Shoutouts to PiperPaigeP3 for reviewing!

After trying to figure out what the focus of this fic would be since I started writing it pre-BW solo film and where I wanted to go with it was hashed out in the actual solo film, I've decided to focus on developing Natasha's background before the Red Room got her. Stubborn Love was about Clint dealing with his childhood, so this fic will be about Natasha dealing with HER childhood. The BW movie answered a lot of questions about Natasha's past, but there are still some details that could be filled in, especially about her time pre-Red Room. Example: Natasha being taken to the Red Room even younger than Yelena was.

Basically, I'm trying to say that this fic is going to continue being a weird blend of MCU canon + my own creative license, so there you have it. Finally a direction? Sort of? Anyway, I'm in the middle of moving, so things are a mess, but I managed to get this out. I love getting comments, and as always, enjoy! =)

Chapter 12

Natasha lost herself in the search. Fingers scattering over the keyboard, a ballet with which she was only too familiar, she lost track of the hours as they passed. Every now and then, the background sound of Clint speaking or moving something brought her back to the present but only for the briefest of flashes. He went out and brought back food at some point, which Natasha would later be grateful but barely recognized in the moment, but she wouldn't have been able to say what kind of food it was. So absorbed was she in tracking down any minute trail to Varya that she didn't hear Clint say her name the first time.

"Natasha." Muted irritation bled through Clint's tone, knocking at the front of Natasha's brain.

"Hm?" She stopped typing and forced her focus upwards. "What?"

She looked innocent and disheveled, a study in pink with her cheeks flushed and her eyes popping against the background color. Clint sat across the studio flat with a chair from the kitchen turned around backwards for him so he could straddle the seat and lean his elbows against the chair's back. "Sorry. I know you're busy."

"No, it's…it's fine. I should probably take a break, anyway. I'm not really getting anywhere." She knew she should put the laptop away and take a breather, maybe take a walk just to get some fresh outside air, but doing so wouldn't get her any closer to finding Varya, and she was there for a reason. "What's up?"

"I've just been thinking and…why you?" he asked. The question dangled in the air, loaded with more questions, and Natasha frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"Wanda hit you, Cap, and Thor with her powers, but you're the only one who's feeling anything still, right?"

Natasha chewed on the inside of her lip, her skin crawling at the thought of it. "Thor's a god, Steve's a supersoldier, and I'm just human. That's why."

"You think so?" Clint drew his eyebrows together, thoughtful, and mulled over her suggestion. "I don't know. Yeah, Cap's a supersoldier, but he's also human like you. The serum doesn't exempt him from something like that."

"Clearly not. He saw something that affected him, but that doesn't mean he'd have any lasting effects the way I have." She pictured the interactions she'd had with him since then. He had been relatively normal, though a little shaken up, but she had chalked that up to the Ultron incident as a whole. Few people managed to get through a battle with an evil robot and not be messed up in some way, and he seemed like he was handling it how anyone would handle such a life-changing battle. "It's either that or an option that's far less appealing."

"And what's that?"

"My mind has been wiped and put back together so many times, and this was the straw that broke the camel's back."

Neither of them spoke. If Natasha were right, the reality of it was depressing. If Wanda's effects couldn't leave her brain because of the mental abuse Natasha had suffered for the entirety of her childhood, that would be incredibly depressing, indeed. If… Natasha didn't want to dwell on the unsavory details of her nightmares more than she already had been, and she pressed the hell of her palm to the bridge of her nose, sighing quietly.

"Doing ok?" Clint was careful to keep his voice neutral, caring but not overbearing in a way that would trigger her to shut down on him.

"Yeah. Just been looking at this screen for too long, I think."

"Any leads?"

"Kind of?" She picked the laptop up and walked over to the chair on which he was perched. She tilted the device so he could see the screen, and she highlighted the photograph she had spent the last half hour enhancing.

