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the part of me that's you will never die
heaven's no place for one who thrives on hell,
one who prefers the bit to the silver spoon
- carrie fisher, the princess diarist
The years pass like they did before Ohio. Hours and days spent in the lab, missions every few months.
Most are small, simple assassination attempts. She doesn’t have her suit, the age of the Iron Maiden is over. She is older, slower, her arm will never be the same after that fateful night. There are younger Widows rising up, trained to be better, faster, more brutal than their predecessors.
Melina supposes she will be retired soon.
It doesn’t matter to her, nothing really does anymore. When she’s not on an assignment, the days blend into each other, swallowed up by numbers and formulas and chemical compounds.
Dreykov hasn’t set foot on her farm since the day they took Alexei. It is a bittersweet relief, the house is a sanctuary, her own place for now, although she knows it can be taken away at any moment. The illusion of control is sweet, a sweetness she is willing to drown herself in even after Ohio.
She returns to the Academy every few weeks for debriefs and meetings with Dreykov. He wants to check on her progress, see how much closer she is to the goal. He trusts her, she doesn’t give him any reason not to. Knows that he’s taken everything else away from her, and the only thing she has left is him, and her science.
It is on days like these that the crimson streak in her hair burns her, makes her feel like she’s bleeding out of her skull…
…her blood—or that of those she has killed?
No matter how many times she cleans the blood and grime out from under her nail beds, the red in her hair stays, taunting her.
Unforgivable.
The visits to Dreykov always end with vodka burning her throat, the research pushed to one side, and him on top of her, her hips bruising against the wood of his desk. Not any different from the first time he did it over fifteen years ago. The pain and the shame that burns more than the alcohol never seems to go away. A reminder that he owns all of her.
When it is over, she zips up her suit, gathers her papers, and marches out with her jaw set and her head held high.
Marble.
Perfect.
Unbreakable.
Sometimes she passes younger Widows and Widows-in-training in the corridor. They duck their heads low and scurry pass, either in fear or in awe of the Iron Maiden, no matter how many years it’s been since she’s seen the suit.
She never sees Natasha or Yelena.
Often, there are the young girls sparring outside. Braids pulled tightly with not a hair out of place, stiff uniforms traded for more comfortable athletic wear. She suspects Dreykov always organizes her visits so they never coincide with Natasha or Yelena’s training.
There have been once or twice she sees a flash of red hair, only to realize it’s the wrong child.
She wonders if they made her cut the blue off when they returned.
Once she saw a little girl with golden curls in the morgue and felt her heart stop, but it wasn’t Yelena. It wasn’t Yelena.
The surgeons cut her organs out and buried the body in the plot of land behind the Academy.
She knows Natasha can hold her own, but she spends sleepless nights at the farmhouse staring at the ceiling, wondering if Yelena is alive. Wonders what became of the girl who chased fireflies and cried when she scraped her knee. Tries not to think of the training they were put through. If the Red Room had molded Yelena into yet another spy and weapon, or if she had failed.
She has heard rumors of Yelena being one of the greatest child assassins of her generation, but the rumors are unfounded. She’s heard plenty before, knows better than to believe them. Dreykov keeps a tight hold on what information every Widow is allowed to receive, even his Iron Maiden. She doesn’t even know if the girls she graduated alongside are still alive.
She finds it hard to imagine that the little girl who turned cartwheels in their backyard and wanted to be a firefighter when she grew up would be shipped to different countries to slit the throats of politicians, slip poison into their drinks.
Not that little girl, not Yelena, whose laughter shook her little belly and lit up the faces of all who were in the room. Not Yelena, who still wanted a night light when she slept despite Melina’s desperate efforts to wean her off it. Not her golden-haired child who thought everything and everyone in the world was magical and beautiful and good.
Melina had tried everything within her power in those three years to ensure the girls did not grow soft, but she also knows six years old is old when entering the Red Room.
Natasha had been nearly four.
She can’t remember how old she had been. Her file reads that she had been plucked as a two-year-old from an orphanage overflowing with hungry babies, and she knows she should be grateful to the Red Room for giving her the education and opportunities she had.
But she also knows the files lie.
Case in point: Natasha.
Not abandoned.
Stolen.
Ripped from a loving family with a mother who would have done anything for her.
And ripped again from a second family, by Melina’s own hands—a mother who couldn’t do anything for her.
As much as she tells herself she doesn’t want to think about them, she remembers each of their birthdays.
