Archive of Our Own ^beta

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1986

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The first Christmas that Yelena remembers spending in the Red Room, she didn’t even know that it had been Christmas, or that the New Year had already passed, until sometime in mid-February.

“Santa gave us fucking nothing but more trips to the tank,” Sveta says, in a mumble. If the handlers hear her cussing, she’ll get worse than a trip to the tank.

“Santa?” Yelena asks. She’s six, she knows all about Santa. (Or, she knows what Mama Melina and Papa Alexei made her pretend about Santa). She just doesn’t know what he has to do with anything right now.

“Are you stupid?” Sveta hisses. Sveta is the meanest person that Yelena has ever met who is under five feet tall. Yelena sticks her tongue out—stupid. Sveta smacks her so quick, Yelena doesn’t even register it’s happened until the sting blooms onto her shoulder. “A ‘yes’ then,” Sveta smirks.

“Why are you even talking about Santa?” Yelena whispers. “It’s not Christmas yet.”

Sveta looks at her like she is more than stupid. “It already happened, you dolt.”

“No,” Yelena mumbles, but Sveta is older than her, and she does usually know more things than Yelena. “It’s October.”

(It was October, when they left Ohio. When they ripped Yelena out of Natalia’s arms and shoved her into the tank).

“It’s almost March, idiot.”

March! That means… Yelena counts on her fingers; she notices Sveta watch her do it and glare. Yelena hides her palms behind her back and squints hard, thinking. Almost five months since Ohio. Since she’s seen her family.

(Not her real family. The handlers are constantly telling her. It was just a job, Yelena. Aren’t you lucky that someone so young was chosen for such an important mission? Don’t you feel proud, for how you’ve already helped your Motherland? No, all things considered, Yelena doesn’t).

“They didn’t tell us,” is all that Yelena says in response.

“Why would they?” Sveta rolls her eyes. “You think that Santa is going to come to a black hole in the middle of Siberia? Fuck that.” Sveta is really getting on a role now, she sits up, leaning forward and hovering over Yelena. Nine years old, and thinks that she is already as smart as all the grown-ups. Idiot, Yelena thinks to herself. It’s you, not me. “First of all, Santa doesn’t even exist; he’s a made-up fairytale for idiot children who think stupid things. Second, even if he was real which he’s not,” she stresses, in case Yelena is missing that vital point. “He wouldn’t come all the way out here. Siberia is the coldest place on Earth, no one but us Russians can survive it.” She’s said this before, too. Ever since one of their handlers—an Italian man whose accent was so terrible even the littlest girls laughed and didn’t get punished for it, much—came to train them and died of hypothermia like an idiot. “Third,” she says, really gearing up now. “Even if Santa was real, and he was Russian, he wouldn’t be allowed to come here. We’re not children, Yelena. We’re soldiers. Soldiers don’t get presents. We train.”

And that’s the only point that matters, doesn’t it? Even if he was real, even if he could survive the cold, the handlers would never let them have any presents. Even Yelena knows that by now.

“I got presents last year,” she admits, quietly. “During my mission. We took lots pictures for our cover. All of the holidays in one day, and Natalia and I got to keep everything. I got dolls and—

Sveta smacks her in the face. “Shut up. Your mission is over. You ever want to get another one and be let out of here? Stop talking about it or they’re going to send you to Pchelintsov.”

“Who’s Pchelintsov?” Yelena asks.

“The one who takes away your memories, or gives you new ones. The Professor. He’s old as death, but he can still do it. So, shut… the fuck… up.”

It’s not even mean, what Sveta is saying. Yelena knows that this is actually Sveta trying to protect her. She’s meaner about how she does it (she has to be, in here) but Yelena has seen the look that’s on her face on Natalia’s before—she knows what it means. So, she listens.

“Okay,” Yelena says, and sucks in a breath, begging the tears not to fall from her eyes. “Okay.” Sveta walks away, picks up a wooden training stick and starts going through an elaborate set of motions. “Merry Christmas, Nata,” Yelena whispers softly to herself. “I miss you.”

…

1989

…

She’s sparing with Alyona when the man walks in.

Yelena doesn’t notice at first; she’s concentrating on trying to get the upper hand, trying to avoid another night in the tank, trying not to incur Olga’s wrath—again.

But then the room goes silent.

“Again,” a gruff male voice says. He’s speaking Russian, but his accent is… strange. Not natural. Yelena turns her head and sucks in a thick breath. The man with the silver arm. He stares at Yelena and Alyona—also gone stiff as a board with fear—and repeats himself. “Again.”

All the other girls have tried to meld themselves into the back wall, huddled together and trying to look invisible. Even Sveta looks scared. Yelena swallows and looks up at Olga, who nods to her, once. Yelena gets back into a defensive crouch, breathing hard. Alyona’s movements are jerky and off tempo and Yelena gets a good hit in, then rolls with the movement, slipping out of Alyona’s grasp and getting her pinned down underneath her.

“Done,” Olga calls, and Yelena rolls off right away.

“You,” the Winter Soldier says, pointing right at Yelena. “Again.” Yelena moves to stand up, thinking one of the other girls is about to be dragged onto the mat with her, and then he crouches into a defensive position opposite her.

Yelena blanches. She is nine years old. Sure, they spar with the handlers sometimes, and she’s already been given her first dose of Dr. Kudrin’s serum, but… but… this is The Winter Soldier. He’s not… surely, they cannot mean for her to… Yelena shoots a glance over to Olga, but her lips are pressed into a thin line, and her hands are clasped behind her back, and she glares until Yelena jerkily moves herself into position.

She might die. Right now. On Christmas Eve.

(She only even knows that today is the date because she heard one of the teenagers talking about it earlier in the halls. Yelena always watches the older girls, always looking for a flash red hair. She never sees her; hasn’t even once in three years, but she hasn’t stopped looking, either. And she won’t. The Red Room is large, but Natalia has to be here somewhere).

“One,” the Winter Soldier says.

And then, he rushes her.

It’s all Yelena can do not to scramble out of the way in fear. She cannot block it, she sees that immediately. There is no point in even trying. Instead, Yelena curls into the fall, using the momentum to swing her other leg up and connect with her opponent's head. But this man with an arm of vibranium, a strange lilt to his Russian accent, that dead eyed unwavering stare, is well trained—all those who come from the Red Room are—and he ducks easily.

Yelena’s foot connects with nothing but empty air. Unmoored, she crashes into the floor, tripping, but she keeps the momentum going and flips herself back upright, whipping around and holding her arms up defensively in front of her face.

“Two,” he says, and then he slams her bodily into the wall.

Yelena gasps with the force of the motion. She’s been hit by adults before—many times—during her training, but she has never felt a hit like this in all of her nine years of life. She heaves, trying to get her breath back, but she has no idea how to even begin to do so.

The Winter Soldier lifts her up above his head, and throws her across the room with his flesh arm.

Yelena hears the screams of the other girls, and then she slams into a wall again.

“Three,” she hears him call out in that horrible monotone, and she knows, she knows, that if she doesn’t get up now, then she is going to die here. Yelena has seen girls die in training before. The handlers do not care if they lose an asset that cannot actually be an asset. A dead girl is just a lesson to the ones remaining alive—do not let yourself become the dead girl.

Keep your teeth sharp, Lenusha, she remembers Natalia saying to her once, in the quiet of the night. When she looks back on it with more adult eyes, she realizes it for what it was—Natalia’s way of trying to protect her, to tell her what was really going on. There are wolves in the night, she said, once, when Yelena asked her for a bedtime story. And there are stories about wolves and girls. Girls in red; all alone in the woods, about to get eaten up. She had grabbed Yelena’s face in both hands, then. Her palms soft and warm even as Yelena remembers being able to feel the calluses there. A twelve-year-old girl with calluses on her palms, a perfect Middle America accent, sharp, intelligent eyes, and muscles that were stronger than most adults—a wolf in disguise.

Wolves and girls, Lenusha. She pressed their foreheads together. Both have sharp teeth; keep your teeth sharp.

Yelena’s lungs feel like they’re on fire. She has mere seconds before he will close the distance between them, and Yelena knows now—she will not survive if he gets his hands on her one more time. She has to move and then she cannot stop doing so.

One, she thinks, and then hurls herself up and across the wall—the exact second that his fist collides with the place her head had been.

Two; she ducks, using her height against his as she sprints across the room.

Three; she dodges, then slides underneath his legs, not bothering to try to get a hit in and simply keeping the momentum until she can sprint across the room.

“Four,” he growls and chases after her.

This will not end unless she dies or gets a strike against him, Yelena realizes. Olga is not moving to stop or instruct. The Winter Soldier does not stop—ever. She cannot overpower him. This test is make a hit, or die.

Yelena kicks off the wall and tries to keep herself high. The only way that she will survive this is misdirect, to embrace her role as a little spider—a girl that no one expects to become deadly. Not even from a man who was created in the same place that she was born of.

She has a knife in her shoe. A tiny slip of a thing, practically a razor. She learned to keep it on her at all times during that first year back in the Red Room. And she learned that lesson the hard way. This knife is her only hope of getting out of this alive. Now that she understands the rules, she knows, one nick and this will all end. If she cannot do this, then she is not worth the bother of keeping around, and her death will be nothing more than a lesson to the other girls.

Yelena jumps up, spins around and kicks off the opposite wall. Her only goal is movement. She cannot tire this man out, she will only serve to make herself slower. Her only option is to make it seem like she is just trying to dodge and dodge and dodge and nothing else. Preventing a slow and painful and futile death.

Four, she thinks, gasping for air—hardly exaggerated at all, now. His flesh hand nearly manages to grab her hair, but thankfully, she is the slightest bit faster.

Five; the other side of the room, he is closing in on her now. The other girls are like sharks, they can all smell the blood in the water. Yelena stops exaggerating her breathing, conserving her energy.

Six; her favorite number and her most hated one. The age that she was when she was in Ohio; the age that she was when she was dragged back into the claws of the Red Room—childhood over and done with in single year. She breathes in and feints to the left; breathes out as she tucks with her roll and slips the knife into her palm.

That is one skill that she has over most of the other girls, she might not be as strong, might not be quite as fast, but she’s dexterous when she needs to be. When it counts.

Seven; another dodge. She can’t keep this up, and he knows it. They all know it. Sveta hisses and the sound of it, panicky and furious, is almost like a knife sliding into her gut all on it’s own—she has to do this now.

Eight; he is not smiling as he closes in on her. There is nothing behind his eyes. There is always something behind the handlers and soldiers eyes—something. Even if it’s just malice, that is still better than this incredible nothing coming at her right now.

Nine; she lets him catch her. Her death warrant and only hope for survival. His hands—both flesh and metal—wrap around her neck and begin to squeeze, and her knife presses up against his carotid, and the entire room stills.

“Стоп,” Olga orders, hurriedly. Yelena’s never heard her tone in that pitch before.

He does, but he does not remove his hands or step back from her. His palms are around her neck—frozen—and her hand has the knife against his neck.

“Гоод,” he says. “Гот соме схарп теетх, кид.”

