Chapter Text
Natalia Romanova is eight years old and ‘the best the Red Room has ever seen’ when she’s pulled out of one lesson by some handlers she’s never interacted with before. They say nothing but her name, take her away from the training rooms, still dressed in her ballet gear, and down the long twisting corridors to Dreykov’s office. She’s been in the Red Room long enough to know the punishments for showing fear, but still her heart speeds up as they open the doors, usher her in and point to a chair.
There’s a second chair across from his desk as well and there’s a small blonde girl sitting in it, maybe the same age as Natalia herself when she was first brought into the Red Room. She sits next to the girl- toddler, really- and sits up straight, keeping her posture; they only could have brought her in here as a punishment and she isn’t going to give them a reason to extend that. The blonde girl shifts a little in her seat as they wait and Natalia wonders if they’re going to make her kill her, she knows how she’d do it, the girl’s face is still small enough that she could be smothered by one hand over the mouth and nose, holding her down with the other hand.
Dreykov enters and she rises instinctively, feeling the other girl copy her just a beat too late. His mouth twists up a little at that and neither of them get praised as he sits at his desk. Natalia keeps her eyes on the floor obediently and yet she can still feel him looking over her body, over the way the leotard hugs the figure that has not developed yet.
“Natalia.” He says, she can hear the proud smile in his voice and lets herself relax slightly. This isn’t a punishment.
“Yes, sir.”
“This is Yelena Belova.”
She turns to look at the girl who is already looking back up at her, bright blue eyes and blonde hair and the remnants of baby fat still on her cheeks. Natalia imagines the way her cheeks would feel soft under her own hard hands.
“The two of you have been assigned to a mission.” Dreykov continues, leaning forwards until she looks up at him. “Exciting, hmm?” He has switched to English.
“Yes, sir.” She repeats, uncertain. This is a new situation and too often new situations have meant pain and punishment, no matter how proud he seems.
Dreykov gestures with one hand and she is given a manilla folder. A brief for the mission. She curls her fingers around it like it is the most precious thing in the world. Most Widows don’t get to leave the Red Room until they have completed their training at least once, if not twice, to be able to leave at eight years old is a privilege she hadn’t dared even imagine.
“Yelena is to be your sister,” He continues, eyes fixed on her face. She schools her expression, scared that he can read her thoughts, “you will read that in the brief, and the fact that you will be a part of an all-American family.”
She doesn’t dare open it in front of him, but her fingers itch to comb through the details.
“Your handlers here will make sure you actually look like sisters. Blonde hair.”
Her red hair is the one thing that she herself owns, the one thing that nobody else shares or can take away from her. It makes her stand out in the Red Room; it makes the handlers favour her. It makes her who she is. She can’t argue.
“You will meet your new parents shortly,” Dreykov adds, turning away, “the Iron Maiden and the Red Guardian, hm?”
Her heart freezes in her chest. None of the girls in the Red Room have ever met or seen the Red Guardian, but the Iron Maiden is a regular guest- whenever she comes to report to Dreykov, she stops by the training rooms and watches them. In a world where every adult would as soon kill her as praise her, the Iron Maiden is what Natalia is most scared of, she represents everything that Natalia doesn’t want to become. Hard, cold, attuned to everyone’s movements, paranoid and yet unquestioning, the perfect spy.
“Yes, sir.”
He raises his chin, surveying them both. “Remember, she’s your sister now.”
And that’s it, they’re dismissed. Yelena blinks up at her, still too young to properly understand what his tone means, and Natalia runs Dreykov’s parting words through her head as they are escorted out. Sisters. How do sisters act?
“Take her hand.” One of the handlers orders as they make their way back down the corridors to what could generously be described as a salon.
