Chương 37: Pride is the Devil by Const3llations (Percy JacksonxAvengers)
*Percy JacksonxNatasha(Black Widow)*
Summary: Throughout Natasha's entire life, she'd done nothing except kill, and kill some more. Now, with the war over, she finds herself lost and without purpose, struggling to cope with the guilt war always leaves behind, and spiraling uncontrollably down a never-ending drain, waiting for somebody to catch her fall.
Link: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/13913589/1/
Word count:40k+
Chapters:12
Chapter I:
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."
Natasha read this opening line to Jane Austen's most famous piece of work, as she sat by her lonesome on the park bench. It was an uncharacteristically chilly summer afternoon, but that did not stop the hordes of children from flooding the park limits, doing what normal children did. Have fun.
Sitting quietly, she closed the cover of the weathered book and set it down beside her. Her intention was clear: she would like to be left alone on the bench. She then proceeded to watch the nearby children as they slid down the slides, swung across the monkey bars, pushed each other into the mulch, and laughed to their heart's content. Their parents were there to supervise them, picking them up when they fell down, helping them in and out of the playground sets, and sometimes, joining in on the fun as well.
It was this blissful ignorance present in their souls that captivated Natasha, twisting her emotions into a cesspool of jealousy and malignity. This was far from the first time she had felt this kind of way, gazing upon the life that she might have lived, could have had, nor was this her first visit to this exact spot in the park. She was here almost every day, no matter the weather, at the same bench, at the same time of the day. So much so that it had effectively become her bench, her name written in invisible ink on the wood.
Unlike these children and once-children, she had never been given the chance to experience the joyful emotions of happiness and love, which were so often taken for granted in the sheltered world they lived in. Instead, she had experienced nothing but pain, an umbrella term that encapsulated the essence of her makeup, and built up a tasteless remorse that eventually became resentment.
Forcefully pulled from her primary classroom at the age of five, she had been shipped directly to a secret Soviet training facility hidden deep within the unsuspecting landscape of Belarus. Already an orphan at that point, there was never the need to say a final goodbye to her parents. From that day forward, Natasha Romanoff technically no longer existed. She was a ghost. A deadly one at that.
The first time she killed an animal, she was six. The first time she killed a human, she was nine.
The Red Room was what the school—if one could even call it that—had been affectionately called, its official military purpose being the home for the top-secret Black Widow Program.
The name, Black Widow, stuck with her, as she had taken the pain it had once represented, and attempted to forge it into a title people would associate with good during her crime-fighting heyday, back when all she had to worry about was blasting aliens into other dimensions, and finding magical stones that if used together, could ruin the inner makings of the Universe. But before she became the valiant woman dressed in sleek black, she was the fragile girl dressed in grey garbs.
Natasha still remembered watching countless reruns of films with the other girls that were trapped with her, the plots having been contorted with enough subliminal messages to brainwash them into blind following. And how could she forget the Madam, the stone-faced woman who handcuffed them to their beds at night, assuring that they could never leave.
"What if I fail?" Natasha had asked one day after a hand-to-hand combat session, a bout that she had nearly lost to her opponent, a girl double her age and size, to which the Madam had responded,
"You never fail."
And it was true. Natasha Romanoff never failed. Yet, that somehow had proven to be her greatest shortcoming, as with each mounting success she closed a door behind her, a door that held the possibility of escape—the chances almost non-existent, but there nonetheless—from the life she had never chosen.
Despite all of this, she had persevered. She was, by all accounts, a survivor. But as some would say, the survivor is oftentimes the worst off, and this could never have been more true with Natasha, because of the guilt. Pure, unadulterated guilt. The kind that drove her to harm herself at night, and wake up the next morning covered with scrapes and bruises that were better left unexplained.
It should have been her to fall off the edge of the cliff on Vormir, but instead it had been Clint. And thanks to his noble actions, she now possessed, for the first time, a life that was hers to control, free from any and all responsibilities. Now, with the termination of the Avengers program, she could do anything she wanted. She was grateful, yes, but that did not do anything to stop the growing burden that she carried every day, of the loss that could have been prevented. All that she had left now, was her pride, and the prejudice she had garnered against the rest of the world, a destructive mechanism whose moving parts actively sought to make her life miserable to the fullest extent.
It could all be summed up with the quotable words of the great Stephen King: God is cruel, sometimes he makes you live.
