Forgotten Ghost | Natasha Romanoff

Alternative Ending: 1.4

Katya shot up in her bed, breathing heavily, sweat dripping down her back. Her body curled into a ball, hands covering her face as she tried to get the picture of Natasha dusting out of her head, pressing the palms of her hands against her eyes.

It wasn't hard to guess what had triggered the memory. Only the name ''Tony Stark'' and a video of the Avengers Compound was enough. 

A cold hand landed on her back, causing Katya to jump out of her skin. There wasn't supposed to be anyone in her bed tonight.

''Hey. You're safe. It's okay. I'm here.''

She recognized that voice out of thousands. She would never be able to forget it. It was the one she had prayed to hear for five years now. It haunted her until the end of her days. 

Katya whipped her head to the left, desire to see her again burning in her chest. But she was met with... nothing.

Katya shot up in her bed. Drunk on sleep, she whipped her head to the left side of the bed, hand patting the smooth silk covers, but there was nothing, no Natasha, just emptiness. 

She pulled her knees to her chest, lacing her hands in her hair. That dream felt so real, Natasha's voice so real in her head, like she had been inside the room, right next to her, whispering it into her ear.

Katya wished she could rip her heart out and be done with the pain. It needed a way out, the pressure of all that grief pressing on her lungs. But she had tried everything and nothing worked. To be honest, she had grown beyond desperate, and that wasn't good. She did stupid things when she was like that.

Dragging her laptop closer to her, she opened it in her dark room, squinting her eyes against the brightness before turning it down. She Googled the one thing she swore never to Google. ''The Avengers.''

Millions of results popped up within a split second. All of news articles. The Avengers saving this city or that city. But the most recent ones had titles like: 

''Where are the Avengers?''

''How the Avengers lost in Wakanda.''

''The world without the Avengers. How do we continue without Earth's Mightiest Heroes?''

''Where is Katya Petrova after the dusting of Black Widow? Possible locations she has been spotted during her disappearance.''

''Clint Barton, carrying the Avengers on his shoulders.''

Silent tears streamed down Katya's cheeks at the last two, her hands itching to pick up her phone and call the Compound. She knew the number, had never forgotten it. It would be so nice to hear Clint's voice, only for a second. But something stopped her.

She clicked on the Images, a real smile breaking through her tears at all the pictures she found. Press photos from a mission, where they had been snapped while in action in New York or Sokovia. Pictures from official things like the Senate Hearing with Natasha, when she had mouthed off all the weak men who thought they could control her. Her and Nat with king T'Chaka during the UN meeting in Vienna.

But Katya stopped at one photo a passerby had taken, one she had never seen before and hadn't noticed had been taken. How could she have, her laugh was so wide and her joyful eyes so focused on the smiling redhead in front of her that she had no attention to anything else. 

Katya could categorize the years based on Natasha's hair. Here, her curly red hair reached her chin, so this had to be either around 2012 or 2015. This day stood engraved into her brain, one of the rare dates they ever went on together and it was a really random one too, exactly what Natasha liked.