Widows
“She’s waking up.”
Payton’s neck was killing her. Actually, everything was killing her. Her body ached everywhere and she could feel the bruises that were scattered around her torso. At first she couldn’t remember why she felt this way, wearily wondering if she had pushed herself too hard in training the previous day. She wasn’t confused for long however, getting shocked back into the present when she attempted to lift her arms to rub the sleep from her eyes and found that she couldn’t move. Payton’s eyes snapped open to see her wrists were restrained to the armrests of a cushioned seat. She couldn’t see her feet from her current position, but a quick test revealed that her ankles were tied down as well. Adrenaline began pumping through her as she fought against the restraints, flailing wildly in the seat she’d been placed in. Laughter rose around her, mocking in its tone as those around her watched her struggle.
“Those cuffs were specifically made to restrain super humans. I’m afraid you are stuck with us, child.”
The voice that spoke was Russian, just like the man she had seen the previous night (was it still the previous night? How long was she asleep?), but different. It clearly wasn’t the same man. The one who spoke to Taskmaster had been loud, his voice projected as if every word was the most important thing in the room. This man spoke quietly, his voice more raspy, as if the word had been roughened before being spoken.
Slowly, a part of her afraid of what monster she might see, Payton lifted her head. Whoever had spoken was sitting across from her, but was blocked by her own hair which had fallen like a curtain in front of her face. She attempted to shake it away, but before she could, a calloused hand, wrinkled with age, reached through the hair and framed her jaw. The feeling of a man’s hand on her jaw had Payton trying to force down panic, unwanted memories bubbling to the surface, even as a second hand brushed the curtain of hair away from her face, allowing her to see her captor.
The man was old, his face as weathered and rough as his hands were. His eyes were framed with thick glasses that made them appear larger than natural. The most surprising thing was just how normal he looked. He didn’t look like a monster, he wasn’t deformed or changed in any way to show just how evil he was. That was for the movies. No, this man wouldn’t have looked out of place working in some office.
What gave him away were his eyes. The predatory look in them as they appraised her broke her will and made the panic she’d been fighting erupt. Payton’s heart began to pound and her chest felt like it was constricting. She tried to force her head back and out of the man’s grip, but was stopped by the headrest of what she now realized was a luxury airplane seat. Her panic rose higher and higher and higher until her vision was tunneled and the world was nothing but white noise. She couldn’t breath as the dark eyes and grey hair across from her morphed into bleach blond hair and blue eyes. Payton tried harder and harder, flailing in her seat as she desperately tried to suck air into her lungs but she couldn’t she couldn’t she couldn’t . She hadn’t had a panic attack like this in nearly a year! She was supposed to have been getting better! But now she felt like she was ten again, hiding in her closet feeling like the world was collapsing around her.
A sharp pain and resounding smack brought her back to the here and now as her captor backhanded her across her face, the ring on one of his fingers cutting into her cheek, leaving a small trickle of blood behind. His grip on her jaw prevented her head from moving with the blow. Her chest still heaved as she tried to breathe properly, and tears streamed from her eyes, but she was no longer seeing him , and her eyes once again focused onto the cruel face of the Russian, which was curled in disgust.
“All that strength, all that power, wasted on such weakness .”
Payton couldn’t tell if he was talking to himself or her. The man released her jaw as he sat back in his own chain, wiping the small drops of blood that stuck to his ring off on the leather.
“Are you truly the same girl who evaded Taskmaster and defeated two of my men? Or was that just a fluke?”
Payton didn’t respond. She figured any answer she might give would be unsatisfactory. Plus she felt like her throat was sealed shut. The man scoffed.
“I would have thought a girl who has faced such hardship during her life would be tougher than this. Everyone who ever loved you has died, and you can’t even bring yourself to fight for yourself. Did your Aunt and Uncle die for nothing?” He mocked, and for the first time since waking up, Payton felt an emotion different than fear.
“You don’t know anything about me!” She spat, trying to sound tougher than she felt.
He laughed at her. “I know everything about you! I know that you dread half your classes because Eugene Thompson torments you, calls you ‘ Penis Parker ’. I know that his words sent you to the restroom that day three weeks ago in Oscorp, cutting deep enough that you wanted to hide your tears.” He leaned in closer, getting into her face. “I know what happened that long weekend in 2011.”
Payton’s face paled even further. She felt faint.”
“What was his name? Steven Wescott? You called him ‘Skip’ didn’t you? He lived on your floor, going to college and working part time as a babysitter. Your babysitter…”
“Stop.” She pleaded, eyes wide as the memories she did not think about fought to escape the vault she locked them in.
