Hey, there! So this is the first request that I got from hallescomet97 and this is the prompt:

It is basically canon that Bucky worked with the widows, including Natasha, in the Red Room. I had the idea of showing him, as the winter soldier, taking a liking to one little girl and breaking out of his trance enough to try to help her escape. Years later, after he's been rehabilitated by the Avengers, he finds that girl again, somehow slowed in her aging as much as he and Steve (I think its canon that the widow project used some sort of super soldier syrum, which is why Natasha looks so young when she's probably, like, 60 years old). After that, he takes her in with the avengers and she sort of becomes like his daughter.

Also, the OC here, Tatiana, is still 5 years old and jsyk, this is not a love story :)


"Attention!" The girls stood in a straight line, their backs upright and their chins up as the Winter Soldier went in the room, with a few soldiers behind him. As every girl looked straight ahead, your head followed wherever he walked, mouth parted and eyes glazing over his peculiar metal arm.

"Shut your mouth, girl. You'll catch flies," A voice said beside you. You looked up and immediately shut your mouth as you saw your handler, Natalia Romanova, stand beside you. "Pay attention, Tia." She said, and you nodded, looking straight ahead.

"Students, this would be your new teacher, the Winter Soldier," The class' current teacher, Ivan Petrovitch, said. "He will take my place while I am away."

"Where is he going? Is that robot going to replace him?" You whispered to Natasha, who tried to shush you. However, no matter how soft the your whisper was, it did not go unnoticed by Ivan.

"Romanova, control your pet." He said, giving a pointed look at Natasha who just nodded.

"Yes, sir." She replied. A resounding smack at the back of your head echoed through the room, embarrassing you. However, you swore that you saw a glint of humor in the Winter Soldier's eyes.

"As I was saying," Ivan said. "I would be leaving you for a while in the hands of the Winter Soldier. I expect that you would learn a lot from him. He is one of our elite members, and he would be one of the judges for Graduation day." He said, and you knew that it meant that you were going to get beaten up more than you usually were. If Ivan and Natasha, who had normal arms, could bruise and cut you with a punch that they pull back, imagine what the Winter Soldier could do to you.

You'd be dead before Graduation Day.


You'd definitely be dead by Graduation Day.

From the sides of the sparring ring, you watched as the Winter Soldier pinned down Mila, one of the best students in your class. You gulped and watched the fight (or to be specific, a simple sweep on Mila's feet) in front of you. He had her squirming under his metal arm in a blink of an eye. She already had a cut lip, a black eye, and possibly a few broken ribs, and he still wouldn't budge. He was expecting her to fight back, even though he knew she can't anymore. He sighed and pushed Mila down to the floor of the sparring ring.

It was your turn now, and you felt your heart beating in your chest. But you couldn't show it. If you showed even the faintest shred of weakness here, you'd be beaten, until you wouldn't know what weak means. No, you didn't have the scars for that, but one other girl, Katia, was beaten in front of every one of you when she complained about having a sprained ankle. She had the whiplashes and a broken nose as a reminder of that day. You're surprised that she even made it until dinner time. All of you thought that they were going to eliminate her from the program. Now, she never talks to anyone and is one of the strongest among them.

So clenching your sweaty hands, you raised them and hardened your eyes. You remembered what Natalia told you once, during your training sessions.

Even if you're afraid, keep a straight face. It's like a hiding game, Tia; let them know who you are, you lose. But if you hide well enough, you'll win.

So this is what you were doing. You were hiding, but you felt like you were hiding behind a pole in a game of hide and seek, and the Winter Soldier, the it, is on the prowl. So when you heard him say 'begin', your heart leapt and you ran on instinct. You charged with a punch and a yell, but you felt your knuckles collide with metal, and you held back a winch as he clenched your probably split knuckles in his metal hand. You knew what was about to come and in a snap, he twisted your arm behind your back, and you let out a small surprised yelp. He held you there, but you were unmoving.

