Bad Bitch ⋙ N.Romanoff

f i f t e e n

BAD BITCH
❝these were the women who knitted pain into glory❞

15. Grave Digging

July 2006

Natalia had always had a morbid curiosity when it came down to her parent's identities. When she had been young, when the memories of her families smiles had been a raw memory, she had prayed that they would save her from the place she was locked in. Her heroes had been her parents so, to the brain of a six year old, she'd been sure that they would find her. It had been those thoughts that got her through the first years of training. The first years were always brutal, training a child's body to be built stronger than an adults, but all the girls had made it with varying levels of success. Natalia had been the best. She always was. Yet she only pushed herself to achieve better in hopes that it would make it easier to run away. From the ages of six to nine, Natalia had had many fantasises of running into her mother's arms, of playing alongside her younger brothers and sister, and of apologising to her father for ever leaving him. At the age of ten, however, they stripped her of her childhood memories, believing it to be holding her back from true violence, and she completely forgot that she'd had a loving family before the Red Room.
Svetlana knew she had a family. From the very beginning, till the bitter end, she was aware that she had been born from a man and a woman who were her biological parents. She knew who her mother was, a truth that she had lied to Natalia about several times, but couldn't seem to hold any sense of love towards the woman. Svetlana supposed that she was meant to love her parents unconditionally, forgiving them for all the wrong they'd done in her lifetime, but she couldn't bring herself to forget what they'd done to her. No matter how many nights she'd spent praying for herself to open her heart to the two individuals, she could only feel sharp flashes of red hot rage whenever she saw their faces. In the end, she stopped praying for her family and started praying for her to be the one to end them. Svetlana knew she would have to be the one to kill her mother and father, something she hoped she'd do sooner rather than later, but couldn't bring herself to tell Natalia that.

❝They killed them.❞
Natalia whispers, voice as void of emotion as she could handle, as the pair stare at the row of graves in front of them. The four stones seemed to suck all happiness from the women. It had been a nice day, they'd risked entering Russia again for the task of meeting her parents, and the sun was at its peak. They'd both grown used to the African sun, the only heat that seemed to finally warm up their cold bones, but were thankful that they hadn't been stuck in a Russian winter.

Natalia had first asked about her parents a month previous. Since leaving Hydra, her memories of her childhood had seemed to come back in flashes. Every repressed moment that the KGB has attempted to bury had finally resurfaced in the woman's brain and she was left with a sharp taste of yearning. The memories were still fuzzy, most likely from how long ago they'd happened rather than the shock therapy that Natalia had endured, but she could definitely see the face of her mother. It had been the last person she'd seen before she'd been taken and her brain seemed to grip frantically to her facial features. Knowing she was safe to talk, finally away from the clutches of Hydra, Natalia had spent an entire afternoon piecing together her memories with Svetlana. The younger woman hadn't been too bothered by the evening, happy to help her lover in discovering who she truly was, but Svetlana still felt a pang of worry. It was a stupid worry but she still felt it.
What if Natalia left her for her parents?
She'd pushed the thought away as quickly as it had come. She was beginning to get clingy, inside her brain, and she couldn't have herself ruining what her and the older woman had because she opened up about her own secrets. So, without a single moan of complaint, she'd sat opposite Natalia on their living room table with their legs crossed, she listened to whatever the woman had to say. She'd managed to get the name of her mother out of Natalia, taking over four hours to do so, and had immediately planned to go to the local library once Natalia had gone to sleep. She wanted to help the red head as much as possible and she knew that, if she had a name, she could easily find the parents.
What she hadn't expected to see, as she curiously typed the name 'Dina Romanova' into the search bar, was newspaper reports after newspaper reports. She'd started simply but had expected more to see a Facebook account and maybe a few online footprints from the woman. The entire first page of Google was filled with BBC reports, Fox reports, reports from as many countries as Svetlana could count, and the contents of the reports only made her heart sink.
Trying to tell Natalia Romanova that her entire family were dead was harder than Svetlana could imagine. She'd wondered on when she tell her. As they ate opposite each other at their table, Natalia smiling warmly at the name that she'd scribbled on her hand - 'Dina', Svetlana couldn't seem to get the words out. Every time she went to open her mouth, she'd look at Natalia and see her pure happiness and just keep her mouth shut. In the end, she'd blurted it out unceremoniously as they'd laid next to each other in bed. Natalia hadn't said anything in response, didn't cry either, but just nodded her head and went to sleep.