Chapter 1
Yelena was ten when she was urged from her bed nestled between the other Widows in her group, her handcuff unlocked as she sat up sleepily. She was made to follow one of the guards out of the room, the hard floor cold underneath her bare feet. She trailed after the guard, almost positive that she was about to receive training or go on an op.
She didn’t recognize the hallway she was led down but they eventually stopped in front of a heavy-looking metal door. The guard swiped a keycard into the keypad next to the door and then tugged it open.
Yelena tried to peer into the dark room but was promptly shoved forward, stumbling into the room before the door swung shut behind her.
It was a small room, six paces long by six paces wide. There was a small metal bed nearly stretching the length of the room nestled against the left wall, a tiny toilet tucked in the corner in the back right, and a single yellow bulb illuminated the concrete walls and flooring in a soft glow.
Yelena thought it was supposed to be a punishment at first. She had never been put into solitary before but she knew of other girls who were after acting out and killing a Widow they weren’t supposed to.
Yelena hadn’t done anything wrong, at least not that she could remember. She stood in the middle of the chilly room and tried to think of some rule she broke or any person she may have slighted.
The concrete walls and flooring were made so that the room didn’t hold heat. There was only a thin scratchy sheet on the bed to cover herself with. Yelena hesitantly sat on the bed, much firmer than her other one back with the other girls, and she lay down. The bulb above her buzzed like an annoying fly, occasionally flickering.
Yelena was sure that she was going to be let out for training but she slept until her body made her wake up. There were no windows or clocks but Yelena was almost positive that it was morning and that she was going to be late for breakfast.
She paced the length of the room until her stomach gurgled unhappily and Yelena knew by then that breakfast had most certainly passed and that she may have missed lunch as well.
She lost count of how long she had been in there. Time blurred and finally, the door to the room opened and she was let out. She was taken to an empty dining hall and given a tray to eat before she was taken outside for an op. The light immediately hurt her eyes and the sun felt so hot against her skin that she wouldn’t be too surprised if her blood was boiling.
She had foolishly thought that she had served her time. She completed her mission, returned, debriefed, and was fed.
They put her back in The Room. Yelena wasn’t sure what kind of room it was yet. She didn’t know if it was supposed to be hers or if it was just solitary. She wasn’t sure if she should apologize for something she was unaware of or just keep quiet.
She jumped the first time the buzzing bulb above her flicked off. She started to learn to keep track of days whenever it would go off and turn on. She’d be woken by it minutes before she was fetched. It would turn off when she was meant to sleep.
She soon came to understand that The Room was her new room. She wouldn’t be sharing with the other girls anymore. She was suddenly isolated, not allowed to even look or talk to them when training. They started to pull her out of classes to learn with private tutors.
It was okay at first. Yelena didn’t have to worry about watching her back with the worry that one of the other girls would snap and take advantage of her but she slowly grew to miss the quiet whisperings that were allowed during their half hour of free time before bed when girls would usually braid each other's wet hair from showers or show off the marks they earned on their skin that day to compare who had the biggest one.
Yelena got more free time. There was nobody to watch her in The Room, Yelena couldn’t even see a camera hidden anywhere. Being alone and having time to herself was nice at first but she quickly grew to miss the other girls. She missed sleeping in the same room as them.
She was lonely.
Time slowly passed by and the week her blanket got a hole in it was the week she turned eleven. She felt so cold and alone. The warmth had been sapped from her and her skin felt cold to the touch, the sun was always too hot whenever she went outside. She grew to hate The Room. She never wanted to go back in there.
She tried asking to return to her bed from before but was promptly punished and quickly learned not to ask again.
And then one day Yelena was pacing the length of The Room, agitated by the constant buzzing from the lightbulb above her when she was broken out of her thoughts by a little humming noise.
Her head jerked to look at the source and came face to face with a girl sitting on her bed, wild red curls sticking up and bright green eyes that peered around eagerly.
Yelena hadn’t seen the door open. Nobody had entered. On top of that, the girl wasn’t even wearing the proper uniform, instead dressed in a striped red shirt and dark blue overalls, kicking her feet with untied laces back and forth until she saw Yelena staring.
A toothy grip stretched over her face, revealing a gap in her front teeth as she greeted Yelena. “Hi!”
Yelena blinked at her, already on edge. “Who are you?” She demanded quietly.
It must be a test. They must have sent her there for a reason. Perhaps they expected Yelena to kill her. Or maybe they wanted Yelena to train her. The girl looked only a little younger than Yelena.
At Yelena’s harsh question, the girl stopped her kicking and paused for a moment, scrunching her face up to think. She even brought a finger up to tap her chin. “Hmm…” She eventually shrugged. “I dunno.”
“You don’t know your own name?” Yelena repeated, squinting at her for some sign that she was lying. The girl shook her head causing her messy hair to swish side to side with the fast movement. “Well, do you know who I am?”
