Hiii! So just warning you that there is some graphic violence described in this chapter.
Dislcaimer: You have my full assurances that when I own Marvel, Black Widow and Hawkeye will both have their own movies.
CHAPTER FOUR
When he goes to fetch her the next day, Natasha looks like she has slept even less than the previous day, despite having ample time to do so. She is pacing again, and Clint receives another set of bemused looks as he beckons her after him with no restraints. Once they are seated with breakfast trays in the cafeteria, she hands him the first Harry Potter book.
"I don't get it," she says bluntly.
"What do you mean?
"What's the point? It didn't teach me any new or useful skills."
"You didn't like it?"
"Well . . . it was interesting I guess, but I don't understand what the use of it is. Why do people read it?"
"It's a pleasure book. People read it because they like the story."
"Oh."
The rest of breakfast is filled with silence on Natasha's part, and near-constant chatter and questions on Clint's.
On the way out of the cafeteria, they meet several young SHIELD agents in the doorway, all of whom take one look at the Black Widow, and turn and start to walk away quickly. Natasha's expression is unreadable.
"Agents!" Clint calls, taking advantage of his fairly newfound relative seniority over them.
The three agents, two men and one woman, all newly trained and in their early twenties, halt and turn slowly.
"Sir?" the woman questions, as all three of the agents try to look in any direction but Natasha.
"May I ask why you seem to have decided that you are no longer hungry for breakfast this morning? You need to eat in order to keep up your strength and remain useful to SHIELD."
"Sir, we-"
"Does it have something to do with my friend here?"
His "friend" raises an eyebrow.
"No sir, we-"
"Are you scared of her?"
"No, sir," one man says, still avoiding even a glance at Natasha.
"Agents. Please take a look at Ms. Romanoff."
They do so nervously, taking in her youth and small stature.
"Now are you telling me that you, agents of SHIELD, are frightened of a small teenage girl?"
"No sir," they chorus loudly, their faces resolute.
Natasha jumps at them. "Boo."
All three jump backwards, one of them yelping. Natasha grins, and Clint laughs, sure that the rookie agents have all pissed themselves.
"You should be scared of her," he says through laughter. "She could kill you all in a minute. Now off to breakfast with you."
They flee as Clint struggles to breathe through laughter.
"Nice one, Romanoff." He glances at her (slightly deranged) grin. "Oh! A smile!"
Her face returns to its usual ambiguous state.
He sighs. "Well, I guess it's time to talk some more. This way."
"I got to restart ballet lessons with the other girls about a year in. I was the best," she says smugly. "That's probably why they selected me to perform in the ballet."
Clint frowns. He hasn't seen any record of her ever being in the ballet, maybe she'd been undercover or on a mission or something. She looks almost somewhat happy at this memory, so he chooses not to say anything.
"And um, that's when we started in on languages."
"How many languages do you know?" he interrupts curiously.
"Not sure. Eleven maybe?"
"Eleven! Jeez. Which ones?"
"Russian, English, French, Spanish, German, Arabic, Hebrew, Mandarin, Ukrainian, Italian, and Polish. There are a few others that I know some words in as well. I may be missing a few. I'm not sure."
Clint takes a moment of comprehension before his mouth stops catching flies. "Uhhh so which one did you learn first?"
"English of course. We spent about a year on each language, and had to speak only the language we were learning, no Russian. And then once we were good enough, we had to use the accents native to each language. If we sounded Russian on a mission, that might give us away to a target."
"And if you made a mistake?" Clint is pretty sure he already knows the answer.
"We were punished." She shrugs.
Taking in his frown, she speaks again. "Barton, you have to understand. In the Red Room, we had to be perfect, and anything less that that required corrective punishment. Some girls had more trouble than others. Irina only lasted a year."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean she was younger than even me, and she made too many mistakes, was too disobedient, so they beat her to death in class as a lesson in obedience and in technique and anatomy."
Clint holds back the bile rising in his throat.
"And what about you?"
"What about me?"
"How much trouble did you have?"
A tiny smirk crosses her face. "I was exceptionally gifted. I was only punished two to three times a week. It got to be lesser and lesser as I got older and better."
Clint's fist hits the table, and her flinch is hardly discernable.
"Sorry. Uhh, can you um, can you tell me more about your combat training?"
"That was the one part of the day which stayed the most consistent. At least until missions started. We would always have our entire afternoon devoted to training with the instructors. For a while it was just hand-to-hand, but I learned many different styles and systems of fighting.
Then I learned to handle knives, and after a couple of years, all kinds of guns and firearms. That's when the sparring matches started. A couple of times a week they would put us against each other and tell us to fight. The loser was punished. Every once in a while, if they performed very poorly, they were disposed of. At first I lost a lot of matches. I was younger and smaller than the other girls, but, like I said, I'm a fast learner. After one particularly difficult lesson from my trainer, I rarely lost another fight, even to Anessia."
"Who's Anessia?"
Natasha looks taken aback, as if she hasn't realized what she said. "A- Another girl in the Room. She was the only one who could ever beat me after I started winning."
Clint gives her a suspicious look, and she quickly cuts off whatever his next question may have been.
"It was also around then that I made my first kill."
"Three years in?!"
She nods apathetically. "He was a Russian defector. A traitor," she spat. "They told me to make him suffer, so I shot him in the knees and cut off his fingers and toes one by one, dug out his eyes with my own fingers before I stabbed him in the heart. And the entire time he was sniveling on about how he could get me out. Save me. I don't need saving," she scoffed. "I was serving a purpose, protecting Russia from his betrayal."
She says the entire thing with a blank face, and not a hint of inflection in her voice.
"And you don't regret that at all?"
"He was a traitor. He deserved what he got. I was just doing my duty."
"Is that what they told you?"
"Yes." She frowns slightly.
"Okay." He nods. "Okay. Well I've had enough for today. I don't think I can listen to anymore. I'm gonna have to beat the crap out of a punching bag. Here." He shoves the second and third Harry Potter books into her arms. "Let's go." He turns and marches out without waiting for her to get her bearings.
"You coming?" he asks sharply upon turning to see she has frozen in place.
Her expression is indecipherable as she nods and steps after him.
Phil Coulson feels rather sorry for the bag that Barton is violently assaulting. The poor thing may be inanimate, but Phil's pretty sure it's never had a beating this bad.
"Barton!" he approaches his agent.
Clint continues the beating, but it's clear that he's heard. His hands are wrapped, but Phil thinks his knuckles are probably bleeding anyways.
"Take a break, Barton." He fearlessly puts his hand on the punching bag.
Clint does so, resting his head on the bag as Phil holds it steady.
"She," Barton starts. "It's as if she doesn't understand that what's been done to her is so horrible wrong. She doesn't seem to even care."
"Well how could she?"
"I'm sorry?"
"Well, it's the only upbringing she's had. She's never seen anything better. How could she know that her experiences are so wrong if she doesn't have anything to compare it to?"
"But she's just so apathetic."
Phil nods. "Of course she is. Imagine having lived through her life, and caring as much as you do about it all. She would go mad with all that horror always running through her head."
Barton sighs. "I know. It's just that she seems to be holding up so well while I'm struggling to keep my breakfast down."
Phil smiles. "That's because you feel too much, Barton. Just take it slowly, day by day, and you'll get through it. We both know there's probably much more to her than she's showing you right now, and if you're who I think you are, you'll get her to open up to you in time."
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