Chapter Text
PRESENT; GERMANY
It was almost 4 am and rain was pouring down in sheets as Natasha reached the road leading to her final destination. Due to the heavy rain, she could barely see anything. But peering out through the windshield into the darkness, the city lights of Berlin finally appeared in front of her eyes.
However, her relief was quickly replaced by nervousness.
She clutched the steering wheel with both hands, her palms sweating. Heat was rising inside her and she couldn't stop herself from biting her lip.
Natasha wasn't really used to feeling nervous, but she tried not to be bothered by her body reacting like that. Her own emotions didn't scare her anymore.
They used to. In the past, she would lose control everytime she had felt something different than pain or silent numbness. That's how she was raised after all, but she was not that person anymore. Or rather than that, she was a person now and not that monster anymore.
Clint's patience and determination over the years, job that gave her life a purpose and all the people that felt comfortable around her, trusting her with their lives and calling her their friend made her believe she could be human one day again.
And to be human meant to have feelings and be capable of working with them.
She didn't even think love was for childern anymore.
So she tried to take control of her breathing and focus on the road in front of her, but way too much was going on in her head and she had no idea how to silence her thoughts. She still couldn't wrap her mind around everything that had happened. The most confusing was what was happening right now.
After all this time, she was heading to her home. Heading to her.
A WEEK BEFORE; UNITED STATES
Natasha hid in a dark alley somewhere in Brooklyn. Once out of sight, she took off her hood and sunglasses and leaned against the wall, breathing heavily.
How did she get herself into this mess again?
Waking up as someone who was being wanted by the federal government was nothing new to her. The government was a bunch of ungrateful jerks. But the fact that the public perceived her as a villian once again got under her skin this time.
Tony and Steve got into a fight and she ended up alone, in the middle of the night, resting for a minute after she spent whole day on her feet looking over her shoulder. Good thing it became her second nature long time ago.
Being on the run without having anywhere to go was not part of her plan. One lifetime wasn't enough to wipe all red out and now she was wasting time again, missing the point of it all.
The most nerve wrecking part of the whole situation was how easily everything she considered stable in her life collapsed like a house of cards.
Everyone believed that she was unbreakable. Only a few people knew it wasn't the truth. For all she knew about herself and her past, she'd always been so broken that there was nothing that could break her more.
God how she missed things being normal. Which made her smile a little. That she had something to call normal and she was capable of missing it. There was no chance she would let them take that away from her.
She received a coded message from Clint yesterday. He wrote that he had accepted house arrest so he could be with his family, which was a good thing. But he also mentioned that agents were monitoring his farm, waiting for Natasha to show up so they could arrest her.
changed my mind btw. you can hit me as hard as you want, we'll always be friends. be careful Nat, see you when this chaos is over. miss you… we all do.:)
So Clint didn't change at all. Who else would take time to code an emoji. His message was keeping Natasha sane. Maybe it might be over one day, Clint was a dumbass but never a liar. One of the few things they didn't have in common.
She got one from Maria as well, warning her about more agents around the Avengers facility. Natasha really wished no Sokovia Accords had happened.
Speaking of Maria, that was where she was going right now.
She didn't want to drag anyone else down with her, but Maria was the only person who could handle the government as well as Natasha could. Probably better, given the current situation.
And on top of that, Natasha missed her.
Maria's body tensed up when she heard someone tapping on her window. Looking at the clock only deepened her confusion. It was close to midnight and she wasn't expecting anyone, not that she felt like sleeping anyway.
She was slightly drunk after finishing her fourth beer and so damn tired of overthinking. She got up from the couch and nearly tripped over its corner as she slowly approached the window. Her eyes narrowed, trying to catch a glimpse of someone in the darkness.
As soon as she recognized Natasha's face, she hurriedly opened the window, pulling Natasha down into a tight hug.
As Maria held the back of Natasha's head, she sighed into her hair. “I am so glad you are okay.”
“Okay sounds like an overstatement to be honest,” Natasha smiled after they pulled apart.
Maria chuckled, more out of relief than amusement, as she held Natasha's shoulders. "Then you are alive at least."
Later, they both sat on Maria's couch with beers in their hands, lost in thought.
“So what's the plan?” Maria asked after few minutes of comfortable silence.
“I haven't really thought about.. any plan yet,” Natasha said absentmindedly, staring in front of herself.
