Chapter 29: Clint's Farmhouse - Menno, South Dakota
"Look what I found." Natasha brought two pages in from the porch and tossed them on the table. All of the Avengers were back together- though tension was high. None of the New York group got any sleep after arriving late in the evening, ready for war and amped up on adrenaline. Even Inessa was given coffee with her breakfast (after JARVIS verified it wouldn't have any effect on her growth).
"Oh, gee, that's helpful," Sam grabbed a black marker and crossed off Pryor's face (several times). He set it in an open spot with the other pictures.
Steve picked up the other photograph and scanned it. No one he knew, "Schmidt. Probably linked to Red Skull in some way."
"Assume she's like me then," Natasha wrote "S.S." above her photograph- super soldier, "I'm betting an assassin."
Banner and Thor were murmuring between themselves, trying to find a way to stop Cul. The problem was they didn't know how many people he was drawing life and energy from, or where the hell they were. Once battle began, Thor would have to distract his uncle (praying all the while he wouldn't be taken as a slave) while someone tracked down the others and killed them all. So, pretty much cross your fingers and hope everyone's in one place and it's damn close.
Clint scribbled Sam's name on a post-it note and stuck it on Pryor's photo. "So Tony gets Schmidt?"
"Why me?" he complained.
"If it was me she'd be an archer or a sniper. Plus, if Pryor was trying to turn Nessie against us like she said - signed - then we know they want her alive, and this girl looks like a killer." Inessa had come clean with everything she knew or suspected about Pryor. To their credit, no one argued with her or snapped at her and Bucky for keeping it a secret- they understood the call she'd made.
Steve snapped a picture of Sinthea's photograph and texted it to Mallory- maybe SHIELD had something on her. Natasha caught Inessa's eye and waved her down the hall. "I'm taking Nessa for a project."
"Don't go far."
Once they got to the living room Natasha turned Inessa and put her hands on the girl's shoulders, "I have a big favor to ask of you, and I really can't let you say no."
Anything, Inessa's mind was still swirling. She felt dizzy, disjointed, and didn't entirely trust herself to not puke if she opened her mouth, so she signed instead.
"When you were trying to figure out if we were the good guys or the bad guys, you got in our heads."
Yes.
"I need you to do it again, but this time I want you to dig deep. Deep as you can. I can't remember Albatross or Schmidt and I've tried everything. I need to know who he is and what happened between us." Inessa hesitated, "I know it's a lot to ask, and it's not a normal way for you to use your power, but it would give me an advantage. A significant one."
An insignificant advantage would be monumental at the moment. They were so lost- maybe it wasn't actually a bad idea to at least try to solve this corner of the puzzle. I'll try. I don't know if it will hurt you.
Natasha breathed a sigh of relief, "I'm willing to take that risk. If I can't remember when you come out, you'll have to talk me through it, ok?" Inessa nodded and Natasha led her into the study, where the others wouldn't see. From a shelf above the computer she retrieved a small box- inside was Thor's extra healing stone. Natasha sat down on the recliner while Inessa pulled over a chair. She took the stone out and held it tightly in her hand- just in case. "Don't look at everything," she said just as black smoke began to roll down Inessa's arms, "there's stuff in there no one should ever have to see. Just find the beginning and the end, got it?"
Yes.
"You speak Russian, right?" Natasha had never asked.
Yes. Fluently.
"Good, you'll need it." Natasha took a deep breath to calm her nerves, "You ready?"
I think so.
"It's as good a time as any to find out."
Inessa only knew one way to enter Natasha's mind- through Nadya. The study was dark enough that it wouldn't be a problem, but the last time she'd entered the Avengers minds it had been incredibly taxing- she didn't have time to do more than guess their general intentions. Inessa reached out and put a hand on Natasha's forehead. She had to try to do this without turning into the Shadow first- maybe then she would be strong enough.
She followed the shadows around Natasha. Her mind was alien- full of thoughts and direction. It was like trying to force her way through a brick wall. She kept pushing and prodding, but she couldn't find a way to look through Natasha's mind, it was just too full. Inessa started to get a headache behind her eyes as if she'd kept them crossed too long. "Nessie, back out a second." Inessa did as she was told. Natasha opened her eyes and pointed at the desk, "Middle drawer. Bring it to me."
