For eleven years, Natasha Romanoff lived with the unbearable weight of failure. Her daughter—her light, her mirror—was taken from her on what should have been a day of joy. The child's sixth birthday had begun with laughter, pancakes shaped like hearts, and a promise of no missions, just a day for the two of them. Natasha had smiled more that day than she had in years. But it ended in screams.

HYDRA had come fast, well-planned, and merciless. They weren’t after a Widow—they were after Natasha’s legacy. Her daughter. She fought like hell, of course. Took bullets to the shoulder, cracked her ribs. But it hadn’t been enough. A needle had been pressed into her child’s neck, and then the van door slammed shut before she could reach it. That last moment haunted her: her daughter's terrified eyes, the word “Mama!” being drowned by engine noise, and then—gone.

SHIELD said they’d search. Fury gave his word. But months passed. Leads went cold. Eventually, the world moved on. Natasha didn’t.

She gave up on almost everything else: attachments, missions, peace. Only one thing mattered. Finding her.

HYDRA hadn’t killed the girl. That would’ve been too simple. No—like they did to so many others, they rebuilt her. Broke her mind and rebuilt it from the ground up. They gave her a new name, erased the old one, injected her with obedience, strength, and silence. She wasn’t a girl anymore; she was a weapon.

When Natasha finally found her again—eleven years later—she almost didn’t recognize her. But the features were there. The same storm-colored eyes, the same fiery hair, the same walk. She was taller, older, colder. HYDRA had made her into a perfect Widow. But Natasha knew. A mother always knows.

The problem was—her daughter didn’t.

They were deployed against each other. HYDRA knew exactly what they were doing. They’d arranged it as a sick joke: weapon against maker. Natasha had just minutes to act before it would be too late.

She knew from her time dismantling the Red Room that there was an antidote—something that could free her from the serum’s influence. But it had to be administered carefully. And first, she’d have to survive the fight.

And worse: she had to hurt her daughter just enough to stop her, without killing her. Without being killed herself.

Natasha crouched alone in a dim safehouse, the vial of antidote clenched in her hand. Her lip was trembling—not from fear of pain, but from fear of what she’d see in her daughter’s eyes.

Nothing.

No memory. No recognition.

Just a mission.

Just a target.

And she was it.