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Natasha awakes in the same manner she always does: with a start, one wrist handcuffed to the headboard of her bed. It isn't until many frantic moments later that she relaxes—slightly—becoming well oriented enough to realize Madam won’t be coming to wake her. She won’t be coming at all. In fact, Natasha killed her 4 years ago. Has it really been 4 years now? She sighs, her wrist going slack against the metal; the handcuff clanking with a comfortably familiar sound. She's awake before her alarm, but that's practically become routine.

(She had tried when she first started this new life to sleep past 6am, but her body was far too accustomed to the Red Room regime. If she ever had the misfortune of sleeping in there, she’d be forced to deal with the brutal scolding—both physical and verbal—of Madam or worse, one of her men. So no, Natasha did not sleep in, no matter what the day had in store. Her body knew better.)

With her free right hand (she always preferred her non-dominant restrained, in the somewhat-likely event that someone attacked her during the night), she pulled her phone from the drawer in her nightstand, reading the time. 6:03. Interesting—it must've taken her a whole three minutes to get reacquainted with reality this time (there was absolutely no doubt in her mind that she woke up exactly at precisely 6, so that's really the only possible explanation). Things were getting bad again. But, she supposes, things can't be expected to be good when you’re still living through trauma. Good days don’t happen, and okay days are scarce (she doesn’t like referring to any day as “good;” wants to save it for when she isn't living in survival mode. She takes what she can get for ‘okay’ days, but she deems practically any day where someone isn't actively trying to kill her an okay day, not that she’d ever tell a soul. What a pragmatist she's become).

Within 30 seconds, she's used the key hanging from the bracelet on her wrist to free herself, the practiced action barely requiring any conscious thought. She gathers herself, both her wits and her body, and stands to get ready for the day. As much as she wishes, high school won’t attend itself, and the least she can do is earn her diploma.

(She decided she wanted a future for herself shortly after escaping the Red Room, not that there was ever much time to contemplate. She had to devise a plan and book a plane ticket within hours in order to avoid being discovered. She decided on America; given she had performed multiple undercover missions there, she figured it was her best bet at fitting in. Her accent was perfect, and her alias was easy, which was always a bonus. Natasha Romanov was close enough to Natalia Romanova, she figured, but also American-ized enough to not turn any heads. Plus, although she looks rather Russian, American’s never seemed to be too keen on heritage unless said heritage was non-European—stupid fucks—so she assumed she’d fit right in. She was right. Now, she’s on her second year of high school—since she took the first year to gather herself and her identity—and she’s doing okay. Well, not okay, but Natasha deliberately set a pathetically low bar for what constitutes ‘okay.’ Again, such a damn pragmatist).

After she had finished brushing her teeth and haphazardly throwing on clothes from the floor that seemed relatively clean, she decided she didn’t want to be home any longer and grabbed her keys from the nightstand. It was nowhere near time for school (that didn’t start until 8am and getting ready had only gotten her to 6:30), but she had other things to do, since she’d long ago deemed falling back asleep in the mornings impossible.

(She frequented naps after school, since for some reason her PTSD didn’t account for sleeping in the middle of the day. She often regretted it, though, waking drenched in sweat and gasping from the nightmares. No, she only took naps if absolutely necessary—only slept at all if her body was practically shaking with exhaustion).

As much as she despised herself for it, she knew where she was headed the moment she started the car. The ballet studio, or what she decided was good enough for now. It was both her safe haven and her hell.

(The ‘ballet studio’ was actually an old store in an abandoned strip mall, one that was likely a dance studio in a past life, but definitely hadn’t accommodated dancers in ages. Well, aside from Natasha. As much as she hated herself for it, she went practically every morning, dancing until her calluses had calluses and she was so exhausted she couldn’t be bothered to feel anxious. There was just something so warm about seeking out pain. It hurt her to dance, reminds her of her days in the Red Room where dancing was never just a hobby, but a means of survival. If you had a good run on the floor, maybe they’d take it easy on you that night—though Natasha doubted they even knew what the word easy meant. Dancing was one of the only things Natasha found comfort in, and it felt like coming home, even though she hated her warped concept of the term. But she found she’d always be a prima ballerina, through and through, no matter how much she wished things were different. Natasha had long since foregone wishing).

