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“Who’s that?”
Natasha turned, following Clint’s stare. A man was looking at her. A familiar man.
“No one important.”
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“Hello.” The man said. He was pale and tall and lithe.
The class of girls around her murmured back their own, polite greetings. They had been told to do so beforehand. Practice. Etiquette.
“I am your teacher today. Let us begin.” The voice was smooth, unaccented but she knew the others around her could also hear the faint traces of Moscow on his vowels, the little upticks here and there. She wondered if it was real or fake, placed there on purpose by him. She didn’t wonder what had happened to their previous teacher. It wasn’t her place. Besides, she knew.
They warmed up, following his lead, stretching limbs, awakening muscles.
His movements were fluid, graceful. Powerful too. Lethal. He was like them, or what they would become, she decided. Of course, not of the same program, no. But others had had the same ideas, the same plans for an army. So he was alike, kin.
The ones around her were making similar observations, reaching similar conclusions.
He hummed slightly as he moved, eyes closed in contentment, in peace, looking unaware of his surroundings, uncaring. They weren’t fooled. He was like them. He would not have reached the age he had, had he not survived all the trials put before him.
But this wasn’t the place for that. She put all thoughts of who he was out of her mind for later consideration and begun.
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“Come on, he has to be someone.” Clint wheedled.
“Not anymore.” She said. She warned.
Not anymore. For her safety. And for his.
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There was no gentleness in his face now, as he drilled them.
“Again.”
The voice was still soft.
“Again.”
Her limbs were aching, weighed down by exhaustion, even the simple act of breathing a battle to lift her chest.
“Again.”
She wouldn’t falter. Wouldn’t break.
“Again.”
She would not—
“Again.”
She wouldn’t—
“Again.”
She couldn’t—
“Again.”
She—
She—
She fell. Warm arms caught her. She froze.
They rested, gently, oh so gently, around her upper body. Mocking her. She knew what would come next. She was not afraid.
(Her arms didn’t tremble, her breath didn’t quicken. But even she could not control the rapid buh bum of her heart as it beat faster and faster in time with her fear. Not yet, at least)
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“I’m worried about you.”
“Clint told you, huh?”
“Seriously, I’ve never seen you like this. If you need to talk—”
“Drop it Rogers.”
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The punishment was— brutal, unforgiving, it hurt so much god why did it hurt so much please why what did I— deserved. A consequence of her failure. She would not make the same mistake again.
But…There was something not right about it. It wasn’t her place to question things. But… Well, Mischa had failed this way not a week ago, in the class with Madame. She had not been seen since. So why was Natalia still here?
For what reason could a teacher— a master— have to spare her?
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“You haven’t been this worked up about something since that time in Budapes—”
“Clint.”
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She began to notice now. It was just little things, unnoticeable to anyone who didn’t already have a suspicion that something was off.
The Teacher was, not soft, not gentle to them, and certainly not caring. No. That wasn’t it. Those weren’t the unnamed emotions she could see in his eyes when one of them fell, or slipped, or had their posture wrong, or forgot the next step. No. It wasn’t that. But it was something.
The steady voice as he re-explained their dances. Some unidentifiable look he would give as he, instead of striking out or harshly yanking limbs in place, guided them to their correct position with calm hands. The gaze that spoke of something as he nudged ones who slipped back upright, carefully. The look as he caught those who fell. As he caught her.
She didn’t know what it was. But you didn’t survive here long if you weren’t able to find things out for yourself.
And so she watched. And she waited. And waited. And—
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“Bruce! Surely you must know what’s got our resident bombshell in such a tizzy!”
“I’d advise you to drop it Stark.”
“But Bruce!”
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—waited. For years. She’d graduated by then. The Black Widow.
And then he came. The Soldat. Her partner.
And…friend. If you could call what they had a friendship. She didn’t trust him of course. Trust and love and kindness were for the naïve and fortunate. And if there was one thing Natalia Romanov was not, was fortunate. But, she liked working with him. Alongside him. He was efficient. Clinical. Uncompromising. He went in, did his job, got out.
Useful, her handlers would say, effective.
Regardless, it was about this time that her watching and waiting payed off. Because otherwise she wouldn’t have noticed it at all.
He was quiet, unassuming and confident, her Teacher, able to slip in and out of the Soldat’s room with none the wiser. Except, of course, herself.
She had been suspicious the first time she had seen him enter. Not worried though. The Asset would not be much of an Asset if one man could kill him in his sleep. But she had sat and watched from her vantage point nonetheless. Just in case.
Her Teacher had done nothing but talk in those low, soothing tones of his. He talked about nothing much, just the weather, the state of the winter, and was it not wonderful that the glaciers were already beginning to thaw! An early spring, imagine that. It was all nonsensical, and if it was some code, it wasn’t one that she could figure out.
Nor did the Soldat just sitting there make sense. He didn’t identify the man as a threat for some reason, didn’t even react to his presences. It was confusing.
She made sure to leave just before her teacher did.
This repeated for days, weeks and then months. Any time the Soldat returned from one of his assignments, when he and she finally came back to base to recuperate, have wounds treated and information updated, her Teacher would be there, in Soldat’s room waiting to tell him more useless information.
After a while she began to… enjoy listening in. His voice was tranquil as he spoke about all these mundane things and she’d often find herself lulled into a sense of peace.
