Here We Go!
Here we go!
the language of flowers and silent things.
Whumptober 2023: Day 1 - How many fingers am I holding up
Warnings: perceived death (no death I promise), panic
Word Count: 2.3k (gif not mine)
Summary: The marriage of Clint and Natasha.
A/N: there are people that stand with you in darkness, brave the shadows and not shy away, if you have friends like that hold them tight. This is for you @broken--bow .
Friend, without you there would be no whumptober, there are no words for the consistency of friendship you have supported over the last month, and thank you doesn’t seem enough. I wish it were more, but thank you all the same.
Masterlist
Whumptober Masterlist
.
KASHMIR
2011
“It’s cold,” Natasha grumbles.
“Yep,” Clint replies, popping the p, and trudging on through the snow.
“How far?”
The snow is white and endless, and Natasha is sure they aren’t going the right way. Her rifle, slung across her shoulder, rubs and feels heavy, as it hits the back of her thighs; even though likely it’s her backpack that has the weight.
Clint glances at the gps, a small look of surprise on his face.
Natasha stops.
“What?”
“It’s less that two hundred metres,” he says, pointing to the left.
He adjusts his pack and trudges forward, giving Natasha places to put her feet as she grumbled again.
“You’re Russian!” he says, exasperated as the safe house comes into sight.
She throws him a look a rolls her eyes.
“I don’t like the cold,” she deadpans.
Approaching the house, they both split up, covering the front and back and simultaneously breach the door way.
Covering the rooms in a pattern, Natasha is first to call all clear, followed by Clint, as she beelines for the generator and sets up the heater.
.
The white noise of the generator infuriates Clint as he keeps the first watch; more snow falling. He
wonders if it will ever stop.
The cold that penetrates is icy, even though they’ve used spare blankets under the doorways and old newspapers on the window.
Natasha was finally asleep.
He knows by the soft breaths, slow and even.
She doesn’t like sleeping in the cold, and he knows why, it reminds her too much of the barracks of the Red Room.
She berates herself about becoming too soft, even as she makes their apartment and their rooms a constant temperature.
Less nightmares.
He tells her it’s not a bad thing to protect yourself from bad dreams, but it never seems to stick.
She sighs audibly and he wonders what she’s dreaming.
If the snow continues to fall at this rate, they’ll be snowed in. The trek here all uphill, and he hates Maria a little for directing them to this one.
“Hydra,” she’d said, “they’ve taken advantage of the political climate, and infiltrated the region.”
It’s a shame; he think idly, Kashmir is beautiful, but the evil that has infiltrated made it unsightly.
The man that they had killed was wanted by Interpol, crimes against humanity and all that.
Natasha’s kill shot hitting him between the eyes, as Clint had done the calculations quickly around wind speed and elevation.
One shot, one kill.
They made it look easy; isn’t that why Fury sent them?
Now, stuck in the snow, in a quaint house, Clint has too much time to reflect and worry about the repercussions of not being extracted until the snow stops.
His grip tightens on the gun, and he adjusts his position.
.
Natasha focuses on the landscape, the parts she can see anyway. Snow covers the door, just reaching the window and she feels vulnerable at not being able to see all the ways around them.
She knows if she looks at Clint, she won’t be able to hide her disappointment.
He won’t be able to hide his fear.
The satcom phone lays inert, as they await the next call.
Any way out.
Any opportunities for exfil.
Not likely for the next twenty four hours anyway.
The tension in the room is palpable. The generator has enough petrol for the next five hours, and the temperature is far below zero.
.
Clint focuses on the bowl of cereal, the snow still around them.
This was supposed to be easy.
He suppresses a shiver and pulls his coat around him trying to gain any heat he can.
The one room they’d kept heated, now growing colder.
He knows they both feel it.
Natasha pushes away her bowl, half eaten.
“You gotta eat, Nat,” he murmurs.
“We need to leave,” she argues, “the generator is done, the food almost gone, and the pipes are frozen. We have no water apart from what we have in that bucket.”
He shakes his head.
“It’s cold outside, no one is coming here in that weather; plus where are we gonna go? We have to wait for them to come.”
She’s knows he’s right. Standing and staring out the window, she shivers.
It’s not a good sign.
