Chapter 13 – Painful Awakening
Who the hell is Natasha?" she thought.
She lay there, unable to move or open her eyes but she can hear voices. They were unfamiliar and she tried to remember what had happened. As she listened, she heard only one familiar voice, Loki.
Loki was beyond relieved when the experiment worked. The avengers looked at him with a little more respect and a little less distrust. Thor gave him a slap to the back and pulled him into a hug. He always tried to think of the best with Loki and it always hurt a little when he let him down.
"Well, I'm glad that worked," he said. Clint even gave him a small smile and Tony was looking extremely relieved.
Bruce fretted over her vitals and happily told everyone that she was fine. Steve was also happy but still a little worried about how her demeanor would be since all of that would be fresh in her memory when she tried so hard and even forced to forget most of it. As they celebrated, two new people entered the lab. The moment they walked in, they were shocked at what they saw.
The two girls were not expecting to see what they just did. They opened the door, expecting to see Bruce and Tony hard at work on some new invention, but instead, well, they could barely process it. The famous Captain America had a worried but happy expression on his face as he was bro hugging the deadly archer, Clint, aka Hawkeye. They then noticed a very happy Tony standing over a surgical table with a very beat up, unconscious, and bloodied Natasha, the most deadly of all assassins in their opinion. Then out of nowhere Thor appeared and scooped the two confused women up in a giant hug. Still shocked, they didn't hug back and Thor placed them back on the ground. Their eyes then found the god of mischief standing to their right, out of the way of the Avengers but he scared them. Then out of nowhere, Loki dropped to the floor and started twitching violently, as the rest of the Avengers burst into laughter.
"What!? He destroyed our town in New Mexico! And your city! He tried to kill you Thor! And need I mention the horde of aliens he let in!"
The Avengers were still laughing and celebrating as Thor reassured them and helped Loki back to his feet.
"Darcy," he said. "Put the taser away. We have asked him to come here and help. He is on our side." He gave Loki a look like "you better " as he said this.
"Jane, just give me the word boss, and ill drop this mother fucker again," Darcy said as she wielded the taser for a second shot, this time aimed at Loki's groin area. Being smart, Loki didn't say a word. Thor stepped in front of him and asked Jane and Darcy to speak with him in the hallway so Loki's presence wouldn't upset them. He grabbed his girlfriend's hand and picked up Darcy who still wouldn't move from her position.
"Put me down muscle man! On second thought, hold me longer. It's not every day you get swept off your feet by a sexy muscular god."
Jane gave Darcy a warning look when Thor put her back down.
Thor, happy at seeing the duo, asked what they were doing here.
Jane answered after a long drawn out kiss, and Darcy rolling her eyes at the lovebirds. "We were in town for some research and thought we would stop by. What the hell is going on here?"
Thor explained to them outside of the lab and they were shocked and concerned. They decided to stay for a while since they were done with their project and weren't due to start their next one for a few weeks. They felt bad about what Natasha had gone through and were pissed at Tony. Then they felt bad for him when Thor explained how sorry and upset the whole ordeal was for him. He also had to tell them that him and Tony had broken into the Asgardian prison and busted Loki out, since he had information they didn't on the crystal. Also, he explained to them that they had known each other when Natasha was in Red Room and that they had just found out as well. This didn't wave away their distrust of the god of mischief, but it eased their tension some. He explained everything, the shorter version of course. When Thor thought Darcy wouldn't taser anyone again, he allowed them back into the lab.
Jane walked over to the table Natasha was on while Darcy stuck close to Thor, and away from Loki. Loki kept a respectful distance since he was slightly afraid of the woman that shot him with the thin bolt of lightning. The rest of the boys were sitting on some of the couches that were dragged in a week or so ago, since no one wanted to leave Natasha's side.
Jane looked the red haired assassin over. She had bruises all over as well as some gashes and scars. She saw all the blood that had leaked into the crevices of the chair as well as stuck to the floor and all over the pile of clothes thrown into the corner. She was amazed when Thor told her she could heal faster than anyone when she was in Red Room, but that it had slightly slowed down as she lived her life. She saw that they were healing but slowly. Jane jumped when Darcy appeared next to her, transfixed on being this close to her idol. Darcy had always admired Natasha, but had never had the chance to meet her. She was also slightly scared since the woman could kill her in a gazillion different ways.
"Damn," Darcy said. "She looks like shit. Don't tell her I said that." Jane promised her she wouldn't.
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As Natalia lay there, she simply listened and gathered intel. It's what she was trained to do. She learned names, and relationships. She picked up a voice belonging to someone named Steve, who she head say something about Natasha not knowing who Loki was. Was this part of her mission? No one knew she was meeting with him. She was struck with horror when she came to the conclusion that her cave may have been bugged, and that he was another test somehow. She was quickly putting together what her mission was just from all she heard around her. They were giving her intel without them knowing she could hear them. She heard who she thought was Clint telling everyone not to mention anything about the 'mind thing'. She didn't know what that was.
Natalia figured out that she was supposed to infiltrate the group of 'Avengers' and destroy them. Like usual, any group she had ever been put into ultimately led to her taking them down, as part of the mission. She silently laughed to herself when she figured that she had been infiltrating them for years, and to test her, Red Room gave her another treatment, or "shock" to make her forget everything, and continue to gain their trust, just to take them down and destroy them. Most likely they wanted to see what her injection would make her do? She didn't know. She concluded that they were highly technologically advanced and that Red Room most likely wanted what they had, to gain the upper hand in the world. She then thought of the name they called her, Natasha. It was on her list of aliases so she had to remember to answer to that name. She wasn't Natalia on this mission, she was Natasha. And she had to act like her. From what she heard of the stories they told as she lay there for 3 more hours, she knew she could do this. This was the ultimate mission, one that has lasted years. She could NOT screw this up. She had to act like she knows them all and was their friend. It must have been extremely important for Ivan to make it last this long. It was time to take them down.
