All the Colors of Earth (Natasha Romanoff)

4.2

                                        Natasha

Her words hit me like a ton of bricks. "You.. tried to kill yourself?" I repeat.

She nods, "yes I did."

"Why?" I ask her, horrified and confused.

She sighs, "I was so tired of running Natasha. I'd been doing it my entire life in some form or another and I was exhausted. I'd stolen a Daxomite ship to get off planet and I ran as far and as fast as I could. But finally I couldn't run anymore. So, I rigged the ship to blow up. I waited as long as I could, until they were all on my ship and all the others were close enough to be taken out by the blast, and I detonated. But, they had anticipated that I suppose because it didn't work. The Daxomites tried to take me, I fought back and they accidentally killed me. Next thing I know I woke up in a Daxomite prison mine with these on my face. Still not sure why they brought me back."

"What are they?" I ask as I study them closer. They just looked like a mixture of solid lines and dashes mixed with squiggles and dots.

"My crimes and my master," she scoffs. "Deserter, terrorist, slave, prisoner, murderer," she tells me, touchy each glyph that corresponds with the crimes. "Although that last one is technically true, I did murder the Daxomite who made the mistake of thinking I was his slave, and killing me would have made me a martyr. So they sent me to a maximum security prison and I was there for a while. Time is difficult when you can't see the sun. They tried to interrogate me every so often but after a while they figured out that I wasn't going to talk. I met Quill and Rocket and the others there over time and we all broke out together, blowing up the prison in the process. Stayed together for a while, doing odd jobs on backwater planets, staying under the radar. And then Thor found me and somehow convinced me to come here where I met Valkyrie who had some intel on a prisoner transfer between my planet and the Daxomites home planet. So we attacked the prisoner ship and freed who we could, my sister among them."

"Why didn't you try and reach out after Thor found you?" I demand, although I had to admit I was afraid of the answer.

"I wanted to, more then anything, and I almost did several times. But I didn't know if you even wanted me to come back." She breaths deeply, "you did say a lot of... hurtful things."

"Because I had to make sure you left," I say softly.

She looks at me confused, "what? Why?"

I sigh, "I wanted more than anything to go with you, but I couldn't. The team.. they never would have stopped looking for me. We would never have been safe. And I... loved you too much to risk that."

"But.. you gave me up. You were going to let that Daxomite take me," she reminds me.

Shame fills me, "and it was the worst mistake of my life. When the Daxomite came to us and said that you were a terrorist, I froze. When the boys made the agreement with it, I was too much of a coward to argue with them."

"I don't understand," she tells me. "You're probably the bravest person I know."

"I'm not. The moment I heard those things about you, it was like all of my insecurities and doubts about us, about me, came crashing down and I was frozen. All I could do was go along with it and when you fought back, it woke me up," I tell her adamantly. "And when I met you at the house, I wanted to go with you. I wanted that quiet life with you. But it would have been impossible. So I sent you away and did my best to protect you from the inside. And it worked for a while. Even though I did almost kill you with a missile." I look to my sleeping child in the other room, "you and her."

Next to me Marzda whispers, "I'm glad we decided to keep her."

I shake my head, "there wasn't anything to decide, she's mine and I wasn't going to give her up." I pause a moment as her words register, "what do you mean we?"

"I almost didn't have her," she confesses.

"What do you mean?" I ask slowly.

"I was alone and I was terrified. I didn't know what was going to happen or where I was going to go. You had said multiple times that you didn't want kids and I knew that I had to go off world soon, so I made an appointment." Anger and sadness course through me as she talks, "obviously I didn't go through with it. I... couldn't. The day of the appointment they did an ultrasound and I saw her, heard her heartbeat and I couldn't do it. I couldn't kill the last piece of you that I had."

"And then you couch surfed your entire pregnancy doing god knows what until you showed up at Wanda's door and sucked the twins into this," I finish bitterly.

"Would you rather I hadn't have involved them?"

"No," I admit. "They've helped more then I could ever say."

"They are good friends."

We sit in silence for a minute before I finally asking, "so, Quake?"

She laughs, "it's what I am. My people all have the ability to see like I do, but only some of us can actually use sound waves to cause destruction. And when I rescued Keema I shook the ship so much that when she saw me the first thing she said was 'quake' and that's been my name ever since."

"Your sister was on the prisoner ship, where are your parents?"

"Keema said they died a few years ago," Marz says, looking out over the palace gardens.

"I'm so sorry," I tell her gently.

"Thanks." She hesitates before asking "does... does she know who I am? She has a picture of me, she showed me on the ship."

I nod slightly, "I told her about you. She asked why her eyes were different and so I showed her. She's carried that picture around ever since."

"What's she like?" She asks eagerly.

I can't the smile that forces it's way out, "she's the best and worst of us. She's so smart and kind, she does this little dance when she eats and if it's really good she'll make you try it. She loves being outside and flowers, especially daises. She loves horses and Tony actually gave her one that she named princess sparkle milkshake. Her favorite color is yellow and-"

"She sees colors?" Marzda interrupts.

"Yeah and when she paints she leaves none out."

"Mommy?" A sleepy voice said behind us.

I turn immediately to my sleepy child and go to pick her up, cuddling her close, "you should be asleep."

"Bad dream," she whispers as she nestles against me.

I look back over at Marzda who is watching us with what I can only describe as longing, "I'm going to put her back to bed."

"Of course."

I take my child back to bed, laying down next to her and she's fast asleep in seconds. From the bed I can see the balcony and I watched Marz lean against that balcony railing for hours as I struggle to stay awake. Eventually I can't fight it any more and my last image before sleep takes me is of the woman I love bathed in moonlight.