“Your Aunt and Uncle worked that weekend. They asked him to watch you, take care of you. But he did more than that.” The look on the Russian’s face was pure malice. He was enjoying the torment he was forcing on her.
“Stop! Please!”
“You weren’t strong enough to stop him then, and he took what he wanted from you, your body, your innocence, left you broken and weak. I will break you too, but from the rubble I will form something stronger, something truly unbreakable. The perfect assassin, my perfect Widow.” He said the words like a prayer, as if destroying her and turning her into something else was his life’s purpose. “There is no one left to mourn you, no one left to hold you back from what you will become.”
Footsteps padded across the floor of the plane, and from behind the man, a woman appeared. She wore a thin suit of black armor, a red hourglass buckled a utility belt to her waist. The uniform and symbol of the Black Widow. She’d always thought it was just the moniker of the SHIELD agent turned Avenger, but no. It was so much worse. Payton recognized the woman as she approached, carrying a small case. She was the nurse who triggered her spider-sense, the one who watched over May. The one who killed May. Her face was emotionless as she approached, looking at Payton as if a young girl tied to a chair was a normal sight. Maybe it was for her.
“The subjugation is ready, General.” The woman spoke, holding the case out for the man to take.
The ‘General’ took it, place the container on a nearby tray before unclasping its seals. Inside was a single syringe, protected by a thick foam padding. The liquid contained within was clear, though Payton’s eyes could make out small specks of color, like red glitter floating in substance. Her spider-sense vibrated at the sight. It didn't scream danger, but it gave her a sense of unease which only increased as the General picked the syringe out of its resting place.
“This is the start of your new life, Payton. Your new purpose.” He leaned forwards, one hand grabbing her head again to hold it still (she hadn’t even realized she was trying to get away from it), while the other jabbed the needle into her neck and pushed the plunger in.
Cold fluid entered her neck and sent chills down her spine as it began to adapt to the warmer environment of her body. Payton flinched, anticipating pain, drowsiness, or really anything. But nothing happened. She didn’t fade away into nothingness, or get shunted to the back of her mind as some other entity gained control. She just sat there, feeling blood weeping out of the hole made by the needle. She looked between the Widow and General in confusion, even as her racing heart began to finally slow down, and her fear subsided. There wasn’t anything to fear here.
The General smiled at her, patting her cheek softly before standing from his chair. “Wait there, young Widow. We will be home soon.”
And so she waited. It was what she was supposed to do, what she wanted to do. She sat in the chair and waited, even when a soldier in that same grey and black armor that she recognized from the attack that led her here released her bindings, she waited. Her wrists were red and chaffed, sore from her previous struggle. Her ankles were probably not any better, but she didn’t care. Worrying about such minor injuries was for the weak. The General didn’t want her to be weak, he said as much.
An hour passed before someone approached her, holding a new syringe. “Give me your arm.” They ordered.
Payton gave them her arm, not reacting when the needle pierced her bicep. They left without saying another word. After a few more minutes, Payton grew tired, and the world drifted away as she fell asleep.
…
…
…
Blinding lights met her eyes when she opened them, causing her to blink until her eyes could adjust to the change in light. She was no longer on the plane. Instead she was in some sort of medical facility, laying on a table hooked up to a variety of machines as a faceless person in medical attire and a mask took samples of her blood. The dull ache in her neck from the last time she was conscious had turned into sharp, lasting pain. She could feel the stitches holding an incision closed just at the base of her skull.
“Welcome back, Widow.” The General’s voice greeted her.
Turning her head, Payton looked to see the man sitting down in a nearby chair, watching the proceedings.
“Are the procedures complete?” He asked.
“Yes, General. All tissue and blood samples were collected, and the implant was successful.” The doctor attending to her replied dutifully.
“Good. Send the samples on the next shipment of supplies to Melina. I want her to see if she can recreate Oscorp’s work. Unhook the girl and leave us.”
Payton was promptly freed from the variety of sensors and monitors she was attached to, and the doctor left the room, pushing a cart that was stacked tall with different trays of vials.
“Stand up. Let me get a look at you.” The General demanded.
Despite the sluggishness of a body that was still fighting off whatever drug had knocked her out, Payton slipped off the medical table and stood still. At some point she’d been changed into a simple hospital gown, but that didn’t matter. She stood still as the General walked a circle around her, like a shark, her mind idly thought. A reflective glass on the wall, like a one-way window, revealed that her hair, that once went down to the middle of her back, had been cut down to a little under shoulder-length. The ends made to just barely passed the middle of her neck now.
