look after you × winterwidow & oc

IV. that is not my story

Romanoff set two bottles of beer and a can of soda on a table before taking place opposite them.

"That gas, the counteragent," Yelena started when Katya went back to her previous place on Natasha's side. "It was synthesized in secret by an older Widow from Melina's generation. I was on a mission to retrieve it and she exposed me and I killed the widow that freed me."

"Did you have a choice?" Natasha asked, looking away from what Katya was sketching on some leaflet.

"What you experienced was psychological conditioning," Yelena explained. "I'm talking about chemically altering brain functions. You're fully conscious, but you don't know which part is you." that statement made Natasha think about someone else, currently waiting for her hundreds of miles away. Yelena shrugged. "I'm still not sure."

Katya tried not to listen when the blonde started talking about Dreykov taking more every day, about all of these defenseless kids. She grimaced when she heard the numbers. One in twenty. She pressed the pencil harder to the thin page, almost through it.

"To him, we are just things. Weapons with no face that he just throw away. Because there's always more."

The pencil cracked in Katya's pale hand, surprisingly loud, bringing Natasha and Yelena's attention back to her. The girl didn't meet their eyes. Neither Romanoff's worried ones nor Belova's confused ones. She looked away instead, to the playing kids. Something in her wanted to join them. It was only a few days but she already missed playing with Cooper. This wasn't as fun as she thought it would be.

One of the boys run to his father, calling out to him before jumping into his arms. "Did you ever look for your parents? Your real ones?" Yelena asked, the broken pencil quickly forgotten.

"Well, my mom abandoned me in street like garbage." Natasha shrugged and took a sip out of her bottle, letting that one sentence speak for itself. That Katya did know. Remembering the look on Mama's face when she first asked about her parents made her regret doing so to this day. "What about you?"

"They destroyed my birth certificate, so I reinvented it," Yelena admitted, tipping the bottle and touching the tip of her nose with it. "My parents still live in Ohio. My sister moved out west. You're a science teacher. You're working part-time, though, especially after you had your son. Your husband, he renovates houses."

"That is not my story." Natasha shook her head with a smile tugging on the corner of her lips.

Yelena let out a laugh. "Yeah, I guess I should change some things. Swap the son for a daughter, for instance," she said, cocking an eyebrow at Katya.

The girl's forehead scrunched and she looked at Natasha. She smiled at her with a sigh.
"Yeah, I was waiting for you to tell me yourself, but that would take too much time." Belova shrugged. "I wanted to ask if you ever wished for kids but I guess I have the answer in front of me."

"You have any idea what she's talking about?" Romanoff jokingly asked Katya.

The girl shook her head, stifling a laugh but not a grin "None."

"Come on, maybe I had a mother for three years only, but I'm not that dumb." Yelena protested. "The way you keep looking at each other, how you protect her, that constant worry. And the matching necklaces? That's so cute it's disgusting. And that also explains why you are such a mom. Because you are one."

With the secret out, Natasha embraced the girl, pulling her closer. Katya scrunched her nose and kept her head on Romanoff's shoulder even when she let her arm fall down.

"So what's the story here?" Yelena propped her elbows on the table and then her chin on a closed fist. "She was in the Red Room too, right?"

"She was born there." Natasha sighed, her smile faltering a bit. "It's a long and complicated story for another time. Most of it at least ."