My World's On Fire, How About Yours?

Natasha never thought she would have anyone to talk to. This one isn’t even based solely on what happened to her in the Red Room, this is more based in life outside the Red Room. Because she never needed to tell any of the Red Room girls any of her troubles because they had them too. No, this was a S.H.I.E.L.D problem.

During deprogramming she was sent to both scientists and psychologists. And although she hadn’t liked being poked and prodded by the medical staff, they were usually efficient and distant, just like her. Natasha was just another nameless face to them. She ran when they said to run. She stood up when they said to stand, things like that. Natasha could follow commands.

She hated anything they did with her brain.

She hated when they would poke around for triggers. Months were spent going over every single word or phrase, trying to cover all bases.

But at least that was better than psych. The first person she was sent to, not even a full day after she was taken by S.H.I.E.L.D, was the worst. Natasha doesn’t know how she was working at S.H.I.L.E.D. Natasha only said she was taken to the Red Room at around maybe three years old before she could see that look in her eyes.

Natasha hates that look: when a person’s eyes get a little bigger, yet they still look a little like they’re squinting. Sometimes the eyes also get a little misty, like they’re building up to a cry. The mouth purses a little bit, the ends just barely turned down. The nostrils flare up just a tad. That look of pity. It’s always followed up sooner or later with a “I’m so sorry.” Which Natasha never got, what are they sorry for? It’s not like they were there. And even if they were there, that wouldn’t have helped her, honestly it would’ve probably made the situation worse.

Natasha hates pity. Pity weakens. Pity is both a sign of weakness for the person displaying it and the person it’s aimed at. Pity is used to form a bond between two people; it’s a show of sympathy and righteousness. Screw their righteousness and sympathy. They don’t do it because they actually feel something for her, I mean how could they, people don’t stay in her life enough to actually know her. No, people pity because it’s what society tells them they should do. Natasha doesn’t care about their precious society and their forced bonds.

Natasha didn’t want a bond with this person. This person was trying to force a bond on her and she didn’t want it. Natasha was always forced into things, and now that she wasn’t in the Red Room she should be able to do what she wanted and finally have control over her own damn life. She could pick people in her life now and she did not want to pick this dense sympathizer.

So Natasha lied then and she lies now. Well maybe she doesn’t lie, but she puts a happy spin on things. She just barely grazes the top of the things that happened in the Red Room. It helped that she has things labeled in categories in her mind of her Red Room experience. There are two categories: worse and worser. All the neutral things have been erased in order to save space and time. Something that fell in the worse category would be starved or burned after a mission gone FUBAR. And of course in the worser was having to eliminate the girls one by one or killing her family.

So no, she didn’t even touch those. Instead she described a normal memory she keeps in place for all the ones she’s pushed to the side.

She described being trained for years and then sent out on a mission to kill whomever the Red Room desired of her. Very typical. But even stripped to the basics, it sometimes proved too much for the therapist to handle.

She looked Natasha in the eyes and she could see the words beginning to form on her lips: “I’m so sorry.” She then reached to grab Natasha’s hand. Natasha slapped her hands away and stood up.

“We’re done for today.”

The next day there was a new person. They only difference over the years was Natasha has learned to refrain from slapping people.

Every single time she tells the same generic story: she was taken when she was three and then trained and then killed people. She tells them about how they started with many but she’s the only one left. She tells them that she broke from their trance enough to fight back and get away and then went freelance and then ended up in SHIELD. She doesn’t tell them what the final breaking point was.

They could probably guess what it was, not every day does a school get burned to the ground with all the people inside of it. But what they don’t know is the kid. The kid that managed to get out.

Natasha didn’t know how he got out because she locked everything pretty securely, but he did. And she saw him. He was no more than seven, so small with little glasses on. And he was on fire.

He was screaming in pain as his clothes burned off his body and the ash mixed with his skin. He looked at Natasha and for a second he stopped crying. That was until he started screaming, “Mama! Mama!” He ran to her. Natasha could’ve easily out run him but she stayed put. He was so small. And he was on fire.

He reached her and cried out, “Mama, why does it hurt? Mama, was I bad? Why do I hurt? What’s happening, Mama?”

“No, you weren’t bad,” Natasha whispered, staring at his little boy on fire, melting before her very eyes. She could see herself in the Red Room wondering the same things whenever they would punish the girls for doing nothing. The Madames just wanted them to understand what a punishment would feel like early on so that the girls would never do anything to warrant a punishment in the future.

