Bloodlines.
Title: Bloodlines
Series: #1 in The Secrets of the Red Room
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: PG
Pairings: none
Disclaimer: Not mine! Not even by a little bit. Takes place within the MCU-verse but is informed by comic books.
Author's Note: That image of the gurney and forceps in the Age of Ultron trailer had been used to point to Natasha's back story in the Red Room in the MCU. What if they were used on Natasha, but not in the way we think?
Summary: There had always been a Natalia Romanova, always a need for her special and deadly skills.
All she knew was Inside; the courtyards at recess were still Inside, and she was clever enough to realize that the slice of sky did not encompass all of Outside. She knew she wasn't allowed Outside, even if they called it having recess outside. That just meant the courtyards rather than the open areas further Inside.
Inside was a warren of rooms and hallways, twisting corridors and stairs and blind stops. There were the doctors and educators and handlers as well as the watchers, though she preferred the mothers and sisters. All was meant for the education, care and comfort of the twenty-eight lineages, the fine and proud tradition to be maintained for the glory of Mother Russia. It had been this way for generations, it would be this way for generations more.
She was lucky, in that she had her mother with her almost all the time. Her mother taught her things constantly, before the other girls often learned things. So when she was two, she knew her Cyrillic and Roman alphabets backward and forward, numbers to fifty, colors and shapes and a smattering of English in addition to her native baby's Russian. Her mother taught by example to watch her surroundings, keep the other girls in sight, avoid the mean ones with the hands quick to strike or the voices too ready to rise in anger. She knew by instinct to avoid the notice of the watchers and handlers, to scurry away from guards. Good or ill, she didn't want to stand out. Her red hair, brilliant green eyes and pale skin did that for her. Attention would not be good for her right then.
Formal lessons would come later: languages, math, history, science, hand to hand, weapons, tactics, open combat training. In the beginning, though, she had her mother, the quiet room they shared even though they had the whole of the Sixteenth Arcade at their disposal. They shared a room, a bed wide enough for the two of them; she loved hearing her mother's heartbeat, her mother's steady breathing. "I am here," they told her without words. She was learning the language of gestures, posture, expression. "You belong to me."
"You are a clever girl," her mother would whisper into her hair. They had the same coloring, same delicate, petite features. "Learn everything. Be quick, be strong. But don't let them know, not right away. Not until you want them to know. Keep your secrets," she told her softly, tapping her temple. "Secrets are important. Secrets are wanted. Secrets are currency. Keep your real self hidden behind layers. Protect yourself at all costs."
Of course, her mother was there to help. Her mother could teach her these things. Her mother was the Natalia Romanova, the Ivanova, and could teach little Natalia Alianovna Romanova how to protect herself from the Inside.
Most of the bloodlines had grown thin; the Marias and Olgas and Georgianas had plenty of girls each generation. Sometimes the others were thin because there were fewer girls born; only girls could stay Inside, and the boy babies simply disappeared. There were tales of one Tatiana that grew so despondent after her son was stolen from her that she refused to eat. Days of that, and the handlers came to put in a feeding tube. She roused herself only long enough to hang herself from the arcade rafters with it.
Whispers in the hallways, stories told. Generations past, always, always, not too close. Never too close, lest one of the girls ask around to see who might have known that particular girl in the bloodline. It would hurt too much to ask that kind of thing.
But Natasha, the little Natalia, always listened, always talked with her mother. Her mother was Natalia Ivanova, she was Natalia Alianovna. She knew her mother's handler occasionally asked her who Alian was, where he could be found. But her mother never answered, made sure to appear weak and in need of her sisters' support.
Natasha had been born Inside, as all girls of the bloodline were. But her birth had come on more suddenly than expected, and the doctor had been roused from a dead sleep to attend to the Natalia. Natasha had been born with little difficulty, as slippery as a fish, nearly landing neatly into the nurse's hands. But the doctor, more asleep than awake, had used the forceps he had brought on Natalia, and more than just the afterbirth came out. He had ripped out her womb in its entirety, rendering her sterile, introducing massive infection and trauma, and her handler had ordered her to remain at rest Inside, rather than immediately assign her missions Outside once she was able to walk without bleeding.
That had happened to a Minerva once, and she had never returned. They said she likely bled to death Outside, and was glad of it.
There was no way to make up the loss to Natalia, and her handler asked what just punishment would be. The doctor would lose his life, that was without question; no one harmed a bloodline member with impunity, and the handlers of course wanted to show that Mother Russia would protect the bloodlines just as they protected Mother Russia. So his head was set on display on a golden platter, and he was replaced by someone less prone to drinking and deeply sleeping in times when an emergency could arise.
Natasha learned this story when she was six, when the Yelena was large and round with child, even when she was practically a child herself. She refused to name the father, even when struck and punished, even when starved for three days in the punishment box, even when whipped in front of the other girls for failures in her missions. She did not open her lips, and there was a desperate shine in her eyes.
"Watch her," Natasha had whispered to Natasha. "Yelena Nicholaevna Belova will escape this place, but this is not the escape I want for you."
It was the first time Natalia had mentioned escape, and that was a secret Natasha kept with her others.
Yelena was not as slight as Natalia, her hair a bright yellow and her eyes a piercing blue. Her chin was sharp and pointed, her lips perfect but often caught in a sneer. She kept the baby, laughing when the doctor told her she tore badly and could bleed to death. She kept laughing, still refusing to name to father, and died of blood loss after knocking out the doctor and threatening to harm the nurses if they helped her.
