FILE n°888 | SUBJECT RED
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hydra facility
sokovia, europe
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july, 2008

Sashenka had lost track of how much time she had been in the facility. 

Pietro and Wanda had told her a few days ago that it had been a year since she had arrived here, cold and weak. Now, she was stronger, healthier, deadlier. This whole year, she knew they had been training her for something more. While Pietro and Wanda were running tests to determine whether or not they were fit to be experienced on, Sashenka was training and learning.

Every morning, at five am sharp, a guard would open the door of her cell and drag her out of it by the electric collar she had started wearing six months ago. The collar was designed to send sharp bursts of electricity in her neck every time she tried to fight off the guard or resist anything they would do to her. She would spend the next seven hours training with the cruelest of instructors in the facility who would throw punches and kicks in her stomach, legs, face. She learned to adapt, she learned to survive. It didn't matter that she was less than half his size of her instructors or that she was a six year old premature child who had only been kept alive thanks to a powerful serum. 

She learnt to master her abilities and what they could do for her. She was faster than the average human, smarter than the smartest of them and could inflict pain in a hundred different ways in just a minute. Her hearing became sharper and she learned to move in a way that allowed her to practically blend into the shadows. She had a gift for stealth and was able to move around without so much as making a single sound. They hit and kicked her until she managed to dodge attacks, block them and more importantly, retaliate. She learned to climb and twist her body in ways that threw off her opponents. 

The guards at the facility were overjoyed at her progress. They laughed and said, "Iz neye poluchitsya otlichnyy ubiytsa. Nash sobstvennyy tkach teney." She's going to make a great killer. Our very own weaver of the shadows.

That's where her new nickname came from. Tkach teney. The Shadow Weaver.

Once she was beaten to a bloody pulp, laying on the ground healing a broken noise or a twisted ankle, they would take her to the shooting range where she'd fire guns, throw knives and shoot arrows into the target. Usually, her targets were wood boards that were left in splinters after just an hour of training. But, yesterday they had brought a different target in.

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"Proyekt RED, voz'mi svoy luk, my khotim, chtoby ty strelyal po sleduyushchey tseli. Yesli ty promakhnesh'sya, Ivan zdes' budet metat' v tebya nozhi, poka ty stoish' pered etoy stenoy tam." Her instructor had gestured towards the metallic wall that was behind the wood targets. It was covered in faded blood, Sashenka had immediately noticed. Project RED, take your bow, we want you to fire at the next target. If you miss, Ivan over here will get to throw knives at you while you stand in front of that wall over there.

The five year old red head looked behind her, her eyes devoid of emotions, where Ivan was standing. He was a bulky man with a shaved head and ink all across his biceps. He was one of the many men who got to punch Sashenka's lights out every morning during her training. He was also one of the many men who would drag her out of her cage during the night to his room and keep her there while she couldn't defend herself against them. Every time she tried, electricity would pulse through her veins, making her spasm while he laughed.

Her morning blue eyes glazed over and she turned back towards the door, waiting for her target.

She was expecting a moving board, maybe something a little more challenging, but she wasn't expecting one of the guards to drag a man into the room, his head covered with a brown sac, his whimpering could be heard across the shooting range, while Sashenka made no move to pick up her bow. It didn't take a genius to realize that this was her target, and it was either his life or hers.

"Podnimi luk, malen'kaya lisa. " Her instructor taunted, taking pleasure in watching this. Pick up the bow, little fox.

Little Fox. A nickname for her diminutive stature and bright red hair. When she had arrived at the facility, her hair was so dirty and greasy, it looked brown. Once the guards started washing her hair, they noticed that under all those layers of dirt, a bright red mane of hair had been dormant for the past few months. The nickname had started with only Fox, but once they noticed that practically all clothes they would put her in hung off her bony frame, too large for her, they started calling her Little Fox. 

Sashenka shuffled slightly, bending forward slowly and picking up the sleek black bow from the rack. She fished an arrow from the many that were neatly aligned against the wall, taking her time as she ran her tongue along her bottom lip, trying to block out the man's pleas from her head. She stood with her shoulders perpendicular to her target with her feet and shoulder width apart. The red headed girl placed the arrow shaft on the arrow rest of her bow, attaching the arrow's nock to the bow string. She took a deep breath and placed three fingers on the bow string, starting to hesitatingly pull it back.

