Terror
There wasn’t a single moment that went by that wasn’t punctuated by pain. She breathed, it hurt. Shifted, it hurt. Did nothing, it hurt. The punishments for refusing to cooperate had been swift and brutal. Waking up after being carved like a turkey, she was only awake for minutes before they decided to pour alcohol directly over the fresh wounds. She was fairly certain she had torn something in her throat with the screams that she was ashamed to have let out. The next time she woke, they were on her almost instantly. Kicking her on the floor as she attempted to curl up to protect her badly injured chest and stomach.
The next days – at least, what felt like days – were simply filled with bouts of being conscious as she was strangled repeatedly, by hands, by rope, and one time, what felt like a metal tube. Strangled unconscious, only to wake up later, and have it happen again, and again.
Her throat was on fire. Breathing was incredibly difficult, between her broken ribs, bruised and injured throat, and the rapidly growing sensation of congestion in her chest. She was sure it had something to do with the temperature torments, and the water boarding/shower she had experienced. She resisted coughing as much as possible, if only to spare herself the shooting shards of pain that sent colors flashing before her eyes. If it wasn’t for that, she wasn’t sure if she even remembered how colors looked. She had been in the dark for so long, seeing nothing but the blackness on the inside of the sack.
They were killing her. As slowly and inhumanely as they could. It would take months of suffering, but she knew she would die here. Because she would never give up the people she had once called, and wanted to call again, friends.
Then it changed. Alarms were going off. The sound was deafening and painful and she pressed herself into the floor as if it would make her disappear. Screaming, yelling. Loud sounds of bursting and guns rattling. Her heart was racing a frantic pace, coughing weakly as her breathing picked up along with it. Something closer exploded, and she twisted on the floor, trying to move away from the painful sound.
Something broke through the loudness around her. A soft, gentle voice. Her name. She recognized the voice. She jerked her head toward it immediately, desperate for it to be real. Clint. Clint was here!
Had he come to save her? She wanted to cry in relief at the thought. But also knew he could have been caught again, thrown in to suffer with her. Or she was just imagining it. But she was so desperate for something to end that she was willing to feel just a tiny bit of hope.
Hands touched her. She flinched away, gasping in panic, because when hands touched her it was immediately followed by pain, and she bit back a sob.
“Hold on,” the words said. The hands touched her again. Not hard and cruel. But gentle, soft. The hood was being pulled off for the first time in what felt like weeks, but might be even longer. Light blurred her vision. Colors exploded in her line of sight and she flinched, closing her eyes immediately as she struggled to adjust. After several attempts at blinking and opening and closing her eyes, she was able to see enough.
Clint. Clint. CLINT!
Her heart surged. Her eyes watered with tears. Her friend’s hands were shaking, and he looked pale and his blue eyes were sparkling with anger and sadness. But in moments, before she knew what was happening, the gag was off.
She breathed through her mouth, closing her aching, unused jaw. Her mouth and throat were so dry that it hurt, and she had no ability to speak, but it was gone. Even it had hurt coming off, stuck to her lips and the inside of her mouth with dried blood from weeks past. But it was most definitely gone, and she felt a wave of relief crash over her.
Still, she trembled with fear, trying to keep her eyes just on him. He spoke to her with gentle, tender care, in English and then Russian. She felt herself starting to relax.
Then her eyes flicked past him and she saw Iron Man and her heart jumped into her throat and she jolted in reflexive fear. Because he hated her, and he had every reason to, and he wasn’t here to help. He was here to finish her off, she was sure of it. She tried to move, pushing herself back, but she was still shackled, and it wasn’t like she had the strength to do it anyway. Clint gently brushed his hand through her tangled, blood-matted hair, trying to soothe her.
The face plate came down, and Tony’s pale and strangely worried face told her it was okay. She didn’t know what to believe. Her eyes sought Clint, and he looked at her with warm eyes and told her, very softly, that it was okay.
And she believed him.
Pain flared in her arm as he tried to move her. She cried out, unable to stop the sound, and he let go like he had burned her. Tony asked FRIDAY for her medical scan results, and she closed her eyes, not sure she wanted to know. She tuned most of it out, only registering words such as broken, starvation, respiratory infection.
Weak.
The Red Room would have killed her themselves if they had found her like this. Pathetic, to be reduced to such a mess after all their hard work.
They aren’t that place, her mind said softly.
Clint told her they were removing the shackles. They were going home. She nodded briefly, barely reacting, tensing up to try and handle the pain that was sure to come. The shackles had been a constant part of her stay here, and had dug into her wrists brutally, tightening with every attempt to struggle out of them. They came off hard, leaving a bloodied mess behind on both her wrists and ankles. She sagged slightly. They were gone. All of it was gone, and what was left was just her broken body and prison clothes.
Clint asked Tony to carry her out. She stiffened. Then forced herself to relax again. It was a tactical decision. She wouldn’t have to feel the painful jolting of walking or tripping or stumbling. Just a smooth glide.
Her body seized with pain as she was lifted. She nearly choked herself trying to stop a coughing fit in its tracks. She could practically feel Tony vibrating with anxiety in his suit, the trembling very clear for her sensitive body. She kept her eyes squeezed tightly shut, not wanting to see the faces of everyone she knew and cared about. Not wanting to see their pity.
