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Chapter Text

It was still pitch black outside when Natasha startled herself awake, breathing hard as the remnants of her dream faded. The red glowing giant numbers on her black and red alarm clock told her it was two forty-seven in the morning.

She blinked hard and rubbed her eyes with her fists, trying to rid herself of what remained of the dream. It had felt so real, seemed so real. She wasn’t even sure it wasn’t a memory instead of a dream. But she didn’t want to think about that. She didn’t want to think about back there.

She rolled over on to her other side, reaching for the dirty, ragged teddy bear that was lying on the pillow beside her, the same one she had gotten when they first moved here, three years ago. It was the first thing that she could remember that had ever truly been hers, and he had been her constant companion nighttime companion ever since. She almost never actually cuddled with him — that was for little kids, like her sister, or for normal kids. Not for people like her.

But tonight, with the images in her head — in her dream, she had been handcuffed to the bed, a man with a metal arm beating her for something she did wrong, and she had been screaming, screaming for her parents to come — she thought maybe she could use the company of the little brown furry bear in the plaid pants.

She took the little bear into her arms — Yelena always wanted her to name him, but why name something she was going to someday have to leave behind? — and prepared to go back to sleep, but something stopped her.

She sat up in bed, listening carefully. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard something.

She put her bear down and carefully scooted to the edge of the bed before standing up and creeping over to her bedroom door. Mama and Papa always had them leave it partially cracked, so they could hear her or Yelena if something was wrong. Or so they said.

Even here, even in this pretend world that she sometimes forgot was pretend, she never was really allowed to be alone.

She touched the doorframe with her fingers, the dark of night making everything look gray instead of the blue she had been allowed to paint it the summer before. Mama and Papa had surprised her with that, presenting her a paintbrush and a can of paint that almost matched her hair.

Keeping her fingers in place, she pressed her ear up against the space between the door and the frame, listening carefully. She could just make out voices coming from the end of the hall.

Mama and Papa. What could they possibly be talking about at almost three in the morning?

Natasha’s stomach tightened. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.

She turned her head to glance behind her. The clock blinked at her, and her bear waited. She knew she should just go back to bed. If something was wrong and it was something she needed to know, Mama and Papa would tell her tomorrow.

But what if they didn’t?

Natasha poked her head out a little further, just enough so that she could look down the hall to the partially open door of Mama and Papa’s bedroom. She could see the soft glow of a lamp coming from behind it. If she was careful and made no noise, they might never know she was there.

But if they did know she was there, then she would be punished.

Natasha stood in the doorway of her bedroom, debating. Curiosity and confidence that she could get by undetected won out over fear of being caught and she stepped out of her room, pressing herself against the wall. Slowly and carefully, she crept down the carpeted hallway, past the turnoff that led to the kitchen, past Yelena’s partially closed door with the soft sounds of her breathing coming from inside it.

As Natasha moved down the hall, the voices of her parents became louder, more pronounced, even though she could tell they were whispering.

“It is the only way,” Mama was saying.

“No,” Papa answered. “No, it is not right.”

“We don’t have a choice!”

“There has to be another way.”

Natasha inched closer. There had to be another way for what? she wondered.

“They will kill them, Alexei.” Mama’s voice was hard, intense. Natasha hadn’t heard her speak like that in a long time. She moved even closer as Mama kept talking. Who was Mama worried about?

“Do you really want to live with that?” Mama was saying now. “Knowing we could have saved them?”

“There has to be another way.”

“There is no other way!” Mama’s voice raised suddenly, so loud Natasha gasped, knocking her foot into the wall at the same time.

Instantly she froze, panic filling her body along with shame for the horrible mistake she just made. She was better than that.

But what to do now? She was more than halfway down the hall, closer to Mama and Papa’s room than her own. Was it possible they hadn’t heard her?

The bedroom door swung open, light flooding the hall, blinding her. Instinctively, Natasha raised her hands to cover her eyes.

“Natasha!” roared Papa.

Natasha lowered her hands and stared at him. Panic and shame changed to terror. Images of the past filled her mind — the beatings, the isolation chambers, the sensory deprivation. She pressed herself back against the wall as if she could somehow sink into it, her eyes closing against her will, her body starting to shake.

She heard heavy footsteps move closer to her. Her heart pounded loudly in her chest, her mouth completely dry as she waited, completely still, for the blow to come.

A warm hand touched her bare arm gently.

“Come on, Natasha,” Mama said quietly. “Let’s get you back to bed.”

Natasha opened her eyes, focusing on Mama’s face right in front of her. She didn’t look mad. She glanced around her, at Papa a step behind her. He was wiping his face with his arm, breathing hard.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered to him. “I didn’t mean to …”

“We know, honey,” Mama said. Her voice was back to normal, the way it normally was when she spoke to Natasha or Yelena. Soft and gentle, no longer hard and intense like it had been a few minutes before.

Mama slipped an arm around Natasha’s shoulders and started to steer her down the hall.

“Let’s just get you back to bed.”

“Wait!” Natasha planted her feet, halting them both in their tracks. She spun, looking between her parents. “Is something wrong?”

She shouldn’t ask. She knew that. Asking questions you weren’t supposed to ask could lead to brutal punishments. But the words of their conversation were playing on repeat in her mind.

“Nothing is wrong, Natasha.” It was Papa who spoke, but Natasha wasn’t sure she could trust him.

A horrible thought occurred to her. She looked between her parents again. “Do we have to leave soon?”

“Natasha.” Mama glanced at Papa before turning back to Natasha and dropping to her knees, so she could look up into her daughter’s eyes. “Everything is going to be okay. You just need to trust us. Can you do that?”

Natasha studied her. She could tell there was something she wasn’t being told, something that seemed important and had them worried, but she knew she couldn’t ask them. It wasn’t her place, and if they thought she wasn’t being good …

She didn’t even want to think the thought, but it was there. It was always there. It had been there since the day they left Russia.

What if they wanted to send her back?

Mama was still waiting for her to answer. Natasha forced herself to nod at her.

“I trust you,” she whispered.

“Okay,” Mama said, and a smile formed across her face, the same smile she always had for Natasha and Yelena. The smile that, despite everything, made Natasha feel almost safe. “Then let’s get you back to bed.”

Chapter Text

On the surface, the next day started off the same as most other days that summer: Natasha woke to the sounds of her sister’s laugh, cartoons on the television and bacon sizzling in the frying pan. She found her mother and her sister both in the kitchen, Mama at the stove and Yelena carefully setting the table. Papa had already left for work an hour earlier.