Natalia switches the hand that is holding the file and hold it out for Yelena to take. She does, with what would be a concerning amount of enthusiasm to anyone else. The handlers punish any physical contact for the first few years, even before they start training, starving them all of human contact, and then use that to reward them with hands on shoulders, on elbows. The warmth of the little girl’s hand sends shocks up Natalia’s arm, unexpected enough that she nearly yanks her hand back; they’re being watched, however, and so she forces herself to relax and keep walking.
The Iron Maiden herself appears while Natalia’s hair is being bleached. She has been reading the file to distract herself from how there are hands near her throat, in vulnerable places, and reading parts aloud to Yelena, the bits that she will hopefully understand.
“Natasha.” Melina Vostokoff says, watching her.
Natalia- now Natasha, an American name- cannot rise to meet her as she feels obliged to do, so she just keeps her eyes down, respectfully.
Melina sighs, “Look at me.”
She brings her gaze up instantly, moving her head fast enough that one of those bleaching her hair yanks on it.
“Hello.” Melina crouches down in front of her, smiles warmly, but Natasha can see the utter lack of emotions in her eyes, the blankness created by the Red Room. “I’m your mother now.”
Yelena, who has not been given a new name, beams at this, hopping off her chair and coming over to hug Melina. Natasha watches the same reaction she herself had experienced not long ago, the desire to shake off the girl’s unexpected warmth, the touch that has not been earned by killing another girl.
“How long will this take?” Melina asks, rising and allowing Yelena to continue clinging onto her legs.
“Another hour, maybe.” The handlers continue to speak in Russian, even as their newly minted family practices their English.
“Alright. Send them to me when you have finished. We need to pick out clothing.”
She places Yelena on Natasha’s lap, ignoring the way that Natasha instinctively flinches away and leaves. Natasha takes note of her outfit as she does- jeans and a t-shirt- in the way they have been trained to. It’s one to fit in, not stand out, not the sort of mission outfit a Widow would normally wear. She looks down at her own ballet clothes- practical, the same grey as their normal uniforms, the same one that Yelena is wearing.
Jeans. She flexes her legs and wonders what they will look like when not wearing clothes designed to show them off.
Yelena snuggles deeper into her lap and she lets her, wrapping her arms around the girl and looking again at the file. The same line as before jumps out at her: Long-term mission. Minimum two years. Maximum six years. Six years away from the Red Room might just render her useless to them, would strip her of all the skills they had taught her and leave her a normal fourteen-year-old. She shut her eyes and hoped.
There are locks of red left on the floor when they’re done with her hair from where they cut it first and she wants to pick on up, keep it in her fist and remind herself that she isn’t the all-American girl they’ve made her out to be, that even if six years do pass, she will still be the same little girl who killed other little girls to survive. Yelena beams when they are stood, side by side, in front of the mirror and compared. They do look like sisters, now, Dreykov was cruel and frightening but he knew how to use them.
Melina greets them in the hanger. She’s standing in the middle of several boxes, more have been loaded onto the small plane that will be taking them to Cuba to catch their final flight over to America, Ohio, but these ones are open, and Natasha can see clothes in them. Each one is labelled: Pastels, Darks, Denim etc.
She’s still holding Yelena’s hand when they approach and Melina smiles approvingly.
“Come, pick some clothes.” Her Russian accent has all but vanished in the time since they last saw her.
Natasha picks out clothes that fit the brief she has been given, mostly jeans with some bright t-shirts and outer layers. Yelena tries to take all of the clothes and in the end, Melina and Natasha end up picking most of her clothes out of the pastels box. Natasha can see that Melina has completely forgotten what it is like to be a child as young as Yelena, to have that innocence- she hasn’t been one of them for too long, hasn’t been constantly faced by the newer recruits, watching the handlers break their spirits slowly and then all at once until they too follow orders like a robot, fire rounds into the centre of the target.
Alexei joins them then, tall and smiling, a man who did not have his childhood stolen by a man that treats them as tools. His is brunet, but light enough that it is not unthinkable that he would have blonde daughters, briefly Natasha wonders how much thought was put into creating their fake little family. He produces documents for them all, passports, birth certificates, a marriage certificate for him and Melina- for Alex and Melissa Spier.
