Work Text:
He really was a nice kid, this Kostya. It was a shame that he was such a revolutionary, or Natasha might have considered befriending him for real later on in life. But in the here and now, he had to be put down. He was a voice for the people that needed to be silenced, they had said to her. They couldn’t afford to have a young kid be the downfall of Russia.
And she understood.
She had spent the last two months as the teenager she never was, someone who twirled her hair with her finger, someone who went out with friends and acted as frivolous as one could under the regime they lived in. She spoke words as sweet as candy with lips as addicting as liquor; one taste and you were hooked. She took the time to be narcissistic in the morning, even going so far as to kiss the mirror before leaving.
This was her first assignment as a Black Widow, and it had to be smoother than butter. There was so much she needed to prove, not only to Russia, but to herself. She could be stealthy, seductive, dangerous. A killer. She was all of those in that very moment. But only she really knew it.
As much as it disgusted Natasha, there was a part of her that secretly reveled in it, a part that couldn’t be tamed by any program. She was making up for time she had lost, and she was damn sure she was going to enjoy every second she had. Sure, this might not have been the way she had lived if she had been given a normal life, but it was the life she would have wished she had lived. She was an idle teen for the first time in her life, and she had the role perfected.
“What are you thinking about, Nadya?” He leaned across the table, a lazy grin spread across his face. He was beautiful, and in the back of her mind a voice wanted to shout out, to tell this boy that she wasn’t a Nadya at all, but a Natasha. But instead, she took a long, lingering drink of her now lukewarm tea (she held back a grimace) and brushed aside her hair, a bubbly blonde wig, before looking back at him under her lashes.
“I’m thinking about a better future.”
--
Natasha pulled back her hair, back to the rich and vibrant red she loved, into a bun. It was harder to grab a bun when someone was running. She pushed a few pins in as an extra precaution and shook her head vigorously; the bun stayed intact. She zipped on the sleek black bodysuit and boots and clipped on what she nicknamed her “tool belt” before climbing out the window onto the fire escape.
Kostya’s place wasn’t that far from the place Natasha had been stuck in for the assignment – in fact, he lived in the building behind hers. She climbed the rusted metal stairs, staying as quiet as possible, and quickly reached the roof. Sometimes she would come up here to watch Kostya, sometimes she would just look at the stars.
There weren’t many, not in a smoggy, busy city like this one. Only a couple managed to shine through the haze once in a blue moon, and they were gone before you knew it. But even without the stars, Natasha liked to look at the blank sky every once in a while. The color fascinated her. She knew there was a rich black blanket of velvet behind the mottled grey curtain which the city constantly contributed to, but she had never known it on that rooftop. The myth of it was enough, though. She had known it once upon a time; she had even known the stars, glittering like diamonds. But those were the memories of a child, they had no weight in the serious world of today. There was work to be done.
She leapt onto the neighboring roof easily and approached the door to the access stairway. The last time she had been here about a week ago, the bottom hinge squeaked at the slightest hint of movement. Every night after she made that discovery, she made the effort to come out and oil the hinge in hopes that it would stay smooth when the time came for the big finale. She clutched the doorknob, turned it, pulled – and no sign of complaint came from the hinge. Natasha puffed a little sigh of relief and slipped in.
The apartment building was incredibly shabby. It almost made Natasha laugh, because she knew that Kostya’s grandfather worked for the government and had a fair bit of money that could go to his grandson. But no, Kostya was a rebel at the very roots, so he must live like one. He couldn’t take handouts from his family, for they were a part of the very thing he had set out to destroy. The carpet in the hallways, which came up at some of the corners, was an odd mixture of green and beige that was definitely a gross bastardization of whatever color it was in its prime. The lights, dim enough as is, flickered on and off frequently, which highlighted the peeling paint on the walls.
She found his door in no time and was disappointed to discover that his door was not locked. There went a piece of the fun in an instant. She pushed open the door and a loud wail issued from the hinges. She cursed internally and slipped in, trying not to nudge the door any further. She hadn’t counted on his door being the unreliable one, although she should have seen it coming; the whole building was a shithole. She kicked the door closed softly. No sound. She rolled her eyes, because of course it would be quiet now.
The apartment was small, one bedroom located off to the side. It was just as shabby as the hallway was, and almost every flat surface was littered with papers – speeches, propaganda, Natasha didn’t know nor care to know at the moment. She sidled along the wall and into the bedroom.