“Good. You’ve taken to the subjugation well, and the surgery was a success. You truly belong to me now.” He praised, one hand drifting up to the nape of her neck, the touch sending shards of pain through the still-healing incision. “The implant is a beautiful piece of technology.” He continued, lifting a tablet from the nearby table. “It tracks your location, so that we will never lose you. But its true purpose is to work in unison with the subjugation. The chemical ensures your loyalty, ensures that you know where you belong. But the implant controls your body. Allow me to demonstrate.”
From her peripheral vision Payton saw the General press something on the screen, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t like the panic attacks her old self had. Those she merely felt like she couldn’t breathe, even as she hyperventilated. No, this was worse. Her lungs simply ceased their function, stopping dead in her chest. The General left her like that, her chest aching, desperate for oxygen as it tried to bring air in through lungs that no longer moved. Pressure built behind her eyes as the world around her dimmed, fatigue and weakness washed over her and she began to sway and sway until suddenly her lungs opened up.
Payton collapsed to the ground, falling onto all fours as her body’s natural instincts took over, sucking in breath after breath. One hand subconsciously drifted to the incision on her neck, brushing over the stitches as she thought about how that one object could force her body to kill itself.
“Now you understand, child. Should you ever be taken from us, should you ever be lost, I will not let anyone have you. You will die first.”
She nodded her head “I understand, General.”.
He smiled. “Good. Now stand and get dressed. You are already behind where you should be at your age, you have plenty of lessons to catch up on.”
She stood, walking over to the table that held a pile of clothes on it. Looking over the bundle, she realized it was the same uniform she saw on the Widow in the plane, the same similar style worn by one of Earth’s heroes. Her fingers worked quickly to untie the laces that held the gown on. Uncaring that the General was watching, Payton shrugged out of the gown and picked up the armor of a Black Widow, and began to dress.
Once she was done, the General beckoned her to follow him. They left the medical chamber and walked through curving hallways, not a single window revealed the outside world as they went. After a trip up an elevator, they passed by a group of six Widows who were being escorted somewhere else in the facility. None of them turned to look at her, and she didn’t bother to look at them either, keeping her focus on the General who had ordered her to go with him. Soon enough they arrived outside of a door. There were no signs to indicate the purpose of the room beyond, but it was not her place to question the General.
“You are special, Payton. With your abilities, I did not think it would be useful to have you train alongside the others. No. The spider that bit you was a years-long investment, and I must make that same investment in you…”
The door slid open, and in the room beyond stood a familiar sight. Standing in the middle of a room with walls and floor covered in a red mat was Taskmaster. His helmet was still on, as it always was, and his hands were clasped behind his back.
“…As such, I have paid the Taskmaster to continue his employment under me. He will be your instructor. He will break down the weakness of your past and forge you into a true Widow, and the best assassin the world will have ever seen. HYDRA had their Winter Soldier… I will have you.”
She stepped past the General and into the room, but before he left, he placed his hands onto her shoulders and leaned in, whispering into her ear “Welcome home.”
April 29th, 2016
6 Months Later
Helsinki, Finland
“Today marks the end of the first week of negotiations into the so-called ‘Sokovia Accords’, the international legislation designed to dictate when and where enhanced individuals can act on their own volition. The Accords had been originally drafted during the summer and fall of last year as a response to the tragedy that befell the nation of Sokovia during the Avenger’s battle against the rogue program Ultron. Following the October Bombings in New York City and public opinion rising back to post Battle of New York levels, the decision had been made to redraft sections of the Accords that had been deemed too restrictive. Supporters of the decision pointed to the dozens of extra lives that would have been lost had the Avengers not been able to respond as quickly as they had--”
“This is stupid!”
Natasha’s eyes were torn from the news feed at the whining coming from her left.
“What? Don’t look at me like that! It is! It's stupid!” Her sister continued to complain, all while picking at thread that was coming loose from her vest.
She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose as she took a swig from the beer that sat on the table. “She’s the only lead we have, Yelena. We don’t really have a choice.”
Her sister groaned, throwing her head back as she continued to pout. “I know that, but this is either a trap orrr she is not going to show up. Widows weren’t taught to trust each other, and that doesn’t change for those who get out.”
“We trust each other.” Nat pointed out, knowing that it wasn’t exactly the same, but she didn’t have much else to say.
“Yeah but we’re sisters .”
“Fair.” She conceded with a shrug and smile. “But that still doesn’t change the fact that we have to take the chance.”
