I Wish- FEMALE READER X NATASHA ROMANOFF- MCU Black Widow

Chapter VIII

I find out later that I had been sleeping for three days. Natalia told me she had been sneaking into the medical wing and watching me sleep, hoping that I would wake up.

When she told me that, I smiled like an idiot. It made me so giddy, knowing that Nat cares about me like that.

We can't see each other during the day, but Natalia sneaks out of our room to come visit me at night. 

"Did it hurt?" she asks one night as she's lying in the hospital bed with me, her head on my chest.

"What?" I question, playing with her hair. 

"The surgery." she says quietly.

"You're asleep for most of it, really. They just drug you up. I don't even remember most of it. But it does hurt like a bitch when you wake up." I answer.

"Were you sad? About the... surgery?"

"I don't know. Maybe? I've never been able to think about having children, because they were seen as a liability." I say, "I guess I was sad that Dreykov could control me, even if I ever escaped the Red Room." 

I look down at her to see her eyes glistening. "I'm sorry, Nat."

She blinks. "For what?"

"This life." I wave my hands around.

"That's not your fault."

"I know. I'm just... sorry."

"Well then," she smiles, "I guess I'm sorry, too, Y/N."

A comfortable silence falls between us. A few minutes later, I think Nat has fallen asleep. Later, I do too.

(...)

I wake up hearing heavy breathing from Nat. She's thrashing around in her sleep. "No." she mumbles, "NO!"

"Nat, Nat. Come on, just wake up, please." I say, trying to get her to get out of the dream.

She doesn't wake up. She's sobbing now, begging someone in her nightmare. "Please, just do it. Just do it!" she cries. 

"Nat. Natalia! It's just a dream, okay? It's not real. Just wake up, okay? Come on." At this point I'm violently shaking her. 

Finally, her eyes fly open, terrified. She's struggling to breathe.

"Hey, it's okay, it's okay. It was just a dream, it didn't happen. Just try to follow my breathing, okay?" I take deep breaths, trying to get her to calm down. 

She nods, unable to form words. I put her hand on my chest so she can feel my heartbeat. 

We sit there for a minute. That nightmare must've been horrifying. It takes Nat about 10 minutes to breathe normally, and even then, she won't stop crying. 

She rests her head on my shoulder, and I rub her back, soothing her. "It wasn't real, okay? It was in your head."

Nat faces me, shaking her head. "But this is real. This is a nightmare that we can't escape."

I stay silent. Natalia goes back to sobbing in my shoulder.

At some point, Natalia gets up and leaves so people won't notice she's gone from her room. 

I lie awake, my mind focusing on what Nat said. She's right, of course. The Red Room is a hellish place that we won't be able to leave. Even if we did, it'll still be there. We won't be able to forget it. It's a part of our lives. It'll be there in the morning, stalking us throughout the day. Hiding around the corner. 

The next night, when Natalia comes over, I express my thoughts to her:"You're right, you know. This place is a nightmare, and it always will be. It's part of our past. We might be able to escape it physically, but mentally, a part of us will always be here. It might be a part you're not proud of, but it'll be here."

She cocks in eyebrow. "This isn't helping me feel better."

I take a deep breath, preparing to continue. "But that doesn't mean that you have to spend the rest of your life running from it. The Red Room and Dreykov and Madame B and everyone in this place are always going to be a part of your life, whether you like it or not. That means it'll be pointless to try to escape from the memory of it. I'm not saying you should be proud or happy about being a part of it, but just... accept it. There's no way to change the past, and it's impossible to completely forget about it. But if you accept that this is what you are, and this is your past, then maybe you won't be so terrified of it."

I look up at Natalia, expecting a response. She's silent. 

"I know that was a lot, and I know it sounded really shitty, but it's the truth."

She finally meets my eyes. There's a melancholy in her eyes that is so tragic it shatters my heart. "I don't want it to be the truth." she whispers. 

I scoot closer to her. "Me neither, Natalia. I wish our reality to be that we get the happy ending that we've always wanted. I want to love you without the Red Room's shadow hanging over us," I say.

I take her hands in mine. "But that's why I said what I said. We both need to accept that this is our life, and no matter how much we wish that we could change the past, we can't." 

Natalia stares at me. "But you're forgetting one thing." she says suddenly. "The Red Room brought us."

Now it's my turn to be quiet.

"The part of the Red Room that I'm proud of is you. I'm glad that you will always be a part of my past, and that's because of the Red Room. I don't mean that I'm happy we were both part of the Red Room, but I'm happy that our lifelines were intertwined." Natalia continues, "And while the Red Room will always control our past, this is our future. I don't want to take another step in life without you by my side."

Is it possible to be filled with light just because of words?

What Natalia said definitely stained my heart, for better or worse.  

I CAN FEEL MY DEPRESSION COMING BACK :(

ALSO IM IN LOVE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT SOMEONE HELP

MY FAV SONG IS EITHER WHOS AFRAID OF LITTLE OLD ME OR I CAN DO IT WITH A BROKEN HEART

IK THIS CHAPTER WAS SHORT BUT I JUST NEEDED SOME FLUFF TO MAKE ME HAPPY AND IT WAS FUN TO WRITE

SENDING LOVE TO EVERYONE IF YOUVE BEEN DESTROYED BY TAYLOR SWIFT

THANK YOU SOOOOOO MUCH FOR READING AND VOTING, I LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!!!

NOT PROOFREAD BC I REALLY CANT

1063 words