The photograph showed a statuesque woman with thick, dark hair cut in a blunt bob. She wore a floral-patterned dress and heels, giving her additional height that made her look taller, and she carried a dark blue purse that looked like it cost more than either of their monthly salaries. Without needing to ask, Clint knew the woman was Russian, but he didn't recognize her.

"That's possibly Varya?" he asked.

Natasha shook her head and bent forward to look at the picture with him. "No. That's the woman who took me."

She met Clint's eyes when he whipped his gaze up at her. "The–the woman who took you? As in took you to the Red Room?"

"Yep. Doroteya Volkova." Natasha's mouth felt strange saying the name aloud. She was sure she had said it at some point in her life when she was still with the Red Room and the KGB, but up until a couple of weeks ago, she hadn't even remembered Doroteya's involvement in her childhood kidnapping, let alone the woman's full name. "She approached me when I was playing with Varya, and…well…that's the last time I ever saw Varya."

"That's…shit. Nat, I'm sorry. I don't know what to say."

She made a face and shrugged dismissively. "Focus, Barton. The details of my traumatic childhood aren't the focus right now. What is the focus is finding Doroteya, and I have a vague idea where she might be."

"You remember her from this one incident?" Clint took the laptop from Natasha's hands and studied it closely, which made Natasha love him all the more. As much as she trusted her own eyes, she knew Clint could see things, could spot details that might pass her by, and her heart swelled as she watched his archer's eyes take in Doroteya's face.

"I had more interactions with her after she kidnapped me. She was one of the Red Room's top recruiters, and we all knew what it meant whenever she showed up. Another sister. Another poor girl broken down by the Red Room and built back up again." Darkness colored Natasha's eyes in a flash, but she rubbed the images in her mind away by rubbing her eyes with the backs of her hands. "She brought back hundreds of girls. Easily."

"You don't have to talk about this if you don't want to." Clint shut the laptop lid and set it on the counter to take Natasha's hand, his face so earnest that she wanted to cry.

"I know. I…I didn't think I wanted to. But then I saw her face again…I don't know. It did something," she admitted. "Even before Wanda gave me my mind back, I knew Doroteya and remembered what she did. I got these…these little flashes of seeing her bringing new girls in, so I guess those memories were real."

When Clint tugged on her hand, urging her to come closer, she didn't fight him, and she let him pull her onto his lap. He knew that sometimes speaking about painful things was easier for her when she could be close to him, when she could be close but didn't have to look at him and see how he reacted to the horrific things that had been done to her. He looped his arms around her waist and let her tuck her chin against his shoulder, quiet as he listened.

"She was the perfect person to recruit for the Red Room," she continued. "She was kind and pretty…when she said she knew my mother, I just trusted her because she was so warm in how she spoke. She just radiated warmth the way my mother did, and I immediately trusted her. And if she did that with me, she had to have done it with all those other girls, too. Or maybe she was really good at adapting to each girl and knowing the best way to get them to trust her. I don't know. But I know she was successful for a reason, and that's how she got me."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"You know I'll do whatever I can to help you find her."

"I know." She closed her eyes and quieted her heartbeat so she could tune into Clint's pulse. If she was quiet enough, still enough, she could detect the warm thump beneath his skin that signaled his life force.

"What'll you do when we find her?"

"I'm not going to kill her, if that's what you're asking."

"You know I wouldn't ask you that."

Natasha pulled back enough to meet his eyes, and she stroked his wide, solid cheekbone with the edge of her thumb. "I know that, too. But I'm not going to kill her. I don't want to do that. Maybe someday. But for now, what I need from her is information. Once we find her, I want to know where she found me, and that's what matters."

"Do you want to know how she found you?" Clint asked.

Her mouth twisted into a thoughtful frown, her eyes darkening as she considered the question. "Maybe. Yes. I think so."

Gentle in his touch, Clint pulled her face down to his until their foreheads touched. "Ok. So we find her."

She paused, taking this time with him as they quietly breathed together, eyes closed, only with each other. "We find her."

