"Girls, we have a special guest today," Headmistress said, walking into the bedroom. All of the girls snapped to attention, a general sense of excitement among them. A guest was a rare thing in the Red Room. And it was always interesting when they had one.
Only one girl seemed immune to the anticipation. Little Natalia Romanova stood rigidly, her young face void of emotion, waiting patiently for the Headmistress to announce the guest. She was ten years old and already a skilled assassin, with the most successful missions in her group. The other girls avoided her. No one could tell if that bothered Natalia or not. After all, she was a spy, too.
"He will be spending a few weeks with us," she continued, and if any of the girls were any less disciplined, they would have gasped. A man. Men were usually only brought in as subjects for the girls to practice their torture and interrogation skills on.
A dark shadow appeared in the doorway behind Headmistress. Knives appeared in small, calloused hands. She kept talking.
"He will help you with your training. I expect you to treat him like you would any important guest," Headmistress said calmly, but the girls understood that that was an order. The knives disappeared, but all the girls were still tense. "You may call him the Winter Soldier."
He stepped into the room. He was imposing, towering over the rather tall Headmistress, seeming almost like a giant to the young girls. His left arm was an incredible contraption of overlapping metal that gleamed menacingly in the dim lighting. His dark hair brushed his shoulders and his lifeless, brown eyes stared straight ahead. The girls would have recoiled, but that was a sign of weakness. They were not weak. They were predators. But they could tell that the Winter Soldier was at the top of the food chain.
Natalia was the only one who didn't look away from him. She didn't even mean to, but she found herself staring at him. Only Headmistress's voice snapped her out of her trance.
"Training begins in ten minutes," she declared, turning and striding out of the room, the Winter Soldier following like an ominous shadow in her wake.
The girls immediately began getting dressed, not bothering to question the fact that it was midnight and they had been training since dawn.
"A weak performance," Headmistress declared as the Winter Soldier slammed a girl into the floor. No cry of pain or labored breathing cut through the silence of the training room. Pain was a weakness they were taught not to have. And nobody had heard the Winter Soldier so much as grunt.
Some girls had begun spreading rumors that he was a mute. That his handlers had taken his voice to make him a better assassin. Natalia would have told them they were wrong, if they had been worth her time. She could tell his voice worked just fine from observation. She knew why he didn't talk, from personal experience. He was silent for the same reason she sometimes didn't speak for weeks at a time; they simply had nothing to say. Just because neither of them spoke much didn't mean they didn't have the ability to. Natalia wondered when the last time he had spoken had been. If it had been weeks since a word left his mouth, like her. She thought it might be even longer for him, months, or maybe even years. Did his voice sound as foreign to him as hers did to her?
"Get up," Headmistress commanded the girl, without any sympathy in her voice. She scrambled to her feet and joined the other girls standing by the wall, despite the steady trickling of bright blood coming from her nose.
The Winter Soldier had been there a week and a half. Ten days. Each night, he fought a girl or two. If a girl did particularly well she would fight him again tomorrow. No girl had lasted more than two days. Of course, Natalia hadn't had her turn yet. She had stood perfectly still, day after day, and watched each fight without ever reacting to it. She knew the other girls were betting on how long she would last when it was finally her turn. The longest wager was for four days.
"Since that could hardly be considered a fight and I would hate to waste the Winter Soldier's valuable time," Headmistress said, locking eyes with Natalia, "let us have Natalia go now."
She stepped forward. The room was eerily silent, her footsteps not making a sound. The Winter Soldier watched her approach impassively, towering more than a foot over the small redhead. Natalia took this brief moment before the fight began to observe him without reservation. He was tall, strong, a walking weapon, even without his metal arm. She couldn't spot any weak spots on him. Even his metal arm was so flawlessly fused with his skin that it didn't create a tender spot. He appeared to be about twenty-seven years old, but something about him seemed older. His eyes were empty and unlike Natalia's, that wasn't an act. He almost didn't seem human.
The fight began the second Headmistress took her seat.
Natalia moved like lightning, racing up the Soldier's body. He batted her away, but she landed lightly on her toes and continued her assault. She used her small stature to her advantage, slipping between his blows with all the grace of a ballerina. He barely moved from his spot, letting the girl come to him.
It was incredible to watch. They were a flash of red, the gleam of metal, soles shifting on a blood-stained floor. Dainty feet standing on point and a gloved fist cutting through the air. Someone let out an involuntary gasp as Natasha succeeded in wrapping her hands around his arm. She used the leverage to swing up and wrap her thighs around his neck. He grabbed at her lower legs, but he couldn't quite get a hold on her. Natalia was hanging tight on him, her face determined as she squeezed her thighs as tightly as she could.
