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They came for her during class, interrupting the last morning lesson of the day, and just like that Natasha knew something was off. Every girl of her original group that had made it to fifteen — not many — knew by then that if your presence was requested elsewhere from where your morning schedule assigned you, chances were that your presence wasn't needed at all.
The two guards had entered without uttering a word, just a rapid signal to the teacher, causing every minimal noise in the room to disappear completely. They had started analyzing the girls in front of them, their gaze lingering on each pair of turned down eyes and straightened shoulders, until it had stopped on the only red hair, burning in the small room.
Natasha forced herself not to squeeze her eyes shut when they called her name — Natalia, they reminded her, not Natasha — slowly raising her head while a million thoughts started swirling within it. Her mind wandered in search of what she could have possibly done wrong, the scoreboards in all the training rooms keeping her name at the top, her grades ensuring the other girls' envious glances at her.
This time, though, those same eyes held almost nothing in them, while she strode past the desks and followed the pair of men out of the room. Instead of envy, she could sense faint relief, concern, and maybe even some extent of pity. Thinking about it, she wasn't sure which one she preferred.
They walked her through the almost desert hallways in silence, not bothering to give any explanation, but she wasn't sure she would have been able to hear them either way, the unusual noise of her fast thinking suppressing everything around.
The Red Room functioned based on an action-reaction principle. It was the very first rule you were taught and the last you would be reminded of, if you broke it one too many times. It kept you on edge, always aiming to perfection, straining to be flawless in order to be something, anything. But it also gave you a sick-sense of comfort, a path to follow to achieve safety, a thread you had to grip tightly because your life was tied to it.
When you messed up, you knew what would come next, the yells, the hits, the beatings. The fact was, this time Natalia didn't know where she had slipped, so she was clueless about what to brace herself for. As far as she was concerned, not knowing was much worse than any, more tangible, punishment.
After each corner, each turn, each step, her mind was becoming more and more a rambling mess, her stare blank while she was focusing all of her attention on keeping her breathing steady. Never show fear. Never show weakness.
She couldn't keep track of her thoughts, she just wanted to be over with it, walking, waiting, living, for it all to stop, stop, stop—
they stopped.
Natalia suddenly realized she had never seen this section of the facility, and she felt her thinking going back to rational, while she took in details about the new surroundings, effectively grounding herself.
They were at the end of a narrow corridor, the greyish light coming in through large windows at their left. She could see the courtyard from the opposite side to the one she had grown used to. The Red Room was a complex of various buildings, and no group of girls was allowed to step out of their assigned ones if not specifically told so. Which brought her back to the current situation.
She fixated her gaze on the closed metal door in front of them, the silence behind it giving nothing away, while the guard at her right knocked a couple of times.
She heard light and measured footsteps before the door opened, revealing a woman with grey hair braided neatly and a stern look that barely scanned the two men, before setting on Natalia. She nodded sharply, and her mouth twisted slightly in a grimace resembling a grin. Natalia allowed herself to relax, only a bit.
Seemed like she wasn't going to die just yet.
Behind the woman, a man with black hair and a lab coat was standing holding a folder. Natalia couldn't refrain her eyes from widening ever so slightly as she immediatly recognized him, and she was struck with a renewed feeling of uncertainty.
Two years prior, they had started to put in her schedule additional medical visits, during which they injected her with some kind of transparent substance, runned some tests and then dismissed her with the only explanation that it was something they were testing to make her stronger. From what she was aware of, no one else had to endure this particular procedure, so it was clear that she had to expect something to happen sooner or later.
Looking now at the man, who had been present at each one of those sessions, Natalia was hit by the feeling that that was it, this had to be connected to whatever they were putting into her body. Still not enough information to ease her mind.
She was snapped back by the sudden voice of the woman, and it felt like she hadn't heard anything besides her own thoughts in forever.
"Natalia Alianovna Romanova, I've heard things about you" She paused and looked pointedly at her, as if daring her to say or do something.
"The best of your class, the youngest to ever be assigned on a long-term mission outside of Russia" The barest of flickers in her gaze. "Am I right?"
America. Ohio.
Yes, she remembered that. It felt like a lifetime ago, and she found the memories to appear blurry in her mind, but they were there. They were real. However, she couldn't bring herself to think about it too much, because suddenly a wave of nausea overcame her senses, and the only thing she could do was nodding uncertainly.