Yelena deigned not to respond, instead grumbling some more to herself as she nursed her own drink, leaving the two of them in silence. The news had switched to playing footage from the United Nations session that was currently taking place in New York. From angle she could see Tony and Steve in their own seats, taking their roles as team leaders seriously as they acted as the team’s representatives on the international stage. The audio wasn’t nearly as interesting though, as they were just listening to the Austrian Ambassador droning on about some random clause or something.
“Eyes up you two, we’ve got company.” Clint informed, speaking up for the first time in the last few hours.
While she and Yelena were inside a bar, waiting for their contact to hopefully show up, Clint perched himself on the roof of a building across the plaza, once again proving his alias of Hawkeye as he observed the area from afar.
“Enforcers? Or our contact?” She asked, sitting up from her relaxed slouch.
“Definitely a Widow, and she doesn’t have any friends with her, so I’d assume the latter, but-”
“Be careful? Yeah, I know.”
Beside her, Yelena checked her watch. “Only fifteen minutes late.”
“Actually she’s been here for twenty. Just took me a little bit to make her. Thought she was a window shopper at first, but after the second lap… Clearly a security sweep. She’s just as paranoid as you two are.”
Natasha huffed at Clint’s remark. “I don’t blame her. Drekyov is always keeping an eye out for the defectors. This meeting probably seemed as much of a trap to her as it did to us.”
“Then why show up?” Clint asked.
“Because she is just as desperate as we are. Natasha was the only defector Dreykov couldn’t chase, and that's because she was lucky enough to have SHIELD, and then the Avengers. The rest of us don’t have those connections. The Red Room always tracks us down eventually.” Her sister mumbled the answer, her face showing that her thoughts were in the past, back when they first reunited, and had to contend with a team of Widows who’d been sent to neutralize her for her betrayal.
Yelena had told her, and the rest of the Avengers, all about the chemical subjugation the new generations of Widows faced, and how only five girls in the past decade escaped because of it. All five of them, including Yelena, had been freed by the same Widow from Melina’s generation. A woman who Yelena had fatally wounded moments before being freed herself. Three of the escaped girls had already been killed before they could find them. The other one they hadn’t been able to find whatsoever, but the assumption was that the Red Room had gotten to her as well, just as they nearly did with Yelena.
That just left those of the older generations. Her sister had been able to say that Natasha’s generation of Widows was the last to have any defectors without help from the outside (it also had the largest number of defectors thanks to her efforts), and that the actual number of those who were left were relatively unknown. Which made the months of effort in trying to track one down finally worth it when one of her sources managed to get word to her that there was a woman who was likely once a Black Widow looking through the black markets in search of heavy-duty chemistry equipment. After some difficulty, they had managed to get in contact with her and arrange a meet, which led them to where they are now, sitting in a Finnish bar, waiting for their contact to finish their own security sweep of the area.
A few more minutes pass before Clint calls again, informing them that the Widow was making a b-line for the bar. Moments after that, the door swings open and a woman walks through. For the average person, she would’ve seemed perfectly normal, but Natasha saw the signs, the small, almost imperceptible habits that every Widow shared when it came to a new area. Her and Yelena had been the exact same less than an hour ago when they’d arrived.
The woman’s brown eyes scanned over the room until they landed on her and her sister and widened ever so slightly, the only sign of the shock the woman was probably feeling at the time. Her and Yelena weren’t the only ones fearing a trap today it seemed. Their contact strolled through the bar, ignoring the crowd until she reached their table, tucked away in a shady corner, and sat down across from them.
“When I heard the Avengers wanted to meet me, I didn’t believe it at first.” The Widow commented, her arms crossed.
Now that she was closer, Natasha found herself recognizing her. She was only a year or two older than Natasha herself, and had been in one of her classes. She couldn’t remember the other woman’s name though.
“Hard to believe anything after growing up like we did.” She replied kindly. “I’m Natasha, this is Yelena. It's nice to meet you, again, that is.”
Her old ‘classmate’ gave a small smile in return. “Emily. I guess I should thank you. If you hadn’t turned against Dreykov, I never would’ve gotten out myself. If only all the others were as lucky.”
She couldn’t help but flinch. Her failure to truly destroy the Red Room those years ago still rankled her. “I’d thought for so long that they were gone… I never expected to hear otherwise.” She admitted.
“When did you find out?”
“Six months ago. Yelena here sent a postcard shortly after she got out that put my team on the trail of a girl being hunted by them.”
