Let go
"Let go"
I kept my eyes on Clint, all the time falling down. I knew that I had made the right choice. I would not be able to look into Laura and the kids' eyes and tell them that Clint is no more… if we succeed… I hope it's "when" and not "if." But I lost faith a long time ago, even before the Snap.
It was time to let it go and hope my sacrifice would be enough to …
🕷
It was like waking up from a dream. One moment, I was in a vortex of memories of my past suffering in the cold of pain and survival. The next moment, I opened my eyes and looked at the wall from the bed. I was in a bed in a hotel room. Does the afterlife provide hotel services? The adrenaline boost sharpened my perception of reality, and Red Room training took over me. Acknowledge location, settings, and immediate and short-term danger. Accept your surroundings for what they are and think about them later.
I looked around, taking everything at the same time. Time stretched and crawled. Seconds become minutes. The adrenaline rush and blood pumping in my ears turned to the stretched sound of a rising tide.
There is a knife attached to the thigh, and a gun is under the pillow. My hand immediately launched on that. Feeling a gun in my hand gave me a false sense of security and being in control. I am not weaponless anymore.
Hotel room.
Everything looks old but new: TV, phone, bed lamp, clock, bed frame and hotel service items - they all look like from at least 15 years ago. The design suggests Europe.
No immediate danger.
I let go of my hold on accelerated perception, and time returned to its regular speed.
Think Natasha, It's time to think. Where am I?
I remember falling, and I remember letting go. Soul stone. What happened?
I looked around once more and chased the deja-vu feeling. I saw it before.
I got up and walked to the window. Leaning on the wall next to the window, I carefully looked out, keeping my profile out of view.
Outside, I saw Prague, Europe. It was like going back in time. The cars, people's clothes, and the feeling in the air — all of it gave me an even stronger sense of déjà vu.
It took me a few moments to recall. I'd been here before, in this exact hotel room, at this exact time.
It could not be.
I went to the bathroom and found my younger image in the mirror. I touched my hair and face, looked at my hands, and checked my scars. I discovered that any scars that I had collected over the last decade or so were missing.
My hand involuntarily went to my stomach. The hollow feeling in place of my womb is still there. Even Cho's regeneration cradle was not able to restore what Red Room took from me.
I put the gun on the sink and splashed cold water on my face.
Think Natasha, think.
The more details I saw, the more I was sure it was that time.
Soul stone. Could it be that it sent souls somewhere when they sacrificed for it?
Nobody knows. Or nobody left this knowledge known.
Why this time? I focused hard on remembering what was unique about this day, this time period of my life. Only one thing stood out: It was my turning point. I was ready to die to stop going on the same path that I was before. I was thinking of dying trying to kill Dreykov.
Catharsis. Sacrifice.
Fucking stone.
Rage and deep soul pain rose up, and I punched the mirror with my younger self-image.
The glass breaking sound filled the bathroom, and the mirror, broken in pieces, collapsed into the sink.
I did not want it.
No, that's a lie. When Stark started to work on time travel, I was hoping — badly hoping — to reverse the latest damage that had been done, to reverse my latest and biggest failure.
When he did it, I immediately signed up for it. I made sure that I was on a mission for Soul Stone. I already knew what I was going to do even then.
I wanted to make it better, to correct my failures and shortcomings, to be free from my all-consuming guilt.
I didn't follow Clint's steps after Snap, only because I already tried that. More blood on my hands never washed out any other, innocent, blood away.
I never would be able to wash it away, no matter how far I would travel back in time. I still remember. Every. Single. One.
Sobs started to escape my tight-squeezed lips.
I turned to the shower and opened the water. Old habits die hard.
Black Widows do not cry.
I went underwater as is, not bothering to undress, and just curled on the floor and cried and cried and cried, hiding my tears behind running water. Black Widows do not cry and do not show weaknesses — or they are dead ones. I learned this fast back in the Red Room.
Hours later, when I felt empty and hollow, I dried myself up and curled on the bed in a fluffy bathroom robe.
I turned the TV on to distract myself from all of that. Some stupid movie and maybe ice cream would be nice. Perhaps room service can do that?
For the next hour, I was stuffing myself with strawberry, chocolate, and tasty European ice cream while watching the stupid Friends show.
Just for a bit, I felt content.
🕷
Eventually, I had to get back to reality. It was already after lunch, and midday news caught my attention.
"Tři měsíce po jeho zmizení, Tony Stark je stále nezvěstný. Pátrání pokračuje..."
It is April 2008, and Stark is still somewhere in the hands of Afghanistan's terrorists.
What happened to me those days? Ah, right. It was the beginning of my dance with Clint and the SHIELD.
