the girls of moscow || n. romanova

epilogue | the black widow

15 September, 1998

Natasha Romanoff was now seventy years old.

She examined her reflection in the mirror on her wall, tucking loose hairs behind her ears. She should be old and wrinkled now, but where her hair ought to be white there was only red, more vibrant than ever; where there should be wrinkles there was only smooth, dewy skin.

She looked not a day older than twenty-five – and beautiful, truly.

She was continuing to receive a regular dose of the Kudrin Serum that was first used on her so many decades ago, to keep her young. She had long since adopted a more palatable version of her name, trading the harsh "v" in her last name for a softer syllable, changing her first name to the more Westernized "Natasha."

She was grateful for it, just like she was grateful for everything that had made her who she was. The pain, the pleasure, the struggles.

Sometimes, though, she missed the Soldier. Natasha remembered when he'd left, after one last memory wipe. They'd sent him back to the Hydra base in Siberia, and she hadn't seen him since, but she'd long since moved past it. She remembered watching as they'd bound his hands and shoved him into the back of a truck like an animal, before driving off through the snow. Natasha could still see those blue eyes at night, in her dreams.

Today she was getting ready for a plane flight, to the United States. She was going to America for a mission in Odessa, Texas - where she was to eliminate a man who had defected from the KGB twenty-seven years ago. It would be the furthest she'd gone yet.

The Academy told Natasha that the man was a threat, but she had passively wondered how a retired soldier-turned-farmer, barely older than herself and living across the world could possibly pose a threat to her country. All the same, she stuffed her clothes and necessities into a suitcase, along with her knife - she couldn't take a handgun to the Moscow airport, much less smuggle it into the States, but a knife would be easier to excuse, and she knew plenty of ways to make anything into a weapon.

Natasha wasn't worried.

With the help of her sexuality, weaponry training, and agility, this man would be easy to eliminate, she was confident - and she wore confidence like a crown. With a coy smile directed at her reflection, she applied the last of her lipstick and left the room. She could handle it.

She was the Black Widow, for God's sake. She had this under control.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE

Thank you all so much for reading this!! I love this fic so much, I've put so much time into it over the years. I hope you enjoyed it, despite plenty of canonical inaccuracies. I hope to write more fics of various kinds at some point, so I suppose stay tuned?

Anyway thanks again for reading :)

 – -moonbaby_-