Prosperous In Battle

8: Family

3RD PERSON

The group has been worried about Natasha. Since seeing her daughter on the world news she's been different. Like she had completely forgotten she ever had a child, to begin with. Like it was just wiped from her mind. After she cleared her room out. It was as if she disappeared. 

Tony had started working from the kitchen instead of the basement to keep an eye on her whilst she works. She just seems way more focused all of a sudden and no one could understand why. They excepted her to come up with a huge plan to bring her daughter home but nothing. Natasha did nothing. 

She was just fixated on her work like it was the replacement for her daughter. She was training more, going on more missions, with and without the avengers. Fury was using her for other projects she had going on. But they were all waiting. Waiting for something to happen. 

Yelena was especially worried about her. "They teach us to do this at the school." She says to Steve. "Wipe your memory of who you were, who you loved." She paused looking at her sister. "And then one day you remember and you get angry and you hurt people." She looked at Steve. "She won't mean to, but she will." "Maybe she's just coping well." "Natasha? Coping well?" She half laughed though she didn't find it funny. "I thought she gave up on me in there. She left and I was so hurt, that's what Tilly will be thinking." "Tilly thinks she's dead." "Natasha saw her smile at her." "We weren't there. Maybe Nat saw what she wanted to see." "Nat can hear you." She called from her spot on the sofa. 

"We're just worried about you that's all." "Well don't be I'm fine." "What about the whole- situation," Steve said choosing his words carefully, he'd been on the receiving end of her daughter's anger a few times, he couldn't imagine what a bigger version of that would feel like. "It's done with. She's there. She's there." She trailed off her voice fading as she regained herself focusing on her work. "Yeah but you're her mother." "He's her father." She said bluntly. "Why does the mother always have to look after the child? She's better off with him now drop it!" She snapped she stood up the laptop hitting the floor as she did so. 

"You think she's better with him? The monster who raped you. That would probably do the same to her." Rogers asked her. He couldn't believe he heard those words come out of his mouth. "Look if she comes back here, Fury will lock her up for a very long time. And she's not Ottilie, she's not my little girl anymore. Okay. She's gone. She's safer there. With him." And she left the compound. No one knew where she went, but she had been disappearing more often recently. It concerned the others but she would always come back. 

"Told you," Yelena said before leaving the shared space. "Can you teach me-" Steve couldn't hear what she was saying to Wanda as they left together? "She left?" Bruce asked. Steve nodded. Bruce sighed. "I'm sorry, we were just trying to-"Just don't bring Tilly up. She doesn't need it." "She's given up." "She's doing what's best for her." "Leaving her in an abusive school that is brainwashing her and using her is what's best for her." "They want to kill her! You know that. Fury's trying to call them off but they won't listen to him. The older she gets the more of a threat she'll become. Natasha is keeping her child alive. She's doing the right thing!" He was pissed. "She never said." "No, because she's sick of everyone telling her how to raise her child. Tony with his constant diagnosis of her, Peppa telling her what to feed her, You with your constant scolding for the way she talks or sits. It's her child. She doesn't have to tell anybody about her choices and she sure as hell doesn't have to justify her choices either." 

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NATASHA'S POV

We sit around the table in the meeting room. Fury was here. It had to be a big mission. I had my leg rested upon the table as I look at the screen waiting for the meeting to begin. It was 4 in the morning so it better be good.