“Alright. Uh, well. This channel is always active. So, anything goes sideways… anyone’s making trouble where they shouldn’t… comes through me.” She spoke with defeat and resignation laced between her words.
The remaining members of the Avengers, or if the Avengers were even still a thing, cut their calls off, their holographic display fading into nothing. Natasha crumpled into her seat, her hands falling onto the desk in a heap. She kept her head down, willing herself to keep her walls up. Ever since the decimation, she had been running the remnants of the team by herself. As much as she denied it, she felt defeated. Natasha was never one to feel hopeless; she always had a solution for whatever she was dealing with. Even against gods and monsters and nothing she was ever trained for.
However, as the years went by, her hopes of bringing back her lost family had slowly faded away, like how her family turned to dust right in front of her eyes in Wakanda. The decimation was nothing like what she had seen in her decades of KGB and S.H.I.E.L.D. training. At the three-year mark, she had given up.
She let her natural hair grow back, no longer upkeeping her blonde do. She wished she knew just how many meals she had skipped, how many of them were merely peanut butter sandwiches, how many sleepless nights she had. How many hours she spent micromanaging problems around the world, how many hours she let her tears flow freely in the common room, with no one visiting her for months on end to check up on her. As much as she always said she was fine being alone, over time it was anything but fine. She missed her family. She missed when they would go on grounded missions. She missed when they would hang out in the Avengers Tower. She missed Tony’s snarky comments, Steve’s intolerance of profanities, Bruce’s terrible flirting, Thor’s obsession over Midgardian ways, and Clint’s jokes.
“Hey, Natasha, Pepper and I found this sweet lodge by the lake. The view is great, location too. We’re moving in on Thursday.” Tony leaned on the door frame, as Natasha looked up at him in surprise. “Please, don’t make the place messy. Pepper’s not going to be happy about cluttering the place with your tech.” She quipped back. She knew that Tony would be the first to move out. After all, he had reunited with Pepper, had a beautiful daughter named Morgan, and were living out their best lives. They deserved a place to call home, the three of them.
“Nat? I’m leaving on Monday. I’ll be off the grid for some time, I gotta go figure out the whole deal with Hulk and myself.” Bruce sat down at the table across Natasha, giving her a sad smile. “I know, I hope you and the Hulk settle that little argument you have amongst yourselves soon!” She let out a small chuckle, willing herself to ignore the fact that Bruce was leaving her too.
Clint and Thor were nowhere to be found after the decimation. She tried calling Laura up, but the phone just kept on ringing as minutes passed. She knew her gut feeling was right; his family had been dusted. She kept the arrow necklace with her, to remind her of their everlasting friendship. Years passed, but she still had no tabs on Clint. Hell, she didn't even know if he was still alive.
Steve was the only one who stayed at the compound with her for three years. “So, you leaving anytime soon?” Natasha asked as she sat down beside him on the couch. “Apartments in Brooklyn are way too expensive. So, no, not anytime soon.” He raised his eyebrows and wore a sad smile. “God, you’re Captain America. People would kill to have your bank balance.” Steve chuckled, “Alright, I’ll move out if you don’t want me here!” He raised his arms in feigned resignation. Natasha rolled her eyes, “Guess it’s just the two of us now, huh?” But he moved out eventually. The compound reminded him too much about the aftermath of Thanos; he needed his own place to live in. So he left, leaving Natasha, the only Avenger left, in the compound.
She remembered every moment of each Avenger walking out of the compound, never setting foot into that place for years to come. She remembered giving everyone sad smiles and waving to them as they exchanged goodbyes and turned their backs towards her.
“You know, I’d offer to cook you dinner, but you seem pretty miserable already.” Steve slumped over a bookshelf, crossing his arms and giving Natasha a sad smile. Natasha swiftly wiped away her tears as she recollected herself to put on a brave front while looking at Steve. “Natasha, you know you don’t have to do this forever right?” Steve stared at her, while she blanked out. Micromanaging problems around the world had been her coping mechanism all these years. She felt as if she did not deserve a break after what happened five years ago. She felt the need to continue searching for answers, to continue making up for mistakes, even though they were not hers. However, it seemed as if even Steve Rogers, the man with giddy optimism, had given up and moved on.
“If I move on, who does this?” Tears had started to form again as she thought about all the times she had failed trying to find a way to bring her family back.
“Maybe it doesn’t need to be done.” He replied.
