Cardiac Arrest | Sacred Place | Withholding Medical Treatment
Caretaker rushed into the room, their only focus on saving Whumpee, gagged and tied to a chair. They didn't notice the way their companion was frantically shaking their head, or how strangely silent the room was. As Caretaker removed the gag, Whumpee shouted "DUCK!"
Too stunned to question, Caretaker hit the floor as a shot rang out from behind them.
"Well that's just no fun," Whumper pouted, standing in the doorway. "You made me hit my favorite toy."
Caretaker looked in shock between Whumper, casually strolling towards them, and Whumpee, a dark red stain beginning to blossom from their shoulder. Even if Caretaker could focus enough to fight Whumper off, Whumpee would bleed out before they could escape.
"Fix them." Caretaker's voice was barely audible. "Please."
"Oh, I could." Whumper smiled cruelly. "But you need to give me something in return."
"Anything," Caretaker pleaded. "What do you want?"
"I want you." Whumper leaned down, tilting Caretaker's chin up. "Agree to take their place, and I'll have them stitched up."
A look of shock and horror entered Caretaker's eyes as they considered their options. Whumper dropped their chin, standing up. "Make your decision fast, love. Otherwise all of this, well...I'm afraid to say it'll be for nothing."
Caretaker looked to Whumpee, semi-conscious, eyes barely open, begging Caretaker not to do it. But Caretaker's mind was already made up.
"I'll do it," they said. "Just fix them."
Whumper grinned, snapping their fingers. Additional guards entered the room, some with medical supplies, some with restraints. As Caretaker was taken away, the last thing they saw was Whumpee, their face filled with pain, getting bandaged up.
An accident leaves Natasha without her memories, without anyone to guide her, and the Red Room chasing after her, the odds are not in her favour… unless those that love her find her first.
Whumptober 2025: Day 12 - Sacred Place
Warnings:
Word Count: 1.3k
Summary: Yelena remembers and contemplates her next moves.
Whumptober Masterlist/Masterlist of Fic / ao3
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LONDON / OCTOBER 03 / 19:56PM
Yelena sits on the floor, her knees tucked into her chest as Clint returns to sit next to her.
“She says they don’t have her, that she escaped.”
Yelena frowns.
“What?”
Clint slows his voice.
“She escaped, they don’t have her. She said that they lost her in west London. She got shot twice and they haven’t been able to locate her since.”
Yelena stands, looking at Clint with some hope.
“What are we going to do with her?” he asks, glancing back towards Brigitte.
Yelena truly doesn’t know, she keeps offering freedom but clearly it’s not as alluring to Brigitte as it is to her.
“Can we just leave her?” she asks, voice quiet.
“Your choice,” Clint replies, “whatever you can live with.”
She’d already killed one Widow.
Yelena nods, looking at her hands.
“Can we go now? We don’t have much to go on, just where she took down the other widows and where they last saw her.”
Clint looks at his watch. Natasha is not in any imminent danger, if she escaped, she’d run and hide. All they had to do was find her.
Yelena looks so tired. So drawn and small as she looks to him for answers.
“We have no weapons, no untraceable car and I don’t know about you, but I need at least a couple of hours of sleep.”
He pauses, they could go after Natasha or hope that she was okay and regroup. He knows what Natasha would choose for them, even if it wasn’t what he would.
“Do you think we could go back to the safe-house for a couple of hours?”
Yelena looks him up and down, wondering what it was that someone asking her opinion almost made her cry.
“Yeah,” she replies.
“I think that sounds good.”
.
Yelena leaves Brigitte without saying anything. She’s sure that if she was Natasha or any other widow then she should say something smart, or profound about the heavy weight of freedom being a choice or something but she doesn’t have it in her.
Clint drives them both back to the safe house in a stolen car and she takes the time to zone out, trying to forget most of the moments of the last twenty four hours.
Killing people is second nature to her, she does it without thought or without complaint and ultimately, she cares less than she knows she should.
Dani’s expression as she shot her, Brigitte’s face as she cut into her; the images she thinks of and lets them go.
Natasha is not with the Red Room and she takes solace in that.
It means that her tentative truce with Clint is not something they need.
It means that they could go their separate ways, and probably; and more likely, he will turn her in.
He has no use of her now.
He has his avenger friends to find her.
And likewise, she has no use of him.
It’s time to run, she thinks, nervousness curling in her gut.
But all of her doesn’t want to.
.
Clint turns the music on the crackly radio finding the dulcet tones of the Postal Service and smiling remembering how much Natasha liked to stick her feet on the dash and stare out the window.
It seemed unknowingly Yelena had some of the same mannerisms.
“Natasha does that too,” he tells her on a whim.
“What?”
“She puts her feet on the dash and stares out the window.”
Yelena bristles.
“Lots of people do that, Clint Barton.”
“Yeah, I suppose,” he replies, nonplussed by her answer.
“What else?”
The request is perhaps seemingly insignificant, but Clint knows what she’s asking.
Tangible threads between them.
Something to hold onto.
“On a bad day, she’ll find the tallest building, and sit on the roof to watch the sky.”
He swallows and continues.
“She saw me do it once, and decided that roofs were sacred places.”
“On a good day, where we have nothing on, she likes to bake. Sometimes carrot cupcakes with this like cream cheese topping which is delicious.”
She watching him with rapt attention.
“Her favorite color is blue. Like dark ocean blue.”
He pauses.
“Umm, I don’t know. What do you want to know?”
He’s trying so hard to keep her with him, even as he feels her pull away.
