AN: Alright guys fair warning, I did use google translate. So to anyone who actually speaks Russian, I am deeply sorry if I got it completely wrong. Thank you to everyone who's reading this story and everyone leaving reviews. I love hearing what you guys think.

Molodoy: young one

Uchitel: teacher

Chapter 8: Pasts Tainted Red

Winter looked out at the group of young girls that he had spent the last couple of years training. None were excellent, but a few were passable. The one with the red hair would be one of them, he was sure of it. There was a certain coldness she had at her disposal that would allow her to do the things necessary to survive.

The girl they called Natalia did not look like much at first, but underneath those childish features lied a fighter who would do whatever it took to see tomorrow. This was something Winter had come to begrudgingly respect about her.

It was hard to remember that despite their lethal nature, these girls were nothing more than children. And children were naturally drawn to what they didn't understand, which is why whenever he wasn't training them he could feel their eyes roving across his form trying to categorize all the different ways that made him a threat. Those eyes had all quickly scattered when he sought after them. All except Natalia's.

She had gazed at him as though she were trying to break him down layer by layer just so she could see what made him tick. She stared unabashedly and not even his iciest glare made her flinch away. But the worst part wasn't her ever-present eyes, it was her questions.

When Hydra first sent him to what they were calling the Red Room Academy, he had thought this whole assignment seemed senseless. What was the point of training twenty-eight girls when they only intended for one to survive? Winter thought it was a waste of potential.

He was going to break them down, push their boundaries further then they thought possible, and he would do it all without an ounce of regret. This was the mission his handler had given him, and he would complete it with swift efficiency.

At least that was the plan.

All it took was one little red headed girl to throw him off with her lack of fear towards him. She still got on his nerves with her incessant need to engage him in conversation, but over the few years Winter had come to realize that it was the norm for them now. She would ask him a question and he would either answer it or ignore her and she would take it in stride.

Sometimes when he would look at Natalia the flashes of a young girl with brown hair, so similar to his, would flood his senses and the name Rebecca would echo in his head. But he had learned long ago that echoes hurt, so he cast it from his mind as though it were nothing. He couldn't tell if that made it easier or more difficult to be around Natalia.

"Собираетесь ли вы сегодня спарринг или мы просто тренируемся?"

Speak of the devil and she shall appear.

"English Natalia." Without looking up he flung one of his knives at her head, "You know better by now." Just like he expected, Natalia simply tilted her head out of the danger and let the blade sink into the wall behind her. He would have been pissed if she let it hit her. Not because she would have been injured but because after how long he spent training her, such a failure on her part would make him look like an inadequate teacher.

Although Winter understood every word that she had said, it was still wrong for her to converse in Russian with him. In order to improve on their language skills, the girls were instructed to only speak English when they were with him. Something about how good spies would be able to speak English fluently, but the best spies had the power to fool you into believing they were American from birth.

"And no, we are not going to spar today. But that doesn't mean you'll get to slack off cause you have to fight next week." He paused, debating whether or not to make her privy to the future plans. Winter would never admit it but Natalia was his best student and he found that there was a small part of him that wanted to make sure she succeeded. Yes, telling her would put the remaining girls at a disadvantage, but there was no such thing as honor among assassins and spies. "You will have an audience this time. Make sure to prepare yourself."

After next week there wouldn't be twelve girls anymore, there would be six. Every girl was required to fight so that they could prove they had the skill set needed to complete the program. They thought the weak were being weeded from among them and Winter wanted to scoff at their ignorance. He didn't understand how they could not see that this cycle would continue until only one of them was left standing.

He thought it would be more obvious considering they started out with twenty-eight and now there was only twelve.

Winter was proud in a nontraditional sense when Natalia gave away nothing in her expression that would indicate that the news had affected her. She was as cold and emotionless as she was when he first met her, and that had been what kept her alive all these years. She never stopped learning and improving, causing her undefeated record to remain as such.

There had been talk that the graduate of the Red Room was to become his partner. Winter didn't need a partner, he didn't want another distraction that he would have to haul around with him. But if his handler gave him the order he would have to obey. Out of all the girls here Natalia was the one who bothered him least, she would be dangerous and swift because he would make it so. Winter was training his future partner and he was going to make damn sure that they were up to his standards. And so far the only ones who came close were Yelena and Natalia.

