my past is my own.

(✉️ ➡️ ###-#### ): sounds great (✉️ ➡️ ###-#### ): but also i didn’t sign up for a class (✉️ ➡️ ###-#### ): still probably will show up, sounds lit

( ✉️ ➡️ Romanoff ): You’ll find I take everything seriously. If you meet a man named Jesper Fahey, do ask him about me - he’ll say the same. ( ✉️ ➡️ Romanoff ): And you would be surprised. Businessmen are as much thieves and thugs like the rest of us sobs.  ( ✉️ ➡️ Romanoff ): My violence is a means to an end. I do a job, and I get what needs to be done, done. ( ✉️ ➡️ Romanoff ): Can you say the same?

Although Kaz felt his people were dangerous, he was also aware that their… Skillsets, were quite different from this woman’s. Jesper’s gun skills were great, but in close range with someone who was fast and a good fighter? They weren’t worth much. Inej’s knives would have been good - but he also was acutely aware that, because he’d trained her, she was still a street fighter at heart, not a professionally trained one like this woman seemed to be. He entertained, for a brief moment, the thought of sending her to training with someone like this woman - and banished it immediately. He’d enjoyed training her too much. And the rest of the Dregs in town were all bruisers, good with a fight but not smart or fast. 

“Something tells me you won’t need to.” He said with a small smirk. Besides, he had no reason to send someone after her - well, no reason yet. There was something surprising about the fact that someone in town was a good fighter and Kaz didn’t know them, and he filed that knowledge away. He didn’t need to attack her, but if someone could gather info on her, good. If they learned something valuable, great.

People like that man were just pawns, and as much as Kaz wanted to beat someone who worked with Rollins bloody, he also didn’t have a lot of reason to do so. They said Kaz Brekker didn’t need a reason, but it was far from the truth - his reasons just usually alluded people. “I just have a few questions for him.” He said, giving her a placating smile. “His boss and I have unfinished business.”

*

Her training in Russia had consisted of mostly ballet lessons. She’d been taught to defend herself, but as far as she could remember, she hadn’t been taught more than that. If that was true, though, why were there blips in her memories? Why didn’t she remember her training? If she didn’t remember her training, why were the moves permanently etched in her memory? None of it made sense, but Natasha didn’t have time to waste her time stressing over things that she didn’t know. She didn’t have time to interpret the dreams that visited her every night. She knew what she knew and in this case - it had been useful. 

Natasha merely smirked at the man who clearly no longer underestimated her abilities. She wasn’t the best, but she certainly knew how to take down a man in a dark parking lot. Most of the men on the streets didn’t have the professional training. It was a bit like fighting a wild card. You never knew what you were going to get. Thankfully, the one on the ground was slow. 

Natasha Romanoff + tv tropes 

( ✉️ ➡️ Romanoff ): I keep track of funds for the Springs Lounge and manage the deals there.  ( ✉️ ➡️ Romanoff ): I’m a businessman. No more, no less.

In personal notes: Have Romanoff tailed. Why so curious?

( ✉️ ➡️ Romanoff ): Everyone needs a hobby. ( ✉️ ➡️ Romanoff ): What does a dance instructor need to know my business for?

Send me !! for a threatening text

Who would you... Natasha’s askbox

Trust is a fickle thing. Natasha Romanoff knows that the best. When she was a child, she trusted the people who were supposed to be taking care of her against her better judgement. Now - she knows better than to trust anyone. The only person she trusts is herself. She knows that she’s the only one who won’t let her down in the end.

However, there’s flickers of trust that run across her mind. A man with a shield and a road trip. A man with a hammer. A man with a suit that she fights with like he’s a sibling. The blonde with the bow and arrow and great aim. A man who is half man, half monster. 

They’re family. She trusts them. 

Natasha’s last ballet class of the day had left the studio slowly. The day had went well. There were no injuries which always was the sign of a successful day. The girls in her last class were excited to learn and perfect their arabesques. The day had flown by. Natasha stood in the center of the floor and worked on her plan for the next day. She stretched a few times before going over the moves that she’d add to the simple routine that she’d been teaching so far. It took a few tries before she found the right beat and scribbled them down upon a piece of paper. 