Natasha’s in December, Yelena’s in June, and Alexei’s in August.
Late Spring, 2000
“Graduated top of her class, you should be a proud mama, eh?” Dreykov tosses a file at Melina, takes in her reaction. Her breath catches in her throat as she flips open the file to reveal a photograph.
It’s her.
It’s Natasha.
Her Natasha.
Her red hair is long, the bangs framing her face. The green eyes that used to tell a hundred emotions are duller, emptier, but as wary as they used to be.
Sixteen years old.
All grown up, and Melina can still see the little girl she had left there, lost and tearful on the tarmac under the hot Cuban sun.
“Beautiful, isn’t she?” Dreykov circles her, lips curling into a smile that looks more like a sneer. His hands run up her hips, her sides, grope roughly at her breasts. The thought of this man putting his hands on her daughter Natasha makes her feel sick.
Tries not to think of Dreykov forcing Natasha down on his bed like he had done with her on the eve of her fifteenth birthday, thick fingers prying her thighs apart, hands pinning her wrist, ignoring her struggles and tears.
The mere idea of him laying a hand on her—
Melina’s hands ball into fists by her sides. If she didn’t have the pheremonal lock, she thinks she would gut him right here and now.
She’s fantasized about it before.
Instead, she stares at the photograph of Natasha on the table, tries to burn every feature into her memory before he takes it away.
“Beautiful,” Dreykov repeats in her ear, almost gloating, enjoying himself and her reaction. “A Black Widow, one of my best. I just thought you would like to know.”
Her sleep is fitful, her dreams haunted by Natasha, with her scarlet hair and all grown up. Her empty green eyes.
Melina finds the photo album on her bookshelf, wipes the dust off the cover. Flips it open to the first page.
Natasha, eight years old. The same fiery hair, messy and long. Her mouth curved up into a smile, posing in front of a Thanksgiving table set with turkey and other American foods. But her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes, only someone as trained as Melina can see the wariness behind it.
And then, the last page of the album.
Summer, 1995. A photograph taken two months before the end. Natasha on her bike in the backyard, laughing at something Alexei had said as he barbecued, flipping sausages on the grill. Red hair dyed into a vibrant blue. Her smile is genuine, this time. Eyes sparkling.
What had they done to that little girl?
What was she being made to do now?
Midsummer, 2003
Dreykov looks… small. In the wheelchair, an arm in a sling, his hair singed and his face scarred. He is seething, enraged.
Madame B is icy, lips set in a thin line, a different kind of rage.
Madame B never attends their briefings.
Melina learns that an attempt has been made on Dreykov’s life. An explosion in Budapest.
Natasha—
Wait,
Natasha?
…Defected?
Responsible for the bombing?
Melina’s not sure she’s hearing correctly.
It makes her head spin.
Natasha escaped…?
Before she has time to process what it all means, Madame B leads her down the corridor to the medbay. In the ICU, there’s a young girl with dark hair lying there, hooked up to wires and IVs, an oxygen mask, surrounded by beeping machines. Her face wrapped in bandages, her frail body looking so tiny in the bed, fighting for her life.
Melina turns to Madame B questioningly.
“Antonia Dreykov.”
The daughter. Melina had heard of her, never seen her. She looks several years younger than Yelena must be now.
Burned, disfigured, disabled.
Realization, horror, that Natasha… did this.
Her blue red-haired little girl with a heart of gold.
She quickly pushes Natasha out of her mind. Knows she would have done the same for freedom. Knows she’s done worse things for less.
Antonia is an induced coma.
Dreykov refuses to enter the room, doesn’t want to see her scarred face.
“The serum.” Madame B says, and Melina understands.
The vial of crimson liquid. Her hands are steady as she injects it, even as her heart is pounding.
Antonia lives, but the serum is not enough by itself. She’s in constant, agonizing pain, and Dreykov wants more.
Melina’s not sure where she gets the idea from, she supposes she would be horrified if it wasn’t actually ingenious—a chip, inserted into the girl’s neck. Nulling her senses. Tells herself it saved Antonia’s life.
It also leaves Antonia a puppet in the hands of Dreykov.
Then Melina builds the girl a mask, so her father can be in the same room as her.
He puts her through the Red Room, and they realize she has a gift for mimicry.
“Another weapon in my collection,” Dreykov praises, pouring Melina another glass of vodka, his body too close to hers for comfort.
She swallows the liquid, letting it burn her throat and warm her belly. Tries not to think about the little girl with twin pigtails in a school uniform, now doomed to a life she had never known could even exist.
