A/N: Oh boy, guys! I was on a huge spurt of motivation, and probably re-wrote this chapter three times, and I'm still not sure if I like the way it has come out. But regardless, it's probably the best it's going to get! Thank you TheStrawberryGirl for your help with this one! I appreciate it so much!

TW: Swearing and slight violence involving a minor

Yelena hadn't slept a wink for the past two days. She couldn't. Not when every time she closed her eyes, a new memory came back. At first, she didn't know what was happening. She had originally thought it was Wanda using her witch-craft magic to trick her into being vulnerable. That what she had thought until a certain memory came flooding back...

She ran as fast as she could, limping from her injured leg as she made her way down the hallway. She didn't know what was happening, except for the fact that there were a lot more gunshots than normal, and she had caught a few glimpses of other dead girls around her.

What was happening?

Instead of fighting like the other girls, she ran as fast as she could. Although she didn't know where she was going. She felt like she was running in circles, attempting to find a way out of the prison. She had to find Natalia and escape while she had the chance. She never fit in here. Unlike the other girls, she hated killing. Hated being an assassin.

She finally found an unlocked door and she pushed it open, feeling the frigid air. As she staggered away, her feet hit the snow, and she realised she was still wearing her pointe shoes. Her ankles froze as she limped into the open air, but she didn't get far anyway.

Yelena felt a hand clasp around her wrist.

Dmitry Vasilyevich, one of the guards. He was young, barely an adult, but he was evil. Enjoyed his job.

"You're coming with me."

She tried to pull away.

"No! Let me go! I have to find Natalia!"

His hand hit her cheek, and it stung almost as bad as the bitter cold that whipped around them.

"Leave me alone! Just let me go!"

His grip tightened around her wrist.

"You say one more thing and I'll kill you like the rest of them."

"Where are we going?" She thrashed, but her child-like body was no match for Dmitry. He easily held on to her.

Dmitry ignored the fact that she just completely disobeyed his order. He couldn't kill her; it was an idle threat. He needed her.

"You're the only one alive. Natalia was taken away from us, and you're the next best. We are going to start over, somewhere else."

Yelena eyed his holster, which silently told her not to disagree with him.

"Yes, sir."

She wanted to say no. That it wasn't fair. Natalia got to leave, and although she didn't know where, anywhere was better than the Red Room, so it didn't matter. She would never see her sister again.

The last thing she remembered was being brought to a whole new abandoned building. She, and a few other adults. She was put to sleep, saying all her emotional attachments would be erased. As a twelve-year-old, she didn't know what that meant, but now it was obvious they were her memories of before the Red Room, and of her sister, Natalia. She knew that now because everything after her waking up was as clear as day.

She couldn't let this can't happen again. Not to Wanda.

She's my niece, and I have to protect her.

Yelena wandered down the hall from her quarters to Wanda's cell.

Everything felt worse now that she was completely aware of her actions. She briefly wondered if there were others, but she doubted it.

With her silenced pistol, she shot the security cameras.

"Wanda, if someone asks what happened, say they broke when a guard came in. You tried to defend yourself."

Wanda merely nodded.

"I need to talk to you, детка. Is that okay? I understand if you don't trust me, but I promise I won't hurt you."

Wanda just stared with wide eyes, nodding again.

Yelena felt physically sick every time she looked at the poor child. That night, when she had entered, she had brought Wanda her two dinner rolls, and the girl had finally eaten them. She had actually trusted her.

"You trust me, Wanda?"

Wanda nodded.

"You're different. I could always tell. You're my mama's sister."

"Da, I am."

"How come you didn't know before?"

Yelena sighed, dropping down beside Wanda on the concrete floor. She was still sure to keep her distance though. She didn't want to make the girl uncomfortable. Not when she had already been through so much.

She did'nt know what to say.

I'm almost positive Dmitry erased my memories to make me less human.

"I-I don't know. I still don't know. Memories keep coming back, and all I know is that I had a sister named Natalia Romanova. And she was the only person in my life who cared about me."

Her voice cracked. Wanda felt more comfortable around her. By showing her emotions, she realised how alike Yelena and her mother were.

"Dmitry… I think he erased Natasha out of my life, so I had no emotional attachments anymore. It made me a better fighter, I think. I had nothing to be distracted by."

Wanda nodded, unsure of what to say.

