InsaneJournal

Rose had decided that the best way to deal with Oliver’s girlfriend or soulmate or whatever you wanted to call her was pregnant was to just push it back and pretend it wasn’t happening. Out of sight, out of mind, or something like that. If she pretended nothing had changed, then she didn’t actually have to process her feelings on the matter. It was a strategy that was working great until Felicity actually made her announcement on the network. Seeing it there in black and white, knowing that anyone in the world could see it, made it harder to live in her bubble of denial.

She’d gone for a run, trying to just distract herself, but eventually she had to stop running. Exhaustion brought her down onto the sand, breathing hard after pushing herself so hard and the next thing she knew, she was crying. Everything she felt, everything she’d been holding in, came pouring out of her as the tears fell, her sobs the only sound in the air. At least she’d found a nice, secluded place to fall apart. The last thing she wanted was for anyone to see her like this.

The last few days had been nothing short of magical for Natasha. Even though she knew it would be several days before she felt any of the symptoms, she knew that she was pregnant. She’d known it the moment it had happened even if though it sounded crazy. They weren’t going to say anything until they were positive and part of Natasha wanted to just stay in their own little world and not have to deal with what might be said but she knew they couldn’t. It wasn’t the sort of thing that you could hide, it would make itself known.

She’d been out running as she did every morning, taking a path that she liked to use when she didn’t want to run into anyone. Which was why she was surprised when she came up on someone sitting on the sand crying. Natasha recognized her, they’d sparred before, and she stopped and looked down at her. “Rose?” she said. “You okay?”

When Roe heard the sound of approaching footsteps, she hurriedly wiped at her tears and tried to stand up, but she wasn’t fast enough. Her face was all red and blotchy, anyway, so it wasn’t like she could hide it. She was a mess and that would be obvious to anyone who saw her right now.

Still, she was embarrassed and it didn’t help that Natasha looked so much like her mother. She could just imagine the kind of lecture she’d get from Janine Hathaway over feeling this way. It was stupid. Stupid for fall for someone she knew loved someone else. Stupid to wish it was her he wanted all that with. Maybe it had been stupid to even come here.

“Natasha, hi,” she said as if nothing at all was wrong. It was bullshit, of course, and they both knew it. “I didn’t think anyone else used this path.”

“Neither did I,” she said with a little grin and sat down next to Rose. “I usually come out pretty early though. I was running a little late today.” Natasha didn’t want to pry but she didn’t like seeing Rose so upset. Although she didn’t know her that well, she liked the young woman and it was pretty clear she could use someone to talk to right about now.

“I don’t want to be nosey but I’d have to be blind not to see that you’re upset. What’s wrong? Wanna talk about it?” If she did, Natasha would listen and if she didn’t, she would understand. It was only since she’d come to the island that she’d really begun to appreciate having someone to talk to and how keeping things inside wasn't always the best option.

“It’s stupid.” Rose ducked her head and reached back to undo the tie holding her hair, letting it spill over her shoulders and she shrugged. She didn’t expect the other woman to understand. She didn’t expect anyone to. Hell, even she thought she was being kind of stupid. It wasn’t like she hadn’t known exactly how Oliver felt. She should have expected something like this.

“No it’s not. If it upsets you then it’s not stupid,” Natasha said with a shrug. “And you can’t help your feelings, they are what they are and it’s okay to have them. Took a long time to figure that out but it’s true so whatever it is, maybe talking about it will help.” There had been a time when Natasha would have been the same way. She would have gone off somewhere, found a way to expend as much physical energy as she could and then collapsed. There might or might not have been tears but she would have kept it inside and that did nothing but make things worse.

Strange as it sounded, those words comforted Rose a little. She took a moment, calming down a little more, before she started to explain. “Oliver and I have kind of been [...] fooling around a little,” she said, not really looking over at Natasha. “I knew he was in love with someone else and they have this open relationship, so I knew it didn’t really mean anything, but-” She paused. “She’s pregnant. Which is the whole reason we’re even here, so that’s a good thing...” she trailed off for a moment before adding, “I told you it was stupid.”

Natasha’s heart went out to the young woman. She knew very well how she was feeling right now, she had felt that way herself and more than once. “Beng here is…...well it’s different from anything I’ve ever experienced,” she began. “Open relationships or not, you can’t stop yourself from feeling what you feel. I don’t always understand it, and it wasn’t a big deal since I wasn’t really involved with anyone but things changed. Now it bugs me, I don’t like the idea of him being with anyone else even though that’s the way things are here and I don’t want to be with anyone else even though there are others who don’t have a problem with that.” she shook her head. “I don’t know Oliver that well but he seems like a decent guy and he was honest with you about her wasn’t he? That says a lot. It doesn’t make it easier, it still hurts but he didn’t hide it from you.”

