11252/Remembering the Red Room

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Remembering the Red Room
Date of Scene: 20 May 2022
Location: Natasha's Room - Avengers Mansion
Synopsis: Cassandra Cain and Natasha Romanoff talk about both their experiences in the Red Room. Few words are said. Yet so many emotions and experiences are exchanged.
Cast of Characters: Natasha Romanoff, Cassandra Cain




Natasha Romanoff has posed:
She'd given Cassandra some time to recuperate. Natasha knew more than almost anyone else the trauma involved with being forced to attack one's friends and family. So she had waited. And then given the girl a pass to Avengers Mansion and an invitation and security code to come by sometime. Natasha had gone about her normal affairs until hearing from Cassandra that she wished to arrive.
    Now.. Now Natasha was in her room. A very small bit of research done on the girl. From her file. From somewhere. Natasha waited..
    A large bowl filled with chocolate ice cream waiting.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
The file was of limited help. According to the Red Room files that had been recovered, Cassandra had failed out of the program and been killed some years prior. Mostly due to lacking social skills, as her physical training was beyond exemplary. There was a clearly doctored picture of her with a bullet hole in her forehead.

Doctored given that the girl currently standing at Natasha's door is very much alive, and has no such damage. She must have been slicker than the teachers had expected, finding places to hide. Training her stealth against Red Room instructors in their own base, she's got to be amazing at it! But she looks so placid, so easily underestimated. She slides the door open and peeks inside.

Cassandra has never so much as spoken a word in Nat's presence. The Bats suggest that she may lack the ability, but they're fond of keeping their own confidences. The girl? She's holding a couple of bottles of water, and looking as if she's hoping to be invited in.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanoff would get up, "Hello Cassandra, please do come in." Natasha would go to offer up the bowl of ice cream to her if she wished. "I thought you might want to talk. If you don't.. I understand." She would gesture at Cassandra to come in and just to sit.

Natasha would go cross legged, curling her legs underneath her in a lotus position.

"I can listen. Or just be quiet." Sometimes one just needed to sit. And think. Or just to process. She would take the water and put it to the side. She doesn't ask how Cassandra is doing. If she's all right.

The girl can't be. Not after what she went through, and what she did. So Natasha just sits. Ready to listen.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Her response is classic. Without drawing attention to it, Cassandra walks in as invited. But her eyes slip around, checking for cameras, looking for places that microphones could be hidden. A hidden exit would be there, weapons are probably hidden beneath there. The same habits that all of her sisters had when entering a new location.

A heartbeat after entering, Cassandra's scoped out the room. She puts her attention to Natasha herself and glances a moment at the ice cream. Her face quirks and she furrows her brow slightly, shaking her head. Apparently a 'no' on the ice cream.

Then she hunches down. Rather than sitting, she simply squats comfortably. It puts Natasha on a higher level, allowing for superiority, but looks as if she herself is at ease with that. And looking up, her eyes shift awkwardly.

She's uncertain what to say, where to start, and it's visible in the way she keeps meeting your eyes...then looking away. Understandable? Yes. But not helpful. Then she pulls in a breath and expels it roughly.

"Black Widow, weapon," she says. The words come out weirdly, but at least she's making an effort to communicate. But what does she mean? That she wants a weapon? No, she's indicating Natasha with her right hand. She means that Black Widow...Is?

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanoff would fold her legs together. The ice cream is left out in case it's wanted later. The water is put to the side. She looks at Cassandra. The way the girl scopes out the room. Each corner of it. Each shift in the venue and each different area where one could ambush. Where one could hide. Those places that had been hollowed out for storage or to hide things in. Everything could be a weapon. Books on the hselves with reinforced hardcovers so they could be used to bludgeon or to block. Shelves made to be yanked down or with blades hidden in them. Knives scattered about. Poisons for easy access. Tripwires and slicewire. It's the room of one that is paranoid and has lived their life that way.

Natasha would look over at Cassandra sadly. Then she would nod. "Yes." Her tone is sad, as is her body language. And the posture of someone that has long since come to terms with it. "We are." Meaning her. Cassandra. The girls. All who had gone through the program.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
That response gives Cassandra pause. She apparently wasn't expecting it, from the sudden way her head jerks back and upward. She pauses, then leans in and looks at Natasha. There's a peering, questioning tone to it all.

She pauses, then she reaches into her belt. She's got these pouches, and from one she pulls what appears to be a newspaper clipping. It's a picture of Natasha after a battle, sometime in one of the recent wars. She looks heroic, but there's blood on her arm as if she's plunged it into someone's heart.

Natasha's own body language in the picture is immortalized in a snapshot of time. She's strong, she's experienced. Cassandra visibly slumps as she looks at it, as if she feels less than. Then she offers to let Nat look at it.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanoff would look over at the picture and gives a soft nod, "It hurts." Fighting. War. Conflict. Killing. It all goes off her emotions. Her body language. It's pained. Tired. She lets down her guard and lets it come through. She would take ithe picture gently over and give a nod.

