UNKNOWN GUEST

#110 Another Escape

Author's POV-

Standing amidst the ruins of the Red Room, Natasha Romanoff exhaled slowly, as if releasing the weight she had carried for years. The thick air was tainted with the acrid scent of smoke and dust, drifting in lazy clouds over the shattered concrete and twisted metal beams that once held up the walls of her nightmare.

The Red Room. It was finally gone—reduced to nothing more than debris. The place where she had been trained, shaped, and broken over and over until there was nothing left of the girl she used to be. Natasha stood still, letting the reality sink in. It's over. It's really over.

The final blow had been hers to deal, and with each step leading to this moment, she had imagined the satisfaction of seeing it all crumble. Yet now, standing here among the wreckage, satisfaction eluded her.

Relief mingled with exhaustion, and deep within her, an emptiness lingered—an ache that couldn't be soothed by victory alone. Destroying the Red Room wasn't about revenge or closure. It was about severing the last tether holding her to the worst version of herself—the girl they trained to kill, lie, and feel nothing.

But they couldn't take everything from me, not completely.

Her hand hovered over her abdomen unconsciously, her mind replaying the discovery that had shaken her to her core. The Red Room had lied to her. When she graduated from their brutal program, they had told her that she was sterile. That they had ripped that part of her away to ensure her loyalty, to make sure she could never leave, never dream of a life beyond the missions.

But that wasn't entirely true.

What they had done wasn't irreversible—it had been a tubal ligation, not complete sterilization. The revelation had struck her like a thunderbolt, bringing both relief and fury. For years, she had believed that part of her was lost forever. Believed that she was permanently broken, incapable of being anything more than the perfect soldier they had crafted.

And yet... she wasn't broken. Not in the way they had told her.

But that discovery had come with a new kind of fear. When the Red Room captured her again—before she had escaped, thanks to Steve—they hadn't wasted time trying to finish what they started. Natasha clenched her fists at the memory of those cold operating rooms, the metallic glint of surgical instruments ready to take the last thing she had left.

If Steve hadn't shown up when he did...

She shook the thought away, refusing to let it linger. They didn't get the chance. That was what mattered. Steve had been there, pulling her out just in time.

Now, standing among the ruins of the place that had nearly stolen everything from her, Natasha took another deep breath. For the first time in a long while, the air felt lighter—like she could finally let go of some of the weight she'd been carrying.

She ran a hand through her hair, dusty and tangled from the fight, and let her eyes scan the wreckage. This is it. The end of the Red Room.

She looked down at her hands, the same hands that had taken lives without hesitation, the same hands that had shielded those she loved. These hands had done terrible things—things she would never forgive herself for. But they were hers now. She had taken them back, along with everything else the Red Room had tried to steal.

Natasha swallowed hard, holding back the tears threatening to break through. Now wasn't the time for tears—there wasn't time for anything except what had to be done. Slowly, with a tenderness that felt foreign after so much chaos, she reached out and wrapped her hand around Yelena's. The warmth of her sister's palm grounded her in the present, even as the ache in her chest grew.