Natasha's drawer contained a thin wooden box the length of Inessa's forearm. She handed it to her friend who pulled from it a glass syringe filled with a white, milky substance. Natasha held it up, "This is a particularly potent neural toxin that was given to me when I passed my training in the Red Room. If it ever looks like a Black Widow agent will be taken, they inject themselves with this. You can't get information out of a corpse." she pulled off the cap and injected it into her arm, "If it really is eighty years old, it'll be too weak to do more than make me very very sick," she clutched the stone tighter as the edges of her vision went black. "Do it... now..."
Inessa rushed at Natasha and grabbed her head in both hands as her friend's eyes rolled up. She pushed into the mind, desperate. Everything was quieting, slowing. She found a lull in the activity and forced the shadows rolling off of her into Natasha- allowing herself to be pulled in the process.
The woman knew more about torture than anyone should.
Inessa shared Natasha's memories in flashes and starts. Most of what she saw was either trivial (simple chores like mending torn socks or what to do if your subject has a heart attack during water boarding), brutal (knife holding techniques depending on how deeply you're trying to cut), or downright embarrassing to witness (Clint featured prominently here, unfortunately for Inessa, his clothes did not).
When she first entered their minds, Inessa simply thought of the cub, as the Shadow had thought of the body, and saw what reaction to the face the others might have. Mostly what she got were protective instincts and sincere concern. She tried something similar with Natasha and pictured the video reel- ancient footage of Natasha and Albatross. She tried to force the image to move- spin around so she could see the camera recording it- and for a brief second she was rewarded. Everything solidified, went from imagination to reality, then snapped back with a sudden onslaught of screams and fire.
Please, Inessa needed this to progress quickly, she could help Natasha, but not until she found what they needed. She summoned up the image again and this time, when the screams and the fire slammed into her she pushed back with her own horrors- fed the flames with her own. She looked at the child that was Natasha Romanoff and grabbed onto the memory tightly. She felt something slip back and a flood of memories crashed over her.
"Natalia, my dear little one, your papa and mama have gone to heaven and you must make your own way there soon," a kind old priest blessed her so that she may pass through the gates of Heaven soon. The child's breath was coming in rasps and blood stained the edges of her mouth- consumption, tuberculosis, whatever the scholars were calling it these days- it was still going to destroy yet another family. All the girl knew was that soon enough the hard life of the cold and the poverty would be over, and she would be somewhere magical- filled with angels and all things soft and beautiful. She just had to be patient.
"Excuse me, father, may I sit with the child a moment?" her eyes drifted open to see a kind-faced man. He spoke with a slight accent- maybe he was from St. Petersburg? Natalia had never met someone from a city, that must be it.
The father nodded, "She will be with God soon. Though, Doctor Erskine, if there is anything you can do to postpone that merry meeting I am sure God would understand."
"I'll do what I can," Erskine smiled kindly at the priest and looked down at the little girl. "Oh my, what's this?" he pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at the corners of her mouth, "Are you feeling unwell little Natalia?"
She just nodded, but the motion made her sore throat feel like it was made of dry paper. She tried to cough to clear the strange feeling, but that only set off a whole fit of them. Natalia could hardly get air in before the next cough forced her lungs to empty. She gasped, choked, coughed until more blood came up and out of her mouth. The blood, strangely enough, helped ease the urge to cough. She gulped down precious air, hot all over and with a painful throbbing in her head and chest. After a moment she became aware of Erskine holding her and rubbing her back- just like her father had done whenever she got a cold.
Once it was clear the episode was through he gently settled her back onto the cot in the over-filled quarantine hospital. There was sickness everywhere, half the patients in the room were likely dead- just no one had noticed quite yet. Erskine though only had eyes for her. "I can make you better, Natalia, if you will let me. No more hurting, no more gasping. I made something that will help you heal, maybe help all of them heal."
"I go to heaven soon," her voice was raspy, thin. "I will ask God or his angels to help everyone."
Erskine leaned in as if he were sharing a secret, "God is a very busy man, as are his angels. The world is going mad again, you know." She didn't know what he was talking about, but she nodded as if she did. "I want to help him. If everyone who goes to heaven asks him to look in on the sick, he would always be busy. Instead of this he sends people like me- we help in this life so God may protect the good people from other bad things. Do you understand?"
"I think so?"