"That photograph." His voice brought her back into the present, to the task at hand. "Is that a recent picture or an old one?"

"It's from around the time you brought me into SHIELD." She opened the laptop in its spot on the counter, still on his lap, and she entered her password in to bring the screen back up. "A couple years after, actually, but she was going by a different name then."

"How'd you find her?"

"I accessed some old intel that included what SHIELD had on her, pulled her photo ID, and put it out into all known facial scans from security footage," she said, nonchalant and sounding as if she were explaining how she had folded her laundry. "This was the most accurate ping, so I figured start here, work through the rest of them, and we'll be able to pin her down."

"What name was she using here?"

"Margarita Aslanova. Rough translation, just in case you were curious: Pearl, Daughter of a Lion."

Clint's snort made her smile as he rested his head against the side of her shoulder. "Well, then. Tell me where to start."

By the time Natasha felt ready to stop for the night, they had quite a good lead. Doroteya's identity had changed multiple times over the years, but her most recent one was Alla Kravtsova, and she was living in Balashikha, a town on the outskirts of Moscow an hour away.

Alla Kravtsova had built a nice life for herself now that she was no longer Doroteya Volkova of the Red Room. She was widowed with two teenage daughters, and she worked at the Balashikha Maternity House, a blow that made Natasha's stomach turn the first time she discovered it. She longed to know if Doroteya had been sterilized the way the Black Widows were, or if these teenage daughters who knew their mother only as Alla had been adopted. Despite herself, she wanted to know how Doroteya had continued to live as if nothing had happened.

As Natasha readied for bed–Clint had crashed only about 10 minutes prior–she considered her options for tomorrow. She and Clint could go directly to Balashikha, find Doroteya, and force her to reveal what she knew, but Natasha wanted to know more. Unlike Natasha, Doroteya had been given the chance to live free of the Red Room, free of her past, and Natasha needed to know how she had managed to do so. Yes, Doroteya had brought hundreds of girls to the Red Room, but did that warrant her living a normal life without interference? Natasha needed to know, and she hated how desperate she felt for such a small piece of information.

She changed into one of Clint's old shirts and slid beneath the covers to lie beside him. He was already dead to the world with his hearing aids out, and she curled up behind him, sliding an arm over his waist so she could hold him close while she spooned him. Quieting herself, she listened to the soft sighs of his breath, and she let herself be lulled to sleep.

She dreamed of Doroteya.

She was three years old, waking up from her drug-induced unconsciousness in a strange place. She didn't know where she was, and she began to cry. The nice lady, the beautiful woman with the dark hair who had told her she knew her mother, hugged her and comforted her. Natalia remembered her name was Doroteya.

"It's ok," Doroteya gently soothed. Natalia wanted to melt in her arms, safe and warm as she cried. "You're ok now. You're going to make so many friends here. Trust me, your mama is happy you're here."

She was seven years old, waking up with a concussion in the Infirmary. Her head hurt, and she couldn't remember why, but she saw a little girl crying in the bed beside hers. She wanted to tell the little girl that she would be ok now, that she would have all the friends now, but her tongue was heavy in her mouth.

"Don't cry, sweet girl." Doroteya's soft voice caressed Natalia's mind, and she forced herself to focus on the familiar woman. Thick hair that hadn't grown any longer. Kind eyes now focused on the new little girl. "There's no reason to cry. Look, this is Natalia, and she'll be your friend. Natalia's one of the nicest girls here. You'll be friends in no time."

She was 11 years old, waking up with Yelena's desperate sobs ringing in her ears but no Yelena in her arms. Her throat burned from screaming, and she fought her rigid muscles to move, but she couldn't.

"Natalia, please." Doroteya took Natalia's face in her hands, stricken. "Please, you're ok. You're back home now. This is where you need to be. Don't worry about Yelena. She's in good hands, and she'll be ok. You'll be ok, too."

