Chapter 53: The Red Room
A/N: Tony goes to visit a dead woman. Things are said and its time for him to come clean.
-x-X-x-
“Just got back from your funeral. Small affair, closed casket for obvious reasons. Fury didn’t seem very happy I was there, but Barton and Coulson didn’t seem to mind so m-mmph!”
As Tony enters the room, shutting the door behind him, he finds himself cut off by a very not-dead Natasha Romanoff grabbing him by his face and pulling him into a surprise lip lock. Not exactly what he’d been expecting when he came to visit the officially deceased Black Widow, but Tony supposed he wasn’t complaining.
His hands go to Natasha’s hips as she deepens the kiss, pressing her body up against his. His member begins to harden and he starts to respond, his tongue pushing out from between his lips and meeting hers- no. What was he doing? What was she doing? They had things to talk about.
Gently but firmly, Tony pries Natasha off of him. Even if she’s empowered with the original version of the ES3, he’s got the suped up version. Not only does it come with Technopathy, but it makes him a little bit tougher and stronger as well.
As he forcibly separates himself from the gorgeous red head’s imminently kissable lips, she then uses them to pout at him most mightily. And let’s be clear, when Natasha pouts, you feel that all the way in your loins. Still, Tony shakes his head with a laugh.
“I appreciate the gratitude, but we still have a lot to talk about, Natasha.”
Finally letting go of him and stepping away, the beautiful femme fatale scoffs.
“What’s there to talk about, Tony? And who says its gratitude? Perhaps I want to take a victory lap so to speak? After all, while it was you who flew a nuke into the alien fleet, it was I who tragically and heroically sacrificed myself in order to close the portal. I deserve a medal.”
Tony snorts at that.
“You got one. Several, actually. All posthumous, all hush-hush because SHIELD is a spy organization. But the World Security Council threw as many honors on your tombstone as they possibly could.”
That gives Natasha pause for a moment, making her blink… but then she just pouts again.
“Well maybe I don’t want honors. Maybe I want what you promised me all those years ago.”
For a second, Tony goes still. Does she already know what he’s here to talk to her about? How? Fortunately, before he can make a fool of himself, Natasha stalks forward and prods him in the chest.
“Do I have to spell it out for you, Tony Stark? You promised me I would be a mother. You healed me and made me strong enough to protect my children, however many I might manage to have. Then you and Pepper showed me how beautiful and how wonderful motherhood will be with little Morgan. All that’s left is to find a father… but I already found him. He’s standing right in front of me.”
Wait, what?
“Pepper already agreed, though I made her promise I would be allowed to tell you. Feel free to call her to confirm.”
Yeah that sounded like Pepper. Still… except, it kind of made sense once he got past his own hangups. Of course Natasha Romanoff in this timeline would settle on him as the perfect sperm donor. They already had an incredibly active sex life, and they were both empowered individuals. Meaning their children would… but no, Tony was getting ahead of himself.
He needed to get this shit back on track, despite everything being taken off the rails from the moment he’d entered the room.
“Natasha, I would be honored to father a child on you.”
“Or several!”
“… Or several, yes. However… you should know everything before you make a decision like that.”
Natasha looks confused at that. Not knowing quite how to put it into words, he elects to show her. With a swipe of his hand and one of the hologram emitters he’s always got on him now, Tony summons up a familiar face between them.
“Recognize her?”
Natasha goes still.
“Oksana… what… why are you showing me her face?”
Tony hums for a second.
“Tell me Natasha, what do you think happened to the Red Room after your mission to assassinate Dreykov?”
He can see that the question unsettles her deeply, mostly because her face goes completely blank, showing no emotion at all. Finally, she answers in a monotone voice.
“Without Dreykov it should have disbanded. It is disbanded. There’s been no evidence of the Red Room in the last four years.”
Tony hums and then looks meaningfully at Oksana’s picture.
“Until now.”
“Tony… what is this? Tell me what’s going on.”
Letting out a sigh, Tony moves to a nearby chair and sits down. He gestures for Natasha to do the same, which she does with great reluctance.
“I told you years ago that I’d give you half upfront and half later, if you’ll recall. Well this is later. Put simply… the Red Room never stopped operations. All it did was take a step back, relocate, and begin training the next generation of Widows.”
Natasha stares at him. When she finally speaks, the betrayal is heavy in her tone.
“And you kept that from me?”
It’s a testament to how far they’ve come in this timeline that she can even feel betrayed by him. Tony even feels some guilt over it. But…
“I had to. If I’d told you earlier, you would have run off and gotten yourself killed… or worse. The new generation of Black Widows isn’t like yours and Oksana’s, Natasha. They’re being far nastier about it this time around. Using mind control indoctrination just like the Winter Soldier. Hell, even your generation is under a Pheromone Lock that apparently would prevent you or any other Widow from your era from attacking Dreykov. JARVIS found that part out hacking into the Red Room’s servers.”