It did help to feel like someone understood. She still felt kind of stupid, but she also felt like maybe she wasn’t the only one who felt this way. “Yeah, he did, so it was stupid to let myself have feelings for him, but-” Stupid or not, she’d fallen for him.

“I wanted it to be me,” she admitted softly, looking away again. “I don’t even want to have a baby, not really, but I wanted to be the one he asked. I wanted to be his first choice.” That was stupid, too, and she knew it. She knew if he ever had to actually choose between her and Felicity, it would never be her. She was never going to be anyone’s first choice.

Natasha blew out a breath. “I know how that feels,” she said quietly. “It hurts like hell.” She settled a little more comfortably, her back against a tree and looked at Rose. “I don’t know how much you know about me. I know that there are movies and comic books and stuff but I don’t know who’s read what or seen what so I’ll just give you the shortest version.” Hopefully Rose would understand and not think her a horrible person.

“I was taken from my home when I was a kid, I was born in Russia as you might have guessed, and put into a program that trained young women to be spies and assassins. Black Widows they called us. The KGB ran it so you can imagine what that was like. When you finished the trained you had a choice, agree to be sterilized because they didn’t want you to have kids and be distracted from your work or leave with the implication being that you’d be killed before you even got to the door.” she shook her head. “I didn’t have a choice but I still blamed myself for a very long time because I couldn’t have kids. Anyway, this guy came along, his name was Clint Barton,” even now Natasha smiled at the thought of him.

“He was supposed to kill me but he didn’t. He brought me in, turned me over to SHIELD specifically Phil Coulson, he’s here by the way, and long story short, I went from being one of the bad guys to being one of the not so bad but still a little shady guys. I fell for Clint and he fell for me but he wanted something I couldn’t give him which was a family. He was torn between life as an agent and getting married and having a family.” Natasha closed her eyes for a moment, gathering herself as she remembered what it had been like when Clint had told her. Opening her eyes, she looked over at Rose.

“He chose her and I don’t blame him. He’s never been able to completely give up the life of an agent but his family is hidden, no one knows they exist so he has that to go home to. We’re friends, he’s one of my best friends and I’m close to his wife and his kids but does it hurt? Yeah, sometimes it still hurts. And that’s just the first part of the story,” she said.

Rose listened while Natasha told her story, nodding every once in awhile. Her heart went out to her, hearing about the life she’d had. In a lot of ways, it was like the way guardians were expected to serve the Moroi first, even if that life wasn’t quite as hardcore. She definitely knew how it felt to have to give up something for duty and to feel like you didn’t have much choice in the matter.

“So, he left you because he couldn’t knock you up?” she asked. “That’s fucked up. Couldn’t you have, like, adopted or something? That’s really shitty that he ditched you just because you couldn’t have kids of your own.” The situation didn’t sound like the same as the thing with her and Oliver. Maybe if Arva couldn’t fix it so she could have a kid and he’d gone with Felicity because of that, but it wasn’t the same. He loved Felicity, he’d known her longer, it made complete sense she’d be his first choice. There wasn’t some dealbreaker keeping them apart. He just didn’t feel that way about her.

“No, no it wasn’t like that.” Natasha shook her head. “He knew what had happened to me, that wasn’t it. He wanted a normal life, to stop being an agent, to have a family. I didn’t want to give that up because it was the only life I’d ever known, the only one that I thought I could ever have. As it turned out, he’s never really been able to stop getting involved with the spy stuff. He keeps retiring but then when we need him, he always shows up.” she smiled. And he’ll always be my friend and have my back. His wife and kids are my friends too, I love being around them although I don’t get to see them that much. The youngest one is even named after me.”

She sighed. “The second time was a little more recent. Before I came here, I was dating Bruce Banner, he’s here, you probably know him. It was a strange relationship, nothing physical ever happened between us because of the whole he would turn into the Hulk thing. He had a hard time dealing with that, I had a hard time dealing with my own shit. We had a disagreement and he left the team. No one knew where he was and then when Arva came to me and told me that she could heal me so that I could have children, I didn’t hesitate to come. Plus I needed to drop off the grid for a while anyway.” Natasha glanced out at the ocean for a moment before she continued. “I was really surprised when I showed up here and found him. And that he was with someone I knew and she was having a baby. That hurt. I mean we weren’t together, he had the right to do whatever he wanted but I didn’t expect to walk right into it. Arva took away his stuff the same she took away mine. He wasn’t doing the Hulk think anymore. It just hurt because I kept wondering why he didn’t ask Arva if she could help me. We talked about it, he said that he didn’t know that I wanted to be helped which is true, I never really told him that. He also didn’t know if he could ask and he thought I was angry with him for leaving but we worked it out. Although it was kind of hard when the baby was born.”