So the tiny baby girl, freshly born, became the Yelena Belova, no patronymic to mark her as an individual. But with no other Yelenas, she didn't need it anyway.
The Tatiana was nursing a baby at the time, so she gave suck to the neonate. But Natasha asked to watch and play with the baby. The Tatiana had three other daughters to look after, so Natalia and Natasha raised Yelena most of the time.
But the private lessons, the whispers and the secrets... Those were for Natasha alone.
"The former Yelena was a girl still," Natalia whispered to Natasha. "She never liked being the Yelena. They will make sure this one does, that this one is certain she will do everything to the liking of her handlers. Watch."
Natasha looked at her mother with wide eyes. "You don't like being the Natalia, do you?"
"Someday, you will understand many things. Remember about secrets?" Natasha had nodded, tapping her temple gently. "I carry a great many of them. I give you the ones I can, and I will carry some until you are ready for them."
"Will it hurt?" Natasha asked, frowning.
"Secrets? Ah, it depends on the secret."
"Mama," Natasha whispered, frightened, clutching her mother's hand.
"Learn your lessons, keep them like secrets, buried deep, where even unmaking you won't erase them. Learn what I teach you, what they teach you. Always remember that I love you, I want what's best for you. And what's best for you isn't here Inside, but Outside, beyond their walls, beyond their missions."
The handlers and watchers would say this was treason, this was punishable. They would want to know about this, punish Natalia.
"They erase what they don't like, don't they?" Natasha asked fearfully.
"Clever girl. Yes, they do. They don't protect us. They control us. We are tools for them, expendable, breedable tools."
Her voice was bitter, bitter. Had she loved Alian, whoever he was? Was that why she guarded the secret of his identity so jealously?
"Remember to protect yourself always, to hide your true self behind layers of false selves. If you show them what they wish to see, they won't delve deeper. If they don't look, don't know that there's more, that there are still secrets to find, you will be safe."
As in, the handlers and watchers couldn't be trusted. None of them could. Not even the other bloodlines Inside. No one.
"If you have an opportunity to escape, ever, you take it. Don't think twice about me here, I forgive you everything and tell you to go. Know that I would give anything, even my life, to keep you safe and sound." Natalia's gaze was intense, almost frightening. "Know in your bones that I love you, my daughter, and there is no greater gift than that."
"I love you, too," Natasha whispered.
Would someone take Natalia away for this? Natasha made sure to keep the secret, keep watch, keep silent. It was the only weapon she had against the fear.
There were only girls Inside, generations of girls. No boys, and the only men allowed inside were handlers and watchers. No explanation given, not even in the stories about generations ago, when the Inside was first created. But perhaps there never needed to be a story like that; the girls sometimes locked themselves in their rooms together, sometimes with those handlers and watchers. Natasha sometimes heard them, could never tell if their desperate cries were pleasure or pain, wanted or not.
She stayed invisible, little, as perfect as possible. She never gave anyone reason to question her if she could.
Observations were important, especially for the bloodlines that Natalia and Natasha worked with regularly. Someday it might save her life.
The Olgas and Marias and Georgianas were many, and to a girl all thought themselves important for that. The Veras were largely indifferent, the scholars that would one day shift the world on its axis. The Tatianas were nice, disparate looking girls that helped out a good number of the other bloodlines. The Anastasias were regal in appearance, but sneaky as all hell and generally couldn't be trusted with anything important; they were in the pockets of the handlers, too eager to secure their own safety. Yelena right now was nothing more than a baby, but the bloodline was known for its unflinching loyalty.
The Vasilissa had hidden nervous tics; she ripped at her fingers, peeling the skin away from her cuticles and fingertips past the lines of the first joint, leaving scar tissue in its wake. She was beautiful, but her fingerprints only existed visually; the scar tissue left nothing but a smear when showing the little ones how to make hand print butterflies. She had no identity, nothing aside from Inside. Oh, her hands were nimble and flexible, she had no difficulty advising the older girls how best to flick out a garrote wire from a gauntlet or remove a hidden knife. But her fears didn't escape her in words or fluttering hands, in looks or panic attacks. No, she simply destroyed her fingertip skin methodically and steadily, as if peeling back the layers would somehow reveal who she truly was.
She taught Natasha without words that there could be little rebellions, open secrets no one talked about or acted upon.
Another open secret turned out to be the existence of families aside from the bloodlines. Natalia's handler was Ivan, a man with chiseled features and a dour expression. They spoke rapidly in French, a language Natasha hadn't quite gotten quite so facile with yet. Finally Natalia switched back to Russian. "You are my father. Is there nothing you can do to help me?"
He had no reaction to the accusation, but suddenly Natalia's patronymic made sense. Natalia knew her father, Natasha knew her grandfather.
"You have not been sent on missions for years after you should have been. Of course I have helped you."
It sank in after a moment. They wanted to send Natalia Outside. There were many dangers Outside, and Natasha would not be able to help her there.
"There are others who can look after the little one while you are away. It's good practice for her."
"Father-"
"Ivan," he corrected. "To you, I am no more than Ivan Petrovich." His voice was cold, pitiless.
"I see. You've made your point Ivan," Natasha hissed, eyes flashing. "As ever, it is clear where you stand."
"If you reveal the identity of Alian, I could do more," Ivan replied smoothly.
"You know all you need to on the subject."
Her voice was positively glacial, something Natasha had never heard before. It told her much about the Inside and what these missions Outside were like. It also showed how little regard Natalia had for the Inside and their tactics.
