Siberia | S. Rogers

twenty

.20 | reprieve

Merida had decided to stay in her room for the most part for the better half of the afternoon.

After her emotional exchange with the Avengers and how she felt, she had thought it best to stay in her room for awhile. She didn't know how to wrestle with the back and forth between her head and heart, didn't know how to make sense of the way the beast within wanted nothing more to tear into Killian, but the human within her, the soft fragile heart of hers, had some kind of sick subservient obedience to the deranged boy.

A boy who, at one point, she had looked at like a brother, someone she had trusted.

She had put her trust into his awaiting hands and he snatched it from her, crushing it harshly and without feeling, her trust had fallen like petals to the ground around him. He had always had her life in his hands, had always lorded that over her, as well as the fate of the circus and all the other people if she were to ever even think about leaving him again.

It was why she had stayed so long; fear and guilt.

She would lay awake at night sometimes just dreaming of escape, but those dreams were twisted quickly into horrid nightmares of the circus falling apart, a fire set somewhere and many people dying and it had all been...her fault.

Each nightmare a subconscious fear that if she left...others would get hurt.

Later that day Steve had come by to check on her, but it was brief and she got the sense that maybe he just wanted to see her with his own eyes and make sure she was okay. Merida was grateful for the space he had given her most of the day, knew that he could sense when she truly needed to be alone, but how he knew her so innately without having known her that long still perplexed her.

Even while she was in her room earlier she could...feel his energy; feel the concern, the mild distress and even the compassion. He wasn't in the same room and she could feel him; it was both curious and unnerving all at once.

As the evening fell, Merida had been greeted by Natasha at her door holding a dress with a plastic covering over it as if it had just come from the cleaners along with a duffel bag full of feminine accessories, including hair styling tools and make up.

The black widow was in a mid-thigh black dress that came to a moderate V-neck, the gold stiletto's and gold necklace around her neck sparkled. Her hair was curled and her lips were a neck-breaking shade of red. She smiled at the woman's prowess, the way she carried herself echoed that of Fran; a moment of longing pierced her gut as she thought about Fran and Ansem.

Merida admired Natasha and her confidence. And she was relieved that Natasha didn't bring up what happened earlier.

It was pretty clear by now how torn Merida felt with everything going down, the attachment she still felt to the circus and Natasha knew more than anyone that pushing her to open up about it before she was ready was a bad idea. Natasha knew Merida would talk about things when she was ready, whether it was with her or Steve or someone else.