“Clint.”
The seriousness in her tone has him on edge as he joins her.
“It’s stopped snowing.”
They both know, when the temperature drops the snow stops, the sun, or what was left of it, hides behind the dark as the black starts to descend, night approaching; though the hour not late.
“What are we going to do?” she whispers.
.
They move to the smallest room, a tiny broom closet, big enough for the both of them. No windows, blankets piled in.
“I hate the cold,” she gristles, her teeth gnashing.
Clint pulls her closer, trying to stay warm, even though he’s sure it’s not helping.
“Talk,” he asks, “take my mind off this.”
The request isn’t lost on Natasha, the beginning of the third day had begun and they still had no way out, the sat phone silent, stood next to the door.
“Mmmm,” she says; trying to stop her teeth chattering.
“If you changed around this house, what would you do to make it better?”
It’s an old game, one they used to play when nightmares would keep either of them awake and neither wanted sleep.
Clint bites, he wants nothing more than the deep dread that fills his body to go away.
“Thicker windows,” he starts, “and for there to be a better security system.”
Natasha grunts in agreement.
“Insulation,” she continues, “the bedroom, I’d move to the back of the house, maybe another bathroom.”
Clint snorts.
“Like our house?”
She laughs, shivers hard and suppresses another.
“What’s that like again?”
He sits up a little straighter, and starts talking about the blueprints he’s sketched out when they’d first started dating.
“You know, you’ll have a library, and I’ll have a target room, the kitchen will be big, and the bathroom always warm.”
“The house is always warm,” she corrects.
“Heated floors?”
He nods, “definitely heated floors.”
She rests her head on his shoulder.
“”It sounds nice.”
.
The night passes slowly.
Both in and of consciousness, eating where they can and bodies shivering hard against the cold.
“My lungs hurt,” she grunts, forcing herself to take a breath.
Clint can’t answer, he agrees, but can’t do anything but nod his head.
She’s terrified; not because she’s going to die, but because he is.
“Talk to me,” she says, her teeth chattering.
She remembers Russia, the coldness of the room and the lack of heat in their dormitory rooms. The blankets thread bare.
She felt it then, but had no context about how warm the world could be.
“You think the world is warm?”
Natasha hadn’t realised she was talking out loud.
“It’s different, here, don’t you think?”
He swallows, trying to readjust his position but finds his limbs uncooperative.
She’s not making sense and he’s worried. He can’t think straight though and maybe she can’t either.
They won’t die here.
Someone will come.
.
“When we get married,” she starts.
They both laugh.
But it’s the silence that hangs.
“What are we going to do, Clint?”
She can see their breath, and movement is getting harder. Natasha knows this cold, Russian winters this biting, freezing kind of bitter. If they die….
If they die it’s not a bad way to go, here, safe with someone she loves and a life she curated for herself.
If she dies…
“What kind of wedding will it be?”
Clint stops her train of thought.
Desperate to change the subject to anything apart from their imminent death, he hugs her closer, trying to not be unnerved by how cold her skin is.
“Small,” she considers, indulging him.
“I’ll wear white, you’ll wear a tux, but it’ll only be our closest friends.”
He nods.
“Who are we inviting?”
“Maria.”
“Coulson.”
They take turns naming their friends.
“Pepper.”
Clint frowns, “really?”
“Yeah, why?”
The shiver stops him from answering, and she tries to pull the blankets more around him.
“If you invite Pepper, we’d have to invite Tony,” he says grumpily, disliking the fact that someone who heavily objectified Natasha would be invited.
Natasha’s head rolls over to him, a smile on her cracked lips.
“We’d make him sign a NDA,” she almost laughs.
“He wouldn’t be able to talk about it, and it would destroy him.”
Clint laughs, a cough bubbling as he sucks in too much cold air.
“He’d probably get a good present anyway.”
“Fury?” Natasha asks, and Clint nods.
“Yeah I think so.”
He sighs.
“Is it sad it’s such a short list?”
She shrugs.
“Who else would you invite?”
Clint knows.
Family. Isn’t that who you’re supposed to invite for your wedding? For you brother to be your best man? Or for your mother and father to sit in the front row and cry?
“Who’d walk you down the aisle?”
She ignores the question.