"Good girl," he patted her head. "God made it my duty to help as best I can. I would like to do that, but I will need your help in this. A simple procedure. It may hurt- it may send you to heaven even faster, but if it helps you it can be something glorious." What burned in his eyes looked like fever to little Natalia.
"It will help God? It will help everyone?"
"Yes, precious one. I believe it will."
She nodded bravely and resisted the urge to cough, "I will do my very best."
Everything about the machine terrified Natalia, but she had to be brave, like her new friend Thomas Morton. She enjoyed the company of the silly foreigner who called himself Albatross- and his stories of life on the open sea. His friends gave him the nickname, as it turned out, because he always brought good luck to their journeys. They knew, if he was on the crew, that nothing bad would ever happen so long as they kept him nearby.
Erskine's scary partner, Johann Schmidt, found him in a prison. His captain on the last voyage was ambitious and greedy- he took money from his men and took risks with their lives more often than necessary- so Albatross led a group to throw him overboard and rid themselves of the blight. Someone had told the authorities instead of keeping it a secret and so he and many of his friends were to be hung- before Schmidt came along. They needed someone healthy and someone gravely ill for their test, and so when they had gone to meet with investors abroad, each took one subject as their mission.
Albatross went into the large, metal coffin first. He'd screamed so loud Natalia could hear him several rooms away where she lay on a rolling cart. Erskine had left her to view the procedure with some big, scary men, leaving her alone to imagine what horrible things must be happening to make her cheerful friend suffer so greatly. After twenty minutes they brought him in, dazed and exhausted, and rolled her out too.
She had to stand while a man with some sort of camera-device looked at her. The action was too strenuous- she began coughing up blood again. That mixed with the fear from what she'd already heard- Natalia began to cry. Erskine rushed over to his little friend to dab at the blood. Schmidt told the camera-wielding boy to stop and give the child some privacy.
He resumed filming once she stepped into the machine. It was even scarier on the inside. Huge needles pierced her skin before the doors even closed. She tried to scream from the pain and the fear, but her lungs were too damaged. She choked and sputtered and strained to get any amount of air in. The machine felt like it was pressing back against her. Her muscles began to ache, then burn. Her bones popped and ligaments stretched unnaturally. She felt a strange sucking sensation in her stomach as she grew longer.
Something slammed into her chest- or felt like it did- forcing what little air she had out of her lungs. Natalia knew then she would die. Strange- the peace she had felt lying in the church with the nice Father standing over her and the cross hanging on the wall was gone- all she had now was fear of death, a desire to live, no matter the cost. A sharp, shrill scream suddenly filled her ears, making her jump slightly. It took several for her to realize that was her own voice she was hearing. Her lungs filled powerfully, she felt no discomfort, no pain.
Weakness began to drain from her, the agony of her burning bones and skin seeped away. Natalia had always been taught to survive, no matter the cost. She felt like iron now- strong. Surviving would be easy.
Erskine's was the first face she saw when the machine doors opened. He helped her step out with her new muscles. She looked down at herself- at her new body. She felt powerful.
All Natalia wanted to do was learn her new body. She began to fight with Albatross daily, each of them comparing their strength against the others. It surprised her how evenly matched they were- he a fully grown man, she a young child. Erskine wanted her to stay in the medical room for test after endless test, but she wanted to do things. Run, race, fight, climb, dance- anything she couldn't do before would be heaven. Unfortunately for Erskine, sitting in a medical room was something she did quite a lot of before he met her.
Schmidt tried the machine out on himself one night while Erskine slept- the results were disastrous. He came out deformed, incomplete- a caricature of himself. Albatross and Natalia were no longer superior to him- he decided his transformation meant then that he was superior to them. Erskine offered to take Natalia with him when he fled, but she refused. She was curious what Schmidt might be- was he really nearing equal footing to a god, as he claimed? Did that make her an angel?
It didn't take long for Schmidt to realize his abilities were actually somewhat limited compared to Natalia and Albatross- and so he sent them away. She went to the Red Room to train. She never knew where Albatross was sent. She didn't thrive in the Red Room. She died in an entirely new way. Her survival instinct became everything- all she was and all she could be. The brutality was astounding- and she astounded in turn by how quickly she adapted.
Albatross came to visit from time to time over the years. After she graduated from the Red Room- became a fully fledged Black Widow agent- Schmidt was gone and she was given to the KGB- Albatross too. He was more creative with his killings than she, but no one surpassed Natalia at interrogations. She could wind her way through anyone's mind without raising suspicions, double-talk them into any kind of confession.