Yelena goes absolutely still. Her brain is trying to catch up to the words, to make them make some sort of sense, to understand why, to understand what is happening—

“Дисмиссед, солдиер,” Olga barks out, looking… unsettled by his words.

“Did you see her,” Yelena whispers in a fury of French. For some reason, French always gives Olga trouble. She’s taking a gamble, but she’s being quiet—she doesn’t care, let them give her the tank. “Did you see Natalia?”

“Бе фастер,” is all he says in response, then drops her unceremoniously.

“Wait!” Yelena yells—stupid stupid—she can see Sveta shaking her head. Katya is making a frantic cutting motion across her neck from behind Olga. Polina is rolling her eyes. But she just… it’s been three years and she just needs to know. “DID YOU SEE NATALIA!?” she screams.

“Done for,” Sveta mumbles. “Stupid idiot.”

She spends Christmas Eve in the tank.

Well, actually she spends Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and most of the first week of the new decade in the tank. And when she is finally let out, they send her to Pchelintsov.

She never finds out if Natalia told him that phrase, but she is sure of it. Down to her bones.

…

1993

…

First Solo Mission is a big deal. A rite of passage.

A test, of sorts.

The girls either come back or they don’t, but the handlers will not step in to save them.

At thirteen, Yelena is all skin and bones; coltish, gangly, small, and not a hint of breasts or hips anywhere on the horizon. She can still pass for ten on a good day, with the right clothes and demeanor.

She’s not supposed to be ten today, though. Today, she is Lena Thompson; younger sister of Stella and Katie. The children of Canadian diplomats, out on an educational field trip to the Louvre.

“Reste proche, idiot,” Sveta mumbles.

“Any closer and you’ll be carrying me,” Yelena hisses back.

“Both of you shut up and focus,” Katya admonishes, always the peacemaker. “J’ai hâte de voir le David avec la tête de Goliath!” she announces, loudly.

Sveta rolls her eyes. “Not the Mona Lisa?”

“That too,” Katya says cheerfully.

“I can’t wait to get this over with.”

Yelena ignores them and searches the crowd. This is the first time that she’s been in Paris. So far, she has had small missions in China, Turkey, Czechoslovakia—or, just Czech Republic, now, she supposes—and all across Russia. But this is her first time in France. First time anywhere without a handler breathing down her neck. It almost feels like they actually are just three sisters on a vacation of sorts.

Maybe she really can see the Mona Lisa.

“Ten’o clock,” Katya says, and all three of them immediately sharpen their focus. Yelena slips closer to Sveta, looping their arms together casually as Katya twirls around and starts walking out in front of them, backwards. “Anyway, like Maman told me, we have to make the very most out of our time here. No dawdling. Papa wants to meet us at that lovely café when he’s done with work and—oh!” she exclaims loudly and turns to the man that she knocked into. “Mes excuses, monsieur. Je ne regardais pas où j'allais.” She looks just contrite and innocent enough that the man—who had moments ago been supporting a scowl—softens. He looks her up and down and Yelena wants to gag, but she has a job to do.

Katya is beautiful. Sixteen and perfect and expertly taught exactly how to use that as a weapon with anyone that she meets.

Yelena slips to the man’s right as Sveta takes the left, and Katya stays bubbly and polite, purposefully putting the French Canadian lilt deeper into her accent. Sveta stands there bouncing on her toes, like an impatient, less charming sister who is used to this nonsense as she blocks the man in for Yelena to do her job.

Needle in her palm in half a second, Yelena bends and fusses with the laces on her shoe. The man’s leg is pricked through his trousers in a motion too quick for anyone to notice, even if they were looking very specifically for it.

Yelena rises, does a little twirl that she’s seen Katya do a hundred times, feels silly and false but commits to it anyway, rolling into Sveta’s side. “Je veux voir une peinture de ballerine,” she announces, doing her best to copy Katya’s accent exactly. Sveta rolls her eyes. Katya beams down at her, grasping Yelena’s face in her palms and pressing their foreheads together.

“And so you shall,” she says, the perfect picture of an indulgent big sister. “Au revoir, Monsieur!” she calls over her shoulder, dragging Yelena into her and pushing Sveta forward. “Status,” she says, voice low and devoid of the charm from just moments before. All business.

“Done,” Yelena says and passes over the small bag containing the needle, drop of blood clearly pricked and collected.

Katya pockets it and nods. “Щелл доне, Леноцхка,” she says in a whisper.

“Don’t coddle her,” Sveta groans.

“Is praise coddling, now?” Katya asks, looking as though she genuinely wants the answer. Sveta and Yelena both know that she doesn’t, actually. “So, an hour to maintain appearances. Meet back in the lobby.”

Yelena and Sveta both look up sharply. Sveta’s the same age as Katya, but Katya is the one in charge and they all know it.

“We can go on our own?”

“You’re letting her go off alone?”

“An hour. The lobby,” Katya says, and then she disappears into the crowd.

Yelena doesn’t have to be told twice. She dodges out of Sveta’s grasp and skips down into a hall, putting as much distance as she can between them. None of the handlers have ever let her go off on her own to maintain covers. Never. She is going to see everything she can. Who knows if they’ll ever be back?

She’s elbowing her way into the crowd, ducking below raised arms that are trying to hold up cameras to get a glimpse of the painting, using her scrawny body and lack of height to her advantage.

Huh. She tilts her head to the side and studies it.

“Smaller than you’d expect, no?” a deep, feminine voice says. There’s something… something about the timber of that voice, the low husky drawl of it, that lodges inside of Yelena’s chest and tugs—tight. Very suddenly, she doesn’t think that she can breathe. Yelena lifts her head up and to the right and finds that she is staring up into Natalia’s formerly green eyes.

Her hair is black as night now, styled into a short bob. There are contacts in her eyes, brown, today, with flecks of gold that Yelena cannot stop staring at. She’s still thin, but she’s filled out; what was once a coltish mess of gangly limbs like the ones Yelena possesses now, have turned into curves. Real curves that hint of more to come. Yelena’s chest tightens further at the sight and her cheeks heat, though she’s not quite sure why.

“Natusya?” she gasps in awe. She’s not… she has imagined this a hundred times over; she might just actually be imagining it right now. Sometimes her memories aren’t to be trusted. Sometimes she sees things that aren’t really there. Sometimes she forgets things. Sessions with Pchelintsov and trips to the tank both take their toll.

Natalia seems to bow in half at the name. Yelena actually watches her wince like she is in pain and she looks around wildly for a knife, for Sveta, or Katya, or Olga , come from somewhere to take Natalia away from her, again, but there is no one.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Natalia says, pulling herself together faster than even Katya can. She’s had three years more of experience, Yelena supposes.

“What?”

Natalia nods to the painting. “The Mona Lisa. It’s smaller than you’d expect, for such a famous thing, no?”

“I… yeah.” Yelena doesn’t look at the painting. She can’t stop looking at Natalia. It’s been seven years; she is trying desperately to clock every difference. The hair, the eyes, obviously, but those are just fake—maintaining a cover. Yelena is a brunette, today. She just… Natalia looks older. Obviously, but… in her mind, Yelena was still looking for a gangly twelve-year-old with bright red hair and washed out blue streaks. She knew, she knew that Natalia would be older but to actually see it is quite another thing entirely.

She can’t stop looking at her hips, which is an incredibly weird thing to do. She just… Nata never had those, before. She didn’t have hardly any breasts to speak of, either, and—Yelena’s face heats up again—she definitely has them, now.

“First?” Natalia asks, pulling Yelena’s attention back up to her face.

“What?”

“First?” is all she asks, again.

Yelena catches up. First Solo Mission. Code: are there handlers watching? “Yes,” she says. “This is the first time I’ve seen the Louvre. Just me and my two big sisters,” she adds, because she’s feeling a little abandoned and vindictive.

Natalia’s face pinches.

“Is your boyfriend here?” Yelena asks.

Natalia’s face tilts as she considers Yelena’s question. “Which one?” she teases. “I’ve had several.”

“The big one. Greasy hair. Kind of a grunge look.”

Natalia’s eyes go sharp.

“Strong?” she asks and this vague code talking is pissing Yelena off. They’re in a crowd in Paris, and no handlers are anywhere to be seen. She opens her mouth to say the one with a metal arm, hard to miss, and then she feels Natalia’s fingernails dig into her arm. “Don’t,” she hisses.

It’s the first time that Natalia has touched her in seven years, and Yelena goes absolutely still—a deer caught in headlights. Every nerve ending inside her body flares up and announces itself on her forearm where Natalia’s hand still rests, their skin connected. Yelena looks down at her arm, dumbly. “Sharp teeth,” she whispers and wants to cry.

Natalia sucks in a breath. “Have to be,” she says, half a beat later. “Yours?”

“Trying.” Natalia’s nails dig into her even harder; she’s going to draw blood. Yelena almost hopes that she does. She wants proof of this encounter. “Yes,” she amends. Before she can keep herself together, she grabs Natalia’s hands and tries to pull herself into Natalia’s arms. “Take me with you—” she starts to say and Natalia immediately steps away from her.

“Щолвес анд гирлс ин ред, литтле спидер,” she says, backing away and becoming swallowed up by the crowd. Yelena pushes to follow, truly panicked now. She can’t leave again, she can’t leave. Natalia is still in her sight line, but barely. “Make sure those sisters of yours watch your back.”

And then, she’s gone.

Yelena stands in the middle of the most famous, densely crowded part of the Louvre, and it takes every single bit of her training not to double over and scream her brains out.

“Honey?” It takes a few tries for Yelena to realize that someone is talking to her, longer, to realize that she is speaking in German. “Are you alright?”

“Mir geht es gut, danke,” she stutters out, her accent horrible and shaky and not at all like a trained linguistics expert.

The woman looks surprised and delighted at the German, and starts to move the conversation further along, but Yelena pushes past her with a simple apology and then quick-walks back to the lobby.

There are pinpricks of scratch marks on her forearm. It was real. She was here. She left, again, but that’s not the important thing, she tells herself. The important thing is that she came back. Natalia is alive and if she came back once—she will do it again. She has to.

…

1995

…

Natalia defects to the Americans.

Yelena is in ballet class—because they don’t take off days for any holiday, in the Red Room—she’s got her leg up on the barre, laughing at something Roza is saying, when Jana Glebovna stalks into the room and raps her cane twice on the floor. She never suffers nonsense in any of her classes, but, Yelena has never once seen the look that’s on her face right now. When even Sveta goes pale and silent, Yelena knows that something is very wrong. She shoots a look over to Katya, panicked.

“Places,” Jana Glebovna barks out.

Yelena has just moved into fifth position when the alarms start going off. Lev Petrov comes running into the room and starts roughly manhandling everyone. Agents and handlers pour in, shouting at one another until Jana Glebovna smashes a mirror with her cane, effectively shutting everyone up.

“One by one, then,” she demands. “Calm yourselves.” She looks directly at Petrov as she says this part. He has always been temperamental, always hated the Black Widow Program and everyone involved in it. Yelena does not want to be put into a room alone with him.

