𝐏𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐂 𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐌

𝐟𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧

- ⧗ NATASHA ROMANOFF ⧗ -

IT WAS A WHILE BEFORE ZARIAH STOPPED CRYING. Natasha held on tight as the small girl continued to bawl in her arms. Apologies spilled from her lips, alongside pleas for help. Through staggered breaths she explained how she couldn't do it anymore, couldn't bring herself to hurt anyone else. She asked Nat to never let her go back to the red room, begged for her to keep her safe.

   "You are," Natasha whispered back, trying to fight the tears in her own eyes. "You are safe. You won't have to do any of it ever again."

   As Zariah gripped on to her shirt, Natasha gently stroked her hair, shushing her and trying her best to calm the hysterical girl back down. But her floodgates had finally opened and they were not eager to close. Zariah had finally had her realisation, finally found her way out of the maze the red room had constructed. Natasha wondered just what she had dreamed about that had caused her epiphany.

   That night Nat had been up late, heading back from the training room when she'd finally checked her laptop. And when she did, she was suddenly thankful for the linked feed she had gotten set up. Seeing Zariah thrash around in her bed through the screen, Natasha made her way to her room as quickly as she possibly could. So quick that she forgot to remove her thigh holster.

   When Zariah had reached for the gun, Natasha's heart had stopped in her chest. She was close to shooting her, Nat saw it in her eyes. The fiery glare behind the sea of blue. But behind even that, Natasha could also see the ever present pain residing deep in Zariah's soul. That pain had come flooding out in the masses as the girl had completely broken down.

   Something about Nat's words had coaxed her, tonight perhaps the final straw that caused her entire castle to crumble. Finally, after so much convincing, so much dejection, Zariah had seen the red room for who they truly were.

   The distress of this realisation was evident as the redhead weeped into Natasha's chest. The hurricane of her pain was blowing a gale and Natasha simply had to wait for the storm to stop.

   It took a long time but eventually Zariah began to calm. The Russian mumbles halted to a stop, her chest returning to rise and fall at a normal pace. Soon, all that was left was the small sniffles eliciting every few seconds from the girl's nose.

   Natasha continued to hold on to her close, resting her chin atop the girl's head and drawing mindless patterns on her back with her fingertips. It was the most intimate they had ever been and yet Nat felt completely at ease, a sense of comfort in providing the much needed solace for the girl.

They stayed this way for a long time, until Nat's eyelids began to droop with tiredness from the late hour. Eventually, Natasha slowly pulled herself away. Zariah's head turned up to face her, her cheeks burning red with leftover tears. The eyes that looked up at her were wide, the eyelashes still damp, and all that Natasha could see was the little girl who had been hiding inside the hard exterior all along.

Nat raised one of her hands up to Zariah's face, gently swiping away the last remaining teardrops before cupping her cheek. "Let me get you a drink of water, okay?"

Zariah looked slightly out of it, her face almost inebriated from the softness of Natasha's touch. Still, she managed to nod her head slowly.

Nat helped her up to sit on the bed, making sure she was okay before reaching for the water bottle on the desk. She rinsed away the leftover liquid, refilling the bottle with fresh water from the bathroom sink. Zariah took the bottle gratefully and sipped slowly on the drink.

Natasha sat on the bed beside her for a while, making sure she had enough water to soothe her throat after all of her crying. Absentmindedly, Zariah had reached out to hold Natasha's hand. She didn't believe the girl even knew what she was doing but Nat held on nonetheless, rubbing her thumb across Zariah's palm.