Steve got up from his seat and walked over to her seat opposite him. No words were exchanged as he brought Natasha into a tight embrace, one that let her know that she deserved a break, one that made her realise just how overworked she was, one that let her know that she was not alone in this and that Steve would always be there by her side. And for the first time in her life, Natasha openly sobbed into Steve’s shoulder. She never cried in front of her team, she never let her guard down; she always had her defences up with a straight face plastered onto her.
“You haven’t been eating, Tasha.” Steve sighed as he looked at how sunken in her cheeks looked, how tired her eyes were, and how she looked like she had starved for weeks on end. “I can’t bring myself to,” she replied quietly, “I’m better off managing a subduction under the African plate than having a full-course meal.” Steve shook his head lightly, then turned his back to head to the kitchen, “I brought you something.”
As they both took their place beside each other on the couch, they started to dig into the Chinese takeout Steve had brought along from the shop next to his apartment. Both of them sat in silence for a moment, just the sound of Steve chewing on his dumplings and Natasha’s occasional sighs. She started to realise just how much of a burden this job was. It was a thankless job. No one acknowledged the fact that she was the only person still caring about the trouble stirred up across the world, still caring about the families of the decimated, still caring about the children whose parents were decimated. But she was used to it, she lived her whole life giving back to the world without being recognised. Everyone hailed Tony and Steve as earth’s best defenders, but Natasha? She was a shadow. She was always helping, albeit silently.
Without asking, Steve grabbed the television remote from the table in front of them, turning on an old movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. “Figured you’d appreciate something like this today,” he turned towards her and smiled.
“Thanks.” She whispered, relieved that nights like these existed where she was forced to take a break from avenging the world and obsessing over what could not be fixed.
As the movie played for the rest of the night, an uneasy feeling within her started to grow. She couldn't quite put a finger on what it was, or why she felt that way; but as the movie progressed she felt even worse. Of course, Natasha being Natasha, concealed her feelings too well. She still put on a weak smile as Steve looked at her time to time throughout the movie or when a funny scene came on.
Then it hit her. This was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs she was watching. The old American kids’ movie she watched so many times, she had lost count over the years.
“Oh, she'll never find me here. And if you let me stay, I'll keep house for you. I'll wash and sew and sweep and cook!” Twenty-eight girls sat in rows behind their desks in the dilapidated classroom. The old projector sat on a table at the front and cast the film onto a screen in the dimly-lit classroom. They repeated every word fluently, masking their thick Russian accents with a dainty, high-pitched American one. As each scene played in front of their unseeing eyes, the screen flashed with subliminal messages.
“Instill fear.” The two words were conveniently edited in between two scenes, only for a couple of milliseconds, before the rest of the movie played on. “Instill pain.” Another set of words is edited into the film, brainwashing the vacant-souled girls. The subliminal messages were a part of weaponizing the twenty-eight red room girls into Soviet’s deadliest assassins.
As the movie reached the halfway mark, Steve stretched his arm slightly and gently placed it around Natasha’s shoulder. She shot upwards, her spine straightening. “Natasha?” Steve started to question her as the plate of rice on her lap fell to the ground, her hands trembling on her lap. “Instill fear.” Her voice came out as a low, shaky whisper as her eyes glazed over with tears threatening to breach. All the colour from her face had drained and she was completely devoid of her senses. “Tasha, it’s Steve. Can you hear me?” By now, Steve was growing to be increasingly worried; he had never seen Natasha in such a state before.
Natasha did not respond, however. All she could do was to stare straight ahead at the television, waiting for the next scene to emerge. Visions of her time in the Red Room clouded her mind. She remembered it all too vividly, the thoughts in her head washing her senses over and knocking them out like dominoes. They would recite the same exact movie every day for years. When she defected to the United States, she willed herself to forget all about what her superiors had implanted into her memories. And she did, but the moment she saw the same movie for the first time in decades, it completely broke her.
“Instill pain.” By now, her hands were shaking uncontrollably and her breaths were far too irregular to even be considered as breathing. She was holding her breath for minutes at a time, then gasping for air in the next few seconds before repeating the vicious cycle. Steve knew that if he did not do something about the situation, she might slip under.
He grabbed onto her hand, which was gleaming with a sheen of moisture. Her hand felt terribly cold and lifeless. “Natasha, I’m going to need you to stay with me, okay?” Her eyes dilated slightly before she collapsed beside Steve’s lap. Her body wracked with sobs as her words came out in silent screams. There was a sickening tightness in her chest which left her breathless and gasping for air, tears darkening the fabric on the couch. Steve rubbed her back in slow circles; it was the least he could do for her. He felt terribly helpless and guilty.
