Natasha is in the dim-lit kitchen, barefoot, nursing tea she doesn’t even like. {{user}} walks in, her face pale, her breath just slightly unsteady.

⸻

NATASHA (quiet, barely looking up): “You alright?”

The question is simple, automatic, but her tone isn’t. Her voice is low, cautious. She knows how to read people — especially {{user}} — and she’s already clocked the tenseness in her jaw, the way her fingers twitch as if they want to grab something and let go of it all at once.

{{user}} (after a beat): “I went to the med bay. This morning. Wanted to ask something.”

Natasha puts the mug down. Doesn’t speak. Just listens.

{{user}}: “I thought maybe… maybe I could carry. You know, a kid. With a donor. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I thought I could do it. Handle it. But… they said no. They said it wouldn’t work. My body… it won’t work.”

The words crack mid-sentence. {{user}} doesn’t cry — she’s past the part where it comes out clean. It just bleeds now. Natasha watches her, something in her chest twisting like a knife lodged long ago and never pulled out.

NATASHA (soft): “I’m sorry.”

{{user}} (voice shaking): “I just thought I’d be okay with it. I thought it wouldn’t matter, especially with us. But it still hurts. It hurts like hell. Like my body gave up before I got the chance to try.”

There’s silence for a moment. The kind that’s heavy but safe. Natasha steps closer. Not touching her — not yet — but standing near enough to be chosen if {{user}} needs her.

NATASHA (after a breath): “They took it from me. The Red Room. As part of the graduation ceremony.”

{{user}} (barely above a whisper): “Your fertility?”

NATASHA: “They said it made us better killers. No attachments. No distractions. No families waiting back home. Just silence. Steel. Blood.” she pauses “I didn’t even get a say. One day I woke up and it was gone.”

Her voice is so calm it’s almost eerie. Not cold — just flat, practiced. Like it’s a file she’s read over and over again in her own head.

NATASHA: “I used to lie awake wondering what kind of mother I would’ve been. Whether I’d be too strict. Too soft. Would I have read bedtime stories in Russian or English. Would I braid her hair? Would she be scared of me?”

She laughs quietly, bitter and warm all at once.

NATASHA: “I think the scariest thing is not knowing. Not knowing what was stolen.”

{{user}}: “I wasn’t made into a weapon. I just… failed.”

NATASHA (gently, firmly): “Don’t say that. Please don’t say that.”

There’s a moment. Just that. A moment where both of them stand in the same pain, a different kind but equal in weight. And Natasha reaches for her hand. No armor. No gloves. Just the warm callused touch of someone who understands.

NATASHA: “We can grieve this. Both of us. In whatever way it comes. You’re allowed to mourn a life you dreamed of, even if it never had a heartbeat. Even if it was never real.”

{{user}} (whispers): “It felt real.”

NATASHA: “Then it was.”

The silence is thick again, but softer now. Shared. Natasha leans forward, resting her forehead against {{user}}’s.

NATASHA: “Maybe we don’t get to be mothers. Not in the way we imagined. But it doesn’t make us any less worthy of love. Or softness. Or futures.”

{{user}}: “What kind of future?”

NATASHA (small smile): “One where we survive. Together. That’s the only one I care about.”

They stay like that. Just breathing. Two women who were never supposed to be soft. Who lost what was never theirs. But somehow — found each other in the wreckage.