WHAT IF...: Marvel OC One Shots

| Weaving Wraith |

This is probably my first "What If" one shot where I explore what could have happened in characters story. (It's also a little prequel one shot to a roleplay chain ;) ).

For those unfamiliar with this character and her story, after getting freed from checmical subjugation by Yelena Belova, she is taken to Waverly, Iowa with the Barton-Romanoff family to hide and rest and begin to heal.

However, this is "What If... Anastasia didn't stay in Iowa? What if she ran away to hunt a SHIELD ex- STRIKE team who had ties to the shadows she hated so much?"

You don't have to be familiar with her character to read this, by all means let me know what you think!!

Enjoy.

^^^^^

{ Waverly, Iowa, USA | Two months since Red Room defection }

       Ana's throat strained with the swallowed scream she kept silent as she jolted awake, hands immediately shooting down from where they rested by the headboard to grip the blanket and pull it off of her. Too soft, the bed was too soft. She was drowning in it, feeling as the water filled her lungs as she pushed herself to sit up, shoulders and chest heaving. She was gasping for air, her pale hair a mess from where she'd tied it into a braid the night before. Her throat hurt— she could feel her heart hammering against her rib cage as her hazel eyes scanned the room quickly, taking in the darkened state of the bedroom the Barton's had let her sleep in.

       It was the middle of the night— she'd spent enough time watching the moon when she couldn't sleep to know it was later than 0300. The room was dark, covered in navy blue and black shadows that sneered at her like haunting echoes, like taunting bruises woven into the fabric of her surroundings. The only sounds she heard were her own heavy and panicked breaths, her own heart in her ears threatening to pump its last beat. Her skin felt hot, she felt like she was both drowning and burning in a hell of her own.

       She forced herself to quiet, stilling her breathing like she was trained to. Her eyes narrowed, darting around the room to take in the whole of it until her sight caught onto a lonely stack of papers at the edge of her bed. Redacted SHIELD reports she'd managed to get unsealed. Since reading their contents, she hadn't been able to sleep— not that she did anyways, but her nightmares had gotten worse. She was restless, she couldn't breathe through the knowledge that remnants of the Red Room were lurking about. That she knew exactly who and what still roamed in the shadows, waiting and preying. That her nightmare wasn't over. That there was a pretty good chance all of this... taking refuge in Iowa with the Barton's, could've just been another ruse. Another test of her loyalty.

       She hated herself for it, questioning them after they'd done nothing but welcome her into their home with open arms. They were perfect. Too perfect. A wife, a husband, two children who were as skilled as their parents, an aunt— a family. She'd never seen one up close. Not the way she'd been watching them. They were too perfect to be real. And if they were real, that meant they were alive. She was merely a phantom.

       She hated herself for the cautions she took, the snooping. But she hated herself even more for what she'd been planning, what her mind drifted to in the silent moments.

       Anastasia Baitscheva was a Black Widow. She didn't work, or move, with chance— she worked in absolutes. On good intel, in solid fact. And fact told her that she wasn't safe— she didn't know safe and she never would. Fact told her the Red Room would have never let her go that easy, not without a fight. What were the chances she had been brought to a secluded farmhouse in Iowa with two more Widows? And Natasha, who had children? Widows couldn't have children; another fact, she had the scars to prove it.