She soon winced, lowering her head, upon realizing that hesitation and lack of a verbal response were rookie mistakes, no respect, she should have been better, now they would—
They weren't doing anything. Natalia risked glancing up at the woman, but to her utter confusion the look on her face seemed almost pleased. She furrowed her brow, while noticing the doctor scribbling something on his papers.
"Follow me."
The woman walked her through the room, the doctor right behind them after having dismissed the other two men.
"How have you come this far?"
Natalia looked at the back of the woman's head, unsure if she had heard it right.
"I—" Her breath hitched and she mentally cursed herself. "I'm sorry?"
"I mean, what have you done to be here today, still in training, while most of your old companions...are not? What have you done to gain your place?"
They had reached another closed door, and the woman turned to face her, waiting for her answer.
"Or do you think it was all luck?"
Natalia swallowed slightly and held her stare.
"No, of course not, I—" she tought about it for a split second. "I've always followed the rules..." pondering the woman's reaction, the smallest uplifting of her lips, she felt safe enough to continue with more convinction. "I've always given my best to reach the Red Room expectations, trying to prove my loyality and never contradicting orders—"
"Enough." Natalia fell silent and straightened her back, trying to convey in the gesture all the confidence she didn't actually feel.
"Seems we do really have some promising students, after all. Well, you'll be pleased to know that it has been decided to give you an opportunity to prove your loyality to us, in a more concrete way than scores and simulations."
It was a facade. Natalia knew that what the woman really meant was that her loyality was going to be tested. Still, she nodded, pretending to feel honoured. Because that was what the Red Room really teached.
Pretend, pretend, pretend.
Deceive the target to get what you have to, be it a clueless stranger or the girl sleeping right next to you every night up till now.
Show to be proud of fighting for the cause, even if nobody really explained to you what that actually is, just knowing that you're useless to them if you don't.
Be a fake daughter, a fake sister, to people acting like a family out of orders, pretend to be happy. Fake it so hard that you might start believing it.
The woman opened the door and led Natalia inside.
It was a small, bare room, illuminated by that same cold light, filtering through windows too high to reach. For just a moment, Natalia found herself in a similar room, smaller, darker. She was smaller too, about five years old, and she was being told to stand facing the wall, with her back to the door, completely exposed to whatever might be lurking in the dark behind her.
Some minutes earlier, she had awakened with a start from a nightmare, crying loudly, something that had never happened to her before. Somebody had heard her, dragged her to that room and locked her up till the next morning.
Ever since, instead of crying out of fear, she taught herself to be afraid of crying.
Now, scanning the room searching for a long-forgotten version of herself, her gaze was instead caught by the back of a figure slumped on a small chair, head covered and hands tied together behind her.
The woman spoke again.
"You have been with us for quite some time by now, so it should be very clear to you that failure is not welcomed in our program. Isn't it?"
"I—" Natalia looked at the burlap sack covering the person's head, and she noticed blonde locks sticking out from it. She felt her mind trying to chase a thought, a blurred memory she couldn't reach. She ignored the nausea raising within her once again. "Yes."
"This young girl here has been given the chance to prove her value multiple times already. Each time, she barely made it. Last time, her mistake cost the life of her partner. We can't risk something like this happening again, can we?"
Suddenly, a muffled sob came out from under the sack. She was probably gagged, the ability to do anything but listening taken from her.
"No."
The girl was shaking slightly, her fingers clenching and unclenching in order to gain some semblance of control.
The woman nodded beside her.
"Kill her."
She should have known. She should have seen it coming the second she had entered this fucking room. And she shouldn't have been surprised, it was standard procedure. So why the hell those two words felt like a punch in the gut?
She mechanically took the gun that the woman was offering her. She wanted to scream and she didn't even know why.
No, she knew. She knew it from the way she couldn't took her eyes off blonde hair and smaller hands.
It could be...
Her free hand trembled imperceptibly and she felt dizziness starting to overtake her.
Breathe. Keep it together.
She had to do this. If she didn't, she was dead, and that girl would be killed all the same.
She aimed the gun directly at the girl's covered head.
It was a test. During the mission in Ohio, she had let herself become emotionally attached to another child. Another widow.
Yelena.
