A/N: Could take place after Avengers or Age of Ultron.
Disclaimer: If I owned it, you'd know it.
~After~
Guilt has become so much a part of her she has stopped wondering what it would be like to live without it. After a battle, after a war, after destruction, she takes a long shower. Maybe too long, she doesn't know, she doesn't keep track of the hours. The water always gets cold, numbing her down to her bones, which she swears are bruised too. She forces to her heart rate back to normal and scrubs her pruning fingers, watching the blood run down the drain. It doesn't matter; she's stained crimson and she's learned to live with it.
The colors are enough to stop her from staring into the mirror at cold flint eyes, wondering where the Black Widow ends and Natasha Romanoff begins. She knows Natasha Romanoff is a murderer, too.
After a long shower, she avoids the mirror and heads straight for her tiny closet. As she slips on "civilian" clothing, she considers burrowing deep into winter boots and parkas at the back of the clothing, a moment in hiding. She knows she doesn't need that; she can hide in plain sight. So she dresses, pretending she is a saint, not a sinner, and eats her dinner watching TV, legs tucked underneath her. She no longer screams when she sees dried blood still unwashed from under her fingernails.