Summary: There was only one thing that the Red Room failed in teaching their Widows. It was easy to be told how to seduce a man; actually succeeding in the endeavor was far less so. Fortunately for Natalia, her instructor was the best they had to offer. Rated for mild insinuation.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A Thorough Education
The water was brutally hot, steam fogging the inside of the tiny bathroom to near opacity and nearly burning her pale skin, but Natalia didn't care. The communal showers at the Red Room facility had no faucet for hot water, and she finally knew what she'd been missing. She'd arrived at the rendezvous early, a shabby motel near the Czech border where little attention would be drawn to a young girl arriving alone. Her assigned partner for the mission wasn't due for another few hours, and she was going to savor the luxury of a hot shower while she could. Her fingers had pruned and her skin was blotchy by the time the water finally began to lose heat, the lukewarm temperature beginning to even out her skin tone, and she turned off the taps with a soft sigh. She dried herself briskly with one of the thin towels folded neatly on a shelf and wrapped another around herself to protect against the chill of the main room.
A cloud of steam billowed out around her and clouded her vision as she stepped out of the bathroom door. The obstruction quickly dissipated around her and she froze, one hand threading through a long lock of scarlet hair. Her partner sat perched on the edge of the bed with an unnatural stillness, his body statuesque in its repose.
His hair was longer than she'd expected, almost too long for the older style he wore it in, the unruly ends curling around his skull and the edge of his uniform jacket. The arm closest to her was pure silver, joints and plates fitting perfectly together from the tips of his fingers to where the shoulder disappeared beneath his clothes, a red star etched onto a large plate of the upper bicep.
The Winter Soldier.
His name was one spoken only in a whisper, and Natalia had long believed that he was no more than a fairytale, a monster conjured to keep young Widow trainees in line. Be careful, girl, or the Winter Soldier will come for you. His threat had been easy to dismiss, until now.
Her presence obviously noticed, he finally moved. His torso swiveled to the left as he viewed her fully, frigid blue eyes fixating on hers, and she shivered involuntarily. They met and held each others' gaze, Natalia attempting to project the cool calmness she'd been famous for in training. After long moments, he rose unexpectedly, turning his body to face her with an uncanny grace. She gripped at the edge of her towel at his sudden movement, her shoulders hunching slightly.
His eyes immediately shifted to her hand, her knuckles flashing briefly white as she clenched her fingers under his gaze, before it returned to her face. His dark lashes fell and rose in one long blink, and then he spoke.
"Bullet or blade?"
His voice was low, rough with disuse, the words curling unfamiliarly on his tongue. She stared at him, brow furrowed.
"What?"
"I am your failsafe," he said, his tone perfectly even. "Should you fail in your mission, I am to ensure that you do not betray the Red Room."
He reached around behind him and she heard the soft shick of a blade being unsheathed. He brought his hand back to his side, a simple knife in his grip, and she understood. Her stance changed, hips shifting her weight defensively to her right foot and muscles tensing as she murmured the quiet revelation. "You will kill me."
"Failsafe," he reiterated, setting the blade on the room's small writing desk. "This mission will not succeed."
She stared at him, her mind carefully blank. He removed a Marakov pistol from his hip holster and the action broke her from her trance. She tipped her chin towards him. "How can you be certain of its failure? You know nothing of my skills."
"You shy from me when you are covered," he answered, gesturing at her with the gun. She bit back on a flinch as he casually used the weapon as an emphatic pointer, and began to formulate her exit strategy. Likely completely aware and uncaring of her thought process, he continued speaking. "How can you hope to seduce your mark and gain the intel, when he will know your cover is a lie?"
Natalia blinked at him, her face carefully impassive, as she thought through her limited options again. He placed the pistol on the desk, barrel pointing at her, and met her gaze for a long moment.
"I ask again." He shifted, his right hand reaching out to hover flat over the weapons. "Bullet. Or blade?"
Natalia slowly fixed her eyes on him, her muscles still taut and coiled, as her brain scrapped her last set of ideas and cycled through new potential plans.
There was only one that she could see. He would best her in a close-range fight and she could never outrun him for enough time to survive a long-range attack. He was famous for his sniper skills. The strategy she decided on was a risky one, involving revealing calculated bits of her plan, but it was her only option and it would have to be enough. Finally, she broke the eye contact and nodded at the desk, relaxing her stance. "Blade. Stabbing, if I am allowed a preference."
