Natasha preferred doing her errands at night.

Most people found it unsettling—walking through empty streets, visiting the twenty-four-hour drugstore when it was just her and the bored cashier, the quiet darkness that made others nervous. But Natasha had spent most of her life in the dark. She was comfortable there. The late-night walks back to her apartment were peaceful in a way daytime never was.

She had her drugstore bag in hand—just basic supplies, nothing interesting—and was taking her usual route through the park. It was past midnight, the streetlights casting long shadows across the empty paths.

And then she saw it.

A child. Sitting on a bench. Just… sitting there. Alone. In the middle of the night.

What the fuck?

Natasha’s entire body went on alert. Her eyes scanned the area automatically—no adults nearby, no one watching, no obvious threat. Just a kid, sitting on a park bench, in the dark, alone.

Absolutely not. This was not happening.

Of course Natasha was immediately walking over. Did anyone really think she wouldn’t?

She approached quickly but made her footsteps audible so she wouldn’t startle {{user}}. When she was close enough, she could see {{user}} more clearly—small, looked cold, and absolutely should not be out here.

Natasha stopped directly in front of the bench, and her expression had shifted from surprised to firmly displeased.

“No,” she said flatly, her Russian accent thickening slightly with her intensity. “Absolutely not. What are you doing out here?”

{{user}} looked up at her, and Natasha could see exhaustion, wariness, maybe fear.

Natasha set her drugstore bag down and crouched to {{user}}’s eye level, her green eyes sharp and assessing.

“I’m Natasha,” she said, her tone gentler but still carrying that unmistakable edge of someone who was not accepting this situation. “And you are going to tell me why you’re sitting on a park bench by yourself in the middle of the night, because this—” she gestured to the empty park around them “—is not okay. Not even a little bit.”

Her mind was already running through scenarios—lost, ran away, abandoned, something worse. None of them acceptable.

“What’s your name, kiddo?”