FILE n°888 | SUBJECT RED
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the red room academy
russia, unknown
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december 22nd, 2012

Sashenka remembered being awake during the process. Actually, no, she remembered drifting in and out of consciousness as this was being done to her. The ten year old remembered being slowly awakened by the uneven jostling of the metal table she was laying against. She had winced at the sharp lights hitting her eyes and making the space between her eyebrows ache as she tried to adapt. The second thing she remembered was trying to get up and realizing she was strapped to a rolling table. By that time, the whoever was pushing her had noticed the commotion and had injected her once again. Sashenka could recall the feeling of a cool metal arm pressed against her neck during the injection.

She had tried to crane her neck to see who it was, but the man was wearing a mask. By that time, the injection was living up to it's effect and she could slowly feel herself getting pulled into the darkness once again.

The second thing Sashenka recalled, was waking up in a dimly lit room, in so much pain. Moving caused her to screw her eyes shut and she couldn't help but whimper in pain at the throbbing ache that she felt between her legs. The girl was ten years old and she had put up with so many varying types of pain in her life, you would think she would be used to it. But she was only ten years old, and had never once experienced any type of pain like that. The worst part was, she didn't know what was causing it.

The pain became too much, and her vision tumbled. Sashenka slouched back suddenly, hitting the back of her head against the cool metal and passing out.

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"Vstavay. Tema, vstavay." Someone roughly grabbed the healing child's arm and pulled her off the table. The sensation jolted Sashenka awake, who whimpered in pain when her feet hit the ground, the dull ache between her legs and at her stomach was still present. Get up. Subject, get up.

This isn't the Red Room anymore, Sashenka realised. While yes, she was still inside the Academy, she was no longer one of its students, she was now back in HYDRA's hands. HYDRA had no mercy, you either survived or got killed, there was no in between. Sashenka wouldn't get killed. She was ten years old and had over twenty kills under her belt. She was not the beaten, bruised six year old that had cried for her father when they had cuffed her to the bed. No, she was the graduate of the Black Widow program, made of marble, cold, merciless and deadly. Sashenka was a survivor.

"Ty slyshal, chto ya skazal, korotyshka? YA skazal: vstavay. Nas zhdut." Sashenka straightened up as much as she could with the intense pain she was feeling and started walking when the guard aimed a kick at her lower back. She didn't grunt, she didn't whimper, she kept walking. Not a single sound left her lips, even when the guard used his electric baton against her neck. She was silent. Did you hear what I said, you runt? I said, get up. They are waiting for us.

The man grabbed her by the back of her neck, as if she was an animal and started dragging her along when her rhythm wasn't sufficient for him. Before exiting the building, he undressed her, and watched leaning against the door, a perverted smile had made way onto his face as Sashenka changed out of the Academy's standard clothing and into HYDRA gear.

"Gotovy k pervoy missii, malen'kiy Ryzhiy?" The nickname he gave her made Sashenka's veins grow cold suddenly. That name brought back so many memories from when she was in Siberia with her Papa. She remembered how the guards would taunt her with food and children's toys like they were baiting a fish in the ocean. Ready for your first mission little Red?

"Davay, malen'kiy Krasnyy, poprobuy skhvatit' plyushevogo mishku!" The guard taunted her, raising the cuddly brown teddy bear above his shoulder, laughing when the three year old's green eyes hungrily followed the plush bear wherever he moved it. He laughed harder when his colleagues started cheering him on, all of them forming a circle around the child who was nearly in tears, her pale morning eyes were clouded with unshed tears as she frustratingly stood on the tip of her toes to try to reach the stuffed animal they had taken from her cell this morning while she was sleeping. Come on, little Red, try to grab the teddy bear!

When the guard saw her reach for the animal, he was quick to kick the girl's side, the force of a grown adult's foot was more than enough to send the mute three year old to the ground. One of the guards pulled out his electric baton and jammed it against her bruised and red skin causing the girl to start convulsing on the ground as doses of electricity coursed through her small frame. The men laughed. They laughed.