She was seven, had her days full of lessons and whispers, dance and music. Natasha knew she was being trained and shaped into something, and she wasn't entirely sure what it would be.
There had always been a Natalia Romanova, always a need for her special and deadly skills.
When alone, Natasha asked Natalia about Alian. "Why does it matter so much who he is?"
"Because they didn't choose him, I did. They wanted to use their precious breeding program, and I ruined it." She sounded so proud of herself, Natasha couldn't help but grin at her.
"What can you tell me about him?" she asked, fascinated.
"You look nothing like him, but you share your determination and strength with him. He always wanted to do the right thing, no matter what, and wanted to protect innocent people."
"Wanted?"
"I haven't seen him since before you were born. I have no idea where he is, or if he's even alive. But I know he would be so proud of you."
An awful thought occurred to Natasha. "They would hurt him if you told them about him, wouldn't they?"
Natalia nodded gravely. "Yes, I believe they would. Because they couldn't force their choice on me."
"I thought they were supposed to protect us?"
"But who protects us from them?"
Good question, and they had no answers for it.
So Natalia was sent Outside and Natasha was sent to even more classes. Little Yelena looked up to her, fingers in her mouth and eyes wide. There was no way to pass along Natalia's lessons to her; Natasha didn't know how Natalia had started it when she was little, and with Yelena between multiple arcades, there was no way to reinforce what she had to keep silent about. So she thought of her fellow bloodlines as sisters and thought the nickname Rooskaya was delightful, and was proud to be part of the Inside.
Natasha's heart broke a little for Yelena, who had nothing and no one else, and didn't know how to look for the truth behind all the secrets that lay thick on the floor.
There was no way to mourn this, not with her classes growing harder, with more interactions with the other bloodlines. She looked critically at how the other arcades operated, didn't like what she saw. It didn't take much for her to suspect the Helene of unspeakable harms to the little Lina, only five; she made sure to be nervous around Ivan at one of his frequent inspections in Natalia's absence. "Ivan," she said, licking her lips and scuffing her toes. "I think little Lina is getting hurt in her arcade. She said no, and I don't see bruises on her arms, but she doesn't act right and she doesn't play with Yelena anymore."
Ivan was dismissive of her concern, as she knew he would be. "It's just little girlish squabbles."
"Please, Ivan? It feels wrong. Please, check on Lina?"
Two weeks later, the Helene was brought into the public square, sobbing as she was brought to the maypole. Her wrists were bound together, facing the pole, and she was stripped to the waist to be flogged publicly. "You have betrayed your bloodline, brought shame to your name and done harm to a child of the Red Room," her handler intoned for all to hear. The Red Room? "Fifty lashes, one per incident you have confessed to, and you will no longer be the Helene. Helene Sergeevna Raskolnikova, your name is to be stripped from the glories of your bloodline, and the name is to be passed down to Helene Vissarionova Raskolnikova."
The new Helene was tall, her blonde hair pulled severely back, her slate blue eyes unflinching as they took in her mother's beating. When it was over, she looked to her new handler and stood straight and calm. "I will have no shame within my arcade, Vladimir."
The former Helene wailed and called after her oldest daughter, but the new Helene would not be swayed. Her back shredded by the lashes, she could only fall to her knees and weep when she was cut free of the pole. The other bloodlines all stepped wide around her, leaving her in the open to retreat to their own arcades. Natasha had Yelena incessantly asking questions about it, about what the punishment was for and why she was hurt. She answered as best as she could, but she was only seven; the new Helene was twenty-one already, and likely would have supplanted the old Helene soon anyway.
Come to think of it, there were no old women Inside among the bloodlines. Their teachers could be old, and Madame teaching ballet was quite old indeed. There came whispers about the new Helene being ready to be bred soon, that she would have to toe the line tightly to remove the stain of the former Helene's actions.
How much hidden cruelty had there been in that arcade?
Ivan found her after Yelena's nap, a thoughtful expression on his face. "I did not believe you."
"I know you didn't."
"But you were right."
"I trusted you to take care of us," Natasha lied, expression betraying none of her innermost thoughts. She looked up at him with big, innocent eyes. "Little Lina is a good girl, a good playmate for Yelena. I don't like seeing her and knowing something bad is happening."
"Your instincts are good," Ivan said quietly. "That should be rewarded."
"Rewarded?" she had asked, frowning prettily at him. "I'm only seven."
He had laughed. "Special classes, as befitting a Natalia Romanova. Yours is a special bloodline, Natasha. Very special indeed."
When she returned sporting bruises in the shape of a man's hand, Natalia warned her to be careful. "You cannot trust him."
"I don't. But Lina was being hurt, I knew it. And I had to make it stop."
Natalia smiled and gathered up Natasha in her arms. "My darling girl. I love you. I love you. Love is for children, Natasha. Very soon, they will ensure you are no longer a child."
"And then what?"
She looked meaningfully at her arm, the florid bruise glaring against her pale skin. "Those could be yours instead of mine."
Because her lessons were shaping her into something else, something dangerous, and she carried secrets beneath her skin like blood. Because she was clever, and had already seen how she could manipulate her handler, how she could bypass the watchers.
Because her mother wanted her to escape someday, and she would never be able to take Natalia or Yelena with her.
The years spun by quickly, filled with lessons and missions and midnight talks. Yelena could not be trusted with them, not when she smiled at the very promise of praise and spilled her baby secrets so quickly. Her handler was now introduced, and she had nothing but adoration for him after he brought her ices and frilly dresses to wear. She was four, then five, then six, and she couldn't know, didn't realize, but Natasha had realized it all when she was three. Why was Yelena not so clever? Why couldn't she see it?
