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Chapter Text

The Shield psychiatrist offices are nondescript.

The receptionist looks over her glasses to Natasha, then across to Clint and Maria and hands her a form on a clipboard to fill out.

Annoyed, Natasha purses her lips and holds up handcuffed hands and feels the satisfaction of the shocked look on her face.

The woman passes it to Clint’s open hands, and points to the row of chairs.

Maria sits first, Natasha grudgingly sitting next to her and Clint following staring at the form.

“Tough questions,” he jokes.

“Name? Natasha.”

 “Date of birth?”

He peers over the form to Natasha who looks back at him.

“Unknown?”

Maria looks up.

“December 3rd,”  she answers.

Natasha can’t help the sharp look to her left, shocked at the accuracy of the information that she thought no one knew.

Maria smirks.

Natasha looks down, her heart beating faster.

Clint continues obliviously.

“What are the problems you are currently seeking help?”

He taps the clipboard.

“I might just leave that blank.”

 He goes on.

“Treatment goals?”

“Stability?” Maria jokes.

Clint gives her a look, she looks chastised and shrugs in indifference.

Natasha lets it wash over her.

She doesn’t want to be here.

The mandated therapy was a threat, not a choice.

She doesn’t know how Maria knows her birthday, how she got that information.

There’s no one alive that should know it.

There’s a heat that crawls up her neck. The handcuffs feel too tight on her wrists.

“Hmm they have a suicide risk assessment. Maybe you can go over that with the psychiatrist.”

Clint looks over the rest of the form and hands it to Maria.

“Did you have to do this when you came here?”

Natasha stares at her feet but the silence from Maria at Clint’s jab gives her a source of pleasure at the discomfort and the present that he’s inadvertently given.

Maria stands and gives the form to the receptionist, and Clint winks at Natasha when her back is turned. She realises then, the comment was intentional. A dig back to the ones Maria had given.

“I’m going to see Director Thompson, are you okay here?”

Clint sits.

“I’m here because I want to be,” he declares.

Maria says good bye, and leaves without looking at Natasha.

The radio next to the receptionist hums quietly, but feels like static to Natasha.

How does she know?

What else do they know?

It shouldn’t take something so inconsequential to unhinge her, but it has.

“She not usually that mean,” Clint tells her.

“She just doesn’t quite trust you yet.”

Natasha knows that, but she’s also unsure if she wants Maria’s trust.

She doesn’t trust her either. Her position is too vulnerable to have enemies and it’s clear she has many.

Locked in a box, only let out for debrief and now apparently psychiatry sessions, she’s doesn’t like this brand of freedom that Shield has offered.

Clint says it’s just the beginning.

In his ramblings, he says a lot without saying anything.

The door opens.

Her name is called.

Natasha stands diligently, alongside Clint and hates herself at the fear and apprehension that pools in her gut.

What does the woman know, if Maria knows her birthday?

Do they know about Vladivostok? Her fear of medical?

Do they know about Antonia? Dreykov?

And then a more unsettling thought.

Do they know about Ohio and Yelena?

Clint nudges her forward.

“I’ll be here where you come out,” he promises.

“No debrief today, just this.”

It’s a kindness.

One she likely, doesn’t deserve.

She looks to the woman standing in the door.

“Hello,” she greets, “I’m Olivia.”

She steps to the side and allows Natasha entry.

She takes one last look at Clint, and steps through the door.

.

Olivia sits at a large green two seater couch, and gestures to the one across from her. The matching set, Natasha is sure that they were picked deliberately for the colour and the spaces it provided.

Whilst they have space for others to sit, it’s clear that they’re meant for only one person.

Natasha imagines, if she was anyone else, that she could take her shoes off and curl her feet underneath her; tucking her body up and feeling safe in position.

Instead, she sits facing the woman, on the edge of the sofa; her cuffed hands neutral on her lap.

“Do you mind if we take them off?” Olivia asks, gesturing.

Natasha doesn’t answer.

The silence isn’t personal, she just doesn’t have words to talk.

Olivia approaches slowly.

“If you want to kill me, I’m sure these won’t stop you. But in case the thought does cross your mind, I’ve not always been a psychiatrist.”

Natasha looks at the woman; really looks at her.

She seems to be about in her 40s, hair pulled back, not unkind but knowing eyes that bore into Natasha’s when she looks up.

She doesn’t like it.

Doesn’t like how the woman reminds her of the Red Room instructors, the older women who had gone through the program at least twice and ruled the younger girls with manipulation over fear.

Natasha blinks.

She’s not there and this is not the same, she tells herself.

“My name is Olivia,” the woman starts, and then, almost in a way that feels unnerving, she switches to Russian.

“I can speak in either language, depending on what you prefer.”

It’s a question that Natasha prefers not to answer.

She speaks many languages, she’s not adverse to English, but since she’s been here, she feels adverse to words.

A moment passes.

When it’s clear Natasha isn’t going to answer, Olivia continues on.

“We have mandated sessions, they’re ongoing so I feel we are going to see a lot of each other.”

She glances at the form that Clint had started and failed to finish.

“You prefer Natasha?”

It should be an easy uncomplicated question.

“If you prefer another name, you can let reception know, but perhaps until you indicate otherwise I’ll continue to call you by the name you request, okay?”

Again the question goes unanswered; and again, the woman continues on.

“You’re here because you agreed to be, defected from the country of your birth, and whilst double agent was offered to you, you decided against it, I think we’d like to know why.”

The statement raises Natasha heart rate.

A vision of a a widow left hung with the words traitor on her chest, hits hard in her memory.

It’s not worth it, she wants to say.

All in or all out, there is no in between when it comes to Russia.

There’s no telling what they would do to you, if they found defectors amongst them.

She feels the electricity of a Red Room debrief on her skin.

Words and secrets wrenched from her lips.

She wants to give a witty comeback, instead, the words get lost in her throat, so unsettled by the last half an hour.

How did Maria know her birthday?

Such a simple thing should not unravel her.

But it does.

The one advantage she had, was that she was an enigma. That they did not know anything about her, except what she had told Clint.

What if that was wrong?

The woman says something.

It doesn’t even register beyond words being spoken.

But it must be important.

The words feel heavy, and the woman repeats them.

“What is it you want, Natasha?”

Want?

‘What is it you want?’

The words play in repeat in her head.

When has she ever wanted anything?

What is it she wants?

That what she wants, is that she’d never get. 

Natasha feels her heart rate quicken.

Want?

Her body hot.

How do they know?

Her heart. There’s something wrong with her heart.

Hands clench and she struggles for breath.

This isn’t suppose to happen to her.

Had they drugged her?

The food? Maybe the water.

Would Clint?

Maria.

She would.

She tries to breathe.

The woman.

The woman moves toward her, and Natasha looks into her eyes. They’re kinder.

Her vision blurs. The tidal wave of panic overcomes her.

What if?

What if she’s dying?

Not here.

Let her die alone.

There’s a hand in hers, fleeting. 

It’s cold.

It gives Natasha something to focus on.

It’s so cold. Both hands now.

If she could focus, she could eliminate the threat. The woman?

She blinks to clear her vision, shaking her head as her heart rabbits in her chest.

She’s dying.

She forces breath into her lungs, focusing on the coldness in her hands.

It feels like a lifeline.

Time loses meaning, and Natasha doesn’t know how long it takes her to get herself under control again.

Embarrassment burns on her cheeks as the world rights itself.

Terror in the moments before, flood adrenaline into her body.

The woman is still in her chair, looking down at her notebook. She looks up and meets Natasha’s eyes.

There’s an ice pack in Natasha’s clenched fists, still doing its job in providing calm and grounding.

Natasha is not stupid.

In the moment she thought she was dying.

Now, she knows it was a panic attack.

She doesn’t think she’s had one since she was eight.

“You’re safe,” the woman tells her.

It’s the first words that register and whilst she doesn’t believe it, it’s a nice sentiment.

Nothing has happened yet but it doesn’t mean that it won’t. 

She can’t imagine what’s going to happen next.

In the Red Room, she was whipped. Madam’s switch across her back twenty times, as she was made to count them.

Here? She doesn’t think it would be the same, but it lose it in public?

In front of the psychiatrist, no less.

She feels like she needs to do damage control.

Lessen the punishment.

 She feels like she’s losing it, she gets told her birthday and the woman asks her what she wants and she falls apart.

Taking another breath and handing the ice pack back to the woman, she looks around her and forces herself to calm down.

“Thank you,” she says, her voice soft and croaky, the only words that she’s spoken to another outside of debrief.

The psychiatrist nods.

Natasha bites her lip.

She doesn’t ask any questions, motions to the water and the glass on the table, pours one for herself and then offers another to Natasha.

She sips it, and then Natasha nods.

Her mouth is dry and she can’t remember when she drank something last.

Putting down the glass, Natasha wonders what’s going to happen next.

It takes a moment before the next question comes, but  it’s not the words she thinks.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

The offer is kind.

She feels suspicious and angry and embarrassed and looks to the door to leave.

The glass prison she lives in is not safe by any means but it’s familiar and not this place of questions and interrogation.

Her defenses are low; the lack of sleep and food are taking their toll. It’s clear now, that to be better she needs to take more care.

She’s smart enough to know better.

She’s better than this.

She was trained better than this.

The anger builds again at the display of weakness and Natasha swallows hard.

“We still have ten minutes.”

 “I’m going to tell you a few things, but the rest of the time, we can just sit here. You don’t need to say anything unless you want to.”

The words start slowly.

It’s a plan.

A lifeline.

And Natasha breathes again.

.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

The hit comes over the top of Clint as they’re walking back through the kitchen.

She doesn’t expect it, lost in her own thoughts as they’re walking back from therapy.

It’s clear from his surprised face that he wasn’t expecting it either.

The second hit knocks her back, her head hitting the side of one of the large fridges, her vision blacking for a second.

She doesn’t think he has a weapon, and she’s slow in her reaction. Anger at her own stupidity in lack of awareness, the flood of adrenaline hits her all at once and she kicks out against the attacker, her hands still cuffed.

He viciously swipes forward, ripping her clothes from shoulder to armpit, Clint steps forward in front of her, shouting for the man to stop.

“She’s the enemy. A traitor! She should be dead! We shouldn’t be spending resources to help her.”

The words come punctuated, and spat as the man starts back at them, ready to attack as he tries to push through Clint.

The shout and vitriol that’s spilled makes Natasha shrink back, looking around for a weapon, anything that she can fight back with.

“How many of us has she killed? She’d kill your mother, your brother, your sister if she could, anything to protect herself. She’s manipulating you!”

Clint pushes him again.

“What are you doing?! We don’t do that here. She’s under our protection.”

“Markus said, he knows, he’s the one that told me what she’s done. Do you even know? Do you know about the hospital fire? Berlin? What if that was your family?”

The next blow comes at her, but she lets it come.

It’s only fists, and the warning of Thompson that if she steps one toe out of line, rings in her head.

She’s not really in any trouble, even though the blow hurts, it’s easily compartmentalised as she rolls with it.

Clint pulls the man back, telling him again to stop, and giving a warning.

The commotion must have alerted someone because people come running.

Natasha feels them all looking at her, their weapons raised against her before turning attention to Clint fighting the man.

She raises her hands and splays her fingers to show she holds no weapons, and Clint punches once more.

More people file in, and Natasha feels relief when she sees Maria’s familiar face, and with it an air of command.

She quickly sends people away when she notices Natasha, then; pushing the man and Clint into separate corners.

“Leave,” she tells the man, “now.”

When he doesn’t move, she gives the command again, and this time it’s obeyed.

“She should be locked up or dead,” the man mutters, as a parting shot.

“Leave,” Maria tells him.

She rounds on Clint.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Clint grumbles.

“Are you okay?” Maria asks Natasha.

Natasha frowns, she knows her eye will swell, and a deep seated worry at the destruction of her shield issued clothing.

Opting not to talk, she just nods.

“Get back now, before anything else happens,” she commands Clint, and then looks over Natasha.

“Do you need to go to medical?”

Fear floods her.

“No.”

The words come fast, unimpeded by any thoughts.

“No,” she says again.

Maria’s look is unreadable.

“Fine. Go back to your cell and stay there.”

Clint leads the way, checking constantly that Natasha is behind her.

It’s stupid, where else would she go?

The hospital fire.

Berlin.

What else is common knowledge here?

Natasha hasn’t thought about the hospital in a long time.

The guards look to Clint as they pass the first check, and the anger radiating off him is palpable.

His usually calm demeanor lost, to more powerful emotions. He slaps his card on lock to open the door, Natasha following him, her face and back of her head pounding with increased pressure and likely swelling.

She wants to touch her skull to check if it’s bleeding.

She walks first into her cell, and he turns to look at her, reaching up for her face.

Turning away she steps back.

He drops his hands and sighs heavily.

“Hands?”

He uncuffs her held up hands, lingering gently on the red marks that surround them.

“Are you okay?” he asks, his voice even and sincere.

She nods, not wanting to even think about him taking her to any kind of medical facility.

He scrutinises her and then nods back, a question left unspoken.

“I have to go.”

She wants to ask if anyone else is coming. If she needs a weapon and if she can have one.

But the words die on her lips.

“I’ll come back,” he promises.

