They expect her to wear black.

She's Black Widow, after all; they say her epitaph and think assassin, and all assassins must obviously wear black. And it's true, she's killed while wearing black. She's killed while wearing slinky black cocktail dresses and she's killed while wearing plain black suits and, once, she killed while wearing black at a funeral.

Mostly, she wears black because that's the office-wear code. Hell if she knows why, it's not like turning up to work is like going to a funeral (although sometimes she does have to work at funerals, but that's a separate issue).

(She wonders, though, when they're going to notice that her catsuits are never actually black. They are blue, they are grey, they are colours that actually blur into shadow.

Which black does not.)

She's a spy before she's a secret agent, and right now she's a secret agent before she's an assassin. But before all of these she is Natasha, and Natasha is not someone who walks through life wearing the black of death, grief, and nine-to-five. She wears purple heels to the office, she wears turquoise blouses under her fitted jacket (although not at once, not as Natasha); she paints red over her lips not because she intends to seduce, but because she's announcing that she's alive.

Clothes are performative; the Red Room taught her that, and she has always been a good student. She separates her personal clothes from the garments that help create her personae, but both wardrobes are created with the same lessons in mind. Her teachers said, clothes are both reflections and projections. Clothes are made up of codes; even the ones chosen purely for comfort, for that in itself is a message. Clothes are a statement, and frankly wearing all black clothing can code one as a waiter or a sales assistant (which admittedly can be useful).

Into her wardrobe go colourful, artistic shoes, and above them hang a-line skirts and dresses made of both solid colours and solid geometric patterns. She has blouses, cardigans, and jackets arranged like an artist's row of paints, and there is black, of course. Black shoes, black pants, black skirts, black jackets, black blouses; she doesn't avoid the colour, she just prefers to counter it with the rest of the rainbow.

She wears pink to her wedding. It's a childish colour, but sometimes it doesn't hurt to be childish and marry your best friend while giggling, even if Elvis is in attendance. It's a bold colour, because no one who's uncomfortable in their own skin would wear it, and it's such a glorious shade of fuck-off pink that she wears her wedding dress to Monaco for the Stark job.