Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Location: unknown area of Russia.

Year: maybe 2009.

“Who are you?”

She tilted her head. “Whoever you want me to be.”

Irina smirked. “She’s taken to it well.”

The doctor cleaned his knife, placing it on the metal tray with a clang.

“The best yet,” he replied.

“Hm,” Irina hummed, scribbling that down on her notepad. “And can we…control her?”

The doctor pursed his lips, pushing his glasses back. “Not in the way you mean, but she is obedient, dedicated, and loyal to us and us alone.”

Irina nodded. “Work on that, the mind control, Doctor…”

“Doctor Petrov.”

She circled the girl, eyes raking over her form before landing on her face.

“She’s pretty,” Irina commented. “That’ll work well for her with Dreykov. Her files have been burnt, yes?”

“Destroyed with the rest of them.”

“Good.”

Eyes the colour of black holes stared at her.

“Is that normal?” Irina questioned. “For her eyes to look that way?”

“Her brain is recovering,” Petrov informed.

That smirk returned. “I’ve always wondered what it would feel like to have my brain put in a blender.” Irina whipped her head to face the doctor. “And the pain?”

“Excruciating.”

“Perfect,” Irina breathed. “She needs that, the pain, if she wants to survive.”

Petrov said nothing as he walked about his lab in preparation for the next girl.

“We need to name her,” Irina smiled, taking in the girl’s full lips, rich hair and strong physique. “I think this one will be one of my favourites.”

“Don’t you want to hear her original name first? I’ve let her keep it; it suits her.”

Irina lifted an eyebrow. “What’s your name, girl?”

“Rio,” she replied.

Irina was full-on grinning now. “Oh, you’re right. It does suit her.”

***

That sound, slamming into Rio’s mind and knocking everything over.

It meant the same as yesterday.

6 AM.

Get up.

Get ready.

Begin.

The ringing continued as Rio got out of bed. Followed her when she washed her face, brushed her teeth, put on her clothes.

Black like always.

A tailored, fitted high-neck top and cargo trousers.

Hair like always.

A slick back ponytail.

She exited her soulless room consisting of a single bed and ensuite, and stood in front of her door.

Waited.

Today, Rio had been slow. The girl in the room opposite was already there. Typically, Rio beat her to it.

Fucksake.

Because she’d already failed her first challenge of the day.

Not good enough.

The redhead smirked, and Rio wished she had access to a knife to slit her throat. She cursed the rule that locked them away during non-training hours.

The bell cut off instantaneously the second the last door shut. The sound of all fifty doors along the corridor locking filled the air like the nattering of crickets.

Rio peeled her eyes off blue to look down the dimly lit corridor. Young women from all races but the same in age greeted her, dressed like her, acted like her.

Except Rio was better, had to be.

Irina appeared by the exit, nodded once.

On cue, the girls fell in line before heading out of the corridor and towards the mess hall.

Breakfast was the same: kasha with berries. It tasted of nothing as everything did. Didn’t matter. Food was consumed because you had to consume it.

Rio felt eyes on her as she scraped her metal bowl with her spoon. She glanced in the direction of the eyes meeting brown.

“Do you need assistance, Jennifer?”

“If I needed it, I wouldn’t ask you,” came the reply.

“Then why the fuck are you looking at me?”

“It’s your eyes, just can’t help myself,” Jennifer mocked.

Rio turned to face her. “One day,” she began, voice low, challenging. “I’m going to kill you.”

Jennifer’s lips lifted. “You say that about everyone.”

“And it’s the truth,” Rio whispered, flaring her eyes.

“Veydma,” Jen spat.

“Said the other witch to the other,” Rio grinned.

A screeching sound pierced through Rio’s skull making her wince.

That voice filled the room, chilling and assertive as always.

“Good morning, girls,” Dreykov’s voice crackled through the intercom.

“Good morning, Dreykov,” the girls chanted.

A delightful chuckle followed. “Ah,” Dreykov sighed. “Today, some of you are going to die.”

***

“Hmm,” Irina hummed, tapping her pen against her notepad. “And you’re saying this one didn’t take as well as most?”

“Why are you talking about me as if I’m not here?” the girl snapped.

Doctor Petrova sighed. “As you can see.”

“Fix it,” Irina bit out.

“What do you think I’m trying to do?” He replied. “I don’t know what is wrong with her.”

“Nothing’s wrong with me,” the girl told them.

Irina ignored her. “Her eyes aren’t black like the others,” she said, gazing at the bluish grey of the long-haired brunette.