Alive, but condemned to a fate worse than death.
She’s laid out the plans for a full body suit, and he scans the rough sketches of the design she made. Impressed.
His hands snake up her side, his voice low in her ear makes her shiver just a little, despite the fireplace that warms the room.
“Ah, Melina… my architect.”
It doesn’t take long for S.H.I.E.L.D. to track down the Academy. But by then it’s emptied, Dreykov, Madame B., the girls, the incriminating documents, gone. The authorities burn the Academy to the ground. The shallow graves are uncovered.
The attempt on Dreykov’s life and the discovery of the Red Room makes national news. Headlines splashed across the front page with rumors about trafficked girls being trained as assassins. Hundreds of girls murdered in cold blood. The reports are exaggerated and inaccurate, and still not even half as horrific as to what went on behind the Academy’s doors.
Melina’s sure the newspapers couldn’t publish those details even if they found out.
To the rest of the world, the Red Room is gone. Dreykov is dead.
But Dreykov is a master chess player, and the world is his board. Melina has learned over the years that he is never content with the present, always planning and plotting for years ahead. Trusting no one, and always creating exit strategies.
He’s had multiple empty bases built around the remote Siberian rivers and above the Arctic Circles. Not for staying long-term, but convenient to hide out. Wait until the attack passes, and then re-emerge more powerful than before.
Red Guardian, Iron Maiden, two of his most public figures—forgotten by the public. The Red Room Academy—destroyed, for all intents and purposes.
If the public doesn’t know what is happening, it never happened at all.
It is his time to build another empire, even further into the shadows than it had been before.
Sometimes, at night, Melina allows herself the luxury of sitting on the front steps, gazing up at the sprinkling of stars in the dark sky, and smoking a cigarette with the sound of grunting pigs in the background.
It’s in the little things.
And tonight, it makes her remember Natasha, skipping rope on the front lawn of their house in Ohio, her blue hair bouncing up and down. Just a few months before the end.
“Smoking is bad for your lungs,” the girl had said matter-of-factly as Melina sat on the porch steps, a cigarette hanging from her fingers. “We learned about it in science class.”
It had made her smile and her heart clench, the earnestness of a child, the concern for a parent. Melina had stubbed out the cigarette obediently. Setting a good example for the children, she thought wryly to herself.
Cigarettes had been contraband in the Red Room, but girls would smuggle them in on return from missions, lighting them and passing them around rooms between classes or before bed. Of course, the lingering stench would always get them caught and beaten, but they would do it again, just for the thrill of rebellion in a place where conformity to rules was so harshly enforced.
Nicotine coats the lungs like tar, causes cancer, asthma, worse. Melina has seen the literature and research done on it. But what does it matter? Her body is a weapon, and nicotine is nothing when she grew up breathing the stench of gunpowder and smoke bombs. Death always hides in the smallest objects, but in her line of work, a bullet will kill her long before a cigarette.
At least this time her destruction is by her own hand.
(It’s in the little things.)
She smokes the cigarette all the way down.
Still thinking about Natasha.
Wonders where she is, what happened after she ran.
Thinks about how they could have run, all four of them, over eight years ago.
Thinks about that picture on Dreykov’s table, the flaming red hair, the green eyes. The teenager who graduated top of her cohort, one of the deadliest assassins.
Remembers the girl who never let her little sister out of her sight, who managed to love after seeing horrors no child should ever know of, who spent hours just watching the fireflies in their backyard, who wanted to read every book in the library because she knew everything could be taken from them the next day.
Imagines where Natasha could be now. What she looks like. What she’s doing.
Hopes against hope that Yelena got out, too.
Knows the Red Room well enough that she probably hadn’t.
If she’s even alive.
She wonders if Natasha knows that Dreykov is still alive, that the Red Room is still operating.
There are new rules now, stricter protocols. Dreykov wants to make sure nothing like Budapest ever happens again. Sedation of the Widows upon entry and exit. Codes and passwords that change on a weekly basis. He finds new ways to prevent rebellion.
He pushes Melina to perfect the chemical conditioning. He doesn’t want just brainwashing or psychological conditioning. He wants their whole mind.
“The world functions on a higher level when its controlled,” he had said as she stood next to him, witnessing the first successful trial.
It made her skin crawl, but she believed him, because she had to. Perhaps it would have been easier if she hadn’t been given a choice either. Didn’t need to agonize over running or returning the girls. She wouldn’t have been responsible.