Years rolled by- bloody, cold, hard. Natalia let the iron become everything. She went back once, destroyed the Red Room merely because it felt good to do so. Now she wasn't a Black Widow. She was the Black Widow.
They were selling her off. Natalia, now Natasha, paced the little cell where she slept and waited for the final confirmation. Some other group- something linked to Schmidt- had made the KGB an offer they could not refuse. It was becoming evident the USSR was going to collapse, a new Russia would be born, and no one wanted to see the KGB's great weapon handed over to their enemies in a show of peace.
When the door to her cell opened she nearly pounced, "Well? What is the decision?"
Her commander chuckled, "You know, it never ceases to surprise me- that tone coming out of such a young lady."
"Want to see what the young lady can bring out of you?" Natasha was somewhat sensitive about her appearance. True- a child got in most places no one else could, but it also limited her significantly.
"Relax. I've found someone who may be able to help you," he waved in someone from the hall.
A wrinkly old man wandered in, slightly lost. Natasha's skin crawled just looking at him. He had an ill look to him, his coloring was off and he was so greasy Natasha just knew if she touched his arm he'd probably be sticky. She breathed slowly to avoid the inevitable stench. "Stephan here is a very smart man with a very unique ability. He can touch someone and use their life to wind back his own clock. Your new handlers aren't particularly keen on your visage either. They are loaning Stephan to us with the understanding he will help you advance, you will help him buy more time on this earth, and we all part as friends."
"So he will have to touch me?" No amount of showering was going to make that go away any time soon.
"Just sit there silently, Widow." her commander glared. He didn't particularly like his best asset.
Natasha did as she was told, but she fixed her supervisor with a cold glare. The man, Stephan, put a hand on her neck and she shivered. Natasha had hoped for a single finger. At least she was wrong about him being sticky- he was just cold. Her ears popped and quite suddenly she felt like her skin was drying out. Natasha's clothes became unbearably tight quite suddenly and she barely had time to grab the pillow from beside her and cover her front with it before the fabric ripped and shredded. It felt too much like when she'd grown in the machine.
"That's enough, Stephan. Our deal is complete." the hand vanished from her neck. Natasha had expected something more dramatic, but when she pulled the pillow away and looked down she couldn't argue with the results. Natasha stretched an arm out experimentally. It was longer, that was for sure, but her movements still felt practiced, trained. She'd have to learn to adapt for her increased range and size. "Well, put these on," the commander threw some women's clothes on the cot next to her, "you belong to Hydra now."
"I'm no longer KGB?" her voice was deeper, different. It sounded alien.
"No, so get out of our base, quick as you like."
Natasha had something else in mind, something to pay back the commander for ten years of snide remarks and thinly veiled insults. She threw the pillow up at his face, then used the distraction to slam the heel of her foot into his head. She felt something crunch through the fabric and the cotton. Natasha kept kicking, following him as he stumbled back against the wall, trying to shout but not getting anywhere. She didn't stop until the pillow was thoroughly saturated with his blood. The (slightly less) old man went down with a broken neck- she didn't give him time to drain any more youth from her with his hands.
"What kind of trouble can I get in now?" she was done surviving, she was ready to live and have a bit of fun.
One day she was comfortably freelancing her services to anyone with enough cash to pay, the next she was calling her old friend Albatross, someone she hadn't seen in over a decade, asking for his help. Natasha couldn't quite remember why, something was very wrong. She wandered around an unknown city trying to remember how she got there, where it even was. The iron that made her strong felt weaker. Survival was her first instinct, but there was something else there, something thin and frail- not quite hope, but not quite not.
Great. A psychic.
Natasha had hunted one or two over the years- always as a preemptive measure. The bastards got into your head and planted ideas that weren't yours, or they were yours and you had no time for them at the moment. She kept them at bay with knives- but somehow one had gotten close enough to mess with her mind without her noticing. She cursed her own stupidity. In whatever state the brain-fiddling bastard had put her she'd at least had presence of mind to call on reinforcements. Natasha buried herself in the deepest, darkest corner of the city she could find, sealed the basement of the old church off, and waited. Albatross would find her- he always had.