“Spider!” Alexei laughs when he tells them their new surname and Natasha and Melina both smile back, even if neither of them find it that funny. It’s Dreykov again, another reminder that no matter how far physically they are, they will never escape the Red Room.
He seems to notice their hesitation because he puts the documentation away again and opens his arms for a hug. Yelena runs to him immediately, allowing him to pick her up and calls him ‘Papa’ without any hesitation, he laughs at that, switches her to one arm and opens the other to Natasha. She walks forwards, she knows what is expected of her and allows him to wrap her up.
“Don’t tense so much.” Melina says, frowning slightly behind her and Natasha tries to forcibly relax her body. It doesn’t work.
“It is fine,” Alexei says, releasing her, “you will get used to it.”
And then it’s Melina’s turn. This was their last chance to be pulled off and she realises, as Melina leans in to kiss her new husband that she passed whatever test this was because they didn’t pull her off, didn’t find another girl who wasn’t yet afraid of contact.
Yelena laughs at the noise they make when they separate and for a moment, Natasha allows herself to believe that this could be real. And then a handler approaches with two syringes and Natasha breathes out. Even while the charade is up, the rules still apply. Every Widow sedated on entry and exit.
“Set a good example for your sister.” Melina murmurs to her and Natasha drops her shoulders, smiles calmly up at Yelena and doesn’t stop, even when they push the needle into her neck. She thinks Yelena might have screamed, but the drug starts working immediately.
When she wakes, it’s in a car, late at night and Melina turns around to smile at her.
“Welcome to America.”
As if on cue, they pass a sign welcoming them to Ohio and Natasha allows herself to breathe. They made it, all the way, and without anyone calling them back, locking her back up. She has a sudden desire to throw the door open, roll out of the car and run and run and run.
“The child locks are on.” Melina tells her, still turned around, dark eyes watching her, unreadable. “And you still have a tracker.”
Of course, Dreykov’s best agents know what she thinks, how she thinks and of course they prepared for that. Hatred burns through her, even as she returns Melina’s calm smile.
The house they’re staying in is already furnished, agents have been posing as moving companies over the past week to prepare it for them. Two bedroom, two bathroom, kitchen, dining room, living room, and a small storage room that they will be keeping anything that could blow their cover. Yelena is yawning when they arrive, already tired despite the long period of unconsciousness and Alexei carries her into the house, waving at the few neighbours that are still awake and peering out at them curiously. Natasha follows, keeping close to him and slips into the other bed in their shared room.
Yelena is young enough that she will forget all she ever knew of the Red Room, memories fading until they only come up in bad dreams that she cannot understand, and Natasha suddenly hates her for it, hates that she will be happy here in Ohio while all Natasha herself will ever be able to think of is the fact that the Red Room will take them back one day, without warning, without mercy. She watches the blonde girl, sleeping happily in the new bed and turns away. She can’t sleep, something’s wrong.
“Put your arm up.” Melina’s voice says from the doorway.
Natasha sits up, fast, irritated that she hadn’t noticed the movement.
“Put your arm over the headboard.” It’s an order and her body knows how to respond to those.
She lies back down and raises her hand, hooking the wrist over the edge of the headboard and a feeling a rightness comes over her in waves, along with the sleepiness that has been kept at the edges by her unhappiness. There’s no handcuff holding her arm there, but this is how she sleeps, how she has always slept for as long as she can remember.
“Thank you.”
“Goodnight, Natasha.”
She pillows her head on her upper arm and shuts her eyes. “Goodnight, ma’am… mom.”
Melina sighs from the doorway, but she doesn’t sound annoyed, just tired. “We’ll get there.”
Sleep is already taking Natasha, the day’s travelling too much for her small body, but she hears the words and cannot help but wish that they could stay there.