Author's Note: Hello, hello! This update is a little later than usual, but that's what happens when you forget to do a final edit and then work all morning. Whoops.

Anyhoo, this chapter is short! But it really packs a punch. I was always curious about Drakov's daughter that Loki mentions in Avengers. This is my take.

Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel or any of it's characters.

Chapter 16: Past

Natalia didn't think anything of her assignment until she held a knife in her hand and stood over a little girl in her bed.

Anastasia Drakova. Aged 7. Blonde, blue-eyed, and angelic. Fat, pink lips and long, curled eyelashes. She was the daughter of an ugly man. Aleksander Drakov. Russian KGB. Defector. Sold HYDRA information to SHIELD in exchange for a VISA and a clear conscience.

SHIELD had placed them in a safe house outside of St. Petersburg. An out-of-the-way countryside cottage that was quaint and cute, something like you'd see on a postcard, only now it was marred by the four dead SHIELD agents that had hardly known to stop her before she'd slid her knife into their throats. One on the perimeter. One at the door. The other in the kitchen making coffee. The last taking a piss and having a smoke in the back.

Natalia hadn't made a sound. She hadn't flinched at the blood or the immediate stench as the agents' bowels spilled. Death hadn't fazed her for so long now that she wondered if she'd ever feared it. She was trained for this. She was born for this. She was a Black Widow.

And so she didn't understand how she could be hesitating now.

Drakov's daughter slept on, entirely oblivious to her surroundings. Natalia would have woken the second someone stepped inside the house, would have been on her feet, a knife in her hand—just like now, oh, yes just like she stood now—ready for an attack that would surely come. But not Anastasia Drakova. Anastasia Drakova did not know death. She had no training, no survival skills. Look at her now. So goddamn peaceful and naïve.

Natalia hated her for a moment, and she didn't understand why.

It still wasn't enough for her to act.

But she felt the time coming. It would be soon. It had to be. Already she had lingered too long. Every second she wasted was a strike against her, and she knew it. Black Widows did not hesitate. She knew that. She knew that.

Her grip on her knife tightened. The blood on her fingers had nearly dried. Too long. She'd waited too long.

Her heartbeat faltered as she took a step closer, and she thought of what James would say if he were here, standing over her shoulder or watching her through the scope of his rifle. What are you waiting for, Natalia? You have a mission.

But that didn't feel right. Maybe it was her own conscience, but she thought that James would hesitate, too. Now. Not when she had first met him, the day he'd so mercilessly beaten her to the mats. No, not that harsh Soldat. But her Soldat, her James . . . the one who had sneaked so cavalierly into her quarters before she'd left Moscow with that goddamn sinful smirk on his face as he pinched her side to make her laugh before she could scold him. Not that she would have. She loved him.

Black Widows were not supposed to hesitate, and they were not supposed to love.

The blankets rustled.

Sleepy, sleepy blue eyes blinked up at her.

The girl didn't scream, didn't look confused or scared. Just blinked and looked. Painfully naïve and entirely unaware that she was about to die.

Natalia acted. The little girl was too shocked to even look afraid. Her throat was slit before she could even realize she was about to die, and it was Natalia who stared in horror at the dark spray of blood that painted the headboard and the wall and sank deep into the pillow. She stared until she knew she'd never forget and then left without a word.

She stepped into the bathroom, ignoring the dead agent halfway in the tub with his pants around his knees and a still smoking cigarette between his fingers. The water in the basin of the sink ran red as she washed her hands. She watched it circle the drain until she was clean. She left the bathroom without ever looking into the mirror that had been staring at her.

The gravel crunched under her feet as she walked to her car. She could hear muffled shouts from the trunk. Normally she'd be exasperated or annoyed, but Natalia felt nothing. She only opened the trunk with the intent to quiet its occupant.

Aleksander Drakov didn't make use of his window. He didn't move to escape. He just looked at her with wet, pleading eyes. "My daughter! Have mercy! Oh, tell me you didn't, please, she's—"

Natalia silenced him with a fist and calmly shut the trunk.

Drakov was still unconscious when she met another agent at the rendezvous point. She watched as they hauled his body into another vehicle and drove away to another facility where he would be punished for his betrayal. Perhaps they would dump his body on SHIELD's doorstep once they were done with him. Natalia didn't care.

It was a mindless journey back to the compound. The Madame congratulated her with false warmth and cold pride. Natalia only nodded in assent. The words of thanks that left her lips were empty and automatic. It made the Madame smile.

Natalia felt nothing as she walked through the house to her quarters. Her mind was blank, her thoughts sluggish. She stripped once she entered her room, a romantic trail of clothes following her to the bathroom as if James needed breadcrumbs to find her. Only he wouldn't find her. He'd left for a mission the day before. He wouldn't be back for days.

