#Young Widows

[lovethisfatcryptid]

I'm sitting on the patio working this morning. Answering messages and socializing. It's so warm and beautiful today I just couldn't stay inside. Listening to the chickens, feeling the sunshine on my skin, the breeze tussling my hair. Endless amounts of weed to smoke. The country life is just what my broken heart needs.

[quietlyimplode]

Black Widow Fest - Day Five

Wild Geese (cruelty is easy)

Warnings: death of widows, implied (not graphic) torture, Natasha in the Red Room.

Word Count: 2154

Pairing: Black Widows, Widows, Natasha-centric (Clint/Nat implied)

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. - Mary Oliver. Wild Geese.

Head warnings. This is not a happy fic, words in their essence are something that can be so benign but can have ripple effects. Words said in grief, anger, pain, can have lasting impacts in ways we don’t know. Be careful with your words, you’ll never know how they may ricochet. Take care friends. <3

Cruelty is easy. You’re not special for choosing it.

1/

Chains around her wrists, toes barely touching the floor, the woman spits at the Widow.

“Why do you hold your secrets, when you could so easily just tell me? Where is your husband?”

Blood on her chin, still the woman snarls.

Like a rabid dog, she drools and snaps when the Widow comes close.

“You’re going to die here anyway, why not make your last hours easier?”

The woman, dehydrated, delirious, laughs.

“Cruelty is easy. You’re not special for choosing it.”

It give the widow pause.

The woman laughs again.

“You’re not special at all. Just a cog in the machine. Doing someone else’s bidding. How does it feel to be the puppet?”

She sighs, spits, and leans heavily on the chains.

“So kill me, because I don’t know what you want to hear. My husband is nowhere. He’s everywhere. He’s in Malta, Dubrovnik. He’s in the Maldives, in Sri Lanka or…”

The gun shot to her head silences her and the body falls heavily against the chains, it’s weight now dead as there’s steady blood flow from the the wound.

.

2/

Natasha watches the older widow as she instructs the anatomy class.

Blood flow, large veins, nerves. It’s fascinating the way that the human body works. Out of all the things that Natasha learns, she finds this the most interesting.

The Red Room teaches them these things for the use of information extraction, for field medicine and to show them that they are not immortal.

Even though they think that they are.

They’re drilled daily, and it becomes Natasha’s favourite.

The older widow seems to see it, her love of learning and how she absorbs the information.

After class, she asks the Widow to teach her about cranial nerves, how they can bring pain. How it can impact on thinking.

The widow pauses and takes Natasha’s hand.

Touch is always a strange sensation.

She craves it and strays away from it.

This time, the touch is insistent.

The words are said urgently, whispered as though a secret in shame.

“Cruelty is easy, Natasha. You are not special for choosing it. Kindness, grace and patience, sometimes those are things that matter more in the moment.”

Abruptly, she lets her hand go, and stands.

“We will learn more on the cranial nerves over the next week.”

She hands Natasha a book.

“Read this. And write me a essay on how you would provide the field medicine in case study, 600 words by tomorrow.”

The book is heavy, but it’s the words that were spoken in secret that run in repetition in Natasha’s head.

‘Cruelty is easy.”

She wonders if it’s a challenge, if she’s suppose to learn to extract information in other ways. Through words rather than pain.

She walks out of the room, wondering just how that would work.

.

3/

Georgia stares at Natasha.

“So what, like the whores of Odessa, you want to go in me what? Ask them for the information?”

Natasha feels the fear flow through her.

She stands straighter, hardens her face and nods.

“They’re going to invite us in graciously. They’re going to tell us everything we want to know and we’ll be done in less than 2 hours.”

She pauses.

“Unless you want to follow the mission parameter, take the man and his daughter and torture them both to see who breaks first.”

She knows Georgia is not smart enough to understand what she is going for. That she can show them that she can do things in a creative way.