Yelena Belova was a strong fighter but she was much too cocky, and that would be her downfall. It was clear to anyone with a working sense of vision that the blonde-haired girl with sharp blue eyes was confident that she would soon pass Natalia up and come out on top. And while Winter didn't like the thought, he could not argue that it was improbable. There was really only one thing that Natalia lacked and unfortunately it was quite a vital thing. "There is only one girl who will prove to be a challenge for you" he informed her.

"Yelena."

Winter took a second to nod at her, pleased that she knew who her biggest competition was without having to tell her. "But at the moment, as you are now, you will not beat her when it actually matters." This was not him trying to put her down, rather to let her know that there were things she needed to improve on.

Natalia scoffed at his assessment. She'd give credit where credit was due, Yelena was deadly, but she was sloppy and that made her highly predictable. "I win all of our spars. Yelena is too rash and impatient, all I have to do is hold her off until she gets frustrated and makes a mistake." Natalia was one of the only girls whose strength matched Yelena's, which is why when the girl lashed out she could stand her ground. Some of the younger girls had not been so lucky.

Clearly she was not getting the point that Winter was trying to show her. "That may be so, but there is one thing I have yet to see you do that I have seen from her on multiple occasions. And that one thing will determine who lives and who doesn't." He would be quite upset if she failed, all that potential would be wasted if she could not get over what was holding her back.

"And what could that possibly be?" There was a frigid anger that she hid deep in her irises, wondering what it was that somehow made Yelena better than her in Winter's eyes. She thought it childish but still she could not help but want her uchitel to be proud of her, to give her his patented backhanded compliments that only she seemed to receive, and to remain being the only one of the girls he looked with something more than disinterest.

Yelena Belova threatened to take that away from her, and the thought caused a surprising amount of rage to flow through her. Jealousy was the answer her brain supplied her in response to the pit of anger that had taken root in her chest.

"You always delay making the killing blow and Yelena shows no reservations there."

That was the problem? He had gotten her concerned over something that would never occur? Annoyance quickly flooded her features, "What's the point? They will never pit the two of us against each other like that, we are too valuable to them."

This was the kind of goddamn ignorance that Winter had hoped Natalia lacked. But at the end of the day she was still a child, one whose future was not up to her, so he supposed a bit of ignorance was to be expected.

"That kind of thinking will get you killed. Never think about what might or might not happen, prepare for the worst and nothing will ever surprise you." Winter gave her a hard look, making sure that his next point was drilled into her head, "There can only be one survivor here molodoy. You'll have to get over whatever innocence you are clinging to about eliminating your target if you want to ensure it's you who leaves in one piece."

There was a hidden implication in his words and it was glaringly obvious to Natalia that her uchitel knew more than she did. She hated it when she didn't know something. She was the one who was being hand trained to be one of the best spies in the world, there should be no secret that she couldn't find out. But the fact that Winter thought that Madame B would pit her two best students against one another, knowing full well that only one could walk away from it, was confusing to her.

"Do you want to live?" To anyone besides them it was a simple question. But to those whose life didn't belong to them, the idea of living and what it entailed was vastly different, and not always was it a good thing.

Her teeth clenched so tight that she wondered if they would shatter under the weight of the words coming out of her mouth, "Of course." She had broken bones and shed her own blood to get to where she was. Natalia refused to be like those other sixteen girls who had lost their lives because they were too weak to endure.

There had been twenty-eight of them, and now there was twelve. Natalia had earned her place among them and would be damned if she let something like empathy stand in her way again. She had to do her best to bring honor and glory to the Soviet Union, anything less than that was unacceptable.

"Then don't hesitate."

Natalia would never tell him that she only hesitated because every time one of them looked in her eyes knowing she was about to end their lives, she could always see the plea to spare them written plain as day. And she knew that the only thing they were guilty of was following the same orders she was. Every time she had to kill one of them Natalia felt as though she were killing herself.

It was unsettling, that's why she hesitated.

Just like her uchitel had said there were now only six girls remaining. Natalia and Yelena had not been paired together during the last fight which put her on edge, because now she felt like she was sitting on pins and needles waiting for that day to come. Natalia had made a conscious effort to dispose of her opponent as quick as she could, but she knew that Winter had seen that brief moment when she paused right before she snapped the girl's neck.

Natalia didn't let much get to her, in fact some would say that she was emotionless, but the small almost invisible frown marring Winter's face when she paused filled her with shame and frustration. And those were emotions that she couldn't seem to shake.

