Scarlett

Part 33

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Another month has passed since she rescued Bobby Morse. Natasha refused going in the field, even though Steven asked her to do this. She said she had killed enough and analytical work was also important. But Black Widow couldn't notice that Rogers' attitude towards her changed. He became even more attentive and gentle with her. It became a routine for them having lunch or dinner together if he was nearby. Sometimes they even watched a movie in the evening, mostly old, romantic stories but Natasha didn't mind. Usually at 6 a.m. they had a fighting workout in the gym, for her it was a necessary training as she didn't go outside, for him a great sparring partner. This way he learned more and more about her style of fighting. From time to time they even exchanged some words during the fight, mostly about work though.

Today it wasn't any different. Steve made dinner and they ate together chatting about work done, when Nat suddenly said: "Rogers, how come you haven't found yourself a woman yet? A lot of water has passed under the bridge since the snap."

"I can ask you the same questions. Instead of creating something new, you started destroying yourself and everyone around you. Some of the steps you'd taken I don't blame, though. Maybe those rascals deserved what you'd done to them. I am not the one who should judge." He answered looking at her.

"This is not an answer, this is deflection." She put in her mouth a crispy roast piece of salmon. The man cooked amazingly, she couldn't deny that.

"I have been searching for the right person all this time. I hope I have found one."

Natasha nearly choked over her plate when she heard the revelation.

"You mean you've been searching for me?" She looked totally taken aback. "Steve, this is nonsense! It's impossible and wrong! We cannot be together!" Natasha put the plate aside suddenly feeling so full as if she could vomit.

"Why? Do you love anyone else?" Captain America was very direct as usual.

"It's not about that. You are a healthy, young man. You must have a family. I cannot give you that." She folded her arms in front of her unconsciously trying to detach from him.

"Why? Because you're a spy, because you have a lot of red on your ledger? Who cares, Nat? It's almost four years since the snap and we will suffer the aftermath of it for a long time. I don't know how long, but I hope to be with the woman I love."

"Steve, to have a family means to have children. I cannot give you that. The final exam I went through in the Red Room successfully was sterilization. I will never have children. I don't think Captain America should spend his life in vain. I'm a lost game, Rogers. You have to find someone else." Saying this she stood up from her chair and headed to the door.

"Nat, please wait!" He sprung from his chair and followed her into another room. Now Black Widow lived in an apartment upstairs not in the cell she was staying before. "After the snap a great number of children became orphans in one day. We can bring up one or a bunch, it doesn't matter for me. We can make it work together." He tried to hugher, take her hand in his but she made a step back.

"No, Rogers. I won't ruin any lives anymore. If you're going to stalk me, I'd rather be on my own." She snapped back.

"Fine, I got that. I need you here as the agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. or whatever has remained of it." He said dropping his arms down feeling weak and tired. "At least help me here, you're the one I can fully trust."

And she helped. She always covered him in the field as he was there for her. They became an excellent team, both planning the operations, doing analytical and combat work. They monitored new agents, who were involved in various cases not just on the Earth but far away in space. Steve felt comfortable in her presence as she was in his. They could watch a ballet together both thinking about something important only for themselves. They trained together, teased each other, went to the cinema and rescued kittens from trees. It seemed sometimes that they could read each other's thoughts but they never returned to that conversation. Both of them were lonely wolves who tolerated one another just because it was the matter of survival. Then one day Scott Lang appeared at the front door of their headquarters… After this fateful encounter the events developed fast.

Natasha volunteered to be the first to try time-revers of Tony Stark. She knew exactly where she wanted to be because she couldn't forget Laura's words when Lila disappeared. With determination she pressed the button on her suit to be teleported within time and distance to that very moment and she was right. Black Widow saw it with her own eyes. Clint was teaching Lila how to shoot with bow and arrow. Actually, it was mostly appreciation of girl's skill as Lila Barton at her age could already beat her peers at the competitions of archers. Even though Natasha adored her goddaughter, she gazed on that clumsy and not so pretty girl with the red hair. She saw how Scarlett asked Laura and Cooper to come closer for a hug. Nathaniel was in Laura's arms and the girl put her arms on Cooper's shoulder and Laura's arm. Copper's arms were on his mother's and Scarlett's backs. Romanoff looked at Clint, who was starring now at his wife and two sons while Lila went to take out the arrows from the target. At that very moment Natasha saw a dark-haired girl turn into dust. A few seconds later Scarlett vanished in the wind leaving some strange sparkling powder so light and glittering that the wind took the particles of it above and away into the sky. The woman didn't see the reaction of her friends because she turned back to the devilish reality after the snap. Her knees buckled and if not for Steve she would have fallen down like a sack with potatoes. Stark also ran up to her.

