Evidence
Later, after she broke down crying in between fits of coughing and random bursts of full on panic, she finally fell back unconscious, and Clint rolled himself out of the hospital bed he had climbed in to calm her and rubbed at his eyes, frustrated. Sick with anger, frustration, hatred, grief… he didn’t know how to sort out his mess of emotions, so, after making sure she was definitely unconscious and would sleep for awhile, he got up and left the room. He found himself back in a conference room, with everyone else, not quite sure how he even got there.
He crumbled down in an empty chair, not really interested in talking to anyone. Everyone seemed to be feeling the exact same way, because no one asked him any questions. In fact, it was pretty quiet for awhile. Up until he finally decided he had to ask something just because it could become a problem later.
“Anything from Ross?” He said finally, rubbing at his eyes, and then scratching at his hair.
“Just a message telling me what a big mistake I’ve made. Not that he can do anything with all of us here. He’d be an idiot to try,” Tony responded, voice cold at the very mention of Ross.
Back to silence.
They needed answers. What had been done. How long she had been there. But Natasha clearly couldn’t speak with the amount of damage done to her throat, not to mention she was extremely unfocused and all over the place. They had another source to get the information, but no one wanted to do it just yet. It didn’t just feel like a massive invasion of privacy, but there were things that Clint and the rest of the team just didn’t want to see.
But the sooner they knew.. the sooner they could figure out how to help.
Tony did not want to do this. Truly did not want to go through both the files and the surveillance camera footage. Both of which hew knew had to be taken care of and sent to the right people to turn not just public outrage on Ross, but also outrage from the governments of the world. They might not be popular with a lot of people right now but most of the world was not very comfortable with torture. Add on to it that she was just human, and not even an enhanced human, or god, or something with superpowers, and that would open a whole can of human rights issues
Her past as an assassin and spy and the things she had done – which had been public for a few years – wouldn’t do her many favors, but the fact she was an Avenger and had saved the world several times with them definitely stood for something.
“FRIDAY, pull up all files related to capturing the Black Widow,” Tony said.
She had been on the run for awhile. But he didn’t know when she had been captured.
Several files opened up, listened in order of date uploaded. The first was from just over four months ago, immediately following the civil war. It was a warrant for her capture.
More files came up with lists of locations she had been found. There were nine reports. Most of them ended in the task force assigned to capture her getting their asses kicked or her slipping away. The second to last ended with a side note: subject sustained gunshot wound to the left hip. It was dated for two and a half months ago. Eight failed attempts in just over a month and a half. But she was injured. Injured and alone, for the next attempt not even two weeks later.
More men taken down. Seven were injured in the last attempt to take her in, despite the bullet wound. Tony wanted to feel proud of her skills for that, but it was the next few lines of the report that made him recoil and hate everyone who had been a part of this.
Subject forcibly captured by way of electric netting and tasers.
What a bunch of bastards.
He rubbed at his eyes, breathing deeply to calm himself. “Two months,” he said aloud, voice wavering. “That’s how long they had her.”
He knew the surveillance would be worse. He just didn’t know how much worse.
The first surveillance footage he checked was dated one day after her capture. It wasn’t until 1 pm when there was finally movement, as heavily armored guards dragged her unconscious form and dumped her unceremoniously on the floor. She was not bound or gagged this time. He had FRIDAY automatically skip periods of no movement. It was about three hours before she stirred on the floor, finally waking up from what was likely drugs to keep her out. And for three more hours, she does nothing but lay on that floor, barely moving. Tony frowned. What had they drugged her with?
A man enters the room. He was huge – a hulking beast of a man, truly.
“Seems you aren’t as resistant to sedatives as we thought,” the man said, stepping closer. And Natasha exploded up like the ninja she was, nailing the man directly between the legs. She had faked her weakness, of course. And after tripping the large man darted past him and out of the cell. Two more guards raised their guns, but she punched one directly in the face, ducked a bullet or dart, and threw the falling guards weapon on the second guy, sending him falling to the floor. Then she was gone, out of the view of the camera, likely attempting to find a place to hide or escape. But with the prison being underwater, escape was probably not so likely.
