Avengers x Male Reader Oneshots

Tell Your Baby That I'm Your Baby | Natasha Romanoff

Fandom: Marvel (MCU)

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x Winter Soldier! Male! Reader (Romantic)

A/N: Requested by ANONYMOUS on Tumblr. This is literally so far from what they asked but I saw the potential for angst and ran with it instead. And I'm not good at sm*t so there's only hints of it. MILD BLACK WIDOW SPOILERS.

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There are days where Natasha wakes up drenched in sweat, unable to breathe, heart heavy with a feeling she can't make out just yet. Those days are rare, but they still happen nonetheless, and they leave her shaken for longer than she's willing to admit.

She isn't infallible, she knows this, but on those nights, her aching chest serves as a reminder to how human she really is under the exterior she's carefully manufactured over the years.

Most nights she doesn't dream. It was always nothingness that greeted her in the night, and she welcomed it wholeheartedly.

But on the rare occasion, when she sleeps, she sees things.

Sometimes she sees blue strands blocking her vision as she rushes up a driveway, a beat but well loved car parked right next to her as she barreled through the door and into open arms, two pairs big, one pair smaller than her own. Other times, she sees a Christmas tree with colorful boxes underneath them. She cheers and laughs with glee, despite knowing that there wasn't anything inside of them. Those visions are often tinted a warm orange.

But they only make up a small part of what she normally dreams of.

Most times, she dreams of a man.

("Aim higher."

A low murmur, a cold hand on her neck, another steadying her gun. She does as she's told, but she's only so young, she doesn't know how to aim like he does, she doesn't know why she's here- she pulls the trigger.

And misses.

The bottom drops from beneath her, Natasha's teeth biting down on her lips hard enough to draw blood. She knows what's coming for her, she's prepared- she isn't, but what choice does she have?- and braces for it.

The cold hand leaves her neck. But it does not reach for her scalp, to tug on it and drag her away from her post to... "reprimand" her for her shoddy work despite having enough time to train for it.

Instead, a cold thumb wipes itself across her lips to clean the blood that had begun dripping down her cheek. He is quiet, almost deathly so.

"... Showing weakness will get you killed here. Do not do that again."

He does not say anything else, and instead adjusts her gun. Her hands tremble, but with his nod, she pulls the trigger again.

She does not miss this time.)

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Most nights, she dreams of a man.

She does not remember certain aspects of that man. She cannot remember the curve of his cheekbone or the color of his lips, but that does not stop the shadow of that man from haunting her at her every move.

Sometimes she sees some of him in Steve when he grips down on something hard enough to bend it.

(Sometimes she remembers that grip on her waist, on her arms, on her ankles, around her throat; the desperation in his voice, the corners of his eyes being the only sign that he was on the edge of losing control as she shuddered beneath him.)