Hey guys! Here's another chapter. I really like this one and I hope you do too. Although, there's trigger warnings for suicide and violence and stuff.
Lena ran through the snow, blindly, her feet being dragged down more than she wanted. Suddenly, she was hit from the side and sent rolling. Instinctively, she stabbed blindly, pushing her assailant away from her. He took a couple staggering steps back with his hand over his new wound. He was old hunched but still somehow managed to take her by surprise. He turned and ran, oddly well for an elderly man with a knife in his shoulder. She shook her head and kept running, even though she would've had a clean shot.
She didn't have to kill anymore.
She didn't want to.
Before
"I could use a good run again."
"Again?" For some reason, Bruce couldn't imagine Natasha running from anything in all of her life. She approached things head on. In fact, their entire relationship was based almost entirely on her deciding that she would not fear him. Bruce thought it was a stupid resolution and a dangerous one at that, but how could he complain when her legs were draped over his lap and her back was up against the headboard?
They were lucky enough to get a bed. Clint saw nothing wrong with Natasha rooming with him; the rest of the team didn't even blink. Tony didn't even make a snarky comment. It was then that he realized that none of them really thought of her as a woman. In a way, they didn't think of him as a man. Bruce and Natasha were both non-entities defined clearly by what they did. The team really did consist of some of the best people he had ever been around.
That didn't stop him from feeling a little awkward and childish about the affair. He hadn't realized that Clint had a family. The man didn't seem like the type. He supposed that was the point. Natasha's entire demeanor changed around children. It was a pleasant surprise but also a painful one, when Natasha's sterilization was brought to light. He never really thought about having a family, especially with his own experience with it. That had been a point of contention in his relationship with Betty.
Natasha shook her head, "The Red Room." She rubbed her temples, cringing.
"Is something wrong?"
"Nothing. Still feeling a bit strange after that—intrusion."
Bruce winced, "That was—"
"I'm sorry."
"What?"
"I'm sorry." Natasha repeated. The way she said it sounded like she really didn't mean it, but Natasha's intonation never meant much. "I wasn't there." She clarified.
Bruce shook his head vigorously, "No, no, no I—"
His breathing was getting uneven. Natasha flinched and he immediately felt even worse about himself. She hadn't done that in a long time. He almost thought of himself as human. He shifted out from beneath her legs and was about to make a run for it when he felt Natasha's arms around him and her cheek pressed against his back.
"There's no need to get worked up—you're tired—I'm tired. Let's get some sleep."
The girl used a length of rope to hang herself from a beam in the bathroom. Her body still swayed slightly from her instinctive struggle against strangulation. Viktoriya, Alisa, and Svetlana crowded the doorway, with the other girls looming behind them, peering at Yana's limp corpse.
"We should cut her down." Svetlana spoke at last.
No one did anything about it. Alisa sighed and climbed onto the counter, sawing at the rope until the dead girl hit the floor with a resounding thud, "Where do we put her?"
"We could put her in the trash bin."
"That's not how you get rid of a body!"
"We could—" Everyone turned to stare at Tatiana, the eldest student, and the only one about to graduate that didn't disappear, as she spoke for the first time in this strange turn of events, "—report it."
"Are you insane?"
"Law abiding citizens report suicides." Tatiana spoke evenly and carefully, steadily walking across the room to pick up the old telephone. She played with the cord for a bit, "Consider it a cover and most of it is true. We found her in the bathroom. We cut her down—because we thought she was still alive. That's two thirds true. What do you think?"
Alisa nodded before taking a deep breath, throwing her head back, and screaming. She kept screaming and felt tears run down her face even as a policeman picked her up (she should have attacked him, that was what she was trained to do, after all) and pressed her face into his shoulder.
"Shhh, everything's all right now, love. We'll sort this all out."
"Natasha."
Natalia stood there, her entire frame vibrating from exposure and Natasha slamming up against the walls in her head at full force. She felt like she was going to explode and Bruce's terrified face both thrilled and killed her at the same time. Natasha had taken control for a single moment, but Bruce of all people let Natalia take hold again.
"Natasha."
