Natalia (the_black_widow) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2018-03-25 15:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, natasha romanoff (black widow) |
I remember this fourteen year old ballerina
Who: Natasha and her old handler
What: A personal mission starts
When: 3/25
Where: Bolshoi Theater, Moscow
Status: Complete
Rating: PG-13
Natasha usually liked to delegate things to others. Let Shepard or Logan have some fun messing with Hydra, that sort of thing. She hadn’t been in the field since the submarine mission, and honestly she was over due.
Someone had left a file in her office. Someone skilled enough to enter and leave one of the most secure buildings in the world undetected. Someone with training much like hers. The file was brief, but deeply personal. Her brothers and sisters were dying. There’d been ten in all, including herself. Eerily similar to her own dreams, only they’d been like her. Children picked up off the street, recruited with promises of food and shelter. Orphans given purpose.
Someone was digging up old files, taking out other agents from Nat’s days in the FSB. She’d always known this would catch up to her eventually - you didn’t leave the FSB alive. Besides, they were probably still pissed about the nuclear submarine thing. It had been a matter of when, not if.
While she cared less about herself, she worried that if they were going to target her, they’d target Stahma. Marguerite. Others that Natasha cared about. No, she was going to act first. Return to her roots. FSB. KGB. Same thing, different letters. Dreams and dreams and reality were all mixed up in her head, but that part had never changed. Romanova, a Black Widow in every reality.
It was really tempting to do some regime-change work while she was on this mission, but the consequences would be wide and far reaching, and Nat would need more time to set it up anyway, especially as she wanted to do it to both her home country and her adopted one.
But that was a thought for another time.
For now, dressed in a slinky red dress, she took a seat at the Bolshoi, crossing her legs as she leaned back to watch the dancers on stage. It was Anna Karenina. Not one of the ballets she’d ever performed in herself, but she could enjoy it.
An older man took the seat next to her, and they sat in silence as the story unfolded on stage. After perhaps twenty minutes, he leaned over, “You are bold to come here, Natalia. We have not forgotten your defection. Or your little stunt with the prototype submarine.”
Nat’s lips curved up, and she tilted her head in his direction. “You’ve come after me three times, Andrei. And then it seemed you learned your lesson. So I’m wondering how that file found its way into my office.”
Andrei snorted. “They’re reactivating the Project, Natalia.”
Blood running cold, Natasha composed herself before speaking. Some things were a little too close to her dreams. “And they want to eliminate all the loose ends before they start?”
“Da.”
Thinning her lips, she returned her attention to the ballet. They sat in silence again, before Andrei slipped her a file.
She didn’t glance at it, or away from the stage, “Why?”
“I remember this fourteen year old ballerina,” Andrei said softly. “Forced to interrogate a Cerberus operative. Assassinations at seventeen. A child. I do not want a world like that any more, Natalia.”
He placed his hand over hers. “Borya was killed last night. There are only four of you left. Find your sisters before it is too late. Stop Vadim. Once last mission, da? I have so many regrets...”
“Da.” Natasha watched Andrei bite down on something and squeezed his hand as the light left his eyes. “Goodbye, папа.”
She stayed for the rest of the show, before leaving her old handler. In her new file were the names and pictures of the ten. Most of them were crossed out, only herself, Antonina, Kseniya, and Oksana remained.
Her hand lingered over Andrei’s face, “We had fun together, you and I. I’ll extract a pound of flesh for every one of you.”
She just had to find the others first.
Her intel gave her a few places to start, so she returned to her hotel to look over her data.
There was something amiss when she entered her room, and she pretended not to notice. Things had been moved, and while it could have been a maid, she highly doubted that. At least, not a real maid.
A prod jutted out at her from the bathroom, and she narrowly avoided it. Grabbing the attacker’s extended arm, she twisted and flipped him over. He landed hard on his back and Nat dropped to the ground, getting his arm into a lock and twisting painfully.
She didn’t recognize him, “Did Vadim send you?”
But he recognized the name. It was enough to spur him into breaking free. Nat dodged a punch, spinning around and kicking him in the chest. He crashed onto an end table, and rolled off of it. Her attacker was out the window before she had a chance to reach him.
“Damn.”