"Kak malen'kiy Red chuvstvuyet pri mysli o tom, chto snova kogo-to ubit'? V kontse kontsov, eto to, chto vy sobirayetes' delat'." The guard's voice brought Sashenka back to the ugly side she had grown to refer to as 'reality'. The words falling from his lips were enough to make the ten year old see red, and without thinking, she lunged at the man, pulling out the strong silver wire she had kept from the graduation ceremony from her pocket. She wrapped the cord around his neck pulling it with all her strength against his throat. How does little Red feel at the thought of killing someone again? At the end of the day, this is what you're going to do.

She could see the colour draining from the guard's face but made a sound that sounded like a strangled chuckle. "Slishkom medlenno." Too slow.

"Ty umresh'." You're going to die. The ten year old smiled a disturbingly satisfied smile just as the door burst open and another HYDRA guard grabbed her from behind, making her loose her steel grip on the man who fell to the floor with a chocked grunt. Sashenka knew he had just died.

The guard holding Sashenka back pulled something from his attire and was quick to fasten the electric collar onto the ten year old's neck. She immediately stilled when she felt the first dose of electricity, but smiled nonetheless. She promised the man he would die, and he did.

"Prodolzhay dvigat'sya." The other guard pushed Sashenka forward until finally, they were walking past the door of the Academy, never to return to that place. Keep moving.

There was a dark van waiting for them at the entrance. The van looked exactly like the one that had brought Sashenka to the red room a few years ago. The vehicle was sealed with metal, bulletproof sheets and the only openings you could see were the three opening the size of Sashenka's head, protected with metal bars. Two guards were standing at the rear of their transport mode near the metal doors and were each holding heavy guns.

Whilst walking towards the van, Sashenka didn't look back at the Academy. She knew Yelena was watching her from the windows of the ballet room and she knew that looking back at the woman who had helped her survive these horribly lonely years would just cause more pain for the both of them. So she kept walking.

Once they reached the van's doors, the guards turned to look at their colleague.

"A drugoy?" One of them asked. And the other one?

The guard turned his head towards Sashenka and pointed at the thick collar around her neck.

"Ona ubila yego." She killed him.

They didn't react to the news. One of them nodded like he was expecting it, the other one couldn't help but raise his eyebrows in Sashenka's direction, like he was impressed that a ten year old could take on a fully grown trained guard without any help.

One of his colleague saw his reaction and chuckled. "Dumayu, vy zabyvayete, chto eto rebenok dvukh samykh opasnykh ubiyts v mire. Ne stoit yeye nedootsenivat'." I think you are forgetting that this is the child bred of the two most dangerous assassins in the world. Don't underestimate her.

There it was again. The mention of her parents. Sashenka tried not to think of them too much, because she knew that they would be disappointed that their child was following in their footsteps. No parent wanted this life for their child.

"Khvatit govorit', davay zaberem etogo rebenka szadi i ubirayemsya otsyuda." The guard grabbed Sashenka like she weighed no more than a sack of potatoes and pushed her inside the car. He placed herself in front of her, blocking her from seeing anything else in the car as he cuffed her to the wall, making sure she wouldn't move throughout the journey. Enough talking, let's get this child in the back and get out of here.

"Odno nevernoye dvizheniye, i ya sdelayu tak, chtoby eta shtuka na tvoyey sheye stala prichinoy tvoyey smerti." He threatened, slapping her hard across the cheek, laughing when she didn't respond. One false move, and I'm going to make sure this thing around your neck is the reason you end up dead.

He smirked at her and opened the doors to get out, locking them behind him.

Until that very moment, Sashenka's eyes had not left the guard's form. But when the doors locked and the silence settled around her, she realized she wasn't alone in the vehicle. Far from where she was seated, next to the small opening in the shadows, was a man.

The man in question was wearing a full combat attire, he had knives strapped to his chest along with other deadly objects. He had dishevelled brown hair that fell short under his chin. The skin around his eyes was coal black, like someone had taken a charcoal stick and rubbed it around the sensitive area that was his eyes. Everything about the Soldier was meant to look deadly. But, Sashenka immediately knew when she saw the metal arm and her pale eyes met his blue ones, that this man was the one who had given her a name, that had fed her and cared for her until she was taken away from him again. Her Papa.

