• 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕.

• 𝒔𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒔.

your thin white face, cherie, as if he saw it for the first time, your thin white face with its promise of debauchery only a connoisseur could detect.

name: natalia alianovna romanova.
height: five-foot-seven.

it comes back to her in dreams, in nightmares, images of her spinning in ballet slippers interspersed with graphic death, blood on her hands, the smell of ash filling her lungs, pulling her to the ground, watching her parents disintegrate into nothing as firm arms pick her up, carrying her away from the blaze.
she wakes up screaming most nights, it's a private joke with herself that that's why she's never had a relationship before. it has nothing to do with the (almost) two decades of brainwashing she underwent. taking the burden on herself makes it easier to deal with. it makes her feel less helpless.
being home isn't easy, because of course it isn't, she doesn't have anything in common with her friends, they like the person she pretends to be, the person they can access when the monster is buried. she plays at family, at humanity, buries the instinct deep, so deep inside her it almost isn't there.
but it is, it always will be. because the black widow isn't a name, or a disguise -- it's a permanent state of being.

• 𝘢 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘴𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘴.
• 𝘱𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘳 -- 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦𝘯𝘥.
• 𝘷𝘪𝘰𝘭𝘢.
• 𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘺-𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵.
• 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦.
• 𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘦.