Build the world in fire, they tell her between the kiss of whips (move faster, girl) and the peeling agony of bullets under her skin (dance, child). Don't think, obey and she snaps necks and splinters lives.
They open her up, when she can dance and dodge and win secrets with a kiss. Reach in and pull out red.
Widow they say, a success.
She kills men when they are open and giving beneath her. Hears their secrets between thrusts. She paints her world red, dazzles trainers and smiles bloody smiles to match her hair.
Kill this one.
She destroys them, until all that is left is a smear and a forgotten lover grieving. They smile, say perfect and she looses herself, bit by bit. Cocoons herself in red.
She finds herself again, in a city at the gleam on an arrow held by a man who offers her a chance. You don't have to do this, I can help wipe away the red.
Natalia Romanova is smiling when she becomes Natasha Romanoff, and sheds her cocoon.
Fear me, she whispers to the world and feels it tremble. Her ledger drips and she soaks it still, so that it may never dry.