She had told herself so many times she didn’t have a choice. But now as Melina stares into the eyes of the girl whose brain was cut open and scrambled, the blank look in her eyes, the way she can’t even protest, ask a question, even consider rebellion, she realizes she did have a choice.
Because she chose to return to Dreykov. She chose to send Natasha and Yelena back to the Red Room. She chose to become Dreykov’s architect, draw up new designs and weapons and chemicals.
But it’s too late for her now.
Melina has always been good at rationalizing, compartmentalizing.
So she doesn’t think of it, pushes it away, forges ahead. It’s the only way she knows how to survive.
She tweaks the formula, and then sends it to Dreykov and his scientists to replicate and distribute.
The world functions on a higher level when it’s controlled, she whispers to herself. Repeats it like a mantra. As if it will absolve her of a guilt. Pretends that she is finally doing some good at last.
Removing the responsibility of choice of the people that will be subjected to it.
Tells herself that it makes it easier. Easier for them.
Late Spring, 2012
The days are getting longer, warmer, allowing Melina more time outside. Working with the pigs, tending to the farm and whatever else may need repairs.
As the dusk turns to dark, Melina returns to her house to eat her dinner and log her notes from the day. The television plays in the background, the volume turned down low, too quiet to be discernible, just to provide some noise so the silence doesn’t hang, unbearable, over the house.
She glances up at the screen occasionally, the news is all the same after a while. A natural disaster somewhere in the world, a murder or two, politicians lying to crowds who support them anyway, terrible crimes committed against innocent victims. And the world keeps on turning. She doesn’t pay much attention anymore, has no reason to.
The things she knows, what she partakes in are things that never make it onto the news. They stay behind closed doors, hidden by leverage and bribes and threats. The public stay naïve. It is better that way.
Tonight is no different, the routine is familiar, almost comforting. The channel continues on softly in the background, something significant apparently unfolding in New York City.
But the next time she looks up, it is in momentary confusion, thinking at first the channels must have been changed by accident. It looks like a scene out of an action movie. The stunned newscaster declaring it an invasion of aliens in Midtown.
She cannot help but stare, transfixed.
And then, amidst the chaos, the explosion, the debris, a small group who called themselves the Avengers.
Melina sees him first, the man in the suit of the Stars and Stripes. There is an archer, and another in a metal suit of red and gold.
And then she sees her, and Melina thinks she forgets how to breathe.
Because there is Natasha, with her short red hair and her green eyes. Taller, no longer a little girl who was all angles and gangly limbs. Different, too, from the picture on Dreykov’s desk twelve years ago.
All grown up.
Melina wishes she could reach through the screen, just to touch her, even for half a second.
As Melina watches, she understands now why Dreykov says Natasha was the best in her class. Her flips, stance, efficiency are all impressive, clearly all results from her Red Room training. And yet, there is something more. A determination, the way she sets her jaw, that she’s fighting for something she believes in.
Melina wonders what that must feel like.
Wishes she had fought harder, when she was younger. Wishes she had grown a spine, instead of always running back to Dreykov with her tail between her legs. Wishes she had been able to protect the only people she had ever learned to love.
The photo album sits on the shelf, tucked inconspicuously between an atlas and travel guide books. Almost taunting her, reminding her of all the places they could have gone to, instead of returning.
But time is linear, actions cannot be undone, hearts cannot be unbroken, and the only thing left to do is regret, and mourn.
So she settles for watching all the press conferences and interviews and news clips of Natasha she can find. There are fewer of them compared to the other Avengers, but Melina watches them over and over. Hardly daring to believe this is actually Natasha, her Natasha. A hero.
She finds herself waiting for another girl with straw-colored hair to appear, but she never sees Yelena.
It unearths a memory, almost forgotten, of a time when things were better.
Initials carved into the bark of a tree with a small knife in the hands of a blue-haired girl, as her little sister stood by her side, peering over her shoulder.
N + Y
Natasha and Yelena.
A permanent reminder of a temporal family structure, etched into a tree that now provided shade in the same backyard to a different family.
“Oh! And NY is also New York!” Yelena had declared proudly, wanting to show off her geography knowledges
Natasha had always wanted to visit New York City someday.
They hadn’t been able to afford a trip at that time, and Natasha had settled for cutting out every picture she could find of that city from newspapers and magazines, pasting them into a scrapbook.
But as Melina watches the television reports again, it looks like Natasha had made it there after all.