Ghosts of the Past

Chapter 16

TW// Implied graphic violence

Alexi loomed over Natasha as the realization washed over her. She stared wide-eyed at the man. But he wasn't just any man now. He was her husband. They were still legally wed. She never escaped him. Shock overcame Natasha's body. She trembled, and she couldn't move. She blocked that bloody night out. She forgot it in an effort to heal. To move past her potentially worst atrocity. She killed him in cold blood. Beatings had gone on for months, and Natasha had taken them. She had grown accostum to the physical brutality because most Russian men she encountered handled women that way, and she had experience it her whole life.
But then Barnes came into her life. He treated her with kindness. When he touched her, his touch was feather light. He held her like a porcelain doll. He showed her what it meant to truly care for another human being.
Natasha stared into Alexi's cold, vacant eyes again. She wished she could take it all back. He represented everything she had tried so hard to leave behind, yet it crept up on her again. Her mind blocked out all memories of Alexi because to remember him meant she had to face her sins. She never imagined her past would come back in this form.
Who was she? She had spent so many years atoning for the blood, yet she hid her worst sin away. She killed him without thought. She killed in cold blood, and no one told her to do it. That sin she had to live with. She couldn't shift the blame.

Her mind ran to Steve. Her heart hurt. He believed in her. She even dared to say he loved her, but could he ever love her after this? Could she ever belong to a virtuous group like the Avengers with an attempted murder like his on her hands?
Natasha sobbed as she thought of how the Avengers, her family, believed in her goodness. They saw through her dark past to the real Natasha, but was it all a fake? Did a cold, unfeeling murderer lie in wait under the kinder exterior? Natasha had begun to believe she belonged with the good guys, but her former instructors' words played in her head, 'You have no place in the world'. She believed it was all a lie. She prayed it was a lie. But maybe they were right. Maybe she didn't deserve a place in the world. Especially, not in the moral and righteous world of Steve Rogers. He deserved so much better. He deserved someone who didn't lie and kill in the service of others or of herself.

Alexi watched as everything Natasha knew crumbled before her.

Steve clamored through the snow toward a dark house. Sam said he spotted Natasha here an hour again. He left Sam and Wanda far in the distance. He had to get to Natasha before something happened. He entered the house through the open front door. He moved through the house, and then spotted a blood stain. His heart sunk, and tears welled up in his eyes. He touched the stain, but his fingers came back dry. Hope filled his heart. He moved toward the back of the house into a sunroom.
The metallic smell of fresh blood hit his nose. He looked down and saw streaks from someone dragging a body. It lead to a back door and then back out into the snow. The blood trail continued. Steve followed. He spotted a petite silhouette in the snow. His body lurged through the snow toward her. He ignored the blood in the snow and focused on Natasha. He slowed as he reached her.
Her sobs echoed in the quiet wilderness, bouncing off the mountains in the distance. Steve approached her slowly. He lowered himself to the ground and moved toward her. He didn't want to startled her. His hand clasped down on her shoulder, and he pulled her toward him.
Natasha melted into Steve's arms. She shook with sobs as he squeezed her tight, and tears of his own spilled through his tightly closed eyes. Steve kissed the top of her head repeatedly. He kept reminding himself she was in his arms again. He could protect her from the world.
Steve released her enough to look at her face. Steve lifted her chin and examined her face. She had a few bruises and what looked like a deep cut on her cheek, but overall, she seemed relatively unhurt. Steve brought her face closer to his and pressed a tender kiss against her lips. Natasha kissed him with a fervor, but then more tears streamed down her face. Steve cupped her cheek and stared into those trouble green eyes. She had seen so much horror and pain. He wanted to fix everything. He kissed her once more, and Natasha didn't reciprocate. She only cried harder. Steve rested his head against her forehead.
"I love you." He whispered.
A pathetic sob escaped through Natasha's lips. She squirmed from his loving embrace. She turned back to the mountains. Steve tugged on her, but she dug in. Natasha didn't want his affection. She didn't deserve it. Steve managed to pull her back and turn her toward him, but that's when his eyes landed on the corpse in front of her.
Steve nearly gasped in horror of the scene. His arms went slack. Steve stared in shock at the headless corpse. Blood seeped from the body. His eyes fell back to Natasha. She was covered in blood.
"What happened?"
Natasha fell silent, her cries stopping abruptly. She raised her head and stared out at the mountains in the distance.
"I did what I had to do."
The finality of her statement silenced Steve. His mind blanked. He couldn't stop staring at the corpse she created. He always knew she was capable of this, but seeing it with his own eyes caused him to ponder her life before the Avengers. She never talked much about her past, but this had to be the reason. The horrors of her past scared her. She had the ability to torture and kill, and she feared he and her chosen family wouldn't be able to understand that wasn't her anymore.

Steve believed he knew her so much better now. While much of her past still remained hidden from him, Steve truly understood her for the first time. She believed she had no place in the world because of her past, but Steve didn't believe that. She had a place, and it was right beside him.

Natasha hung her head as Steve continued to gape at the corpse. No words were exchanged between the two of them as Sam and Wanda neared. Steve scrambled to his feet before they got close enough to see her finished crime. She heard him mutter to them, telling them to give her space.
"She needs some space." Steve said over and over again. "Let her be."

Natasha dipped her hands into the snow. She rubbed away the blood on her hands. The snow below turned a muddy shade of red. The once pure snow tarnished by her sins. She feared she'd do the same to Steve.

Steve walked away with Sam and Wanda to keep them away from the gruesome scene. He told them that she needed a minute.
His words gave her an idea. She slipped away before anyone could look over their shoulder and see her disappear. She broke into a sprint, weaving through the trees. Memories flashed through her mind of escaping from Alexi's drunken rages through these woods. Her feet worked on muscle memory alone as she moved through the dark woods.
Tears flowed down her cheeks. She couldn't tarnish her family, but that didn't stop her from missing them or regretting her decision to leave. A lifetime away from her family and the one she loved still didn't seem a sufficient penance for her sins, but she had to start somewhere.