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Plokhaya Krov

Summary:

Before Gravesen, Natasha's primary concerns were breaking in new pointe shoes and internalizing Uchitel's endless corrections. Two words changed all that. Plokhaya krov. Bad blood.

Notes:

Alright, here we go. Welcome to the first of many Gravesen prequels! I wrote this one first, so it only seemed fair to post it first. This piece is heavily inspired by Natasha's nightmare vision from Age of Ultron, both as it relates to plot and overall theme. I think you'll understand what that means as the story continues. This one has 5 chapters, and obviously ends up right before the first chapter of Gravesen picks up. That will happen for all of the prequels, but some start further back in time than others.

Another thing: September is Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month, and as you probably knew already, this story is heavily centered around pediatric cancer. Pediatric cancer receives only 4% of national funding for cancer research, and some forms of it are still treated with the exact same drugs as they were 40 years ago. It kills more kids than any other disease yet is handled and talked about as if it's rare. It's not. Everything you're about to read in the next five chapters is a fictional account of a very real disease that 1 in every 285 children will face.

Now that I've given that little spiel, there's one other thing I ought to note: I don't speak Russian. I did my best with Google translate for what little Russian dialogue is here, but it's all written out with the phoenetic spelling and not the Cyrillic alphabet. I don't understand the Cyrillic alphabet, and when I read dialogue in another language I at least want an idea of what the word sounds like instead of reading an indecipherable collection of symbols. Without further ado, enjoy!

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: Sinyek (Bruise)

Chapter Text

The wooden barre felt slippery beneath her fingers. So much so that she wanted to grip it in her hand so she wouldn't slip off, but she couldn't. That was forbidden. Her thumb rested atop the barre as it should, though more often than usual she found herself pressing into it to maintain her balance. Her eyes fixed on the dancer's back in front of her while her legs completed the motions almost subconsciously, having tracked through this same exercise more times than she could count.

Uchitel's voice drove itself into her head like a drill into plywood. Your turnout is an abomination. I want you to look six inches taller. Eyes up. Looking down is a submission to the pain. If you're not sore—you're dead.

But she was sore. In fact, she was so sore that she felt dead. She was used to muscle aches. It was impossible not to be after dancing practically her entire life. She had sprained ankles and ripped off toenails before, but none of that quite compared to this bone-deep ache that pounded through her legs and wrists. It was all she could do to finish the lesson and not collapse to the floor in exhaustion. But Uchitel would eviscerate her if she relented to the pain.

If you're not sore—you're dead.

She survived the lesson somehow and scurried off to the dressing room with the other girls after being told they were acceptable and dismissed for the day. Not good, they never did a good job, only acceptable or unacceptable. Unacceptable meant they would stay and work overtime until they reached acceptable. Natasha doubted she would have made it through overtime today.

"Are you okay?" Yelena asked her as they took off their shoes and prepared to leave. "You rarely get yelled at by Uchitel, but today she was all over you."

"Yeah. Just tired," Natasha replied. She stared at her bare feet and noticed the new bruises scattered across her toes and ankles. Certainly not out of the ordinary for her, but they seemed darker and more plentiful than usual.

"Aren't we all?" one of the other girls huffed.

"I guess so." But Natasha didn't really feel tired. Tired meant, "I missed a few hours of sleep but I'll catch up this weekend." Natasha was exhausted.

~0~

Natasha returned home and dropped her dance bag in a heap by the door. She stumbled into the kitchen and opened a cabinet to grab a glass of water, thinking maybe this tiredness was at least in part due to dehydration. Just as she brought the glass to her lips, Liho scampered past and brushed against her leg. She startled, and the glass slipped from her hand and hit the floor with a resounding crack. Broken glass covered the kitchen floor.

"Razvaluha!" Her father would be so angry to learn she'd shattered one of his glasses. She bent down to start picking up the shards, shooing Liho away so he wouldn't cut open a paw. She should have been more cautious with her own hands, as her palm slipped across the sharp edge of a piece. A line of red about two inches long slit open across her hand and began to weep blood.

