Seera-li

“Come here,” the redhead says, beckoning you over. She pats her lap as she pulls away from the desk to make space for you. You hesitantly make your way over to her. The woman becomes impatient as she pulls you onto her lap herself.

“Natty,” you start but a sharp look from the woman in front of you has you saying, “mistress?” She hums in return as she ducks her head to scatter kisses across the skin of your neck. Your head falls back slightly to give her more space on her canvas.

You swallow harshly when her hand comes up to grope your chest. You don’t know what to say so you remain silent until the redhead glances up at your flustered expression. “There’s no need to be shy,” she mutters against your skin.

Natasha pulls away to stroke your heated cheek. She leans down to press her lips against your timid ones. Her palm comes up to cup the back of your neck bringing you closer to her. The woman has no rush, simply trying to coax you from your shell.

Her hands run down your sides—you let out a giggle—landing on your hips. Natasha untucks your shirt as her hands run up under it to grope at your chest again. She pulls away to grin at you before gently pushing you off her.

You stare at the woman with wide eyes but quickly become flustered at the sight of the toy in her hand. She beckons you over with a mischievous grin. Her hands come up to your hips, swiftly pulling your pants down as you watch her with blazed cheeks.

“Be a good girl and put this on,” she grins handing you the pretty pink vibrator. You gawk at the woman, lips parted as you struggle to say something. Natasha raises a brow at you silently encouraging you to speak—hoping she’ll get to punish you.

“Here?” you ask timidly, glancing around the office where anyone could come in at any moment. She chuckles at your timidness.

“Where else?” That’s all you needed to hesitantly pull your panties down before you’re interrupted, “keep them on,” she says. You swallow harshly at her command but nod.

Once it’s in, you deal with the discomfort for a moment before you jolt forward, almost falling into your mistress’ arms. “Oh!” you let out as Natasha catches you. You can see the remote in her hand as she controls the vibrations that have your eyes rolling to the back of your head.

“Go ahead and kneel for me,” she mutters, pointing to the spot beside her chair. You glance down at the dirty floor before pleadingly glancing up at the woman. “Don’t make me tell you again.”

You have no other choice than to slowly make your way down. The floor is cool against your knees as you stare up at your mistress. She brings a hand down to cup your cheek as she coos at you. “Such a good girl,” she says.

At her praise, you can’t help but buck your hips against the floor, desperate for any sort of friction. “Dirty whore,” she mutters, lightly slapping your cheek. She doesn’t hesitate to bring up the setting on the vibrator, though, reveling in the way you buck against the air.

“Please,” you whine, wanting her to touch you. She tuts at you before turning away from your—as she calls it—pathetic whines. Natasha leaves the high setting on yet ignores your pleas to cum. She knows you will anyway and she’ll take great pleasure in punishing you for it.

When you do cum—without permission—she grins to herself before turning to you with a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Desperate whore just couldn’t help herself, could she?” she mocks. She chuckles at your tears as you apologize profusely.

“Sorry won’t do it now,” she coos but beckons you up. You’re quick to stand as you shuffle on your feet, afraid of whatever punishment was ahead of you. Natasha pulls you closer to her by the back of your neck. “Naughty girls get punished,” she mutters.

She keeps you there close to her as her fingers come up to your mouth. The redhead pushes in two fingers into your mouth resting against your tongue before they make their way down to trigger your gag reflex. Natasha chuckles at that mercilessly fucking your face before she pulls her fingers away with a trail of saliva.

She watches you attempt to regain your breath as she unbuckles her belt. The woman pulls out her strap which you recognize as the biggest one she has. She pays her lap and you’re quick to straddle her. Natasha pushes aside your panties and guides her strap into your glistening cunt.

“Now, you’re gonna stay here and warm my cock while I finish up, and I’ll deal with you when we get home,” she grins. You don’t know what she has up her sleeve but when her knee starts bouncing you know what it is. She knows the effect she has on you as you notice the subtle smirk on her face as she works.

“If you move your punishment will be even worse.”

18+! Minors DNI!

Intro coming soon

The Fairytale Falls Apart

Mama and Mommy took a little more time getting used to each other - caught up in the idea that they were seeing the best and worst of each other laid out so plainly in front of them - but Mama’s soft approach to helping Mommy made the process a lot smoother for both of them. 

You actually didn’t realize that their relationship had developed into something more than just both being your mommies for a while. That was, until one day you woke up from a deep sleep, confused and cold because of the empty bed. 

You padded into the kitchen, Wandabear tucked under your arm and paci in your mouth, following the soft glow of the light over the sink. The pair were leaned against the counter, sharing soft kisses and caresses. It looked like Mommy had been crying, her tired eyes rimmed with red. But you could see a soft smile planted clearly on her face as Mama kissed her nose like she does with you when you’re feeling down. 

The moment was so intimate that you were about to creep back into bed and wait for them to return, but of course with two mind readers they were well aware of your presence. 

Mommy Wanda will sometimes get really moody and frustrated with herself for feeling that way and sometimes will accidentally snap at both of you. The first time this happened, you were immediately taken back to that first time you met her and she was in a crazed fury looking for her children, startled by finding you and Mama instead. 

She’s getting better about her temper. Mama has helped a lot, urging her to use her words and talk the feelings out rather than bottling them up until she snaps. Sometimes she still gets in cloudy moods, but she’s made a lot of progress and is able to get through them a lot easier with you and Mama helping.

