Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It's true, Clint's never been one for following orders. His only training was received at a circus, so it wasn't exactly formal. And Barton takes pride in the fact that unlike most other spies and agents, he thinks for himself, and doesn't just blindly do as he is told. It is for this very reason that he so readily takes on the Black Widow assignment. While he never takes kill orders lightly, this has been one of the more simple choices for him to accept. After all, Natalia Romanova is known as a very cold-hearted Russian spy who always follows orders, and never seems to care who she takes out in the process. She has killed innocents, and for that, she needs to be stopped.

Yet Clint can't help but have a grudging respect for her. He was given her kill order two weeks ago, and it's taken him this long to find her, longer than any target before. Now, watching her walk the streets of Paris from a rooftop, he can't help but wonder about her. For someone he's targeting, he knows surprisingly little about her. It's not like S.H.I.E.L.D. neglected to tell him. They just don't have very much on her. There is record of a Natalia Romanova living in Russia as a child, but after her family's house burnt down when she was five years old, the entire family was reported dead.

And then she resurfaced eight years later as an apparently mindless, soulless killing machine going by the name of the Black Widow. Since then, it took her only a few years to get on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar. They'd already sent one agent to kill her, but he'd been compromised and killed, and she'd disappeared. When she'd finally reappeared on the map, Fury had come directly to Clint, and now here he is, watching the small red-headed woman turn the corner of a street where several drunk men are just leaving a bar. It's late, and there's no one else around to see. The men approach the Widow, and begin to harass her.

Clint momentarily contemplates waiting to see if they finish her off for him. After all, she's just going back to her base after a strenuously completed mission, and is quite clearly not in top condition. But no matter what this woman has done, Clint knows that he at least owes her a clean death. No one deserves what these men have in mind. So he strings his bow, and takes aim, alternating between his target and the people harassing her. The drunken leader makes a grab for her, and suddenly she's moving before Clint can choose. The Black Widow twists her attacker's arm, swings her body around to wrap her thighs around his neck, and throws him to the ground.

The other men converge on her, and now she's moving far too fast for Clint to really tell what's happening. What he can tell is that she's wiping the floor with these guys. And to be honest, he's impressed. He knows he should have expected as much, with her reputation, but she's small and tired and in pain and far outnumbered. And yet not once does she reach for any weapons, though he knows she has several. But then suddenly, one of the larger men gets in a lucky hit, but it's enough to send her to the ground, and before she can react, the men are all over her, tearing at her dress. And now Clint finds himself taking definitive aim at the men assaulting her.

She breaks free before he can release an arrow, and this time, the man whose neck she wraps her thighs around is not as lucky as the first one. Clint can hear his neck snap from his spot on the roof. Now she does bring out a weapon. A knife, as guns would surely make too much noise for her purposes. It's over in seconds, and Clint finds himself relieved that he's a long-distance shooter, because he's pretty sure he wouldn't stand a chance in hand-to-hand combat with this woman. Now she is standing within a circle of dead men, blood pooling at her feet. She hardly seems affected by any of it, and Clint knows that this is his chance. But he can't do it just yet, he wants to know a little more, wants to watch her just a little longer. He's not quite sure why, but he can probably attribute it to her beauty, and her mystery, and her astounding skill. He's curious. So he follows her from rooftops as she walks calmly and stoically.

Clint finds himself surprised again when she stops a block before reaching her base. She stands still, staring at the building in front of her for a moment, and then goes inside. Peering over the edge of that same building, he sees that she's entered a dance studio, and is more perplexed than ever. What business could a ruthless assassin have within a dance studio? Everything's closed at this time, so there would be no one there to kill. So now Clint finds himself breaking his cardinal rule by leaving his safe perch, and climbing to the ground to get an up close and personal look at his target.

He kneels by the window, and peeks into the studio. His jaw drops when he sees what she's doing, when he sees that this infamous assassin, known for her coldness and deadliness, is dancing. Alone, she is twirling, leaping, and pirouetting her way around the studio, and doing it quite skillfully, he might add. He supposes it makes sense. Combat has often been compared to a dance, and it's not a stretch for her obvious skill in the former to carry over to the latter. Now that he's close to her, he can see that she's very beautiful, despite the blood splattering her face and the bruises marring her body.

He's got to stop. There is a mission to be carried out here, and if he keeps this up, he'll never be able to do it. So he strings his bow, and takes aim, sure to make a direct hit, so at least it will be quick. He pulls the back on the bow, and is about to release when he notices something else. She's crying. From what Clint Barton knows of Natasha Romanoff, she's not one to cry. Ever. But she is crying now. And seeing her vulnerability, Clint realizes just how young she is. He saw her age as 17 when he first received the assignment, but until now, she's seemed much older. But now, she is just a child. A young girl who's just nearly been raped. And now Clint's wondering how she got here. How did she get from the five year old who lost her family and home, to a teenager who's been killing people on orders since the age of thirteen?

