So I won't always be this quick about getting chapters out. I'm sick and haven't been sleeping, so fanfiction and Marvel movies have basically been all I can focus on. Lucky for you guys, here's another chapter! Do leave reviews! Reviews are awesome! I'm incorporating stuff from the comic books as well, and bringing my own twist to the story, so I will be straying a little from canon, especially in the Black Widow's backstory.

Natasha stood in front of Nick Fury as she was going over documents that she wasn't supposed to have access to. She did it so often that Fury had given up on keeping her out of the loop on any level. He knew her distrust of organizations and her "need to know" attitude had been practically dead from the moment she joined SHIELD. She only trusted Clint and Nick, and even those bonds could be shaky at best.

"What is it, Romanoff?"

"I'm leaving the Avengers." She decided to be point blank about it.

"And why is that?"

"It's disbanding to an extent anyway and after Sokovia, I'm mainly seen in a good enough light that I can go away now."

"Do you mind telling me where you're going?"

"Tell them I'm going to Russia. They'll assume I'm going to find Bruce."

"Agent Romanoff, what are you planning to do?"

Natasha smiled in response. Nick always knew there was a hidden agenda "I'm going undercover. Deep undercover. No extractions, no communications, nothing that will connect me to Avengers or anything you've organized. It's a personal mission, sir."

"And what exactly is that?"

"Can't tell you. I might not come back. It's—I'll be slipping back in some of my old ways."

"Natasha."

"Yes?"

"Never forget that somewhere, deep down, under all of that crazy leather, homicidal tendencies, and pathological lying, there is a good person."

"Good one, Nick. I'm going out. Please don't tell them. If you do—I'm far better than anyone else who has tried to kill you. And that is not an empty threat."

Bruce trudged alongside Steve. He didn't know where they were going. Tony had to return New York for some reason or another, but Bruce wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that a Russian winter was settling in. Wanda was ahead of them, dead set on finding Natasha it seemed. He didn't know how to feel about the witch like girl. She brought out his worst fears and what made him angry so quickly that his transformation occurred too rapidly for him to think about it. Natasha had been hit by Wanda too, which made it strange that she and Wanda were friendly. Not friends though, Natasha didn't really seem to think of anyone but Clint as her friend. Wanda could set him off at any moment. He felt his heartbeat elevate, remembering the visions she put in his head.

—An entire city in flames that he couldn't stop smashing—

—Natasha—where was she? He was angry—so angry—

—Red—her body on the ground—did he—?

—Blood—no—a bullet—

"Hey Bruce? Bruce? Are you okay?" Steve asked.

Wanda glanced over her shoulder at him, seeming apologetic but saying nothing. Bruce took deep breaths, trying to control his breathing, "I'm just—"

"Worried? Yeah, me too. All Nick could give us was Russia—and when it comes to land mass, that's huge. She's also so much better at hiding than us. If she wanted to be found, she would send up a signal, so I'm assuming she hasn't been kidnapped."

"What if—?" Wanda began to ask the question Bruce had been avoiding.

"She's not dead." He cut her off, his voice flat.

"Of course she isn't." Steve sounded so optimistic that the other two both wanted to punch him.

"Where are we going now?"

"A house."

"Safe house?"

"Safe for the enemy, maybe." Wanda replied darkly, "I saw part of Tasha's mind. A man's name. I searched him in the databases. I searched him in the files. I found his picture finally, with a different name altogether. He lives here."

'Here' turned out to be an old, run down looking house in a row of old run down looking houses, which all had roofs that looked like they bent under the weight of the snow. A pair of little children were playing in the yard, throwing snowballs at each other, and laughing. They reminded Bruce of Clint's kids and he couldn't help but feel a little wistful. He thought Natasha had been wistful too, but he didn't know. He couldn't know for sure, not until he asked directly, without any motivation for her to lie to him.

Wanda reached out and knocked, "Mr. Sharonoff?"

"What do you want?" A man demanded, opening the door, speaking broken English. In the background, Bruce heard music. He couldn't place where it was from for a moment, but then he realized it was from Swan Lake. He was old and balding, with glasses perched on the end of his nose.

Wanda cocked her head to the side, "That's not your real name, is it?"

