When Natalya Romanova completed her advanced training with the Winter Soldier and graduated from the program, she was the best Black Widow the Red Room had ever produced. The training had been harsh, but it had provided her with a certain sense of satisfaction. She'd benefitted greatly from the Winter Soldier's tutelage. The Asset was blunt and brisk, but there was something about his manner that made an easy sense to her. She could often anticipate his directions in the field before he gave them or his movements in a spar before he initiated them. By the same token, he frequently warned her to redirect a strike or strengthen her stance before she'd even gotten halfway through a movement. It was an intuition of competence, she decided. They understood each other so easily because they were the best.
After she graduated, she put her training to good use as one of the favored weapons of the regime. She excelled at solo operations, expertly spinning situations to her advantage. She never relied on anyone but herself. On rare occasions, however, she and the Winter Soldier were deployed together. No matter how long it had been since they'd seen each other, they always fell into the same comfortable routine. Working with someone of her caliber, Natalya reflected, was a nice feeling every once in a while.
Then, with no warning, everything began to change. Natalya and the Winter Soldier were returning from a completed mission, stopping for the night at a safe house in Constanţa. She'd felt a heaviness in the air between them over the three days it had taken them to complete their assignment, but she hadn't addressed it. Whatever was blunting the edges of the Soldier's normally clear-cut presence was no business of hers so long as it didn't affect his efficiency in the field. That was why she didn't ask, she told herself, not because she was afraid to know what could shake the one person she saw as absolutely dependable. The two of them were more weapons than people and had no business talking about normal human concerns. That was why she was so shocked when, after staring at her silently for a full five minutes, he asked, "Do you ever wonder what really happened to your left wrist?"
"I don't need to wonder. It was an equipment malfunction."
The Soldier fell silent again, and only Natalya's training stopped her from fidgeting uncomfortably. Perhaps it came from all his work as a sniper, but he had a serious staring problem.
"Of course," he said finally.
But his tone left doubts itching under Natalya's skin for weeks.
The next time Natalya sparred with the Winter Soldier, he pinned her on the mat for a second longer than necessary and whispered quickly in her ear. His hot breath only intensified her feverish reaction to his wild words.
"You won't understand or believe me yet, but you need to leave. This place will destroy you."
Before Natalya could react, he'd retreated across the mat, his face an impassive mask. She swallowed her uncertainty, aware that her own porcelain features gave nothing away even as she grew almost nauseous. What he'd said was treason. Saying such things put her in the worst possible position. What was worse was he was only half right. Natalya didn't understand him yet, but she believed him. She couldn't stop herself.
The next time Natalya saw the Winter Soldier, he didn't recognize her. That was when she understood. That was when she fled the Red Room forever.
In 2009, in Odessa, Natalya felt a strange prickling sensation beneath the scar tissue on her left wrist just before a bullet ripped through her stomach and into the engineer she'd been charged by S.H.I.E.L.D. to protect. That's when a thread came loose in her memory – Winter – and she began to pull.
From his vantage point, the Winter Soldier watched the redheaded S.H.I.E.L.D. agent crumple to the ground over his terminated target. His left wrist itched, and he almost reached to scratch it before remembering that it was metal. The placement of the sensation reminded him of something, but he shrugged it off. Weapons didn't have soulmates, and metallic arms didn't itch.