He can't help feeling a connection to her. He too lost his parents at a young age, and spent some time in his late teens and early twenties on the wrong side of the law until S.H.I.E.L.D. got a hold of him and turned him around. And now it's settled. He knows he can't carry out the mission. Not when's there's a chance that this girl can be saved. He clicks on his comm, and contacts Coulson.

"Agent Coulson come in. This is Hawkeye. Reporting change of mission."

"What is it, Barton?" Coulson asks quickly.

"I can't kill her, Coulson. I'm bringing her in."

"That's a negative," Coulson replies. "The Council wants the Black Widow dead. She's too big of a threat."

Clint shakes his head. "So was I. But you brought me in. Helped me. She's just a kid."

"A kid whose kill count is over fifty."

Clint ignores him. "I'll make contact again once I've got her cooperation."

With that, he interrupts Coulson's reply by clicking off the comm He glances again through the window to see that the Widow is still dancing, and with a tight grip on his bow, enters the studio.

She never stops dancing. "Why didn't you kill me?" Her voice is unwavering, and Clint guesses her tears must have stopped while he was speaking with Coulson.

Leaning against the barre, he shrugs. "I had a better idea."

She says nothing, so he continues. "The people I work for could really use someone like you."

Her movement stops abruptly, and she whirls around to face him. "I'm quite tired of being used."

He blinks. "That's not exactly what I meant. We want you to work for us."

She gives him a dubious glance. "You've cleared this with your boss?"

He shrugs. "We'll get to that eventually. I'll convince him."

She picks up her knife and gun from the ground, bringing them home sharply into their holsters, hidden beneath her rather sparse dress. "And why would I come work for you?"

"Well for starters, the benefits package. Somehow I doubt your getting much reimbursement from your current employers. Plus where I work, we only take down the bad guys. No killing innocents."

She shrugs apathetically.

"Oh and you also won't have people from my agency trying to kill you all the time. I can assure you that if you don't come in with me, even if I don't succeed, my employers will send someone else after you. And they will keep sending people after you until you are dead. Really, it's in your best interests to come with me."

She frowns. "If I join you, my current employers will send people after me. They do not take defection lightly."

"We'll keep you safe. You'll spend the first few months training in a facility anyways. It'll be a new start. You can erase your ledger and start over."

She shakes her head. "No. My ledger is far to dirty for that. But maybe I can begin to clean it up."

Clint smiles. "Natasha Romanoff, welcome to the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division."

She raises an eyebrow.

"Yeah," he sighs. "You can just call it S.H.I.E.L.D."

Chapter Text

He’s thinking maybe this was way too easy. She is the Black Widow after all, known to be ruthless and persistent. How could he have swayed such a woman so easily? They’re in the warehouse he was using as a safe house, waiting to be picked up by the jet Clint called in from Coulson. Sitting in the chair furthest from the door, she’s eying him warily, and standing near the door, he’s doing the same. He doesn’t know her. What if this entire thing is a setup by the Russians to take down S.H.I.E.L.D.? He’s so losing his job over this.

Yet he can’t find it in himself to regret his decision. If there’s even a tiny chance that he can help this girl, undo what’s been done to her, he knows he has to try. He tried small talking with her at first, -she is a teenage girl- but she hasn’t spoken since they talked in the dance studio. There’s a ragged gash on her shoulder, so he digs his med kit out of his duffel bag and pulls out disinfectant wipes and a needle and thread, pointing at the injury.

“Do you want me to patch that up for you?”

Untrusting, she shakes her head. “Give it here.”

Reluctantly, he hands over the medical equipment, and winces as she roughly cleans out the cut. She doesn’t even flinch. She tosses the used wipes into the trash bin and strings the needle skillfully before sewing the wound closed with quick precision and no sign of pain, though he’s sure it hurts.

“Do you want,” he starts. “I can get- a change of clothes?”

She glances down at her torn dress, and nods. All his duffel bag has is a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, both of which will be much too big for her, but he tosses them to her anyways. Clint feels weird watching her undress, but he knows he can’t trust her enough to turn away. The Widow, on the other hand seems to have no problem stripping down in front of him, and stares directly at him while he tries to avert his gaze. His eyes flicker towards her only once, but in that second, he can see that she is very beautiful.

Neither of them attempts to sleep, and it’s all Clint can do not to just stare at her the entire time they wait. Yet she seems to have no problem staring at the wall blankly, her expression flickering only rarely to reveal thoughts or emotions. Finally, he hears the quiet sounds of the S.H.I.E.L.D. jet landing on the roof, and after picking up his duffel, motions for her to lead the way up. She does so silently, and upon reaching the roof, they are greeted by Agent Hill, and two other men he does not recognize.

“Scan her,” Hill orders one of them, before taking Clint aside for private conversation.

“Fury’s not happy with you,” she quickly informs him. “You and the Black Widow will be facing a meeting with him and the Council, where they will determine whether or not to allow her life.”

He only raises an eyebrow. “I promised her a second chance. I won’t let them kill her.”