He idles and then takes one last look before turning and rushing off, leaving Natasha alone with her thoughts.

When he’s gone, the world becomes quiet.

Tentatively she touches the back of her head, no blood but tender.

She wishes there was a mirror in the room. Her eye is sore, and she’s sure it’s swollen.

Her head hurts.

Her face hurts. 

Natasha doesn’t really know what’s just happened but the man’s words ring in her head.

“Traitor.”

“Enemy.”

And the one that reverberates.

“She should be dead.”

It’s thoughts that she’s felt too, all verbalised by another, though perhaps for different reasons.

Natasha sits on the bed.

There’s not a lot to do in her small room, and when the day moves to night, Natasha becomes resigned to the fact that Clint isn’t coming back.

She stays awake, just in case; if he can’t protect her from an attack then the likelihood of another one happening has increased.

Natasha replays the moments over and over.

The push, the hit, the words, they play on repeat.

Should she have done something better?

Did she step that toe out of line?

She was supposed to be doing better.

She didn’t expect to be welcomed here with open arms, but she doesn’t quite know or expect the hostility; the hatred that came hand in hand with American patriotism.

What should she have done?

Does she have the right to protect herself?

It feels like the Red Room.

Absorb the blows and learn from them.

Do better to hide the pain, do better to school your face into a faceless mask.

Show no emotions.

The darkness swallows the room.

Voices feel real as she hears someone scream.

She stands closer to the glass straining her ears.

She’s heard the scream before, a familiar sound that she can’t place.

When it doesn’t happen again, she sits back on the bed, back against the wall.

She waits, hands balled in fists.

She hears footsteps.

But there’s no one there.

The lights would turn on anyway.

Still she stares at the glass panels.

The scream sounds again.

She looks to the roof and when she turns her attention back to the glass she sees Antonia; and behind her, Dreykov with his hands on her shoulders.

Natasha’s blood runs cold.

She doesn’t breathe.

Doesn’t move.

Waits for the images on the other side to move.

Her head pounds.

He can’t be real.

She’s dead.

He’s dead.

There’s no way they could be here.

Not here in shield.

They wouldn’t allow it.

If she closes her eyes, she’s terrified that they’ll move closer.

She stares.

The scream is louder in her ears.

Dreykov smiles.

His teeth bloody.

Antonia starts to cry.

Fear in her eyes.

Natasha’s fists curled in such tight balls that her hands become wet with sweat and blood.

Her face feels wet.

Her eyes sting from staring.

She can’t take her eyes off him.

If she does…

What if he comes in?

Natasha curls into herself.

No weapons.

No one to help her.

What did she have?

Taking a deep breath, and with all the bravery she can muster; she closes her eyes.

.

Clint yawns and takes the coffee from Maria.

“What the fuck were they thinking?” he grumbles, hitting front on his report, handing it to her, and glancing at the clock.

Almost twenty hours ago, the attack had occurred.

Clint had immediately gone to the Director, then Fury and then Coulson. They’d ordered him to be debriefed, and he’d agreed if Ramsey had been detained.

The fucking idiot, so easily swayed by honeyed words and easily placed taunts by Markus, a man Clint found to be manipulative and cruel.

Shield was better off without both of them.

He hoped they would all get fired at the very least.

Attacking your own, was a punishable offence, but Clint worried they would argue that Natasha was not one of them.

He highlighted in his report his own injuries and that he had also been attacked, just in case.

The night had passed quickly, and he yawns again in fatigue.

“How is it 8am?”

Maria finishes reading his report, handing the printed paper back to him with corrections, as he groans.

“I just turned it off,” he tells her pointing to the computer.

“Turn it back on,” she suggests, “otherwise, they’ll have leverage.”

“It’s not that bad,” he retorts.

“You commented on things he yelled at her but not about the tirade of vitriol he spewed at you when you went to get him with Gibson and Spire? Come on Clint, you know better than that.”

“I thought they’d put it in their reports.”

The computer starts again, and he swings on the computer chair.

“Yeah, but they don’t have the context of it.”

“Fine. Fine,” he sighs.

“What will they do to him?”

Maria looks at him knowingly.

“They might send him out on assignment, or out of state, maybe out of country.”

Clint frowns.

“It’s not enough.”

“No,” Maria agrees.

Annoyed at his report, he presses print again, and gives it over to her, again.

“I’m tired and I need to go see her.”

He’d been thinking about her, but Maria had assured him, that she seemed, on the outside at least, okay.

The video corroborated it, at least two hours ago. She still wasn’t asleep, but there wasn’t anyone down there so he’d let it go.

“You’re too invested in this,” Maria warns.

Clint grabs his jacket.

“In someone who could help us take down parts of the Eastern Block? The trafficking rings in Europe? The rest of the Red Room? Tell me you don’t think she could be an asset.”

Maria doesn’t answer, just throws a balled up paper at him, and opens his report to look it over.

“I didn’t say she wasn’t an asset. I said that you were too invested.”

He shrugs.

“Maybe.”

He narrows his eyes.

“You don’t believe them and what they’re saying do you?”

Maria stares ahead.

“Would I be helping you if I did?”

Clint shakes his head, annoyed at his own short temper.

“I’m sorry, I just…”

“It’s unfair,” she says, not looking at him.

 “They don’t know, they can’t know all the things she’s been through. If Thompson and Fury and even Coulson are okay with her being here, they they should just fall in line.

Maria gives him a pen to sign his report.

“They’re scared of different, they’re scared of anything that is a threat to them. They’re unwilling to make changes because they’re so terrified of it. ‘

“Do you need anything else from me?”

“No, go.”

“And Clint? Just be mindful of what I said okay?”

He doesn’t answer just closes the door gently and makes his way to Natasha.

He wouldn’t be Hawkeye if he didn’t notice people avoiding his gaze.

The way they step just out of his way and don’t respond to a smile.

He pretends not to notice.

Continues on his way, and ignores the uncomfortableness of it.

When he reaches the first set of check points, he notices that there’s been a change in the guards. Unsure if it’s a good thing, he approaches the woman and nods.

“I’m Clint,” he offers.

“What happened to Barlow?”

The woman scans his ID.

She nods.

“He’s been reassigned.”

Clint pauses at the door.

“What’s your name?”

 “Sharon,” she replies.

“I’m new.”

He smiles.

“Well, uh, thanks for keeping us safe?” he says, leaving through the door, not glancing back at her reaction.

He’s sure it was the wrong thing. Natasha is not a threat.

Clint passes through the next check, another woman manning the check point before the metal detector and then the last two where his key pass lets him through.

Natasha’s glass cell is lit by artificial lighting, and it gives stark contrast to the bruising on her face.

He winces in reaction wondering if it hurts.

She’s watching the glass but there’s no recognition that passes through her when he approaches.

He frowns.

Her clothing is ripped, he assumes from the fight, and the bluish-black hues seem incongruent to the rest of her skin.

“Natasha,” he starts, wondering if his voice will help snap her out of whatever this is.

It doesn’t.

She continues to stare right through him and he starts to wonder if she’d received a head injury in the fight.

He swipes his card to open the door, and it’s only then that her demeanor changes.

Watching Clint enter, she looks up with doleful eyes, not moving or saying anything.

“Get much sleep?” he asks, looking her over.

It’s clear that she didn’t.

She turns to face him, as he moves across the room to sit on the seat in the corner.

He knows she’s watching him carefully, in the way her fists curl deeper into themselves. He thinks he sees blood in her palms but he can’t be sure.

The ripped shirt reveals bruising from the side of her neck, the back of her head and down her shoulder.

“Do you need painkillers?” he asks, looking at her face and the stiffness in which she moves her head.

The silence hangs in the air.

He doesn’t really know what to do.

Her eyes don’t meet his and she doesn’t say anything; Clint feels too tired to be effective in helping anything.

“He’s uh, suspended,” he tells her, “maybe fired, and you probably will never see him again.”

He wants to promise more.

She watches him, but how much she’s taking in he’s not sure. He moves across to the bed that she sits on and sits next to her.

“I’m sorry. This should have been a safe place. I promised you that. And instead this had happened. It shouldn’t have.”

Clint suppresses a yawn.

His body and brain slow, unable to accurately say what he wants to.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, looking at her and waiting for her eyes to meet his.

“I’ll be round later. Try and get some sleep?”

He moves to go but becomes stayed by her hand, reaching for his.

“Stay?” she whispers.

The single word, the invitation hanging.

Clint nods.

Natasha sets back on the bed, not saying anything more.

Not knowing what to say, Clint back down on his chair and waits.

.

Chapter Text

Thompson stares at Clint, then at Natasha.

“Fine,” he agrees.

“Fine. But given the events of the last couple of weeks, you can only use it before 7am or after 8pm. If you stray out of this, if you create trouble; whether it’s your fault or not, then the privilege is revoked. I’m allowing this because the intel you gave about Vladivostok has been valuable and saved two agents from certain death. So if you fuck up, that’s on you. You have to then earn the rights again. Do you understand me?”

Natasha looks straight past him, but Clint smiles easily, and thanks his superior.

“Clint. Stay.”

Natasha takes two steps out the door, standing at attention waiting for Clint to follow.

Met by Agent Coulson, she stands a little straighter and watches the man approach.

“Romanoff,” he greets mildly.

“How are you?”

She doesn’t want to be rude, but she also doesn’t want to say anything. The self imposed silence since the attack had been one way of keeping her anger close by, and her thoughts to herself.

Though mandated to talk in therapy, she tried to be cautious with her words, considering them before speaking and focusing on the questions in front of her. It was the same for the continued debrief.

They still only touched on the make up of the Red Room and the KGB, even the FSB and not delved too much into her own history, though she felt it was coming.

Too much did not make sense without the context behind it, Odessa and Chechnya loomed ahead and she knew that if she were to talk about them, it would take days to explain the compounds and layouts and what they actually held.

She nods in acknowledgment and he takes it as permission to step forward and engage her in conversation.

“Did Thompson allow the request to go through?” he asks as though he didn’t already know the answer.

Natasha nods again, waiting for another inane comment or question that he already knew the answer to.

Instead, he starts to talk about the weather and the variability of the day. He describes how one of the shooting ranges was on the roof, the other; for sniper shooting, stood just outside so the targets could be far enough for ranged shooting.

He talked about the latter is Clint’s favourite and how he likes to show off with arrows.

“He’s going to want to make you shoot arrows with him,” he warns with a wry smile.

“I think it’s a right of passage for anyone who is his partner.”

Natasha frowns and looks at him, the conversation not requiring much; if anything from her but instead gives her company whilst waiting.

She doesn’t know if he’s smart or an idiot in telling her things, whether it’s a trap, or if telling her that Clint is going to be her partner that she’s passed some kid of test.

What she wants to ask is what’s going to happen next. The days feel sisyphean, monotonous of late.

She continues to be debriefed and reliving moments of her life that she doesn’t want to, the process leaving her numbed out and hollow.

Life doesn’t seem like anything but a chore, but still she persists.

She made a choice and if anything she feels like she wants to see how it plays out.

“Have you ever shot an arrow before?”

Even as Natasha considers an answer, Clint opens the door and smiles to find Coulson standing with Natasha.

He greets him with a smile, a rare one that doesn’t feel faked.

Natasha feels she has come to tell the difference in the months she’s been with him.

Coulson turns his attention to Clint, asking him a couple of questions about Thompson’s debrief before turning back to Natasha.

“I’d take the sniper range if I was you. But your choice.”

Clint looks between the two in a question but neither Coulson nor Natasha elaborate.

There’s a beat of a moment before Coulson bids them good bye, knocks on the door and with a shout of admittance, and heads into Thompson’s office.

.

The rest of the day passes without incident.

Natasha is deposited back into her glass cell and she can’t help but feel caged.

Pacing like an animal, she tries to dissipate the feelings that lays below her skin, and recites numbers in English, then French, and as she hits her hundredth lap and pauses. She wishes there was a window or at the very least a clock in the room.

With no way to tell the time, except by way of food delivery, Natasha feels the heaviness of apathy as she begins her count again.

.

Clint finishes his paperwork, wanting to get to the shooting range. Glancing at the time that reads just past 7, he thinks that Natasha should have finished her dinner and likely is waiting for him.

It prompts him to stretch and stand, and go and find food for himself.

He finds the cafeteria mostly empty as he buys a chicken curry and rice, wondering if he’ll be able to handle the spice.

He thinks on Thompson’s words as he wishes he’d grabbed a drink as well, his mouth smarting in the spice.

He’d been asked who would support and take Natasha to and from therapy and debrief whilst he was gone. There was a toss up between Coulson and Maria, but the decision that Coulson needed to go with him to England rather than Maria had sealed the deal.

He hadn’t told Natasha, as he wanted her to know that he wasn’t abandoning her, just that this mission had to be him.

His contact in Manchester was getting cold feet, and just needed some reassurance to continue to feed Shield information on Hydra.

As it stood, he’d been quiet reliable so Clint was unsure what had gone wrong.

He’d wanted to at least get to the shooting range once with Natasha, it felt mean to have be able to go and not do it now that it had been approved.

He was unsure just how involved Maria wanted to be, given her apparent indifference to Natasha and if it was just escorting her to therapy and debrief and sitting through the debrief as Clint had done then he probably needed to give her a heads up on that.

