Her Little Bird

Well I didn't tell anyone, but a bird flew by.
Saw what I'd done. He set up a nest outside,
and he sang about what I'd become.
He sang so loud, sang so clear.
I was afraid all the neighbours would hear,
So I invited him in, just to reason with him.
I promised I wouldn't do it again.

Prologue

"A gift?" It was a foreign concept; she did not have possessions, let alone anyone to give them to her.

"To teach you responsibility," her tutor had told her. The tiny bird was a brilliant color, it's trill sweet and melodic, and in the stark steel-and-concrete industrial environment it stood out sharply, another jewel in the heart of Russia.

She named it Opal.

Opal's sweet voice sang whenever she was around. In the morning she would wake up to its sweet voice and at night it would sing her a lullaby. She fed it from the palm of her hand; she cared for it with all her heart. It was the 1 piece of happiness she had.

And over the course of the year, the flash of turquoise in the corner was the one thing she'd had to herself since she'd been brought here. It was the color of the sky as she imagined it — the younger recruits so rarely saw the actual sky — but it didn't matter because she owned it. She had the whole sky in a cage in her quarters.

And it sang for her.

Then one day her tutor walked in, picked up the bird, and snapped his neck. He waited for her to react; only she didn't. She let nothing slip. It was a test, it was always a test, and she never failed. She kept a blank face and looked her tutor in the eye, not a tear in sight. She felt cold, empty, nothing.

"You've done well"

That night, there was no song to sing her to sleep.

And for a while, Natasha Romanoff forgot the color of the sky.

A/N: Based off a drabble found on tumblr. Unfortunatly I lost the post but if you know the URL of the person who wrote this drabble please msg me I'd be more than happy to credit them