TRAGIC OVERTURE
────────────────────────────────────────

red.
patron color of grief.
& birth.
& all forms of self inflicted wounds.

Akilah Oliver, Gently she tucks her hand under my chin, she says, don't be afraid, your demons are your friends.

i had too many selves for god to save

KAZ ALEKSEEV DOES NOT FLINCH.

He was born underwater during a flood, screaming his second coming to the Heavens. He is all poisoned marrow and wilted bone ─ and the blood against his skin is so stark he enjoys how it brings out the color of his eyes that possess the gaze of a hungry hawk. Kaz was born in desolate ruin and that is what he brings with himself everywhere he goes.

Personification of cosmic loneliness without a dreg of humanity coursing through his rotten veins. How did he become this? When? Who made him this? But that was the question, wasn't it? Born this way or made? The scars on his back that trailed down to his arms said: born, born, born.

It's always the same story: Nature vs Nurture. His beginning was blood-spattered and so are the footprints he leaves behind. Did this capacity for violence come from his father? Or was it conditioned in him as grew? How does he justify this? The thing was, he didn't. He never did, never could. He never allowed himself that mercy of justification. This is his game, he will win. He did, every time. Every day, every night, every time he closed his eyes - picturing the very next move, very next part, the next chess piece. This is his game, he will win. And when he closed his eyes he saw him again, that wretched boy with a hole in his head ─ the only one able to get under his skin. Because a quick death was too easy for him, too merciful ─ the reaper came every night to visit with the grotesque scene of the river, of the reddened rock, of the unshakable hand, of the bleeding ground, of the open head, of the wide-popped eyes of a ten-year-old boy. Kaz rarely ever slept.

But that was the price of being a weapon. If you were a hammer all you saw were nails. He'd never think twice before pulling that trigger. That's what made Kaz Alekseev the best. He never seemed to hesitate, never seemed to remember the past when his finger hovered above the trigger. Never seemed to think about what could have been, what would have been. 

THIS:

He would've had golden hair that shimmered in the morning light and eyes that carried ocean waves. His small feet would have run barefoot through his father's farm, skipping around his amused mother who put clothes to dry on the line. The sky would be blue, his smile would be brilliant and the world would be: happy.

Instead, his hair was like an oil spill in the middle of an ocean and his eyes were burning coal in a fireplace. His small feet ran from his handler's enemies (his too in a twisted sense), the black canvas of his mind filling with the image of the hole in his father's head, his brain splattered over their driveway and the thoughts of buying lilies, his mother's favorite flowers to put them at her headstone. The sky is dark, his snarl is feral and the world is: hungry.

VICIOUS; HE WAS A SNAKE IN A RABBIT'S SKIN.

Maybe once, he could have had a future where he wasn't the gun ─ a means to an end. Before his father's blood on his face like war paint, before his mother's mouth opened in a silent scream underwater and swallowed the river ─ her lungs expanding and creating lakes inside her.

It was before Nikolai became his handler. It was before he was told to assassinate Kurt Fortescue. It was before Kurt's then fourteen-year-old daughter had seen it happen. It was before he stood by the sink the next morning, scrubbing the little girl's shirt off blood then bringing her food.

It was before he met Henry Fortescue. And Henry Fortescue is everything an angel shouldn't be: she's brash, she's loud, she's a thief and a liar. She's a felon and she's a girl with a violent temperament. Her knuckles are always black and blue and profanities roll better off her tongue than greetings. She is dark and she shouldn't be an angel, which is why Kaz thinks she was made just for him; just for saving him. But he can't shake off the feeling that he just orphaned this girl. She's his sister and there are no stars in the world that can change that.

But anger will always follow him around. Rage is a quiet thing ─ it is like a subordinate organ of grief. Grief; grief with no sense of navigation, no sense of control. Rotten and burning. Grief, he has learned, is really just love. It's all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.

AND THERE IT IS: RED.

It is the color of grief. It is the color of birth. It is the color of all kinds of self-inflicted wounds. It stains the tendrils of Natasha Romanoff's hair like she has bathed in blood. And nothing pricks him more than the memory of the same hair from his past ─ Where? When? Neither question answered. The way she thrusts her hand inside his chest and crushes his beating organ, twisting it tighter and tighter should be considered arcane sacrilege. Then the only thing keeping him sane, keeping him from skinning his sinned flesh off is ripped away from him like a bird from a dog's teeth.

That hysterical, then lachrymal, then guilt-ridden hour ─ Would you kill someone you love? Would you kill someone for someone you love? How far are you willing to go for love? Love, love love.

my hands have made some good mistakes they can always make better ones

Scarlett Johansson . . . . NATASHA ROMANOFF

I remember. I thrive. I am the Black Widow. And even death cannot take that from me.

Ben Barnes . . . . KAZ ALEKSEEV

I am through being a plaything, a pawn. I was made in a place like this. I will not die here.

John Krasinski . . . . AGENT FORTY

You know the company I keep could get me in so much trouble.

Ana De Armas . . . . NADIA KLEMENTIEV

Dreykov has taken the lives of enough girls. It's time he paid his due.

you are so hateful.

i learned at your feet.

.&&.

Maddie Hasson . . . . HENRY FORTESCUE

Callum Keith Rennie . . . . NIKOLAI KISELYOV

Tao Okamoto . . . . MISCHA

Florence Pugh . . . . YELENA BELOVA

Rina Sawayama . . . . KANAKO

Crystal Reed . . . . KENNEDY KERSHAW

Rebecca Ferguson . . . . MARIANNE DURAN

as described . . . . DECLAN HUNT

Julie Delpy . . . . MADAME B.

Ray Winstone . . . . DREYKOV

you made me this

who else should pay the price

author's note: alright, this is all ben barnes' fault.

━━ if you haven't watched maddie hasson's youtube original series impulse you are missing out on life.

━━ the italicized part in paragraph nine "grief is just love with no place to go" is a quote by jamie anderson

━━ warning! this comes with the usual trigger warning surrounding the mcu series. which follow: death, murder, crime, suicide attempts, child abuse/neglect (referenced or otherwise), mental illness, alcohol-abuse, religious conflict, nightmares and terrible family dynamics.