He finishes his meal, throws out the packaging and starts on his way to the cells.

“Clint! Wait!”

Sharon jogs to catch up to him and he smiles to greet her.

“Are you still on guard jury?” Clint enquires, realising he hadn’t seen her in a couple of days.

Sharon nods.

“I just wanted to tell you that there’s been a couple of people trying to come to see her,” she tells him.

“I think it was Thompson’s order that it was only you, but they’ve been trying. I don’t let them, but the other guards, I don’t know.”

She looks down.

“I just wanted to let you know.”

Clint nods, anger building.

“Who?” he asks softly.

She looks uncomfortable.

“I.. Uh. I’m new. I just wanted to tell you that she might not be safe.”

Clint understands the underlying meaning to her words.

“When was your last shift?”

“Tuesday,” she pauses, “around 7pm.”

“Thanks,” Clint tells her, “I really appreciate it.”

Sharon makes to move away.

“Is it true what they say about her?”

Clint knows he’s missed the Shield gossip line.

“What’s that?”

“That she’s going to kill us the first chance she gets and take shield apart from the inside out?”

Clint shakes his head.

“No. She couldn’t. Even if she wanted to.”

He tries to be reassuring.

“She agreed to come, help and defect, she wouldn’t go through all of this just to take us all out. They’re just scared.”

Sharon lowers her eyes and stares at her hands. 

“I know, when I take her food, she always says thank you when she sees me. They were putting things in it, I noticed when you changed it around, that they tried to change it back. When I asked them why they wanted me to take particular foods they just smiled. So I ate some, and it was foul. I think they’d been putting ground up bones or something equally as hard in any of the food and in the  tea, they’d put another liquid that made it taste off. I don’t Clint, I’m new, but I feel like they should have more integrity than that?”

Clint’s blood boils.

“How often are you on guard duty?” he asks, wondering just how safe she is.

He thought she just hadn’t been eating because the food was different, or the events of the day had been too much and not left much of an appetite. But to hear that people had been messing with her, with her food and now wanting access, he can’t help but wonder just what else was going on.

If he was going to be away for the next week, he couldn’t imagine just what might happen to her without his protection.

“Every Monday to Wednesday,” she replies, almost as if it’s a question.

Clint leads her to Coulson office, and knocks twice, hoping that he’s still there and not gone home.

Predictably, the door opens, and Coulson seems unsurprised to see Clint standing with Sharon.

“Can we come in?”

Coulson steps aside and Sharon balks at the door.

“I don’t want to get anyone into trouble,” she hesitates.

Clint smiles, in what he hopes is a practiced, reassuring smile.

“No trouble, we just need a little more information and maybe your help, if you’re willing.”

Coulson looks confused and Clint shuts the door behind them.

.

Natasha curls into herself on the bed.

The thin anti suffocation sheets were not warm and the temperature of whole room was at the mercy to outsiders. She was either too hot or too cold, but at least, she thought that she had clothes to keep her warm.

She had thought Clint would come, given the permission of being able to go to the shooting range. But he hadn’t.

Natasha hates herself for being disappointed.

She had come to trust his words, and she had thought that he was excited, given Coulson chat and Clint’s grin when it had been approved, but he hadn’t come.

No one had.

Hours she had been left alone and she was beginning to think she should start her bedtime routine.

Sighing softly to herself, she stretches her body and heads towards the tiny shower room, feeling sorry for herself.

.

Clint waits, wondering just how long she’d take in the bathroom, feeling quite creepy as he standing just outside the glass.

He was late, the time almost midnight, but wanting to be true to his word when he said he would come back.

If she is surprised when she exits, she doesn’t show it.

He starts with an apology and tries to explain.

“Your time here, over the past couple of months hasn’t been great, has it?”

Natasha doesn’t say anything.

He didn’t expect her to.

“Do you want to shoot some guns? We can only go to the one on the roof but there’s no one there and maybe it’ll help.”

He thinks he sees her smile.

She holds out her hands for the handcuffs and the door opens with Clint’s keycard.

“Hopefully we won’t have to do the whole handcuff thing too much longer,” he tells her, the click of them closing audible.

“I don’t mind,” she replies softly.

The walk to the roof is slow, and Clint seems to be deep in thought as he leads the way.

The gun range isn’t what she thought.

Enclosed, likely sound proofed, the room was black, lanes to shoot in there’s guns, to her left, in a cage.

“What do you want to shoot with?”

The question feels innocuous but Natasha feels that she can tell a lot from people in the gun they have.

Dreykov’s chosen firearm was a Makerov PM.

She hated that gun. He would shoot it and then make them smell the residue.

Clint picks the beretta 92fs.

“Here.”

She takes it, feeling the weight of the weapon and feeling more at ease that she had over the last months.

She disassembles it with ease, looking over the components and then reassembles it.

The monotony of it like a healing salve at having a means of protection and being able to do something that isn’t talking.

He hands her the clip and she inserts it in.

Clint takes his own gun and leads the way.

Earmuffs on, Clint shoots the first shot, allowing Natasha’s focuses her breathing, counting a breath in and out before she shoots.

The first shot goes wide.

Anger curls within her.

Grasping it with two hands, she presses the trigger again.

It hits centre.

The third and forth follow.

The next shots punch through and she feels at ease.

Glancing sideways to Clint he signals to ask if she’s finished.

They spend the next hour just shooting.

Clint doesn’t stop her.

For Natasha it’s the most cathartic thing she’s done and the most at peace she’s been in such a long time; and even though the night is late, he just lets her continue.

For once, her brain quietens.

She thinks that maybe she’ll even sleep.

As she expends the last clip, she knows they need to stop.

She joins him on the bench.

“Thank you,” she says sincerely.

Clint reaches across and squeezes her hand, letting go as quickly as he touches.

“I have to go to England tomorrow,” he tells her.

The world tips.

There is no good without the bad, she thinks idly. She should have known this was coming.

“Maria will be here and make sure that you’re okay.”

“I’ll be gone for about a week.”

The words seem to overshadow the last hour and a half and Natasha’s anxiety peaks.

She nods, unsure what to say; her mind reeling with the repercussions of not having him there.

“Can we go back now?” she decides on.

The walk back is slow.

She finds Sharon sitting guard, and then another at the next post.

In her mind she wonders how to protect herself.

They approach her cell and she turns on him.

“Can I keep these?” she asks, holding up the handcuffs.

Clint frowns.

“Promise me you won’t do anything stupid? That you won’t jeopardize the work we’ve done here? All the things you’ve done and put in motion already?”

Natasha doesn’t meet his eyes as he removes the cuffs but giving them to her anyway.

On a whim, she hugs him.

“Thanks for trying,” she whispers, so softly he could have imagined it.

She pulls back before he can react and takes three steps back, just as she always does.

“I’ll see you when I get back,” he promises.

She turns away from him and he does the same, unsure what’s left.

It’s only when he returns to his car, that he realises she’s stolen his watch.

.

Chapter Text

Maria walks Natasha to therapy, their steps in stride neither talking and both annoyed.

The second day of their routine had gone just about as well as the first.

With Natasha getting angry in the debrief, unwilling to impart information on Odessa, she stalls the second day as well.

Maria feels frustration at the woman, who promised to give all the information she had in exchange for protection and if warranted, a part in taking down the organisations that brought her up.

Going from debrief to therapy, seemed cruel to Natasha, who was already spent from trying to defend herself in not talking about things that she would prefer that only Clint would be privy to.

It apparently wasn’t a good enough excuse and she knew it was Maria’s way of lowering her defenses and making her talk. It had been the threat yesterday and clearly she was following through with it today.

Both women were clearly not budging.

Olivia opens her door to find Natasha’s handcuffs slightly too tight and frowns on both of the women’s faces, though Natasha’s seems more covert, she had come to know the spy’s tells.

Maria was obvious in her emotions.

“How long?” she asks, not unkindly, looking at her watch.

“Ninety minutes,” Olivia responds, looking up at the time, “is the time change permanent?”

Maria looks to Natasha.

“If she tells us about Odessa, it won’t be,” she replies.

Olivia bristles.

Maria can’t quite read the look on her face but maybe if she were to guess, she’d say it was somewhere between anger and pity.

Maria leaves them, hearing the unmistakable click of handcuffs being removed, she wonders if she should stay.

Maria knows she shouldn’t use therapy as a threat, but she felt like she was failing where Clint had succeeded.

The information that Natasha had given previously had filled in so many gaps in their knowledge, about different FSB projects, even linking them to Hydra and other players in the East.

She didn’t think Natasha even knew her value.

When Clint and Coulson had sent through the information from the new grad, Sharon, she knew Natasha had been in trouble, but she just thought it was low level; nothing life threatening.

She knew now it was.

They now had live trip feeds of the journey to the dungeons, just in case anyone did get past the guards; she or Sharon would be alerted, and lockdowns issued.

When Coulson and Clint returned they’d be added and  alongside Fury and Thompson, they were the only ones who knew.

It was a lot for someone who was so fresh, but the woman’s truthfulness and fortitude had impressed them, and even Natasha seemed to trust her.

They’d wondered at other protocols, and before Clint had left he’d requested that she’d have a weapon. It was denied, of course, but the option to attend the gun range had still held.

Natasha also got to keep the handcuffs, once removed and although she hadn’t been able to ask Clint before he’d left, she’d also noticed his watch in her room and then on the cameras watched Natasha marking time.

Maria sighs.

She doesn’t like being this intimately in charge of someone else.

It wasn’t that she disliked her, she just didn’t trust her.

She needed something to lower her defences, and Clint had always said that Natasha looked weary after therapy.

The files were sealed of course, of whatever was spoken about, but Olivia was mandated to give over a report on Natasha weekly.

Maria read them with interest.

Clint wouldn’t touch them.

Huffing in annoyance, she leaves the therapists office and makes for the cafeteria, realising both she and Natasha had missed lunch.

Clint had said that packaged foods were what she preferred, so she picked up a couple of sandwiches and  a couple of mandarins.

She eats hers on her way back to her office then finishes some paperwork, before making her way back to the psychiatrists office.

She waits for Natasha to be released wondering what her next play will be and wondering just how to make Natasha talk about Odessa, before she has to talk to Fury about it.

It’s a puzzle she wants figure out herself.

The door opens, and Natasha walks out, hands cuffed and straight faced.

Maria thinks she should take her back into debrief but there’s a feeling she can’t place as she looks at the woman.

“Maria,” Olivia asks, “can I talk to you?”

Maria steps into the office, keeping Natasha in eyesight, though sure that she won’t go anywhere.

Olivia keeps her voice low.

“Don’t weaponise therapy. It’s not fair to her, it’s not in the nature of what we are trying to do here and should not be used as a threat.”

The disapproval that oozes from the woman’s voice makes Maria regret her choice minimally.

If it works, she’ll take the woman’s ire, and the win.

“It’s not her fault. If you want to know about Odessa, then wait. She will tell you, but it’s not something that easy to talk about.”

Maria knows Olivia is just doing her job, but she feels defensive.

She nods straight faced and doesn’t respond.

She glances towards Natasha and lets herself out, more determined now to take her back to debrief.

Leading the way, she sets the stride long and leads her back to the cells.

Natasha is quiet as she always is.

Maria wonders if she should say something, but annoyance at the situation is overriding.

She almost misses the shake in Natasha’s hands as she uncurls the handcuffs and passes them across.

“We have debrief in two hours,” she tells her, “I’ll be back then.”

Natasha nods.

The door closes over and Maria leaves, returning to her office where she opens Natasha’s cameras.

Surprised to not find her in the small room, Maria turns in the audio and hears vomiting in the bathroom.

Feelings of guilt surprise her.

She realises that she didn’t actually give Natasha any food, and on top of that she wonders if she pushed too hard.

.

Natasha glances at the time

Expecting Maria at any minute, she ignores the hunger that bites and reoccurring thoughts.

She finds it hard to concentrate and glances at the time again.

Natasha knows they want the information on Odessa.

She just can’t.

She doesn’t trust them with the information.

Not when it intimately affects her.

Dinner arrives but Natasha doesn’t feel hungry.

Maria doesn’t come.

Three hours pass and still no one comes to collect her.

She feels surely that no one will come but she doesn’t trust that Maria won’t come in the middle of the night.

She places herself on the bed, wishing that Clint was back, hating the uncertainty of being here.

Natasha closes her eyes.

If she tells them about Odessa, they’ll know about the other girls. If they know about the other girls, then likely they’ll go looking. If they go looking before the Red Room subsidiaries are all shut down, the girls will all die.

She knows they’ll fight to the death.

She would have.

She needs more time. She doesn’t trust Maria to hold the intel until other things have cleared.

Maria just wants to know for her own information and because it’s a missing piece of the puzzle.

Natasha swallows bile as memories of her time in Odessa surface.

She remembers stripping in front of Madam.

Shaking her head, she attempts to erase it, feeling nauseous all over again.

Olivia had talked about choices in therapy, letting Natasha just listen.

Natasha knows that she had been irate at Maria’s comment and had lowered expectations.

Olivia asked her, about her thoughts on Maria, and Natasha hadn’t been able to answer.

“She doesn’t like me,” Natasha had decided.

