Accidentally You

Chapter - 3

As she sat down on the cool metal chair, Natasha felt her heart beat a little faster and felt slightly claustrophobic when she stared across the glass which cut the room in half. She didn't think she would be able to survive for long had she been on the wrong side of the glass wall. She feared to be on the other side of the room just as she feared the person who had just appeared from inside the door.

She heard the metal chains clinked as the person stepped closer and closer towards her.

Her heartbeat quickened as she panicked and she felt cold dread settling on her stomach and she was sweating at the same. He was still able to bring back all of the fears she thought she had overcame as he directly met her gaze with his menacing glare.

She thought she got this. That she had finally get over her fear of him. Of all the things he had done and caused her. All the tears, loss and shame.

But she guessed she was wrong in thinking that because she felt herself still trembling with fear as he quietly study her with his calculating gaze as she kept quiet.

He still looked as menacing as ever even though he was accompanied by two police officers and was in chains.

He stepped closer looking rather impatient and he tapped on the telephone fixed on the right side of the wall as if warning her to comply as he met her eyes again.

As fast as lightning, she clutched the telephone with shaking hands and put it near her ear.

"My, my, how have you grown, my little Natalia." His voice was kind of mocking, sending chills down her spine as she tried to swallow the big lump on her throat.

"Come to see your big old daddy?" He continued in Russian. "I have to admit, I'm not very happy with you. You have not visited me for almost a year now. I might think you did not miss me."

Her breath caught in her throat as she finally swallowed the lump. "Dad, I need..., I mean, the thing is that... " She felt her throat go dry and she swallowed another big lump as she tried to compose herself in front of the man she had feared her whole life. The sound of her own Russian voice felt foreign even to her ears as she opened her mouth to find her voice once again. "Your people, the scary ones... , please Dad, just tell them about their crimes. They'll help you if you did, I swear. Agent Coulson even told me that the CIA will shield you if -"

"Shut that pathetic little mouth of yours, Natalia." He cut her off viciously with a hiss as he fixed his menacing glare on her. "Don't tell me you've come to trust these American pigs. They only try to use your vulnerability. Don't trust anyone here, you hear me? No one but yourself."

She felt the tears rolling down on her face as she nodded like she had when she was only a little girl of eight and he had told her the same thing - not to trust anyone else but herself as she watched her mother left the door of their two story house with her big brown suitcase, never to come back again.

"I've taught you many things and I hope that all those lessons would not go to waste. Fend for yourself, Natalia. There is no one else to look after you now." His tone softened a little, as he continued. "Now that I am not with you anymore, you have to look out for yourself as there are many people out there after me."

The tears did not stop as she nodded again.

He was a criminal, she had always known that her father was not a good person even when she was a little girl. She even once saw him kill a man in their kitchen right in front of her eleven year old eyes.

He had dealt drugs, shipped illegal weapons to different countries, and many other things too. They had moved from place to place, not staying at one place for long and lived in different identities in the fear of being caught.

She still remembered those first two or three times that she had cried and begged him to stop and to just live their lives but he had just been cold and distant with her all the more.

But the thing about her father that always held her back, that had always made her come back crawling to him like a litte child was that he was always there.

Sure he did not drop her off to school or read her a story before bed and tuck her in. No, he was not like that. Instead, he had "trained" her to be tough and to fend for herself by teaching her some very tough lessons and experiences.

But despite all of that, he had always stayed. He never abandoned her like her mother did.

Yes, he had once broken her arm in anger when he found her throwing off the substance he used to take - which she'd learned later was meth - and flushing down the toilet because the substance had always made him strange and irritated. Her ten year old mind had thought that her daddy should just be fine again if she'd just thrown it off for him. And he had squeezed her right arm so hard that the bone had broken with a crack. She did not go to school for weeks.

When she was eleven, she had received a hard slap on her cheek, which left marks on her cheek for days, when she screamed bloody murder as she had just witnessed her father stabbing a big hairy man over and over in the chest with their kitchen knife. She could still remember the dark red blood splotched their white glazed tile as the blood oozed from his chest and mouth. They left their new home of three months the next day to live another identity.

She could still recall all those terrible terrible nightmares she had faced with him but still, he was still the same man who had always fed her stomach. Who had always make sure that she had receive good education despite being not very educated himself.

She feared him, yes. Detested him for being violent to her, yes. But...

As she forced herself to keep a steady gaze on his cold pale grey ones, she could not help but feel bad for him. She could see that some gray hair had mixed with his ever so light blond hair and there were deep purple bruised circle around his left eye. His face had shrunken too and he looked thin. And despite the cold mask that he had put on, she could almost see the relief hidden behind those cool grey orbs.

"Listen Natalia, stop being a weak little girl and start becoming a woman you're supposed to be." Finally, he softened his eyes on her and gave her a distant look. "I did not went through all those trouble to raise you just for you to give up."

Her lips trembled and she sniffled and again nodded. She felt like such a child again.

"Time's almost up." She heard the guard said but she did not feel like they had enough time to talk.

"And I would appreciate it if you were to visit me without those pathetic tears." He said, looking irritated but she could see that he did not mean it as his eyes no longer held the coldness in them but rather some strange warmth which she had seen him wore more than just once - when her mother left and he had held her in his strong arms, telling her that he would never abandon her, when the FBI agents had him handcuffed and shoved him inside a van and he had told her that he was sorry for not keeping his promise to her - all those times, he had the same look in his eyes, the same strange warmth which made him look somehow weak.

"Dad... Please, just try to see reason. You might even have a chance yet. Please."

"It's too late, Natalia. What's done is done. I'm not getting out of here and you should try to get over it. Like I said, stop being a little girl."

"But Dad... "

One of the two big officers came up beside him. "Time's up."

"You remember this Natalia. Be a woman I taught you to be." He gave him one of those strange warm look which was not befitting his ever so frosty persona. "And happy birthday, my Natalia." He whispered the last word.

She remained seated even as he disappeared from her view. She thought that he would be angry at her for ignoring him for so long. Well, he was angry enough to mock her and scare her but not angry enough to ignore her birthday.

But he'd remember that today was her birthday. That today was Natalia Romanova's birthday.