Author's Note: Hi, anyone reading this! I started this story awhile back and now that I am trying to get back into writing stuff I've decided to post it. Thanks for reading!
-DP
PS: Reviews are always welcome :)
Dreamland
Chapter 1: The Netherworld
Natasha
Through the door it is another world, one where neon lights pulse, people scream and whisper, and everyone is either dancing in the marked center of the grimy floor, lurking in the dark corners, or gossiping with someone in a ridiculous costume. What is she doing here?
She turns to leave, but there is no longer a door behind her, just a graffitied wall and a silent teenage girl with a cold, blank expression on her pale face. Natasha whirls around, nearly knocking over a boy with glowing red eyes. He hisses violently, and she glares fiercely back at him, her hand reaching towards her pistol.
"Don't."
The voice is soft and cold, like a child's hand in the snow, yet somehow clearly audible over the other noise of the place. Natasha slowly turns back around.
"Don't what?" She asks dangerously.
"Pick a fight. Draw attention to yourself. Anger the other patrons." The girl shrugs carelessly and crosses her arms over her chest. She is a tiny thing, with a glittery sleeveless purple dress, eerily realistic-looking white fairy wings, and magenta-streaked dark brown hair. Yet at the same time, she looks dangerous, with her dark eyes, silent and deliberate manner, and the faint tattoos covering her pale arms.
"Who are you?" Natasha asks cautiously.
"Call me Titania," she replies, turning her face up so as to meet Natasha's gaze. Her eyes glow suddenly vibrant green as she offers a delicate, long-nailed hand. Natasha shakes it briefly, determinedly ignoring how Titania's wings seem to be flapping.
"What is this place?"
"This, Black Widow, is where heroes go to die. Look around," she adds tauntingly. Natasha doesn't like the girl already knowing her identity when she can hardly remember who she is. So she doesn't reply, just takes in the strange scene around her.
Tony Stark drunkenly reciting a love poem about a red-haired beauty while girls sob. A man and a woman with long, gleaming metal claws fighting violently in a corner. A man engulfed in flames conversing with another "patron". Iron man. Wolverine. Human Torch. She knows their names somehow. A tiny, winged woman flies overhead, a blue-skinned man slaps another, a group of teens form a circle, chanting something about ashes...it all washes over Natasha, combining with the flashing lights to make her head pound.
"You see?"
But Natasha isn't listening. At the edges of her vision, faces are creeping into view; ghostly pale, tears of blood running down their cheeks... She knows, somehow, that these people she's murdered in cold blood, everyone she's hunted down and killed. It's all the red in her ledger, and for a moment, it's all she can see.
"All your fear, all your regrets, every single ounce of guilt," Titania whispers.
"Why?" Natasha whispers back, suddenly vulnerable. She is searching for one face, one she hadn't killed, but somehow knows she's hurt.
"Everything you have to come to terms with," Titania replies simply. Then she freezes suddenly and pulls on an elaborate gold mask that covers the upper part of her face.
"Natasha Romanoff," a familiar voice says.
"Clint." Her voice breaks.
"I thought you would end up here eventually," he says coldly. She looks at him, really looks at him, and is shocked by what she sees. His hair is greasy and unkempt and his formerly bright blue eyes are dull and haunted, with dark circles beneath them. He looks like a beaten man.
"Clint, what happened to you?"
"You did."
Something inside her crumbles, as if these words confirm something she already knows, and has been afraid of for years. "I...what? What did I do?"
His eyes bare into hers, cutting through her thick armor. "You don't remember?"
"You were my best friend. My partner. I wouldn't have done anything to hurt you," she says, trying to be confident, but hearing her voice shake. It is a lie, and some part of her knows it, knows she's done something. She wraps her arms around herself, shivering in sudden cold.
"Cold?" Clint asks darkly, and Natasha nods nervously. "That's what happens to ice-cold bitches," he spits, before spinning on his heel and stalking away. He is trembling too, but Natasha knows in her shattering heart that it's because of rage rather than cold.
"Clint!" she cries desperately, trying to follow him, but he's gone. She catches Titania's eye briefly.
"Red," the girl whispers, her lips curving up into a cold smile. Then she was gone too, leaving Natasha alone in the pulsing crowd of lost heroes.
Something cold, wet, and sticky hits Natasha full on, drenching her upper body and splashing on her face and into her hair. She gasps, suddenly freezing.
"Whoops!" A drunk-sounding boy exclaims, while the girl next to him giggles uncontrollably. "We were aiming for him." He pouts vaguely to Natasha's left, probably at the man who seemed to have lit himself on fire.
"It's fine," Natasha mumbles, even though it's not, but the two have already disappeared into the crowd.
"C'mon," a new, warmer voice says, grabbing her wrist. It's a brown-haired girl, more modestly-dressed than most of the other patrons. Still, she pulls Natasha through the crowd so fast, it is almost as if they're going through the people. Then they really do go through a heavily-graffitied wall, and Natasha decides they probably did go through the people.
"I'm Kitty," the girl says, leading Natasha down a dark hallway. "You looked like you needed help."
They stop in front of a door, and Kitty pushes a small bottle of clear liquid and a bundle of clothing into Natasha's hands. "Go clean yourself up and change. I'll make sure no one goes in," Kitty says quietly.