“Of course I do!” The girl perked up, bobbing her head in a nod. “You’re Yelena!”
“Who told you that?” Yelena demanded, moving across the room toward the girl and reaching out.
“You did, silly,” the girl laughed.
Yelena’s hand suddenly found itself grabbing at nothing, the bed completely empty.
“Hello?” Yelena called out. She turned around in a circle, looking for any sign of the girl. She even checked under the bed.
“Whatcha lookin’ for?”
Yelena jumped, hitting her head on the bottom of the bed as she shoved herself off to spin around and look in the corner where the girl was standing. “How did you do that?!”
“Do what?” The girl rocked on her feet as Yelena stood and stared at her.
Yelena took a moment to just look at her. “Are you… real?” She wondered if perhaps the Red Room was making her see things.
“What’s the difference if I am or not?” The girl shrugged, pacing the length of the room in a similar manner to how Yelena did. “It’s tiny in here. And cold. You should get a blanket.”
“What is your name?” Yelena demanded once again. She shouldn’t have expected a different answer, the girl just gave her a nonchalant shrug. “Well, you need something I can call you!”
“Then give me a name,” the girl said, stopping her pacing to peer up at Yelena. “Make it a good one.”
Yelena had never had to name a person before, even if they may not possibly be real. She stopped and stared down at the girl for a few moments. “You remind me of my sister.”
She truly did. Unruly red hair and bright green eyes on a skinny frame.
The girl tilted her head to the side, grinning up at her as if pleased at the comparison. “What was her name?”
“Natasha. But she told me once that she had another name. Natalia.” Yelena observed the red-headed girl for a moment. “I think I’ll call you Lia.”
“Lia.” The girl echoed Yelena before rocking excitedly on her feet. “I like it!”
The door suddenly opened and light flooded into the room. Yelena squinted at the harsh light as she backed against the wall to let the guard set dinner on her bed as had become the usual. Lia was gone and the guard gave no indication that there should have been another person in the room.
When the door closed and clicked shut, Yelena slowly blinked to get rid of the spots in her eyes from the harsh light in the hallway that blinded her before approaching the plastic tray balanced on her mattress.
“That looks gross.”
Yelena jumped when Lia appeared next to her, inspecting the grayish meat and rice.
“I think that they should give you potatoes. I like potatoes. And corn,” Lia commented as Yelena sat on her bed. “Hey, what’s that?” Lia pointed to the little clear cup containing a few colored pills.
“Vitamins,” Yelena replied, picking the cup up and dumping them into her mouth, washing them down with the plastic cup of juice. “There’s no window in here so I need ones to replace the sun.”
Lia watched from where she stood at the foot of the bed as Yelena ate her dinner. While Yelena ate, Lia was exploring every inch of the room as if she would find something other than a bed and a toilet.
When Yelena finished, Lia piped up, “Want to play a game?”
“Like what?” Yelena asked, glancing over at her.
Lia thought about it for a moment before she perked up. “Let’s play I spy!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands together excitedly. “I’ll go first. I spy…”
It had been a long time since Yelena had played a game like such. There wasn’t much for either of them to guess so the game ended quickly but Yelena’s heart raced at just being able to listen to Lia’s giggles.
She had missed her fellow Black Widows but Lia was good enough company.
Yelena knew that Lia wasn’t real.
Lia wasn’t real but she was there and Yelena couldn’t seem to get rid of her. When she tried to ask Lia why she was there, the girl would just give a small shrug and then distract Yelena with more games.
Lia helped make the time go by faster with her endless games and jokes and stories.
Yelena found quickly that Lia never left The Room. In fact, Lia would never show herself unless Yelena was all alone in The Room.
That was alright. It wasn’t so lonely anymore with Lia there. Lia was a little break, a bit of happiness as she encouraged games and singing. She was the reason that Yelena started to look forward to going back to The Room.
Before Yelena knew it, she turned twelve. She realized that it had been about a year since she had first seen Lia and the girl hadn’t aged or grown. Yelena was even taller but when mentioned Lia would simply grin and comment “I guess those vitamins worked, huh?”
Then came the day when Yelena severely fucked a mission up and was punished hard. She had to practically be carried back to The Room and was dumped on her bed before being left alone. Yelena rolled onto her side, groaning in pain as tears blurred her vision.
Lia wasn’t there. Yelena peered around the room and searched for her but there was no sign of the bright red hair anywhere.
There was no Lia but there was someone else.
“Do you have an owie?”
Yelena knew that there were no little boys in the Red Room. Still, that doesn’t stop the one that was currently standing in front of her beside the bed, big brown eyes peering up at her as the little boy nervously twisted his yellow shirt.
She knew that he was like Lia when she reached out a shaking hand to try and touch his caramel hair. He was suddenly gone and then on the other side of The Room by the toilet, hunched in on himself.