The drive was easy, and yet another thing she could probably do with her eyes closed. Most of her routine had become so repetitive she could do it in her sleep (not that she’d ever find out. She hated sleeping). The time she woke up, the order in which she got ready, the lack of breakfast she ate (and not for any reasons driven by body-image, she was just always too nauseous to eat in the mornings after reliving her past through her dreams). The only thing disorganized about Natasha was the state of her room—and her mind, she supplied unhelpfully—and even that was done deliberately. She figured she owed herself the freedom to be messy given how organized she’d been forced to be in the Red Room.

Natasha did everything deliberately, for she had learned what making mistakes could cost you. And, as much as life sucked, she had people to live for. People who needed her, by some damn stroke of luck. People she just might love (although, love is a very touchy subject. She was raised to believe that love is for children, and she had long since lost the qualifications for that title, even if she was only 17). But, for what it’s worth, she was pretty damn sure she loved her best friend, Clint, if she even had a right to know what love is.

(Clint, who’s oddly good at archery for only being 17, knows more about her than she thought anyone in her life ever would. Hell, he might even know her better than she knows herself—apparently she’s a sentimentalist now, too. She’d met him on her first day of sophomore year, which happened to be half-way through the year, but he didn’t seem to mind. Instantly, Clint was asking her about her days, giving her his homework, and even inviting her to get coffee sometime. In typical Natasha fashion, she had pushed away his half-baked attempts at friendship, but that had only made him all the more relentless. One day, when he decided it was somehow a good idea to follow her out of their shared class—world history, which was surprisingly interesting—she had accidentally taken him down and pulled a knife to his throat before he could even speak. Well, it was actually quite deliberate at the time, but she feels bad about it now, after realizing his attempts were pure.

While the boy was floundering on the ground—probably wondering why the hell a girl was on top of him in a non-sexual way—Natasha noticed the scars littering his collarbones, and his neck, and actually almost all of the skin she could see upon inspection. Albeit with some reluctance, she lowered her knife and offered him her hand. And, to his merit, he simply smiled and took it.

That was the day that Natasha decided she liked Clint, even if she still had a hell of a lot of work to do before she could ever be his friend. It was clear he’d gone through some serious shit, if the scars on his body and the calm demeanor he’d upheld while quite literally being attacked were any indicators. She figured she owed it to him, and maybe even herself, to be nice to this boy who had been nothing but kind to her all year. And maybe, just maybe, she was plagued by the hope of making a friend after almost a year and a half on her own. Not that she’d let him in, or let him know anything about her, but she could talk to him in class, she figured—it was the least she could do for almost beheading him. However, Clint was not deterred easily, and before she knew it she had made a real friend rather than the acquaintance she had expected him to be. She wouldn’t change it for the world, though she’d rather die than tell him that).

Before she knows it, Natasha’s parked in the run-down parking lot of the practically-abandoned ballet studio and it's only 6:43am. About an hour or so more to kill. So, with that, she begrudgingly reaches into the backseat of her black 2010 Nissan Altima and grabs her pointe shoes, her feet already aching at the prospect of putting them back on.

(Quite frankly, the shoes are gross; littered with blood stains from her days at the Red Room. She had tried to purchase new ones once, but found that they just didn’t do it for her; didn’t remind her enough of the pain of her past. So, she uses the original ones from her childhood that by some stroke of luck still fit, and basically regrets every moment of her existence as she laces them on. But, Natasha is nothing if not thorough, and finds that the only way she can get through the school day without a Xanax is revisiting her pain. Again, it's comforting in the worst way).

Once she's triple checked that her car is in fact locked and scanned the surrounding area for potential threats, she heads into the building that she's sure only she uses anymore. Maybe today will be better. But, then again, Natasha’s never been much of an optimist.