entrancelogs | + Guilt Runs Deep

There are more than two dozen girls in the transport, all of them around the same age. Twelve or thirteen, maybe. They’re crowded into hard bench seats and sit under the watchful eye of several armed chaperones, but they don’t seem unhappy. For so many girls their age (children, really), they’re subdued, but they still murmur among themselves. They still smile. Some of them tell stories or share gossip to pass the time as the armored vehicle trundles on, while others watch out the narrow windows at the scruffy tundra that rolls past, and still others nap, leaning together shoulder to shoulder.

They've been at this for a while, hours or more, but only for a few minutes left.

A moment later, the transport slows and lumbers to a stop. The adults spring into motion,, barking orders for the girls to stand, to exit, line up outside. No, not there. Further back.

They obey, some more hesitantly than others. None of them are dressed for the weather. It’s not winter yet, but it’s late enough in the year for the sun to be cool and pale, the cold much too extreme for the light jackets the girls wear. The wind cuts right through them. A few girls hug themselves against the bite. Others try to stand straight and stoic, anticipating that this is their next test.

Once they have more or less settled into position, one of the chaperones, a woman with blond hair and angular features, stands on the back of their transport. She drops a backpack on the churned up ground, letting it fall over two meters to the icy mud. The other adults hang out of the doors or take position on top, rifles trained on the class.

"This kit includes a parka and one pair of snow boots. A sleeping roll. One week’s worth of rations." She speaks, barely raising her voice to be heard over the wind and the distance. Her right hand comes up and she points over the vast, barren expanse roughly back the way they came. "The nearest settlement is two weeks on foot in this direction."

That is all she says.. She watches her charges a few seconds more, watches as confusion sets in on some faces, horror on others, and on a precious few, grim determination. Those are the faces she looks at the longest. Then she disappears back inside the vehicle, and it lurches back into motion.

They never even turned off the engine.

Two lookouts keep their guns leveled as they leave the girls behind, making sure none of them try to catch up with them as they depart. None do.

Instead a girl starts to run toward the pack. She’s determined, but she isn’t smart, and as soon as she makes her move, two others pounce on her. As though cued, the rest of them burst into action. A few hesitate to fight, pulling their punches. They don’t last long as their sharper peers take advantage of the situation.

What follows is grim. They’re all of them trained. They know how to fight, and their instincts have been honed for this. There’s no weapons among them, but that doesn’t matter. They’re strangled. They’re beaten. Their heads as bashed against rocks. Some lay on the ground, still alive but ignored, incapacitated and left to die of exposure or be picked at by animals. Their numbers dwindle quickly, every girl alive standing in the way of every other girl’s chance at survival.

In the end, there’s only one left.

The way she limps to the gear, hefts it, then limps on, following the path of the transport’s tracks is anything but victorious.

Before she's shrunk away into the distance, the memory begins again.

Once Steve was able to shake off his own hell he heads out to check on Natasha. He doesn’t know her entire story, but he knows enough. Bits and pieces she has told him or alluded to over the years. Signs of trust she gives him when the story is relevant or she just wants to share for reasons that are usually her own and he doesn’t pry. So he has a vague idea of what her he’ll kight look like and he doesn’t want her to face that alone. Things she might not want him to see but she’s his best friend and he won’t leave her to face it alone.

He pushes the door to her room open and pokes his head in seeing the memory start from the beginning. He walks in closing the door behind him and watches silently. He recognizes what he’s looking at- she mentioned this during the whole accord debacle. She didn’t want them to turn into this- and in a way they had. He had. Fighting each other- he left Tony broken and bleeding in Siberia. But this isn’t about him, it’s about Natasha.

The sole survivor who is limping towards the gear.

“You didn’t have a choice.” He’s not sure if that’s what she wants to hear- he’s not even sure if he believes it. But she’s so young there, what choice did she have but to fight for her own survival?

It's a good thing it's Steve who shows up. The list of other people who could have walked in on this and not had Natasha shut down is short—close to nonexistent. It's not just that he already knows, though that helps too, but that he's a friend. That she already trusts him enough to be vulnerable.

His statement makes her shack her head; when she speaks, her voice is just a little rougher than usual, a burr of emotion that doesn't quite resolve into anger or sadness or pain. "Yes, I did." Maybe not much of a choice, but that didn't mean she didn't have one. More importantly, she's not interested in pretending she's not responsible for what she's done. "I did it anyway."

And that's the real heart of the matter. She did it. If she had a choice or not, they'd been her friends and their blood was still on her.

She was right, and he wouldn't argue the fact with her. "You did, but a lot of that blame is also on the red room, for putting you all in that position in the first place. You made a choice in a situation that gave you two options."

He knows he doesn't understand what it was like, and he can't honestly say he would have made the same choice, but she's his friend and he trusts, respects her.

"Steve... You don't have to stay for this." It starts playing again, the way it's already replayed for her several times before. Natasha hugs herself against the scene, her expression shuttered.

Her gaze is fixed away from him.

He knows that, but he doesn’t want to leave her alone to watch this over and over. Not unless she wants him gone.

“I know, I want to stay. Unless you want me to go?” He will, but only if she asks. He knows it’s not easy for her to be vulnerable with people, but she can be with him and he will support her if she needs it.

Natasha doesn't want him to leave. Not really. Who would want to face this alone?

That's not exactly the same as saying she wants him to stay though. Just... it's a real, real short list of people she'd rather have next to her if her past was going to be put on display.

"So... what's the trick? We have to make peace with ourselves again?" Wonderland's best hits.

She doesn't tell him to go, so he doesn't, making himself more comfortable next to her.

"We have to forgive ourselves." It took him a while to figure that out. "Seems like this is supposed to be hell."

As comfortable as possible at least, right? Natasha takes some comfort in his presence. His words get a little wince, though.

"Would have thought hell would be worse." Which isn't the same as being all right with this, is it. Forgive herself? Huh. "I made peace with this a long time ago..."

“Me too, a lot more fire or something.” He was raised Irish catholic, this was definitely not their version of hell. Though reliving something you can’t forgove yourself for is a very subtle particular torture that is probably effective.

“I thought i’d made peace with Bucky too, apparently Wonderland knows us better than we do.” That is to say, she might have made peace but that’s not the same.

"There's a difference between making peace and forgiving yourself." That's a guess, really. But it makes sense. You can accept something happened, live with it, even forget about it most days, while never entirely forgiving.

Natasha winces a little at Steve's statement.

"Glad to see you got out."

“That’s what I’m assuming.” It was easier to convince yourself you were over it than to actually forgive yourself for something like that- like this.

He nods, mouth turning up slightly despite himself. “I had some help.” Some tiny, determined, blonde help.

Natasha nods slightly, her eyes still fixed on the scene around them. "Guess at least we get that here."

She hates these. She always hates these. The way Wonderland rifles around in their memories looking for secrets or sore spots, everything from embarrassments to trauma, all on display.

He leans his shoulder against her’s in support. He might not be able to help her forgive herself for this but he can be here with her for however long she needs. It’s not something she has to face alone.

“Not just here.”

Natasha leans back against him slightly, a nudge with her shoulder. He'll be able to feel how tense she is. She hides it well, but it's clear she's stiffer than she looks as she watches the murders play out again.

It still doesn't make sense. She did this. But she's done worse, and she's done it when she didn't have the excuse of being a child, being threatened with starvation or with being killed herself. It seems impossible to imagine she'd feel more guilty about this than those...

It's a long moment before she winces, the logic coming together.

+ Guilt Runs Deep

Natasha Romanoff | OTA | violence, death, child abuse?

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