Author´s notes: Hi guys! In this chapter there are going to be some explanation on the nightmare Natasha had on chapter 3 and her encounter with old friends she mentioned in chapter 2. It is a little dark, but Natasha´s past has a lot of dark places. I´m not an expert on her background, so I´m just putting my ideas of what might have happened to her.

If you noticed, I decided to put name on the chapters so you don´t get lost, because I keep having so many ideas that I don´t know how many chapter more this story is going to have.

Hope you guys like it!

I don´t own the avengers or any marvel characters.

CHAPTER 8

Flashback - Russia, 1952

It is a cold night. The Black Widow is on surveillance, she is waiting for her mark to come back home. The KGB sent her there to kill an American journalist that is trying to get information on the Black Widow Ops, with the meaning of bringing the operation down by exposing it to the public eye.

She sees the woman arriving and going inside her apartment building. Natasha recognizes her face because that same woman has been following her the last few days. Natasha noticed that on a late night after she left the house of her previous mark, a Russian politician. The Black Widow could have killed her then, but she seemed harmless and out of curiosity she pretended that she didn´t see her. Now she understands why the woman was following her, she must have found out who she was and was probably trying to get information for her article. Natasha thinks that the journalist has a lot of guts, stalking a trained assassin, but she is going to regret that now.

Natasha is waiting outside the woman´s apartment, until the lights are out. When that happened, the Black Widow makes her move. She manages to pick the lock from the front door of the building and from the door of the woman´s apartment without much trouble. Her feet are light and quick at the same time as she silently enters the apartment and makes her way to the bedroom where the woman is asleep.

Natasha pulls out a small knife from her belt and gets on the top of the woman.

The woman awakes with wide eyes, but can't do much because the Black Widow pins her to the bed pressing her tights against her arms and torso and puts her left hand on her mouth so that she can't scream.

With the knife on her right hand, the Black Widow makes a quick movement and slices the woman's throat open. Blood spills all over the white sheets.

Natasha gets off of the woman and stands beside the bed, watching with a cold stare as her victim gasps for air and puts her hands on her bleeding throat. She can't help but wonder why this woman looks familiar to her. Have she met her somewhere before?

Then, the woman arms falls lifeless to the side of her body, she is dead.

The Black Widow starts to look around for the journalist´s notes, so she can destroy them. She can't find anything but a letter on the top of a desk in the living room, with a pen on the side. Looks like the woman just wrote that. It is in Russian, so she wonders why an American journalist would write in Russian. Natasha picks up the letter with curiosity and reads it:

Dear Natalia,

I have been looking for you for 19 years. Since our house was burnt to the ground and I lost everything. When the fire started, your father told me to get out and went to get you in your room. I ran outside and waited, watching the fire consume our home. When I saw a man walking out with you in his arms, I thought it was your father at first, but he looked at me and I didn´t recognized him. He ran the other way, I tried to run after him, but he had disappeared in the shadows. So I waited and waited for your father but he never came out of the flaming house. You were 5 years old. I searched for years for you, without any success. Many times I thought you were dead, but I couldn't stop looking for my only child. And then, three nights ago, fate finally brought you to me as I saw you, walking out of a bar, with a man. I almost didn't recognize you, but then you laughed and smiled, the same way you used to when you were just a little girl and I knew you were my Natalia. God had finally shined a light on me. But I didn't have the courage to face you, not yet. I was afraid that you wouldn't remember me and send me away. So I started to follow you, to find out where you live so I can send you this letter and explain everything. I don´t know what happened in your live in all these years, but understand that I never abandoned you, never stopped thinking of you, never stopped loving you. I'm sorry for not finding you before. I hope you can forgive me and give me a chance to be with you again. So if you want to meet me, I'll be at the Corner Cafe on Saturday at 9:00 a.m. and whatever happens, just know that I am glad that you´re alive and became a beautiful young woman.

Your mother,

Vera

Natasha's hands are shaking as she finishes reading the letter. She can't believe it, she thinks for a moment that this got to be some sort of sick joke. She drops the paper in her hands and runs back to the room where the woman is dead on her bed. Now Natasha sees why she looked so familiar. She has the same fiery red hair as her, the same porcelain skin, the same shape of her nose and mouth. She looks likes her, but older.

Natasha is stunned as she simply stares at the woman wondering if she just killed her own mother. She notices there is a golden chain on her neck, so she reaches for it and pulls it out of the woman´s night-gown, it is a locket. She opens it and feels her eyes start tearing as she recognizes herself as a child standing between a tall man and the dead woman. She throws the open locket back in the body of her mother, disgusted by the blood that stained her hands as she reached for it.