“Head up, Lena,” Katya whispers as they’re all lined up single file against the wall.

Yelena looks down the line at the rest of the girls, Irina to her left, Anya to her right, and everyone looks nervous. They’re all hiding it well, because they’ve been trained to show no fear, but this is unprecedented and everyone feels it. Anya—a slip of a girl at eleven who could still easily pass for eight—presses herself up against Yelena.

“What are they going to do?” she whispers.

“Dunno,” she whispers back. “Look Petrov in the eye, no matter what.”

Anya swallows and nods, trying to straighten herself up, but she stays with her shoulder pressed right up against Yelena until she’s called into the room for her turn.

“Gonna be more serum, probably,” Irina mumbles “My arm still hurts from the last time.”

“It’s not that,” Yelena says. “Dr. Kudrin being here never causes a panic like this. And besides, those are all scheduled.”

“I guess,” Irina rolls her eyes. “Pchelintsov?”

Yelena shakes her head. “I think he kicked the bucket, finally. Also always scheduled.”

Irina huffs out an irritated breath, but she’s just nervous too.

When it’s her turn, Yelena walks into the interrogation room with her head up, gaze immediately making direct eye contact with Petrov.

“Have a seat, Yelena,” he says. It’s not a request. Yelena lowers herself down into the cold, metal chair across from him and crosses her ankles—cool and collected, not a defensive position. “I’m sure that you’re wondering what this is all about,” he says, strolling back and forth in front of her with his hands clasped behind his back—a facade of camaraderie and trust, exposing all his vital organs to her. “We’ve had a defection,” he says, turning to stare directly down at her.

A defection? As far as Yelena knows, that’s never happened before. Not in the century or so that the Red Room has existed. If it has, they’ve kept it tight lipped and dealt with it quietly, never like this, not even close.

Yelena remains silent.

Petrov circles her, gaze never wavering, and she holds herself still and does not fidget underneath his scrutiny. “Natalia Alianovna Romanova, date of birth: unknown; rumors circulate of both 1928 and 1942, Stalingrad—neither proven. We have the good Doctors Kudrin and Pchelintsov to thank for that, perhaps. Date oft circulated in the last few decades is 1974, Volgograd. Rumored and confirmed associations: Ivan Petrovich, Department X, the Black Widow Ops Program, the Red Guardian, the KGB, the Bolshoi Theatre, and now,” he pauses for dramatic effect. “Hawkeye, Daredevil, and SHIELD,” he says this all in a fast spit, barely pausing for a breath as he circles her, rattling off the information.

Yelena didn’t even know half of this, and she’s left gasping from the first mention of her name. He knows it, too. When he circles back around and pauses directly in front of her, he bends down and pushes his face inches in front of hers. A malicious smirk pulls onto his face. “What do you have to say, Yelena Belova?”

“I…” she swallows thickly. “I’m not sure what you want me to say. Is… is she the one who…”

“Is that what you think happened?”

“Well… you just said SHIELD, so…”

Petrov raises his eyebrows. “I did.” He’s giving nothing away and Yelena feels both hot and cold. Panicky, like she might pass out, and she digs her fingernails into her palms to try and keep herself conscious. She’s trained better than this, she cannot flinch, she cannot pass out. She’s survived the tank for nearly two weeks, for fucks sake.

“What do you need from me, Lev Antonovich?” she asks, the picture of a respectful subordinate.

He scoffs out a laugh. “What information can you add?”

“Add?”

“To what I just said.”

“I don’t think there is anything about Natalia I could tell you that you don’t already know,” she says. “I didn’t even know most of that.”

“You spent nine months on a mission with her in 1986. Tell me about it.”

“I was six,” Yelena says. “I barely remember it.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Do you?” Yelena needs to shut her mouth. “I’ve had many trips to the tank, and to the health clinic, I think my memories being compromised in some capacity isn’t surprising in the least.” Shut up, shut up, shut up. This is the direct opposite of ‘keep your head up.’ If Petrov doesn’t kill her right now, Katya definitely will later. Everyone, even the newest recruits, know well enough to shut up the hell up around Petrov. True to form, his eyes flash dangerously. Yelena holds her ground; the stupidest thing that she could do would be to back down now.

“You asked about her when the mission was over. Constantly.”

“I wouldn’t phrase it like that.”

“Oh?” he tilts his head, a cocky smirk on his face. She may be an agent, she may know hundreds of ways to kill a man, she may have gone on a few solo missions, but she is still a fifteen year old girl, and she knows that she is in over her head. He knows it too. “And how would you phrase it, Agent?”

“I was six years old. My memories had been altered with, and I blocked out my time with the Red Room and grew attached to my fellow agents. I was simply inquiring about their whereabouts when I returned.” Gods, she sounds like an idiot. She sounds like Olga.

“Simply inquiring about their whereabouts,” he repeats. Petrov pulls back and walks over to the only table in the room and lifts up a manilla folder. Opening it, he reads: “October 9, 1986, Belova breaks down when separated from Romanova. Constantly screams for who she refers to as ‘ her sister’ and ‘her family’ despite orders. Does not follow instructions. Sent to the tank. The same situation happens again on October 30, November 7, November 15, December 11, and December 23 of 1986.”

Each date feels like a small whip melting across her skin, and it takes all of her training to keep a stiff back and a straight face.

“January 29, 1987: Belova consistently asks after Romanova, and occasionally continues to ask after Vostokoff and Shostakov despite orders not to. March 14, Belova told under no uncertain terms to stop asking after Romanova or she will be terminated.” He drops the folder back down onto the table and leans against it, arms crossed as he regards her. “Well?”

“The last complaint was March 14, 1987. Almost a decade ago. I learnt my lesson.”

“Did you?”

“Yes.”

He studies her, unwavering and inscrutable. “Romanova was consistently one of our best agents. The most promising and highly regarded of the Black Widow Program for decades. Why is it that she, of all people, defected to the Americans?”

“I don’t know,” Yelena says, and it’s the first completely truthful and sure thing that she’s said since she walked into this room. He notices, because of course he does.

“I have a few theories, myself.”

Yelena says nothing.

Petrov opens the folder back up and does not look up at her this time as he reads aloud. “November 10, 1986: Romanova has asked three times to be placed into training with Belova. All three requests have been denied as Belova seems to have formed an attachment to her and misunderstood her mission to be her reality. Recommend separation for training and missions indefinitely.”

Natalia asked for her. Natalia wanted her. Yelena’s head is buzzing and she bites down on the inside of her cheek to not show Petrov any feelings. That was almost a decade ago, she reminds herself. Two years ago, Natalia left again. Now she’s left the agency entirely. Defected to the Americans. This is as far away as she could possibly go.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Petrov walks closer again, a predator circling its prey and this time, Yelena can’t help but tense up and go into a defensive position. “I want to be sure that your loyalties are where they belong.”

Oh. That’s what this whole charade is about? Yelena sits up straight and looks him directly in the eyes. “I am a loyal daughter of the Red Room.”

“No plans to follow in your former ‘sister’s’ footsteps?”

“She’s not my sister,” Yelena says. “Not anymore than Katya, or Sveta, or Irina, or Anya, or Mariya, or—”

“Alright,” he rolls his eyes. “Don’t list every girl in here.”

“I knew Romanova for nine months on a mission years ago. I was young and grew attached. I’ve learned from my mistakes and had many successful missions over the years—most posing as sisters of the other girls, and I haven’t done anything wrong since, have I?”

“Your disciplinary record as of the last five years has been exemplary,” he acquiesces. Pushing off of the table, he rises and opens the door, motioning for her to be dismissed. “Be sure that it remains as such,” he adds, pure threat in his words.

“Yes, Lev Antonovich,” she says, and slips out of the room and down the hall as fast as she can.

Natalia defected. She left in the most literal sense of the word. Yelena will probably never see her again. She wasn’t even wrong, in what she said to Petrov. Natalia isn’t her sister. The girls in her training group are more her sisters than Natalia ever was, probably. It doesn’t matter now, does it? She’s gone and Yelena is still here.

Merry fucking Christmas.

…

1999

…

Lasting until she is nineteen before she has a mission that requires any potential sexual aspects is… on the whole, pretty good.

She knows, just from research, that that would be an insane statement to make in any other line of work, but Yelena has known what she is and what she is made for since she was seven years old. She might have rebelled from time to time over the years, but the lesson only had to really be taught once, to stick.

Yelena Belova (if that is even really her name) is a daughter to the Motherland. A tool and a Soviet relic, of sorts. Not even, actually. She is a daughter of the Red Room, first, last, and always. No other consideration of family exists as truth.

(Even in her memories).

Mariya is tasked with her instruction for this mission, and Yelena doesn’t know how to deal with that. Currently, she is lying on her back, chest bare, as Mariya straddles her, clucking her tongue in disappointment at Yelena’s lack of fluid movement. “Lena, come on,” she says, her voice full of exasperation. “You know how to do this, why do you keep going so stiff? It’s awkward. Painfully so. You are so graceful when you want to be—embody that.”

“I’m not graceful,” Yelena protests. She’s not. Never has been. She is quick and she is solid, but graceful, she is not.

“You can be,” Mariya argues.

“I can fake it,” Yelena says. “That’s different.”

“Then fake it,” Mariya orders, then she rolls her hips into Yelena’s and bends down, hovering her lips only an inch away from Yelena’s own. “That’s all you’re doing here, Lena,” she assures her. “Faking it. Maintaining a cover. Doing your job. This is the oldest job in the world, easy as pie.”

Yelena huffs. “Easy for you to say.”

Mariya pulls back only slightly, maintaining eye contact. “What’s that mean?”

Yelena makes a noise of frustration at the back of her throat. “Just that… you are graceful. You’re pretty. You’re good at moving your body and charming people. I’m not good at that. I’m good at being quick and getting in and out and not dealing with people. I’m just awkward and blunt. I’m not good at—” she waves a little helplessly between them, “—using my body as something other than a weapon.”

Mariya grins. “Ah, but that is what you’re doing,” she says. “Don’t think of it as using your body to be sexy, or something. That’s tripping you up. Your body is your weapon, Lena. Whether you’re stabbing someone or luring them close for blackmail.” Mariya cups Yelena’s breasts and rubs her thumbs gently over her nipples and Yelena’s breath hitches, fully against her will. “Think of this like a sparring match. You’re anticipating the other person’s movements, trying to figure out where on the body you need to hit, where to position yourself for the maximum effect.”

That’s… actually incredibly helpful advice. If it were anyone other than Mariya straddling her to practice right now, it might actually be that easy. Annoying, but not hard.

But it is Mariya. Beautiful, graceful, charming, genuine, talented Mariya.

Yelena clocks the exact moment Mariya realizes just why it is that Yelena keeps on freezing up; they’ve gone back to practicing, Mariya controlling all of her movements, explaining which touches she should keep in her repertoire, what she can get away with doing that gives off the illusion of more without the follow through—and Yelena’s whole body feels like it’s on fire. No one has ever touched her like this, and she’s had a bit of a crush of sorts on Mariya for something like three years now. Mariya’s fingers deftly brush up and down against Yelena’s bare stomach, and the hitch in her breath causes Mariya to pause her ministrations and look down at her.

