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Natasha felt sick to her stomach. Usually she could shake her missions off the second she finished them, but this one was sticking and had left a sour taste in her mouth.
Yelena Belova. She had trained with the woman in the Red Room, loved her as a sister even, but ever since she had left, her distaste and dislike for the other woman and her methods had only grown. If Natasha was the Red Room’s most effective operative ever produced then Belova was its most dedicated, following the rules of the system to the letter almost religiously.
Her inability to disobey rules or improvise made her less successful as an operative, but her fanaticism to the cause seemed to give her extra strength.
It was almost a relief that she was now dead. Her and the bastard version of the Red Room that she had been trying to create.
Almost.
There was a tiny part of Natasha that mourned for her former compatriot and everything she had become. She didn’t have any kind of sympathetic or fond thoughts towards Yelena’s recent actions though.
After everything the Red Room had done to them, everything they had become as a result of the torment, torture and training that the Soviet scientists and put their bodies and minds through, she had never thought anyone would want to replicate the results, especially a former pupil.
She could still feel everything they had done to her in her dreams – every lash, every order, every shot, every cut. Unbidden, her hand drifted down to her lower stomach.
You are made from marble.
She shuddered.
No, for all her regrets that Yelena was gone, she was incredibly thankful that her pet project had never come to fruition.
Natasha was shocked out of her reflection when one of the SHIELD operatives threw open a locker behind her with a clash of metal. She spun to glare at him, half angry with him for interrupting her thoughts and half annoyed with herself that she had been so lost in thought that she hadn’t noticed the presence of others in the room. The operative backed away with a nervous glance and Natasha sighed and rubbed a hand wearily against her forehead.
She needed to get out of here, needed to get away from all this, if only for a little while.
One short trip to Coulson later, she had six months off.
She had only asked for a week’s vacation, but Coulson had frowned and muttered something about it being the first time she had ever requested leave, rather than being put on enforced bed rest, and so he would rather she took as much time as possible to herself before coming back. She secretly figured she’d last maybe three weeks, maximum. From the arched brow Coulson gave her before she left, she bet he thought she would be back within a few days.
She took one of SHIELD’s Quinjets as far as Chicago and then caught a bus across the city to a motel picked at random. She had too many enemies to plan her travel plans out in detail – spontaneity was the key to unpredictability – and she knew that her bosses kept track of her. Fury may have accepted her into SHIELD, but there were many who still saw her defection as a ploy. At one point she picked up a tail and had to duck into an alley and scramble up a fire ladder to escape. She snorted when she saw who was following her: Sitwell – Pierce’s own lackey – and several members of Beta team. They were easy enough to shake.
When she exited the motel a couple of hours later – long enough for her to ascertain that she hadn’t been found – she caught a taxi out of the city and then jumped on another bus, before finally reaching one of the safe houses she kept that SHIELD didn’t know about. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust them, it was just that she didn’t really trust them.
Reclining back on the bed, Natasha stared up at the ceiling. Just one more day, she promised herself. Just one more day and then she could relax and wash the shame of her job, of her past, away. In the darkness of the house, she allowed herself to give in to the shivers that trembled through her body.
She felt so cold still – better since leaving the Triskelion – but still like she needed to put more distance between herself and that hellhole in Belarus.
She needed to feel warm again, needed the world to tilt the right way up again.
She needed…
She hated needing anything, or anyone. Needing things made you weak, made you slip up and she could never afford to slip up, especially with people.
Her hand crept beneath the waist of the shorts she had worn to bed and stroked over the rough skin of the scar that lay just above her hip bone. You needed people and the next thing you knew they had vanished, they had changed and they shot you when you were least expecting it.
Except when they didn’t.
Except when you needed something more, when you were tired and beaten down and broken and just wanted it all to end, and then someone came along and instead of beating you down, they picked you up, they gave you somewhere to belong.
They gave you a home, a family, something to hold onto.
Natasha bolted upright and pulled her clothes back on, knowing that now she had her goal, her target, in mind, she wouldn’t be able to rest until she had reached it. Grabbing her bag, she slipped out the back of the safe house into the garage where she kept the only vehicle she owned.
She drove as far as she could before stopping for coffee and gas. Sleep was put by the wayside and she put pedal to metal for another day and a half before she reached her final destination.
She could feel the tension draining out of her shoulders as she passed through the main street of the tiny town in the middle of nowhere, a couple of the locals recognising her and giving her a wave as she drove by. It was strange, she thought, to be recognised for her ties to a certain place rather than for her reputation.
