Bad Bitch ⋙ N.Romanoff

z e r o

BAD BITCH
❝these were the women who knitted pain into glory❞

00. The Devil Wears Confidence

{WARNING for this book - I strongly recommend that you pay careful attention to the date at the beginning of the chapters because otherwise it can get VERY confusing.}

October 2016
The resounding clinks of heel onto marble was only the beginning.
It's a strange instinct: knowing someone's presence before you've gotten the time to see them.
Natasha Romanoff knew who she was going to see when she walked through the reinforced doors of the interrogation room.
It was hard to explain. Just from hearing the faint, haunting, tinkle of laughter echo down the hallways had been enough for her heart to twist. They'd all been sat together in a comfortable silence as they'd waited for the Director to arrive and debrief them when they'd heard it. That seductive chime of expression and Natasha felt her very windpipe constrict under the weight of every memory she'd tried to repress. That very laugh had followed Natasha into every battle she'd ever faced, every dream she ever dreamt, and every tear she'd ever cried. That laugh had haunted Natasha Romanoff and it had finally come back.
Her equals, all men and women of battle, hadn't taken much notice to the noise. The Avengers, as they so loved to be marginalised as, seemed to sit in comfort as though they hadn't heard the very devil, herself, walk past their door and it infuriated Natasha.
That anger continued to build as she waited. The sound of the clock, each tick seemed to get mistaken inside her head as the sharp clicks of her heels walking closer, the smell of Wanda's perfume, smelling too distinctively like the trademark Chanel no.5 that she had once worn like battle armour, and the twitchy habit of drumming her own fingernails just like she had was consuming itself into Natasha's head like a time bomb just waiting to explode.
And explode it had.

They'd all underestimated her to begin with; all of them except Natasha, of course. Each of her peers looked at her with no recognition and no fear. That was their first mistake, Natasha would note, as it generally was when it came to Svetlana Smirnov. The best trick the devil ever played was pretending that she didn't exist, as the saying goes, and the deadly python that was Svetlana seemed to turn that into her own mantra.
Because, after all, who'd ever overestimate a woman with breasts?
The answer is no one, as sad as it is.

Steve Rogers had been the first to see the photograph. It was weathered, worn with time and experience, and the figures held captive inside of it were hardly recognisable. It was browning around the edges, chunks along the seams cut out, but the most prominent aspect of it had been the perfectly poised female at the very front. Steve hadn't thought much about whom else the photo contained nor where it was taken, a moment of ignorance perhaps, but instead noticed the girl's small stature. She appeared to be tall but, when the time came to it, she didn't look to be a valiant fighter.
Everyone on the table observed quietly as the photograph was handed around, the sound of Nick Fury's voice seemed to merge into the background for a moment, and Natasha waited in anticipation as Clint Barton handed her the photograph hesitantly with a frown painted on his face.