It had been a week and a half since that day and still Natalia felt as though she could not face him. She had taken her frustrations out on various punching bags and had not even blinked when presented with their live target for firearms practice. She aimed and imagined it was Yelena before she pulled the trigger with precise accuracy, wanting to prove to herself that she could do what her uchitel had told her.

The girls' lesson for the day had just ended but Natalia stayed rooted to her spot firmly, determined to speak to Winter. He ignored her until they were the only two left in the room, turning around and calmly meeting her eyes.

The two of them stared at one another, analyzing everything from the rate of their breathing to the slightest twitch of a finger. Natalia would not apologize for her actions nor would she try to justify or explain them away. What's done is done, she could not turn back time and do things over again. Besides, her uchitel wouldn't want empty apologies, he would expect to see her improvement.

Natalia could stare down practically anyone, but Winter had a way of making it seem as though he was breaking down every wall and defense that she had carefully put up over the years. She knew how to extract secrets from her targets, a skill that was required in their field, but there was something empty about his gaze that seemed so unnatural. It kind of pissed her off that he could so easily unravel her without even uttering a word.

Finding whatever it was that Winter was looking for he finally addressed the red headed girl who looked like she wanted nothing more than to bare her teeth at him, "I am a weapon, do you understand what that means molodoy?"

It went without saying that she ignored the relief she felt when he called her by that term. Surely if he was upset with her than he would revert back to her given name.

Had he been anyone else Natalia might have laughed condescendingly, but this was her uchitel and regardless of their mutual annoyance with each other at times, he did hold her upmost respect. "I am too. So what reason is there for me to fear that?"

Not reacting to her bait Winter carried on, "You should fear what you do not control. And at the moment that would be everything, including yourself." He resisted the urge to curse, somehow feeling like it would be wrong to do so in the presence of a child. He had never had to watch his language so much as he did during this assignment.

His words proved to be an effective way to shut her up. Winter had not minded the reprieve that he had gotten when Natalia had been avoiding him because she no doubt thought he was angry with her. Sure, he had been watching closely to see if she would hesitate or not, and she had but it was different from the way she used to.

It was almost hard to believe that her small hands had taken lives. There were some moments, like now, when it was made very clear that Natalia was still at an age where she would need some reassurance. She was an enigma to Winter most of the time. She could be cold and callous and the very next moment be worried that she had failed him, it seemed exhausting to switch moods like that. "Weapons aren't made easy, it takes time. Don't worry so much about something that can be fixed easily."

Another cryptic answer. Winter wasn't going to praise the girls even if they somehow managed to impress him, a feat none of them had fucking accomplished, but if you listened to his harsh words carefully there may have been a pat on the head buried in there somewhere. And that's what this was. Winter was telling her that it was okay for now that she had made that minor slip up and that it was fixable.

Satisfied that she had gotten the gist of his words, Winter made to walk past Natalia when she suddenly started speaking.

"I like it when they make us dance." The words burst through her lips before she could restrain them. There was just something in the way he carried himself that reminded her of what she saw in the mirror, that said they shared the same demons. "I feel like I am more, even when we have to practice the same routine till our feet bleed."

He didn't know why but he decided to entertain her, "More what?"

"More everything. The truth...at times feels unclear."

And this was the exact kind of conversation Winter had always tried to avoid having. It was inevitable that one day at least one of the girls would try to find something else to define her. All they knew was order and controlled violence. They practiced ballet until their routine was deemed perfect, they were expected to master how to kill and seduce their targets, they were trained in hand to hand and weapons until it was ingrained in their instincts, and when they slept they were handcuffed to their beds.

A perfect mixture to create the current cage that enveloped the young girls.

But the thing about cages was that sometimes they don't work. Sometimes all a cage does is make its occupant long to escape it.

Natalia was the only girl that remained unintimidated of him and he didn't expect this topic to be one that she would willingly bring up. He wasn't the type to give advice, mostly because he didn't care enough to, but this was different. Had he overheard another girl talking like this he would have reported it back to his handler and one of the Academy's supervisors so that they would be free to use the information in any way they chose.

He hated that Natalia was different. She had wormed her way under his skin to the point where there was a minuscule part of him that was eager to see her succeed as his student. If she was thinking what he thought she was then he needed to put a stop to it right now. "The truth is what we make it."

There was a strange kind of detached curiosity that coated her voice, "What do you mean?"

