FILE n°888 | SUBJECT RED
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star city mall
washington DC
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march 16th 2014
the same day, an hour later
The two adults and Sashka left the hospital shortly after. Natasha led them to the Star City Mall located at the center of the city so they could get new less suspicious clothes. Avoiding attention and security cameras, they decided to get new clothes in the clothes bins that were located in the warehouse under the mall. A lot of mall had these, Natasha had told Steve, much to his born-and-raised-in-the-1930s surprise, when clothes weren't in season anymore or had just stopped selling, some brands would dump these clothes in giant blue bins that would at the end of the year, towards Christmas, be donated to orphanages around the city.
Was it wrong to steal clothes destined to orphans? Definitely. Would Steve explain this to Natasha and Sashka? Absolutely not. Why? There's an easy question, how do you tell two ex assassins that stealing is bad? You don't.
"Men's section is over there." Natasha pointed to the bins near the parking entrance. "I'll take Sashka to the kids section and we'll circle back in ten."
Steve didn't have the choice to protest because he had so much as blinked and Sashka was being whisked off by Natasha.
"Okay, nice talk."
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Natasha felt like she was walking on eggshells around Sashka. For the first time in thirty years of knowing exactly what to say and how to say it, the woman didn't know how to start speaking to the baby that was torn from her arms almost twelve years ago. It felt like HYDRA was dangling Sashka in her grasp like a puppet only to rip her away as soon as they desired. She'd had many nightmare which started like this, she wasn't sure she was willing to endure another one.
For the past twelve years, whenever she had dreamt ㅡ or had nightmare ㅡ about the little baby she had never pictured her looking so much like her. When she was pregnant, she dreamed of a little brown haired baby boy running wild in a prairie, laughing and smiling like he'd never been touched by the horrors the Red Room had to offer, with beautiful morning blue eyes and rosy cheeks. After her baby had been born and died the same day, the dreams turned to nightmares ㅡ nightmares of a little girl with long red hair covered in blood chasing her down one of the Red Room's many hallways crying and screaming at Natasha to come back and save her. A great deal of mandatory SHIELD therapy had helped her picture an entirely new face when thinking of her daughter ㅡ auburn ringlets, a cherub's face, prominent freckles along her nose and cheeks with big brown eyes James had mentioned were his sister Becca's.
In twelve years, she had never once pictured the girl that was in front of her. Yet it had taken all but one look for the part of her that was still a mother, buried and silenced, to know.
Meanwhile, just a few feet from her, Sashka didn't seem to be walking on eggshells around Natasha. Her sage green zip up hoodie had been zipped up all the way by Natasha and she had just grabbed a leather newsboy cap out of one of the bins and was now walking as normally as she could despite the slight ache in her step. If anyone were to come across the two of them they would think Sashka was a normal twelve year old who had maybe been pulled out of school early by her mother for some shopping. Minus the digging through donation bins perhaps.
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𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐃𝐎𝐖 𝐖𝐄𝐀𝐕𝐄𝐑 | romanoff-barnes ¹
Fanfiction- SHE WAS A SWEET, ROTTEN THING. Born dead, tossed in a metal coffin, reborn as an experiment, Subject RED was destined for great things. Not a child, not a girl, but a weapon. But what she would become was not a mere resuscitation of life. No, she...
