Scarlet Widow One-Shots

We'll be alright

All rights go to Lexa1711 on AO3

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Twenty-four Hours. 12 pm

She wanted to disappear, to fold herself over into the pain that she’d been left with. To crawl inside the hole losing Pietro had left in her. They’d told her it wouldn’t go away, but it would get easier, but how did someone pull out of this. Drowning hadn’t felt like an adequate way to describe this torment, but words wouldn’t fit – she couldn’t mould them to her will as she could so many other things in her life.

The hammering in her chest grew with each passing minute that drew closer to the hour she’d felt the torment wash over her like a wave. It had almost been a day, and she was still alive – still breathing. She’d never been older than him.

“You know I’m twelve minutes older, right?”

His last words flit through her mind, circling back, again and again until she lets the frustration and anguish slip from her body in the form of a strangled cry. An echo of her pain into the ether. One that shouldn’t have been heard by them. The very people she’d sought to kill not so long ago.

It had been heard though, through the trees and quiet grounds of the compound.

Natasha, in moments of solitude, often wandered the grounds in an attempt to free herself of the bounds of work or sitting through conversations with the team. While she was happy to be free from the life of an assassin, sometimes – and only some – she missed the solitude of being alone.

So, she slipped away when presented with the chance.

A cry, almost too faint for her to hear breaks from the forest surrounding the compound, and Nat knows who it is she’ll find on the other side of those trees. She settles into a light jog, stops to listen, and then it off again.

She comes to a stop some feet away from Wanda, once she comes into view, assessing the younger woman. A few seconds bleed into almost a minute as she stands there, unknown to the witch, and watches her tuck into herself. She’d pulled her knees up to her chest, and wrapped her arms around them tightly, only lifting to swipe at the tears silently slipping from her eyes.

She could have left her – no one wanted to have a witness to pain – but something stops her when she hears the quiet sniffles.

“Hey, little witch.” She makes sure to keep her voice quiet, not wanting to startle the girl.

From what she can see of Wanda’s face, it changes in an instant, masking all she’d been letting go only a moment ago.

“Uh,” she shakes her head, rubbing at her eyes again. “What are you doing here?” The question is quiet, not at all accusatory like Natasha had been expecting it to be.

“Heard you cry out, thought something may be wrong.”

Wanda shakes her head, looking at the spy for the first time since she’d announced she was there. Nat’s head tiles to the side, all attention diverted to how bright those eyes shown with the tears in them, and the afternoon sun breaking the canopy of leaves above them.

“I’m fine.” Wanda lies. “Well, I’m not in danger.” Her lip curls up on the last word, her accent thick with pain.