𝑩𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝑴𝒐𝒐𝒏 ✘ 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐀 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐅𝐅

{2¹⁰} {WAR OF HEARTS}

∆ {2¹⁰} {WAR OF HEARTS} ∆ 

NATASHA WOULD'VE BEEN lying if she told you that the mission hadn't shaken her up. It hadn't been minute either. She felt as if apart of her very soul had been rattled by the trip. She'd managed to keep her past contained as if in a glass, letting her emotions fall into that whenever she became too afraid. But going to the Red Room, the place where it had all started, had knocked the glass over. Now, she was swimming in a pool of spilled memories and emotions that she was meant to feel years ago, the water laced with a scarlet that was unmistakable to anyone.

When Venus had shot the mirror, the bullet streaking so close to her face that she could feel the air around it scorched by the heat of it, she'd genuinely feared for her life. Yes, Natasha had been the top of the class, but Venus had always been more efficient; the better killer. If Venus had wanted her dead, she would've been dead the moment she came back from her mission with Tony Stark, perhaps even before that.

She had taken a shower as soon as they'd got back. She'd immediately cranked it to the highest it could go, desperate to drive the lingering chill of the Russian air from her bones, from her mind. It had worked a little. Some of her indifference had returned. Because, no matter how much she wanted to, Natasha knew that it would be a long time before she was able to look her past in the, and simply say 'I'm done running'. It was something that she'd longed to do for a while now. In fact, the desire had started the moment she'd seen Venus on that rooftop in Tokyo, on the night that the rain had been so blindingly heavy that she couldn't tell the water and the blood apart.

 When she'd come out, dressed in nothing more than a pair of cotton pyjamas, her red hair limp and sodden in waves against her back, she'd expected silence, which was exactly what normally greeted her. Instead, she found  her head snapping towards the door, where someone had rapped their fingers against the door seven times. It was an off number of times for somebody to knock, and from memory, Venus would always rap her fingers against her bedrail in sets of seven when she felt in need of help. When Natasha had asked about it, in the awfully hushed tones that they were always forced to talk to each other in, she'd said she found comfort in the fact that it wasn't uniform as everything else in the Academy had to be. Nevertheless, that hadn't delayed the time that she answered in; in fact, it may have hastened it. Venus had only done it when she'd been adamant that she could keep what she was feeling contained in her mind, and even then, she'd only let out her emotions in the most minute way possible. If any of the higher-ups had seen her doing anything more obvious, then her chances of returning to the conditioning room would've skyrocketed.

She opened her door to the woman, whose face wore the same impeccable blankness as it seemed to every day. She'd perfected it so well, and it had become to awfully terrifying; the way she'd never allowed herself to slip out of the habit, as if making sure to keep herself as emotionless as possible. That was what she'd been doing, Natasha was sure. Even as she searched those golden eyes for a hint of emotion that had glimmered so brightly in Venus' eyes when they were younger that they might as well have been made of pure starlight, she knew that she wouldn't find any. She'd been completely correct. All she found, seemed to be the epitome of Venus now. She wasn't who she was before. Perhaps Natasha should stop trying so hard to look for something that would never be there. Because all the woman seemed to be now, was portrayed in her gold eyes; they were cold, beautiful, and held a venom that could so easily kill you if you looked hard enough.

For a good few minutes the women stood before each other, simply scanning each other as they tried to figure out how the following time would go. It was Venus who had broken the stalemate, though she had by no means lost. For her eyes had trailed to the calendar that still hung on Natasha's wall, the dark blue-black  darkening the whole wall as the stars shone so loudly, so beautifully. She ignored the way that the small, grey text that told her the Calendar was from 2009, and that the month it rested on was May. She knew exactly what was significant about that, and had elected to pay it no mind in favour of the way that the stars, no matter if they were printed, brought her back to those nights that she and Natasha had shared, where they'd formed a bond that was closer than any friendship should've been.

In a way, they had the Red Room to thank for it. The Red Room had been the place to break them down so harshly that they lay in pieces on the ground, shattered like the mirror that Venus had shot only hours ago. They'd needed something as strong as they had to survive, let alone live. In a way,  Venus still felt like she wasn't truly living. There was something that she was missing, and she had no idea what it was. But Natasha, she had made herself a life here, carved it out of stone with a once bloodied knife that had been wiped silver by her actions, those whom she trusted, and those who trusted her.

It was something that Venus knew she'd never be able to do, at least not completely. The blood that coated her hands so vigilantly seemed to have become as acidic as her own, so potent that it almost felt as if people would quite literally melt with horror, with dread, if they felt even a fraction of the pain that she'd inflicted.

She was not a good person. She could easily be considered a villain from thousands of others' points of view. But perhaps Natasha could teach her how to improve, how to try and shed her coat of red, even if it clung to her so harshly that she felt as if she was suffocating, drowning in the screams of those whose lives she'd stolen.

Maybe, there was a chance that she could become something better than anything she'd ever been.

{A/N:} Uh, yeah. I'm aware I said that there'd be dialogue but I got caught up in all the description stuff again. If I have time to come back and write the dialogue chapter before I do all my publishing then I will, but don't hold your breath (there's some other projects im gonna start working on soon). Though, you guys probably know about them caus of when I'm probably publishing this.

But yeah, I'm about three elevenths of the way through of the amount of shit i planned to write. This is gonna be an intense 24 days. Thanks :)

1225 Words

Written: 30 / 04 / 2021

Published: 29 / 05 / 2021

JABBERJAY_011