Free Soul | Natasha Romanoff

Chapter 16: my night demons whispered an illusion

Easter had been spent with the children hunting for chocolate eggs in the yard of the Barton's house, while the three adults were enjoying their peace around a few drinks. Three, because Hyunjae had partaken in the hunt for the first time, much more clumsily and with much more confusion than the two others; she was looking around without knowing what to look for.

In sum, this represented her current situation- moving forward, or simply around in her existence, without a clear goal in mind. A wandering soul, still. The tag of the Ghost of the East had yet to detach itself from it.

"How come you didn't find any?" Lila had gasped, shocked that Hyunjae had come back empty-handed.

Hyunjae simply scratched her neck, giving a small sheepish smile in face of Lila's disbelief.

And although each spring day was filled with the warmth of the sun, the stealth night would envelop them in its shadow eventually, and the most sincere of terrors would strangle them, slyly. It was in this still moment that Natasha was unable to fall unconscious. The dark circles under her eyes had gotten darker, the chamomile like steel in her hand, unable to move it to her lips.

The screams coming from Clint and Laura's room haunted her sleepless nights, almost as much as any nightmare she could have. Each cry sounded like a tear of agony, every note coming from the depths of Hell. There was no use in shutting down the world with her earphones; that pain, those fears and tears, were far too loud and piercing to be muffled. So Natasha listened, instead.

She listened as Clint woke up in panic and in tears after having screamed for the past minute. She listened as Laura came to comfort him, by whispering certainly, some words of reassurance. She listened as the house would react to the affliction, until it eventually fell silent too; only then did she have the strength to take a sip of her now cold tea, in the now usual nothingness of a night.

No sound or any motion, no smell of anguish or terrorizing visions. It was a night like any other, allowing for the world to find rest in a quiet nature. To turn, aimlessly, indefinitely, ignorant of the pain of its inhabitants.

It was this very moment in which she felt the most connected to the world- that ephemeral instant, after chaos quieted down, after the Earth became all blind and deaf, ignorant of its own demise. Natasha was sitting on her bed, harmless to anyone in her purest human form, listening to the notes of silence offered by the world she was living in. It was rare, and needed to be cherished.

Silence.

Her eyes of viridescence, peering through the delicate glass of her window, traced over the canvas of a starry night. She linked the stars, and drew the constellations Hyunjae had told her all about. And because those stars, that infinite universe, were the reminder of that girl, every night, she reminisced about the soft words of hers spoken during their night walks in a serene Washington.

Natasha remembered the faint spark in Hyunjae's eyes as she talked about the dazzling lights from a million years in the past, the spark of awe from speaking about a long time passion: gazing at the skyline, at the night sky, like unreachable stars of her dreams and the childhood hopes. Their hearts spoke instead of their voices, for they opened themselves for such a moment.

Natasha remembered her soft smile, her appeased gaze, the light chuckles lacing the chilly air. These light chuckles colored her words in such a tone, Natasha's heart stammered and staggered on its way, on its peaceful walk alongside Hyunjae's. There was this thing happening in her chest again, and she wished to muffle it as much as she wished it could find its pair.

Its pair... If only Hyunjae-

Natasha swallowed bottoms up her freezing cold tea, to drown her chest in this distasteful liquor. A cold shower, to replace her thoughts in their right order.