Misery and Destruction

III

Avengers Compound, New York- 2018

For the past 4 months, Nish had been living in the Compound alongside Steve, Rhodey and Nat. Most of the time she would spend dancing to distract her from the voices and the figures. In the other times, she would be either lying on her bed or training in the combat room.

Currently, she was doing ballet and getting lost in the movements and the music. When the track came to an end she turned around to the clapping that came from the door.

Nat stood there clapping and eventually folded her arms.

"I hated ballet after the Red Room ruined it for me," She said as she looked around the room admiring what Nish had done with it. "But watching you reminds me of how beautiful it can be with no one breathing down your neck."

Before Nish had cleaned it out, it was an untouched room full of cobwebs and old bits and pieces. She chucked all of that away added mirrors as well as many speakers. The room was now a bright place with three walls covered in large mirrors and a wall of ceiling to floor windows which showed the scenery from the third floor of the compound. Nish would often come in here if the voices got too much and sit by the window to admire the beautiful outdoors.

"I learned to love it after I got out of HYDRA." She replied as she undid her pointe shoes. "It makes me feel free and that I have noting to ever worry about. But I don't dance to the Sugar Plum Fairy as that would bring back the nightmares." She shivered at the mention of that song. "That was ruined for me by the White Room."

Nat froze at the familiar name that she read in Nish's file two years ago. "Is that where you learned?" Nish looked at her waiting for her to elaborate. "The White Room taught you ballet." She gestured to the pointe shoes.

Nish let out a sigh and turned around so she was seated to look out the windows. "Yeah. I learned a lot of things from the White Room." Nat went and sat next to her and faced the green trees that went on for miles.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Nat asked not wanting to push her further.

Nish smiled. "I haven't told anyone, not even Raz knew and we told each other everything."

Nat waited for her to get up thinking that she wouldn't want to talk any further, but she stayed.

"I was only 7 when they took me away from Bucky and Raz. They threw me into a truck and drove me away. They took me into a warehouse where there was a room for me to train in, a room to dance in and a classroom with one desk. They placed me in the classroom where they told me that I was now a student of the White Room. It was HYDRA's version of the Red Room so they could make the perfect female assassin that could easily take down any of the Black Widows." Nat shivered at the thought of the Red Room.

"I wasn't allowed food or sleep, just training and dancing and learning so I could be the perfect assassin that could manipulate her way out of anything." Nish sighed at the thought of what she learnt. "I would dance constantly for 18 hours to the same song with the same routine so I could be perfect in grace and have the body a seductress needed. I would then have training in seduction, accents and combat with ammunition for the remaining 6. I would watch cartoons to make sure I could speak with a perfect accent and no hesitations. I would practice seduction on men who were triple my age. This then lead to my graduation ceremony a year later when I was 8. 4 men came in and showed no mercy and just raped me." Nat stopped breathing for a minute. She was disgusted by the men that raped her at the age of 8.

"They said it would now mean I was a woman." Nish wiped her tear at the thought of the most gruesome year she went through. "But I got my revenge the next day, I was allowed to hunt, torture and kill the 4 of them however I liked. It allowed them to see my education be put into 'practical use'." Nish used air quotes as she finished off her experience.