"Pozhaluysta pozhaluysta. YA ne khochu umirat' " Her target flinched, falling out of the guards grip and falling to the floor on his knees, his hands that were pulled back behind his back made it impossible for him to cushion his fall and he fell flat on his stomach. The guard holding him pulled him upwards and tied him to one of the wooden chair with a leftover rope, spitting at his feet as they walked away. Please, please. I don't want to die...

"Davay, pristreli yego, yesli ty ne khochesh', chtoby my strelyali v tebya!" Her instructor shouted and Sashenka turned back to him giving him a frustrated glare that screamed for him to shut up. Come on, shoot him if you don't want us to shoot you!

Sashenka pulled the string back until it reached the corner of her mouth, squeezing her shoulder blades together and breathing out as she focused on where she wanted her arrow to go.

"Pozhaluysta" Her target pleaded before she let the arrow fly and meet her target, slicing his throat wide open as it tore through the skin, pinning him to the head of the chair. The man let out a weak gurgle as he choked and his head fell limp against his shoulder. Please...

Sashenka wasn't an idiot, she knew cutting someone's throat wide open was one of the most painful ways to die.

If the trachea is cut but the arteries are not, cause of death would be from lack of oxygen and aspiration of blood. There are a number of small vessels in that area which would begin to bleed, and the blood could end up flowing through the hole in the trachea and into the lungs, where the effect would be similar to drowning.

The most likely cause of death however would be from blood loss. Blood flow to the brain is compromised and unconsciousness quickly follows. As the blood loss continues, eventually so much is lost that the heart stops. It happens quickly.

Sashenka hadn't aimed for the trachea. She wanted to end his suffering. She didn't want to revel in it.

"Kha-kha! Da! Zamechatel'naya rabota, malen'kaya lisa!" Her instructor cheered a sadist's smile on his face. Haha! Yes! Wonderful work little fox!

I'm not finished, Sashenka thought as she swiftly grasped another arrow and nocked it into her arrow rest before turning backwards, pulling the bowstring and firing her arrow. Straight into Ivan's trachea.

The man's eyes widened in fear, pain, and shock, all at once. His tried to stop the blood with his left hand but instead only managed to weakly reach out to Sashenka as she just stared at him, numbly. She was revelling in his suffering while his lungs filled with his own blood and he started drowning. His knees gave out on him and he made a weak gargling sound. He was covered in the blood that was spilling from the hole Sashenka's arrow had created in his throat. His blue eyes were wide with fear but Sashenka could only remember them as the one who had coldly stared down at her while he took advantage of her.

Sashenka's cold blue eyes stared back at him, with no emotion. He fell forward with one last breath at her feet.

She didn't have the time to realize what she'd done because her instructor spoke up from behind her.

"Posmotri-ka, malen'kaya lisa gotova k Krasnoy komnate." Instructor spoke as he stared at Ivan's corpse without a care in the world. Well look at that, little fox is ready for the Red Room.

Sashenka was sure she'd heard that name before. She couldn't begin to dig through her few memories as her instructor plunged a tranquilizer into her neck, the ones they used every time she got feisty during training sessions and they had to knock the five year old out.

She didn't even fight to stay awake, she just let herself fall limp to the ground, the last thing she saw before blacking out was Ivan's wide dead eyes staring into her soul.

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That was yesterday. 

She had woken up a few hours later in her cage, disoriented and with a sore throat. She took a minute to recall the events that had lead to her being knocked out.

She killed someone. Not because someone told her to it, not because she was threatened into doing it. Sashenka had killed Ivan, because she wanted him dead. 

And she had liked it. 

"Well, well, our little Sashka is awake." Her head whipped in the direction the accented voice was coming from, rapidly calming down once she realized the voice belonged to Pietro.

"So," A girl's voice. "you killed Ivan." Wanda stated the obvious as she lazily started piling up five of the wooden cubes she was allowed to have in her cell, and sent it smashing into the ceiling of the cage she was in. The guards had been promising her that once they found a power source strong enough, she'd be able to do this with her mind. 

Wanda stating that she had killed Ivan, without a care in the world, made Sashenka feel the familiar pressure that guilt created on her chest. As if Ivan's corpse was sprawled across her, pressing on her chest, keeping her from breathing and crushing her ribs. 

"I'm only saying this because one of us had to do it Sashka." She tried to prop herself into a sitting position against the walls of her cell, gathering her knees close to her chest before wrapping her arms around them. "You don't need to feel guilty for killing Ivan since we killed about twenty guards each before they put those fields around our cell."

