Booty Shorts - Beyond The Red Room

Hello, Friend. Welcome to the next edition of Booty Shorts, my series of stand-alone, one-off stories. Unlike the first entry in this series, which was the filthiest thing I've ever written, this story is much less smutty. It is less erotica and more of a story I just wanted to tell. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed creating it.

SPOILER WARNING: This story contains massive spoilers for Marvel's Black Widow movie. If you haven't seen it and want/plan to, I advise you not to read this story until you have.

BEYOND THE RED ROOM

~~ Bonn, Germany ~~

Obiya pulled the dingy hotel curtains aside a few centimeters and raised a small pair of binoculars to her eyes.

"Different route again?" Chhaya asked, peering past her shoulder at the street below.

"Da," said Obiya, "Like clockwork, how she never goes anywhere the same way."

Chhaya let out a soft snort of amusement. "Clockwork is a bad metaphor for someone doing something different every time, sestra." She turned, and picked up one of the two objects from the room's small eating table. They looked like compact, plastic pistols, the business ends shaped like a mini-blunderbuss. She withdrew the cartridge from the handle and checked that the reservoir was full. She nodded in satisfaction, slipping the cartridge back into the handle with a soft click, then repeated the inspection with the second weapon.

Obiya glanced over her shoulder. "You don't have to check those so much. Nothing that Dr. Vostokoff designs has failed to work as advertised."

"No one is perfect, not even Melina. And I never put my life in another's hands. Nor should you."

"I put my life in your hands every mission. As you put yours in mine."

"That's not... You know what I mean, sestra. There is no reason not to double check."

"Da, ya znayu," Obiya said, turning back to the window with a small smile. "She's gone into the U-Bahn. Let's move. Today could be our day." She picked her weapon up from the table and double checked it, in spite of her teasing of Chhaya for doing the same.

They had been following their target for three weeks now, observing her routine to determine the best time and place to strike. This particular target was one of the most challenging they'd faced since they had been put together as an extraction team. She was good. Too good. It was not an option to strike at her apartment, she had too many traps and alarms to be circumvented without risk of detection. Plus, too many potential collateral victims, should they not catch the target completely by surprise, giving her the chance to arm herself and fight back.

The one actual routine the target seemed to have was eating lunch in Freizeitfläche mit Gewässer state park every Friday, just north of where she worked in the Bundesministerium der Verteidigung. The woman would walk to the park at eleven-thirty without fail, and eat lunch on a bench along the shore of the pond, watching the ducks.

"Sloppy," Obiya's voice said in her earpiece, as Chhaya watched the target from a nearby stand of trees. "Her back is exposed, at least two avenues to approach her unobserved. Dreykov would have had her kill herself if he'd have known."

"I told you never to mention that कुत्ते का बेटा name to me again!" Chhaya hissed, then took a deep breath, controlling her temper. "She's been embedded in the Defense Ministry for five years. All things considered, her operational technique is competent, other than this one habit. She's not that complacent."

"Fair enough. Extraction vehicle is in place. Decoy vehicle on Derlestraße is clear of civilians for at least the next thirty seconds."

"There's a group moving past. Should be clear in fifteen." Chhaya watched the trio of walkers, silently urging them to hurry around the bend in the path. "Decoy still clear?"

"For another twenty seconds." Obiya's voice was preternaturally calm over the comm.

"And... I am... clear," Chhaya said, crouching a little lower, leaning her weight forward.

"Five seconds. On my mark. Now!"

Chhaya sprinted forward from behind the stand of trees as an enormous explosion rocked the park off to the right of the target, who jumped up from the bench, turning towards the sound. Chhaya was flying silently up on the target's left when some idiot rounding the bend in the path behind her screamed at the sight of the enormous fireball that was rising over the trees, a hundred yards away where they'd parked their decoy vehicle that morning. The target whipped her head around towards the scream and spotted Chhaya still ten yards away.

"धत तेरी कि!" Chhaya snarled as she rushed in, her weapon held out in front of her.