“Oh,” she whispers, realization dawning.

Yelena tries to shove her off and bolt from the room in the next second, but Mariya has been trained the same as Yelena, and she’s got two more years on her. Mariya’s legs clamp down around her and tighten their hold, keeping Yelena in place as her arms grasp Yelena’s and hold fast. Yelena panics, embarrassed. “I—”

“It’s okay,” Mariya says gently, and it’s more alarming than anything else so far. There is no gentleness in the Red Room, not even between the girls—there is no space for it to exist. Attachments are deadly, nothing but weaknesses that can be used against you. Everyone understands that they are all allies at best. Friendship and affection have no place here. Mariya leans down and brushes a soft kiss against Yelena’s lips. “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?” she asks with a laugh.

“Tell you what?” Yelena wants to crawl into a hole and die.

Mariya’s red hair brushes against Yelena’s cheek when she shifts, lifting herself up, and Yelena goes very still.

Oh. Oh, that’s sort of fucked up.

“Do you want me to keep going?” Mariya asks, hands brushing lower and lower down Yelena’s stomach in slow, sensual circles.

“I—”

“My first time was with a mark,” she says, continuing her ministrations. “Four years ago.”

“Was it… scary?” Yelena wants to pull the word back and swallow it down. Talking about fear in the Red Room is a death sentence, she should be better than this. She usually is—impulsive or not, she knows what things to shut up about.

“No,” Mariya says simply. “I knew what I was supposed to do. I practiced… like this, with Vera. I just treated it like any other mission. It was just a new tool in my belt to get what I needed in order to get the job done.” Her face shifts, just slightly, into a frown. “I do wish a bit that maybe… maybe the first time had been more my choice. Or… someone I wanted, at the very least. He was sort of old and gross.”

“How old?”

Mariya rolls her eyes. “Who knows, who cares? He’s dead now,” she grins.

“You?”

Mariya shrugs one shoulder. “Not directly.” She taps her pointer finger on Yelena’s nose. “So, how bout it?”

“Huh?”

“Want to actually practice?”

“I—”

“Do you want me, Lena?” Yelena’s eyes widen. She doesn’t feel equipped to have this conversation, especially not with all of the thoughts swirling around inside her brain at the moment. She can’t stop looking at Mariya’s red hair, she can’t stop thinking about what that might mean. Mariya notices and bends forward, shaking her hair in Yelena’s face as she laughs. “Do… you… want… me?” she draws the question out, peppering kisses down Yelena’s jawline to her neck, pausing to lift up and make eye contact each time. Yelena’s entire core lights up of its own volition, and she’s embarrassed by the groan that comes out of her mouth. Her body knows what it wants, at least. Mariya grins against Yelena’s neck, then, before Yelena can even process it, Mariya takes one of her nipples into her mouth.

“Oh… fuck,” Yelena hisses as her body bows up into the touch.

Mariya twirls her tongue around it slowly, hands caressing Yelena’s hips as she starts to tug Yelena’s pants down lower. “Do you want me?” she asks again, pausing completely and looking Yelena in the eye.

No, I want her and I don’t know how to feel about it, she thinks, immediately. Then, yes, more than I’ve ever wanted anything.

She can say no and Mariya will shrug and continue instruction as normal and won’t be offended. But, she doesn’t want the first person to ever touch her for real to be a mark, she knows that. It’s the only thing she knows for sure, right now. Mariya is someone that she wants, has wanted, since she realized what that type of wanting even was. Mariya is giving her a choice, something not often—or ever—granted in the Red Room.

“Yes,” Yelena breathes.

Mariya grins, pure cheshire cat-like, and Yelena spends the rest of the afternoon getting some very in depth and overwhelmingly thorough instruction.

…

…

Spending Christmas Eve with a mark is strange, if only in the sense that this day has meant nothing whatsoever for years, and suddenly, she has to pretend that it does.

Otto Breiner is a German business man that the Red Room wants to keep in their pocket. It’s strange—most of Yelena’s missions are assassination related. Death hangs over them all in some capacity, at the very least. She’s not the one often called in for a deft hand or an infiltration job. She can put on an act when she has to, but the handlers learned early on that her skills lie elsewhere.

This is a test as much as everything in the Red Room is a test. Yelena may be nineteen, may be an adult in whatever sense of the word, but she is still a little girl born of the Red Room, and she is not about to let them have a reason to find her inadequate.

It is easier than she thought it would be, to hold onto his arm in this skintight red dress and smile at people who love puffing up their own importance. Otto won’t stop rubbing his hands on the small of her back, far too excited to introduce her as his girlfriend to these people that run in his circles.

Girlfriend. Yelena rolls her eyes internally. This is her first assignment that has had multiple stages like this, and she’s been working it since Mariya began her training in September. Usually, this is the sort of job that Mariya or Katya would get. Hell, even Sveta, for all her stoic gruffness, can put on the charm when it is required of her.

Yelena knows though, that the one who always used to get these sort of long term assignments, these ones that require a deft hand and a sharp mind, was Natalia. There is a hole in the Red Room that is felt by all, even if they never interacted or knew of her existence before she left. Yelena feels her loss so acutely, it’s like she finally knows that Natalia had been there the whole time that she was looking for her. Even if it’s just that she has been left to pick up her slack. (The sharp anger that coils in her belly at that thought isn’t quite as new as the knowledge of her confusing feelings, but neither will leave her alone, as of late).

Yelena shoves away all thoughts of Natalia and focuses on the woman that Otto is introducing her to. She’s Austrian, if her accent is anything to go by. Yelena pastes on yet another smile and shakes her hand, making sure to lean against Otto’s side and look properly smitten. The woman quirks an eyebrow at the word ‘girlfriend’ and Otto gives her a halpless, boyish shrug. He’s twenty-seven. He thinks that Yelena is twenty-three—she can pass for it now, especially when she’s all dolled up like this. She filled out over the last year or so, and she finally looks her age.

It’s both a blessing and a curse. The Red Room uses whatever it needs to get its jobs done, but they do tend to use older girls for these sorts of missions when they come up.

Yelena extracts herself from Otto a few minutes later when he goes to talk shop with the boys, you understand, don’t you, babe? And she busies herself with the buffet as she people watches and surveils the room.

If all goes well, maybe two more dates after tonight and then she’ll be done with this mission. Hopefully. She’s doing her level best not to stuff her face full of food. She’s supposed to be the perfect picture of a dainty socialite who’s probably living off nothing but salad, not someone who shovels food in like it’s delicious fuel.

Not for the first time, she finds herself looking for a particular face in the crowd. It’s stupid. It’s pathetic, even more so now, with this new revelation of hers thanks to Mariya. She doesn’t know why her brain keeps obsessing like this—it’s been years. It wasn’t real. Thank god for that, actually; with Mariya’s revelation, it already feels some shade of fucked up anyway. She doesn’t wonder about Melina or Alexei even a third as much as she thinks about Natalia. It wasn’t real. None of them are her family. None of them want her. It was a just a job.

Like this one, which she better get back to. Surreptitiously, Yelena shoves three mini quiches into her mouth and moves over to where Otto is standing with another man and woman.

“Ah, Yvette!” Otto calls out in English. He grins once he catches sight of her. And again, there’s that hand on her back. “This is Anthony Stark. And, I’m sorry, I missed your name?”

“Cassandra Gillespie,” she says, her smile coming easy despite the slight.

“Call me Tony,” he says while looking Yelena up and down, almost unconsciously, like it’s a habit. “And those are Cass’s charming bodyguards,” he says, nodding his head towards two men in suits who are standing off to the side and seemingly ignoring them. “Beautiful background scenery.”

“Bodyguards?” Yelena asks, putting a heavy German accent to her English lilt so she matches Otto.

“She’s got an important mother,” Tony says, waving it off. “Irrelevant to tonight. What is important is this party and this booze. Shall we all dance?”

Yelena would hate nothing more, but she nods along gamely the same as Cassandra. Otto pulls her close—too close—but she supposes that’s sort of the whole point. Yelena studies Tony and Cassandra while they dance, they’re easy with each other, laughing. Clearly, they’ve been acquainted for a while. The bodyguards are giving Yelena pause. Both of their names sound familiar to her, but she can’t place why.

(Natalia would be able to).

Yelena checks back into the conversation when they gather together at a table. Tony Stark says something about a woman named Pepper Potts, and, later, Natalie Rushman and Yelena zeroes in on him.

Wasn’t that a cover of Nata’s? Or, something like it. Yelena snuck into the records room a month after Natalia defected. It had been time for her serum, and with all of the information Petrov had spewed at her, she’d been desperately curious. 1928? She knows that Dr. Kudrin’s serum is impressive, but 1928? That can’t be true. Natalia had looked all of twelve when Yelena first knew her; she cannot have done the things that people say she did looking like a twelve year old for something like sixty years or more. She just can’t.

From the very little that Yelena was able to find, she can. Or, did. Maybe. The doctor had waltzed back into the room before Yelena could really read much of anything.

But she saw some mission cover names, and she’s pretty sure Natalie Rushman was on the list. Or, she’s making things up, seeing what she wants to see, because she is stupid and pathetic.

“Are they here?” she finds herself asking. “Your assistants?”

“God, don’t let Pepper hear you call her that.”

“My apologies.”

“Nah,” he waves her off and winks. Gross. Cassandra doesn’t seem to care, but Otto bristles, slightly. “Pepper bailed ages ago. Said she’s not working on Christmas Eve. Natalie’s around here somewhere though, I’m pretty sure. I told her that she could bail whenever, too.”

“Oh,” is all that Yelena can think to say.

She waits until Otto and Tony are back in conversation, something stupid about technology that Yelena doesn’t care about, but Cassandra does—or is good at pretending as such. Yelena’s pretty sure it’s not a ruse, though. She seems to know her stuff. She tunes the three of them out and scans the room for red hair. It could be any color, but… still.

There. Yelena’s heart stops. A flash of deep, dark, red; styled into tight curls that she’s never seen before. Yelena tries to scan the body, but the woman is on the move. She presses herself into Otto and whispers in German, “bathroom,” before rising and slipping away.

Stupid stupid stupid. She is leaving her mark. This is… bad. Very bad.

She follows the red hair anyway.

This is… the most dangerous thing she’s ever done, possibly. There are no handlers watching her. She is not miked. She has grown to enough esteem that she simply has to check in regularly while on longer form missions. No one is watching her, but it feels like they all are. She could be jumping to a lot of conclusions for no reason at all.

Yelena slips down the hallway. Natalia’s body from the Louvre in Paris has etched itself into her brain, despite Pchelintsov’s best efforts, and that looks like what she’s conjured up in her fantasies, but she could be wrong. Petrov said that Natalia went to SHIELD. She cannot remember why the name Tony Stark is important, but she’s pretty sure that he’s just some tech boy like Otto. She knows all the names of the higher ups in SHIELD and he’s not one of them.

