Black Widow Fest 2023 - Day Seven
Mirror, Mirror.
Warnings: dead dove. child abuse, child death (red room)
Word count: 2694
Pairing: nil. Natasha Centric.
A/N: truthfully, this has been a hard one to write but as it got going it got easier. Borne of beautiful artwork by @lightmotifs and a conversation about Natasha looking at herself in the mirror, spawned.. well, this. A five parter of times Natasha looked at herself in the mirror. So please heed the warnings. <3 (also this was supposed to be the last fic of the years bwf but I had to add in Kiss the Dread) As always your comments and support gives these fics life. <3
The scariest thing I had to encounter,
Wasn’t a ghost, or a scary monster.
It was the reflection, I saw as I looked in the mirror.
The moment I had to face,
All the dark parts, I tried hard to erase
Yet as I looked a bit closely, at the eyes staring back at me,
I realised they were still there,
Untouched and unfazed.
Waiting for the day to be let out of their cage.
- Reflection (S.S.W)
1/ Ohio
Touching the bruise softly, Natasha watches her face wince in the mirror. It doesn’t hurt, it stings, maybe that’s the sensation she’s feeling.
She’s old enough to know that she won’t be going to school tomorrow, because they ask questions about those sorts of of things.
Melina had promised to show her how to put make up on bruises, but she’d left in the hours of the morning with Yelena, leaving Natasha and Alexei together.
“Let me teach you something new,” he’d laughed, grabbing her wrist and pulling her away from her book.
“Don’t let the American language corrupt your mind.”
She’d tried to pull her wrist away, but he’d held on, and it was only when she trailed behind him, did she smell the vodka on his breath.
Whatever he had planned to show her, he wouldn’t remember, not being as drunk as what he was.
“Sambo is a man’s sport, but you will learn,” he’d said.
Natasha knows the bruise on her face isn’t the only visible one, but if she thought about what really hurt, her back would be top priority.
She takes her tshirt off to see if it has the same coloured hue as her eye. She takes the chair and puts it under the door so that Alexei does not wander in, and then twisting in the mirror, she catches a glance at her back.
It’s as she suspected, bruises mottling down her spine from where he’d picked her up and crashed her down.
His laugher had made her smile, even as she winced in hurt.
“Come on Natasha, show me how the Red Room girls defend themselves.”
She didn’t really know how to react, and so had thrown a half hearted punch, before he picked her up and threw her again.
Natasha wasn’t sure when it had turned, his laughter turned serious and she’d missed the cue for his anger. Suddenly, his attempt at playing, mutated and as she’d got up again, he pushed her down.
“I win,” he said conversationally.
She missed the warning in his voice as she stood back up.
Natasha tried not to cry when he open hand slapped her in the face, the sound shocking her more than the hit, and she’d stayed down.
He stood over her, grabbing the nearby bottle and taking a swig.
“I win,” he snarled, “I will always win.”
And then stalked off to find a corner to drink some more.
She’d only moved when she’d heard his loud snores coming from the bedroom, and had risen on shaking legs, making her way to the bathroom to assess the damage.
The mirror doesn’t lie, she thinks as she stares at herself, poking softly at the swelling, wishing quietly for a way to swap places with the mirror version of herself.
2/ Location Unknown. Russia.
They’re lined up like they always are, and take their places on the bar. The distance between them is measured and they’ve done this often enough to know exactly what to do.
Madam strikes her switch and the music starts.
Natasha follows the movement and lets her mind wander. It comes with such ease that she no longer even has to think about it.
Today feels different, but she can’t figure out why.
Madam, perhaps looks more strict, but she hasn’t said anything, hasn’t corrected anything, has let them follow the music without yelling or hitting them with switch to correct movement.
The longer it goes on, the more it feels wrong.
There’s no talking.
They breathe hard as training continues longer than it should.
She shares a glance with the other girls, and she knows everyone is feeling the strangeness.
Legs shaking they’re lined up again, and at last; Natasha thinks, they can go into the lunch hall and eat.
Except they don’t.
They’re sat, facing the mirror in the hall, and Natasha takes the opportunity to look at the other girls in the reflection.
Something she rarely does.
They all look as tired as she does.
They all look nervous at the change in routine.
Even those that know how to mask their faces, have shifting eyes and clenched fists.
She stares at herself, and takes her demeanour in, focusing first at relaxing her face, making her features become stoic and straight faced. Next she relaxes her shoulders, keeping her breathing even.
Her legs give nothing away, so she puts her hands flat on her knees and keeps her back straight.
No slouching.
Dreykov enters.
Immediately, her hands tighten on her knees but she sees it in the mirror.
