She's in Mumbai when Steve tries to contact her.
I've tried calling your number, but you've probably disposed of your phone. I'm not even sure if you've kept this one. For all I know, this message will never reach you. Oh well.
She doesn't reply. She figures it's safer for everyone if Steve thinks he didn't get ahold of the burner phone she's currently carrying. That his texts haven't reached her.
And maybe there's something comforting about her silence, maybe it's freeing to get those words out into the void, because Steve continues sending messages.
Tuesday 14:56 hrs
Remember that time we tried lifting the hammer? That seemingly innocuous piece of metal that determines your entire worth? There was a moment when I thought I would lift it, that I would be deemed worthy. I think about that moment a lot.
Tuesday 22:45 hrs
Do you think Thor knows what happened?
Wednesday 11:20 hrs
I'm reading this book by Thomas Kuhn. He talks about paradigm shifts that upend everything you ever thought you knew. How many paradigm shifts do you think happen in a man's lifetime?
Thursday 02:30 hrs
And to think that a few months ago my biggest worry was rising real estate prices.
Of course, there's nothing incriminating in his messages. Nothing about where he is, who he's with. No word on a recent prison break she saw on the news.
She receives the last one on Sunday, very early in the morning.
Thank you.
For letting us do what we had to.
.
.
Natasha tries to treat it as a vacation.
She really does.
She has enough money sequestered away and a fair network of safe houses not many know of. It's all fine during the day. She visits museums and art galleries. She takes a ferry to see a Buddhist monastery carved out of a mountain. She tries the spicy street food, picks out pretty ethnic jewellery. She takes pictures of the colonial architecture. She manages to catch a Bollywood film shoot in a park, all bright colours and loud songs. She dyes her hair black.
It's the nights that are a problem.
The first night, she doesn't sleep at all, just watches TV. Pretty soon, she grows tired of mindlessly flicking through channels so she raids the bookstores nearby. She finds a tattered copy of The Age of Innocence in a secondhand book stall and takes it to bed.
Each time you happen to me all over again, she reads, lids heavy with sleep.
A routine is formed. She stays out the entire day, exploring a new part of the city. In the evening, she returns to her modestly priced hotel and makes herself a cup of instant soup. Then she stays up reading a book, a magazine, a newspaper, whatever she can get her hands on. Reading until the words on the pages blur, till her eyes burn, she endlessly procrastinates going to bed. She reads until she can't anymore, till she knows sleep will take over instantaneously.
Because in that period between awake and sleep, when her eyes are still shut, she is terrified of her thoughts.
.
.
It was important to have an imagination in the Red Room.
She'd heard of the torturous training baller dancers had to undergo. So she imagined herself as a ballerina, weaving and dancing with faceless partners. Broken fingers and bleeding toes were all a part of the package if she was going to be performing on the stage, silhouetted by colourful lights.
It was important to have an imagination in the Red Room because there was only silence.
She needed something to fill that silence. So she imagined. Yelena had a low, sultry voice. Katya had a thin, reedy voice. Nadia's voice was pleasant, patient.
And when she walked into the weapons room, she was accompanied by a swell of trumpets. The day she made her first kill, there were screeching violins in the background. The rich sounds of Tchaikovsky drowned the groans and the whimpers of her fellow trainees.
Her life was a movie and she had her own personal soundtrack.
.
.
She's sitting by the sea when her phone buzzes. Despite herself, she picks it up. The sun is about to set and the yellow streetlights slowly flicker along the curve of the bay. Queen's Necklace, it's called. A string of pearls choking an elegant neck.
"Natasha?"
"Sam?"
"Thank god. Steve told me it was a long shot but I had to try-"
"Does he know?"
"Not unless you want me to tell him."
She doesn't say anything.
"Anyway, I doubt he'd- I mean he's holed up all the time with T'Challa in this room they call the war council-"
A pause.
"I don't think I was supposed to tell you that."
"Sam, it's not that difficult to figure out where you guys are. How's- how's Clint?"
"He's fine. Went back to his family, they're lying low. So did Scott."
"Wanda?"
"Wanda's here with us. She's a little- well, there are good doctors here."
Natasha sighs. A light drizzle builds up and she sees couples sitting around her shake and unfurl big umbrellas. Sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, they huddle behind the umbrellas, faces turned towards each other. In a city teeming with millions, this is the only space they have. An expression of private moments on a very public promenade.
There's something in his voice she can't quite pinpoint.
"Sam, what's wrong?"
"Bucky- he just went back under ice. After all that happened, everything we did- and Steve, Steve just let him, Natasha."
"Why?"
"He said he couldn't trust his own mind. So he went back to sleep. Just like that."
She realises that he's angry. She also realises she's gripping the phone too tightly.
"Sam, I have to go."
"Thought so. Don't call on this number again?"
"Don't call on this number again."
"Stay safe, Natasha."
The phone warms her hand for only a second before it's violently flung away. She watches it break into pieces on the rocks below, the thundering of the waves like a song in the background.
.
.
The rain does good to the city, giving it a fresh lick of paint. But like all changes, she can only see it above her; the clear sky, a gleaming skyscraper, and far away, the wisp of a rainbow.
On the ground level, it's the squelch of her feet on the potholed road, a car splashing brown water on her jeans.
She wonders what he's dreaming of.
"You really don't do well in the cold," she says. An offhand comment. "Considering your name."
His mouth quirks but his gaze is still troubled.
"It hurts my arm." A half-truth.
Then: "It makes my mind go blank. And then there are the dreams. Dreams of frost. And glass."
They both know what he's talking about. She didn't before. But now it seems the rumours have been confirmed.
She twists to face him and his fingers reach out to touch her hair.
"What do you dream of now?"
"Fire."
The crowd presses into her and she becomes a part of it easily. A purposeful walk, hunched shoulders and a scarf wound over her face and soon she's a faceless part of the throng, on her way to a destination with a visible urgency that's mobilising the entire crowd. It's as effortless as a pebble smoothly sinking in water.
As simple as waking up in the middle of the night, weary with a dream half-remembered, eyes shutting of their own accord, and in the next moment, going back to sleep.
Just like that.
So should I continue this?
Title's from Beach House's dreamy song Master of None.