"Look, I don't know who sent you or what you're doing but-"

"It's about Natasha-Natalia Romanova." The man's eyes widened almost imperceptibly.

"I think it'd be best if you come in."

She found the person she was looking for outside of Moscow. All the signs were there. The girl used razor wire to kill in close quarters. He was a political figure, not famous enough to become a martyr, but fully capable of being a problem to the powers that be. Russia was an interesting place to be in. It was always changing, for the better, for the worse, either way it never stayed the same. Empires rise and fall so easily that Natasha didn't see the point in getting attached to them.

The girl had a dancer's body, dark red hair just like Natasha's, and a gun hidden in her coat. She couldn't have been more than eleven. That was when Natasha had her first mission. Killing without compassion was easy by then. It was a given that killing was a part of their lives. It was ingrained into them, from the first time that the killed another girl with her bare hands, all for the sake of survival.

Suddenly the girl turned, but before she could get the chance to draw her weapon, the Black Widow had a cord wrapped around the girl's body, dragging her forward and to her knees.

"Why are you following me?"

"I need to know where your handlers are."

"Why?" The girl spat, struggling, but Natasha could tell this was a rudimentary attempt at gathering information.

"Because I'm the Black Widow. I'm going to let you go and you're going to lead me to them. Every trick you have, I know."

"You can't possibly—"

"Let's see, you got a mission by eleven—that means that you probably first killed another girl when you were nine. It was training, you didn't want to, but your tutor willed it. You didn't want to be seen as weak. Weak girls die."

"You're the Black Widow? The one that leaked everything on SHIELD and Hydra."

"The one and only."

The girl nodded, "Natalia."

"Call me Tattie for short. What's your name?"

"Yelena."

"Lena for short?"

"I've never had a short name."

"Well today's a new day, Lena."

"Will you let me out now? I won't try to kill you. Survival is my imperative at this stage."

Natasha's heart dropped. She remembered being eleven. She remembered phrases like that going through her head at each stage in a mission. Lena climbed out of her slackened bonds and turned, walking ahead of Natasha.

"Are you going to kill my handlers?"

"Would you mind if I did?"

"Not really." Came Lena's apathetic reply, "I can always get a new one."

Natasha was always a fighter. Even when she was very small, she was fighting. She was stuck underneath rubble for three days before someone dug her out. Her brothers and parents had been killed. Lot's of people had been killed, so they didn't pay much attention to the orphan that was picked up one day. They hadn't lured her with food or promise of seeing her parents like the other girls. Instead, a man crouched down in front of her, cradling her little hand in his. Snow fell around them, as it always seemed to, endless and without reprise.

"It is very cold here." He said.

"It is." Natasha (Natalia was her name then) felt the warmth that encompassed her hand, the smooth leather of his glove against her raw, chapped fingers. He was big and strong, towering over her like a mountain.

"Where are your parents?"

"Dead."

"And your neighbors?"

"None." Natasha left out the part about the people left ignoring her. They were as hungry as she was. Some of them had broken limbs, or bits and pieces cut off with ugly pus seeping from their wounds. They didn't have room for her in their world.

"How do you keep warm?"

Natasha pointed towards the rubble remains of a house, "I go underground. I light a fire like my mama sometimes."

"That's very clever of you." The man nodded encouragingly, "Do you want to go somewhere warm?"

"Warm?"

"Yes warm—and there's pretty ballet dancers. Did you ever go to a ballet before?"

Natasha shook her head.

"They work very hard until their feet bleed and ache to make a beautiful show. You would be good at it. You bled and yet you stand straight. That is what can make a dancer in the Red Room."

A Red Room sounded ominous to Natasha, but she wasn't about to let him walk away without her. She assumed that nothing could be worse than the Hell she encountered in the past month by herself. Natasha still can't bring herself to regret taking his hand. She would have never met Clint, or Bruce, or Tony, or Wanda or anyone else that meant anything in her life if it weren't for the Hell she chose.

She saw herself, years later, rising effortlessly to her toes and stepping down just as quickly, making the motion look painless, making it look pretty.

The memory was ingrained in her head but it wasn't until she started to follow Lena that things she pushed out of view were coming back to haunt her.

She had a mission and Lena was an operative.