∆ {2⁵} {UNOPENED WINDOWS} ∆

TO BOTH OF their surprise, Fury had let Venus off relatively easily. All he'd done was ask why she hadn't told them about her powers, and when she'd given her answer that she didn't know, he'd left it alone.

She did know why she hadn't told them, and she was pretty sure that both Natasha and Fury had picked up on that, but thankfully, neither of them had brought it up. They'd left it alone, and she'd started to go on harder missions again.

It had been her fourth or fifth mission when things began to change. It seemed that up until that point, both Venus and Natasha had been determined to be as civil as they could while not getting too close to each other, neither one wanting nightmares to resurface. Natasha had felt slightly guilty initially, especially after Venus had revealed what she had gone through in the years after Natasha had left, but the way that the golden-eyes woman was back to her blank shell and showed no indication of friendliness, and that had been enough to drive any doubt from Natasha's mind.

But then Fury had sabotaged both of their attempts to separate them from their pasts. Their assignment was to take down the Red Room, or at least, the one that they had been trained in. Venus highly doubted that there weren't any more scattered throughout the country, but she only hoped that she wouldn't have to see any. Natasha had protested sharply, and that had been enough for Fury's resolve to weaken, but Venus hadn't allowed herself to appear mask, and had simply set her jaw, determined to keep her blank expression and remain professional, and so the mission was going ahead. She could tell that Clint, Natasha and  Fury were all surprised by her supposed indifference, and knew that both the redhead and her boss had suspicions that she was hiding things, and it was possible that Clint did too.

Venus was currently sat in the Quinjet, her hands firmly curled around the straps as they streaked through the air. Natasha sat opposite her, but the pair of them were firmly ignoring each other. Neither of them wanted to talk about what was to come, and they were both preparing in their own way. Clint was piloting, and for the first two hours, he'd tried to make conversation, before deciding that neither women were remotely in the mood for small talk or sarcasm. After all, they were going back to their childhood. It was where they had grown up, lived, met, and yet the memories it harboured were so awful. He didn't know the full of extent of what they had gone through, but he got the impression that they were things so awful that they'd lived enough trauma to fill two people's lives each, maybe more.

Natasha was slightly annoyed at Venus. She knew that the woman, secretly, was just as terrified as the redhead herself was, and that Venus had adapted not to show emotion. It still frustrated her that Venus hadn't even presented any form of protest with Fury's announcement, regardless of what Venus was so used to. This was what both of them dreaded. It was what haunted them during both the day and night, what drenched them with both with cold sweat and every ounce of pure terror that they could hold within their bodies. So yes, she understood why Venus hadn't said anything, but she still wished that the woman she had grown up with would've taken more means to stay as far away from their past as she could.

"We're five minutes out," Clint called as softly as he could, trying not to disturb the two women behind him, or potentially rile them up. He was going in with them, if only to stop them from being too caught up in their past. Though, Fury had told him to give them whatever time they needed, and that if he needed to, that Clint should carry out the majority of the mission on his own. Fury may have stopped trying to hide his closeness with Natasha, but it seemed as if his fondness for the golden-eyed woman was something the the Director of SHIELD was determined to keep private. They touched down a few minutes later, a few streets away from the address that Venus had given them, with great hidden reluctance. 

The two women stepped out, side by side, and looking like the most intimidating force that Clint had ever seen in his life, despite the fact that a stony tension filled the air between them. In fact, that may have made it worse. Natasha was wearing her catsuit, while Venus wore a SHIELD issued leather jacket over her average training clothes. They had a pair of guns on them, and while Natasha wore her batons crossed over her back, Venus had her two swords in place. They were slightly different to the ones she'd had before. They were thin, and probably measured just over half the length of her arm. Neither of them paused, not for a moment as they strode down the ramp next to each other, even as the freezing wind and snow began to drive into them. Clint however, had to turn on cloaking, seal the jet, prepare himself and hurry after the two women into the streets they knew so well, finding himself shivering violently from the abysmal cold.