"It's what they made us." The Red Room. Weapons. Girls taken and conditioned. "Against our will." Taken. Broken. Controlled.

Too many. It had gone on too long. It had still been going on. There could still be more cells. More pockets left of girls in captivity being forced.

She would take up her arm where the blood was and finally go.. "Red in my ledger." The phrase might be nonsensical. But the body language of Natasha was clear enough.

Penance.

She had to pay back all the suffering, the pain she had caused.

It was her. Her alone, however.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Cassandra's right fist clenches as Natasha talks. She shifts, then Cass says, "Not me." It's a gesture, it's a statement and a strength. She clenches that fist so tight that her bones creak, and she releases it only when it must.

"My skill, but not me." If that's how she's choosing to understand the damage she did under mind control, then that's....good! That's a healthy way to react. To take that damage you remember, and to know that it was someone else's fault. Maybe it's the Bat influence.

Nah.

Cassandra stands, pacing the room a moment. Back and forth. Then she turns and looks at Natasha, her gaze piercing and powerful. A slight lift of the right eyebrow turns it from a statement, to an interrogative. She's learned to put so much into the tiniest motion. No wonder words seem so irrelevant.

I didn't do any of that. It wasn't really me. Was yours?

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanoff would give a nod to Cassandra. "Not you." An important thing to understand and differentiate. One that was hard for many ot understand. A hard thing that was difficult to separate. Natasha's body language showed pride in the girl. Even as she would look her over. Letting Cassandra look about and pace. The room does not seem to be very 'lived in'. THere is nothing particularly personal about it. It is full of things. But there is no real sense of belonging to it. It is a place to stay. More settled in than a safehouse or haven. But it is merely where she sleeps. Nothing else.

Natasha debates over as to how to respond over. Thinking bcak in her mind. Going through memories. Decades of them. Decades. Of those who came before her. Of thsoe who came after. Of those that she put throug hit. Of those she did not save. Of those seh failed. OF all the damage seh caused over the more than half century..

Then she would finally say.. "Yes." It was her. It was not the Room. They had merely given her the ability to become a weapon. Conditioned her. Trained her. Infused her. Directed her. FOrged her.

But in the end it was her.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Cassandra pauses. It's as if she's seeing Natasha think, and without any way to actively scan her brain at the moment it almost seems as if she's tracking what Nat's got going on. No words, but she doesn't need them. All that time alone, watching her fellow students through the walls, not able to talk in fear of being discovered.

Cassandra Cain can almost read minds, by facial expression alone. When Nat uses her words again, or word, it's evident that they're irrelevant. She's already reaching for Nat's hand, to hold in both of hers. A gift of compassion. That she's not alone.

She just nods, a smallish motion that offers acceptance. Pressure from her left thumb suggesting a subtle form of a hug, in that tiniest of motions.

Then Cass' right eyebrow raises, and she says, "So do better." Okay, so she's not entirely just a marshmallow.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
And Natasha is being honest with Cassandra. All thsoe small shifts in her body language that ordinarily are hidden are open. Those bits that she would hide and play with. Those small ways she would always present herself as something else. Casandra has asked for honesty. And Natasha has been giving it to her.

Natasha lets all those bits wash away. Cassandra is owed the truth. So Natasha gives it to her in a way that few have seen.

Natasha goes over to squeeze the hand given to her and smiles. "Da. What the rest of life is for."

She would bow her head to Cassandra. "Not weapon." To Cassandra. "You are more than they ever made you."

Cassandra Cain has posed:
It's almost like talking to someone in ASL. Some of Cassandra's motions match that language, like now when she touches her own heart to indicate herself. She touches her heart, then makes a fist. A moment of strength, but then she pauses. Her right cheek quirks, and she handwobbles with a teenager's eloquence.

Spreading both of her hands wide, she could be forgiven for asking 'how?' or 'it's not that easy'. But she doesn't open her lips. Some things you have to figure out for yourself.

An understanding of that forces her to lift her right hand, offering her fist to Natasha. Nothing huge, but a fistbump is a start. And she has to handle her own life; it's the handshake of warriors.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
It's emotions and feelings. Sensations and words. The two spoke to one another in their mannerisms. Natasha might not read Cassandra in the same way that the girl did her. But she understood the way Cassandra lookeda t the world and ensured that she spoke to it.

Natasha looks relaxed. Not at peace. She never is. But the girl does not have the pain and the agony. Natasha would take her fist up and over to slowly bump it. They fought in their own way. Living was perhpas not hte best revenge..

But they made their own way. Alone or with friends and allies. They might not have contentment..