“Where’s Lia?” Yelena demanded, just wanting to see her playful friend after a long and horrible day. She hadn’t been aware that she could scare figments of her imagination until the little boy flinched and drew his shoulders up to his ears as he stared down at his shoes.
Yelena sighed, reaching up to brush a strand of hair out of her face as she took a few deep breaths to calm down, her voice softer when she spoke. “Who are you?”
The boy shrugged slightly, still nervously wringing the hem of his shirt with his fingers. He looked familiar but Yelena knew that she had never met him before.
The longer she stared at him, the more he looked everywhere but at her. It wasn’t until his soft little voice started to quietly hum a familiar tune that it hit her where she had seen him before, a memory tugged out of the back of her mind.
“You look like Christopher Robin,” Yelena commented, the boy’s head jerking up to look at her. “From the Winnie the Pooh books.”
The boy’s lips finally twitch up in a small smile as he nodded. “I like Winnie the Pooh,” he said softly.
“I think I’ll call you Christopher,” Yelena declared, observing the timid little boy for a few moments. “Come here.”
Christopher crossed the room to stand in front of her, clasping his hands behind his back as he observed her. “Do you have an owie?” He repeated his original question.
Yelena winced slightly. The boy was young and couldn’t be older than six, at least Yelena guessed. He probably only came up to slightly above her waist if she stood up. Lia would reach her shoulder.
Yelena couldn’t help but wonder why her mind would conjure up a boy, never mind one so little as him. “Yeah.”
“Oh.” Christopher went back to rocking on his feet, humming quietly as he observed her as if he wasn’t sure what else to say. “Does… does it hurt?”
Yelena sucked in a sharp breath that caused pain to flare across her back. “Yeah.”
Christopher frowned slightly, his eyes soft and innocent. “I hope that it gets better soon,” he told her earnestly.
Yelena gave him a weak smile before she turned over in her bed to face the wall. “I think I'm gonna to go sleep.”
“Sweet dreams,” Christopher wished her.
She closed her eyes and did indeed have sweet dreams.
It took a few weeks of switching between Lia and Christopher before they were out at the same time. They barely acknowledged each other, their attention mainly entirely on Yelena.
Lia had started to call her Lee-Lee months ago and Christopher wanted his own special name for her so he started to call her Yellie-Bellie.
Whenever the duo did acknowledge each other, usually only during games, Christopher would call Lia “Ail” because he said her name was too short for a nickname. Lia, in turn, called him “Risto”.
Yelena noticed how different they were immediately. Lia was outgoing and playful, always trying to cheer Yelena up and take her attention off of whatever was wrong. Christopher was soft-spoken and sweet, always preferring to hum or sing to her whenever she didn’t feel up to playing.
Lia was all fun and games while Christopher was all comfort and kindness. They started to appear whenever Yelena needed one or the other. Christopher would appear when she was upset or in pain, soothing her with his tiny voice as he reassured her that it was okay.
When she got caught talking to nothing for the first time, the guard grabbed her by her shirt, convinced that there was someone in The Room with her. She tried over and over again to tell him that there was nobody there and that she was alone but she was yanked out of The Room and more guards were sent in to investigate.
She was even brought before the General and made to explain herself.
“I just…” Yelena tried to come up with a good excuse, startled when she saw Christopher smiling sweetly at her from just behind the desk chair, his eyes soft and reassuring. Yelena stared in astonishment for a few seconds longer than she should have before she quickly corrected herself. “I am thinking out loud. It is too quiet in the room. I didn’t think I was bothering anyone. I’m sorry, sir. Please punish me so that I may do better.”
From then on, she would occasionally see Lia or Christopher outside of The Room. When she would go on missions, they would make small comments to encourage her or keep her focused. Yelena had learned to ignore their presence and instead let their voice whisper in her ear.
It was reassuring and comforting to know that they were always there, even if she couldn’t see them. It made going through everything easier.
When Yelena was fifteen and a man took the very last of her innocence away, leaving her bleeding and raw, she sent Lia and Christopher away and refused to talk to them. She didn’t want them to see. They were still little, even if Yelena was growing up.
It was the first time that she had ever seen Lia and Christopher genuinely upset, Christopher’s lower lip wobbling with a whine while Lia stared at the wall chewing on her lower lip.
As Yelena lay on her bed in The Room, the pain between her legs too much to bear, she felt a presence by the foot of the bed. It was too big to be Christopher but also didn’t feel like Lia.
“Go away. I told you to not bother me,” Yelena mumbled, curling into a tighter ball.
“That’s no way to greet someone new, is it Kiddo?”
Yelena jolted upright at the new voice, her eyes landing on a teenager a little older than her standing at the foot of her bed. They offer her a grin, short inky black hair framing their tanned face in a wild mess as bright blue eyes stared back. They were much taller than Yelena was, although Yelena wasn’t too tall in the first place.
