Oneshots... Assemble!

Bad Dream (Part Three)

I write way too much on my favorite Avenger, and I still have more ideas which are really sad and I'mma make myself cry— and yes I did write some Romanogers on here cause why not.

Natasha was already in the training room when Wanda entered. She was at the corner punching bag, beating the absolute shit out of it. Wanda would've stopped her from destroying the bag, but a quick look the the other corner confirmed that it was a lost cause. Everyone at some point broke a bag off its chains. She noticed Steve watching from the opposite side of the room.

With every punch, ballet music coursed through her already ringing ears. The blood turned darker until it eventually dried, nobody caring enough to clean it off the wooden floor. Every spin and twirl made Natasha remember what it was like to dance until her feet bled scarlet. She absentmindedly muttered in Russian, things about that day and the details that kept nagging her.

She'd been brainwashed several times before. It was pretty simple protocol in the Red Room, starting whenever a recruit knew something they shouldn't know. Or when their memory wasn't shrouded in enough darkness and death, but instead happier times like family and friends and fun; Natasha thought of them as the three forbidden F's.

Victims of the Red Room (although there was only one now) wouldn't remember any of it. They weren't supposed to. But you can't control everything in life, including flaws methods of punishment and wiping off everything about a person. Natasha almost collapsed as she painfully thought about what it was like to start over with a blank slate — she knew the feeling more than anyone.

Punch. You shouldn't be here, Romanoff. You don't belong, and you never will.

Shut up, Natasha mentally replied to her self. Kick.

She could picture herself rolling her eyes. Sorry, would you prefer if I called you Romanova instead? Natalia Alianovna... Romanova. Punch.

Natasha didn't even reply before feeling a familiar set of eyes staring into the back of her head. She didn't want to be around people. Trust was hard to put in others, and she found herself at the top of her own list. Do you trust yourself anymore? Have you ever? Kick. The bag flew off the chain and landed with a thud on the floor.

"Shut up," the agent said aloud in Russian. She felt good about talking back until she remembered who was watching her.

Steve was too far to have heard what she said, but could tell something was up. He walked over after downing an entire water bottle. "Nat."

"Cap," Natasha greeted, easily switching into English. "I hope you're here to tell me some good news."

He raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? What did you have in mind?"

"Well, the burning question in my mind is who Captain America is gonna take to dinner some day." She smirked and Steve groaned his usual response to the question: the I'm-so-done-with-your-shit-Romanoff groan.

"It's hard to find someone with the same life experience," he replied. Oh?

Natasha shrugged. "Easy. Just make something up, Rogers." Damn. That shirt looks good on him.

"What, like you?"

She hesitated in a very-unlike-Natasha way. Images of ballet and training flickered once again. She found herself looking at different IDs and files, full of covers and aliases. Natalie Rushman. Natasha Romanoff. Natalia Romanova. The list went on and on forever.

"It's a good way not to die." I'm living proof.

Steve finally said, "There is one girl, but I don't know how she feels about me." Damnit. Wait, am I jealous?

"A girl can't reject the one and only, yeah?" Natasha winked and he blushed. "Good luck, Captain." Love is for children. Shut up, Romanoff.

Steve walked away, blushing furiously. He hoped that his red ears were hidden from her sight. His eyes made contact with Wanda's and she grinned knowingly. Steve silently begged her to not say anything or go into his mind. His worry only increased when she did exactly that and went over to the person he secretly had a crush on.

"Nat," Wanda greeted.

She didn't even turn around from staring at the wall. "You saw it didn't you?"

Natasha thought about what Coulson and Clint and once told her several years ago. "You give a whole new meaning to the word blunt." She likes things better when they're straight to the point; no unnecessary details.

"What?" Wanda asked, shocked. "How do you know everything?"

"They call me all-knowing, so maybe that's why." Natasha shrugged. "Besides, I thought I felt something off about last night's gauntlet."

Wanda choked on air. "You mean more off than the fact that Bucky was there and you and a load of other girls were dancing before murder?"

"I wouldn't exactly call it dancing...training is a better word."

"And Bucky?" Wanda feared the answer.

Natasha hesitated. "I was hoping he wouldn't recover memories of the Red Room, but here we are." She saw Wanda's curiosity and continued, "The Red Room was a training facility for young girls in Russia. We were taken from families we'd never know, trained to seduce and kill in a professional manner, and learned to keep everything in check. Bucky was the Winter Soldier and a valuable person to have in Hydra. Hydra would lend him to us for a training position.

"The government didn't care?"

"Uh-huh, yeah." Natasha snorted. "The Soviet Union, and then even when it collapsed, still had better things to do. Tensions ran high all the time within the country, especially with the United States getting involved.

"I always had a suspicion that they knew—"

"—but didn't take any action because you were still helping the KGB," Wanda finished. "Sorry, your thoughts are kinda loud right now."

The agent nodded and said, "Did you see exactly what I saw?"

"You were dancing all day long to ballet music," Wanda explained, "but then someone messed up."

"Elizaveta."

"Yes, and you tried to help her. That big scary lady—"

"Madame B."

"Madame B said no and eventually called upon the Winter Soldier to do something. You were called up to shoot her," Wanda finished with a sob. The Red Room sounded horrible.

She looked into Natasha's emerald green eyes and tried to read her expression. It looked slightly pained, as if everything was too much to keep in. Wanda had to give her credit — she was doing a pretty good job of it.

"How long were you there?" The teenager asked in a small voice.

Natasha swallowed. "Twelve years, give or take. Then Clint was sent to kill me."

Wanda opened her mouth to say something, but Natasha added, "I was already the Black Widow by then, top of all SHIELD watchlists. He was following me for months after I burned down the Red Room and ran. After cornering me, injured and wishing for death, Clint made a different call."

"You trusted him?" Wanda replied. She was using it as a distraction to get he her mind off of what happened to the other girls in the program. "I've lived with you for months, and from what I can tell: you don't trust easily."

Natasha offered a small and rare smile. "Took him weeks for me to actually say anything other than an accusation of lying. Coulson had a helping hand in that too."

Wanda returned the smile. But she knew her mission wasn't quite complete. "Let me know if you need any help...ever, okay? I want to help you, Nat."

"You already have helped, Wanda," Natasha  said softly, "and for that — I thank you."

Wanda's smile turned to a smirk. "Now, what's up with you and the Captain?"

This was the third and final part to this. :)