"Stay"
She lay on the ground in a pool of her own blood. It soaked into the motel carpet turning it a dark brown. Just another stain added to the dirty room. She stared up at the ceiling and placed her pale hand on the wound in her right side. She felt the warm liquid oozing out where the bullet had hit her. A lucky shot from her mark right before she snapped his neck. A lucky shot or did she let the bullet hit her. She knew she could’ve gotten that gun away from him.
After she had killed him she was somehow able to drag herself back to the motel where she was staying. She didn’t even have the energy to get on the bed so she let herself collapse on the floor. Her vision was getting foggy and she knew that she needed to patch up the wound before she bled out.
She would heal and then be sent on another mission for the KGB. A cycle that would only end when she died. There was no escape. She had no life, she wasn’t a person. She was a machine designed just for them. And she didn’t want to do their bidding anymore.
So that was where she was now, lying on the ground staring up at the ceiling of a danky Stalingrad hotel waiting to die. She had been laying there for some time now and the wound wasn’t bleeding as heavily anymore. Maybe this wound wasn’t enough to kill her. She felt tears form in her eyes. She didn’t even try to stop them from spilling out over her face. There was no one here to see her.
She wished that she could remember even a little bit of her parents. Her mother's voice. The colour of her father's eyes. Even their names. She wanted to think about something nice as she died. But she had almost no memories like that.
Her tears turned into sobs, and as they racked her frail body she wished for the world to go dark and for it all to end. She was trained not to want things. But she wanted death more than anything. Death was freedom. The only escape from the fucked up world she was forced to be apart of. Or so she thought.
She heard the window she had her back to open. Any other time she would already be on her feet and firing a shot in the intruders chest. But now she didn’t care. She quickly stopped the sobs and fell silent, but didn’t move from the position she was in. All she did was close her eyes and wait for the intruder to kill her.
After a few moments when death didn’t come she opened her eyes. Right in front of her was a man, pointing an arrow right at her face. She recognized him as the agent who had been stalking her for the last few weeks. Dirty blonde hair and wearing the same SHIELD uniform he always wore.
“What are you waiting for?” she asked him in english. She waited a moment but he didn’t say anything. “Your orders are to kill me, aren't they?”
“Yes.” The agent replied, not taking his eyes off her.
“Then do it, please, I want this.” She whispered softly to him. She didn’t even try to keep the pleading tone out of her voice. She sounded like a child begging to be held. She wanted, needed to be taken out of her misery. She was an animal that needed to be put down.
But he didn’t shoot her.
Instead he lowered his weapon and dropped it to the ground. She studied the look on his face trying to figure out why he hadn’t killed the monster she knew she was. He was harder to read than most but she could still see the look of pity and worry on his face. This confused her. Why would anyone pity her? She was a killer. She didn’t deserve mercy, she never gave any to her targets. The next words out of his mouth shocked her.
“I want to help you.”
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She woke with a start. She was breathing fast, could feel her heart pounding away in her chest. She sat up in her bed, pulling the covers around her. She lifted one of her shaking hands to her face and felt the tears that were there.
Nightmares were nothing new to her. But they still scared her more than she would ever admit. Not even to Clint. How was she supposed to tell him that every night she dreamed of him pointing an arrow at her face ready to kill her. It would hurt him badly, and she would never do anything to hurt her best friend. The man who had saved her life, even if that wasn’t what she had wanted at the time.
She sat in her bed for a little while longer, trying to calm her breathing. But she couldn’t keep the memory from creeping back into her mind. She always imagined the arrow being sent right threw her. Sometimes she wished that he had.
She heard a tiny knock at her door making her heart skip a beat. But she knew there was no reason to panic, people trying to cause her harm didn’t knock. It could only be one of the other occupants of the compound.
She wiped the tears from her face and got to her feet, letting the mask of emotionless slide onto her face. She walked quietly towards the door and put her hand on the doorknob. She contemplated not opening it, but she did anyways. She was surprised to see Wanda standing there. Tears running down the young woman's face.
“Sorry I didn’t mean to wake you, I can go--” Wanda spit out as soon as she opened the door but she cut her off.
“Don’t worry I wasn’t asleep” she replied, grabbing Wanda’s hand and pulling her into her room, shutting the door behind her. She wasn’t the only one plagued with nightmares of her past. She turned on the light and sat on the edge of her bed, motioning for Wanda to sit next to her. It bothered her to see tears falling down Wanda’s face.
“Nightmares?” She asked her, not wanting to prod if Wanda didn’t want to talk about it.
Wanda nodded and wiped away the tears from her face. “It’s always the same. Pietro dies and I can’t do anything to save him. I should have been there.” She confided quietly.
She pulled her into a hug. “It’s not your fault. Your brother knew what he was doing and what it meant. He made that choice. You can’t blame yourself, he wouldn’t want that.” She told her. She hoped her words were comforting, but she had never really been good at that kind of thing.
Wanda didn’t respond. And she didn’t know what else to do or say. She wished Clint or Steve were there to help Wanda. They would be able to say comforting words that would make her feel better. Wanda deserved better then her. All she could do was hold her until she fell asleep. So that’s what she did.