The woman flung the remains of her lunch at Chhaya's face, causing her to duck under the pieces of sandwich just enough to spoil her aim. The woman left her feet, whirling towards Chhaya, her foot lashing out and connecting with Chhaya's wrist. The little weapon flew out of her hand, the composite case cracking as it hit the sidewalk. The women both rolled, sprang to their feet in unison and threw themselves at each other. There was a blur of movement, almost too fast to see, as punches, kicks and blocks were thrown. Chhaya had the woman on her heels, backing away as she pressed the attack, until the woman's feet slid over a patch of loose gravel on the path.

The woman threw an especially vicious elbow, then dragged her foot and kicked up a cloud of loose dust and pebbles at Chhaya. Chhaya flinched back, giving the woman a little too much space. The target's hand flashed to the small of her back and an efficient-looking pistol appeared in her hand. The woman dropped into a shooting stance, aiming at Chhaya with both hands from a distance of less than ten feet, and pulled the trigger just as Obiya arrived.

Obiya had leapt through the air, and landed heavily on the target, her left leg wrapping over the woman's forearm, trapping it behind her knee in a vise-grip and forcing it toward the ground. The gun went off with a sharp report, the bullet burrowing into the ground next to Chhaya's feet. She narrowed her eyes and rushed to assist Obiya.

Obiya was grappling with the woman, trying to pin her to the ground. She seemed to have the upper hand, until the woman flicked the wrist of her free arm and a lethal looking blade appeared from her sleeve into her hand. The woman slashed at Obiya, who easily caught her wrist and held it. Chhaya rushed in, snatching Obiya's weapon off her belt and reaching around her to shove it in the woman's face. It went off with a soft puff, emitting a cloud of red mist, surrounding the woman's head.

She immediately stopped struggling, dropping the knife, as a pale red light glimmered in her irises, then faded as her eyes unfocused.

"Wha--, what is--?" the woman stammered, confused.

"It's okay, sestra, you're okay. You are free now." Obiya said, relaxing her grip on the woman.

"You... you... sestra?"

"Da," Chhaya said, "We are your sisters from the Red Room. We've come to bring you home." She looked up as the sounds of approaching sirens started to grow louder. "Now let's get out of here. The Polizei are not going to be so understanding about our little family reunion."

~~ London, England - Five weeks later ~~

"I hate this. Of all the rotten luck," Obiya groused, looking through her binoculars.

"Think of it as a vacation." Chhaya suggested. She was lounging on her self-inflating camping mattress and sleeping bag, leaning against the concrete block wall and thumbing through a copy of the London Times she'd picked during her morning's reconnaissance sweep of the neighborhood.

The noisy mechanical room on the roof of the high-rise wasn't anyone's idea of comfortable, but it was off the grid, with an unobstructed sight-line of the target's apartment through the aluminum ventilation slats on the side of the structure. And judging by the dust on the floor, no one had visited it in months.

Obiya snorted in derision. "I don't know how you can say that. I hate the weather here. It's freezing cold, damp, and we're sleeping on a concrete floor. It's been six days waiting for her. I wish we could at least get a nice hotel room. Or even a fleabag hotel room."

Their current target was a Widow who had been embedded as the executive assistant of the CEO of a major financial firm that serviced several of Britain's defense contractors. Many of their targets had been ensconced near positions of power, extracting secrets and influencing men of power via persuasion, espionage and in some cases, blackmail via... various means.

Chhaya turned a page of her newspaper. "A nice hotel room is not staying off the grid. And there aren't any fleabag hotels in this part of town. You know how much trouble the U.N. is giving our sestras around the globe since the goddamn Accords. I, for one, would prefer spending a week or two in this room than the rest of my life locked up on The Raft."

Obiya grunted an acknowledgement as she turned to look back out the ventilation slats.

"Besides, it's hard enough for me to maintain a low profile in London. Seems like every time I'm out, someone mistakes me for that actress in that show everyone's crazy for here. The one with the time traveling phone booth."

Obiya snorted in amusement. "You love that. You signed an autograph for that little girl at the kebab stand yesterday."

"She thought I was her television hero and it made her happy. Why would I deny her that? Anyway, at least we can get world-class curry while we're here," Chhaya said happily.

"You and your curry." Obiya said, shaking her head in amusement.

Chhaya looked up from her paper. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Of all our sestras, you are the one who has adopted more of the culture of the country they were stolen from since she was freed."

