Red Room

RR 17 Natalia

Natalia woke up the next day pissed. She had gotten so many flashbacks lately that didn't make sense. She started assuming they were being jogged by triggers, and that parts of Red Room were sending them. She started feeling like they were wanting her to leave, and find them again. The team knew she was the Black Widow as well as the rest of the world. She was a legend. She thought that they thought she had destroyed Red Room, hence the locked file. She had to get out of there soon. But first, she wanted to find James. She needed to know what was going on. From the video feeds that she had seen, he still had the red star on his arm, which meant he was still a part of HYDRA. Red Room and HYDRA did a lot of business together, and they were the ones who sent James to them in the first place to see how the super soldier serum affected them.

"How the hell am I going to find him? From what I can tell, no one has seen him in months. SHIELD won't give us anything. They want the focus closer to home and since James hasn't been a threat lately, the focus has been pulled away from finding him. They know he is HYDRA, and since I'm undercover as well, maybe that is why we were fighting him when he tried to take down SHIELD. I'm still pissed that he shot me though."

She laid in bed and tried thinking some more. She had to get to an actual SHIELD base to start her search. They had files that she couldn't look into from Avengers Tower. She didn't know where any bases were. She did remember Darcy though, talking with Jane about a mobile base with a small team who had gained a lot of attention lately. If Darcy knew about it, maybe she could find it with her help. She felt slightly better, but was still pissed off. Loki was getting on her nerves lately, Bruce just wouldn't die already, Clint was getting too clingy, Steve was, well, Steve, the perfect gentleman, and Tony, he was a jackass. She couldn't wait to get out of there.

After getting a shower, she headed to the training room to blow off some steam. She almost wished the Hulk was there, just to give her a challenge. She missed having living beings to beat up. Robots just weren't satisfying enough. She even wished James was there, even though neither of them ever won, it was still nice to give it everything she had and work out her muscles. Targets went out way too quick on missions to have any fun.

When she got to the training room, she saw how clean it was. All the broken equipment was gone and the floor clear from her blood. Even the wall was fixed where the Hulk had thrown the weights at them. She also saw that she wasn't alone. Steve was there cleaning his shield. It looked like he had just finished a workout since he was all sweaty. His white shirt clung to him and she couldn't help but admire his muscles. He noticed her as soon as she entered and called her over to him.

"Hey Nat, how are you feeling?" He asked her this with sincerity, but it just annoyed her. They all treated her like she was weak. If only they knew what she was capable of. They would treat her with more respect then.

"I'm fine Steve," she replied with a sigh in her voice as she walked over to him. She sat next to him on the bench and dropped her bag to the floor. She started twisting her back muscles to stretch them out before she started her work out. Steve kept cleaning is shield, and she notice how uncomfortable the silence was to him.

"So, Bruce..."

"I don't want to talk about Bruce, Steve. I came here to work out to forget about Bruce, and everything else for that matter. I don't need pity from you, the rest of the team have already piled it on. I don't need to be pitied!"

"Whoa, Natasha I didn't mean it like that. I'm just worried about you. I don't pity you, I just, I'm worried I guess." He looked at her and saw that she was barely even paying attention to him. He saw how her knuckles were gripping the bench. She was frustrated.