It was supposed to be a simple mission. Seduce, kill, and walk away. That's not the way it went down. A pretty brunette was seen climbing out of the ambassador's hotel window. Guards shot her. She fell. The ambassador was found in a compromising position with a knife buried in his throat. The brunette was never found, but guards swear she couldn't have survived the drop from the third story window.
A redheaded woman limped through the streets of an unfamiliar city in the predawn hours. She pressed a sweater to her side with one and carried a pair of stiletto heels in the other hand. Her black cocktail dress was short and ill suited for blending in. Her hair was a tangled, wild mess. She stood out and she knew it. At least I ditched the wig, she thought grimly, remembering the brown mass in the muddy ditch like some kind of dead rat. She'd hated wigs. They were her least favorite part of her disguises, hot and itchy and distracting. But she'd rather wear a thousand wigs than dye her hair. The fiery red strands were the only part of her body no one owned. They always grew back, curly and untamed.
The woman could see the local hospital ahead. She didn't go in and instead loitered outside until she saw a man in blue scrubs walk out. He was young, but she'd heard the man at the door call him Doctor Gideon and he was wearing the scrubs of a trauma surgeon. The woman followed him to the parking garage and put a knife against his back.
"Don't scream. I can puncture lung faster than you can call for help," the woman hissed.
The man didn't move, but he didn't put his hands up. On the whole he seemed unconcerned that he was being threatened. "I don't have a wallet, but my car keys are in my breast pocket if that's what you want," the man said.
"That's not what I want. I need medical care and I can't go to a hospital," the woman replied. She saw the man nod and relaxed slightly.
The man felt the pressure of the knife against his back ease and he moved, spinning and grabbing the woman's wrist. He jerked her off balance and she cried out in pain. The doctor let her crumple to the ground. In the dark, he couldn't see the blood that oozed between her fingers as she clutched her side, but he could smell the blood. "Get in the car, but leave the knife. This isn't my first rodeo and I won't call the cops," the doctor said. He held his hand out to the woman and in the end had to half carry her the last few yards to his car.
The woman rode in the backseat. She held her side and didn't let the door she leaned against lock.
The man drove. He pulled out of the garage without incident and turned for a nicer part of town. "You got a name?" the man asked after a minute. He watched the woman in the rearview mirror.
"Natalia," the woman said through gritted teeth. It didn't matter if he knew her name. She didn't exist.
The doctor nodded. He was clean shaven with short, curly brown hair and kind brown eyes. He smiled slightly at Natalia. She noted his dimples and the little divot in his chin. He had a charming smile that put people at ease. "My name's Nicholas. You can call me Nic," the doctor said. "Want to tell me what I'm dealing with?" he asked.
"Bullet in my side. Didn't hit anything important based on point of entry and angle. It's still in there, though, and it hasn't stopped bleeding in the last two hours," Natalia said matter of factly. "I think my ankle might be broken as well," she added as an afterthought.
"I see," Nic replied. He drove faster.
They stopped at a small house with a nice yard. Nic helped Natalia inside and directed her to a kitchen chair.
Natalia was glad the floor was linoleum and glad that the chair was close. She relaxed into the hardwood while Nic rushed about getting supplies. Natalia thought she'd never sat in a more comfortable chair.
Nic returned with a bag of sterile tools, a roll of bandages, and a small needle of numbing agent. "I don't have pain meds here and I'm going to have to cut the dress off," Nic said.
Natalia nodded.
Nic gave her a blanket to cover herself with and went to work.
Natalia felt the needle of numbing agent slid into his stomach and she felt Nic probing her wounds. She leaned back in the chair and made herself relax. She sang lullabies in her head and slipped away from reality.
Natalia didn't realize she'd lost consciousness until Nic was shaking her awake. The dining room was covered in blood. Her side burned. Nic slid his arm under hers and guided her to a couch. Natalia stumbled and cried out in pain. Nic was trying to tell her something, but it just sounded like gibberish. Natalia laid on the couch, wracked with pain, until the blessed darkness took her.
Nic pulled a chair up beside the couch. He stared at the woman and sighed. She had lost a lot of blood. He couldn't leave her alone. Nic took her wrist and kept a finger on her pulse. The sun was rising. He should be sleeping. His next shift started in six hours, but he had a promise to keep.
Natalia woke up alone. There was a note sitting on the chair beside her.
"I had to go to work. I will bring back pain meds. Help yourself to anything you can find in the kitchen."
Natalia moved gingerly. She found instant oatmeal and fruit in the kitchen. THere was a jar of sugar in the cupboard and she nearly cried of joy. It'd been a long time since someone had let her have unhealthy food. Natalia put a lot of sugar in the oatmeal.
After breakfast she explored the house, trying to learn more about her doctor. He reminded her of someone. He lived alone. Based on the amount of supplies and his reaction to her, Natalia figured she wasn't the first out of hospital patient Nic had treated.