She was 15 years old, waking up from a chokehold her instructor was demonstrating to the rest of the girls. She was the best. She was the strongest. In the background, screams pulled her attention, and she looked out the studio's window to see Doroteya carrying a little girl in her arms. Whether the older woman saw Natalia, she didn't know, but she knew Doroteya's touch was gentle as she watched her rub the small girl's back to comfort her.

She was 16. Doroteya was there.

She was 17. Doroteya was there.

She was 18. Doroteya was there.

One year after the other. One girl after the other. Doroteya was there.

The earthy scent of coffee drifted around Natasha in a haze, and she rolled over in the small bed, facing the kitchen. Last night's dreams were stragglers in her brain, reminders of the restless sleep she had endured, and she sighed as she squeezed her eyes shut even tighter.

"Rise and shine, sleeping beauty," Clint called. "We've got a busy day ahead of us."

"Shouldn't the roles be reversed?" She blinked groggily, squinting as her vision adjusted. Clint sat at the counter in the same chair from last night, and he had two mugs of coffee poured. "I should be getting you out of bed."

"Well, you needed the rest." He shrugged and didn't elaborate, but she knew by the way he looked at her that she had probably tossed and turned and kept him up for a portion of the night, too.

"What time is it?" She pushed herself up into a seated position and looked around for her burner phone to check the time. "Damn."

"It's charging." Clint pointed at a wall outlet before picking up both mugs and moving to the bed. Eager for her daily caffeine kick, Natasha sat up further and took the one he gave her. "But it's a little after 9:30."

Her eyes widened, horrified. "What?! You let me sleep that late?!"

"Nat, it's even that late, and you needed it. Don't forget–you've been going hard without any breaks for…Jesus, how long has it even been? We fought Ultron just a couple of weeks ago, and you haven't given yourself any time off. Sleeping in until 9:30 isn't going to kill you," Clint logically replied.

"We have so much to do, Clint. It's going to take us at least an hour to get to Balashikha, and we need to conduct surveillance on her before we go in guns blazing," she argued. "We're missing crucial parts of Doroteya's daily routine that we need to be familiar with."

"Drink your coffee."

She frowned, her eyes narrowing. "Excuse me?"

"I'm not arguing with you until you've had your coffee, and you're less cranky." Clint shrugged and took a sip from his steaming mug. "Technically, you're not wrong about everything you said, but the flip side of all that is you need to be at your best, and you're only at your best when you're fully rested. So."

She opened her mouth to argue, to tell him that she knew her own limits, to insist that she was not cranky, but he cocked an eyebrow, a challenge, and she closed her mouth. "Fine. Maybe I need some coffee. We'll continue this discussion afterwards."

"Uh huh. Anyway, while you were catching up on some rest, I called in a couple of my own favors with some people who owe me and got us a car, so we're set on that front."

"Resourceful. I guess this is why I keep you around," she quipped, relishing Clint's eye roll as she sipped her coffee. In an odd way, for her, drinking coffee was as much a signifier of home as Clint's scent was. Over the years, she had grown to associate coffee with him, and she took comfort in this quiet, morning ritual. How many mornings had they started together, mugs in hand and mission details on their lips? How many mornings had she done this same thing but alone on her solo missions, all the while wishing he had been there with her? The number was countless, every bit as countless as the times she had fallen in love with him again and again.

"Keep that in mind next time you're mad at me for letting you sleep in." He poked her leg through the covers and watched her jerk it away from him. "How'd you sleep?"

"Eh," she sighed and shrugged. "Not bad, not great."

"Any Wanda visions?"

"Eh? Just flashbacks to my past, really. The whole Doroteya search has brought a lot of stuff up, so a lot of my dreams were just…that. How'd you sleep?"

"Eh." He copied her voice and the expression on her face, making her smile. "I've gotten pretty good at sleeping anywhere and everywhere, so I can't complain."