Maria watched her for a second, waiting for her to continue before breaking the silence. “Well if that's true you are a lucky bastard,” Maria said as she took a sip from her bottle. “I can't think about anything else, no matter how hard I try.”
“I don't know,” Natasha replied, still not fully back in reality. She looked down, her fingers playing with the sticker on her botttle. “I have no idea where to start now. I can't run anymore. I promised myself I would never get into situation like this again.”
“It wasn't your fault Nat.”
“Yet here I am,” Natasha said as she finally looked at Maria and smiled sadly. “I have to come up with something to do. I can't lay low for months again, it nearly killed me last time. I need a purpose.. a mission.”
“Trust me I understand. Our jobs fucked us up a little, didn't they?”
“A little,” Natasha laughed quitely. “One better than another.”
She wanted to joke by saying from Red Room to Shield to Avengers more like from a murderer to a liar to a public enemy except the words Red Room never left her lips. But they weren't choking her like they usually did, which was much more terrifying.
“A horrible idea, really,” Maria words snapped Natasha back to reality.
“What?“
“I know that look. Some genius idea that will probably get you killed just strucked your mind,” Maria said, looking proud of herself for reading Natasha's mind.
“It's not an idea yet,” Natasha protested, sounding mostly amused.
“So what are you thinking about exactly?”
“Home,” Natasha heard herself say. Why the hell did she say that?
“Okay I was mostly right then. Won't get you killed, but arrested."
Natasha looked at Maria, confused.
“You can't go back to the facility. The whole place is being monitored by federal agents. They wouldn't give you a chance.”
Natasha nodded as she understood. So that's what Maria meant. She couldn't read her mind really.
But panic was growing inside of her as she realized how naturally it felt to say home while it was the Red Room on her mind. Maybe her demons weren't buried as deep as she thought. As deep as she hoped. Or perhaps she didn't mean the Red Room as such at all.
Natasha flinched at the realization that Maria had been talking for a while now without her listening. Luckily Maria noticed it too and didn't even finish her sentence but instead she offered: "Let's go to bed. You are tired. We both are.”
Maria got up, taking Natasha's empty bottle from her hand and went to the kitchen. “Am leaving in three days but you can stay till then. Well you can stay even after."
Still sitting on that couch, Natasha was considering her options. Three days. It sounded like enough time to prepare everything she needed.
And just like that, it became an idea. She still could do something good. But she couldn’t do it alone. And unfortunately, she could think of only one person who could help her.
Natasha spent the upcoming days in her car outside the Avengers facility, waiting for the right moment to get in.
She wanted to get some stuff from her room, her favorite weapons from the warehouse and the new equipment she was testing with Tony before. It wasn't perfect yet but it was fun.
The most important thing was to hack into Stark's data system and find all the information she needed to track location of one little spider.
Sneaking past the agents was even easier than Natasha expected.
The first complication occured when she was searching the data system. It turned out that not even the great Tony Stark knew the real name of Natasha's shadow. Natasha had to search dozens of information about herself before she could find one file in which the name Black Widow didn't match the name Natasha Romanoff or Natalia Romanova.
Natasha smiled to herself while the file was loading. She'd hate this. Being hidden in the shadow of Natasha's glory. The second Black Widow, nothing less but nothing more. Natasha always found her obsession to be the best entertaining.
Until she wasn't smiling anymore. Maybe she wouldn't hate it. Natasha didn't really know what kind of person she was now. She just hoped she was still a person. That they didn't hurt her enough to destroy the stubbornness inside her tiny but strong body-
Her breath hitched when she saw the picture that appeared on the screen. Fucking Yelena Belova was staring back at her.
And again, Natasha couldn't shake the feeling that Yelena was looking right into her soul. She wasn't surprised. There was a time when Natasha would swear that Yelena owned the second half of her soul. That they shared one.
What caught her by surprise was how her own reflection on the screen merged with Yelena's picture and they formed one face. Half of Yelena and half of Natasha forming one Black Widow. It fitted perfectly.
They used to be one, after all.
PAST; RUSSIA
All girls were sitting in a row, their backs leaning against the cold wall of the Red Room's basement training room. They waited.
Every week, they were introduced to one mystery opponent. No one ever knew who would walk through the steel door to fight them in the ring, but every girl had always hoped to win over them. However, that only happened once. And it was a long time ago.
