Snapshot (фотография)

XV

The boy took a shuddering breath in the bed. He had heard the man who had saved him- Clint Barton; threat level: 9- talking over his head with a woman who had a slight accent that was recognizable as that of a native Russian speaker, though it seemed carefully practiced out. Clearly, she was comfortable enough with this man to let a small bit of herself out to him, so Peyta came to the conclusion that she must be the Black Widow.

"They won't let us do DNA testing, and without their permission, we can't test either one of them!" Barton vented.

"Clint-"

"Their kid has been gone for nearly ten years, and they don't care to check! They're so desperate that it could be Peter that they don't think it's necessary."

Peyta tensed on the bed. The name was the anglicized version of his self-given one, and it sent a pang through his heart. He couldn't remember before, but he knew that there was a before. Flash had given him more information about his past than he had ever known. Who was this Peter? Why were they looking for him?

When he was younger, they had been given a test to sneak into the Headquarters of the Red Room and retrieve information. Of course, it later turned out that the specific handler who wanted the files was a mole, and was quickly disposed of. Peyta had nicked the file with his asset number in it, hopeful to find anything on him. It was blank about his background, only listing his scores and skills.

"You're awake." Romanova said. Peyta reminded himself to speak with a Russian accent and play dumb. They couldn't know that he was the assassin after Tony Stark- he'd given up on that mission anyway, what with being captured and unsure whether his last poison worked. He had more important things to concern himself with anyway.

His fingers twitched slightly as they longed to reach for a weapon that did not exist. Dissociating, the spy tried not to go back to the place as his ears rang with the shots of his past and the screams of battle. The feeling of blood splattered on his face as his breathing began to pick up. He tried to calm down, focusing on the calm eggshell colour that adorned the walls of the hospital room. War was no place for a child. It was no place for a coward either, so he steeled his nerves and opened his eyes to see the woman he had been compared to his entire childhood.

"Hello." He spoke, making sure to inject a slight accent into his words and letting his voice seem higher than it actually was as he shifted to English. The man, Clint Barton, stepped over to the other side of the bed, and Peyta canvassed the room with his eyes, noticing the handcuffs on his wrists that chained him to the metal bars on the hospital bed and the shut door.

"Hey," Clint said with a warm grin. Peyta didn't deserve that smile, and he knew it. The traitorous voices of greed, pride and wrath whispered about his failure in his head.

"What's your name?" Clint asked. Peyta remained quiet for a moment, choosing to stare at them in disbelief. His mind was working a mile a minute. Did he reveal the name he had given himself? It was similar to the boy they were talking about before.

"They called me Noir."

"Noor?" Clint butched the pronunciation. Natasha startled. She recognised the name- not from her own time, of course, but from the files that she had discovered during the dump. Goodness, he must have been only a kid when SHIELD fell and she thought that she had destroyed it. But the Red Room was only one head, and it seemed like 2 more had grown in its place.

"Why were you being tortured?" She wasn't in the mood to wait until he was ready for questioning. The boy looked her in the eye in a spectacular show of courage (or stupidity, as she would later say), but Natasha felt like he was x-raying her.

"They talked about you."

"Why were you in that room?" She pressed, leaning on the metal bed guards. The boy leaned back into the bed, wincing at his sore abdomen. He'd healed miraculously quick, but after being malnourished for several weeks, it was slower than he was used to.

"I failed." His voice was quiet, and it reminded Natasha of her own. Clint gave her a look. She knew that he saw her in this boy, the one who they had rescued from the Red Room. "They don't tolerate failures well."

"What did you do?" Clint asked, his voice soft with a foreboding edge. Had Noir failed in training or something else?

Peyta took a deep breath, his hands shaking slightly, just as they did when he set up his kills. What was wrong with him? He was supposed to be strong- it was what they had trained him to be. He had worked hard. He had worked to survive, to live. He had killed, and he had enjoyed it. Was he really just what they had moulded him? Was there a possibility of something more?

Just then, a harsh ringing cut through his sensitive ears, and Peyta flinched. Natasha sighed, clicking the button and exchanged a few short words with someone on the other end. She brightened slightly, something only someone who had been trained to notice these things could sense.

"Clint, that was May." May... Why did that name sound familiar? "The boy woke up. I'll debrief Tony."

It was unspoken, but Peyta quickly realised that this other boy was the one they thought was Peter. The one they thought was after Tony Stark. He swallowed as they made their way to the door.

"We'll be back. There's a guard here, so no funny business, okay?" Peyta nodded, slightly kowtowed at the amount of respect and responsibility that Barton seemed to give him.

"Natalia." He spoke before he could hesitate, before he could regret anything. The Black Widow froze. His handcuffs were already off his wrists, and Peyta tested his feet on the ground before walking over to the window quietly. Her back was still to him, and he scoffed internally. Such trust she had in a boy she didn't know. The window opened with a slight squeak.

"Check Stark's mouthwash in South Carolina." He jumped out, intent on making a new life for himself.