“I’d invite Yelena,” she decides, looking wistful.
Clint rubs her leg.
“Yeah. I’d invite Barney,” he agrees. Even though it’s likely his brother and her sister as long since dead, it’s a nice thought to have.
“Your mom,” she opens the thought.
Natasha stops but continues after a moment.
“I think I would have liked our mothers to come, even if mine abandoned me.”
Clint doesn’t know what to say.
“I would have liked that too,” he breathes.
“I think you’d walk me down the aisle,” she whispers, coughing into her gloves.
“Where?”
He knows where, he just wants her to say it.
“Okinawa,” she smiles, knowing he loves the shores of the tiny island as much as she does.
“Of course,” he smiles back.
They sit in silence
“We can find them, I think.”
Clint says it with conviction.
Natasha looks at him intensely, breath white, nose red.
They’re going to die here, he thinks idly. Why not give them another mission, even if it only gives them hope.
“Our parents?”
He shakes his head.
“Our siblings.”
Natasha sees Yelena standing at the door, sad eyes, hands waving goodbye.
Her eyes open and close languidly.
“Okay.”
She knows what he’s doing.
Offering hope when there isn’t any.
Gloved hand reaches out under the blankets and takes his.
“If we survive this, and if we find Barney and Yelena, we will get married. You just have to ask,” she proposes.
Clint nods, his movement slow, his voice quiet and somber.
“Yeah, of course.”
“Natasha? Will you marry me?”
Head against his, she kisses him slowly, purposefully; like it’s the last draw of breath she’ll ever take.
“Yeah, Clint, of course I’ll marry you.”
.
Maria panics at the empty house, wondering where her friends are.
If they thought she wasn’t coming, maybe they left to find safety; it would have been a death sentence.
Temperatures outside so cold it had taken far too long to trek anywhere for safety, the snow too deep.
As it was, it had taken too long for the helicopter to land anywhere safely.
Maria looks around.
Two people that already have so much trust issues, she’s not sure what they would have done.
She’s sure they would have thought no one was coming.
In the instant, Maria feels panic.
She clears the first room and the medic clears two more rooms; then — Maria finds them.
Huddled together, Natasha’s head on Clint’s shoulders their faces pale and they look half dead.
She calls the medic over, unwrapping them from the blankets.
“Thready,” the man tells her, assessing Clint, then Natasha.
They drag them out, laying them down on stretchers as they both call it in on the sat phone.
Maria places the warmers over their chests, as the medic works on placing an IV for both of them.
They work quickly and efficiently; slowly working to warm their friends, hoping against all hopes that the hypothermia has no permanent effects.
.
Natasha hears before she sees, the whir of the plane, the pain in all her muscles as life starts flowing back into her.
“Clint,” she tries.
Voice cracking, not loud enough, she can’t see him or hear him, her heart hurts and her thoughts race.
They’re going to get married.
They’re going to find Yelena and Barney.
They’re going to…
Breath comes fast, alarms blare and she panics; sitting up, eyes now open she finds herself connected to machines and monitors.
Clint lays next to her.
Laying back, doctors surround her.
“Clint,” she says again.
Maria appears in her field of vision, a stoic face.
“He’s okay too,” she clarifies.
Panicked eyes greet her.
“Natasha,” Maria says, “look at me.”
Wild eyes look her.
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
She sticks two fingers in Natasha’s face, and predictably, her friend rolls her eyes.
“Two.”
Maria puts three more.
“Three.”
She nods.
“He’s okay,” she assures.
Closing her eyes, Natasha grunts and sinks back into a deep sleep.
.
“God you’re both so predictable,” Maria grunts, half holding him down.
“She’s fine, look, okay?”
Clint gives her a goofy smile, clearly still delirious.
He sees Natasha, oxygen mask on, eyes closed.
“She’sgonnamarryme,” he tells her, words mumbled.
“What?”
Maria thinks she misheard, because neither Clint or Natasha feel like the marrying type.
He nods, “jus’ gotta find Yelena and Barney.”
Clint’s eyes slip closed.
“She’sgonnamarryme,” he says again, falling back into a drugged sleep.
.
More Posts from Usefulandstrange and Others
One thing that's likely not visible to all younger queers is that little kids shows have gotten radically queerer in the last 10 years.
