Natasha Romanoff: Not Today
No one in the Red Room knew who had been the first to start it. The very origin itself was becoming a tale steeped in myth. It could be traced right back to the beginning, they said. Maybe even before the time of the Red Room itself.
It was just known.
It was believed to have begun with tales of the Baba Yaga, and how she would come and take the bad children away. She would hold them tight, chew on their bones, suck at their flesh, eat them whole, and no one could protect them. But then the tale began to change to a new and more frightening nightmare, one that seemed more real. The Bogeyman.
He had frightened the Baba Yaga away. So much more frightening that no one ever quite grew out of the fear of him.
Especially not Natalia Alianovna Romanova.
Because she had seen him. She knew he was real.
The older girls would wait until it was dark, until the younger children were on the cusp of sleep, and then they would make the noise. Fingers being drawn across the windowsill. Metal fingers.
"He is coming," they would gasp and the younger children would hold their breath, listening for the noise, for the footsteps, but there would be silence and then the older children would fill the silence with tales of what the Bogeyman would do. That he moves silently, except for the screech of his metal fingers against the bed frames. They would speak of girls who had disappeared, never to be seen again. All the while all anyone ever saw was the glint of silver, the red star, the curtain of hair covering his face.
The teachers knew the tales were being told but they preferred their charges to be unsettled. It helped. Made them stronger. Those that did not cope with the tales would be weeded out anyway, they would be the unwanted. The Bogeyman would come for them. They would disappear and a new name would be added to the list of the Bogeyman's victims.
*
Natalia should never have been near the office on that fateful day but she was always inquisitive, always looking to see what was happening. And always without realising it, ready to finally learn the truth of who she really was.
The noise stops her in her tracks. Metal fingers sliding along glass, then a noise no six year old child should ever recognise: the gasp of someone dying. She peers around the door and at first does not realise what she is seeing. It looks more like her teacher is dancing with someone but no, her teachers eyes are wide and staring and the Bogeyman is holding her around the throat, the metal fingers pressing so hard that it leaves her neck blue.
Natalia's intake of breath alerts the Bogeyman to the fact that he is no longer alone. His whole body tenses. He has his back to her. He lets the body of her teacher slip to the floor. And then, he slowly turns around, his silver arm making a noise like a curled snake slivering as it closes the rings and at the top she can see it. The perfect red star. She does not want to see his face, does not want to see him at all, but her eyes take him in. The long brown hair parted in the middle, the blue piercing eyes, and then he takes a step towards her.
Oh, how fast she can run. How fast when she has to. But he can run just as quick. She is running through the courtyard garden, falling over pots. She can hear her own breath and all the while she knows he is so close behind her, until finally she comes up against the wall. She can hear the other girls somewhere chanting their lessons. Lessons she should be in.
She runs out of space, has nowhere left to go.
She hits the wall with her small fists but cannot scream for help; she has no breath left. His shadow falls over her and she turns to face him. She is a fighter but her spirit has drained out of her. This is her nightmare, the one thing she has never been able to dismiss – the Bogeyman. Her one fear.
The sun is low and he blocks it: so tall, so menacing.
He reaches out that metal hand and it encircles her throat and picks her up so her back slides along the wall, scraping and bruising her delicate skin through the dress she is wearing. Natalia wants to fight, to kick out, but this is the Bogeyman, someone she cannot defeat – ever. Her heart is beating so fast she is surprised he cannot hear it. Her hands encircles his...
Such small hands. A child, nothing more. He knows her heart is beating wildly, knows she is so frightened, and this stops him. She is not his mission. That has already been completed. The child's eyes are closing. He leans in close.
"Not today," he says quietly, and then his hand lowers her back down and lets go of her and she falls like a rag doll.
When they find her later she can hardly speak, cannot tell them how she received the bruising on her throat. All she can tell them is the Bogeyman slaughtered her teacher, and then they know. The Red Room had taken a wrong turn, had crossed the wrong people, and action had been taken against them. Lesson learnt.
