It's the question Nat wanted to avoid but at the same time knew that she couldn't. Sonia doesn't ask for specifics, but Natasha feels like she has to give them anyway. She can hear the things in the silence that Sonia doesn't say. And Lakshmi had told her to stop letting them take it from her, and that meant something too; taking back what her name meant.

"It does." There's a pause, a sigh. It's nothing she'd give the Cetagandans, but it's not something they could use, either. And she wants to give Sonia a piece of something when she has so little. "But what you really want is a reason why that matters." It's not quite a smile, a quirk of her lips that's thin. She understands.

"Ever since I was able to choose who I wanted to be, I've lived by my name." She'd crafted a legend, been a threat, a whisper in the dark, a bedtime story to scare dirty politicians, and even a hero for a little while. "On my world Romanov was the name of the Russian Imperial dynasty. And so I've had people try to take my name from me, make me into a symbol. It's something I'll bleed for." It mattered was the point. Identity was in the end maybe the most important thing to Natasha - who you are, the idea of names, of being a person. There were reasons she hadn't really changed her name when Clint had brought her into SHIELD.

"I don't break my word to anyone once I give it, Sonia."