Chapter Text
Steve Rogers is the first one to speak following your admittedly melodramatic declaration. And, ever true to his maddeningly righteous form, his words are nothing short of sterling: “We are not going to harm you,” he reassures, all saint-like understanding and benevolence, outward-facing palms held up on either side of his well-built torso in an unimpeachable show of surrender. “We shouldn’t have done so in the first place. I know it’s hard, but I’m asking you to trust in me when I promise you that we won’t."
Dimly, it causes you to wonder if perhaps the powers that be got it wrong. Maybe you’re not the angel, because it’s growing quite evident that Captain Rogers could fill that role with marvelous aplomb, given the chance.
You aren’t quite sure whether that particular realization leaves you feeling resigned or merely embittered.
“You want me to trust in you,” you snort derisively; your weakened, raspy tone devoid of humor. Mustering what little energy remains, you manage to quirk a brow defiantly up at him. “After not a single one of you hesitated to wound me with a bedeviled steel that very well may have killed me had you chanced a blow any higher.”
To his credit, Steve Rogers does little more than set his jaw and give you a curt nod. “Yes.”
Well—points for effrontery, you suppose. It’s as impressive as it is irritating.
“Well,” you muse, struggling to keep your hoarse tone somewhat even. The base of your spine is damp, wet with blood, soaking through the waistband of your trousers. “Then perhaps you’re more foolish than I initially thought.”
“C’mon,” Carol tries next, tacking your name onto the tail-end of her plea. She makes a move as if to approach you, stopping herself short when you flinch at the motion. “Your wound hasn’t been cleaned. It could get infected. Let us help you.”
“Do not address me as your familiar,” you are quick to retort, uncaring of how the female Captain visibly shrivels in response, before turning to address her silent counterparts. “How am I to know you won’t take advantage of that opportunity to finish me off?”
“You’re going to pass out from blood loss, anyhow, if you keep this up for much longer,” the Widow reasons then in perfectly-accented English, inching carefully forth and continuing to advance when you do not retreat from her ever-nearing proximity. “What do you stand to lose?”
You clench your jaw tightly, frustration boiling low in her gut, because you know that what she says is true. It most certainly does not mean that you are under any obligation to like it. “I have one condition.”
Natalia doesn’t miss a beat. “Name it.”
“Only you may touch me,” you murmur out quietly. Cogent vulnerability roils off your beaten figure in pelagic waves, though you’re sure to lace your words with a hardened steel that leaves little—if any—room for negotiation. “No one else.”
“Consider it done.”
— —
The Widow does not comment upon the myriad of raised pale-white scarring that taints your sweat-damp skin. Nor does she display an adverse reaction (or any reaction) when confronted with the circle-enclosed brand—a neatly-stenciled ‘🝗’—which mars the quivering flesh beneath your right shoulder blade.
You appreciate that.
Instead, she’s all gentle touches and quiet indifference: dabbing lightly at your bloodied injury with alcohol-soaked cotton, threading a sterilized needle through your torn flesh with measured movements, periodically checking in to ensure you aren’t in more pain than you can stand whilst she sews the gaping wound shut.
It isn’t until she’s near finished, and is expertly snipping the nylon cord with a diminutive pair of surgical clippers, that she speaks up: “Why me?”
You flinch as you feel another damp cotton ball gently swabbing the sewn-shut wound at the base of your spine, tightly gripping either side of the steel tabletop beneath you in both hands and sighing quietly to yourself when you feel the metal giving way with a creaking groan. “I wish I knew,” you answer eventually, quietly.
“Tell me a lie,” she says next—demands, really. You rest your forehead against the metal, feeling a flicker of… something ignite itself in your chest.
“What?” you ask, fighting to keep a neutral tone.
“Tell me a lie,” she repeats simply. Her gloved hands are still, motionless upon your perspiration-and-blood-slick skin.
You swallow thickly to yourself, your pain-addled consciousness inundated with scattered thoughts and nonsensical musings. Still, you do your marked best to tamp down on your anxieties, consciously relaxing your grip around the tabletop—now molded with distinct imprints of your clenched fists. Finally, you manage to croak out what you pray to be a sufficiently coherent answer: “The prospect of death terrifies me in such a way that little else ever has.”
