Chapter Two
San Francisco, USA, 1971
It had been two months since Natasha had freed the Winter Soldier from his icy prison, and he had slowly begun to remember bits and pieces. They, like Natasha’s own memories, were fragmented and broken, but enough to tell them two things about the person the Soldier had once been. The first was that his name was Bucky; the second that he was American.
It was the latter fact that had convinced Natasha that they should flee to the US, and now here they were, free at long last- albeit cold, worn and hungry. It had been a long few months, with all of Natasha’s ID’s nulled and Bucky’s metal arm.
But that didn’t matter now; they had got here in the end.
Natasha was startled from her light slumber beside Bucky on a park bench by scuffling from overhead. She glanced up, eyes widening as she saw a figure leap between two buildings. And maybe it was her training, or some long-buried curiosity, but something compelled her to follow him: a voice whispering, Hurry up or you’ll be late! like the white rabbit in wonderland.
So she found herself following some red-costumed lunatic to a roof several hundred metres away from her original position, where he spotted her mid-flip and turned to face her. He quirked a smile, raising his eyebrows at her.
“And, you are…?”
“No-one you know,” Natasha responded, an automatic reply.
“Well, you know, normally people introduce themselves before they try to kill me.”
“Yeah? They do that often?”
“All the time, actually.”
“Well maybe you shouldn’t piss people off so much.”
“Maybe I’ll try that.”
And Natasha didn’t know why she was doing this, talking to someone she didn’t know so calmly, almost casually, despite the tension in every single cell of her body.
“They call me Daredevil,” the stranger offered.
“Figures,” she commented, glancing him up and down, before back at his face. “They call me the Black Widow.”
“What are you doing here, spider-girl?”
“Running.”
“From what?”
“Home.”
He shrugs. “I guess I can relate to that. Got into some pretty bad stuff, huh?”
“Oh, believe me, I was the bad stuff.” He smirked.
“Well, Black Widow, you gotta place to stay?”
“Why, are you offering yours? That’s incredibly reckless, you know. I could kill you in your sleep.”
“So could I. What do you say?”
Natasha didn’t falter. “If you let my friend stay too.”
Life fell into a routine, an oddity in Natasha’s scattered life.
She would wake up in the morning, and the others would wake too- metal-armed Bucky and blind-eyed Matt. They would eat breakfast in small talk, or, more often, silence. Then Matt would leave for his job as a lawyer and Bucky would stay in and Natasha would go out and wander the streets, until they returned at night and went out together, hunting crime on the streets of San Francisco.
And it was bizarre, yes, but it was also kind of nice, and the closest Natasha had ever gotten to normal- would ever get to normal- in a long time. She loved that.
She didn’t think she’d ever loved anything before.
San Francisco, USA, 1973
It was bizarre to Natasha, how things could change so much. In two short years she’d gone from being a runaway assassin, a fugitive just learning to feel, to… this. A working, breathing, feeling person that enjoyed the life she lived.
Going for runs in the morning air. The coffee from that shop a couple blocks from their apartment. Her job as an amateur fashion designer. Fighting crime with her two best friends under the cover of night.
Being someone else, of her own design this time.
She could hear something.
Wind whipped Natasha’s long hair against her face, the sting of it barely registering. In the distance, her eagle-eyes could see the gleam of moonlight on Bucky’s metal arm; Matt was nowhere to be seen, but she knew he was there. Off doing his crazy stunts, like the madman he was.
She rolled her eyes.
She crouched against the roof, waiting for a second sound to follow the clatter she’d just heard. After a while of straining her senses, she was beginning to attribute the sound to an alleycat, when she heard the low scraping of a body against stone.
At once, she was on her feet, spinning around, the fired bullet missing her by mere centimetres. She heard a muffled curse- a curse in Russian, no less- and located her attacker, over on the next roof, a woman with sharp angles and blonde hair The stranger rose to her feet, a smirk on her face.
“Natalia Romanova!” she called, voice caught in the wind. “Prepare to die!”
Not today, Natasha thought, before jumping away, leaping to the next roof and dodging the bullet. “Дерьмо!” the stranger cursed, and a sense of familiarity washed over Natasha at the voice, but she ignored it. The stranger took off running after her, and Natasha knew that she could probably take her.
So she turned, taking the stranger by surprise, and kicked them in the stomach. The stranger caught her foot, however, and pushed her back, and so their fight began, guns forgotten.
And Natasha had to admit, the stranger was good.
The two of them were almost at a standstill, neither landing any attacks or failing to block. They were both getting tired; Natasha could tell. Finally, as the sky began to lighten, Natasha threw her to the tiles, and kept her down with a foot to the stomach.