Coming back to reality, she sensed a familiar presence—a rarity in her style of living—that let itself be known from across the park.
The man never did anything obscene to garner her undivided attention, rather it was the lack thereof, yet she always noticed him, as creepy as it might have sounded to say out loud. She blamed it on her previous line of work, where days very easily turned to weeks while gathering every possible detail about her target.
So there he was, entering and grabbing a drink at the bistro located directly across from where she was sitting. Like her, he had a schedule, always showing up fifteen minutes after she did, never more, never less. This piqued her curiosity and sparked an inkling of paranoia, as people that followed a schedule in her former life generally had ulterior motives.
She watched with great interest as he moved from the counter, through the doors, to his favorite outdoor table that was second from the left from Natasha's onlooking perspective. His movements were relaxed and easygoing, a stark contrast to the typical profile of somebody that lived a structured life, which gave her another reason to keep an eye on him.
It definitely did not hurt that he was good-looking, but not in your cover-of-Sports-Illustrated way, rather he was silently attractive, always wearing business casual clothes that fit him to the tee, generally with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the top button or two of his collared shirts undone if the weather permitted. His pants were not anything out of this world, just generic slacks that went down right above his brown Clarks. His hair was the opposite of his clothing, always a mess, which oddly fit him perfectly, and managed to compliment his athletic physique.
She had not thought that he was her type—to be honest, she did not even know what her type was—but he had grown on her, like a mold on an uncared-for piece of bread.
She wondered what he did for a living, or if he was a student, as he always had a backpack with him, which always held a notebook and water bottle. He was definitely around her physical age, but whether he was older or younger was hard to discern from the distance between them.
The glass door to the bistro swung open a couple minutes after he had received his order, revealing a brunette girl with bronze skin, dressed in a barista's apron. She was everything Natasha could never be; the girl was full of energy, and assuredly educated in disciplines that made her the typical, preppy, well-rounded girl that all men seemed to desire.
Like always, she stopped by the man's table to chat him up. Natasha wished she could be a fly on the wall during the brief conversations they shared; it was the only time she ever got to see him smile, and it was a gorgeous smile, adding to her envy. But at the same time, the interactions between the two of them provided her temporary respite, as the conversation always looked forced coming from the barista, with the man polite, but seemingly uninterested.
Finally, there were his eyes.
Natasha once had vibrant green eyes of her own, but they had lost their luster long ago, dulled by the things she had seen. His, on the other hand, were a shiny sea green, and they were absolutely marvelous, the color of spring, and reminded her of the ocean waves that she used to dream about as a kid. And where her eyes housed cold-heartedness, his eyes held something else that she could not put a finger on. There was something more besides his tranquilness hiding behind his changing greens, showcasing them for her to see whenever he occasionally glanced up to watch the children play as well. Maybe it was acceptance, but sometimes she swore she saw longing in them, which was a feeling she understood better than most.
Throughout the ongoing string of days that they had sat across from each other, never once had she caught him bothering to look in her direction. She was fine with that, to a certain extent. He was just like everything else in her life: unattainable, and a waste of time.
The man decided it was time to stand up for a nice stretch, and Natasha figured he was on his way to dispose of his cup, but instead he pivoted sharp on his heels and started walking in her direction, with his eyes pointed straight at her. There was no mistake about it.
Hastily, Natasha resumed her reading while desperately trying to act like she had not yet noticed his approach. Thanks to her enhanced vision, she caught him tripping in between one of the seams of the sidewalk, but still feigned ignorance.
"You can drop the act." He said with a subtle New York accent, once he was within comfortable talking distance. "I know you haven't been reading."
She held back a response as long as she could, in a concerted effort to act surprised by his sudden appearance.
"Pardon?" She said eventually, not yet willing to look up from the page.
"I know you haven't been reading." He repeated for her, even though she heard him clearly the first time.
"And how is that?" She retorted, finally raising her head to meet his.
The man took his free hand out of his pocket to point at her book, his other hand still occupied by his drink. "If you were, you'd have spent an awfully long time on the first page."
"I'm a slow reader." Natasha replied.
"I believe you." He said unsarcastically, which in turn actually made it sarcastic.
Natasha bit the inside of her cheek as she closed the book's cover. "Is there a reason as to why you are here, besides bothering me?"