I'm not just talking about Owl House, Kippo etc, much as I love them.
I mean like stuff for kindergardners.
Characters in Strawberry Shortcake and Superhero Girls and more have gay parents just unremarkably in the background. That was unthinkable 15 years ago.
But the thing that shocks me utterly is the casual inclusion of nonbinary characters.
Dee and Friends in Oz, Polly Pocket, Craig of the Creek...it seems like half the shows my daughter watches have nonbinary characters just seamlessly included. Not even a Very Special Episode. Just...here's the scarecrow in charge of scarecrow village who uses they/them pronouns that everyone just uses without comment.
I was almost 30 before I found the word nonbinary. For my kid to just grow up with this is astonishing.
Conservatives are so mad because it's INCREDIBLY hard to just put this kind of inclusion back away. Once something is normal, and clearly not causing anything bad to happen, it's hard to convince people to be scared of it.
🦔
This is Charles. He wants to go on a journey around tumblr. could you show him around?
Please reblog for a larger sample size.
If you like the word “queer” reblog.
the language of flowers and silent things
Whumptober 2023: Day 3 - Make it stop
Warnings: child abuse, domestic violence, brief touch on car accident that killed Clint’s parents and CPS
Word Count: 1.8k (Image not mine)
Summary: Clint Barton didn’t have an easy childhood, but one safe person made all the difference.
A/N: please read warnings attached to the chapter. There’s a reason there’s not too much before the cut starts, as it starts heavy and stays that way. Please take care of yourself.
Masterlist
Whumptober Masterlist
.
1984
IOWA
“Make it stop,” he whispers to Barney.
Drunken footsteps are loud as his father shouts for more.
Clint can hear his mother opening and closing the fridge and the tirade of abuse continues.
“We can’t, okay?” Barney’s fists clench, his black eye from the week before still not healed and Clint knows it’s an unfair request.
“Not tonight, Mum will have to deal with him,” Barney looks scared and Clint doesn’t understand.
“Why?”
Barney looks down at his little brother and sighs.
“He’s not going to work tomorrow. He got fired.”
Fear and adrenaline dumps it’s poison into Clint’s veins.
“But…”
“Yeah; he’ll be here all day now.”
Barney finishes Clint’s thought.
A slap reverberates through the house and both boys cringe.
Clint can’t take it, he hates the thought of anyone touching his mother.
He’s at the door before Barney can stop him.
Opening it, he finds his father standing over his mother and they both turn to look at the movement and noise. His mothers face is red, hands touching the swelling of her cheek.
“Stop it,” he growls, smelling the alcohol and poison on his father.
The laugh of derision and dangerous smile that follows, makes Clint take two steps back, almost regretting his bravery.
“Stop it?” his father laughs as he repeats Clint’s words, picking him up and throwing him to the side.
“Fine,” he smirks dangerously, “I’ll ‘stop it’ but you need to go get me more beer, okay boy? She says we’ve run out.”
Clint feels like he’s been thrown a lifeline, a chance to get out of the house and away from danger; even if it’s at the expense of his mother.
He scrambles, Barney close behind him.
“We don’t have any money?” Clint asks.
His father raises a hand and Barney pulls him away.
“It’s fine,” he yells, as he pushes Clint out the door.
They run, only stopping when Clint pus his hands on his knees, out of breath.
“If he doesn’t go to work, he’s going to be at home with Mom,” Clint mutters, dragging his feet.
Barney grabs his hand.
“It’ll be okay, he’ll get bored and go out to the pub.”
Clint can’t see how that’s better, using their money to buy a drink that only leads to raised voices and sharp hits.
The shopkeeper stares at the two boys as they enter.
“Go distract him,” Barney urges, “and I’ll go get the beer.”
Nervously, Clint walks to the front of the shop.
“Can I help you?”
Clint nods and tries to smile.
“I.. uhhh.. Need something,” he starts, unsure what to say.
“You need something,” the man asks, suspiciously.
“Yeah,” Clint looks around, “I need those,” he points.
The man chuckles.
Clint shrugs.
“Do you know what I should buy?”
He knows nothing of the product he’s pointed too, knows that he’s seen it in his bathroom before, and there’s many types on the shelf; so the stab he’s taken doesn’t seem like a bad one.
