BLACK WIDOW

reprisal

reprisal
(n.)
an act of retaliation

•••

"i fear no monsters, for no monsters i see. because all this time, the mister had been me."

•••

Natalia wouldn't let any of the heavily armed, black-armored military guards close enough to her to shoot her. Every single person she saw, it was like staring James's killer right in the face. And she put a bullet in their head for it. She hated hydra with every cell in her body.

Hydra experimented on and killed dozens after dozens of orphan girls. They experimented on and killed dozens after dozens of prisoners of war. Men in their own ranks. And she knew the missions Hydra sent her on. She knew the evil that was rooted so deep in their establishment. They only fed on Russia. She'd happily stay and work for the KGB, but it was too likely that she'd also be working for the branch without even knowing.

And these men shooting at her all workers for Hydra. And these men were Hydra.

She stepped over the dead men and carefully made sure not to track any blood. She didn't want Hydra to know what hit them. She scanned every room for a living body and promptly made sure it stopped. She put a bullet, not in their heads for efficiency, but in their hearts for vengeance.

Soon, she came into a room that she assumed was Colonel Luchov's office. She couldnt help but scan it. It was quite straight forward. A desk with a lamp. Two file cabinets. A refrigerator and a telephone.

Then there were four files on his desk. Only one was opened.

She saw her file. James'. A Russian kill squad's, made up of four men and a woman. They were trying to decide which Department X program to put them through, and which way should they administer the serum. Natalia's entire body halted. Her mind stopped. But the fourth one. The open one. That was the one that really raised questions in Natalia's mind.

It was a S. H. I. E. L. D. file. Project Paperclip. "S. H. I. E. L. D. is Hydra."

Natalia's jaw dropped. The blaring alarm in the facility left Natalia's ears. What about Hank Pym. Didn't he leave
S. H. I. E. L. D.? It must be true. Before she could read any farther, a voice that she never thought she'd have to hear again...

"How dare you?" an older voice rang out behind her. That voice alone rocked her all the way back to 1953. She look up from the files and too and deep breath, preparing herself to face the biggest monster of her past.

"How dare you," she said, changing the emphasis on the phrase. When she looked at Madame B, she saw that she hadn't really changed from the last time she had saw her. Or made Natalia wonder how she hadn't grown older and died yet. She looked nearly sixty years old in the fifties.

Natalia knew how she didn't age fast. Could that be how Madame B was still alive?

"How dare you follow our Asset in here after everything you've done? You come in here, get him killed, and make a mess so big that it will take years to clean up!" she said in an angry, low voice as she began to circle around her old student, heels clicking the cement floor.

Natalia felt her anger rising. "How dare you take little girls from orphanages and experiment on them like rats, while making the ones who live kill against their own free will and convince them that it is the right thing?"

"I do this for Russia. Everything I do, I do it for my home. What about you, Natalia? What have you done this," she raised her hands and gestures to the grave scene around her, "for?"