Natalia never speaks of the Bogeyman again. Does not join in when the older children scare the younger ones but she never forgets him either. Her dreams sometimes morph into nightmares and when they do it is always the Bogeyman who has her, who is promising her not today...but one day, little Natalia, one day.
*
And Natasha Romanoff shakes herself awake. Not that she was truly asleep. She is no longer that six year old child, but he still frightens her. Still haunts her dreams. She laughs at herself but it is an unsettled laugh, one trying to show she is not afraid of anything, of anyone, but deep down she knows she is lying.
Everyone has their own Bogeyman.
*
She listens to the radio. No traffic delays, nothing to worry about. Nick Fury has given her the assignment to get Doctor Yazdani to safety and she has nearly completed her task. She looks over at her charge; he is still clutching his briefcase as if it holds the secrets of the world. Maybe it does. The secret of nuclear fusion the Engineer had said – a new concept on an old design.
"Not long. Another fifteen minutes, if that," she says feeling the need to reassure him. Then her attention returns to the road, and driving.
Another two minutes of quiet and then the hairs on the back of her neck begin to tingle. Her stomach tightens and in the wing mirror she can see a motorbike approaching. The road until now has been clear and she would have seen it if it had been on the road with her. But now it has appeared out of nowhere and is moving towards them at speed.
Catching them up.
But then she breathes out as it passes them by. The bike is a Goldwing, beautiful, sleek but heavy to handle. The biker lifts a hand to say thanks for allowing him to pass. He is dressed in leathers and helmet and roars off. No apparent danger. But Natasha has learnt from experience and does not relax entirely. She finds herself easing off the accelerator, letting the bike get a little further ahead and then it is disappearing around a corner in the road. She eases her foot more because she cannot see around that corner and her senses are warning her not to take anything for granted. She has her gun sat in her lap.
She keeps to the road, her car gently making the curve. The road ahead is clear. Yazdani looks at her and grins and she can't help but smile back. He has a beautiful smile.
But then she sees the grin drop from his face. He is looking at something happening outside the car and as she turns her head something solid hits the side of the vehicle. It is the bike from before, emerging from the undergrowth to get close to the side of the car. Before she can react, the rider shoots out two of her tires.
Natasha fights to keep the car on the road as it swerves to the other side. She should have listened to her senses. She has no chance to look at the rider as the bike again smashes into their car. The car is armoured with shatter-proof windows but if someone is determined enough they can still get at them. With two tires blown she does not have complete control of the car and the bike is just heavy enough to nudge it to the other side of the road and over the edge.
"Watch out!" Yazdani screeches, and she turns forward in time to watch as the road disappears and all she can see is blue sky as they sail over the edge of a ravine. The car seems to be flying...before hitting the ground with such force that despite the seat belts they are thrown against the windshield. She hits the glass hard and is dazed; Yazdani is almost knocked out.
The car continues its descent down its rugged path then hits a huge boulder which makes it tip over, and then they are rolling again. It seems such a long time before the world finally comes to a stop, and they are upside down within the quiet shell of the car. All they can hear is the ticking of the hot metal. The air bags have not deployed and she now realises the seat belts did not hold them as firmly as they should have. The car will have been checked out in the SHIELD garage before she was given it to use but they would have checked things like the brakes and steering not the seat belts. Someone has been tampering.
Natasha is groggy but knows she cannot afford to be. Her eyesight is foggy, her brain thinking in slow motion. She shakes herself physically and mentally. She needs to get them both out and into the undergrowth as quickly as possible but her door will not open. The frame is dented. She releases both damaged seat belts and reaches across to Yazdani who is just coming around. The door catch works and his door begins to open but soon stops. Without giving it any thought she turns herself so she can hit the door with her feet and after a few kicks the door opens enough to let them out.
"Get out and stay low," she says looking back out of her window but she cannot see anything, has no idea of what has happened to the bike and the rider. Every time she moves it feels like her brain is two steps behind. She has a serious head wound and blood dribbles down the back of her neck and also into her eyes from a cut on her forehead. She tries her best to wipe it away, ignoring the tickle of it down her neck.