You hear the slight frown in the Widow’s throaty inflection when she entreats you, “Tell me another one.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
You heave out a soundless sigh, lifting your face from the cool metallic surface and moving your arms to cross one atop the other. Lowering the cleft of your chin to rest upon your forearms, you gaze contemplatively off into the widget-cluttered distance. “I miss my home.”
Her touch leaves you, then. You are scarcely given a moment to register the change before she’s stalking into your line of vision with all the grace of a powder-faced ballerina at the Bolshoi. As she does, the toe of her boot hooks the metal leg of a nearby stool, dragging it over to where you lie, motionless and wary.
She lowers herself to sit, then, knees askew and shoulders set, her judicious green-eyed gaze intent upon yours—searching, you think. Though for what, you don’t quite know.
“Tell me another,” she urges, leaning forward ever-so-slightly until the two of you are mere tommes apart. You speculate fleetingly that perhaps this is what dying feels like—a perplexing tightness in your chest, a liquid heat spreading through your veins, an abhorrent feeling in the marrow of your bones telling you that everything is about to change.
You whisper your untruth oh-so-quietly this time, like it’s a treasured secret with the power to ruin you, to ruin this. Perhaps it is. “I am not afraid of you.”
The Widow—Natalia—is silent for a long while, then, though her gaze does not stray from yours.
You’ve long since lost track of time when she finally speaks: “I believe you.”
— —
A bone-deep ache in your biceps femoris, dull yet invariably potent, stirs you into hazy consciousness like a gentle breeze kindling a flame.
It’s painful, of course, but the burden of physical strain means that you’re present, anchored in this body.
There’s little artificial light present as you wake in an unfamiliar setting, just a dim yellowy effulgence to the left of where you lie motionless atop a fleece-white bedspread. You’re sprawled rather unceremoniously beneath the wonderfully tepid covers, left cheek mashed heavily into a plush head-pillow, its fabric wet in the corner with what you’re loath to acknowledge is your own drivel.
Slowly, oh-so-carefully, you push yourself up with trembling arms, peeling off the weighted duvet with a precursory flick of the wrist. You have to bite back an anguished hiss at the way even the slight movement sends sharp pinpricks of pain through your bandaged lower back. Then you creep out from the foreign chaise, pulse thudding viscerally in your ears.
As you rise unsteadily to your feet, you take stock of your current circumstances.
Strange new garments adorn your figure: a curious all-black toga (or T-shirt, you suppose it’s called), its chest emblazoned with a circular grey emblem, and a pair of loose ocean-blue briefs that extend only about a quarter of the way (if that) down your scar-ridden legs.
You’re in a space that appears somewhat well lived-in, though its inhabitant does well to remain neat and unobtrusive. The pseudo-bedroom in which you stand is tidy. It comprises what you think to be a closet directly to your left, the bed beside you, an expensive-looking nightstand housing an ecru lamp and a throwing knife, a sleek wooden dresser positioned against the wall to your right … and, beyond that, little else.
There’s an oversized archway up ahead.
Through it, you glimpse the staples of an earthly apartment—a modest kitchen space alongside a furnished mezzanine, likely equipped with an electronic television and perhaps one of those “Alexis” automations. (… Or, was it “Alexa”?)
It’s empty. It all is, and a quick analysis only reaffirms it: there’s no one here.
Which you find to be rather peculiar, if not—
You feel every muscle in your body tense, because you could have sworn—
“You’re not just going to stand there forever, are you?” comes a droll, vaguely familiar cadence accompanied by a willowy figure dressed all in black sliding nimbly into view.
Natalia—the Widow—settles herself comfortably in the archway, one shoulder pressed casually to the wall. She’s wearing an absolutely shit-eating smirk upon regal pale features, green irises glinting indecipherably in the soft yellowed luminosity.
She’s dressed fairly similarly unto you, which leads you to believe that the various cloths covering your body belong to her: thin, tight black trousers (leggings, you think they’re called nowadays) that look as if they’ve been painted onto her shapely legs and a matching black T-shirt with its sleeves severed.
Long, fiery red locks of well-kempt hair are pulled back from her face, a slight blush coloring high cheekbones; her feet, too, are similarly bare, and she appears unarmed—though you know far better than to take that at face value.