The three of them — Mama, Yelena and Natasha — sat at the table together and ate their pancakes and bacon and Mama asked them what they wanted to do today and agreed they could go to the park by their house that Yelena loved.

It was all so normal, but Natasha couldn’t help feeling that something was off. Something she couldn’t pinpoint or maybe something she just didn’t understand. Her observation skills had always been top-notch — they were part of what made her valuable, according to all the instructors she’d had — but for as hard as she searched, she couldn’t find anything that stood out as wrong. Not breakfast, not the trip to the park, not peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. By the time late afternoon had rolled around and Mama had agreed she could take her new bike out for a short ride by herself around the neighborhood, she had almost forgotten that anything had felt wrong at all.

When she returned from her ride, having been gone less than ten minutes, just like she had promised Mama she would be, she found Yelena playing in the yard, practicing the gymnastics moves she’d learned at her classes the day before. Natasha parked her bike and hurried over to join her, lowering herself into a backbend to match Yelena.

“I bet you’ll fall first,” Natasha teased her sister. This had been their game for a while, always competing for who could do something better — from cartwheels to puzzles to making Papa laugh at their jokes.

“No, you will!” Yelena said.

Natasha stuck her tongue out, making Yelena giggle, and, as expected, her sister crashed to the ground a second later. But this time, instead of hopping up like normal, Yelena cried out in pain. Instantly, Natasha hurried to her sister’s side, her own gymnastics moves already forgotten. A moment later, their mother joined them.

“What happened?” Mama asked, bending down next to Yelena.

Natasha stepped away, letting their mother tend to Yelena instead. She wandered over to the swing, hoping her sister would be okay.

She hadn’t met Yelena until the day they’d moved here. She had been so little, only three years old and completely untrained. Natasha had thought at the time that she would never be able to be what she was supposed to be to Yelena — the only thing she knew of siblings was what she had watched from all the American television shows she’d been shown. But it turned out that loving Yelena was easier than she could have imagined.

Now, though, as she waited for Yelena and Mama, the images from the night before popped back into her mind, uninvited and unwanted — the whispers of her parents, the anger in Papa’s face when he caught her, the feeling that there was something no one was telling her but that was very, very important.

A hand touched her shoulder, startling her out of her thoughts.

“Come on, big girl,” Mama was saying. “It’s dinner.”

Natasha pushed herself to her feet, trailing after her mother and Yelena. She needed to stop thinking about what had happened. Mama and Papa had let her off without even a little punishment, but she had been lucky. They wouldn’t be so nice if they knew she was still thinking about it.

She stopped in front of the door, bending down to take her shoes off. Normally, this was her favorite time of the day — dinner with all four of them and then lounging around after, watch television or playing a game or helping Mama make dessert. She needed to focus on all that and not on something that had no bearing on anything whatsoever.

Mama and Yelena had already made their way into the kitchen before Natasha stepped inside. She joined them, going to grab the plates for dinner as Papa appeared beside her. She hadn’t realized he was home already.

Papa kissed her on the top of her head, doing the same with Yelena. He did this same thing every day, but once again, for reasons she couldn’t determine, something felt wrong.

Natasha’s hands shook slightly as she worked on setting the table, hearing her father joke with her mother and asking all of them about their days.

The four of them settled into their usual spots at the dinner table. Natasha felt like she was going to throw up.

And then it happened.

They were passing around food, listening to Yelena talk, when Papa gestured to Mama, and the two of them disappeared behind the wall to talk.

Yelena didn’t seem to notice, nor care, shoveling food into her mouth and talking about the fireflies, even though no one was listening. Natasha sat frozen, her fork hanging in midair, her insides twisting and writhing inside her like they were alive.

A few minutes later, their parents were back. Natasha glanced at them and had to choke back a wave of nausea — they didn’t have to say a word. She could see it on their faces. Their life here — this life that she had come to love — was over.

“No,” Natasha whimpered before either of her parents could say anything.

Papa glanced at her before plastering a grin that was much too broad on his face. “Girls,” he said, and Natasha could hear the enthusiasm — the fake enthusiasm — practically dripping out of his voice. “Remember when we talked about how one day we would go on an adventure?”

Yelena looked up from her mac n cheese, excitement crossing her face. “Today?” she said.

“Yes!” Papa said. “It’s time!”

“Yay!” Yelena shouted.

“No,” Natasha whimpered again. She knew what this meant. She had known this day was coming since the day they had arrived here, and she didn’t dread it any less now than she had in the beginning. She looked across the table and met her mother’s eyes.

“Trust me, Natasha,” Mama mouthed at her, but Natasha’s eyes burned as she felt tears start to form, panic starting to settle in her gut once again.

But there was nothing she could do. She knew that. She didn’t have a choice. She couldn’t disobey her orders, not even if she wanted to. Going back was better than what would happen if she tried.

Everyone else was getting up, hurrying off to do exactly as they had been taught — pack up the guns, leave everything else behind.

Natasha didn’t want to. She wanted to just keep sitting at that table forever. But she knew she couldn’t.

A tear dripped on to her cheek. She swiped it away before anyone else turned around and saw.

“You can do this, Natasha,” she whispered to herself, and so she did. She did what she was supposed to do, what she had been trained to do, and she got up too.

--

It was the worst car ride of her life. She kept her head turned to stare out the window, watching the places she knew so well now — places she cared about — pass by one last time. She had been so stupid. She had always known this was temporary, that this was fake. That this was only a mission. Her very first one. One she had been lucky to have been chosen for. Most of the girls would never see a mission until they reached their teenage years. But she had been chosen when she was only seven. It had been an honor, a privilege.

She had been so stupid. Wasn’t the first thing she had ever been taught not to get attached, not to make connections?

It hadn’t been real. But she wanted it to be. Their home. Their family. Their life.

She thought about her little teddy bear, left behind on her bed. The first thing that had ever really been hers, but even he had never really been hers.

She’d seen the fire when they left. Her little bear, her room, her clothes, her life — or at least the life she wished she had — gone in a sea of fire and smoke and ash.

Tears pooled in her eyes, and she rubbed them away angrily — angry at herself for being so stupid to forget the training she never should have forgotten, angry at the people who were making her go back, angry at Mama and Papa — at Melina and Alexei — for making her go back, angry at everything and everyone.

Beside her, Yelena chattered away, asking again for food or why she couldn’t take her shoes with her, asking Papa to play her favorite song.

Natasha’s stomach churned at the thought of what was waiting for Yelena when they returned to Russia. She knew what was waiting for herself, but she had been through it before. She would survive. But Yelena — she was so young, so innocent. She hadn’t had any training yet when she was chosen for this mission. She had come directly from the place where they kept the littlest ones, the ones who weren’t quite old enough for the more intensive training.

