Gone by Ghosts (Natasha Romanoff x OC)

~36~ The Storm

TRIGGER WARNING: flashbacks, violence, and intimacy

Kate's POV:

Ankara, Turkey 07/08/2009

The water washed over her hands as she watched herself in the mirror. Her eyes were empty yet filled with tears. As she leaned down her shaking hands came to rest against her sticky skin. She rubbed the cold water on her face and thin lines of red ran down into the sink unnoticed. The cold piercing water had her mind turning in circles.

Hatice's screams echoed in her numb ears while she watched her life's work come to her in flashbacks. Droplets of blood flew her way, as she pushed the scalpel into tanned skin. It flew to her as she forced her covered fist into his bruised face. It ran down her face after she shot her. And it ran down her thigh from the gaping cut, from the inside of her body over the outside. She could feel the pain in her scar and see the world spinning the way it did back then. Reminding her of the world spinning after she pulled the trigger. Reminding her of the dark ocean eyes and the ice blue eyes. Dead ice blue eyes. The smell of death and sound of cracking bones, popping joints. Screaming and begging. Hatices', Emirs', her own mixed together. Her ears hurt, the taste of iron lingered on her tongue and her muscles remembered the pain of electricity passing through them. Cold skin, metal on bare bones, scared bambi eyes, tears, begging, mourning, dying, hurting, inflicting pain, killing.

"Kate!", Natasha interrupted her spiraling, with a tight hug from behind. "Hey, I'm here, it's okay. I got you!" Her closed eyes were full of empathy as she felt the shaking shoulders between hers. "You're gonna be okay.", she promised and so they stood there until the shaking ebbed away. The blonde's head had turned in search of contact and was softly met with the spy's forehead, where it came to a rest.

She wiped the tears off the rings under her eyes and turned around holding onto the arms around her. She buried her face in the nape of Natasha's neck, pulling her in even closer, her fingers searching for something to hold onto. "What is going on?", she heard the redhead whisper into her chest, and she had to swallow the upcoming tears not to break again.

"I did it. All of it. I didn't hesitate, didn't stop. I- I-", she mumbled and stammered past her ear and she nodded.

"I know. But you saved Daria, right? You saved her. You did that.", Natasha whispered holding her head in her hand and she felt a nod in response.

"But I hurt them. The way they hurt me. I am no better.", she spoke out loud her biggest dread and the tears started to run again.

"You did it for the right reasons.", the spy tried to argue, to ease her partner's conscience.

"They all think that." For the first time since Natasha had entered the room, she looked at her. Directly into the gloomy pair of eyes that in return looked up to hers. "I didn't.", they admitted. "I would've deserved it."

"What?", Kate asked, confused but calmly.

"To die back there. Alone.", she rasped while looking off to the side. "And I would've if not for you." Their eyes met again.

"You deserve so much better than that.", the blonde whispered while her forehead touched Natasha's.

"I was so-", her voice break but she continued, "so alone."

"You're not alone anymore. We're here. Together.", the blonde assured her, while lifting her chin as gently as she could. "I'll always be there, okay?"

With their faces only inches apart Natasha stretched up, tenderly enclosing her bottom lip between hers. Kate sunk into the bittersweet engagement. As softly as they had met, their lips parted. Their eyes stayed closed as their heads leaned onto one another.