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The child sitting across from him, was small. Too small for a ten year old from what he had overheard in the Academy the same morning. He had only seen her from afar a few days ago during her Graduation Ceremony but he swore he had thought she was taller. But here, the child looked so small, he briefly wondered if his sight was even accurate anymore. Like him, she was dressed in full combat gear, the darkness of the outfit she was wearing only made her ivory pale skin stand out.

He noticed she had very pale eyes, he couldn't determine whether they were green or a morning sky coloured blue, but they were wide with surprise as if she had just seen a ghost. Her pink lips were parted open slightly, and he took notice of how her fuller bottom lip was bitten raw to the point where he could see how cracked and badly bruised they were. She was nervous. Her nose kept twitching which he couldn't help but imitate, not even aware that he was picking up on her mannerism. The freckles that dotted the bridge of her nose and became less noticeable once they reached the apple of her sunken cheeks made her look more innocent and that made the Soldier wonder what a child was doing here with him on a mission like the one they were heading into?

The girl reached over to touch the palm of her left hand, tearing her gaze away from him, only to jerk forward as the shock collar clasped around her neck sent waves of electricity into her small frame. As she stilled and tried to regain her previous position, she failed to notice that her hair, which had been tucked into her uniform until that moment, had escaped and fallen in long bright red waves down her shoulder to reach the small of her back.

The Soldier sucked in a sharp breath. That red hair, that particular shade of red. Why did he always remember the hair?

He didn't have time to pay any more attention to the child because suddenly the car jerked forward to a stop. They had arrived. He heard the boots of the guard trudge through the snow as they made their way to open the doors.

The daylight was so bright that it made him briefly squint, whereas the child jerked to the side and clasped her eyes shut. He could tell she hadn't seen the daylight in a while. Why are you so engrossed with this child? His conscience screamed at him. You don't know her!

So, he tore his gaze away from the child and focused on loading the gun the guard pushed into his arms. His mind went on autopilot just like it always did when a mission was about to commence. It helped elevate the guilt and kept him from feeling anything.

The mission was simple. Take out a nuclear engineer at the source in near Odessa. No witnesses, no complications. Easy task.

The girl they referred to as Subject RED would be the first one to take action. The car the engineer was in was supposed to make a brief stop, so he could retrieve files. It was all planned out. The girl would be escorted to the building where the files were located by the guards, while the Soldier took care of the Agent escorting him. The Agent would get a phone call while the nuclear engineer was inside the building, with intention to distract them from their task. While this was going to take place Subject RED would be waiting for the man inside the building to take him out.

If this failed, the Soldier would be waiting near an isolated road near Odessa. He would shoot out the tires and make sure there were no survivors. The mission could not fail.

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The building Sashenka was stationed in resembled a maze. There were stairs and railings overlapping with one another, the passageways were dark and narrow and the whole building looked like it hadn't been used in over a hundred years. Sashenka was waiting in a vast empty room, hiding in a big empty cupboard, waiting for the nuclear engineer to arrive to retrieve the classified document that were currently in the cabinet under the table in the middle of the room.

The moments that would follow had been carefully planned out by HYDRA. The engineer would come inside the room alone, retrieve the file, and just as he was about to leave, Subject RED would shoot him and he would fall dead, clear in her line of sight.

Suddenly, she heard footsteps. But there was something wrong, Sashenka heard two pairs of footsteps. This was not how it was supposed to go. What had happened to the distraction?

In the tiny earpiece she had on, she could hear the HYDRA guards cursing the fact that the distraction hadn't worked. What could she do? Before anything could be done, a man and a woman walked inside a room, the man was bald, dressed in a business suit and as soon as he walked in, he made a beeline for the desk. The woman on the other hand was cautious, she had blond hair that was cut short, barely under her ears. She was wearing a white sleeveless shirt and black pants. At first glance, she didn't appear to gave any weapons on her, but Sashenka noticed the shadow of a knife under her shirt and knew thanks to her uneven steps that she had one or two guns in her boots. Sashenka was outnumbered and shooting at the engineer in that moment would have been a death wish.

So she waited.

