bulletproof

14

A/N *Just wanted to let you know that the scene in italics at the beginning is Y/N's dream (more like a nightmare but whatever) I realised that it might be a little weird or confusing so... yeah.*

"Again" The harsh clipped tone of Mistress echoed throughout her nightmare, her cold eyes boring into Y/N's skull. 

She could feel her legs ache on pointes as she didn't stop her ballet routine and she could feel herself break, physically and mentally. But she couldn't break. Not now. 

As she trailed her fingertips across her chest as she followed each step of the routine that had been drummed into her since she was thrust into the Academy, she could feel warm liquid oozing out of a chest cavity. She brought her fingers to her line of sight and her stomach recoiled at the view of blood trickling down her hand. 

The music faded away and she was now standing in an empty ballet studio, reflections of herself everywhere, and sounds of gunshots echoing from outside. Her chest was heaving for breaths and the world was spinning, slowly rotating on an axis, making her have to sit down to calm down. 

Her name was being screamed from all sides, out of thin air, and she sensed a slipping away sensation as she slowly lay down on the wooden floor, staring up at the concrete ceiling, her vision flashing from normal to white to black. 

Her friends watched her helplessly, kneeling beside her after forming out of the pool of blood she was lying in. Her breaths were shortening with every second and she could hear their muffled sobs as the cold, harsh voice of the Mistress echoed around again.

"Again"

~~~

Steve slammed his file shut, hope surging through him for the first time in a while as he finally pieced together the mental puzzle strewn across in his mind. He'd found Bucky's location. A goofy smile spread across his face as he thought about it. Bucky. Finally. With a spring in his step, he hurried to Y/N's door, eager to share the good news with her. She'd been so supportive with everything and the child-like need to make her proud was flowing through him like a waterfall, but he paused, millimetres away from knocking on her door. Something in him told him not to disturb her. 

She hadn't been herself in weeks. He barely saw her smiling anymore, and she avoided him like the plague, leaving the room as he entered it. It broke him up, deep inside, to come to the conclusion that she couldn't stand the sight of him, but there was nothing he could do about it. 

He retreated his hand from hovering over the door and took a step back, collecting his thoughts. There was no point in disturbing someone who couldn't stand the sight of him.

~~~

Y/N woke up, gasping for air, her heartbeat thumping in her ears as she jolted upwards in a sitting position. Her arms and legs were sticky with sweat and she peeled the covers off of her, welcoming the cool air on her body. The Mistress's voice was still ringing in her mind, commanding the same word over and over, "Again". She shuddered and swung her legs over, pushing herself up on her feet and stumbling to the window, getting a firm grip of the windowsill and sucking in deep breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth. 

Thin rays of sunshine poured out through the cracks in her shutters and she hauled them up to invite for light into her dark room. The bedroom flooded with sunlight, bringing in comforting warmth and masking the gloomy chamber with a happy facade.

Her fingers ran across the glass of the window, in an effort to calm her frantic heart. She wasn't in the Red Room anymore. She wasn't being forced to dance until her legs ached and felt like they were going to fall off anymore. She wasn't being forced to kill someone whilst her peers watched her anymore. Classical music revolted her now. She couldn't go and see ballets for fear of being sick. 

She ambled to the bathroom, pushing thoughts of the Red Room as far back in her mind as she could, and focused her attention on her stupid decision with the phone. It was a momentary slip, not to happen again. Somewhere deep, deep, inside her, was still the little girl who needed someone to take care of her. She'd forgotten or tried to ignore the fact that her mother couldn't be bothered with her. That her mother gave up parenting a long time ago. 

She brought her hands to her chest, staring at her bed-ridden self in the mirror, and brushed her scar with the tips of her fingers, ignoring the twinges of pain accompanied by her actions. It was a nasty blemish on the surface of her skin, gnarling the clear, softness with an ugly mark from an ugly decision. 

Y/N pulled back the shower curtain and turned on the shower, waiting for the room to steam up before entering the spray. 

She'd been in contact with her mother when she first fled the KGB, alone and damaged physically and mentally, she begged on the streets and examined every record she could find on someone she was related to. By luck, she found her mother after searching deep into the Archives of Russia, and showed up on the woman's doorstep, almost frozen to death by the harsh winter. After weeks of recuperation, she tried to form a bond with the woman who had birthed her, but was shunted to the side and ignored. When finally demanding why her mother was disregarding her own daughter, her mother replied, curtly, that she never wanted a daughter and had handed Y/N off the first chance she could.

"Stupid child, you're making mistakes on purpose" 

She shook her head of the words and entered the shower, gasping at the immense heat but doing nothing to change it. She needed to burn away those memories, once and for all.

A/N *I know that this is a little weird but I wanted to give Y/N a backstory that ties in with Natasha's so that their bond of friendship is even stronger. I glossed over the parts where Y/N finds her mother and leaves the Red Room because it's not a definite link to the story and I need to get the plot moving. Let me know whether or not you want me to expand on her backstory! Her dream is a mixture, if you hadn't already guessed, of her in the Red Room and her on that battlefield, with the bullet in her body. I didn't know if it was clear enough or whatever so I'm just gonna put that there (sorry). What's your opinion on Steve?

And I'm gonna stop leaving A/Ns because blocks of texts at the end of chapters where the writer is rambling is just too annoying to cope with so...yah...have a brilliant week! (I have 3 weeks of exams....yay)*