Black Widow and the Red Room

Chapter 10

A Few Years Later (8)
Happy Birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. Happy 18th birthday to meee. Happy birthday to me. The words echoed through my head as I fiddled with my handcuffs. The schedule we were all so used to was being changed. Again. We were receiving a group to train with. We'll find out our groups later, for now we finally got to sleep in til 7:00 which is late for us. We have to be ready as soon as we could by 7:30 it was 6:50 so I had time to think. Who would train me? Who would be in my group? What about the other ten girls who joined us during our second year. Would they be in my group? There were now thirty eight of us, and I surprisingly still was doing well and on top of the other students, meaning I stood out in a good and bad way. A few times, the other girls, tried to kill me, but of course they failed or I wouldn't be here. We patched things up, because if anyone found out about an attempted murder, then the girls would be... dead. Sigh, I'm nervous, honestly. As I sat up in bed, the clock chimed 6:55 and as usual, Madame B. came into the room to unlock us. And I awaited the gut wrenching choice that could help or end my future.
One hour later
Of course, we were lined up and facing the platform, where Terra was shot about eight years ago. The whole platform reminded us of our weakness, which we had to shed like the snakes they wanted us to be, I could still see the fear in her eyes, the gunshot ringing, and... no, and I just can't think about it anymore. "I would like to introduce a new instructor to the program, along with the other trainers, you've obviously seen around," Madame B. Paused for effect. "A member from a partner of ours, hydra, will be letting us use one of their most highly trained assassins, The Winter Soldier. He will be training the girls who are... most likely to not fail the program." I stayed silent, but, to my surprise, out stepped the third guy, just as I had remembered him. His metal arm with the star, the long and unkempt hair. One thing that surprised me even more, was the fact that he looked as young as he was when I first met him. "He will be training... Yelena, Alyona, Natalia..." I stopped listening once I heard my name. Finally, I could learn about him. And why he bugged me so much.

One hour later
"Well... uh. Hello." Said the third guy. No, I mean the Winter Soldier. Shouldn't he have an actual name? It was the first time I've heard him speak, since he said, "Da sir." His voice seemed... rusted like it was used less than when I first saw him. He wasn't wearing his muzzle or goggles, so his face was exposed. He had icy blue eyes, his hair was still brown, he also had a little bit of stubble around his mouth. "So..." he said nervously looking around the room as if he would get caught talking. "Um... how- no... ahem." He cleared his throat and then finally coming up with an idea of some sort, said "What have you learned so far? In other words, can any of you speak English?" We all nodded. Antera, another girl, spoke up and said, "We can speak English, Latin, Russian obviously, German, French, Chinese, and lots of other languages." "Ok" said the winter soldier. "Um, can any of you do an accent of some kind? Can you snipe someone with deadly accuracy accounting for the wind and other variables?" We all went silent. "Can you throw knifes yet? Can you... let me think, can you USE a weapon like it was an extension of your arm?" At this point, he tapped his metal arm, and it rang like a bell. We all chuckled. This seemed to relax him a bit as he went on. "I need to train you so you can be the best there is. So, are you ready?" We all nodded excitedly, thinking to myself, this could be interesting. "Good, then get into partners, let's see how well you can spar." Yelena and I glanced at each other excitedly and walked to each other. "Uh...um." He said looking around at us. "First one to be pinned down for ten seconds loses Kay? Start." That's when Yelena and I flew at each other ready to impress this winter soldier guy. One thing about him was for certain, he was different from the rest of them. But how different, and why?