She stood up and tiptoed around the glass to reach a towel to hold pressure on her cut. Just her luck, Papa chose that moment to come into the room and investigate the commotion. "What's all this?" he asked, glaring at her bag left haphazardly by the front door, the broken glass all over the kitchen, and Natasha standing there with her hand wrapped in a towel, repeatedly nudging Liho away with her foot.

"I dropped a glass and it broke. I'm sorry," she said sheepishly, dropping her gaze to her feet.

"Eyes up," he commanded, sounding exactly like Uchitel. She snapped her head up, conditioned to respond immediately to orders like that. He inhaled, and she braced herself for the imminent shouting, but surprisingly it never came. "Let Mama bandage up your hand, and then clean up this mess. And put your bag where it belongs," he instructed tersely.

"Yes Papa," she said. He picked up the cat and carried him into the other room while Natasha hurried out of the kitchen to find the first aid kit they kept in the closet. In her haste, she knocked her elbow against the doorframe. It hurt far more than it had any right to.

She dashed into the sitting room where her mother sat knitting in front of the fireplace. Natasha still held pressure against her bleeding hand. "Hello malenkiy pauk, how was dance?"

"It was fine Mama, but I'm really tired. And I cut my hand on a broken glass," she explained. "Will you help me?"

"Of course." Mama put down her knitting and caressed Natasha's wounded hand in hers. She gently removed the towel to reveal the cut, which still bled as steadily as if it were fresh. "How long have you kept pressure on it?"

"Five minutes or so."

"That's odd. It shouldn't be bleeding so much."

Natasha shrugged. Mama wrapped the towel around it again and they sat down together for ten more minutes until the bleeding finally slowed to a stop. She pulled a roll of gauze out of the kit and gently wrapped Natasha's hand, expertly so as to restrict her movement as little as possible. When she tucked in the end of the gauze, Natasha flexed and extended her fingers a few times to tests its tightness.

"Thank you," she said. "I'm gonna go clean up now."

"Alright," her mother said, picking up her knitting where she left off. Natasha returned to the kitchen and—much more carefully this time—picked up the big glass shards and placed them in the trash can. With the dustpan and broom, she swept up all the little pieces until the floor was clean. She grabbed her bag from the front door and placed it where it belonged, in her bedroom and out of sight.

Natasha sat down on her bed and tried not to pick at the gauze. She had more chores to do today, but she could barely muster the energy to change out of her dance clothes. Liho sauntered into her room and hopped up beside her. She rested her uninjured hand in his soft black fur and lay back to stare at the ceiling. A part of her considered forcing herself to get up and get her work done, but it was outvoted by the part of her trying to drag her into sleep.

~0~

Natasha awoke half an hour later to the sound of her mother calling her to the kitchen for dinner. She couldn't be late, so she leapt to her feet and hurried to the kitchen, managing to brush her shoulder harshly against the doorframe on her way out. She rushed into the kitchen and took her seat.

"Natasha, why are you late?" Papa asked.

"Sorry. I fell asleep after dance and just woke up." He frowned at her, adjusting the alignment of the fork beside his plate, but seemingly accepted this answer. Mama served dinner, but all Natasha could think about was going back to sleep. She had a full day of school and dance ahead of her tomorrow and at this rate she doubted she'd make it to lunch time without collapsing.

"You need to eat, malenkiy pauk," her mother urged her. But Natasha wasn't hungry in the least. She pushed her food around her plate, managing the occasional mouthful to satisfy her mother, but ultimately ate less than a third of her portion.

"May I be excused?" she asked. Papa didn't look pleased, but he didn't argue when Mama gave her permission to leave. Natasha rinsed her dishes off in the sink and returned to her room. She grabbed her things and went to the bathroom to shower before going to bed early. She let the water run cold instead of hot in an attempt to wake herself up some, but it didn't work. While in the shower, she noticed the deep purple bruising on her feet and some on her arms. She remembered bumping into things more than usual today, and put it off as a result of that. And her feet...they always looked like that. Maybe it was a little bit more than usual, but she probably just needed new pointe shoes.