“Who are you?” she snarled, glaring down at the stranger, who was writing and struggling. “Who sent you?”
“I am the Black Widow, сука!”
Then she twisted, knocking Natasha off-balance, and disappeared into the morning.
Natasha could only watch her go.
“She said she’s the Black Widow?” Matt asked in confusion. “But Nat, you’re the Black Widow!”
“She must be one of the others,” Natasha said, half to herself. She was pacing the floor of their apartment, thinking. The familiarity of her voice, the way she fought, everything pointed to the stranger being one of the girls from the Red Room.
But if that was true, why couldn’t she remember her?
She began to sift through her memories of the Red Room, throwing away the pale memories of dancing in the ballet and instead focusing on the darker, fleeting ones. The faces and names of her fellow Widows were blurred, lost to her, along with her youth.
A frown crossed her face as she glanced up from the floor and out of the window.
Natasha saw the stranger a lot over the next few months. Sometimes they were only glimpses, a flash of her face amongst the crowd in the bustling streets; other times they were prolonged, framed by the haze of a fight. And sometimes they were neither of those things; a passing in the street or a meeting at a store counter, in which neither spoke in words but rather in looks.
Now she sat on a park bench, her sketches in her lap and her head in her hand. She’d been threatened with unemployment again by her boss; her designs just weren’t selling, and she wasn’t sure whether to be glad or not. It’s not like making dresses was her skill set, after all.
Someone sits on the bench beside her, and she stiffens when she realises it’s the stranger, eating her lunch like she’s a normal person.
“Hello, Natalia,” she greets without looking at Natasha. Natasha doesn’t look at her, either, as she replies,
“Hello.”
“Given up yet?” the stranger asked. Natasha snorted.
“No. Why do you want me dead, anyway?”
“It’s my assignment. You’ve caused us a lot of trouble, you know. They sent me to take you out.”
“You can’t kill a Black Widow.”
“Not unless you step on it.”
“Are you insinuating I kill you, Black Widow?”
“What- oh. Right. Silly me.” This last part was sung, accompanied with a laugh. “Come on, Natalia, quit running. Stop fighting. You should have known you couldn’t hide forever.”
Every part of Natasha was tense, stretched taut as she replied, “I’m not hiding. I’m waiting.” Play the waiting game.
“Yeah? For what?”
“Why are you really here, Rooskaya?” The stranger laughed, but the amusement soon turned to bitterness.
“You don’t even know my name, do you? We grew up together, you know.”
“I’d figured that much.”
“My name is Yelena Belova, and I was always second place. No match for the perfect Natalia, oh no. Didn’t matter that I was the youngest girl there, and was better than everyone else; if you couldn’t beat Natalia Romanova, you weren’t anyone.” Her voice slipped from the American accent she’d been pulling into a more Russian one, the words becoming faster and more jumbled.
Natasha still didn’t remember her. She supposes she should feel bad, but she really doesn’t. This world is no place for her. She doesn’t understand what it means- to be the Black Widow.
“I don’t have time for children,” she said, voice empty, face blank, standing up. “You ought to leave this city, and never return.” She began to walk, yet Yelena had jumped up, racing after her.
“Wait!” she was yelling. “Wait! Natalia Romanova, you will wait!” Natasha slowed her step, turning to the younger girl.
“What is it?” she asked, her voice so flat it was barely a question.
“What do you mean of it? I am not a child!”
“No?” Natasha quirked an eyebrow. “Because you are acting like a child.”
“I am not-” Yelena paused, realising how childish she did sound.
“Go, Yelena. Return to Russia. Stay in the states. Just do one thing for me: stop trying to be me, or beat me, or whatever you’re trying to do. Find out who you are, be your own person. Then, come back and find me, and show me what you made of your life.”
She turned, and without another word, walked away, leaving Yelena staring after her, a feeling of finality in the air.
San Francisco, USA, 1974
The streets of San Francisco were probably safe, or so Natasha hoped, as she sat with Bucky and Matt on their apartment roof, a bottle of alcohol between them and the stars above. Fireworks were lighting up the sky, colourful and loud and empty. They held no emotion, no awe or wonder; they were just flat. Natasha wondered whether growing up with the things would have made her any different.
She concluded that any other upbringing would have made her different, and probably a better person.
The alcohol in her veins made it hard to care.
Down below, people were celebrating, kissing on the cheeks and yelling about the new year. They were wishing a happy one, but Natasha didn’t see how anybody’s year could be happy.