But now …

Natasha fisted her hands together, her nails digging into the skin of her palms. Yelena was still so little, so unaware. She didn’t deserve what was going to happen to her.

More tears were clouding Natasha’s vision when the car turned suddenly off the main road onto a dirt road. She forced herself to blink them away quickly, using her arm to wipe under her eyes. She needed to pull herself together, to keep herself together. Weakness was not allowed, and it was surely not tolerated. Things were going to be hard enough going back; she did not need to make them worse for herself by crying.

Alexei raced the car through the dirt toward an old wooden hanger Natasha could see out the front window, braking hard to a stop in front of it, dirt flying everywhere.

The music disappeared immediately as Alexei and Melina threw open the car doors.

“Hurry!” Melina commanded Natasha and Yelena, looking back at them over her shoulder.

Yelena scrambled to unlock her door and get out, her face still aglow from the excitement of the adventure she thought they were going on. Natasha’s eyes stung from the effort of holding back her tears, but she managed to get her seatbelt off and open the door.

She knew she couldn’t think about what was about to happen or what she was leaving behind. She couldn’t dwell on it. The only way she was going to get through what came next was to take it minute by minute, to focus on the present and not the past or the future.

This part of her life was over. It was a mission, and it was over. No matter how real it might have felt, it was over. And the sooner she accepted it the better.

“Girls!” Melina was yelling at them by the time Natasha had slammed the car door behind her. She ran toward her mother — toward Melina — letting her help her on to the small turbo plane.

In the distance, Natasha thought she could make out the faint sound of sirens.

Alexei wasn’t in the plane yet.

“Go!” he yelled from outside the wooden hangar.

“Papa!” Yelena screamed.

“Buckle yourselves in, girls,” Melina commanded, before starting to hit some buttons in the cockpit, the plane roaring to life.

“Papa!” Yelena screamed again as the sirens in the distance grew louder. Natasha could make out the shadowy shapes of cars racing toward them.

The plane started to move. The red lights of the police cars were growing brighter as they moved in their direction. Melina pushed harder on the gas. Yelena screamed again.

“Papa! Papa!”

The police cars were getting closer and closer. The sound of gunshots rang out. The plane jerked as a bullet hit it.

Yelena screamed again, terror evident in the sound and on her face. Natasha reached over, grabbing her hand. She could feel her sister shaking.

More bullets struck the plane. Melina cried out now, letting go of the plane’s controls and clutching her shoulder.

“Mama!” Natasha shrieked, as Yelena screamed again.

Melina turned to look back at them. Natasha could see blood squirting out from where her hand was clamped down over her shoulder.

Melina caught Natasha’s eyes. “I need you up here.”

Natasha took a split second, to see the fear in Yelena’s face, the command in Melina’s. The police cars were almost on top of them. More bullets were ringing against the plane.

None of that mattered. Moments like this were what she had been trained for.

Natasha scrambled from her seat, moving into the cockpit beside Melina. She’d been six years old the first time she’d been behind the controls of a plane, but she had never had to do it for real. She glanced over at Melina as she put her hands on the controls like she remembered she was supposed to do.

“You can do this,” Melina told her quietly. “You got this. I’ll help you.”

Natasha nodded. Behind her, she could hear Yelena sobbing now. In front of her, she could see Alexei shooting back at the police.

This couldn’t be how they died. This couldn’t be how Yelena died.

Natasha pulled back on the lever as hard as she could, feeling the small engine pick up speed.

“I’ll count with you,” Melina said.

Natasha watched the numbers get higher and higher as they counted. Hurtling toward them at the end of the runway were even more police cars. If Natasha couldn’t get the plane over them ….

She pulled harder as Yelena sobbed and Melina counted.

She could do this, she could do this. She had to do this …

“Now!” Melina said, and Natasha pulled on the control as hard as she could. She could feel the small plane start to lift into the air. Another bullet clanged against it and Yelena screamed again.

They were getting closer to the police cars blocking their path. Natasha closed her eyes, and a moment later she felt them move higher into the air, barely missing colliding with the cars.

She opened her eyes, relief and panic all mixed together in one. And then there was a clunking noise, loud and coming from beside them.

They all turned their heads in time to see Alexei pull himself up on the wing of the little plane, grinning at them through the windows.

“Papa!” Yelena screamed as tears Natasha had forgotten about spilled down her cheeks. Beside her, Melina whispered, “Good girl. That’s my girl.”

--

Natasha wasn’t sure where they were going. An island off the coast somewhere, she understood from the whispers between Melina and Alexei. She was too nervous to focus as properly as she should. She knew what was going to be waiting for them there, and she knew there was no way out.

They were going back to the one place she wished she never had to go back to again.

In the front, Melina made a pained noise, and Natasha quickly regained her focus. Melina didn’t look okay, not at all. She was pale and the blood under her hand had spread significantly.

“Mama?” she whimpered.

Melina turned her head to look at her and smiled, but it looked forced, pained. “I’ll be okay,” she said, her voice so much softer than normal. “But I want you girls to listen to me.” She took a deep breath. “When we get where we’re going, there are going to be some people there meeting us.”

Natasha turned away. She already knew this, but her heart sank even more at the thought.

“Natasha.” Melina’s voice had a note of something in it that Natasha didn’t recognize. She turned back to look at her. “We’re not going back,” Melina said.

Natasha frowned.

“We’re not going back where?” Yelena asked.

“Back home,” Alexei said.

“We’re not going back to our home?” Yelena repeated.

Natasha turned away from them all again.

“We’re going somewhere we’ve never been before,” Melina said.

Natasha twisted back around. “What?” she said.

“Someone your father met at work,” Melina said. “He’s going to help us.”

“Why do we need help?” Yelena asked.

“It might be scary for you girls at first,” Melina said. “But I need you to stay together, and trust your father and me. It will all be okay.”

“Are you going somewhere?” Yelena asked.

Natasha shook her head. “I don’t understand,” she said. They were on a mission, and when the mission ended, there was only one option — they had to go back to Russia. She had to go back to the Red Room. She had to go back to finish her training. But what Melina and Alexei were saying …

“These people are going to help us,” Melina said. “But you girls need to do what they ask you to do.”

“What will they ask us to do?” Yelena asked.

“I don’t know, baby, but just be good for them, okay?”

“And then we’ll get to go home?” Yelena said.

“We’re going to have a different home,” Alexei said.

“A different home?” Yelena shook her head. “No. I like our home!”