She shrugs, and they head back to where one of the men has just finished scanning Romanoff for any bugs or trackers. The scanner beeps, signaling that it has found something, and the man, inexperienced idiot that he is, pulls out a knife. The Black Widow goes into action immediately, ducking under his knife to sweep his feet out from under him. The other Agent attacks, and soon Hill joins the fray. In truth it’s the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent’s fault, so Clint isn’t inclined to join until Romanoff socks Hill in the face. Occupied by the other three Agents, Romanoff still manages to kick Clint in the gut before he’s able to knock her out with a sharp blow to the head. She hits the ground harshly and he winces. He turns and approaches the Agent who started the whole mess.

“You idiot! What did you go and pull a knife for?! You didn’t think she was going to defend herself?!”

The man, bleeding from a scrape on his face, takes a step back. “The scanner found a tracker in her neck. She’s probably still in league with the enemy! She’s leading them right to us!”

Clint rolls his eyes. “Of course she had a tracker! That doesn’t mean she was going to betray us!”

Agent Hill interjects before the argument can escalate, turning to the new agent. “Even if she is still in league with the enemy, next time you use your words instead of going straight into attack mode. We do have to get that tracker out though. Before we head back to base.” She turns to the other agent Clint did not recognize, the mandatory medical personnel for this mission.

He nods, and they quickly set up a small operating table inside the jet. Glancing at the scanner to find the tracker’s exact location, the man digs into her neck with a scalpel, easily finding the tracker and pulling it out skillfully. The incision is quickly sewn up, and the unconscious woman is cuffed and strapped to a seat besides Clint before they take off, heading for the helicarrier headquarters.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Fingers tap her shoulder, and as soon as she wakes, the guilty offender finds her hands at his throat. She quickly recognizes him as the Hawkeye, and pulls her hands back slightly before her view rests on the cuffs around her wrists.

“Sorry,” he shrugs. “And sorry about your head.”

The tender area in question makes itself known, and she’s sure there’s a lovely shiner on her forehead.

“I’m also sorry for Agent Happy Knife over there.”

“Hey!”

She holds out her cuffed hands. Unlocking the cuffs seems an acceptable apology, and he does fulfill her wishes.

“It’s just, we found a tracker in the back of your neck. It makes us suspicious that this is all a setup to give away our location. We took it out.”

Her hand unconsciously moves to the back of her neck, which is covered by a bandage, but still sore.

“I didn’t know that was there. I might have guessed though. The Red Room doesn’t want its property getting away.”

“The Red Room?” The Hawkeye gives her a confused look, but she only glances at him.

“Now what?”

“Now . . .” He grasps her hand and pulls her to her feet. “Now we meet my boss. Thank you Agent Hill,” he says as they leave the jet. “This oughta be fun.”

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The man sitting across the table from her is very different from the man who brought her in, the Hawkeye, who is currently sitting beside her. He’s large, with a somewhat darker, gruffer personality, and is wearing a patch over his left eye.

“Agent Barton,” he addresses the Hawkeye, all the while staring Natasha down. “Please tell me there is a very good reason this woman is still breathing. The Council is not happy.”

Natasha stares right back at the man, showing none of the surprise that she feels at them having this conversation with her still in the room.

“Director Fury,” Barton stands his ground. “I believe Ms. Romanoff could be a great asset for us. And sir,” he lowers his voice, glancing at Natasha. “I don’t think she agrees with all the things she’s been ordered to carry out.”

“That’s not true,” she interrupts Fury before he can reply. “Everything I’ve done was necessary and right for the good of Russia. I have no regrets. I was only protecting my country from our enemies.”

She says this coldly and apathetically.

Fury raises his eyebrows before glancing at the file in front of him.

“Enemies such as Alexandra Drakova, a twelve year old girl?”

Her expression flickers momentarily before she replies. “I serve my country. Everything I did was for Russia.”

“I see what you mean, Barton.” Fury’s eyes finally leave her, and she frowns deeply. “And you think she has the skills to be an agent?”

Barton gives him a look. “She’s better than me in hand-to-hand. If you don’t believe me, test her against some other agents. And I know she’s got other skills.”

“In time,” is Fury’s only response until at last, he directs a question towards her. “And you are willing to forsake all allegiance to Russia, the KGB, and your former employers?”

Natasha freezes, and glares at him. “I cannot do such a thing. I fight for Russia to my last breath.”

“Then why did you agree to come with Agent Barton?”

She shrugs as if it’s obvious. “He would have killed me otherwise.”

Barton frowns. “But all that stuff you said? About not wanting to be used any longer? And wanting to clean up your ledger?”

She seems bemused. “Was that not what you wanted to hear from me?”

Barton’s frown deepens, but Fury interrupts whatever he was thinking. “Miss Romanova, it says here that your parents were killed in a fire when you were five?”

A curt nod. "I think so."

“And what happened after?”

She hesitates a moment before answering. “I was rescued from the fire by a man who took me to- to the-” she halts. “I cannot speak of it.”

