VENUS VADYAEVA. RED Room trained assassin, graduate of the Black Widow program. She'd nearly always been at the top of the class. Cold; smart; ruthless. The qualities that they were looking for. It'd taken a little while, but eventually, she'd gotte...
THE CALM DIDN'Tlast long. Venus found Natasha's reflection in the glass of the window far quicker than the redhead would have liked, and it was as if a veil had dropped. The smile vanished, her eyes hardened, and her face sharpened. Just like that, Natasha's Venus was gone, swept away by the riptide of memories from this place that seemed so determined to drag Venus down as deep as they could, taking how in slowly suffocating her, drowning her in who she had once been.
Perhaps if times had been different, she would've embraced the comfort that only Natasha could bring he, but not now. Not when these memories were so violent, and when she was standing in the room that she had lived the best parts of her childhood in. She wouldn't let this room be tarnished by the venom in her veins and the poison in her mind. Letting Natasha in would only worsen what she felt, what she thought, what she remembered. Venus was sure of it. Whether that was because that was a connection she had made on her own, or if that was what the Red Room had told her, Venus wasn't entirely sure. She hoped it was the first, because not being able to remember, to be completely certain that you had or hadn't done something, was utterly terrifying.
There weren't a lot of things that Venus dreaded, but she could count several in this room. The one that presided over a of them, that loomed over her head like a storm cloud ready to crack and drench her in a deluge of fear and memories was simply this place. This building, where she had grown up to be who she was, simply because the Red Room wanted new toy soldiers, new young girls to mould into the perfect assassins. And that mirror. It gleamed wickedly in the back of Venus' mind for as long as she could remember since she'd had her conditioning. But now, it seemed so much bigger. So much wider. It would be so much easier for it to swallow her up, to take over her mind completely.
Venus set her jaw and strode through the draughty halls and corridors, barely glancing at any of the rooms and open doors before she spotted Clint's figure in the doorframe of one that she recognised easily. She paused in her determined work, knowing that Natasha was only a few feet behind her, and joined the archer in the doorway. It was the old dormitory. Rows and rows of small, hard, dirty, single beds with metal frames and huge windows on the outside wall that had been overtaken by ivy for many, many years. The leaves worked and twisted, the fronds intricately interweaving, seen together to create a complex masterpiece that seemed far too beautiful to be in a place like this.
It was beginning to creep under the window too, and though there were signs of abandonment everywhere (such as cobwebs, dust, dirt, and insects), the room was almost exactly as Venus remembered it. Every single thing was in place, neatly settled where they had been told to put it. Venus drew in a long breath as she saw Natasha survey the room just as she had out of the corner of her eye. They were still so similar, even after so many years and opportunities to change.
Venus was once again the first to move, her jaw set as she stepped forwards, her golden eyes fixed firmly on one bed to the far right of the room, tucked into a corner where they'd put her after the other girls had mentioned that they couldn't sleep as easily while Venus struggled with her nightmares. She hadn't minded at the time, and she didn't now. Everyone who had lived here had been raised to be selfish, to do whatever it took to succeed, with no regard for human life. That was who she had been, too, for so many years. It had become part of her personality by this point, habit overcoming morals in her mind, especially as she reached her old bed.
She stared at it for a few seconds, before she sat down on it, allowing her fingers to trace vaguely over the fabric as she closed her eyes for a second, and let the memories rush in. Here they weren't too bad. Most of what she remembered here were her nightmares and Natasha escaping from her handcuffs to come and comfort her - though of course, after she knew no-one was watching. She opened her golden eyes again, unknowingly having fixed her posture, so that she now sat as straight as she could. Shoulders back, chin up, eyes forwards. How many times had that been drilled into her? Far too many for anyone to count.
Then her wandering fingers found the handcuffs. One ring was firmly shut, the other locked around the bed frame, and Venus turned her attention to them, feeling the scars on her wrist flair up in irritation, as if they were locked around her wrists once again. The cold metal was grey-black, and had rusted shut in the time that they had remained unused, the ugly brown texture almost sneering up at Venus. However much she hated this place, she couldn't bring herself to acknowledge how much that it had changed.
She looked around the room now, noticing that both Clint and Natasha remained in the doorway, with their eyes firmly set on her figure. It seemed that Natasha wasn't so keen to relive the memories that this room held. It was then that she also noted that there were only two beds with the handcuffs still on them. Hers and Natasha's. A reminder. A warning to the girls that the Red Room still held. You abandon us, we forget you. You leave us, we forget you. You leave, everyone forgets you.
There were boxes under each bed. Small, rectangular cardboard ones under every single bed except Natasha's, because hers was in the room that they had just been to. Venus leant down and found it easily, pulling it up onto her lap and sliding the lid of to reveal her worn, dirty ballet shoes. However bad they looked, they seemed perfect to Venus. While she had never been particularly good at ballet, she had enjoyed it. It made her feel free, and the routine that was supplied meant that she didn't have to come up with something completely by herself.
That was something that she wasn't good at. She had been following orders since she was a child, and that had continued steadily through her life, and was likely to carry on for years to come. She did what she was told. She followed the plan, she didn't come up with it. With those thoughts, Venus set the box down beside her and stood up, only just stopping her face from filling with sheer undiluted dread. She couldn't delay it any longer.
The fact that nobody, at all, had spoken for the past half an hour didn't bother her. In fact, she was quite glad for the silence. It allowed her to go over things in her own time. The path that Venus now walked was one that she was uncomfortably familiar with, and she barely thought as she made her way back through the corridors, neither knowing or caring if Clint and Natasha had followed her. After a few minutes of trying to force her fear down, and using the silence as a tool to help, she stopped in front of yet another door frame.
This one looked darker, the wood older and rotting as it stood in its frame, through it was likely that Venus' mind was exagerating the situation. She drew in yet another long, slightly shaky breath, before she opened the door and stepped inside.
The room she had walked into was small and dark, with blinds shut harshly over the windows, and a dirty, cracked mirror standing to one side.
{A/N:} I'm ngl, I thought this chapter would turn out better :/. I wanted to get something out for you guys so here you go. Most definitely a filler, pretty shitty but hopefully I can be assed to start pre-writing things again so the quality goes way up.
Despite all that, I hope you enjoyed.
Please vote, comment, let me know what you think, etc.,
1425 Words
Written: 22 / 03 / 2021
Published: 22 / 03 / 2021
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