“I know, baby,” Melina said. “But it’s not safe there for us anymore.”

“But why?” Yelena asked.

“We’re not going back to Russia?” Natasha interrupted.

She saw Yelena cast her a weird look. “Where’s Russia?” her little sister, the one who was too little to remember life before their mission, asked. But Natasha wasn’t too little. She remembered every detail of her life before this, and it wasn’t making sense what Melina and Alexei were saying.

“Yelena. Natasha.” Alexei shook his head. “No more questions. Just do as we’ve said. It will all be okay.”

“But …” Yelena started, but at a firm look from Alexei, she too quieted. Alexei turned his attention back to the clear skies ahead. Melina groaned softly and pressed her hand harder against her wound. Natasha felt her insides twist. If they weren’t going back to Russia, then where were they going?

An hour later, she had her answer. Alexei brought the plane down on a small dirt landing strip on an island that just seemed to appear out of nowhere. As they drew to a stop, she could see jets on the other end of the clearing — fancier jets than she had ever seen in her life. A row of uniformed men and women lined up in front of the fancy jets, facing them as their plane parked a few hundred yards in front of them. They all wore the same black pants and shirts and she could see all of them had pistols.

“Mama. Papa,” Yelena whispered.

Alexei gestured for them to stay in the plane. He got out first. Natasha could see him pointing to Melina in the cockpit.

“Over here,” he said. “The wound seems pretty bad.”

Natasha saw the line of people part, and then a smaller group rushed through, a stretcher carried between them. They hurried over to the door nearest to Melina, Alexei going with them. Melina turned back to Natasha and Yelena, giving them a weak smile, before the people took hold of her, helping her from the plane and on to the stretcher.

“Mama!” Yelena screamed.

The group of people outside parted once more, and this time a tall man with an eyepatch appeared between them all, walking up toward Alexei. Natasha watched as he held out a hand to Alexei and the man who had been her father for three years took it and shook it.

Alexei turned back to the plane. “Girls,” he said. “I want you to meet someone.”

Natasha and Yelena stared at each other. Yelena looked terrified. Natasha reached over and grabbed her sister’s hand, clutching it tightly in hers.

The door beside Natasha opened, and she saw more uniformed people standing there. One kindly looking man reached out his hand. Natasha gave her sister one more look, keeping Yelena’s hand in hers, before reaching out to the man and letting him help her down. Another man picked up Yelena, getting her out of the plane and setting her down beside Natasha.

Yelena scooted into Natasha, her shoulder pressed into her as her little fingers dug into the skin on Natasha’s hand. Together, they walked over to where Alexei was standing with the tall imposing man.

The man looked at them, his one eye seeming to peer right through them. He was even more imposing up close.

“You must be Natasha, and you must be Yelena,” he said. “My name is Nicolas Fury, and I’m an agent of SHIELD.”

Chapter Text

Natasha didn’t understand what was happening. She and Yelena had been separated from Melina and Alexei at the airport, taken together to one of the fancy jets while Alexei went with Nicolas Fury to another and Melina was transported on yet a third.

Yelena screamed and cried as they ushered the two of them on to one of the jets, clinging to Natasha the whole time.

“Mama!” she sobbed. “Papa!”

Natasha wished she could cry or scream like her sister — not her sister, she tried to remind herself — but she felt frozen, her mind in a panic and her stomach in knots. An agent of SHIELD was what Nicolas Fury had said. An agent of SHIELD.

She knew what SHIELD was. It was one of the earliest things the girls in the Red Room were taught in their studies. They were also taught that the last thing they ever wanted was to get caught in SHIELD’s crosshairs because they were ruthless and vindictive and wouldn’t hesitate to take them out and thus they always had to be better than their American counterpoints.

SHIELD was the enemy. Americans were the enemy. Her parents — no, Melina and Alexei — their original mission was to steal information from the Americans. Natasha didn’t know the details — no seven-year-old girl needed to know any intimate details of missions — but she knew some from overheard conversations and keeping her eyes and ears open. They were supposed to live among Americans, pretend to be Americans, but they were never supposed to like Americans, and they were never, ever supposed to work with them.

But now Melina and Alexei wanted her and Yelena to cooperate with the Americans? It didn’t make sense. Why would they ask them to betray Russia like this? Or maybe it was a double-cross and they wanted to fake them out? But they had said they weren’t going home, and even though Yelena had taken that to mean their Ohio house, Natasha had a feeling they had been talking to her when they said that and they meant back to Russia, back to the Red Room.

But to go to the Americans instead?

It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. Natasha desperately wished she could talk to Melina or Alexei, to get them to explain. She didn’t know if she should cooperate with these people or lie or try to escape. But she couldn’t escape without Yelena. She had to protect her. Above anything else, she had to protect her.

The man who had helped Natasha and Yelena off the plane was still with them. Phil Coulson, he had introduced himself as. He seemed nice, kind, but Natasha wasn’t going to be fooled by that. She had seen Dreykov himself be nice and kind to people and then turn around and be cold and cruel the next moment.

She thought maybe the Americans would lock her and Yelena up or cuff them to their seats, but instead Phil pointed to two very comfortable chairs and had the two of them each take a seat.

“We have water and candy bars,” he’d told them. Natasha had shaken her head, but Yelena was happily munching on chocolate and drinking a fruit punch, like this was just another day.

“Where are our parents?” Natasha asked the man. She could see the other agents in the front getting ready to take off. Another trip that she didn’t know where they were going, and this time she was with people she didn’t trust.

“They’re going to be okay,” Phil told her, a soft smile across his face. “Don’t worry.”

“I want to see them.”

“I know,” he said. “But unfortunately it doesn’t work like that.”

“What do you mean?”

But Phil shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t tell you anything else.”

Natasha met his eye and then dropped her gaze down to the gun hooked in his waistband. It would be so easy to grab it from him and aim it at him, command all these agents to fly her to her parents.

But there were seven men on this plane and she was only one girl. There was no way she would make it, and then they would take Yelena away from her, and her one mission right now — the one mission she was set on — was to protect her sister and not let anyone, not the Americans, not Dreykov, not anyone, hurt her.

So Natasha kept her hands folded in her lap while her sister munched on chocolate bars, watching the agents warily. Maybe if she just kept quiet, kept Yelena safe, she could figure out a way to see Melina or Alexei — or they would find a way to come to them. They wouldn’t just abandon them, right? She didn’t know, but all she could hope was they wouldn’t.

--

By the time the plane started to drop down, back above America somewhere, Natasha presumed, the sun was coming up for the day. Natasha was exhausted, her eyes barely wanting to stay awake, but apprehension and terror kept her from closing them for even a minute, no matter how much she wanted to.

