She could never get used to the cage. But they were her handler's orders. 'After every mission, for safety, you go back in here for the next three months.' She was closely watched on every mission, every slip and almost-failure was held over her head for way longer than when she was a girl.
She knew there was no escape, that there would never be an escape. She did only what she was told. She held no opinions. She said nothing more than the direct, blunt, short answers to the questions she was asked. And still, they put her in the cage. Every night, like clockwork. The only time she could be anything akin to free was overnight or multiple day missions, and even those were limited to one a month for four months.
They didn't trust her, and they shouldn't. She let the break-in happen. She was the breach.
She was supposed to relieve Aliya that night when the Avengers broke in and made off with more than 30 kids. The surge of doubt and independence that followed could've destroyed the program. And yet, it wasn't her fault because Aliya had said 'Give me 5 more minutes,' for whatever reason. Lidiya Tabakova didn't know why, and now she never would. She was somewhat resentful that she was being punished for following a superior Black Widow's orders, but resentfulness was independence, and independence was dangerous.
She was told that she must follow orders, that she must listen only to what she was told to her by her handlers and superiors. She must not think for herself. But thinking made her human, and humans are so prone to faults. In this case, her fault was thinking that it wasn't her fault and that she shouldn't be punished. She wouldn't dare say this aloud, though. It would get her reconditioned, and she'd already been reconditioned once. It was an unpleasant experience and one she wasn't eager to repeat.
Eventually, the handlers grew to trust her again. They still kept her in the cage when she got home for 12 hours after she got back. But the agents were gone, the overnight and longer missions were reopened to her again, and the faults were mostly unmentioned.
Yet, for all this, she still felt like they were being unfair to her.
They let her back up to the same technical level of trust as she'd had before the incident, but she got sidelong looks, suspicious glances, and other such reactions from many back at the Red Room. SHIELD had been unsuccessful in shutting it down a second time. Even one of their own, the best they ever produced, was unable to shut it down. The Red Room was a looming entity that refused to be destroyed or silenced. She was a simple woman. She had no place in speaking about those reactions.
Lidiya became very uncomfortable with being there. It wasn't just the mistrust, nor was it just the cage. It was the knowledge that her own life meant nothing to them. She was a cog in the machine, a brick in the wall, a tool in the shed. Useful, but not essential. Replaceable. Expendable. Disposable.
'The Red Room has no place for those who cannot make a place for themselves.' It was the same justification for everything they did concerning the training, deployment, handling, or desertion of the girls who lived and trained there. It was a concept drilled into their heads from year 1. Now, that concept followed Lidiya around like her own shadow, whispering in her ear just how expendable she was.
On missions, it was easy to drown out. During quiet moments, when she was doing nothing of import, it stayed with her. It waited. And when the moments were right, it struck with such ferocity and mercilessness that if it were a person, the Red Room officials - the ones at the very top - would've commended it in person.
So Lidiya did what she was trained to do: She blocked it out. That only went so far. It still waited. It still lurked in the shadows in the back of her mind, the corners she didn't allow herself to go because they involved free thought. It hid there, seeking the right moment to strike again. No amount of training or repetition or blocking or action could erase it.
She could request a reconditioning, but she would never do that. It hurt too much.
Finally, she listened to it. It told her she needed to seek for opportunities to escape. She held mental conversations with it, like it were an actual person in her mind and not a self-made fantasy. Through it, she accepted the fact that the Red Room was bad, and the things she did were bad, and that might make her bad. Bad, but not irretrievable. If she could get out and escape from them completely, she could become a superhero, maybe. Or at least someone doing good things.
The first Black Widow to escape and survive, Natalia Alinova Romanova had managed to do it. Why couldn't she?
From then on, she looked for the perfect opportunities to escape. She found it on the side of the Rhine two months later. There was absolutely no-one around, and she could swim down the river until she came to a small town and recover there. So she did. She waited in this little, irrelevant German town for nearly a month before trying to get to America. Twice she tried. Twice she failed because they were still staking out the airports.
Then someone showed up that she could never have expected. His name was James Buchanan Barnes. The Winter Soldier. He found her running from Red Room agents who'd caught her scent after she'd failed to be careful in her latest attempt to escape Europe. He'd stared her dead in the eye and asked if she needed help. She said yes, and he helped.
He didn't ask who he was helping her escape from - and really, did he need to? He didn't ask who she was - but then, who was chasing her answered that question. He didn't ask where she wanted to get to - he somehow knew she wanted to go to America and to SHIELD and throw herself on the mercy of another escaped Black Widow. He didn't need to ask, but he could've. Her handlers always did. They needed justification for her actions, an explanation for everything she did.
One of the many ways she knew she made the right choice.
On the plane ride there, Barnes - he preferred to be called Bucky - made conversation. She answered the questions when she could, no matter how uncomfortable they made her. He told her stories about his adventures with the other Avengers, and how it would work at SHIELD, and helpful stuff.
At first, she was confused. This was hardly like an instructional session at the Room. She had to near constantly remind herself that he wasn't the handlers and she wasn't a Widow. That this was a friendly heads-up and not directions. These were tips, not instructions. It was weird, it was strange, but it was good.
Lidiya Tabakova, 28 years old, was no longer trapped. She was finally free.