“You need.. Pads?” The man questions, still smiling at Clint’s ignorance.
“Yeah?”
Clint thinks he can keep it going, make the man distracted enough; until…
There’s a clink and a crash and Barney swears as the man moves to back, Clint hot on his heels.
Spilled beer cascades and Barney looks up, guiltily.
Standing frozen, Clint doesn’t know what to do. The man takes a step forward.
Clint weaves in and stands between his brother and the shopkeeper protectively.
“You’re the Barton brothers aren’t you?”
They both look at the floor, and Barney speaks for the both of them.
“Yes sir,” he says softly, “please don’t call the police.”
The man shakes his head.
“Your father is not a good man, is he? Hmm? He send you out here?”
“He hit our mum because we ran out of beer,” Clint tells him, only to get shoved by Barney.
“Is that so?”
The man motions for them to move out of the glass.
“It shouldn’t be like that,” he tells them, handing a beer to Barney.
“You didn’t get that from me, okay?”
Clint’s relief is palpable, and Barney can’t stop staring at the gift they’ve been given.
“Thank.. Thank you,” he stutters, stuck on the spot.
Clint smiles, “yeah, thank you,” he repeats.
The shopkeeper it seems isn’t done in his generosity.
He hands them each a chocolate bar, and then on a whim throws Clint a box of pads.
“Give them to your mother,” he smiles, “she’ll be thankful you got something for her too.”
.
Gus the shopkeeper is wirey, thinning hair with dark eyebrows.
Clint finds him funny and kind and when walking home from school, he always gives him a piece of fruit to munch on.
Barney doesn’t like it.
“People don’t do things out of the goodness of their hearts, baby brother.”
Clint ignores the warning, trusting his own instinct of people. He doesn’t agree.
He does things out of the goodness within him, why wouldn’t others?
He tries not to impose on the man’s friendship, wanting to always be around Gus but knowing he probably shouldn’t be.
Sometimes his piece of fruit is all he gets for dinner.
The summer comes too quickly, and Barney gets a job delivering papers. It leaves Clint with too much free time, which he inevitably spends at the shop.
His mother encourages it.
She kisses his forehead and tells him to remember their code.
If his father is on a bender then she’ll put flowers in the window, if he’s not the window will be clear.
It’s a system that’s saved both boys a black eye or concussion a few times. Sometimes though, no amount of code words and secrets saves them from the wrath.
Gus seems to understand.
In the heat of the summer, he finds Clint sitting on the side walk, and invites him in.
Cold drink in hand, Clint grins at the pictures on the wall.
“You used to be in the circus?”
Gus nods, a wistful look on his face.
“Acrobat,” he comments, pointing to picture.
Clint looks in awe
“Those days are long gone now.”
“Can you show me something?”
Gus laughs.
“Something acrobatic?”
He shakes his head, “no, but I can show you something useful.”
Suddenly, there’s a coin in his hand and then it’s gone.
“Magic?” Clint scoffs.
“It’s a skill,” he defends.
Clint’s wallet is suddenly in his hand and Clint’s brain almost short circuits in how useful learning pick pocketing might be.
“You have to teach me,” he exclaims.
“Please!?”
Gus laughs.
“Okay, fine, come back tomorrow.”
.
They start easily.
The summer nights pass quickly with Gus.
Barney notices it, and he seems glad that Clint has somewhere to go.
He rubs his little brothers head and encourages it.
“Hey Barney,” Clint asks, one night, “teach me how to fight like you?”
Barney shakes his head, “nah, little bro, you’ll fight like someone different. But I can teach you the basics.”
Clint’s heart leaps.
He hugs him spontaneously and Barney pushes him back.
“I’ll catch you later okay?”
Clint nods, his smile big.
.
“Try again,” Gus tells him.
The watch sits on his wrist and he holds it out.
“It’s harder if you know it’s coming,” Clint complains.
Gus laughs.
“Fine take it, you need the practice anyway.”
Clint nods, taking it off his friend’s wrist.
“Same time tomorrow?”
Gus nods.
“You better practice,” he waves, and Clint nods.
Clint walks off, heading home, playing with the watch on his wrist, the clasp coming away easier.