So when she stood under the spray of the shower, face heavenward as if seeking absolution, only to feel a hand touch her shoulder, she nearly slit James's throat with her razor. She opened her mouth to scold him—because what the hell did he think he was doing, scaring her like that? Not that she should have been caught off guard in the first place—only she gasped. As if she was scared. But surely she wasn't. She couldn't be.

And James kept staring at her as if something was wrong. He looked worried. She didn't understand why he would look worried. She'd never seen him look worried. Why the fuck was he worried?

And why couldn't she breathe?

"Natalia," James's hand held her face, "what happened?" He scanned her for injuries but found none. "What's wrong, vozlyublennaya?"

Natalia gaped at him. "What do you mean?" Her words were choked. "I'm fine."

"You're crying."

"Don't be ridiculous."

James held her face in both his hands, forcing her to look at him, and he looked so damn sad that her chest heaved. "Natalia," he said softly.

"James."

Natalia cried. Not at all like the practiced, pretty tears she could let fall on command. No, this was ugly. Her eyes scrunched. Her nose ran. She couldn't take a deep breath no matter how hard she tried. She just stood under the spray and shook like a frightened fawn, her face tucked into James's soaked t-shirt. When the water ran cold, she was quiet, though she shook in James's arms as he lifted her up and shut the water off. Every part of her wanted to move, to dry herself off and dress, but she just couldn't make her limbs work. So she was limp as a broken doll while James took care of her, eventually tucking them both into her small bed and wrapping himself around her like a thick, muscled blanket.

It was warm and smothering and safe.

James didn't ask questions. He wanted to. They were nearly tripping off of his tongue, but he kept his mouth shut. Instead he began to hum. The melody surprised him. He didn't recognize it, but there was a deep sense of familiarity and comfort that came with the tune. He'd done this before. He knew that he'd done this before, in his other life that was just as fascinating as it was fragmented.

Hours passed. Natalia drifted off to sleep, but James stayed awake as if a nightmare would burst through the door. His mind oscillated between wondering what could have happened to upset her and what it meant for his red ballerina. He'd never known her to show weakness. She'd weathered her share of pain with a proud chin and a straight spine. Even in their most intimate moments, she kept part of herself from him. Always open and (dare he think it, loving) but never completely vulnerable. Not like now.

So he waited. He waited with more patience than he'd known he had, and as the hours passed he realized that he cared little, in the end, if he ever found out what had happened. What mattered (and wasn't it the most curious, unnatural, right thing) was that he was there and that Natalia knew it.

She broke the silence in the suffocating grey of pre-dawn. "I've been compromised."

James initially thought that she meant him. Them. But no, that couldn't be right.

"I nearly failed my mission," she said. "I hesitated, James. I've never hesitated before. Something's . . . something's wrong with me."

"I don't believe that."

Natalia pulled away from him and felt the immediate cold on her skin. She folded her arms around her stomach and stared at the wall across from her. "It's because of us. This . . . thing. It has to be. You've made me—"

"Weak," James finished.

Natalia glared at the wall. "Yes."

James understood that he should agree with her. He'd noticed changes in himself as well that had nothing to do with his sparse memory and everything to do with the redhead next to him. He was gentler, softer. He thought more. About everything. His life, his past, his emotions, his relationships, his missions. He thought about what it all meant, what it might say about him, whether HYDRA was right, whether he was good. He had few answers, but that mattered little. The questions mattered. His thoughts, his mind, it felt more and more like his with each day.

In hindsight, James realized that he was a dumb, love-struck bastard to think that his growing freedom would have no consequences, that somehow he could have kept it secret. But in that moment, he thought he could. He thought that maybe it made him better, made him different, made him free. And he couldn't give it up. He wouldn't.

And he refused to let Natalia, his sweet little ballerina, think that feeling, that thinking, was weakness.

"I'm never stronger than when I'm with you, Natalia," he said quietly.

Natalia's easy breathing hitched before relaxing once again. She didn't react when he leaned up, his lips brushing her bare shoulder. She fought a shiver and the odd, blissful warmth that followed. The heat swallowed her heart, drowning her in comfort and leaving her craving more. James, sensing her struggle, let his lips lightly drag along her shoulder to her neck. He placed a kiss behind her ear, and Natalia sighed. "You drive me crazy," she sighed, frustrated but resigned.

She felt James smile against her skin. "The feeling is mutual."

"James?"

"Hmm?"

"This won't end well," she said. "You know that, don't you? People like us, we don't get happy endings."

James paused his ministrations. She was right. He knew that. But there was that light, that warmth in his chest that made him feel like he could fly, and he couldn't force it away, couldn't do anything but let it consume him and cloud his mind with what-ifs and maybes.

After all, it had been so, so long since James Buchannan Barnes had felt hope.

He kissed Natalia, long and deep and determined, and he spent the rest of the night trying to make her believe, too.

Yep, I really like this chapter.

So! Tap that review button. Drop me a line. I love to hear from y'all.

Next time on A Ghost of a Memory . . . Natalia - "Do you think we're good people?"

See you Friday!

-AC