(She dared to linger a little too much on the name, and the nausea became so strong she felt like she was going to throw up right there and then. But she couldn't. She wouldn't allow it.)
And of course they had noticed. She hadn't seen Yelena since their return back to Russia, but she had right to belive that she was still alive, or they would have thrown it in her face. And now, now they wanted to make sure she had got her priorities straight.
Naturally, this could all have been a bluff, that girl could have been another young, blonde widow who had been selected to become the key to Natalia's salvation.
But what if Yelena had slipped, made one mistake too many, and had been deemed expendable?
She couldn't think about that. If she was to do this, she had to belive it was not the girl she had held in her arms just a few years ago, swearing to protect her from any monster hidden in the dark. The girl she had called 'sister' and had reminded (or taught) her what love and kind touches were.
Anyone else. Please, just not—
Not that she actually wanted to kill another girl, one of her equal — or did she? — but it was not like she hadn't done it before. It would be just like any other time.
She watched the girl's clenched fists, white knukles and tense fingers twitching spasmodically in a silent, pointless plead.
Natalia pulled the trigger.
The girl's grip relaxed.
—•—
She run.
After being dismissed, she had walked out of the room with measured pace, closed the door and then found herself stumbling through endless corridors, blindly looking for the nearest exit.
Luckily, nobody got in her way, the halls were desert — she figured it was around lunch time, but she couldn't tell, it felt like she had been away forever and just for an instant at the same time.
Her brain was a mess, fragments all over the place, thoughts pushing to be brought to the surface, the mind at war with the body. She only knew she had to find a door and get the hell out of there.
Yeah, like she could.
Her breath was growing more and more ragged with every new room she found herself in, and finally, finally, right when she thought she would just scream out her frustration, the courtyard appeared in front of her.
She bolted, rushing as far as possible, before doubling over against a tree and throwing up what little she had had for breakfast.
That wasn't good.
The moments before kept replaying in her mind, memories jumbled together — unadulterated fear, blonde hair, helplessness, little arms around her waist, fingers lying limp.
She felt sick.
Closing her eyes, she leaned her hands and forehead against the tree, its roughness helping grounding her once again.
She took a few deep breaths, and for the first time in four years she allowed herself to let deep-buried memories flood her mind, careless of the resurfacing nausea her body was trying to fight her with.
For once, she wanted to let it all out. She needed to let it out, or she felt like she would break apart irremediably.
She knew she had been happy. She had had a family. Sort of. Fake maybe. Still the best she had ever had. But Yelena, Yelena, she hadn't been fake. The way she looked at her and trusted Natalia blindly — Natasha, her big sister scared of nothing, that would protect her from everything — it had been all, painfully, true.
And now, now said big sister was scared. Scared of what she was becoming, killing a little girl while hoping it was some stranger, scared that instead she might have just—
Scared of having failed her.
That very thought made her stomach churn one final time, and she bent again, emptying what little it still contained.
She couldn't do this. She couldn't live with the doubt, the lingering possibility that the only person to have ever loved her unconditionally may have just been wiped away from her world, and by her own hand.
She needed to know if she still had a reason to go on, to keep fighting.
With a new resolve in her eyes, she straightened up, wiped at her mouth and settled her breath.
She didn't care if it was a very reckless idea, if it could cost her her life, or worse. For once, she let her needs overshadow the risks.
—•—
Having an objective always helped her maintain focus, during training and during missions, and this time was no different. She went through the rest of the day with a perfect mask of impassibility on — the one she used almost everyday — so that whoever watched her would see normal, cold, Natalia, unbothered by killing, unbothered by anything.
If anybody had been instructed to keep an eye on her, hoping to find her slipping, wavering, they would be left very much disappointed. She was not one to be caught.
At least, not that day.
Because that night, a few hours after curfew, she deftly unlocked her handcuffs — locks-picking was teached very soon in the program, but by then, none the girls saw the point of using this skill outside of missions — and silently slided out of her dormitory, along with the shadows crawling on the walls.
Having been there for most of her life, with only the steps of the guards passing by lulling her to sleep, she had been able to memorize patrol shifts and paths.
She moved like a ghost, her presence light and her steps undetectable, just like they had taught her. She suddenly found herself in the other sector of the facility, the one her group had not the clearance to access. The one she had been to just that morning.
