Captain America Bucky Barnes Winter Soldier Steve Rogers Fan Fic - The Constant

Chapter Sixty-Five: Natasha Romanoff: Not Today

Natasha Romanoff: Not Today

No one in the Red Room knew who had been the first to start it. The very origin itself was becoming a tale steeped in myth. It could be traced right back to the beginning, they said. Maybe even before the time of the Red Room itself.

It was just known.

It was believed to have begun with tales of the Baba Yaga, and how she would come and take the bad children away. She would hold them tight, chew on their bones, suck at their flesh, eat them whole, and no one could protect them. But then the tale began to change to a new and more frightening nightmare, one that seemed more real. The Bogeyman.

He had frightened the Baba Yaga away. So much more frightening that no one ever quite grew out of the fear of him.

Especially not Natalia Alianovna Romanova.

Because she had seen him. She knew he was real.

The older girls would wait until it was dark, until the younger children were on the cusp of sleep, and then they would make the noise. Fingers being drawn across the windowsill. Metal fingers.

"He is coming," they would gasp and the younger children would hold their breath, listening for the noise, for the footsteps, but there would be silence and then the older children would fill the silence with tales of what the Bogeyman would do. That he moves silently, except for the screech of his metal fingers against the bed frames. They would speak of girls who had disappeared, never to be seen again. All the while all anyone ever saw was the glint of silver, the red star, the curtain of hair covering his face.

The teachers knew the tales were being told but they preferred their charges to be unsettled. It helped. Made them stronger. Those that did not cope with the tales would be weeded out anyway, they would be the unwanted. The Bogeyman would come for them. They would disappear and a new name would be added to the list of the Bogeyman's victims.

*

Natalia should never have been near the office on that fateful day but she was always inquisitive, always looking to see what was happening. And always without realising it, ready to finally learn the truth of who she really was.

The noise stops her in her tracks. Metal fingers sliding along glass, then a noise no six year old child should ever recognise: the gasp of someone dying. She peers around the door and at first does not realise what she is seeing. It looks more like her teacher is dancing with someone but no, her teachers eyes are wide and staring and the Bogeyman is holding her around the throat, the metal fingers pressing so hard that it leaves her neck blue.

Natalia's intake of breath alerts the Bogeyman to the fact that he is no longer alone. His whole body tenses. He has his back to her. He lets the body of her teacher slip to the floor. And then, he slowly turns around, his silver arm making a noise like a curled snake slivering as it closes the rings and at the top she can see it. The perfect red star. She does not want to see his face, does not want to see him at all, but her eyes take him in. The long brown hair parted in the middle, the blue piercing eyes, and then he takes a step towards her.

Oh, how fast she can run. How fast when she has to. But he can run just as quick. She is running through the courtyard garden, falling over pots. She can hear her own breath and all the while she knows he is so close behind her, until finally she comes up against the wall. She can hear the other girls somewhere chanting their lessons. Lessons she should be in.

She runs out of space, has nowhere left to go.

She hits the wall with her small fists but cannot scream for help; she has no breath left. His shadow falls over her and she turns to face him. She is a fighter but her spirit has drained out of her. This is her nightmare, the one thing she has never been able to dismiss – the Bogeyman. Her one fear.