The hallway is empty but for the two of them. Yelena opens her mouth, and whistles.

The woman ahead of her stops cold.

It’s her, her whole body sings. It’s her.

Natalia doesn’t turn around to look at her, but she does whistle the short tune back to her.

Yelena walks towards her slowly, like approaching a spooked animal. “Щхй дид йоу леаве Красная комната?” she asks. She has to know.

“I can’t talk to a rival organization,” she answers back in English, still not looking at her.

“A rival organization?” Yelena bites, shocked.

“Go back to your boyfriend, Lenka.”

“Fuck you,” Yelena spits as she reaches out and grabs Natalia’s arm. It’s almost worse, the way that Natalia allows Yelena to spin her around and keep a hold of her. Fuck, she looks good. Fuck, Yelena doesn't think she has ever been this mad in her life. “Why did you leave, Natka?” she demands. Natalia’s eyes flash—good, Yelena was getting really annoyed with this stilted professional nonsense. “What are you doing here? What does some rich boy have to do with anything? Why did you go to The Americans? Of all people, Natka, really?”

“I can’t talk to a rival organization,” she repeats.

Yelena punches her in the face.

Natalia just wipes her mouth. “Really, Lenka?”

Yelena shrugs. “Traitors cannot go unpunished.” That gets Natalia’s attention.

“You believe the lies they tell you,” Natalia whispers. “It's going to get you killed, little spider.”

Yelena leans in, because she can do that now, she realizes. They’re basically the same height; she’s not looking up at Natalia anymore. They’re equal. “You are the liar,” Yelena hisses into Natalia’s mouth, landing a hard punch to Natalia’s stomach. Yelena has the time to suck in a single breath and then Natalia’s fist finds Yelena’s jaw in an instant. Her hands grip Yelena’s pale blonde hair tightly and yank down, hard, connecting her face with Natalia's knee. The crunch of her nose is enough on its own to tell her that it's broken, but Yelena is so mad that she barely feels it. She groans involuntarily, but grips Natalia's calf and sweeps her off balance.

It’s a miracle that no one has walked down this hallway yet. Their heels are both long since discarded. Natalia has ripped a slit into her dress for easier movement, and Yelena is about to do so as well, when Natalia jumps up and does a move that Yelena doesn’t know—isn’t expecting. She is chock full of adrenaline and anger and arousal, and she just doesn’t know what she’s doing right now, and Natalia gets her arms around Yelena and restrains her.

“Stop, Rooskaya,” she orders, the first bit of Russian to slip out of her lips. Yelena kicks up and connects with her head and then Natalia punches her in the stomach. Then twice in the jaw, her blood spilling onto the floor. “Who are you?” she asks. “Who have they told you that you are? Has Pchelintsov worked with you?”

“I’m a loyal soldier. Unlike you,” she manages to slice Natalia's thigh with a knife before she dodges away. She feels insane. “I chose to fight for our country. You turned your back and spit on it. On the people who raised you. Who made you who you are. On me.” Her voice cracks with that last sentence, and it seems to snap them both out of it.

“Lenochka—” she starts.

“Don’t,” Yelena cuts her off. “It doesn’t matter.” She waves down at herself. “I’m clearly not a little girl anymore, and neither are you. It doesn’t matter.”

“Got a boyfriend and you’re all grown up now, huh?” Natalia says, and there’s an undercurrent of something in her tone that Yelena can’t discern.

“Please,” Yelena scoffs. “If I’m on this job, it’s because you’re not. You don’t get to shame me for that, sestra.”

Natalia's eyes blow wide and it feels good to finally get something like a real reaction out of her.

“I haven’t been a stupid little girl, pining after you for a long time, Natka. I’m not a traitor, either.”

“It’s abuse, Lenochka.” Yelena flinches at the name. “They kidnap children. They steal orphans and abuse them. They brainwash you to fight for them but there is no loyalty there and you know it. How many girls have disappeared over the years? It’s been almost a century, Lenochka! They’ve been doing this since the Bolsheviks time. Don’t let them keep doing it to you.”

“When were you born?” Yelena asks.

Natalia sighs. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me.”

“Lenochka—”

“Tell me.”

“I don’t know,” she admits. “I was one of the first twenty-eight, probably. Pchelintsov worked on us more than anyone. I thought I was a Bolshoi dancer for years. I didn’t even remember—” she shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t know. Dr. Kudrin worked her magic on us before she died. So, a long time.”

“Kudrin’s not dead. She pumps us all full of bullshit on the regular.”

Natalia looks sick. Sick and panicked.

“Pchelintsov’s still around, too. How do you not know this? You’ve only been gone four years.”

Natalia doesn’t look her in the eye. “Are you sure about that?”

“What?”

“What year do you think it is, Rooskaya?” Natalia asks, so gently that it feels like she is slicing Yelena open. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. “Yelena, how old do you think you are?”

No. No. No. Fucking no!

“Stop being a bitch,” Yelena spits. “You know as well as I do that it’s 1999. I’m nineteen. You’re twenty-five. It’s been four years. Seven, since I saw you in Paris.”

Natalia looks like she is going to be sick all over her dress and Yelena wants to scream. She pulls out another knife—practically a razor blade. The same kind that she nicked the Winter Soldier with, once upon a time.

“Yelena, no. It’s not. It’s—”

Yelena attacks, swiping madly, no finesse. No control. God, this is embarrassing. “Stop!” Natalia knocks the knife out of her hand and slams her head into the ground. Then, bends her arm backwards. Yelena’s whole body hurts. This is the most that Natalia has touched her in years. She is mortified to find that a part of her is elated by it. Aroused, even. “Get out while you can, Rooskaya,” she advises. Natalia presses their cheeks together. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

Yelena snaps her arm out, and her knife slices Natalia's left cheek—almost gentle, like a kiss—and then she turns, and she runs.

…

2007 ????

…

Sometimes, Yelena dreams of the tank. It's rare, but once in a while, she wakes in a cold sweat; the feeling of indifferent hands tossing her into the icy, dark water and holding her down is still potent, all these years later.

(They hardly use the tank, anymore. Don’t need to. It’s become as much of a relic as the old base in Siberia).

This is what the Americans will do to you, they warn. Pushing little heads underneath the water, leaving them there for days, weeks sometimes, with no food, no light, unable to do anything but tread water or die. Cutting into their flesh, pulling off their fingernails, force swallowing poison, burning their skin. Practice. Building up tolerance. This is what the Americans will do to you. You must be ready.

Holding them down and injecting them with unknown substances, watching their reactions. Again, and again, and again.

Bare your teeth, Natalia had said, as Yelena was dragged into their waiting arms.

She barely remembers that anymore. Maybe it wasn’t ever real. She can’t imagine why they’d put that memory into her brain, though.

Alyona passes her the rifle. Yelena assembles it in less than five seconds and crouches into position. They wait.

“I think that today is Christmas,” Alyona says, absently.

“Well, this present is gonna suck for him,” Yelena says, finding their target. She lines up the shot, feeling nothing but a dull numbness thrumming through her body. Her brain is a fog. Nothing but the mission. “Merry Christmas, asshole,” she says, and shoots a perfect head shot. “Let’s pack up.”

…

2012 ???

…

There are aliens.

Even better, there are a bunch of American idiots in tights calling themselves the Avengers—and Natalia is one of them.

Natasha, now. Apparently she is going by Natasha. Natasha Romanoff.

What a fucking joke.

…

2014 ??

…

Captain America goes rogue.

There’s a sort of hilarious irony in that. One of Natasha’s new pals going traitor. The biggest one, even.

What’s not funny is that Natasha and the Winter Soldier both go rogue, too. Yelena had thought that defecting was as rogue as it gets. Her memories are crap but she still remembers that day bright and clear. Defecting, and spilling the Red Room’s secrets to the whole internet, are two very different things.

Yelena is sort of impressed. Apparently, Natasha sat on all that for years. Maybe there was still some loyalty, stored up in there. Maybe not. Maybe she was just covering her own ass, because now everyone knows all her dirty little secrets.

(No one knows when she was born, still. She hadn’t been lying about that, at least).

Everyone is scrambling and furious and Yelena is just plain annoyed. Annoyed that she has to keep on hearing about Natasha in the news. Annoyed that because of Natasha and her new friends—new family—she has to pack up all her shit and sleep in a floating deathtrap up in the sky.

When she’s not annoyed, she’s numb. When she’s not numb, she’s… angry.

She figured out about the new memory alterations last year, she thinks. Can’t be sure, obviously. She doesn't remember how she found out. She doesn’t remember how long it’s been going on. What she does know, is that she hasn’t seen either Sveta or Katya for years. She can’t even be totally sure they existed in the first place.

Girls in red. All alone in the woods, about to get eaten up. Yelena is pretty sure that she got eaten up a long time ago. She’s not much more than a husk who can kill where they point her to. She doesn’t know when that happened, or how many times.

She’s not sure if it matters.

The only thing that she is sure of, is that Natasha is important. If Dreykov and the rest are so incredibly pissed, if they’re willing to burn up shop and move the Red Room into the fucking sky—then she is who they are afraid of. And if Natasha is what they’re afraid of, then Natasha is who she needs.

…

…

They catch her in Prague.

The drugs wore off yesterday and Yelena, with a sharp, painful clarity smacking into her brain, bolted. She didn’t get far, obviously. She’s not really surprised by it, but when one of the handlers holds her down and injects her, again, the last thing that she remembers is screaming Natasha’s name.

…

2016 ?

…

She remembers.

Again.

Not even her fault, this time. Alyona sprays her with the antidote in an attempt to stop Yelena from killing her. (But, she does anyway. It’s too late. How many of her own sisters has she already killed? She has no idea).

Yelena grabs the drugs and runs.

She’s smarter about it this time. The head start from the first attempt helps. A lot of things are still a bit of a jumble from when they used the old memory alterations, back with Pchelintsov, but she is still clearer than she’s been in years. Before she does anything, she sends the drugs to Natalia. If this all blows up in her face in the next five minutes—which is a strong possibility—then at least maybe Natalia can pull her white hat bullshit and free the rest of them. Hell, she might even consider coming back for her this time.

Doubtful. She’s gotten pretty bitter about that, over the years.

She finds an apartment in Budapest under a cover that sounds like one of Natalia’s. She lays low, tries to find the tracker that she knows is inside of her, and tries to remember all of the shit they made her forget over the years.

Her name is Yelena Belova. It might not have always been, but it’s the only one that she remembers. (She also remembers: Natalia Alianovna Romanova. Might not be her real name, but it’s also the closest she’ll get). Yelena has no idea how old she is, and isn’t that fucked up? Best guess is something like twenty-five, but she knows Kudrin’s serum has been pumping in her veins since she was prepubescent. So, it’s a solid bet that she only looks twenty-five. Probably, if her fucked up jumble of memories has any truth to them, she’s older.

