𝑩𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝑴𝒐𝒐𝒏 ✘ 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐀 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐅𝐅

{2¹²} {IN OVER MY HEAD}

∆ {2¹²} {IN OVER MY HEAD} ∆

VENUS KNEW WHO Tony Stark was - who didn't - but she did not see how he was relevant to her circumstances. Natasha had returned to her room after only a few minutes, and had simply explained that she was going to get Fury to phone the millionaire to help. Nothing more, nothing less. Venus knew that it was in relation to the venom that coated her skin, but Tony Stark was a mechanic, even if he was a very good one.

Fury seemed to have agreed fairly quickly, because Natasha had smiled roughly at her upon returning to her room, and after a few minutes of drawn silence, Venus had left. It was fairly late, so the metallic halls she wandered were deserted, though the florescent lights still blared down on her, so strong that it almost felt like they would be able to neutralise the toxins that now seeped from Venus' skin. She'd considered the shooting range, but its long galleries and deathly silence weren't quite enough to keep her company.

Instead, she'd strayed to a place that she hadn't set foot in since she'd arrived. The dance studio. Its wooden floors were waxed, and fairly impeccable, due to lack of use, and the huge mirrors on one wall had gathered a coat of dust. It had taken the lights a moment to flicker on when she'd stepped in, and it had been enough for her mind to falter, for her to question why she was here.

but Venus had become resolute. She couldn't keep avoiding things - namely her past - and this would be the first step of many that she would try to take in hopes of normalising her life even slightly. But even this first step, when her mind was set, was enough for her body to tremor, and then for all of her muscles to immediately tighten. It was the memories of gunshots and whispers of lilted English and the image of the cracked mirror that tightened the strings of her body, pulling her so tight that she was nearing the point where she would snap. Everything loses its elasticity at some point, and a step before her was when Venus was sure that she would lose her.

So she didn't dare to step, even as she begun to dance. Instead, she forced herself to flow, to contort, to glide as well as she could above the waxed floor, because there was someone watching her, eyes that would harden at the sight of any tremor, ones that would glimmer wickedly as they let out a hushed Russian hiss of words slide into her ear. Because there was a mirror right there, right next to her.

Quite suddenly, Venus stopped dancing. She didn't dare to move, not when the mirror reflected her as so simple. That was what she was supposed to be, after all. Simple, obedient, ruthless. Maybe that was all she still was. But at least something had changed. She wasn't there anymore, she'd made sure of that, a long time ago.

All thoughts of snapping, of strings and steps was cast out of her mind as she slowly approached the dully gleaming mirror. For once, she saw herself. She did not see the young girl with a bruised jaw and honey eyes pooled with fear. She saw a woman as blank as she had been trained to be, her eyes as cold and hard as the gold that had twisted around the other mirror, the one that she had shot.

She'd got rid of it, hadn't she? If Natasha was sure that they could.. step around the substance that clung to her skin like fatal cloth, could she finally be free? Would she have the chance to try as she so awfully wanted to?

Then with a glimpse, a flash, a second of light and distraction, she looked away from the mirror, to try and catch one more glance at the stars she could've sworn she'd seen glimmering alluringly at the corner of her vision. And when she looked back, the stars lost among the forests of reality, what she found almost sent her stumbling backwards. Because there was the foolish girl, the scared one, with her hone eyes draped in terror anad her body almost trembling with an awful expectation.

And Venus loathed her. She loathed herself, she hated herself for daring to ever be so weak, and in a swift movement of cloth and venom, she left the room. But what Venus did not consider was that she hated the girl because that was what she had been taught to do. Or perhaps it sprouted from her own fear, her terror of feeling everything that the naïve girl in the mirror embodied.

It never crossed her mind, because it wasn't supposed to, and because though she did not truly know it, Venus was still drowning in their lies, suffocating in their influence. That was because they had done such a good job that it had latched into her mind with large talons at a young age, infected her mind with their own venom, with a source that was virtually immovable,

Venus still had a long way to go; far further than she ever could've imagined, but if she knew quite how far she had left, she would rather go back. It was shorter, and it had worked, even if it would get het killed.

So Venus wandered the silent halls, retracing her steps, until she paused, catching a swift glimpse of the calendar on Natasha's wall, before she slid into her own room, and slept, venom stirring around her and increasing their potency as they clung to her skin like rainwater. Swirling, dripping, flowing. Never settling, always moving, always suffocating her again and again, picking her up by the throat and suffocating her until it affected her mind. Until it persuaded her to don the skin of someone she'd never truly been, but had always become.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

This one's actually not half bad. also i got it up on a Monday ik im late but its Monday it counts. I legit wrote this in an hour lol so idk if it sgood or not but I hope you guys enjoy it.

JABBER_JAY_011

WRITTEN [28.06.2021]

WORD COUNT [1100]

PUBLISHED [28.06.2021]