She doesn’t like torture. It’s messy and gives her a feeling in her gut that doesn’t go away for days. The images replay in her mind.

But she can’t tell anyone that.

Georgia shrugs.

“Okay. But if we die for this Natalia, I’m going to kill your in the afterlife.”

Natasha bristles at the nickname and passes an easy smile.

“I’ll get the blame, just follow my lead, okay?”

Natasha stands, folds money in her hand and smiles.

The door knock is met with a crack of an opening and a girl, no older than twelve peeks around the corner.

“Hello?”

“Hi hun, I’m Irina and this is Svetlana, we are here to see your mum, is she home?”

The girls eyes widen, and sadness fills them.

“Um. No, she’s not.”

Natasha knows well that the woman is dead.

“Oh, okay, can you leave a message for us?”

The door opens wider.

The girl more trusting now.

“My dadda’s home,” she starts, “I can get him, if you want?”

Natasha smiles, “oh sure, that would be great.”

The girl leaves them standing at the door and Georgia moves nervously from foot to foot.

“Are you sure about this, Natalia?”

Natasha reaches behind her and squeezes her hand in reassurance.

“Hello?”

The bearded man appears, his face drawn and tired.

“Hello!” Natasha says brightly.

“Alina gave us this address when we last met up, she said to come visit if ever we were in Vladivostok.”

The man frowns.

“We went to school together.”

Natasha is betting hard that the man will remember his wife’s ramblings of her childhood friends, but not their faces.

“Oh,” he nods.

“Irina and Svetlana,” the girl says, helpfully, as though she knows.

“Oh,” the man says again.

“She’s dead.”

The words are heavy and the girl retreats behind her father as if the words won’t find her there.

Natasha schools her face into one of grief, like the woman wasn’t killed at the hands of the KGB in partnership of the Red Room.

“Oh,” she echos, “how? When?”

The man opens the door wider, and invites them in.

The follow the couple into the kitchen, where the girl starts to make some tea, taking the role that her mother must have left.

The man sits, offering chairs to the Widows as they’re offered tea.

“It is perhaps a long story,” he opens, looking to his daughter.

Natasha is quick.

“And I want no pain in reopening a wound.”

She pauses.

“She was my friend. She was kind and honest and dear to us.”

She sighs dramatically, and rests her head in her hands, Georgia taking the cue to offer comfort.

“Is there anything we can do?”

The girl sets down the tea, and they wrap their hands around it.

She looks small amongst the big table, and squeaks a response.

“What was my mother like when she was young?”

Natasha lies with the truth.

The words woven and soon the man is drunk.

The little girl tired and secrets spilled without his knowledge.

They help the girl put her father to bed, and she gratefully thanks them, offering them her meagre stash of lollies.

Natasha declines, but Georgia takes four, then closes the girl’s hand around the rest.

“Thank you,” the little girl says, spontaneously hugging them both.

They hug her back, and leave the way they came, no one worse for the meeting.

“That was more exhausting, Nat.”

Georgia tells her, getting into their car.

“But no bad dreams,” Natasha sighs, leaning back.

Georgia snorts.

“No, no bad dreams.”

The getaway is smooth and smell of sweets emanate.

“Do you think they’ll punish us for going off mission?”

Natasha shakes her head.

“Given the information we just gathered, and the relationships we made, no, I don’t think they will.”

“You tell them then.”

“Mm,” Natasha nods, non committal to the instruction.

“Why?”

Georgia hands over two hard lollies and Natasha takes them both, wrapping them and revelling in the sweetness.

“Cruelty is easy, we aren’t special for choosing it.”

Georgia doesn’t say anything but seems to ruminate on her words.

“Where’d you learn that?”

“Madam Simzar,” Natasha chooses to disclose.

Georgia smiles.

“I miss her.”

Natasha ducks her head, unable to keep the pain off her face.

“Me too.”

.

4/

Natasha exits Fury’s office.

Making a bee line for the door, she brushes quickly past Clint and disappears.