It didn’t help that she begun to question things. Or rather question how she felt. Acknowledge that she did feel. That she didn’t want to carry on.
It was then that things went wrong.
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“I’m sorry about them”
“You’re not their keeper.”
“No, but I still felt someone should say it. I’ll get them to stop prying.”
“Thanks Bruce.”
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Whispered voices woke her up.
She’d begun to fall asleep, listening to her Teacher’s nightly sojourns with the Soldat. It wasn’t that she felt safe enough to do so, but rather that she now saw no reason not to. Her mind was conflicted. She didn’t like that. She also didn’t like the sense of right and wrong that seemed to be slowly creeping up on her like some sort of insidious infection. She blamed her Teacher.
So, she awoke to whispering. Two men, standing over the Soldat. Her Teacher and another. An unknown. She could now guess what her Teacher was trying to achieve, with all this.
Freedom for the Soldat. The Asset.
She turned around and fell back asleep.
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“I’m sorry I pushed ‘Tasha.”
“You were concerned.”
A sigh. Clothes rustling.
“Yeah. Yeah I was.”
“It’s not my secret to tell Clint.”
“I get that now.”
She turned towards him. Smiled.
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It was coincidence that she heard it. Sheer happenstance. But it led her running to her Teacher’s rooms nonetheless. He opened the door for her, not looking as surprised to see her as she would have thought. This would be a thought for later.
“They know.”
He barely reacted before leaning back to grab something from behind him. She tensed, preparing herself for some weapon and startled to find he was now carrying two packs in his hand. He nodded at her.
The two of them hurried down the corridor, feet as silent as ever, to the Soldat.
“Come.” Her teacher said to the Soldat, and the Soldat listened, standing to attention. He didn’t react to her being there other than to give her a barely there smile and she felt a tiny part of her warm at this. He had slowly been becoming…more. He was almost human now.
Strangely, she found herself stifling a bubble of something that felt like happiness. This is when the others caught up.
The Soldat reacted before either of them, though her Teacher was in close second, throwing out a small knife that landed squarely in the attackers skull.
And then the Soldat did the strangest thing. He turned to look at her and she felt a frisson of fear, thinking that maybe he thought she had been a part of this ambush. Instead he uttered two words
“Take her.” That was it. She didn’t know how well she hid her shock at his speaking and it took a moment for the words to sink in.
A moment was all that was needed.
Two more agents came down the hall, weapons on hand and she felt herself being grabbed. The last she saw of the Soldat was the image of him squaring his shoulders, blocking the way to the two of them. And then she turned a corner and lost sight of him.
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“It’s nothing dangerous. Just a secret. One that belongs to me.”
And Clint, the young boy of the circus, the one who had to fight and tear and push, who had only had his bow and brother before he’d lost his brother, took her hand and—
—understood.
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“You were going to take him. Why?”
Her Teacher just shook his head.
“He didn’t belong to them. He didn’t belong to anyone,” he shrugged, “and so I tried to get him out.” He was voice was tinged now with what she knew was his true accent. It suited him.
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“And me? I ruined the mission. One that you must have planned for years. Yet you took me anyways. Why?”
“Because it was right.”
“That isn’t it.”
“No?”
“No.”
His lips quirked.
“No, that wasn’t the sole reason, but I fear you won’t appreciate my main motivation.”
“Tell me. Why did you take me?”
“Because it was kind.”
Something in her revolted at the idea and she almost snapped at him when she saw the look in his eyes. His suddenly too old eyes. The fight left her, leaving her feeling stretched thin. She nodded.
“What do I do now?” She asked.
“Anything you want.”
She could identify what she saw in his eyes all those years, now. Could recognise it. It was kindness. And so, her Teacher taught her one last thing. The strength in kindness.
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“We’re Sorry Nat, we really are.” Steve said, his eyes wide and earnest. She couldn’t stay angry at a face like that. Tony cleared his throat awkwardly.
“Yeah- uh- sorry, that was uncool of us, to push you like that.” He said. Natasha idly wondered if it was as painful for him as it was for her to hear his attempt at sincerity. She said as much. He laughed.
The subject was dropped.
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(—“Hello little spider,” came the smooth voice of her Teacher. She could see Joe at his back, smiling warmly at her.
She felt her own one tilting the corners of her mouth up.
There was a snort. “They really do act like each other.”
Her Teacher laughed before putting an arm around the shoulders of the young woman who’d spoken.
“Natalia, this is Nile.” He said. This my sister, is what she heard.
“She’s new.”
“Yes. I though you would like to take part in her training.” His eyes danced as he looked at her. “It has been so long, after all, that I have spent any time with you.”
Later she would ask him why he looked so tired, where Andromache or Booker was, why she’d had to intervene when SHIELD caught wind of possible immortality, how they’d caught wind of it. And what he knew of aliens. But that was for later now--
“Hold up. The Black Widow is going to help train me?”
The woman bounced over to Natasha, pushing Joe aside as she did so. He gave her a wounded look. Nile snorted.
“Sorry Joe but she’s The Black Widow. Way cooler than a couple of old farts.”
Natasha linked arms with her and walked forward as she heard Joe’s indignant shout from behind them. Her Teacher’s soft voice could be heard consoling his beloved until—
“Well, my heart, Nile couldn’t have meant me when she said this. You are a few years older than I, are you not?”
Another betrayed shout.
Natasha found herself laughing—)
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