bornrussian (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bornrussian) wrote2012-05-28 04:45 am
bornrussian) wrote2012-05-28 04:45 am
Entry tags:
Into the night we go
On the surface, it's just like every other mission Natasha has ever been on. Infiltrate the secret science base, find out what progress they're making, destroy their records after sending a copy back home, and torch the place behind her. On second glance, it's far more sinister than that. In the subterranean base in the Ukraine, scientists are trying (among other things) to change the human genome to create a race of veritable super-men. They're working to manufacture soldiers with superpowers.
Now, one might argue that's no different from the American Military's top secret attempts to do the same in the 1940s (or, hell, the Black Widow Program itself). But the methods are beyond dubious. They're using human test subjects and not one of them volunteered. And the survival rates are incredibly low. Though not as low as the success rates.
From what Natasha can glean from their records, it seems they started their experiments on the homeless; old alcoholics and runaway teens. But, lately, they've been grabbing more-- viable specimens. Like the specimens and not the methods are to blame for the lack of results.
The research station itself is a sprawling underground complex of bunkers dating back to the second world war. The walls are poured concrete, the clinical green paint peeling in places, and there's a hint of mildew, sweat, shit and decomposition underneath the sharp smell of disinfectant that's everywhere, even in the dingy private quarters of the scientists. There's a fading swastika embossed in the far wall of the canteen where the staff eats, and everyone pretends not to notice.
Natasha is posing as a brilliant, young lab assistant with a knack for languages and organization. The knowledge input for the mission has been vast, and for the first few days, her head throbs with the information crammed into it and each time she turns too quickly, it feels as her overfilled mind sloshes over the edges. She carries herself gingerly until the sensations finally fade and the information is integrated into her memory.
It's supposed to be a quick in and out, a week at the most. But, not only are the base computers not hooked up to the Internet, they also aren't used very much. Certainly not for keeping records. Every single file, folder and document is filed in paper-form in the heavily guarded Archive. Though Natasha gains access there within the week, it'll take her far longer to take get the requested information out without raising suspicion.
In the meantime, she does the job the scientists think they're paying her for. She organizes schedules, files reports (after typing them up on an ancient typewriter), and orders new medical supplies when needed. But she also draws blood from the subjects, injects them with whatever solution the scientists think will work this time (but generally only makes the subjects writhe in pain on the stretcher they're tied to), checks on I.Vs and vitals and stats, and yeah, sometimes she even brings the subjects food. Though calling it 'food' is quite a stretch. Most of them have to make do with I.Vs where nutrients are mixed with heavy duty sedatives to keep them calm.
She also observes the autopsies. There are fifteen in her first week.
Natasha's been there for two weeks when she catches sight of a familiar set of shoulders and her heart damn near stops in her chest. He's shuffling along a corridor between two orderlies, being led to one of the testing facilities. And despite the fact that she's needed down in Lab 15, she follows him, just to make sure that she isn't mistaken.
She isn't. It's doubtlessly him. Despite the slump of his shoulders and the way the drugs have softened the features of his face, and clouded his eyes, she'd know him anywhere. Even barefoot, in the filthy used-to-be-white scrubs of the facility he's still the most handsome man she's ever seen, with a smile she can't seem to get out of her head, except he isn't smiling now.
Hawkeye. Or, as he's known here, subject 319. Fuck.
The plight of the subjects hasn't passed her by, but they're not the mission, so she's compartmentalized, boxed them away and ignored them. But, she can't ignore this. Can't ignore him.
Within the day, she has his file tucked away in her pile of medical reports, and she's gotten herself assigned to him, even though he's not in the genome-trials where she works. He belongs to one of the other departments, where the death rates are slightly less steep (if only because they're generally transferred to the genome trials after a testing period of a couple of weeks), but the experiments are that much more painful.
They keep running into each other on missions, but this is the last place on Earth she expected to see him. Especially as a subject. What is his play here? Why is he here?
By that evening, the questions get to be too much for her, and she bribes the lab assistant who usually does his post-procedure check-ups to let her do it instead.
The cells where the subjects are kept are all clustered in one of the sub-levels, following a dank and dark corridor. The smell down here is worse. Even the antiseptic can't cloy the stench. It's not Natasha's first time down there, but it's the first time it gets to her, the first time her stomach knots with nausea the further down she walks.
The door is marked 319 with white chalk and you can still see where other numbers have been smudged out. She bangs the door, balancing the small tray of instruments on one hand and her hip. "Three, nineteen," she calls through the little hatch in the door of his cell, peering in through it to make out his form in the small cell. "Up against the wall, hands behind your head."
