Black Widow

Natasha

"You move faster, hit harder. Now shoot, again. And this time, you better hit the bullseye."

Natasha sat in the darkness of an underground train. Fluorescent lights raced by outside, cutting slashes of light through the darkness of the train.

She screamed as they injected another serum into her, as pain exploded through her veins. She was eight.

Natasha looked at the young girl stand at one of the bars along the train car, grasping her mother's hand tightly. Her face stayed blank.

"Black Widow, a beautiful title for a beautiful woman," Drakov inclined his head slightly, "You have grown into such a lovely, dangerous woman, my daughter."

Natasha flinched at the words. She had turned twelve that day, and been made to interrogate a young girl, and beat her if the girl wouldn't give her answers. The girl hadn't given her answers.

A bell rang and a voice spoke in Hungarian as the train came to a halt and the door slid open. Natasha took her suitcase, a nondescript, black case, not memorable, not recognizable. For some reason, they were pulling out all the stops to make sure Natasha stayed safe this time.

Not that they needed to. Natasha was a highly trained spy, fluent in seventeen different languages, black belt in karate, A++ in thirteen different kinds of hand to hand combat.

"The first time is always the hardest," Alexis said, patting Natasha's shoulder.

She sat on her tiny bed in her bare room, tears streaming down her face. She had just killed someone, put a bullet through a man's head. Because Drakov had told her to.

Natasha's heeled boots clacked on the cobblestones as she passed through a bright sunlit square. All around her were normal people, doing normal things. None of them were on their way to assassinate an enemy of Russia.

"Beautiful work, my darling," Drakov said, patting the top of Natasha's head as though she were a dog.

She stepped through the hotel doors. It was a sumptuous place, well decorated and rich looking. All around her, wealthy people pull suitcases along, or sat to the side of the indoor courtyard, reading and sipping drinks.

"Your mother was a volatile, destructive woman. She wouldn't even marry me and take on the name Drakov. So, once she had you, a little baby Romanoff, I killed her. Naturally it had to look like an accident, but no one knows. Naturally, as you know, sometimes we have to make choices in this line of work."

Natasha looked up to meet Drakov's eyes, "My mother was probably a wonderful person. Better than you could ever be."

She fell back, her cheek stinging as Drakov slapped her. "Never say something like that again," he hissed, "I'm the only person you have left. The only one who cares about you."

Natasha kept her face straight. She hid the emotions inside her. The rampant memories. Just like she always had. She unlocked the door to her hotel room and stepped inside, closed it behind her, pushed the deadbolts into place.

It was a large room, the entire opposite wall to the door glass, with a door out to the balcony. The bed was on the wall beside the door, and across from it was a buffet with a fridge and a large flatscreen tv.

Natasha went out onto the balcony and looked down. The city of Budapest spread out before her, skyscrapers sparkling in the light of the sunset. Down below on the hotel terrace was the pool. Natasha loved swimming. It was a way for her to just think, burn off energy without hurting anyone. Something she couldn't do here.

She couldn't swim tonight, it was too late. But tomorrow, she would.  And then she would take out her target.