“Well, we’ve already established she didn’t take to it well,” the doctor said, his frustration evident.

“But why,” Irina stressed. “This doesn’t make sense.”

Petrova huffed. “Some girls simply aren’t built for it. Too willing to challenge authority and rules.” He paused. “We could just kill her.”

At that, the girl lunged forward, swiping the knife off the metal tray beside her. She held it out as Irina smiled in delight, and the doctor cowered behind her.

“Try to put me under again and I’ll kill you,” the girl threatened, waving the knife between them.

That smile turned into a grin. “Don’t worry. We definitely won’t be killing you now.”

Irina scribbled in her notebook.

318 has fight.

“And what is this one's name?” Irina asked the doctor, unbothered by the fact she was being threatened at knifepoint.

“Agatha.”

“Hm,” Irina hummed. “Make sure you let this one keep her name too.”

“I already told you!” Agatha yelled. “I’m not-”

The door to the lab swung open, and three masked men in all black swarmed the girl.

She screamed, throwing anything she could at them in an attempt to escape.

Irina cackled like she was watching a 90s sitcom as the chaos went on around her.

It took mere seconds for the soldiers to grab the girl, pin her down, and jam a syringe into her neck. Her body went slack against the examination table.

Irina clapped, jumping up and down like a schoolgirl in a playground. “Bravo! Bravo! Dinner and a show.”

Petrova came out of his hiding place, straightening his lab coat and adjusting his glasses.

“Erm-”

“Fix her,” Irina told him. “I do not care how many times you have to tamper with her brain; it could bleed for all I care. I must have her, yes?”

Petrova nodded one too many times.

“Good.”

***

“Today, some of you are going to die.”

The words bounced off the mess hall walls.

Don’t some of us die every week?

Agatha blinked, the thought catching her off guard.

You shouldn’t have questioned that.

And she shouldn’t have.

She stirred, eyes darting to every exit as if they might burst open, the room flooding with soldiers to take her away for thinking such a thing.

Dreykov listed off the schedule for the day. “Hand-to-hand combat with the intent to kill, what is left of you will have ballet and then target practice to finish.” He paused before he added. “Happy

Tuesday.”

Was it really Tuesday?

Agatha didn’t know what year it was let alone the day.

She looked down at her bowl of half-eaten kasha. She hated it. It tasted of nothing. Food should taste of something.

“Come on, girls,” Irina said. “Some of you have deaths to prepare for.”

Agatha scoffed down the rest of her breakfast.

***

Hand-to-hand combat and knives only.

Agatha watched from her space in the circle as Yelena and Taylor sized each other up.

The training room was cold as always, everyone’s breath visible as they stood on the black sparring mat. Black to conceal bodily fluids. Agatha was undoubtedly standing on a patch of someone’s blood.

Irina yawned. “I’m getting bored.”

The response was immediate. Taylor lunged forward, swiping at Yelena with her knife, and Yelena…

Dodged it with ease, pulled something from her back pocket, aimed it-

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Taylor was dead. Three shots in the heart.

Yelena smirked.

“You cheated,” the ginger to Agatha’s left commented.

Yelena rolled her eyes. “No, Wanda. I won.”

“By cheating,” Wanda snapped.

Yelena shrugged. “I won.”

Every girls eyes snapped to the sound of clapping.

“Bravo, Yelena! I’m deducting a few points because you broke the rules, but apart from that, I have no notes!” She waved her hand. “Give me the gun.”

Yelena didn’t hesitate to do so.

Why?

Why didn’t she shoot Irina here and now? Shoot the rest of them, try to escape?

Stop thinking these things.

Agatha shook her head to clear the thought.

“Okay,” Irina began. “Next up, Rio and Agatha.”

Grey eyes locked with the dark brown opposite her. Rio smirked.

Agatha narrowed her eyes, walking forward. She pulled out her knife from her back pocket. Rio did the same.

She knew little of Rio Vidal, knew little about anyone in TRR really. From what Agatha gathered from the few times she’d interacted with Vidal was that she was, to put it lightly, somewhat insane.

She was a widow in every sense of the word. Brutal, compliant, graceful.

She excelled at everything she did, and what she did was kill.

A murder weapon produced right here in the confines of their home.

This meant nothing.

“Some of my strongest widows,” Irina beamed. “Which one of you will die today, huh?”

All Agatha knew was that it wasn’t going to be her.

“…And go,” Irina whispered.

Rio didn’t hesitate.