Next to her, Yelena was sound asleep, her head on Natasha’s shoulder, her mouth open, drool coming down the sides of her face. Natasha kept an arm protectively over her sister, glaring at everyone who even looked their way.

The agent, Phil, had tried a few times to make conversation with her, but when she had pointedly refused to answer, he had given up and spent most of the trip scribbling on a stack of papers in front of him. Natasha watched him, wondering if she should try to get any information out of him about what was going on or what would happen next, but she decided it was probably useless — there was no reason he had to tell her the truth and what good would it do to give him a reason to lie to her?

So she kept quiet and tried to force herself to take in whatever details she could. She had always been one to figure things out for herself. It was another reason she had been chosen for this mission in the first place. She needed to use those skills now to make sure both she and Yelena got out of this alive.

She sat up straighter in her seat to look out the cockpit window. They were above a huge body of water. She frowned as the jet dropped further and further toward the water, but didn’t appear to be moving at all closer to any land.

And then something happened she had never seen before. The top of the water seemed to open up, a gaping hole right there, and they were dropping down into it.

The surprise must have shown on her face because next to her Agent Phil chuckled softly. “Can’t be a secret entry if it’s not a secret, huh?” he said to her.

His eyes twinkled, and she almost wanted to joke back with him, the way she had for the past three years — a charming, happy, outgoing little girl. That had been her mission personality, the person the Red Room had ordered to be. Fit in with the kids at school and with the kids in the neighborhood. Make friends. Try out for a few sports teams. Be good but not too good. Be smart but not too smart. Make the kids like you. Make the teachers like you. Make the parents like you. Don’t give anyone a reason to suspect you of doing anything wrong. Don’t give anyone a reason to look twice at you and thus to look twice at Melina and Alexei. Be a good daughter, a good sister, a good girl.

But they weren’t on a mission anymore. Were they? Natasha still wasn’t sure, and she wasn’t sure what role she needed to embrace. She wasn’t even sure anymore how much of the past three years was a role or was just who she really was.

But no. She wasn’t anyone. Right? Isn’t that what she had been taught? She didn’t get to have a personality or opinions or a life like other kids had. She was her training and her missions and what they taught her to be. She did what she was ordered. And that had been how she was ordered to be. And if it felt real, felt like more … well, that was just in her head. It wasn’t real. It had never been real. And now she needed to use her training, not her persona but her training, to figure out what was happening and what was needed.

And so she kept quiet even as Phil chuckled softly and then as a hint of sadness cast over his eyes as he realized she didn’t even give him a hint of a smile. He almost looked like he felt sorry for her, but that was ridiculous. If Yelena hadn’t been with her, Natasha could have killed everyone on this plane and they wouldn’t even be able to stop her.

The plane was dropping lower into the opening in the water. It was almost like a parking garage of sorts, Natasha realized, but for planes. Lower and lower they went until they reached an empty enclave of sorts, and then the plane maneuvered inside and touched down.

Yelena’s eyes opened at the bump of the plane as it came to a stop. She sat up and rubbed her eyes.

“Mama?” she whispered, looking around. “Papa?”

“They aren’t here, Lena,” Natasha said, casting a look at Agent Phil.

Yelena’s lip trembled and her big eyes filled with tears. “But I want them,” she said.

“Soon,” Agent Phil said. Natasha realized he had been listening to them even though he had seemed invested in the agents in the cockpit. “But first are you hungry? We can get you some breakfast.”

Yelena eyed him warily.

“Pancakes?” he said. “Waffles?”

“With whipped cream?” Yelena asked.

“Whatever you want,” he told her, and now she smiled at him. Natasha sighed internally, wanting to warn her sweet little sister about being too gullible, but she was already taking Agent Phil’s hand and letting him lead her off the plane.

“Don’t hurt her!” Natasha called out, not able to stop herself.

Agent Phil turned back to her. “We aren’t hurting anyone,” he said, then he smiled at her. “We’re just going to get breakfast, and then get a doctor to look you both over.”

Natasha felt a chill go through her. A doctor. She knew what that meant. Being poked and prodded and being hooked to machines and getting every reaction tested and analyzed. Having her brain zapped to make sure she was really understanding.

“No,” she said. “No doctors.”

“Natasha,” Agent Phil said softly.

“No doctors!” She clenched her fists, bolting to her feet, breathing hard. Agent Phil studied her for a moment.

“Okay,” he finally said. “No doctors. But breakfast. So come on.”

--

Natasha knew it was going to happen, but it was still beyond awful when it did. They let the girls have breakfast — Yelena happily topping her waffle with whipped cream and strawberries and chocolate and Natasha refusing to take a bite — before separating them. Yelena screamed, crying for her sister. Natasha tried twisting out of the hold of the agent guarding her, grabbing his gun and pointing it at the one who had Yelena.

“Let go of her!” she screamed, but she didn’t see Agent Phil behind her until he was taking the gun from her hand. Another agent cuffed her, and Yelena sobbed harder as they led her away.

Natasha glared at everyone as they led her in the opposite direction. Agent Phil’s hand was on her shoulder, warm and almost comforting, and as much as she wanted to shake it off, she found she couldn’t.

“No one is going to hurt either one of you, Natasha,” he told her quietly as they led her into a room with a long white table and two chairs, one on either side of the table. Agent Phil had her sit on one side, and he sat across from her. Behind him was a huge mirror and Natasha knew it was really a window. She imagined how many American agents were on the other side watching her, studying her.

“We just want to ask you some questions,” Phil told her. “And after that, you can see your sister again. And your father.”

Natasha didn’t say anything.

Agent Phil picked up a file folder that was in front of him and flipped through it. Then he looked up at her.

“Can you tell us your real name?” he asked her.

Natasha said nothing.

“I know you and your sister were registered for school under the names Natalie and Lena Rushman, but those aren’t your real names, are they?”

Natasha didn’t answer.

“How about your real age? It lists your birthdate here as November twelfth, nineteen eight four. Is that correct?”

She just stared at him.

“I know neither you nor your sister were born in Cincinnati, Ohio.”

Still Natasha didn’t answer. Agent Phil didn’t seem bothered. Instead he asked her more questions, about Ohio and where they lived and how long she’d known Yelena and if her parents were her real parents, but the more he asked, the more Natasha just stared at him. Until she knew exactly what was going on, she wasn’t going to answer anything from anyone. She just hoped Yelena was doing the same thing.

--

Natasha didn’t know how long it had been that Agent Phil kept trying to ask her questions. All she knew was after a while, he thanked for her time and then walked out, closing the door behind him and leaving her all alone.

