Natasha Romanoff doesn't remember much before the age of five. Some hazy memories remain; a battered doll, a small wooden house, warm arms holding her until she falls asleep. She cannot picture the rooms in the house, or the face of the woman holding her, no matter how hard she tries. She holds on to the few memories she has because soon after she turns five, the men in dark suits turn up and burn the wooden house to the ground, then they take her far away. Natasha remembers the sudden cold, the harsh hands of the man dragging her along the gravel to the waiting car, and arriving at a red door set in concrete and surrounded by snow. She remembers the deep sense of foreboding at the sight of it. She remembers meeting Ivan Yenotov, the feel of his hand upon her head, and his rough voice telling her that she is here for Russia, that her country needs her and she must not let them down.
She does not leave this place for ten years. When she does, she is no longer the girl Natalia Romanova, not yet the woman Natasha Romanoff. She is the Black Widow.
She forgets the brothers and the sister she once played with. She has new siblings now, nineteen other girls just like her. And less than a week after sixth birthday – not that she is aware that her birthday has passed – Natasha Romanoff begins her training at the Red Room Academy.
Lessons run from early morning until late afternoon. Natasha is good at these; she easily picks up the new languages, the mathematics and the sciences. Later she will find that her memory is what they call photographic, but this doesn't always save her from the occasional vicious beating at the hands of the trainers. Natasha is nine when she witnesses one of the other girls, seven-year-old Yuliya, have all eight of her fingers broken for forgetting her English words. Two days later, Natasha accidentally lets her accent slip during English lessons; she is left with a broken wrist and a concussion.
For the rest of each afternoon and the evenings, the girls learn a variety of martial arts and self-defence. She and Yuliya are forced to watch from the sidelines until their injuries heal; they share a mostly silent but amiable bond. When they return to training they are paired together, and Natasha is impressed with the younger girl's ability to keep up with her moves. It is common knowledge amongst the Red Room trainees that Natasha, or Natalia as she is known then, is the best at both the lessons and the training; none of the others can ever take her down. Yuliya puts up a good fight, but Natasha manages to wrap a leg around the younger girl's throat (later to become her signature move) and brings her down so hard that Yuliya has to gasp for breath for several minutes. When she recovers, the girl grins up at her sparring partner. "Can you teach me that?"
Life goes on, seemingly normal for this group of girls who do not remember life ever being any different. A year later, the physical training intensifies and more lessons are added; advanced chemistry and physics, weapons training, poisons resistance and the arts of interrogation and seduction. Natasha hates the poisons resistance training. The constant injections leave the girls lethargic and nauseous, and they are punished harshly if they throw up.
Time passes, some moments a blur and others sticking harshly in Natasha's mind; when she is left alone and without food or water for a week after giving Yuliya some of her bread, because the younger girl had collapsed with hunger earlier that day. When one of the girls refuses to train and is dragged out, never to return. When one of the trainers, Tatia, kindly smiles and congratulates her when she is the fastest of the girls to load a gun and take out every target. Another trainer notices, and Tatia does not return either.
Natasha is thirteen when she is summoned to Ivan's office. She has to suppress the bolt of fear that rises through her; the man is a figure of fear to many of the girls, often watching their training from afar. She is shoved in front of his desk in his surprisingly bare office, forcing herself to make eye contact with the imposing man sitting behind it as she hears the guard shut the door behind her. He leans forward and studies her intensely, his eyes traveling up and down her body in a way that makes her skin crawl. He tells her to come closer and it isn't until he is kissing her, fingers pulling at her red hair and groping her body roughly that she understands what is going to happen. Natasha knows that she could fight him, could try to run, but instead she can only close her eyes and try to will herself away.
Afterwards, a guard takes her back to her room. She collapses on the floor and painfully curls into herself, allowing only one tear to slide down her cheek. Seeing the haunted look on Yuliya's face and the handprints on her friend's arms a few days later, she realises that they are all going to suffer this. Thankfully it happens only once, but for a long time the memory is the only thing that scares her.
Natasha is fifteen and Yuliya is thirteen when all of the girls are called into the training room. They can sense that today is different; there is a tense energy in the air, and the guards are fully armed and watching them closely. Ivan appears and Natasha tries to ignore the shudder running through her body; she sees Yuliya freeze and gently brushes her fingers across her friend's hand as reassurance.
"You have been training here for eight years now." Ivan's rough voice echoes through the room, his eyes resting on each girl in turn. "There are nineteen of you. Your trainers have told me that you are ready to proceed to the next stage."
A barely perceptible murmur runs through the seated girls. Ivan glares, and continues. "But not all of you can continue, only the best can do this work for Mother Russia. Today, we narrow this down to just two of you. Today, only two of you will leave this room alive, and you have ten minutes in which to kill your weaker classmates. If seventeen of you are not dead in those ten minutes, you will all be killed."
At this, some of the girls start looking around the room wildly, fear on their faces. Fools, Natasha thinks, her heart beat intensifying as adrenaline begins to course through her body. If they cannot control their fear, they are already dead.