But who knows, in the grand scheme of things, it’s not really the most important thing in the world. Natalia’s probably something like ninety. For sure, she’s pushing forty. Despite herself, Yelena laughs.

Then—against all better judgement—she gets really fucking drunk.

…

…

Natalia finds her.

(Because, of course she does. Yelena is squatting in her house at the moment, technically).

They pull guns on each other, because, of course they do. Yelena can remember the last time they were in a room with each other—came to blows then, too.

"Truce,” Natalia finally gasps out, when Yelena is sure that she is about to be choked to death and absolutely fucking taking Natalia with her. "Rooskaya, truce." The next thing she knows, she can breathe again, and Natalia keeps on touching her hair. Yelena gets away from her grasp, quick-like. That feels too raw, too dangerous, right now, with her memories coming back to her properly.

"Dreykov’s not dead,” Yelena says with a scoff. And from the wild panicked look Natalia gives her in response, she really thought the bastard was burnt to a crisp.

“What… no… Lena, I killed him. Years ago in Budapest. That’s how I got into SHIELD.”

“You think that killed him? You saw me after and I was still doing missions. I remember that, now.”

“I know, but I thought… I thought you were still just…” she drops down into a crouch and looks like she might puke. “Fuck. I was waiting for you to come to me. I thought—” she lets out a hiccup. “I would have come and gotten you,” she whispers. “I thought… fuck.”

Well, Yelena doesn’t really know what to do with that.

…

…

Natalia gets the tracker out of her.

(She patches her up, too. Gentle-like in a way that Yelena both aches for and wants to squirm away from).

“What?” Yelena asks, moments later after she’s felt Natalia's gaze on her for a few solid minutes. She takes another swig of her beer, silently studying her. Yelena doesn’t know what Natalia will find—doesn’t know what she wants her to find. Hopefully nothing.

“You look different,” is all she says.

Yelena frowns. “Different how?”

Natalia shrugs and a smile pulls onto her face, more of a smirk than anything else, and it’s unfamiliar but it does something to the low coil that’s building in Yelena’s belly. “Well, last time I saw you, you were pretty adamant about punching me in the face, for one. And you had on a pretty smoking dress.”

Yelena should stop drinking her beer; she’s gotta keep her wits about her. She chugs the entire rest of it in one horrible gulp. Natalia has to smack her on the back. Jesus. She can’t get into that right now. “So, why did you think you blew up Dreykov?” she asks, shifting the conversation back to easier territory.

“What do you remember?” Natalia hedges.

“Who cares. Answer my question.”

Natalia looks only marginally surprised at Yelena’s hostility. Yelena herself might be more surprised at it, actually. The thing is, Yelena’s emotions are all a confusing jumbled mess full of contradictory information and she doesn’t really know what to trust. She trusts Natalia with her life—that much has never been up for debate, even after her defection. Natalia was only ever deadly because they made her to be. In that, her conscious is probably a bit more clear than Yelena’s own. She might have been a rebellious angry little girl, and she might have always, always longed for Natalia, but if they had just let them train together, if they had let Yelena see Natalia in the Red Room, or go on missions with her, Yelena would have happily done whatever else they wanted.

(And what does that say about her?)

“All right,” Natalia says, almost easy—placating. “Let’s compare notes.”

…

…

Breaking the Red Guardian out of a maximum security prison is… kinda fun.

(Red Guardian. Or Alexei. Not Papa).

Alexei himself is… annoying. She doesn’t remember him being annoying. She remembers him being fun. Natalia goes all squirmy with him in the equation—she doesn’t want him to touch her, doesn’t want him to bring up their mission, doesn’t want him anywhere close, but she knows that they need him.

It’s weird. But Yelena rolls with it. Or, she does her best too. The thing is, with Alexei back, with the three of them going off to find Melina… it feels like family. (A very weird and completely fucked up one, but that word does—sort of—fit). And Yelena doesn’t know what to do with that anymore. She had placed the three of them—Natalia, especially—directly outside of that box years ago and she doesn’t know what to do with the pull of it now.

“Nice vest,” Alexei says, and Yelena’s whole body lights up with joy.

“It is a great vest,” she agrees. “Look at all these pockets!” Yelena catches the fond eye roll from Natalia, and her whole body lights up with something else, too.

…

…

Melina is… not how she remembered.

She—more than any of them—always felt like family. Alexei was fun, but learning that he wasn’t her father wasn’t as hard of a blow to swallow. Learning that Natalia wasn’t her sister had hurt so much in those first few years, but the longing for Natalia shifted into something else many years ago, and ‘sister’ wasn’t the pull, family was—Natalia, herself was. But Melina… she has never been able to separate Melina, the agent, from Mama in her mind. Not once.

Melina created the thing that stole all her agency away. Melina is the reason that Yelena’s memories are mashed potatoes. Melina is the reason that Yelena didn’t get to escape the Red Room years ago and follow Natalia.

The pig gasps back to life and something inside of Yelena’s chest cracks wide open.

“You were my mother,” she cries and bolts from the room.

She paces the bedroom angrily at first. Angry at her tears. Angry at the emotion. Angry that she is the only one who had been clinging to a facade of something for years. Angry that she cares so much and they all care so little. Angry that she still wants them in her life. Angry, that her entire life, all of her choices, are reduced to that stupid fucking pig, when it all comes down to it.

Then, once she’s gotten that out of her system, she surveils the room. It’s Melina’s bedroom, if nothing else out of pure masochistic curiosity, but it’s also an autopilot of her training—learn what you are dealing with.

By the time that Alexei comes into the room, she’s crouching down on the floor, tears silently flowing against her permission and she has found seventeen knives, five guns, and a hell of a lot of rope in strange places. Melina likes to read romance stories. She likes art that’s got a lot of blue in it. She likes the smell of bergamot. That’s the extent of her surveillance.

He sings to her.

He sings to her, and Yelena lets her guard down and sings back and then she feels the dart in her neck, and she doesn’t feel anything else at all.

…

…

“Yelena…” a gentle voice crackles inside her ear. “It’s Mama.”

What. The. Fuck.

…

…

Yelena does Natalia's stupid superhero pose and she feels gross and embarrassed about it. She’s taking that to the grave. No amount of torture will ever get it out of her, she’d rather die first.

She feels like she can joke around—sort of—because Melina had said that Natalia is alive. They have a plan. The two of them are working together. The two who always protected her, loved her—or faked it, really well—still are.

Yelena needs to do some protecting, too.

She doesn’t know who is here, her memories are still slowly coming back—the pathways in her brain repairing themselves as time crawls by, but she knows it’s going to be a years long process, probably. It doesn’t matter, some of them are here. Some of them are like that fucking pig, and Yelena’s not going to leave them like that.

She finds Anya first.

Suddenly, Yelena remembers her tiny little body pressed up against her own in a line. Remembers the day Natalia defected. It’s fitting, sort of, that she is the first one Yelena finds. The solid kick to her gut hurts, hurts more because Yelena remembers teaching her how to perfect it herself.

“Lena?” Anya gasps, still shaking her head as the antidote sets in.

“Yep.” Yelena shoves half of the antidotes into her arms. “We’ve got to find everyone we can and free them. Hit that button there. You’ve got to get them in the face, Anya. Nose or mouth, it’s got to be breathed in for it to work.”

“Wait, Lena—”

“This place is gonna blow up really soon,” Yelena says, cutting her off.

Anya’s eyes widen, but to her credit, her back straightens up and she holds the bag to her chest, giving Yelena a nod. “Okay,” she says. “You go left, I go right?”

Yelena grins at her. “Just like old times.”

Anya is still laughing as she runs down the hall.

Yelena finds Irina, Vera, and Sveta five minutes later. She’s… unbearably relieved to see Sveta alive, if not well. She’s not so thrilled when the three of them circle her. They get a few good—painful—hits in before Yelena can administer the antidote, but once they start shaking their heads, Yelena quickly spits out the same thing she told Anya.

“Get out,” she says. “Grab who you can if you can restrain them, but get out.”

Irina and Vera don’t need to be told twice, they give Yelena twin nods and then turn on their heels. But Sveta grabs Yelena’s arm. “We don’t have time to—”

“Do not get yourself killed, Lenka,” she snaps. A ‘fuck you’ and the closest this woman will probably ever get to an ‘I love you’ in one.

“Same to you, Svetka,” Yelena bites back. Sveta’s mouth twitches—smile or grimace, Yelena will never know—and then she’s gone.

She doesn’t know who Anya manages to find, but ten minutes later, Yelena finds what looks like—though she doesn’t pause to get a good glance—Vika, Lisa, Xenya, Roza, Nadya, Lara, Sasha, and Mariya all in the middle of nearly killing Natasha in Dreykov’s office.

Yelena moves faster than she has ever moved in her entire life.

She screams, releases the antidote, and bolts to Natalia, in that order. Yelena throws her body down over Natalia's to block the rest of them while the antidote does it’s job. “Nata,” she gasps in a panic. “Hey, look at me. Look at me. You’re fine. Okay, you’re fine,” she pulls Natalia into her arms and it’s so weird to see that she’s not any bigger than Yelena. The years between them fold away into nothing. And in that single beat, the Natalia she had put up on a pedestal disappears, and she’s just Natasha—a fellow daughter and victim of the Red Room. Someone she loved once. Someone she’s been half in love with for a long time. Someone just like her.

The other girls come back to life and Yelena has to look away from Natasha, but she doesn’t let go of her. “It’s about to blow. We’ve got to leave,” she orders. And it’s weird and it’s not when they all snap to attention and look at her for direction.

Mariya catches her eye and nods. “Okay, Lena. Let’s fucking party,” she grins and starts tugging people out of the room, smashing everything in her wake to add to the destruction.

“Dreykov got away,” Natasha says, struggling to get to her feet, but she is getting to her feet. “I’ve got to—”

“I’ll find him.”

“NO,” Natasha says quickly. “Yelena—”

Yelena does something incredibly brave and incredibly stupid. If Natasha is shocked by the kiss, Yelena doesn’t stick around to find out. She just pulls her in and kisses her quickly. There is no time to dwell on it, no time to make it much more than chaste, but Yelena knows she’d regret it if she dies in the next few minutes without ever knowing what Natasha's lips feel like against her own.

…

…

Dreykov is dead.

The Red Room is about to be nothing more than bits of metal scattered about the ground, and people who are scrambling to make some sense of their lives without it.

Melina and Alexei cared about her, in the best way that they knew how. Maybe not in the way that she needed, but they did. Natasha did. Natasha knows—at least partly—how Yelena feels about her.

Her sisters are all free.

Yelena falls, and she knows that she is going to die, but she’s not scared. She catches Natasha's eye across the roof and she grins, bright and wicked as she drops the bomb. She is laughing as she’s thrown back, nothing but joy in her lungs at the thought that she is finally, finally free. They all are.

Natasha jumps after her, though.

Later, when they have time to examine it all, Yelena holds onto that fact and her whole body warms with the feeling of being loved and knowing it. Yelena falls and there isn’t even a split second of hesitation on Natasha's face as she grabs a parachute and leaps after her.

