1. Perestroika
Rome is quiet, and humid.
The winding streets are soaked; it's been a rainy October and the dampness hangs in the air, no matter how close you are to the sea.
And Natalia is close to the sea- the club the Red Room has sent her to is right on the edge of the Pier Maison, a beach notable for its roaring waves and silvered dunes. If she was any less professional, she would be dipping her feet into the trembling waters; Italy is warm, even in the midst of winter, like Russia never is.
But Natalia is professional- is the best, in fact- and knows better than to let personal indulgence get in the way of an op.
The dress she has chosen for the night is dark green, the color of pine needles on snow. It complements her striking hair and draws attention to her smooth skin- very similar to how she kills, in fact: smooth, quick, and utilitarian.
The man at the counter falls to her smile in less time than it takes for her to stretch the skin across her teeth. Everything is rote, by now, these missions; what should she do, she wants to ask Rubanev, if she starts to yawn in the middle of an op?
At least this time, the mark is good-looking. Broad shoulders, rugged features, and an ease to his movements that belie his true size.
…and the last time she faced a man who moved like that, he was a professional assassin.
Damn. Her mission's been blown out of the water; she needs cover, and she needs it now. Rubanev isn't waiting for her back at HQ, because real-estate prices in Rome are a little too pricey for the Red Room to be comfortable with furnishing them.
The Black Widow, she thinks wryly, caught because she couldn't pay her mortgage.
Her handler for this mission is green, too, all the way back in Sverdlovsk. Her hands, clasped around the bracelets that, when turned inside out double as a Widow's Bite, tighten minutely. She's in deep, deep shit for this.
"Tell me," the mark turns around, fully facing her. His eyes are a slate-green, striking that exact shade between stormy and colorless; a vow, promising of more. And his voice- Natalia could drown in that, alone. "Do you enjoy parties like this, or are you just here for the décor?"
Natalia laughs like he's said something hilarious, even as she twists her bracelet surreptitiously. "My friend told me the wine would be good."
"And so far?"
"It's… cheap." She shrugs, lightly, and lets the sheath of her double butterfly swords shift closer to the slits in the side of her dress. "But my expectations were low, already."
The man leans forward, and were it anyone else she would've thought him drunk; from the slur in his voice to the provocative edge in his posture, he is drunk, but his eyes are a little too pointed for her to be comfortable with believing him. "You wanna blow this joint?"
Like hell, you wannabe spy, are you getting me alone.
…but, then again, I'll bet you're not good enough to take me.
"Sure. If you can promise it'll beat the wine."
He smiles, more smirk than grin. Decidedly not the easiness of a drunk.
She wraps her arms around her middle, like she's cold, and lets her core loosen- hips swaying a touch more than normal, and steps faltering, slipping along the pavement and just catching herself before she lands.
They stumble outside; Natalia lets him guide her farther and farther down the street, away from the party, until the roar of the ocean is just a distant hiss. The streets are darker, here, tucked away between towering stone edifices and larger statues of long-dead emperors. The very air stinks of history and bitter, impotent fury: the rage of a slave, obedient to his master's will.
There are faint hints of remembrance, facets and recognition that come together and disappear at random times. And then there are the treasonous thoughts that are no more than whispers at the edge of her conscious.
Natalia thinks she might just be going mad.
"Where're'w goin'?" She asks, letting the syllables slur together in a faint hint of a native Italian accent.
The hints, alone, might have been ignored, but together they paint a dangerous picture- one that she doesn't fully understand, and fears more than anything. She might not say it, but what she really wants to ask is, why does the Red Room want to kill me.
But that is just a bad idea in general.
He releases her waist almost immediately, as if he's been burned, and raises his hands in the universal gesture for peace.
Or is it unarmed? She can never quite remember.
"We both know you aren't just a pretty face," he says grimly, voice holding none of the headiness of alcohol.
"'M sorry?"