Natasha knew something was wrong when she was called out of her hand to hand classes and brought to Ivan's office by one of the watchers. She was ten, and stood tall and straight before his desk, even if she was the smallest in stature in her class. Her grades were the best for her age, her moves quick and efficient. She fought dirty if she had to, but always stayed within the rules set by the instructors. There was never fault found with her work.
Ivan had her sit, the lines deep and heavy in his face. "You are the new Natalia Romanova."
She sucked in a breath as if struck, and she would have collapsed if not sitting already. "No. I am Natasha Alianovna Romanova. I am not the Natalia."
"She was on a mission for the government, trying to find out what the American scum were trying to sell. Armaments. She was in the gray jumpsuit, changed her hair color to black to blend in better. But there was a bomb..."
They both sat there in pained silence, staring at each other.
"You truly are my grandfather, are you not?" Natasha whispered. She could not take the name Natalia. She could not.
He couldn't meet her eyes. "Natalia Maximovna Romanova looked like you, like your mother. She and I were very young. She was dramatic, had such flair. Insisted on being called Madame Natasha when she first became the Natalia. She would not allow herself to be bred too quickly, and she had sisters enough in the bloodline to allow that."
Natasha leaned forward, watching every nuance in his expression. "You loved her. My grandmother. And my mother. Maybe even me."
Now he looked at her, fierce and protective love in his eyes. "I am your handler."
"What happened to my grandmother?" Natasha asked gently. "My mother never told me."
"Madame Natasha was on a mission. Yet another arrogant American. They are all such arrogant pigs, hoping to feast upon the glory that is Russia. A marksman killed her. I could do nothing but watch as she bled to death on the floor in that disgusting man's arms, his own guards telling him of her deceit. Your mother was three."
"So young."
"She guessed at my identity. She was an Ivanova, after all."
"Did they allow it? For you to be my grandfather?"
"No. But it was too late, and she would have no other. She killed the men they tried to force on her, so they stopped trying."
Her gut twisted. Force. Helene had three children in as many years to strengthen the bloodline after her mother's shame. Had any of it been her choice?
"What happens to my mother now?"
"We don't get her body," Ivan replied, an undercurrent of anger in his tone. "She had no identification with her when she died, and we cannot claim her."
"Who set the bomb." It was not a request for information.
"Natalia-"
"Who set the bomb?!"
"We think it was SHIELD," Ivan sighed, head bowed. He was a broken man, she realized. He lost his love years ago, could not be father to his daughter, and lost her. He could never be the kindly grandfather from tales, could never give true comfort to Natasha.
But she didn't want it. She wanted revenge.
"Send me out."
"You are too young..."
"They will never suspect me. Send me out."
"Natalia," he tried again, but his voice faltered. Neither were comfortable with the name change.
"Mother Russia is to protect us as we protect her," Natasha parroted. She should go gentle now, but didn't have it in her. This was her grandfather, but he was a coward in the ways that truly mattered. "And we should have blood in return for blood."
Ivan couldn't meet her eyes. "We shall see."
"Send me out. I'm ready."
Now he met her eyes, an incredible sadness in them. "I know. But if you die, the entire bloodline is gone." His lover, his daughter, his granddaughter.
"I will not fail. I will not die."
It was not a boast.
He finally sent her out, and she charmed her way into the hotel where the bomb maker had been hiding. Without remorse, she flicked her wrist and out came the garrote, stretched tight around his throat and yanked tight before his fingers could get beneath it. Vasilissa would be so proud of her for using her technique. For good measure, once he was dead and collapsed in her arms, Natasha took up her knife and slit his throat deep enough to touch bone.
She could run, she thought as she stared down at the body. Ivan was in the lobby, pretending to read a newspaper as she pretended to use the restroom. She could run, she could hide. She didn't have to go back Inside, and that would honor her mother's request. She couldn't save Yelena, couldn't get any of the other girls out. There was no escaping the Inside to the Outside, not if the higher ups didn't want them to go. She wouldn't even be able to eventually choose her own lovers, and she could understand now why the former Yelena laughed as she bled to death, why she had chosen to become a mother and die so young. She left them her infant, but they couldn't have her any longer.
Was this why certain bloodlines have gotten so thin? They were too clever, wouldn't give over too many victims for the Inside?
Ivan had to come get her, and he seemed disturbed at the sight of the bloody body motionless at her feet. The moment of escape had passed, and she had to return to the Inside with Ivan. No words were exchanged between them; she merely took the hand he offered her as if she was the very small and trusting child that she wasn't.
It was not her first death, but it was her first killing Outside.
"They will give you more lessons now," Ivan told her quietly as they drove back. "You will get actual missions. Then when you are old enough, they will breed you."
"If I refuse their choices?"
"They will breed you. Whether you wish it or not."
"They would force me?" she asked incredulously.
"You need not be conscious," he replied, clearly unnerved.
"Would you help them do such a thing?" It was close to a traitorous statement, but it had to be asked. She had to know where he stood.
Ivan watched the road, the steering wheel caught in a white knuckled grip. "I will fight it with my last breath if I must."
Or we could leave, but this was likely too soon to say such things. She would have to tread carefully before saying it, but she would get him there.
I will get out, Mama, as I promised you. I can't take anyone else out, she told her mother in her mind, but I can make sure that never happens to me.
Natalia Alianovna Romanova was ten years old, but she was determined to escape.