"Truth is flexible, it is always changing. Just like us. But there is one truth that won't ever change." Cruelty was not his intention, but if that's what it took then that's how it was going to have to be. "You are not a ballerina Natalia, you are a killer and a spy. You always will be, because that is our purpose." Winter needed to make her understand. Some things were just out of their control, they were set in stone. For people like her and him this was what they had, there was no place for them in the world, not anymore. "So be what they need you to be and you will get through this with your life."

One would think that hearing that would hurt, but it didn't. Her uchitel didn't say that she couldn't enjoy dancing, he just said that it couldn't be her life. And Natalia knew this, she knew exactly what she was training to become. But she could not deny to herself the small part of her that wished the images she saw behind her closed eyelids at night were more than just dreams, or perhaps they were memories, she could never quite figure that one out. She would keep that part of her locked away, it would be safer that way.

She smirked and nodded, satisfied with his answer and watched as this time he was able to leave the room without any interruptions from her.

Lately whenever she was around her uchitel there was a word that came to mind. Natalia didn't quite know what the word meant in a normal context, but to her knowledge the definition fit Winter's actions.

Someone who assumed a role by providing guidance or protection.

Natalia hadn't thought much of the word until now, never having known anyone who fit that criteria. She was an annoyance to him on good days but that did not dismiss the fact that he had given her more guidance than any other adult in her life. It was mostly guidance in regards to hand to hand combat, in which he had kicked their asses on multiple occasions, but he had just nudged her in the correct direction so surely he embodied that definition.

Older brother.

That was the word she was looking for.

Natalia couldn't remember ever having a family before, but if this was what it felt like to have one than she supposed she could understand why people would lay their lives down just to keep it safe.

Time seemed to pass by slower while he was at the Academy. Winter didn't think there was ever a time when he stayed in one place for so long. There was no ice and they hadn't made him go back to the chair yet. There was just a room with a bed and a schedule that he followed regularly.

The only current thing he was displeased with was the lack of his soulmate.

The odds of him finding her decreased every time they froze him. He was always cautiously checking his wrist when he awoke, knowing that one day he could be greeted with a light grey instead of an obsidian black.

He wondered if whatever it was that created soulmates had ever thought about how cruel it was to leave the biggest reminder of their mate forever imprinted on their skin once they were gone.

Winter wasn't a religious man, but he thanked every god and deity he knew about whenever he saw that his soulmate was still alive and well.

He had been conditioned to accept his handler's word as law, but none of that would save the man if Winter awoke to find his mate gone. The party responsible for taking him away from her would be eliminated. His current handler understood his built-in mission objective in regards to his soulmate and had allowed it to stay.

When he found her, he knew would never let her go. He would protect her and care for her, give her everything she'd ask for even if it was his own goddamn heart on a silver platter. She would be his and he would be hers.

But he swore the waiting was going to fucking kill him.

Winter was drawn out of his brooding when he felt a staggering amount of grief hit him from out of nowhere. It was an emotion he couldn't ever remember feeling, sure he had seen many people experience it, but he personally couldn't say he had ever gone through it. The feeling seemed to be coming from the words on his wrist.

He didn't know that such a thing was possible, to feel things from your soulmate. He had never heard of it occurring before. He didn't fucking like it at all. Winter didn't know what could cause this kind of pain in his soulmate and a small voice in the back of his head kept telling him to fix it.

He growled out loud at the sound of it. How the fuck was he supposed to fix this? He hadn't met her yet, he couldn't ask what was wrong or kill whatever it was that was causing her the pain. The more the grief increased the more desperate he became to make it stop.

Desperation was also another emotion that Winter avoided like the plague.

Wrapping his metal hand around his worded wrist tightly he tried to send his strength to her. It stood to reason that if he was feeling something from her than if he concentrated hard enough that he might be able to send something back. The problem was that Winter didn't know how to comfort someone, didn't believe he was gentle enough to do such a thing.

But he had dealt with pain, that was familiar, so he did his best to send what he thought strength would be. There was a pause in the assault before the sadness seemed to dim. He was unprepared when suddenly a large wave of warmth enveloped him. His heart skipped a beat and Winter was momentarily concerned that there was something wrong with the organ.

'Love.' Once again that small voice pierced his skull like needles. Before he could process what was happening a small body plopped itself down beside him. Immediately Winter wiped everything from his face and let it rest back at its blank state.

"They let you keep your words?"

