FILE n°888 | SUBJECT RED

▓▓▓▓▓▓▓ loading

╭─────────╮
the red room academy
russia, unknown
╰─────────╯
december, 2011

Sashenka had dreams of her Papa.

The five year old reached out to tap her bruised fingers on her father's knee, grabbing his attention with the simple yet endearing gesture she had learnt to use instead of communicating with words as she was unable to do.

Her Papa turned around, watching with a soft smile as his daughter dragged the piece of coal across the cement floor, forming words like he had been teaching her after every one of his missions. The little toddler was a fast learner, pointing out every object she could find and emitting frustrated huffs and puffs of air until her Papa chuckled and told her the word for it, writing it down with the piece of coal he had carved into some sort of chalk for her to write and draw with while he was on missions.

"What are you writing there you little Spitfire?" The Soldier inquired, leaning his metal and flesh arms against his knees to take a look at what the redhead was writing. The nickname 'Spitfire' had come pretty natural to the Soldier after only three days of knowing her. He had taken an immediate notice to the way she would communicate through her breathing, whether it was regular, erratic or even when she purred like a cat. He always imagined that if Sashenka had powers she would become a bright ginger salamander that could breathe fire like one of those action card characters he had seen kids trading while he was on a mission in Japan.

He got off the cot he was lying on, and walked over to stand behind the little red head, making his presence known by tapping the ball of his foot twice on the floor before standing behind her. He knew the fact that she couldn't speak had her slightly on edge at all times, so they worked out a system where anyone approaching her had to make their presence known before doing anything. Anyone who didn't do what they had decided on was a threat.

The Soldier didn't say it enough, but he was amazed at the progressed she had made in just a few months of knowing him. She looked healthier, her cheeks seemed fuller and the nails on her hands and feet were slowly growing back. She got beaten up less, the Soldier acting as a shield when he could, which resulted in fewer bruises on her face. Her personality was also starting to develop more, he learned that she was curious, stubborn, timid but with a great deal of spunk once her defensive barriers were taken down.

Sometimes he thought of trying to get her out of the facility, arranging for her to be sent away, to another family in the outside world, where maybe she would go to school, get to graduate and lead the semi normal life she deserved to have. She didn't deserve to have a father who couldn't trust his own mind and a mother who most likely thought she was dead. She deserved more, even if it meant not being tightly wrapped against his chest every night.

His breath caught in his throat as he watched his daughter glance up at him with her ever so innocent blue eyes, the Russian word 'Мамуля' meaning 'mother' written in coal across the floor.

"How did you learn that? I didn't give you that word." He asked Sashenka, regretting his question as soon as it came out of his mouth. He knew the guards liked to run their mouths and mentally torture his daughter as well as physically, he wasn't surprised that they had chosen the topic of her mother to taunt the poor child.

He sighed, leaning down so he was eye to eye level with Sashenka. "Your Mamulya is the woman who made you." He watched as his daughter's brows furrowed in confusion. As sad as the situation he was in was, he couldn't stop but internally chuckle at the fact that he was indirectly talking to his daughter about sex.

He went on. "She is not with us because she is helping other people right now. But, she would be with us if she knew where we were. It's like we're playing a big game of hide and seek together. Do you understand?" He could see the geers turning in Sashenka's beautiful mind and couldn't help but wonder if making such a horrible situation seem like a game of hide and seek was the right call to make in the long run?

The Soldier didn't know if he should be relieved that the answer seemed to sit right with Sashenka as she quickly erased the word and moved on to drawing her Papa in a very unflattering way that only he knew was her best work in her childish mind.

Sashenka felt like a pile of human failure when she woke up. Her muscles were screaming in pain at the simple action that was breathing and her head felt like it had been bashed in, and later stuffed with cotton balls. Just as the memories of the events that had led her here started to come back to her, she heard a voice speaking a few steps away from her

"You're awake." The voice belonged to the woman who had beaten her up, Yelena Belova who was leaning against a wall far from the bed Sashenka was handcuffed and strapped to. She was wearing a black suit, dressed for a mission, yet she seemed nervous at the idea of being here. She looked guilty even though she was doing a good job at hiding it.

"Why are we speaking in English?" Sashenka questioned, her voice coming out with a thick accent like Yelena after not speaking it in full sentences for so long.

"Two reasons," Yelena unfolded her arms grabbing a chest from one of the empty beds near Sashenka's, sliding it next to the metal railing of the bed and sitting on it effortlessly. "First, the guards don't understand English, only a few people here speak it fluently. And secondly," Her green eyes bore into Sashenka's light blue ones as if dissecting her every move and nitpicking at anything useful she could find. "If you are anything like who I think you are, you were probably taught your father's mother tongue at a young age."

Sashenka froze, this woman was on her, she knew who she was. And most importantly, she knew her father and someone else she thought Sashenka should know very well. Whatever Yelena Belova's game was, it was a good one, because it had sparked the girl's curiosity.