Clearly not good news then.

He follows her to find her gone, disappeared in a matter of seconds.

He wonders where she could have gone, and walks quickly to the library hoping to catch a glimpse of her hair.

She’s not there, and she doesn’t appear to be anywhere. He swears under his breath before returning back to Fury’s office, hoping for some insight into what made her run.

He thought they might have been passed this, but, he supposes, Natasha’s go to self preservation will always be to hide her feelings, conceal her grief, hurt and sadness.

He feels that’s what this is, judging the way she wouldn’t even make eye contact as she brushed past.

“What happened?”

He’s not usually so abrupt with his boss, but he needs to know whether in this moment, Natasha needs help.

No time for pleasantries.

“A widow Natasha defected, overdosed.”

Fury’s words are flat.

The pictures he passes over shows the graphic image of a woman overdosed.

Clint feels sick.

The could be Natasha.

He knows at once where she’s gone, and leaves the room without another word.

.

The park is quiet.

Big dark clouds ruminate overhead, and he wraps his jacket around himself tighter against the cold.

The playground is dead, just as he assumed it would be, the children home and getting ready for night time routines.

He’s glad.

They used to come here and swing on the swings when Natasha needed to get away from herself. The rocking motion seemingly soothing.

Clint finds her exactly where he expects to.

The swing next to her inviting for him as he sits down and says nothing.

They stay in stasis, swinging slowly.

“Her name was Georgia.”

Natasha rests her head on the swing lengths, and swallows.

She wants to tell him about her, but the grief is too much. A tear slips out, and she hastily wipes it away.

“Cruelty to yourself is easy, Clint,” she says tiredly.

Clint looks at her, really looks and notices the slip of blood in her hand, clutching the small pairing knife.

“I’m not special for choosing it,” the words said in a whisper.

She hands him the knife, unwrapping her hand from around it.

“It’s harder to be kind.”

He pauses, the knife gone as soon as he touches it.

“I’ve heard you say it before.”

He didn’t feel how dangerous losing a widow might be for her. Certainly didn’t expect the knife.

He wants to know how safe she is, how she won’t be the dead girl, overdosed.

“Is it a reminder?”

She looks at him, shrugs, nods.

“Cruelty is easy,” she whispers.

Natasha pauses at the statement, aware she’s just repeating herself, the words though; they seem important.

The mission they went on, replaying in her mind, with Georgia smiling in the car.

“Georgia was a friend,” she looks to Clint. “One of a select few, and her passing feels personal.”

“She was a widow?”

Clint knows but asks anyway.

“Yes.”

Natasha starts swinging, slow movements, dragging her feet on the ground.

“Was she…”

Clint doesn’t really know what he’s asking.

“Free?”

She finishes the thought anyway.

“Yes. No. Are any of us ever free of that place?”

Clint doesn’t know how to answer.

“Drugs.”

Natasha pauses.

“She wasn’t kind to herself.”

“She felt the need to be cruel.”

Clint starts swinging too, feeling the heaviness of the night pressing down. He wonders just how much and how close Natasha was to this girl when they were young.

“To herself?” he wonders.

“Yes.”

She’s hastily wipes at her face again.

“But you aren’t.”

He says it as a statement and hopes that it’s true.

“Sometimes I am.”

Natasha pauses. Thinks.

“I beat myself up with my thoughts. But I’m better at recognising it. Stopping it when it comes.”

The introspection is not lost on Clint. It’s taken years for them both to realize when their thinking patterns have not been… optimal.

“She was not.”

He cringes at the past tense, the death fresh.

“No.”

She drags her feet.

“She was not.”

Clint’s not really sure what to say. He wants to hug her but knows it’s not appropriate.

“I’m sorry she let you down,” he opts for, pushing back and forward on his toes.

Natasha shrugs, slowing her movements.

“She didn’t let me down, her actions have nothing to do with me.”

