Valeriya 'Lera' Anastasia Sviokla, beautiful, brunette and the Red Room's biggest asset since Nataliya Romanova betrayed them and ran to their enemies for shelter. At least that was what Lera was told when she took her last assignment from the Winter Soldier, her mentor in the Red Room.
Lera had joined the Red Room when she was twelve years old to avenge her father's murder but she never got her revenge as he was already dead and so she stayed with the red room. It was the easy way out for her, becoming a weapon, forgetting her humanity. That was five years ago now and she had become the Red Room's best fighter. And so it was easier for her to kill her next target Nataliya Romanova.
She had been following Nataliya for three days, tracking her across Europe until she finally spotted her entering Moscow, apparently following her own target. She had finally pushed Natasha into a corner, at an ornate fundraiser where she was posing as a wealthy oil baron's wife, a poor cover in Lera's opinion. But that was where she was, she assuming her usual cover of a ballerina with the Russian Ballet, a lot more forgettable than her target's. Lera danced with her 'boyfriend' the Winter Soldier, her mentor and backup if she didn't carry out her mission, while watching Nataliya as she moved across the room.
"Shit!" Lera cursed, Nataliya had looked right at her and winked. She had winked! If the Winter Soldier found out then she would be killed on the spot. Luckily Nataliya moved to the balcony doors pushing them open and glancing back at Lera, daring her to follow. Lera immediately moved after her, placing a hand on the weapon concealed behind the long slit in her dress. Once she had closed the balcony doors, Lera pulled out her gun pointing it at Nataliya. The people on the balcony scattered into a circle around Nataliya and Lera, watching in awe at the scene.
"Your time is up Nataliya. You have betrayed your country a million times over and you must die from that. If not by my hand then by the hand of the man who made you what you are today." Lera shouted, cocking her gun. She pulled the trigger only to see that Nataliya disappeared. She turned around to see her target stood with two other men, one held a bow and the other wore strange clothes and was holding his hand out menacingly, if that were even possible. "What witchcraft is this?" Lera asked, dropping her weapon.
"It's no trick." Nataliya spoke, approaching Lera with raised hands. "Actually it is but I don't want to hurt you, I'm here to help you. You've been stuck in the Red Room all of your life. I'm here to offer you a chance to get out and help us bring our mentor back to his family. He has one person left in this world and I'm here to make sure he gets back to that, and to make sure that neither of you get hurt."
"Why would I betray my people like that?" Lera asked cockily. "How many of our people are watching you betray them?" She looked around at the people still watching the scene.
"None." Nataliya replied, all of the bystanders raising a gun at Lera. "If you won't come with us voluntarily I will bring you in by force."
"I am not going anywhere with a traitor." Lera spat, taking a step closer to Nataliya. "You'll have to kill…" Before Lera could finish her sentence she heard several blasts and her vision went black, her body crumpling to the ground.
When Lera next woke up she was on a hospital bed, unrestrained, Nataliya sat next to her, stroking her head. "Where am I?" She spoke, unsure of what had happened over the last few years. "What happened?"
"We had to shoot you." Nataliya replied, quickly continuing when she saw the sharpness in Lera's eyes. "We shot you with a sedative so that we could bring you in. What do you last remember?"
Lera thought back, her mind only coming back to a red room lined with mirrors and wooden bars. "A ballet studio. A red ballet studio." When the words left her mouth she remembered everything. The things she had done, the people she had killed, everything. She remembered the night in the Moscow ball room, the balcony and the red headed woman she was supposed to kill. "I remember it all, everything I've done, the night I was supposed to kill you. My mentor will be furious, I'll be next on his list."
"Don't worry about him, he's in the next room talking with the friend I told you about." Nataliya explained, smiling at the girl in front of her. "When you became a Black Widow, they used a drug on you during the procedure to make you do whatever they wanted. You've done a lot of things but not intentionally. I however did everything by choice, so I think I know what you're feeling right now."
"Do you?" Lera asked, laughing slightly. "I haven't just killed people, a few missions ago I was sent to infiltrate a ring of sex dealers, and I wasn't filing paperwork. I killed innocent women there, and some less than innocent men, I've killed hundreds of innocent people a hundred different times, all to prove that I was the right person to kill you. Killing you would have been an honor, they might have let me stop killing if I'd succeeded."
"I promise you they wouldn't have let you go." Nataliya's gaze became distant and stern, like she had been in Lera's position before, more than once.
"I want to speak to him. My mentor." Lera demanded, rising from the bed and moving to the door. When she opened it two men aimed their weapons at her, stopping her in her tracks.
"She wants to see Bucky, let her through." Nataliya spoke to the men, they immediately lowered their aim and let her pass, indicating to her which door to walk through. Lera stood outside of the door for a few seconds before pushing it open.
…
Bucky watched as Lera followed her target, watching with a hard stare preparing for the inevitability that she would be killed. It wasn't long before he knew something was wrong because he heard a faint gunshot and nobody was running away. He looked around everybody as quickly as he could, noting that everybody had the same wary expression on their face as he did. Lera had walked into a trap yes, but she was only in the frying pan, he was in the fire. After three more gun shots each person in the large ballroom turned to face him, weapons raised. A tall blond man moved from the back of the room toward him. Bucky prepared for a fight, until he saw the man's face. He was there the day he started remembering, he was the man that had undone him. Bucky had gone to Russia almost immediately after that day to resume training people in the Red Room and to get away from the painful images this man had brought back to him.
"Bucky." The man spoke, raising his hands. "You know me, and I know you. I've been looking for you for a long time, since we fought in Washington. Do you remember that, or have they taken that from you?"