Shit, this kid asked whatever the hell she wanted to. Just jumped right into the most sensitive topic there was without a care in the world. Winter's mind raced as he tried to think about ways to get him out of this conversation.

Natalia was genuinely curious as she nodded towards his right wrist that he was gripping onto. Her own had been scarred over. All twenty-eight girls' soul words had been burned off of them once they showed up. Some of the girls shed tears at the heavy loss, but not Natalia. Here soulmates were considered to be nothing more than a distraction, and distractions could only ever get them killed or their cover's blown. Besides, how could she miss a soulmate she had never met?

The most valuable skill that they were being taught was the ability to belong anywhere, but in order to do that they first had to belong nowhere. That led to cutting off the girls' connection to the only people who would ever truly be home to them.

So they took fire and let it burn until there was nothing more than a jumbled mess of twisted skin and unrecognizable words.

Winter resisted the urge to snarl at the very thought of anyone trying to sever his tie to his soulmate. Natalia may not be afraid of him now, but he knew without a doubt that she would be absolutely fucking terrified of the person he would become if they came after his words. "My handler calls it motivation."

Before Natalia had sat down, she had seen the look of complete concentration on his face while his eyes seemed to burned holes into his wrist. There was no possible way that he didn't have his own opinion on the matter with a look like that. "What do you think of it as?"

"I don't care what is it as long as it's mine."

It was such a simple phrase, but the way he said it gave off the impression that it was an absolute fact. Natalia was taken aback. She had never had anything that she could call her own, nothing in the world that was completely and utterly hers. The look in Winter's eyes was uncomfortably unfamiliar to her, but it was the most alive she had ever seen him.

What was so important about a soulmate that it lit a spark of determination in her uchitel?

A lump formed in the back of her throat and she tried to swallow it down. She thought that people like them didn't get to be like that, didn't get to call anything their own. She had never questioned it because that's the way she thought it was supposed to be.

The longing for something she had never missed before hit her like a tidal wave.

Seeing her eyes latch onto his words with absolute fascination like she too wanted nothing more than to reach out and touch it, caused Winter to soften somewhat. It was almost as if she believed something would happen if she made contact with the words, like the very surface of the earth would shake beneath their feet.

It wouldn't, but he understood what that felt like. Hope was a bitch of a thing to feel for people like them.

"Maybe you'll meet her one day." It was the closest Winter was ever going to get when it came to showing Natalia that he thought of her as something more than his student. Telling her in six little words that he would trust her around the one person he unconditionally cared about. The one person who was going to be his whole world.

And really that said everything.

Natalia wanted that. Wanted to meet the girl on the other side of the words that had put some semblance of life back into one of the emptiest people she had ever known. She wanted to inspect every inch of this person and discover what it was that made her so special.

Natalia considered Winter her family, even if the man would never know it, so by extension his soulmate also fell into that category. This lost girl was one of Natalia's now.

Maybe the girl could breathe some life back into her as well.

"It has come to our attention that you have developed an attachment to one of the girls."

Winter hated that they tried to make it sound like a dirty thing. Natalia and the other girls were just that, girls. There was no way in hell he was even thinking about any one of them like that. For fuck's sake, the thought of it had his stomach rolling in disgust.

Instead of voicing any of that Winter just nodded his head and clarified his intentions, "I have a strong reason to believe that Natalia will be the last one remaining." Of course, at his explanation their eyes lit up with interest. "There's something familiar about her. She has what it takes, so I'm putting more effort into her."

Winter missed the tick in his handler's jaw when he was done speaking. Madame B walked closer to Winter and tilted her head in contemplation. She knew that Natalia was one of the best that she had ever possessed, but so was Yelena. She wanted to know what he had seen that made that distinction between the two of them.

"What is it you see in her?"

"Me."

That was the highest form of praise that Winter could give one of the girls. Madame B grinned at him, pleased that she had not been wrong about Natalia. It was widely known that Hydra had done something extraordinary with the Winter Solider, creating what many thought was impossible. He was a legend, and Madame B wanted to have one of her own.

She turned and nodded towards his handler before leaving the room. Facing his handler, Winter's stomach dropped as he recognized the look on his face. His mind raced, going over everything he had said, trying to locate what it was that caused that look to appear.

There's something familiar about her.

How could he be so fucking stupid? He knew that at the slightest hint of him finding anything nostalgic had his handlers shoving him at the nearest scientists demanding that he be "fixed". He had become far too lax in watching what he said. He should have kept his mouth shut, because it was too late to snatch those words back from the air.

