❝You might be different now, but I know that under this act, whatever it is, you're still the same Aurora we loved.❞

♡₊˚ ⴵ・₊✧⋆⭒˚｡⋆

Natasha

I had seen Aurora crack. Slightly, for a few moments. However, just those few moments provided me with an insight into her as a person.

She had been taken back to her cell, then taken back to the interrogation room twenty minutes later. She had been back and forth for many hours before Fury finally decided to let her rest. He hadn't gotten anything useful out of the blonde woman. She was on high alert, and making sure to skillfully avoid getting asked any outright questions. She was quick to deflect any accusation before Fury even suggested it, and he was getting frustrated.

However, I could tell Fury wanted nothing more than to get Aurora back. The real Aurora. The one he knew. Fury wasn't ever a man you could read, but I could read him like a book. His fatherly affections for the young woman couldn't be denied, as he even broke his stoic act for her towards the end of the day.

At some point during the night, I awoke, heart racing, skin dripping with sweat. I had endured another nightmare. The nightmares I thought I had buried.

Quietly getting up - careful to not disturb the brunette woman laid in the bed beside me - I made my way outside, grabbing a dressing gown on the way. I wanted to get a shower and a drink of water, however my legs carried me towards the detention level, almost subconciously. There was only one prisoner - that being Eriksson. I made my way towards her cell, being as silent as I could. Us girls from the Red Room awoke easily, and if she was asleep, the last thing I wanted to do was awake her and get involved in some verbal dispute.

The woman was laid with her back to the glass, facing the wall. She made neither movements nor noise, and I hoped that she was asleep - it was two in the morning after all.

"I know you're there," a quiet voice bounced around the cell, accompanied by a thick, Scandinavian accent.

I couldn't say I had noticed her accent before, but there was something oddly entrancing about it.

"Good," I replied. "I didn't want to stand here like a stalker whilst you were asleep."

I heard a gentle chuckle.

"Well, that's the first person who hasn't done that in a few years," she said, staying in her position facing the wall. "I never got a peaceful sleep in the facility."

I nodded, despite knowing she wouldn't see it.

"I know, it's horrible," I commented.

She didn't make any noise for a minute or two, and I was about to leave when she asked, "Why are you here?"

"I had a nightmare," I admitted, half ashamed. "I was going to get a drink and a shower, but I suppose I wanted to check on you."

Aurora replied with a gentle hum.

"I meant, why are you here?" she asked. "At S.H.I.E.L.D?"

"The same reason as you were I guess," I replied with a shrug. "I wanted to make a positive difference to the world."

"You don't know the reason I was a S.H.I.E.L.D agent in the first place," she cold me, her tone turning icy.

I bit back a reply.

"Go away," she hissed. "I'm trying to rest. I'm not in an interrogation right now."

Although stung by her hostility, I forced myself to remember that she wasn't who Fury knew her to be, and she was clearly not herself.

"Goodnight Aurora," I murmured quietly, before turning and leaving again.

♡₊˚ ⴵ・₊✧⋆⭒˚｡⋆

Aurora

Another day, another round of interrogations. You will not break.
I am marble. I will not break.

I stared at the two sandwiches beside the door of the cell - one recently deposited by another guard. One of the many bottles of water were held in my hand - the water was given more frequently, usually a new one every two hours.

I hadn't seen Natalia since half past two that morning, however I knew that she was watching over the security cameras. She was waiting in the shadows like a predator, waiting to pounce on her prey when they let their weakness show. Like a Black Widow spider. She was waiting for me to crack, to break. Then she would drag every scrap of information I had out of me.

You will win.

I will win. Of course I'd win. I was better than everyone at S.H.I.E.L.D.

"Eriksson, interrogation," I heard a familiar voice as a woman walked briskly into the room, handcuffs hanging from her hand.

The woman, with dark brunette hair in a bun, had piercingly blue eyes, that could hold gentle sympathy, yet could change to being cold and unforgiving in an instant.

"Of course Commander Hill," I replied as she met my gaze, giving her a small, fake smile.

She unlocked the cell and walked towards me, stopping a couple of meters away from me.

"Wrists," she ordered, to which I sighed and obeyed, holding my wrists out for her to handcuff.

The handcuffs were especially lockpick proof - almost specially made for me - and took approximately twenty two seconds to fully secure.

"You still haven't eaten?" she inquired, eyes focused on the handcuffs as she adjusted them.

"Why would I eat poison?" I asked coldly.

She met my gaze momentarily.

"You're really convincing yourself we're trying to poison you?"

"I've no need to convince myself of a fact so obvious."

"What tactical method would poisoning you have?"

"Simple. You don't want to keep me in your cells. You know I won't break. You know I'm too smart, and you're scared of me. I'm too intelligent and too much of a strong fighter to hold. You know that eventually, I'll escape."

"No," Commander Hill chuckled, stepping back.

Getting to my feet, she took my forearm in her grip and led me out of the cell. It would be easy to knock her out and get away, even with my wrists bound. However, I knew that the cuffs had electronics built into them that could render me unconscious if I tried, and being unconscious opened me up to all kinds of torture.

Truth be told, I hadn't slept. I wouldn't risk being vulnerable in front of these people. These people - who used to be my people - were my greatest enemies.

"You're thinking of something," Hill commented as she led me down the corridor.

"Of course I'm thinking of something," I replied with stoicism. "Humans have on average sixty thousand thoughts per day. We can't not be thinking of something."

I heard a chuckle and a reply of, "Glad to hear you haven't lost your wit."

I sent her a cold glare as we walked into the interrogation room.

"You might be different now, but I know that under this act, whatever it is, you're still the same Aurora we loved," she murmured in my ear, before pushing me down on the chair and attaching the cuffs to the bar on the table.