She knew she wasn’t really alone, knew there were agents behind the mirror watching her, but she still found herself taking a small breath of relief. She had no idea how much of what Agent Phil asked her he really knew the answers to, and she didn’t know how he knew either.

None of this made sense, and the fear in her gut, the worry about what was going to happen and what was happening to Alexei and if Melina were still alive, was getting stronger with every passing minute. But she was also tired, so tired. Her body ached with exhaustion. It had been a little more than a day since she had woken up in her bed to the sounds of her sister giggling and her mother cooking, but it felt like a lifetime ago. She could still feel the warmth of her red comforter on the bed in her room and feel the soft fur of the bear she had slept with for the past three years. What she wouldn’t give right now to have both of those things back.

The seconds ticked by, slowly and exhaustingly. Natasha found her eyelids growing heavier. Finally, she couldn’t help it. She laid her head down on the table, her arms still locked by the cuffs behind her back, and closed her eyes.

Just for a few seconds, she told herself. That was all she needed.

She startled awake to the feel of a hand brushing softly through her hair. Her heart leaped in her chest, and her hands pulled taught against the handcuffs, bruising them softly. A moment later a familiar face came into focus, and her eyes filled with tears.

“Papa?” she whispered, not really believing it was him.

Papa — Alexei — dropped down in front of her, his hand moving from the top of her head to cup her cheek. “It’s me,” he said gruffly.

“You’re okay?” she whispered.

“Of course I’m okay,” he said. “But I need you to do something for me.”

She eyed him. “What?”

“I need you to answer their questions, okay, Natasha?” He peered into her eyes. “With the truth,” he added.

She stared at him. “Why?” she finally said. “I don’t understand.”

“Just answer their questions,” he said. “And then I can tell you everything. Do you understand?”

She didn’t, but she nodded anyway.

“Is Mama okay?” she asked.

“She will be.”

“And we can see her?”

Alexei nodded. “Answer the questions, and then we can see her. I promise.” He rubbed her cheek with his thumb. “Trust me,” he said, his words echoing the same ones Melina had said to her at dinner not that long ago.

She still didn’t understand, but Papa wouldn’t tell her to do something if he didn’t want her to do it. And he wasn’t giving her any other signals to indicate he wanted her to really do the opposite of what he instructed. She didn’t understand how telling all her details to the Americans would help in any way, but if both Mama and Papa said to trust them, then she would do it.

“Okay,” she whispered, and Papa beamed at her.

“That’s my girl!” he said, and then a moment later he was gone and Agent Phil was back, almost making Natasha wonder if it had been real, but the warmth of his fingers on her cheek still lingered there, reminding her it was.

Agent Phil studied her. “I can take the handcuffs off,” he said. “I don’t have any weapons on me, but other agents will subdue you if you try anything.”

She could tell he meant what he was saying, and she didn’t doubt it.

“I won’t try anything,” she said. Papa hadn’t indicated to her that he wanted her to escape, so for now she had to do what the Americans asked.

Agent Phil stood up and walked over to behind her chair. A few moments later, the handcuffs snapped off. Gingerly, Natasha moved her hands back to in front of her, trying to shake her wrists out.

Agent Phil returned to his chair, but this time he didn’t pick up his folder of papers. Instead he just studied her. Finally, he smiled kindly.

“I’m Agent Phillip Coulson,” he said. “And you are?”

Natasha hesitated just a fraction, but then she answered. “Natalia Alionovna Romanova,” she said quietly. “But everyone calls me Natasha.”

“At your old school you went by the name Natalie Rushman?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“But that’s not your name?”

“Not my real one, no.”

“And the people you lived with? Are you related to them?”

Natasha thought about Yelena, about Melina, about Alexei. She looked down at her hands on the table. “No,” she said, so quietly she almost wondered if he heard her.

“How do you know them?” Agent Phil asked.

Natasha knew he knew exactly how she knew them, but she also knew she needed to answer.

“We’re all agents,” she said quietly.

“KGB agents?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a KGB agent?” Agent Phil clarified.

Natasha nodded. “Training to be,” she said.

“Do you want to be?” he asked her.

Natasha blinked, confused. Papa said to tell the truth, but she didn’t know how to answer that. Did she want to be a full agent? What else would she want? There were only two choices in life — survive long enough to become an agent, become a full Black Widow, or die without getting there. She didn’t want to die.

“It’s okay,” Agent Phil said, before she could figure out how she was supposed to answer. “Can you tell me your birthdate?”

“November twelfth, nineteen eight four.”

“You’re ten years old?” he asked her.

“Yes.”

“And your sister?”

“She’s only six!” Natasha said instantly. “She doesn’t know anything about any of this!”

“What do you mean?” Agent Phil asked.

Natasha hesitated again, not sure if answering the questions meant offering information Agent Phil didn’t specifically ask for.

“She hadn’t started training yet,” she finally said. “She was too young. She doesn’t remember before we lived in Ohio.”

“But you do?”

Natasha nodded.

“Did you like where you were before you lived in Ohio?” Agent Phil asked.

Natasha frowned, but then she realized he was serious. She realized the notes he had in his folder must not be as thorough as he made them seem. Once again she thought about how to answer, but she heard Papa’s words in her head, commanding her to tell the truth.

“No,” she finally said.

“Why not?” Agent Phil asked.

Natasha stared at him. Memories rolled through her mind. The long days without breaks. Training till her feet bled. The isolation pit when she messed up.

“It’s okay,” Agent Phil said again. “Just a few more questions okay?”

Natasha nodded.

“Do you know what you were doing in Ohio?”

“Ummmm.” Natasha thought. “I was just supposed to go to school.”

“Do you know what your parents were doing in Ohio?”

“Collecting information,” she said.

“Do you know on what?”

Natasha shook her head.

“Okay,” Agent Phil said. He clasped his hands together in front of him. “You’ve been very helpful, Natasha. Thank you. I’m going to let your father come back in now, and he’s going to talk to you.”

“And Yelena?” she asked.

“She’s fine,” Agent Phil said. “She was eating cookies and then going to take a nap. Are you sure you don’t want any food?”

Natasha shook her head.

“Okay, then. Just wait here.” Agent Phil stood up, walking to the door and disappearing through it. Natasha thought about trying to go back to sleep, but instead she just sat there, waiting for Alexei to return and thinking about the questions Agent Phil had asked her. What was going on? She hoped when Papa returned he could explain.