The night felt cold, and glancing at the watch, Natasha thinks that Maria isn’t coming back.

She doesn’t want to settle into the bed just in case.

She eyes the handcuffs.

If there was any night for it, it would be this night.

Her defenses feel so low, and she feels so sorry for herself, that she grabs them and attaches them to her wrist and the bed.

She pulls tights and lets the images invade her mind.

.

Maria wants to go home.

Yawning, she glances at the time, and realises it’s past the two hours that she had said to Natasha.

She opens the program to check on her and when she finds her handcuffed to the end of the bed, she doesn’t know what to make of it.

She seems safe enough. 

Deciding to leave it, she packs up the laptop and leaves for her apartment off base.

.

Natasha screams.

Trying desperately to cover it as her surroundings of the glass prison become clear, she swears softly, feeling nauseous.

Images of Odessa plague her and she wants nothing more than to purge them.

Uncuffing herself she stumbles to the bathroom and washes her face.

She can’t shake the nightmare.

She can feel it in her bones.

Natasha finds Clint’s watch, 5am.

She knows the day will be a repeat of the last and if it’s anything like that she needs more sleep; but the fear of heading into another nightmare gives her pause.

She wishes she had a book or something to do, as she sighs and closes her eyes.

.

Maria stares at the camera.

Natasha screams.

The muted video shows her distress, as she’s pulled from sleep, eyes wide and chest heaving.

She watches as Natasha centers herself, puts herself back into the same positions and tries for sleep again.

It seems to take some time.

She fast forwards the video.

Natasha screams.

The handcuffs bite in as she strains against them.

Maria doesn’t understand about the handcuffs and she can’t ask Clint. She feels voyeuristic watching the woman’s distress.

She knows when someone isn’t okay, and Natasha is not okay.

She’s fucked up.

She’s pushed too hard and made a mess of things.

Maria sure that Clint would have told her, would have asked her what to do if he’d noticed any of this, but since he had t, she had to think the problem was her. 

She’s not only put the woman off food, she’s given her unhealthy coping mechanisms and left them in the room with her.

She should have gone and said that the debrief wouldn’t go agreed or let them tell Natasha on Maria’s behalf.

“Fuck,” she whispers.

She has a brief idea; one which may backfire.

But it’s the only idea she has.

.

Natasha leaves the handcuffs on the bed and glances at the time.

Wrists raw, she breathes intentionally in and out feeling memories of being handcuffed float over her.

She tires not to let them stay.

Any minute now, she thinks Maria will come for debrief.

She knows she’ll ask about Odessa.

She plans her admittance in her head.

If she can tell her some of the worse things first, maybe, just maybe they’ll let her go and not ask about more until Clint’s returned.

Natasha rubs her wrists.

She hears the familiar unlocking of the doors and the lights turn on down the hallway.

Natasha stands and waits, watch in her pocket and handcuffs in her hands.

If it’s not Maria, she has a plan, not a great one but at least she can protect herself a little better in this space with hard surfaces and handcuffs.

She waits and hears Maria’s footsteps round the corner.

The glass door opens, and she finds Maria standing in casual clothing.

Natasha doesn’t say anything, her heart beating faster.

“Leave those on the bed, and come with me,” Maria tells her.

It’s the first time Natasha has left the cell without handcuffs and she finds she doesn’t really know what to do with her hands.

She finds herself following Maria into part of the compound she’s never been before, and it feels like a trap.

They head to the left, the doors leading outside and for the first time in months, Natasha breathes fresh air.

The sights and smells and temperature difference so marked that she stops and takes the biggest breath she can.

Maria waits for her, still not talking.

It takes a moment but Natasha moves forward, still following into the unknown.

It’s the sniper range.

“You’ve been cleared,” Maria tells her, and sets them both up with targets and guns.

The process takes time but Natasha just revels in the fresh air and quiet of the morning.

“Here.”

The gun lays ready.

“Wind is at 3 degrees.”

Maria takes up her own gun, setting up the sight, and positioning herself for the shot.

Natasha copies her movement.

With the gun in hand, she feels more at ease and the images from the night before begin to disappear.

All that becomes relevant is her breathing and the target in front of her.

She breathes and out and lines the shot.

Accounting for the wind, she adjusts her angle.

In between her breaths she shoots.

Pausing, she hears Maria do the same.

Looking down her scope, she finds that she’s hit the target, a little to the left but still close enough for a kill shot.

Maria’s shot is almost mirrored.

Natasha is impressed. She’d taken Maria as pencil pusher who had no real world value. She’d assumed she’d been trained by the agency but whatever that looked like she had thought that there was no way she would be able to fight.

“There are 15 shots and we have an hour,” Maria tells her, feeling her gaze.

“We have to be back by then.”

Natasha nods, lining up the next shot, taking her time to get it just right, the shot further than the first.

Maria is first to hit it.

Natasha suppresses a smile.

This feels like the competition of the Red Room, she thinks to herself.

The hour passes quickly, time only punctuated by the sound of the long range shots.

.

Maria walks Natasha back a different way, wanting to avoid as many people as possible.

The route to the cells feel long but she thinks Natasha doesn’t mind.

Breakfast is waiting for her when they arrive and Maria waits for her to step back in, before talking.

“No debrief today. Or therapy,” she announces.

If Natasha is surprised, there’s no difference in facial expression. The general quietness of the woman except in debrief, is absolute.

She didn’t expect Natasha to talk but sometimes she’d like a response.

She’s sure if she asked for one, like a robot she would give it.

Maria looks her over.

“Can I, uh, can I eat breakfast with you?”

She asks the question without really thinking about it, and it’s only then that there’s surprise on Natasha face. In the instant it appears, it’s gone in a flash.

Natasha moves to the left, allowing Maria in.

Maria wonders idly if she’s allowing it because she doesn’t feel comfortable saying no.

She steps through the door, allowing it to stay open.

The breakfast tray only holds enough food for Natasha, but she shares anyway, offering the apple and the granola bar.

Maria takes the apple and they sit in a somewhat uncomfortable silence.

Tallying all the things she needs to do for the day, she looks around the room finding nothing.

“Do you want a book?” she asks, wondering how Natasha occupies her time.

She finds that when she’s left with her thoughts the world feels harder. Natasha has had two months of it.

Natasha looks up.

“A book,” Maria repeats.

“Do you want one?”

Natasha shrugs and nods.

“Fiction or nonfiction?”

There’s no response. Not that Maria expected one.

“I’ll see what I can find.”

Standing Maria, takes the tray and the rubbish and leaves the rest of the food.

“I’ll see you later,” she says, thinking of her list and leaving Natasha to her own thoughts.

.

Chapter Text

Dostoevsky sits on the table and Natasha wonders at Maria’s choice of Crime and Punishment.

A Russian author and a title that mirrors herself, seemed a little too on the nose.

She appreciates the gesture though.

She didn’t know what had happened in the day between Maria seemingly wanting to torture her for information to not asking her questions at all.

Debrief hadn’t touched on Odessa, instead moved on to code words and languages.

This she could easily talk on.

This was something she gave up readily.

She appreciated the reprieve.

Clint had returned to find her and Maria eating breakfast in her cell, as they had done the three days prior.

The mood not as uncomfortable as the first time and, seeing Clint, she had smiled a genuine smile.

With Clint there, he’d taken over her handling, the routine changing again.

Whilst Natasha missed the fresh air of the morning shooting range, she prefers Clint being there and safety that it entails.

The debrief continues to avoid Odessa.

She’s sure that Maria told him what had happened.

The fact that her voice had been heard when she said that she couldn’t talk about it, she’s not ready to trust, especially when she feels it could be used against her.

Debrief looms.

Clint glances down at her in the elevator, catching her eye and smiles.

As usual, they sit in the small office with the two way mirror on the left.

He hands her two pictures.

Natasha’s blood runs cold.

“Who is that?”

The woman in the picture in the left has her black hair pinned back.

Memories flash.

“Stand straight.”

“Again.”

“Widows are marble.”

“You will not break.”

There a taste of poison in Natasha’s mouth and she wants to spit.

“Um,” she says swallowing, “she runs the widows. Trains them. Keeps the girls in line.”

She puts her hands underneath the table, clenching hard to keep herself present.

“What do you know of her?”

Clint asks the question slowly, like he knows what it will cost her.

“The trial of the silent knife.”

Natasha doesn’t want to talk about this.

She looks at the second picture.

The branding mark embossed in skin.

“What’s the trial of the silent knife?”

Natasha forces herself to calm.

Forces air in her lungs and her mind to clear, even as images assault her mind, the cut of the knife and scar on her calf glisten.

“How did you learn to fight?” she asks, voice low.

Clint smiles easily.

“Back yard fights with my brother, my father, school, the military. You could say my learning was eclectic.”

Natasha hears him in what he doesn’t say.

“How do you think I learned?”

Clint doesn’t answer straight away.

A question he’s likely never considered.

She sighs.

“We are trained in very specific ways. Ways to make prepubescent bodies strong. Running in mountains, strength training, training in multiple martial arts by different teachers. Each with their own style of reward and punishment.”

Natasha considers the question he asked.

“Once we reached a certain age, the skills we we learnt were tested.”

She knows he wants to ask.

“I was 8.”

“The trial of the silent knives is the test.”

.

Natasha stands with the other girls.

She feels excited, adrenaline running through her body, as she wants to show off her skills.

She feels ready.

The other girls look cocky, no one looks scared except Sasha who always looks like she’s going to wet herself.

Natasha’s not sure how she hasn’t been kicked out yet.

There had been other girls who had left, their beds empty after being injured or crying or talking back in ways that even to Natasha had felt rude.

The wind is cold, though the ice had melted the world still held onto the icy chill.

They’d been to this clearing before, fought here before, and Natasha was accustomed to fighting bare footed and without weapons.

“Line up,” the command comes.

The girls do as ordered.

Natasha exchanges looks with Freya, her friend looking determined and fierce.

She takes her friends bravery and uses it to decrease her own fluttering heart.

It’s different today and they all know.

The twenty four girls are made to spar, lightly until their warmed up, going through the motions of hitting and being hit.

Four adults stand to her left, and she sees Madam and Dreykov standing behind them.

Her body feels cold, fear of both of them allowing one of the girls to sweep her legs.

She falls heavily.

Helped up, she whispers to her what she saw, and the message gets passed down the line.

Natasha often feels targeted by the two adults, she feels frustrated at the higher standard she’s held at as they stare at her.

She stands straighter as the round ends and they’re lined up again.

Separated, they stand on either side of two lines marked in the dirt.

The adults move closer and Madam claps twice.

The girls stand straighter, eyes forward just as they’ve been trained.

“This is a test,” she announces.

“You will fight until one of you wins.”

She walks between the lines to look at all of the girls.

“How you do that is up to you. You will be marked on how you do this. This will be done in silence. You must not scream, or cry or ask for help. Once in the arena, you are on your own. No one will help you except yourself.”

Natasha’s nerves rise.

She’s glad she’s not at the front of the line.

Briselle; one of the older girls steps forward, her opponent Sasha.

Natasha knows the outcome before they even fight.

A single knife is thrown in the middle of the arena.

Madam steps forward and Dreykov and the other four sit on chairs set up for them.

The girls sit along the outside, still in their lines, legs tucked under them, fists on top of knees.

Briselle smiles as Sasha lunges for the knife.

She lets her pick it up and then kicks out at her.

Sasha moves back, using her momentum to feint left and swipe right.

The knife passes close to Brisselle’s neck.

The shock on her face pronounced, as Sasha presses her advantage.

Natasha had fought Sasha before, when she was scared, she became more desperate.

Briselle shouldn’t underestimate her, just because she looks like a scared little girl.

Briselle kicks out and makes contact with Sasha’s chest.

The kick is clearly winding, as Sasha gasps, her fist tightening harder around the knife as Brisselle presses the advantage, throwing another kick at her prone body on the floor. Sasha scrambles up, blocking it with her forearms, grabbing at a leg and attempting a throw without conviction.

Briselle’s weight seems an advantage as she holds her ground, her held foot flips up, catching Sasha under the chin.

The girls body sprawls, knife flying out of her hand.

Briselle picks it up, kicks her and points it at her neck.

“Until one of you wins,” Madam reminds.

Briselles smile falters.

She doesn’t know what that means; but Sasha seems to. The crack of Briselle’s leg is loud, she shouts in pain. Sasha’s movements are quick. The first cut along her thighs and the second along her neck, blood pours from the cuts.

Natasha looks on in shock.

Sasha’s desperation to win had come at the cost of Briselle’s life.

The girl was dying in front of them.

Natasha feels sick.

An adult that Natasha doesn’t know pulls Briselle’s broken, gasping body away. Sasha looks at her bloody hands and ordered by Madam to line up.

The girls hear a gun shot, and they all know what it means.

Two girls look round, and cry out.

Sasha’s eyes go wide as she watches, her mouth opening with an outward breath.

Tears leak out of her eyes.

Natasha looks around to see the other girls, some of whom were also crying, their predicament clear now, the years of training culminating in this.

The next two girls stood, legs shaking, fear on their faces.

“Fight.”

Madam’s voice breaks the silence.

An endless minute seemed to pass before one of the girls lunged for the knife.

The fight is short.

