look after you × winterwidow & oc

WHAT IF? #1

Her thoughts stop racing when she feels someone's hand on her shoulder. For a split second, she once again hopes it's Katya.

But Katya is gone.

And it's Steve who's trying to comfort her.

She shrugs his hand off and doesn't react when he says how sorry he is for her loss, sliding the mask on. A mask that would stay there for another five years.

⧗

Natasha decides to stay in Wakanda while the rest go back to the States to assess the situation better. She goes back home, that now it's just a house because it's lost its soul. It's hauntingly empty without the sound of Katya's guitar, the scratching of a pencil on yet another page, their hushed discussions about all the movies James had to watch, and the loud meowing of always-hungry cats.

She doesn't want to be there alone. A part of her wants to go as far as possible from this place where every corner reminds her of them and the same thing makes Natasha stay. The painful memories are the only thing she has left. So now instead of hope, long lost, she clings to these scraps of them. Of the love of her life and the daughter she was never supposed to have.

Natasha chooses to torture herself, like she used to do years before with the very few mementos of James she had before they reunited. She kept them hidden most of the time, only to take it all out once in a while to make herself feel. Something, anything, even if mostly pain. Her lifelong companion, who wore many faces.

It lasts until Clint contacts her and offers her a chance to join him and turn that pain and grief into anger and vengeance. She welcomes it like an old friend, with arms wide open, slipping into the darkness she once so desperately tried to run away from.

⧗

Natasha spends over three years with Clint. Three years of searching for and dealing with those who shouldn't be alive yet were spared, despite not having one bone in their bodies worthy of it. Three years of becoming the person she was supposed to be once, the person The Red Room tried to shape her into, and a person Clint saved her from being.

She becomes her own worst nightmare, to the point she can't bear looking into the mirror while washing off blood from her hands every time they go back into hiding after another successful hunt. There's no other word suitable for what they're doing. They're predators, they're no better animals. There's a reason behind their doings but a part of Natasha always knew it wasn't enough to justify. That little voice in her head, sometimes sounding like her, other times like him, reminds her of it all the time.

She dreams sometimes. She sees their faces when slicing another throat, burning off another face, and putting another bullet in someone's head. She hears their voices, begging, full of terror. She wakes up then, covered in cold sweat but it's not something a freezing cold shower and another dose of violence can't get rid of. Natasha drowns herself in it. In violence, fear, pain. It becomes her fuel, something that keeps her going and quiets down her mind every time it gets too loud. Being the executioner of the world's biggest scum and trash pushes all her grief far back and cools down her anger. She's calm, she's collected, and composed. She's blank, she's emotionless. A perfect assassin.

Until she holds someone's life in her hands. Then comes the satisfaction, the thrill, delight even, as she makes sure there is a little less trash in the world that took her girl away from her. She might not be here anymore, but Natasha always promised she would keep her safe. That no one would ever hurt her. And she would keep that promise. She wanted to find, hunt down, and get rid of every person that could pose a threat to her.