Natasha wasn't surprised that she was in the situation she was in. Really, it was the status quo to be kidnapped and tortured in her bussiness. Except, most of her colleagues never die when they're being held like she is. Was.
Most of her colleagues were never as good as her - nearly all of them fell short.
She's outshined by few: the Winter Soldier, Nick Fury, Phil Coulson.
They are - or would be, at least, if she wasn't on 2 of the 3's side, if she wasn't dead, if Phil wasn't - wasn't dead too - threats to her.
Her killer wasn't even close to being on that list.
It wasn't surprise she was feeling.
No, Natasha wasn't surprised.
She was terrified.
It was completely unlike her, dieing. Not her strategy. Not in the cards, not on the table, completely unconcievable.
She will, however, collect all of the points for being spontaneous.
She doesn't think she'll get to cash them out.
Death in her proffession was not an anomaly. It was as common as Poptarts were in Thor's stomach.
Just. They never died, not really.
The ones being interrogated were on occassion - they squealed like pigs before it could happen most of the time.
But.
The ones doing the interrogating didn't die.
They weren't touched.
They - they were safe.
Why was this different?
Natasha should be more upset than she is. She's leaving people behind her.
It's hard to consider Tony Stark, the annoying asshole who constantly made fun of everyone around him, as one of those people, but they did fend off an alien invasion together. That's not something that can be said of just anyone.
Clint's one of those people. He'd saved her from her life, and now, she's doing it again. Disregarding his efforts and doing what she wants.
He'll be upset.
He'll be fine.
When it happens, she's left in her own red puddle.
The situation makes her reminisce. She hates that.
She'd made it so far. It's a distant thought.
She was no longer that little girl obsessed with the ballet barre. She was no longer the young teen who thought of being saved from the Red Room's clutches by a Captain America or Superman wannabe. She was no longer the young adult who killed without mercy or second thought.
She was an Avenger.
She could hear sirens in the distance. They weren't for her.
Did she deserve them?
No. Not at all.
Her victims scream at her.
She remembers each and every one.
Bruce Banner enters her mind for some ungodly reason.
His voice does, at least. Everything she has heard him say comes to mind.
I put a gun in my mouth. That's what resonates with her, months later.
His voice is either small, slow and calm or giant, unintelligible and angry. She didn't like the last one - too unpredictable, the Hulk was. But the calm one? She wanted that to be how her thoughts spoke to her.
Small, slow and calm.
Giant, angry and green.
She's in pain.
She doesn't know where it's coming from, that horrible pain. But it's there, and it's demanding every part of her focus.
She doesn't know.
She doesn't even know what happened.
Everything hurts.
Captain America. Steve Rogers.
He could survive this.
Survive. Had he done anything else his entire life? He was some American city boy who used to be a walking, unfolded paper clip. He survived a wintery hell. Without complaint - that she knew of.
She was strong.
He was strong.
He could survive this.
She didn't even know what this was.
Clint. Poor, poor, Clint. He would be angry. She could be crawling away to safety in that moment. He'd want her to. She wants herself to, on some level.
She can't. She doesn't.
Instead.
Instead, she laid and bleed out - she was dizzy, so it had to be happenning. She still had logic, then.
She's tired. She wants to sleep, but something in her is telling her to stay awake. She doesn't want to. Awake means excrutiating pain. She wants to sleep. She hasn't wanted anything for herself, even something so fundamentally human as sleep, in a long time.
She wants to live.
Darcy Lewis.
Pepper Potts.
Jane Foster.
Thor Odinson.
Jarvis and the Bots.
James Rhodes.
Steve Rogers.
Clint Barton.
Maria Hill.
Nick Fury.
Bruce Banner.
Sam Wilson.
Tony Stark.
Even James Barnes, who didn't like going by Bucky just yet.
She doesn't want to leave them.
Screaming.
Is she? Maybe.
Wait.
Screaming?
Her screams? One of her victim's? Her teammate's? A coworker's?
Her's? She demands herself to think, but she can't. Her brain won't work.
Natasha Romanoff, the fucking Black Widow, does not scream.
Is she screaming?
She is screaming. Her throat is raw; her voice is a rasp.
She wants out.
Is this what death did to her victims, she wonders.
It's a legit question.
She's going out of her mind. She's in pain. She feels empty, but filled to the brim. She's in pain.
She wants out.
She's compromised, then.
That's new.
Clint was always the one who got that way.
Too sensitive. Too close. Too attached. With everything, he was too.
She was never enough. Her hands weren't in enough baskets to be too.
She preferred it that way.
It's an awful feeling; it's a bad aftertaste in her mouth, she finds.
She wants out.
She doesn't know how long she's been laying there.
She doesnt know the horror story of the injuries she sustained.
She doesn't know.
Natasha Romanoff had always been resigned to her fate.
Death in combat.
Stab wound.
Too hard a hit to the head.
Suffocation.
Something normal.
She's concluded that something down below, something not protected by ribs, was taken and now she's just got to suffer.
Suffer. It comes hand in hand with torture.
She's tortured people before - she thought it was the real journey in life, what she was doing. She knows now that this is much, much worse.
Natalie Rushman was maybe a regret. There was no reason for her to be, not really, she was just another part for Natasha to play, but still. Natasha isn't really used to regretting things - the times she did, it was because something she couldn't help had happened. It was too late then.
It was too late now, too.
She'd betrayed Pepper and Tony and Happy's trust. She'd betrayed Jarvis', too.
He had called her Natashalie before she left for that mission. She would take his annoying comments for the rest of time if she could go back and stop herself from going.
She wants to live. She doesn't know why she's clinging so hard to a life that has done nothing but ruin her, tear her apart and leave her for dead.
There's irony in that last part she thinks. Life has always left her like she was then - breathing shallowly, unable to move and sad.
Sad.
Emotions were not her forte.
Did she even really know what sad was? She has a pretty good idea.
Humming, she finds, keeps her awake.
Somewhere deep in her mind, she knows that she needs to stay awake. She has memories of watching people sustain injuries, fall asleep and then never wake up. She doesn't want to be one of those people.
She becomes one anyway.
Her eyes blink close, and it's a struggle to make them open. She could sleep for years, she thinks. She wouldn't want to wake up after, though, if what happened to Steve would happen to her.
Every time she starts to succumb, she jolts awake and hums.
She hums Black Sabbth. She hums Russian ballet tunes. She hums Star Spangled Man With A Plan. She hums Maroon 5 songs that Darcy forced her to listen to, and strains to remember what comes after each line.
She thinks she hums for hours.
She hears voices. They're not for her, she knows, but they're achingly familiar.
"Natasha!" She hears, and a loud gasp is ripped from her throat.
They're looking for her. They're going to save her. She excited, so, so excited.
She tries to make noise. She's not sure she succeeded. At least, not until she hears "I got something!"
Light washes over her, and she smiles.
Her last breath puffs out of her as Thor and Tony come crashing down next to her, already kneeling.
A few weeks later, she's healed.
Pepper has already vowed to kill her should she do something like that ever again.
And Natasha has decided that she won't live for her work anymore. No, she'll live for herself.
Because what she was thinking when she died, that was regret. Maybe not directly, but it was there, and she wants to be able to die knowing that she lived, not just survived.