“Miss Romanova,” Fury’s voice is harsh and commanding. “If you intend to survive, you will tell me everything I want to know.”

She takes her cuffed hands off the table, puts them in her lap, and fidgets. Her stare burns a hole in the floor when she finally speaks. “He took me to the Red Room.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a training facility.” Her voice grows stronger. “The program started in the Cold War, and continues still today. They take young girls who will not be missed, and train us to be spies and assassins.”

“And how long were you there?”

“I still am-was. I mean I would have returned there after my mission if he had not interfered.”

“Trained your entire childhood,” he mused. “Very well, Barton. We’ll see what we can do with her. I’ll deal with the Council. But as punishment, you get to be the one to deal with her.”

“Director?” Barton questions. “How do we stop- I mean how do we- how do we un-brainwash her?”

“I was NOT-”

“Start simple,” Fury interrupts her. “You will interrogate her, and find out everything about her. Get a starting point for S.H.I.E.L.D.’s psychologists. When you aren’t questioning her, she spends her time in a cell. No visitors and nothing but the necessities until she’s made progress.

Chapter Text

When Clint goes to fetch Natasha Romanoff at 0700, she is pacing around her small cell.

"She's been doing this for two hours," the guard at her door tells him upon noticing his interested stare.

She doesn't look as if she has slept much, if at all, and she hadn't even looked up when Clint opened the door.

"Are you hungry?"

She stops pacing and looks up at him and shrugs, her blank expression telling him nothing.

"Well come on then." He reaches for her arm, but she flinches when he goes to grab it, so he backs off. "Follow me."

He's taken several steps away from the room before he turns to check that she's following. She's standing just outside the doorway, next to the guard.

"Don't you want her restrained?" the guard asks the question which Romanoff seems to be thinking, by the barely discernible confused expression on her face.

"Nah," Clint shrugs nonchalantly. "It's just breakfast. She's not gonna hurt me." He gives her a big smile, and she looks taken aback. "Let's go! I hear the cafeteria breakfast today might actually be edible."

He turns and marches on, and can hear her take a few quick steps to catch up to him.

"Why do you trust me?" she asks quietly. "For all you know, this is part of my mission, and I'm planning to kill you and everyone else in this facility."

Clint laughs. "If that were the case, you'd never succeed. I mean you'd probably get further than anyone else could, but there are far too many skilled people here. But anyways, I know that's not true. You're far too lost."

Her face turns hard, and she's silent for the rest of the walk, though Clint chatters on, pointing things out, and talking excitedly about life at SHIELD.

The SHIELD cafeteria is, thankfully mostly empty, though the few agents who are there predictably stare. The Black Widow is, after all, rather infamous in the espionage community. He leads her to the food buffet, and begins to pile eggs and bacon onto his plate. She only grabs some fruit and one piece of toast, and she's pretty thin, so he piles some protein onto her plate as well. She gives him a look, but he just smiles and leads her to an empty table.

"So," he says after a moment, stuffing a bit of eggs into his mouth. "Tell me about yourself."

She frowns. "Here? Aren't we going to go somewhere a little more private for interrogation?"

"No," Clint corrects her. "I mean tell me about your interests. What's your favorite color? What sort of music do you like? What's your favorite movie? Do you like any books?"

"Black."

"Okay," Clint nodded his head. "Well we're getting somewhere. What about the other questions? Come on I wanna know about you."

She seems perplexed. "I uh . . . I don't . . . I'm not sure what you mean. What sort of music I like?"

Clint gives her a funny look. "You do know what music is, don't you?"

"Yes," she responds indignantly.

"Well, what's your favorite kind? Who do you listen to for fun?"

"I don't."

"What do you mean? Surely you've heard music before."

"Well yes, but only on missions and sometimes during training. You listen to music for fun?"

Clint frowns at her. "Well then what about movies? Seen any of those?"

"Yes. A few."

"Awesome!" Clint exclaims at her, beaming. "Which ones?"

She glances at him dubiously. "Бежин луг. Uhh, Bezhin Meadow. Also Необычайные приключения мистера Веста в стране Большевиков, which in English is The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West in the Land of the Bolsheviks. And of course we also watched Падение Берлина- The Fall of Berlin."

Clint frowns. He'd recognized two of the listed films as Soviet Union propaganda films, and guesses the third is as well. "We?"

Natasha nods. "The other girls in the program."

"How old were you?"

She shrugs. "I'm not sure. Perhaps six or seven. Maybe younger."

He sighs. "Okay . . . what about books? Surely you like to read."

Her head is shaking. "They taught us to read, but we were not allowed to read anything not provided for lessons."

Clint nods his head in resignation. "Well Natasha, once you're cleared, I'm educating you in pop culture. Prepare yourself."

She shrugs and takes a bite of eggs.

________________________________________________________________

"Start from the beginning."

"Wait," she interjects. "Is this being recorded?"

"Only be me." He twirls the pen in his hand and nods at the stack of paper before him. "Eventually I'll upload this to the database and destroy the paper."