But they had respect. And confidence.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Cass looks at Nat as she accepts the gesture. She looks, then glances at the wristband Natasha wears. She raises both eyebrows, then gives a half headtilt to the fist, or perhaps to the Widow's Bite worn upon it. She remembers their battle, and how effective the tools were.

Cassandra wears nothing. Just clothes, attitude, and her hard-won skills. She then crosses her arms, tilting her head to the left and smirking slightly. Is this about their fight? On anyone else this would feel like a 'I would have won if not for...' as she waits for Nat to respond.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanoff would cluck her tongue over at Cassandra and then smirk quietly as she would go to take it off and pass it over to the girl for inspection. She would go over and note, lightly..

"Perhaps." In a straight fight, very possibly. But one never fought an opponent in a straight fight. One never engaged in battle to the enemy's preference.

Then her hands would go up in the air, and she would move to use her fingers to play out thes cene of the engagement the two had taken the first time they had gone all out against one another. Miming her way through Cassandra's infiltration, then her own ambush. A quick gesture of fingers showing where she had spotters. Her own position. Cassandra's approach.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Cass' eyes glance up, tracking what Nat is thinking. Of course she understands, she's getting -everything-. She's quite possibly the best at this that even Natasha has ever met, and given that she lives it as her only life, Cassandra Cain's potential at reading an opponent is staggering.

Even to Black Widows.

She puts some of her attention to the Widow's Bite though. She'd never gotten to use one, it was advanced training and she didn't get the official classes. However when she takes a moment and straps it on, it almost looks natural. As if she was born to wear one.

Cass mostly shrugs. An eyebrow raises at something Nat's gesturing, but she simply sits down for a moment and lets Nat explain.

Then out of nowhere, Cass opens her mouth and says, "Saw them. Was not able to..." she pauses, obviously struggling with her language barriers. She growls, frustrated, and then makes a bunch of angry gestures with her fingers. "Head no allow choose?"

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanoff would nod over then and dip her head over at Cassandra. Grinning. Her fingers going to play along to it. Her moving then to 'twist' it around. Her playing up the role with her fingers of taking over Cassandra's bit of sneaking. Her fingers darting up and then showing in places the windows. The doors. Her digits twisting about as if yarn and threading a needle.

Playful. "Come, now let's do it again." She understands what Cassandra means. but still.. It's instruction. And she's seeing how well the girl replies over to the playful lesson and hopefully lets herself be teased some and engage in some back and forth.

Natasha tries to draw the girl out and treat it as a game. The Widow's Bite is left in Cassandra's hands. To be kept.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
Cass pauses. She saw that, the moment of gifting, and she was not expecting it. She puts her right hand over the tool, looking vulnerable and grateful for a moment. It's a heartrending thing, and probably the first gift she's ever been given by anyone of the Red Room. Ever.

Cass visibly strengthens herself, getting her brain back into the game as it were, and she smiles a deeply meant thanks. Then she leans in, and starts to motion to where the access point was that Nat didn't know.

She mimes entering that way, bypassing all the traps. In two minutes Cass teaches Natasha more than she'd ever known about that part of Gotham City. The city that she knew, and Natasha did not. And suddenly it becomes crystal clear.

Cassandra could have done it any time she wanted. Gotten past. Because she had home ground advantage. She knew ALL the sneaky access points, and there's no way anyone could have stopped her.

But for all that, she still looks chagrined and sad. "I...not want kill. So I follow Mother's commands, and hope someone stop me."

That. She always had that little bit of rebellion, and if she simply followed orders then there was still hope.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanoff would smile over at Cassandra and bows her head over. And mimes. "Your's." Then hse goes to lift up her hand, and after a moment goes to take the other one off. And passes it to Cassandra gently. And then after a moment, Natasha gets up and moves to take out two large electro-staves, the ones that she used in the fight the first time the two met. They are passed over to Cassandra as well.

Natasha having given Cassandra the traditional combat equipment of the Widows. That REd Room trainees all fought with when they went out into the field. Their trademark styles.

And Natasha watches. Pays attention. And gives a bow o fher head over to Cassandra. And she does not speak any words. She just watches. And gives the girl full approval. She fought back. In her own way. Resisted within the boundaries. Had faith in her friends.

Cassandra Cain has posed:
The girls were never really given these. They were allowed to use them; having them of their own wasn't even a thing. The Red Room controlled your life, you had no possessions nor privacy. Standing up, Cassandra looks oddly confused, as this wasn't an expected thing to have happen in her lifetime.

Yelena probably looked the same once. But that's another story.

Cassandra shifts uncomfortably, then lifts her eyes from the new possessions and looked at Natasha Romanoff. She lifts the furthest right edge of her lips, and nods. Yes, it is a big responsibility. I understand. No, they are not toys.

Luckily she's shown that she's got something worth trusting. And Stephanie is going to be SO jealous.