Sashenka hated when Wanda read her mind. It was the only power she had obtained through gamma radiation. Scientists had tried to re-create a viable subject that had obtained extraordinary powers through gamma radiation in the United States, well Afghanistan at the time though the subject was from the US, but they didn't have the personnel for that. Then, the HYDRA scientists decided that it wasn't a fit power source and that they wanted more. So they were waiting for their superiors to send them a power source enough to give both of the twins extraordinary powers. 

They had promised something extraordinary, a power source far from what Earth could offer. 

Sashenka couldn't exactly showcase her frustration through words, so she just gave a childish kick into the only opening between her and Pietro's cages that wasn't surrounded by the force field.

The boy sensed her kick coming and right before she could pull her foot back he grabbed it and gave her a small tug, causing her to slide of her cot and fall flat on her butt. The scientists had been promising him super speed as one of his future powers and he'd been training to prepare for this kind of power for about a year now. 

He chuckled at the grimace that made way to her face as she tried to throw another punch at him, he merely raised his eyebrows and firmly caught her fist as it went through the opening. This time, he burst out loud laughing.

Determined, Sashenka quickly lurched forward and grabbed his foot pinching the sensitive skin and causing Pietro to hop on one foot as he clutched his foot.

Sashenka could see Wanda roll her eyes at their antics all the way from her cell.

Through the year and a half of Sashenka being at the facility, Pietro and Wanda had taken her under their wing. They would cheer her up after rough training sessions, and give her some of their dinner when she wouldn't get any. They called her their 'sestra' which meant sister in the neighborhood they had grown up in.

Pietro and Wanda often spoke to her in Romani, Romanian, Ukrainian and Slovak and even though she wasn't able to talk back, she learned to understand it. Now, she could basically understand anything they said when they spoke in their mother tongue.

Sometimes, despite it being rarely, they talked about their parents. Sashenka had learned that their father had been somewhat Jewish, though not their mother, and despite what both twins said about not practicing their religion when their father had been alive, they had started to think about it more once he had died. Months ago, Sashenka had overheard two of the guards at the facility talking about celebrating a holiday called Hanukkah with their family, though they had tried to be very discreet about it, Pietro had overheard them, and for some reason had managed to convince them to bring them something called cholent for Wanda, as it was apparently her favorite food from the "old country.". Why these guards had obeyed Pietro's request, Sashenka would never know. 

"They feel guilty." Pietro had said when he shared his portion of cholent with Sashenka. "They know they have no business working for a facility like this one. They're ashamed, even if they know that this is the best paying job in Sokovia." 

And what about you? Sashenka had wanted to ask, though she knew she didn't have to, as she saw Wanda flinch when the girl managed to pry through Sashenka's thoughts to find out what she was thinking. 

"If only Dati could see us now." Wanda had later stated bitterly, setting her half eaten cholent portion aside, never touching it again. 

That was the last the twins had spoken of religion to her. And the last time they had seen those two guards. 

At the facility the guards mostly spoke Russian. Her papa had taught her Russian when she lived with him in their little tiny cell in Siberia.

One of the guards who was assigned to her cell would occasionally sneak Sashenka a coloring book or a book in Russian with pictures. When she was injured, he would convince the other guards to give her a bath and made sure to speak to her in English so the rest of them couldn't understand even if they tried overhearing.

Once, he had managed to sneak into her cell to comb her hair, because it was so dirty and tangled after training. Her dull red hair now reached her knees, which made it difficult for her to adapt to training sessions. He had handed her a mirror to distract her while he combed through each and every knot.

The girl staring back at Sashenka was pale, making the freckles all over her face more visible somehow. She had very light blue eyes, the kind of ones that reminded you of the sky's color on the first morning of spring.

Once her hair had been combed out, he took the mirror away from her, and left her cell.

Sashenka saw his dead body being wheeled out of the facility the next morning.

Her train of thoughts was stopped short when two guards walked into the room, heading straight for her cell. Another day, another training session, Sashenka thought at first.

But she had never seen the metal table with straps they were rolling along with them. She had never seen them for her before, only for Pietro and Wanda. They would strap them down to these tables and wheel them out to the laboratory for more experiments.

At this moment, Sashenka knew the little routine she had been used to for a year and a half was coming to a startling halt. This was about what her instructor had prompted when she had killed Ivan.

