At War With The World   von _Kima_
                          (Avengers One-Shot Series)
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                           Kapitel 1: Natasha: Scars
                           -------------------------


Natasha remembers. 

 Of course she does, her memory is remarkable like that, and she couldn’t
forget even if she tried to because the mementos are right there on her body
whenever she looks into the mirror.

 The long gash on her right thigh – Volgograd, fifteen stitches, three dead.
Her first mission. 

 The tiny but still very ugly burn on her left calf – Kiev, bed-bound for a
month, fourteen dead and two crippled. 

 The four miniature scars right over her left breast – Moscow, a stray bullet,
one dead. 

 The three claw-like scars on her abdomen – Moscow again, eleven stitches
each, seven dead, four crippled, one burned beyond recognition and she has never
taken a step into a zoo again. 

 The long scar on her skull, hidden under red curls – Sarajevo, seventeen
stitches, thirteen dead. 

 The scar tissue on the right side of her ribs and the tiny scar between her eye
brows – Budapest, too much time in the infirmary, lost count of the dead
around seventy-two and Clint.  Actually, she remembers Clint the most when it
comes to Budapest. She remembers heat and fear and blood – so much blood and
most of it is her own which is a first – and Clint hovering over her and his
voice, telling her to lie the hell down and let him handle this. 

 The other scars on her body are faint white lines, their origins long since
forgotten, and things have been kind of a blur after Budapest because she
can’t remember every mission from then on like she has before. Maybe because
SHIELD has the technology to heal broken bones and open wounds more efficiently
than anyone else, maybe because she has never been in that much danger ever
again. She doesn’t know and she doesn’t really care. The missions that
mattered are etched into her body and will be there until the day she dies.

 Natasha remembers all of them all too well.

 But sometimes, when she watches Thor beat Steve in a very heated ping-pong
tournament in the Avengers’ mansion, for example, or when Stark and Bruce
present new and better arrows for Clint who just hugs both of them in return
causing them both to turn beet-red and awkward, she forgets. She forgets and she
smiles and on these nights, she doesn’t dream about fire and tigers and stray
bullets and blood.

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