@sovietwiinter continued from [x]
There were times when his face was as clear and familiar to her as her own. Could trace the lines of his face with her mind's eye. Log the way he breathed as she draped across his chest. The sound of his heartbeat. The way he smelled like something akin to home. The only thing she could ever describe as home.
Other times there were wisps of memory. Knowledge that there had been something between them. That they had meant something to each other. The way he looked at her only cementing that feeling. But Natasha could only feel the vague sense of being a colleague. Someone she knew in passing. A name and a face she could place, but there was no deeper feeling than of someone she had to put up with.
And then there were times when there was nothing at all. No connection there. Nothing she could link up with any knowledge she already had. Couldn't recognise his face. His voice. His scent was strange to her. His embrace would cause her to panic. Lash out. A ghost in a sea of blank faces. Nothing that Natasha wanted any part in at all.
It wasn't that she didn't know her mind and her memories had been messed with. She did. But because of that it made it much harder to trust people. Those who knew her name. And those who seemed to know her she trusted even less. Parts of her life erased, changed, twisted around and inside out. There were times when she wondered if she actually knew who she really was. Whether she was Natasha Romanoff or the Black Widow or both or neither. Perhaps she was someone else entirely. She'd never know.
But now she was stood in a darkened hallway staring at a man she recognised, but didn't know. Natasha knew who the Winter Soldier was. Knew the things he'd done. Knew that he was a danger to those around him and needed to be stopped. On the outside, she looked relaxed, but to anyone who knew what they were looking for, she was poised to attack if she needed to.
“<You don't need to know where I'm going.>”
The slightest raise of her chin. Smaller in stature than him, but she was so much bigger in so many other ways. Eyes narrowing on the Winter Soldier and trying to figure out what he might want from her this time. There was always something. Everyone wanted something.
“<You were following me.>”