It was no surprise when he was taken into another room across the Academy where the metal chair that haunted his thoughts sat. While they hooked him up to it, he thought back to the last few years. He shouldn't have gotten close to Natalia, should have ignored all attempts she made to engage him. He should have been less obvious in his preferment to her as well.

Winter should have done a lot of things differently, but if given the chance he wouldn't.

He was always destined to end up back in this chair, no matter what choices he made. His life was an unbreakable cycle that had an unchangeable destination. But he had made a difference for Natalia, helped keep her alive, he couldn't find it in him to regret that.

The last thing on his mind before they begun wiping him was that he hoped Natalia would have the strength to do what it took to continue surviving. It was strange but a small part of him was actually going to miss that little red headed girl, her incessant need to keep him company, and the way she treated him like an actual fucking person. It had been nice.

It was a shame he would never remember it.

Abandon the hesitation.

Natalia had taken Winter's words from years ago to heart. And when she killed every last one of the four remaining girls who proved to be potential threats to her survival, there was no hesitation to be found. She didn't even blink when she slit Yelena's throat. Yet she did revel in the muted surprise that overtook Madame B's face when it happened.

Yelena and Natalia both took their places on the opposite side of the mat, Madame B stood off to the side observing them. Both girls were watching the other and waiting for their signal to begin.

Green eyes clashed with blue. One filled with cold calculation and the other clouded with hatred. Natalia kept her features carefully blank, determined not to give anything away and Yelena's ever-present smirk had not disappeared despite the heavy weight that this fight carried.

Only one of them would walk away from this.

Madame B gave the signal and a blur of red and pale blonde rushed to meet each other. Yelena thrust her fist out and Natalia easily ducked low and caught her with a fist to the underside of her chin. Yelena had never been one for strategy, preferring to strike hard and fast, relying on brute strength and psychotic urges to get her ahead in the program.

Yelena cursed as she hooked her foot around Natalia's and swept it out from under her while she took a step back. Instead of falling on her back, Natalia used the floor as a springboard and flipped so that she landed in a crouch.

Growling, Yelena ran forwards and tried to knee Natalia in the face. Throwing both hands up Natalia absorbed the blow and shoved it from her face. What she didn't expect was for a hand to grasp onto her bright red locks and yank forwards, causing her face to rush towards the ground.

Knowing that if she gave Yelena even a second then the fight would be over, Natalia swung her leg out and swiped Yelena's right out from under her, sending the girl tumbling to the floor. Flinging herself out of the range of Yelena's reach, Natalia jumped up and could hear Yelena doing the exact same. She turned around to see a foot flying towards her, and this time she couldn't avoid it.

Yelena sent a roundhouse kick to Natalia's sternum, sending her stumbling backwards as she tried to balance herself. The hit disoriented her long enough for Yelena to grab her arm and use her own body weight to flip Natalia over her shoulder. The air was knocked out of her when she landed hard on the mat below her. Before Natalia could regain her bearings, Yelena straddled her and used both hands to latch around her neck painfully tight.

Struggling to take in air Natalia tried to buck her hips to dislodge Yelena, but the girl was relentless and refused to let go.

"Ничего личного Наталия, я думаю, я просто лучше тебя." Yelena's smile widened as she continued to cut off Natalia's air flow. There was a hint of derangement in her eyes, almost as though she could see her goal in sight, all she had to do first was kill Natalia.

While she had been talking Natalia had brought her knees up and towards Yelena's hips so that her feet were off the ground. She wasn't going to die with Yelena above her gloating. Natalia waited until Yelena was done with her little victory speech before she swung her feet up in the blink of an eye and planted them against the blonde's chest and kicked back. The hands around her throat were ripped off and the room echoed when Yelena's head slammed down against the mat.

Natalia sucked in a much needed breath of air and ignored the raw feeling in her throat. That would definitely bruise.

Both girls quickly rolled and jumped to their feet. Natalia smirked while Yelena let out a savage cry as her victory was snatched away from her. As predicted Yelena was so furious that she lost all reason, and once again she charged directly at the red head aiming to cave her skull in.

Once she was within range Natalia reached out and grabbed Yelena's outstretched arm and jumped so that she used the other girl's slightly bent knee for momentum to push off of and spin around behind her. Her other leg swung around to land on her hip and the arm that Natalia had not let go of went in the same direction and snapped when it was pulled beyond its normal range of motion.

