never leaving your side || romanogers

Chapter 13

White rooms, bleached of any color, people, their wrists tied and bags over their heads, grueling ballet training, constant training, girls forced to shoot guns and learn to fight at an early age, Natasha immediately knew where she was. The Red Room.

Natasha knew that it was just a dream. She'd been with the Avengers for a few years now, and she was working in SHIELD long before that. So why was she having this nightmare again?

She remembered when she last had this nightmare. A long time ago, so long that she barely remembered what to do to snap out of it. Crap, she thought. This was not good.

Whirlwinds of memory swirled around her. She saw her sister, her best friends, girls who left and she never saw again, so many faceless people she had to kill, and then the tornado stopped. She was in a dark room, a tall figure standing behind her, the shadow covering her small figure. In her hand, she held a gun, pointed at a blonde-haired girl tied to a chair at the other end of the room. "Shoot her, Natalia," The figure said. "She disobeyed my orders and snuck out at night. She pays for her actions." Natasha suddenly remembered something, a memory that was not her own. The blonde-haired girl, calling her out in the washhouse, telling her of a plan to escape the Red Room and live outside. She remembered telling the blonde girl that she would be there to escape with her at midnight, only to chicken out at the last moment, and run back to her bed. The girl must have left without me, Natasha thought. And they caught her, and now I have to shoot her. Natasha closed her eyes and squeezed the trigger. A single gunshot ran out, and she forced her eyes. Blood ran from a hole in the girl's stomach. A tut sounded from behind her, and she turned around to see Madame B look down at her angrily. "Go to the girl, Natalia," she said. "Tell me where you shot her." 

Natasha walked slowly to the girl she shot. Her blond hair shone in the dark room, her head slumped down. Natasha lifted the girl's head and brushed the hair from the girl's face. "No," she whispered hoarsely. "It can't be." The girl's eyes opened, and for a split second, there was a glimmer of regret, and of sorrow. 

"Oh, Nat," The girl she now knew was her sister, her best friend in the Red Room. "We should've gone together." 

With that, her shoulders went slack, and she slumped down in the chair, now unconscious from the blood loss.

"Well, Natalia?" Madame B asked coldly.

"I shot her in the stomach."

"And is that a kill shot, Natalia?"

"No, Madame B."

"I told you not to get attached." With a snap of her fingers, Madame B summoned a few guards. "Take the blond one to the infirmary. She's a good fighter. As for the redhead, well, take her to my room."

Natasha felt her heart rate rising. She knew, or Natalia knew, that whoever went into the Madame's office didn't come out the same. A scream rose in her throat as a guard grabbed her wrists and roughly yanked her from the room. "NO! YELENA! COME BACK!"

"COME BACK!"

Natasha woke up to the sound of someone screaming, loudly. After a few seconds, she realized it was her, and stopped abruptly. Her heart beat at an extremely fast pace as if she just ran 10 miles. "I killed her," Natasha whispered to herself. "I killed my sister," she whispered even softer.

"You killed who?" A gentle, caring voice asked.

She turned her head, surprised. "Oh," was all she said at first. "Steve, what are you doing here?"

Steve shrugged, as if he didn't know, but his eyes betrayed him. "You were having a nightmare, so I was making sure nothing bad happened."

"Oh. Thank you, Steve." Natasha's eyes turned soft, and she patted the space next to her on the bed.

Sitting next to her, Steve felt it was acceptable for him to ask her what had happened. "Nat, what happened in your nightmare?"

Nat turned to look at him. "It wouldn't be fair for me to tell you."

"Why, though?"

"Because, you're probably the most patriotic person America has ever seen, and I'm probably the biggest assassin that Russia has ever known. Like, come on, I was trained in a place called the RED ROOM. You were trained at an army camp during World War II. See a difference?"

"Actually, yes, but that doesn't mean anything."

"No, of course, it doesn't! Now everything's fine and we're best friends!" Natasha said in a horribly fake voice, dripping with sarcasm.

"Nat," Steve said, scrunching his eyebrows together in exasperation. "That doesn't matter to me!"

"Oh yeah? Have you read my file yet? Seen all the bad things of done to get information for the Red Room, all the people I've killed?"

Steve was silent for a moment. "I read your file, Nat." He got up, and picked up a file sitting next to the sofa.

"Good. Now you'll know the true me."

"It's not the true you, Natasha. Maybe it's the Black Widow, the one the Red Room made, but it's not the Black Widow that fights with the Avenger for the right reasons or the Natasha Romanoff that cares about her teammates, and never fails to make me laugh." Seeing Natasha's frozen face, he added, "I love you, Nat."

The corners of Natasha's mouth turned up slightly, and she leaned forward to place a kiss on Steve's cheek. He saw what Natasha was planning to do, and turned his face slightly, so her lips collided with his. For a brief moment, electricity sparked between them before they pulled away, still lost in each other's eyes.

"Stay here? Steve?" She pleaded.

"Alright, Nat," Steve replied, going to get his blanket. 

"And you know my real name is Natalia, right? Natalia Alianovna Romanova."

Steve turned around, a playful gaze dancing around his eyes. "I know, I read your file." Hesitating, he added, "It's a beautiful name for a beautiful girl."

Coming back with his blanket, he smiled. "It's 4 in the morning, Nat. Let's go to sleep."