This is it. I've been looking forward to writing this for a while. I own very little, and especially not these gorgeous characters.
She hadn't been told her name. The woman in front of her looked at her with wide eyes, struggling against the ropes that held her down. She steadied her hand on the gun, aiming for in between the eyes. One simple bullet was all it would take. She steadied her breathing, trying to trick her mind into thinking that she was just in training, that this was another dummy. Then the woman in front of her started to sob.
Natasha woke up with a gasp, her fingers clutching onto the bed sheets. The nightmares had only got worse since Wanda had sent her back to the Red Room in her mind. It was like a door that she had locked shut had been opened, and now she couldn't close it. She kicked the sheets away and leaped to her feet, leaning on the wall when she became lightheaded. When she closed her eyes she could still see her first kill on the back of her eyelids.
She could see the other girls' eyes on her, knowing that it was weak to slow the slightest hesitation. She had been chosen as the first to kill, and al the girls in the room were ready to steal her position. She glanced at the girls around her, ranging from her age to a couple of years older than her to her age. She was eleven years old, and had been in the Red Room for five years. Five years of pain. Five years of hunger. Five years of training for this very moment.
She pulled on a hoodie that she had stolen from Clint, breathing in the faint smell of coffee that she had come to associate with the archer. He was out on a mission, and she hated herself for wanting her to be here with her. It was weakness, but she couldn't rid her mind of it. She walked to the kitchen. The floor was cold on her bare feet, but she welcomed the feeling of it. She knew the route well, she walked it most nights, but usually she did not walk it alone.
She tightens her finger on the trigger, and there is a bang. Smoke, rising from the gun. And the woman opposite her was dead. Her body was limp, blood dripping onto the floor. The girls around her didn't make a sound. She placed the gun on the table, turning on her heel and walking away from the corpse. She doesn't shed a tear in mourning, but that is the day that the last part of her that is human dies.
She quickens her pace, the corridors swimming in front of her as tears drip from her eyes. She needs to get outside, the walls are crushing her and stopping the oxygen from filling her lungs. She can't bear to share a space with the other Avengers, can't share the same air as heroes.
I'm a monster. I'm a monster. I'm a monster. I'm a monster. I'm a monster. I'm a monster. I'm a monster. I'm a monster. I'm a monster. I'm a monster. I'm a monster. I'm a monster. I'm a monster. I'm a monster. I'm a monster. I'm a monster. I'm a monster. I'm a monster.
She swung open the door, letting the cool air blow against her face. It's cold outside, but the hoodie keeps her warm. Besides, she's been in colder. She finds a bench and sits down, barely registering her surroundings. That voice continues to ring inside her head, forcing out all other noise until those words are all she can hear, on a never ending reel that she's been hearing every day and night for too long.
I'm a monster.
Maybe is those three words hadn't taken up all her attention she would have noticed it sooner. But as it was she only registered the regular swoosh of metal wings above her fir a few seconds until Sam landed beside her. With his wings silhouetted against the full moon high in the sky, he looked almost like an angel. But angels didn't come to monsters.
Monster. Monster. Monster.
She taps the bench next to her and he sits, his wings folding behind him with a metallic whir. His face looks weary, as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders. She had no doubt she looked the same. He handed a flask to her and she took a sip, the coffee warming up her bones. She passed it back and still they shared no words.
Monster.
"Today is the anniversary of Riley's funeral. I went, and I remember the way his mom looked at me. Like she asking why I didn't save him. Why I had survived and her son hadn't." His voice was low, but it was almost enough to drown out the three words echoing around her head.
"When I was eleven years old I shot someone in the head in the Red Room. She was a mob boss, a murderer. I killed her."
He doesn't offer any consolation, none of the token phrases she was so used to hearing. He didn't tell her how it wasn't her fault, or that the women that she killed deserved it. And in return she doesn't try to comfort him with lies. They just sit there, watching the moon get lower in the sky as they fight their own battles inside their own heads. And as the night slowly turns to day and the chill creeps inside their bones, those three words in her head became quieter. They were still there, they would always be there, but for now they weren't quite as deafening.