#miss romanoff hello maam can u pls step on me? thx

[cathrrrine]

RUN | Pietro x Reader

Originally from my Wattpad

CHAPTER 14 - SLUG

"Let's begin with your name."

"You already know my name." I groaned.

"Your real name."

I sighed, "You already know it. My real name is Y/N L/N."

"See? Not so bad." Natasha rolled her eyes as she tilted her head slightly to the left, a mannerism of hers that she often displayed. "Now, your age."

"Oh, that's strictly confidential." I shook my head curtly.

"Y/N..." She warned.

"All I can tell you is that I'm an adult."

She raised an eyebrow in defiance, but she didn't push further. Natasha had brought me to an interrogation room, yet again, but this time it was a different one. It didn't have the big, ugly two-way mirror attached to the wall and instead of hard, uncomfortable chairs, this one had couches. Natasha sat on the one across from me, while I had been instructed to sit on the one with it's back to the wall. The room was annoyingly comfortable, in a way that made me want to vandalise every single object in a room.

It looked like they believed my surrender after all and the change in the way they handled me showed that. For starters, I wasn't in handcuffs. But, to be fair, I guess being in the same room with Romanoff was more than enough security, maybe even more than being cuffed.

Even if I knew I could fight her well.

"I don't need to tell you twice. You lie about anything at all, the deal's off."

It was another interrogation session. Oh my god, I hate that word. I hate even just thinking about it. I've thought about it and said it at least twelve thousand times, and frankly, I've gotten tired of it. If they kept this up, S.H.I.E.L.D would have wrung me dry by the end of the week.

If I wasn't so adamant on surviving, I would've thrown myself off the side of the building by now.

"Don't you think I've been through enough interrogations?" I voiced my thoughts aloud to the redhead in front of me, picking at my nails in boredom.

"There's no such thing as enough interrogations."

"God, you people are scrutinising." That earned me a huff. "And you make me yawn."

"Better safe than sorry, that's the motto." She replied sarcastically. "Next question, how long have you been with Hydra?"

That escalated quickly.

I gulped automatically, not out of fear, but out of habit. "Ever since..." I was born. "For as long as I can remember."

I wasn't lying. But that didn't mean I had to tell the whole truth.

"And you left when?"

"As soon as I could." On my 18th birthday.

"Why?"

"There it is! The hard-hitting question. I've been waiting for that one." This was harder than I thought it would be.

"Why did you leave Hydra?" Natasha repeated the question without a hitch.

"Well, I didn't like it."

"That's all?"

"What do you mean that's all? You don't like something, you leave. Common sense."

She stared at me intently. I've gotta say, she does this thing a whole lot better than Fury. I could technically see the gears in her head turning, calculating every emotion and every word. This woman knew how to play me at my own game. She didn't crack at the silence that ensued. My skin almost crawled at her stare.

Keyword, almost.

"Staring's not going to drag the answer out of my throat, you know." I leaned back on the soft, velvet couch.

They said I had to be honest for them to trust me, but honest hadn't even been in my vocabulary until 12 hours ago. What did they expect me to do? Immediately lose every sense of self-worth and start throwing every single fact about my life, every detail of the trauma that I've endured–to them?

Doing this meant saving my life, but it also meant having to give up at least a sliver of my secrets. Was it worth trading my secrets to these people for my life? Why did the price have to be so goddamn high?

I took a deep breath. "I was 10."

"Pardon?"

"When they first ordered me to kill someone."

I remember the weight of the gun in my small hands, the smell of blood in the air when I shot the man, and the sound of his body thumping on the gravel in the dead of the night.

"I don't remember who it was or why I had to kill him. But I remember enough to know that it was..." I trailed off against my will, the memory getting the best of me. As if the whole situation wasn't already pathetic.

I cleared my throat. "I remember enough to know that it wasn't right. I felt it in my bones."

Natasha stayed silent, willing me to continue. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I'm an angel or whatever. As I grew up I understood that I didn't want to be associated with these people. Hydra wasn't exactly a paradise, obviously. But it took me a while to understand that. And once I did, I took off."

