Natasha tossed and turned, unable to find sleep.
"Something wrong?" Bucky murmured sleepily.
"You were right," Natasha said, turning over to face Bucky.
"Hm?"
"You were right. I was wrong. No one's going to shoot Steve in the knee."
"Widow, what are you talking about?"
"What Ramonda said at the table today, I can't stop thinking about it."
Bucky furrowed his eyebrows. "T'Challa is afraid of nothing but Nakia?"
"No. About wanting her grandchildren."
"Oh . . . ohh . . . OH!"
"You were right and I was wrong. I want one."
"Oh!" Bucky said again, seemingly unable to make any other sound.
"Are you just going to lay there and make me feel like an idiot until daylight?"
"No. I'm just . . . you caught me by surprise. I wasn't expecting that. You can't blame me. I was still half-asleep."
"Sorry," Natasha murmured sheepishly.
"It's okay," Bucky said, moving closer towards the middle of the bed and pulling Natasha towards him. "Shuri wants to be an aunt, you know, maybe even more than Ramonda wants to be a grandmother. While you were playing villain with the kids a few days ago, Shuri came to make sure I'm still not going to snap back into mindless-mode, as she calls it. She was just talking, about anything. Like her mother, she complained about the fact that T'Challa is still yet to ask Nakia to marry him. It made me laugh then, how she said she would hack into adoption agency databases if she had to."
Natasha smiled and burrowed closer against Bucky. "Hm, you can ask her about that in the morning. For now, be quiet and go to sleep."
"Oh, now you're tired? After you woke me up?"
"I love you," she sang softly, closing her eyes and drifting off. Bucky kissed the top of her head before closing his eyes as well. "Love you too, Natalia."
~~||~~
"This is difficult with a capital D," Shuri complained as Nakia walked in.
"Guess I'll come back later."
Shuri smiled at the woman. "No, I've got time. What is it?"
"Looking for you. Okoye and I learnt how to execute a new prank, and we were planning on using your brother as a victim. I came to ask if you'd like to film it."
"Absolutely."
"Not now!" Nakia said quickly when Shuri stood up at once. "What are you doing that's so difficult?"
Shuri pointed at the couple sitting at one of her tables -- nearly on top of each other -- as they discussed something. It was a miracle Bucky hadn't fallen yet, seeing as the only arm he had was not really doing much in the way of support.
"Choosing a child is hard, because what is the criteria? What makes one a better choice than another? How do you look at an array of children and pick one out?"
Nakia frowned.
"They want to adopt a child," Shuri explained.
"Oh!"
Nakia joined them. Okoye arrived a few minutes later to find out what happened to Nakia, and she too sat down.
Shuri had never allowed so many people into her own space at once before, so when Ramonda looked in an noticed a whole group, she came to inquire and ended up sitting with them.
T'Challa looked at the amount of women in the room -- and Bucky -- who all had the tendency to roast his royal behind, and walked straight past.
Okoye stood up suddenly. "What about her?" she asked, swiping an image from her bracelet to full view for everyone to see. The Wakandan women crowded around Bucky and Natasha.
"Her name is Anastasia, and she's Russian, for starters," Okoye said, "she's already six years old."
"Widow, look."
Natasha read off the hologram what Bucky pointed at.
"Her mother was a Red Room escapee."
"There's no way that thing is still operational. It should've been dead for the last twenty years."
"Anastasia wasn't her first child, though," Shuri said, also reading through the information, "she had another, died in a failed assassination of the father, an assassin himself that once worked against the KGB. Some unlisted programme."
"Are her parents still alive?" Ramonda asked.
"Body of the father discovered in a lake weeks before her birth," Nakia said, "mother died weeks after. It's just the little girl."
"What do you think?" Bucky asked Natasha, who seemed captivated by the photo of a young girl with brown curls and light eyes.
"I can fix a meeting," Shuri said, "we will be able to get you there and back without the rest of the world laying eyes on you."
Natasha gave Shuri a nod before turning back to the photo in front of her. Right at the top was the child's full name.
Anastasia Nikitichna Volkova.
~~|1993|~~
"Widow, what are you doing?"
Natalia looked up at the Winter Soldier that stood behind her. "There was a time in my life when I thought I had no place in the world. Joining the Winter Soldiers, despite losing the others to the serum, it makes me question that."
The Winter Soldier squinted at the bright snow around them. "And you couldn't do that inside the facility?"
Natalia laughed. "No one said you had to join me."
"Karpov sent me to make sure you didn't jump off the building or something."
Natalia peered over her knees at the drop. "I'd probably survive that without the serum running in my veins. But he shouldn't worry. I'm not going to end in suicide. Perhaps I'll go down in battle, fighting until the end. I'd accept my death if it meant something."
"Something like what?" he asked, sitting down beside her.
"I don't know. The world is changing, Soldier. The people we fight for could become the people we fight against. I don't know. When I die, I want it to be on my own terms. I want to die knowing that whatever I've done in my life, it's led up to the moment where I can be free, satisfied with my end. I don't want to die a simple or meaningless death."
"Does death by old age not form part of that list?"
"Old age isn't something a KGB Hydra agent can think about. Our line of work is dangerous and can be fatal. I'd be surprised if I even made it to sixty."
"According to the calender, I'm seventy-six."
"And I'm thirty. But we're both twenty-eight. Time is relative."