"A clean death," he affirmed blandly, reaching for the weapon. The knife fit perfectly into his grip and he twirled it, unconsciously, with the ease of someone long practiced in the skill. "Quiet."
"No chance of choking on my own blood," she informed him, remaining perfectly still as he brushed past her. He settled with his back to her chest, scenting of gun oil and pine, and curled his left arm around to her front. She fixated on the knife that was suddenly in her vision, poised like a snake to strike, and resisted the urge to back away into his torso.
"Wait." The blade remained still. She licked her lips in the cage that his body made, never taking her eyes from the weapon. The word was shaky, the fear bleeding through involuntarily, and she forced her voice to a lower octave. "How will you get the intel from Kochenko without me? You are not his type."
His rough tenor was in her ear, sending a shiver down her spine. "I will call another. There are other Widows, better Widows."
She clicked her tongue chidingly and felt his surprise engulf her, staring straight ahead as she answered him.
"I am the best. Why else would they have sent you to me?" He gave her no reply and she shifted on her feet, a purposeful movement. "Let me show you."
The knife remained in position and she dared not move, dared not breathe deeply, as she waited. Finally, between one long blink and the next, the weapon had disappeared and her vision was blocked by a handful of clothes thrown in her face. Her arms jerked instinctively, finally leaving the towel, and she caught the thin satin of her dress with both hands.
Natalia inhaled sharply, silently, and her eyes shot to where he now stood at the foot of the bed. He nodded at her once, indicating the clothes in her arms.
"Start from the beginning."
She jerked her head at him and stepped back into the bathroom, closing the door with a click and exhaling shakily. The clothes fell into a pile at her feet as she gripped the edge of the counter, hard. Her reflection was still hazy through the condensation on the mirror as she tried to force the wild look from the corners of her eyes. Breathing in deeply and nodding once to herself, she swiftly tugged the outfit on and emerged.
He'd moved to lean against the door, arms over his chest and one foot casually crossing the other in a gesture of practiced ease. Natalia remained across the room, her sharp brain noting that he'd moved the desk to stand beside him, keeping the weapons within easy reach.
Taking a deep breath, she fixed her face in the manner she'd been instructed. Eyes downcast, lashes low to hide where the gaze falls, shoulders back and limbs loose as they pull up the skirt. The hem reaches the hips, now bite the lip, flare the nostrils and - ,
"You said you were the best, yes?"
She paused in her undressing and blinked at him, eyes wide. "Yes."
On any other person, she'd have said the sharp exhale was the beginning of a laugh. "Then there would be no one else to call."
Natalia forced herself to wait, tensing every muscle in her body to quell the onset of the tremors she felt. He pushed off from the door and palmed the knife from the table, conspicuously inspecting the blade. Her mouth went dry as he deliberately sheathed it, making sure she was watching.
"I will teach you this," he told her, moving slowly across the small room and continuing into her personal space. "What I can, before the mission. If you cannot learn enough, you will die, either by his hand or mine. Do you understand?"
"Yes," she replied, her voice whisper-soft and strong.
"Good." He stepped away again, just out of arms' reach. "First, you must entice the mark. Take your dress off."
Bending down, she yanked the hem up and over her head. Looking to him for criticism, she nearly blanched at the sight of the naked blade in his hand again. He blinked impassively at her, flipping the knife expertly.
"If this is the best the program has to offer, I will be informing my superiors that they should think of terminating it."
She scowled at him, her expression nearly nonexistent. He sighed, the gesture oddly human and she thought she glimpsed his surprise at himself. She rolled her shoulders, slipping the dress back over her head. "How do you suggest I proceed? I am acting as I was instructed."
"Then your instructors lacked field training in seduction," he replied firmly, his fingers dexterous on the blade. Tucking the knife back into its sheath, he stepped forward. "You are not a street walker and this is not a low-end brothel. He is expecting a young woman of the highest caliber."
"Then he would not have ordered a prostitute," she muttered, and felt his brief amusement.
"Nonetheless," he continued. "Common whores disrobe like that. You must be more."
