lost loves, found loves

2011

I have been training with Hydra for the whole twenty-five years, working as an assassin for them and killing hundreds of people.

Nick Fury, the director of the organization S.H.I.E.L.D, comes to me one day to talk to me. I don't reply, but just let his words fall down on me like raindrops. I barely listen, but when eight other men step out of their cars, I try to fight them off. Even though I kill two of them immediately and knock several of them out, I do not stand a chance. They tase me, and I am unconscious as they drag me away.

When I wake up again, I have a horrible feeling in my brain. It is as though all of my memories come flooding back to me, everything that happened more than twenty years ago. One day in 2011, there was the worst thunderstorm ever coming down on Earth, and now I knew it was Thor, but I wondered what it was that upset him that much. I heard people telling stories about how there has been a strange sighting of five medieval people fighting in the streets of New Mexico a few months ago, but I did not remember. I was sure that it must have been Thor and Sif and the Warriors Three, though I don't know what they would do down here on Earth. I wonder why none of them bothered to look me up.

I am in a glass cell, Fury sitting on the other side, watching me. "Where am I?" I ask as I look around. My hands are tied behind my back and it's making me uneasy.

"Don't worry about it," Fury replies without answering my question. "We need to talk."

I agree to talk, and because I don't feel any hostility towards him, he opens the cell. Without saying a word, Fury throws a folder at my feet.

"Avengers Initiative?" I read out loud.

"Yes. You will read, and you will consider, and if you consider right, then you will meet someone," Fury says and unties me. He closes the cell again and leaves me alone with the folder.

I pick it up and look at it, my brow furrowed. Then, I start flicking through the pages with my eyebrows raised. My eyes get wider and wider. After a while, when I read the entire folder twice, Nick Fury comes back.

"And?" He asks.

"I'm in," I reply shortly.

"Why?"

"Because I want to do good. This seems like something good."

He opens the cell once again and lets me out. I am keen on seeing who he's going to introduce me to, so when he takes me into a gym with a boxing ring and other stuff, I am slightly confused.

"If you want to fight me, I suggest you bring back your eight men," I say.

"Five," he corrects me, implying that I killed three of them.

I don't apologize or say anything at all because the most beautiful woman I have ever seen comes through the door. She has red hair and is wearing a skintight black suit.

"Natasha Romanoff, (y/n)," Fury introduces us.

"Good that you're joining us," she says.

I can barely get out a word. This woman has the finest curves I have ever seen. I bet that naked, her silhouette would be flawless. I am suddenly determined to find out.

"I'm sorry, what are we doing here?" I ask.

"You're proving yourself. I'm judging," Fury replies. When he nods at the ring, I get it. "You against the Black Widow."

I put my dark hair into a bun and step into the ring. Romanoff isn't too shy to start, but I outsmart her and throw her to the floor. Then I am on the floor. Then we are at each other's throats. Then she is on the floor, me sitting on her back. Then it's me. Then her. Then we simultaneously kick each other in the stomach, and both fall to the floor. Fury stops us before we get up again.