It Was All a Game

Volgograd, Russia

May 30, 2014 – 12:45 AM

Her entire adult life was a lie. Reading the papers that Fury had given her a few months ago over and over and over again, until she was literally made physically ill from just holding them, brought her to that one, singular conclusion. Everything she had ever believed in was a lie. A lie concocted by the Red Room so that she would kill Romanoff, who had become a loose end.

For someone like Yelena Belova, who had staked her entire reputation, the entirety of her life's energy, to killing her suppose rival, it was a blow that she didn't recover from for a while.

In the five months between then and now, she tried to forget about it and continue her life business as usual. She took jobs - either espionage or assassinations - and completed them with the same efficiency that she always did. But, something was different. Something was wrong.

She just didn't have the same confidence that she usually carried about herself. Not confidence as in she didn't feel that she couldn't perform, but she didn't have the swagger of a woman who had killed the greatest spy in the world. She had just stopped caring. There was nothing for her in that world now.

Every spy looked up at Natalia Romanova. She was the benchmark by which every espionage agent measured themselves. With her dead, there was no benchmark to measure herself.

"No, Rooskaya," Romanova said quietly.

Yelena had managed to corner her in a hotel room in Kiev, and had her at gunpoint, from within ten feet. One squeeze of the trigger, and she would be dead. There was no way she could miss from such close range.

Yet, at hearing her speak, she hesitated. She told herself that she wanted to hear her grovel and beg for mercy before laughing, throwing it back in her face, and shooting her between the eyes.

"You will not kill me today," she continued. A laughable statement. "You look forward to coming after me again. The game, this game of ours, it's your passion. It's what makes you unique."

Something deep with Yelena was struck by those words, and she faltered just enough for Romanova to lash out and snatch the gun away from her.

Frustrated, Yelena quickly escaped through the open window and up the fire escape.

Those words still resonated with her, three years later. It was all a game. This game of cat and mouse, chess, Russian Roulette, whatever they played, that was what it all was. A game. Yelena didn't know when it became a game and not a mission, but it was clear that it had somehow transformed into one.

And, Natalia had determined that long ago. That had to have been why she was never worried that she was going to kill her, because then the game would have ended.

If it hadn't been for Zemo, she would have never completed her mission. Not because she was unable, but because she was unwilling. Subconsciously, she didn't want to kill Romanova, despite her brainwashing.

It was why she felt so listless and so tired of the spy work, because she had nothing to compare herself to.

It was said that if one wanted to be the best, one had to beat the best. She had finally beaten the best, and now she was the best. Then what? Was she to wait for the next one to step up and take her place as Black Widow?

Who? All the other Black Widows had been killed anyone point or another during their youth. She and Natalia had been the last two Widows remaining, that she knew of; now, there was only one.

"This is all your fault," she snarled bitterly at the headstone before her. "If you had have just stayed with the Red Room, with Russia, none of this would have happened."

If that bastard Barton hadn't come along, none of this would have had to come to pass. If she hadn't defected, then she would still be alive. She would still be here to play their little game. And she wouldn't be shouldering the impossibly heavy guilt that her soul was forced to carry. She wouldn't have allied herself with Zemo. She wouldn't be more wanted than she already was. There wouldn't be heroes, citizens seeking her head.

So many ifs and would nots passed through her mind at that moment. Staring at her bitter rival's headstone made her sick. With Natalia gone, she had won the game, but she had also lost.

Without Natalia, she had no purpose. She was a lone spider lost in the middle of the ocean, with no hope of finding her way back to solid ground.

She dropped to her knees, teary eyed and dry heaving. "Why? Why did you leave?" she asked tearfully.

When she learned that Natalia has left, that she had joined SHIELD and had turned her back on her country, it felt like a stab to the chest. How could she have betrayed her home? How could she leave her?

"I believed in you," she admitted. Tears dropped from her sparkling blue eyes, and splashed against the empty grave below her. The letters she had read confirmed it. Natalia was her hero. She looked up to her, like all the other potential Black Widows. "You… you were my hero."

"She knew that, you know."

Yelena whirled her head around and saw Fury standing about fifteen feet away from her. "What?"

"She knew that you idolized her, and that you trying to kill her meant that something was wrong." He pulled a folded up piece of paper from his duster pocket. She immediately began to feel sick to her stomach, more so than she already did. "Relax. It isn't a letter."

She rose to her feet, and wiped her face in a bid to regain her composure. Her breath caught and hitched. "I…"

"Relax," he repeated, his tone not changing a bit from his slightly monotone inflection. "I've seen this story before. The truth is Romanoff was worried about you and this… obsession with taking sole possession of your shared moniker. Frankly, she believed that it was a curse."

A curse? It was their birthright. They had sacrificed so much to gain that coveted name. Everything was given to gain that name. "It isn't a curse. It is an honor that all the girls within the Red Room wish to have, but only a few have realized. Only one is remaining – me."

Fury shook his head and took a few steps forward. "Based on what you've sacrificed - your childhood, your innocence, you humanity - not an honor. They dehumanize young girls and then them into killers. They use them for jobs that children have no business doing. They hand small girls, teenage girls off too grown ass men like prostitutes, all for the sake of gaining intel or killing someone. That sound honorable to you?"

She bit her lip and looked down. She knew why the Red Room did those things. She knew what was at stake with every decision that they made. She knew that giving herself up to her marks was the best way to gain a kill shot. She knew that forgoing her childhood, to give up her dreams of being a ballerina, was best for her country. She knew all of this.

"Twisting your mind to make you want to kill the woman you idolized, a woman you just called your hero. Does that sound honorable to you? If you say yes, you're a liar." Her looked down at her, the weight and strength of his gaze bearing down on her like a tidal wave.

"I –" How was she supposed to respond? They had taken her admiration and twisted it into hate and jealousy. They made her hate Natalia to suit their purposes. Out of that hate sprang an obsession with being, not the best, but better than her. They made her kill her hero. "No."

Satisfied that she was finally seeing reason, he closed the gap between them. "SHIELD will likely be making their move within the year. I trust that you saw what happened in Stamford." When she nodded in confirmation, he continued. "The Lemurian Star is the best place to steal SHIELD's secret data. But first, I need you to find a name for me."

He handed her the folded up piece of paper he pulled from his pocket earlier. She unfolded it and let her eyes wash over it. It was the hooded man in black and silver tactical gear. She had seen him before, during her time with Hydra. Viper referred to him only as 'The Asset'. Other than that, she was scarce on details.

"Need to know who that is."

"He is… was a Hydra asset."

Fury froze. He swallowed thickly. His mouth opened, but no words came out.

"Fury?" She looked at the photo again. The buildings, the pockmarked streets, the docks in the background – she recognized them as Madripoor. "Why do you need to find him?"

Fury swallowed again. "Because, he's the one who killed Phil Coulson, and Maria Hill."

One can only imagine. The tears of despair. The hours of Job-like lamentations. The burden of existence.