With the added weight of Natalia on her back Yelena fell to her knees on the mat. Before she could make another move there was the sharp bite of a knife at her throat and she froze.

Really, Yelena should have known that Natalia hadn't gone into this fight weaponless. After all, there was no such thing as honor among assassins.

"Ничего личного Елена." Natalia said, imitating Yelena's previous words, "Ты никогда не был лучше меня."

But before she could slide the knife across the pale skin she remembered the smug look on Yelena's face when they had been informed that Winter was no longer going to be their uchitel. Natalia may not have known what happened but it was obvious by that one look that Yelena had something to do with it. Her jealousy at not being his favorite was known by all of them. Natalia wouldn't put it past her to have gone straight to Madame B with false claims of concern.

Remembering caused that familiar burning rage for the girl underneath her to come back with a vengeance and Natalia pushed the knife against Yelena's neck harder, drawing a thin line of blood that trailed down, tainting the white shirt she wore.

Yelena had been the bane of Natalia's existence since they started training. Always making snide comments, taking pleasure in offing members of the twenty-eight, and taking away the one thing in her life that brought her some semblance of comfort.

She had grown to care for her uchitel as family and Yelena had preyed on that and ruined it.

Natalia wanted to make her suffer for it.

But she couldn't.

Like her and every other girl who had been training alongside them Yelena wasn't given a choice. Natalia couldn't blame her for trying to make the best of the situation that they were in. Suddenly she felt a great deal of pity for the young woman she had trapped, but Natalia pushed it aside and leaned down to whisper in her ear knowing what she had to do.

"Если есть ад, я увижу тебя там Елена."

Natalia locked onto Madame B's slightly wide eyes as she quickly slit Yelena's throat and let the body drop to her feet. She wanted that woman to see what she had created, to see how easily Natalia could kill someone she had known almost all her life.

Natalia looked down at Yelena's body and saw a river or red flowing from the large cut across her jugular. She watched as that deep red flowed on the mat below and how what was once blonde hair quickly became unrecognizable. Yelena's eyes were wide open, staring off in the distance lifelessly.

Looking down at her hands Natalia could clearly see that they too were covered in the bright red substance and she finally understood.

She understood why they called her the Red Death.

It had nothing to do with the color of her hair and everything to do with the color that stained her hands.

Natalia was blood, iron, and fire all trapped in one body. The other twenty-seven girls had never stood a chance.

The most valuable lesson she learned was from her uchitel, and that was to never ask for forgiveness when fighting for your life. And she had been fighting for as long as she could remember. Natalia thought back to the conversations they shared years ago and wondered what a weapon truly was. Because if she had been a weapon back then, what kind of monster was she now?

But was a monster truly a monster if they had no choice? What if they didn't know any different?

Maybe Natalia Alianovna Romanova had been a weapon, but she was more than that now. She had gathered so many different titles since that night. They said she'd become a legend, but everyone knew legends were carved out of granite and bathed in either righteousness or sin.

It was not hard to figure out which one she would turn out to be.

The Black Widow.

Natalia wondered how much red would taint that name.

Here's the rest of the translations:

Ничего личного Наталия, я думаю, я просто лучше тебя: It's nothing personal Natalia, I guess I'm just better than you.

Ничего личного Елена: It's nothing personal Yelena.

Ты никогда не был лучше меня: You were never better than me.

Если есть ад, я увижу тебя там Елена: If there's a hell, I'll see you there Yelena.

AN: I wasn't going to originally put a Red Room chapter in here, but thought screw it. It's an important aspect to James and Natasha's relationship with one another and I'm not going to deprive them of it, although I did change some things about what actually happened in there. Lord knows that time had a great deal in shaping Natasha into who we see in the movies, so I'm definitely not going to pretend it doesn't exist or just gloss over it. Hope my version of young Natalia wasn't too awful.

SunnySides: Dude, I love you. I was cackling while reading your comment. Their soul words don't fade completely, they just turn a dull grey when one dies. That's because then people know whether or not someone's soulmate is gone, cause some people aren't born with words (they are older than their soulmate). And I had an awful thought of people walking around asking someone how long they've been waiting for theirs only to find out that they had died. So instead of the words fading I thought grey words would be a nice way to avoid those kind of awful painful conversations. As for when the two of them meet I have two different ideas, one is sooner than the other. But I'm debating which one I want to use based on how well it flows together, and which one seems more realistic.