She remembered where they had taken her, the left wing: even in her dizzy state, she had noticed that the two buildings were almost identical, so this meant that dorms would be in the opposite direction of training rooms.
She turned right, and after a while found herself at the entrance of the room where another group of girls, younger, was resting, missing a piece from the previous night. And Natalia, standing on the treshold, hated herself, because she just hoped it wasn't her piece.
Suddenly hesitant, she moved a few steps in, taking in the sight of two rows of beds, their outlines faintly visible in the moonlight. It was unusual for someone to wander through the dorms at night, but it happened, and whether it was a guard or an older widow, the girls knew better than to ask questions about it, to avoid being dragged in something that didn't concern them.
So Natalia went on inspecting every bed, one per one, and every time that she was met with the sight of a dormient girl with hair too dark, nose too small, or eyebrows not quite of the right shape, her heartbeat increased a little, and her feet moved faster, her still silent pace growing more urgent.
When there were only four beds left, and the next one she neared was empty, seemengly not having been touched since that morning, she felt her heart skip a beat and her head spinning.
It was her fault. There would always remain an empty spot, here, in the world, and it was all her fault. An hole in her, and she was the cause of it. Yelena—
But then her frantic gaze stopped right on the last bed of that same row, the one nearest to the wall, and she saw the back of another blonde head.
She stood there, frozen-still, eyes glued before her, breaths coming out more controlled but heart pounding deafening in her ears.
She swallowed and forced her legs to move, slowly making her way around the bed and positionating herself on the other side, clenching her jaw and closing her eyes, trying to shut her thoughts down.
Finally, she took one final deep breath and reopened them, looking directly at the girl's face.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Blonde curls she had grown accostumed to braid. A nose she had seen many times scrunched up in confusion, trying to understand some articulated english word. Eyebrows that used to frown at her, when she had bad days and didn't feel like leaving her room.
Yelena.
Suddenly, she gasped for air, as if until that very moment she had been drowning, and the weight that was dragging her down, sinking, had been lifted by smaller hands she hadn't held in years.
She allowed herself only a moment to let all her senses be clouded with a veil of happiness she thought she wouldn't be able to feel ever again, not after Ohio.
Yelena was here. She was here.
Natalia snapped out of her dazed state and looked over at the girl more accurately, her sight adapted to the darkness by now. She had grown up. Her features were still childish, but she noticed how her cheeks were more gaunt and her muscles more tense. The carefree expression that the little girl in her memories kept even while sleeping was long-forgotten. Then, her gaze painfully trailed along the outstretched arm on the other side of the girl, handcuffed to the headboard with the hand tight around one of the cold metal bars.
She felt a pang of guilt going through her, a sharp reminder that it was still her fault, she had still failed to protect her. She had let her belive their beautiful lie, and then she wasn't able to stop the blonde's world from shattering between her all too tiny hands.
And now, she was here, in Natalia's world.
She let out a shaky breath and slowly lowered herself to the ground, sitting cross-legged beside the bed, so as to look directly in Yelena's face.
She took the time to study her more properly, now that she could see her more clearly. Just until the day before, she tought she would have never had the opportunity to see the passing of time on that child, locked away in a corner of her brain.
She honestly hadn't even thought about her — her partner? her sister? another one of her victims? — in a too long time, and that realization set heavily inside of her, adding to a long list of sins that followed her everywhere, and she apparently couldn't get rid of.
She leaned forward and let her chin rest on the thin pillow, closing her eyes and just basking in the warmth of another (living) body being this near to hers, no fear, no judgment, no expectations.
Listening to Yelena's steady and slow breaths, the undeniable evidence that she was alive, it was all she needed.
She was being selfish, she knew as much, but she also ached deeply to steal a moment more of that far and strange feeling of familiarity that came along with the gesture.
Unfortunately, she also knew that her time was limited, and keep pushing her luck any further would probably just end up getting them both killed. It wasn't worth risking for just some more minutes of comfort.
She opened her eyes, starting to pull away, but stopped instantly when she found another pair staring back right at hers.
Natalia was frozen in place, not even daring to breathe, while Yelena's eyebrows started taking that same typical frown, her eyes moving fast to take in the figure merely inches from her.
"Tasha?"
