Is this what Black Widow felt like? (Cuz if so, fuck the administrators; they're crotchety old shits.)

Heavy breathing filled the air as the clang of metal on metal rang against each other with a horrible screech.

"Again!"

Going back to a starting position, I loosened my body up; my breath controlled as I bent my knees to move at will as my muscles let go of their tenseness; combat knife in my right hand, I waited for my opponent's move, ears focused on the airflow where he stood.

Sweat dripped from his chin where he stood, heartbeat fast as a hunted deer. His legs were a second away from buckling if the sound of his knees shaking and ragged breaths told anything about his dwindling stamina.

With a last burst of energy, he ran toward my left, arms shaking with exhaustion.

I stilled, slowing down my breathing. Waiting. Listening.

When he was two meters away, he switched sides, readying his knife.

I stayed in my position. My senses accommodated according to the change in distance.

Half a meter away, I leaned forward, avoiding his rather clumsy swipe at me with a quick parry with a knife, pushing it up and away from my body. Hearing his heart hitch in surprise, I took the initiative and pulled up his free arm across his other that was still left in the air, successfully twisting him the other way, and pinned him down on the floor with his arms held behind his back and my knife under his throat.

Silence encompassed the training hall until a ruff voice broke through the tense atmosphere.

"Acceptable, however, not as well as One." She shook her head in disappointment, critiquing me. After finishing her assessment of my portion of the fight, she turned to my opponent. "Fifteen, work on your reaction time, that lunge and slash was an embarrassment to my teachings. I expect you to see me after class for further training."

Facing the class, she barked. "Class is officially over, go to the showers and report to the dining hall for dinner. That's all."

"Thank you, Ms. Belova."

Letting go of the boy, I stretched out my hand to him. Gripping it, he pulled himself off the training mat with a quiet thanks. Both of us were panting, exhausted to the bone after a day's load of lessons, so it was understandable that barely any of us were talking.

Walking to the weapon's table, I placed the knife back in its place. Keeping my back facing him, I unwrapped my compression tape, observing his condition.

"Get that ankle looked at; you've been limping since the second block."

He winced at my blank tone, unused to hearing me talk. Usually, it'd be Squishy making conversation with others, taking care of things needing communication. I would always be in the background; his silent shadow watching his back.

Before Fifteen could say anything, I was already walking out of the room.

The moment I stepped into the hallway, warm fingers barely brush against mine as a shoulder playfully knocks against my own.

"You did great today, Bratishka. "

I tilted my head in thanks for the compliment. "Thank you, Squishy. You did well also." The wide smile he directed toward me felt like sunshine against my skin.

After thanking me back, we made our way to stalls together; stopping by our lockers to get a check of clothes and towels. It didn't take long before I was sitting on the bench, watching out while he took his shower. It was too dangerous to not keep watch; luckily, we had each other to watch each other's backs. Not many had that advantage, causing them to fall victim to the more ambitious recruits.

It's a sick cycle the overseers put in place. They push us to work harder with the promise of a family and hint at the fact that only the successful would be chosen. The ones lagging at the end of the class rosters would always disappear under the guise of being placed in a 'special' class to help them improve their work. Everyone else is too busy trying to maintain their own positions to notice that those students placed in the special class never return and are replaced by new arrivals.

As for the problem with the older recruits. They get nervous when someone else seems to have more skill or talent than them, this leads to either bullying or sabotage. Sometimes it gets malicious to the point that the victims disappear. The instructors seem to be in on it seeing as they don't bat a lash at the wounds kids procure or the missing children.

Seeing as we are in the middle percentage, many people overlook us, just as I planned.

The sound of hot water running is a soothing break from the always silent classrooms and hallways. The familiar sound, almost like rain but not quite.

Hearing the turn of the shower handle, I quickly stripped off my clothing just in time for my twin to get out.

"It's your turn now!" His hand ruffled through my regulated hair-cut, tips barely touching the top of my ears and, messing it up even further. Not that it mattered seeing as I was going to take a shower.

"Okay."

^^^^^^^^^^^^

Just as I predicted, the whole adoption schtick was a sham. It's been three years and I can already tell the lessons they forced us to take were the type of things you'd expect people going into the military profession would take since day two. At first, we were taught the basics of each general subject like multiplication and the periodic tables but as the lessons increased, so did the level of difficulty.

In science, we were learning different ways to make a poison to incapacitate a middle-aged man from the ingredients found in a normal cupboard to learning who caused the underground trade wars and who were involved, as well as what the backlashes were for all sides taking part.

That's not to mention how they somehow included these lessons in our physical education classes. It isn't normal for a teacher to instruct a class full of five-year-olds how to take a grown man down with a pencil or how to calculate the distance for a bullet to hit its target from on top of a water tower through the third-story window of a building. Specifically a library. During a rainstorm.

I would have taken Squishy and dipped years ago if not for one important fact.

The cuffs are rigged.

