Natasha Romanoff One Shots

A Promise ~ A/F

Words: 1.7k
Relation: Romantic
Genre: Angst/Fluff

Grief is a unique thing. People say there are five stages to go through until you have "moved on". Not that anyone truly moves on, whatever or whoever is being grieved stays with a person for the rest of their lives, the pain lessens, but that is not to say that they are still not missed. People still grieve things they lost years ago, love perseveres through thick and thin and can never be taken away.

Love washes over a person like a tide, when you think you couldn't love them more they go ahead and prove you wrong. Grief then comes in like a tsunami, overpowering the calm manner of the tide and leaving destruction in its wake. Destruction and drowning are all that is known, pulling a person down as though they have an anchor attached to their leg.

There is no telling how long the tsunami will last, or how long it will take for the damages to be repaired, all that is known is that one day the calming tide will come back, and the love for lost things is ever prominent. The damage cast from the tsunami will always be remembered, but the tide is back, and calm can be found.

People can mourn over many things. Family, friends, pets, lost time, and even something or someone whom they never knew. The latter can be confusing for many, not understanding why they are mourning for someone they have never met or something that they have never experienced.

Natasha Romanoff was no stranger to this confusion. It had been eating her alive for as long as she could remember, and she couldn't figure out why. She wasn't a person who liked to show any weakness, so she never told anyone about how she felt on the daily, thinking that she was making a big deal out of nothing. She never knew her birth mother, so why was this feeling of mourning and longing for her? Why did she feel as though she had suffered a huge loss? Why did she feel a pain in her chest every night when her brain tormented her before going to sleep?

She didn't have a logical explanation for it and so she didn't tell anyone. But in 2013, when you were paired on a mission with her for SHIELD, she found that she liked your company, and so sought after it more often. This shocked you and everyone else who knew Natasha as she was notorious for not speaking to most of her mission partners after the job was done, and yet she was actively seeking you out. Not that you complained, you liked her company too.

A friendship was soon formed, and soon after a relationship. A year later it turned into a beautiful marriage. She trusted you enough to marry you, and so trusted you enough with her heart. It took a while but she did eventually explain to you her grief and experiences through life and being the first person that she told, you were the first person to reassure her.

To reassure her that it was okay to mourn someone you had never met. Regardless of the fact that Natasha had never seen her birth mother, she still played a big part in her life. She brought her into the world and passed on some of her looks, some of her personality. She had always been with Nat throughout life, the meeting part was redundant.

Your explanation allowed her to accept that part of herself, and in turn, allowed her to start loving herself. That night she cried in your arms for the first time, and you made a promise to never let her go. Nat needed you, and you needed her too.

When the Sokovia accords tore the Avengers apart, the two of you ended up hiding out in Norway. Not that it lasted long. Not even four hours into your stay and the fuel had run out, resulting in Natasha driving you to go and collect some more, though the car was blown up on the way, launching you into an adventure over to Budapest and then Russia to see Nat's family and end the Red Room.

They were an exhausting couple of days, but you were glad that Natasha was able to reconnect with her adoptive family, it was something that she needed, especially her younger sister Yelena. But Nat didn't come out of the adventure feeling peaceful that she had ended the organisation that had ripped her life away, a storm was brewing within her, and she didn't know how to stop it.