--

None of it made sense. Natasha stared at Alexei, the words swirling around her mind but not seeming to penetrate. Why would Melina and Alexei want to defect, and to the Americans of all people? Why would they want to help the people they had been working against since they had arrived? Why would they not want to help Mother Russia when that’s what they all had trained for their whole lives?

It didn’t make any sense.

“I don’t understand,” Natasha said. “You want us to stay here? But why?”

“You know I am very proud Russian, right?” Alexei said to her. Natasha nodded. “But some things are more important than Russia.”

“What could be more important that Russia?” Natasha frowned. That didn’t make sense. There was nothing above country. That was the first rule of their training.

“You are more important than Russia,” Alexei said now. “You and your sister and your mother. Do you understand?”

Natasha shook her head.

“If we go back to Mother Russia,” Alexei said. “your mother and I go back to our lives before. But you and your sister, you would be killed.”

“What?” Natasha said. That didn’t make sense.

“We won’t let that happen to you.”

“But …” Natasha didn’t understand. She had always done so well in her lessons. Her instructors always said she was one of the top girls in her class.

“You must trust us, Natasha,” Alexei said. “We do this to save you.”

“So we … what?” Natasha shook her head. “We work for the Americans? We … we stay here?”

“We work for the Americans,” Alexei said. “Your mother and me. You and your sister don’t have to. But we stay together. We become a family.”

“They will find us,” Natasha said. “Russia. They will kill us.”

“No one escapes the Red Room,” Dreykov had warned them many times over. “And if someone tries, they will die.”

“The Americans will protect us,” Alexei said.

“How can you be sure?” Natasha asked. “What if they can’t?”

“Then I will protect you, Natash,!” Alexei said. “You and your sister. I am the Red Guardian, and I will not let anyone hurt you!”

--

Alexei was right about a few things, but he was wrong about others. The girls weren’t allowed to see Melina, not really. They got to stand in front of a window and look in at her lying unconscious on a bed, but they weren’t allowed to go in.

Yelena sobbed and cried for Mama but it didn’t make a difference.

Agents, including Agent Phil, led Alexei and the girls deeper into the underground building and led them to a suite of rooms they said they could stay in. There were three bedrooms, one for Alexei and one each for the girls. It had also had a small kitchen and a large living room.

It looked a little like one of the hotel rooms they had all stayed in the summer before when they had gone to Lake Erie for a weekend vacation. The sheets on the bed were standard white, clean but nothing special, and the towels in the bathroom and the kitchen were also white. In the closet were a few white shirts of different sizes and black pants.

Natasha thought about the clothes in her closet back in Ohio, about all the colorful items she had been allowed to buy. Then she thought about the Red Room and the leotards she had spent her life in.

Would they really be able to stay here the rest of their lives? And what would become of her if what Alexei was saying was true? Would she just be an ordinary American girl? She didn’t know if she could do that. She didn’t know if she wanted to do that. And how could they even be normal if they had to spend their lives hiding from the Russians and the Red Room, knowing if they were caught, they would be killed on the spot?

All of it was still so confusing. Natasha wished they could just go back to yesterday morning when she still pretending to be a normal girl in Ohio with normal parents and a normal sister. But she had long ago learned that wishes were useless so all she could do was focus on this new reality. They were going to be staying with the Americans, it seemed, for a long time. She just needed to figure out what that meant for her.

Chapter Text

It took months before Melina was cleared by the doctors enough at SHIELD to be able to come live with them in their suite of rooms underground. By then, the rest of them had gotten somewhat into a routine. Alexei spent most of the time either training with SHIELD agents or giving them information he had on Russian agents and assets.

Natasha and Yelena attended school of sorts. They weren’t allowed to go out to regular school, but SHIELD had teachers who taught them what they would have learned in school.

Most of it was boring to Natasha. She already knew so much of everything they taught her, and she missed getting to interact with other students. That’s what she had liked about Ohio — getting to see how normal children interacted and acted. Here, it was just her and Yelena, and she felt trapped and frustrated. She didn’t want to just sit in a classroom all day and learn things she already knew or that she could learn in just a few minutes’ time. She wanted to do more.

The weekends were the best parts. Many of the agents went home during the weekends, allowing the gyms and the studios to be empty. After two weeks in their new home, Agent Phil brought Natasha a package. When she opened it, she found a beautiful pink leotard, pink toe shoes and a pink tutu.

“If you want,” Agent Phil had told her. “There is a ballet studio on the first underground level that you might be able to use on Saturday mornings.”

“Okay,” she had said, but inside, she’d felt her heart leap with excitement. She’d asked Alexei that night if she could go the following Saturday, and when the time came, he led her down there, sitting on the benches around the edge of the room as she put her shoes on and twirled around the room, lost in the music and the steps she remembered like they were second nature.

A couple weeks after that, Alexei took her to a different gym, one that was built for gymnastics. With no one but her papa watching, she got to walk across the balance beam and swing on the bars and practice flips and splits on the floor.

It gave her something to do, something to practice, and she felt again like she had a purpose.

Agent Phil asked her a couple months after they’d arrived if she liked it there.

“What if I want to be an agent of SHIELD?” she asked him.

He studied her. “You’re eleven years old,” he said. “Are you sure you don’t want to think about it?”

“I don’t need to think about it,” she said.

“Well, tell you what,” he said. “You come back to me on your thirteenth birthday, and if you still want to be a SHIELD agent, I’ll make sure you get all the training you need. And on your seventeeth birthday, if you still want to be a SHIELD agent then, you can join my team.”

Natasha studied him. “Will you let me help you take down the Red Room?” she asked. “So they can’t do to another girl what they did to me or what they would have done to my sister?”

Agent Phil held out a hand. “Deal,” he said, and Natasha smiled as she shook his hand.

“You better not betray me, Agent Phil.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

--

On Natasha’s thirteenth birthday, more than two years after they all arrived at SHIELD, she found Agent Phil Coulson in his office. It was bigger now, more fit for the right-hand man to the director, now that Fury had taken on that role.

“Happy birthday, Natasha,” Agent Phil said to her when he saw her standing in his doorway.

“I want to train to be a SHIELD agent,” she said to him.

He smiled. “I thought you might.” He reached into his desk and pulled something out. A small black box wrapped with a red bow. He handed it to her. Carefully she unwrapped it, pulling out a signature SHIELD shirt, a pair of blank pants and a small revolver.

She stared up at Agent Phil.

“You shoot at anything except for the target in target practice and I take it away and you go back to studying to be a normal American teenager,” he said to her.

She grinned. “Thank you, Agent Phil.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said. “Happy birthday, Natasha.”