No one knew that it was Natalia lying on that table, and Natasha wasn't there to stop her. They were clueless. Natalia was stuck as the dominant mind.
As Natalia lay there, she started to get feeling back into her body. She felt her toes, and then her fingers. She almost wish she hadn't gotten feeling back. Her whole body started to ache. The pain wasn't going away as fast as she was used to. She figured it was the mysterious injection she got. Maybe it slowed down her abilities. She would have to be careful. She tried to move, but that was a huge mistake. What had she been doing before all this to be in this much pain? She gritted her teeth and groaned as she tried sit up and move around. Then she felt hands all over her and without thinking, she reacted. She did not like to be touched.
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The guys as well as Jane and Darcy chatted and swapped stories about Natasha and themselves to pass the time. It was hours before she would wake up and they were happily bored for once. They laughed and ate snacks while Jane lay against Thor, happy to be with him again. Darcy figured out that Loki was afraid of her and told the story of how she had taken down Thor, the god of thunder when he first arrived on Earth. Loki was amazed that a mortal had lightning abilities. He was wide eyed the whole time as the rest of the team sort of snickered; including Thor who knew it was really a taser that had brought the two gods to their knees. But Loki didn't need to know that.
After a while, they heard a small sound from Natasha. They all got up to see if she was okay. Steve, Bruce, Thor, Loki, Clint, Tony, Darcy, and Jane all crowded around her. She was gritting her teeth, obviously in a great deal of pain. The events of the past few weeks had taken its toll on Natasha's body. Broken wrist, arm, ribs, bruises, cuts, stab wounds, gunshot wounds...all healed and healing but not being able to move around and work it out has put her in a great deal of pain, and she was on a morphine drip. Without warning, a loud groan escaped Natasha's lips as she woke up and tried to sit up. Everyone reached for her to lay her back down and Clint let out a yell,
"Don't touch her!" He knew Natasha, and waking up after anything has happened to her, she did not like to be touched. It was a reflex thing she had. Her body takes over and until her mind catches up, she is deadly. Clint had been attacked many a time when trying to resuscitate his partner after a mission gone wrong, or just on the couch where she had fallen asleep.
Before they knew it, she had thrown enough punches and jabs to hit every single one of them, and knock them on their asses. She leaped from the table and backed against the wall, eyes wide and unfocused. This wasn't her reacting to not knowing where she was on the mission, it happened all the time, even in Red Room.
Everyone layed on the floor watching her, afraid to move. Clint, knowing how to deal with her, slowly got up and moved towards her with his body relaxed. When Natasha would tense, Clint would stop, only moving forward when she was more relaxed. After a few seconds, Natalia gained control of herself and studied the group of people before her. She guessed the man trying to calm her to be Clint, her 'partner', the big guy Thor since he would have the booming voice she heard, the two women Darcy and Jane, Darcy being the younger one with the smart mouth, the well-groomed one to be Steve, the guy with the light up chest to be Tony, and that left the dark haired man she guessed to be Bruce. She picked out Loki first. She figured all this out in seconds. Her mind was still as sharp as ever. She then started to feel weird as the pain started to take over once again. The adrenaline rush was gone and the morphine drip had been ripped from her arm when she jumped from the table. She looked down at herself and saw that she had on bloody and ratty clothes, as well as a metal cuff on her wrist. She also noticed the wounds on her body and figured that she had been on a mission gone wrong with them. When she saw the blood from where the IV line was on her arm, that's when her knees started to turn to jelly. She didn't want to pass out and injure herself further from falling so she called to the person closest to her.
"Clint..." she murmured as she started to fall to the ground.
Clint caught her and lowered the red head gently to the ground. "I've got you Tash," he said, all the while thinking it was Natasha who had called out to him from the joy of being woken up from that hell she was in. What he didn't know was that it was just Natalia guessing his name, not wanting herself to be injured again, who called out to him.
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"So umm, what do we do now? Red's unconscious...again." Tony, back to his smart ass ways, was unsure what to do.
Clint looked at her as he responded. "I'll put her in her room. She won't be so freaked out when she wakes up in a familiar place. Plus it's an upgrade from that hard ass medical table. It will feel better." He then looked at their bruised faces. "And you all need to get yourselves looked at."
Not listening to him, they all followed his as he left the lab with Natasha in his arms. They all crowded into the elevator to go to her room. They were all worried about her. When they reached the floor her room was on, they followed the two assassins to her room and watched as Clint gently placed her onto her bed.
Steve, being the neat one asked, "shouldn't we...ummm, you know...change her first?" He was looking at her tattered and bloodied clothes.
"Do you want to be the one to touch her and have her wake up again and take a swing at you?" Clint was being sarcastic but he saw sense in it. "Just wait till she wakes up properly. I don't want her to have a panic attack. Jane, Darcy? Could you help her when she wakes up? I'm sure she's going to be sore as hell and no matter how much she denies it, she needs help."
The girls looked uncomfortable at the thought of helping the assassin that just tried to take their heads off, get cleaned up. But they agreed. As everyone left the room, Tony asked JARVIS to alert Jane and Darcy when Natasha was awake.
The group then left to rest and recuperate, as well as tend to their own wounds.