She shakes her head. "Only you can know."

"Sorry, but Fury's gonna want to know too, and unfortunately it's not up to me."

She frowns.

"Look, I'll talk to him. See what I can do. Maybe we can get it to a high classification level, that way only a few people can get to it."

She doesn't say anything in response, so he takes that as acquiescence and starts again. "Now tell me, where did this all begin?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know? Don't you remember anything about your early life? Tell me about your parents."

"My parents . . . I don't . . . I don't know. I don't remember them."

"Not anything?"

"I have no memories predating the Red Room. Except . . . dancing. I remember ballet. I think maybe I took lessons even before the Red Room."

"Okay." Clint hasn't written anything on the paper. "So then tell me, what's your earliest memory of the Red Room?"

"Fire. I guess- well that must be how my parents died. But Ivan took my hand. He saved me; took me to the Room. He's the only family I've ever really had."

"Family who took you as a young child to a facility which turned you in to a killer," he deadpans.

She shrugs. "I've never known anything else." And he's not sure if she's talking about her lifestyle, or having family. Probably both.

"And then what? They schooled you until you were older?"

She looked confused. "Training started immediately of course."

"Immediately?! You were five!"

She shakes her head.

"What?" Now he's confused. "You mean you were older?"

"No," she explains. "I mean I don't know how old I was. Maybe younger than five."

He nods in understanding. "It's been a while. You've probably forgotten when you went there."

"December 3rd, 1990. That's the day Ivan took me to the Red Room. It's my birthday I don't recall. We didn't celebrate much in the Room."

"Oh." He frowns. Well you said training started right away? Tell me about that. What did they teach you?"

Her gaze is stoic and relentlessly on him as she speaks. "The first week or so was as you said. We learned Russia's history, and we watched those films I mentioned earlier. One week in, there was a man. He had tried to betray Russia to the enemy. So they showed us what to do with traitors. They burned him and beat him, and eventually killed him."

Clint is shocked, and even more so by her unaffected tone.

"After that we were assigned trainers, and the days were split in three parts. In the morning, we got lessons. Mostly about Russian history and politics. And also the Manifesto. They did of course teach us math, reading, and writing."

"You didn't find it odd that you were only learning about Russia?" he interrupts her.

"I did at first. I asked the instructor about it. He told me never to question anything I was told by any of my superiors, and called a guard. He took me out of the room to beat me with a stick before I was allowed back in. I never asked again. I've always been a fast learner. In the afternoons, we split up and received personal training in hand-to-hand combat, and after dinner, we sparred."

"You keep saying we."

"The other girls. There were 28 of us to start."

"To start?"

She shrugs nonchalantly. "I'm the only one left. There are more girls there training now."

"Okay . . . so lessons, training, and sparring. Is that how your days mostly went throughout your time there?"

"Well yes. I suppose so, but they all changed over time, and sometimes something new was added. A few months in the treatments started."

For the first time, he sees a flicker of fear on her face. "What kind of treatments?"

"I'm not sure." The expression leaves her face as quickly as it had come. "They said they were to make us better, stronger. Maybe they did, but I . . . I always dreaded those sessions. The lessons change a lot too of course." She changes the subject quickly. "We started to focus on science about a year in. There was a lot about the human body, its weaknesses, and how it functions, as well as the psychological basis of pain."

"Weren't you a little young to understand all that stuff?"

She seems offended by that. "I am perfectly capable of learning. I'm not an idiot. Besides, most of the other girls were older, and if they could keep up with the lessons, I certainly could too. Anyways, once we learned all of that, they taught us different ways to kill a person efficiently, as well as how to keep them alive during an interrogation. And of course we also spent a fair amount of time working on our own pain and interrogation tolerance."

"You're saying the tortured you? For no reason?"

She frowns indignantly. "No. They tortured us so that if it ever happened on a mission, we would never give in. It worked too."

Clint feels nauseated. "Excuse me for a minute."

She nods slightly, and he calmly leaves the room. As soon as he comes across a deserted hallway, he leans forward, resting his head and hands on the wall, and focusing on breathing. He takes a minute to recover before returning to the interrogation room. The Black Widow appears not to have put off by his abrupt departure, but Clint thinks she is slightly paler.

"Is this supposed to be a joke?" she asks as soon as opens the door. She seems calm, but her voice is cold and deadly. "What are you the good cop? When can I expect the real interrogation?"

"This is the real interrogation," he responds evenly.

"Please," she scoffs. "Like I'd believe that."

He sighs. "I can understand how you might doubt me. It sounds as if you've never been privy to any interrogation that did not involve torture or violence. But I promise they do exist. Or at least they do at SHIELD."

She frowns deeply. "I still don't believe you."

He nods. "Perhaps in time. But I think that's enough for today. I'll take you back to your room."

He can see the disappointment in her eyes, and adds "do you want me to bring you a book or something?"

Her eyes light up for the first time since he's met her, and she actually seems alive.

"Yes please."