She charged forward

Agatha dodged the blade aimed at her heart, grabbed the arm Rio used to do so and knocked the knife out of her hand by slamming said arm into her thigh. She stood on two feet again, letting go of her opponent and turning away.

Idiot.

The brunette grabbed Agatha’s hair in its ponytail, yanked, forced Agatha’s back into her. Their bodies slammed into each other as Rio trapped Agatha in a headlock.

Not for long.

Agatha elbowed Rio in the stomach resulting in a grunt and freedom. She didn’t wait to spin on her, blade slicing through the air hitting its mark.

A collective ‘Ooo,’ sounded from the audience in response.

Rio straightened, tongue poking her cheek, blood gushing from the cut on the side of her forehead.

“Huh.” It was all she said before she threw herself at Agatha.

Agatha gasped, the wind knocked out of her. She would’ve coughed if Rio’s hand wasn’t clamped around her throat.

She saw fucking stars.

The pain from being thrown to the floor plus the lack of air, meant she was fading quickly.

No.

Wasn’t an option. She wasn’t dying at the hands of Rio Vidal.

The knife that she’d lost during the fall was inches away. Agatha could feel the slight poke of the blade by her left hand.

She reached.

Rio’s grip around her throat tightened, brown eyes blurred the more Agatha’s eyes clotted with black dots.

Just a little further.

She felt more of the blade now.

“This was fun, Harkness,” Rio grinned as she sucked the life out of her. “I think I’ll miss you when you’re gone.”

Come on, Agatha!

A drop of Rio’s blood splatted on Agatha’s face the same time she grabbed the knife.

No thoughts.

She plunged the knife into Rio’s shoulder.

The brunette shrieked, loosening her hold around Agatha’s neck.

Weak.

Agatha shot up, ramming into Rio so now she was pressed against the sparring mat. She freed her knife from Rio’s shoulder, was ready to drive it into her heart when-

“You’d follow me into the pits of hell?”

“I’d follow you anywhere.”

Agatha blinked. Those voices, that memory. Were they hers?

Maybe Rio shifted beneath her, maybe Rio tilted her head curiously.

Rio definitely swiped the knife from her hand and drove it forward.

“Stop,” Irina ordered.

And on command, the knife dropped from Rio’s hand, hitting the floor with a clang.

“Why?” Rio groaned. “You said fight to kill; she clearly isn’t dead.”

Irina shrugged. “Does not apply to you two. Did you really think I would allow one of my strongest girls to be killed?” She giggled, waving her hand lazily. “No, I just wanted entertainment.”

Rio rolled her eyes before shoving Agatha off her.

“Cyka.” Bitch. She muttered.

Sluggishly, she pulled herself off the ground.

Too fast.

Her head spun and she swayed, falling into the body next to her.

Hands, surprisingly soft ones, grabbed her, stopped her from falling.

“Aw, how cute,” Irina mocked. “And you were seconds away from murdering her, da?” She burst out into another fit of giggles.

“Are you done?” Rio asked. “Because I’m bleeding out and would love to stop doing so.”

“Oh! Oh, yes, you’ve been stabbed.” Irina nodded to the exit. “Go on.”

Rio walked towards the circle that parted for her. She stopped before Irina and got out:

“Next time,” and turned to Agatha. “Let me kill her.”

Irina smirked. “We shall see.”

Agatha hoped her glare shot fucking daggers.

“Okay,” Irina clapped when Rio walked away. “Alice and Genivive, you’re next.”

Agatha took up her original place in the circle. She wiped at the blood left on her face and came to her conclusion:

She needed to kill Rio Vidal before Rio Vidal killed her.

Chapter Text

Some may argue that time is a concept. That it’s fake. A human tool created to maintain the illusion of control.

Agatha wasn’t one of those people.

Time and not knowing it was threatening to kill her. What day? What month? What year even was it? She didn’t have a fucking clue. All she knew was that today would be the same. The same bell would tell her to get out of bed, she’d eat the same breakfast, Dreykov would inform them of today’s schedule, she’d complete that schedule, she’d go to bed.

Repeat.

Repeat.

“Repeat,” she mumbled as she sat cross-legged watching the ballet.

Her attention should’ve been undivided, studying the movements of her partner. The plié and how Jen wasn’t bending her knees properly. The arabesque and how Jen was being lazy, wasn’t accentuating her arms. Jen’s fourth position and how it looked more like fifth.

But as always, Agatha’s mind was split in two.

How is she not dead?