"And they've been looking for you, ever since?"

"Yes."

"Does that explain yesterday's events?"

Him. "Unfortunately."

"How long?"

"How long, what?"

"Have you been running from them?"

My mind went blank. How many years has it been? Time looked like one long line for me. I mentally calculated the amount of days, months, years that it took for me to hide.

"6, 7? I don't remember how long it's been." I bit down on my lower lip, hard. "No one's ever asked. I never bothered to keep count either."

She nodded, uncrossing and recrossing her legs and shaking out her hair. The redhead woman seemed to contemplate what she was about to say next. For a second there, I was curious. How unsettling could the question be to make her visibly bothered?

When the words spilled out of her mouth, I wish I never wondered. "This is an important question—are you Enhanced?"

I winced. One question, out of all the other ones, was all it took the break the dam that I've built in my head. Memories came flooding back in, in flashes, in the aches of my muscles, pouring mercilessly into the forefront of my brain.

Muffled voices, bright fluorescent lights shining into my eyes, cold-sweats...my head pounded vigorously. I pinched the bridge of my nose, praying hard that I was hiding my discomposure well from her.

Was it worth it?

"You have to be honest, Y/N. We need to know if we can trust you."

Strenuous hands pulling at me, strapping me down, dilated pupils, the whirring of their monstrous machines...

"Yes, Natasha. I am."

———

SIX HOURS EARLIER

"She can't be trusted."

"She's done nothing that says so, so far."

"How do you know that, Maximoff? She's sly. She's sneaky. This could just be another game of hers."

"We could be very well falling into a trap right now."

"Send me in." Natasha crossed her arms, her expression unreadable. "I'll get her to tell us what we need."

"I don't doubt your interrogation skills, Nat, but do you really think it's a good idea? I mean, she's a lot like you." Clint remarked.

"That's exactly why I should go." There was an air of mystery to the way she insisted upon it.

They all looked to their Captain for his approval. Steve had both palms on the table, his head slightly bowed. He looked up to his team, eyeing every single one of them before his eyes landed on Natasha's.

"She's right." He stood up straight, mirroring Natasha's pose. "Nat, you bring her to the interrogation room. Do whatever you need to make her talk. Get all the information we need to know about her; her past, her abilities, her name for God's sake."

The redhead nodded, gesturing for him to continue.

"Wanda, I want you to sit in the next room. Read her mind. Make sure she's telling the truth."

"But-"

"Pietro, you go with her, make sure things don't go out of hand. And don't worry, kid. She can't hurt you, especially not when she's basically just waved the white flag."

He paused for awhile before continuing. "If it ultimately goes well...we should let her into the team."

"Are you kidding me?" Tony bit back.

"No. She's an asset. She's got useful information and skills we could put to use."

"Steve. What if she goes rogue, huh? And she decides to wake up one day and kill us all? This is a situation bound to go awry. We can't let a former Hydra agent in just like that." Tony ran a hand across his face before adding another comment. "I made the mistake of giving her the benefit of the doubt before and it only got us in trouble."

Steve pondered upon Tony's opinion for a while before nodding once and announcing his decision. "So, we put her on probation. Let her know that she's not totally off the hook, see where it'll lead."

"Rogers, are you sure about this?" Natasha pursed her lips.

"Yes." He uncrossed his arms and put his hands on his hips, in true Captain America fashion. "Let her know that she'll be pardoned if she tells the whole truth. Maybe it'll encourage her. I'll inform Fury about this whole thing."

The meeting room was silent for a while before the team began to disperse. Steve was the last one to go, but not before Natasha stopped him.

"Rogers. I need to tell you something."

———

PRESENT TIME

She looked surprised, but not as much as I thought she would be. I was expecting a little bit more than raised eyebrows. Maybe even a gasp. "What can you do?"

I chuckled dryly, "Maybe it's better to show than tell."

It was her turn to chuckle, not an ounce of humour in it. "Now's not the time for your sweet little antics. This isn't a talent show."

"Oh, really? Then what is this? I thought I was auditioning for your makeshift boyband."