She searches for her gun but she can't find it. She takes a few seconds to scrabble back in to get to the glove box but it won't open and she cannot therefore get to her spare gun. She swears and then gets them both out, keeps them behind the overturned car and looks up onto the ridge. The blood is still seeping and she blinks several times and wipes it away again to clear her sight. She is feeling sick, nauseous, she recognises the symptoms of concussion - something she just cannot afford.
"Are you hurt?" she asks whilst trying to assess what the situation is. Yazdani is clearly in shock and she looks him over. He is favouring his arm but still clutching his briefcase.
"Are you hurt?!" she repeats, louder and with more insistence. He shakes his head, but she knows she is not going to get any help from him.
She turns back to the ridge and sees the bike and rider. He is making no effort to come down, instead just sitting astride his bike. She realises he is on a walkie-talkie. So where is his partner? Then she sees him dismount.
"We have to get out of here fast." She turns and grabs Yazdani, literally pulling him with her into the undergrowth. She swings him so that he is now in front of her, her body covering him from behind.
"Go!" she says, then follows him and reaches for her phone. She needs to contact Fury for help. They both crash through the bushes and trees, dust being disturbed by their boots and making them cough. The season over here is so dry.
She looks at the phone screen and sees there is no signal. No help.
She stops Yazdani. She crouches low, listening, trying to evaluate. If the rider is not worried about how long it takes to get down to them there must be someone down here already. As soon as she thinks this, a bullet rucks up the dirt next to her feet.
"Go!" she shouts again and pushes Yazdani ahead of her. He is speaking to her in Iranian, begging her not to let him be killed.
"I won't. Just be quiet!" she responds, but she doesn't think her reply will get through to him: the man is so frightened he is not thinking clearly. She must think for both of them.
Why can't she see the gunman? Where is he hiding? Where is he shooting from? She is having trouble thinking, trouble concentrating. Trouble even getting her body to respond to her command to run.
Yazdani suddenly stops in his tracks and she realises why. They are about to break cover and she grasps the back of his jacket to stop him from taking another step. He looks at her, and she nods to say he has done the right thing and then they crouch down.
Ahead of them is an open plain with very few trees to give cover. Behind them the cover is better but she expects by now the rider may have started making his way down and will be coming up behind them.
To one side she can hear the trickle of water. A stream, better than nothing. She points in its direction and Yazdani nods. They move slowly and as quietly as possible through the undergrowth until they see a small, shallow bank ahead leading to a stream. They stop and she looks around, listens.
Twigs crack and she can now hear someone moving through the undergrowth. They are making no effort to be quiet. What is it she has missed? Why are they so confident they have her cornered? And then she realises. The bank on the other side of the stream is too high for them to climb. She looks downstream. One side is blocked by a fallen tree, the other side by boulders. They have been backed into a dead end. Her only option is to fight but she is seriously compromised by her injuries.
Yazdani taps her arm; he wants to know what they are to do. She is trying to think but her mind is physically hurting. Her eyes keep clouding over; thinking it is the slow trickle of blood she wipes them but her eyesight is still blurred and then her vision doubles. Without realising it she has fallen to her knees and Yazdani is trying to haul her up. Pain in her temples is making itself known. A deep, throbbing pain. Before she can stop herself she vomits, coughing, cannot get her breath.
"Come, come," Yazdani is saying and pulling on her arm. She shakes her head and for a moment things clear and she staggers up to follow him down to the side of the stream. As they reach the edge she senses danger, she knows they are out of time and she swings around to face the assassin, blinking to try and clear her view. She has placed her body in front of the nuclear engineer, covering him as much as she can, indicating he is to stay behind her...but now she freezes.
No. It can't be. She shakes her head again to clear her sight.
