monochopsist
(adj.)
the subtle, yet persistent feeling of being out of place

•••

"Ask Clint Barton. There is no way in hell someone like us can sit idle all day. And there always someone who will pull us out of solitude."

•••

«Leap with explosion, girls! Your muscles are there for a reason. I'll make you all do weight training before the recital if this is what we look like in strength!» Natalia announced to her small class of 20. «Control your arms. Your arms are what makes this an art and not a sport!»

She watched closely as the the young girls aged 12 to 15 lept and bounded across the studio floor, sweat forming on their youthful faces. Each of them, Natalia learned, were entitled to—and embraced—their own unique personalities and leotards. Natalia never rembered a time where that was accepted.

All the girls of both the Red Room and the Bolshoi were required to dress the same and show no emotion, unless it was required for the perfomance. However, there was always dominance displayed. It didn't matter how controlled anything ever was. Dominance was always on display.

Natalia guessed she would see it in in older girls, and she did. But she was surprised by a newcomer. A girl at the mere age of 12 struck fear into the hearts of all the girls in the sudio. She was a very talented yound girl even though she was a a bit of a bully. Natalia was sure that she would be one who earns a solo performance at the yearly recital. There were other personalities spread around, of course.

There was a 14 year old blonde who was born of a rich family and obviously thought herself above all others. Natalia was classify her as a diva. She would not get a solo. Not good enough. Then there was what they called an senior ballerina. Any girl how had danced three years at the studio. This year there were two. But only one showed realpromise. A 15 year old brunette named Adeline.

She was very talented girl who had been working on ballet for what Natalia sassumed, her entire life. She was a sweet, selfess girl who wanted to help teach and rise others to her level before she would practice on her own.

She and the twelve year old bully could always be found after class going over the solo routines over and over again, doing their best to perfect them. The senior actually practiced the background routines also, truly understanding that wherever she may be put in the recital was not up to her and that she would do her best at any position.

Natalia looked at this in a way that she imagined that she was watching herself and her fellow ballerinas  in the days that she danced at the Bolshoi. She also became dissapppointed when she saw how different she was from her most desirable student, the senior. The senior wasn't dominant like Natalia was. It was different. She was a leader. She inspired those girls. She didn't scare them.

It was the twelve year old that Natalia found herself relating to the most. It was the twelve year old that scared all them. The one that was going to go somewhere with her dancing if she wanted to. She was good. She knew she was good. She was never afraid to show it.

But at this moment Natalia was matured. She was over being the best ballerina. She could never be the best. Not after what she's been through. Not anymore. It didnt make her love it any less. She yearned for somewhere to fit in. Natalia had never fit in to be quite honest.

When she was with Ivan, he always told her she was better. That she was stronger, faster, smater, and more talented. She knew now that he was lying. There will aways be someone the better at something than you are. It was a fact of life.

And Natalia had learned it the hard way.

She remembered when she was a ballerina as, not a girl, but a child. The way she never wanted to associate with any of the other girls because her knowledge was so much greater. Or so she was told. She was being trained for the Red Room and she could be bothered to waste time with friends. she may have fit in the worse at that point. However now, she wished so heavily that she had stopped and smelled the roses. That she had maybe made a friend or two.

When she went to the Bolshoi to train to be a true ballerina, she was younger than all the women she danced with. The simple fact that she was years younger and danced just as well (if not better), she was a better ballerina. And that she would never get along with the women with lives.

When she met Alexi, it seemed as though she could try and live normally for at that time Natalia didn't know that she was being trained to be the deadliest KGB spy. She finally fit in with someone and she got him killed. Natalia knew that if she had never married Alexi he'd still be alive today

And onto the Red Room where she was months late and still outdid most the girls. She didn't know for sure about one thing and still came out on top.

But now looking from this outsider's persepctive that came with maturity and old age, she could see that the stangest moment for the girls that Natalia trained against had to have been when the Winter Soldier  arrived. When he single Natalia out. When he trained her and only her to be the best. Looking back, she saw that those girls had to have known something was strange between the two killers.

The strangest had to have been the looming fact that those girls knew that the cause of their deaths was staring them right in the face. The fact that they knew how they were going to die and who was going to kill them. Looking back, it sseemed that the fact they let it all happen, no matter how scared they were.