She’s been quietly taking in his words until that last part, only for her head to snap to him and her eyes to narrow.
“Why would it matter? Why would it matter if I can’t attack Dreykov? He’s dead.”
Ah right, he hadn’t told her that part yet.
“He survived Budapest, Natasha. That’s why the Red Room has continued. He lived and kept going.”
Natasha looks shaken like never before.
“What… what about his daughter?”
Tony can only grimace at that.
“She’s alive but… it’s not good Nat.”
Instead of describing the fate of Dreykov’s daughter, Tony tosses out another hologram, this one with a file detailing what he’d done to her after the bombing. Natasha reads it wordlessly. She doesn’t cry… she just shuts down, closing in on herself more and more. And they can’t have that. Tony clears his throat and speaks loudly, making sure Natasha can hear him over the dull roar of blood rushing through her ears.
“Given another five to ten years and the Red Room will be fully operational again. Fortunately… Oksana here is going to be the key to taking them all down.”
As expected, those last four words do the trick. Natasha Romanoff is suddenly laser-focused on Tony, her hands curled into fists, her eyes narrowed into slits.
“… You have a plan?”
Tony grins and reaches out to gently tap the air where Oksana’s face is.
“Oksana has a plan. It’s called Red Dust and she and her cohorts, some other former Black Widows and some not, have been hard at work on it right under Dreykov’s nose, even as he’s thought he got away with it. But while he might have escaped you… a man like that has too many enemies to ever truly get away.”
Natasha stares at Oksana like she doesn’t know what to think. Then…
“My sister?”
Honestly, Tony is surprised that she thinks he would know about that. It’s one thing for him to know about Dreykov and the Red Room, it’s another entirely to know about the sister she only got to have for a few years before being extracted from the States. It’s clear she has certain high expectations of him at this point though.
“She’s still alive as of right now. Brainwashed and being used to train the next generation of Widows. We can get her out along with the rest.”
Natasha goes quiet at that. After a moment, Tony continues on.
“I hope you understand why I didn’t bring this to you immediately, Nat. Back when I was first recruiting you… there is no excuse, not really. I’m sorry, Natasha. I-
Tony stops because Natasha has abruptly stood up. He rises to his feet as well, causing her to give him a look. Stepping forward through the holograms, she grabs him by his shirt… and pulls him into a kiss. Not as long as the one before, but still rather passionate. When she pulls back, she growls.
“I don’t care. Help me save the others, help me save my sister… and you’re forgiven.”
Tony pauses before nodding his head.
“That I can do.”
“Good, because you’re still going to inseminate me when this is all done.”
Tony can’t help but grow a little incredulous at that.
“Seriously? Even though I kept this from you?”
But if nothing else, Natasha Romanoff is insanely adaptable. Already heading for the door, she looks back over his shoulder at him and rolls her eyes.
“We all have secrets, Tony. Frankly, I wish I had more from you sometimes. I’m pissed as hell at you for keeping this from me, but I get it. You couldn’t trust me at first, and then there was HYDRA and aliens and fucking enemy space fleets to blow up with nukes.”
Shrugging in a way that draws the eye to her perfectly sculpted back, she smirks.
“Besides… who else am I going to have fuck a baby into me? You’ve ruined other human beings for me, Stark. You and your lovely wife both. Take some responsibility.”
Tony is pretty sure you’re supposed to say that AFTER you get pregnant, not before. But Natasha is already out the door. With a sigh and a shake of his head, he follows after the gorgeous femme fatale. Even with him literally being from the future, it’s like Natasha has this strange superpower to always get the last word in.
-x-X-x-
Sitting in his office, Dreykov watches the footage from New York for the umpteenth time. He watches the bird’s eye view as his darling Natalia pushes the alien scepter into the portal device, pressing the blade against the glowing blue cube. A moment later and a flash fills the screen, taking her from this world to the next.
It’s… beautiful in a way. Admittedly, Dreykov had held a lot of hatred in his heart for quite a while now for ‘Natasha Romanoff’. The girl had been molded, trained, and built by the Red Room, and what had she done in turn? She’d tried to kill him. Nearly had killed his daughter, Antonia. And in the end, she’d gone on to join SHIELD.
What a waste. But now… well, he supposed it was true what they said about the dead and magnanimity Dreykov supposed. Now that Natalia was gone from this world, he felt almost content. Especially since she’d died putting those skills of her to good use. Alien invaders. Dreykov never thought he would live to see the day. And yet… it was one of his Black Widows that had closed the portal allowing those grotesque monsters to spill into their world. It was little Natalia who had closed the breach at the cost of her own life. How very heroic.
