BLACK WIDOW

unpropritous

unpropitious
(adj)
not giving or indicating a good chance of success

•••

"My emotions were so wrong in these years of my life. All past ones were taken away from me, so there was nothing to build off of. I was a full believer of Madame B and the Soviet Union. It was absolutely diabolical and didn't even know it."

•••

Natalia moved her way through the tight air shaft, making absolutely no noise. She had to find her way to the vent over the hallway to see what was so heavily guarded back there. Whatever was being so well protected was obviously what she needed.

Finally, she passed a vent letting in the glowing green lights of the lasers right below. He unscrewed the vent and held it up with the help of her fingernails, then turned it to its side, pulling it up through the hole.

She tied her big, curly hair into a pony tail on the back of her head so that she could dangle her head from the air vent, yet still see.

Natalia didn't think anyone was here. The temperature was in the deep negatives, but no heat had been turned on. She had seen the chimney. No fire was burning. But that surely did not mean she should set off any alarms and call someone here.

Now that she was over this vent, she saw that there was another hallway going straight through the center of this one, making a cross. There were many doors which might have meant that she should keep traveling the vents.

But any real agent knew that wasn't the case. The goal was the center of the intersection of hallways it was in the center of protection. There was nothing there, but there were also no lasers crossing the floor.

Natalia's vent was placed in the center of one of the legs of the four way hallway. She pulled herself back into the vent and tucked her hair into her stealth suit. Nothing could touch these lasers. She positioned herself over the vent, ready to drop.

This was do or die. Now or never. She felt her heart rate rising and her adrenaline building.

On three.

1...

2...

3...

No. Never mind. On "go".

Ready...

Set...

Go.

No. This was bad. she couldn't do this. She cursed under breath as she reminded herself that she had too. She remembered all the times she had said she couldn't do it. Then, blurry memories of Ivan and the Winter Soldier beating her into making her do it flashed before her eyes. They were all red. Every single color in her flashing memories were a different shade of red.

The memories angered her. How could she even think like that? How could she even consider being afraid of serving Mother Russia. That thought even crossing her mind deserved another beating. How could she? They trusted her. They trusted her enough to let her do this mission by herself. The only way to make up for that would be to succeed, right?

And in that very second, she held her dropped from the air vent and did her best to maneuver herself the air, letting her feet guide the way, missing each oddly placed laser. The rest of her body however had to twist and curl in inhuman shapes, until her feet hit the ground. But she couldn't wait to regather herself. Her back was already doubled over backwards and she could not hold that for long, so she let herself fall backwards over another laser, her hands catching all her weight, then pushing her legs over another, then sliding under the next, making surely her legs were up and over the one after that.