When It All Turns Bad

The Beginning

May 2000

"Plie, Plie. Beautiful technique, Natalia!"

I tried to hold back a smile as the ballet teacher had applauded my technique.

Alexei, the man who had recruited me for the Soviet 7 months ago, had suggested that I take up hobbies considered 'normal' for me to participate in alongside the Soviet, so I decided to take ballet and tennis classes under the name 'Natalia Romanova'. I was familiar with ballet, it was a regular subject back at Red Room Academy, only the instructors there were much more brutal compared to Madame Abramov who constantly spoke with a calm voice. I had been at this ballet school for almost 6 months and not once had I heard her raise her voice.

The two-hour lesson had drawn to an end when the clock struck 7 pm but I stayed around because Madame Abramov wanted to speak with me.

"I think it would be an amazing opportunity for you! You have so much talent."

She had wanted to enter me into a dance competition.

I kindly turned down the offer, I wasn't too sure how Alexei would react, and I didn't want to make a second name for myself. One was just about enough.

I pushed past the wooden arch door to get my bag from my locker, everyone else had left.
I threw my bag onto my shoulder, rummaging through it to find my Motorola RAZR phone to check for any texts until I became aware of somebody else's presence in the room.

"You do know it was only a suggestion when Alexei said you could do 'normal' activities, right?"

I turned sharply on one foot, a wave of relief overcame me.

"It gets me out."

"If you wanted to get out all you had to do was ask me, Nat, I'm sure there's a film on we could have watched down the road."

A flirty smile flashed across Bucky's face. I rolled my eyes in return.
It was difficult to put a label on the two of us, it was obvious that he wanted something more, but I couldn't, love was nothing but a weapon, and to some, it was nothing but a simple children's game, and I don't play games. But I did enjoy it at night when he would come into my room and tell me stories of his past when he couldn't sleep, he was very passionate about telling them and it was sweet because his eyes would light up in a certain way.

I began walking towards the door, Bucky moved to the side, so I could pass. The sound of his footsteps followed behind me as we exited the brick coloured building

~~~~~

I buckled up my seat belt.

"Alexei has a mission for us"

I looked up at Bucky as he reversed out of the parking space and began driving forward with the ongoing traffic. This would be my first mission with Bucky, I normally went alone.

"A couple of years back somebody stole something of great importance to Alexei"

"Who" my voice interjected.

"Unknown."

As the car came to a stop behind a traffic light Bucky handed me a file.

"Alexei has been getting signals on his radar very similar to the tesseract, he wants us to go and look."

"We don't know who has the tesseract- "

"But we know where to look. We just shoot at everyone who shoots at us, it's not that difficult, Nat." His voice was stern.