Due to the hurricane and having two days off of work, I totally forgot that yesterday was not, you know, Monday. So today is pretend Wednesday! Yay!

(And remember, bc.unfinished@gmail.com for all your Unfinished Fic Needs!)

Today's snipped it from ashen_key who says:
Heyhey guys! Ash here, with a snippet that I...hate least of the current lot of things I'm working where I'm not sure if I should continue or not. The prompt (from the kinkmeme) was for Natasha to be de-aged and suddenly the team has to deal with a deadly twelve-year-old girl. This is the start, and I slightly hate every word. It's a bit like drawing blood from a stone, but it does at least have a title and things I want to do and explore. SO, wondering what people think so far, particularly as I'm unsure on the team's voices and dynamics.

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Natasha couldn't remember what happened before the explosion.

She actually couldn't remember the explosion, either, except suddenly she was picking herself off the ground in a jumpsuit that didn't fit, and there was blood and smoke. Her skin stung and there'd been an American voice saying, “Romanova?”

Then she'd woken up, again, tied to a hospital bed. She could feel a patch over her cheekbone, and her hands were bandaged. Hospital gown, now, with monitors. She doesn't recognise all of the equipment.

Her first impulse was to cry, and her eyes were burning by the time she drew a breath and repeated in her head the words that Ivan Petrovich said when he was pissed off. If she could say them like he would, then everything was still under control.

Everything was still under control. She was alive, she was only superficially injured, she could get out of this.

There was a doctor (South-East Asian, [height], knew how to carry himself, no visible weapons) walking through the door and she looked up, let her eyes burn with tears.

“Romanoff, you're awake,” he said (Australian accent) and she could feel herself frowning.

“Romanoff?”

“Natasha Romanoff – you don't remember?”

“Um, that's not my name,” Natasha said, hesitant and uncertain. It's more honest than she'd like.

The man frowned at her. “What's your name, then?”

“Natalia Romano.” She can play Italian (born in Rome, mother American, middle-class with a hunger for better) and someone had said her name before. Romanova. Pick a name that's close and lie, lie, lie with her eyes open and full of tears.

“I want to go home,” she added as the doctor stared at her, and kept her eyes wide when all she wanted to do was narrow them in suspicion.

“Well,” he said with a smile that he really needed to work on, “I'm just going to to talk my superior first.”

It was only after he left that Natasha realised that she should have made a bigger fuss over the restraints. Blame it on the drugs in her system, but the mistake constricted around her lungs, and her bottom lip trembled without any acting at all.

– –

“So, explain to me again,” Stark said, oh-so-carefully, “why you put a twelve-year-old girl in restraints?”

“Because she could kill you,” Clint said, not for the first time.

“Could,” Rogers started before Fury interrupted.

“It's procedure to restrain agents who've been altered by strange technology,” Fury said, an edge to his otherwise steady voice. “Romanoff knows this.”

“And what if it's permanent?” That was Banner, who had been trying not to twist the glasses in his hands.

“Then we get her to some damn good therapists,” Fury said, still with that edge of worry and anger. Clint was pretty sure that you had to know him to read anything other than strain, though. “And find a good home, like we'll find the others good homes. But for now, we treat Romanoff like-”

“Like she's a threat?” Banner, again, still scathing.

“She is a threat,” Clint snapped. “She's Red Room.”

“Her mind's back in 1989,” and that was Fury, who had far more patience at dealing with civilians than Clint. “She thinks we're the enemy, it's safer for everyone if she stays where she is.”

“Ah, so now you're in the business of locking up children,” Stark drawled, like he knew anything. Fortunately, before Clint could open his mouth, Roger spoke up again.

“What do you mean, she's Red Room?”

“It's basically a cult,” said Fury. “Used to be part of the KGB, they went screwy after the USSR collapsed, and a few years back they went rogue. Before that, they trained female spies and assassins. Get 'em when they are kids, brainwash 'em, train 'em up. Romanoff was one of their best, but the others sure as hell aren't what you'd call lacking in skill.”

“How young?” Banner asked, and his tone was actually curious. Angry, but curious.

“Four to seven. They got Romanoff when she was six. So, gentlemen,” Fury said, smiling faintly now, “the girl we've got handcuffed to her bed has had six years of training at how to lie and kill people. You really think that Romanoff suddenly got dangerous when she turned eighteen?”

“But she got out.” That was Rogers.

“When she was twenty-one,” Clint said, and he was getting really fucking sick of this conversation.

“Clint,” Banner said in that overly patient way of his, where he used first names and the weight of his education behind them, “how can you be so wary of her?”

“In case you've forgotten, I'm married to the grown up version. I probably have good reason.”

“The others aren't still tied up,” Stark said. The others were scientists caught in the blast who survived, the others were now normal – if damn smart – kids.

“The others haven't been trained to go for your femoral artery,” Clint snapped. “And trust me, Stark, she gets spooked, she will.”

It took another ten minutes before Clint was able to extract himself, mostly because then the meeting was called to an official close. While Stark and Banner were arguing for truth, freedom, and the American way, Clint headed down to where Romanova was being held.

(She was Romanova; not Romanoff, not Natasha, not his best friend and wife, but a girl who was a threat that his team refused to see.)