Silver and Red

Strength Reborn

And so Natasha healed, growing stronger every day. She regained her physical strength, and her bond with her teammates strengthened as well. As she opened her heart to them, the ocean of darkness and pain from the things she had endured during her life gradually drained out of her, and the walls she had built around her heart slowly crumbled.

Replacing them was a broken, patched, fragile thing, that, despite its appearance, was real, and in its reality, it was the strongest thing on Earth. Every mask she had put on before, in both her years with S.H.I.E.L.D. and those as an assassin, had eventually crumbled beneath the weight of reality. This new, beautiful thing was who she really was, and she was not ashamed of it.

For it was real, real as the necklace at her throat and the life that pulsed beneath it, and she would never hide it again.

finis