Originally posted last year to tumblr as part of a fic exchange.
Fifteen miles outside Stalingrad (Volgograd), USSR
2R Training Facility
7th January 1985
0415
The eyes were small and green and glowed in the moonlight from one of the big windows over the Widows' sleeping area. At first it was all Natasha could see, just these two small, green, slit-like eyes staring at her in the darkness. She didn't move. She'd woken to something warm and solid against her abdomen. Even as she'd peeked quietly over the blanket, it didn't bounce off, just looked up at her curiously as if to say, "I'm sleeping here, did you want something?" Natasha couldn't make herself put her head back on her mattress.
It was a test, she decided quickly. What the test was, she wasn't sure, but it wouldn't have been the first time. Was it venomous? It seemed furry, warm blooded. She'd not heard of something like that that used venom. Didn't mean that wasn't a thing, though, she reminded herself. Were they supposed to turn it in? Natasha wasn't sure of that, either. It was tiny, scraggly. Probably wild. This far out from Stalingrad, this far into winter, the 2R training facility was the warmest place, and there were a lot of cracks in the revamped warehouse that served as their training floor.
But if it wasn't a test, what then? The creature burrowed its head in the crack between her and the blanket. It was tiny, really tiny, and seemed to pose no threat. She was a ten-year-old girl, though. She seemed to pose no threat either. And that was the presumption people were supposed to make. She tried to scoot away, to give the creature its own space on the bed. It rolled over harmlessly, closing the space, rubbing itself against her.
"Yelena." She whispered. The creature started making a sound. Growling? Sounded a little like that. But all she'd heard were wild animals growl, and that was when she was invading their space or hunting them. She was making no threat against this creature, and the creature didn't seem to be making any move against her… The girl one bed over awoke to the sound of her name. Silently, efficiently. Natasha knew Yelena was ready to fight even in the split second between sleep and consciousness.
Realizing no one was immediately attacking, however, Yelena raised her head curiously in Natasha's direction. "What is it?" Natasha whispered, indicating the tiny ball of scraggly fluff that was pawing at her blanket. In Yelena's eyes Natasha saw the young assassin run down a list of wildlife they'd been trained about, from most to least dangerous. After a second, her eyes came up empty and she shook her head.
"I don't know." Yelena responded, "Here." She said, getting up out of bed. Her feet made almost no sound as she crossed the few feet of perforated metal between the two beds. Cautiously, she scooped the small creature up. Natasha's eyes widened, wondering what would happen next.
"Mew." The creature squeaked. Yelena pressed it hard to her chest, her own eyes suddenly wide as she scanned the room for anyone awake. For a few seconds, they were frozen in silence. When nobody moved, Yelena slowly moved one of her hands from the creature.
"We need to get it out of here before we get caught" She whispered. Natasha agreed. Animals, even wild ones, were expressly forbidden. Even though it wasn't their fault it had come into their sleeping quarters, the trainers used any excuse to punish. She climbed silently out of bed, her bare feet cold against the loft's metal floor. The creature mewed again, and one of the other Widows stirred.
"C'mon, hurry." Natasha whispered.
They crept down the metal stairs from the loft and onto the training floor. Yelena had the tiny animal wrapped in her nightshirt. Strictly speaking, the Widows were not allowed out of the loft during sleep time. It was a rule punishable this time of year by a long training mission outside in the cold. But getting caught there was better than the other Widows waking up. The more people that knew, the more people could rat them out. Even fellow Widows were not particularly good confidants, especially when there was a reward for intelligence on each other. Getting caught second hand out of bed with an animal would probably get them kicked out of the program for good.
The room was dark and very cold this time of night. Natasha watched her own breath curl into a thin stream of moonlight from the high windows above the loft. Under the loft, there was a kitchen and long basin sink. In a room behind that were showers and toilets. A long wooden table with benches sat outside the kitchen area. The rest of the great room, however, was for training. Called the Training Floor, one of the walls was adorned with weapons, another with stacked mats and the corner between them filled with training dummies. Supply lockers lined the wall opposite the weapons. The cement floor was spotless, for every evening after training was complete, the 28 girls swept and scrubbed it.
Natasha didn't dare turn on the industrial lights that lit the room during the day. That would surely wake the Widows, and possibly call unnecessary attention from their trainers, as well. There was a door that led out of the room, behind which Natasha had never been. It was the quarters for whatever contingent of the training staff was on duty for the night.
