19 C18 - She gave her Life, so that fer Family could live theirs!

SPECIAL NOTE: I WANT TO GIVE A SPECIAL SHOUTOUT TO PATREON USER "KATL-Chief" FOR SUPPORTING ME AS THE SECOND MEMBER OF THE "LUKE SULLIVAN" TIER! KEEP A LOOKOUT FOR HIS PART IN THE SERIES HAPPENING IN C23!

'Inner dialogue/thoughts'

"Normal dialogue"

[System]

[Diary entries]

(Word count: 1,200)

~ With Natasha ~

Looking at the most recent passage being written, Natasha wore a bittersweet smile, a silent acknowledgment to herself. 'I see, it was just as I had concluded. I had thought it would be so after seeing Luke's reaction towards me earlier, but to hear a confirmation from himself, it truly makes reality sinks in.'

As Natasha laid down on her bed, finding solace in the calm of the surrounding room, her thoughts were far from serene. With the words of the entry in her mind, she thought to herself, 'In the future, would I have done the same?'

Natasha had grown up in the Red Room, where she was brutally trained and tortured from her first admittance until she had escaped. While under their clutches, she had committed numerous unforgivable sins, gaining her the moniker of the Black Widow. One day, she had managed to escape from the Red Room, however, her hands were already stained with the bloods of the countless innocents that she had killed.

Even after her escape, she was still on the run. The Red Room were not willing to let someone as effective as Natasha was, to be free from their hands. While she was in hiding, she had come across Clint Barton. They had both played a game of cat and mouse, until Clint had cornered Natasha. Natasha had expected that she could finally be laid to rest at that time, however, she was surprised when Clint had offered her to join him.

She would later find out that Clint's original mission was to find and eliminate Natasha, as S.H.I.E.L.D. had determined her to be a serious threat. But throughout the time Clint had spent chasing Natasha, and when he looked at the expression Natasha made when she finally got caught, Clint had made the spontaneous decision to stick his neck out on the line and attempt to recruit Natasha. It had taken a lot of convincing on Clint's end to get Fury to agree to this, but with his guarantee, Natasha was soon recruited as an Agent, the red on her ledger all but erased thanks to Fury. While this was only on paper, Natasha still had to grapple with her own internal emotions regarding the blood on her hands. However, joining S.H.I.E.L.D. was a start for her to begin making amends.

She had spent years as the partner of Clint, forming a familial bond with him. She even had the privilege to meet with Laura, along with their two children, and being named an honorary aunt to their children! For Natasha, who would never have the opportunity to live the life of a mother, this was akin to Clint telling her that she was now a part of their family. And so, from that moment on, every mission they undertook, the dynamic between the two had changed. It was as if they were a well-oiled machine. They no longer required verbal communication for the most part, as both equally knew what they had to do. They were no longer partners, but brother and sister in all but blood.

Thinking of all these events that had happened to her life, the sense of familial bond given to her by Clint, Laura and their two children, Natasha had a faint smile on her lips, 'If it were for them, I know that I would gladly give my life for them to have a chance to live theirs.' Soon after, Natasha resumed reading the diary.

[Seeing her again, I can't help but feel thankful that I've been given this second chance. Natasha is still alive here. She was not just my mentor, she was also like a big sister to me. She had been patient and understanding towards me after our first encounter, guiding me and imparting all her knowledge and experiences into me. Which could also be considered a curse. Natasha. . . She's a little too brutal in our sparring exercises. I was never able to land a single hit on her at the beginning and she was strict and harsh during our lessons. However, I knew she meant well for me, so I endured. Hoping to make her proud of me. I wonder if she was, I never got to ask before she left us.]

'If this other Natasha is anything like me, just know in spirit Luke, that we would both be proud of you.' Natasha thought, adoring the dynamic between the Luke and his Natasha.

[But that Natasha is all but a memory now, living only within my thoughts. Fortunately, I don't exist in this world. If this world had gone the same way, then this other me if he existed, would have had to carry the same burden as I.]

[Maybe without my appearance, things would have gone differently, for better or for worse. I'm unsure what the consequences of my being here would change, but I can't just let them all die. Not when I have the power to do something! As my uncle once told me. "With great Power, comes great Responsibilities."]

~ With Luke ~

'It's to increase my favourability, it's to increase my favourability, it's to increase my favourability.' Luke repeated as he tried his best not to cringe at the last sentence of the entry. While he does believe in being responsible with your powers, he also believed in an eye for an eye. 

- End of Chapter 18 –

Next time in C19 - Fury reacts to the Third Entry!

Knowing what Fury was alluding to, Natasha responded solemnly. "Everyone will meet their time sir, it's not anything new. Besides, I was prepared to lose my life when I had escaped from the Red Room."

E/d note: Shortest chapter yet! The MTL chapter this time around was bearable, with only about 300 to 400+ maybe close to 500 words to its name. Actually, with all the MTL chapters, most of them are pretty short - with the most being close to 1k words I think. I just prolonged them by adding in my own stuff to enhance the reader experience.

The main difference that I've made in this chapter is that I've expanded a little more into Natasha's backstory, including how she had met Clint. I removed some parts like Natasha saying things like "recalling what was written in the first two parts of the diary, SHIELD is not trustworthy at the moment, and the current SHIELD is not really SHIELD" because it does nothing and did not fit into what the scene was going for at that time, which was to talk about her background, and her character and personality. I also removed the MTL ending of the MC writing in his diary "Im like that butterfly, the difference is that I don't dare to flap my wings" because in earlier chapters, both mine and MTL author's, we had both written that our MCs would take an active role in the world. Like bruh, did Bing Chilling Chinese author just forgot his own plot or something TT

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