Natasha was the Red Room. She became the Red Room. She gave in and became an extension of who they were; she wasn’t her own person. To be forced into being someone else was weak and Natasha wasn’t weak.

Natasha bent down to the boy any wrapped him in her arms, covering his body. The fire burned her but she didn’t scream out; she’s felt this pain before. And so Natasha smothered the fire with her body.

“You did nothing wrong,” Natasha whispered again to the boy now carefully wrapped in her arms. But Natasha acted too late and all the boy could respond with was his labored breathing that was getting worse. This was just one child, there were hundreds more in that school.

It only took a few more minutes to pass before the boy stilled in her arms. Natasha laid him gently on the ground and placed her jacket over his burned body.

Natasha kissed his forehead and in a broken voiced softly said, “Fly high my strong little angel.” And with that she sprang off the ground to run to the school. Maybe there was a chance she could still save them.

Natasha only got a few feet away from the boy before the school exploded. The fire finally reacted with the gas and now the flaming pieces of the building were hurdling towards Natasha. She was caught off guard and she could feel the fire against her stomach where the boy just was. A chunk of concrete smashed into her shoulder and she fell down. Her left arm was now just hanging limp by her side. She was still lying under a slab of the building, just looking at what she caused.

The school was decimated, in its place was nothing but rubble and fires. She killed them. She killed them all. Natasha heard the sound of footsteps approaching.

Her handle, Ivan, called out, “Natalia, you weren’t supposed to stay near the building, you stupid bitch! Get up from the ground! Why is your jacket on the ground? Were you thinking Madame would replace it for you, selfish girl?”

Natasha looked over to see Ivan bend down to grab her jacket off the boy’s body. Once he was standing back up, he kicked the boy’s boy to the side.

“Let’s go, bitch, hurry up!” Ivan yelled, but Natasha didn’t move. She was too busy staring at the boy. The boy who didn’t deserve to die. The boy she killed. The boy whose body Ivan sent rolling.

“I said get up!” Ivan shouted and yanked her right arm. On the ground, Natasha was then face to face with the boot that kicked the boy. The boot that kicked him as easily as if it were kicking a soccer ball.

Natasha snapped. She grabbed Ivan’s arm and threw him head first into the concrete that crushed her arm. She stared at his lifeless form and then made her way over to the boy. She once again placed the jacket over him.

Then she ran.

Natasha ran to the one safe house she had that the Red Room didn’t know about. She hid there for a few weeks as she planned her next plan of action.

Two months after the school was burned, Natasha returned to the Red Room. She returned with gasoline and a flamethrower. She burned the Red Room the same way she burned the school, only this time she didn’t stick around. The Red Room was already a hell; Natasha was just making the outside imagine fit the inside.

So no, none of any of Natasha’s psychiatrists knew that story. If they ever asked she would lie.

Natasha tried sometimes talking about her past with friends. Clint knew a little about what she went through, but she only really told him the parts that lined up with his past. It made sense that way, tit for tat and all that. Natasha figured that if she stuck with the parts that were similar there wouldn’t be any pitying because Clint would know what it felt like to be pitied for the same thing.

She did things almost the same way with Banner, except Natasha was trying exceptionally hard to open up there. Spending the night with Clint’s perfect family after having all of her worst memories pop up really sent her wheeling. And so she turned to Banner, because once again he was a person who was going through roughly something of the same thing. But then he left. She opened up as best as she could and he still just left. Everyone told her for all of her time at S.H.I.E.L.D that if she ever opened up to a person they wouldn’t leave her. But he did. And then Clint left.

Everyone leaves her, because she needs to face the facts, she’s a lost cause. She isn’t worth the time to know.

But now things are different. Now she’s not such a lost cause. She’s not a waste of time because they have all the time in the world. She and Maria are probably going to be stuck in this cell for the rest of their lives. But suddenly, Natasha is strangely okay with that. Because maybe all those therapists had a point, talking to someone is really nice.

Of course Natasha doesn’t spell out every single detail, they both don’t say exactly what happened to them. But they’re able to share the feelings that happened during those events, which really is the problem. Because the event is past, but those feelings are present.

Not once does Maria knock to her an “I’m sorry.”

It’s nice to finally have someone to talk to, being alone for over a year has really messed with Natasha’s head and it feels so good to have a crack at reversing that damage.

