Clintasha: The Baby

Part 48

Third person point of view: 

THREE WEEKS AFTER THE FUNERAL 

Natasha unlocked the door and made her way inside. She threw her bag onto the couch and stood against the door after she closed it, catching her breath and collecting her thoughts. Natasha walks over to the kitchen counter and hops onto it, still wearing her new mission suit that Stark had upgraded for her, only it didn't look new anymore. There was blood spattered all over it, the weapons pockets were now well worn in, and the widow insignia had faded so that you could hardly tell what it was. She had run fifty three mission in the past month and a half, and was on her fourth hack into S.H.I.E.L.D to find them. She felt that couldn't let anyone else put themselves in danger when she was capable of doing them. She couldn't let anyone else die because of her.

She pulls out the bottle of Russian vodka from the cupboard above her head and starts drinking straight out of the bottle because Clint wasn't going to come to drink any of it with her. He hasn't even texted or called Natasha. "I guess that means that we just done, but I already knew that, he drank the bottle of whiskey without me, he blames me for what happened to Elizabeth and he isn't wrong because it is my fault she tells her self in her head. I should probably file for a divorce the next time she's in the States. Wait why am I still thinking about that fucking piece of shit? He doesn't matter move on." She thinks while looking down at the bottle and notices that a fifth of it is already gone so so she moves to the kitchen table and looks at her phone to see another five new text messages from Tony. She thinks that maybe she should call him to tell him that she's OK so he stops worrying, she doesn't want him to relapse again. But she doesn't because then again he would come looking for her and she doesn't want to be found, she's fine. She's doing fine on her own. 

 She looks down to see another text message from James. "He's trying to bait me I know he is. I know what he's doing, but I'm not going to fall for it, I know what they are all doing but they don't understand. I'm fine. I have everything I need here. I know that, here I can't be reminded of anything that happened. I can't be reminded of Elizabeth or of Clint, this is good for me. I don't have to worry about anything or anyone and I'm still a good guy, I'm staying off of the governments radar because, they have nothing to complain about because I'm sure dad is covering for me. And if he isn't because he's mad that I ran off, I'm sure Coulson and May are doing the paperwork to cover me. I'm fine. I'm sure Nick doesn't want me back anymore anyway with how many headaches I've given him over the past nine months and I'm sure he's on Tony's ass trying to get him to make it so I can't hack in anymore. Plus there is no telling of what Maria thinks of me. I mean I screwed her over big time, I've left her to deal with S.H.I.E.L.D, the Avengers, and Nick all by herself, by now I wouldn't be surprised if she hates me, I mean she hasn't texted or called so that makes a lot of sense."  She puts her head down on the table and wipes away the tears. 

"Why am I even crying? I don't care that they hate me, I knew this was going to happen, I should have expected it sooner, no one can love me. I am the Black Widow, death follows me wherever I go, I come seeking refuge and I leave a path of death and destruction in my wake, it's my training, it's who I am." She thinks trying to reassure her choice.   

She raises her head to look up and stare at the wall and instead she see's Victor Antonovich, one of her old Red Room captors staring right back at her. She freezes in fear and the color drains from her face, but there is no one else in the room, he is only a figment of her imagination.  

"Well hello my Natalia. It's good to see that you are coming back to your roots, you could never be a hero, I'm glad that you have stopped pretending." He cooed to her. 

"No! No! You aren't here! There's no way. You don't know what you're talking about!" She screamed at the wall where he was standing in her head. 

"Oh sweet Natalia. You have no idea how long we have waited for you to come back to us. We were always here waiting for you to realize that you could never belong with those circus freaks that the Americans call heroes. We were waiting for you to realize that you could never belong anywhere, except for here with us." Madame Belova, her intelligence trainer, says seductively as she walks up to Victor. 

"I am surprised that it took her this long to come back, not to mention what made her come back, aren't you Madame?" He asks ignoring Natasha's terror, that she was creating in her head. 

"Yes, I am very disappointing in you Natalia, thinking you could ever have a family and a child. What a silly fantasy. You would think that we raised you better than that. You are a murderer, a killer, a weapon. You are incapable of love or being loved, why didn't you realize that?"

"No! Don't you dare talk about Elizabeth! She was mine not yours!" 

"Oh sweet Natalia. Did you truly think that you could ever have anything of your own?" She asks and then disappears and Clint takes their place. 

"How could you do this Natasha? Why would you do this to me? What were you thinking?" Clint screams as he appears. 

"No no. What did I do? I didn't mean to I swear. Please Clint." She cries out to no one. 

"Of course you have no idea what you have done, you monster. You killed our child! You killed our daughter! It's your fault that she's dead! You did this to her!" He continued to scream as he was kneeling next to Elizabeth's headstone. 

"No no! I did everything I could to save her! There was nothing else that I could do!" She begged the hallucination. 

"Of course you would say something like that." Clint said as he disappears, revealing Fury. 

"Hello traitor." Fury says very casually. 

"Nick? What are you doing here?" 

"You don't get to call me Nick anymore, you traitor."

"Nick what do you mean? I've been good. I've been going on missions, I haven't gone rouge I swear." Natasha said getting defensive and standing up. 

"No, you've always been a traitor, you've always been reporting back to them. You've always been a double agent and I want to know why. They've been in your head since the beginning. Why did you betray us." 

"Nick I don't know what you're talking about. What's going on?" She screamed as tears flowed from her face. 

"Don't call me that! I am not Nick to you! I am the man who is going to make sure that the rest of your life is miserable. I trusted you. You know that? I actually trusted you. I thought that you had changed, that you were good. I was a fool to think that the Black Widow could be anything other than a double agent, murderess."

"No, I didn't do any of that. I swear I didn't betray you guys."

"Well than what do you call murdering your husband in cold blood. You have been feeding the Russians our intelligence the entire time and when Clint found out you had to get rid of him so you killed him. There is no other explanation for it." Fury says and then disappears leaving Natasha alone to deal with the aftermath of everything by herself. 

She grabs her phone and stumbles over to the couch where she sits on it and rocks herself back and forward, to scared to look at her phone to see if the nightmares were actually real. She cried and screamed hoping that someone would reach out to her and after an hour of nothing she starts rubbing and caressing her self harm scars. She pulls the knife she stole from the Red Room put and sets it onto the table next to the couch along with the first gun that Fury had ever permitted her. She sets Clint's handcuffs, that he had modified so she could chain herself up at night, but if she yanked hard enough the would come undone next to them. 

She thinks and promises to herself that if she doesn't get a phone call or text message from anyone in the next five minutes that she would take her own life to pay for the atrocities that the nightmares told her she committed. She would end all of the pain and suffering that she had ever put her loved ones through by taking her own life. 

She waits two and a half minutes without a sound being heard or a noise being made until she hears a faint buzzing from the bag next to her and she opens it up. She pushes the clothes, weapons, and pictures out of the way until she finds the secret compartment in her bag that holds her emergencies only burner phone, that only Fury and Maria have the number to and she opens the pocket to pull the phone out. 

She holds the small flip phone in her hands and opens it up to read the waiting text message from Maria. "Hey Natasha. I know you are going through a rough time right now but I'm always here for you. I love you Natasha so please call me before you do something you'll regret." 

Natasha reads the text, that starts a spark of hope, just bright enough to pull her out of her suicidal state, and hits the button to call Maria.