Clearly overpowered, the younger girl sobs as the other girl cries that she’s sorry.

The arena is bloody by the time it is Natasha’s turn. She rises on heels and ignores the girl in front of her. She knows her but in those moments she knows that she cannot acknowledge her.

“Fight.”

The knife is the obvious play, but the girl is taller and reaches it quicker.

Natasha runs through the knife defenses, anticipating the lunge forward. She sidesteps bending the girls wrist, and using her momentum against her. The angle of the wrist made it impossible for her to hold onto the knife and it drops into the bloody floor.

She kicks it out of the way, and slaps her heavily, knowing if she punches she’d hurt herself.

Her palm stings.

Avoiding the next punch, then kick, Natasha fights back returning the kick to the girls head.

It hits with resounding thud.

The girl stumbles back, tripping on the knife.

Natasha lunges for it and the girl wrestles her for it.

Arms heading back, the girl reaches for something that Natasha can’t see.

She grabs the knife, and rock smacks her in the head.

Natasha collapses.

Dazed, Natasha vision blurs. She feels the girls climb on top of her, raising the rock again, readying it hit Natasha.

The knife sticks up between them, and as the girl leans forward it sticks between her ribs; killing her with a quiet “oh”.

The rock drops.

The unconventional weapon crumbling just next to Natasha’s head as she huffs breaths.

Panic.

She has no thoughts in her head as she’s told to stand, her opponent dragged back.

Blood drips from her forehead and she touches it blankly.

The rest of the fights finish without Natasha even registering who is still alive.

All she can think of is the knife pushing into the girls body.

Her chest feels so tight that only the slight amount air seems to break through.

Her hands shake and she sits on them to hide it.

Natasha wants nothing more than to be left alone.

The knife.

She focuses herself by biting the inside of her mouth.

Her head hurts.

Still bleeding, she blinks it away from her eyes.

Madam stands in front of them.

“Do you know why it’s the silent knife?” Madam asks picking it up.

Twelve girls, bloody and bruised and traumatised stare into space.

The four adults stand, Dreykov in front of them.

“You are part of the Red Room. Silent killers. You must know how to kill; friends, family, foe.”

She paces.

Placing a knife in front of each of them, Madam motions to it.

“You have passed this test. From now on, this knife is yours. Your right to own. From now on, the training will only get harder.”

Natasha eyes the bloody knife in front of her.

Sniffing, and wiping her face, she decides it was a friend and not a foe, she picks it up cleans it in her clothing.

.

Clint sits back, his heart hurting at her story.

“Once we passed, we had to mark our first kill. The mark, the one you see there, the brand, was given. That woman is a widow.”

She bites her lip.

She hates the story.

Telling it felt like it was someone’s else’s story.

“Can, uh, can we stop?”

Clint nods, not asking any more questions.

She’s sure it’s recorded somewhere but in that moment she doesn’t care. She wants to return back to her cell, never feeling more like she belongs in one than in that moment.

She’s at peace with her kills.

But the first one…

Natasha clenches her fists and lets them go in time with her breathing.

She just feels old and tired.

Chapter Text

Clint dreams of little girls fighting, the images that Natasha had described so vivid that he hadn’t been able to get them out of his head.

He hadn’t the guts to continue to ask questions in fear of what else she would disclose.

He’d been thankful she’d asked for reprieve because even if she hadn’t, he would have said it was time to stop.

Maria had taken over debrief for the last two days, asking questions about the woman Natasha called Madam.

He sighs.

He needs sleep.

He’d promised Natasha that they would go to shooting range in the evening which gave him two hours.

Clint sighs, staring at the paperwork.

Always so much paperwork.

He didn’t know how Maria did it so fast but it always seemed to take him hours.

Sidetracked by the computer, he logs onto Natasha’s feeds and watches as she lays on the bed reading Crime and Punishment.

Always so proper in her movement, he feels convinced that she never relaxes. Even as reading she sits against the wall, legs crossed and back straight.

When he’d asked Maria about why he’d given her the book, she’d shrugged and said that Natasha had seemed bored.

Crime and Punishment was Fury’s joke.

He knew it couldn’t be the only reason but he hadn’t had the time to go back and look.

He could now.

Clint knew he was procrastinating.

He sets the feeds back to when he was away; and puts to watch it on double speed.

He sees what Maria means.

Natasha paces.

He didn’t know.

Natasha handcuffs herself to the bed, and screams herself awake.

He didn’t know.

Natasha wasn’t doing as well as he thought.

He didn’t know.

Clint leans back on his chair.

He doesn’t know what to do.

He said it would be better.

He said it was a lifeline.

Instead, he’s caged her and made her relive her hardest memories then left her alone to deal with them herself.

He thinks he probably needs to talk to Olivia.

Natasha doesn’t seem despondent, but if her upbringing is anything to go by, the bar is low.

.

Clint appears at the door and she’s ready.

She wants to shoot a gun more than anything, the feeling one of the only truly grounding things that she has.

She offers the handcuffs and when he shakes his head, she tucks them into her pants.

Clint thinks she does it because she’s worried that Thompson had ordered it and they’re not following the rules, but he’d never asked.

She looks tired.

He wonders just how much sleep she really gets.

Leading the way, he asks which range she wants to go to.

It takes a moment.

“I don’t mind,” she says quietly.

 Clint leads to rooftop range.

“The outside one might be too dark,” he reasons.

Natasha nods.

He hands her a Barretta as a question and she nods, taking it apart and reassembling it in less than a minute, loading the magazine.

“Wait,” he offers, “let’s play a game.”

Natasha pulls the earmuffs down, waiting for her to continue.

“Every time you hit a bullseye, you get to ask the other person a question.”

He thinks he sees a quirk of a smile.

“Okay,” she agrees.

Clint does smile then, taking her in.

It’s been a while since he really looked at her.

That moment, when he had offered her a choice, he’d looked at her then. He’d told her that she didn’t have to die, and had to find another way to live.

Their lives had become to entwined for there to be any other option.

He’d focussed on the way her eyes look searching in his for help or something else he didn’t know. Her hair, as messy and matted as it was, still holding the braids that she’d placed. And way she held her body, straight even though as if weighed down by life.

Looking at her now, those things were all still true. The almost 12 weeks at Shield had done nothing.

Perhaps even made her worse.

She held heavier weights now, the pain of remembering, and reliving.

He’d have to remember to ask Maria to give her some toiletries, a hair brush perhaps, rather than the standard Shield issue comb and 2 in 1 conditioner.

Natasha motions for him to shoot first, and he situates his earmuffs and shoots.

It wings the side of the bullseye.

“Does that count?” he asks, the words lost until she pulls off the earmuffs and he repeats it.

“Your choice,” she answers.

He thinks it does.

“What’s your favourite music?”

She frowns, not the question she was expecting. Clint thinks he probably should have let her go first to mark what kind of questions would be okay and those that wouldn’t.

“I don’t know, I don’t really have a favourite. I like the Spanish national anthem though.”

The laugh that breaks free is unintentional.

“Oh okay,” he replies, covering his mirth.

“What?” She asks, annoyance and confusion in micro expressions appearing on her face.

“I’ve just never had anyone frame their music choice by way of national anthems.”

She turns and shoots a bullseye, almost without thinking.

“What’s your favourite music then?”

Clint feels he should be impressed by the nonchalance of the motion, but instead it just makes him laugh.

“Rock, soft rock mostly, like music you can tap your foot to, or sometimes rap, do you know r&b?”

When Natasha shakes her head, he explains his favourite rhythm and blues artists, and of its origins.

She nods.

“Very American of you,” she states, and Clint turns back to the sheet of paper.

Relaxed now, and no longer feeling the fatigue of no sleep, he shoots and scores another question.

“Favourite food?”

Natasha looks at him.

“Coffee.”

“Coffee is not a food,” he retorts, feeling Coulson’s words come out of his mouth.

“Fine, baklava,” she replies.

He feels the bristle in her words.

She shoots and the shot goes wide.

“Go again,” he prompts.

The next shot is dead in the middle.

“When will this end?” she asks.

The question is heavy.

He’s not quite sure what she means.

“Never mind,” she mumbles.

“I get sent questions from Thompson and Fury, those are the questions that mark the day, and get asked of you,” he admits.

“What you tell us gets recorded and verified.”

She looks at him in interest.

“And then the steps start again.”

He doesn’t think he’s breaking protocol by telling her.

She nods.

Shoots again.

“I need to do some exercise, or have access to some sort of open space.”

It’s not a question.

He understands, remembers seeing her pacing for hours on end.

“I’ll ask,” he replies.

She nods.

The clip empties into the paper and Clint does the same, reloading and starting again.

Questions fall by the wayside as they’re both left with their thoughts.

.

Natasha growls.

Sleep elusive as she stares into the darkness.

Glancing at Clint’s watch, she hates that the time is 3.34. Anger pulses at the frustration.

At least when she has nightmares she knows she been asleep.

Uncuffing her hand, she gets up, pacing and counting steps.

At 4am, she lays down again, reinserting her hand into the handcuff and closes her eyes.

She counts.

She counts till she can’t hold numbers in her head and then again in French, until she can’t remember the words.

Time must pass, but she doesn’t think she sleeps.

5am hits and she grows even angrier at herself for wasting the night, knowing she needs it.

It puts her on edge.

At least the food that comes at 6am is packaged and safe.

She drinks the juice and wishes for coffee, as she turns to face Maria at 7am.

.

“She’s not sleeping,” Coulson tells him.

Clint knows.

He’s not sleeping either.

“I know,” he retorts.

“You know?” Coulson quirks an eyebrow, and Clint looks at his feet.

“I know you said not to watch or look at the feeds, that only Maria should have access, but I looked okay?

“She doesn’t sleep much and when she has nightmares.”

Coulson waits.

Clint hates when he does that.

“What?” he asks grumpily.

“You’re not sleeping either.”

The call is an easy one.

“No,” Clint replies, shortly.

“Is this too much for you?”

Clint almost replies hastily, before thinking about his words; he pulls back and sighs, taking a breath.

“No.”

A beat passes.

“No,” he assures.

“We can’t give her drugs, so find a way to help her,” Coulson advises.

“See the medical team for your own sleep.”

Clint nods.

Clint thinks for a moment.

He knows what he wants to do.

“Do you think we could get a day leave?”

Coulson's eyes narrow.

“I doubt it.”

He thinks and types an email.

“Maybe a couple of hours, though.”

He presses send.

 “I’ll let you know.”

Clint half heartedly slumps on Coulson’s couch.

“Do you mind if I just stay here for a bit?”

Coulson turns back to his computer.

“Just take your shoes off.”

.

Natasha sits on the edge of the bed, hearing the doors open ahead. No one usually comes at this time.

She stands apprehensively.

Clint rounds the corner.

She looks at him with curiosity.

He holds up keys.

“Do you want to go out for a bit?”

 Natasha’s face is unreadable.

The door opens and he leads her out.

He watches Natasha take in all the entrances and exits.

Her hypervigilance shows.

She climbs in the car with him.

Now he’s here, he has the stupid though of where he could drive to.

He thinks he knows.

She probably hasn’t seen water or green in a while.

Starting the car, he’s silent as they move off, giving her a CD wallet and telling her to choose.

Natasha flips through as they drive, making a comment here and there before deciding on Clint’s burnt R&B mix. The disc gets inserted and Missy Elliot starts to play.

Clint thinks he should be embarrassed but he doesn’t care.

Natasha however starts to laugh.

The sound seems so antithetical to the seriousness of where they’ve just been and the reason they’re leaving that Clint laughs too.

“Do you know this one?”

Natasha shakes her head.

“I feel privileged to start your musical education,” he grins.

He turns down the song as he turns up a long stretch of drive.

Parking, the view of the Shield compound comes into view.

“We have an hour,” he tells her again.

She gets out of the car, and he wonders if he should be worried she may escape.

He gets out too, and sits on the hood of the car.

She copies him.

Clint isn’t quite sure how to bring up sleepless nights, so he does what he does best.

Sticks his foot in it.

“You haven’t been sleeping.”

Natasha’s face is, as always, unreadable. Especially in the dark with only light pollution and dark shadows around her, it seems especially hard to read her face.

“I, ugh, your room has cameras, and it senses movement when you get up at night or when you thrash in bed.”

He needs to shut up.

“You.. You don’t sleep much.”

The silence moves on.

“I don’t sleep much,” he finishes, quietly.

She stares up at the sky, then lays back arms behind her head.

He lays back with her.

Time seems to slow, both stuck in their own thoughts.

“She asks me, what do I want?” she tells him.

“But I don’t know.”

Clint looks staunchly up.

“I know I don’t want my old life, but this? Clint, I don’t know if I can do this much longer.”

He reaches across and holds her hand, expecting her to pull away.

Instead, she squeezes it hard.

“I don’t know.”

Clint thinks about the difficulties of the future and the openness of all it could mean to someone who’s never had a choice before.

Natasha lets her hand go.

“You’re in limbo,” he supplies, in more of a question than a statement.

“What’s the first thing that comes to mind when she says it?”

Natasha takes an audible breath and doesn’t answer.

“I think this helps,” she sighs.

“A reminder that the world is not just Shield or the Red Room. That the uniforms I wear are not me.”

Clint takes her point.