Do it for Russia

But why? Why did they waste good little soldiers. Yes, they were never going to be as good as James or Natalia. But they could have been something. In later years, the Red Room realized that. They wouldn't kill the girls. They would be defeated, then hired or sold.

But Natalia was here. She was in Paris. The city of romance. The City of Lights.

It took her eight months to realize that she had no reason to be in any of it. She had no business here. They were coming. The Red Room ordered four girls to bring Natalia back in. And one of them was coming here. But she didn't belong with the beauty, the love, the lights, or the ballet. She was a killer now. Not a dancer.

It had been eight months. She was well paid as a ballet instructor. After all, she was phenomenal. It felt amazing to feel the burn in her calves and the wood under her toes as she watched her porcelain figure leap gracefully across the floor in the mirror on the wall. Though it felt strange.

She's not dancing as prestigious redhead, Natalia Romanova. She's dancing as street dweller brunette, Alexis James.

But every single day, she caught herself feeling so useless. So empty. Everyday, she left the studio, feeling horrible. She found herself hungry for more. Hungry for anything else.

It was the new year. Time for new changes. She knew it. She wanted it. But what was she to do. She found herself sitting on her floor taking apart all her weapons and putting them together again. She sorted them and found great fun in hiding them around the apartment.

But when she ran out, she realized, what fun would they be if there was no one to look for them. If there was no one to use them.

She read for about a month, but could find any fun in that. She tried television, but it wasn't what she needed. She even took up jogging.

It was boring. All that running and nowhere to go. She couldn't make friends. She was who she was. She did her best to avoid the friendship of the studio owner and the favoring of the children she taught.

Everything was boring. And it took her eight months to realize it. Eight dragging months. She had nothing to do. She was an assassin. An spy. She was a runner. She was fighter. She couldn't stay this still do this long.

She hadn't killed a man in almost a year. It felt amazing... yet it didn't. She longed for bruises on her knuckles and a warm, smoking pistol barrel. Sweat and blood dripping from her hair. The adrenaline of a good fight. The glares of hatred from the men she beat. The touch and feel of the man she loved. She cold stare from Madame B. The feel of her stealth suit hugging her. The bleeding red star painted over shiny titanium haunted her daydreams while the piercing gray eyes of the evil Madame plagued her nightmares.

Lost in her wild thoughts, she found herself at the studio, resigning her position. The senior dancer was there. She cried for Natalia. Told her that she'd never dance without. Natalia scoffed and told her that to cry over such a childish thing showed weakness. She told her that she was not weak. That she was a great ballerina and that she'd be fine without her.

The speech she made to the little girl reminded Natalia so much of Headmaster Alonya. And honestly, she was proud. Sure, Smirnov had let the Red Room into her Academy, but she was the greatest and most influential teacher Natalia had ever had, even if she hadn't liked her at the time.

As she walked down the street, counting the wad of money she'd been collecting, she officially realized something that every enhanced person like her would always have to come to realize:

She could never live a normal life.

At the very moment, Abdula Cleenva, the newest Widow entered that ballet studio to have a discussion with the studio owner. "Did a redhead ever work here?" she would ask.

Natalia picked up the bag of her things that she had hidden in the sidewalk and put it on her back after stuffing her jacket and money in. She slipped on her fingerless gloves and touched pup her lipstick. In three seconds, the newest Widow would bolt after her.

Natalia would stand and fight. They'd make a scene. The Natalia would defeat her. Defeat her long enough to get away. To run again. To live again. To live Natalia's way again. And she would love it.

Then her monochopsist feeling will be officially confirmed. She was always to be out of place. She would never find any group of people like her. James was gone. And there was no one out there like them. No, it was only her, the Winter Soldier, and Captain America. But the latter two were as good as dead and Natalia knew she'd never meet either of them. Let alone live and grow with them.

<Widow!> she heard the girl scream. Natalia couldn't hold back her smile as she turned around. This would be fun. It would be easy. She pulled her gauntlets over her wrist and dropped into ready position.

Not for Russia. Not for Hydra. Not for the Red Room. For her.

"For the Black Widow!"

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