She dried off, got dressed, and combed her hair. Then she tucked herself into bed and almost instantly fell asleep.

~0~

The next morning she felt much better. Still tired, but a little less like death warmed over. She got ready for school and left, saying goodbye to her mother on the way out. Papa always left for work in the early hours of the morning, so she never saw him leave.

The school day was pretty uneventful. Natasha's fatigue rose and abated in waves throughout the day, but never reached the unbearable level it had been yesterday. "Tasha, are you okay?" Yelena asked her during lunch. Natasha's appetite hadn't quite returned, so she spent the lunch break mostly picking at her food.

"Yeah, why?"

"You just look worn."

"It's been a tiring week," Natasha admitted. "But I'm fine, really."

She survived the rest of the day and met up with Yelena outside so they could walk to dance together. They made the relatively short trek every day, taking the time to gossip about their peers or fantasize about their futures. Today, the walk passed mostly in silence.

They arrived at the studio, which was called the Red Room. Nobody really knew why. It consisted of many rooms, none of which were red, but they knew better than to question Uchitel about her choice of name.

They changed from their school clothes into their tights and leotards, and only then did Natasha realize how dark the bruises on her arms had gotten since last night. Plus, there were more of them than she expected from only two incidents of bumping into things. "They'll heal," she thought, lacing up her shoes in preparation for class.

Her legs started to hurt halfway through warmup, but she forced the pain to the back of her mind and kept dancing. If she slipped or slowed down, she'd be singled out in no time. If she was really lucky, she alone would stay late for one-on-one with Uchitel.

She persevered through barre and center work, and Uchitel didn't notice her struggle at all until they got to turns. Every girl in class hated turns, even those that excelled at them. Uchitel had a special way of drilling turns a la seconde. They did these in flat shoes, fortunately. Natasha doubted her toes would remain intact if they did it en pointe.

Uchitel made them turn until they dropped—literally. She played this insane classical song with a tempo that fluctuated rapidly and expected them to adjust their turning velocity accordingly. The song was exactly thirty seven seconds long; they all knew every detail of it by now. If anyone failed to match the tempo, bumbled, or otherwise sacrificed their form, she pointed at them without a word and they stopped. Only the last three girls standing didn't have to repeat the exercise on the same leg. Then they did the whole thing again on the opposite leg.

They did a similar exercise after, but with a consistently timed song. This time, she shouted out one of the four walls of the room and they immediately changed their spot to that side. This exercise continued until everyone fell out.

Natasha met eyes with Yelena as they got in formation to practice turns, both equally dreading the next fifteen minutes. The last girl standing for spot-changing turns was almost always one of them.

"Let's go!" Uchitel snapped. They hurried into formation and prepped for the first exercise. The music began, and they started turning. Natasha survived the entire song, forcing her rotation faster and slower with the changes of the music. She remembered her first year of training with this particular exercise at the Red Room. She never even made it through half. Now she could sail through it on a good day. Today was not a particularly good day, but she persisted nonetheless.

She, Yelena, and another girl called Annika stood politely in fifth position while the girls who had failed repeated the exercise. Then they all repeated it on the other leg. Once again, Natasha succeeded, though she could feel herself growing fatigued much more quickly than usual.

The first spot-changing turn exercise went fine. Natasha relented before Yelena this time and barely caught her surreptitious smirk in the mirror. On the second, Natasha felt stronger. She whipped her head about cleanly and precisely, never breaking eye contact with her selected spot on the wall and changing expeditiously when shouted at to do so.

"Stop!" Uchitel commanded. Natasha had never in her eight years here been told to stop in the middle of something like that. She halted herself and instantly snapped into fifth position to await further instructions. Only then did she notice the sensation of something warm dripping onto her upper lip. Her hand flew to her nose and came away bloody.

"Natasha, what are you doing bleeding in my studio?" Uchitel inquired, although the ever-present sternness and disapproval in her voice was conspicuously absent.

"My apologies, Uchitel," Natasha said sheepishly. She started to bow her head, but stopped herself, knowing she'd be chastised for not holding her head high. Uchitel held out a tissue and Natasha hurriedly stepped over to receive it. She stood against the side of the studio and held it to her bleeding nose while Uchitel ushered the other girls back into formation to continue the lesson.