Emily’s eyebrows rose as she seemed to put the pieces together. “Six months? Were the October Bombings…”
“Them? Yeah. Dreykov hired a mercenary known as Taskmaster to abduct a young girl from the city, and long story short, he used the bombs to serve as a distraction for the city’s vigilantes and the Avengers while they made their move.”
“We’ve been on their trail ever since. Or looking for their trail I guess.” Yelena piped in.
Emily leaned back, looking between her and Yelena. “And how did your hunt lead you to me?”
“You’ve been looking into lab equipment on the market, one of my sources said you reminded him of me, which was a bit of a tip off.” She answered, not failing to notice the way Emily’s eyes widened again.
“Yeah. It's also interesting that a suspected Widow is looking into specialized lab equipment barely a few months after another free Widow was killed for creating a cure to the subjugation.” Yelena pointed out.
Emily sighed, seemingly in resignation, before answering. “I was contacted a week or two after the bombings. They’d claimed to be a turncoat from the Red Room who was working to dismantle the organization from the inside. I didn’t believe it at first, thought it was a trick to get me to reveal my location. But they didn’t give up, they sent me insider information, warned me when the Room was getting close to finding me. After a few months, I chose to trust them, and they told me about the chemical subjugation, and the cure that’d been made for it.”
“How do you know they weren’t giving them your location to earn your trust?” Yelena asked skeptically.
“I don’t know for sure, honestly. But why tell me about the cure? Why tell me how to make it if they were just going to get me killed anyway?”
The points the other Widow gave were valid, despite the suspicious circumstances of their contact.
“I doubt that whoever your contact is is another Widow, with the subjugation there is no way one of them could turn.” Natasha noted, receiving an agreeing nod in return from Emily.
“That’s what I’ve been thinking. From what I’ve gathered, they were likely involved with the creation of the subjugation in the first place, and are jumping ship now because they know the Avengers are officially involved. I don’t really care who they are at this point. Only what they can give me.”
A group of people walked by their table, pausing the conversation for a moment as the crowd mingled too close for comfort, but once they were gone, Yelena piped up with another question.
“Were they helping out the previous Widow who made a cure?”
Emily shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t even know I had a predecessor until you two told me. From what my contact told me, they came up with the cure on their own, but can’t distribute it. They gave me the formula and the list of needed equipment. Everything else was up to me.”
“Where did you get the money for all of it?” Natasha wondered aloud, not suspiciously, but curious.
“I have some secrets I want to keep. I’m sure you can understand that.” Emily replied, eyes narrowed.
It was a fair enough point that Natasha chose to back away from the question, and punched her sister in the leg to get her to shut up when Yelena attempted to push the subject. They couldn’t afford to alienate Emily, not when the woman had both the cure, and a potential inside source to the Red Room itself. Around them, the bar began to grow far more crowded, which actually helped put them at ease. The larger the crowd the louder the room, which would mean it was far more difficult for prying ears to listen to their conversation, though they made sure to keep their voices down to be on the safe side.
Over the next hour Emily gave them the rundown on the steps she’d taken thus far, and what she still had left to do. It turned out that despite her initial distrust when they reached out, their fellow Widow was glad to have help. All three of them knew that the next natural step once the cure was complete was to test it, which meant baiting the Red Room into sending another team of Widows to kill them. It was a risky play, but one that would work far better with the four people they had available than it would have if Emily had been forced to do it on her own.
Emily had refused to get them in contact with her source, saying that she would talk with them and see if they were willing to work with more than just her, but for now, they had to wait. The cure had to be made first, and they would have to plan the trap, wait for the assassins to show up, free them (hopefully), and then work from there. If the cure worked, Natasha knew that Doctor Cho would be able to replicate it and make it in bulk faster than they could. A secondary goal was to hopefully get information about Payton’s condition from the Widows they freed. An enhanced girl like Payton was an asset Natasha just knew that Dreykov wouldn’t throw away. It was likely the girl was in specialized training to avoid the normal procedure of a trainee being killed for excessive failure. But she feared just how much the girl had gone through so far. Very few girls were inducted into the Red Room at Payton’s age, as it gave less time before they were supposed to be graduated to be trained.
At the end of their meeting, Emily gave them her contact information, and then went her separate way, leaving Yelena and her behind. Overall, she felt as though The meeting went far better than both her and her sister had expected, something she knew she would tease Yelena over in short order. Turns out her plan wasn’t ‘stupid’ and hadn’t been a trap.
After paying their tab, Natasha led Yelena back out of the bar and towards their meeting point with Clint. They had a long report to send back to the team, and a plan to make for the next step in their hunt. But for the first time in six months, things were starting to look up.