Even if it’s not a point.

The lack of things that makes him human, his keychains having his name on them, his favourite mug, his hoodie that’s been with him for so long, even his blanket that’s laying on Coulson’s couch, for him to nap under.

Things.

It gives him an idea.

He lets the silence go until his alarm goes off.

Natasha pauses at the door.

“I’ll repay you for this, one day.”

He’s not sure if it’s a threat or a promise.

.

Chapter Text

The feeling of sparring mats under her feet brings familiarity and almost a sense of ease.

Only Coulson running in the on the treadmill with his headphones in, seemingly ignoring them.

Natasha stretches.

This is something she knows how to do.

She can fight.

If nothing else, she can fight.

Natasha looks at Clint.

She’s unsure how hard to hit, not wanting to get in trouble, but also wanting a proper work out. It had been so long.

The usual warnings had applied.

Step out of line and they lock her up.

The threats were getting old.

“No crutch shots,” he tells her.

“Anything else?”

 He shakes his head, “I don’t think so, anything else you can think of?”

“No?”

“Okay,” he smiles, “do we need a safe word?”

Natasha frowns.

“What’s that?”

Clint’s smile falters.

“You know, a word you say to make everything stop, like a code word that we know, to say enough?”

Natasha stares.

“Okay, the safe word is yellow.”

She shrugs.

He sticks his hand out.

Natasha touches it.

At least that she knew.

They circle each other.

Clint throws a half hearted kick.

Natasha moves and rolls her eyes.

“Actually hit me,” she says in annoyance.

Clint grins.

The next punch comes at such speed that she can’t help but smile in a snarl.

Deflecting it left, she kicks underneath it, catching him on the ribs.

Clint steps back, drawing her in.

She falls for it, the kick to her body is unavoidable but she takes it, and spins on it, back kicking him and following it up with an elbow.

Clint takes it back, he laughs, to her annoyance.

She punches to his head.

Focusing on his guard, she notices that every time he kicks his left arm drops. Circling, she steps into his distance, he takes the bait.

He kicks, and she moves into it, punching him in the chest.

It’s a direct hit, and he responds with an “oof.”

She’s not finished.

The follow up makes him step back twice.

The punches come in quick succession.

Clint’s quick smile falters as he takes the punches but further aggravates Natasha.

She doesn’t stop.

The loss of control doesn’t scare her though.

Clint parries.

He hits back with two punches in quick succession, the second hitting her in the ribs.

Natasha feels like she’s losing.

It’s unacceptable and the frustration makes her sloppy.

She cannot lose.

Clint throws a wild punch that she ducks under, the headlock being the most obvious move.

She launches herself on his back, arm wrapped around his neck.

Clint tries to peel her off, without success. She tucks in tighter.

He feels breathless.

Two quick taps should let go, but when they don’t Clint panics.

He throws his head back.

He knows he catches her on her jaw, her grip loosens minimally.

Clint uses it to get a hand underneath her arm, and throws his body back, landing on top of her.

Coulson looks up at the shaking of the mat.

Still she doesn’t let go.

Clint reaches up and pulls her hair.

It seems to shock Natasha and she bites his arm.

He growls, punching her in the face.

It’s only when her head ricochets off the floor that he thinks it may have been too hard.

He cringes.

She rounds on him, moving from underneath him to on top of him.

In any other setting it would look intimate.

Clint’s arms come up to protect his face she punches down, he tries to catch one, as wild arms reign down punches.

He sees Coulson over the top of them, pulling her off him.

She flails.

A scream of frustration breaking from her lips.

“Stop.”

Coulson’s words come with such finality, it breaks through Natasha’s madness.

She seems to go slightly limp, pushing him off her, breathing heavily.

Coulson backs up, looking at Clint.

Clint nods.

Clint pushes himself up.

He chooses not to comment, his face smarting.

Turning his back on her, he grabs two drink bottles and an ice pack, and throws one to her.

He offers the ice pack, which she declines, even though he can see the start of a bruise on her cheek and swelling under her eye

“What was that?”

She stays silent.

Annoyed at his own bruises forming, he asks again.

“I know I said no crotch shots, but wasn’t expecting to be bitten.”

He examines the teeth mark in his arm.

He wonders if she’s dissociated, because her eyes still aren’t focussing.

“Natasha.”

He says her name loudly.

Her attention draws to Coulson.

Coulson looks from Clint to Natasha.

He stands on the edge of the mat.

“Go again,” he says.

“But when I say stop, you stop.”

Clint frowns, putting down the ice pack and drink bottle.

“Do you want to fight me or Clint?” he asks.

Natasha clenches her jaw, lets it go and looks to Clint.

“Fine.”

He turns to Clint.

“Are you ready?”

Not wanting to lose face, Clint nods, he wonders what Coulson is playing at.

He can feel bruises starting to form, but it seems to fall away as another round starts.

Natasha moves quickly on the balls of her feet, the first strike is quick but so is Clint’s response.

Two steps and a punch has her on the floor; and a leg sweep sends him down with her.

Scrambling so she doesn’t mount him again, Clint kicks across and stands.

Natasha reaches out to grab his wrist.

She falters slightly, and then makes like she wants to put him into a arm bar.

“Stop,” Coulson says and Clint steps back.

Natasha disengages.

“Better,” Coulson admonishes.

“You have a two minutes rest.”

Breathing heavily, Natasha squats.

She feels so deconditioned, and hates that her speed is decreased and body feels slow.

Clint matches her and Coulson sees it.

She should be the best, born to be the best.

The frustration at her body makes her wonder if she was back on the Red Room if she would be dead.

The two minutes finishes before she’s fully recovered.

Clint stretches.

The next round starts.

Tactics flow through her mind. She’s good at this. If nothing else, she can fight.

Natasha pushes and then with open hands she pushes him, tripping him and rolling with him.

Coulson lets the fight continue, watching carefully, when either Natasha or Clint go too far, he stops it with a commanding voice.

Round after round, they continue.

Sweat pours off both of them.

They’re tired, messy and it feels they’ve been going on forever.

Her muscles scream and bruises litter both their bodies.

“Last round,” Coulson says.

Clint nods, his chest heaving.

Natasha wipes sweat from her face.

The fight is short.

Punches are wild and kicks are messy.

It’s not pretty.

Coulson stops it as Clint gets Natasha into a rear choke, but she won’t tap. She sees stars but doesn’t care.

The pressure lessens and the both roll off each other on the floor, breathing heavily.

Coulson rolls both their drink bottles over to them, and nods.

“Same time in two days, you’ve both got lazy with too many debriefs and sitting down.”

Neither have the energy to dispute it.

.

Chapter Text

Olivia waits.

She itches the scar on her elbow absentmindedly.

She feels her guard go up as Natasha enters; the woman still handcuffed as they go through the rigmarole of uncuffing her and then sitting in silence.

Natasha doesn’t look at her.

Sharp eyes stare straight ahead.

They both know what’s coming.

“What do you want?” She opens, knowing the question will provoke her.

It’s not the point of the exercise.

The woman is barely holding it together, anyone who looks closely enough can see it.

They just have to want to.

No one in Shield has Natasha’s best interests in mind.

All they want is her information; her intelligence.

Olivia knows how it feels to be a defector.

The world is against her.

Natasha has to want to choose something for herself.

She knows this.

She wants Natasha to make a choice, any choice for herself.

Natasha looks down at her hands, no words coming.

Olivia waits.

The dissociation that comes with asking hard, self reflecting questions is written on Natasha’s face.

She knows how it is; not being able to think straight.

She wonders how much to push today, how much to disclose and what to focus on.

With no answer forthcoming, she side steps.

“If I were to ask you, how you are, what would you say?”

Eyes look away, glancing at the time.

“Fine.”

The answer is curt.

“Have you been sleeping?”

“Yes.”

“Liar.”

Natasha shifts in her seat.

“And if I were to ask you to pretend to be me, and tell me how you seem, what would you say?”

Natasha is quiet.

“I don’t know.”

Olivia pauses.

Natasha watches her closely.

“Do you ever get tired, of fighting the old you? The you that’s stuck in the Red Room, controlled by someone else?”

Natasha looks taken aback, defensive and angry at the statement but Olivia continues anyway.

“I can see it, I see how hard you’re fighting, neither the old you or this version of yourself succeeding; I can see how exhausted you are.”

The room is so quiet.

Natasha’s eyes are intent, breathing shallowly, waiting the next blow of words.

“You made the decisions to put yourself here. So answer me.”

The next words are punctuated.

“What do you want?”

Natasha feels that she could say something profound, something about wanting to live or to be able to take back her life.

But she can’t decide that yet. She hasn’t decided that yet.

Life has a funny way of deciding things for her and she sits passive on the wave.

Natasha glances up.

Eyes locking onto the scar on her arm, so many things fit into place.

“How did you get out?”

Olivia smiles.

She’d wondered if Natasha knew and how long it would take her to ask.

She straightens her arm.

The mark of her first kill, still present even after all these years. She dug in too hard with her knife, the self loathing in that moment providing a mark for life.

“For every breakdown, there’s a breakthrough. I would like to say that it was easy. That I did it myself, but we both know that’s a lie. People died to get me out. I wasn’t sure if it was what I wanted but I couldn’t dishonour their sacrifice. For a long time, I looked like you do now. Scared and tired. Like the world just needs to stop to get your bearings.”

Olivia takes a sip of her water, aware of the eyes that watch her every movement now, that analyse her being.

“But it does get better.”

She looks at Natasha, her gaze fierce until Natasha cannot hold the intensity.

Fingers clench and release and Olivia models a breath.

“I can tell you the story, but first,” she pauses.

“Tell me something you want.”

“I want to know how Maria knew my birthday,” she whispers, looking up and expecting the woman to be laughing at her.

The conversation that had occurred all those months ago, still plays in Natasha’s mind. The insinuation that someone knew more about herself than she did, made nights sleepless and haunting. She hated Maria for it, and Shield in turn.

After all they had given her, she wanted something for it; even though she had no rights to ask.

Olivia looks at her seriously, there’s no hint of a laugh or a smile.

“Good Natasha. That’s good.”

And the praise feels like a calming balm, honeyed words that rip into her.

Natasha pushes the feelings aside, and stares expectantly at her, wanting the story she’d promised.

Olivia glances at the time.

“I was on a mission to Salta. Argentina is everything you expect it to be, beautiful and if you know the underworld, dangerous.”

Like all widows, Olivia knows how to tell a story.

Natasha reflects on it momentarily before getting lost in the thoughts and feelings of the words that emanate.

She wonders if they all know how, because of the necessity of stories in the Red Room, or because it’s the only way to pass the time.

She redirects her attention, back to the present and not to the image of the girls in her dormitory sitting hands cuffed on their beds telling ghost stories about the monsters in the basement that would eat little girls.

“It was my first mission without handlers, and I got captured.”

Natasha’s heart sinks.

“I escaped, of course, a filed down spoon slices throats just as easily as a knife if you know how to use it. But,”

Olivia sighs, “they didn’t believe that I didn’t give anything up. In those days, the Red Room was still a secret. I was … retired.”

The memory of the pain of hot irons on the soles of her feet makes her swallow.

“After everything: they didn’t trust me. So they had another use for me. Widows, when retired, were forced to have children, to start the next generations of Widows. This was, of course, before they realised that women and girls were more easily trafficked than spending money on maternal health care, if they wanted them to live.”

Olivia frowns, knowing she’s speaking too much.

“Salta taught me two things. One; the way I was raised was not normal. It should be obvious, but sometimes stating that out loud helped, and two, I didn’t want to be that person; I didn’t want to be their killer and certainly not… that.”

The implications of reproductive coercion was something Olivia had nightmares about. Even after all these years.

“So, I found a way out. I killed and maimed to do it. I lived in limbo, until I found someone who I could trust, and they bought me here.”

She takes a breath and looks at Natasha.

It’s simplistic.

Natasha hates her for not telling her the whole story.

The growing pangs of hunger for information just starting to take seeds as she realises the implications of Olivia being a Black Widow. 

The things she could ask, the answers she could get.

Breathing stops as her mind moves a thousand miles a minute.

What does she want?

She wants to know more. She wants a real answer to her question.

Natasha feels herself lean back, unaware that her posture had leaned forward to hear all the information.

“I’ll answer your questions Natasha, but don’t ask me about this again.”

There’s a pause.

“I agreed to be your psychiatrist because of shared life experience, but I understand that if this blurs lines. If you do not want me to be your therapist, you can tell Clint, and he’ll sort out another for you.”

Olivia’s pragmatics takes Natasha a minute to sort through.

It’s the contrary of what she’s saying. If anyone understands her here, it’s the woman sitting in front of her.

The rooms silence does not feel uncomfortable.

“Maria knows your birthday because Shield has a dossier on you.”

Natasha knows this, she’d deduced it herself.

“The information they have is from a bug I’d placed in the systems of the red room. There’s a dossier on all the girls. The bug is dead now, the information outdated, but perhaps, if we can get you cleared, you can give us updates on some of the other girls.”

Natasha eyes widen.

Her chest constricts as she thinks of Yelena.

In that one moment, she pushes the thought away, the pain hitting her chest and making her even more breathless.

She’s dead.

She couldn’t survive the atrocities of the red room, nor would she have wanted her too.

