The Game That Started it All

Care?

Natasha's POV:

"Steve no!" I scream, crying like I never had before.

The bullet had been fired, embedding itself in the center of his chest, blood spilling from the wound in a colourless world.

This was all my fault, I should have never let myself care for him, I never should have let him care for me. Anyone that ever had has been hurt, killed and taken away from me.

They all deserved so much better..

"Now Natalia, you either join me again, serving the Soviet Union and Hydra like you should or-" I see myself looking back at me almost like a mirror, yet she begins to laugh bitterly and the gun raises towards me.

"You and all your little friends you so weakly let into your mess of a life will perish."

"So what's it going to be?" She finishes with her Russian accent thick.

I stand there motionless, slowly seeing more resemblance between me and my old self, the person I feared most. I could feel my demeanour changing on the spot like it was instinct.

My eyes flick towards where Steve laid, the person who managed to love me even for every version of myself that had been created to kill, lie and dominate.

I had killed my partner, my love and the kindest person to actually walk this earth.

I truly was a Black Widow, the person I vowed to never let myself be.

Adapt or die,

Kill or be killed,

Change, before change hits you out of nowhere.

I swallow thickly and look up back to the person I will always be, "Ok, you win."

They won.

~

I wake up to find myself looking up at the ceiling, the panels from my brainwashing covering part of my view. I don't know why they do it, apparently safety precautions for confidential missions at the place I work/live. I have a weird sense of fear in my gut, maybe after I passed out from the pain I had a nightmare? Who knows, I can't even remember how I got here.

"We have hostiles approaching our base in London wanting to get ahold of our time tables and codes, no casualties. If you can, take prisoners." Ivan orders.

I nod my head slightly, not being able to move it much in this contraption. They release the bindings on my wrists and lift the metal plates off of my skull after wiping me once again, letting me go get myself ready for another mission. My head felt fuzzy and my vocal chords strained from screaming.

Numb was all I ever felt. I didn't know what time, day or year it was. I didn't know where I came from, the only signs of my origin are these people who order me around.

I wasn't a person. What even was it to be a person? To have a normal life?

A life without pain and torture. Away from here. What was it like in the outside world?

I wouldn't know.

God I sounded pathetic, I needed to get over myself and do what I was made to do.

I walk into a large dark room filled to the brim with any weapon you could ever imagine. I grab my favourites for a no casualty mission; my widow bites along with smoke grenades, a stun gun and two knives. One finding its place on the sheath strapped to my thigh and the other in its happy place in my boot.