The End
Series: #1 in The Secrets of the Red Room
Author: Eustacia Vye
Author's e-mail: eustacia_vye28@hotmail.com
Rating: PG
Pairings: none
Disclaimer: Not mine! Not even by a little bit. Takes place within the MCU-verse but is informed by comic books.
Author's Note: That image of the gurney and forceps in the Age of Ultron trailer had been used to point to Natasha's back story in the Red Room in the MCU. What if they were used on Natasha, but not in the way we think?
Summary: There had always been a Natalia Romanova, always a need for her special and deadly skills.
All she knew was Inside; the courtyards at recess were still Inside, and she was clever enough to realize that the slice of sky did not encompass all of Outside. She knew she wasn't allowed Outside, even if they called it having recess outside. That just meant the courtyards rather than the open areas further Inside.
Inside was a warren of rooms and hallways, twisting corridors and stairs and blind stops. There were the doctors and educators and handlers as well as the watchers, though she preferred the mothers and sisters. All was meant for the education, care and comfort of the twenty-eight lineages, the fine and proud tradition to be maintained for the glory of Mother Russia. It had been this way for generations, it would be this way for generations more.
She was lucky, in that she had her mother with her almost all the time. Her mother taught her things constantly, before the other girls often learned things. So when she was two, she knew her Cyrillic and Roman alphabets backward and forward, numbers to fifty, colors and shapes and a smattering of English in addition to her native baby's Russian. Her mother taught by example to watch her surroundings, keep the other girls in sight, avoid the mean ones with the hands quick to strike or the voices too ready to rise in anger. She knew by instinct to avoid the notice of the watchers and handlers, to scurry away from guards. Good or ill, she didn't want to stand out. Her red hair, brilliant green eyes and pale skin did that for her. Attention would not be good for her right then.
Formal lessons would come later: languages, math, history, science, hand to hand, weapons, tactics, open combat training. In the beginning, though, she had her mother, the quiet room they shared even though they had the whole of the Sixteenth Arcade at their disposal. They shared a room, a bed wide enough for the two of them; she loved hearing her mother's heartbeat, her mother's steady breathing. "I am here," they told her without words. She was learning the language of gestures, posture, expression. "You belong to me."
"You are a clever girl," her mother would whisper into her hair. They had the same coloring, same delicate, petite features. "Learn everything. Be quick, be strong. But don't let them know, not right away. Not until you want them to know. Keep your secrets," she told her softly, tapping her temple. "Secrets are important. Secrets are wanted. Secrets are currency. Keep your real self hidden behind layers. Protect yourself at all costs."
Of course, her mother was there to help. Her mother could teach her these things. Her mother was the Natalia Romanova, the Ivanova, and could teach little Natalia Alianovna Romanova how to protect herself from the Inside.
Most of the bloodlines had grown thin; the Marias and Olgas and Georgianas had plenty of girls each generation. Sometimes the others were thin because there were fewer girls born; only girls could stay Inside, and the boy babies simply disappeared. There were tales of one Tatiana that grew so despondent after her son was stolen from her that she refused to eat. Days of that, and the handlers came to put in a feeding tube. She roused herself only long enough to hang herself from the arcade rafters with it.
Whispers in the hallways, stories told. Generations past, always, always, not too close. Never too close, lest one of the girls ask around to see who might have known that particular girl in the bloodline. It would hurt too much to ask that kind of thing.
But Natasha, the little Natalia, always listened, always talked with her mother. Her mother was Natalia Ivanova, she was Natalia Alianovna. She knew her mother's handler occasionally asked her who Alian was, where he could be found. But her mother never answered, made sure to appear weak and in need of her sisters' support.
Natasha had been born Inside, as all girls of the bloodline were. But her birth had come on more suddenly than expected, and the doctor had been roused from a dead sleep to attend to the Natalia. Natasha had been born with little difficulty, as slippery as a fish, nearly landing neatly into the nurse's hands. But the doctor, more asleep than awake, had used the forceps he had brought on Natalia, and more than just the afterbirth came out. He had ripped out her womb in its entirety, rendering her sterile, introducing massive infection and trauma, and her handler had ordered her to remain at rest Inside, rather than immediately assign her missions Outside once she was able to walk without bleeding.
That had happened to a Minerva once, and she had never returned. They said she likely bled to death Outside, and was glad of it.
There was no way to make up the loss to Natalia, and her handler asked what just punishment would be. The doctor would lose his life, that was without question; no one harmed a bloodline member with impunity, and the handlers of course wanted to show that Mother Russia would protect the bloodlines just as they protected Mother Russia. So his head was set on display on a golden platter, and he was replaced by someone less prone to drinking and deeply sleeping in times when an emergency could arise.
Natasha learned this story when she was six, when the Yelena was large and round with child, even when she was practically a child herself. She refused to name the father, even when struck and punished, even when starved for three days in the punishment box, even when whipped in front of the other girls for failures in her missions. She did not open her lips, and there was a desperate shine in her eyes.
"Watch her," Natasha had whispered to Natasha. "Yelena Nicholaevna Belova will escape this place, but this is not the escape I want for you."
It was the first time Natalia had mentioned escape, and that was a secret Natasha kept with her others.
Yelena was not as slight as Natalia, her hair a bright yellow and her eyes a piercing blue. Her chin was sharp and pointed, her lips perfect but often caught in a sneer. She kept the baby, laughing when the doctor told her she tore badly and could bleed to death. She kept laughing, still refusing to name to father, and died of blood loss after knocking out the doctor and threatening to harm the nurses if they helped her.