He takes her back, and goes directly to his own room, bringing her his copy of the first Harry Potter novel. There is almost a hint of a smile when she takes it from him.

Chapter Text

When he goes to fetch her the next day, Natasha looks like she has slept even less than the previous day, despite having ample time to do so. She is pacing again, and Clint receives another set of bemused looks as he beckons her after him with no restraints. Once they are seated with breakfast trays in the cafeteria, she hands him the first Harry Potter book.

"I don't get it," she says bluntly.

"What do you mean?

"What's the point? It didn't teach me any new or useful skills."

"You didn't like it?"

"Well . . . it was interesting I guess, but I don't understand what the use of it is. Why do people read it?"

"It's a pleasure book. People read it because they like the story."

"Oh."

The rest of breakfast is filled with silence on Natasha's part, and near-constant chatter and questions on Clint's.

On the way out of the cafeteria, they meet several young SHIELD agents in the doorway, all of whom take one look at the Black Widow, and turn and start to walk away quickly. Natasha's expression is unreadable.

"Agents!" Clint calls, taking advantage of his fairly newfound relative seniority over them.

The three agents, two men and one woman, all newly trained and in their early twenties, halt and turn slowly.

"Sir?" the woman questions, as all three of the agents try to look in any direction but Natasha.

"May I ask why you seem to have decided that you are no longer hungry for breakfast this morning? You need to eat in order to keep up your strength and remain useful to SHIELD."

"Sir, we-"

"Does it have something to do with my friend here?"

His "friend" raises an eyebrow.

"No sir, we-"

"Are you scared of her?"

"No, sir," one man says, still avoiding even a glance at Natasha.

"Agents. Please take a look at Ms. Romanoff."

They do so nervously, taking in her youth and small stature.

"Now are you telling me that you, agents of SHIELD, are frightened of a small teenage girl?"

"No sir," they chorus loudly, their faces resolute.

Natasha jumps at them. "Boo."

All three jump backwards, one of them yelping. Natasha grins, and Clint laughs, sure that the rookie agents have all pissed themselves.

"You should be scared of her," he says through laughter. "She could kill you all in a minute. Now off to breakfast with you."

They flee as Clint struggles to breathe through laughter.

"Nice one, Romanoff." He glances at her (slightly deranged) grin. "Oh! A smile!"

Her face returns to its usual ambiguous state.

He sighs. "Well, I guess it's time to talk some more. This way."

_______________________________________________

"I got to restart ballet lessons with the other girls about a year in. I was the best," she says smugly. "That's probably why they selected me to perform in the ballet."

Clint frowns. He hasn't seen any record of her ever being in the ballet, maybe she'd been undercover or on a mission or something. She looks almost somewhat happy at this memory, so he chooses not to say anything.

"And um, that's when we started in on languages."

"How many languages do you know?" he interrupts curiously.

"Not sure. Eleven maybe?"

"Eleven! Jeez. Which ones?"

"Russian, English, French, Spanish, German, Arabic, Hebrew, Mandarin, Ukrainian, Italian, and Polish. There are a few others that I know some words in as well. I may be missing a few. I'm not sure."

Clint takes a moment of comprehension before his mouth stops catching flies. "Uhhh so which one did you learn first?"

"English of course. We spent about a year on each language, and had to speak only the language we were learning, no Russian. And then once we were good enough, we had to use the accents native to each language. If we sounded Russian on a mission, that might give us away to a target."

"And if you made a mistake?" Clint is pretty sure he already knows the answer.

"We were punished." She shrugs.

Taking in his frown, she speaks again. "Barton, you have to understand. In the Red Room, we had to be perfect, and anything less that that required corrective punishment. Some girls had more trouble than others. Irina only lasted a year."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean she was younger than even me, and she made too many mistakes, was too disobedient, so they beat her to death in class as a lesson in obedience and in technique and anatomy."

Clint holds back the bile rising in his throat.

"And what about you?"

"What about me?"

"How much trouble did you have?"

A tiny smirk crosses her face. "I was exceptionally gifted. I was only punished two to three times a week. It got to be lesser and lesser as I got older and better."

Clint's fist hits the table, and her flinch is hardly discernable.

"Sorry. Uhh, can you um, can you tell me more about your combat training?"

"That was the one part of the day which stayed the most consistent. At least until missions started. We would always have our entire afternoon devoted to training with the instructors. For a while it was just hand-to-hand, but I learned many different styles and systems of fighting.

Then I learned to handle knives, and after a couple of years, all kinds of guns and firearms. That's when the sparring matches started. A couple of times a week they would put us against each other and tell us to fight. The loser was punished. Every once in a while, if they performed very poorly, they were disposed of. At first I lost a lot of matches. I was younger and smaller than the other girls, but, like I said, I'm a fast learner. After one particularly difficult lesson from my trainer, I rarely lost another fight, even to Anessia."

"Who's Anessia?"

Natasha looks taken aback, as if she hasn't realized what she said. "A- Another girl in the Room. She was the only one who could ever beat me after I started winning."

