Title: The Study of Change
Fandom: MCU (with some references to Marvel comics)
Rating: G
Length: 819 words
Characters/Pairings: Wanda & Natasha, Bucky/Natasha
Warnings/Spoilers: Some spoilers for the Age of Ultron trailers/interviews/behind the scenes, though it's mostly speculation on my part.
Author notes: Title from a Braking Bad quote: "You see, technically, chemistry is the study of matter, but I prefer to see it as the study of change: Electrons change their energy levels. Molecules change their bonds. Elements combine and change into compounds. But that's all of life, right? It's the constant, it's the cycle. It's solution, dissolution. Just over and over and over. It is growth, then decay, then transformation. It is fascinating, really."
Written For: Challenge #114: Chemistry at fan_flashworks.
Summary: We are what we are. Without our past we wouldn't be who we are now. We are our memories. And I want to remember.


Wanda and Natasha are having tea. Natasha invited her. Like Wanda hadn't tried her best to kill her a few months before while she was working for Ultron. They're in Natasha's apartment at the Avengers Tower, sitting with delicate little china. And biscuits, frosted cake, sandwiches. Everything looking delicious and entirely too ephemeral. Wanda drops a healthy dose of sugar in her cup. They never had anything like that growing up. And Pietro, he was always so hungry. Still, they were lucky, she reminded herself, they always had each other.
With a soft clunk, Natasha puts her teacup down on the table, untouched. “You made me see things... when we were fighting.”
I'm sorry, Wanda thinks. But she knows better than saying it out loud. No matter now.
“I grew up in cage, much like you,” Natasha goes on. Her expression relaxed, forcibly so, Wanda thinks.
“I was trained to be a weapon. Some of my memories are not my own. I remember training as a ballet dancer, but I never was. Other things, they made me forget.”
“You broke out of your cage, though, you're an Avenger now.” Wanda voice echoes Clint's words, If you step out that door...
Natasha, smiles slightly. “So are you.” She deliberately takes a sip of her tea. Wanda feels the beginning of a smile stretching her lips. For as long as she could remember it had only been Pietro and her. But now they are part of something bigger. Earth's Mightiest Heroes, she thinks. And a family of some sort.
“There was a man,” Natasha continues, her expression distant. “The first time I saw him, he put a bullet through my stomach. The second time, he shot me though the shoulder.” She pauses. “But I saw him before. He was in the memories you showed me. I...” Her brow furrows, like the words she's looking for aren't coming to her. “We are what we are. Without our past we wouldn't be who we are now. We are our memories. And I want to remember.” She looks up, looking Wanda straight in the eyes. “Will you help me?”
“It's going to hurt,” Wanda warns.
A wry grin. “I know.” An unsaid I remember, still loud enough to be heard.
Natasha nods once, serious. “I'm ready.”
Wanda sits up and reaches for Natasha's temples. She focuses, feels her magic spill from her fingers in purple sparks of color. Then she pushes.

*

Natasha is outside an old rundown building, watching in. It's cold but she doesn't feel it. Her nose pressed to the window glass, she watches dancers in white tutus make pliés and stretches and pirouettes.

She is a ballet dancer herself, flinging herself through the air and standing up on her tiptoes, gracefully, painfully.

She kicks, punches, moves on a choke-hold, always fighting for the upper hand. Lethal and elegant. She's a different kind of dancer.

Needles and men in white doctor coats. Her blood isn't her blood. Her body isn't her body.

She was born in 1984. She was Sputnik Generation.

He's her teacher, her trainer. The American, they call him. The Soldier. Sometimes, a full name, Ivan Nikolayevich. “Call me Vanya...” he whispers in her ear.
The other girls fail, she doesn't.
His conditioning was not so advanced as it later would be, some part of her that's still anchored to the present notices.
They go on missions together. Once, twice. He calls her Natashenka. His hair under her hand, his metal hand cold against her skin. A kiss under the falling snow.
The fall in love. Comfort, in a world where there is none. The escape attempt.
They are found out.
The Red Room takes him away. She is taken to reconditioning.
A failure, they say. Releasing subjects into the outside world under controlled circumstances benefit their infiltration and relational abilities. But this got too far. Must start over.

She comes back to herself. Her cheeks are wet with tears.
Wanda is watching her, a soft understanding in her eyes.
“Thank you,” Natasha croaks.
She thinks about Steve in that car: It's kind of hard to find someone with shared life experience. His expression after finding out the Soldier's true identity. How he let himself get beaten to a pulp by him.
Him. Vanya. She left Vanya behind. Had she remembered him… she would have been professional. But it might have slowed her down, made her hesitate just that fraction of a second. Made her dead.
“I need... to see Steve,” she says.
She was someone else's weapon once. So was Vanya. Bucky. (So strange, the sound of that name.)
So were Wanda and Pietro.
Things change, people change. They get corrupted, molded into shapes other people want them to be. They can be made less and brought low.
But they can also rise from the ashes and find a way back.
She is going to make sure of it.