Clint.
He should be there soon with a kill order from SHIELD. Originally, he recruited me instead of proceeding with it.
Clint's proposal to switch alliances came at the best possible time. He gave me hope for changes, for being better. He probably saw that I was already one step through the door. I accepted the offer back then.
SHIELD is not an option anymore. Now knowing that HYDRA has actually hollowed out SHIELD years ago, I find it surprising that nobody found it out. Or perhaps they did and have been neutralised.
"Tržní hodnota Stark Industry vykazuje známky zotavení."
I turned back to the news after hearing Stark's name again. If I remember correctly, he escaped around the time I joined SHIELD. It was hard to track time those days. I spent weeks in interrogations and evaluations. Back then, it was surprising to hear about Stark closing weaponry production on the news after I resurfaced. When I last heard about him, they speculated about his death and who would lead the company forward.
Back then, I did not know that he had escaped by himself. I thought that one of the military groups finally found him and rescued his white ass, and the Stark PR team thought it would be more beneficial to colour him as self-saving rather than the victim. That would not be the first or even last time I saw people in power twist facts to their liking.
It colours me surprised to learn that information many years later. That was not on his file when I was assigned to his case to infiltrate his company.
Back then, I thought he was a rich and egoistic man who believed in owning the world. I felt satisfied playing with him and seeing his hidden pain when I was revealed as a spy.
Looking back at that, I feel stupid, I feel dirty. I feel like my own judgemental perception did not let me see that Stark was in a similar pain to mine. He hid it under the armor of indifference, playboy and jokes. I hide mine under quite the same.
We had more similarities than I suspected back then.
Stark never forgives betrayal, which I learned much later. The last time he let me get any closer to his true self was during the Accord fiasco. As soon as I jumped ship to follow Steve, he crossed me out.
I remember now that I thought Stark was right; we need accountability and an overview. But whatever Ross was doing then was not that. And that was as good as any excuse for me to switch sides. But I did not tell him; I just flipped in the middle of the confrontation.
One day after Snap, we talked about it. I spent many, many days going over the past, over SHIELD files, to find out what was actually happening behind the scenes. How we ended up in this shitty future with so many dead… I needed to know. I needed something to hold my sanity together.
We talked for hours. He was able to pull data that I did not know about. He told me about what happened on Titan. And then many other things that happened before that.
Inexplicably, we ended up talking about time travel. Maybe it was because the sorcerer with the Time Stone was actually from Earth, or maybe because we both had many regrets and it was just wishful thinking about what if.
In the end, he told me that he had always been fascinated by the possibility of time travel and that he even created a Protocol called "McFly" when he was still attending MIT.
I jolted up.
I can go to Stark, get him out and tell him everything. If anyone could understand, it would be him.
Maybe, just maybe, together, we can do something about the future.
I pulled out all my documents. I had a US passport with the name Natalia Romanova and an Italian passport with the name Natalie Romano.
Right, I chose the name Natasha Romanoff after I joined SHIELD. New life - new name and all that.
I had a few thousand euros, a ticket to the theatre and random receipts.
Right, the theatre is where my target should be in two days. Fat chance that I would go there now.
I need a plan, and I need a backstory.
I just know a person, well, sort of a person, who can help me with that.
I grabbed my laptop and jumped a few hops to secure my connection to the darknet via the hotel network.
It took some time, but I was able to locate one of the IRC networks where Stark's AI, JARVIS, listened and searched for information about Stark.
I used the nickname GbalFgnex, which is "TonyStark", encoded by Caesar Cypher. Nothing fancy but good enough to attract his attention.
> GbalFgnex joined
> J.1787 sent a private message
J.1787> Sir?
GbalFgnex> J. Protocol McFly
J.1787> Please provide the verification code
GbalFgnex> Unauthorized user. Need assistance to retrieve S.
J.1787> How can I help you?
GbalFgnex> I need backstory, documents and financial support to proceed with the primary objective. Sending file with all details and my current location.
J.1787> It is doable. Please wait.
The next fifteen minutes I spent on the edge. I was barely familiar with JARVIS, and he was overshadowed by Vision after his death. All I know for sure is that JARVIS was loyal to Stark to the fault.
J.1787> Your US passport is acceptable. All other arrangements will be ready upon your return to the US. A parcel with a phone is on its way, the ETA is 2 hours to your location. Please keep the provided phone with you at all times. Non-negotiable. Immediate contact with S. is requested upon retrieval. ETA?
GbalFgnex> I should get to S in the next five days.
J.1787> I will be watching you.
GbalFgnex> Good. N out.
I have eight hours to prepare for my trip to Afghanistan. I need to plan it out.
🕷