When she'd learned all she could about the doctor from snooping, Natalia retreated to the couch and watched the news. They were looking for the brown haired woman who'd killed the ambassador, but the pictures they had were distant and grainy. As long as nic kept his mouth shut, Natalia figured she was safe. She only had to wait a week for the extraction team. They would give her five days to make the planned rendezvous and then it would take them another day or two to locate her.
Nic came home, walked passed the redhead on his couch. She was still wearing the blanket he'd given her hours ago. He collapsed into an armchair on the other side of the room. "How are you?" Nic asked heavily.
"I've been worse, but you look pretty bad," Natalia replied.
"I lost a patient today," Nic replied. His voice was emotionless, but Natalia could see the sadness, regret, and guilt in his eyes and the set of his mouth. There were no dimples now.
For a moment the assassin let herself imagine what it must feel like to fight so hard to save a life only to fail. She'd taken so many lives, that for her death was an inevitable constant and a mark of success. People died. Sometimes she helped them do so. "You need to care less," Natalia told Nic. "When people you care about die, they take a piece of you with them. If you keep caring, you'll kill yourself," she explained.
Nic stared at her with a mixture of horror, fascination, and pity. "What an awful way to live," he murmured. "Caring is what makes us human."
Natalia didn't say anything to that. He wasn't wrong. She hadn't been human since she was thirteen and they'd chosen her to train in the Red Room. "You do stuff like this often?" Natalia asked in the stretching silence.
Nic nodded. "I have an agreement with the local gangs. I will treat them, no questions asked, but in return they don't sell drugs at schools and my neighborhood is a neutral zone," he explained. "But I'm pretty sure you're the first assassin I've treated." Nic forced himself to stand up. He pulled a newspaper and a bottle of pain pills out of his bag, tossing them on the floor beside Natalia. "There's sweats in the hall closet. You are welcome to stay as long as you like, but I have to sleep and I have to work," Nic announced. Then he shuffled down the hall to the bedroom and shut the door behind him.
Natalia found the gray sweatpants and hoodie in the closet. There was a stack of both in various sizes on the shelf. She dressed herself and wandered back to the couch. She could make the extraction point if everything went well, but if she got in a fight it would be bad. She was in rough shape. Natalia traced a seam in the couch cushion and decided to stay.
The next morning, Nic stumbled out of his room and blinked in surprise at his kitchen. The coffee pot was just finishing brewing and a plate of eggs and toast sat on the counter.
Natalia walked out of the bathroom with her wet hair in a towel. She walked passed Nic and curled back up on the couch without a word.
Nic watched the assassin. He understood what she was doing, paying him back for letting her stay.
The food was good and the coffee was better. Nic tried to thank Natalia on his way out the door, but she pretended to be asleep.
Natalia spent the morning watching TV. When she could stand it no more, she slipped outside and made her way to a park three blocks away. Tucked behind a loose brick in the wall that surrounded the quiet park was a metal supply box. Natalia took the money and the gun. She meant to go back to the house immediately afterwards, but as she was leaving a group of small children arrived with their preschool teacher.
Natalia stayed out of curiosity and boredom. She'd never been around normal children. The recruits were too damaged to be considered children long before they arrived at the Red Room to complete their training. Natalia had never seen the appeal of children. They were noisy, messy, and demanding. They frightened easily and broke even easier.
Natalia watched the children giggle and laugh and play. They played on the metal slide and chased each other around the small grassy area while Natalia rested on a concrete bench.
For the first time in long time, Natalia realised she felt at peace. Her body did not ache from constant training, the bullet wound was a minor annoyance, the sun was warm, and she couldn't help but smile as the children bounced from one place to the next.
Then, Natalia shifted. The gun tucked inside her baggy sweatshirt managed to bump her wound. Natalia gritted her teeth and kept from crying out. She remembered her 'graduation' from the Red Room. It'd been her first surgery and she'd constantly tried to overdo in the days following. The pain then and the pain now could have been the same.
Natalia didn't stay long after that. There was work to do. In her mind, this life was not for her. She was a monster. She knew it. Nic knew it. Everyone who came to know her would know. Natalia Romanova was a monster and she'd never be a mother. She'd killed children. She didn't deserve to feel happy watching them.
Natalia walked to a nearby store, picked up a few outfits with the money from the cache, and returned to Nic's before he got off his shift.
Nic came home with bags of groceries. Natalia put them away and when she insisted on making dinner, Nic insisted on helping.
Natalia made borscht. The warm beet soup was full of potatoes, cabbage, carrots, celery, tomato, and some sliced up sausage. Natalia added a glob of sour cream and put a thick slice of bread with the soup.
While Nic mopped up the last of his soup with the bread, Natalia slipped off to the living room.
