Fragments of Us: A WinterWidow Short Story

Chapter One

Thirteen weeks since she'd left the hospital from her most recent visit. It was far from her worst visit, but it has still left her with thoughts of confusion. They had told her that she needed to stay for a few days but she had been cleared for field work with a relative swiftness when compared to the length of the stay.  Something about the experience was off.  Things felt incomplete and it was unsettling. Something was missing, had been since her stay. She had thought after this long the feeling would go away but it had only grown stronger. 

Her apartment now felt cold and hollow, almost as if it weren't her home. Though that didn't make any sense. She had lived here for the last three years. Of course it was hers. There were empty spaces on the walls were she was sure pictures had once hung. A mug she didn't remember buying, a griddle that she couldn't imagine ever using. Even her clothes didn't seem to fill the closet like they had before. It was driving her nuts, these things that tugged on memories she couldn't quite place. Things that just didn't add up. And then there was Agent Sitwell -  according to her memory he had always been more of a desk operative. Yet he had ended up dying beside her on her last mission. Nothing was adding up.

And that was why she was now sitting at the desk of another agent, hunched over with fingers flying across the keyboard while she tried to access files that she wasn't allowed. Files that shouldn't have been hidden from her in the first place. As a level 10 agent she shouldn't have been locked out of anything, especially a mission she was a part of.  Yet here she was hacking into encrypted files from a "Daisy Johnson's" desk. Though this agent wasn't even as high as Natasha, she was hoping maybe she could hack her way in without being caught, or at the very least not have it traced back to her.

But so far, there has been little luck, just growing frustrations. Black streaks obscured nearly every paragraph from the files she accessed. They left only scattered words like "the" or "next." It was absolutely maddening. 

Her last mission had been to track down three sleeper agents that the KGB had placed in the US. She and Sitwell had tracked two down to Lucia Von Bardas and her attempt to take down Doctor Doom. But the third, whom Von Bardas had also purchased, had been awoken years earlier due to an earthquake. Sitwell had told her that these agents weren't meant to wake this way. There were protocols in place to wake them safely. Help them adjust to the change in time and be prepared for their next mission. But this Leo Novokov had not been given that. It was believed that to rude awakening had messed with his mind. Enough that he wanted revenge on SHIELD. So he'd come up with a plan that included brain washing Natasha and using her against her own people. The memories had all returned but life since hadn't felt quite right.

The questions she had once thought simple now felt like the final question on an exam she hadn't studied for. She leaned back with a deep sigh. The weight of the unanswered questions pressing down. From the corner of her eye she caught shadows moving in the space between desks.

"'Tasha?" Clint stood in front of her, a smirk on his face. He leaned down to look at the screen. "Whatcha up to?"

Her fingers slammed on the exit button the screen immediately blinking to the SHIELD logo. She pushed back from the desk and locked eyes with Clint. Her voice was filled with frustration when she responded to him "Finding answers. Fury evades me when ever I bring it up, Steve deflects, Sharon and Sam just repeat the same script every time I bring it up. I can't get answers from any of you. So I have to figure it out myself. And this," She motioned to Agents Johnson's desk "desk seemed like the perfect spot to do so."

His smirk faded as he reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. A frown growing on his face. "Natasha, come on. We've told you already—you're chasing shadows. The reports, your files, it's all there and it's all the same. There is nothing else to find."