UNKNOWN GUEST

#123 Vormir

As the ghostly figure of the Red Skull vanished into the mist, his words hung heavy in the air, settling into Natasha and Clint's minds with a weight that neither of them wanted to bear. Clint's jaw clenched as he tried to push away the grim implications.

He took a few steps forward, fists tightening, his voice tense with denial. "This is absurd. A soul for a soul? No way. He's lying—this has to be a fluke. Some kind of trick." His voice cracked slightly, as if he were trying to convince himself as much as he was to Natasha.

Natasha sat on a nearby rock, silent and thoughtful, her gaze distant. She looked up at Clint with a sad but resolute expression, her fingers toying absently with the braid over her shoulder. "No, Clint," she said softly. "He's telling the truth. I can feel it."

Clint's expression shifted, his eyes searching her face, looking for some trace of doubt, some hint that she might change her mind. But as he studied her, he saw acceptance in her eyes—an acceptance that terrified him. 

Natasha's fingers gently traced the braid she wore, a quiet moment that drew her back to a morning at Clint's farmhouse. She remembered it so vividly—the soft warmth of the sun through the window, the smell of fresh coffee and hay, the familiar sounds of Clint's family moving around the house. 

And James. Her son. Her lost son. How he had taken such careful, tender care to braid her hair that morning, his hands gentle yet steady as he ran his fingers through her damp hair, twisting and weaving it perfectly. She could still feel his touch as if he were there now, standing beside her.

It had been years since that moment, but it stayed with her as fresh as if it had happened yesterday. She had watched him as he worked, taking in the quiet pain in his face.

That day, he'd said something that hadn't fully hit her until now. James had mentioned how the sound of high heels unnerved him, how it brought back bad memories. He'd spoken of a "high-heel witch," though he'd left her to wonder about the identity of the person who had left such deep scars on her child's soul.

James had suffered in a way even her training in the Red Room could not compare to—a trauma so profound it cast a shadow across his every look, every movement.

She could see his face in her mind now, those dark, haunted eyes that always seemed to carry a weight of grief and solitude, even in moments of levity. She had always wondered why he watched her with such longing, such intense sadness.

Now, she understood. James had grown up distant from her—his mother, the one who should have been his protector. And she hadn't been there. 

She didn't know the torment he had endured, the silent battles he fought alone. Natasha's heart clenched at the realization. The loneliness he'd carried had been a reflection of her absence, an absence she could never mend.

She remembered the last time she'd seen him, back at Melina's farm in Russia. How cold and dismissive she'd been, how she'd lashed out at him with words sharpened like knives, born of her own frustration and disbelief. She'd snapped, told him to go to hell. She'd spat that she didn't care, that she wouldn't want a child like him. 

The memory burned her now, her own cruelty glaring back at her in unforgiving clarity. Her heart ached with regret, a raw, gnawing pain that hadn't let her go since that day. She hadn't known then who he was—her son, the child she had never imagined but would have fought the world to protect if she'd only known.

And now, here she was, left with nothing but regrets and what-ifs. But for once, she had a chance to make things right. She could see that path clearly before her, painful as it was.

She could give James back his future, ensure he returned to his timeline whole, unbroken by the grief that haunted him. This sacrifice would be her atonement. Her life for his freedom, her death for his future.