The Black Widow peered down at her own hands as she washed blood from them. It had seeped under her fingernails. More than anything else she loathed the feeling of blood under her fingernails. The texture of it when it dried, the metallic smell. It had already started crusting and the water was turning pink. When she finished, she wiped the remaining sweat from her brow and released her shoulders, which she only just noticed were tense. Walking out from the bathroom she saw Barton coming out of the men's room, also done from scrubbing blood out of his calloused skin.
They stood staring at one another for a whole minute until she finally spoke.
"Do you ever get tired of this?"
"Killing, you mean?"
She nodded.
"I've never enjoyed it."
"I'm wondering at what age I'll quit, or at least, what age all this will finally catch up to me. What age some younger agent with more skill will take me out once and for all."
"Don't talk like that."
"We both know agents like us don't live very long lives."
"What's with you all of a sudden? Was it this particular mission?"
"I must say, watching young children run into crowds with bombs strapped to their chest does have a way of getting to me." She said, realizing that was exactly why she was mentioning all this. She had been enveloped by these thoughts since they had entered the plane, had been reeling over it in her mind, internally screaming, dying inside. And suddenly, she felt something break in her.
She fell to the floor. Barton caught her and fell with her. She let those tears, tears she had not cried in her long life as a killer. She released them, and Barton for the life of him could not remember ever seeing her cry.
"Shh," he caressed her hair. "You know, it's probably good for us to cry sometimes. You've seemed different lately, distant."
"It was what he said."
"What who said?"
"Loki."
"What did he say?"
She heaved, watching tears drip onto his leather jacket, wondering if the moisture would ruin it.
"He knew things about me when he was controlling you. He knew my past, and he threatened to have you kill me. And you know what the sad part was, it wasn't that he said all those things, it was that I thought to myself, if there were anyone I would want to kill me, it would be you."
"Natasha!"
"I'm serious. Someday, maybe that day will come, when one of us steps out of line, when one of us snaps and does something crazy. Well if I do, and you know I'll be hurting people, do it."
"You know I couldn't."
"I'm not asking you, I begging you."
He looked down at her, wiped a tear from her bloodshot eyes and sighed.
"Only if you do the same for me."
"I promise."