Chapter 2
Phoebe got nervous when Mischa asked her if they could talk. She hadn’t been blind to the tension that her girlfriend was carrying in her shoulders ever since she got back from her trip to see her family. “Yeah. What’s up?” There was no reason to cause herself any distress. Maybe it wasn’t anything bad?
“I have something that I want to tell you…” Mischa was visibly nervous, taking a deep breath as she tried to calm herself. The actions did not help Phoebe’s anxiety.
“Okay…” Phoebe pulled away from the dresser to approach Mischa and sit next to her on the bed. “What’s going on, honey?” She reached for her girlfriend’s hand and gently grasped it, lacing their fingers together.
Mischa leaned away from her slightly but she tightened the grip on Phoebe’s hand before Phoebe could retract her touch. “I…” Mischa swallowed hard, looking down at her lap. “I need to tell you something,” she rephrased her statement from moments earlier, seemingly unsure of how to start.
“Okay. Take your time,” Phoebe’s nerves were getting the better of her but she tried her best to settle them before Mischa picked up on them. “I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere.” At least for the moment. She surely hoped that whatever came out of Mischa’s mouth wasn’t a confession to cheating.
Mischa took a few deep breaths, nodding her head as her free hand picked at the blanket beneath them. She finally gathered her words, “Do-- do you know of Natasha Romanoff? The Black Widow?”
Whatever Phoebe had been expecting to hear, it certainly wasn’t that. Of course she had heard of The Black Widow, it was hard not to, especially after the battle of New York that took place only years earlier. While aliens may not have invaded anywhere close to her, she had seen all the Avengers merch and watched all the recordings on YouTube. “Yeah.” She didn’t understand what that had to do with anything though.
Mischa chewed on her lower lip in thought, her head ducked down as she bounced her knee anxiously. Phoebe squeezed her hand, running her thumb along Mischa’s knuckles to comfort her.
“Natasha… she wasn’t the only Black Widow. She came from a place called-- called the Red Room,” Mischa stumbled over her words slightly. Phoebe vaguely remembered hearing about something like that in the data dump that flooded the internet. “The… the Red Room took-- they took young girls, very young girls, and they trained them to kill.” Mischa took a shaky breath. “About a year ago, Natasha Romanoff finally dismantled the Red Room and freed the girls there. Other Black Widows.”
Phoebe doesn’t understand what Mischa was trying to tell her or why her story was relevant at all. But she remained patient and she listened, giving Mischa her undivided attention because this was obviously important to her.
“Phoebe, I’ve been lying to you…” Mischa continued on and Phoebe swallowed hard as her heart sank into her stomach. “I have left out many things about my past because I was scared. I just… I just wanted to be normal, to find myself, but it isn’t fair to you. I didn’t grow up in foster care, I grew up in the Red Room. I am a Black Widow assassin.”
Mischa finally paused, tilting her head up to stare at Phoebe as she waited for a response. The room was cloaked in stifling silence because Phoebe didn’t know how to reply.
Her girlfriend, an assassin? Her sweet soft girlfriend who got flustered at sex jokes or wasn’t ashamed to admit that she still liked cuddles from her mom, had killed people?
“Phee?” Mischa’s voice cracked and Phoebe realized that she had been silent for a while. “Please say something…” she begged.
“I, uh… I’m confused,” Phoebe admitted. She loved Mischa but she doesn’t understand. It didn’t make any sense. “You have sisters and a mother.”
“I told you I was adopted,” Mischa looked away and Phoebe brushed her thumb over Mischa’s knuckles once again.
Phoebe remembered the list of rules on the fridge when she had met Mischa’s family. “So the whole baby widow thingy on the fridge, the list of rules, wasn’t really a joke?”
“No…” Mischa blew out the air in her lungs, shaking her head. “Rules… rules with an authority figure make us feel safe.”
Phoebe nodded slowly as she thought. “So, the Red Room was dismantled about a year ago… your mother and sisters, are they Black Widows too?”
Mischa slowly nodded her head. “Technically, my mom is White Widow,” she mumbled. “But yes. Even my youngest sisters.”
Mischa had been severely abused at one point in her life, that much was clear to Phoebe. She never pushed, she knew that she didn’t have any right to pry into her past, and she tried her best to support her. Mischa had nightmares, she’d get episodes where she’d be spacey and detached, and sometimes she would zone out completely and Phoebe would notice and tug her aside. But Phoebe would never think that ‘assassin’ was the answer for those. She just assumed it was bad experiences in foster care.
