Sin. Dark, disgusting sin. It's staining me, like grime on an old church window.
I've got red in my ledger. It's dripping red like a malfunctioning faucet leaks water. Trickling down, running down. The number of lives I've taken, slowly dripping in front of me. Haunting me, mocking me. I've killed and I've tortured.
The more I try to crawl out of this dark hole, the more I try to reach up to the light , the father down I fall. The more I struggle, the deeper I sink.
I haven't earned the right to leave. To even try to leave. I'm to far gone to even try to fix myself now. I can't do it.
But the longer I stay, the dirtier I get. The deeper I go. The worse I get. I can't fight these strangling vines of my own crimes.
I've saved hundreds of lives, by killing thousands. I've gotten my hands dirty. I've stained myself.
Not like the captain, always pure, always clean. No hidden past to be ashamed of, to drive him to madness. No reputation he has to fight to keep clean. No past he has to bury down deep. Deep enough to hide. But never deep enough to forget.
It doesn't stop. The haunting. The last look in a victim's eyes, the final cry of a falling human. It never ends. They go on and on, lingering in front of you, mocking you, reminding you. Driving you to insanity.
It's a cycle of torture, an endless tunnel of the dark. There isn't even the faintest pin prick of light ahead to give me hope. I'm too far back, too far in. Too many deaths by my hand. Too many I've sent past the barrier into the unknown.
I'll just have to wait until the day I meet someone stronger than me, and he'll drag me down to hell where I belong. To the endless torment which most definitely is waiting for me.
There's nothing I can do to make my wrong right. Can I ever wipe out that much red from my ledger? It's dripping—gushing—red. I lie and kill in the service of liars and killers. There's no way I can claim the lives I've saved as restitution for the lives I've taken.
The dirt and filth of my crimes is coating me black. I can't get out. I will never get out of this suffocating pit. There's no handhold, no ladder for me to drag myself free by. The only way out is to fly free, and I haven't earned my wings.
Help me. Please help me. I've swallowed my pride and I'm reaching out to you. Please. Take my hand and drag me out of the mire of my own wrong doings. I'm crying. I'm crying, and the tears are rolling down my face. Tears can't wash away the dirt. It just runs everything and makes me filthier.
I need rain. A heavy down pouring of rain to wash me clean. To wash me whiter than snow.
Please. Take my hand and bring me up to those clouds. I want to be clean. I want to be pure. I want to earn my wings and soar. I want people to look back, at the very least, and say Natasha Romanoff was a good person.