Natasha checked the clock marked Moscow over the kitchen. 0447- the other Widows would be down in less than a half hour.
The door to the training floor was alarmed, but there was a trapdoor in the bathroom that lead to the outside. It was meant for dumping ashes from the stove that kept the pipes from freezing, but too small (the trainers thought) for a Widow to sneak through. If it had been left open by accident, it could have been how the creature had gotten in in the first place.
The freezing air that greeted them as they walked into the bathroom confirmed Natasha's theory. No showers today, Natasha thought, or at least none worth taking. The trap door was partially open, and the fire in the stove had gone out. Yelena pulled the door the rest of the way open, and looked back at Natasha as if to say "Do we have to?" Natasha nodded, though the thing looked so tiny and pathetic, and, though Natasha loathed the word, cute, that she suddenly really, really didn't want to…
"What if we didn't?" Yelena asked.
"What if we didn't what?" Natasha responded. "You know the rules…" Her resolve was waning though. And Yelena was pleading knowing that if Natasha turned her in, she would face expulsion and possibly even exile.
Yelena picked up the small creature and held it up to Natasha's face. "Its gonna die if we put it out there."
"Its… gonna die if we keep it here too- the trainers will find-"
"What are you doing out of bed?" The voice seemed tired, half awake, genuinely curious instead of accusatory. The trainer on night duty. Crap. Yelena quickly hid the animal behind her back as she turned, and in the same motion, Natasha closed the trap door the rest of the way.
"…we go" Yelena finished an imaginary conversation.
"Had to pee, sir." Natasha lied casually, all tension gone from her voice. The trainer looked suspicious.
"Both of you?" He asked.
"The ash door was stuck open, I needed Yelena's help to close it." Natasha said. She could feel the animal squirming in Yelena's arms, and hoped against hope that it wouldn't mew again and give itself away.
"We were afraid the pipes would freeze." Yelena added, just as easily.
"Fine, whatever." The trainer said, entering the stall nearest the door. A second later they heard the sound of him urinating. The two Widows quickly exited the bathroom.
Back on the training floor, Natasha let out a breath. "It's over, we're probably going to have to go on the run now." She whispered, horror stories of former Widows left out in the cold, literally, popped up in her mind. Yelena looked down at the fluffball.
"What do we do now?" She asked it. It licked the inside of her wrist, doing the growly thing again.
"And girls?" The trainer's head peaked out of the bathroom. They both froze, the idea of their immanent exile crashing down on them full force. "If Petrovich finds that cat, I know nothing about it, understood?"
"Yes, Sir." They said in unison.
Natasha's apartment, New York
7th January 2015
2335
"So how long did you keep the cat?" Clint asked, handing Natasha a mug. She was sitting on the couch in her apartment in New York, Liho curled up snugly in her lap. The two-foot Christmas tree sat on a stand where most people put a TV. At first when she'd heard of Christmas, in the United States, it seemed awkward to celebrate it in any sort of Russian tradition. She only celebrated the 25th, the way Clint did, as something that was expressly American.
Clint had his own backwards-ass way of celebrating, but that was beside the point.
As she'd become more at peace with her past, however, she'd begun to have a tiny, personal celebration on the 7th of January, the day she'd found out was assigned to the Russian Orthodox Christmas. It wasn't overt, but as she'd allowed herself to look back, good things had happened on that day throughout her childhood. 2015 was the first year she'd invited Clint over.
"In the facility? A couple of months." Natasha answered. "Eventually I think everyone figured it out. Including Petrovich. But she was a kitten, and kittens are cute. People wanted to keep her around."
She took a drink from the mug and raised an eyebrow at Clint. "Vzvar?" She asked. She hadn't tasted it in a while, and was genuinely surprised that Clint knew what it was. He smiled.
"Taste okay?" He asked.
"Yes." She took a second to appreciate it. It was a little sweeter, a little rougher than she was used to- a particularly American version of the Russian fruit stew. But somehow, along with the tree and the cat and the fortune of having someone to celebrate her own unique version of the holiday with, it was perfect. "Thank you."
Clint sat down beside her, and put his arm around her shoulder. "Merry Christmas, Natasha."