It was a couple of days after I had first started planning for our escape when one of the orphan kids had tried to escape. My ears picked up the frequency of the communication devices the adults used and roused my twin from sleep to do the same. Contrary to how serious the situation was, they spoke in a detached way, as if they were expecting this to happen.

There was an incessant high-pitched beeping that beeped higher and faster the closer he ran towards the back entrance leading to the woods. The moment he took one step out the door, his body froze, as if paralyzed. Taking a tumble down the short steps, he crashed into the muddy dirt with the rain pounding down on him.

Stretching our senses out we heard a mechanical voice coming from the cuff on his wrist.

"Paralytic injection to subject Ninety-two: successful. Permission to activate self-destruct system?"

There was a pause as we frantically stretched out our senses to search for who was giving directions.

"Permission to activate self-destruct system: Granted. Commencing self-destruct in: ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three—"

Squishy's shaking hand enveloped my own as we sent a quick prayer to the poor soul. We could only hear the tears that dropped from his face almost unidentifiable with the pouring rain, his body unable to make a sound.

"—one."

SPLAT

After the explosion, I could only make out some parts of his body spread out through the dirt. His limbs and flesh were torn from his body and let out a bloody splat as they hit the wet ground. I couldn't make out where his head was and deduced that it was decimated into unidentifiable pieces that night.

Holding on to each other tightly, we continued listening. The cleaning faculty came outside and cleaned up the mess of flesh and bone on the bloodied ground.

We could barely sleep that night. And if we sat closer to each other the day after, no one mentioned it, we were the clingy twins after all.

The self-destruct addition through a wrench in my plans because I would need to hack into the computer base to bypass detections of any lock removals.

Mindlessly eating my nutrition bar, my fingers weaved together with Squishy hidden under the table. I stayed quiet, playing the part of the shy twin as I listened to my more energetic brother.

The bar tasted and felt like dirt as I crunched the pieces between my teeth. I don't know how Squishy could chew on this with a smile on his face. Boy's got a tank stomach.

Scratching my neck, I finished my meal with a swift gulp of water and got up from my seat to throw out the wrapper.

Tapping my twin's shoulder while he was talking to the girl next to him, he tapped my hand back in acknowledgment. The walk wasn't too long and I quickly threw out the plastic and put my tray and glass in their rightful stacks. Halfway walking back, someone stuck out their foot. Hearing the snickers, I deduced it was deliberate. It'd be too tiresome to raise attention and anger the other by dodging it, so I braced myself and let my right leg make contact; tactfully angling my body to avoid gaining any injuries.

"Oof."

A round of sniggers made their appearance at the sight of me on the ground. Ironic, seeing as I beat about a third of the ones laughing.

Must be bitter or something.

I'm honestly so tired, I'd lay on the lay and pass out right then and there. Alas, that'd be too much of a hassle; not to mention, it's dirty. So, without much aplomb, I sighed and got on my knees, brushing the dust off my knees, and continued walking.

Getting back to my seat, I sat down and laid my head down in my arms in faux embarrassment. Squishy turned to me worriedly and I could feel his gaze on my body, looking for any bruises and scratches.

"Are you okay? That must've hurt!" He asked while placing his left hand on my back.

I nodded with my head still in my arms and reached for his right, gently prying it from his side. Remembering where I kept the tweezers, I tapped his hand.

Tweezers

Sheepishly laughing he agreed, hiding his right hand in his pocket. "Right, sorry." He then stood up. "Lemme go put this away, I'm done anyway." Seeing me nod my head, he quickly walked away to the collection area. A moment later he came back and we both started walking back to our room.

^^^^^^^^^^^^

How dare he.

Looking down at his brother's bruised and scratched-up palms and knees (the floors were hard cement) he could barely keep the worried look on his face from turning into a sneer.

As they walked past the perpetrator, he took a glimpse of his profile at the corner of his eye.

Subject Fifty-Two: Dull brown cropped hair; dark brown eyes; average height; average looks: average skills and abilities. What in the world made that think it was in any position to pull this shit with his precious brother.

He tilted his head down to face the floor; bangs covering his murderous expression, not noticing the eerie glow his violet eyes took.

He could easily sneak in and snap its neck. He could hull it up the stairs with it still asleep and toss it out a window—he knew the blindspots without getting caught. Suffocation wasn't hard-"

A gentle tug on his finger pulled him out of his thoughts. Looking up at his twin's adorably inquisitive posture, his string giving out a feeling of curiosity and head tilted in question with his lips quirked, he shook his thoughts away and smiled brightly. He had to take care of his Bratishka.

After all, family comes first.

(He clenched his right hand, mindful of the splinters. Luckily, the bench didn't break under the pressure of his grip. It would have gathered some suspicion.)

^^^^^^^^^^^^

How cute.

Squishy was already plotting murder for the brat who tripped me. I feel honored.

It was a good idea to go back to our room early. The hall monitors would have been suspicious if they'd caught the amount of blood lust he was emitting in the dining hall. His cord was practically melding into my own with how tightly he wrapped his around mine in a possessively feral way.

That brat wouldn't have made it out alive .

The poor bench almost certainly didn't.