Locked Within Their Labyrinth

A Flickering Candle

May's blood still coated her knuckles even as she absentmindedly wiped them on her trousers. Her mind was a whirlwind of thoughts as she dragged her feet down the bare hall. Their bunker was located somewhere in the Alps, a place that brought back too many unpleasant memories. The snow drifted past in icy flurries and frost crept up the window and decorated the pane with delicate patterns. The frigid air drew smoky breath from her lungs and brought goosebumps to the surface of her skin. She didn't mind it though. She enjoyed the cold, welcomed it even, the cold was something she knew.

Her feet took her towards the heavy doors and without thinking she pushed them open. Her muscles tensed against the blast of frozen air but she continued out into the white wasteland. No weather or terrain could match the cruelty and harshness of a Russian winter.

Far enough away from the gloomy bunker, she stood silently. The ice beneath her feet was metres thick so no option of it cracking and allowing the dark water to submerge her and let her drift into its murky depths. Instead she must suffer through the endless pit of torture more commonly known as life. Torture, HA. She gritted her teeth and laughed bitterly. People who claimed life was miserable should try stepping into her shoes. They wouldn't make it past her fifth birthday, not that she ever had one of those.

It was getting hard. She hated the way that everyone saw her as a villain. She hated that it seemed almost expected and that her ten/twenty years of doing good had been brushed aside so easily. She knew she was doing the right thing, that soon everything would fall back into place. But she also knew that even if she completed her mission she'd most likely not be accepted back. Not when she almost killed Peter, let Ward leave Coulson and May to die in the frozen wasteland, and so much more.

The life of a liar is a lonely one.

She laughed bitterly, who knew she'd been such a good liar that she'd even managed to fool herself, believing she could find happiness. Bucky was better off without her, they all were. When this was over, when it was all done and the last snake fell, she would disappear. She'd fade into the shadows and let them live out their lives unpolluted by her presence.

Dear lord she sounded like some depressed goth kid or whatever they were called these days.

Goosebumps rose along her flesh beneath her coat and brought her mind back to the present. Recently she'd been scattered, her head all over the place. She needed something to ground her, something that would succeed in realigning herself and her personalities. She couldn't be unstable, it would affect her mission progress and efficiency.

Madame B's words seemed to echo in the howling wind. Her training was rooted so deeply in her mind that Natasha didn't even have to think as she suddenly opened up all of her senses to the world around her. The cold stabbed at her furiously and this time she allowed herself to feel the burning of it in her chest. She picked up the sound of soft snowfall and the creaking ice, she smelt the ozone and the tangy metallic blood still on her fists.

Sensations and sounds flooded her senses but she kept calm, allowing herself to be pulled into the frenzy of the cool environment. Focus. The blood pumping through her body and the rustle of fabric from her coat. Focus. Her eyes were screwed shut and she felt her nose pinking and the sting of the wind against her rosy cheeks. Focus. Finally she found it, the silence. The world fell away around her and she felt something anchoring in her mind. She became impervious to the nature surrounding her and instead focused on the ticking of her mind as it recalibrated.

She was steady. And just in time too, the mission was about to become a whole lot harder.

A/N very short but I'm slowly re-entering the world of writing.