Avengers: Daughters

Fourteen: Natasha POV

*gasp at the POV*

I wake up to the clanging of metal and a loud yelling. I'm in a room, chained to a table, and I can feel the pain from my bullet wound. I can't breathe. I can't think straight. All I can think of his my daughter's face. The other girls will look after Ally, make sure she doesn't do anything crazy. They've forgotten but they used to be such close friends long ago. A memory of one year old Ally toddling around with Ruby chasing her and Libby and Sam playing nicely behind them makes me smile. Even smiling is painful. My cheeks feel bruised and my nose is swollen.

"Miss Romanoff, you're awake," a smooth voice says. I manage to look up but there's no-one in the room. "There's no-one with you."

"I know that," I say with a scowl, "and it's Mrs Barton."

"Of course, Mrs Barton." The voice sounds like it's mocking me, mocking my new last name, my husband's last name. The decision I made years ago, before we had even thought about Ally. Years before the Avengers Initiative and Stark. Clint Barton. The agent of SHIELD who spared my life. But when I didn't kill him when he dropped his guard, as my Red Room teachers taught me, I made a choice. I chose him and the life he brought and I chose Ally and I chose our happiness. I will never stop owing him but I spared him too that day. He'll never know now.

"Why am I here?" I ask dejectedly.

"Aren't you going to plead for your safety? Your life? Ask to be let free? Say that you have a daughter to live for?" The voice asks in reply.

"No. Ally can get by without me. She's proven that now. Clint has lost agents before. He'll be fine," I say, a steely edge of determination settling in. I won't be defeated. I won't beg.

"Oh, but even you must know that you're not just another agent, Agent Romanoff. You're Agent Barton's life. At SHIELD, you've been reported as dead."

I make sure my face is blank but I close my eyes. Clint thinks I'm dead. Who the hell knows what Ally's done- if she's bothered to contact him. It's my fault. I didn't tell her that she could trust us. That we loved her so much. I try to hold onto the fact that Ally will be okay. She'll be fine and she'll be happy.

"Who are you?" I open my eyes quickly. I lock my emotions away and become the cold hard spy I was before Clint compromised me.

"I am not of anything you know," the voice says with a smile in it's voice. "I am not of this world."

"Then you're from Thor's realms?" I say.

"Beyond."

"Beyond?" I frown. "Tell me who are you."

"No."

"Tell me if my daughter is safe."

Laughter fills the room, loud and mocking. "Ally Barton will never be safe again." The laughter doesn't stop and my heart plummets. I can't stop the icy feeling of dread sending me into a dizzy world of fear. The laughter doesn't stop. It won't stop. I raise my head then slam it back on the metal table. Pain makes me scream out but I do it again. And again. And again.

Then it's all black and the laughter has stopped.