Sounds faded behind her. It was quieter. More soothing. She breathed in the smell of salt water and fresh air, and nearly cried again, realizing how much she had missed such a simple thing.
She cried out again when she was set down. And oh, it was soft. What was likely a thin cot beneath her instead felt like a pillow, soothing her stiff, painful body. Was this what it felt like, to lie on something other than hard, cold concrete?
“We’re bring you home, Nat,” Tony said, consolingly, and she finally forced her eyes open. He looked at her not with pity, but compassion. And he would know all about it. Of course he would. He had been held for a long time in Afghanistan, tortured and forced to cater to the will of horrible people. Perhaps he even understood her relief now, to lay on something soft – to be able to see and move, even if physically she had trouble doing everything. But now, the ability was there. She just needed to reach it.
Others filed into the jet. She was shocked. Almost everyone was here. It didn’t matter what team they were on, or who they were fighting for back at the airport. Steve, Sam, Clint, Scott, Tony, Rhodey, Wanda, Vision – all of them except the kid Stark had brought in.
It was good he had not brought the kid to this. No kid deserved to see what had happened.
She found her eyes closing, despite her efforts to stay awake. Something in her had calmed. Her team was here. She was safe, and the next time she woke, it wouldn’t be to an ethanol bath, or a hand around her throat, or a fist grinding her broken ribs to dust. It would be to her family being around her.
And for once, she trusted someone else enough to let go.
It was decided, with little to no argument, that Sam would be the one to check her over on the quinjet to get a better look at what was going on that couldn’t be picked up by a scan. His history as a pararescuer meant he had the experience with first aid and treating injuries in the field that others didn’t have – although most Avengers could get by at this point on their own.
He approached carefully, nervous of what he would find. Clint was huddled up at the head of the cot, wrapped around her so he could continue to gently stroke her hair. If he hadn’t known better he would have thought they were in a romantic relationship. Instead, it was more like an older brother caring for a younger sister. Natasha had always seemed like a slightly scary, but fierce badass to him. Every time he saw her she was either kicking someone’s ass or threatening to. She could also make a good joke. And while they may have had a few slight… disagreements, especially before their little airport escapade, he had always liked her.
To see her now, lying limp and bruised and bloody on a cot made him nervous. It was definitely effecting the other members of the team as well, and he knew it would only get worse when he got to see what was underneath.
Underneath the blood soaked, alcohol-reeking clothes.
He had a guess about why she reeked of rubbing alcohol or ethanol, but he really didn’t want to put much thought into it given how horrific the idea was. Like putting hand sanitizer on an open cut.
She looked thin and ragged. Her wrists, visible, were heavily bruised and deep lacerations clotted with dried blood marred the skin from bindings that were too tight, and left on far too long. The bruising on her throat was also severe, but he wouldn’t be able to tell how much damage was there until she was conscious and attempting to speak. The fact she hadn’t even attempted to speak at all while conscious earlier was worrying, but also not unusual. She had been through a lot.
There was bruising on her face, but none of it seemed too bad. He doubted there was any broken bones. He moved his hand to her shirt, looking at Clint as if for permission. The archer nodded, face drawn in sorrow.
Pulling up her shirt, he let out a string of curses. As did some of the team behind him. Her abdomen and torso are completely covered in bright red cuts and bruises. Some of the cuts are still sluggishly bleeding. The bruises are all sorts of colors, from black and green to blue and purple. Despite everything he can clearly see each and every rib, and he knows if he turned her over, he would clearly be able to see her spine jutting out. She was always rather tiny, but not unhealthily. Perhaps ‘fit’ was a better description to her usual size.
“She has lost a lot of muscle mass,” he said out loud, forcing himself to look beyond the horrific looking wounds.
“FRIDAY said she has lost 26 pounds since last known weight,” Tony said, very subdued and looking like he wanted to go walk head first into a fridge of alcohol. Sam was thinking he might want to do that too if he wanted to get these horrible sights out of his head.
“She didn’t even have 26 pounds to lose,” he responded, shaking his head. The bastards had starved her.
The wounds looked clean. He grimaced, knowing the reason why and wishing he didn’t. He gently pressed on her ribs, trying to feel in between cuts and lacerations. Immediately the unconscious woman stirred, breath hitching, as his fingers ran across clear breaks and fractures.
Fortunately she didn’t wake all the way up, although he soon realized her breathing was still off. He moved his head down, listening closer, not having a stethoscope on him. While faint, he could hear the slightest sound of wheezing, and the rattling that meant there was fluid built up in the lungs. Whether that was blood or something else, he couldn’t tell from here.
“FRIDAY mentioned she has the early signs of a respiratory infection,” Tony spoke up, as if deducing what Sam was listening to.
Clint, already frowning, seemed to frown a little harder at that.
“We need to focus on that. She almost never gets sick. When she does, it’s bad,” Clint said. And although his eyes were clear, his voice sounded hoarse.
There was a pause. “Now that you mention it… I’ve never seen her get sick,” Steve mumbled.
Clint seemed torn between explaining and keeping what was probably private information safe. Natasha’s file was notably so full of holes and confidentiality that very little was actually in it, except what was immediately important about her skills and work.
“I’ll wrap what I can here and figure out more when we get to a medical facility,” Sam said in the end, to the acknowledgement of everyone on the jet.