Natasha knows now this is going to be a lesson.
And not a good one.
She stares stoically at the mirror.
Reasoning, that she can see everything in the room, and she can focus on herself.
It becomes more important when Anabelle is dragged in by her hair.
Natasha’s heart sinks.
They knew she was missing in the morning and had gossiped about her whereabouts. They’d concluded that she was in medical.
Because no one would be stupid enough to do what they assumed she had done.
As Dreykov starts to talk, Natasha’s heart sinks further.
She’d tried to escape.
They’d caught her at the border of the forest.
Glancing quickly at her, Anabelle seems to know her fate, her clothes ripped by what Natasha assumes is handiwork of Dreykov’s dogs.
She turns back to the mirror.
If she watches the mirror, she can make it seem like she’s watching an American movie.
She’s not here.
It’s not happening in front of her.
The mirror shows all the horrors, the monologue from a villain.
It’s just a movie, Natasha tells herself, nails digging into her knees.
Nails pieces her skin as the gunshot goes off.
She doesn’t want to look.
Dreykov’s voice is nothing in the back of her head as she watches the blood spread on the floor.
Staring stoically forward, she watches the others stand, numbly; she does the same.
She takes one last look in the mirror, and the scene of horror, and knows the truth that it holds.
3/ Location Unknown. America.
The interrogation room in Shield is simple.
Table.
Chairs.
Handcuffs holding her wrists on the table.
Two way mirror.
She wonders idly how many people sit behind that mirror, how many are evaluating her, if Clint Barton is watching too.
Maria Hill, the SIC of Shield, crosses her legs again and waits.
“We can make this more uncomfortable,” she states.
Natasha doesn’t doubt it.
“But Barton has assured us that you would cooperate, and abide by the rules of your surrender.”
Natasha nods.
Stares at the two way mirror.
“I will,” she speaks to it.
She has no interest in Maria, and is willing to talk, but there’s a certain anxiety that comes with divulging her country’s secrets.
If they find her, she’s dead, but she was already dead anyway.
She wishes she could see him through the mirror.
Instead, she just sees her own face, dead eyes staring back to her.
“Tell us about Bali, and your role in the assassination of American diplomat,” Maria repeats.
Natasha frowns.
“How do you know that was me?”
Maria bristles.
“Was it?”
Natasha doesn’t have enough information to know how much they know. If she lies, or tells less than they truth, and they know more than she tells them, there’s not telling what they’ll do.
It’s not a winnable game unless she answers their questions with more questions and gauge her response from that, she could perhaps play it that way.
It seems too hard though.
And she’ll let Clint down.
After all he went through to get her out.
She looks to the mirror again, and finds her eyes pleading.
Turning back to Maria and sighing, she uses the mirror as an anchor.
“No one ever assumes that the woman in a dress is a threat.”
The tiniest of smiles crosses Maria’s face, and it’s more like a softening of features than anything else.
“I passed him twice, once to slit his femoral artery and the second to make sure he’s dead.”
The clanking of the handcuffs make her brain short out alongside the anxiety, the fact that she’s in America, talking about missions, is tantamount to death.
Dreykov’s face appears in the mirror and her eyes go wide.
“He’s dead,” she says out loud, and the image fades.
Maria nods.
“Yes, he died, as you’ve stated.”
She’s thankful her fuck up isn’t noticed, despite the fact her heart is beating hard against her chest.
“Do you need a break?” Maria’s asks, the words kind, even if the delivery is not.
Natasha shakes her head, calming herself, as she grounds herself by looking back to the mirror.
If nothing else is real, at least she is.
She knows this by the way she raises her head and her mirror image copies the action.
The way she talks and the image opens and closes her mouth in time.
There’s no delay like in dreams.
Hours they continue, and she grows tired of the constant questions, the interrogation that occurs when her story doesn’t line up with her timelines of events.
It’s just, it’s how she remembers it’s happening.
It’s not like she has the mission reports in front of her.
She’s not even trying to hide lies in the truth anymore.
What would be the point?
They’ll either take her in and help protect her from the last standing Red Room members or they’ll kill her.
In the back of her mind, she doesn’t care about whatever way they go.
She’s dead either way, and being alive never seemed to help anyone.
“Tell me about Ohio,” Maria asks.
But it’s too much.
“No,” Natasha states, staring hard at her.
“No.”
“No.”
“We’ve been at this for hours, days, handcuffed, toileted like a child, made to wait, been asked the same questions, about the same missions over and over to see if my story varies. It doesn’t, and still you ask.”