"Fight." The Winter Soldier commanded. Swinging her free arm in hopes of hitting at least his abdomen. However, you felt something pop in your shoulder, and the Winter Soldier easily dodged your futile attempt. You sucked in your breath as you felt a sharp pain on your shoulder. When he sensed that you weren't fighting back, he released you. You stood straight and faced him, and you fell from the backhand he gave you from his metal arm. You fell on your dislocated shoulder and curled up from the pain.

"Learn from her," He told everyone as he pointed at you. "Those who would not even bother to fight back are worthless," He said, looking at you straight in the eye. "What is the point of you?" He said, before motioning you to get off the sparring ring. Getting up, you kept your back straight despite the pain throbbing on your dislocated shoulder.

Later that night, while you were in the bathroom, you treated the cut and the bruise on your cheek. Leaning towards the mirror with only the sink as an armrest, you held a needle with thread in it and started stitching your cheek. You had to tiptoe in order to reach the mirror, since you were too short. For every stitch, you had to pause and take in deep breaths to calm your shaking hands. You willed yourself to hurry up as the other girls passed by you, knowing looks on their faces. You knew that look. They think that you're going to get kicked out. Natasha's voice came back to your head.

You're in a game where the only way to win is to hit people, Tia. If you don't hit hard enough, if the target doesn't bleed or doesn't get hurt, you'll be out. And you'll never see any of us again.

You finished your last stitch and sighed. You held your breath as you tried to rotate your shoulder, fighting back a wince at the pain. You sat and leaned back on the bathroom wall and pressed your elbow to your side. You stuck out your forearm in a 90˚ angle and you readied yourself before you pulled your forearm towards you until it lay flat on your stomach. You heard a pop on your shoulder and you released a breath you didn't know you were holding.

It was a trick that Natasha taught you, and it was handy for relocating your shoulder by yourself. You opened your eyes and there at the door, you saw the Winter Soldier standing there looking at you with deadly eyes.

You immediately stood up and stood in front of him.

"Why are you not at dinner?" He asked.

"Apologies, sir. It would not happen again." You said, and your jaws clenched as he wrapped his hands on your chin and tilted it a bit to the side. He was looking at your stitches and for a while, he looked at his metal arm then back to your stitches. You thought that you saw just a small sliver of guilt in his eyes, but you knew that it was a trick of the light.

He was a robot… Robots don't have feelings.

"If you couldn't fight well, you could at least know how to stitch properly." He said, roughly releasing your chin and walking to the opposite direction.


A few weeks later, the bruises disappeared and the cut became a faint scar. You were fully healed, but you thought of it like a blank canvas - it has more space to paint on. You watched as Mila nearly took down the Winter Soldier… Nearly. He managed to grab her legs and pin her down.

He had a metal arm… It wasn't fair.

"Life isn't fair," Natasha said beside you, as if she read your mind. "You're shaking, and you shouldn't show that to him. Your greatest weakness is in your mind, and you need to be strong for that." Natasha told you, and you looked at her.

"But he's so… big. And he's a robot!" You said, as the girl next to you went in the sparring ring to face your new teacher.

"First, he is not a robot. He is just a man with a metal arm. And there will always be bigger and stronger men than him," Natasha said, and you looked back at the ring. "What you need to do is become a defensive fighter. Don't charge or use brute force. Use his own weight against him. See how he punches?" Natasha asked. You observed it, and you saw him lean back to punch at one of your classmates, and you immediately noticed it.

"If he misses, I might throw him off balance and-"

"Just do exactly what I taught you and you'd be fine." Natasha said, and you were startled as you saw the girl who was fighting the winter soldier get slammed down on the floor. You gulped and Natasha patted you on the back.

"You're up, kid." She said, and you climbed on the sparring ring, tangling your feet on the ropes and falling flat on your face. You untangled your feet from the ropes first, and when you looked up, a metal arm was extended towards you, and you held it, helping you up.

Once you got up, you got on your fighting stance and let out a deep breath.

"Begin." He spoke, and you clenched your fists, an impulse to attack trying to fight through your body, but you remembered what Natasha said.