"What else are you questioning?" he asked instead.
Natalia thought for a moment. "If the Red Room was wrong about the girls having a place in the world, what else were they wrong about?"
"What else did they tell you?"
"Family is weakness. When you graduate, they make sure you can't have one."
The Winter Soldier shrugged. "Maybe they're right about that one. We wouldn't know. If I had a family, I sure as hell can't remember it."
Natalia frowned. "Love is for children," she quoted, "it's what they taught us all the time. But even as a child, I never knew love. What if everything is wrong? What if every single thing I know is wrong? What then?"
"Can you remember any other way?" he asked.
"No," she admitted.
"Then even if it is wrong, what can you do?"
~~|2017|~~
"Are they back already?" Shuri asked, glancing up at the sky.
"Looks like," Ramonda murmured, standing beside Shuri. "I wonder what happened."
"Maybe the matron was a witch."
"Or," Ramonda said as the ramp descended and its passengers exited, "things went well. Stop being so pessimistic."
The young child that walked with the four adults looked around in awe. Natasha smiled when the child tugged Okoye's arm and pointed at the other Dora Milaje. Okoye gave her a nod. Shuri's heart just about burst with joy when the child gave the Dora Milaje the Wakanda salute. Natasha took her hand and guided her to Ramonda.
"This is Anastasia Volkova, or as we've decided to --"
"My name is Anya," the child said, looking up at the queen, "Anya Barnes, and this is Mamma."
"Welcome to Wakanda, Anya," Shuri said, crouching in front of her, "you're going to love it here."
Anya looked up at Natasha.
"Shuri," Natasha said.
Anya leaned towards Shuri and whispered, "Is your brother sometimes a cat?"
"Oh, I like her a lot," Shuri said.
"Mamma says you build things."
"I do. Would you like to come and see?"
Anya glanced first at Natasha, then at Bucky. Both gave her an encouraging nod. She let go of Natasha's hand to take Shuri's.
"That was quick," Ramonda said, "I expected it to take days or even weeks for her to grow accustomed to her new life."
"You should have seen her at the orphanage," T'Challa said, "she took one look at them and wanted to leave with them. We would have come back hours ago if not for the paperwork."
"I wonder what it is about you," Ramonda murmured. "No matter, at least one of my sons are married and have a child."
"Moth-ther!"
Ramonda noticed the smile on the war general's face. "Okoye, did something particularly good happen?"
"Nothing particular, my queen. I just like the child a lot. She's fascinated with my uniform, and for some reason, my head."
"Maybe she's never seen a bald woman before."
Okoye shot T'Challa a glare. "If it were not for the laws of this land. . ."
"Come now, you started it."
"Come," Ramonda said, gesturing to the doors, "it's time for lunch. I expect the child is hungry?"
Anya settled in at once. In a matter of days, not a single person who met her could have imagined life without her around. It had been an understatement when Okoye claimed that Anya was fascinated with Wakanda. Anya was more than that, and a few days with Shuri proved that although she might not be a genius prodigy, she was sharp and remembered what she was told.
Natasha no longer played villain with the children of Wakanda, not when they had someone their size who was thrilled to run around in the odd masks and 'swear vengeance' on the others. They'd asked Anya if she wanted someone else to wear the mask once, and she refused to let go of it. She was happy, they were happy, and they played together as if they had all been born into the same house.
Natasha walked into the room to find Anya fiddling with something, bits and pieces strewn around her on the floor as she seemed to fight with the one in her hand. "What are you playing with, Anya?"
"Shuri gave it to me. She said it's a puzzle. I can't figure it out."
Natasha sat on the floor in front of Anya. "How long have you been playing with it?"
Anya shrugged. "I got it after breakfast."
"How do you solve the puzzle?"
Anya frowned as she pulled something off. "You have to open it like a present. You have to take off all the pieces, but they're stuck until you unlock it."
"And how much have you completed?"
Anya put the disc down and made a ball with her hands that was nearly twice the size of the little disc. "It was so big."
"What happens when you take off all the pieces?"
Anya shrugged, once again fixated on the disc. "Shuri said it's a surprise. She said Mamma will like it too."
"Is that so?"
"Mhm."
Natasha watched Anya pull off a few more pieces off.
"Mamma."
"Hm?"
"Thank you for bringing me home. Sometimes, people don't get parents, and they grow up in the orphanage, and then they aren't nice, because they're sad and hurt. I didn't want to become like them."
As quickly as she had brought the solemn air, Anya chased it away. "I finished it!"
She turned it over a few times, slightly disappointed. She tapped the centre; nothing happened. Upset, Anya gripped the two sides and tried to pull it apart. When that wouldn't work, she tried to snap the disc in half, dropping it when it folded ninety degrees and a hologram rose sharply.
Natasha and Anya watched the image form in front of them. "It's Mamma!" Anya cried, noticing Natasha's face first. "And Daddy! And me!"
Natasha suddenly remembered Shuri shouting "Family portrait!" when she saw Natasha pick Anya up so the child could speak to Bucky. She never did show the photo to Natasha. Anya giggled to herself as she reached for the disc and pushed it back into a perfect circle, turning the hologram off.
"Did Mamma like it?"
Natasha nodded. "I did. I loved it. Anya?"
"Hm?" Anya fiddled with the disc, wondering if she could make it do something else.
"Mamma loves you very much."
Anya smiled. "I know."