It had been hard but Natasha had gotten through it. She always did and she didn’t have any lingering romantic feelings for Bruce which helped. Those were long gone before she came here. “But someone showed up here who changed the way i look at a lot of things,” she smiled. “Steve is wonderful, he and I were friends and partners and I was half in love with him and didn’t even know it. We were just starting to explore how we felt about each other when his first love showed up here and I was scared to death but as it turns out, he felt the same way about me that I felt about him. And we haven’t told anyone yet so act surprised when you hear it but I’m pregnant. Barely but I am.”

Rose listened again, still thinking the situation was pretty fucked up. SHe felt kind of sorry for Natasha when she told her all about everything. No matter what she said about it, Rose thought it was kind of shitty the way both of those guys had treated her, but she made herself keep quiet on that.

She was envious, when she mentioned Steve. Not that Rose wanted Steve or anything. He was pretty hot and he’d been really nice to her the few times she’d talked to him, but she was jealous that Natasha had someone like that. Someone she loved who loved her the same way. Someone who was what Rose wanted in Oliver and couldn’t have. There was no one like that for Rose. Dimitri wasn’t here and even if he was, he wanted nothing to do with her anymore. And Christian- Rose liked having him around more than she would admit, but she definitely didn’t have those kind of feelings for him.

“That’s great,” she said, smiling at Natasha’s news. Envious as she was at her happy ending, Rose was thrilled for her, too. “Congratulations. I’m so happy for you both.” She meant it, too. From what the older woman had just told her, very few people deserved it more.

“Thank you,” Natasha said, a little smile playing around the corners of her mouth but then she grew serious again and looked at Rose. “I guess the reason I told you all that is because I get it. I get what it feels like to never be enough, to always feel like you come in second. I would never had admitted that I felt that, I thought I was too tough for that but coming here,” she looked around and shrugged. “Well it’s kind of hard not to spend a lot of time thinking. Especially when you’re not having sex and I didn’t for a good while after I got here. It’s not easy for me to trust people and I didn’t know who I could trust which is sad considering that some of the people here were people I knew from home.” And even then, she’d chosen someone who was very much like herself.

“I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of in my life, but I didn’t have a choice. I spent most of my life being what someone else thought I should be. An assassin, a spy, a SHIELD agent, I didn’t know what it was like to just be Natasha. Coming here taught me a lot about myself. I would have never been able to tell you everything I just told you a few months ago” she smiled. “But I think you get it, I don’t know anything about your past but something tells me you haven’t always had a choice to do what you wanted to do either. The thing is that here, you can figure out who you are and then when the time’s right, you’ll find someone here that wants to know that you. Who knows you might have already met that person and haven’t realized it. Maybe it’s not Oliver but he at least cared enough about you to tell you about Felicity, you didn’t have to read about or worse, have her tell you which is what happened to me. So I think he probably does care about you even if it might not feel like it.”

“I know he does,” Rose admitted. “Oliver’s great. I'm not mad at him or anything. I- well, I think I might even love him. That's the problem. I have to stop because I know he cares about me, but he doesn't love me.

The other problem was that she was pretty sure he was the person who wanted to know the real Rose Hathaway. That was a part of why she'd fallen for him to begin with. He was just... in love with someone else. It made the situation complicated, no matter how open relationships on the island tended to be.

“I'll be fine,” she said after a minute. “I always am.” Feeling something for someone who didn't feel the same way hurt, but it wasn't the worst thing she'd been through. It wasn't the first time she'd had her heart broken or the love hadn't worked out. She kind of thought that was how it was supposed to be for her. Even here, where she could live her own life, she didn't think she was that likely to get the fairytale happy ending some girls longed for. She'd just have to settle for freedom and deal with whatever came her way.

“I have no doubt that you will be,” Natasha said. “You’re a survivor, I can tell that just from talking to you but then so am I.” She’d had to be and as hard as it was sometimes, she knew that it was something she had to go through. “And if you have days when you’re not fine, that’s okay. We all have them, come find me and I’ll go with you and we’ll hit things. Sometimes that helps.”

Rose nodded at that. “Thanks,” she said. It was weird, getting support from this person who looked so much like her mother, but it was nice, too. It helped knowing there was someone who understood, not just how she felt but that hitting something was the best way to feel better.