Be defensive. Don't go charging.

As soon as you clenched your fists, you saw him make his first wrong move. He threw a punch at you, and you just took a step to the side, watching him slightly stumble forward. Slightly stumble was all that you needed, and you did the move that Natasha taught you. You jumped on his back and swung your legs over his shoulders. You locked your legs and braced yourself as you leaned back and brought him down. He tried to remove your legs that was locked on his neck, but you managed to grab his hands and refrain him from doing so. You didn't let go until you heard Natasha command you to stop. You immediately let go, and your eyes widened as he gasped for air and knelt on all fours. You immediately scrambled on your feet and stood straight, expecting a punishment. You almost choked a teacher to death, which means you've harmed a teacher, which means a great offense.

And every great offense has a great punishment.

You prepared yourself and when the hit didn't come, you looked up at him.

"Your handler taught you well." He said.

"Thank you, sir." You mumbled.

"What is your name?" He asked.

"Tatiana, Sir." You said, and he nodded, signaling for the next student. You clambered off the sparring ring, and winced as you felt your back starting to sore. You were just a child, and it was the first time you used this technique on an actual man. You always practiced it with Natasha, who was lighter and therefore, the fall was less hard on your back. But the Winter Soldier was heavy, along with his metal arm, and your back was going to kill you later on.


And it did.

You woke up in the middle of the night and winced as you sat up from your bed, and you tried to stretch, but you just couldn't. You tiptoed out of the students' bedroom, and went to the bathroom. You lifted your shirt and saw the blooming purple and yellow splotches on your shoulder blades and lower back. You sighed and turned on the faucet, applying the cold water on your back in hope that it would soothe the pain, but it wasn't enough.

You sighed and gave up on your attempts to treat your bruises and pulled down your shirt. You checked the hallways first before going back to the bedroom, but as you turned to another corridor, you nearly ran into the Winter Soldier.

You stood there frozen and wide eyed, gulping as you saw him staring down at you. One thing about the Winter Soldier that really annoyed you was that he was really unreadable. You wouldn't know if he was impressed or angry or about to hit you. Unlike Petrovitch, you knew when he was angry or impressed with you.

"You're supposed to be in bed… Asleep." He said, and you could see him studying you, and you shrunk back.

"U-Uhm…" You stuttered, but then, he just looked at you.

"Follow me." He said before turning and walking away. You being his student, you have no choice but to follow him. You walked behind the bulking figure of the Winter Soldier, occasionally looking up to the back of his head or studying his glinting metal arm. You noticed that you were heading towards to the kitchen, which was odd for you.

Students weren't allowed in the kitchens, and you had a scar from a whip to the back to prove that.

"Sit down." He said, pointing at the stool on the island counter as he headed for the room where the frozen goods are kept. You climbed up to sit on the barstool, and waited for the Winter Soldier come back. When he did, he was holding what seemed to be a cloth bag filled with ice. He went behind you and hissed as he pressed it on your back. But, after a while, your back started to numb and you let out a small sigh of relief.

He moved the ice pack on your left shoulder blade, and you felt his metal arm on your right one. You were trying to look back, trying to catch a glimpse of his peculiar arm.

"What happened to your arm?" You asked, and he looked at you, his eyebrows raised, before looking back at your back.

He didn't say anything. He just looked dazed, and he looked straight ahead, keeping the ice on the bruised part. After a few minutes of semi comfortable silence, your muscles started to numb and you felt the pressure from his hand being lifted. Then, he just left the cloth of ice beside you and left.


Don't worry! This isn't the last you'd see Tatiana/Tia! I have a lot more in mind for Tia :)

So how was the story? Good, bad, OOC? Also, I am still a bit confused about the Red Room (how they chose the 28 girls, and if was really that batch of 28 girls or there were more trainees) so if there is anything wrong with how I understood the Red Room, let me know because it would help A LOT!

Anyways, please let me know how this chapter went! :)

~ Gabrielle