GLORY     &      GORE
a black widow fanfic
written    by    ashara

there's a fate worse than death / it's living to hear the eulogies / for the person you could have been

— Saul Williams & Co., from "Chorus", Life in Poetry

❛ when they died the gods
should have placed them
among the stars, not
forgotten in the ground ❜

TRUTH BE TOLD LEVI ROMANOFF IS NOT HERO. He's a broken reflection of a lost boy who seeks redemption in the world he was fated to spill blood on. His hands are calloused with murder, grief and silent cries. He's balancing himself in a tightrope towards the promised salvation from his past that he can never seem to reach, no matter how deafening the crowd around calls him "a hero". Because at the end of the day the question resonating in the back of his head is: "Do you think someone created to destroy, to kill, can be redeemed?"

This notion was challenged even more when Levi found himself shattering the pillars of his own heroic altar upon choosing to be what he was raised to be. A double agent with no code, in order to protect the person he has repeatedly failed to, his twin sister. The boy was lucky enough to get caught on a safety net in the form of his mother standing by his side on the end of day. Eventually the two find themselves hiding from law and having no home to consider, which isn't supposed to be a trouble to them as they have lived a lot of lives before becoming the Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Yet the only one that was truly him is the life he lived as an Avenger.

If it isn't some cosmic coincidence that the moment he was no longer the unyielding and noble hero everyone makes him to be. Levi Romanoff's past as a gun wielding, child soldier rose from the blood watered grave he once been at. His ghosts are screaming loud, their claws ripping sharp to the new skin he lives on and voices whispering the shameful truths.

You can change. You can't run from who you truly are. We are one. I made you who are.

The shadows after him are much more sinister and twisted than he remembers. And this time no tombstone is strong enough to hold them down.

❛ we all wear masks.
and the time comes
when we cannot remove
them without removing
some of our own skin.❜

CAUTION | This book contains strong language, violence,  killing and brutality. Please guided that ptsd, depression and anxiety are present too. Trigger warning is on the beginning of a chapter if the mentioned contents are present.

DISCLAIMER | I don't own the Black Widow storyline and its characters. The credit all goes to the creators of the movie. I only own Levi Romanoff and a handful of OCs, a few alterations and modifications (such as events, dates, locations etc) on the storyline in order for the fic's plot to fit in. Please don't reproduce any content without the permission of the author.

AUTHOR'S NOTE | Welcome to the fic where our main character is already dead in the current timeline. Levi Romanoff gets his own fic because that's what he deserves, this lil wolf boi was first ever actual OC and the reason why I have an MCU series. So even if he's established as dead on the present, I don't think one fic will hurt. (I mean MCU did same with Nat.)

Just a forewarning, this would contain a lot of rewrites of Natasha's origins and Red Room. I'll be using her comic origins as an influence so it means she's older than she appears to be and is indeed a super soldier. Same as the other widows (because that's how was it in the original source!) Also Alexei won't be Alexei Shostakoff here because he's originally Natasha's pilot husband from Department X in the comics. Which made the whole premise of the BW movie really weird for me (please bare with me in this one) so I decided to replace his character's name and backstory that still fits as Nat and Yelena's "father". If you think this fic would be too confusing, don't worry I'm good at effective info dumping. You'll see.

That's all, I'm super psyched to write this because I haven't written Levi for quite some time. If you're a reader from the previous book of Age of Heroes, thank you for being interested in seeing more of the series! If you're a new reader, still a thank you for checking this out. My two other AOH books are "World's Weight" which is the first and "Divine Retribution" which is the second one. Both are published in my profile, feel free to give it a go!

TAGS/DEDICATIONS | to the everyone who are still interested in seeing this fic, this one's for all of you <3

themology
astrxids
Winter326
-sunshinelover
Amaribookworm
aaejilln

I hope you guys enjoy this, thank you so much for the support!!

BOOK DATES | started : August 5, 2021 —  published : December 10 , 2021 — finished : to be added

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