"I haven't seen my father in a few years. The only memories I have of him are fading." The child felt her eyes burning with tears she refused to let fall. Yelena may act like she wanted to understand, but Sashenka knew she was playing a bigger game.

"Is your father's name James Barnes?"

Sashenka felt like the woman had just dumped a bucket of ice water on her. She only ever knew her Papa as Papa. But that name, that name that she had heard him mutter over and over to himself when he thought she was asleep. The name he was trying not to forget, the name that no one used anymore, the name that made him her Papa.

"Yes." The words were so quiet, her lips barely moved. Anyone who wasn't Yelena could have mistaken the word for a sniffle or a sharp intake of breath.

Yelena didn't say anything for at least a few minutes. This child was definitely her sister's daughter, she didn't need to ask further questions to prove that she was right. The red hair, the exact shade that she had heard Natasha complain about when she was her daughter's age. The blue eyes that her sister had looked into and fallen in love with. Everything this child was reminded her of a long lost sister who had escaped the same fate that her child was destined to face. The way the girl's lips pursed and twitched, the way her nose scrunched in discomfort due to the handcuffs, Yelena felt like she was looking at a ghost.

But this wasn't a ghost, this was the daughter that should never have been born. She was the child that Natasha carried in her stomach for barely six months. The child that died in childbirth, the child Yelena had wanted to call Lelya, so much that she had to say it multiple times a day for the name to finally grow on her sister.

"So your name is Lelya Barnes?" Yelena finally spoke after she was now sure that the child handcuffed to the bed that she had punched into unconsciousness was indeed her niece.

The girl's brown furrowed in confusion, "My name is Sashenka, not Lelya."

"That's a horrible name. Lelya would've been better." Yelena affirms, a small smirk tugging at the corner of her lips.

"How do you know all this about me?" Sashenka presses, her curiosity burning at her stomach because she needed to know how Yelena knew all of this.

Yelena sighed, uncrossing her legs and opting to sit on Sashenka's bed instead of her previous place.

"I knew your Mama, Sashenka. She was my sister."

Sashenka froze. As far as she was concerned, she felt as if she had accepted the fact that she would never find her mother. But to have this woman sit on her bed, telling her she was her mother's sister felt like a cruel joke the universe was playing on her. She wondered if someone up there was taking great pleasure into adding more and more hurt and disappointment into her life. Sashenka wasn't even nine years old yet and had already lost so many people. Now, here she was, sitting a few centimetres away from her aunt because the universe couldn't send her Mama to her so they sent Yelena instead.

"Prove it." The words rolled off her tongue firm and defiant.

"You want me to prove that I knew your mother?" Yelena smirked. If only she could tell the child in front of her that the way she formed her words, her way of speaking, the sentences that came out of her mouth were things that Natalia would have said.

Sashenka nodded. "Fine." Yelena said.

"Your mother was four years old when she came to the red room. She was eight when we met and she was nineteen when she left for a mission to eliminate a target and never came back. She was fifteen years old when she met your Father, sixteen years old when she became pregnant with his child and she was barely seventeen years old when she lost the child. She had the same color of hair as the daughter she thought was dead, the same nose and the same lips. Is that enough for you Sashenka?" Yelena asked her niece.

"Yes." Sashenka whispered. "I believe you."

"Good." The blond woman nodded. "Now, we need to make sure you're the last one left in your class."

"What do you mean?" The eight year old girl pulled up her blanket as much as she could with the handcuffs that strapped her to the bedpost.

"There is only one girl who survives each program. In 2003, it was your mother, who became the Black Widow, two years later it was me, now it is either going to be you or another girl who kills you. The ideal scenario would be for you to survive."

"Unless you want to die? In that case, I guess I will be burying you six feet underground after one of the girls snaps your neck. Do you want that?"

"No." Sashenka said firmly. "I want to live."

"Good." Yelena nodded. "You were asleep for two days. During those two days, three girls were killed. There are only six of you left and if you want to survive you are going to want to bring it. Because you are small, weak and skinny."

"I can manage." Sashenka says drily.

"No you can't, and that's why you're going to need me to train you."

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

Here's the chapter you guys have all been waiting for! Sashenka and Yelena finally have a conversation that's longer than two minutes and no one gets punched this time!

I can't wait for you guys to see what I have planned for the next chapter it's going to be an intense one I have got so much in store you guys aren't ready!

Also, sorry for the somewhat short of a chapter... I just needed a shorter chapter of just Yelena explaining a lot to Sashenka because my poor baby is so confused!

PS : I would greatly appreciate if you guys would check out the latest announcements I've made on my message board they mention why I've been gone for a while and what's in store for my books! Thanks :)

edit 20/12/2021 : putting yelena in this book before black widow came out was such a power move of me omg i'm a genius