Project Crimson- Natasha's daughter

4

The next morning dawned with a soft glow seeping through the curtains, casting a gentle illumination across the room. The closet was filled with S.H.I.E.L.D.-issued clothes, just twelve hours had passed since Aleksandra was shown her new room, and she was yet to like it.

She had spent the majority of those twelve hours looking around the room, checking for any flaws or ways to escape. Annyoyngly enough just as expected S.H.I.E.L.D. actually properly designed their facilities. The room was just big enough to fit a bed, a desk, a small sofa, and a TV. Other small details included the window which overlooked a running track, and an air vent which Aleksandra tried to break to no avail.

To say she was stressed was an understatement, she hated feeling trapped, and controlled at any level. Although that was all she had known for the first twelve years of her life, now it seemed unbearable. While she was in the Red Room, control seemed okay, it seemed correct as it was all she had ever known. She was pleased with following orders without a doubt, completing missions without even thinking them through, she would have done anything they told her without hesitation. After all, there was a reason she was Dreykov's favorite.

And then the Red Room was destroyed and all her sense of life disappeared. Her meticulously planned life and routine fell along with the facility, she remembered falling down to the dirt surrounded by the other girls in her age group. Aleksandra's first reaction was to run in the opposite direction from where all the widows were gathering, without the guards, and Madame B, the preteen at the time was sure the others were going to harm her. They grew up being pitted against each other, Aleksandra was hated for having preferential treatment and she feared the girls would finally act on those feelings, so running the other way was the most reasonable choice.

The first few months were the hardest, she didn't know how to behave without her home, how to act, what to do instead of killing or missions. She would rarely eat or sleep, she had to learn how to sleep without handcuffs because sleeping on the street handcuffed proved to be a little bit dangerous. After four months she went back to where the Red Room fell, she spent weeks camping there, waiting for someone to come and bring her to a new base.

To bring her home.

After two months of sleeping next to the debrief, she realized that day was never coming. Her home was gone, all she had ever known was gone. She despised Natasha Romanoff and Yelena Belova for taking away all she was. She'd spent the next six months wandering the streets, sleeping in abandoned buildings and stealing food. While doing so she'd watch kids her age play, hang out, and spend time with their families. That was the first time she ever doubted the Red Room.

During the second year, she mostly had an existential crisis trying to unlearn everything that had been taught to her. She had to relearn everything in life, how people were supposed to be, how people who care about you wouldn't hurt you, she'd also watch news about the Red Room and learned who they truly were. It also made her despise everything that represented that place, she swore to never speak Russian again, she was disgusted by the cuisine, she hated the color red, she was repulsed by ballet, she hated her Russian name and she hated being called my dear.

That's what he called her.

It was only two months before Maria found her that she started taking missions, she had to eat somehow, yet she had only one stipulation; no killing, she would never do that again.

Now she had traced an emergency plan in case she needed to leave S.H.I.E.L.D. She wasn't going to be someone's killing machine ever again.

As the sunlight began to dance on the edges of the room, Maria, clad in a crisp S.H.I.E.L.D. uniform, approached Aleksandra's door with a measured sense of concern. She raised her hand to knock, her knuckles creating a rhythmic tap that echoed through the hallway. The sound seemed to linger, a subtle punctuation to the stillness that surrounded Aleksandra.