She waited for the man to retrieve his files and while he did that, she kept her eyes firmly trained on the woman, all while pulling out a tracker and loading it in a night gun instead of bullets. The difference between a night gun and a regular one? A night gun made no noise and caused no pain. She aimed the night gun at the engineer, and waited for him to raise his arms so she could plant the tracker in a place where it would go unnoticed.

Finally, the man raised his left arm and Sashenka took the opportunity to fire the tracker from the opening of the unit where she was hidden. Just like she intended, the tracker stuck to the man's undershirt and went unnoticed by him and the female Agent.

A few moments later, the both of them left the room in a hurry, while Sashenka slipped away and made her way towards the back exit where she knew a motorcycle was stationed. She had every intent to follow the two of them and complete her mission.

She never failed.

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The plan was failing. And it was the Soldier's fault. He had been too slow, which had caused the first part of the plan to fail. The distraction had failed because he had been thinking of the child. Why couldn't he keep that girl out of his head?

Now, he couldn't fail. Failure meant a punishment, and a punishment meant that HYDRA was going to do things to his mind again. And this couldn't happen.

So there he was, on the verge of a cliff overlooking the icy road that provided a discreet exit out of Odessa. Or so SHIELD thought. He checked the tracker on his arm. The car was heading straight towards this direction and would cross this path in approximately thirty seconds. This was his shot. It was that or failure. And the Soldier never failed.

He took the gun that was strapped to his chest and crouched in the snow just as he heard the roar of the car engine getting closer to where he was. He could see in the distance, the blond woman driving the car and the engineer sitting besides her.

He was ready to fire the shots that would take out their tires and send the car spiralling over the cliff when he saw something else. A black motorcycle was growing closer and closer to the car and on it, was Subject RED. He watched, as the ten year old stood up on the leather seat of the motorcycle and steadily leap gracefully on the roof of the black car. He was frozen as the red headed girl pulled out a gun and shot the front tires.

She was finishing the mission.

Quickly, the soldier regained a clear head and fired two shots at the back tires and leaped out onto the road just as the car lost control and swerved sharply towards the edge of the cliff, toppling over and falling over the edge.

The car fell into the snow a few meters below.

The Soldier got ready to finish the mission. He jumped over the side of the cliff effortlessly, landing against the crumpled hood of the car on his two feet. Finish the mission. No witnesses. The voice of his Superior was drilling a hole into his head as he aimed the shotgun for the woman who was dragging the engineer out of the car. Her head was bleeding and the wig on her head was slowly slipping.

And in that moment, it all came rushing back to him when he saw the single strand of fiery red fall out from under the blond wig.

"James" The woman spoke in the same raspy voice he remembered falling in love with eleven years ago in the cold winter of Russia.

He laughed as the woman in his arms spun around the room, her pointe shoes making it effortless for her to spin, leap and twirl while he clumsily tried to follow in her footsteps just to hear the raspy giggles escape her lips when he missed a step or almost slipped.

"Dance with me, James." She held her hand out for him to take.

"Are you sure that a gorgeous queen like yourself would want a dance from the poor lovesick fool that I am?" He took her smaller hand in his larger one and cradled it like it was the most precious thing in the world.

"Of course Siegfried," She chastised him, using his pen name he signed in all of their letters.

The man chuckled. He bowed, still not letting go of her hand. "Will my dear Odette give me this dance?" He reciprocated the favour, using the pen name she chose from the famous Russian ballet 'Swan Lake'.

Natalia laughed, throwing her head back as her other hand tried to cover her mouth. "If you don't make us both fall."

"Is that a threat?" James smiled as he brought her closer into his arms wrapping his metal one around her waist as she guided them into a soft waltz.

His hand was frozen over the trigger as they broke eye contact and she put herself between the unconscious engineer and him.

They were both laying in his cot, the two of them pressed against one another under the thin blanket he has. This was where they both met when they wanted to be alone. James' room was the only one who wasn't watched by the Madame or the guards and the only one with a lock they could close.

"I want to run far away from here one day, James." Natalia said as she looked at her pale hand intertwined with his metal one.

His flesh hand rubbed comforting circles onto her naked back, trying to bring her as much comfort as he could. Yesterday, she had had a particularly hard time with the Madame and had ran to James' room after, seeking comfort and love.