Kostya was a heavy sleeper, it seemed. He was deep in his dreams and, funnily enough, clutching a pillow in his arms, almost as if it were a person. In fact, for what he lacked in other luxuries, Kostya had a lot of pillows on his bed, five in all. Natasha held back the urge to laugh.
She couldn’t shoot him, she came in knowing that. The walls were paper thin and anybody on his floor could have easily heard the shot even with a silencer. It was in her holster purely for an emergency. She looked at the pillows once more. Suffocating him would require a lot less cleanup that shooting him or slitting his throat. Less evidence to spread around.
She plucked a pillow from near his feet and he moved, ever so slightly. She froze.
“Nadya,” he murmured. He was still asleep, clutching the pillow tighter to his chest.
She sighed softly, but it wasn’t one of relief. She had done her job too well, she had charmed him wholly and completely. He frowned in his sleep, his brows knitting. He really was a specimen to behold. He was the kind of man that any woman would have wanted, she saw the glances random women in the street passed his way. It seemed a shame that Natasha would have to take him out of the world.
“Who are you?”
She looked back at him, his eyes were wide open, although a little bleary. She froze, pillow in her hands, as he sat up. He stared, squinting, at her face. Of course he wouldn’t recognize her immediately, Nadya was a blonde while Natasha had red hair. He glanced down at the holster on her thigh and Natasha mirrored him. He saw the gun. Both looked up and widened their eyes. So much for a quiet, quick, and clean suffocation.
She threw the pillow at his face. He ducked out of its way and bolted out of the bed and straight towards her, fully awake, his hands heading straight for her throat. She sidestepped and planted her foot on his back, kicking him forward and onto the floor. She calmly walked toward him, taking a knife out of her belt. As she bent down, though, Kotsya rolled onto his back and shot a leg out, his foot landing squarely in her stomach. She fell back, dropping the knife and gasping for breath.
Kostya eyed the knife and rolled onto his stomach again to crawl towards it. Natasha jumped up and ran towards him. Just as he grabbed the knife and stood up, she kicked him down again, causing the knife to fall out of his hand as he collapsed to the floor.
He scrambled up again and charged at Natasha, taking her down and knocking the breath out of her. He was on top of her now, leaning forwards, his hands quickly moving up her body and to her throat. She pushed down on her throat, and she felt like she was on fire. She beat on his hands and arms, forcing them up off her neck for a split second.
She wrapped her legs around his torso and locked them, pushing his left wrist towards her right thigh. She swept her left leg onto his shoulder and pushed his right arm across her into a lock. She kicked into his side and bit her left thigh into his neck and forced his neck down. She kicked her right leg over her left and squeezed on his neck with her thighs.
He gasped and squawked, trying to pull out of the choke hold, but she squeezed on him even more. A red sheen spread over his face and the veins in his forehead were visibly racing as he mouth moved around and he choked loudly, almost as if he were trying to say something.
“Nadya,” he choked out pleadingly. His eyes begged her to release him.
“No,” she responded, squeezing her thighs further into his neck. After a few seconds he quit squirming, his muscles lax. She held her position a bit longer, and then looked him in the eye. They were glassy, empty. He was dead.
Natasha relaxed and kicked his body off of hers. She lay on the thin carpet for a minute, catching her breath. She slithered her hand up to her throat gingerly. It most likely wouldn’t bruise. But her whole torso ached dully from landing on the floor. She took a few more deep breaths before sitting up.
She looked at Kostya’s body, limp and crumpled on the floor. His eyes stared up at the ceiling, blank. She stood and bent over to grab his arms, dragging him back to his bed. She tucked him in and passed her fingers over his eyelids to shut them. He could be sleeping. She laid her hand on his forehead for a few seconds, she didn’t know why. Forgiveness? It didn’t matter right now.
She surveyed the room. Nothing had been displaced in the fight besides a few papers that lay scattered on the floor. It was funny to her. Either way, she didn’t have to clean up. She put a hand up to her hair. Still intact.
She picked the knife up off the floor and secured it back in her belt before calmly leaving the apartment. She didn’t worry about the squeaky door this time.
Back at her apartment, everything was bare, save for a small duffel bag covered in embroidered flowers and ballet slippers, a change of clothes laid out on the stripped bed, and a rotary phone on the bedside table. She left tonight.
She showered off the sweat and changed into the civilian outfit, carefully folding and placing the bodysuit and belt into the bag. She hefted the bag onto her shoulder and walked over to the phone, dialing a number. There was no ringing, just silence. But she knew there was someone listening on the other side.
“It’s done,” she said before putting the phone back on the receiver. She left the apartment and paced out of the building, calm and collected, into the dark night.