Chapter Text
“This had better be worth distracting me, Coulson.” Natasha warned when her phone rang in the middle of a mission. She was on a stake out in Peru, the target was currently in a restaurant and she was waiting on him leaving.
“Fury needs you to come in.” Coulson sounded stressed. Nat didn’t blame him, he was her and Clint’s handler, that would give anyone a headache.
“I thought he needed me to kill this douchebag in Peru?” She questioned, annoyed that he was just changing her mission like that. She hated that.
“It’s the Red Room, Nat.” Her blood ran cold. “We’ve got another one.” Her skin was ice. Her mind was blank and suddenly all she could remember was pointe shoes and blood and guns and the freezing Russian winters skating on the lake before killing a girl with her skate blade. They couldn’t be back.
They couldn’t.
“When does my extraction get here?” She asked in a dangerously low voice and she almost feel Coulson tensing through the phone.
“Ten minutes.”
She shoots the guy in the head through the restaurant window and punches a wall hard enough to probably fracture a finger or two. But she doesn’t care. The Red Room were still destroying lives, some other little girl had been turned to marble, moulded to be a Widow. Some other little girl was damaged because she was not strong enough to take them down.
Fuck.
The girl before her does not look like a threat. But neither did she. She sat exactly like this girl ten years ago when she was brought into SHIELD, when Clint gave her a chance instead of a bullet in her head. That same straight back posture, eyes viewing every exit, hands tightened on weapons hidden from everyone’s view but hers. She was this girl.
Sometimes she thinks she still is. Sometimes Natalia doesn’t feel too far away from Natasha, both girl and woman mixing and meddling in her head until she remembers. She is not marble, she is human. She is not just the Black Widow, but Agent Natasha Romanoff; friend, lover, fighter.
But this little girl doesn’t know that yet.
“What’s your name?” She asks the girl. She can’t be anymore than seven, but she can be deceiving. Knowing the Red Room, she could be anywhere from age five to age twelve.
“They’ve been looking for you, Natalia.” The girl smirked, fist tightening around a small knife in her sleeve. Did no one check her for weapons?
“Were you sent here to kill me?” Natasha questioned right back. Her stomach tightened at the fact that they were still looking for her, that this girl knew her real name, knew her past.
“The Red Room is gone. SHIELD destroyed it. I don’t have anywhere else to go.” The girl admitted, a small glimmer of sadness passing her eyes before it disappeared. It made her fists clench but she remembered that the girl hadn’t been deprogrammed yet, hadn’t experience the real world. All she knew was the Red Room, of course she missed it.
“Мне все равно нужно имя.” (I’m still gonna need a name.) Natasha softly told the girl in Russian. The girl looked at her carefully, but seemed to appreciate the change to her home tongue.
“It’s Daisy.” She said softly, hand unclenching the knife in her sleeve. Natasha felt a rush of sadness for the girl. No one deserved their upbringing, that dark pain and dirty red in their ledger. No one.
“Okay Daisy, why are you here?” Natasha tried again. This was what Fury wanted, this was why she was here. She’d been through this, had answered these exact same questions, she was their best option.
“I don’t want to kill people anymore.” Daisy admitted bluntly, fingers drumming on the desk. “I want to help people, not hurt them.”
“And you think you can do that here?”
“Well it’s here or jail or death, so I’m going with my best option.” Daisy raised an eyebrow at her, small features carving into amusement.
“You’ll have to go through deprogramming. The Red Room mess with your head, we’ll need to remove it.” Natasha warned her. Deprogramming wasn’t easy, it required hours in uncomfortable headgear, under observation, going through your worst memories. It was interrogation after interrogation, hooked up to all sorts of wires and machines. It was reaching breaking point and being dragged back a different person.
She’d been an adult when she’d gone through, what was it going to be like for Daisy?
“Can’t be any worse than training.” Daisy said and Natasha had to disagree. Deprogramming forced you to relive that training, to teach you it was wrong. She’d lived killing Katya, Alia, Irina, Khristina, Yelena, twice. She’d lived every mission she’d went on for the KGB, every mark, every man, every ballet class, twice. She’d lived the graduation process twice.
Deprogramming was definitely worse.
“How old are you?” She’s honestly expecting a lie, Widow’s were taught deception at an early age.
“Ten.” Daisy replied but her eyes suggest something else. No one else would have caught it, but Natasha was taught the exact same tricks.
“Быть честным.” (Be honest.) She warns the girl. Daisy visibly flinches. They haven’t quite taught her to be marble yet, there is still hope.
“Восемь.” (Eight.) Daisy sighs. Her fingers are still drumming the table, an old rhythm that taunts some faraway memory in Natalia’s childhood. A barre, pointe shoes, Madame and her cane, the body on the floor as they danced. That song in the background.
That song was the soundtrack to her time in the Red Room. The girls sang it to each other after hard days or when one of them was crossed off. They sang it to the younger girls, trying to calm their aching bodies and fractured minds. That song haunted her like a ghost and now Daisy was tapping out the notes.
“Who taught you Баюшки-баю?”
“Anastasia. She said that the older girls taught her.” Daisy replied, clenching her fist guiltily. Natasha could guess what happened to Anastasia.
“Come on, we’ll start your deprogramming.” Natasha said eventually. It was getting harder to breathe under Daisy’s critical eye, no matter the fact that she was only eight years old, harder to maintain her mask.
“What’ll happen after?” Daisy asked.
“You’ll get assigned a handler and they’ll decide where you’ll live, considering you’re literally a child and SHIELD don’t employ children.” Natasha explained and a look of panic set over Daisy’s face.
“You’re not going to put me in the system are you?” She asked timidly, a complete change from her normal demeanour.
“No, we could lose you and unfortunately, Red Room assassins are assets. You’ll probably get a guardian at SHIELD, live on base or something.” Natasha tells her, though she slides the fear of the foster system into her file on Daisy. Maybe she was taken from an orphanage? Madame was famous for that.
Daisy just nods and continues tapping the table. The girl constantly fidgets, something Madame would have tried to stamp out of her. Maybe she was stronger than Natalia, maybe the Red Room hadn’t fully brainwashed her yet. She’d find out soon enough.
An agent comes to the door and Natasha knows that it’s time for the deprogramming. Daisy senses his presence and immediately clutches her knife again.
“You have to leave your weapons here.” Natasha tells her softly and Daisy looks at her in fear. She knew that fear, it took her two years to stop sleeping with throwing knives in her hands and a gun under her pillow.
“You can have them back later, you can’t take them into deprogramming, it’s the rule.” She tells her and Daisy nods. The girl pulls out the knife from her sleeve, three from her waistband, a small gun from her thigh and katana blades that had been strapped to her back.
“All of them.” Natasha warns her.
Daisy sighs and pulls a small blade out of her sock. Natasha nods at her, knowing the girl could still defend herself anyway without the weapons. You learned to fight with your body before weapons and Madame taught them well by Daisy’s age.
That thought made her want to vomit.
She stands and walks round to the door, nodding at Daisy to do the same. The girl stands and it’s then that Natasha notices just how small she really is. Daisy barely come up to her abdomen. She’s all thin limbs and straight posture, her body radiating fear and tension. This was a child, a child who was made into a weapon just like she was. She stares at Daisy and wonders how she let this happen again.
The agent clears their throat and she’s snapped back to reality, turning to glare at the agent before walking out the door, knowing Daisy will follow.
She also knows about the blade Daisy slipped back into her sock. If that’s what she needed to feel comfortable, then Natasha was going to let her have it, rules be damned.