"We will run away from here, Natalia. We will get married far away from this place and will live in a town where our children will never have to endure the pain of what we went through."

"I like the sound of that life." She spoke softly against his chest as she brought his metal hand to her lips and kissed it.

He pulled the trigger, shooting the bullet through woman he had once called Natalia so it could kill the man she was protecting.

Last night, at the crack of dawn, the Soldier had freed Natalia from the bed she was handcuffed to, so they could slip away from this hell and never have to look back.

Hydra had found them, not even an hour later, and had used James' trigger words against him.

They made him shoot Natalia in the leg, wounding her and making it harder for the seventeen year old to fight back.

"Dzheyms!" Natalia's voice was muffled, but loud enough to make it known to him that she was not far from his cell. He heard her footsteps and two other pairs when he focused hard enough. It didn't take a genius for him to know that these were guards and that they were dragging Natalia out of her cell and past his. James!

"Natal'ya!" He yelled and gave him chains a harsh tug. They rattled but one of them gave a small squeak, which he immediately noticed was a sign of weakness. He gave another pull at the left chain, putting all his energy into it, resulting in the chain shattering, the handcuff leaving a purple welt on his wrist. Natalia!

He leaped for the door of the cell, cursing when the other handcuff roughly pulled him back, barely allowing him to touch the door. "Natal'ya!" Natalia!

"Lelya! Dzheyms, ty dolzhen vernut' yeye! Vy dolzhny vernut' Lelya!" He heard the woman he love's voice as they dragged her further and further away from him, only allowing him to catch a glimpse of red braids and wide green eyes through the small glass square on his cell door. Lelya! James, you have to get her back! You have to get Lelya back!

"Kto takaya Lelya ?! Natal'ya!" He screamed his throat raw as he threw his fist at the wall, the metal hand barely scratching the metal of the cell door.

"Dzheyms!" She screamed again, and just like that, she was gone. He could hear her screams getting more and more muffled as he lost her, leaving him alone once again, this time screaming at her ghost. James!

"Kto takaya Lelya ?!" Who is Lelya?

He watched the woman he had lost all those years ago fall limp against the man she was protecting. The mission was done. The engineer was dead.

And then he heard it. The small, soft, raspy voice that brought his attention away from the engineer and towards the car. "Papa?"

Sashenka. He remembered. Sashenka.

Sashenka. Sashenka. Sashenka. He said the name in his mind like a frenzied prayer as he trudged though the snow to get to her. His daughter. His baby.

Her small body was pinned to the snowy ground by a piece of car that had fallen off during the fall and had been crushing her for a solid ten minutes. When her pale eyes met his frantic ones, she whimpered and he couldn't tell if it was in relief or in pain. Surely a mix of both.

"Sashenka." He said out loud and saw the way her eyes immediately relaxed. Her body gave up, because she knew her Papa was with her and that he was going to save her. She knew he had remembered her.

While he pushed the piece of junk off of her body and cradled her in his arms, his mind flashed to the memories he had with his daughter that were all suddenly coming back. He remembers the curious baby burning herself with the boiling hot water. He remembers how she couldn't speak.

But now she could. She could speak. He could talk to her. He could finally piece the pieces together. Lelya was Sashenka.

But the words of his Superior kept coming back to his mind. No witnesses.

Natalia was a witness. She wasn't dead.

He had failed the mission.

He couldn't let them take Sashenka away from him again.

He couldn't lose another one of the two most important people in his life.

He wouldn't

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Cliff-hanger? Yes? Maybe?

It's 2012 in this chapter and it looks like we're getting close to CATWS!! Who's excited, because I definitely am! This chapter was so much in only a few days!

For those of you who want to know the answer as to whether or not Sashenka knows who Natasha is, no she doesn't. Neither does Natasha because while Bucky shot her, Sashenka was unconscious and Natasha only got a brief look at her when Sashenka shot the tires.

Though don't worry, they will obviously cross paths again as mother and daughter, just not before CATWS!

For now, Sashenka got Bucky back and I absolutely cannot wait to write the next chapter!

PS: If you want more on Sashenka, her aesthetic etc.. You should check out my pinterest @/camicazii_

where I have aesthetics for all my OCs