𝑩𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝑴𝒐𝒐𝒏 ✘ 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐀 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐅𝐅

{3¹} {DISENCHANTED}

∆ {3¹} {DISENCHANTED} ∆

Six Months Later

EVEN IF NATASHA was still trying to win back her favour, to close the space between them, Venus had been trying her best to avoid that. She was used to being away from anyone, separate from people who she'd grown with, even if Natasha was not. Natasha had started a new life here, grown to become a new person.

But Natasha had always had something to hold onto. The memory of a suburban house in Ohio, the image of a family, even if it had been shattered. Venus had only had the broken image of herself, and that had only spurred her further into the Red Rooms' arms, further into their twisted ways that she had become so used to over the years. So Venus was no stranger to being alone, being in the dark, not entirely sure that she was where she should be, even if some part of her ached for a pretty redhead with green eyes who'd been the only home she'd ever known.

It was a specific feeling, one that Venus doubted anyone else had ever felt. Then again, she still struggled with identifying her own emotions; who was she to decide that for anyone else?

One thing she did know was that she didn't want to be around Natasha. Not now, not until she was more used to the idea that it was safe for Natasha to touch her bare skin. Instead, she'd simply devoted herself to her time in SHIELD. Try to do at least something better to alleviate some of the guilt that had begun to weigh on her so heavily these past months. She'd had time to think recently, to delve deeper into her mind where the mirror was foggier, where their influence couldn't reach her so fiercely.

She liked to think that Fury quite liked her now, because she worked fairly closely with him on whichever of his secret operations he was working on at that moment. She had grown used to working with Maria Hill, too. She was Fury's right hand woman, and she wasn't exactly bad on the eyes. Venus knew that all of them, including Clint, who she still worked with commonly, had taken Stark's prevention method to avoid unfortunate incidents after Natasha had proved that it worked.

Fury seemed to have found out about the strained relationship between Venus and Natasha, and also didn't seem to care much, because they still worked just as many missions together. This one, however, she was working with Clint. It had been a few months since she'd worked with him, and she found herself quite looking forward to it, even if it wasn't the sort of mission that she normally found herself working on.

Something about overseeing an 0-8-4 and the operations ongoing surrounding it, because she'd happened to have rocketed up through the various ranks and security levels at SHIELD in the past few months, given that she'd had little else to focus on, and Fury had trusted her an almost suspicious amount. Maybe, at least she hoped as much as her training would allow her, that he had simply seen how much he could trust Natasha.

The jet thrummed around her, filled her veins with a power other than that of her own venom. She pulled the hairband around her wrist away from her flesh, pulling it near-taut before she let go, relishing the slight sting that it gave her. She'd snapped many of them, and found herself buying them more than almost anything else. A habit that had developed, a nasty one. For whenever she got the urge to reach into her bag and pull out her box of cigarettes and her lighter - the one thing that would release her from the chaos of the world she'd been thrust into.

It was a constant pull, a taunt in her mind, telling her to just give in, to allow herself to indulge in the smoke and the nicotine. She'd given in to the Red Room, and look how she'd ended up. But similarly, she never knew anything other than giving in to her subconscious - it was normally the thing that kept her alive, as safe as she could be, functioning. She didn't know if she could trust herself anymore. She'd always been able to trust herself, and to find out that she couldn't anymore - it had led her back to that mirror that was welded to the inside of her mind. For once, she had stomached meeting her own eyes. In search of answers. She hadn't found any.

Her radio crackled to life.

"We have a level 7. Repeat, we have a level 7." Shit.

"All inbound agents return to the Helicarrier unless you have a medic onboard. All inbound agents return to the Helicarrier." The jet banked almost immediately. Something had gone awfully wrong. Her radio hissed again, but this time, it seemed, the message was only for her.

"Vadyaeva, report on your status." Fury's voice, pained as though he'd been injured.

"We were still ten minutes out, we've turned around and are heading back now." Her own voice, still stained with the accent that was nothing but a reminder of ghosts.

"Good, you're out of the blast radius. Get back as soon as possible. I'll be a few hours, at most. I have something I need to discuss with you." So this was bad then. Bad enough that Fury was coming to her for council. Venus had a feeling he would've asked Natasha if she hadn't been so deep into her mission in Russia.

She had a feeling that this was where things would go downhill.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Yeah, this is pretty shit. Needs to be a chapter though, sorry. Pls vote, comment, let me know what you think, etc.,

JABBERJAY_011

WORDS [1000]

WRITTEN [25.02.2022]

PUBLISHED [28.02.2022]