Emerald Eyes | Natasha Romanoff

Chapter 14: Stay, Stay, Stay

I'm going through a phase where I hate everything I write, so I really have no idea how this turned out

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Nat and Avelia's relationship was kept very much private. Not on purpose, they just didn't feel like shouting about it to everyone, as much as Avelia wanted to. She felt like a little kid again - one that was high on a sugar rush.

Their time spent together was limited to soft touches and cheesy remarks, curled up on the couch watching romcoms, much to Nat's protests. She tried to keep up her hardened exterior, but Lia was slowly breaking down those walls, one brick at a time.

She never bulldozed like so many other people had before. Nat was wary, and with good reason. She struggled with trust, having spent the first years of her life being stripped of all basic human emotions and turned into a shell of a person. Being told you're not worthy of love is debilitating at any age, but for a 5 year old? It's something they struggle to come back from.

Natasha's life hasn't been all rainbows and fairies like she'd let on that day at the diner. She had lied about living in Ohio from the age of 7. Partly because she felt ashamed of who she used to be, but also because she'd never told anyone before.

Yes, she had lived in Russia before moving to America, but it wasn't by choice. Her life from aged 4 to 11 consisted of guns, stone cold dormitories and death. By the time she was 7 she'd already racked up a kill streak of 5. This number doubled by age 8, each girl's face engraved in her mind as she watched the light fade from their eyes.

She'd mastered her elegantly lethal fighting style by the time she was 10 years old, the hopeful child within her stripped out. Any hope in her eyes was extinguished by the harsh reality of the Red Room, but her desire to live a normal life still lived on in the back of her mind.

She'd taken one of the younger widows in training under her wing, the feisty blond reminding Nat very much of her younger self.

Yelena was 5 years younger and still had that innocent look in her eyes. Nat cared for her much like they were blood related, helping her to stitch up her wounds and holding her when the nightmares became too much.

Nat was 11 and Yelena was 6 before Melina and Alexei broke them out in a frenzy of shooting and flames. Nat's exceptional skills helped them enormously, the 11 year old rigging bombs as they went so the Red Room would be gone forever. Melina carried Lena as her small legs slowed them down, and the newly formed family made their escape, racing across the continent to their new home in Ohio.

But therapy sessions and coping mechanisms meant that Nat had blocked the larger part of her life out of her head. She focused on trying to start over, living the typical teenager life in high school.

Her dreams were still haunted by nightmares, but Lia created a lightness in her life that she so desperately sought out. The brunette had no idea how much of an impact she had on Nat's life.

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The horrendous rainy weather had been chased away by hours of sunshine, meaning everyone had swapped the coats for sunglasses, and the late september days felt like summer again.

The warmer weather just gave Nat more of an excuse to make smoothies before school, as the idea of having bacon or pancakes didn't seem that appealing. It was a change, yes, but her morning routine wasn't exactly the same as it was, and she was glad about that.