Clint gives her a suspicious look, and she quickly cuts off whatever his next question may have been.

"It was also around then that I made my first kill."

"Three years in?!"

She nods apathetically. "He was a Russian defector. A traitor," she spat. "They told me to make him suffer, so I shot him in the knees and cut off his fingers and toes one by one, dug out his eyes with my own fingers before I stabbed him in the heart. And the entire time he was sniveling on about how he could get me out. Save me. I don't need saving," she scoffed. "I was serving a purpose, protecting Russia from his betrayal."

She says the entire thing with a blank face, and not a hint of inflection in her voice.

"And you don't regret that at all?"

"He was a traitor. He deserved what he got. I was just doing my duty."

"Is that what they told you?"

"Yes." She frowns slightly.

"Okay." He nods. "Okay. Well I've had enough for today. I don't think I can listen to anymore. I'm gonna have to beat the crap out of a punching bag. Here." He shoves the second and third Harry Potter books into her arms. "Let's go." He turns and marches out without waiting for her to get her bearings.

"You coming?" he asks sharply upon turning to see she has frozen in place.

Her expression is indecipherable as she nods and steps after him.

_____________________________________________

Phil Coulson feels rather sorry for the bag that Barton is violently assaulting. The poor thing may be inanimate, but Phil's pretty sure it's never had a beating this bad.

"Barton!" he approaches his agent.

Clint continues the beating, but it's clear that he's heard. His hands are wrapped, but Phil thinks his knuckles are probably bleeding anyways.

"Take a break, Barton." He fearlessly puts his hand on the punching bag.

Clint does so, resting his head on the bag as Phil holds it steady.

"She," Barton starts. "It's as if she doesn't understand that what's been done to her is so horrible wrong. She doesn't seem to even care."

"Well how could she?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Well, it's the only upbringing she's had. She's never seen anything better. How could she know that her experiences are so wrong if she doesn't have anything to compare it to?"

"But she's just so apathetic."

Phil nods. "Of course she is. Imagine having lived through her life, and caring as much as you do about it all. She would go mad with all that horror always running through her head."

Barton sighs. "I know. It's just that she seems to be holding up so well while I'm struggling to keep my breakfast down."

Phil smiles. "That's because you feel too much, Barton. Just take it slowly, day by day, and you'll get through it. We both know there's probably much more to her than she's showing you right now, and if you're who I think you are, you'll get her to open up to you in time."

Chapter Text

When Clint goes to fetch Natasha the next day, she is slumped against the wall of her cell, knees to her chest. Her face is gaunt and drawn and she looks half dead.

"Did she sleep at all?" he asks the guard before reaching for the door.

"No."

"Damn," he sighs, and enters the room. "Natasha." He speaks quietly, but she jumps to her feet instinctively.

"Natasha." He holds out a hand as if to calm her. "You need to sleep. You're a mess."

"I'm fine."

"Really Natasha, you look like crap. Get some rest. We can do this later."

"No." Though her voice is not raised, it is clearly a shout. "No I'm fine. We have to keep going." Her voice quiets as if she is only speaking to herself. "We have to keep going."

He sighs again and nods. "Let's go then."

He forces coffee on her at breakfast -in addition to the usual eggs and bacon- but she won't take anything more than black (ew). When they get back to interrogation, she starts right in.

"They brought in outside trainers so we could learn different styles. You never know which type will work best against a target, so we learned them all and we learned them well. I excelled in the new styles. Most of the girls were only accustomed to what we already knew, and had trouble adjusting. I was more open to new ideas; they made me better.

Our lessons, for a while, turned into acting lessons. We had to be able to use any cover at any moment, and it had to be believable. For almost a year, we took on different characters, never ourselves. We could not go out of character, even at night. I was good at that too.

Once, as a reward for a few of us, they took us into the city. That was the first time I'd been outside that fence since the day I went in. We went one by once, alone with our individual trainers. I guess they wanted us to see normal society so we weren't completely blindsided once we started in on missions. That day was the first time I ever knowingly disobeyed them. It was also, for many years, the last.

My trainer took me to several places in the city. I needed to know how people act in society- how normal people act. After all, the best spies fit in with everyone else. They don't stand out. Anyways, the last place he took me to was a park."

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Natalia surveyed the park, her expression blank. It was a nice park. Or at least she thought it was a nice park, seeing as she'd never seen a park before, just the trees outside the Red Room's fence. There were a lot of trees in the park too, as well as some grassy open areas. Her trainer, Comrade Pasha, took her to sit on a bench at the edge of one of those areas.

Pasha was a tall, gruff man with immaculately trimmed facial hair. Natalia guessed he was in his thirties, but had never been sure. He was also a tough, critical judge, as well as serious and severe about his work as her trainer. Natalia always wondered what he did when he left the Red Room, if he ever even left the Room at all. Once she had asked him. The consequences of that inquiry had put an end to nearly all conversation from Natalia to Pasha. Now she only spoke to him if he required a direct response.