She’d lost count of how many ballet lessons they’d attended, but it was enough to know that Jen should’ve perfected these moves by now. She probably wasn’t because it was less so about the ballet and more about the repetition, the pushing of your body.

How far can you go until you snap?

I wonder how I got here.

Stop. It.

That thought specifically was going to get her killed. It kept popping up like a cockroach. No matter how many times Agatha squashed it, it reappeared. Dreykov couldn’t read minds yet, but Agatha knew he was a close second.

Then what?

Then the gig was over. Then Agatha would be disposed of like every failed widow.

She blinked; the ballet studio had cleared out. Agatha scrambled to her feet, heading to the mess hall.

She sat with Jen, and they discussed her performance and what needed improving. As always, that discussion turned into a screaming match. Jen would call bullshit; Agatha would call her bullshit bullshit.

Shooting practice.

Today’s target: TBD.

“What do you think it’ll be?” Yelena asked as they waited for their names to be called.

“Or who?” Rio grinned.

Agatha glanced at her.

Ever since they’d tried to kill each other, she’d maintained that distance she always kept with the addition of monitoring her. She studied Vidal from everything down to the way she ate to the way she poked her tongue in her cheek whenever she was about to piss someone off.

Vidal had made it clear she wanted nothing more than to suck the life out of her, and that was fine. Agatha just had to beat her to it.

“Why do you do that?” Yelena snapped.

“What ever do you mean?” Rio replied.

“That!” Yelena said, pointing an accusatory finger. “You copy the accent of the person you’re talking to.”

“Who says I don’t have a Russian accent?” Rio countered.

“You don’t,” Natasha chimed in.

“How-”

“We’ve all heard you speak,” Jen huffed.

“We’ve all heard you speak,” Rio mimicked Jen’s American accent.

Agatha scoffed.

Brown eyes locked with grey. “What is it, tea and crumpets? You don’t like my accents?”

“If that was your attempt at an English one, it’s shocking.”

Rio leaned towards her from the bench opposite, that grin firmly in place. “Liar.”

“Liar! You love my music taste.”

Agatha blinked. “What about your music taste?”

Rio’s eyebrows furrowed. “What?”

“You just-” she cut herself off.

The first time Agatha heard Rio’s voice in her head, she put it down to the fact that she’d almost suffocated. What was the explanation now?

I’m going mad.

Yeah…that made sense.

“So what’s my real accent then?” Rio asked the room.

“Spanish,” everyone replied in unison.

“Alice,” Irina called.

She got up and left.

Maybe an hour had gone by. Jen, Rio and Agatha were the only widows left in the waiting room. She couldn’t stop fidgeting, itching to do anything other than sit in this tiny room that consisted of benches and black walls.

Agatha didn’t know why she flinched when Rio leaned in again.

“What’s your deal?”

“What?” Agatha spat.

“You heard me,” Rio replied. “I watch you, Agatha. I always feel like you don’t want to commit, want to fight,” she paused before she added. “Want to be a widow.”

On instinct, Agatha’s eyes darted about the room. She caught Jen raising an eyebrow.

“I want to be a widow,” Agatha stated.

“Then why don’t I believe you?” Rio whispered.

Agatha’s lips parted three times, nothing came out.

Rio really did want her dead then. If anyone questioned Agatha’s judgment of character, the act, she was done for.

“I-”

“Agatha,” Irina beckoned.

Rio let a smirk grace her lips before falling back on the wall behind her.

***

Target practice: to kill herself…not herself, whoever was behind the mask.

New technology. Everything down to the cut Agatha had above her eyebrow she’d gotten last week, was staring back at her.

Grey eyes, not hers, narrowed.

“Can you kill someone that looks like you?” Irina began. “It is one thing to kill a stranger; it is another to kill the person you know inside and out.”

Agatha’s double circled her like she was shark bait.

“Will you think about it?” Irina continued. “Or will you-”

Agatha pulling the trigger answered her question.

Irina’s gasp turned into a cackle as she crouched beside the woman Agatha had put a bullet in.

“Marvellous. Fastest yet! Come have a look.”

No part of Agatha wanted to. She forced her legs to move.

The mask glitched as she stared down at herself, blood pooling around the body.

Shit.

Shit.

Shit-

It’s fine. You had to.

And it wasn’t her. This was a stranger. It was Agatha or…Agatha?

Killed or be killed.

And she’d killed dozens of people by now, what was one more?

***

There’d been a shift.

Rio revelled in the fact that she was controlling a narrative. Ever since she’d called Agatha out, the brunette had gotten more…ruthless? Was that the right word? As if she had a point to prove.