"I just want to feel a connection to something besides the group of assassins I was raised with, that's all. No offense."

"None taken."

Since Yelena Bolova had freed the pair of women from the control of General Dreykov during the destruction of the Red Room, along with more than a dozen of their sestras, Chhaya had immersed herself in the culture of India. She had no idea what part of the country she'd been taken from as a child, even if her dusky skin, shaggy mane of jet-black hair and angular features left no doubt as to the part of the world she'd been born in. Her memories as a four-year-old contained no clues that might provide her with a town or even region.

She was fluent in Hindi in addition to her Russian and English, but while under Dreykov's control she'd only spoken it when on missions to the sub-continent. Since regaining her free will, however, she'd started using the language much more frequently in casual conversation and it had become her preferred language for cursing. She had also become a fanatic of good Indian cuisine, going out of her way to find the best Indian restaurants in whatever city she found herself in. Whenever their missions allowed, that is.

She'd even become a practicing Hindu, down to the red bindi on her forehead, and gold hoop in her nose. In this, she was something of an oddity among the former Black Widows, almost all of whom were atheist or, at best, agnostic. Of course, the violence she still was an expert at dealing out (when necessary) in the course of finding and freeing more of her fellow Widows was a little at odds with the idea of karma. Not to mention that the concept of ahiṃsā, not injuring living beings, was especially problematic for her. But Chhaya had settled comfortably into her own practical and pragmatic (for her) version of the religion.

"You could explore the culture where you came from too, you know," Chhaya said. "It might be fun learn to speak Nigerian."

"Learning a language isn't my idea of fun. And secondly that's pretty ignorant of you."

"Excuse me?" Chhaya said, looking up from her paper.

"There's no such language as Nigerian, the official language is English. And if I wanted to learn one of the other major languages, how do I choose which? Hausa? Yoruba? I have no idea which of those, if any, my family spoke. Besides, I only assume I'm from Nigeria because of the name I was given in the Room. I could be from Ghana or Cameroon or anywhere else in West Africa."

"Ah. Sorry about that. There are hundreds of languages spoken on the subcontinent, Hindi is just the one I picked. Granted, it's the official language, but still... Like me, you could just pick one."

"Why bother?" Obiya asked.

"I've felt more like a real person, and less of an automaton, since I started researching my culture. But I suppose we each have to find our own way."

Obiya grunted.

Several minutes passed, the silence only broken by the humming sounds of the room's electrical equipment and the rustling of Chhaya's newspaper.

"I hate it when our intel is this sketchy," Obiya finally said. She set down the binoculars, then unwound the tight bun of braids she wore on top of her head when on mission. She spent several minutes pulling the braids loose, then retrieved a comb from her pack before stepping back to the slats to start running the comb through her dark hair, watching the windows across the street.

"The database is not comprehensive. Just names and cities with communication channels, none of which we can use anymore."

"You know I hate it when you talk to me like I'm simple," Obiya said crossly, her combing motions becoming rougher.

Chhaya continued as if she hadn't been interrupted. "We knew that she takes sudden business trips whenever her boss travels. I like your hair down, by the way. You should wear it that way more often."

Obiya glanced at her.

Chhaya raised a palm. "When we aren't on a mission."

"Thank you. If we'd known where she went, it'd probably would've been easier to extract her on the road than here."

"I find I am less stressed when I focus on my present circumstances than what might be," Chhaya said, rather primly.

"You would."

Chhaya stood and stretched. "I'm hungry."

"I want fish and chips."

"You know I'm a vegetarian."

"I'm not. Can I get fish and chips?"

Chhaya smiled as she stepped next to Obiaya and looked down toward the street. "You can get whatever you-- wait, she's back."

Obiya turned and looked. The lights had just come on in the target's apartment on the ninth floor.

"Fantastic. Should we watch her for a few days, or hit her now?" Obiya started quickly braiding her hair again.

Chhaya couldn't miss the eagerness in Obiya's voice. "You want to hit her now, don't you?"

"I want to set our sestra free, and then go lay on a beach in Mallorca and stay there until Melina finds another target to task us."

Chhaya clucked her tongue against her teeth, thinking. "What intel we do have says she's less... attentive... to her tradecraft than some of the others. But she takes public transport, so we can forget about the parking garage."