Phoebe thought about the woman she met that called herself Mischa’s mother. She thought about the soft woman that had calmed her down and held her while she cried in the bathroom, the woman that told her that her own past had been bad and that she was taught that she didn’t deserve love. The same woman that told Phoebe that they both deserved to be loved, that they weren’t hard to love despite what they had been taught.
She thought of Mischa, Mischa's sisters, and Mischa's mother, and all the scars that littered their bodies. They made more sense now but the thought of the causes behind them just made her heart ache.
“Are you upset with me?” Mischa questioned, drawing Phoebe’s attention back to her. Phoebe was more confused than anything. She’s not upset. She’s not mad. She’s lost more than anything. She tried to think of her girlfriend as an assassin. The whole concept seemed ridiculous, Mischa didn’t seem like the type to hurt a fly.
“No,” Phoebe replied, because she wasn’t, she wasn’t entitled to any of this. “No, I’m not upset. I’m just confused.”
Mischa was chewing on her lower lip, nodding her head as she stared at the floor. “About which part?”
Phoebe really can’t narrow it down to just one. “I don’t know. In general?” She lets out a sigh. “I’m sorry. This is a lot to take in.”
“I’m kinda surprised that you’re still here…” Mischa admits quietly.
“I thought that you were going to tell me you were cheating on me or something,” Phoebe confessed as she blew out the air in her lungs sharply. “Never did I think ‘assassin confession’ would be what we talked about.”
“I’m sorry,” Mischa mumbled, running a hand through her hair.
Phoebe finally leaned against Mischa, her head resting on her shoulder. “I’m not-- I’m not mad.” She reassured her. “I just… I don’t understand.”
“I was taken as a young child and raised to seduce and kill,” Mischa stated and Phoebe marveled at just how easily the statement came from her lips. “I was freed and adopted last year.”
“Why are you telling me this now?” Phoebe couldn’t help but blurt. Mischa could have never told her anything and Phoebe would have been none the wiser.
“Because you deserve to know the truth. I led a dangerous life and it might catch up to me someday. I don’t want to force you to be with someone who was lying to you. You deserve to choose whether or not you want to date someone like me, someone with blood on their hands and someone used and--” Mischa started to ramble slightly, her breath hitching. Phoebe turned, cupping Mischa’s face in her hands. Mischa startled at the touch but paused to finally take a breath.
“I love you, Mischa,” there was one thing that Phoebe never doubted. She loved Mischa with her whole heart. She loved her sweet, kind-hearted girlfriend. “And this development is new but… but I still love you.”
“Really?” Mischa questioned in a tiny voice and Phoebe could finally see the unshed tears that she had tried to blink away.
“I don’t want to break up with you,” Phoebe really doesn’t. “And I have questions and this will take a little getting used to but… but I still want to be with you. But if that’s what you want--” she quickly backtracked in case she misunderstood the situation.
“No--” Mischa blurts out before shaking her head. “I mean yes-- I mean I still wanna be your girlfriend!” She was practically yelling, her face turning bright red before she went quiet. Phoebe lurched forward and wrapped her arms around Mischa’s neck. Mischa let out a sigh as she relaxed under the touch, sinking into Phoebe’s arms as she held her back.
Later on, after they’ve settled in bed, Phoebe will finally ask Mischa a few questions about the Red Room and Black Widows.
“Have you ever met The Black Widow? Natasha Romanoff?” Phoebe had questioned after learning more about Mischa's sisters. She felt Mischa smile into her shoulder. “What?”
“Sorry,” Mischa smiled up at her. “I do. I call her Aunt Nat.”
Phoebe looked down at her girlfriend to see if she was serious, staring at her in unsure bewilderment as she attempted to decipher if Mischa was pulling her leg, and Mischa burst into laughter at the look on her face. “Your mom is sisters with The Black Widow?”
Mischa nodded her head, grinning up at her and Phoebe thought that there was never a more beautiful sight.
When Mischa finally managed to calm herself down, trying to make up for the pout on Phoebe's face, she spoke again. “Wanna meet her?” She offered.
Phoebe doesn't hesitate to reply this time. “Fuck yes.”