It’s not ideal by any means, and yet somehow you feel almost… safe. Secure.
When you maintain your silence, the Widow switches tactics.
“How do you feel?” she asks. This time, her words are softer—tempered with an unmistakable note of keenness, as if she truly wishes to know.
“Fine,” you manage to croak out, fighting the urge to wince as stabs of discomfort dance along the base of your spine.
The Widow’s gaze narrows intently upon you, a single brow quirked. Evidently, she remains unimpressed with your admittedly improvident attempts at hiding your body’s malaise.
“I can tell when you’re lying,” she remarks, head ever-so-slightly tilted as she appraises you shrewdly. “Plus, you kind of suck at it, anyways.”
“Is that why earlier, you entreated me to deceive you?”
The W—Natalia nods slowly, a preoccupied quality drifting over her queenly features. “I wanted to understand… “ she trails off distractedly, her voice dwindling to nothing more than a quiet murmur.
“Understand what?”
Her ensuing reply is soft but firm: “Why you’d let me see the truth.”
You frown, liquid heat boiling along your spine. “I’m afraid I do not catch your meaning.”
“You could lie to me, if you really wanted to. You could lie to me, and I’d never know the difference,” Natalia points out, her tone laced with costly meaning that seems to penetrate you to your very core. “I shouldn’t be able to tell when you’re lying to me… but I can.”
You fight the cogent urge to shift beneath her gaze. You believe you grasp where this is going, though you’re not quite sure you’re sufficiently equipped to confront it.
“Perhaps you are more perceptive than you give yourself credit for,” is the mercurial rebuttal you settle upon—and a feeble one at that. You know it, and you know Natalia knows it, too.
It’s there in that sanguine curve of her lips, the way her eyes gleam brightly with humor. “You’re immortal.”
“Yes, well, unfortunately, ‘immortal' and ‘all-powerful’ are not interchangeable.” Her gaze flickers briefly down to your solar plexus, where you both know the wound marring your skin (at least, height-wise) to be.
“Clearly,” she deadpans, full lips quirking subtly into something like a smirk.
“For how long did I sleep?” you query before she can so much as think to return to the earlier topic of discussion, exhaustion and apprehension and pain compressing tightly around your lower abdomen in the most maddening fashion. Your heated flesh tingles with that all-too-familiar burn even as you feel a cool droplet of sweat tracing its way down your spine.
The Widow looks more bemused than anything else, huffing out a quiet breath before answering: “Thirteen hours,” she rattles off as if it’s of little consequence. “I was rather impressed by it, honestly.”
“I am sorry that I took your bed for so long,” you manage to utter out after a brief silence, genuine apology evident in your hoarse inflection. “I will be healed soon, I assure you.”
“How did you know it was mine?”
You purse your lips, then, contemplating. Eventually, you settle for the safest approach: “These are your quarters, are they not?”
What you don’t tell her is that you can smell her here, that the scent of her clings to every last finger’s breadth of space in this modest dwelling—the clothes, the air, the bed. Gods, the bed. Its sheets are positively ripe with it.
And, the most curious part?
The aroma—her aroma—doesn’t repulse you. No; instead, it thrills something embedded deeply within you, a hopelessly naïve and quixotic ghost of who you used to be.
“On occasion.”
You do not quite know what to say in reply to that. So, in fantastically moronic nature, your addled psyche settles for the very first half-formed ideation that comes to mind: “Your bed is very comfortable.”
The Widow sucks in her lips ever-so-slightly, then, a subtle enough micro-expression that assuredly might have gone unnoticed were you not… well, you. Still, you are quite sure that if she really did not wish for you to see it, you would not have.
There’s something alleviating about that, you think. (It terrifies you.)
“I’m glad you thought so,” the Wid—Natalia utters. It brings a tired smile to your face even as the pain roars in your chest and the unease roars louder and yet somehow, above all of it, there’s something bigger… something louder screaming furiously over top of it all, something you’re not sure you would be able to name if it came up to you and physically struck you across the face.
Still, somewhere amidst the gluttonous opulence of noise and emotion and a hundred other things you don’t understand, you manage to stammer out a sentence, a burning question: “So, what happens now?”
— —