Chapter Text
It’s the third month in Ohio, the second month of school, and the first time Natasha’s struggled with a homework assignment.
They’ve fallen into a rhythm, their little unit (not exactly family — not exactly not), and Natasha tries to stamp it all in her brain. Remember all the little details for the day she doesn’t get to live them anymore. Waking to the sounds of birds instead of screams, the smell of coffee instead of gunpowder. Her classmates laughing in the halls instead of marching, climbing jungle gyms instead of scaling walls. Watching TV for fun instead of indoctrination, clutching a teddy bear at night instead of a handcuff.
All her classmates groan in the morning, complain about early wakeups and nagging teachers, but Natasha’s secretly thankful for the routine that school provides. It’s simpler that way, more familiar. Summertime means freedom — a concept so unfamiliar it makes her nervous, too much time she doesn’t know how to fill — but fall means structure. The comfort of predictability.
Even this — poring over schoolwork at the kitchen table while Melina surveys and cooks — is oddly soothing most nights.
Yelena is too young for homework, but she wants to be like her big sister, so she’s dragged a coloring book to the table and is wreaking Crayola-filled havoc on a picture of a dog. She’s chosen green for the sky and blue for the grass (a world upside down), and Natasha’s amazed at how easily Yelena finds it to color outside the lines — probably because she’s never had to live inside them before.
Natasha’s class is learning multiplication — the real kind with numbers higher than 12 that you have to write out and calculate, not just the kind you memorize. Natasha’s good at memorizing (she’s memorized a whole new life for herself, after all), but she finds it hard to grasp the bigger concepts sometimes. She’s specifically been wired not to think bigger, not to get any ideas outside the Red Room walls.
Natasha carries the wrong number over and reflexively flinches. That would earn her a slap to the hand back there. A rod to her finger. An angry red line that wouldn’t fade for days.
Here, all that happens is that Melina takes a seat on the chair next to her, scoots it closer to Natasha’s to see the paper more easily. Tucks a flyaway hair behind Natasha’s ear, as if the strand out of place were the cause of the error.
“It’s all right,” she assures her. “Just erase it and start over.”
Natasha’s never been allowed to make mistakes. It feels like magic, being able to wash away the wrong so easy — to just try again.
But it’s not reality. Life is ink and permanent, and once you do something, there’s no going back. You can cross and scribble it out and try as hard as you can to make it disappear, but it’ll always be there under it all. A wound scabbed over.
Natasha rubs the eraser over the paper, swatting the little specks of pink off the table.
She’s still at the top of her class, has never brought home anything less than an A, but Natasha knows it’s taking her longer to master this than it should, and it frustrates her to no end. Half a second can mean the difference between breakfast and no breakfast, a whole can mean the difference between life and death.
“I’m so stupid,” Natasha mutters under her breath.
“Hey,” Melina says so quickly it makes Natasha’s heart stop, makes the pencil lead crack under her finger and her head snap up to face her. From the sternness, Natasha thinks maybe she misheard her.
“I said I’m stupid — not you,” Natasha rushes to clarify.
Melina’s expression stays the same, stony and serious. “I heard what you said. But I’ve got news for you: I don’t raise stupid girls. So I won’t tolerate anyone talking about them like that.” She raises a pointed eyebrow at her. “Including them.”
Natasha bites her lip, little flecks of skin coming off between her teeth. The familiar taste of blood coats her tongue.
Melina wordlessly takes the pencil from Natasha’s grasp, re-sharpening the point, thankfully giving her some time to compose herself.
“One day, it’ll click — you’ll see,” Melina promises, sending little yellow spirals onto the table. “Once you get it, it’ll be easy.”
“Just like riding a bike,” Alexei says, strolling into the kitchen, badge clip jubilantly flapping on the chest pocket of his shirt.
“Daddy!” Yelena exclaims, jumping up to greet him and abandoning her dog drawing, now purple with green polka dots — a tribute to Barney, no doubt.
Despite Yelena’s unpredictable movements (was Natasha ever that squirmy? She doesn’t think so. She keeps her squirms firmly on the inside — worms crawling through her bloodstream), Alexei scoops her up with ease, blowing a raspberry on her stomach. He swings her onto his hip, going to retrieve a beer.
Melina hands the pencil back to Natasha, heading back to the stove to tend to a pot.
“Except I don’t know how to ride a bike,” Natasha mumbles, starting on the next problem.
The comment stops Alexei dead in his tracks, his arm freezing halfway into the fridge.
“What?” he asks, incredulous. “Nobody ever taught you?”
Natasha feels a pang in her chest. He has no idea what it’s like there — what she’s been through — and he never could. Not even if he wanted to.
Thankfully, he doesn’t wait for a reply. (Because what would she say? I learned to hold a knife before a crayon? Learned how to shoot a gun before a camera? Learned how to kill before I knew what living meant?)
Instead, he just flicks the cap from his bottle, mouth lifted into a grin — mischievous in the way only fathers can be — and points at her.
“Well, we’re going to change that. You’ll be soaring in no time.”
Soaring. Natasha won’t let herself entertain the thought. Girls like her don’t get wings — don’t get to do anything but crawl on their bellies. A snake in the grass. A mouse in a cage. The dog in Yelena’s picture, begging for scraps.