Of course, she only hooks Yelena into it and then doesn’t hold on, and every feeling of contentment and joy evaporates in a single breath. When Yelena crashes into the ground, she’s upside down, and she can’t see Natasha. She can’t get down on her own, and she lets out a panicked yell.

Natasha whistles back.

“Oh fuck,” Yelena gasps in relief. “Oh fuck.” She can’t make her lips whistle, she just holds out her arms blindly. Natasha will find her. “I’m upside down,” she says, when Natasha's arms work around her.

“Fuck, Lenochka,” she breathes and presses their foreheads together before tugging her down and into her arms. “Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t do that again,” Natasha orders. But it doesn’t sound sure or firm or anything like that, it sounds panicked and ragged. Natasha is clinging to her.

“Sorry.”

“I mean it.”

“Okay, so do I.”

They stay like that for a long moment, holding onto each other. Yelena’s starting to feel anxious about the kiss and she squirms sort of without realizing it, trying to edge out of Natasha's grasp without making it obvious, but Natasha clings to her tighter. “Don’t do that again,” she whispers. “Please.”

“Sorry, Nata.”

Natasha looks into her eyes and Yelena squirms again, but she doesn’t try to pull away from her again. She can hear footsteps approaching and Natasha must hear them too, because her face pinches just slightly in frustration. Something like determination settles behind her eyes, and before Yelena can say anything else, she leans forward and places a—also mostly chaste—kiss to Yelena’s lips before tugging her up.

Oh. Holy fucking shit.

The other widows, Melina, and Alexei all approach and Natasha steps away. Right, Yelena sort of forgot that she’s a fugitive for other reasons, right now. She catches Yelena’s eye again before she walks away from the plane, and Yelena knows from that look that it won’t be the last time they see each other.

The Red Room is nothing but ash, and Natasha jumped after her and kissed her back. Yelena tilts her head up into the sun, and lets out a loud whoop; the grin doesn’t leave her face for a long, long time.

…

2017, probably

...

There’s a rap against her window. Yelena pauses working on the—terrible, frankly—sweater vest that she’s been trying to crochet and looks up. She finds Natasha looking back at her, smiling softly.

“Oh, fuck,” Yelena hisses and then goes to open the window. She gets absolutely tangled in the yarn first, though. “I’ve got a front door,” she says as Natasha crawls inside.

“I saw.” She’s looking at her, clearly amused as she takes in the small apartment quickly and then flops down onto the couch—a bright yellow monstrosity. Yelena found it at a rich dead person’s house. She fucking loves it. “What’s this?” she asks, nodding down to Yelena’s work in progress.

“A vest,” is all she says, because it’s Christmas Eve and she hasn’t seen Natasha in months. Not since they blew up the Red Room. She hasn’t been taking it personally—mostly, anyway—because of the whole, Being on the Run from The Whole United Nations, thing. But… still. It’s weird to see her here in Yelena’s apartment.

It’s still weird that she even has an apartment. Yelena has filled it with an eclectic bunch of things over the last few months, random furniture, and dishes, and art that she finds all over the place. There’s nothing on theme—everything clashes, at least, according to all the interior design shows she’s seen on tv, but she loves it.

It’s all hers. Her choices. Her life.

Natasha’s gaze settles back on Yelena and that soft smile blooms on her face again. “I like your place.”

“Thanks,” Yelena preens, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Me too.”

“You got any food around here?”

“Are you here for dinner?”

“You want me to be?”

“Can you cook?”

Natasha snorts. “Can you?”

“Um… I can cook some things, yes.” Yelena fidgets underneath Natasha's gaze, she can’t quite read it. Natasha is very good at keeping her cards close to her chest. Yelena’s not, really; she’s blunt. She runs on her emotions. Only when she was actively mind controlled, or it was a life or death situation, was she ever any good at keeping her mouth shut. “I’m learning. I… got kicked out of my cooking class, though,” she admits.

“What!?” Natasha laughs. “What happened?”

“I blew up some pasta.”

“How?”

“I’m not sure,” Yelena shrugs, not overly bothered. The class was a bit stressful anyway—going out in public and doing ‘regular things’ still sometimes is, overall. She likes following recipes on the internet and trying it herself at home, now.

“Well… I know how to cook pasta,” Natasha offers.

“Oh, do you want that?”

“Do you?”

“Why do you keep asking me the same questions that I ask you?” Yelena groans.

“It’s fun,” Natasha smirks.

“Ugh, you’re annoying,” Yelena says, and walks into the kitchen. She can hear Natasha following close behind her. “Where have you been?” she asks, aiming for casual and not sure if she quite hits it, if the way that Natasha's shoulders tense slightly is any indication.

“Most recently, Krakow.”

“What’re you in Poland for?” Yelena starts pulling ingredients out of her cupboards at random.

Natasha shrugs and opens her refrigerator, adding to the pile. Yelena is suddenly hit with a memory of doing this very same thing when they were younger and scrounging for food in Ohio. It takes her a minute to concentrate on Natasha’s words again. “Staying off the radar, mostly.” She surveils the pile of ingredients. “What are we gonna make with all this?”

“Um… Christmas dinner?”

The light laugh she receives in response to that is wonderful.

They’re in the middle of cooking… something, Yelena sitting up on top of the counter, stirring the pot that Natasha keeps on adding to, when Natasha's voice cuts through the light Christmas music that’s been softly playing in the background.

“You kissed me in the Red Room,” she says, and the quiet calm that Yelena had been reveling in slips away in a blink.

“Oh…” she shifts awkwardly. “Yeah.”

“Was it on purpose?”

Yelena stirs the pot again. Once, twice, three times before shooting back. “Was it on purpose when you kissed me before you left?”

Natasha chuckles. “Now who’s asking the same questions back, Rooskaya?”

Yelena shrugs, shameless, and looks down at the pot. “What is this?”

“A stew.”

“Oh. I think I like stews! What should we make for desert? Or should we order some from somewhere? I’ve collected a lot of takeout menus.”

“We’ll figure it out.” Natasha turns around, finished chopping and carefully drops the vegetables down into the pot so that none of the hot water splashes onto Yelena. It’s a small gesture that feels enormous—to Yelena, at least. Then, one of her hands drops down onto Yelena’s thigh. “So, what’s the answer?”

Yelena swallows and goes still. With her eyes closed, she can say it. “Yes, it was on purpose.”

“Was it just an impulsive thing? Because you were going to Dreykov and you thought you might not come back?” Yelena can’t get a read on her, despite Natasha being directly in her space, her hand still on Yelena’s thigh, her face is totally neutral. It’s very frustrating.

The thing is, Yelena has been thinking about this for years— more than she might even remember having access to. And Natasha might keep her cards close to her chest, and weigh everything silently, but that’s never really been how Yelena works. She spent all that time getting thrown into the tank, and pushed into extra ballet classes, and more training, because she’s blunt and doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut. Even when it’s scary. And she’s free now; her life is hers for the taking. Hers to do with what she wants, and what she wants is to stop wasting time.

“No,” she says and there is some small bit of satisfaction in the tiny flinch that she feels against her thigh. “I’d thought about it a lot.”

“Since how long?” she asks, still giving absolutely nothing away.

“Well, my memories are kind of shit,” Yelena jokes and she cracks a small smile out of Natasha. It makes her feel incredibly proud of herself, and she knows that she preens a little bit—embarrassing, but true. “I guess… I mean, I guess I sort of realized it when I was training with Mariya.”

“Mariya?”

“For the mission in Germany. On Christmas,” she grins. “When I punched you in the face.”

“Ah, memorable.” Something flickers across Natasha's face. “Wait… training with Mariya?”

Yelena squirms underneath her gaze. She wants Natasha to move away and stop touching her, but also, she really doesn’t. “Um, yeah. For the mission.”

Natasha smirks, and then something else flickers across her face. On anyone else, Yelena might say jealousy, but she’s not sure, and it’s gone before she can really study it. “Practice for Otto?”

Of course, Natasha remembers details about Yelena’s old missions. She’s had a lot longer to un-soup her shitty brain than Yelena has. “For the mission,” Yelena repeats with a shrug and watches Natasha's jaw work.

“And… that made you think that…”

“It made me realize what I was sort of thinking for a while, but didn’t really understand until then.”

“We’re dancing around our words here quite a bit,” Natasha comments as she turns back to keep chopping. Immediately, Yelena misses the warmth on her thigh.

“Yeah,” she sighs. “Would you rather I say that while Mariya was teaching me how to fuck, I figured out that I’d had a crush on you for a while, and then I was pissed at you for leaving, and then I was mind controlled, and now we’re making dinner?”

Natasha's hands still, one hand with a knife hovering over the carrots. “Well…” Yelena hears her swallow and then the chopping resumes, albeit at a slower pace. “That certainly does make it simpler, I suppose.” She chops silently for a minute and then turns back around and carefully dumps the carrots into the stew. “That surprises me,” she admits. Yelena shrugs, unsure what to say. “I… never thought about you like that,” she says, carefully not looking Yelena in the eye.

“I know,” Yelena says easily.

“I always thought about you more like a—”

“Little sister?” Natasha’s lips press into a thin line, but she nods in agreement. “Yeah,” Yelena says. “Me too, for a while. Well, older, in my case.”

“Keep stirring,” Natasha tells her, and then moves back to the refrigerator in search of something.

Yelena grabs the spoon and swipes it around the pot a few times, kicking her legs back and forth against the table. She watches, fascinated, as Natasha pours some cream into the pot. “What’s that for?”

“To make it taste better,” Natasha says with a grin. Yelena makes a face and Natasha swipes her with a towel, playfully. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes,” Yelena says immediately. Natasha stills, going back to serious. A bummer; playful Natasha is fun. “How come you kissed me when you left? If you think of me as a little sister?”

“I said that I always thought of you that way,” she stresses. “Someone younger who I needed to protect.” Her voice spills out like a cloud, all soft and sort of boneless; she sounds like she is testing the words out, but she isn’t sure whether or not she wants to commit to them. She taps at Yelena’s thigh again. “Keep stirring. It’ll burn otherwise.” Yelena stirs slowly and watches Natasha play with the towel in her hands.

“So,” Yelena prods. “Why, then?”

Natasha looks up and meets Yelena’s eyes. “I wanted to,” she says. Then, after a beat where they both just… stare at each other, she adds, “I was curious. You almost died.”

“How’s Poland?” Yelena asks, changing the subject completely. Natasha blinks and then rolls with it. She shrugs and begins looking around for a loaf of bread. “How’s Captain America? Or your boyfriend? His boyfriend? Do you and Captain America share a boyfriend?”

“Jesus,” Natasha lets out a shaky laugh.

“I got the drop on him when I was nine,” she says, proudly.

Natasha whirls around, curiosity and fear and pride running over her face. “Did you?”

“Well, I got my knife to his neck.”

Natasha’s face pulls into the brightest grin since she crawled thorough Yelena’s window. “Good for you, Lena,” she says. Yelena can tell that she is actually proud.

“Our lives are weird,” she says, grinning back.