She nods, remembering to breathe.

“Yes,” she replies slowly, “I want that.”

Olivia writes something on a post it note.

“What else?”

Natasha is truthful in her reply, wondering what it will cost her.

“I want to help.”

.

Fury stares; his face unreadable.

“She was going to find out eventually,” Olivia argues.

“By giving her a purpose, you’re helping her become something more than an informant, you’re helping her to become someone who could, in theory, become your greatest asset.”

Angrily, she continues.

“It’s not just about purpose, yes, she has purpose for you, whilst she’s feeding you information, but what happens when that information runs out? What then? Are you just going to let her rot in a cell? Even you can see the waste in that.”

Olivia calms herself, resets and looks him in his eye.

“What do you foresee happening? What does Thompson or the World Security Council see happening? You brought her here because Barton couldn’t kill her and saw promise of a defector that could do more for us than just die. You agreed to let her live and use Shield resources because of the abundance of information - she’s help up her end - and at cost to her, do you know just how much?”

Olivia is angry, Fury starts talking but she’s not done.

“You don’t know, you can’t know, just how hard she must have fought to reveal information. Words like that in the Red Room… to speak so freely… she would have been tortured; I think she expects to be, probably still waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

Olivia waits and Fury raises an eyebrow.

“Are you done?” he asks, voice low.

“I knew she would find out eventually, or that you would tell her. I think we all knew. I don’t disagree with you, the timelines though, are not ideal.”

He looks at her in thought.

“Design a mission for her. One that will give us our answers of if she has truly defected or not. Design it so there is no doubt that she is on our side. Then, and only then can we start training her like one of our own, trusting her, like we trust you.”

The words hold meaning.

Shield has never fully trusted her.

She laughs in derision but nods anyway.

She thinks she knows what Natasha wants, she wants a reason to keep fighting. A reason to keep going that doesn’t leave her empty when she’s done.

Barton had started all this.

“Fine, but Barton is allowed to go with her.”

The manipulation starts slow, slow enough that she knows Fury won’t catch it until he’s deep in her web. He’ll hate her for it, but she can’t find it within herself to care.

She leans back on the chair, and Fury nods curtly.

“Fine.”

Olivia sits for a moment before standing.

“Don’t fail,” he tells her as she walks out the door.

“We never do,” replies the Widow, lost in her own thoughts.

.

Chapter Text

Natasha lays with her wrist cuffed to the bed.

As far as things had gone, the day, was a good one.

The promise of leaving the compound gave her something to look forward to, amongst the ever changing landscape, and muted feelings, she recognised a good thing when she saw it.

If approved, she could be going to Romania, to see an old friend. It had been years.

Eyes closed, Natasha breathes deeply, focusing on sucking in and expelling breaths. 

She didn’t understand, why she just felt so heavy, every action costing immeasurable effort, that even climbing into bed, felt like a chore.

There’s so much that has happened the last week.

Olivia.

Missions.

Debrief.

Three months at Shield, and she was only just seeing it for what it was.

Even then, it was all just the tip of the iceberg, of that she was sure.

Breathing evenly, she recounts the day, hoping that nightmares don’t persist and for once she’ll get a good night sleep.

Eyes closed, she recounts the mission, the day and all the week had help, drifting into an uneasy sleep.

.

Gagged in a chair, she feels hot breath on her ear.

She suppresses the shudder but barely.

Her face impassive, the rope that loops around her neck tightens as she moves her arms.

“Fun, isn’t it?”

The man smiles, coming round to face her.

“Get out of that.”

Natasha can’t move her arms without choking herself, and it feels like cause.

Her whole body hurts.

Fingers wiggle, but that’s about all the movement she has.

It feels hopeless.

She feels so sore, so sorry for herself that all she wants to do it give up.

.

Natasha wakes with a gasp.

First touching her throat then her lips, she takes a breath.

Another night.

Another nightmare.

So many old memories and old wounds brought to the surface, she couldn’t keep up.

At least she didn’t throw up.

Closing her eyes, she knows only an hour has passed.

She unlocks the handcuff and pulls it off her wrist.

She has so many hours to go.

She knows she needs sleep.

It just feels so unappealing.

She tries to erase the bomb maker from her mind and all his tests, and counts her breathing in hopes it works.

.

Clint yawns.

His computer on, he glances quickly at Natasha’s cameras, and watches her sit in the middle of the room in a yoga pose, soles of her feet together.

His coffee isn’t strong enough.

Her despondency is taxing.

He takes a sip.

He didn’t sleep.

Not after the imagery of yesterdays debrief as he sees Natasha being choked, spat on and forced to break her own hand in order to accomplish a mission for the KGB.

“It’s fine,” she had said, “I was used to it, and I was the best.”

It being hired out by the Red Room for other missions. 

The hint of pride at accomplishing her mission had made him feel like hitting something.

She’d asked why they had been talking about Oleg, the arms dealer, and Clint had considered the question. They always seemed to walk the fine line of telling her things and putting truths in omissions.

Sitting across from each other he handed her a file.

The man had been in prison now he was not; and whilst times had changed, he continued to make and sell bombs without impunity.

Now out of prison, Olivia had presented a mission.

With Natasha, they could continue the Red Room ruse, have her talk terms of his current projects.

Olivia has argued that it would put Natasha in a situation where she would need to play both sides and prove loyalty.

Natasha rebutted this, arguing that she had done that by killing Dreykov.

She had conceded though, after reading through the mission debrief, especially when it dawned on her that she would be allowed to leave.

Clint swallows, remembering how their last mission together went, as they took the life of Dreykov’s daughter.

He needs a break.

Constant worry of her survival was wearing on him.

He promised safety and a new life and all he’d given her was this. Cages and reliving trauma.

He thinks of it often.

The shooting range could only do so much, and his energy was limited these days.

He sips his coffee.

Opening his emails, both Fury and Olivia have emailed and he sighs heavily.

Missions approved, it reads.

He stands to tell Natasha the news.

He wonders when his life will go back to normal.

.

He runs his hands though his hair as he passes Sharon and asks her some questions.

There’s still murmurs of derision when it comes to Natasha, but, she states, it’s calmed for now.

Gossip had decreased and there was other things for Shield to talk on.

Clint is glad. He doesn’t think he could cope with yet another thing.

The starkness of the cell always saddens Clint.

Not that she would be allowed much, and not that they had given her much, but it was so impersonal and cold.

She’s been here for just over 3 months and the lack of personal effects in a space that is supposed to be her own, makes him sad.

She still has his watch.

He’d let it go, made it a point that he had another one.

He likes to think it helps her.

The handcuffs too, he’d let her keep.

Natasha stands looking at him.

He thinks she’s lost weight.

She has his watch on her wrist and the cuffs in her hand, and Clint looks around to find no traces of her with in the room. It’s stark and minimalist and agrees with Olivia that something needs to change.

“It’s been approved,” he tells her.

Natasha’s face is grim.

“When do we leave?”

.

Oleg looks old, Natasha thinks, watching him eat.

His face aged and scarred, the hair loss marked since she saw him last.

There’s a hatred that’s in her body, long dormant and curled for revenge.

She’s going to kill him, even if that’s not in the mission parameters.

If they’re going to test her, she’s going to test them too. Let them see what the real black widow is; not this traumatised quim, of what she’s become.

If there’s any time for it, now it is.

Killing Dreykov allowed her entry.

Maybe, killing Oleg will support her in moving forward.

She wants to be alone, it’s been so long since she was truly alone without someone watching, and the loneliness it invokes is starting to get to her.

The boat just off the coast of Sulina was more like a passenger ferry. It was big enough that he could be thrown easily from the stern and just maybe have the rotary blades dispose of him further.

Get out of that, she thinks.

She’d left a message with the wait staff to give him a note, signed by her, and she watches as it gets delivered.

He puts on glasses and his face morphs to a smile.

Maybe she had laid it on too thick.

Natasha adjusts her dress, knives in her hair ready, but the dress really left nothing to the imagination.

“He’ll be here in five minutes or less,” she tells the ear piece.

Clint’s voice returns.

“We have you, we want to know about Ukraine and Paris and if you can, see if you can ask about…”

“I know,” she growls. “I know.”

 Clint is quiet.

The comms switch and Oleg approaches, holding up his hand for her to take it.

“Natalia!” he croons, using Dreykov’s pet name for her.

“What a wonderful surprise!”

He pauses as she smiles, the evening air filtering his aftershave that makes he remember the rope around her throat.

“Under new management? First the FSB, then the Red Room, what do the KGB have to say for themselves? Have they been good masters?”

Natasha kisses his ring, the customary greeting and continues to regard him with a smile.

She’s glad she has knives.

“Not as good as the old days, Oleg.”

The answer seems to please him, and she motions for them to sit on the bench to her right.

“You’re right Natalia, those were the days, when you were younger and I was at my prime.”

She thinks she hears Clint growl.

Ignoring the words, she hands him a diamond.

“They need some help,” she starts, wondering how to compose her words.

He nods and takes it.

“But first they need some information.”

She hands over another diamond, and he takes that enthusiastically as well.

Natasha holds up a third, but waits.

He eyes it, looking down at his other two.

“Of course,” he starts, “what do they want to know?”

He puts a hand on her leg, and Natasha turns her body into him.

Her skin feels hot under his hand and she hates her body for reacting to it; that in her loneliness unwanted touch is touch all the same.

She asks first about Ukraine, and he confirms information that Shield seems to already know, Clint just clarifying a few details.

She hands him another diamond.

“Tell me, Natalia, how has the transition to another master been?”

Natasha’s face flushes, she hopes he’s alluding to the KGB but she fears he’s not.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, a little voice tells her to run.

“Not as easy as I’d hoped,” she manages, “tell me about Paris?”

He smiles in a somewhat kind way, moving his hand away.

“Ah Paris. Do you know the outskirts of Goussainville? The cemetery?”

She laughs.

“You didn’t?”

He smiles.

“I did.”

The small joke that she understands is clearly lost on Clint, the question of what it means coming through.

“They can find it there, but if they take it, the cost will be more than this.”

He holds up the diamonds and offers his pudgy hand for more.

They’re cut off by his phone ringing, and she allows him to move away, his position close to the edge of the boat is more tenuous and she likes the angle.

Edging to the side of the seat, Oleg frowns and gives her a quick glance.

It could mean nothing.

She decides against it.

It never means nothing.

Natasha stands as Oleg finishes his phone call.

“Did you also want to know about Budapest? What else have you told the Americans Natalia? Did you know in the organisation, they’re all working for us? You have the same masters, just under a new name.”

Natasha’s stomach drops.

There’s a mole in shield.

It’s all Natasha needs to know she’s been compromised. The knife that comes out of her hair as as quick as the gun he pulls from his jacket.

She’s just faster.

The knife slices into his side, and then in quick succession, her hand becomes quickly bloody, a look of shock, and anger crossing his face as he spits blood onto her.

She takes a certain amount of pleasure pushing him overboard.

In his last breaths he grabs at the knife and pushes it back against her, slicing at the top of her hand.

Pushing him back, he makes a loud splash, and the cacophony in her ears become startling.

.

Chapter Text

There’s a vastness to the Red Room that all the girls know. The cavernous halls ring with their foot steps as they’re lined up and marched from one end to the other.

From drills, to ballet, to weapons training; their lives are planned and ordered.

Natasha loves it and hates it.

Days that pass as they’re supposed to seem the easiest, morning exercises followed by breakfast, then weapons and hand to hand combat followed by lunch, then lessons and languages leading into dinner.

It’s often easy and fun.

There are days though, like today, that anxiety rolls through the halls and the world seems and feels different.

The guards don’t look at them.

Their weapons masters are on edge and more harsh than usual and, there’s more people around.

It’s Ioanna that whispers it into existence, the feelings of apprehension.

She comments on the differences, her insight unnerving.

Katerina tells her to shut up and Natasha watches them both.

Natasha notices it too. There’s a sense of unease.

Lunch is a sorry affair.

A piece of bread and two small potatoes.

They’re made to eat quickly, the bell sounding thought the hall for them to finish and like up.

Twenty four girls in four lines of six.

Natasha expects them to head into languages.

That’s what’s supposed to happen next, but as they marches deeper into the Red Room, she feels the dread that Ioanna voiced and follows the others into the bowels of compound.

.

Snow White plays for the third time, this time in French. The opening scenes with the castle on the hill makes Natasha think of the Red Room and she ascribes places she knows to the different rooms in the castle.

The queen approaches the talking mirror and Natasha tries not to move her body.

She recites the words with the other girls, this time trying to perfect her French accent, as the words move across the screen.

The stress positions that they’ve all been in for the last three hours hurt every muscle, as they’re supposed to.

The reprieve of staring and reciting at the televisions helpful.

She wonders just how long they’re going to be made to stay on their knees, even as, for the third time, the movie plays.

Dreykov prowls the rows of four, stopping in front of Natasha and looking down at her.

She looks straight ahead, avoiding his gaze as the queen talks to the mirror.

Watching he bangs his cane three times on the floor and she steadfastly schools her body not to flinch.

“Someone has been stealing from us,” Dreykov starts, talking over the girls.

“Tell us who, and this can stop.”

None of the girls move.