She hadn’t been lying when she told Agatha she watched her. That’s how she knew Agatha wasn’t committed to the work they were doing. The woman always seemed like she was elsewhere, as if she had a puzzle to solve.

There was no puzzle to solve.

They were here to train, follow orders, and pick the world apart from the shadows.

The only thing Rio didn’t like about the shift was that Agatha was outdoing her. Not in all aspects, she could easily dominate her in hand-to-hand combat and memorisation. But target practice? Knife fighting? Agatha was giving her a run for her money.

Rio straightened, craning her neck to get a better view of the mess hall.

“Where’s Amber?”

“Dead,” Wanda answered.

“Nooo. Who’s going to give me their potatoes now?” Rio whined, replicating Wanda’s Sokovian accent.

The ginger rolled her eyes.

“Well,” Rio huffed. “I hope she’s happy.”

Every girl on her table glanced at her.

“What?”

“Who would be happy about being dead?” Jen asked.

“Nobody wants to die,” Gamora added.

Rio shrugged. “Some people do.”

The pair opposite pulled a face.

“What?” Rio laughed. “They do! Apparently, it isn’t the Grim Reaper who comes to collect your body. No,” Rio said, shaking her head. “It’s the um…um…” she snapped her fingers, trying to find the world. “Yelena! What do you call death?”

“Lady Death!” Yelena yelled across the room.

“Da! Lady Death. And she’s got a skull face, black clock and dagger. She sounds very attractive; I want to meet her.”

“That can be arranged.”

Brown eyes locked with grey. A smile twisted Rio’s lips.

“So much fight in you now. I wonder where it came from.”

Grey eyes narrowed. “It was always here.”

“Liar.”

A brief panic filled Agatha’s eyes before she steeled herself.

Rio tilted her head curiously, and the brunette turned away.

Interesting.

Ringing filled their ears, the last bell of the day.

Agatha snatched at her tray, rushing to leave the mess. Rio didn’t hesitate to follow her. The brunette made it to her room, and Rio had no problem barging in.

“Get. Out.” Agatha grit out.

“You’ve gotten so sensitive all of a sudden. I only called you what you are.”

“I am not a liar.”

“Sureee,” Rio laughed. “Just like you’re not faking your devotion.”

“I’m not-”

Rio groaned. “Spare me.”

“If you think I am, why haven’t you ratted me out?” Agatha asked.

Rio stepped into Agatha’s space, leaning in to whisper in her ear. “Because I like to watch you squirm.”

Whether she meant to or not, Agatha’s breath hitched, and Rio couldn’t help the grin.

“It’s fun for me,” she continued. “You’ll never know what day I might decide to turn you in.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Agatha laughed.

“Why not?” Rio smiled. “It’d be very entertaining to watch you squirm.”

“If you put that snail on me, I swear to god, Rio!”

“But Billy’s harmless.”

“You’ve named the fucking snail?”

Where was that? That beach, that day. Rio had never seen it.

“You’ve known him two seconds.”

Rio pulled a face. “Two seconds is more than enough time. Billy’s my best friend.”

“What about m-”

Rio blinked, eyes scanning. Grey walls, a single bed, ensuite to her left, home. Not at a beach with-

Grey eyes stared at her.

“Where’d you just go?”

“Nowhere,” Rio snapped.

“I saw it. You-”

“Saw nothing,” Rio finished her sentence.

Agatha let the silence wash over them for a beat until she said:

“Who’s lying now?”

Rio scoffed, turned.

“Wait-”

And her body shouldn’t have reacted the way it did. Agatha’s grip on her wrist felt like electricity, and she jolted.

“Don’t touch me,” Rio snipped, wrenching her arm free.

What the fuck???

As she slipped into her own room. The pacing began soon after. None of this made sense. Why the fuck would her brain curate that image of her and Agatha of all people? And why did…why did they seem happy?

Stop it.

Rio didn’t need happiness. It was a pointless emotion needed for the average human. Rio was not an average human. She was a widow, a weapon, a killer. What the fuck would a killer need happiness for?

This was a test.

Yep. This was a new type of training, head fuckery or some shit. Rio could beat this the way she beat everything else that was thrown at her. All she had to do was move on, pretend it hadn’t happened and hope it never happened again.

I want it to happen again. I want to know what she was going to say.

Rio pinched herself, wincing at the pain. She needed to get it the fuck together.

A killer, that’s all she was. She didn’t need or want anything else.