Natasha just killed her mother. She panics and back away slowly whispering: "No, no, no…this is a bad dream, it is just a dream!" until she hits a wall and slide to the ground, holding her knees against her chest, tears rolling down her checks, her body shaking badly. She is terrified of what she did. She remembers that Saturday was the day after tomorrow. Her mother was going to be waiting for her in the cafe in two days.

Natasha thought that her mother had died long ago, but she was wrong. She died today, by her hands, killed in cold blood. KGB lied to her, manipulated her, used her, trained her to be a cold hearted assassin and sent her to kill her own mother, probably because they were afraid that once they met, Natasha would leave KGB. But now everything was ruined, her hope shattered, her heart broken. She was going to have her vengeance.

Rage takes over Natasha as she returns to KGB headquarters and ruthlessly kills a dozen agents before they could get a hold on her. KGB only let her live because they didn´t want to lose their best assassin, she had a set of skills that no one could match, so they punished her and locked her away. Brainwash wasn´t going to work this time, so that was the first time they experiment with a new drug, a memory suppressor, that made her forget her recent past actions, so she would never remember that she had killed her own mother and would remain loyal to KGB. The drug worked and from that day on, it was used on her whenever they thought the Black Widow was losing her allegiance to them.

A month back - Ukraine

Natasha is in Ukraine, following a lead on HYDRA for Fury. That´s when she had a recent encounter with KGB agents. They manage to capture her and take her to an old shack where they chained her to a wall. They were trying to convince her to work with KGB again, as a double agent, but Natasha refuses: "I rather die!" was her answer, as she spoke in Russian. Her eyes are defiant as she looks to the four KGB agents in front of her. Natasha is not afraid of dying.

One of the agents comes closer to her ear and speaks in Russian: "There are worst thing than dying, my dear." He gets a syringe from a small black case and, with an evil grin, he injects her arm with the drug.

Then fear finally appears in her eyes as Natasha shouts: "What is that?"

The Russian is staring at her with a smirk on his face: "A drug that will unleash your worst demons, it will make you remember the memories you lost, remember the evil you´ve done, all the innocent blood you´ve spilled, because you see my dear, no matter how much you think you can redeem yourself, there is only one final destination for you…hell." He throws the empty syringe at her feet.

Natasha knows what they are doing, since they can´t have her back, they are trying to break her spirit, so she can´t fight for anyone. She is afraid that maybe they would succeed.

Then, the agents beat her up, until she is slightly conscious. They release her from the chains and let her fall hard to the floor. They spit at her and leave, laughing as one of them says: "That is the end of the great Black Widow! What a shame."

She tastes the blood in her mouth as her face is pressed against the cold floor. Her body aches all over. She raises her head slowly, watching the four men walking away and groans as her head falls again and she passes out. That is when she dreams of ghosts in her past life.

Present time - Singapore

While unconscious, Natasha dreams:

She wakes up and recognizes the interrogation room from the Red Room facility. The light is dim and she is lying on the floor. Shadows of men with red eyes are standing in front of her. They look at her and laugh as they curse her in Russian. She sees a door ahead, she tries to get up but her legs are paralyzed, she can´t move. She tries to crawl using her hand, but doesn´t get very far because the men start kicking her in the abdomen. She cries in pain.

When they stop, she feels weak and about to pass out, but then she hears a voice: "Don´t you dare leaving me, do you hear me?" She recognizes the voice of Steve Rogers, she looks around but he is not there. She hears the men still laughing, but they are only echoes, because she is alone in the room now.

Natasha sees a light coming from the door as it opens slightly. Then Steve´s voice call her again: "Stay with me Tasha!"

Natasha starts to feel her legs again and slowly gets up. She is having a hard time breathing because of the pain in her abdomen, but she has to leave that place so she gathers her strength and makes a run for the door.

As she goes through it, a blinding light hits her, she stops and puts her hands on her eyes to cover them, she can´t see anything. She is lost, she doesn´t know where to go next. Despair comes over her as she starts to feel weak again and falls to her knees.

Then she hears Steve´s voice: "Natasha, come back to me!" She looks up ahead as the intensity of the light decreases and she sees that Steve is standing in front of her in his Captain America´s uniform. She smiles and says: "Steve!" He extends his hand, she holds it. Steve helps her get up and they both run away into the fading light.

PS: Okay, so I´m already working on the next chapter and I´m sure Romanogers´fans will like it. To be continued...soon...