[ the words come easy, posture relaxed and voice soft, a sharp contrast to the tense lines of steve's shoulders and the stiff plane of his spine. he feels the tension she should be feeling. after all, tomorrow is an inevitable step towards an outcome natasha's life has been drawn to since day one in the red room; it's a fate that seems a kinder closing chapter than she had ever thought she deserved.
death becomes her, an instructor had once said. a bad translation — they'd meant killing, not being killed; they'd found beauty in the careful twist of piano wire around a neck, in the fluid slice of knives into arteries, in the graceful bend of a body flipping another into the ground. but the instructor hadn't been wrong. in accepting her duty in this mission (in the mission), natasha had found a peace that had long since eluded her.
last night, she'd slept well for the first time in years. nine hours, clocked. no tossing, no turning, only acceptance and quiet and — perhaps most damning of all, relief.
was that wrong? natasha had only been hurtling towards an inevitable death since she'd first picked up a slim baton. she'd fought it and evaded it and leaped out of the way too many times to count. death had sought her, but natasha had been wiser. so now, to choose it, on her own terms? was it so wrong to feel relieved that the chase was coming to an end?
more importantly, was it so wrong that her only regret seemed to lie in the could have beens of the man interrupting her thoughts? maybe so. doesn't stop her from tipping her head back, or from gesturing at the spot beside her with a too casual gesture. ]
Water's nice, by the way.
[ she lifts a bare foot, kicking up a small splash below the surface of the dock, as evidence. her shoes still lay somewhere near the shoreline, long since abandoned. ]
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[ the words come easy, posture relaxed and voice soft, a sharp contrast to the tense lines of steve's shoulders and the stiff plane of his spine. he feels the tension she should be feeling. after all, tomorrow is an inevitable step towards an outcome natasha's life has been drawn to since day one in the red room; it's a fate that seems a kinder closing chapter than she had ever thought she deserved.
death becomes her, an instructor had once said. a bad translation — they'd meant killing, not being killed; they'd found beauty in the careful twist of piano wire around a neck, in the fluid slice of knives into arteries, in the graceful bend of a body flipping another into the ground. but the instructor hadn't been wrong. in accepting her duty in this mission (in the mission), natasha had found a peace that had long since eluded her.
last night, she'd slept well for the first time in years. nine hours, clocked. no tossing, no turning, only acceptance and quiet and — perhaps most damning of all, relief.
was that wrong? natasha had only been hurtling towards an inevitable death since she'd first picked up a slim baton. she'd fought it and evaded it and leaped out of the way too many times to count. death had sought her, but natasha had been wiser. so now, to choose it, on her own terms? was it so wrong to feel relieved that the chase was coming to an end?
more importantly, was it so wrong that her only regret seemed to lie in the could have beens of the man interrupting her thoughts? maybe so. doesn't stop her from tipping her head back, or from gesturing at the spot beside her with a too casual gesture. ]
Water's nice, by the way.
[ she lifts a bare foot, kicking up a small splash below the surface of the dock, as evidence. her shoes still lay somewhere near the shoreline, long since abandoned. ]