Nic put the dishes in the sink and after a brief hesitation, headed for the living room. The two had hardly spoken and Nic couldn't claim to know the assassin well, but she'd seemed off- quieter, upset- and that worried him. Nic walked into the living room to see Natalia stretched out on the couch wearing only the bra and underwear she'd bought that morning. The black lace was startling against her pale skin and her red hair fell in graceful ringlets around her shoulders.
"What are you doing?" Nic managed to stammer. He could feel himself blushing.
Natalia smiled sweetly. "Paying you back," she replied. Natalia stood up and stepped towards Nic.
Nic didn't move. He was rooted to the floor, unable to look away from the woman in front of him. She was beautiful, but that wasn't what held Nic's attention. He'd seen her without clothes before, but now, without the blood to hide them or an injury to draw his attention away from them, Nic could see the scars. Natalia's skin reminded him of a flower. The scars across her skin like the veins in a petal. In made Nic's blood run cold.
Natalia reached out and cupped Nic's cheek. Her fingers were cold against his face. Her green eyes met his dark ones. "I owe you a great debt," Natalia said.
Nic ignored her. He stepped away from her hand and walked to her side.
Natalia stood still, letting him see her.
"I hope whoever did this to you has seen justice," Nic said softly. His voice was tight with rage. Natalia saw his fists shaking with rage.
"Scars are a given in my line of work," she murmured, stepping closer to him again.
"Stop," Nic ordered.
Natalia froze. Her heart beat faster. She wondered if maybe she'd misjudged Nic. Maybe he was capable of hurting others.
"You don't owe me anything. I chose to bring you here and I am choosing to let you stay here. I don't need you to take care of me and I certainly don't need you to sleep with me," Nic explained.
Natalia nodded.
"Would you please put some clothes back on though? You are very pretty but this is making me a bit uncomfortable," Nic added.
Natalia laughed. Her laugh was warm and bright and Nic couldn't help but chuckle a bit in response.
Natalia pulled the sweats back on and dropped onto the couch.
Nic sat down in one of the armchairs and turned on the TV. The two watched in silence for a minute.
"You never told me why you help people like me," Natalia remarked.
It took Nic another minute to reply. When he spoke, his voice was soft and emotionless. "When i was a little boy, I had an older brother named Mark. Our family was poor and Mark fell in with one of the local street gangs because they offered him good money as a drug runner. Every night he'd leave the house and every morning he'd be home in time to walk me to school. One morning, Mark didn't come home. The police found him a half mile away. He bled to death from a handful of stab wounds on the front porch of the town doctor who'd told him to go to the hospital."
"I'm sorry," Natalia murmured.
Nic shrugged. "It wasn't an uncommon occurrence at the time. When i saw him laying there, I felt so helpless. He could have been saved, but those with the power to save him had turned him away because he was poor and he was in trouble. I promised myself no one would die for such a stupid reason ever again and that I wouldn't be helpless the next time someone needed saved. Plus I've had this problem ever since I was little where I care too much," Nic explained.
Natalia didn't know what to say to that.
"You like game shows?" Nic asked suddenly.
Natalia just stared at him blankly.
They spent the rest of the night guessing the answers in various trivia games. Natalia asked lots of questions. They laughed and smiled. Natalia found herself think that this is what it must feel like to have a friend.
The week slipped by in a peaceful, domestic routine. Natalia continued to help with cooking and cleaning. She never tried to seduce him again and he never made a move towards her and that alone was a relief to Natalia. It was unusual for a man to not pursue her. While Nic was home, they watched TV and talked about the world. Nic cried over lost patients and while Natalia felt no emotional attachment to these strangers, she noticed that she'd come to regret it when people died. Nic taught Natalia first aid and the basics of field medicine. Natalia insisted on teaching him how to throw a proper punch and how to shoot a gun.
Natalia never told Nic she was leaving, but he knew. He could see it in the way she folded her blanket that last morning and the way she wanted to linger over coffee, talking just for the sake of talking.
The extraction team arrived while Nic was at work. Natalia let them in. They scrubbed all traces of her from the house and led Natalia to a waiting SUV. She climbed in without hesitation, but her heart ached as Nic's house disappeared around a corner. She knew she'd never come back.
Nic returned to find his house empty and all traces of Natalia gone. He leaned against the doorframe and closed his eyes. It was too empty now. Too quiet. He didn't want to think about where she'd gone or what she'd be forced to do in the near future.
When Nic climbed in bed that night, he found a folded piece of paper tucked inside his pillowcase.
Dear Nic,
Thank you for everything. Thank you for saving my life, letting me stay in your home, and thank you for showing me the real world. Leaving here is one of the hardest things I have done in my life. I came to love the peace and simplicity here. You treated me as a person despite the fact that I threatened you and the fact that everything I do runs against what you believe in. But I have to go back. They would not let me escape that easily. You showed me that there is some value in human life and I don't know whether to thank you or hate you for that. Perhaps one day I'll be able to quit killing. But for now, thank you for giving me a brief look at Normal
-Natalia Romanova