Slowly, almost thoughtfully, he bent slightly at the waist and pulled on the edge of her dress. She froze, heart fluttering against her ribcage. The slick satin fabric barely brushed against her skin as he bunched the cloth in his palms. He pulled the garment taut as the hem reached her breasts, allowing the satin to graze her skin. Tugging the dress lightly over her head, he gathered it in one hand and dropped it to pool at his feet. She shivered as the cold air of the room hit her, her entire body overheated and tingling.
He glanced over her body, seemingly cataloguing the flush that she knew was spreading. Bending down, he twitched the fabric between two silver fingers. "Put it on."
Her hand trembled slightly as she took the dress from him and slipped it over her head. He nodded at her.
"Take it off," he ordered, crossing his arms, and whatever pleasant feeling had suffused her was doused. "Like I did."
"I had been," she countered immediately, oddly annoyed.
"Not the right way," he fired back, a hint of impatience in his tone. "The point of a seduction is to be so at ease that the mark is also put at ease. You cannot be at ease if you are ashamed of your body. You must be confident in your abilities as a woman to be able to put a man on his guard."
She rolled the words in her mind, yanking the dress over her head and pulling her damp hair from the collar. "I am confident."
"In your skills, yes," he agreed. "Not in yourself. But you must be. Marks will find you attractive. Use that to put them off their guard."
She nodded and let her muscles bleed tension away. Slowly, keeping her eyes locked with his, she let one brow arch lightly, her facial muscles open to widen her eyes guilelessly. She lightly grasped the hem of the short dress, the satin catching on her calloused palms, and pulled. The fabric slid silkily along her body as she mimicked his movements. When the skirt reached her face, she finally broke eye contact with him to pull it from her body. Letting the sleek garment whisper down her right arm, she brought her eyes back to his, ignoring the dress as it pooled on the floor.
He nodded, his eyes unreadable. "Better. Do it again."
Natalia hunched her shoulders as she waited for the door's guard to return, projecting nervous energy and allowing her hair to curtain her face. "Can you see him?"
"I see enough," came the low reply in her ear. "Remember, if you have sex with him, he will know you are lying. Do not forget to -,"
There was no gunshot that interrupted him. Not one that she could hear, but the Soldier fell silent when the bullet hole appeared in the brick at her right all the same.
"What happened?" he barked in her ear and she dimly realized that he could see the cloud of dust that drifted through the air. "Widow, report."
Natalia paused and hummed acknowledgment to him, her head tilted appraisingly as she took one step to the side, shifting her weight. Raising one finger, she dipped it into the newly formed hole and gently probed as far as she could.
"There was a shot. Completely silenced, long range weapon. The hole is deep and the bullet still hot enough to burn," she answered finally. She pulled her finger out partially, coated in red dust, and used the natural line of her bones to find the source. "I see the sniper. He is close."
The line was quiet, the only sound in her ear that of his breathing as he moved. "I see him." There was a pause. "I know his organization. He is here to eliminate the mark."
"Our plan?"
The line was silent for a long moment, and he finally answered. "Abort."
"What?" she nearly snarled, resisting the urge to raise a hand to her comm as she kept her gaze on the glint of the sniper's binoculars.
"He has equipment of a caliber to suggest that he will succeed in his mission. This renders your mission irrelevant. We can retrieve the intel after the fervor of his attack has died down. Abort."
She nodded once, and bent double to remove her shoes. Dangling the heels from her fingertips, she ran out of the alley. Reaching the main street, she doubled back in the direction she'd first arrived from, skirting the outside of the building where the unknown sniper perched. Weaving her way through cramped alleys, she nearly attacked the Soldier when he dropped lightly to his feet in front of her. His face twisted and he gave the ghost of a smirk at her raised arm. Involuntarily, she felt her eyes narrow at him in a scowl as she lowered her guard. He ushered her into the abandoned building and up the rickety stairs to his perch on the top floor.
"Congratulations," he murmured, opening the door for her. "Your first mission will be a success and you will live until the next."
Relief flooded her veins without her consent and she felt bold. Arching a brow at him, she glanced back over her shoulder. "And beyond the next?"
He shrugged, the movement deliberately casual. "That will depend on how well you complete lesson two."
Fin.