Finally, the Winter Soldier tossed her off with a vicious maneuver that sent her flying into the brick wall. She slammed into it and slid to the floor, and despite the pain coursing through her body, she was back in a crouch in a second. The Soldier stared her down, and the fight would have resumed, if not for Headmistress standing up.
Her cold voice cut through the room. "Enough. That was an acceptable performance. We'll continue it tomorrow, Natalia."
The girl with the flame-colored hair straightened and dipped her head. Without waiting, Headmistress left the room, her girls following her out. Natalia followed after them, the intensity of the Winter Soldier's staring burning a hole in her back.
For some reason, his attention didn't make her feel like she was in danger. She didn't quite recognize the feeling, but it was almost pleasant, if such a nice thing could exist in such a cold place.
Natalia lasted a full week against the Winter Soldier. When she finally lost, no one even made a snide comment about it. Even Headmistress was impressed, although she never actually said so, but Natalia had learned how to read her teacher over the years.
"Natalia is the only one who has managed to meet my standards. Most of your targets will be men, sometimes many times the size of you and almost certainly much stronger than you," Headmistress chastised from her chair, sitting upon it like a Queen would her throne. Natalia was still laying on the floor with blood dripping into her eye from the gash on her forehead. The Soldier had just punched her and she hadn't been able to dodge it in time to avoid injury. She dragged herself upright as Headmistress continued, saying, "You must be better than your opponents. I hope you learned something from this experience. The Winter Soldier will be leaving us tomorrow."
That seemed to be an unspoken cue, because the Soldier and Headmistress left the room together.
Natalia, instead of following the other girls out, marched down to the supply room. Blood slowly dripped into her eye, clotting thickly on her lashes. It darkened the scarlet of her hair. She yanked open the supply cabinet, yanked out a thread, needle, and mirror, and sat down. She brushed her hair out of the way and prepared the needle.
"You need to clean the wound," a soft voice said from behind her.
She whirled around, her head throbbing at the sudden motion. She cursed herself mentally for not hearing the person coming, but froze upon seeing the man in the doorway. The Winter Soldier was watching her, but there was something... softer about his gaze right now. It was almost concerned. Things like care and concern for another person didn't often survive out here, in the Red Room, in the middle of a frozen wasteland where even the people seemed made of ice. And he was an assassin, who had caused the very injury that she was trying to treat. For a second she thought she must have lost more blood than she thought, because there was no way he had come to help her out of the kindness of his heart. He wasn't supposed to have a heart.
"May I?" he asked, hands spread in a placating gesture, one calloused skin, the other smooth metal.
There was something distinctly disarming about his voice. It didn't match his intimidating appearance at all. It was gentle, low and smooth. She nodded her permission without even registering what he'd asked to do.
He walked over soundlessly and knelt next to her. She eyed him apprehensively, but he just gathered some swabs and dipped them in alcohol. He didn't bother warn her before touching the swab to her cut. She couldn't help but flinch. Horror flooded through her. She had just showed weakness before one of her trainers. Now he would punish her for it. She had always thought girls who flinched and cried were weak, and thought they deserved the punishment that would be delivered upon them, and now she was one of them. The weak. She steeled herself for the blow, but it never came.
He just kept cleaning her cut, even gently washing off the blood that had dried on her eyelid and lashes. The sting barely registered in her wonder. He really wasn't going to discipline her. His flesh hand was gentle, even, warm and experienced. He did the task efficiently and well, clearly from practice. He must have done this for himself countless times. Natalia didn't bother to pretend she wasn't staring at him. She couldn't comprehend why he was helping her. What could he possibly have to gain from it? Did he expect something from her in return?
The Soldier picked up the needle, cleansed it, and gently tilted her head with his ice cold metal hand. She let him, looking into his dark eyes. His gaze didn't so much as flickered away from his work. It was only when he set down the needle that he met her eyes. Young eyes met ancient ones. She was again struck by how much older his eyes seemed than his body appeared to be.
"You fight well," he said.
"You are better," she said matter-of-factly.
"Yes. But not for much longer, I suspect," he replied, and though neither of them smiled, they both understood what he was trying to saw. A compliment. What a rare thing to the ten year old assassin.
He stood and started to walk out of the room. She started cleaning up all the medical supplies he had brought out to patch her up. Headmistress would punish her if the room wasn't spotless when she left.
"It's a shame," he said abruptly, still in the doorway.
She frowned at him. "What is?"
"You would have been the most beautiful dancer."
For the first time, with his face soft and lit only by the dim glow of a single lamp, Natalia thought he might have been incredibly handsome, if they both weren't trained killers.
He suddenly had an odd expression on his face.
"What?" she demanded impetuously.
"You don't seem like a Natalia," he answered unexpectedly.
"What do I seem like?" she asked, before she could stop herself.
"A Natasha."