"I remember." Bucky spoke through gritted teeth. "Do you know how much pain I've been in since then? I don't remember anything about you but I have been guilty for attacking you, for killing everyone I have killed and I don't know why." Bucky started to cry. "I don't know why."
"Get back to the base and report to your senior officers. I can handle this on my own." The blonde man ordered; the room filling with an echo of 'yes sir's. Once everyone had left, he continued. "I can help you remember, if you want me to. I have a friend who can undo everything that Hydra did to you."
"Who are Hydra?" Bucky asked, a small piece of him knowing that it was not a good thing.
"Honestly, I couldn't explain it to you quick enough." The blonde man smiled, running a hand through his hair. "Please, come with me."
After a few seconds of deliberation Bucky answered "Okay."
"I'm very glad to hear that." The blonde man smiled. "Your student hasn't been hurt, she'd just unconscious."
"They use mind control." Bucky suddenly blurted, remembering how they avoid cases like one Nataliya Romanova. "She doesn't know what she's doing half the time. Well she does, she just doesn't question it because they make sure that she won't."
"That's good to know." The blonde man smiled, motioning for them to leave. "Shall we?" He asked, waiting for Bucky.
"What's your name?" Bucky asked as they walked along.
"Steve." The blond man smiled, opening the door for him.
…
Lera stopped when she saw the face of her mentor, her breath speeding up. "Nataliya said that you were here." She blurted out, both the winter soldier and a blonde man are looking at her, the former in pain and the latter in confusion. "I'm sorry sir, I just don't know what to do."
"It's fine." The winter soldier smiled, catching Lera off guard. "And I'm sorry for everything that I helped the red room do to you, and make you do." He motioned for her to walk forward and she did so, almost robotically. "You don't need to call me sir anymore, I actually remember who I am and it isn't the assassin you know. My name is James, but most people call me Bucky. And this is Steve, my best friend. My only friend actually."
"Sir… James." Lera spoke timidly. "I don't want to be the person I was with the red room. Valeriya Sviokla wasn't a good person."
Nataliya walked into the room and stood next to Lera. "I felt the same way once I left, I haven't been called Nataliya Romanova for a long time. I changed my name, became a different person. Here I'm Natasha Romanoff. It's pretty similar to my old name but I need that reminder sometimes. You can be anyone you want and go anywhere you want. It's up to you." She smiled at Lera who was looking up at her in awe.
"I don't want to be like the person I was, not in any way. I just don't know who I want to be. Not yet." Lera explained, looking between the three people looking intently at her.
"You don't have to decide right away." Steve smiled at Lera, cocking his head to the side slightly. "You can say here until you decide."
"Where is here?" Lera asked again, having not received an answer from Natasha.
"This is Avenger's tower." Natasha explained, leading Lera to a window. "We used to work for SHIELD but after Hydra emerged it was destroyed so a friend of mine, a very powerful friend, uses this place to do the same thing. We don't have that many people working for us; most of the people at the ball were various CIA and FBI agents who had volunteered along with some Russian Intelligence operatives. But here we can help people and make sure that no innocent people get hurt by Hydra. Like you for example, Hydra was in control of the red room and we have been helping people leave or been cleaning up the aftermath of someone really not coming quietly. You're one of the first people to have been successfully retrieved."
"What happened to the others?" Lera asked, knowing that she was going to regret hearing the answer.
"They killed themselves, along with a lot of other people usually." Natasha whispered, obviously not wanting to remember.
"Agent Romanoff, there is a visitor for you who has asked to remain anonymous." A voice spoke from above them. Bucky and Lera both looked around confused but Steve didn't even blink.
"Thank you JARVIS, I'll be in the main lounge." Natasha replied to the voice. "I've got to go but Steve will be able to explain anything else to you and you obviously know Bucky." With that she left the room.
Lera moved away from the window to sit on the bed opposite Bucky and Steve. "Why does everyone call you Bucky?"
Bucky and Steve both smiled to each other before Steve answered "His full name is James Buchannan Barnes. We used to call him Bucky to make fun of his name but the name stuck."
"I think I'll just call you James." Lera responded, struggling to think of something else to say.
"Natasha wasn't kidding about Russian humour." Steve commented, earning strange looks from both Lera and Bucky.
"I'm not completely Russian, my mother was Russian but she died when I was born. My father was American, he taught me how to speak English and Russian, my grandmother taught me Spanish just to confuse things for me. I kept getting them mixed up in school." Lera blurted, having forgotten how to stop talking. "I learnt Japanese, Italian and French once I joined the red room."
"Really?" Steve asked interested, while Bucky knew exactly how the red room worked. You would practice until you could speak flawlessly or you would be beaten by the older students.
"In a way. They taught me a lot of other things. History, World Politics, anything that would be useful on a mission." Lera explained. "They also taught me ballet; that would be your cover. You were invited to train at a prestigious, private, ballet school; at least that was what they wanted people to think."
"They do a lot of things." Bucky commented, remembering the pain he had inflicted on Lera for various punishments. "I think I have a name for you." He piped up, changing the subject. "Isabella Ringer. We could call you Bella. It sounds similar to ballerina."
"I like Isabella." Lera commented. "But I think I'll call myself Isabella Katerina Barnes. It sounds better than your suggestion."
"I think that sounds great." Bucky smiled. "But why Katerina, I thought you didn't want it to sound Russian?"
"It was my mom's name." She smiled.
"I think it's perfect." Steve smiled. "Welcome to Avengers tower Bella."