The room turns out to be a poorly maintained bathroom. It contains two stalls (one out of order, one with a broken lock), a sink (only the cold water works, she will discover), and a paper towel dispenser over a trash can (both completely empty).
The bottle of liquid turns is soap and the bundle turns out to be a dress made from bloodred material. Natasha cleans herself up and changes quickly, despite her reluctance to put on the dress.
Everything here seems wrong, somehow. Natasha doesn't like it.
She keeps her boots, belt, and pistols, but throws away the sticky mess of dripping cloth that had once been her uniform. It looks ominous, as the only thing in the trash can, like some kind of warning.
Pushing open the door to the hall, Natasha hears a strange sound, like wind blowing through an echoey cave, and she feels goosebumps rise on her arms. Kitty is nowhere to be seen.
"Face your demons yet?"
Natasha whirls around to see Titania leaning against the wall, apparently chewing gum. The girl blows a large pink bubble, then lets it pop loudly, and the silence afterwards seems to ring.
"No demons, just some kid," Natasha replies, when she realizes the girl is actually waiting on an answer.
"Well, then, back to the Netherworld."
"The what?" Natasha asks sharply.
"The Netherworld. That's the name of the club," Titania replies, seeming unconcerned. She flutters her wings, striding down the hall.
Netherworld. Underworld. Otherworld of the dead. Hell. This isn't good at all, and Natasha can feel her pulse racing. Still, with no idea what else to do, she follows Titania down the hall.
"Who are you, anyway?" Natasha asks, catching up to the girl. There's something about Titania that she doesn't trust. The girl turns, her face again hidden behind the golden half-mask.
"That's not really important..."
"I don't trust you," Natasha says flatly. There's no point in subtlety.
Titania stops abruptly and turns, cocking her head. "It doesn't really matter if you trust me, you knew me." She pauses. "Actually, right now you need to find your own way," she decides, though she doesn't sound angry, only matter-of-fact. She smiles apologetically, angelically, almost too innocent for a moment.
"Wait-" Natasha begins, but the girl has vanished without a trace. However, Natasha can sense she isn't alone.
"Natasha Romanoff."
She knows the voice. "Loki."
"Still looking to wipe out that red ledger," he comments, smiling that slow smile.
"What are you doing here?" Natasha asks suspiciously. There is something off about him that she can't quite put a finger on.
"My dear lady, I am here because you called me here. I am a part of your ledger and you redemption. We all are." He spreads his arms and for a moment, about 50 Lokis fill the hall. Then they are all gone, and Natasha is alone in her confusion.
~DL~
She sits against a stone wall in the cold, damp hallway, her legs hugged to her chest. Everything looks red, burning, bleeding red, every inch of her vision, even when she shuts her eyes. A gust of chilling wind blows over her, moaning and bringing the scents of blood and death. Everything reminds her of blood and death now.
All at once, she hears the silence.
For the past however-long, Natasha has been able to hear the pulsing music and screams, even if only in the distance, but suddenly they cease. It feels like the calm before the storm. The silence in a forest when something isn't right.
She bolts down the hall, not even sure why she is so panicky, searching for a door to get back into the club. But when she finally finds a door- a small, falling-down thing- she wonders if she's in the right place.
Oh, it seems the same, if you look past the complete lack of people. But the silence; the replacement of the faint, colored lights with harsh white light; the way everything has been scrubbed clean...it seems wrong and unnatural.
"Hello?"
The word seems to echo, emphasizing the emptiness and how she shouldn't be here. She immediately claps her hand over her mouth, not sure why she said it.
You shouldn't be here.
The words are as clear as if someone said the them, but there is no one there but her. And then, sometimes between one racing heartbeat and the next, she's not there, either- she's gone, back to a memory she can't remember having.
She can feel his ‒ yes, it is a man, she can tell ‒ warm breath against her neck; it's a sharp contrast to the coldness of the rain. She stands motionless, waiting for him to make some kind if demand.
"Natasha Romanoff," he murmurs. "You're a hard woman to catch."
"Who says I'm caught?" She replies sharply, though still not moving.
"Shh, little spider." His voice is almost teasing, as though he were flirting and not talking to one of the most dangerous women in the country.
"Who are you?" She asks, not in the mood for games.
He catches her wrists and spins her around in one quick, unexpected movement. Still, she knows she can resist, but chooses instead to allow the man to think himself superior.
And yet, she can see in his eyes that he isn't fooled like the rest are.
"Maybe you could kill me. Maybe I could stop you." He watches her closely as he says this, and she can see that he isn't arrogant like all the other men are; he's stating the truth.
She stares back warily. "What do you want with me?"
"I've been sent to kill you."
She eyes him doubtfully at this, because if he wants to kill her, then he should've killed her earlier; now she's warned. "So why don't you?"
"Because I know you, Natalia Romanova, and you remind me of someone I once knew, someone who got a second chance. I think you deserve that second chance too."
"Why am I seeing this?" Natasha calls out, blinking twice in the harsh white light.
What happened to your second chance that made you end up here, Natalia?
A brief feeling of doubt tugs at her, because although she doesn't remember, the words echo a question that seems familiar. What did she do?
Think on it.
Natasha backs out of the room as a feeling of dismissal sweeps over her. Whatever that encounter was, there is nothing else to be gained from lingering.