Yelena’s eyes raked down their body, taking in the sight of the deep red shirt covered by a leather jacket and deep blue jeans with patches sewn to cover holds, ratty red sneakers completing their look.
“Who are you?” Yelena whispered. They were older than she was and Yelena didn’t think they came to be her friend or comfort her like Lia or Christopher.
“Who do you want me to be?” They ask, sticking their thumbs into the pockets of their jeans.
Yelena watched them carefully, wincing when the pain between her legs reminded her of why she sent the others away in the first place. She lay back down, curling up tighter, and listened as quiet footsteps neared.
“It’s gonna be okay, Kiddo,” they promised, perching on the edge of the bed just out of reach. “The pain will go away.”
Tears filled Yelena’s eyes at the comment. “They’re gonna do it again and again.”
“It won’t hurt anymore soon.” They sounded so sure of it. “Besides, pain makes you stronger, right? And you are very, very strong.”
“I don’t feel strong,” Yelena whimpered, reaching up to cover her face.
“Maybe not. But you are. I promise,” they said, shifting to rest their elbows on their knees. “Why don’t you give me a name?”
“You don’t have a name?” Yelena whispered. Lia and Christopher had been her age or younger and she never thought twice of naming them. “But you’re so… old.”
“Maybe I do have a name. But it’s not about that, it’s about you. What do you want to call me, Kiddo?” They asked with a smile.
Yelena peered down at them, taking a few moments to try and think of a name. “Are you a boy or a girl?”
They shrug in reply. “Why do you need to know that to give me a name?”
Yelena pressed her lips together in thought. She stared at them for a long time before she made a suggestion. “LJ?”
They grinned. “Nice! I like it. Rolls right off the tongue. What’s it stand for?”
Yelena’s face flushed scarlet as they buried their head into their pillow, their words muffled when they spoke. “Leather jacket.”
LJ laughed, loud and happy, and Yelena knew that they liked their name.
Lia had appeared to play with her, Christopher was there to comfort her, and LJ was there to protect her.
It was a little hard for Yelena to refrain from LJ’s encouraging comments to punch people in the face at times but LJ was incredibly helpful. They were there whenever Yelena would start to panic and slip, reminding her of her training and moves that she could use that would give her the upper hand.
LJ hovered constantly, even when the others were there. LJ had two modes: quiet and angry. They preferred to watch rather than play as well, silently observing Yelena, Lia, and Christopher. Yelena was usually the one to be able to wear them down to play in games occasionally.
Yelena turned sixteen and then seventeen. Lia was still ten, Christopher was still six, and LJ was still somewhere around nineteen. At that point, she had known Lia for seven years and the girl hadn’t changed a bit.
The three were her friends, she didn’t have to share them with anyone. They were her comfort and they made The Room bearable.
Yelena had memorized every inch of The Room. She knew every crack and divot in the walls, a tiny little blank tic-tac-toe grid carved into the wall just behind the door so that she could play an infinite amount of games with Lia and Christopher.
She was starting to grow too long for the bed, her toes touching the metal frame if she stretched out. Her blanket had a few small holes and her requests for a new one had been denied time after time.
She lived in The Room. It had practically become her entire world, only taken out for training and ops. The sun started to hurt her eyes when she went outside and she became too hot too quickly.
“It’s like the sun is giving you a hug,” Christopher told her. “But the sun doesn’t know how hot it is so it accidentally hurts you. Sometimes things trying to be nice hurt you.”
“Just grin and bear it,” LJ advised time after time in a low murmur. “You’ll go home soon.”
At first, hearing the others call The Room her home unnerved Yelena. But it was precisely as they said.
Her home was The Room.
And The Room was safe. The Room had her friends.
Yelena was doing a handstand with Lia and Christopher, LJ standing nearby to see who would stay upright the longest when the door suddenly swung open, slamming against the wall. Yelena toppled to the ground in surprise, immediately scooting back against the wall. LJ was suddenly in by the door with a glare.
There stood a man with a bow and arrow in his hands, staring at her in surprise. The weapon of choice made Yelena wonder if he was just part of her mind too. She glanced to where Christopher was usually tucked behind the foot of the bed with Lia, frowning slightly when she didn’t see them.
“Hey,” the man in the doorway spoke and Yelena’s attention snapped to him. “I’m here to help you.”
Yelena blinked at him a few times. It felt like another test. She glanced helplessly at LJ, unsure of what she should be doing.
The man took a step forward and Yelena shoved herself against the wall further, knowing that there was nothing she could use as a weapon nearby, not that it would work against something that wasn’t there.
“Woah, it’s okay,” he held his hands up. “I’m not gonna hurt you. I wanna help.”
Yelena looked from his hands up to his face before quietly asking him a question.
“Are you real?”