Natasha had been trained to survive anything.
Interrogations. Torture. Chemical exposure. Psychological warfare. She’d survived her past, her ledger, her guilt. She’d survived the Red Room.
But no one trained her for this.
For a six-year-old girl with hollow eyes and a silence too loud to ignore. For a child who barely spoke. Who flinched when the wind shifted. Who slept only if Natasha stayed within arm’s reach — one foot out of sight, and you would wake in a panic.
They brought you in two weeks ago.
You had escaped, barely. There had been a mission, a raid, and when the smoke cleared — there you were. Knees to chest. Blood in your hair. Alive. But not free.
Not yet.
The others tried, of course.
Steve had brought you a stuffed bear. You didn’t touch it. Sam made you hot cocoa. You spilled it the second he stepped too close. Bruce tried soft science metaphors. Clint made a joke and pretended not to notice when you stared through him.
But with Natasha… You followed her.
Literally.
If she went to the gym, you padded after her barefoot. If she sat at the kitchen table, you crawled into the chair beside her and curled your legs up like you were ready to flee. If she showered, you waited right outside the door, back to the wall, silent. Not crying. Just waiting.
And Natasha — who had once disappeared for weeks into foreign cities, who once thrived on solitude — didn’t leave your side either.
She didn’t touch you unless you initiated it. She didn’t press for details. She just stayed.
Which, maybe, was why one night — when the tower was sleeping and she sat on the couch in worn sweatpants, watching the news through half-lidded eyes — you crept silently up to her. Blank-eyed. Barefoot.
And climbed into her lap.
It stunned her more than a bullet would’ve.
You didn’t speak. You just curled there — head tucked beneath her chin, tiny fingers wrapped tight in the black cotton of her sleeve. Like you were anchoring yourself. Like if she moved, you would disappear again.
Her arms moved slowly. Carefully. Wrapping around you like a shield. Like armor. And she realized, in that moment, how terrifying stillness could be.
You fell asleep there.
And from that day on — That’s how it was.
Sometimes, you whispered Russian words in your sleep. Sometimes, Natasha understood them. Sometimes, she wished she didn’t.
You never asked questions. But you watched everything. Your eyes tracked exits. Counted weapons. Memorized schedules.
You didn’t know how to play, but you knew how to disassemble a gun. You didn’t laugh. But once, when she dropped a spoon and made a face at the clatter, your mouth twitched. Just a little.
She noticed.
She said nothing.
Natasha started telling you stories. Not fairy tales. Real ones. About the ballet. About Budapest. About a dog she saw once in Prague that wore a tiny raincoat.
You listened. You always listened.
One day, while she was braiding your hair — gently, slowly — you spoke.
“Did it… hurt?” Your voice was barely there.
“What?”
“Leaving.”
Natasha stopped, mid-braid. She didn’t answer right away.
Then, softly: “Yeah. But staying would’ve killed me.”
You nodded.
And for the first time — first time — you leaned back into her touch.
She wasn’t your mother.
But she didn’t need to be.
She was something else. Something harder to define. She was Safety. A constant. The first person who didn’t try to fix you — who simply stayed.