Shatter: A Marvel Fanfiction

Natasha

It's against my better nature to make decisions solely based off emotions. It's against my natural instinct to let my guard down, but after hearing Steve's words, it all goes down the toilet. I knew I felt something for him. Training in the Red Room taught me to always push that kind of thing down. To not feel this. I may be made of marble, but I have realized that I am not stone cold.

We pull back out onto the highway again. I don't know what to say. I don't think he does either. I don't understand why he would feel anything for me. It doesn't seem right.

"Why, Steve?" I ask. "Why me?"

"What do you mean 'why?'" he asks as if it's the most ridiculous question in the world.

"You've read my records. You know where I've been. What I've done. Steve, I've killed so many people and hurt even more. You read what went on in the Red Room, don't you?"

"Not everything, but I do know a lot, and to that I say that's in the past. You're a different person now."

"Steve, you don't know everything about the Red Room. You don't know everything about my missions that I was sent on."

"Then, will you tell me?" he asks slowly.

I want to. I really want to lay it all out there and tell him of all the events of the Red Room. All the events of my missions. How exactly I got my information. How I survived my training.

"Nat," he says, "I trust you. I need you to trust me now. It's okay."

"Um okay." I hesitate not knowing where to start. "Well, what exactly did the files say?"

Steve tells me about what he read. He read about the many assassinations and inside jobs I have performed. How much information I had stolen. About the cruelty of the Red Room and how brutal and violent it was. But Steve didn't know everything.

"The Red Room was brutal, but I could not break. I did not fail. I couldn't or I would be killed. And when I finished my years of training, they had a graduation ceremony. Read about that in your files?"

Steve shakes his head. "I take it 'ceremony' is not the right word?"

I look down to the floor. "No. Not the right word at all. That morning, they dressed me in a paper gown, put me on a wheeled table, and took me downstairs into the medical hallway. An operating room." I inhaled. "They sterilized us. All of us who had made it through our training. Twenty eight of us. It was horrible and..."

Steve glances over. "And?"

I think this part is harder. "The morning after the procedure, one of the caretakers- I guess- came into the room they put me in. By then I had stopped bleeding and was supposed to return soon. He told me he was supposed to make sure I was all good for the day, but I could tell something was up. He was too nice. That's when he did it. He said it was to make sure it worked. He said I better get used to it, because a real spy will do whatever it takes to get information. I never consented, though." Images of him flash through my memory. "He raped me. He took from me the last shred of anything decent in me, and I will never get that back. That was my first time out of many times I realized I could use it to get what I want. I could use my body to get what I want. It was also the last time I cried."

I look over and see Steve's face. He looks exactly how I feel. Shattered. I look back down. I know I've done it now, but I can't stop.

"After that I never cried again. Until that accident at Panera. After the graduation ceremony we got our assignments. Assassinations. Attacks. Hacking. Infiltration. I've done it all. I killed some pretty important people. Didn't hesitate. Never blinked an eye."

Steve still doesn't say anything. I've said all I can say. It's all out there now. I don't think he could still feel what he thought he felt a few minutes ago. He looks so devastated. I know why. I am a monster. I am a killer. An assassin.

"Nat," he whispers, "I'm so sorry. I am beyond sorry. Natasha, I can't imagine going through what you went through. It's unfair. It's horrible. But I'm telling you this, you are not a monster. You're not just an assassin made from the Red Room. You're so much more. I know you, and, Natasha, I think I love you."

Should I say it? I don't think. I just respond. "I think I love you." I hope I've done the right thing.