Her words may have come out harsher than intended, but they did not seem to faze him.
"May I sit down over here?" He asked, gesturing to the other side of the park bench, which had been recently vacated by the book that was currently resting on her lap.
"Do you have a reason?" She bit back coldly.
"Not really." He said, while scratching the back of his head. "Do I need one?"
Natasha stared at him blankly, not sure what to say to his elementary response. Under other circumstances, she would have simply continued to blow him off. However there was something peculiar about him, and that trumped any trepidation.
Having been refused a straight answer, the man gave her a toying smile and proceeded to sit down not on the bench, but right in front of it, crossing his legs on the ground and leaning his back against the edge of the two-seater.
She wanted to grin at his pettiness, but instead buried the emotion, scooting over to put as much space between them as possible. It probably looked strange to the beholder, but this setup was in fact ideal, as she did not have to face him directly and could instead choose to ignore him completely.
"You know," the man started to say with no ill-manner in his tone. "I thought you would be more friendly, considering you stare at me all the time."
His words made her back muscles stiffen, and the tiny devil sitting on her shoulder suggested that she should kick him squarely in the gut and run. A maneuver she was no stranger to dishing out. Already, being this close in proximity to him was proving to be calamitous. Anything more from him would put him at risk of punching himself a one-way ticket to an earlier grave, via her fist.
The man laughed lightly, and the gruff sound filled Natasha with unexpected giddiness, ridding some of the tension from her system.
"What? You didn't think I noticed?" He mused.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Natasha muttered while keeping her voice level, content to keep staring at the playing children instead of him.
She hated herself for letting him get this close; she was getting lazy, and out of touch, and it could very well lead to her demise. This was not some idealized fantasy where she could be with anybody she wanted, this was real life. And real life had taught her, long ago, to never let herself get attached.
There was a pause in their conversation after that, but it surprisingly was not an uncomfortable one. Both of them were equally content to watch the children, as they launched themselves out of the swing set and soared through the air.
"You think about them too, huh?" He said after a short while, changing the subject for the betterment of both of them.
"Hmm?"
"The children." He stated.
"What about them?"
"You watch them here, every day, knowing that you can never have what they have. Never experience the things they've experienced. Never feel the way they've felt. You're always on the outside, looking in." The man paused. "Sorry, if anything I just said was wrong."
Natasha felt a pressure build up in her chest, and she took a deep breath, finally turning to find his sea green eyes glued to hers. He was not delivering intimidation, he was extracting something, studying something within her.
Likewise, she read him. He was strangely opaque and that bothered her. Or perhaps he was so transparent, she was seeing him to the otherside. In his pupils, she saw her stone-cold reflection, a reflection that she sometimes went months without seeing, unwilling to look at herself in the mirror. And it was at that moment that she saw him for what he truly was: her.
Only somebody that had been through the equivalent of what she had gone through, could say a line like that, and fully understand what it all meant. Her facial expression remained unchanged, but that did not matter, as he saw right through what had previously been her impenetrable facade. After all this time of her believing that they were polar opposites, it turned out they were not so different. This entire time they had been trapped in their own way, looking at each other through opposite sides of the same plane of glass.
"There's some truth in there." She managed to get out without stuttering, as they were still locked in their intense staring battle.
The man took it as his turn to look away, and he did just that, returning his gaze to the playground in front of them, leaving her to stare at the plume of raven black hair on the back of his head.
She saw and took the opportunity to study him further. She had not noticed until now that he smelled like the ocean, in a good way, with an added hint of burning firewood.
"Bad childhood?" He softly asked, which sounded comforting coming from his deep voice.
"Something like that."
Describing her past as such would have been the understatement of the century. There had not been anything remotely normal about the way she had been brought up. When little girls sat down at the dining table, they were taught proper table manners. When she sat down at the dining table, she had been taught the ten fastest ways to kill the person sitting opposite her.
"It's okay." The man said, stopping after those two words, like that was all that needed to be said.
Natasha found herself wondering why he was still here, beside her on this park bench of all places. Why waste his precious time on her, when there were so many other women out there, that weren't broken, that weren't unfixable, that weren't a danger to anybody that got close to them? Better yet, why was she still here? She did not know.
"It could be worse, you know." He then tacked on.
"It could be better, too." She returned, failing to hold back her negative thoughts.
