𝑩𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝑴𝒐𝒐𝒏 ✘ 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐀 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐅𝐅

{2⁷} {LEGENDS}

∆ {2⁷} {LEGENDS} ∆

NATASHA HAD BEEN avoiding dealing with the devils that danced in the shadows of her mind for a long time, and she was determined that being in the place that they came from wouldn't change that. She couldn't let it. Venus, on the other hand, seemed to be more inclined to join them on the dance floor than Natasha ever would've guessed.

She was facing her memories, her demons, head on, with more courage than Natasha had ever seen from the golden eyed woman, more than she herself had ever had. And Venus' demons were awful. As she trailed behind the woman who could kill her with a single touch, Clint only a few paces behind her, she remembered the nights that she would have to calm Venus down, when she had been the hardest to reach, so that Natasha had had to resort to unlocking her handcuffs and going over to Venus' bed as discretely as she could just to remind the girl that she wasn't alone, that she wasn't in the room that all of her nightmares seemed to come from. It had been hard, and sometimes, when they were especially bad, it simply wouldn't work, and after a while, Natasha would have to give up, in fear of one of the other girls waking up and ratting them out. Most of the others were too scared of both of them to do that, but you could never be too careful.

Natasha didn't know where Venus was taking them. This path, through corridors that she somehow didn't recognise, was one unique to Venus, who was moving along it easily with a clouded look in her eyes; she was likely to be doing it out of habit. Neither she or Clint had dared to say anything, but they exchanged a curiously worried look as Venus stopped in front of a weathered doorway, the wood somehow darker than the rest of the dreary corridor it stood in. Natasha heard Venus draw in her long, shaky breath, before the golden-eyed woman pushed the door open, to reveal a small, dark room that held an odd sort of chill to it. Natasha knew exactly where it was, even though Venus had never told her about the filthy, cracked mirror that stood carefully to one side in the room.

Venus, in the past, had often muttered about the shadows, and how the walls of the small, dark room her conditioning took place in seemed to fold in on her whenever she was in there. This place, this room, was the one, this was where Venus' demons came from. Natasha's came from this building in general, but not for the golden-eyed woman with a habit for the terrible blankness that only she seemed to be able to master. No, Venus' demons, the ones that seemed horrible and twisted even in Natasha's mind, they were sourced here, and looking around the room, Natasha could tell why.

It wasn't as well looked after as the rest of the institute, because the dark floorboards were gappy and rotten, and they creaked as Venus moved over them. The shadows seemed to proliferate in the corners of the room, festering evilly as they spread their wicked tendrils over the walls, stained with mould and what Natasha instantly recognised as blood. There was a small, wooden table towards the left of the room, the sort that would normally be a beside table, that you would put books and mugs on. Instead, there was a discarded pistol, almost certainly rusted and blocked after years without use, with a knife resting next to it, the blade coated in blood, and Natasha could only hope that it didn't belong to the woman in front of her. Completely unintentionally, Natasha let the woman's name slip past her lips in a weak whisper in hopes to garner her attention. It didn't work, and Natasha didn't register how desperate she had sounded until Cling sent a concerned look form the corner of his eye, though his main focus remained on Venus.

The woman in question hadn't acknowledged either of them, instead coming to a slow stop in front of the mirror. Natasha had expected her to raise a hand to it, to trace her fingers over the network of fine cracks that littered the glass in something that nastily resembled a spider's web, to let her gloved hands explore the dirt that had built up over the years, or at least to let her hands run down the metal frame, that was twisted in hopes of making it look fancier by whoever had set it in there. But she didn't. Instead, Venus just stared at herself, never blinking, her eyes never flicking a millimetre from where they were firmly set on her own eyes, and Natasha managed to catch her fixing whatever discrepancies in her posture as minutely as she could.