Natalia Romanova had only been with Red Room for about a year. She was seven and they had taken her from her Ivan. She missed him but Red Room wasn't terrible. Ivan always told her that bad people wanted to take her away but they treated her nice. She had plenty to eat, had a nice warm bed and they were teaching she things. She already had better aim with throwing knives than the sixteen year olds in the Black Widow program.
She learned quickly that the better you behaved and listened the better things you got. If she did good on her lessons and listened she would get dessert or books to read. If she misbehaved then her dinner would be more plain and she wouldn't be allowed any recreation time to read, one of Natalia's favorite things to do.
Seven was when she saw her first death. The younger girls were brought in and told to sit and watch. One of the older more advanced Widows was selected and a prisoner was brought in. Natalia watched him with wide eyes. He reminded her of Ivan in the way he looked but he wasn't quite him. She watched as the older girl fought this solder and slit his throat.
That was when Natalia learned that aversion to blood and death were frowned upon in Red Room. She cried as she watched the man bleed out and she was pulled aside.
"Natalia why are you crying?" she was asked and she shook her head. "Black Widows don't cry. You must stop that at once."
She didn't stop and they brought her into a room as she became more hysterical. She was strapped down onto a chair and a strange helmet apparatus was placed on her head.
"Don't worry Natalia," she heard as she fought the chair, scared and confused at what was happening. She felt a pinch and she screamed before she blacked out. When she awoke she was in her warm bed, a new book waiting on her nightstand. She smiled, not remembering being taken into a room and strapped down. All Natalia remembered was watching a presentation the day before and being impressed by how well the older Widow was able to kill that man. It was a shame about the blood though, she hoped it cleaned up easily.
She got up and dressed in her uniform, ready for another lesson. Natalia had no idea of what had really happened to her so she was confused when another girl her age, Yelena came up to her before lessons started with her brow creased.
"Are you okay, Natalia?" Yelena asked her.
Natalia tilted her head in confusion. "Yes, why?" she asked. She didn't know what would cause Yelena to be so worried looking.
"You were crying yesterday," she explained.
Natalia furrowed her brows further. Crying, her? Because of the presentation? She shook her head. "But I wasn't upset," she told her.
"You looked upset," Yelena countered.
"Well I wasn't," she insisted. She stopped trying to think how Yelena could have thought she was upset. Maybe she just had bad eyesight. Yelena wasn't as good as Natalia at knife throwing so it made sense to her.
Yelena let the subject drop as their instruction began and Natalia forgot about it later. It didn't matter whether Yelena thought she saw something or not because she didn't.
The instructor today was a new one she'd never seen today. The girls were told to sit, which wasn't normal. They didn't have lectures, they had training. They learned by doing. Natalia soon understood that they had to sit because they were learning about bodies today. She watched as slideshows displayed in front of them showed human sexual reproduction and the instructor began to talk about sex. She wasn't exactly sure what they were learning this for, only that it would "become very important as they became full Black Widows". They described it as another weapon and way to make people talk. Natalia was interested but she still liked knives as a weapon more.