He walks to the door and hears it, his mother shouting, his fathers fists hitting wood.
He cringes as he opens the door and tries to sneak in.
He forgets the second stair squeaks in his haste and the sound of footsteps makes him freeze.
“Boy,” his father bellows, “where have you been?”
Before he can even answer, he’s back handed into the stairs.
“Where’s your brother?”
Clint grabs at his face.
He’s better now at not letting the tears fall, even when he wants them too.
“I don’t..I don’t..” he stutters.
“You don’t know?”
Harold seems to grow twice as large as he points to the garage.
“Get in the car, we’re going to go find him.”
Clint can smell the toxicity of his breath, but is powerless to say no, as his mother gathers him up, kisses his cheek and tells him it will be okay.
It’s not though.
The red light.
The other car.
Screams.
Blood.
His head hurts.
He thinks there’s a bright light coming for him.
.
“They’re dead,” he opens, the shop doors opening for him as he stares through Gus.
The older man runs to him, and gathers him in a hug.
“Where’s Barney?”
Clint holds the watch in his hand.
“They’re taking us, but I stopped them because I needed to give you this.”
He holds it out.
“Oh Clint,” he holds him at arms lengths, sees the kindly lady step out of the car, and Barney deliberately not looking towards them.
“Keep it, borrow it, and when we see each other again, you can give it back to me.”
Clint’s eyes well up with tears and hugs Gus again.
“Can you take us?” he asks.
Gus shakes his head.
“Not yet,” he whispers.
“But this is not the end of our friendship, okay?”
Clint steps back, unable to look at him, disappointment radiating off him.
“Keep practicing and come back when you can.”
The woman calls for Clint to come and he backs up slowly.
“Goodbye,” he whispers.
“Good luck,” Gus whispers back.
.
Gus growls.
“I tell you, he’s got potential, get him out of foster care and you’ll see.”
Swordsman hums, contemplating his words.
“And you’d vouch for him?”
Gus swallows, knowing the heaviness of his words.
“And his brother, yes.”
He pauses.
“Clint has aim like I’ve never seen it, has a reason to fight and his brother just needs a mentor to channel all his rage.”
“Aim huh?”
Gus nods into the phone.
“Trickshot would do wonders with him.”
He wonders as the words come out of his mouth if he’s further dooming the Barton brothers.
Swordsman thinks on his words.
“Fine, but he’s in foster care now, how do you propose we find him?”
He shrugs.
“He’ll find me again.”
“Okay, then keep him with you and we’ll come to you, it can’t be now, we still have the operation to finish here, give us a year, and then, if he’s willing and able and maybe can add to the crew, then we will take him.”
“Thanks,” Gus sighs in relief.
Clint has his watch. He’ll come back.
“Oh and Gus,” Swordsman counters, “don’t forget to send the money through.”
He swallows, “uh. Yeah. Of course.”
Swordsman laughs, “you have to pay to stay out, otherwise we’ll welcome you back when we welcome the two boys you so desperately want us to save.”
“I’ll have your money, when you come get them.”
Gus hangs up, deal done, and gets the deposit ready in savings.
A year.
Clint just has to survive the year.
.
Blatant erasure of overhead projectors.
the language of flowers and silent things
Whumptober 2023: Day 2 - “I’ll call your name, but you won’t call back”
Warnings: despondency, discussion of murder
Word Count: 1.9k (gif not mine)
Summary: Natasha’s mother tells her stories on borrowed time.
A/N: can be read as a stand alone, this one is a lot in a way I’m not so sure how to describe.
Masterlist
Whumptober Masterlist
.
1984
RUSSIA
“You are so loved,” her mother whispers to her, brushing the small wisps of hair away.
“I’m sorry I won’t be there for when you take your first steps, or for any other milestone,” she breathes.
The baby yawns, sleeping soundly, unaware of the tears on her mother’s face.
“Not for your first words, not for first friend, or first love.”
Again, she caresses the girls face, softly touching down the ridge of her nose; “not for your wedding, or for your children.”
She sniffs and sighs.
“Not for anything.”
Tired eyes open and close as she’s jostled in position.
“I’m sorry, my love, I am so sorry.”
