Wow. Natasha's really hard to write! I didn't want to portray her as the toughened, badass and unfeeling person that she can come off as, but I didn't want to make her soft either. I hope I did okay.
Thor next - wow, I have no idea what to do for that one :P - and then I'm not sure where this will head.
She wakes up every morning seeing red.
She does sleep, despite every one else's teasing that she's too uptight or cautious to do so. Generally, it's Tony who does the teasing, and nothing that she says or does to threaten him ever convinces him to stop. Part of her is annoyed by this reaction; she is the Black Widow, a world renowned assassin, and she should be feared. Another part of her is grateful. Because Tony knows who she is, sort of, and he doesn't run. He isn't afraid of her. He cares enough to stick around. She never had anyone like that in her life before.
She sleeps as often as the job allows. It can be difficult, balancing Avengers work with her other duties to SHIELD, but she does, and still manages to find time for herself. Time spent training doesn't count, because it's still work related. But ever so often there are moments when she can retreat in to her room at the Tower and let her guard down. She runs a bath, lights a few candles, and plays some music softly in the background. Michael Bublé is her favourite, not that she enjoys his music for the typical domestic reasons of a common housewife. No, she enjoys Bublé because his voice is real. In a lifestyle where lies and false identities can save your life, a little reality feels nice every once in a while.
She sinks into the soapy water, leaning her back against the molded seats of the Tower bath tubs. Tony only outfits his rooms for comfort, a fact that she appreciates after a long day at work. She leans back in the tub, letting the bubbles soak into her skin and listening to the sultry sounds of the music as they wash over her. Her guard is never fully down, because along with hearing the sounds of the music, she listens for any signs of intrusion or conflict. She has an escape route planned, and a back up in case one should fail. No, she never fully drops her guard down. But she comes close. She relaxes.
When the tension has finally disappeared from her body, she cloaks herself in the fluffiest bathrobe she can find and brushes her long, tangled mess of red curls out over her shoulders. It's methodical, and comforting. A small action of normalcy in her anything but normal life. She exits the bathroom into the attached bedroom of the suite. Her suite. She hasn't gotten used to the idea of calling it her own. Yes, she lives there, but she knows that, like everything else in life, it may as well be temporary. It could be one tomorrow, and she will have no choice but to move on.
She refuses to allow herself to get attached to anything. Sometimes, she and the girlfriends of the other Avengers will get together and discuss their relationships and the dynamic of the team. Every time, she's asked about the status of her relationship with lint. We're only friends, she tells them. Love is for children. She stands behind that statement if only to hide the truth. She's afraid. If she commits to a relationship, only for it to fall apart, could she pick herself up again? If she gave herself completely to a man, to Clint, would she ever be the same woman ever again? She doesn't know, and she fears what she doesn't know.
It's all she can do to relax again after letting her mind wander into such forbidden territory. She lies down on the bed, her bed, facing the ceiling with eyes wide open. Her ears are always open, searching for any sound that seems out of place in the Tower. It's quiet. She focuses of draining the tension from each limb, one by one. First her arms… then her legs… her torso, her neck, finally her head. She rests it comfortably on the pillow, angled just right so that she can still have the best possible view of her surroundings when she wakes. She closes her eyes slowly. As she drifts off, her sense of hearing is the last sense she hangs on to, before the world fades to black.
Her dreams are always red. She sees the world as it once was as if through scarlet lenses. A thick haze of the colour coats every image, staining them even more crimson with blood than they already are. Hands, her hands, reach out and snap the neck of a man as he lays, panting excitedly beneath her as she straddles him seductively. A gun, her gun, fires a single shot, and a woman drops in front of a screaming child. The apron covering her front is stained with her own blood, and the blood is on Natasha's hands too. It drips from underneath her finger nails, over her palms, flowing freely onto the ground and over her body. She is drowning in red, and the scarlet haze covering her vision grows thicker and darker, blotting out every other image and colour and sensation until she entire world seeps in red.
She wakes up every morning with a gun in her hand.
She sleeps with it under her pillow, and every morning it somehow finds its way into her grasp as she sits upright, pointing her gun at nothing. Nothing but the blank wall across the room from her. She breathes deeply and evenly, raking the room around her to confirm her solitude. She listens, and hears the usual morning sounds of Steve returning from his regular morning workout in the gym, and Tony complaining loudly about the lack of prepared coffee. Then and only then, does she low herself to relax. She lowers the gun and returns it to its normal place underneath her pillow. She stands and crosses to the bathroom again, to splash cold water over her face. Eventually, after several minutes of spreading the cool droplets of water to her fevered forehead, arms, and chest, she gives up the pretext and runs a cold shower.
She's had the dreams before. She knows every name and face that she sees. The man was Igor Chekhov. He was an arms dealer, a drug addict, and in no way a candidate for Boy Scout of the year. He was a bad man doing bad things, and he had become her target. She had pleasured him that night, listened to him croon sweet words and affections at her in his native tongue before she had snapped his neck, killing him immediately and effectively. The woman was her target before SHIELD, and her husband had aggravated her superiors. Natasha had killed her on her child's birthday, in front of her young daughter. The Black Widow's ledger was dripping red, and every night reminded her of that fact.
Perhaps that's why she fears commitment so much; because as an assassin, she knows how fragile life can be. How easy it is to take one life, and destroy another. She knows just how quickly red can be spilled onto ones account. She could be one any day. So could Clint. He could disappear at any given moment, and then she would have nothing left but the red. She clings to him, and to her team, while she has the chance. She remains fiercely loyal to them all, because any day, they could be gone. But she doesn't get too attached, for the same reason. She remains apart; separate, aloof, but still part of the team. She tries to scrub the red from her ledger, because she never knows when her time will come, and when it does, she wants to be ready. For whatever comes after. She doesn't want to face her maker cloaked in nothing but the red. She hopes and prays for the day when he dreams can be seen in other colours, ones that show her in better light.
She's tired of seeing nothing but the red.
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