Venus didn't have to move her gaze to know that Natasha was right beside her. She could feel the warmth her body was emitting, and she knew that neither of them would let the other walk into this alone, no matter what conflict had managed to worm its way into their bond. They stopped in unison at the corner of an old flower shop, glancing at each other briefly before Venus took a step forwards and peered into the next street as much as she could without being noticed to easily. There was no-one in the street, which was eerily uncomfortable. When they had grown up, the Red Room had kept it as clear of bypassers and civilians as they could, instead posting a few people down the road with the pretence of being market vendors so that they could keep an eye on the situation.

Venus didn't let a frown grace her sharp features, but instead stepped fully into the street, her fingertips drumming lightly against the handle of her gun both for reassurance and in case she needed it for more unsavoury things. All three of them were utterly silent, though when Natasha joined Venus in front of the pair of large, rusted, wrought iron gates, Venus could make out a slight frown on the redhead's face. Clint didn't seem to know what to make of the situation, his eyes glancing almost anywhere and everywhere as he scanned the old building, still keeping a tight grip on his bow.

"This is where you grew up,? he asked almost sceptically, receiving a faint nod from Natasha as Venus started towards the gates, pushing them open with out a second thought. The people in charge had never found a need to lock the gates. If anyone was trying to get out, their security would catch them easily. And if anyone was trying to get in; well, they'd have no chance of getting out alive. Without so much as a glance, Venus pulled out her loaded and cocked gun and shot a security camera to her right. She knew where all of them were, and she continued to get rid of them almost absent-mindedly as she swept through the courtyard that she, unusually, hadn't spent much time in. The cameras weren't flashing, but then again, they never were. It was to impose the threat on the girls that they quite literally never knew when someone was watching them. Crows scattered from the withered trees that she passed through as the final gunshot rung out in the frozen air, with Natasha following directly behind her, not even batting an eyelid at Venus' actions. Clint still found himself struggling to keep up with the two women, and had jumped each time Venus had shot her gun, and almost lost the pair of them entirely when Venus made a sharp right among the dead trees that stretched their spindly branches over the sky. 

There was another door, set in stone, that Venus once again found unlocked, and begun to lead the other two SHIELD agents through the dreaded halls of the Red Room. There were two parts of Venus fighting for control as she kept her careless exterior entirely intact, not even daring to show the smallest crack, especially not here. The first was the one that allowed raw, pure, animalistic terror to claw its way up Venus' throat so violently that she wanted to gag, to expel the horrible emotion from her body in the most violent way possible. The other was the one Venus found herself preferring, favouring, in the worst way possible. This was the part of her that was who she had been trained to be. The perfect assassin, the Red Room's role model. The part of her that was who they had made her. And here, where every memory of everything that they had taught her seemed to slam into her mind with the force of a bullet, it became so much worse. If she wasn't careful, it would become unbearable, and she would lose herself, properly for the first time. Natasha may have thought that she saw Venus' darkest days, but the golden-eyed woman knew that that wasn't true, and there was no doubt in her head that she could become far, far worse.

Venus stopped as she rounded a corner into a corridor that always had a guard in it, no matter what was happening elsewhere. But there was no-one there. She glanced at the ground and frowned internally upon finding a thick layer of undisturbed dust. This wasn't right.

"No-one's here," Venus announced after a moment of consideration, her voice kept carefully clipped and even as she spoke, not allowing one syllable to waver in fear. She wouldn't let herself be weak. Natasha openly frowned uneasily as Clint seemed to tighten his grip on his weapon. While Venus was now fairly confident that she could put her own weapons away, she had been taught to always be prepared. So, she kept her gun out and marched with new purpose through the old, draughty corridors, only stopping when she reached the room that had once been the Surveillance Room. This would definitely be locked; it always had been, even when there were people inside. She stepped to the side to make room for Clint, purposefully avoiding Natasha, who seemed a lot more focused on her now that they were in the building that tortured both of them in their own minds, though the redhead did the same.