She's ready for the Red Room. Sashenka remembered him saying to her.

The Red Room. That name felt so foreign yet so familiar, like she needed to know it.

She didn't have time to wonder further because the guards rolled the door of her cage open and the first one immediately used his controller to send sharp bursts of electricity through Sashenka's body causing her to immediately drop to the floor, seizing and shaking.

The guard grabbed her roughly, like she was a dead weight, and forced her onto the metal table, his partner not missing a beat, started to strap her to the cool metal using the strong leather straps.

"Priderzhivaysya yeye" The first guard told the second as he sent another charge of electricity into her neck. Stick her.

The second guard complied and pulled out the syringe from his pocket, pushing the needle into her neck, emptying it's content in her veins. Whatever she had been given took immediate effect on her, her arms fell limply at her side as the fluid worked to paralyze her other muscles.

Paralytic solution.

The guards wheeled her out of her cell, passing in front of Pietro and Wanda's cages. She tried but failed to crane her neck to get one last look at them. But she only managed to furtively steel a glance at them while she was taken further and further away from what had felt like her siblings for the past year and a half.

They took her down brightly lit hallways which were few in the facility, considering Sokovia was one of the poorest countries in Europe. She stared at the bright hospital lights that appeared and disappeared from her line of sight every second. Her breathing caught when they made a sharp turn into another brightly lit room where apparently, more doctors and guards were waiting.

"Ty yeye ne nokautiroval?" One of the doctors asked the two guards . You didn't knock her out?

"Net, ona borolas', poetomu my yeye paralizovali." No, she was struggling so we paralyzed her.

The doctor sighed, as if he had been expecting this.

"Khorosho, prinesi mne spal'nyy flakon." Very well, get me the sleeping vial.

The guards left the room and the doctor leaned over so Sashenka could see him better. He was wearing a mask and had round glasses on the top of his nose.

"Vy budete lyubit', ispol'zuya etot krasivyy golos, kogda vy prosnetes'." He said, malice and humor evident in his voice. You are going to love using that pretty voice of yours when you wake up.

Sashenka wasn't listening. She wanted to go back to her cell with Pietro and Wanda.

She heard the two guards shuffle back into the room, this time the first one was carrying another needle, this time filled with a blue-ish liquid that Sashenka did not want in her.

The doctor gave a frustrated sigh and snatched the needle up from the guard's hands and escorted them out, telling them that they could call the Madame one the procedure was complete.

Sashenka heard him walking back to where she was lying. Her eyes widened when he picked up the needle and brought it closer to her neck. The six year old tried to strain her neck and inch away from the doctor but to no use. She was paralyzed.

She pushed the needle into her neck and pushed down on the syringe, the blue liquid emptying into her system.

He started walking away from her and turned on a bright light that he placed above her. Sashenka tried to fight it but it was no use.

Her eyes fluttered close and the hope that she would one day be going home to her Papa, was now drifting further and further away from her reach.

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Long time no update!

The story is finally getting closer to where Sashenka is going to enter the MCU in CATWS circa 2014!

I can't wait for you guys to see what I have in store for our baby :')

Not all good of course (I'm so sorry in advance haha)

edit 17/12/21 : bye bye maximoff twins. 

edit august 2023 : as promised, i added a little something about the twins' jewish heritage, though nowhere in the comics could i find a moment where they mentioned anything about being practicing jewish through their parents except when they were with magneto. 

though i believe that in most of the material where she or Pietro appear, their birth parents were Sinti and Jewish Holocaust survivors. i don't know a ton about Jewish faith but i know that religion is passed through the mother, and since they don't appear to be practicing in what i've read (if i'm wrong, pls correct me!), i decided to make their father be Jewish, hope that made sense! 

i didn't really know how i could include scenes of them talking about their jewish ancestry (esp since they're currently in a n*zi organisatioin, thanks MCU) but i thought it'd be interesting to sort of explore even just a little bit two guards who'd be jewish but were sort of pushed into volunteering bc of money / other reasons. i've been studying n*zi germany in class recently and we did talk a bit about jewish soldiers who participated in wwII on the side of the n*zis, here's a sentence from an article i found about it which sort of represents what i was trying to do with these two guards : "Many of these Jews believed the Nuremburg racial laws and the rising tide of anti-Semitism did not apply to them."

other than that, not much change in this chapter aside from sashka being sad and the maximoffs being adorable big siblings to her