Sick of the handcuffs, she slips out of them, and rubs her wrists, a familiar action that feels grounding in the moment, allowing her to continue her rant.
Her mouth speaks, her mind wanders.
They know about Ohio.
They might know about Yelena.
“Either kill me or agree to the terms of my defection.”
She stares at the mirror.
“I don’t care,” she finishes, “I don’t care.”
Despondent eyes look back to her as she hastens a glance.
The door opens and Clint strides in.
There’s a sense of dread and relief simultaneously.
“You’re the one they send to kill me?”
He stands next to her, argues, for her, not against her.
He tells Maria off for keeping her in cuffs, for not bringing in food or water and keeping Natasha in longer than she should.
He sighs and she hastens a look up to the mirror finding their images standing together.
Maybe shes not alone in this.
4/ The Avengers Tower, New York.
The mirrors in the lift are usually easily ignored.
Sometimes she’ll even take the stairs.
This time Natasha looks forward to it.
She wants to see how she looks, wants to see how feral she is.
Blood in her hairline, bruises on her face, she smiles at herself.
For once she feels like the outside matches the inside.
The doors close and it ascends upwards without her having to press a button, and she can’t stop looking at herself.
She did good.
Her body, her mind, her training, for once, paid off.
She got Tony out, and he’s safe because of her.
Getting closer to the mirror, she eyes the way her hair is unkempt, flyaway bits adorn her face, almost lining it, even though it’s all tied up in a tight bun. Not red, but brown this week. Clint had commented and pouted that he missed her hair, Steve reported that he was going to go blonde and Tony called her chameleon. She likes her brown hair, so different to her natural colour.
Next, she looks at her eyes.
Green watches her.
The speckled brown seemingly more, when contrasted with her brown hair.
She likes the way her pupils are wide as she changes her expression with the move of an eyebrow.
Natasha used to do this in the Red Room, practice facial expressions so she could school her face, remember how to look angry, sad, happy.
She touches the scar on her lip softly.
No make up.
She didn’t need it for the fight she fought.
Pale skin, blemish on her chin.
The bruises from the fight coming through slowly.
Since when did she stop wearing makeup daily just to hide who she was? She thinks it’s been months. Only wearing it when needed, when meeting with higher ups.
Here though; she doesn’t need it.
She’s Natasha. Not made up, not fake.
She touches her lips again, swollen, cut.
Pushes it into a smile, a frown, playing with pushing them in and out, watching how the cut expands and shrinks depending on her how she curls it.
The elevator stops, the doors don’t open.
Turning and glancing at doors, she realises Jarvis has recognised she’s entranced.
They’d call it vanity, she’d call it a luxury.
“Thanks,” she whispers, and turns her attention back to herself.
Eyebrows, up and down.
Frown, practicing facial expressions; she feels like a marionette.
Eyes big, eyes small. Sad. Happy.
It’s what it looks like on other people anyway.
She can fake any emotion.
She can pretend.
She’s been doing it all her life.
It doesn’t take much practice.
Being unmasked does.
Years of it.
Sometimes she feels like she’ll never be able to fully unmask and be herself.
Natasha knows the lengths she’s gone to, to hide who she is. Being vulnerable is too hard, rarely worth it.
The select few that know her know her like this, feral, unkempt, truthful.
The more she stares, the more she likes this version of herself.
“Thanks,” she tells empty space around her, “we can go now.”
The elevator starts, and delivers her to the floor with her room.
Natasha takes one last look at herself, smiles, and leaves.
5/ Norway
Natasha feels the artificial lighting; her head hurting due to the lack of sleep and constant vigilance.
The phone, now sans the SIM card, sits on the sink, and she stares heavily, taking in every part of her.
So tired of running, missing the stability she’s had.
Weak, she calls herself.
How could she forget the trials and lessons of her childhood?
She should have known that it would inevitably fall apart.
It was always going to end like this, with her alone, and being tracked by people she once considered allies.
“Once a traitor, always a traitor,” Rumlow had once whispered in her ear, and she’d tried to not take it to heart.
The thing is, she’d always known, she only needed to stay true to herself.
Her own morals.
She’d once told Clint that that only person she could trust was herself.
He’s told her that he wished she’d change her mind on that.
Perhaps for a time she did.
Maybe at the tower; maybe for that short period of her life where Tony showed her tech, Steve showed her how to draw and Bruce taught her how to cook. Times that seemed much simpler.
Now.
That’s gone.
The only person you can trust is yourself, she scalds herself, frowning in the mirror.
The mirror doesn’t lie.
The mirror holds truth.
Reaching out for herself she touches it gently.
She is real and not alone.
She has herself, and she knows the power of that.
.