Chills ran down Yelena's spine as she felt what was about to happen. She'd always known Natalia was close before she could see her.
They used to call each other sisters.
Yelena was five when she was captured and dragged into the darkness of this hell called the Red Room and Natalia took her under her wing.
She came to Yelena when she heard her crying on her first night and tried to comfort her. She risked being caught and tortured but she didn't care and it meant everything to little Yelena.
She was told her parents didn't want her anymore and they sold her to the Red Room so they could do whatever they wanted with her from now on.
Of course they lied. Natalia knew it. But maybe the truth that her parents were deadly worried, looking for her everywhere without having a chance to ever find her, might have been worse and Natalia didn’t want Yelena to suffer even more.
Yelena didn't say a word first weeks after being captured and it was making their masters mad. But when they came for her, decided to torture her until she spoke, Natalia stood up in their way. So they took her instead.
Natalia came back later that day, her face and hands bruised and Yelena was afraid she would never want to see her again.
But she took Yelena's hand and led them out of sight, pulling her by the hand to sit down behind some old boxes and she hugged her. Yelena cried as Natalia hold her, whispering that she would never let anyone hurt her little sister.
It was the first time the Red Room's walls heard Yelena's voice. “I really want to go home,” she whispered, her voice breaking.
“This is your home now,” Natalia whispered back into Yelena's hair. She wanted her to understand that hoping to ever get out of here was hopeless and only hurting her more.
But the only thing Yelena understood that day was that this right now was her home. Natalia's arms around her, her hand stroking her hair and patting her back. The way she smelled and her heartbeat.
They became close friends, always side by side. They came to the point where all of the new girls thought they were actually sisters.
They were just childern and having each other's back was the only thing this cruel world had left them. It kept them from breaking completely and losing their minds.
Years passed and Natalia's skills quickly outgrown those of everyone else. She was faster and stronger than all the other girls. Better in every aspect of their training and it didn't take long for their masters to see it too.
And Yelena despited Natalia's proud face as they were praising her. She would do anything to please the people she and Yelena once dreamed about killing together.
It was proven one day, when Natalia and Yelena ended up in the ring together. Yelena didn't know what to do because she didn't want to hurt Natalia. But before she could even react, she was pinned down to the floor with Natalia kneeling on her neck.
She felt her heart crushing as Natalia looked up at their master, waiting for her command. Yelena had never stopped thinking about that if their master's thumb was pointing down, Natalia would kill her that day without blinking an eye.
Later that day when Natalia came to sit next to her during diner and started talking about some new weapon, acting like nothing happend, Yelena acted the same. Because she couldn't afford to lose Natalia. But the memory had always been in the back of Yelena's mind.
Few weeks later, Natalia won against one of the mystery opponents. She was the first and the last girl who was capable of it. Silence spred around the training room and everyone stood still in shock. Natalia was called into different room and Yelena thought they would kill her for being too dangerous. For not being part of the group of nameless assassins the Red Room was trying to create.
But they didn't. They started sending her on missions outside of the Red Room and she officially became one of the monsters she used to hate.
Yelena didn't see her for months. She never even came to say goodbye.
Natalia became a mystery. Yelena heard that they called her Black Widow now. The Red Room's legend and hero and the world's threat and nightmare. The girls were punished all the time for not reaching Natalia's standarts. All of them were supposed to become an army of Black Widows but now no one seemed to deserve the title.
Natalia was never around anymore. Some were saying that she still lived in the Red Room when she wasn't on a mission but she had special trainings. Yelena felt it. She wasn't ever sure how Natalia looked by now, but she felt her presence.
When she was practising in the interrogation room once, she looked into the mirror on the wall and somehow she knew she was staring right into Natalia's eyes. Sometimes, she went by some door and she would bet her life on that Natalia was behind them. She felt Natalia watching her when she trained and one time when she slept.
In the Red Room, bond mattered more than blood. And their bond couldn’t be broken. Yelena knew it and she had never stopped believing that Natalia did too.
And even though her feelings towards Natalia were complicated lately, she'd never hated her. She was grateful that something was breaking her heart, reminding her that she had one.
The Red Room didn't manage to suck everything out of her. She wasn't a robot yet since she still had a soul. Soul aching for Natalia in every sense of the word because she was part of it. They used to be one, after all.
And now after all these years, Yelena was about to look Natalia in the eyes again.