The Budapest Objective

Four

The man crept closer and closer to her. Natasha struggled against the bonds, trying desperately to break free, knowing that it was hopeless. She'd failed her mission. She was going to be severely punished.

The man had reached her now. He struck her across the face. She tried to cry out for help, but found herself unable to make a sound. He hit her several times after that, each time more painful than the last. He cut her with a knife, but never deep enough to cause her to bleed to death; oh no, never anything as merciful as that.

The pain from the torture session made her vomit, covering herself in bile as well as blood. She knew it would be days before she was let out into the light again. The darkness in the room consumed her; her inside burned with loneliness and despair. She wasn't sure how much time had passed before another figure entered the room.

The man's face was hidden under a dark cloak, but she knew all too well who it was. Stephan Chekov had come to pay her a visit. He was the head man in the Red Room organization, and he sometimes killed the girls who had done wrong. But she knew better than to think that he brought anything as merciful as death with him now. The sight of him brought terror, and she knew that she was about to undergo something so horrible that Satan himself would cringe. He reached forward to touch her face...

Natasha woke up in a cold sweat. She wasn't sure if she had been woken up by her own scream, or if Chekov's cold and evil touch had shocked her awake. Sitting up, she hugged her legs to her chest in a protective position. She sat there in the dark of her hotel room, shaking and terrified, trying to figure out if she had screamed in reality, or just in her dream.

Her bedroom door flew open. As Clint ran in, she realized that she must have screamed out loud.

“Natasha, what happened!?” Clint demanded.

“Nothing, it was just a dream.” She may have sounded indifferent, but it was such a relief to see Clint standing there looking concerned after reliving one of her torture sessions in Red Room.

“Are you alright?” Clint asked, turning on the light in her room.

“Yes, I'm fine.”

Clint noticed the horrified note in her voice and the pained and terrified expression on her face. He walked in the room and sat down on the edge of her bed. He wanted to hold her and convince her that everything was going to be alright. But she wouldn’t approve of that.

“Hey, you're safe. Nothing happened,” he comforted.

But the truth was, something had happened, and he knew it. Natasha had relived something that had happened to her years ago, and although she was safe now, she definitely wasn't in her dreams. Anything that could make Black Widow look like that had to be awful. He knew that she never would, but Clint really wished that Natasha would trust him enough to let him know what had happened in that horrible place where she grew up. He hated that she felt like she had to face this alone.

“Do you want to talk about it?” His voice was soft and soothing.

Natasha merely shook her head. She hugged her legs closer to her. She looked terrified, no matter how hard she tried to hide it.

He touched her shoulder. “I can stay here with you if you want.”

She shook her head again. “No, I’m okay.”

“Natasha, you don't have to do this. You don't have to face this alone”.

“Yes, I do. Who else is there?”

What she said affected him more than it should have. Did she really think that she didn't have anyone to rely on? Was he really that insignificant to her?