Time Heals All Wounds

Prologue 1

Flashback- age 7('02)

She was tired. That's all that went through Irina's head as she practiced her steps over and over. Her tiny muscles ached, her feet were bleeding, but she knew. One falter, one mistake, and she was done. So, when Madame B called her by name, she did not break her position until she was yanked out of it by Madame herself. " You are dismissed." she said, and Irina was confused. There was no " dismissal", or "end" to her sessions. She wished there was, but there wasn't. Two guards shook her back into reality as they walked her up and down hallways, until she reached an empty room. " Get dressed" the guards told her, throwing in a hospital gown. She caught it, and changed with a pit forming in her stomach. She was 7, not stupid; she knew she was about to become a lab rat. She came out of the room, twisting the necklace she had had since birth. Natasha and Yelena told her it was from her parents after her birth, but she had no recollection of it. The guards took her inside a lab where she was put on a table and was strapped down. Most people would scream at that point, but she knew it would not do her any good. So, she stayed quiet, and prayed Yelena and Natasha would be okay after she died. Irina already knew death was coming. No one was telling her what was going on, but one of the scientists, a woman, was staring at her, and it made Irina uncomfortable. The woman started prepping her arm for the needle, and for some reason, she felt familiar to the tiny 7 year old. She looked into the woman's eyes, the only part of her face not covered at that moment, and asked a question quietly: "what is happening?" The woman didn't answer, and why would she? She was probably being watched right at the moment. She just shook her head, and prepped what looked like a huge needle to the 7 year old. The last thing she heard before she fell under was the scientist woman telling Irina, "I love you little warrior".

PAIN. That was all the little 7 year old felt for the next few weeks. She was in a cold lonely cell, missing her sisters, and wishing they could comfort her. By now they probably thought she was dead. Hell, she wished she was dead. She had no idea what they had put into her, all she knew was that it wasn't good. No one had come to see her the last few weeks, or so she thought, so she assumed that it hadn't worked whatever they had injected into her throughout her stay. All she wanted were her sisters, but they weren't here. She looked around her cell, and noticed her arms. Irina's veins were red, which they had not been a couple weeks earlier. She was upset; her sisters probably thought she was dead, and now she looked like she was dying with the red in her veins. Her hands turned into fists, and out of impulse she punched the door to her cell. Instead of her hand breaking like she thought it would, the door fell instead. She was met with the shocked faces of the lab workers, and Dreykov who smiled at her, causing her to tense at the leering attention he gave her. She knew that after that day, nothing would be the same.

Flashback- 3 years later('05)

Irina was 10, both physically and mentally. Apparently the serum would not kick in until after she had reached puberty, according to the scientists anyways. Things were as normal as you could get in the Red Room. She trained, she fought, she killed, but with one key difference: she had to do it MORE than everyone else because of her new abilities. They wanted her to become their 'little vampire assassin' as they called it. She did not want that for herself, but she had no choice in the matter. At least she had her sisters, who would clean her blood off when she came back drenched, who would hug her when she cried silently in her bed, and who would give her shit when she was being too crazy. They protected her, and kept her safe. Her family kept her safe though she didn't realize how far that would extend. Life wasn't great by any means, but it was better with her sisters there with her to help through it all. Until one brutal winter morning when Yelena and Irina woke up to find Natasha gone.

The Red Room went ballistic after the escape, and Irina was almost sent to go retrieve her. ALMOST. They deemed it unimportant for now. But to Yelena and Irina, it was the ultimate offense. They had promised each other they would always be there for each other, no matter what. That they would never leave each other. Yet, when Natasha was sent out, she escaped, and defected to the other side. They thought she would come to get them, but soon Yelena gave up, and it was only after 4 months when Irina had lost hope in the older sister she had relied on since her birth. Yelena and Irina knew one thing: when they found Natasha (and they would find her) she would pay.

Flashback- 13 years old ('08)

The serum had begun to take effect. She could feel it- the change in her body. The sign that after this year, she would not age normally. So many things were beginning including The plan, as she called it. She saw what it was doing- the mind control serum. She heard them talking about it during her training. And she was hiding within the school; doing what she had to, to survive. You see- the serum did not work on her; they could not control her except through fear. But take the fear away, and they had nothing. And in the Red Room, if you couldn't be controlled, you couldn't be alive. So, she hid, and pretended to be as mindless as everyone else. The Plan was her escape from this shithole. She and Yelena had always planned on escaping together, but that wasn't possible now, and with things in chaos after Natasha's stunt in Budapest, she knew it was her only chance. Yelena had told her if things went south to escape; " I'll find you" she had said. So, with that belief in mind, it began.

She snuck her way through the maze that was the Red Room, and saw the two guards at the exit. Using her telekinesis she threw some of the metal poles above onto them. They fell unconscious immediately. She ran to the edge, where the door was locked with a fingerprint, and access code lock. She used one of the guards for the fingerprint, but the access code she could not figure out. So, with her super strength, she ripped the door off its hinges, and was met with snow. Snow for miles, and nothing else. The alarm had already been sounded for her, and she could hear the sounds of quick feet in the distance. Irina thought that it was better to die free than to die captive. She looked back, seeing Yelena in the distance, a blank look on her face, and a gun in hand. She started shooting, and Irina ran into the unfeeling winter ahead.