Alexei clutched his shoulder, blood rolling over his fingers and dripping onto the ground, blooming like a morbid painting of red roses. Natalia had no control over her limbs as she propelled forward at the same time that he fell to his knees. He was shuddering from the pain and the blind panic only lasted for a minute before she started wrapping his scarf around the wound. She felt his warm blood on her hands and the tears burning her cheeks.
"Natasha." He repeated yet again, "No love, stop it." He batted away her hands, and clutched them in his.
He had glasses. That was the most heartbreaking thing to her. He had glasses when he was once a pilot. His vision was something that he had always been proud of, "Alexei, what are you doing? Look let me fix—"
"Natasha—my Natalia." Natalia winced, "I'm happy I got to see you again."
Natasha was oddly quiet throughout this entire encounter. It was like she had chosen not to do anything. Natalia didn't feel any better though. She thought that if Natasha stopped being so loud, she could go back to—back to what exactly? Back to 1955 before she discovered how much of a product of the Red Room she was? No matter how much she wanted it to go back to dancing and pretending like there was nothing more than Ballet and Alexei. What about back to 1942, right before her entire family was ripped away from her? It was impossible—impossible—what was the point in anything she did? It hurt—it hurt so much—
"Natalia—" Alexei's rough, dry voice creaked through her reverie, her meltdown, bringing her back to holding his hands in the snow while he bled out, leaning against her shoulder as he whispered, "you must go to sleep. You'll feel so much better. Your dreams will be happy ones and I won't be too far behind. I promise, love." He wrapped a weakened arm around her.
"I didn't want to leave, they would've killed you—"
"—but you did come back in the end." His grip on her hand was relaxing, "I'm so sorry you had to carry this with you all these years."
"You've been through enough, darling. It's bedtime—" Natasha whispered at last, her words soothing and not combative for the first time since she was conceived, "Sleep now—"
It blurred with every other bedtime before then. Her mother's voice wafted through her head suddenly, her sweet words before tucking her in and before being blown up right as she started drifting off. "My darling girl, I know you're excited. But in order for tomorrow to come, you must sleep. I'll sing you a lullaby if you'd like. The one about the sun, maybe?"
"Wait for me and I'll come back—" Fuck Dr. Yenin for breaking what remained of her mind in two, "Wait in patience yet, wait when they tell you off by heart, that you should forget—"
"—The sun's getting real low—" Mama's voice running with her own to tame a dragon to the tune of a tragic ballet.
"You must be so tired."
"Natalia, you are such a beautiful dancer—" Alexei, when she first performed only for him.
"Work harder, up, up, around, faster, faster—" A nameless female tutor telling her to keep spinning, even when she felt like her toes were going to break.
"Papa will be back in the morning. You can show him the dance you learned then—"
"There is no peace for the wicked."
"I am home."
"Maybe if you go to sleep, we'll let you win a race tomorrow." Her brother's voice seemed to tease.
Natalia blinked, standing across from Natasha in her familiar blue room. Behind her, the French doors were edged open just a bit, warmth and an old tune played on a fiddle, leaking out from behind it. Natalia bit her hand to keep from crying out and Natasha seemed to understand, stepping off to the side.
"What is that?" Natalia asked, hating how small and childlike her voice sounded, "I've never seen those doors before."
"It's because you didn't want to see them." Natasha replied quietly, "You should go."
"Where does it go?"
"What does it sound like, Natalia?"
"Like a fiddle."
"Papa's fiddle."
"Yes." Natalia took a step closer to it, entranced by the music, "It's a happy memory."
"They're all happy memories, Natalia. If you choose to go there, if you choose to sleep, those will be all you feel again."
"And Alexei—"
"He will be there too. He will be there soon, Natalia."
Natalia felt as if a bucket of ice water drenched her and she turned, ready to run out the other door and into the world once more—
"He's dead now, Natalia." Natasha murmured.
"He was the only family I had left."
"They're in there." Natasha pointed towards the door, "Just lay down and go to sleep. I'll handle everything from here, Natalia."
Natalia took a deep breath, pushing the door open to reveal a child's room and a child's bed, hunched in a corner and surrounded by her family. There was nothing that felt safer than her room, nothing that felt more familiar than it's green wallpaper or it's patched bedspread. Natalia turned, her lips turned upward slightly as she shut the doors on Natasha and locked it herself.