Chapter Text
YEKATERINA HAS BEEN A WEAPON FOR AS LONG AS SHE REMEMBERS. She had been picked up by Hydra, it wasn't even known as such back then, when she was only a child. She had been trained by the Red Room and experimented on. She was known as subject #073 until she turned 8 when they finally gave her a code name. Red Widow. She was a project of Dr Joy Heart. She wasn't the only one. The Doctor had many projects. She made Super Soldiers like it was nothing. It was thanks to her that years later Hydra was able to make the Winter Soldier.
Yekaterina had been aware what the people around her were doing was abuse. It was a crime against humanity. She couldn't fight back. She was programmed not to. All of the subjects were. They couldn't say no to orders once they were activated. Speaking of orders, Yekaterina hadn't received any in a long while. They had her frozen like the rest but she could still see and hear what was going on around her. She was aware of her surroundings. She tried not to be. She tried so hard to shut off her consciousness and forget about her life. She tried to remember the happiness of her early childhood, no matter how early it had been stolen from her.
Yekaterina was born in Petrograd in 1923 to Ivan and Alyona Rasskazov. Her parents loved her immensely. She was their first, and only, child. A blessing they called her. They were older than most people when they had her but that didn't stop them from giving her a great childhood. They took her on walks and played games with her. They also taught her everything they could. She missed them. They died when she was five.
It was a horrible thing. Her father had made an enemy of a very powerful politician and he wanted revenge. Originally it was supposed to be Yekaterina and her mother who were meant to die but her father bargained for her life. He begged them to take his life instead of hers. They would've never agreed to it were it not for Dr Joy Heart showing up and saying she'd take in Yekaterina. That she could be useful to them. Her father realised his mistake in the last moments of his life but he was still happy his daughter got to live. Her mother was long dead, her brains on their living room carpet when he knelt before her and said the words she'd never forget.
"No matter what happens, I love you, I'm proud of you, your mother as well. You are a good girl. You will do great things in life, I know it. Do not forget where you came from. You are Yekaterina Rasskazova, and nothing will change that, remember it my little sunshine," her father spoke with a smile and then they blew his brains out of his head and she ended up covered in them.
She had been only five and had seen her parents brutally murdered. She had been only five and taken away from all she ever knew. She had been only five when they trained her until she couldn't stand. Made her fight for her life on a daily basis. Pumped her full of serums of which only half was truly useful and all had been agonising. Five when she had been taught how to keep silent even through the pain of torture, five when she felt herself die as a person and be born as a machine. A machine made to kill. A heartless shell. She pushed herself into the deepest recesses of her mind to protect herself from what she had done. It never helped.
She wasn't five anymore. She was much older. Physically she was 25 years old but mentally? She was always aware. She had spent the majority of her life frozen, but she remembered all those years. She was nearly a hundred years of age. It was a new millennium. A new century. And maybe it could be a new start. She heard the agents speaking. She was going to be sent on a mission. There was a deserter Black Widow and the Red Room asked for her to dispose of her. Hydra was willing to allow it as that little Widow was messing with their plans.
Yekaterina hoped she could convince her fellow Widow to not kill her. To help her. She was done having what little she had of her memories about her parents erased again and again and again. She always remembered in the end, but it wasn't pleasant. It was a horrible feeling of pressure and pain and she hated it with her whole being. Maybe this little Black Widow could help her get away if she managed to get away herself. That was if she didn't know who she was. But that was unlikely. She was the Red Widow. She was a Red Room legend. The young Widow was most definitely aware of her.
The thing that was going to make this mission harder was the Soldier. Winter Soldier and her had a history. Back during World War 2, she was a trainee of Red Skull, who had taken a liking to her, and she had met Captain America and the Howling Commandoes. Sergeant James Buchannan Barnes was a pain in her ass at that time. The two of them had been what you'd call mortal enemies. Except she had a crush on him. She was young then, it was understandable. And then he fell. And Dr Zola found him. And he used Dr Heart's formulae to make him into a Super Soldier.
She knew the Captain would recognise her. She hoped to make Barnes recognise him. His memory had never returned fully. Hoping would not get her anywhere though, therefore she had plans. She would need to meet the Widow and the Captain without the Soldier around and she would have to explain her plight to them. Her desire to finally know freedom. Her origin. She would have to be Yekaterina. The one that died when she had been five. Otherwise, it could very well cause her death.