"Romanoff, are you OK?"

Natasha took a deep breath trying to take her emotions under control.

"Yes, Stark. It works." She told in a dead voice as if life left her there on the lawn near Barton's house.

There she was on Wormir and the only thing that separated her from death was Clint's hand clutching her own for dear God.

"Tell Steve to take care of Scarlett." It was her farewell to Barton when she pushed herself out from her friends last straw. She was free for a moment not regretting about anything. Her death wasn't in vain. Romanoff knew that the girl will live. Scarlett will breathe fresh air on Earth and she will have the best father she could possibly think off. That was worth dying for.

The fall crashed her head into pieces, the pain was throbbing and enormous. Blood spilt the ground turning into a large puddle but Natasha didn't feel anything… She couldn't understand how she could open her eyes in the woods. Wormir was a deserted planet with sand and stones all over the place. Here she scrambled herself from the mossy ground of the ancient woods with trees so huge that they formed dusk at the small spot of land Natasha was standing now. Black Widow looked at her hands which seemed to be the same. She was in the same suit with all her weapons. She wasn't in pain. She touched her face with a finger to see if it's real, when suddenly Romanoff heard a loud scream and noticed a strange pale man with a club running at her. She ducked and the club with noise went into the tree trunk, while she managed to stab the man with a knife into his liver. He yelped and fell on the ground. Unfortunately, he wasn't alone. Many others followed. They were angry, aggressive and very familiar. Wasn't that guy, whom Natasha shot in Odessa, when she was on her Red Room mission? Or that blonde woman with a sword, who tried to cut her head off, wasn't that lady the one on Hydra's base? The recognition brought some odd thoughts to Romanoff's mind. All these people should be dead. Also, while fighting with these unpleasant intruders Black Widow noticed something extraordinary in the whole situation. The minute one of her victims had a deadly struck, they turned into dust.

She was tired, dirty and sweating when she saw some friendly faces in the waves of dead enemies.

"Come on, we have to get her out of here before the Black holes," Male's voice said in the dust smashing one of Natasha's enemies with a spear.

"Don't worry Bucky, I already see her. We're close," replied a male teen voice. A figure of a falcon landed on the ground behind the back of a pale foe. In a second falcon turned into Peter Parker, who stabbed Natasha's foe right between the ribs.

"Hello, agent Romanoff. Follow me, please," said Peter cutting the throat of another man and making a gesture for Natasha not to waste her time.

"Faster! Black holes are here!" Roared a voice and Natasha recognized King T'Challa.

"I see Star Dust is also here," said Wanda with a smirk. She was sitting on a grey dapped horse. "Agent Romanoff, be my guest!" Scarlett Witch gave Natasha a hand and in a blink of an eye they were galloping through the woods at such speed that the wind resounded in their ears.

Only now Black Widow noticed flashes of red light here and there. They turned great amounts of pale dead foes into dust. These people howled when they met with this flash and powdered the ground. Quite unexpectedly an enormous black suffocating figure grew in front of the horse. The poor animal got on its hind legs, so that Nat and Wanda had to quickly jump down from it. That black creature was formless but scary at the same time. It enveloped the frightened convulsing horse and absorbed it as if the animal has never existed.

"Natasha, get back. You cannot do anything about that," Wanda stopped her friend from trying to save the animal.

Suddenly a flash of red light smashed into that absolutely formless darkness and the creature became hard as a mirror glass and shattered into sparkling particles. For a brief moment when the sparkles were taken away by a gust of wind and the red light was static for a split second, Natasha's heart died within her as she recognized the person, but in a flash the phantom disappeared leaving the two women in deafening silence.

"Let's go, if we want to get out alive from the Limbo woods." Wanda again hurried Natasha, who seemed to be a little god-smacked after everything that had happened.

"How did you call it?" Black Widow wanted to precise if her hearing didn't play tricks on her.

"Welcome to Hell, Nat. Run after me and don't get lost," commanded Wanda and they ran like grim deaths.

To be continued…