Breaking Free | Natasha x OC

Chapter Sixty-five

"This chapter feels really good."
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Tara sat on the floor, stretching and working all the muscles she'd been tasked to. She turned to look up when Nat walked in. "Hey."

Natasha took a small breath. "Hi." She eyed her wife over. "How was therapy?"
Tara hummed and gave a casual nod.

"It's was fine."
She waited to see if Nat would ask anything more but the ex-spy just started to head out.
"I feel like you're avoiding me."

Natasha paused now, thinking for a second before turning back to look at Natara. "I'm not avoiding you."

"What's wrong?" Tara asked gently.
She could see Nat was getting guarded by being faced with whatever emotions were surfacing.

"Nothing's wrong."

"Natasha-"

"How are you feeling?" Nat instead asked, walking back into the room entirely and taking a seat right in front of her wife.
Tara gave her a look but replied.

"I'm okay. The therapy's helping. Both of them. It's... it's all getting better. I'm getting better."

Natasha looking deeply into her eyes, really seeing if she meant it. Seeing she did, she nodded slowly. "Okay."

Tara reached out and touched her knee gently. "Talk to me." Natasha's eyes flashed between hers, lips slightly parted. Natara could tell she'd break.

"It's my fault," Nat breathed, voice soft and burdened with emotion. "That you got hurt. That you almost died... were paralyzed."
Tara swallowed at the last word, she still struggled with the PTSD of it all, according to her psychologist at least.

"It's not-"

"It is." Nat's eyes were filled with so much guilt. "You were there to rescue me. If I'd been quicker, so much of everything could've been avoided."

Natara tightened her hold. "And if you'd been slower, I would've been dead."
This made her wife pause, taking a breath. Natara shot her a look. "If you'd been slower than you were, I'd be dead." She wanted those words to sink in, her gaze turning serious as she watched Nat.
"Anything different could've changed everything. For better or for worse. All that matters is that you got there in time." She gave her wife a small smile. "Torturing yourself over things you could've done differently isn't good for anyone. You know that."

Nat leant forward, resting her head against Tara's hand on her knee. She then took a breath and stood, walking over to the desk and opening a drawer. Natara frowned in confusion.

When Nat walked back, Tara saw she was holding a dagger. The dagger.

Natasha gently handed it over to Tara.
"You said to give it back after everything. When we survived."

Natara took the weapon slowly. She'd forgotten all about the blade after the war, after everything that had happened... well, their promise had completely slipped her mind.

She understood the significance of getting the weapon back now.
Yes, they'd survived the actual war more than a year ago, but only now had they truly survived everything it had done.
Their marriage, their minds, themselves. This new curve ball the universe had just thrown at them. All of it.
Getting the dagger back now was only fitting.

Natara put the dagger aside carefully and took Nat's hand instead. This was the real reward she'd wanted back then. The whole point of that promise to begin with. To get out of that battle alive, with Natasha.
"One last time, huh?"

Nat gave her a teasing grin. "I told you it would be."
They both grew a bit heavier, remembering all they'd forever lost.

There were many days like this... that lasted weeks-- when that grief was a blanket covering their whole bodies. There were moments of distance between them still, times when the life they'd lived hung behind them, a reminder of better times.