"Am I going to see her again? My mama?" She quietly asked Yelena, making eye contact for the first time. It broke her heart. The little girl's eyes were so glassy and far away, it seemed like she was starting to lose hope.

"Da, Wanda. I promise. You will see your family again. I have a plan."

Wanda shot her head around back to Yelena.

"A plan? To get me home? I'm going to go home?"

Yelena smiled. Although small, it was the first time she remembered genuinely smiling. The girl's hope was contagious.

"Da, детка, you will. It will be easier for me to leave first, though. I have privileges. I can go, buy a burner phone, and call Natasha. I'll tell her you're safe."

The whole thought made Yelena nauseous. Her sister probably thought she was dead. What would she think of her? It didn't matter. She wasn't doing this for herself, she was doing it for Wanda.

"It will be easier to find her number if nobody is suspicious of me. I'll come back tomorrow, and then we will leave, da? We will have to fight our way out though. Can you do that with me? I know you don't like using your powers, they make you feel like a monster, but you need to be prepared. I promise you, that between the two of us, we will get out, okay?"

Wanda nodded vigorously. She went to hug Yelena, but she pulled her arms away almost as fast. Yelena pretended not to notice.

"There is a hard part though, okay? Dmitry and the others, obviously they can't know any of this. So, for the next day, we have to pretend. You have to pretend to still be afraid of me, and I will still pretend to be mean, da?" Yelena said, trying her best to explain it in a way that the child would understand.

Wanda nodded. It was only one more day. She could do it for a hundred more days if it meant she could see Natasha and Steve again.

"Okay, stand up then. I have to lock you back up to the wall, so they don't suspect anything."

Wanda backed up against the wall.

"I'm sorry, детка. I'm so sorry for everything I've done. Scaring you, hurting you… I know I didn't have my memories from before, but that still doesn't make it okay."

"It's okay. You didn't know what you were doing. It's not your fault."

"Thank you, Wanda. I promise I'll be back tomorrow. And we'll escape. Bring you home."

Wanda bit her lip, nodding. Yelena could feel the fear radiating off the girl.

"Don't be scared. Everything's going to be okay."

She placed a hand briefly on Wanda's shoulder.

Wanda nodded again, this time slightly more confidently, and Yelena gave her another genuine smile. She shut the door, and with that, Wanda was left to think about the next day.

…

Natasha almost had a heart attack when she couldn't find anyone after she woke up. Steve wasn't there, and her first instinct with everything going on was to grab the gun from her bedside table.

She found Steve in the conference room, a communications piece attached to his ear, furiously typing away on the laptop in front of him.

"What is going on, where is everybody?"

Steve sighed, clicking off his comms.

"Belarus. With S.H.I.E.L.D. They wanted to check the ruins of the Red Room for clues, anything. Fury had wanted the team along just in case they found any leads."

"And why aren't we there?"

Steve opened his mouth to answer, but Natasha's phone interrupted him.

She picked up the phone.

"Hello?"

"Agent Romanoff."

"Fury, what the fuck."

"Calm down, Natasha. Before you get all angry, we have to tell you something."

"What? What could you possibly need to tell me right now? Do you know how angry this makes me? You're not even letting me or Steve participate in our own child's search!"

Fury ignored her yelling.

"The original location of the Red Room was burnt down. We couldn't find anything."

"I knew that already, Fury. But that doesn't mean the Red Room disappeared. Don't go giving up when you could've had me there with you. The one person who knows that building and area like the back of her hand."

"If you think they've created another duplicate somewhere, you might be right. But it's going to take a long time to locate it and take it down. Especially because we have such little information."

Nat was so frustrated at his decisions. She didn't even want to hear his voice. She hung up, sitting in a chair. She knew she'd regret that decision later, but she didn't have the energy to care right now.

"If he would've let me go, we would've had a better chance at finding something. Anything. But all he saw was just the ruins. I don't think he even tried."

"Fury didn't think it was a good idea for us to go, Nat," Steve said. He touched her shoulder, but she pulled away.

"It's our fucking kid! Why wouldn't it be a good idea?" She spat.

"That's exactly why! Because Wanda is our kid, and he didn't want us, you, to find something you couldn't bear seeing. Or let your anger get in the way of your judgement!"

"But they didn't even find anything! Just the abandoned building ruins."

"I know, but they didn't know that did they?"

Natasha's stomach dropped. S.H.I.E.L.D. was losing hope, too. She could tell.