They don’t only talk about shared trauma, no they talk about everything. Natasha gets her caught up on the two years that happened after the Decimation and she in turn gets the two second glimpse into what was happening once it was reversed and what it felt like to turn to dust.

Natasha’s foot is very grateful to have Maria here, because she hasn’t tried to kick the glass since her arrival.

Sure Natasha still wants to escape, but that’s been put on the back burner for now. Everyone always told her that she should take a break, but Natasha always believed that taking a break would do more harm than good. But right now it seems like that’s just what she needed.

One day Natasha even decides to move her bed over to that wall after the many times she fell asleep on the ground. She even successfully got Maria to do the same as well.

Natasha isn’t sure how much time has passed with Maria, it feels both like so little and so much. She’s been encouraged to stop trying to erase her memories. Not that Natasha would try to forget these ones anyway, because she doesn’t want to forget a thing that Maria has said to her. She finds it important to know that Maria hates pizza but loves burgers. Or that she’s a little lactose intolerant but thinks strawberry milkshakes are the best things in the world.

And in return Natasha tells her that she loves spicy food, especially since she had nothing but her friend’s—who is Steve, but she doesn’t mention being on the run with Captain America—cooking for a year, which consisted solely of unseasoned chicken breasts.

Natasha tells her about her cat Liho who she lost to the Decimation and then Maria tells her about the stray dog she looked after when she was a kid.

And so they just continued on, sharing little bits of pieces about themselves to each other. The fact that they were trapped in a cell was never really brought up.

Well it wasn’t, until Maria asks, “How does your food look?”

“Like normal?” Natasha isn’t sure where Maria is going with this, the food has been the same ever since she got here.

“My plate is broken.”

“Maybe someone dropped it.”

“Exactly.”

“I’m not following you at all.”

“Someone dropped it onto the table.”

“So they’re getting lazy?”

“Why would someone just drop a plate on a table?”

“Because they’re lazy?”

“This plate is pretty strong.”

“Okay and?”

“The drop would need to be much higher than the height of the aliens in order to break.”

“So you’re saying…”

“It had to come from the ceiling, yes.”

“Which means there could be a way out in the ceiling? I thought you checked the ceiling?”

“It was too high for me to reach, and what I could reach felt pretty solid. What do you know about the table, is it always placed in the same space?”

“I’ve only moved it once, but I think it came back replaced in the same place.”

“Okay let’s move them and if they’re put back in the same place then assume there’s some kind of an exit hatch above the table.”

And with that Natasha rushes to the table. Was this really the solution all along? Was the way to get out right under her nose? Natasha doesn’t know what to feel. Is she feeling hope? Sadness? Frustration?

It’s weird, for the couple of months that Maria’s been with her, she’s been able to choose her emotions. She was the one in control of what she said, what memories she shared, what emotions to share. The emotions were as routine as everything else she did.

Of course there was that little emotion that she couldn’t control sometimes. The little flutter that happened in her chest whenever Maria first says something after they wake up, a comfortable reminder that she’s still here. Or the way she’ll sometimes catch herself leaning against the wall with a lazy smile on her face, one arm clutching at her shoulder, whenever Maria gets really excited about something and knocks nonstop. Or when she looks at herself in the mirror after laughing at a joke Maria’s said to find her eyes glowing a bit too bright.

But even though those emotions, whatever they are because Natasha refuses to think about them for too long, that keep growing stronger every day, once started out slow.

Unlike these emotions of hope and frustration which are hitting her like a freight train all at once.

Natasha places her two hands on the table and looks down at it. This table can be the answer she’s been looking for. This table could be it. Natasha takes a deep breath, trying to squelch the new emotions building up and picks up the table. She doesn’t move it too far, just half way across the room, but far away enough to where she’d know if it’s moved.

Natasha moves back to their shared wall and asks, “So what happens if this is what we think it is.”

She hears in return: “Then we get out. I was thinking about putting the chair on top of the table so that we’re closer to the ceiling and will have more strength to push open whatever it is.”

“We should probably do it at the same time, I doubt they’ll sit by and let us both escape.”

“So we count to ten and then put the chair on the table and see each other on the other side?”

“That’s what I was thinking. Maybe we could just keep going north?”

“What’s north?”

“Your right, my left.”

“Works for me.”

There was some silence.

“Hey, Maria.”

“Yes, Natalie?”