They all know it’s Ioanna.

The girl worried about food since the two winters gone when they were all starved out in the plains of Siberia.

They had been given a choice, catch food, survive off the land or… die.

Ioanna had killed the two other girls she was with, for their food and had come back changed.

Natasha understood but despised her.

She was smart and cunning and made a good widow, but she was also mean.

Natasha tolerated her, stayed friends with her for obvious reasons, and didn’t make her feelings known but the girl filled her with unease.

She didn’t like people who were mean.

She understood how she got there, and how the trials of the Red Room changed a person, but she also understood better than anyone, that to stay true to yourself was the greatest feat.

To not let them change you.

For Ioanna, they had changed her, they had made her someone cruel.

Natasha had no other way to describe it.

She knew why they wanted her; Ioanna would have ways of bribing guards to get what she wanted, he probably wanted to know which of his guards were dirty.

Dreykov moves to the next girl.

If this was a test, another test to see who could be trusted, then Natasha knew not to say anything.

If they talked, they lost.

If they didn’t, they lost.

It seemed that all the girls felt the same because no one looked away, no one said anything, and the movie continued.

.

Sweat dripped into Natasha’s eyes.

Six hours.

It was worse than the repetitive ballet exercises.

She was tired and hungry and still they remained immobile.

Katerina was the first to move, adjusting her position, she had been hauled up.

Natasha’s not sure why, maybe the first to move were deemed as weaker.

Taken to the front of the room where Snow White was still playing, this time in English, she was tied by her wrists on a hook.

They’d asked her questions.

Who was taking food from the pantries.

Who was stealing other contraband.

Natasha had tried to stare doggedly at the screens, continuing to speak the words in English, ignoring Katerina’s shouts and groans as they hit her.

Still she says nothing.

Natasha wants to tell them it was Ioanna.

She wouldn’t feel bad, condemning her to the fate of the guards.

One particularly vicious punch, and Katerina goes quiet.

Natasha’s not sure if dead or knocked out, and still alongside the other girls she recites the words.

Another hour and their back to French.

Natasha’s bones scream in pain.

Two more girls drop.

Ioanna is the forth.

They string her up and the other two girls look at her accusingly.

Natasha feels hungry.

She thinks it was by design feeding them so little and then leading them down to here.

She feels the sweat drop down her back as every muscle screams at her to break positions.

One of the girls break.

She screams that it’s Ioanna and that she’s the one that’s been hoarding food and talking to the guards.

One of the girls near Natasha stops reciting; the French words failing her as a gun is produced.

Things seem to escalate and Natasha feels scared.

It overrides all the feelings of her body and makes her stomach flip uncomfortably. She wants to leave this room and never return. None of them will steal now. Of that she’s sure.

The lesson is learnt.

Ioanna tries to refute it.

Tries to explain.

But the words are not enough.

The girls tied next to her gives away her hiding spot, they’re removed from the hanging hooks and made to stand at attention.

They tells the girls to show them, and Ioanna looks scared.

Natasha swallows.

She doesn’t feel sorry for her.

The girl is mean, angry and has bullied Natasha more than once.

She’s not sure that means she deserves to die though.

The girls return with food from Ioanna’s stash.

Everyone is on edge.

“Stand,” comes the command as Snow White is turned off.

The girls stop speaking, words that were on their lips lost.

Natasha finds she can’t.

She’s not alone, her legs dead from being in the Sam position, she panics and tries again.

The guards on her left, smirk in amusement but for Natasha, it doesn’t feel funny.

“Wiggle your toe,” one of the girl says quietly, “start there.”

And Natasha does.

It feels like a lifetime but she gets stiff, tired legs underneath her and stands.

They’re lined up.

Three lines of six and one line of five.

Ioanna still hanging as Natasha takes one final look at her.

She doesn’t feel sorry for her.

She just feels sad.

.

The girls in the red room tell stories.

Little ones that give them hope.

To help them make sense of the world that is so confusing at the best of times. 

Natasha knows that she’s one the better ones, but no one tops Irina. Everyone hangs onto her every word.

Irina sits on her bed. The events of the day leaving them harrowed and tired.

No one feels like sleeping, Ioanna’s bed is still empty. They don’t have hope she will return.

The guards finish their last round, and Irina smiles.

She reaches into her pillow case and pulls out some biscuits.

Natasha looks on, her stomach rumbling as they pass them around.

“Who wants to hear a story?”

.

Chapter Text

“Clint open the fucking door,” Maria groans.

“I have coffee, the good kind.”

She holds it up like he’s able to see through walls, but she hopes at the very least the wafting smell of the coffee will permeate the door.

“Come on,” she groans, “don’t make me pick the lock. Remember what happened last time? The locksmith didn’t come for a week.”

She waits, hopeful he’s going to come, and that she won’t find him still asleep, naked, as she had so many times before.

“You have thirty seconds, then I’m coming in,” she tells the door.

The takeaway she holds in one hand, moves to the other, as she prepares to find the key he gave her. She’s sure it’s somewhere in her wallet.

It takes another minute before she finds it, but as she goes to put it in, the door opens.

“Were you just waiting until I found the key?” she asks, annoyed, pushing the food into him.

He takes it and doesn’t say anything, letting her close the door behind them.

“Clint, it stinks in here, have you ever thought of opening a window?”

He shrugs, and she opens one without awaiting permission, the heavy smell of sweat and humidity surrounding them.

Clint takes the coffee first, the. opens the food, and pulls out a hash brown, eating it quickly before opening the pancakes she knows he likes.

Even if he doesn’t eat anything else, she knows he’ll eat those.

“Want some?” he asks, mouth full, holding up a folded pancake dripping in syrup.

She shakes her head absentmindedly, looking around at the mess of his apartment.

Maria loves her friend. She wonders sometimes, what he could have aspired to if not for all the childhood trauma.

His intelligence was off the chart, only let down by things he had no experience in, and though she’d seen him do calculations in his head that would baffle half of shield, he couldn’t work out how to keep his apartment in order.

“It’s a different skill,” Clint mumbles, still working his way through the pancake, reading her mind.

“I do what I can when I can.”

She rolls up her sleeves, and starts with the dishes.

“You don’t have to do that,” he tells her, a look of embarrassment and guilt on his face.

“No, I know, do you care?”

Clint shrugs and turns his attention back to the food.

“Have you eaten?” he asks.

Maria nods.

“What am I talking about, you’ve been up since 5, right?”

Finding a clean sponge, she fills the sink with soapy water and starts to dunk the dishes in.

Dumping rubbish in a garbage bag, she throws it to Clint, and gestures around.

“You do that,” she orders.

“We have some things to talk about.”

Glancing at the time, 10:10, Maria lets Clint order himself, then get showered and changed whilst she finishes the kitchen.

Feeling better that he’s not living in a mess, she waits on his couch, and turns on the television, switching until she’s finds some cartoons; not wanting to see the news that shows such a watered down version of the world.

She waits and pulls out the mission report he’d written, the death of Oleg and the return journey home where Natasha had not talked at all, had her worried.

She re-reads the report, wondering what Clint had omitted.

“There’s a mole in shield.”

His voice is serious.

Tired eyes look at her as he towel dries his hair, taking another sip of his coffee, and sits next to her.

“There’s a mole in shield, and I think we’ve been suspecting it for a while but I’ve never had anything concrete. After the mission,” he gestures to the papers, “when he was dead and we were on his way back, Natasha said that he knew about Budapest, she said that he said that “they’re all the same master”. Natasha hasn’t talked in a couple of days, not since we’ve returned.”

Maria nods.

“You have the mission debrief and the earbuds on record too right?”

Clint nods and looks around.  He had to hand them in, all the things that Oleg had said, and Natasha’s responses were all recorded.

“I know, there’s a mole in shield and I think it’s Thompson.”

Maria stands staring at him.

“Clint, that’s the director you’re talking about,” she warns.

“I know, but it’s the only thing that makes sense.”

He passes her the bag of rubbish, and she puts it in the bin.

“Thanks,” he nods, looking at the kitchen.

“Clint, the director can’t be dirty. He’s… the director. If we don’t trust him…”

“Then who can we trust?” Clint finishes, looking at Maria, his face serious.

“Yeah,” she sighs.

Opening the folder, she sighs.

“Talk me through it.”

.

Coulson stares at both of them.

“Thompson.”

“Sir,” Clint starts.

“We have some evidence,” Maria says at the same time.

He puts his hand up.

“Do you trust Fury to be here?”

Clint looks at Maria. 

“I think so,” he shrugs.

“Fine.”

It takes a minute for Fury to come in. His eye stares at them, the never unfurling frown seems to deepen as Clint hands him the documents and Maria talks him through the evidence.

“And Natasha, how does she fit in?”

Clint doesn’t know how to answer, feeling guilt that he hadn’t seen her in three days.

“We think he put a hit on her, so that this information couldn’t be found out.”

“Do you think she’s still in danger?”

Clint nods.

“There’s a new recruit, Sharon, she’s been helping, she seems to know about the goings on of the basement. She’s been keeping us updated when she can of people trying to get downstairs when… they shouldn’t.”

“How many?”

“You’ve been putting them on assignment,” Clint says, chagrinned.

Fury’s frown deepens.

“About one a month, but it’s stopped the last month, we aren’t sure why.”

“Thompson.”

The statement seems to be filled with anger.

“What now?” Clint asks.

Coulson looks to Fury.

“World Security Council?”

Fury shakes his head.

“We don’t have enough.”

“Olivia set it up to prove that Natasha was loyal,” he says, thinking out loud.

“Get her.”

Maria leaves straight away.

It takes another twenty minutes before they return.

Olivia looks as she always does, even faced.

“How did you know?” Fury asks.

“That the head of shield was dirty?”

“He’s had an interest in Natasha, and I couldn’t understand why. I think he wanted to know how deep her information ran. He let it go, for a time, used the documentation that I had and your debriefs,” she nods at Clint and Maria.

“I had questions, he couldn’t answer them.”

“So i did my own research.”

Olivia sits, the only one to do so.

“This doesn’t leave this room,” Fury starts, “I’ll take the informations to the WSC but it may just backfire on us. He may still try and go after Natasha, not for information, but to stop her from telling us what she knows, to reduce the fallout.”

Olivia nods.

“I can send a lot of those I think are dirty, don’t post them with her.”

Clint feels it’s lucky to have a former widow on their side. He wants Natasha to have the same opportunities.

He can feel change in the air.

He doesn’t like it.

Maria leaves first, her face one of hard lines.

Coulson next, even though it’s his office.

Then Fury.

Finally Olivia is left with Clint.

“You knew, and this was the opportunity to begin this chain of events,” he states.

“Yes.”

His anger swells.

“So you used her as bait, and used her information as evidence.”

“Yes.”

Clint’s face upturns.

“Do you care about her at all?”

Olivia looks at Clint and raises her eyebrows.

“I think the better question is what are your feelings for her.”

Clint doesn’t have an answer for that.

“Why did you leave the handcuffs with her? And your watch?”

Clint looks down at his hands.

“She told me she couldn’t sleep without the handcuffs.”

He looks at her hands, “do you use handcuffs?”

Olivia suppresses a laugh.

“No, not anymore.”

“And the watch?”

“Time is meaningless if you have no way to count it,” he shrugs.

Olivia takes a breath.

“Natasha is the third widow here. Did you know that?”

Clint shakes his head, trying not to look shocked.

“I was the first. Fury was the one that offered me… freedom of a sense. After sentencing, they realised that I was better helping and not locked up. Psychological warfare was.. Is, what I am good at and they knew it. The missions I designed worked better than their own, so they used me where they could. The second girl. Martha. She was… unstable. They thought that she would be like me. Usable. But she was too…”

Olivia leaves the thought hanging.

“She shot herself.”

Clint shifts.

The heaviness of the conversation making him sit.

“I told Fury, that if another widow came, I would be the one to help her. He agreed.”

Olivia closes her eyes for a moment, then, brown eyes fix on Clint.

“She’s not a puppy to be broken in. She is as broken as they come. I don’t think you understand the extent. So I’ll just warn you this once. Proceed with caution Clint. Widows are dangerous to themselves and others.”

Clint doesn’t know what to do with the information.

“Like you,” he retorts.

“Like me, but unlike me, she has years of deprogramming ahead of her. Why do you think we start with debriefing?”

Clint had just thought it was protocol. His stomach drops. He doesn’t want her to die.

“Do you think she’s at risk? Of…”

“Killing herself?”

Olivia ponders the question.

“No, I don’t think so, but it’s not out of the question.”

“More than likely she’s passively suicidal because she doesn’t know what her mission is, her duty is gone, the reason behind her trauma is replaced with something else and that loss can do things to a person.”

Clint doesn’t know what to say. He wants to help and run away at the same time.

“How do I… help?”

Olivia laughs out loud, it’s not unkind.

“Slowly. Are you prepared for that? By setting her free you set in motion a series of events that probably even you can foresee. I think it was a good choice, Clint. I think you are brave in choosing her, but I also think that there are consequences for our actions for our choices. Are you prepared for that?”

Clint wants to say yes, but the hesitation gives him away. He shrugs.

“I don’t know,” he replies honestly.

“Then I’ll ask you the same question I’ve been asking Natasha. What do you want?”

.