Russian Flower [1] EDITING

6 - Romanova

"Are you sure this is going to be okay?"

Bryce was very concerned after hearing about my mission. I did not blame him, anyone who was once a Widow was extremely dangerous. But I am a trained Widow too. If all else failed, I could fall back onto my abilities.

"Yes, Bryce. I'll be okay. Besides, Natalia Romanova does not scare me," I spoke proudly.

Bryce paused as he bit his lip. "You do know who Natalia Romanova is right?"

I chuckled slightly at his concern for me, "I know she is a Widow who escaped the Red Room. They just want me to go kill her before she causes anymore issues for them."

"Arina, Natalia Romanova is Natasha Romanoff. She is the Black Widow on the Avengers," Bryce explained to me.

I felt my heart drop. I had heard the rumors of a former Widow joining the Avengers, but I have been trapped in the Red Room since I was four. Of course I did not know immediately who was in the Avengers. But, even the girls of the Red Room knew who they were and that they were the enemy.

"It's a death sentence," I muttered to myself.

"Hey, you're going to be okay," he spoke softly to me as he brushed a piece of dark hair out of my face.

I shook my head lightly because both of us knew there was a good chance I would not be. He came over and sat next to me on my old bed as he waited for me to say anything.

"I heard Madame speaking to Dreykov the other day. She was talking about giving this serum to us. They haven't had to use it on us before, but she says as we get older we're more at risk of rebelling," I revealed to him.

I am pretty sure me and Bryce were the only ones who were not under their mind control at this point. They trusted me since I had been here since I was a small child, and Bryce was, for the most part, an obedient soldier to them.

Bryce said nothing to my statement. He knew that our lives were going downhill fast here. We were both aware of that, but we also both knew that we could not escape.

"You're birthday is coming up," he tried to lighten the mood.

"Yeah, it is," I smiled slightly at his attempt to distract us from our current situation. "I haven't celebrated it since before I got brought here. Birthdays just haven't been important."

"How old are you turning again?" he asked.

"I'll be twenty."

"Twenty is a big age. We need to celebrate. You won't be a teenager anymore," he tried to cheer me up as he smiled at me.

"I don't know how you plan to celebrate. We'll either be in training or on a mission."

"I don't know how, but I do know that we are going to celebrate," he stood up from his seat next to me.

He placed a kiss on my forehead as he began to leave.

"Goodnight, Arina," he called back to me as he pushed my door open.

"Goodnight, Bryce."

He shut the door behind him, and I was left alone to think of how tomorrow could be my last mission. How it was very possible I could not make it to twenty. If I was captured, the Red Room would find me and put a bullet in my head. There was no room for failure, no misstep, everything had to go perfectly tomorrow if I still wanted to be alive. I sighed as I took a hand cuff and latched it around my wrist and then latched it to the bed frame. I stared up at the ceiling as I hoped that I could get some rest that night.

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This was the worst plan the Red Room could have ever come up with. They wanted me to attack the woman in New York City. There's too many witnesses, too many places to hide, and too much for her to use against me. However, they did not limit me on what weapons I could use or when I needed to attack her.

So, my plan was simple. I had been following her for days now as I tried to figure out her routine in the city. She alternated between the Avenger's Tower and the Upstate facility. The only good thing was that the other Avengers stayed Upstate, so that would cause less headache for me.

Right now, I was watching her as she maneuvered her car into one of the parking spaces outside of a coffee shop. This was not apart of her normal routine, but the cafe was close to the tower, so it was not too weird.

My fingers traced over the sniper rifle I had in my hand. I figured this was the perfect time to strike as she had strayed away from any Avenger facility where I could be easily caught. She sat outside at one of the tables as she took a sip from her coffee. I was laid down on top of an adjacent building. I worked quickly as I prepped my weapon and peered over the edge. She was still oblivious to my existence. I lifted the gun to aim at her. I looked at her through the scope as I began to line up my shot.

She took another sip of coffee then her eyes cast upwards towards my direction. She locked eyes with me. Realizing I was compromised, I began to fire, when I felt a gun be pressed against the back of my skull. I stiffened as reality came crashing down.

"You're not going to want to fire that," a male voice spoke. "You're surrounded. We've got twenty people with weapons pointed at you."

My eyes glanced around and saw several guns fixed on me from various locations. How could I have been so ignorant?

"I'd advise taking your hand off the trigger."

Reluctantly, I moved my hand from the trigger for him to grab it and twist both my arms behind me and secure them in hand cuffs.

"Let's go," he hoisted me off the ground and began to pull me one direction.

At this point, I knew my failure and what it would cost when the Red Room got their hands on me.