Gentle kisses along her fingers, the small chubby hands of an infant, as they reflexively curls to hold onto her mother’s hand.
“I carried you into the world, I didn’t want you the whole way, and now you’re here, I can’t let you go.”
Slowly, she places the baby down in the makeshift bassinet, their meager belongings around them.
“We have tonight though,” she says, laying next to the box, their only blanket surrounding the baby as she suppressed a shiver.
“And I think, I want to tell you all the stories I know, about me, about the man who is your father, about where you’re going and your history. You’ll have to remember all of it, because I fear they’ll never tell you.”
She takes the baby back out, backing into the corner, wrapping the blanket around the both of them.
“Natasha, your father is dead, I killed him.”
She kisses her again, unable to look at her.
“I wish it was different, that half of you wasn’t tainted by him, but maybe it’s not such a bad thing, maybe you have the good parts of him, his tenacity, his fight; maybe his good singing voice.”
She draw the girl closer, glad that she doesn’t understand.
“It’s why they’re coming for you, you see, as punishment, I kill their son, his family takes his only heir. Even if half of you… is me.”
The woman closes her eyes.
“I wish I made better choices, my love, I wish, he was a better man; born to a better family; but they are not good, I don’t know what they are going to do with you; but I’ll come for you; that I swear.”
Natasha’s eyes open, the darkness surrounding them.
Eyes closed again to soft words and a lullaby.
“Sleep, my love, sleep.”
Eyes watch in the darkness, opening and closing as the voice lulls her back.
Continuing the song, gently she touches her girl’s face, memorising her cheeks.
“The house lights go out; the birds are quiet in the garden, fish fell asleep in the pond.”
Eyes close again, the pull of sleep too much for her little body.
“The moon shines in the sky, the moon is looking into the window,” she continues.
She looks up, no stars, no moon in reality.
“Close your eyes now; sleep, my love, sleep.”
Her eyes close as she says the words, knowing sleep won’t come for her on their last night together; she wants to be awake for every moment of it, tell Natasha everything she can think of, make up for a lifetime in a night.
“History is important, my Natasha. I wish I could give you something to remember me by, but all I have is words. I hope your memories hold me, maybe my voice or words.”
Waiting for the tears to dry in her eyes, she sniffs and continues. Maybe it’s because she wants her daughter to know that she’s not alone in the world; even if she’s not sure that’s true.
She wants her to know that she comes from a strong line of women.
“My mother, your grandmother, was a seamstress. She was a hard woman, but not bad, I think, or at least she didn’t mean to be. She could mend anything. We used to sing together, and I’m sure it’s what brought your father to the shop. She could tell a story, and would tell this one much better than I can.”
She wishes the world had been kinder; that her mother was here to tell her what to do next, to maybe tell her to fight and not give up, not be a quitter.
She just doesn’t have it in her. Not when she’s still suffering from birth, can’t walk more than a few meters without pain, let alone take on his family.
“My father, your grandfather, died when I was little. It seems fathers have not served either of us well. I met yours, or rather he came after me, seeing me working in my mother’s shop.”
She breathes.
“I was flattered at first.”
Stopping as the memories of him following her home, the unwanted attention, and the courting.
“Until I wasn’t.”
She sighs.
“By then, my Natasha, it was too late. I was his, and he treated me as such.”
She pauses.
“I had no family, no friends, to help me. So I went along with it. I didn’t know. I didn’t know his family trafficked children. I didn’t know they collected girls for the Red Room…I didn’t know.”
Natasha moves as her mother tightens her grip, almost unconsciously holding on tight to her baby.
“I think they’re going to put you in there.”
The fear of her child being placed in the company of monsters pains her in a way she’s never felt, and she doesn’t quite understand it.
“But if I run, they’ll find us. So our only option is to play along. I give you to them, and I’ll come for you, okay? I’ll figure it out, I’ll get you out, buy your freedoms, but if I’m dead, no one can do that. Do you understand?”
She wishes she did, she wishes this could be tattooed on her skin.
Her grief deepens.
Reality catching her in the likelihood of being able to take down the Red Room, of being able to find her daughter in the shadows of Russian hegemony.
“But if I don’t, I hope you make better decisions than I did and not give your love to those who don’t deserve it. Only those who deserve your greatness, my love.