She doesn’t answer and continues to look out the window.
.
She needs to leave.
Now.
If she doesn’t, she’ll stay, and follow him, because it’s what Natasha did.
Natasha has good days and bad days and a favorite color, and what does she have?
Days.
Every day is the same.
Each undifferentiated by its insignificance and its slow plod towards inevitable death.
Sure there were good parts in a day but she can’t remember the last time, or ever of having a truly good day.
Clint unlocks the door and lets himself inside.
“What do you want to eat?”
Yelena balks at the door, the simple question is one that’s never been posed to her.
“Come and choose, I’ll make it,” he offers.
“There’s not much anyway, but I can go down to the shop if you have something in mind.”
She stares.
He must know he’s sending her into cognitive dissonance, but still he tries.
He turns his back and continues to talk, offering choices until she steps through the door.
“Natasha likes this pasta dish, but really it’s just Mac and Cheese with Bacon.”
She holds the couch to steady herself and stares back at him.
“What?”
“Mac and Cheese and bacon?”
Her favorite.
“I’d just have to go down to the shops and get some bacon,” he tells her, gesturing to the door.
“Yeah,” Yelena replies. “Yeah. Whatever you think.”
She stares and somehow finds her way to the table.
She empties the contents of her bag onto the table and finds the small bracelet that she had taken off Dani. The widow she had shot.
The widow she’d killed.
She needs to bury it. Just like they always did.
Red Room superstitions.
Until something of hers was buried, they wouldn’t truly be at peace.
It’s a sentiment that had stayed with her.
When they didn’t have access to anything, and girls just disappeared, they held true to the fact that they could do something small to help their souls or whatever they believed, to rest.
It weighs heavy in her hand even though the chain is light.
When she looks up Clint is gone.
She’s left alone with her thoughts.
Yelena sighs and explores the little safe house more. It has a small yard, mostly of concrete but there is some lavender.
She makes her way outside and uses her hands to part the dirt, dig down and drop the small bracelet inside.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
Though she hadn’t known Dani, she had known her name. She covers over the mound and wipes at her face, she draws a small letter in the dirt and stands.
Yelena feels like she needs to leave.
Clint has given her small gifts in getting to know her sister.
She can’t ask him for more, she wants to find Natasha and maybe some more of the Red Room girls. Maybe, unlike Brigitte, they can be free. Brigitte still had the serum in her, and she hoped that once it cleared, she’d be more amenable to her freedom.
Even Yelena didn’t know if she wanted to be free. The consequences of it seemed so overwhelming.
What was she supposed to do with her time? Were they still hunting her?
Ysabel would probably see to it that she was captured, they’d likely send Francesca after her.
The thought stays.
Francesca.
That’s who they’d send next.
She stands and looks at the door, wishing she could stay.
Warnings: restraints, captivity, torture, physical violence, public humiliation, cruel whumper
Whumpee's cheeks burned with embarrassment. Whumper had paraded them around town, their arms bound tightly behind their back. Whumper was showing off. Showing off their defeat. Showing off their shame.
Whumpee deserved it. They had failed. They always failed. This was their fault. They should be shamed. Should be beaten. They deserved it.
"Just a little bit more, Whumpee," Whumper said as they reached the town square, "and then I'll take you back to my place and really show you what true defeat looks like."
Whumpee hung their head in shame. This was going to be their lot in life. "Please, Whumper, don't....please."
"Silence," Whumper said as they slapped Whumpee's cheek. Their cheek stung and eyes watered. "I won. This is what I get to do. Whenever I want. Because I won and you lost."
Whumpee couldn't help but cry. Even though they deserved this, they hated every moment of this. Hated every second.
"You're pathetic. If you think this is bad, just wait until we get back to my place and then you will know what true torture is."
Day 12 | “It’ll be for nothing” | Cardiac Arrest | Sacred Place | Withholding Medical Treatment
Nr. 12: Sacred Place
Maybe you still remember how we started our little series with an article about ceremonies. Today, we want to come back to this topic in a certain way by talking about something that can be crucial for a proper ceremony - we would like to call it the sacred place.
And no, we’re not talking about churches or temples and the like here (even though we will always encourage you if tormenting your whumpee is a form of religious sacrifice for you) - for some people religious acts are self-care, after all, and that’s what we want to promote with this blog.
Your personal sacred place can be everything you choose to be your sacred place, you don’t even have to call it that - we’re just doing it to emphasize the importance of a specific place that only belongs to you and your whumpee.
It should be a specific room close to where you keep them; for most whumpers, that’s the basement, since it’s close enough to go there whenever you feel the need to, but you also don’t have to make changes to your personal living space.
Only two things are important to consider when choosing your sacred place: it has to be big enough and it has to be soundproof (for obvious reasons). It goes without saying that the door should be lockable, just in case.
When it comes to interior design, all we can say is this: the sky is the limit. Whether you want to aim for a classic torture chamber design with dark, bare walls and the occasional manacles dangling from the ceiling, just waiting for your whumpee to be chained up, or something more modern, with a proper light and color concept that draws attention to your appliances and tools at first glance, is totally up to you - again, this is your sacred place, this is where you come to spend time with your most valued possession and maybe even relax after a hard day.
The best thing about it? You can place whatever you need in that room! A cage for your whumpee to stay in and watch you while you line up the whips and crops you’re going to use on their back soon? A hoist and chains to suspend them? Maybe a surgical table? Your dreams can come true in this place! So why wait any longer?
