Natasha kept true to her word and refused to speak to anyone, except when Bruce asked medical questions. Even then, she kept her responses short, very seldom answering beyond a simple yes or no. Clint and Tony were lost about how to move forward, and had been spending the last day together, switching between furiously scanning her files for more information and debating what to do next. Unfortunately, too much was redacted from her files to glean any more information and their conversations came to dead ends about how to move forward. So the next few weeks passed with everyone at an impasse: Bruce checked her wounds every few days and seemed content with the fact that she had at least seemed not to reopen the deep cuts from that day. That did not mean she had stopped – any of it.
Over the past three weeks, Clint had run into her finishing workouts on the training floor around 5 AM, her body and the floor drenched in sweat, a vacant and deadened look in her eyes. He had tried to get her to talk each time he saw her and had hand-delivered food to her door at every meal, but every attempt was left unanswered. She occasionally spoke to Steve, but did not answer his questions about why she was ignoring the rest of the team.
"Team meeting in five," Steve's voice rang out over the comms in the tower. Natasha was laying on the ground of her bathroom, bleeding from her left bicep. She had found in recent days that if she cut over major muscle groups as the Red Room had, the pain would help her to train harder and work through minor injuries. Punishment and training in one cut, she rationalized, though deep down she knew that running out of room on her upper thighs had meant her little habit was getting out of control. She murmured a curse word under her breath upon hearing Steve's announcement and pressed a washcloth hard against the count in an attempt to stop the bleeding.
"Natasha," the comms sounded again, what felt like only seconds later. "We are waiting on you."
He wasn't impatient yet, but Natasha needed to get down there, so she wrapped a bandage around the wound, threw on a thick and loose sweatshirt, and prayed to whatever powers may be that she wouldn't bleed through during the meeting. She raced down the few flights of stairs to the living room, where Nick Fury and he rest of the team was waiting for her. It was the first time she had seen them all together in a room since New York and the whole team seemed taken aback by her appearance.
"Nat," Clint whispered breathlessly, taking in how worn down she looked and how her hair and body had seemed to thin even since he had seen her this morning.
"So," Fury begins. "We have decided to let Viktoriya go. We can't get enough from her to incriminate, given that all she has admitted is that she played some role in the Red Room."
"What?" Natasha speaks up, suddenly energized by this revelation. "What do you mean you're letting her go? After everything she did to –" she cut herself off.
"If you have further information you can share or get out of her, I'm more than happy to keep her, but what we have just isn't enough."
"Fine, take me to her."
Tony and Clint exchanged a glance as they followed Natasha fuming all the way to Fury's car. This time, Steve, Bruce, and Thor also came, not wanting to be even more out of touch with what was happening on the team. The ride was short, but the air in the car was stuffy and uncomfortable, filled with silent dread about what was to come. Natasha refused to look at anyone during the entire ride, looking straight ahead at the road with a million thoughts running through her head. How could she get this information without exposing what they had done to her? They arrived at the SHIELD facility before she came up with an answer.
Viktoriya looked much worse for wear than the last time Natasha had seen her, but then again, she probably did too.
"Natalia, did they figure you out and send you to me to have?"
"Actually, Viktoriya, I have a few more questions for you."
"Ask away, little prodigy," the words made Natasha shiver. In the observation room, all six men scoffed, knowing things could get so much worse if the woman admitted anything heinous she had done. They just needed the confession.
"The girls that you…" she paused. "Oversaw. What was your role in their training?"
"Nothing direct. But of course, you already knew that, didn't you?"
"What was your role indirectly?"
"Haven't we talked about this already, Natalia?"
"No. I need to know what you, specifically, did to the girls you oversaw."
"I never touched any of the girls. Each of us had one we were responsible for and I assigned missions, trainings, and ordered punishments when necessary."
"What kinds of 'missions?'"
"Taking out targets, extracting information, and anything else that needed to be done."
"In less official terms?"
"We trained you to be assassins, everyone knows that. Do you want me to explain how else we trained you?"
"Describe the punishments you ordered on those you oversaw." Natasha tried to sound calm and demanding but her voice was shaking and she could feel herself getting lightheaded. Over the past few days, she had passed out a few times, usually during or just after her training sessions, either due to blood loss or exertion with little to no food in her system, save for a piece of fruit every other morning.
"Oh, dear Natalia, I think you experienced them best. It is, after all, what made you who you are today. We had lots of tools: starving, handcuffing to the beds for days without water until you begged for any other punishment, the beatings, the cuts and burns, the sex, the torture. Which one do you, or do they, want to know all about?"
She could feel it before it happened – the black spots in her vision clouding the image of the woman sitting in front of her, the taste of metal in her mouth. Then, her head hitting the ground with a sickening thud as Viktoriya just laughed in the background, yanking at her handcuffs, as though they would come undone from the table if she just pulled a little harder.
"Call med bay," Fury sighed.
"No!" Both Tony and Steve interjected quickly.
"Don't you remember how much she freaks out around then?" Clint continued. "And after all of that? No way. Let Bruce take a look while we discuss what just happened."
"I believe I can offer some insight that may be of use," Fury said, ushering them into the conference room next door, where Natasha and Viktoriya's files were projected. "Viktoriya told us yesterday that she only 'managed' one Widow in the program. Natasha."