No new thoughts crept up on her in the hours she hid in the basement. There was no sign of the psychic- but he had to be nearby. Once Albatross came they'd hunt him down together and put an end to it- then find someone to interrogate, the violent way this time. She couldn't torture a psychic- they were far too dangerous, but she could have fun with a normal run-of-the-mill intelligence officer.
"Natasha?" the voice that whispered through the walls was familiar and comforting. Natasha smiled and removed her blockade so Albatross could enter. He took one look at her and knew, "Psychic?"
"Psychic."
Albatross smiled, "And I thought Belgium would be boring this time of the year. How shall we-" Natasha didn't remember pulling out the knife. Or the first stab. She barely realized what she was doing in time to see the blade slam into his heart, having already punctured both lungs with her other two blows. Albatross looked stunned- but not as surprised as she felt.
The psychic hadn't lost sight of her, he'd been biding his time. Every murder, every kill, every dark deed spun back on her, but this time the psychic injected what had been stripped away from little Natalia all those years ago- horror. Disgust. She abandoned Albatross to die in her haste to find the psychic before he caused further damage- Albatross may be able to survive the killing blows. By the time she ran out of the church into the light of day though the memories were gone. She blinked hard, lost. An extraction missed? It must have been. Who was she supposed to have killed?
A safe house. She needed to get to a safe house until she figured things out. Not a KGB one- they were monsters. Unfeeling, cruel, she didn't want that anymore. She felt a sudden, overwhelming urge to help- it partially sickened her, partially galvanized her. Could she kill and still be better than those bastards who trained her? The things they'd done- to children no less!
"Charles, you are an amazing man indeed," Clint patted his friend on the shoulder and watched the nefarious Black Widow wandering down a city street.
"I don't like doing that to anyone- but in this case..." he smiled a cheeky smile, "In this case perhaps an exception was wise."
"Junior Agent Coulson," he spoke into his radio to his team on the ground, "fetch the other dude. Fury'll want to chat with him before he goes into lockup."
"You're just as Junior as I am, and he's Assistant Director Fury."
"Oh my god, someone literally brought a rule book to life, didn't they? Lighten up!" Clint liked his SHIELD academy roommate, but he was a pain sometimes.
"The mission was to bring in the suspected ex-KGB agent Black Widow, why is there another body in the church and she's just wandering off?"
Clint rolled his eyes, "Because Charles lost at poker and I offered him this as an alternative to paying up. Maybe she can be an ally instead of an enemy, ever think of that?"
The shapes of the men were indistinct, fuzzy. Natasha hadn't seen this event play out, but she'd heard enough stories that she'd built a framework of the memory. This was the end of what she wanted Inessa to see. She'd never betrayed Albatross- not willingly- and her memories certainly were buried, but by this other psychic, an ally of SHIELD.
Inessa extracted herself from Natasha's memories. Her mind was reeling. She couldn't focus. When she found her own eyes again she saw how pale her friend was, remembered the toxin. She couldn't open a window into the Valley- her original plan for helping cure Natasha of the poison was to pull her through and leave the foreign element behind, but she sensed the trip into Natasha's mind had taken too long, it was too dispersed within her blood for that to work anymore.
She had a comm device. Inessa put a finger on it and kept tapping, opening and closing every channel aimlessly. Eventually Clint was annoyed enough to come check on them.
It turned out Clint kept an antidote to the poison nearby- unknown to Natasha. She was going to be just fine in a half hour or so. Inessa stared at the same point on the carpet the entire time, hardly blinking. Just like when he had first rejoined her body after her five year absence it was going to take some time to settle back in to her own memories and thoughts. She felt slightly nauseous.
Clint didn't know what the two had been up to, but he had a good idea. He went back to the kitchen and fetched Inessa's cup of coffee- now cold. "Speaking as someone who's done the mind-warp thing, trust me. Caffeine helps." Inessa took the cup and downed it quickly. "Speaking as someone who did that as well, trust me. It'll hurt in an hour."
It was worth the headache, the dizziness, the confusion, even if the memories didn't help Natasha fight Albatross. At least she would know now what kind of past she had. Not the edited version the Psychic left her, the entire picture. Peace of mind. That was advantage enough.
For story notes visit ProjectEchoFanfic dot Tumblr dot com
Yes, "Charles" is Charles Xavier.
No, there will be no X-Men and no more Xavier anywhere "Project Echo", I needed a psychic and he came to mind :)
NINE (or rather, in honor of the special guest appearance by Schmidt, NEIN)!