Chasing Ghosts | Natasha Romanoff

Chapter 99: Wedding Preparations

January 12, 2026

Natasha

The calloused pads of Natasha's fingertips glided over the soft satin that made up the bodice of her dress, tracing the bumps of the corset boning which sucked her body in and pushed her chest up. Corsets had a reputation for being uncomfortable, but Natasha found that this one felt more like a tight hug than a straitjacket. Perhaps it would help keep her upright or stop her heart from bursting out of her chest when she would be waiting at the altar for her bride, like a suit of armor.

Up until the fifth dress she tried, Natasha had no clue what type of wedding dress she wanted. Truly, she had come to Kleinfeld's with only three demands in mind; silk fabric, no sleeves, and tight-fitting, her first wedding dress in the front of her mind. Until the older lady helping her—Cora—pulled a corset-style dress for her to try.

That's when she was sold.

But not everyone was. Yelena had called the last four dresses "plain and boring", since they lacked any form of embellishments and shimmer, but for Natasha, less had always been more. Besides, Cora said her beauty didn't need all those trinkets, and that it would only distract from her stunning features, bright hair, and collarbones, and that's one thing Natasha could agree on. The dress shouldn't take away from her as a person.

"It's the same.''

Natasha exasperatedly glared at Clint over her shoulder. "It's not the same." Her head turned back to face the mirror in front of her, slightly tilting as she studied the garment on her body. "Thought you were deaf. Didn't know you were blind too.''

"Very funny," he said dryly. Only a few people were allowed to make jokes about his disability, and lucky for Natasha, she was one of those. But he also knew she shot into sarcasm whenever she felt unsure or insecure. "They all look the same to me.''

''Yelena?'' Natasha sighed, and she swore the woman shifted in her seat nervously. Slightly.

''I hate to agree with Birdman," she started carefully, grimacing as she threw a glance towards the man in question, "but it looks the same to me.''

A frustrated grumble vibrated in Natasha's chest. ''You two are completely useless. Laura, please, help me out here?'' She spun around, showing the front of the dress to her party of four. Her body language—looking down at herself, constantly smoothing the fabric down—betrayed the insecurity she tried to mask with confidence and nonchalance.

"It's a beautiful dress, but it's not it." Laura sounded apologetic. "I can't really tell you what's wrong with it, though."

A glance towards Maya was more than enough to understand that she thought the same.

Defeated, Natasha nodded. "Okay. Then we'll keep looking."

With no clear vision in mind, she thought it may take all day to find her dress, or even longer than that. It was simple statistics. The less filters, the more results. Cora could go a thousand different ways with it.

Katya would know how to proceed. Hell, she'd walk past the dresses on display and pull a couple that would suit her perfectly. But she wasn't here, and that made that for some strange reason, Natasha didn't really enjoy this process. And that thought alone caused a wave of guilt to wash over her. Being a bride, and having time and money to go dress shopping on an unlimited budget, was a privilege.

But she'd never really enjoyed shopping to begin with, and without Katya here to urge her on and hype her up, it felt strangely somber.

They tried trying more complicated, embellished dresses, but that wasn't it. So they moved in the opposite direction, towards the "less is more" category, but that didn't seem to work either. Nothing screamed, "this is the one! Buy me!", and Cora's continuous questions to figure out what she did want, started to annoy her.