Hello, everyone. Yes, I'm alive! Now, to the story.
~ Caity
Please skip to the end for trigger warnings.
Natasha wonders sometimes if she has ever been completely sinless. She knows she must have, of course - she knows she was once someone's tiny child, someone's pride and joy, someone's любимая девушка - but the few memories she has seem as if they're from a classic movie. Glowing, with some unnamed quality that is strangely familiar; but shaded and out of sync - relics of a long-gone era never to return. These remembrances are not hers - not really, when she cannot find an ounce of herself in the girl.
In the end she chose the life of knives and guns and broken necks in the night. She made her peace with childhood long ago.
What she truly remembers is Natalia.
Through thirteen, Natalia is a lemming. She's had her moments, of course. The most prominent of which being her first kill.
Natalia is cautious, Natalia is no fool - it's the reason she's still alive. Age knows the attention the Masters are paying her is likely to do little else than her survival of basic training. She knows she won't be one of those that disappear in the eliminations. She also knows that isn't enough.
She has yet to decide what to do about it when that day comes.
All the remaining program members are gathered, and the announcement is made: they are considering twenty-six people for twenty-five spots. Take care of it our we will, is the unspoken message. Natalia has grown disturbingly used to such challenges.
Nadeah Dauksza, Natalia's partner, is found dead in their room within a week. It is a group decision, surprisingly, but it is Natalia who plays the biggest part in the murder. And it is she who slips the poison into her roommate's cup.
She has nothing against Nadeah, but she isn't cut out for this life. Despite her devil-may-care attitude, Natalia could tell that she was fragile and child-like. Natalia knows she would have soon broken. This is the thought that runs through her head, wavering in its strength as she corrupts the cold, clear water and tries her hardest not to let the remorse show.
It isn't until she sees Dauksza's spindling body splayed across the floor that she has the thought that the murder may be mercy too.
But the Masters are looking at her with interest and something close to satisfaction, and she has bigger games to play than introspection.
Besides, she's always worked best alone.
Fifteen, and life is painted. Natasha can move longer remember what came first, but what she remembers best is the maquillage - tantalizing swirls of color that would hardly seem provocative in the present day. It makes her look years older, and her eyes do not betray her as do those of others her age.
At the time, she almost would rather they did.
In many cases, she treats the women to an act that is less seduction than guidance. They find their way to her with leers and fake smiles, and she loses the last of her innocence and illusions to their words and their touches.
She goes through months where she cannot remember being anything other than a rough fuck, knowing that to remember otherwise is worse. Remembering otherwise means remembering the doe-eyes of that patriotic boy-youth that had once played their game. Knowing that she had been his first, and his first had been a lie. Remembering how, because he had been an unexpectedly skilled operative, his first has also been his last.
The young man had been but one in a long line of kills, a red haze that speed across the ever-growing ledger, across the world, and ultimately across the stark planes of her dreams.
Natalia wakes up gasping in the night from dreams she never remembers in the morning. Her shuddering breaths the only true, regular show of emotion in her life.
In the waking hours the long line progresses, the people and memories clear yet twisting in her mind. Dancers in an unending ballet where in the end the only real options are death or betrayal. She trains herself to be ambivalent to the damage she does until such emotions seem to no longer surface.
Nineteen, and Natalia is Черная вдова, the Black Widow - the perfect spy. She has few preferences, no discernible morals, the highest success rate, the highest standards, the strictest of disciplines, and no sign of guilt.
The Widow is not beautiful or kind, but she is sexy, graceful, unbelievably flexible, and fit as the fittest of men. Her martial arts skills are of the highest level, her manipulation irresistible, and she is among the best of interrogators and assassins. She is ruthless; devoted to her survival and undeniably dedicated to her cause.
Natalia is utterly empty.
It all comes to a head one day in Paraguay. Her shot goes a bit off when the mark moves, hitting not the woman but the child in her arms. The Widow just frowns slightly and eliminates the mark before turning around to realize that she is no longer alone in the alleyway.
To this day, Natasha cannot say whether it was the sight of her bullet hitting the child or a mark of his skill that she didn't notice him sliding into his spot above the alleyway. He moves quickly into her sight, and she immediately knows his aim has come to rest directly between her eyes. She has neared him by this time, and stops in front of him, stance confident. Legs spread, feet grounded, back straight, eyes calm, she bares her neck to look up at him on the low overhang.
Natalia meets his bold stare with a calm, appraising gaze, and tilts her head to greet him as an equal - or rather, something close to it.
He smirks.
"Hawkeye."
And so their first dance begins.
Trigger warnings: Red Room (this is a warning in and of itself), child violence, seduction and sex by a minor, repeated murder/assassination, child death.