"Tilt your head forward, Natasha. This is the only time I will ever allow you to do so." Natasha complied, angling her neck to ensure all of the blood flowed out and not potentially down her throat. She waited ten minutes before daring to remove the tissue, and fortunately the bleeding had stopped. Uchitel excused her for five minutes to clean herself up, then Natasha returned and slipped back into formation for the last half hour of class.

Uchitel dismissed them for acceptable work, but snapped her fingers in Natasha's direction and gestured for her to stay. She knew it hadn't been her best day, but Natasha didn't think she'd performed poorly enough to stay and work overtime. Natasha stood before her teacher, waiting for the inevitable criticism of her performance today.

Instead, Uchitel gently grasped her wrist and pulled it towards herself, walking around and examining the gauze around her hand and the deep purple bruises littering Natasha's arms. She released her wrist and made a complete lap around her. Natasha fought every impulse to curl in on herself under the scrutiny and forced her posture straight. Uchitel finished her observations and once again stood facing Natasha. She slowly let her gaze creep upwards to meet eyes with Uchitel, expecting to be met with the same cold indifference as always.

She instead encountered a softness and concern she didn't think was possible. "Natasha," Uchitel began soothingly, "Who beat you?"

Natasha's eyes widened in surprise. Such tenderness had never, ever emanated from her teacher before. And she'd never been asked such a preposterous question. "No-nobody," she stammered, caught off guard by the nature of the question and her teacher's tone.

"Was it your father?" Uchitel continued, clearly unconvinced of the truth of Natasha's answer.

"No," she insisted. Natasha's father never laid a finger on her. Yes, he would shout if she behaved badly or neglected her chores, but he was never violent. Ever.

"You can tell me the truth, Natasha. I promise nothing bad will happen to you."

"I'm telling the truth, Uchitel. I bumped into the door because I was in a hurry. That's all."

"Okay. But I want you to know that if someone is hurting you, you don't have to be afraid to come to me."

"Thank you." Natasha bowed her farewell and scurried out of the studio, mortified. Yelena was waiting for her in the dressing room.

"What was that all about?" she questioned. They were the only two remaining in the room, so Natasha didn't hesitate to tell Yelena everything.

"She wanted to know who beat me," Natasha explained, still in a state of disbelief.

"What?"

"She walked around and stared at my funny, and then asked who beat me."

"Well who did?"

"Nobody!" Natasha protested.

"Then where did all these bruises come from?" Yelena asked, gesturing to Natasha's bare arms and shoulders.

"Honestly, I don't know," she sighed.

"Are you getting sick or something?"

"I don't think so. I'm just tired and sore."

"You're not usually this tired and sore. Tasha, you have deep bags under your eyes that have been there for a pretty long time. That's not normal for you."

"I know it's not normal, but I don't think it's anything that serious." She hefted her dance bag over her shoulder and they started for home.

"Maybe you should take a few days off. Stay home and rest," Yelena suggested.

"No way! Uchitel will kill me if I miss class."

"She asked you if you were physically beaten because you look so terrible, Tasha. Are you sure you're not feeling worse than you're letting on?"

Natasha thought about everything that had happened over the past week or two. The fatigue. The on-again-off-again aches and pains. Her bleeding hand. The bruises. The nosebleed. If she cast her mind back far enough, she remembered just feeling...off for at least the past month. It was a lot to put off as a simple bad luck spell.

"I don't think I'm underreacting."

"So you think I'm overreacting?" Yelena countered.

"No, I didn't say that."

"You implied it."

"Well I didn't mean it."

A few minutes of their walk passed in silence, until Yelena stated affirmatively, "If I see you at school tomorrow, I'm going to punch you."

"What, why?" Natasha asked.

"Because you clearly need a day off."

"What if I feel fine tomorrow morning?"

"I'll still hit you."

"Gee, thanks. You're such a great friend."

"What would you ever do without me?"

In all honesty, Natasha didn't know.