Ivan gives them one final nod and leaves the room with the trainers, tossing out a casual "Your time begins now" as if his words are not condemning them to death. The girls warily back away from each other, backs facing the walls, wide eyes scanning the group, postures defensive. For a long moment nobody moves; it is the tall girl to Natasha's left that attacks first, launching herself at Natasha with fists flying. She reacts on pure instinct; block, block, punch to the nose that leaves her opponent snarling and bloody, a vicious back kick to the collarbone, a headlock and finally a brutal twist of the girl's head. The audible crunch brings Natasha back to reality, as she stares down at the dead girl at her feet.
She is suddenly aware of the chaos surrounding her. Several bodies lie unmoving on the floor, others a blur as they desperately spar back and forth. For a second Natasha is overwhelmed, until a sharp pain erupts in her left temple and she in on her knees, head whirling from Veronika's aggressive roundhouse kick. She take the opportunity to sweep the girl's legs out from under her then get a firm hold on her throat, holding it until Veronika stops clawing desperately at her and goes limp. Staggering away, Natasha gets her bearings and sees that there are only three others left standing; herself, Yuliya and the two girls who have trapped her in the far corner.
Natasha doesn't even think, just runs at the closest girl and tackles her, slamming her head into the concrete wall with such savage force that it kills her instantly. She fixes her murderous glare on the girl who has both hands wrapped around Yuliya's neck, choking the life from the smaller girl with a manic grin on her face. Natasha grabs her in a chokehold and throws the girl off her friend with a growl of anger. The girl – her name is Alexandra, Natasha recalls somewhere in the back of her mind – lashes out at her, her fist connecting solidly, splitting Natasha's lip and breaking her nose. Natasha ignores the pain, rolling away from Alexandra and getting to her feet in one smooth motion. They face each other, Natasha standing defiantly between her opponent and Yuliya, who is gasping to regain her breath.
Alexandra breaks the standoff first, unleashing a wild flurry of kicks and punches that forces Natasha against the closest wall. She blocks the attack as best she can, but a brutal kick meets her side, breaking several ribs. Winded and trying to blink through the pain of her broken nose, Natasha slumps to the floor with her head bowed. She hears Alexandra scoff and reach for her again, hands going straight for Natasha's exposed neck, to squeeze the last breath from her body.
So predictable.
Natasha waits until Alexandra's hands are closing around her throat and then headbutts the girl with all her might, sending her flying onto her back with a cry of pain. She feels a calm rage settling within her as she straddles the moaning girl and takes her head between her hands, twisting until she hears the crack of her neck breaking. Suddenly exhausted and overwhelmed, Natasha pushes herself away from the dead girl until her back hits the wall. She realises for the first time that her arms are covered in blood, and that it matches the colour of her red hair; the thought sickens her and she struggles to control her uneven breathing, the sharp sting of her damaged ribs protesting against each movement.
Ivan's slow clapping fills the silent room, his chuckle of appreciation chilling Natasha to the core. She stares at her bloody hands as he approaches her, his heavy footsteps halting right beside her. "Nine minutes and thirty-two seconds, excellent work," he says, bringing a hand down to rest on her shoulder. She fights the urge to shudder away from his touch, focusing instead on the terrified girl across the room from her. Yuliya is almost hyperventilating, her eyes wide and looking around her at the seventeen bodies which were, only a few minutes ago, her classmates. Natasha wishes she could comfort her friend, but she knows that this would be seen as a moment of weakness for them both. Instead, she watches the blood dry on her hands and tries to block the sound of screams from her mind.
After the violent events in the training room, Natasha is brought back to her cell and left there to recover. A doctor is sent in to wrap her broken ribs and check her other injuries; she doesn't flinch when he rebreaks her nose, and avoids eye contact. The trainers drop meals off to her, and she notices that the food is much better and more plentiful than what the girls previously ate. Perhaps they can afford better quality now that there are less mouths to feed, she thinks morbidly. It is five long silent days before they come for her and she is brought before Ivan, her skin crawling at the memory of what happened the last time she had been in his office.
"Well done, Natalia." He says, his cold gaze meeting hers. She forces herself to hold the stare, digging her fingernails into her palm to stop the bile from rising within her throat. There is silence for a few moments, until Ivan clears his throat and smiles at her. "You will now be known as Black Widow. You are to forget your old name. You will continue your training, and we will send you on your first mission. There is a man in Moscow who has betrayed our country and for that he must suffer. You are to kill him. Do you understand?"
Natasha lets out the breath she has been holding, and nods. She feels a slight shiver of excitement at the thought of completing a mission for Russia; this is what she has been training for, for ten long years now. The memory of what took place in the training room only days before is fading into a deep, dark corner of her mind, only to emerge in her worst nightmares.
Two weeks later, when her ribs have mostly healed and the bruising on her face has finally faded, the Black Widow leaves the Red Room facility with White Tiger, the girl she once knew as Yuliya. She doesn't spare a thought for Natalia Romanova, the terrified child who was dragged there ten years earlier. The only thing on the Widow's mind is the slow and painful death she will give her target in Moscow, for the sins he has committed against her country and the Red Room.