Five miles out of town, she finally hit the dirt track leading to the homestead. The wave of relief that swept through her as the car bumped down the pot-hole filled road was almost overwhelming.
A small chant took up in the back of her mind: ‘just keep going, just keep going, just keep going’.
Clint’s truck was mussing as she pulled up in front of the house and from the lack f shouting and shrieking that usually heralded her arrival, she figured that wherever he was, he had the kids with him.
Turning the engine off, she sat quietly for a moment, trying to halt the faint tremors beginning to move down her arms and making her fingers twitch.
Natasha was just reaching for the strap on her bag when the front door swung open and Laura appeared, curiosity as to the identity of her mystery guest making her brow furrow.
They both froze for a moment, staring at each other and then Natasha was moving, throwing herself out of the car and stumbling awkwardly up the porch steps to throw herself into Laura’s arms. Her partner never flinched, just wrapped both arms around her and hugged her tightly as Natasha finally let herself fall apart.
She didn’t cry – the Red Room had diligently trained that emotional response out of her – but the tremors wracking her body grew in strength and she struggled to breathe, the breaths catching in her throat every time she inhaled.
For her part, Laura didn’t even flinch. Instead she just wrapped Natasha up more soundly in her arm, letting her silently sob it all out. After a while Natasha sagged, the emotional wreckage of the last few days leaving her exhausted.
Without a word, she was guided into the house and up the stairs, her bag tugged off her shoulder and then Laura was coaxing her to sit on the bed, slip her shoes and jeans off and lie under the covers.
Even in her half-asleep state, Natasha had enough presence of mind to remember that she didn’t want to be alone, didn’t want to be cold. She grabbed at Laura’s sleeve as the other woman began to stand up and tugged plaintively.
Laura smiled softly down at her and kicked her own shoes off before settling next to Natasha on top of the covers. Reaching out gently, she carefully brushed the hair out of Natasha’s face and then leaned in for a soft kiss.
“I’ve got to get dinner ready, but I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep, okay?”
“Okay.” Natasha snuggled deeper into the soft covers which smelt like Laura’s perfume and Clint’s Godawful cologne. It smelt like home. She allowed Laura to wrap an arm around her waist and buried her face into the other woman’s shoulder.
She woke up briefly a little while later, the room having darkened as the sun slipped over the horizon and in her groggy state, Natasha vaguely recognised that Laura’s warm form had disappeared, to be replaced by little Nathaniel snuggled under her chin. Faint murmuring alerted her to Lila and Cooper’s presence nearby, but the alert part of her brain whispered that she was safe and there was no threat so she allowed the lingering tendrils of sleep to pull her back under.
The second time she awoke, she jerked upright, eyes struggling to adjust to the darkness of the room. It took a moment for the details to filter in: middle of the night, no lights switched on, two bodies surrounding her.
Laura had remained asleep, even after she had bolted up, one hand still carelessly flung onto her thigh, but the bed’s other occupant had clearly been awoken by her startled movement.
“Hey,” Clint’s voice was quiet, soft, in the dark of the room, “it’s okay. We’ve got you. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Propping himself up on his elbow, he tugged lightly at Natasha’s arm and still half-bewildered from her dream, she let herself be guided back down onto the bed where he pulled her over so she was lying half-across his body.
“Want to talk about it?” he offered, one hand soothing up and down her back.
Natasha buried her face in his chest and tugged the covers back up over her shoulders. “Cold.”
He clutched at her tighter, anchoring her to this place where she was safe, where she was warm. Laura unconsciously snuffled closer towards them, adding her body warmth to the mix. Natasha reached out one hand to rest on her back, the other sliding up to grip Clint’s shoulder.
“Hey, hey, now, you’re okay. It’s all alright.” His hands on her body became firmer, grounding her to the present. Kisses were dotted across the crown of her hair and his hot palm slid up to rest over the back of her neck, the sure touch leaving her body pliant once more. “We’ve got you,” he murmured, “you’re safe, you’re warm. We’ve got you.”
The sound of his voice and the feel of his and Laura’s bodies pressed against hers, along with the rest of the familiar sounds of the homestead – the grandfather clock ticking downstairs, Cooper’s light snoring, the weather vane on the roof creaking in the wind – helped to convince she was finally safe, she could finally relax.
Here where people knew her. Here where her past didn’t matter, where there was only her present and her future.
Here where she was warm, wrapped in her lovers’ embrace.