There’s a pause, as Clint is at a loss for words, not used to Natasha’s nonchalance at the death of her friend, or wonders if she’s just masking her grief.

“It’s a reminder,” she continues.

“I choose to be kind.”

She says it with a strength, even as her voice wobbles.

“Cruelty is easy, to others, to yourself.”

Clint nods, pushes off a little more heavily.

“Yeah. It is,” he agrees.

He slows with his feet and then repeats the process.

“You are kind, Natasha,” he tells her.

But it’s met with silence as night covers them in darkness.

.

[jennaelsa]

It’s a sunny day ❤️😍 I think I need to step out

[rastronomicals]

8:33 AM EDT September 10, 2024:

Young Widows - “Bird Feeder” From the album Easy Pain (May 13, 2014)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

–

[linmabbe]

BRO I WAS ABOUT TO FALL FOR CALEB THEN THE FUCKING HOUSE GOT BLOWN UP?????😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

[southernwidow]

Fear

I’ve always known fear, but never like I have since becoming a widow. Fear of the unknown. Fear of the future. Fear of leaving this earth before my small children are grown. Fear of leaving my small children orphaned. These fears also fill me with a whole new level of anxiety. The constant worry, the constant lack of sleep from laying awake at night.

I recently-ish went in for a routine eye exam, just to find out that my optical nerves are swollen, and was referred to a specialist. The specialist did his examination of my eyes, and diagnosed me with IIH, Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension. He said he was 99% sure it is IIH, and said that it is the cause for all of my really really awful and debilitating headaches, my vision deteriorating, the whooshing in my ears that sounds like my heart beat is in my ears, and everything else that has been going on.

But then here comes the big drop. “These symptoms also go alongside brain tumors, so we are going to have to send you in for a MRI with and without contrast to check for that before I can 100% say it is IIH. I am however, going to go ahead and prescribe you a diuretic so that we can go ahead and start treatingyou for IIH and the medication get in your system.”

Those words instantly sent me down a whole new road of fear. The fear of what if it is a brain tumor and not IIH? What if it is a brain tumor and I can’t come out on the bright side and leave my kids orphaned? Cancer runs bad on both sides of my family, and my aunt passed away due to a brain tumor when I was a teen. To say I am terrified that this is a brain tumor and not IIH would be an understatement.

I went in today for said MRI and it was awful. My claustrophobia kicked in with 7 minutes left of my MRI without contrast and I had to be pulled out to get some fresh breaths. The MRI with contrast was only 7 minute long but it felt like an hour. I won’t know until sometime next week what the results are, and the unknown is eating away at me.

If you’re experiencing any of the symptoms, please go get your eyes examined and get yourself checked out. Even if it hopefully isn’t a brain tumor, if IIH is left untreated it can lead to total loss of vision.

[coffeestainedsatin]

.

I spent most of my life saying that I felt homesick

Even when I was lying comfortably in my bed

Until I met you

All the homesickness dissipated and you were found

Now that you’re gone I feel it all over again

Sick for a place I can’t quite put my finger on because you don’t exist here anymore

My home is somewhere in the stars

So at nighttime

When I look up

I look for you

My home

~emma grace

[slytherinsanctum]

real life peak behind the scenes: its weird to read about Snape and Draco for months, write about them, share in their communities. 

And then one morning, troopers on your door tell you the love of your life is dead. Now you are the widow. Now you get to wonder if you could have saved them for the rest of your life. Now they are the one dead in their thirties. 

And its just weird. Life imitates art in the cruelest of ways at times I suppose.

[toffeethief]

Black Cross - Black Market Cigarettes

[ferylcheryl]

If there’s one thing I am a sucker for in hard rock it’s when the same phrase is yelled repeatedly accented by drums, like at the end of this track

[maquina-semiotica]

“ Took A Turn”, Young Widows

[lovethisfatcryptid]

Maybe I romanticize things a little too much but there's something so so sacred between a girl and her hot beverage of choice first thing in the morning.