Several children were playing some sort of game with a round ball on the field before them. Natalia didn't know what is was, but she didn't dare ask Pasha for the answer. After a little more observation, she realized that the goal of the game was to get the ball between two objects on either end of the playing area. The children were split up into two groups, so they were competing with each other to get the ball at their feet. She played close attention to their athleticism, and decided she could take them all easily. Weaklings. Yet the longer she watched them play, the stranger they seemed. The children, a mix of boys and girls, were loud and highly undisciplined, and she dreaded the punishment that she would receive if she were to act in such a manner. They also smiled and laughed a lot, things which never happened in the Room. They seemed almost happy. They seemed free.

Natalia felt envy grow on her cheeks, but when she felt Pasha's sharp gaze on her, she quickly schooled her features.

"Caterina!"

The shout grabbed Natalia's attention, just as it grabbed the attention of a girl on the field. The girl was about Natalia's age, and even shared her scarlet-colored hair.

The girl, Caterina apparently, left the field of play and headed towards the woman who had called her. That woman was small with wave dark brown hair. The man standing next to her was taller, with bright red hair. Looking at the couple sent a warm feeling through Natalia that she didn't quite understand. She felt almost drawn to them. Instead, she stoically held her place on the bench beside Pasha and continued to observe.

There was a small boy standing between the couple, holding their hands firmly. The woman only released the boy's hand to draw the approaching girl into a tight hug.

"Mama," the girl said softly, adding "Ari" when the boy joined the hug, and "papa" when the man did as well.

It was only then that Natalia noticed dampness on her face.

"Natalia," Comrade Pasha's voice barked softly but sharply.

She barely heard him. The family -she had always wondered about that word- drew apart, smiling, and Natalia was compelled to stand, her feet ragging her towards the family, longing pulling her heartstrings painfully.

"Natalia!" Pasha hissed, his hand gripping her harm painfully.

She turned to face him, tears tracking down her cheeks, and wrench her arm from his grasp. She only made it a few steps before he spoke again.

"Natalia. Are you abandoning your country?"

She froze.

"Russia needs you. Do I need to remind you of your duty?"

She felt her body stiffen, and took only a moment to wipe her tears and clear her countenance before turning to him. "No Comrade. My duty is to my country. I owe everything to Russia, and I must pay my debt in every way I can. If my life is required, I will give it gladly and die honorably for Russia."

"Very well. Now we must return. We will see what Comrade Bogdan has to say about your confusion."

Her insides tingling with fear, Natalia kept her demeanor blank, and followed Pasha obediently.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Comrade Bogdan's office was large and pristinely white, the only room in the facility which could claim that coloring. The room, despite its size, was fairly barren, and totalitarian and militaristic in manner. There were no chairs beyond the stiff one behind the desk. The man in the chair was mousy, which black rimmed glasses, and clean-shaven face, and neatly trimmed blonde hair. He wore an impeccably fitted business suit and, as always, gave an aura of power and danger despite his small stature.

Standing next to Pasha under his nonchalant scrutiny, Natalia felt an involuntary need to fidget that she hadn't succumbed to in many years. It took several seconds for the fidgeting to stop, and even then her nerves were on high. She had only seen Comrade Bogdan a few times before, and only two of those had been without the other girls. The first had been the day she was brought in. The second time she'd met with Comrade Bogdan alone was back before she'd started to win her fights, when she had been in danger of termination.

But she felt her latest infraction was far more serious than any she had ever committed before. A termination consequence was not at all implausible. Yet she feared even worse.

"Tell me again exactly what happened Comrade."

He was not speaking to her, so she kept her eyes on the ground, her spine ramrod straight.

"Natalia here saw a family embracing in the park and began to walk away. I had to remind her of her duty before she returned."

Comrade Bogdan's frown deepened. "I am very disappointed in you Natalia. Have you forgotten who your true family is?"

"No, Comrade," she recited, "Russia is my only family and my country, and I owe everything to that family. My duty lies here Comrade. I had a brief lapse. It will never happen again." This time she held his gaze as she felt the truth of it run through her.

"That is very well Natalia, however you must still be punished accordingly. We wouldn't want the others getting ideas."

"Yes of course Comrade. I will accept everything I deserve." Her steady voice did nothing to betray the fear she felt inside, though she did lower her head in deference.

"There was a surgery planned for you Natalia. We will continue with the surgery, but you will not receive anesthetic or pain medication. Instead you will be given a paralyzing drug so you will remain awake during the procedure. Afterwards, you will have a long session with Dr. Vadya."

Natalia shivered. The fear was not for the surgery. She could deal with pain. Rather it was the session with Dr. Vadya she feared, for no one ever remembered what went in his office, but it was commonly known that patients leaving a visit with him came out trembling and white, and sometimes seemed as if they were entirely different people from before. Natalia had met with him before, though she could not remember the visits themselves, but those visits had always been short. According to the other girls, she had never seemed much changed after her those sessions. She felt her knees go weak, but remained steady on her feet as she addressed her superior.

"Yes sir."