His hands tighten on nothing but air, and then the glove he's wearing on his left arm is ripped away, revealing… metal.
Faint memories emerge, of a dark shadow and a silver gleam; she's a child, for a breath, with no training but her will and no strength but her mind. And she remembers, for a long, dizzying, spiraling moment:
Asya and Olga, Nadya and Irina, her sisters in mind if not blood; Ivan, the delicate boy with her eyes; her mother's glittering gold ring.
And zima soldat- the Winter Soldier, though she'd called him Zimashka, the Winter, but her Winter. She remembers him, too, on a warm night in Rome.
"Zimashka?" She breathes, biting back the screams she can feel splitting her mind in half. "Zima, eto ty?"
Is that you, my Winter?
His eyes are as impersonal as a blade under the full moon; there's no recognition in the rough features of his face.
But Natalia knows, for maybe the first time in her life; she knows Zimashka and wants… she wants him to hold her, like he once did, protecting her against the world.
Except he'd protected her by breaking her, and that led to her here, in Rome, on a mission set up just to make sure that she died on the way. She'll be hailed as the former Black Widow, a beautiful, impersonal standard for the next generation of motherless girls to strive for; a martyr in her black leather and blooded hands.
And, of course, she will be dead.
"Eto dlya vas vremya, chtoby spat,'" he says softly, moving towards her. It is time for you to sleep.
She pauses, watches him come closer, an angel of death and- maybe, perhaps, in another time and another world… an angel of mercy- and she wants so very much to give in, but there are holes in her mind and, yes, damn the world and the consequences, but this does matter, and she wants to give in but not if death is nothing.
"Sleep, Zimashka, is nothing more than a lie. And I am done with your lies."
The bone-hilt in his hand freezes for a moment, but that's all she needs; Natalia vaults across the cobblestones and onto the reddish-stone lining the walls of the buildings, using that as a springboard to twist to the outside.
Butterfly swords are a wonderful commodity for close-quarter fights, especially when the handles are extendable. Suddenly, Natalia has the advantage of the two of them- a longer reach, and agility.
Zima Soldat hisses a colorful invective when she finally does strike him, but it isn't in his- what she assumed to be- native tongue; the distinctive, almost obnoxious All-American twang stuns both of them into motionlessness for an all-too-brief second.
She meets his gaze, and in those forbidding eyes she sees the same loss echoed in her own. Were she a different, kinder woman, she would have tried to follow those cracks and deepen them; to help Zimashka through the darkness, and hope that the burden wouldn't be quite so heavy if it were borne on two shoulders.
But Natalia isn't the good woman, never tried to be.
In another universe, she would have probably had that kindness, but that mercy was erased by men for whom peace meant business lost. Too many people with too many agendas; it led to too many people slipping through the cracks like Natalia and Zimashka. She wraps a hand around the railing of the street, and flips away.
Goodbye, Zimashka. Zima Soldat, I will not show you mercy when I see you next.
Perestroika is Russian for restructuring. I spent a full afternoon researching East Slavic naming customs, especially the three-name system of the Russians/Ukrainians. Given-Patronymic (father's name, changed a little)-Family Name. Very, very interesting, particularly once you get into the diminutives and nicknames. I couldn't get hard facts on Zimashka (which means Winter, but also, maybe 'little Winter'.) That's what I got from that evening, and couldn't find another way to make Natalia like Zima without being a little too blatant about it.
Also, butterfly swords were a staple in Eastern sword-fighting, not Western, but they're also a little flashy, and I thought Natalia would've liked them. The methods of fighting with them aren't really common, so that could be a plus... Sverdlovsk is now known as Yekatarinburg.
And, finally, Natalia isn't seventy-odd years old in this fic; she was born sometime in the late 1970s; early 1980s. The Red Room survived the fall of the Berlin Wall, so it stands to reason that she was trained then too. During this fic, she is roughly twenty years old.
Again, all Russian mistakes are my fault.
Reviews inspire me!
-Dialux