Then there were footsteps on the tile and Matt spun around first, followed by the other two. There, framed by the sparks of the fireworks, was Yelena Belova, wearing a dress just like those of the partygoers, hair tied in girlish bows, a grin on her face. Natasha’s hand tightened on her gun. Yelena saw and laughed.
“Hi, Natalia,” she greeted. “I’m back.”
“I can see that.”
The four of them watched each other for a while, uneasiness in the air.
“I’m not here to kill you,” Yelena said finally. “It’s just- I’ve nowhere to go. You were right, Natalia, but now I’m homeless.”
“There’s no room-” Matt tried to put in, but Bucky shrugged.
“Let her stay.” Yelena grinned, bouncing on her feet.
“Great!” she said, and Natasha was wary of the chirpy persona she seemed to be sporting. “So, uh, who’s the guy with the metal arm?”
“What are you doing?” Natasha was sat in the window, sketchbook in her lap, trying to come up with some new designs before she got fired. The words of her boss rang in her ears- create some designs that work or find a way to sell your old ones, or you’re out!
Yelena was watching her curiously, the TV turned down low, flashing away in the background.
“Working,” Natasha replied. “I’ve gotta come up with some better designs. Or sell the old ones. Or I’m fired.” Yelena was looking over her shoulder now, nose scrunched up.
“Okay, ew,” she said, in perfect imitation of the Americans they lived amongst. “Where are these old designs? I could help you sell them.”
“Yeah? How?”
“I met a girl, couple months back- told me that anything can look good on the right person. Seriously, let me help.”
“...Okay.”
Natasha leaned against the door, the barest of smiles on her face. Matt noticed, and frowned at her.
“What’s got you so happy?” he asked.
“Got a promotion,” she responded. His eyebrows disappeared into his hair.
“I thought you were gonna get fired?”
“So did I.”
“I told you!” Yelena said with a laugh. “Didn’t I?”
“Yeah,” Natasha said with a faint smile. “Yeah, you did.”
San Francisco, USA, 1975
The stars were cold and white, flat and empty above them. Natasha and Yelena sat on the roof of one of the taller buildings, legs dangling over the edge, buffeted by the wind.
“Do you remember it? The Red Room?” Yelena asks. Natasha glances her way, but Yelena’s face betrays nothing. Despite her usual chirpy attitude, Yelena was a Black Widow, and she could be damn elusive if she wanted to be.
“Vaguely.” Natasha tries to piece the fragments together in her mind for the thousandth time, then drops them. “I remember a room full of mirrors. I remember practicing to kill. But I also remember dancing.” Yelena grimaced.
“They washed you into thinking you were a dancer? They washed me into thinking I was an actress. Or they tried to, anyway.”
“What do you mean, tried to?” Natasha’s voice was sharp, the way it became whenever she was curious.
“I could normally see past it after a couple of days. I never said anything though. Didn’t want to end up like you.”
“Like me?”
“You don’t remember? Then again, I’m not surprised. You always saw through the washes and the wipes. You’d start screaming at them, battering with your fists, saying that they were liars and you knew the truth and you wanted to go home, right this instant.” Her chuckle is humourless. “By the time you were ten, you were going through multiple wipes and washes every day, yet you always screamed. We called you the Girl Who Sees. But then one day you stopped screaming, so I guess you were the Girl Who Saw.”
Natasha felt cold, and it wasn’t anything to do with the spring breeze.
When they came, Natasha probably shouldn’t have been surprised, yet she was. She guessed it hadn’t crossed her mind that they’d realise Yelena hadn’t killed her; then again, she hadn’t counted on Yelena’s modelling photos appearing in Russia.
They fought, sure, but Matt was soon down, and Bucky followed not long after. Natasha could only watch as, minutes later, Yelena slipped from the rooftop, mouth open in a silent scream.
Moments later, she was overwhelmed.
Department X, Russia, 1975
Natasha woke to pain and confusion, bright lights and hushed voices speaking in Russian. She was strapped down to something- a chair, she realised after a moment. That’s when the panic set in.
She began to fight, arching her back and kicking and clenching her hands into fists. The voices became louder, panicked, yet she was too dazed to discern the words. Only one thing mattered: escape.
Suddenly, her bones shook, her heart skipped a beat, her mind went blank. Her body contorted and then let go, and she found herself unable to move. This happened several more times, and she found herself lying, breath coming in quick, sobbing gasps, with no way to escape.
She opened her eyes and stared into the face of the man behind the glass.
Then her mind began to fizz and break, and consciousness escaped her once more.