As I Was

Seventeen

She was roused from her sleep by the mechanical sounds of the door being opened. Placing her hand on the rock solid mattress beneath her she pushed herself up into a sitting position, ignoring the pounding in her head, and allowed her eyes to flicker over the figure standing before her.

"Yes?" she asked, keeping to the preferred language of Russian, as she reached up to move her hair from her face.

"Get dressed," he barked, throwing a uniform her way "We have a mission for you."

Her eyes rolled as he turned away without another word, the door slamming shut behind him to leave her in her usual silence.

A groan involuntarily left her as she forced herself up onto her feet, having to pause for a couple of seconds to calm the dizzy feeling knocking her off balance, and headed over to the sink in the corner of her room.

Gripping her fingers around the white porcelain she raised her head to glance in the scuffed up mirror hanging from a nail in the wall and let out a sigh. There were bags beneath her eyes and a lump forming on her forehead from the previous day of training, her hair lay limp around her shoulders and her skin was a pasty white.

Definitely not a look for a beauty queen but Hydra weren't so bothered when this was how their assassins showed up for work.

As usual she took her time getting ready; cleaning her teeth, pulling her hair into a high bun and slipping into the seamless and comfortable black uniform laying on her bed. The boots he had left her were the lace up ones she had nicknamed the bain of her life and she found herself wincing as she pushed her foot into them, the blisters they had given her the previous week rearing their ugly heads.

"I'm ready!" she called banging her fist against the metal door and waiting a couple of seconds before folding her arms over her chest and taking a step back.

They wouldn't come in if she was standing too close, her previous rebellions teaching them she wasn't one to be messed with or to take their eye off, and as much as she didn't particularly want any of them in her little room she also didn't want to stay in there forever.

"Are you going to behave today?" he, she never bothered to learn their names, asked her as he stepped aside to let her pass.

"That all depends on where you're taking me," she answered as she walked, shoulder to shoulder with him, along the narrow corridors of the facility. Glancing to him from the corner of her eye she allowed herself to smirk, remembering that she was the one who had given him that scar down the side of his face during one of her many escape attempts.

"You didn't go through all this training for nothing," he was saying, a faux confident strut to his walk as his hand rested on the gun at his side.

She dropped back as he began to ramble about all of the training she had been through and how much it had cost, that she was going to have to start perking up and giving back.

Her steps were silent as she mirrored the way he was walking, her head tilted from one side to the other and her eyes narrowed as she calculated her next movements. His words were in the background, totally illegible, as she ran through different scenarios in her mind.

Then she struck, like a snake hunting its prey, with the knife she'd had hidden in her belt gripped in her right hand.

But, this time, he was prepared for her. His hand flew out and grasped onto her wrist, twisting her arm around her back and pressing her face against the wall "Not this time sweetheart," he whispered in her ear, tugging the knife out from where she still was gripping onto it and pushing her into a walk in front of him "You may be a pain in the ass but you're also one of the best, they're not letting you go easily so get it out of your head."