“What if we’re wrong?”

“Then we’ll find a different way.”

“It took us this long just to find this way and that’s just because someone screwed up and dropped a plate.”

“We’ll find a way, Nat.” Natasha’s insides do that stupid little flutter thing whenever Maria calls her Nat. It’s probably because that Nat’s kind of her actual name instead of Natalie. Yeah, that’s it.

Natasha leaves it at that and they move on to a different topic.

After Maria does their goodnight knock, Natasha lies in her bed looking up at the florescent ceiling. The aliens haven’t yet released the chemicals to make them pass out and Natasha is having a hard time going to sleep. Her mind is too caught up on all the things she pushed aside earlier this day.

Natasha is worried. She doesn’t get scared, but she gets rationally worried. She can’t help but wonder what it would be like to actually break out of this place and go back home. What will her friends think? What if they were better off without her?

And then there’s Maria. Maria who’s made her way into Natasha’s life. Where does Maria fit into all this? Can Natasha fit her into her life on Earth? It’s impossible, dragging a civilian into her line of work is the best way to get them killed. And that’s even saying if Maria still wants her around. Usually people don’t want her around after she’s helped them.

What if being on the outside changes them? Natasha has never felt this close with anyone and that might not be because of the person, but because of the circumstance. Back on Earth Natasha is busy and works all day, she doesn’t have time to sit and talk about her feelings. Maybe Maria isn’t special, the cell is. Heck, the cell pumps chemicals into her so that she sleeps, maybe they’re pumping chemicals into her to make her like Maria. It could happen. Natasha’s not overthinking at all.

For once Natasha welcomes the dizzying feeling of the sleeping drugs. The chatter in her mind begins to fade away and she can finally drift into sleep.

Natasha’s green eyes open to the lights. This could be it. This could be the last time Natasha wakes up in this cell. Natasha takes a deep breath and looks over in the direction of the table. It’s moved to its usual spot. She lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

So that’s it. They were right. Natasha sits on the bed, staring at the table until she hears Maria.

“My table is moved back, what about yours?” Maria asks straight to the point, not even giving their patented good morning knock. It’s a confirmation that everything’s about to change. The couple of months that Natasha has gotten used to are coming to an end.

Natasha finally snaps back into focus and replies, “Same here. When should we get this going?”

“Well it’s not like I have any other plans today. Now’s as good a time for me as any.”

“What a coincidence, now works for me too. On the count of ten?”

“Wait, not NOW now. We have to hash things out first; I need to make sure your brain didn’t get fried somehow last night.”

“I’m glad you think so highly of me.”

“Hush. After we start the countdown, we have ten seconds to place the chair on the table. Then we step on the chair and push as hard as we can. If the ceiling opens up, we get out and head north to meet up.”

“But what if we don’t meet up?”

“What do you mean, we’ll meet up. I won’t leave this place without you. Kind of hoping you feel the same.”

“You don’t even know what I look like.”

“Then we’ll have a sign, so I know it’s the real you and you know it’s the real me. Or you know, we could have codenames.”

“Why do I have a feeling like you’ve already picked them out?”

“Okay here me out. I’m Shrek. You’re Donkey.”

“Bitch, I’m Shrek, you’re the one in my swamp! I was here first! Plus, Donkey has bad jokes and that’s all you. I’m Shrek.”

“Okay but Donkey is short and you’re probably like what, five feet tall?”

“I’m a normal height for a normal person, not all of us can be giraffes! I was the one who even thought of Shrek in the first place. It took you through the entire chorus before you even knew the lyrics. Meanwhile Shrek was my main instinct.”

“Fine.”

“Fine?”

“You can be Shrek, Shrek.”

“Thank you, Donkey, knew I liked you for a reason. What a noble steed you are.”

“I’m already regretting this. Are you ready to make our quest now?”

“You’re such a dork.”

“I’m going to take that as a yes.”

“I’m ready, time start’s now.”

One one thousand.

Natasha gets up off the ground.

Two one thousand.

Natasha walks normally to the table.

Three one thousand.

She can’t race to the table in case they’re watching.

Four one thousand.

Natasha reaches the table.

Five one thousand.

Natasha takes a quick sip of the water at the table.

Six one thousand.

Natasha puts the cup on the ground.

Seven one thousand.

Natasha puts the plate on the ground.

Eight one thousand.