So the tiny baby girl, freshly born, became the Yelena Belova, no patronymic to mark her as an individual. But with no other Yelenas, she didn't need it anyway.
The Tatiana was nursing a baby at the time, so she gave suck to the neonate. But Natasha asked to watch and play with the baby. The Tatiana had three other daughters to look after, so Natalia and Natasha raised Yelena most of the time.
But the private lessons, the whispers and the secrets... Those were for Natasha alone.
"The former Yelena was a girl still," Natalia whispered to Natasha. "She never liked being the Yelena. They will make sure this one does, that this one is certain she will do everything to the liking of her handlers. Watch."
Natasha looked at her mother with wide eyes. "You don't like being the Natalia, do you?"
"Someday, you will understand many things. Remember about secrets?" Natasha had nodded, tapping her temple gently. "I carry a great many of them. I give you the ones I can, and I will carry some until you are ready for them."
"Will it hurt?" Natasha asked, frowning.
"Secrets? Ah, it depends on the secret."
"Mama," Natasha whispered, frightened, clutching her mother's hand.
"Learn your lessons, keep them like secrets, buried deep, where even unmaking you won't erase them. Learn what I teach you, what they teach you. Always remember that I love you, I want what's best for you. And what's best for you isn't here Inside, but Outside, beyond their walls, beyond their missions."
The handlers and watchers would say this was treason, this was punishable. They would want to know about this, punish Natalia.
"They erase what they don't like, don't they?" Natasha asked fearfully.
"Clever girl. Yes, they do. They don't protect us. They control us. We are tools for them, expendable, breedable tools."
Her voice was bitter, bitter. Had she loved Alian, whoever he was? Was that why she guarded the secret of his identity so jealously?
"Remember to protect yourself always, to hide your true self behind layers of false selves. If you show them what they wish to see, they won't delve deeper. If they don't look, don't know that there's more, that there are still secrets to find, you will be safe."
As in, the handlers and watchers couldn't be trusted. None of them could. Not even the other bloodlines Inside. No one.
"If you have an opportunity to escape, ever, you take it. Don't think twice about me here, I forgive you everything and tell you to go. Know that I would give anything, even my life, to keep you safe and sound." Natalia's gaze was intense, almost frightening. "Know in your bones that I love you, my daughter, and there is no greater gift than that."
"I love you, too," Natasha whispered.
Would someone take Natalia away for this? Natasha made sure to keep the secret, keep watch, keep silent. It was the only weapon she had against the fear.
There were only girls Inside, generations of girls. No boys, and the only men allowed inside were handlers and watchers. No explanation given, not even in the stories about generations ago, when the Inside was first created. But perhaps there never needed to be a story like that; the girls sometimes locked themselves in their rooms together, sometimes with those handlers and watchers. Natasha sometimes heard them, could never tell if their desperate cries were pleasure or pain, wanted or not.
She stayed invisible, little, as perfect as possible. She never gave anyone reason to question her if she could.
Observations were important, especially for the bloodlines that Natalia and Natasha worked with regularly. Someday it might save her life.
The Olgas and Marias and Georgianas were many, and to a girl all thought themselves important for that. The Veras were largely indifferent, the scholars that would one day shift the world on its axis. The Tatianas were nice, disparate looking girls that helped out a good number of the other bloodlines. The Anastasias were regal in appearance, but sneaky as all hell and generally couldn't be trusted with anything important; they were in the pockets of the handlers, too eager to secure their own safety. Yelena right now was nothing more than a baby, but the bloodline was known for its unflinching loyalty.
The Vasilissa had hidden nervous tics; she ripped at her fingers, peeling the skin away from her cuticles and fingertips past the lines of the first joint, leaving scar tissue in its wake. She was beautiful, but her fingerprints only existed visually; the scar tissue left nothing but a smear when showing the little ones how to make hand print butterflies. She had no identity, nothing aside from Inside. Oh, her hands were nimble and flexible, she had no difficulty advising the older girls how best to flick out a garrote wire from a gauntlet or remove a hidden knife. But her fears didn't escape her in words or fluttering hands, in looks or panic attacks. No, she simply destroyed her fingertip skin methodically and steadily, as if peeling back the layers would somehow reveal who she truly was.
She taught Natasha without words that there could be little rebellions, open secrets no one talked about or acted upon.
Another open secret turned out to be the existence of families aside from the bloodlines. Natalia's handler was Ivan, a man with chiseled features and a dour expression. They spoke rapidly in French, a language Natasha hadn't quite gotten quite so facile with yet. Finally Natalia switched back to Russian. "You are my father. Is there nothing you can do to help me?"
He had no reaction to the accusation, but suddenly Natalia's patronymic made sense. Natalia knew her father, Natasha knew her grandfather.
"You have not been sent on missions for years after you should have been. Of course I have helped you."
It sank in after a moment. They wanted to send Natalia Outside. There were many dangers Outside, and Natasha would not be able to help her there.
"There are others who can look after the little one while you are away. It's good practice for her."
"Father-"
"Ivan," he corrected. "To you, I am no more than Ivan Petrovich." His voice was cold, pitiless.
"I see. You've made your point Ivan," Natasha hissed, eyes flashing. "As ever, it is clear where you stand."
"If you reveal the identity of Alian, I could do more," Ivan replied smoothly.
"You know all you need to on the subject."
Her voice was positively glacial, something Natasha had never heard before. It told her much about the Inside and what these missions Outside were like. It also showed how little regard Natalia had for the Inside and their tactics.