Who would you... Natasha’s askbox

There’s a nightmare that’s been haunting her for weeks. One that is sprinkled in between the usual ones of her being tortured or killing men that may or may not have deserved it. A nightmare that feels almost too real. A nightmare that when she wakes up, Natasha can remember every single detail. 

Their surroundings are barren. It’s a place that Natasha can’t recognize. Somewhere that gives her chills down her spine. The mission? The retrieval of something that feels bigger than anything she’s ever done before. The hooded figure that guards whatever it is. 

“In order to take the stone, you must lose that which you love. An everlasting exchange. A soul, for a soul."

Natasha Romanoff is not known for hesitation. It’s not a surprise that in that exact moment, she knows what she needs to do. Sacrifice herself for the one that she loves. Sacrifice herself for the greater good. 

“I don’t judge people on their worst mistakes.”                                                                              “Maybe you should.” “You didn’t.” 

A blonde haired man with blue eyes. The one that she knows better than she knows herself. Her best friend. Her soulmate. Natasha never recognizes him when she wakes up, but she can feel it. Something that lays right beneath her ribs. 

They touch foreheads in an embrace. They fight over the sacrifice. Neither one wants to be without the other. 

“Let me go. It’s okay.” 

When Kaz had followed the man out of the bar, he had every intention of finding out information on him. He’d seen him at Pekka’s doorstep, whispering in the boss’s ears and talking to his goons. It wasn’t that Rollins and his men couldn’t enter the Springs Lounge - quite the opposite. If Kaz could bring Rollins’ people over to his side, good. If he could make Pekka afraid of losing his crown, all the better.

Brick by brick. 

The questions would go as they always did - a little threatening, a little blood spilled, a pleasant goodbye possibly including a punch to the gut. What he hadn’t expected was to follow him to someone else, where he had apparently set his sights on a redhead. Kaz liked to convince himself he had no scruples - that he’d do whatever was necessary. But there were some acts that turned his stomach, even when they had nothing to do with skin touching his own. When he saw the man poised to attack the woman, he’d had every intention of intervening, even if just because he had his job. Besides - his wraith might work for him, but he was still entirely convinced if he left this situation alone, she’d skin him alive. 

Luckily, he didn’t even have to scruff his boots, as the woman was able to handle herself. He arched a brow in approval - she was good. Very classically trained, perhaps not the street fighting he was used to, but good. He approached slowly, studying the man with a light kick to his gut. He groaned and Kaz grinned. “My people know how to properly sneak up on someone. Though you did take my evening’s entertainment.” He said, nudging the man’s head with the toe of his boot. “Mind if I take him off your hands?”

*

There were flickers of her training in Natasha’s memories. Punches that were thrown. Moves that were learned to take others down. Sometimes she had flashbacks to the moment that she’d learned to shoot a gun. Those were her memories. Then, there were her dreams. The blood of the different men that she’d slain on her hands. A voice in her head that told her exactly what to do. Sometimes she saw herself being brainwashed. Tortured into compliance. But it was only nightmares. It wasn’t the truth. It couldn’t be. 

The annoyance of being interrupted was clear upon her face. Although, Natasha would be lying if she said she hadn’t enjoyed putting the man on the ground. It was better than anything she could teach in a self defense class. The adrenaline that was flowing through her veins was unlike anything else that she’d felt before. 

Natasha couldn’t remember the first time that she’d put on a pair of ballet slippers. She couldn’t remember when she’d first begun to dance. She just knew that it was apart of her. Like something that was ingrained in her brain. Just like dancing, fighting was something that she also knew how to do. She couldn’t remember her training. She couldn’t remember who had trained her. She just knew how to throw a punch. She knew how to get out of trouble should it find her. That was why she taught both of those things to others. The ballet lessons were mostly for fun. To see the joy in the kids eyes when they mastered a difficult spin. The defense classes were to protect the other women of Echo Springs. 

It was a small town. Did anything bad ever happen in a small town? Natasha didn’t want to find out.