Natasha grabs the chair from near the table, the chair she hasn’t touched since her first day here.

Nine one thousand.

Natasha puts the chair on the middle of the table.

Ten one thousand.

Natasha quickly jumps onto the table and steps onto the chair. She’s glad they upgraded her chair, this one is much sturdier, it doesn’t even wobble. She puts her other foot on the chair and stands almost all the way up. The ceiling keeps her from straightening her back all the way. She places both her hands on the cool glass ceiling and pushes as hard as she can.
At first she thinks nothing is happening, she’s just pushing on glass. Were they wrong? But then it moves just a little. And then a little turns into a lot. With a surge of strength, Natasha completely pushes the hatch open. Just her head is able to look out.

She looks around the room. It must be a control room, probably where they control the lights and temperature and of course her favorite: the sleeping drugs. The green creature at the panels looks down at her. It’s unarmed, but the glance it has to the other side of the room tells Natasha that it won’t be the case for that long.

Natasha puts her hands on the sides of the hatch and throws the rest of her body into the small room. The creature is rushing to reach the other side and Natasha grabs its ankle. The alien hits Natasha’s hands, trying to escape. Natasha tightens her grip and shifts positions so that she’s closer to the door. The alien curls up to strike at her stomach and she uses that moment to let go of its ankle and grab its leg and back. Now fully holding the struggling alien, Natasha drops it down the hatch. She can hear the crash of the table and chair below. Natasha closes the hatch and considers her options now.

She can either run out the door or she can shimmy her way in the air duct she saw above the controls. And there’s nothing Natasha loves more than a good air duct. She and Clint would essentialaly live in those during her first years at S.H.I.E.L.D. And now Natasha is convinced that running out the door isn’t the best move. This place seems confined and the moment that the other aliens realize that something is wrong, they’re bound to come after her that way and she might be trapped. And if she travels through the air ducts, she can try and scope out the rest of the place undetected. The cherry on top is that the air duct is going north, going to Maria.

With her mind made up, Natasha jumps onto the panel and takes off the vent’s screen. She steps into the vent and closes the door behind her.

She’s only spent a little ways in the vent before she hears an alarm go off, no doubt that it’s aimed at her. She begins to speed up her crawl.

It’s just a normal duct, the familiar cool, grey metal surrounds her. It’s almost disappointing how mundane it is, honestly Natasha excepted something better for an advanced alien society but whatever. As she mentioned before, their interior decorating could really use some work.

There doesn’t seem to be much light in the duct, Natasha’s past the point where the light from where she came can be seen. She’s been in the ducts for a little bit now and she hasn’t seen any other paths to take except for straight. The duct just seems to travel in a long, straight path.

After a while she finally reaches her first choice of tunnels to take: left or straight. This one was easy, Natasha keeps continuing straight to north. But at one point she reaches a turn where she can only go left or right. She figures right is her best bet to get to Maria. She takes the right.
Luckily not long after that she has the chance to take a left and straighten herself out again. Now Natasha can see a light, and where there’s a light, there’s a way out. She speeds up in anticipation.

Her hyper fixation on the light means she isn’t paying as much attention as she normally would to her surroundings. If she were, she would’ve noticed that the next panel she crawled on was a little wobbly. And she still doesn’t notice until she put most of her weight on it. She can feel it starting to give out underneath her and her legs are too far over to pull herself up. The entire panel gives way and she’s now falling face first to the ground below.

Natasha manages to position herself a little in the air while falling, so that she doesn’t fall flat on her face, but it’s in no way a graceful landing.

Natasha picks herself up off the ground and looks around at the room. It almost looks like a garage with the mechanical pieces lying around, not to mention the small space craft in front of her.

Natasha is about to get up when she hears a loud “FUCK” and a crash to her right. Something fell out of the same ducts onto a pile of boxes and parts, sending metal pieces flying everywhere and burying whatever it was beneath them. Natasha immediately gets ready to fight whoever is here, but then thinks for a second. What other dumbass would be falling from the air ducts in an alien prison?

“Donkey?” Natasha hesitantly asks.

“Shrek?” the figure calls out. And why does Natasha feel like she knows that voice? Is that? No, there’s no fucking way that Donkey is—

The sounds of foots steps next to her has Natasha snapping her attention to the next problem. She looks up at the black boots in front of her to see…

Nick Fury?

“Well shit, I guess that makes me motherfucking Princess Fiona.”