiped the blood from her face and lay down. Despite the pain in her face and the fact that she'd probably just made her situation worse, she smiled at the image of Sidorov's face contorted with frustration.
Just as Natasha was about to go to sleep, Sasha burst in. She was panting, and she looked scared. If possible, she looked even paler, and she was cradling her right arm. As soon as she opened the door, a loud blaring came from outside.
"There's something going on out there. An alarm was set off. I- ah!"
She doubled over in pain, and Natasha ran over to her. She rolled up Sasha's right sleeve and one look at her arm told her it was broken. She ran to her little bathroom and grabbed an old cloth, and made it into a sling for Sasha. Then she pulled on her boots and hesitantly looked out of her cell.
People were running around, most carrying guns and yelling orders. Seth was nowhere to be seen, but Sidorov seemed to be taking charge. No one was looking at her cell.
"Sasha, get somewhere safe. I'm going to see if I can get out of here."