Exhausted couldn't even describe how worn out Natasha was as she finally walked into her apartment. She had just finished a solo mission; which should've been a quick in and out but S.H.I.E.L.D's intel had been wrong about the amount of security her target had on him. But she was done thinking about it for the night, all she wanted to do was shower and go to bed.
Finally after a quick shower Natasha was under the covers and was seconds away from a dreamless sleep when she heard it. It was faint and had she not been trained to listen for everything in the midst of a silent night she probably wouldn't have heard it. The former Russian tried to ignore it but the noise called out to her again sounding annoyed at that fact that it had been ignored. Lazily slipping out of bed she walks to the back door to let in the small gray tabby that had been meowing at her for the past five minutes. It follows her to the kitchen and rubs up against her leg as she preps a small bowl of food for it.
Setting down the food she watches as it hungrily eats as much as it can. The cat technically wasn't hers; her life was to crazy and fast paced for her to own a full time pet. It was just a small alley cat that had followed her home one night. Really yhough who was she kidding she had been caring for this cat for the past year hell it even had a name, Bullet (courtesy of Clint). As much as she tried to deny her love for the tiny feline she knew it was pointless. The cat reminded her of a simpler, happier time in her life.
It reminded her of the cat she owned as child before being recruited by the Red Room. It was one of the few memories of her past that was truly hers. She remembers playing with that cat a lot as child as if it was her only friend(and it might've been she doesn't remember being able to socialize much with other children her age). She's not sure what happened to that cat, maybe it ran away or just died of old age.
She's shaken out of her memories when she hears a small purr. Lost in her past she had been absentmindedly petting the cat. Finally getting a good look at the cat she comes to the conclusion that it was in need of bath and as much as she wanted to just crawl back into bed, she knew she wouldn't be able to knowing there was a dirty cat walking in her home. Surprisingly the cat was calm and seemed to enjoy the bath, the blow drier on the other hand was a whole other story. But finally it was clean and dry meaning that now Natasha could finally sleep peacefully. Setting some blankets and a pillow in the corner of her bedroom she sets the small fur ball down and climbs into her own bed.
It's sometime in the middle of the night when she feels the slightest dip on the corner of her bed. Turning over she's met with the bright blue eyes of the tabby, that was supposed to be asleep in it's own corner of the room! But she was too tired to even bother putting it back in its corner, so she let it be. The cat decided to take this as an invitation to sleep as close as possible to her. The logical part of Natasha's mind knew that this was probably not the best place for the cat but the red head didn't care. The cat somehow made her feel safe and loved like when she was a small child and Natasha wanted to hold onto that feeling for as long as she could.
A/N: i don't own the anything except Bullet(well actually not even him. he's just a product of my imagination.) just a late night drabble so sorry if it's a little choppy or OOC. anyways i just loved the pic and thought it deserved a story of some sort. based off of the drawing thats being used as the cover which was not drawn by me(i can barely draw stick figures) but by tumblr user haforcere.