"Kicking in her door isn't optimal. It'll be reinforced and she'll have too many weapons handy."

"Special Delivery's out, there's a doorman. Plus, there's nine other apartments on her floor. Can't risk a fight in the hall."

"Spider-Man?" Obiya asked.

"Ugh, do we have to call it that?" Chhaya shuddered. "I hate that creepy guy, the way he sticks to walls. I've had nightmares about him wrapping me up in his webs and sucking my blood dry.

"He's supposed to be one of the good guys."

"Those good guys are busy tracking down and locking up any of us who won't sign their stupid accords. And he's still creepy."

"Whatever, you can call it anything you want, but it seems like it might be the best tactic here. I'll be the Spider," Obiya volunteered.

"Fine. Let's go."

The target was sitting on her couch with her feet up, watching the AFC Richmond/Tottenham Spurs match on television and sipping a glass of wine when the buzzer from the lobby rang. She rose and paced to the panel by the door.

"Yes?" she said, pressing the button.

"Good evening Miss Gentry. Your food delivery has arrived."

The woman picked up her remote control and pointed it at the television. The screen flickered and then showed a black and white picture of the lobby. There was an Indian woman standing at the desk in front of her doorman holding a bag from Chettinad, the restaurant around the corner.

She tensed. "I didn't order anything," she said to the speaker.

She saw the doorman hold the phone to his chest while speaking to the woman, who looked annoyed and snapped back at him.

"She says you ordered online? It's thirty-two quid."

"I'm quite sure I did not order anything. Tell her she's made a mistake."

"Yes ma'am, sorry to have disturbed you. Have a good evening."

She released the button, watching the delivery woman continue to argue with the doorman. After less than five seconds of thought, she strode purposefully towards her bedroom, where she kept her bug-out bag along with her favorite weapons. She froze one step into the room, staring in shock at the glass door leading to her balcony, standing wide open. She spun to find a tall woman standing behind her, dressed head to toe in black combat gear, her ebony skin matching her clothes.

"Hello sestra," Obiya said, as she fired a cloud of red mist into her face.

~~ Copenhagen, Denmark - Two days later ~~

"Only some of us decide to stay after we're freed," Chhaya said as they crunched through the snow covering the cobblestone street. The early morning sun made the white blanket covering the city almost painful to look at. "More than half have decided to make new lives for themselves. Ordinary lives. After an extensive debriefing, of course."

Chhaya and Obiya, wearing casual winter street clothes, led Alyssa, the Widow they'd freed in London, toward the apartment building where Dr. Malina Vostokoff had established a safe house and base of operations. There was a lab, where the anti-mind control gas was manufactured, and an operations center, where intel on the Widows to be targeted by the extraction teams was developed. The Widows who had elected to join Malina's operation, as opposed to retiring, had living quarters in the building as well.

"I get to choose?" Alyssa asked. She still seemed a little lost, a

combination of being awakened from her mind control, and the whirlwind trip through four countries and five different modes of transport, to end up in the old city.

"Yes, of course, sestra," Obiya said, with a reassuring pat on her shoulder. "You can't be Alyssa Gentry anymore, but should you choose to start a new life, our organization can help you build you one, anywhere in the world."

The woman shuddered. "I don't want to go back to London ever again. The CEO is a creep. Keeping him under my thumb was... distasteful."

They walked in silence for more than a block. Chhaya and Obiya knew exactly what she meant. Some missions meant espionage. Some meant violence and death. And some meant seduction, for the purposes of influence or blackmail. Something every Widow was trained in, but few relished.

"How would I start over?" Alyssa asked. "I have nothing."

"Ah, that's why the debriefing!" Obiya said with a laugh. "We need to determine what information you have we can leverage. We've extracted a significant amount of wealth and information from Drakov's--"

"माँ कमीने!" Chhaya snarled, spitting on the sidewalk.

"--former Widows," Obiya continued as if Chhaya had said nothing. "Thanks to the ones we've pulled out, we've found and drained so many of Dreykov's numbered accounts around the world we aren't exactly hurting for resources. Malina is also very good a trading on the inside information we've gained. Our brokerage accounts are doing quite well.