"Mm. Don't I know it." Switching it out for her laptop, she set her mug down on the nightstand and opened the device. She typed in her password and sat, waiting for it to load as Clint went to refill his mug. Loading seemed to take longer than usual, and right as she started to comment on it, the screen went blank. "Hey, did you use this before I woke up?"

"What? Your laptop?" Clint looked back over his shoulder and caught her disturbed frown. "No, I haven't touched it. You saw me working on mine last night, so if I needed to do anything, I wouldn't have used yours, anyway."

"The screen just went blank."
"What?" Clint repeated, going back to the bed.

Natasha sat up straighter and held the On/Off button to restart it, but nothing happened. "It's just blank. I put my password in to unlock it, and it's like it froze."

"Did you turn it off and then back on again?"

"Oh, please." The corner of her mouth tugged up into a half-smile, even despite her concerned concentration. She tapped one of the keys several times over to get it to unfreeze, but nothing happened. "Fuck."

Suddenly, a loud vibration rattled throughout the room, and Natasha's focus broke. Her eyes left the computer screen and landed on her burner phone where it lay on the TV stand. No one had this phone number except for Clint and a couple of other urgent contacts she kept for moments when she needed the utmost secrecy. The phone couldn't be tracked, and she knew she had covered all of her bases to keep it as untraceable as possible. Whoever was calling her wasn't Clint, and she had no reason to believe any of her emergency contacts were casually dialing her up, either.

"Nat?" Clint followed her gaze, his voice serious. "I think your phone's ringing."

Without hitting him back with a smart reply, Natasha threw the covers off and moved to grab the phone. Unknown, stared back at her from the screen. "No Caller ID. Unknown."

The phone continued vibrating, and she gingerly swiped her thumb across the screen. She put the phone up to her ear but didn't speak, choosing to wait to hear the person on the other line. Silence greeted her, and seconds that lasted hours ticked past, but then a voice spoke.

Get out of Russia.

Russian. Native speaker. Female.

Who are you? Natasha asked.

You're not welcome here.

Voice…familiar? She strained to listen, trying to place where she could have heard this person speak before. The voice didn't sound like Doroteya, and her voice was one that Natasha would never be able to forget. Not again.

Where are your manners? She couldn't help the dry humor that dripped from her throat, even as her heart thrashed inside her ribcage. Giving me orders without introducing yourself first? That's a little rude.

This is your only warning.

The line went dead. Natasha pulled the phone away from her ear and let loose a quiet strand of swear words under her breath, most of them in languages that Clint recognized but a few he didn't.

"Who the hell was that?" His voice forced her back into the present, and she handed him the phone.

"Well, I seem to have pissed off some people since the last time I was here."

"Nat, that's kind of your job to piss people off. Is this connected with your goal here? To find Doroteya?"

"I don't know," she honestly replied. "The last few times I've been in Russia, I pissed a lot of people off. Former KGB, the government, big time crime, small time crime…you name it. That could've been anyone I've crossed before, but it could also have come because our digging into Doroteya triggered some kind of…alert? Precautionary measures? It seemed odd to me that the Red Room would just let her go and live free of any kind of monitoring, especially someone who was as essential to the program as she was."

"So…you don't know," Clint concluded as gently as he could. Natasha hated being out of control, being left in the dark, and he was careful to keep from insinuating that that was what was currently happening.

"No. I don't know." Bitterness edged Natasha's voice, her frustration impossible to deny. "I have a feeling it's related to Doroteya, but I can't promise that."

"If it's not, then that's awful coincidental," he pointed out. "We start tracking an important member of the Red Room, and your laptop goes cold, and you get a threatening phone call. I have a feeling this is going to be a lot more than either of us expected."

"More," she repeated, the word feeling foreign against her tongue.

Clint put his hand under her chin and tilted his head to catch her gaze. "Natasha. Hey. I know this is overwhelming–"

"I'm not overwhelmed." She sharply cut him off, and her green eyes blazed with hungry fire as they locked with his. "I'm pissed off."