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The Red Room, the top secret Soviet training program that turned young women into the most dangerous and elite assassins in the world, was known for the creation of the Black Widow. The world would soon know Natasha Romanoff, th...
Bruce took a single step toward her and Fury, and Natasha was quick to draw her gun, pointing it at Bruce as he stopped in his place.
"Doctor Banner," Steve said cautiously, the room on full alert now. "Put down the scepter."
Bruce looked down to his hand, shocked at himself to see the scepter in his own hands. He carefully place it back down where it belonged while Natasha lowered her gun, just as Stark's computer beeped at them and he rushed to it.
"Got the Tesseract location," Tony spoke as he flipped through the screens quickly.
"Sorry guys," Bruce muttered to the group. "Guess you don't get to see my party trick."
"The Tesseract belongs on Asgard, no human is a match for it," Thor told the group as Tony made a break for the door, only for Steve to hold him back.
"You're not going alone!"
"You're not going to stop me,"
"Put on the suit-"
"I'm not afraid to hit an old man-"
"Stark, put on the suit-"
Natasha was the only one to notice the look of shock on Bruce Banner's face as he inspected the Tesseract's location, before the lab had exploded.
Natasha did her best to brace herself for the fall, covering her head and neck the best she could as she fell into the lower equipment room. Landing hard on the floor, a piece of debris landed on her ankle as she bit into her bottom lip to hold in a groan.
Just feet away from her laid Bruce Banner, who was gripping angrily at the metal grates below him. Natasha's eyes widened as she saw the hints of green appearing on his skin.
"I'm okay...we're okay, right?"
Realizing that she needed to pull herself free, Natasha began to painfully rip her ankle out from under the debris, all while Bruce's condition across the way only worsened.
"Doctor... Bruce, you gotta fight it. This is just what Loki wants. We're gonna be okay. Listen to me," her pleas fell on deaf ears, though. "We're gonna be okay. Right? I swear on my life I will get you out of this, you will walk away, and never-"
"Your life?"
Natasha realized that Bruce was long gone at this point, giving her leg one finally tug until it broke free of the debris.
Shooting to her feet, Natasha stopped dead in her tracks as the lights flickered. She turned, just as the face of the Hulk stared back at her, before making a mad dash for the stairs.
Destroying everything in his path, Natasha was barely able to roll under one of the turbines in the room and crawl through the maze of pipes littering the way. The Hulk destroyed the catwalk behind her, ripping out a large piece of the walkway as she fell through.
With quick reflexes, Natasha managed to duck down one of the smaller, darker hallways of the helicarrier narrowly escaping from the Hulk as he went barreling down the hallway.
It could've been hours, but she knew it had only been minutes, but in the dark hallways of the lower equipment room Natasha had curled herself into a ball, allowing herself to let out her tears of frustration and fear alone in the dark for a moment, reliving the ordeal in her head as she realized how narrowly she had escaped.
"It's Barton. He took out our systems. He's headed for the detention level. Does anybody copy?"
Like flipping a switch, Natasha regained her cool, pressing in on her earpiece.
"This is agent Romanoff...I copy,"
Clint Barton moved across the catwalks of the detention level, the air around him eerily quiet. An arrow was already drawn in his bow as he crept silently through the room.
Quick as lightning, Natasha descended from her hiding spot, knocking her best friend to the ground and dislodging his arrow as he was knocked back a few feet.
Landing, Natasha rose to her feet, staring off with Barton from just a few feet away.
"I don't want to fight you, Clint,"
He only laughed, reaching for another arrow.
"Well that's too bad-"
Another figure descended from the rafters, cloaked by the dark. Their hand grabbed onto Barton's head, bringing it down onto the railing and knocking him unconscious.
"I gave him one simple request, and he couldn't follow it," Natasha sucked in a breath as Eleanor Roberts turned on her heel, the red of her lips sticking out in the dark as she stalked toward her sister. "I'm sure he's fine, but you won't be."
Natasha dropped to the floor, sliding underneath of her sister as she lunged for her. She popped up, narrowly avoiding the knife that was sent flying past her head. She made a move for the railing, pushing her foot up on it and launching herself into the air just as Eleanor did, the pair narrowly missing one another as they both landed, one knee on the ground as they looked up into one another's eyes: a perfect mirror of each other.
"I don't want to fight you, Elle," Natasha muttered, rising to her feet and backing away slowly and Eleanor stalked near. "This isn't you, you're being controlled-"
Eleanor cut her off, lunging forward and grabbing onto Natasha's hair, bringing her down to the ground and pressing her knee painfully into Nat's chest, holding her hair tightly in the ball of her fist.
"How's this any different from when we were kids," Eleanor sneered back, gripping her hair tighter. "You fought me then, held a knife to my throat, cut scars into my skin. Madam M's pride and joy you were, everything I could never be. So it's my turn, my turn to make you see what a hell my childhood-"
Eleanor didn't get to finish as Natasha brought her legs up, wrapping them around her sister's neck and throwing her down to the ground, releasing the hold on her hair. Before she could move, Natasha grabbed her head, mumbling a quick sorry before bashing it into the ground, knocking her out cold.
With staggering and labored breaths, Natasha fell back, her eyes drifting from the body of Clint Barton to the body of her sister, Eleanor.
She wanted to believe her harsh words were only lies, brought about by the mind control Loki had on her.
But just as drunk thoughts were normally truth, maybe mind controlled thoughts were the same.
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I'm so excited to write Eleanor because I feel like she's so different from Lottie, Deli and Lydia. She much more hardened, more calculating, and almost cruel, and I can't wait to explore her journey and development toward the end with you guys. I think you're going to love her. And I feel as if her story fits so well with Sam's that you're going to love it.