Now, one might argue that's no different from the American Military's top secret attempts to do the same in the 1940s (or, hell, the Black Widow Program itself). But the methods are beyond dubious. They're using human test subjects and not one of them volunteered. And the survival rates are incredibly low. Though not as low as the success rates.
From what Natasha can glean from their records, it seems they started their experiments on the homeless; old alcoholics and runaway teens. But, lately, they've been grabbing more-- viable specimens. Like the specimens and not the methods are to blame for the lack of results.
The research station itself is a sprawling underground complex of bunkers dating back to the second world war. The walls are poured concrete, the clinical green paint peeling in places, and there's a hint of mildew, sweat, shit and decomposition underneath the sharp smell of disinfectant that's everywhere, even in the dingy private quarters of the scientists. There's a fading swastika embossed in the far wall of the canteen where the staff eats, and everyone pretends not to notice.
Natasha is posing as a brilliant, young lab assistant with a knack for languages and organization. The knowledge input for the mission has been vast, and for the first few days, her head throbs with the information crammed into it and each time she turns too quickly, it feels as her overfilled mind sloshes over the edges. She carries herself gingerly until the sensations finally fade and the information is integrated into her memory.
It's supposed to be a quick in and out, a week at the most. But, not only are the base computers not hooked up to the Internet, they also aren't used very much. Certainly not for keeping records. Every single file, folder and document is filed in paper-form in the heavily guarded Archive. Though Natasha gains access there within the week, it'll take her far longer to take get the requested information out without raising suspicion.
In the meantime, she does the job the scientists think they're paying her for. She organizes schedules, files reports (after typing them up on an ancient typewriter), and orders new medical supplies when needed. But she also draws blood from the subjects, injects them with whatever solution the scientists think will work this time (but generally only makes the subjects writhe in pain on the stretcher they're tied to), checks on I.Vs and vitals and stats, and yeah, sometimes she even brings the subjects food. Though calling it 'food' is quite a stretch. Most of them have to make do with I.Vs where nutrients are mixed with heavy duty sedatives to keep them calm.
She also observes the autopsies. There are fifteen in her first week.
Natasha's been there for two weeks when she catches sight of a familiar set of shoulders and her heart damn near stops in her chest. He's shuffling along a corridor between two orderlies, being led to one of the testing facilities. And despite the fact that she's needed down in Lab 15, she follows him, just to make sure that she isn't mistaken.
She isn't. It's doubtlessly him. Despite the slump of his shoulders and the way the drugs have softened the features of his face, and clouded his eyes, she'd know him anywhere. Even barefoot, in the filthy used-to-be-white scrubs of the facility he's still the most handsome man she's ever seen, with a smile she can't seem to get out of her head, except he isn't smiling now.
Hawkeye. Or, as he's known here, subject 319. Fuck.
The plight of the subjects hasn't passed her by, but they're not the mission, so she's compartmentalized, boxed them away and ignored them. But, she can't ignore this. Can't ignore him.
Within the day, she has his file tucked away in her pile of medical reports, and she's gotten herself assigned to him, even though he's not in the genome-trials where she works. He belongs to one of the other departments, where the death rates are slightly less steep (if only because they're generally transferred to the genome trials after a testing period of a couple of weeks), but the experiments are that much more painful.
They keep running into each other on missions, but this is the last place on Earth she expected to see him. Especially as a subject. What is his play here? Why is he here?
By that evening, the questions get to be too much for her, and she bribes the lab assistant who usually does his post-procedure check-ups to let her do it instead.
The cells where the subjects are kept are all clustered in one of the sub-levels, following a dank and dark corridor. The smell down here is worse. Even the antiseptic can't cloy the stench. It's not Natasha's first time down there, but it's the first time it gets to her, the first time her stomach knots with nausea the further down she walks.
The door is marked 319 with white chalk and you can still see where other numbers have been smudged out. She bangs the door, balancing the small tray of instruments on one hand and her hip. "Three, nineteen," she calls through the little hatch in the door of his cell, peering in through it to make out his form in the small cell. "Up against the wall, hands behind your head."
no subject
"Yes Ma'am," he replies, quiet and concentrating, trying to do what she wants from him despite the haunting slowness of the drugs that claw at his every reaction.
no subject
"Good, Clint," she praises him warmly with an encouraging smile that's as fake as the name she just gave him. "Now, close your eyes, and just focus on your breathing. In and out, slow and careful." Her thumb runs down the line of his jaw, fingers still pressed gently against his pulse point. "If you listen carefully, you'll be able to hear my breaths. Match yours to mine, slow and easy."
She breathes slowly, exaggerating each breath so that he can follow it, and spends the time looking him over. Even in his sorry state, he still cuts a fine figure of a man leaned against the wall like this, fingers laced at the back of his head. The ill-fitting shirt of the scrubs he's wearing has slid up to reveal a strip of bare skin and gorgeously muscled abs. If he'd been more himself right now, Natasha might even have been able to appreciate the view.