"Well, maybe if you talked more and sassed less, you'd make the cut."

I shook my head again, slowly. I had to be careful with what I told them. The walls seemed to look duller and the couch I was on felt like a boulder instead of the plush heaven that it was.

"I'm an Echo."

"What does that mean?"

"It means exactly what it sounds like. I echo people." My hands trembled slightly at the mention of it. "I absorb other people's powers and I amplify it."

This was as much as I've ever told anyone ever since I ran from Hydra. Genuinely? I'm a little freaked out at the fact that I just did so. But it had to be the right decision. I couldn't afford to make another wrong turn.

Besides, I was in control here. I had the choice to tell them what I wanted to tell them and what I wanted to keep from them. I figured they should know that I had that little something up my sleeve this entire time.

After all; they were my only lifeline at the moment.

"Was that how you beat us the night we caught you?"

I thought back to that night, when I ran as fast as Pietro did and broke through the barriers of the Witch's force field. I shrugged, not bothering to please her with a response.

"Tell me more about your past."

I narrowed my eyes at her, "Really, Romanov? Digging for more? I already gave you enough, don't you think?"

Natasha blinked once, but didn't back down. "I ask, you answer. That was the deal, wasn't it?"

The smile didn't reach my eyes when I jut out a grin at her. "What do you wanna know about my past?"

"The basics. Where you're from, how you're here."

"I'm half-Russian." I shrugged. "And you already know how I got here."

"No. I know how you came to S.H.I.E.L.D. We brought you here. What I need to know is how you got into this whole ordeal."

A scoff escaped me, "Is this a therapy session or an interrogation?"

"Y/N."

"No, seriously, you're asking me about things that don't matter-"

"Y/N." She repeated, more sternly.

I tucked my arms to my chest so I wouldn't flinch as I said the words that haunted me.

The ones I knew haunted her too.

"I was born into it." My tongue felt heavy. "They raised me in the Red Room."

For the first time since we started, Natasha Romanoff gasped. It was barely audible, and it wasn't the show-stopping theatre moment I'd been looking for, but it was a gasp in itself. It's funny, though. I thought I'd be more amused. But the heavy feeling that sat on my chest drained all the humour out of me.

Natasha immediately rose from her seat, staring at me with possessed eyes. Her face had gone white as sheet, her lips pale.

"What did you say?"

"You heard me, Romanov."

She sauntered over to me, one foot stepping in front of the other. "Don't you dare lie to me."

"I'm not." My voice was weaker than I would've liked it to be, barely above a whisper. "I was trained in the Red Room. As soon as I was old enough, they shipped me off to the hands of Hydra."

She wasn't listening as intently anymore. Her eyes were locked on mine, but I could tell she wasn't exactly in the room anymore. Her head's probably off in the same place mine was in just a few minutes ago.

"Is that enough for you?"

Just like that, something snapped within her. "Tell me more."

"I already did."

"You're hiding something!"

I stood up so I was level to her height, my eyebrows knitting in anger. "I gave you what you wanted. I gave you the truth."

"No." She shook her head. "I want the full one."

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

She trudged towards me, lifting up her shirt so her abdomen was exposed. "Do you know who gave this to me?"

It was a long scar on her hip, positioned slightly to the left of her belly button, the skin raised and bumpy. "How the hell am I supposed to know?"

"I got this on one of my first missions. I was assigned to escort a nuclear scientist out of Iran." She seethed. "We were ambushed by Hydra at the rendezvous in Odessa. My tires got shot, the car ran off a cliff."

"Where are you going with this?"

"I managed to save us both. But as soon as I did, the assassin who ambushed us open fired. Killed the scientist. Straight through me. Left one hell of a scar." She let go of the hem of her shirt. "A soviet slug."

It was my turn to grow pale. There was only one person who could do that. And I was far from ready to say his name.

"You knew him didn't you? I should've known all along."

"How?" I begged, the somewhat 'calm' demeanour I've tried hard to keep was long gone.

"Does it matter?" Her gaze was threatening. "You were trained by The Winter Soldier, weren't you Y/N L/N?"