The man shrugged his broad shoulders, "Sometimes, the grass isn't greener on the other side."
"Look at you, being Mr. Optimistic."
He looked back to give her a smirk, which she refused to humor. "That's what the ladies called me in school."
"I'm sure." She grunted monotonously, while desperately trying to find a way out of the conversation.
She wanted this to end. She did not know what she had been thinking, believing that she was ready for… whatever this was. But to her dismay, his intelligent eyes latched onto her book cover next.
"Pride and Prejudice, huh? That's a good book."
"It's alright." Natasha said, placing her hands over the cover protectively.
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." He recited from memory out loud, impressing her more than it should have. "Do you believe I am a man that is in want of a wife?"
"I don't know."
"Fair enough." The man said as a frown marred his features. His face then went even more serious, which was not nearly as appetizing as his smile.
"I had a bad childhood too," he admitted. "Not sure how much I want to get into it, given that you're probably going to never want to talk to me again, anyways."
If he was using reverse psychology, it was working, in spite of her best efforts to stop it.
"It depends." She said.
"Depends." He hummed back. "Did not think I would get this far."
Natasha raised her perfectly kept eyebrows, the most amount of emotion she had expressed since they started talking. "So, you are trying to woo me?"
"I don't know, am I?" He replied astutely, with an unreadable expression that made Natasha hesitate and blink.
"You know, I did not take you for being like this." She remarked, finding herself unexpectedly wanting to talk more and more.
"What?" He pointed to his chest. "You thought I was some contrived douchebag this entire time?"
He pretended to faint, and his acting was the worst she had ever seen. "You hurt me."
This was not how she imagined their first conversation would go, which was not saying much given the fact that she never imagined that they would ever have a conversation in the first place. One side of her was begging to stand up and walk away from this complete stranger, but the other was anchoring her in place, wishing for more laughter and smiles, thus making her mind a garbled, misconstrued mess that kept her glued to the park bench.
She figured that he at least deserved to know her name, he had proven that he was something more than her preconceived notions.
"Natasha Romanoff." She said forwardly, extending her hand out.
He returned the gesture, shaking her hand firmly, with a beaming smile plastered across his face. "Percy Jackson."
"Believe me, I'd love to stick around and hear you talk game to me all day, but I'm afraid I must go now." He said first satirically, and then with genuine somberness, checking his old-fashioned wristwatch for the time. "I got to work in ten minutes, and it takes me eight to get there."
"Where do you work?" She asked, at the same time wondering why where he worked even mattered to her.
He gave her a mischievous smile, that was more sideways than straight, as he stood up.
"I'll tell you when we have dinner."
She had to admit that his way of talking was smooth, but she was not about to let him dictate their fledgling friendship—if you could even call it that.
Reflecting this in her delivery, which she made as gentle as possible as his heart was still in the right place, she said, "I'm sorry, I'm not comfortable with going out right now."
Instead of lashing out, he gave her a pair of finger-guns, an action that accurately defined the Percy she had gotten to know in his brief stay. She was still unsure how he was conceivably getting away with all this. More points for an even smoother recovery, she guessed.
Not wanting to leave him totally out to dry, she sighed, and reached for her cellphone, "What's your phone number?"
He shook his head as he answered, "Don't have a phone."
Of all the things he had said in their eventful conversation, that one was the most unbelievable. It was the twenty-first century, everyone and their grandmother had a phone by now.
"How am I supposed to contact you, then?" She asked.
"You won't."
"I'll find a way."
Again, she mentally asked herself why she was saying this.
"Your draconian tactics won't work on me, Ms. Romanoff." Percy said slyly, before running off to his backpack that was still tucked underneath the bistro table. "I'll see you around."
Natasha watched as he boyishly sprinted back to the table, shooting her one last dashing smile before leaving a tip for the barista, and taking off down the main street road with his unfinished drink still in hand.
By the end of their talk, she had finally figured out the enigma that was Percy Jackson. He possessed all the necessary confidence and bravado, while making room for his most important trait: earnestness. Natasha decided it was this last one, that was the reason for her being charmed.
She stayed where she was for a little while longer, reflecting on the cracks that had appeared in her resolve. As she did, a new wave of children had arrived in the park, bringing along with them a new light, and it was in this new light, that Natasha left the park feeling a sense of hope, for the first time in a very long time.
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