“That’s the truest thing you’ve ever said.”

“So, do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Share a boyfriend with Captain America?”

“Sort of. I guess.”

“You guess?”

“A better way to put it might be that once upon a time, he was Captain America’s boyfriend. And then, the Soviets and Department X captured him and brainwashed him, and for a while there, he was my boyfriend. And now, he’s Captain America’s again—sort of. There’s a lot to work out, there. He had a different kind of memory fuckery than we did. Or, than you did, for sure. Some of it I had, too.”

“Really?”

Natasha looks uncomfortable with the topic, but she doesn’t lie. She nods as she starts to cut the bread into slices. Yelena watches her as she continually stirs the stew as instructed. She hasn’t had a lot of opportunities over the years to do that—just, watch Natasha. It’s both the most natural thing in the world, and the strangest experience of her life to just sit here and be domestic with Natasha. They’re just making dinner. But, they’re making dinner in Yelena’s home. Hers. Legal and everything. (Well, legal with her new fake id, but, semantics). The ghosts of Dreykov, and Pchelintsov, and Kudrin, of Olga, Lev Petrov, and all the others are just that… nothing more than ghosts. Memories that can only haunt her in an emotional and mental sense, they’ll never get their hands on either of them ever again.

“What was your longest record in the tank?” Yelena asks.

Natasha goes as still as Yelena’s ever seen her. Then answers, “The first time, nine.”

“Your first time?” Wow. As far as Yelena knew, no one ever survived more than five days their first time, most not more than that on repeat performances, either. “I only did four, the first time.” Natasha lets out a noise that Yelena has never heard from her before, but it sounds pained. “Did you cut yourself?” she asks, hoping down off the counter and moving to grab her.

“No,” Natasha says. “Just… picturing you, at six, in the fucking tank for four days is… not a great image. I think I’ve still got some residual protective instincts stored up, where you’re concerned. All grown up or not,” she shrugs, trying too hard for casual and failing miserably. “Sorry.”

“Oh.” Maybe this wasn’t something they should be talking about, but… Yelena doesn’t know who else to talk about it with. She wants to talk about it with Natasha. She’s the one who understands. Sure, the other girls lived through it, too. And, she has numbers on speed dial on a burner phone for Anya, Sveta, Mariya, and Roza—Katya, she’d found out, after everything, had actually been dead for a decade—and she’s spoken to them all a few times. She and Anya actually started the cooking class together, but it’s not the same, somehow. The person who she always wanted to talk about it with was Nata.

“What about your main record?” Natasha asks. She’s pulled herself together, got a teasing, playful energy to her again and maybe she has always wanted—needed—to talk to Yelena about this, too.

“Eleven. After the fight with your boyfriend.”

Natasha quirks an eyebrow. “You got the tank for surviving the Winter Soldier?”

“No. I got the tank for screaming at him, asking if he saw you after he told me to be faster and keep my teeth sharp.”

“Fuck,” Natasha breathes. There’s probably something halfway malicious about the satisfaction Yelena is getting out of pulling these reactions from her. She’s had a lifetime of careful, pointed, antagonistic conversations—she doesn’t want to keep doing that. Poking Natasha where it hurts, pushing her own pain onto Nata isn’t fair. She’s here. She came back, more than once. Yelena needs to accept that for what it is—Natasha cares. Maybe not in the same way Yelena does, maybe not the exact way that she wants, but she still does, and that’s the important part. She should stop poking Natasha to discern her feelings and actually just… get to know each other properly as adults. They’ve missed enough time already.

“Sorry,” Yelena says. “We can talk about something else. How’s Captain America? Do you think he’ll let me jump off his shield sometime? It looks like fun. Is he your boyfriend, now?”

Natasha laughs, bright and unrestrained. “No, he’s not. But I can ask him sometime about the shield.”

“Really?” Yelena had mostly been joking to shift the subject, but now, the prospect is delightfully full of possibilities. She can’t hold in her excitement.

Natasha turns and looks at her, almost fond. “Sure. He’d have fun too.”

“Isn’t he boring and stuffy?”

“Nope,” Natasha laughs. “That’s an act. Or, a perception thing—people assume. He’s actually a scrappy, loudmouthed, impulsive, artist.” Natasha tilts her head to the side, considering. “He might also be my best friend.”

“Really?”

“Probably,” Natasha says, shrugging, but it doesn’t work to make the words seem less casual. Natasha might have had quite a few more years of freedom, of making her own choices, and dealing with her trauma, and having people in her life who give a shit about her wellbeing, but Yelena can tell that it all still comes sort of hard for her. She has to actively work at it.

“How much longer till the stew’s done, you think?”

Natasha inspects it, turning the heat down low and placing the top on. “Leave it for about twenty minutes or so I think, and then we’ll be good to go.”

“Perfect,” Yelena grabs her arm and drags her back into the living room. “Come on. Look at all the stuff I’ve found.” Yelena proceeds to tell her how she acquired each unique item of furniture, artwork, and item of clothing for the next forty minutes. Natasha listens far more patiently than Yelena would have thought. She might even be enjoying herself. Thankfully, the stew still tastes wonderful. “You’re a really good cook,” she exclaims, halfway through her second bowl.

Natasha beams from the other side of the couch. “Thank you,”she says softly.

“Are you going back to Poland next?” Yelena asks. She really wants to ask: will it be months before I see you again? but thinks better of it. Natasha seems to suss out her meaning all the same, she always was good at reading Yelena, who never was all that good at hiding her emotions.

“No,” is all that she says for a few minutes. Holding her mug of tea, she stares out the window. Yelena has a pretty good view of the city. She picked San Francisco on a map at random—closing her eyes, spinning a globe and hoping that she didn’t land on Antartica. She was delighted by it, though; she’s never been to the west coast of the United States before. She has a semi decent view of the ocean from the roof of her building, and a really nice one of the city from her living room window. It’s all lit up now, the night sky blazing with soft decorative lights. “I got you a present,” she says, breaking the silence.

“What!?” Yelena scans her body again and sees no possible way that she could have hidden a box anywhere on her person in the skintight jeans and soft flannel shirt that she’s wearing. But, looks can be deceptive. Natasha laughs. “Where is it?” Yelena asks. She’s never gotten a real Christmas present before—only the fake ones they got to take pictures of back in Ohio. She suspects that Natasha knows this, or has at least assumed. “The vest is for you,” she says, honestly. “But it’s not done. I didn’t expect you to come here and I didn’t know how to find you so… I didn’t think there was a hurry.”

“There isn’t,” Natasha insists. “Green?” she nods down to the discarded yarn bundle.

“It’s festive,” Yelena defends. “Plus, it will bring our the color in your eyes,” she shrugs.

Across from her, Natasha goes still. Surprised, she looks over at Yelena and if Yelena didn’t know any better, she’d think there was a hint of a blush on her cheeks. “Well,” she clears her throat. “Is it going to have a million pockets?” she asks, playful and teasing.

“Um… yes. Obviously. But, you might need to have it be pocketless for a while until I figure out how to add them.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Yelena waits for three beats, four. “So, where’s my present?” she asks and is rewarded with a loud burst of laughter.

“Still impatient, I see,” Natasha says. She shifts, lifting her hips up and digging something out of a pocket. Passing over a small package, Yelena shivers slightly as their fingers brush. It feels purposeful, but she might be reading too much into it based on what she wants it to mean. Yelena rips it open in two seconds flat. “My number is programmed in there,” Natasha says. “All of them, actually.”

Yelena looks up at her, quirking an eyebrow. “Every burner number I’ve ever rotated through. So you can always reach me, when you want to.”

“Oh,” Yelena breathes out, floored. It’s the greatest gift she could have given her. The surest, clearest sign that she wants Yelena around. “Can I hug you?” she asks, halfway towards flinging herself at Natasha in joy already. But, consent is important, especially for people like them. Natasha looks equal parts wary and fond—the fondness wins out, and she nods. Yelena wastes no time and throws herself across the couch, landing solidly in Natasha’s lap as she throws her arms around Natasha’s neck. “Thank you,” she whispers.

“Merry Christmas, Lenusha,” Natasha whispers back.

“Merry Christmas, Natulya.”

“Can I stay the night?” Natasha asks, tucking a strand of Yelena’s hair behind her ear. She shivers at the gesture. “Actually,” Natasha amends, hands still in Yelena’s hair. “Can I stay until New Year’s? I’m planning my next hideout, but I haven’t picked one yet.”

“Oh,” Yelena’s whole body lights up in excitement at the prospect of having Natasha here for more than a few hours. “Yeah!” her face falls. “Oh, I don’t have another bed.”

They’re still hugging. Well… at this point, maybe it’s cuddling? Yelena doesn’t know. She has nothing to base it on, she’s never been cuddled before. Hugs have been pretty few and far in between, too. She’s just… still resting in Natasha’s lap, and Natasha’s arms are still looped around her. She doesn’t want to move. This is really nice.

Natasha chuckles. “This couch is pretty comfortable. I don’t mind.”

“Oh, okay. Then yes please.”

She feels Natasha’s lips press against her temple softly and then hover there. “Lena?”

“Hum?” her eyes are drifting closed.

“I think that this is the best Christmas I’ve ever had,” she muses. Yelena can feel her fingers slowly trailing up and down her hair and it feels fantastic.

“Really? But… you’ve been free for ages.”

“I thought I was,” Natasha agrees. “But…” she’s silent for a few moments and Yelena just relaxes in her arms, Natasha’s fingers running through her hair while she collects her thoughts. Yelena is perfectly happy to wait her out. “I’m realizing that even though I’ve had a couple now with people that I trust and respect, and maybe even love, I’ve never been with anyone who knew me. Understood, you know?”

“People you love?” Yelena asks, because she can’t help herself.

Natasha snorts. “Platonically,” she says. “Clint Barton and his wife—well, ex-wife, now—Bobbi. I stayed with them for a while when I first defected. I’ve spent the holidays with his new wife and kids before, too. I… I was with Clint, back then. He was the one who found me on my last Red Room mission. So, I guess maybe he knows me the best. But, there’s still a lot that I don’t ever talk about with him.”

“And you can talk to me about it?” Yelena asks, hopefully.

“Yeah,” is all that Natasha says, easy. Like it’s a given. “Better yet, most of it I don’t even have to talk about, you just… already know.”

“But you will sometimes anyway, right?”

“Yeah, Lena,” she promises, voice tender. “I will.” Then, “are you going to fall asleep on me?”

“Probably.”

Natasha hums and shifts a little so that they’re both lying down, Yelena still halfway on top of her. “Okay.” They’re silent for a few minutes, and Yelena is actually very close to falling asleep when Natasha speaks up again, voice so soft, she has to strain to listen, even though Nata’s mouth is right there. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Girlfriend?” Yelena asks, once her mind catches up.

“No,” she says, a smirk evident in her tone. “Not yet.”

Yelena falls asleep on a couch that she picked herself, in a home that belongs to her, cuddled gently in Natasha’s arms, a bright smile on her face. Merry Christmas, indeed.