She stood up to run and grab her catsuit, but her phone rang, stopping her.

"If this is Fury calling again, I'm going to fucking kill him." She said, pulling her phone out of her pocket. Unknown caller. It definitely was Fury.

She pressed the button and held the phone to her ear.

"Fury, what the hell do you think you're-"

"Natalia Romanova?"

So, it wasn't Fury. She hadn't heard that name in years. Not out loud, at least. She hadn't heard that voice in years, either.

Nat didn't answer.

"Natalia, it's Yelena. Yelena Belova."

"…Yelena? Solnyshka?" She whispered, her voice cracking, then silence. That wasn't possible. It couldn't be.

Natasha felt herself be drawn into a buried memory.

Barton Farm Iowa, 2000.

The sun was lowering, and sixteen-year-old Natalia Romanova- No. Natasha Romanoff, now, sat in the tire swing in the Barton's backyard.

They didn't want her. She still thoroughly believed it. Even though they showed her nothing but kindness and patience. Clint had even built her the tire swing out back because she spent so much time out there.

She was a monster. She tried to kill Clint, but instead, he brought her back to his home. With his wife.

He had used the excuse that she was 'just a child.' But in the Red Room, sixteen was not a child. Nobody was a child there.

He said he would help her. Help her heal from the Red Room, but she didn't understand. Why would she need to heal? It had been her life, and she was destined to kill. That's what Madame B told her, anyway.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Clint. Actually, he had just exited the porch over a hundred meters away, but it still broke her concentration. She could still feel the presence lingering when he wasn't even close to her.

She wanted to leave before he made it to her. She didn't want to talk to him. But his face made her stay. He looked serious, like he had something important to tell her.

And he did.

"Nat, wait." Her head snapped around to look at him.

He sat on the ground just below the tire swing, the rubber repeatedly hitting his back as she swayed slightly back and forth.

"I don't know how to tell you this…"

"What?" Her eyes widened. Although her innocence was taken away in the Red Room, Clint couldn't think she looked any less like a regular sixteen-year-old girl. Eyes widened, hair in French braids courtesy of Laura, and converse sneakers.

She was healing. Even if she didn't know it yet. His heart broke for what he was about to tell her. It would just pull her back down. She would spiral into a fit of revenge.

"Fury just called me. There were no other survivors in the Red Room. I'm sorry, Natasha."

Nat blinked.

"Yelena's okay though, right? You said she could come here, too. You said that yesterday."

"And I made a mistake. I shouldn't have said that. Not when I didn't know where she was."

Nat stood up. Her eyes turned angry.

"Liar!" She punched his arm. "You're a liar! You're just saying that to make me vulnerable! So, you can kill me like you wanted to months ago!" She yelled.

It was true. Fury had sent Clint to take down the Black Widow. The most elite Russian Assassin. What he didn't expect was to be met face to face with a teenage girl. He could tell she didn't want that life, that she was brainwashed into thinking she deserved to kill. So, Clint brought her home with him, from the clutches of the Red Room, which was destroyed. He didn't even want to think about what could've happened to her if he hadn't taken her with him. Left on the streets, killed, who knows. Definitely, something the kid didn't deserve though. She would be a lot of work, there was no denying that. She was broken and violent from growing up sheltered from the real world with harsh punishment and constantly having to defend herself. But she was showing progress, and that was enough for him and Laura.

Clint grabbed her wrists to stop her from hurting him. She struggled for a moment, shouting Russian curses, before falling to the ground, gasping for her breath in exhaustion. But she never let a tear fall. Not once.

"You let her die! Why couldn't you save her, too? You promised that I would see her again! You promised!" By this point she was finally crying. Sobbing for her twelve-year-old sister. Her Lena. The only person who actually cared about her, and vice versa. She was dead. She would never be seen again.

Clint held her, and for once, she actually accepted the physical affection.

Nat sat there silently next to Clint for almost half an hour. He didn't dare touch her now that she was calmed down, but she seemed to be comforted by his presence.

It was pitch black outside when he finally got up to leave.

"I'll just be inside if you need anything. And remember, Laura and I, we're your family now. Don't stay out too long. And if you need anything, or you want to talk, we are here."

