A soul for a soul

Compensation

And Natalia let go of his hand as a response to an urgent impulse, not really wondering about it at all.

She wanted to accomplish her goal, and the way to do it has already been chosen by her ever since the floating guide informed them what was the price they needed to pay.

To be quite frank, it was just a simple, cold calculation. Clint had three kids. A wife. A beautiful and warm home. If there was even a chance to stop all of that, to undo all of this horrible events that unfolded, he had a possibility of having family barbecues, driving children to school, teaching them how to use the bow, see their graduations and further life and all of that accompanied by Laura's warm smile and soft kisses that he absolutely loved to give her on her forehead every morning. They could've been brought back. And he had something to get back to.

And her? She had a pretty rundown apartment in the East Village, in which she never even slept or stayed for longer, because she spent the last few years living in the base constantly. She had nightmares that kept on waking her up in the middle of the night, all sweaty and short on breath, an empty bowl that used to belong to Liho... It still stood on the balcony, because as she figured, the cat either disappeared as the other half of the Earth's population, or he simply got hit by a car or most likely just lost interest in her. Anyway, she had a feeling, that even if he was to appear again, he would do just fine without her. He used to do fine for so long before. So she was trying to do fine without him either.

In the base she was mostly surrounded with emptiness.

Natasha would refresh her emails and all the data bases every few minutes, like some maniac. She wanted so bad to make it all work, to know some new informations, wishing that someone would suddenly tell her that it all was not true. That it all was just a terrible nightmare and it could be reversed.

Every now and then she would glance over on the counter, on her way to grab literally anything to eat or drink so she wouldn't pass out. She would see her old pointe shoes, which Steve had apparently found in his apartment a while ago and he brought them to her, trying to cheer her up, she figured. She even tried dancing once, thought that it could be good for her, to keep her mind in line and also give a rest to her nerves and a stretch to her stiff limbs, but basically, it finished with her pretty much remembering the two hours she had spent in the gym through a dense fog, just as it was a dream of some sort.

Sometimes she was in awe, of how well she was able to block her emotions. It did not scare her anymore. The times in her life when it did, were like a blink; quick and meaningless. She was able to get back to her original setup that was pushed into her head in her childhood as quickly and as meaninglessly.

Besides that, Natalia kept feeling like she owed the whole goddamn world some sort of compensation for all the horrible things that she had done in the past. It seemed to her, as if there was not a thing that could make her wrongdoings right, but this thing now - that must've been the most reasonable chance she could ever get. So it shouldn't be surprising that she acted on it without hesitation.

Clint will be surrounded by people who would comfort him. He would not be alone. She wasn't able to take a father from his babies and she couldn't just rip husband from Laura's loving embrace. She wouldn't allow herself to add another red stain to her ledger, because she would never be able to forgive herself.

Natalia was able to throw a last subtle smirk at her old friend, seeing fright in his eyes and then... Then she felt tears in her eyes. She started falling down.

It took a few seconds at best, but for her it could've been the eternity for all she knew.

Her life did not flash before her eyes like it's supposed to, like it happens in all the movies and books. She just saw the sad, greyish sky, the fog and the rock shelf that Clint was holding onto. And then the blackness covered her.

Her eyes weren't closed though. Her sight came back to her. She couldn't move, she wasn't even aware if her body continued to breathe. Some blood started flowing down her left eye socket, but its' red confused her for a second, as she was sure it was just a strand of her own hair. It definitely wasn't. But she couldn't feel any pain.

Clint disappeared from the place she saw him just seconds ago, as if he had vanished in the thin air.

The automatic calculation made her believe that her spine was probably broken, her skull could be crushed, so her spinal cord must've been damaged as well as her hindbrain, and as a result of that, she would literally suffocate, because her body was not able to send a signal to her lungs to suck in the air it so desperately needed.

It was sort of funny, in its' own ironic way; She always imagined her death as being a little bit more... Dynamic, perhaps?

She would even laugh at this one, but she wasn't able to. She couldn't even blink.

Ivan, eh? Natalia wasn't that surprised, since he was her step father in a way, Ivan Petrovich. She figured the guide was mentioning him. But who knows, she was definitely not skeptical towards the universe at this point. How could she?

There were black shadows appearing in front of her eyes. So that's how it goes. Who knew? Natasha focused with all the will that was left in her on the sky, which was grey, yes, but it brought back her good memories. From Volgograd even, where she played with her little doll in front of her house and some scraps of memories told her that probably her mother called her inside.

"Natalya! Davay!" She could still remember her voice and her warmth, but she had no idea how she looked like or what was her name.

In Moscow, the sky had the same color. And yes, she has spent most of her childhood there, but she had some nice moments, for example when she would escape the camp just for enough time so her and Marina could watch those beautiful ballet dancers through an old dusty window. How old was she even at the time? Eight, seven? She wasn't sure, she had no idea. She remembered she got in trouble over this, but she was so fascinated with these women that she would do anyything to watch them. Back in the day, she wouldn't even suspect that in the future she would dance at the Bolshoi.

At the Academy, the class that she actually enjoyed was without a doubt ballet. She remembered that when she passed her final tests with the Red Room, and when she was all alone, she did a piruet because she was so happy. At the time she wouldn't even suspect that she would be dying at a completely different planet with trivially cracked skull.

But she knew she deserved it.

Natasha came to a conclusion that it probably took her so long to... Well, die basically, because her enhanced body was desperately trying to heal itself. But she knew better, it was impossible and she was defeated. Once and for all. She felt some sort of peace though. The redhead was happy that she could fulfill this thankless role, rather than any other member of the team. It might've been her very own destiny, that made her life a little bit more than something just awful, as she often saw it. Maybe the sacrifice could be enough to payback her sins, but she wasn't sure. She was too tired to be sure at the moment, though. She felt calm and steady, and she wasn't worried anymore, as if someone took all of her fears and anxiety away. All the redhead could feel at the moment was some unexplainable warmth and light, even though she could tell the sky stayed as grey as before and the air was still rather icy. The cloudless sky...

Her vision suddenly became really blurry and it turned darker and darker until it faded away to complete blackness.

Dobroy nochi, Natalia. Vso khorosho.