--

On Natasha’s seventeenth birthday, more than six years since Melina, Alexei, Natasha and Yelena had defected to SHIELD, Natasha again appeared in Phil Coulson’s doorway, dressed in her SHIELD uniform, her pistol tucked into her pants. On her wrists were the widows’ bites that matched the same ones her mother wore when she was out on a mission and not helping the other SHIELD scientists research new technologies.

Alexei had been on more missions lately too. He’d had a few close calls from the Russians, but SHIELD was always one step ahead.

Yelena was fourteen now, and she too had started training to follow in the family business, though she was more normal teenager than Natasha had ever been. She had made friends with some of the other kids that lived in the same place as them, most of them children of other SHIELD agents, and she spent a lot of time chatting and eating with her friends.

Natasha had tried to figure out what it was that she wanted from this life — Did she want friends? Did she want to be grow up and get married and have kids? Did she want to find a job in the city where she’d work in an office building overlooking downtown Manhattan? — but she knew she didn’t. In all the time they had been here, it hadn’t changed.

She looked now at Agent Phil Coulson as he beckoned her in.

“Well,” she said, going to stand in front of him.

“You know I always keep my promises, Natasha,” Phil said.

“I’m on the team?”

“You’re on the team,” he said. “And we’re happy to have you.”

She beamed. “And the Red Room?”

“We leave in one month,” he said. “But there is something you need to do first.”

“What’s that?”

“Train with your new partner.” Phil touched something in his ear. A moment later footsteps sounded behind Natasha. She turned, seeing a man dressed in a standard SHIELD uniform, a bow and arrow of all things over his shoulder.

“Natasha Romanoff,” Phil said. “Meet your new partner. This is Clint Barton.”

--

“Are you really sure you want to do this, sweetie?” It was the night before Natasha, Clint and Phil were going to leave for Budapest. SHIELD had credible intel that Dreykov was there. All they had to do was go in, take him out and get out of there before Dreykov’s forces could take them out as well.

Once they gave the signal that Dreykov was dead, other agents would rush into where their other sources told them The Red Room now was and rescue any of the girls they could get hold of.

No more trafficking of innocent girls. No more turning girls into killers.

During the past week, when she wasn’t working on training with Clint so they could get a feel for each other’s styles, Natasha had done some research into the Red Room and into some of the girls who had gradated to become Black Widow assassins. She’d some of these girls work, watched them kill without mercy.

It scared her to know that without Mama and Papa taking a chance on her and Yelena seven years prior that she would have been one of these girls SHIELD was now going after. She would have been one of the girls going on missions, taking out anyone who was in her way.

She would have been ruthless, focused, determined. There would probably have been nothing she couldn’t have done.

Who knows if anyone would ever have found a way to save her or if there would have been a way she could have saved herself?

She looked now at her parents and her sister across the dinner table. Seven years ago, Papa and Mama had gotten up during dinner, made a choice and changed her and Yelena’s lives for the better. Now it was her turn to give back.

“I’m sure,” she said. “I need to do this.”

“There are a lot of SHIELD agents, Natasha,” Alexei said.

“There are,” Natasha nodded. “But none of them spent their earliest years in the Red Room.”

Mama reached over and patted Natasha’s hand. “We are so proud of you, you know? Of who you are and who you have become.”

Natasha felt her cheeks flush, the way they always did when her parents heaped praise on her. Even now, she still didn’t always feel like she deserved it.

A thought crossed her mind, one she had been thinking about for a while now.

“Did you ever want me to be something else?” she said. “A doctor or an accountant or something?”

“An accountant!” Papa laughed like that was the funniest thing in the world, laughed so hard the others couldn’t help but join in.

When the laughter finally died down, Mama wiped a hand across her forehead. “We always knew you were going to become a SHIELD, Natasha, dear. It was in your nature,” she said. “We might have hoped you wanted to become a ballet dancer, but we knew better.”

“You did?” Natasha said. “How did you know?”

“Because,” Papa boomed in his loud voice. “We always knew our girl was going to save the world!”

“Yes,” Mama said, smiling at her.

Natasha flushed again, hiding her smile as she took a sip of her water. She was nervous about tomorrow, about what it would mean to go on her first real, and probably most important, SHIELD mission in her life, but she was ready. Maybe her parents were right. Maybe this was who she had always been meant to be and she was only fulfilling the role fate had set out for her long, long ago.

--

All Natasha wanted to do was sleep for the next ten weeks. She wanted to crawl into her bed and pull all the blankets over her head and forget about aliens and wormholes and gods and magic and everything she was never trained to be.

“You’re not a soldier,” Clint had said to her earlier.

But maybe that was something else that neither one of them could predict.

She put the key into the lock on her apartment door and turned it carefully, pushing open the door. She expected her place to be dark and quiet, but instead the sound of the television greeted her along with the meow of her cat Liho and the exclamations of the most familiar voices in the world.

Yelena’s arms were around her before she could even process how her family had ended up in her living room when she hadn’t even been home, and then Mama had joined Yelena and they were both fussing over her — over the scar on her lip and the rips in her uniform and the rubble in her hair and the scrapes on her arms.

“What are you guys doing here?” she managed to ask once she had finally disentangled herself from their hold.

“We were so worried!” Yelena said. “Do you know how many times I tried calling you?”

“I was busy,” Natasha said, but Yelena’s eyes flashed with pain, and she felt herself softening. “I’m sorry,” she said. She looked at Mama. “You know how it is.”

“Mmmmm,” Melina said. She reached out to play with one of Natasha’s curls. “I’m not sure I know exactly how this is.”

Natasha glanced over at her father, flipping channels on the television, and at her mother, standing before her. “I thought you two were enjoying retirement on the beaches of Greece?”

Mama waved her hand. “That didn’t work out,” she said.

Behind Mama, Yelena rolled her eyes, and Natasha carefully contained her laugher.

Papa flipped the channels some more on the television and then came to a halt.

“Natasha!” he roared, even though she was standing right there. “Look, Natasha, you are on the television!” He pointed. “The Avengers they are calling you!”

Natasha looked to where he was pointing. On the screen was someone’s shaky cell phone footage of the battle a few hours ago. She could see Clint shooting his arrows, and there she was, fighting aliens next to Captain America himself.

“It’s nothing,” she muttered. “I was just doing my job.”

“It is not nothing!” Papa roared. “I told you, Natasha. I told you that one day you would save the world. And now my girl is an Avenger. An Avenger. I told you that you would save the world. I told you.”

He beamed at her. So did Mama and Yelena.

He had told her. And maybe she would — maybe she had — but she knew in her heart the only reason she could save the world is because the three of them had saved her.

And that was a debt she could never repay.