Natasha felt like she had been electrocuted, that whispered word resounding loud in her head, a piece of her shattered world being put back in its place.
And then, the next thing she knew was that she could breathe again.
"Lena..."
The blonde's breath hitched and her eyes shone with recognition — if Natasha hadn't known any better, she would have sworn that they were glistening with something else, but it was too dark to tell — while her frown deepend. There was an infinite moment of silence in which one of them fixed her eyes directly on green ones, trying to read into them some kind of truth, and the other hoped she could find it, because she herself surely didn't know what it was.
The redhead felt bare and exposed under that uncharacteristically mature gaze, unable to do anything but wait for the verdict.
"Why are you here?"
Why didn't you come sooner?
That's what Natasha heard in her mind, the same question she had been asking to herself since she had spotted Yelena in that corner of the dorm. So, when she looked in the blonde's eyes and found only genuine confusion, without all the hate she instead felt within her, she started to think that maybe, just maybe, Yelena had never actually blamed it all on her.
Or maybe she just hadn't realized yet who she truily was, what she was capable of.
"I—" She closed her eyes and released yet another shaky breath, pausing for a moment while the events of that morning replayed themself in front of her.
"I did something, Lena..." She was talking so quietly she almost couldn't hear herself, the words struggling to come out. The blonde just remained in silence, waiting for her to continue. She swallowed and tried to explain herself a bit better, to convey why instead she shouldn't have been there at all. Why she didn't deserve that privilege.
"Something...something really bad, this morning, and—" She stopped abrubtly when she felt her nose being nudged softly. Her eyes opened and were met with nothing else but sympathy. Deep comprehension. Acceptance.
She immediately knew she wouldn't have to add anything else. Yelena understood. She understood, and Natasha wished she didn't.
Suddenly, she found herself missing that faint contact, and she noticed how Yelena had had to uncomfortably stretch her handcuffed arm in order to brefly reach her.
So she took the initiative this time and scooted closer, tentatively touching Yelena's forehead with hers, while heat began to gather up to her eyes. The blonde wasted no time in pressing them more firmly together and exhaling by her nose, while bringing up her free hand to touch Natasha's neck, sliding it to cup her cheek, her fingers analyzing the redhead features.
She was almost reverential in the gesture, a seriousness that didn't belong to her before, but at the same time kind of fitted her. She seemed like an adult, and it wasn't fair, it was not fair, that she, too, had to grow up so quickly.
Natasha brought up her own right hand and tucked a lock of blonde hair behind Yelena's ear, then let it rest against her neck, feeling her pulse. With that final confirmation, she felt the last of her barriers crumble down, and tears slowly began to escape from her eyes.
She grabbed the girl's hand on her cheek with her left hand, keeping it in place but interlacing their fingers together, while whispering "I'm sorry" over and over again, hoping that one day it would mean something more than empty words and meaningless promises.
She cried because Yelena was here with her, and she was alive. She cried because the girl she had killed that morning wasn't. She cried because she could. Because for the first time she felt safe enough to do so. She was feeling safe.
Yelena had tears rolling down her cheeks as well now, pulling Natasha as close as possible, trying to give her all the silent support she could.
But time was not on their side, and each minute passing by tightened the noose around them.
Natasha let her tears subside, and her breath became steadier, but she still didn't dare to move, keeping her eyes closed and absorbing every drop of that warm feeling.
"I have to go back" She finally whispered, opening her eyes and looking apologetically at the blonde.
Yelena brokenly but understandingly murmured back.
"I know"
Natasha gently squeezed her hand, then started to pull back, but she was unexpectedly tugged forward, Yelena's lips pressing against each of her cheeks, kissing the still lingering tears trails.
"Mama told us to kiss it better when it hurt, right?"
Natasha felt the lump in her throat grow and nodded, unable to speak. She slowly stood up, still keeping their hands clasped together, then reached down and kissed Yelena's forehead. She felt the blonde exhale softly and relaxe under her touch. She lingered there a few seconds, then painfully straightened up.
She moved her lips in a voiceless "Goodnight, Lena" that was answered with a faint but genuine smile that gave her all the courage she needed, then let the blonde's hand go and turned away.
She made it back to her dorm easily, and she put the handcuffs back on, lying down with renewed resolve within her and a fire in her green eyes.
She had a new objective.
One day, she would get them both out of there.