She was seven, had her days full of lessons and whispers, dance and music. Natasha knew she was being trained and shaped into something, and she wasn't entirely sure what it would be.
There had always been a Natalia Romanova, always a need for her special and deadly skills.
When alone, Natasha asked Natalia about Alian. "Why does it matter so much who he is?"
"Because they didn't choose him, I did. They wanted to use their precious breeding program, and I ruined it." She sounded so proud of herself, Natasha couldn't help but grin at her.
"What can you tell me about him?" she asked, fascinated.
"You look nothing like him, but you share your determination and strength with him. He always wanted to do the right thing, no matter what, and wanted to protect innocent people."
"Wanted?"
"I haven't seen him since before you were born. I have no idea where he is, or if he's even alive. But I know he would be so proud of you."
An awful thought occurred to Natasha. "They would hurt him if you told them about him, wouldn't they?"
Natalia nodded gravely. "Yes, I believe they would. Because they couldn't force their choice on me."
"I thought they were supposed to protect us?"
"But who protects us from them?"
Good question, and they had no answers for it.
So Natalia was sent Outside and Natasha was sent to even more classes. Little Yelena looked up to her, fingers in her mouth and eyes wide. There was no way to pass along Natalia's lessons to her; Natasha didn't know how Natalia had started it when she was little, and with Yelena between multiple arcades, there was no way to reinforce what she had to keep silent about. So she thought of her fellow bloodlines as sisters and thought the nickname Rooskaya was delightful, and was proud to be part of the Inside.
Natasha's heart broke a little for Yelena, who had nothing and no one else, and didn't know how to look for the truth behind all the secrets that lay thick on the floor.
There was no way to mourn this, not with her classes growing harder, with more interactions with the other bloodlines. She looked critically at how the other arcades operated, didn't like what she saw. It didn't take much for her to suspect the Helene of unspeakable harms to the little Lina, only five; she made sure to be nervous around Ivan at one of his frequent inspections in Natalia's absence. "Ivan," she said, licking her lips and scuffing her toes. "I think little Lina is getting hurt in her arcade. She said no, and I don't see bruises on her arms, but she doesn't act right and she doesn't play with Yelena anymore."
Ivan was dismissive of her concern, as she knew he would be. "It's just little girlish squabbles."
"Please, Ivan? It feels wrong. Please, check on Lina?"
Two weeks later, the Helene was brought into the public square, sobbing as she was brought to the maypole. Her wrists were bound together, facing the pole, and she was stripped to the waist to be flogged publicly. "You have betrayed your bloodline, brought shame to your name and done harm to a child of the Red Room," her handler intoned for all to hear. The Red Room? "Fifty lashes, one per incident you have confessed to, and you will no longer be the Helene. Helene Sergeevna Raskolnikova, your name is to be stripped from the glories of your bloodline, and the name is to be passed down to Helene Vissarionova Raskolnikova."
The new Helene was tall, her blonde hair pulled severely back, her slate blue eyes unflinching as they took in her mother's beating. When it was over, she looked to her new handler and stood straight and calm. "I will have no shame within my arcade, Vladimir."
The former Helene wailed and called after her oldest daughter, but the new Helene would not be swayed. Her back shredded by the lashes, she could only fall to her knees and weep when she was cut free of the pole. The other bloodlines all stepped wide around her, leaving her in the open to retreat to their own arcades. Natasha had Yelena incessantly asking questions about it, about what the punishment was for and why she was hurt. She answered as best as she could, but she was only seven; the new Helene was twenty-one already, and likely would have supplanted the old Helene soon anyway.
Come to think of it, there were no old women Inside among the bloodlines. Their teachers could be old, and Madame teaching ballet was quite old indeed. There came whispers about the new Helene being ready to be bred soon, that she would have to toe the line tightly to remove the stain of the former Helene's actions.
How much hidden cruelty had there been in that arcade?
Ivan found her after Yelena's nap, a thoughtful expression on his face. "I did not believe you."
"I know you didn't."
"But you were right."
"I trusted you to take care of us," Natasha lied, expression betraying none of her innermost thoughts. She looked up at him with big, innocent eyes. "Little Lina is a good girl, a good playmate for Yelena. I don't like seeing her and knowing something bad is happening."
"Your instincts are good," Ivan said quietly. "That should be rewarded."
"Rewarded?" she had asked, frowning prettily at him. "I'm only seven."
He had laughed. "Special classes, as befitting a Natalia Romanova. Yours is a special bloodline, Natasha. Very special indeed."
When she returned sporting bruises in the shape of a man's hand, Natalia warned her to be careful. "You cannot trust him."
"I don't. But Lina was being hurt, I knew it. And I had to make it stop."
Natalia smiled and gathered up Natasha in her arms. "My darling girl. I love you. I love you. Love is for children, Natasha. Very soon, they will ensure you are no longer a child."
"And then what?"
She looked meaningfully at her arm, the florid bruise glaring against her pale skin. "Those could be yours instead of mine."
Because her lessons were shaping her into something else, something dangerous, and she carried secrets beneath her skin like blood. Because she was clever, and had already seen how she could manipulate her handler, how she could bypass the watchers.
Because her mother wanted her to escape someday, and she would never be able to take Natalia or Yelena with her.
The years spun by quickly, filled with lessons and missions and midnight talks. Yelena could not be trusted with them, not when she smiled at the very promise of praise and spilled her baby secrets so quickly. Her handler was now introduced, and she had nothing but adoration for him after he brought her ices and frilly dresses to wear. She was four, then five, then six, and she couldn't know, didn't realize, but Natasha had realized it all when she was three. Why was Yelena not so clever? Why couldn't she see it?