Once his breaths are timed with hers, she reaches out with her free hand and gently takes one of his, manoeuvring it to her chest where she presses it over her heart. "Keep breathing, slow and easy, but feel the rhythm of my heart. That's what we're aiming for." He's a sniper, this should come easy to him.
no subject
But their breaths are matched, chests rising and falling in the same pattern, same rhythm and then his hand is on her chest, and he can feel her heart beat and something in him remembers the importance of a heartbeat. He couldn't say why, or what it was for, but he remembers there's something to this, about settling your heartbeat, about finding the spaces between each solid thump.
He feels her heart and he settles, sinks down into the stance he's learned as familiar,free hand moving off his head, relaxing just that much more, slipping down to the back of his neck, legs spreading just slightly as his feet automatically line up with his shoulders. She's right, his body remembers this in some way, even if his addled mind does not.
no subject
"Very good. Now, you can open your eyes again." When his eyes blink open, slow and sluggish, she gives his hand a light squeeze before moving it from her chest and lowering it to his side. "You can do the same with the other arm." Her hand falls away from his face and she holds up a finger for him to follow with his gaze. "Let's get you checked out." Not so much for the checklist she has to fill in, as for her own personal need to know.
no subject
His eyes track her finger, and though the path is slow, there's a steadiness to it. This he knows how to do, he knows the answers they're looking for.
"Yes ma'am," he agrees, as per protocol, and settles himself still. There will be needles, soon and vials of blood she has to collect. His blood pressure taken and monitored and more medicine, always more medicine, entered into his body. And he's learned, through trial and error and mistakes made time and time again, that there's no point in fighting any of it, because all it ends in is a swarm of guards and enough sedative to knock him on his ass for days, when he can do nothing but try not to choke on his own spit.
Or at least, he'd learned that at one point, knew it was true, but now? With the amount of drugs he'd been ingesting, he couldn't remotely entertain the idea of fighting. Besides, she'd been kind. She obviously wasn't here to hurt him.
no subject
It takes her a second longer than it should to pull herself back together and catch her breath again. And once she does, her smile has widened and grown cheerful and false once more.
In the few weeks she's been there, she's grown accustomed to the steady routine of the twice daily check-ups, and it settles her just as much as it settles him. Even though she worries about how slow his eyes are in following her finger. She takes the penlight from her chest pocket and shines it in his eyes, watching the sluggish reactions of his pupils. She tucks the penlight back in her pocket and then she covers his hand with hers, and gives it a light squeeze. "I have to fetch some things from the tray," she tells him, and then she steps out of his touch.
She kneels down and gathers the scattered papers from the floor, tucking them back into his file. "Come sit down," she orders, giving the mattress a quick pat. The rest of the examination will go quicker if she doesn't have to move back and forth all the time.
no subject
The order is followed like all the orders here are followed--as quickly as he can manage and without any complaint. The mattress dips just slightly under him as he settles down, settling his hands over his knees and watching her with somewhat renewed curiosity as she moves.
She's going out of order, but the steps are the same, and the part of him that still has any sort of thought pattern to it wants to know why, while the rest of him simply wants to sleep. Sleep is always sort of a luxury, because part of the trails are seeing how the medication interacts with sleep deprivation, but it seems like, at least for a little bit, they're abandoning that and the patients are being given six and seven hours a night.
"You're new," he says, out of the blue, and then looks almost surprised when he hears the words come out of his own mouth. As a rule, conversation is frowned upon. But maybe she will answer and he can figure out what about her makes his skin itch like he's forgotten something as important as his birthday or age--
no subject
She's vaguely aware of how Clint moves over to her side with more speed than she thought he could manage, and she looks up at him as he sits down on the mattress, flashing him a smile in reward. The subjects react well to rewards, and to kindness. Of course, most subjects she's been brought into contact with haven't made it through a week. Once they're injected with the serum... They don't last long.
Kneeling on the floor, she begins sorting out the equipment on her tray, lining up the vials for blood tests and tearing open the sterile blood-kit. His words surprise her as much as they surprise him, and she darts a look up at him. "I am," she confirms. "Been here two weeks now."
Reluctantly, she pulls on the cheap, blue plastic gloves. They're too tight and despite the talcum powder on the inside, her skin turns clammy as soon as she's snapped them into place. "Give me your left arm, I'm going to draw a little bit of blood." She looks up at him, sort of searchingly, and then she adds, "You can put your other hand back over my heart if you want." Because it seems to settle him, and despite her previous training, she's not quite mastered the art of drawing blood yet.