Where you’re going…. They do not love Natasha, don’t fall for their lies as I did.”
She can’t help the tears that fall.
“Try to stay true to yourself, protect yourself.”
She takes the photos the nurse took of them out. The two small Polaroids the most precious of possessions.
“I’d write this in a letter if I knew it could stay with you, but it’s just a photo of me and you. It’s a reminder. I’ll come for you.”
She removes the blue ribbon from her hair, the thick velvet of it soft as she wraps the picture inside.
She tucks it into the swaddling, hoping in any way that she’s able to keep it. Anything to keep a part of her close.
“I’m so sorry I failed you, and you’re not even a week old.”
All the tears she’s been holding back, all the grief comes flooding through her, pain like no other at the hopelessness of the situation.
The sounds wake the baby and they cry together; grief enveloping them.
.
The baby girls of the Red Room are so small.
Katerina has a specific job, take care of the little ones. She hates it here but doesn’t trust anyone else to do it. Torn between care and wanting to help the girls who have no hope, and leaving; knowing all she does, she comes to work each day with dread and longing.
She sees the bigger girls in their lines and matching uniforms and she wonders if they ever have a chance to just be children.
She doubts it.
They tell her to leave the babies in the cots. They don’t want them to be attached to adults. They need to learn to stop crying at an early age.
It a part of an experiment; a barbaric one, Katerina feels.
The new girl comes in a swaddled blanket, it’s threadbare and worn but seems well taken care of, darned in patches. Carefully she unwraps her, finding a small blue ribbon and a photo.
She doesn’t know the woman, but she knows love when she sees it, the blanket, the ribbon, the photo. Carefully, she wraps them all together and places them into a cupboard, if she can hide them well enough, maybe she can keep them for the little girl, tell her one day that she was loved.
She knows the lies that the Red Room tells the girls, how they are unwanted, abandoned, given up, but for almost all of them, it’s not the case.
She knows for this little one, this is also not the case. Katerina knows love when she sees it.
She changes her nappy, and gently places her into the cot, then turns to tend to one of the other twenty children in her charge.
.
The wet nurse has always been kind to her.
Though only technically for the babies, five year old Natasha runs into the baby room to find her.
“Miss Katerina,” she sobs.
Katerina turns, the girls stops short in front of her, and her heart sinks, she knows that any other five year old would seek a hug.
“What’s happened, Natashka?”
Fat tears drop down her face, bottom lip wobbles and she cries silently.
Only children who have been taught not to cry out loud, cry silently, Katerina has learnt.
She kneels so she at the little girl’s level.
She brushes red curls out of her face, and offers a hanky.
“Take a deep breath.”
Natasha does exactly what she’s told.
“Does everyone have a mother and a father?” she sniffles, sad eyes looking up, like she knows the answer.
“Did I?”
Katerina doesn’t know what to say.
But she has the right things for it.
Looking into a cupboard for something she hid years ago, she turns her back on the girl and finds what she was looking for.
“You had a mother,” she whispers.
“She left these for you.”
She hands Natasha the picture and the ribbon.
“Natashka, look at me.”
Sad eyes look up, tears still falling as little fists hold onto the ribbon.
“They can’t know.”
She holds the girls shoulder tight.
“They can’t know.”
She takes the picture and the ribbon away, and Natasha reaches for them angrily.
“They’re mine!” she exclaims.
“And what do you think they’ll do with you, with these, if they find it?”
Angry fists clench again, and her face goes red.
“I want to see them again.”
Katerina feels likes she’s done something wrong here.
“I shouldn’t have shown you.”
She puts the picture and the ribbon away.
“You have a mother and she abandoned you,” she reframes. “Forget about her. She’s not coming for you.”
Natasha stares.
“No,” she growls.
“I won’t.”
“You need to,” she insists.
She sighs.
“You need to be combat class now, they’ll come looking for you.”
Natasha crossed her arms.
“Yeah, use that anger.”
She pushes her towards the door.
“Whoever told you about mothers and fathers, go punch them in the face.”
Shutting the door after her, Katerina takes a deep breath.
She’s fucked up.
Small girl comes to her crying and she does the one thing that might kill them both.
.
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Look buddy, i’m just trying to make it to Friday.
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