Tony sighed as she repeated her question. It was almost two o'clock in the morning at this point, but he had perched her on top of his bathroom counter after she agreed to let him clean her cuts. There were so many, and more than a few looked like they had needed stitches, but she had managed to not get a single one infected. She let out a slight hiss each time his cloth, coated in rubbing alcohol, touched one that hadn't quite scabbed over yet.
"I know that they sent you on missions to kill from the time you were six until you left. I know that they kept record of you at every year of your life, keeping a kill count and that you were the best at every challenge they gave you." Her head was hung in shame, hair falling on her thighs until he brushed it out of the way. "I know they made you kill innocents. I know what I heard today, that they starved you and forced you to do hours of ballet and training as punishment when things went South. I'm also assuming punishments weren't just for when things went South. I know they chained you to your bed to keep you from escaping. I'm assuming they are what started this. I know that they sterilized you."
"Who else?"
"Clint. Except about the sterilization, he didn't look into the medical information."
"What else do you know?"
"I don't know anything else," he said, placing emphasis on the know.
"What else do you assume?"
"If I tell you, will you tell me if I'm right?"
"Maybe."
"I'm pretty sure they beat you, too. You've got all the tells of someone who was abused."
"That was rare. It would have hurt our performances."
"Doesn't seem rare to me."
"They didn't beat us very often, Stark. I could count the number of times on one hand. The Red Room was much more about being mentally strong."
"And how did they achieve that?"
She dodged the question altogether, though she wasn't sure why. He already knew about the cuts, and she was willing to tell him about the other things instead of that earlier. Why was it different now? Was it because she already felt so exposed? Or would he take advantage of her too? He certainly had the physical capacity, but why would he clean her cuts and ask her all these questions if he just wanted a quick fuck? It didn't make sense.
"Are you done now?" She asked, motioning to the cloth that he had tossed aside.
"We have to talk about this."
"I don't see why. You said you aren't telling the team or Clint, so what else is there?"
"Well, you can't expect me to let you keep doing this, Nat."
"That's exactly what I expect, Stark. It's none of your business what I do with my body. I'm sorry you found out and I really am grateful that you helped me and aren't going to tell Clint or Steve, but really, I'm fine."
"This," he lifts the shirt to reveal the cuts again, "is not what fine looks like. You have to stop. It isn't helping you or the team or anyone, for that matter."
"Yes, it does, for your information. This is the only way I can help the team. I have to do this."
"Why? Just tell me why and maybe I'll at least reconsider having JARVIS alert the whole tower next time you hurt yourself."
"Because, Stark." She said, angrily, rooting through his bedroom drawers in search of a pair of sweatpants to wear down to her floor. "If I can't do this, the memories won't stop. If the memories don't stop, I'm no good to anyone and I'm just a panicking mess on the floor. A five year old girl who can't control her own emotions."
"There are other ways," he argued.
"Not for me," she said, huffing toward the elevator. "Go to bed, Stark. That's where I'm going, you have my fucking blade anyway."
Tony re-enabled the elevator, allowing her to descend to her floor. Then, he set to work creating an alert system for JARVIS if Natasha were to hurt herself again or if her vitals moved outside of the acceptable range.
Meanwhile, Natasha was setting up code that would not allow JARVIS to operate in her bathroom, nullifying anything Tony could do, so long as she stayed in her bathroom. Then, she set to work getting a new blade out of the packet she kept hidden in a fake book on her bookcase. She had half-expected Clint to be waiting in her room when she returned, but he must have gone to his room to sleep or the roof to brood. At least something went her way today, she thought as she peacefully began adding lines to her legs for her mistakes of the day. Letting Clint see her panic, getting flustered by the Red Room handler, Tony finding her blades, Tony seeing her cuts, Tony finding out… There was a lot of red when she began to drift to sleep on her bathroom floor.
When she woke up, her body and lungs were sore from the bathroom floor and from screaming her way through her latest nightmare. After attempting to wipe the dried blood off her leg, she realizes that it is caked on and she needs to take a shower, but her legs feel too weak to support her weight. They turn to jelly beneath her when she tries to stand, so she settles for crawling into the shower stall and reaching up to turn on the water to let it loosen the blood. The new cuts sting as the stream hits them, but she can't budge her body out of the way of the water, so she accepts this new pain as the beginning of her punishment for the day.
"JARVIS, what time is it?"
"It's 8:47 AM, Miss Romanoff."
"Shit," she whispered to herself, gathering all her energy to stand up and wash off the remaining blood. She emerged from her bathroom only to pull on training pants and a tee shirt and hurry down to the training floor. It was much later in the morning, so the rest of the team should be finishing breakfast or starting on the day's activities. She could only hope that Tony had kept his word about not telling the team as she began a six hour workout with two hours of intense ballet.