Black Hawk Down

Chapter Two

February 4 - 0200 hours - Clint's Cabin - Waverly - Iowa

Coulson pulled the car up outside the small three bedroom farm house. Natasha and he both grabbed their small bags before following Clint inside. Natasha loved this small house that Clint had brought her to only twice before, directly after New York and several months later after another mission gone wrong. She knew he would be staying in the master bedroom and wouldn't mind if she ended up joining him there, but after everything that had happened to her in the last week she knew she couldn't. They had often slept in the same bed as partners to help each other with nightmares, but she wanted to hide the majority of the injuries from her time in captivity. She hadn't told Coulson yet and she didn't plan on telling Fury what had really gone on in the four days she was in captivity. She wanted to hide it from Clint for as long as possible to ensure he was ok before burdening him with her mission gone wrong.

"Natasha, you've been very quiet since you got here." Clint commented, "What's up?"

"I need some time to think before I tell you ok?" She replied with an almost automatic response.

"Tasha?" Clint whispered coming into the room she had picked. "Tell me, don't do this to yourself. Don't shut me out."

"I... I," She managed to get out. "I don't know how to tell you."

"Just let it out," Clint told her, "I'm here for as long as it takes." He sat next to her on the bed giving her both morale and physical support.

"Thank you," Natasha whispered back holding in the tears threatening to fall. "You might want to get Phil in here though. He should probably hear it too and I don't think I'll be able to tell it more than once."

"Phil, I think you need to hear this." Clint called out not once taking his eyes off Natasha.

Phil appeared in the doorway soon after Clint called out. He soon joined Clint and Natasha on the edge of the bed. Clint had his arms around her so Phil just watched them.

"The mission from the council was in Russia," Natasha began. At Clint sharp intake of breath she knew he would probably have an idea of what was coming. "Seven days ago I noticed that I had several people tailing me. I had yet to eliminate the target so I moved up my time table avoiding them the best I could. Four - no five days ago now, they caught up to me and took me captive." she had to pause as she couldn't go on.

"Tasha," Clint pulled her tighter against himself.

"Clint, it... it was the Red Room." She began. "Ivan, he tortured me to try to find out who you were, even though he already knew. He made me fight the other girls and when I won but wouldn't kill them like he wanted he beat me or raped me depending on how he felt. Four days of that and minimal food and water made it quite hard to get out of there but Lida one of the youngest girls helped me. I just hope that she got away too. I couldn't bring her to SHIELD after the things they wanted to do to me when I came here so I put her with a family out in the country. He'll kill her if he finds her." Natasha had spoken very quickly in order to get it all out before she broke down. Now she let the tears fall.

"Tasha, you're ok. I've got you," Clint whispered gently to her. "The Council can never know about this but this is why they should never send her to Russia especially not alone." Clint directed the last part to Phil. "Even Fury doesn't seem to understand how much it affects her but at least he doesn't send her there."

Phil nodded his understanding, "He tried once or twice in the early days but I told him no. My reasoning was purely selfish though. I saw how well the two of you could work together if you wanted to and I saw how happy Nat made you and I didn't want to allow her to be tempted or taken back by the Red Room."