Black Widow: Dark House

5. "One Finger and a Fist"- Drowning Pool

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Natasha held onto the pipe as it collapsed into the building across from it, the impact sending Yelena through a window, but Natasha was too low, so the force slammed her into the window seal where she lost her grip and fell to the street below, hitting an air duct and a dumpster on the way down before landing shakily on her feet in a waterlogged alley. She gripped her ribs, gasping for breath as she looked around.

The widow who has tried to kill her lay before her, both of her legs splayed at grotesque angles. Natasha was now able to get a good look at her. This girl couldn't have been more than sixteen. The widow noticed her; her rage filled eyes seething as Natasha neared. She started to try and move to get up but was unable to.

Natasha lowered herself, displaying her hands, "hey, don't move. You're hurt" she said, reaching towards the widow, "let me help you."

The widow gave a scream of determination and brought her hands up, turning on her Widows Bite, the red lights around her wrist signaling a charge. As Natasha looked at her, all she saw was the desperate instinct of a wild animal that had been caged all it's life.

Suddenly, the widow's eyes faltered, and her expression changed from one of boundless rage and determination to fear and desperation.

"I-I don't want to do this!" she cried, tears now streaming from her eyes and into the mirky water she lay in.

She was no longer a hardened soldier, but a child, a scared and desperate child realizing that she was a casualty of a cold and bitter world. Slowly, as if fighting it but unable to control it, she brought her own fist with the charged widows bite closer to her face

Natasha's horrified confusion was evident, "What-What are you doing?"

"He's making me!" the widow cried as she placed her fist to her own temple.

The charge blasted, sending a deadly red burst directly into the widow's head, instantly killing her. Her body went limp, growing stiff in the cold water that sloshed at Natasha's feet as she moved closer before falling to her knees next to the widow. Natasha looked at the girl horrified, the upper left side of her face charred and burning from the lethal shock.

Yelena entered the alleyway from an open door in the distance, seeing Natasha hunched over the dead Widow, a similar look of pain and anger coloring her face as she held the red vials. She had intended to try and inoculate the widow, just as it had been done to her.

Bitterly, Yelena replaced the red vials into her jacket and looked down at Natasha.

"Do you believe me now?" she asked darkly.

Natasha looked up at her, horrified, still trying to steady herself in the new reality she found herself in.

"How many others?" she asked.

Yelena started to walk away, still aware that they were being pursued, "enough" she said before heading back through the door.

Natasha followed her, glancing back once last time, knowing that the image of her body would be burned into her brain until the day she died.

They made their way out to the street, running, not caring who saw them at this point. Things were closing in on them fast and they needed to get out as soon as possible. Yelena led them to a row of parked motor bikes.

"Which one's yours?" Natasha called.

"Black. Brown seat!" Yelena answered as she closed in on the motor bike first.