A/N: Thanks for reviewing! Thank you, ClicheMelancholy - I'm so glad you enjoyed it! Hopefully it lives up to your expectations!

Monday is January, Friday is December

Natalia Romanova was six years old when it first occurred to her to question her future. Her parents were dead, though the exact circumstances were something she hadn't known at the time. She had lived with Ivan Petrovitch for as long as she could remember. When she turned six, he brought her to a beautiful building in the middle of nowhere. There were other girls there, dancing in a pretty room full of mirrors. A bored-looking instructor kept telling them to repeat what they were doing.

Natalia was worried about them because they seemed exhausted. A woman approached to reassure her while she waited for Ivan. He was speaking at length to someone in an office.

"Aren't they pretty?"

"Yes," Natalia admitted. "They seem sad."

"That's just the dance. They are acting the part for the story. It's a very sad story," the woman explained.

Natalia nodded and went back to watching them. One girl fell, twisting her leg at an odd angle underneath her. She did not make a sound, though anguish was evident on her face. None of the others attempted to help her. Slowly, the girl got to her feet again and continued the dance, wincing every time she used her right leg. Natalia felt reassured that the girl could continue dancing and supposed the injury must not have been so bad as it looked.

"I hear you are a talented little girl," the woman next to her said suddenly.

Turning away from the dancers, Natalia considered her. "Ivan says so," she admitted after a moment.

"He says you show an aptitude for physical activity as well as intelligence. Do you think you could pick up this dance?" the woman suggested, gesturing toward the studio.

There was a hint of challenge in her tone and Natalia wanted to prove herself capable. So she focused on the steps through which the girls were moving. She had no words to name the moves, but they seemed doable. When they repeated, she waited briefly to determine that no new steps appeared.

Feeling adequately prepared and maybe a little pride, Natalia proceeded to move through the unfamiliar steps as quickly as she could. Some were a bit of a challenge, but she felt she did a passable job for a first attempt. When she finished, she looked expectantly up at the woman, who smiled.

"That was quite impressive, Natalia. None of our other girls have had your potential. I hope we'll see you again soon."

With that, she turned away and went into the room where Ivan was. Not sure what to make of the reaction, Natalia turned back to watching. She slowly realized that something had changed. Coming here wasn't just an adventure for the day. For one, it had taken a very long time to get here. For another, she could hear the woman talking to Ivan and whomever else was in the office, and caught her name more than once. What did that mean? Why had Ivan brought her to such a place? Was he tired of raising her on his own? Was this an orphanage? What was going to become of her?

The Red Room, a part of an unnamed department in the Soviet government, codename X, was not an orphanage. Children who resided in their compound did not do so out of charity. All of its agents were absolutely loyal to the Kremlin, and would sacrifice whatever was necessary in the name of Soviet superiority. Protecting the way of life for honest citizens was paramount.

Women, it was said, were underestimated in the West. Especially if they were pretty. They could pass through areas and gather information that was otherwise guarded jealously by statesmen. Even bodyguards tended to pay women little notice. So, it was determined, the next generation of spies should be women. Women trained with a very specific skillset.

Though the Red Room had other projects, the Black Widow program was by far the most influential. And successful. Madame B had started the program herself and interviewed all of its candidates before admitting them. Ideally, the girls were under ten to allow for better acquisition of skills. The youngest girl ever admitted was Natalia Romanova at six years old. As far as the records Natasha Romanoff was able to discover could tell, decades later.

Ivan took her home that day, but she had known her simple life with him would not last much longer. A week later, the woman from the Red Room arrived at their house. She was not alone, having several bodyguards with her. Ivan greeted her warmly and smiled at Natalia.

"You gave quite an impression, Solnyshko. The madame is eager to have you join with the other ballerinas. Would you like that?" Ivan asked, bending down to look her in the eye.

Natalia looked at the woman and back at the only parent she had ever known. "Do you want me to?"

His eyebrows drew together for a moment. "You could make a name for yourself. Make quite an impression everywhere you go. The girls the madame is training are going to have a significant influence on our great country. And on how other countries see us," he added darkly.

"What if I fail?" she asked.

"You never fail," he replied confidently, patting her on the shoulder as he rose.

Bolstered, she nodded. "I want to serve my country."

"Wonderful," the woman told her, smiling in a way that didn't quite reach her eyes. "We will be privileged to have someone of your talents join our group."

After that, things moved very quickly. Her meager possessions were packed, Ivan said goodbye, and she was put in a car, crowded on each side by the bodyguards who had traveled with the madame. She turned around to watch her old house disappear and wondered if she would ever see Ivan again.

The years of training passed in a blur. There were twenty-eight Black Widows of the Red Room, Natalia Romanova was the youngest of them. Because of that, she had to work extra hard to catch up. Her first day involved being thrown into the same training exercises as the others, despite her having no background in what they were doing. The exhaustion from trying so hard to copy them that day only increased as the days turned into weeks.

Every day was the same. The girls woke at dawn and ate a tasteless but protein-rich breakfast. Then they studied. Language acquisition, protocol, cryptography, as well as the usual three Rs that children learn (reading, writing, arithmetic). These lessons lasted until one in the afternoon, at which point a light lunch was served. The girls took shifts making and serving the food, though there was a kitchen staff that did the bulk of the work. It was important that a Black Widow be comfortable in any situation, so they were often called upon without warning to serve in other capacities around the facility. To see how quickly they could think on their feet.

After lunch, the physical training began. This was not always the same. The Widows learned various combat techniques and marksmanship as well as several forms of dancing. The goal of the morning work was to allow the Black Widow to get herself into any situation required. The goal of the afternoon trainings was to get her out of it. Charm and intelligence could help her ingratiate herself with marks and targets, but she had to have a way to extricate herself in a hurry when she had completed her mission.

Objectively, Natalia had to admit that she enjoyed the training. All of it. She liked to learn and excelled at it, often beyond her peers. There were a few girls who could usually keep up with her, and, at first, they formed a sort of friendship. But the Red Room encouraged competition above all else, and this was not allowed to last long. The twenty-eight of them were culled every year to prevent weakness or sentimentality. Her upbringing with Ivan seemed like a distant fantasy as she was surrounded by enemies every day who were learning to be as duplicitous and cutthroat as a world-class spy needed to be.

Unpredictability was an essential part of the training program. Though the Widows had schedules to which they knew to report, Madame B would often orchestrate obstacles to prevent their success. In the beginning, these were as simple as changing the location of the lessons or having one of the textbooks removed to see how quickly the girls could overcome the challenge. Later, these became as severe as leaving a group of them far out in the frozen wasteland that surrounded the compound with only enough supplies for one to make it back.

By the time Natalia was twenty, there were only a half dozen Widows left. They were the hardiest girls and Natalia was considered the strongest of them. The culling had ceased some years before as the Widows had proven themselves enough, perhaps, to complete the training. That was when a new instructor was brought in from the cold to ensure they were ready to survive in the field.