Part I: She's Been Everybody Else's Girl, Maybe Someday She'll Be Her Own

The White Coats Enter the Room and I'm Calling My Baby

Sharon helped Natasha leave the subbasement, since her legs felt shaky. She realized that she had been hooked up to the machine, and thought a little frantically about all the things that had happened recently. Coming here with Sharon was pretty clear, which convinced her – Sharon must have gotten there before they really got to work. Not that she wouldn't have minded some memories being erased, but she wasn't going to mention that to anyone. Best to keep it all and deal with it like normal people did.

There were agents around, presumably some CIA, but Natasha was sure most of them were Russian. She didn't really care at that point what the story was, being mostly relieved that things had gone roughly according to plan. Once they were outside, Sharon led her toward an ambulance where a few people were milling around.

"Jin-Taek!" Natasha called, very pleased to see him.

He smiled faintly at her, looking none the worse for wear. "Thank you for rescuing me," he told her formally.

"Of course. I hope you weren't mistreated."

"Not particularly," he replied with nod to Sharon.

There were a few other people standing with him, and he introduced them as other taken scientists. She greeted them politely before Sharon pulled her away to see a doctor. The man in question was not overly friendly, but gave her a clean bill of health after an efficient examination. Of course, there was no way for him to tell if they'd done anything to her mind, she thought with some apprehension. Maybe Fury had some people who could look into it. Speaking of...

"Sharon, what's going to happen to them?"

"The people who were holding you hostage? They've been taken into custody. They'll go to trial. With any luck, they'll be facing jail time. Why?"

Natasha looked across the snowy field at the police car into which Lukin was being loaded. A brief survey showed someone missing – the blond woman who had attacked her. Of course, that might have been a dream, she thought doubtfully.

"How did storming the castle go? Did you get everyone?" she asked casually.

"It was fine, Natasha. You're safe, everyone is taken care of. I got out okay and called for reinforcements. I'll probably catch hell when I get back to Germany, maybe get sent back home, but," she trailed off, shrugging.

"What's going to happen to all of it?"

Sharon glanced in the direction Natasha was gesturing. "That is, fortunately, out of my jurisdiction. I imagine it will end up in an evidence room somewhere, for a while at least."

"Hmm. Well, I guess this is goodbye."

The shocked look on Sharon's face would have been funny if it weren't so hurt. "What do you mean?"

"I mean I'm a fugitive and your discussion with your bosses will go better if you say I kidnapped you. Or at least coerced you. It's not incorrect," she added with a smile.

The former SHIELD agent stared at her for a long moment. "You're right," she muttered at last. "I hate to say it, but you're right. You will... You'll get out of here okay? You don't need some help tonight?"

"It's almost morning," Natasha corrected with a smirk. "I'll be fine. Better already. Go help your people. I'm sure the local officers could use someone of your caliber telling them what to do."

Sharon looked embarrassed at the compliment, but glanced in the direction of the mostly controlled chaos. That was enough for Natasha to slip away. She looped around the mess to get back into the facility to pick some things up before she left.

It took nearly twenty-four hours to get to the safe house in Cairo, Egypt. That was more than enough of a trip, and Natasha settled in to get some real rest. When she'd recovered, a day or two from now, she had a more stressful trip in mind. So, for now, she would wait until she was up for it.

First order of business was to talk to Nick, apologizing for her mistakes. He took them in stride and looked forward to seeing Jin-Taek in a couple days. Sharon would certainly be willing to escort him, if he needed it. Natasha wasn't sure it was, but Poland was roughly on Sharon's way, in any case. She could tell Nick wanted to say more, to give her a new job. But her memories had been stirred and she needed to take care of things first. When she got off the phone, she considered calling Clint, but, instead, went out onto the porch to watch the sunrise and think about something she hadn't thought about in a long time.

The Red Room became possible after the undesignated department, called Department X, had proven itself with another project. Vasily Karpov was in charge of the Winter Soldier Project. How it had begun or who had run it before him was unknown, as the agent in question was clearly not Russian. Karpov kept his secrets to himself, but showed what could be done with the available technology and techniques to ensure unquestioned loyalty.

Why they chose girls was unclear, and the eventual goal of the Black Widow program was also in question. But it was a thriving branch of the department. An attempt was made to do the same with male students, called the Wolf Spiders, though it lacked the success of the Widows. During their training phases, the Widows proved themselves to be valuable assets to their government.

Natasha didn't know if HYDRA was involved with the Widows like they had been with the Winter Soldier. The lines were blurred and everything was secrets wrapped in secrets. It had taken her years to find out anything true about her old life, anything other than her own, possibly augmented, experiences. Whoever was pulling the strings, it slowly became clear to her that loyalty was one thing, but what was being asked of her was not something she was willing to continue giving up.

It started with Eva. Though she had known from the beginning that friendships were unwise, it was still a shock to have to kill her. It was in order to survive and Natasha wouldn't dwell on that part of her history. Not when she'd had no other choice. Or so she thought at the time. She knew now that she could have let Eva live and suffered the consequences, however final those might have been. It would have been better than living with the guilt.

But that was something she was used to, something she had seen many times before. The twenty-eight of them were much reduced by the time Eva was no longer passing the tests. Natasha had thought Eva might beat her, and, for the first time, she became afraid for her life in a tangible way. Not just about surviving, not striving to be the best, but she actually thought about death and came to an important conclusion – she didn't want to die here.

Around that time, the American was brought in to teach them how to fight, and how to blend in with their enemies. He was the Winter Soldier, a ghost, and they were all afraid of him. For a while. But he was a good teacher, albeit ungentle. Perhaps because she was more frightened of losing her edge than she would ever be of him, she sought him out for more personalized instruction.

They were sent into the field together and that's when things changed. Maybe because they both understood that they were being used, maybe because they were just looking to regain some humanity in an environment where only their skills were valued, but they became close. Closer than their superiors allowed.

So, one day, when they were together, the door was broken down and Madame B brought in agents to force them apart. They fought, but it was no use. There was no escape. So the American was dragged away from her and put in that horrible chair. She was forced to watch while his screams echoed in the chamber, until they finished and he looked at her without any recognition in his eyes.

That was when she decided to leave. It took time – especially given how carefully they watched her after what Madame B referred to as the incident. She applied herself to her training, and the American was never seen in the Red Room facility again. Finally, when she was ready, she escaped. To make a name for herself instead of being their creature.

When she started working for SHIELD, she'd looked for him. For the Winter Soldier. He was a myth, they said. Or a codename that couldn't be traced. It was a dead end. But he was real, and was the reason she was free. Even if, unrecognizing, he'd tried to kill her on several occasions, she owed him a debt. And she was going to pay it off.

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