Stepping out of the undergrowth in front of her is the figure from her nightmares. Taller than her and dressed all in black except for his left arm, which shines silver. His lower face is covered by a black mask, his blue eyes, hard, cold, dead, his hair long and brown, parted in the middle. He holds a gun in his hand which he now points at Natasha and then she watches as he steps to the side to aim and shoot at Yazdani. Her sight wavers and the figure splits, becomes two, dizziness floods her brain and then it reverts back to one. She blinks hard, shakes her head and wishes she hadn't. Anger and frustration well up inside her.
"No!" she screams the word and means to step forward to meet her attacker, instead she feels herself stagger sideways but she still covers the engineer and the assassin looks at her. She is sure that behind the mask he smirks. He can see she is injured, sees she is no longer a serious threat. She tries to step forward again to engage him but her head swims and she lurches to keep upright.
He can see she is not going to make this easy so he brings the gun over and shoots. The bullet hits Natasha, runs right through her and hits the engineer behind her. She hears him cry out. She feels like she has been punched. She tries to turn but instead her knees give way and she sinks to the ground, her hand covering the hole in her left hand side where the blood is now starting to drip. The pain is incredible. She has been hurt before, experienced pain, but has never been shot. She looks up as the man strides past her and she looks at his face. She sees he is looking down at her and then his eyes move to look at the engineer lying behind her.
"No," she whispers and tries to find the energy to fight, to stop him. She lifts her hand. It is incredibly heavy. She tries to grab at the assassin but it is in effectual and she hears the second shot which takes the engineer's life.
Her head is spinning. Confused, she looks around. Where is she? Think, Natasha, think - and then she sees him, sees her Bogeyman standing two steps away from her and she is a little girl again, six years old, back in the courtyard. He has come for her, come to kill her.
She tries to grasp his trouser leg as he walks by and it is enough to stop him. He has Yazdani's briefcase in one hand and the gun in his other and he looks down at her as he lifts the barrel level with her head. Neither move for what seems minutes and then his hand drops and he shakes his head.
She is sure she hears him utter the words "Not today," but it could be an echo from the past. And then her body and mind begin to shut down, there is nothing more it can give her and she passes out.
*
Fury finds her in the kick-boxing gym. She is supposed to still be in hospital but she has discharged herself despite being heavily bruised in body as well as spirit. There are stitches in her hairline and scalp at the back of her head. She has broken ribs and the after-effects of concussion. She also has a hairline fracture to her skull.
He watches as she kicks out in anger. Her skin is grey and she is sweating heavily on the point of collapse.
"Nat," he says softly, walking in front of her so she is forced to acknowledge he is there.
She hits out again even though he knows she has seen him but this time her punches are skewed and he can see she is having trouble with her vision. What worries him most is the fear and anger in her eyes.
"Nat," he repeats and she glares at him, steps away. "Nat...Natasha. Come on, you shouldn't be here." But he knows there is no where else she would rather be. "There is nothing you could have done."
This time he lays his hand on her arm, stops her mid-step. She tries to shrug him off but now he can see tears in her eyes. He has never known her to cry, ever. They are hot tears of frustration, of anger.
He does something he has never done before: he pulls her into his space, looks at her and finally sees her give in to him, to accept the help he can offer. He pulls her closer and she leans her head against his chest.
Nick Fury is the nearest thing she has ever had to a father.
She hits his chest with one clenched hand. "Next time...I have to fight him. Next time I can't let him do this to me," she says, and Fury knows she doesn't want a response. "He's real goddamn it! He's a real person. He can't hurt me unless I let him."
She knows that her bogeyman is an assassin. She knows he is the fabled Winter Soldier but even so deep down in her furtherest thoughts he still frightens her.
But...
Next time she is determined she will fight him. She will not allow her fear to overtake her, she will use it instead to beat him. Fury knows she is being too hard on herself: the doctors said she is lucky to be alive with the concussion and the fracture to her skull. It is a wonder to them that she stayed conscious for as long as she did.
She pulls away from Fury, looks up at him.
"Next time our paths cross I will kill him. I will ground him underfoot and bury him!"
And he believes her.