Getting out of bed in itself is a holy act when every fiber of your being is screaming at you to stay in bed and suffer. To keep going with the momentum, making yourself something to eat and a little caffeine as a treat, that takes a kind of courage most people could only dream of.

The decision to keep on living isn't one big moment; it's a million tiny decisions every single day. Maybe a little romanticism is necessary when making those decisions.

[asailorsdrunkeneulogy]

Geez, this lineup is STACKED

[chocolategirl1da]

I haven’t posted in a long while. Life has been life-ing. But Tumblr is the last place on the Internet that I feel safe to reveal my emotions. It’s the last safe Haven for feelings, blogs, etc. I stand on the precipice of giving birth to my first girl, and would love to share the experience. I’m immersed in sorrow because her father won’t be a part of her physical world. Being a widow and a survivor of a mate who committed suicide is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to encounter in my life. I’m grateful that I made it through and that at least I have a baby girl to pour my love into. I miss him every day.

I can’t wait to see his face reflected in hers. His memory is the only thing that I have to give her so I will use Tumblr to record those memories as I remember them. I also have so many stories that would take longer than a regular post to explain, and for that, I’m diving into my creative Abilities to express them. It’s the only thing that I can think of to help deal with the grief and the pain. I go through the seven stages of grief moment by moment. Today, is bargaining. I know that from this day forward, I promise that I will become a better person From all of this. I have to find ways to create a positive experience through all of this. 

[rastronomicals]

8:09 PM EDT April 21, 2024:

Young Widows - "The Last Young Widow" From the album Easy Pain (May 13, 2014)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

[southernwidow]

The loss of a spouses. Something so many of us thought we would never have to endure, at least not so soon. There’s no books, no class, absolutely nothing that will prepare you for the loss of your spouse. Nothing prepares you for that last goodbye, or the lack of a goodbye for those of us that didn’t get that chance. Nothing prepares you for the journey that is grief, and learning to live this life without our loves. The one that we were planning our future with. The one that we made/were making a home with. The one that we made/were planning a family with. Nothing prepares us to help our children endure the journey of the loss of a parent, how to navigate their emotions. Having to tell them their mommy/daddy isn’t coming home, and explaining to them why when the questions begin to arise. Nothing prepares those who end up having in laws who begin to wreak absolute havoc on their lives once their spouse passes, when they’re already facing a horrid storm.

“Things will get better.” Things don’t always get better, we just learn to live with it. The grief hits you out of nowhere, no matter what stage you’re in, like that surprise pop quiz in high school you weren’t prepared for because well, you wasn’t expecting it. We simply, but slowly, learn to handle it better. Well, as well as we can. Grief comes in waves, and like the waves in the ocean, grief is ever changing. Something that triggered our grief in the beginning of our journey may not trigger us in the future, while something new in our future will now trigger the grief where as it didn’t in the past. Whether it be a scent, a memory, a material item, a word, or even a quick glimpse of someone out of our peripheral vision that resembles our late loves.

“One day you’ll move on, and someone new will come along.” I have heard this so many times, and each time it irks me just as much as it did the first time. Irk is honestly putting it lightly. I will never understand how someone can tell a widow/ widower that we will one day move on. The loss of a spouse isn’t something we simply move on from. This was a breakup, this wasn’t a divorce. We had absolutely no choice in this. I would have much rather went through a divorce with my husband than lose him. At least then I would still be able to see his face and hear his voice, and my children would still have their father. Instead, I only see his face in picture and in the faces of my children, and I only hear his voice in old videos that pop up in my memories on Facebook and what is on my phone that I haven’t lost over the years. But even then, it will never be the same as getting to see his face again or hear his voice in person. It won’t be the same as him coming home to me and our children. It won’t be the same as his arms around me, or hearing HIS snoring at night. I’d give anything to hear his awful snoring one last time. I’d give anything to hear him tell me that he loves me one more time, or one of his silly little phrases.