Dreykov smiles, reaching out to press the button and rewind the video… when his monitor suddenly goes on the fritz, the connection suddenly getting touchy. Sitting in his office aboard the new and improved Red Room Academy located in an aerial fortress flying high above the heart of Siberia, Dreykov had his own personal satellite to ensure his connection to his systems always remained topnotch.
Frowning, he smacks the side of the monitor a few times… but to no effect. Tch, what was going on here? What was?
Dreykov blinks, suddenly hearing shouting from outside. What? What was happening? The alarms should have gone off if there was something wrong. No one knew they were here, so they couldn’t possibly be under attack, right?
Trying to bring up the security cameras of the facility shows Dreykov nothing. Finally, he stands up from his desk… only to notice something strange in the air. There’s this tinge of red that wasn’t there before… red particles of something permeating the air.
“What… what is this?”
Finally reaching the door of his office, Dreykov peers out into the hall… only for his eyes to widen as he sees nothing but pure pandemonium waiting for him. The Widows are revolting. Not just the women, but the children too! The younger of the last generation have of course been kept around to train the new generation. Dressed in fine black leather, they lead the charge as their juniors follow after them, screaming their defiance.
It shouldn’t be possible. All of them should be under his control, subjugated chemically by the mind control serum that Melina Vostokoff had created for him. They shouldn’t… but should and shouldn’t didn’t seem to matter right now, Dreykov quickly realized. Not only were the Black Widows revolting, but the Red Room guards could do nothing to stop them.
Their rifles were jamming, Dreykov quickly realized. They were trying to fire them, but not a single gun was going off. The end result was a brutally one-sided massacre just down the hall from his office and Dreykov didn’t doubt for a second that the scene was replaying itself all across the Academy. The alarms should have been going off, but someone had hacked into their systems. Someone was in the damn walls!
Realizing he needs to run, Dreykov backs into his office and moves to the back wall where he keeps his most prized possession. Fortunately, the security interface there works, allowing him to activate his beloved Antonia… his Taskmaster in training. She was still a work in progress of course, like an unfinished painting.
Much like the Winter Soldier before her, Antonia is kept on ice when he has no need for her. Unlike HYDRA and the Winter Soldier, Dreykov does this as a mercy, not a cruelty. The chip he has installed in his growing daughter’s neck gives him total control over her, but it doesn’t stop the pain she’s in. Not completely. Better for her to sleep in frozen slumber in between the times where he was working on crafting her into the perfect weapon.
Fortunately, whatever has broken the control over the Black Widows will surely not work on his Antonia. Serum versus chip. She will obey him still, Dreykov is sure of it.
The doors to his Antonia’s cell open and his perfect weapon, only half-forged rises from her chair, already waking up. She’s not ready yet. Far from it. While she’s grown quite a bit in the last four years, she isn’t fully trained yet, much like the newest generation of Widows. Once he’s done with her she’ll be the best of them, bar none. But for now… she’ll have to do.
“Listen carefully. The Academy is under attack from within and without. Your priority is getting me to safety at all costs. Arm yourself but expect firearms to be nonfunctional for some reason. We must make haste to the-urk!”
As he’s been speaking, Antonia Dreykov has been fully coming too. Staring at him. Staring down at her hands. Dreykov hadn’t paid much attention to that last bit, admittedly. He should have, because now one of those gloved hands is wrapped around his fat neck, choking and cutting him off. Her other hand goes up and peels away her mask, something she should never have been able to do of her own volition. Not after he’d forbidden it, hating the sight of her burned, mutilated face.
His grotesque daughter stares at him with wide eyes that hold far more intelligence and freedom then they should. The skin on the melted side of her face pulls as she smiles at him.
“The pain is gone, father.”
What? How can that be? Antonia’s smile drops and she frowns.
“So… easy. And yet you never tried. Why? Why did you lock me inside of my own head with the pain? Why?”
Dreykov struggles to speak, but Antonia is strong thanks to the Red Room’s treatments and the chip in her neck. The chip that is no longer working… but also is?
Suddenly, rage fills Antonia’s ruined features.
“YOU LOCKED ME IN MY HEAD!”
SNAP!
The last thing Dreykov sees is his daughter’s judgmental eyes before she drops his corpse to the floor like a sack of potatoes.
-x-X-x-
A/N: So begins a little three-parter. Next time will be wrapping up the drama surrounding the Red Room, then Chapter 55 will be the Natasha Breeding scene for those who are waiting for that with bated breath.