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Dreykov drives Natasha the whole way in the passenger seat of his car. He plays the radio the whole time. He taps his fingers to the beat and doesn't say anything at all, but she can feel his attention slimy on her skin. It sticks to her like oil and her tears do nothing to get it off.
She leans her cheek against the cool glass of the window and watches Russia roll by. Forests and fields and road, all of it dull and gray in the night and headlights. Her breathing twitches in and out and she can't stop crying, silent tears brimming up and rolling over again and again and again.
She closes her eyes and keeps them that way. Pretends that she is in the car with her mom and dad and Yelena, dozing against the window as they return from a day at the lake just out of town. When they get home she will pretend to be asleep so that her dad will pick her up and carry her softly to bed, even though he knows she's just pretending, and Yelena will be laid down in her bed just across the room, and her mom will kiss them both on the forehead and whisper 'good night, brave girls.'
It's all a lie, but a pretty one. She can't quite sink into it the way she wants to. Instead, her stomach is rolling and sick and her heart pounds harsh against her throat even though she is sitting still. The idea of being picked up and carried off by her—the man who pretended to be her dad isn't comforting anymore. The woman who was not her mom she last saw bleeding and being carted away. Yelena—Yelena—
Her breath shudders more roughly than before, and she can feel Dreykov's gaze slide oil-slick over her skin. Natasha doesn't want his attention, so she sits statue-still and keeps her eyes closed even though if she kept them open she'd be able to keep track of her location, or something else useless like that. It doesn't matter what she does now. There's no getting out of this. She's always known that, she just… forgot.
Some many miles later, the motor slows to a stop, tires crunching on gravel. Dreykov opens his door, and then hers. The smell of it hits her first, of the trees and air and all those things that she can't describe but knows as soon as she breathes it in. She knows it, and it's like she's being stuffed into a tiny box from the inside out.
"Welcome home," Dreykov says in his sickening voice. His hand on her shoulder is tight and half on the side of her neck and the oil of it soaks into her skin where it will remain, forever.
The Red Room looms above her.
Dreykov walks her in through the double doors, the wooden floor, the flickering hallway-lights and then to a room. He leaves her there without another word, squeezing her shoulder tight once before he's gone. He's gone and Natasha is in a room that is smaller than most, a room with a table and two chairs and a fan hanging still on the ceiling light.
She stands there and doesn't move for a minute. Two. More.
It's exactly when she takes a step towards the door that it swings open, too-quiet too-quick. There in the doorway is a tall thin woman with gray hair and a pinched face.
"Natalia," she greets. She is holding a pair of scissors which are also long and steely and old, thin and almost more like pincers than anything else.
Natasha does not greet Madame B. She does not stand straight-backed, heels together, perfect marble. She crosses her arms tightly across her chest and scowls. "Where's Yelena?" Her voice does not shake, and she's grateful for it.
"Sit down," Madame B says and Natasha does it immediately, and then hates herself for it. She doesn't dare to stand back up, though. The woman who she had hoped to never see again moves behind her, and begins to comb her cold spindly fingers through her hair.
Like spider legs against her scalp. On the soft and fragile skin of her neck, sharp nails. Natasha tenses and earns a chiding 'tch' in response, because she is not supposed to react. She is supposed to be marble.
"Yelena," she says again, "Is she here?" Can I see her, she does not say because even now, out of practice and emotional and weak and all those things a Widow should not be, she is not stupid. Madame B does not respond for a long moment. Her hands are still and cold.
"Who?"
"My sister," Natasha says—no, snaps, voice sharp and angry. Those spider-legs with needle-nails dig into the thin, soft skin of her scalp. The stillness of it is scarier than the pain.
Madame B makes a noise more air than anything else. Natasha presses her hands flat against her thighs and tries not to breathe for as long as she can. She is caught between the girl she is and the girl she had spent three years pretending to be. She wants Yelena more than anything, enough to talk back, even.
Now, though, she is pinned in place by the fear of unknowing. The fear that anything could be on Madame B's face, in her hands, next to her. The fear of what could happen next.
Something cool and sharp and metal presses against the back of Natasha's neck, not hard enough to draw blood but almost. Natasha shuts her eyes and breathes exactly the way she should, slow and smooth and unaffected.
There is a slight tug and a smooth metal shick and then something light and soft is brushing her neck, falling down to the ground. In her periphery Natasha can just barely see it, the tuft of blue against the dark glossy floorboards. Something in her heart jumps at the sight of it.
They had dyed her hair blue in the bathroom sink, with rubber gloves and Natasha sitting on Yelena's little stepstool. It had been cold and wet and made her shiver as it went on, but her mom's hands were soft and gentle and nice as they ran through her hair. Yelena had brought the cassette player and plugged it into the hall outlet right outside the door, played her 'American Pie' song at top volume as she danced and sang along. When their dad had come home he had seen the bathroom with its blue-dye smudges and the back of Natasha's neck all blue and hair still damp from rinsing it out. He had ruffled a hand through her hair and called her 'the coolest girl around'.
All that, now, falling to the floor in tufts and pieces. Don't cry. Don't cry. Her head feels cold and naked everywhere the scissors pass by. Head tilting forwards, she watches as pieces of her bangs fall past her eyes and unceremoniously to the ground. Like it's nothing, like it's not something she got to pick and something she liked and something that was hers. Was.
By the end of it, Natasha feels like everything inside of her has been all sucked out. Gone with her blue and dropped unceremoniously to the ground. She doesn't move as Madame B steps out from behind her and sets a little hand-mirror on the table.
Natasha's hair is in little red tufts, uneven and patchy around her head. She brings up a hand unconsciously, brushing it across the back of her head as if to confirm that it's just as bad as the front. All red. Just like before.
She stares in the mirror with glass-blank eyes and doesn't feel anything at all.