Natasha knew something was wrong when she was called out of her hand to hand classes and brought to Ivan's office by one of the watchers. She was ten, and stood tall and straight before his desk, even if she was the smallest in stature in her class. Her grades were the best for her age, her moves quick and efficient. She fought dirty if she had to, but always stayed within the rules set by the instructors. There was never fault found with her work.
Ivan had her sit, the lines deep and heavy in his face. "You are the new Natalia Romanova."
She sucked in a breath as if struck, and she would have collapsed if not sitting already. "No. I am Natasha Alianovna Romanova. I am not the Natalia."
"She was on a mission for the government, trying to find out what the American scum were trying to sell. Armaments. She was in the gray jumpsuit, changed her hair color to black to blend in better. But there was a bomb..."
They both sat there in pained silence, staring at each other.
"You truly are my grandfather, are you not?" Natasha whispered. She could not take the name Natalia. She could not.
He couldn't meet her eyes. "Natalia Maximovna Romanova looked like you, like your mother. She and I were very young. She was dramatic, had such flair. Insisted on being called Madame Natasha when she first became the Natalia. She would not allow herself to be bred too quickly, and she had sisters enough in the bloodline to allow that."
Natasha leaned forward, watching every nuance in his expression. "You loved her. My grandmother. And my mother. Maybe even me."
Now he looked at her, fierce and protective love in his eyes. "I am your handler."
"What happened to my grandmother?" Natasha asked gently. "My mother never told me."
"Madame Natasha was on a mission. Yet another arrogant American. They are all such arrogant pigs, hoping to feast upon the glory that is Russia. A marksman killed her. I could do nothing but watch as she bled to death on the floor in that disgusting man's arms, his own guards telling him of her deceit. Your mother was three."
"So young."
"She guessed at my identity. She was an Ivanova, after all."
"Did they allow it? For you to be my grandfather?"
"No. But it was too late, and she would have no other. She killed the men they tried to force on her, so they stopped trying."
Her gut twisted. Force. Helene had three children in as many years to strengthen the bloodline after her mother's shame. Had any of it been her choice?
"What happens to my mother now?"
"We don't get her body," Ivan replied, an undercurrent of anger in his tone. "She had no identification with her when she died, and we cannot claim her."
"Who set the bomb." It was not a request for information.
"Natalia-"
"Who set the bomb?!"
"We think it was SHIELD," Ivan sighed, head bowed. He was a broken man, she realized. He lost his love years ago, could not be father to his daughter, and lost her. He could never be the kindly grandfather from tales, could never give true comfort to Natasha.
But she didn't want it. She wanted revenge.
"Send me out."
"You are too young..."
"They will never suspect me. Send me out."
"Natalia," he tried again, but his voice faltered. Neither were comfortable with the name change.
"Mother Russia is to protect us as we protect her," Natasha parroted. She should go gentle now, but didn't have it in her. This was her grandfather, but he was a coward in the ways that truly mattered. "And we should have blood in return for blood."
Ivan couldn't meet her eyes. "We shall see."
"Send me out. I'm ready."
Now he met her eyes, an incredible sadness in them. "I know. But if you die, the entire bloodline is gone." His lover, his daughter, his granddaughter.
"I will not fail. I will not die."
It was not a boast.
He finally sent her out, and she charmed her way into the hotel where the bomb maker had been hiding. Without remorse, she flicked her wrist and out came the garrote, stretched tight around his throat and yanked tight before his fingers could get beneath it. Vasilissa would be so proud of her for using her technique. For good measure, once he was dead and collapsed in her arms, Natasha took up her knife and slit his throat deep enough to touch bone.
She could run, she thought as she stared down at the body. Ivan was in the lobby, pretending to read a newspaper as she pretended to use the restroom. She could run, she could hide. She didn't have to go back Inside, and that would honor her mother's request. She couldn't save Yelena, couldn't get any of the other girls out. There was no escaping the Inside to the Outside, not if the higher ups didn't want them to go. She wouldn't even be able to eventually choose her own lovers, and she could understand now why the former Yelena laughed as she bled to death, why she had chosen to become a mother and die so young. She left them her infant, but they couldn't have her any longer.
Was this why certain bloodlines have gotten so thin? They were too clever, wouldn't give over too many victims for the Inside?
Ivan had to come get her, and he seemed disturbed at the sight of the bloody body motionless at her feet. The moment of escape had passed, and she had to return to the Inside with Ivan. No words were exchanged between them; she merely took the hand he offered her as if she was the very small and trusting child that she wasn't.
It was not her first death, but it was her first killing Outside.
"They will give you more lessons now," Ivan told her quietly as they drove back. "You will get actual missions. Then when you are old enough, they will breed you."
"If I refuse their choices?"
"They will breed you. Whether you wish it or not."
"They would force me?" she asked incredulously.
"You need not be conscious," he replied, clearly unnerved.
"Would you help them do such a thing?" It was close to a traitorous statement, but it had to be asked. She had to know where he stood.
Ivan watched the road, the steering wheel caught in a white knuckled grip. "I will fight it with my last breath if I must."
Or we could leave, but this was likely too soon to say such things. She would have to tread carefully before saying it, but she would get him there.
I will get out, Mama, as I promised you. I can't take anyone else out, she told her mother in her mind, but I can make sure that never happens to me.
Natalia Alianovna Romanova was ten years old, but she was determined to escape.
The End