Her brain demanded the energetic expenditure of an athlete, but the rest of her body said otherwise. Her fears tumbled out, unchecked by her mind, as she started to feel her vision darkening. The panic started out as thin cellophane; now, the panic was a deluge of ice water surrounding every limb, creeping higher until it passed her mouth and nose. “Nat! Stay with me, we’ll get through this together, alright?” Steve’s comforting words were merely a whisper to Natasha; the roaring static in her mind overpowering her senses.
After a tiring fifteen minutes of convulsions, shallow breaths and red room memories replaying in her mind like a never-ending loop, she finally spoke up weakly, “Steve?’ Her mind was still in a haze, as she clutched her temples. Her head was throbbing badly; it felt as if someone had put her mind in a blender, reassembled it, only to deconstruct it again. Just like how it felt after her superiors hooked her up onto the cursed memory-wiping tech.
“Natasha, you alright? It’s Steve.” He ran the palm of his hand up and down her back in hopes to calm her down. She remained quiet, her face turning into a sickening shade of white. He grabbed the trash can beside the couch and held her hair back as she emptied her stomach. She was paler than a sheet of paper and lathered in sweat. Steve’s heart broke at the sight of her; she was so broken and helpless. Who knew the world’s fiercest spy and assassin would be throwing up, shaking and feeling the absolute worst?
It was an agonizing ten minutes of Natasha heaving and heaving until there was nothing left but an empty pit in her gut. “Here,” Steve guided Natasha to lean her head on his chest while she recovered from the aftermath of her episode. She rested her head weakly on his chest, one hand clasped with his and one hand clutching onto her stomach. “Natasha?” He asked softly, his eyes full of worry. “I’m sorry, I-” She hastily replied but Steve cut her off.
“Don’t. You have nothing to apologize for. Clearly, you’re not okay.” He spoke as he wrapped his arms around her back, all the while whispering “It’s going to be okay.” and ‘We’re going to get through this, together.” Natasha knew that a part of the Red Room was still ingrained in her; no amount of avenging would ever clear it. She hated the fact that even after all these years of making up for her past mistakes, trying to be a better person every day, the Red Room still haunted her and reminded her of how terrible of a person she was back then.
“A part of them is still trapped in my mind. O.P.U.S. The quantum entanglement tech. Ivan,” she whispered in between shaky breaths. “Shh, hey, it’s alright. They aren’t here to hurt you anymore. You’re in the Avengers compound, you’re safe with me on this couch. You’re an Avenger, Natasha.” Steve looked at her in the face but she kept her head down, still struggling to suppress her sobs. Steve rested his hands on Natasha’s shoulders, keeping her grounded and using comforting words to try to calm her down.
“Natasha, you’re the strongest person I know. Everyone moved on, but not you. You did the things no one wanted, or even had the mood, to do. You ran the Avengers by yourself. You maintained world security alone for five years. You worked hours at that facility for orphans. You starved yourself, cried yourself to sleep, shut yourself in, but you still did the work. Because you cared, even when the whole world gave up and moved on, you didn’t. That’s what makes you so incredibly strong, you know that?” They both stared at each other, neither of them speaking.
The walls that held her up collapsed, as sobs punched through, ripping through her muscles and bones. She was a picture of grief, loss and devastation. Her emotions had been walled off behind a mask of coping, but now they came in a torrent of tears.
“We’re going to be okay, Tasha.” He combed his fingers through her hair, gently wiping away the endless stream of tears on her cheeks. With Natasha nestled under his arm, a single tear threatened to fall from his eyes. He regretted all the times he had left her alone in the compound for months on end. He regretted all the times he failed to check on her mental health. He regretted not caring enough, for the one person who always did. Natasha cared for him, but he failed to see it all these years.
“I’m sorry, Natasha,” he started, but she cut him off.
“Don’t. I know things have been rough on all of us. You deserved time away from me. I prefer living alone,” she swallowed the lump in her throat, “anyways.”
“I should’ve stayed. I should’ve known you were under so much stress, that you suffered alone like this on so many other nights. I’m so sorry.”
He recalled all the times he had spent with Natasha.
“You sure about this?”
“Yeah, it’s gonna be fun.”
“If it was the other way around, and it was down to me to save your life, would you trust me to do it?”
“I would.”
“There’s worse ways to go. Where else am I gonna get a view like this?”
“We don’t wanna kill you, but we will.”
With Natasha finally asleep in his arms, Steve was not sure what would happen next. Where they would go, what they would do. But he knew one thing: He would follow Natasha to the ends of the earth if she asked him to, as her friend, her partner in fighting evil. It was always her.
“I love you, Natasha.” He whispered into the silence of the night, as he felt a reassuring hand squeeze his own.