Tony had not been able to get all the surveillance cameras around the Raft, so for the next 12 hours the recording skipped ahead.
Then she was dragged back, this time, with her wrists and ankles in shackles. She was mostly limp, clearly struggling with consciousness. He couldn’t see if she was injured, given the angle of the camera, but the way she winced when they threw her to the floor meant she probably was.
The big man from earlier entered the cell. Angry about being kicked in the jewels, most likely. The next ten minutes were the worst thing he had watched so far, and he found himself turning away as the man beat her viciously, the sound of full strength punches and kicks very audible in the recordings. In all the time he had seen her fighting, it was always her dodging hits, getting out of the way, and then debilitating the enemy by finding their weak spots and exploiting them. She wasn’t made to get punched and kicked. She wasn’t big or strong and durable like Steve and Thor, and didn’t have armor like him, and wasn’t an android. She didn’t have magic to protect herself. She relied on her mobility and dodging ability to get out of the way, and this wasn’t an option here.
Tony was fairly sure he was going to be sick, as he glanced up and watched the big man pick up a barely conscious Natasha by her neck, snarling in her face. Then he slammed her head against the metal bars – once, twice.. a third time. She was completely limp, fresh blood streaking the side of her face that the camera could see. At long last he dropped her, and she crumpled to the ground. He left the cell, and the door closed and locked behind him.
The recording for the next 8 hours of that day picked up nothing but a growing puddle of blood around her head from the head injury. Until, finally, someone entered it, only to lift her up enough to pull that damned sack over her head, tying it behind her neck with rope so she wouldn’t be able to get to it with her thick shackles to untie it herself.
He closed his eyes, his legs feeling weak just from watching this horrific recording. This had only been the first… two days… of what would be two months of captivity. He had an awful feeling that the shackles and hood did not come off for a single moment for the entire rest of the time, based on the state of her wrists and ankles and the difficulty she had with light. And honestly, he wasn’t sure he would be able to get through any of this without losing his mind completely, or leveling a small council building out in Washington when a certain asshole showed up.
He paused everything, needing to get out of the room before he lost something. His mind. His lunch. His heart was racing painfully in his chest and he needed to go somewhere else. Somewhere these videos weren’t. Somewhere Steve wasn’t. He still wasn’t okay, but he understood.
“Need a minute,” was all he managed to mumble as he all but fled the room.
And if he found himself automatically walking to the hospital room of a certain critically ill and injured spy, no one would say anything about it.
She looked small and frail in the hospital bed, her skin nearly as pale as the sheets. While she was the smallest member of the team, even shorter than Wanda, she had never really seemed weak to him. Mainly because she had the skill and ability to kick his ass if he was out of his suit. Her agility and fighting ability had always been on the high end, and she rarely got hurt in most of their fights. A little bruised now and again, but never badly.
The image of a strong burly man beating her bound form flashed through his mind. He couldn’t imagine doing that to someone. He wondered just how strong he could make the repulsers without killing the guy immediately, just so the man felt some pain before he died.
It was deserved.
She broke into a coughing fit, still unconscious. The infection was spreading rapidly, as Clint had warned them. While she was on the strongest antibiotics they could get her on safely, given her condition, it would take some time before anything would help. The doctors had put the oxygen mask down over her face to help her oxygen levels stay normal.
In the back of his head he wondered if they had not rescued her when they did, if she would have died from pneumonia on the Raft because they didn’t know her immune system oddity.
He forced himself to calm down. She was alive. She was on an IV for both nutrients and fluids given how malnourished and dehydrated she was. They had to get her weight up, probably get her some very long and painful physical therapy to rebuild her strength and counter the muscular atrophy she had suffered. Her bones were set properly, ribs pinned back in place where they should be. Cuts were clean. She was on antibiotics, decongestants, and painkillers. She would be okay.
Physically.