"If you would like to do the honours," Natasha presented to Clint, a small fake smile stretched into her lips. She was trying to distract herself, rather than deal with what this place brought back in terms of memories. Clint sent her a worried glance, before doing as she had asked and shooting an arrow into the lock, which promptly blew up. Both Venus and Natasha knew how to pick locks, but this one would take far too long, as per design of the Red Room.

The room wasn't overly impressive. On one wall sat lines of monitors, some with a grainy feed, but most long dead, and Venus doubted that her shooting had done much to help them. There was an old filing cabinet in one corner, which Venus immediately made her way over to as Natasha and Clint stepped into the room awkwardly. Venus had been in the room a few times before, and the sight was nothing new. Once had been for a mission, and the others had been during her 'rebellious phase'. Natasha, on the other hand, had been far more focused on their work, and approached the setup almost apprehensively.

Venus was still rustling through the old file boxes, attempting to find the one with the newest date. It took her a while, and several boxes' contents became spread out across the floor before she found anything. The Red Room hadn't had an institution in this exact location for years. The date of the last report correlated with the date exact a week after Venus had been enrolled in the KGB. They had been waiting for her to leave.

Venus would have scowled, if she let herself, instead choosing to go and find Clint and Natasha, who had left the room about ten minutes beforehand, trying to find more evidence. She wove through the corridors tensely, not entirely concentrating on where she was going, only moving in hope of finding  one of the two SHIELD agents.

She didn't mean to freeze in front of the door. Venus had noticed the familiar doorframe as she walked by, and had stopped almost immediately. She stepped forwards, allowing a rare, tiny smile to twitch the corner of her lips upwards as she traced the patterned wood, feeling each dent and scratch that they'd put into it at one point or another. Her examination eventually lead her to the handle, which she twisted almost tentatively, stepping into the room, and allowing a tide of welcoming memories to wash over her, to remind her of what she and Natasha had once been.

There, on the table by the wardrobe, lay the old gramophone, with Natasha's old, worn pair of ballet shoes tidied neatly underneath. Somehow, Venus had made sure that they didn't get moved. She walked into the room, tracing her fingers over each object that held memories and thoughts of times gone by too rich for anyone else to comprehend. She stopped once again when she reached the gramophone, ever so carefully turning it on and putting the needle to the record, and allowed that fateful tune to flow in around her softly, and she let herself be carried away, as she closed her eyes and hummed along almost inaudibly, that small smile growing slightly bigger as she visualised the days where it was too cloudy to see the stars, where Natasha would dance and dance and dance until her feet ached and her legs shook from exhaustion. It had always been one of the redhead's coping mechanisms, and it had helped to relax Venus too, allowed her to be someone, something else, if only for a few hours.

She had been walking around the room slowly, and stopped when she felt the rough wood and flaking paint of the windowsill beneath her fingertips, opening her eyes gently and allowing them to flicker to where she remembered each star would be, with a familiarity that warmed Natasha's heart as she watched from the doorframe. She'd come to the room almost immediately upon hearing the music, though the sight of the woman in front of her was enough to distract her from that.

This was her Venus. The one who had eyes of honey, not gold. The one who smiled, and let it light up whatever room she happened to be in. This was Venus, not whatever the Red Room had made her. That one moment was perfect.

But, perfect things rarely last, and this would be a time where they didn't.

{A/N:} I honestly wasn't planning this but I'm actually really happy with this. I meant to put way more in bit I figured it'll get long and that I don't actually have enough time to write that before the day. Anyway, much longer than normal Blood Moon chapters.

So, here you go. Some soft Venus right at the end and more stuff here to come. I hope you enjoyed this, I liked writing it.

Please vote, comment, let me know what you think, etc.,

2685 Words

Written: 15 / 03 / 2021

Published: 25 / 03 / 2021