He knew she wouldn't. Not for a while, at least. She had lived with the Barton's for a few months now, and she hadn't brought her life in the Red Room up once, unless Clint did first. It was definitely unhealthy. She needed to talk about her past, but he refused to be the first one to bring it up after Natasha was caught in a panic attack and endless nightmares. Maybe she just wasn't ready yet.

He stood up, leaving Natasha with her own thoughts, sitting in the dark.

Clint. He was the only one who actually knew about her dead sister. She hadn't even bothered telling Steve. It just brought up too many painful memories.

I failed Yelena, and now I'm sure I've failed Wanda, too.

"I-I…You're dead."

"No, I can assure you that I'm not dead."

Nat let out a confused sob.

Yelena could hear a man on the other side of the phone ask what was going on.

"W-What? What is going on?" Was all Nat could ask. She had so many questions.

Why didn't you call before?

Where have you been?

Why are you calling now?"

Fifteen years, Yelena. It's been fifteen years.

"I can explain everything later. But right now, I have to be quick. I have your daughter, and I'm bringing her home."

Nat almost fainted. Steve lowered her to the ground, confused out of his mind.

"Nat, what is going on?" He demanded.

She just cried tears of relief in response.

"Is she okay?" She asked Yelena.

She didn't even care that her long-lost sister of fifteen years has miraculously come back from the dead. All that mattered at this moment was Wanda.

"She's okay, Nat. Don't come here, though."

"I-I don't even know where you are. Where is she? We've been trying to figure that out for two weeks now."

"I can't tell you, otherwise you will try to follow me. It's too dangerous. The Red Room is too dangerous.

Red Room? So, they were right.

"Is she safe? Wanda?" She repeated. She needed to hear it again.

"Nat, she is fine. I can't tell you everything right now, because if Dmitry finds out, I'll be done. But you have to trust me."

Dmitry Vasilyevich. The name on the ID.

Natasha felt sick to her stomach. Here she was, supposed to trust her sister, who was somehow alive, to bring home her daughter. She didn't know what to say.

"I think I have a bit more time, so I can maybe explain very briefly. Because you're not saying anything, and it's scaring me."

"I don't know what you want me to say. You just called me after I thought you were dead for fifteen years to tell me you have my missing daughter."

"Natalia-"

"Uh, it's Natasha, now." She felt bad for correcting her, but the name Natalia brought up too many painful memories.

"Sorry, Natasha. Up until two days ago, I thought you were just someone the Red Room idolized. Someone I would never know, but someone who my fighting tactics were based off. It wasn't until Wanda, I don't know what she did, but somehow, all of my childhood memories came flooding back. Before then, they were foggy. I don't know what Dmitry did to me, but my memories of you, of the Red Room, my childhood, everything. It only just came back. I didn't remember my sister until two days ago. Two days ago, Nat."

The line was silent as Natasha attempted to process everything Yelena was telling her.

"Yelena… have you been with the Red Room this entire time? I-I thought it was destroyed."

"It was, but they found me soon after. He, I mean, Dmitry Vasilyevich, made me forget you. I didn't realise what I was doing until Wanda helped me remember. We were fighting and she just-she brought it all back."

"You fought Wanda?"

"It's not what you think, Natasha. And you have every right to be mad at me. But I'm bringing her back to you."

"Just tell me where you are, Lena. The Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D., we'll come."

"You can't, it's too dangerous. They have information on you. If they find out both teams are coming, Dmitry and his men will know they stand no chance. Then they'll kill Wanda."

"Then I'll just come."

"No! That was the plan in the first place. To draw you in to kill you. As revenge for taking down the first Red Room. It's too dangerous, Nat. Just trust me."

There was no answer, and the phone went silent for a minute.

"I have to go, Natasha. Trust me, okay?"

"Yelena, wait!" She cried.

"Do you trust me?"

"…yes."

"Okay. That's all I needed from you. You will see her soon, I promise."

Natasha hung up the phone, sobbing. Her head still spinning, she fell back into Steve's arms.

Their little girl. She was safe. She was alive.

A/N: Ahh we are nearing the end! I think I have two or three more chapters left guys! Thank you so much for reading this story!

I know I altered Nat's origin story a bit. Although it never says in the MCU, I'm pretty sure she was older than sixteen when Clint rescued her. However, I've always loved the idea that Clint helped her accept and heal from her past. We pick and choose what we want from canon :) Thank you so much everyone for reading, and thank you for your lovely reviews! It really does keep me motivated to write each chapter xx