Mommy Wanda is very very whipped for both of you, as much as she denies it. 

All three of you have the biggest praise kinks.

Mommy and Mama both get incredibly soft when they’re fucking and the other calls tells them how good they’re doing. And you are just always eager for positive attention from them both <3

They’re both strict with you but in very different ways. 

Mommy is much more likely to let you get away with breaking rules, like sneaking you cookies and letting you stay up past your bedtime. But she is also much more likely to punish you with spankings if you talk back to her. 

“Watch your tone with me, little devil,” is something you hear probably multiple times a day because you kind of can’t help riling Mommy up. 

Mama, on the other hand, is very strict on your daily rules. No dessert before you finish your dinner. Bedtime at 10pm. No throwing a tantrum to get something you want in the store. But if you give her a little sass, she’s usually just going to roll her eyes and let you get your bratty energy out before asking, “Are you done now, baby?” and you just pout at her and nod. 

Mama much prefers corner time as a punishment. Or writing lines. She doesn’t like to do impact play with you (but does rather enjoy the way you squirm as Mommy turns your cheeks red).

Both of them enjoy watching the other fuck you a lot. Mommy is a lot rougher than Mama - who was surprised at how much you loved the hard treatment. You had never expressed to her how you thought about her just using you. Mommy was more than willing to help fulfil those fantasies. 

The three of you always end up taking a big bath together after a tiring play session. You all barely all fit in the tub together - even after Mama got a new one. 

Mommy really loves washing you. It’s therapeutic for her to take care of you like that. 

Bedtime always consists of a lot of cuddles and kisses and sweet words before the three of you drift off to sleep. 

You collapse through your window, a tangle of legs and arms, and sprawl across the carpet.

The ceiling is murky in the dim afternoon light. You can still smell smoke, woven into the fabric of your suit, the twists of your hair.

You don't know how long the two of you lie there, unmoving. Natasha is a dead weight across your bruised ribs. You can smell something else, too: blood in your nostrils, on your tongue.

The sun must go down at some point: it's as if you blink, and the darkness closes in. It wakes you up. When you can no longer see the outline of the couch in the dark, the tunnel-panic clamps hard down on your heart. You grip Natasha by the shoulders and push her with trembling arms until she rolls onto the carpet beside you, and you shove yourself upright, your breath hot against the inside of your mask. You pull it desperately off, fingers catching in your hair, and discard it. You tug at the laces on your boots by the light from the window, trying to calm your heart, to catch your breath. You can still feel the rock against your palms, the soil sneaking down your shirt.

The boots come off and you get to your feet, stumble your way to the light switch. Your pulse staggers on doggedly, faster than you can count. You flick the switch and the room floods with light. You sink against the off-white wall and press your face to the cool, lumpy paint. You don’t dare close your eyes.

Beyond the couch, Natasha is draped over the floor like a dead thing, red ponytail splayed across your carpet. You stay by the wall, your eyes on her, until your heart has slowed and your chest has loosened and your head is firmly on your shoulders.

You move across the room on shaking legs, using the furniture as crutches, towards her. You roll her onto her back, yank up her sleeve and search for a pulse: your fingers leave smears of dirt and blood across her pale wrist. You feel the beat, shallow and weak under your thumb. Good. Good.

Your brain won’t work, neurons firing sluggishly. You have to wake up. You have to assess the situation.

All you really want to do is collapse on the floor next to Natasha and sleep.

But you won’t. You tug your gloves off, wincing as they peel away from your ruined fingernails, and check Natasha’s airway. She’s breathing. You try to think.

You’ve done this before, a hundred times. You’ve stitched yourself up. You’ve dug bullets from skin, you’ve cleared grit from wounds, you’ve done CPR and cracked ice packs and set bones. You can do it.

You hesitate only once more, when your hands move to unzip Natasha’s suit. God, if she ever wakes up, she’s going to be so mad at you. But you take a look at her grey, peaceful face, and worry overtakes embarrassment. You pull the zip down: beneath, her undershirt is ripped and bloodied and dirty with sweat and soil. You peel the suit off her shoulders and down, scanning for wounds - a slice down her upper arm, a huge splay of bruises over her stomach, grazes on her elbows and knees and hips. Little nicks on her legs, seeping blood. Another larger knife wound stretches over her ribs when you roll her onto her side.

And that leg, the one that had been trapped under a rock when you’d first found her: it’s bruised and the knee is bent at an odd angle. Dislocated, perhaps.

She’s battered. You hate it, a deep well of anger that rises like a bucket drawing water the more you uncover. You hate that too, that you care so damn much. She doesn’t care about you. She barely tolerates you - she only ever talked to you to keep you out of trouble. What right do you have to care?

You eventually decide to move Natasha to the bathroom: that’s where your first aid kit is, and the light is bright in there and you have a multitude of fluffy bathmats that you can use to carpet the floor. You hook your hands under Natasha’s arms, brace your legs and pull. You drag her across the carpet, through the kitchen and into the bathroom. You lay her down halfway through the door, and drag the first aid kit and a few bathmats out of the cupboard, laying them haphazardly across the floor. Then you grab Natasha again and haul her in the rest of the way.

You collapse down beside her, your spine to the cold bathtub, knees up, and rest your head on the lip of the bath. You catch your breath. Natasha’s blood seeps into one of your bathmats and you groan, but make no move to shift her. Your energy is spent.

With tired fingers, you tug the first aid kit towards your feet. You unzip it, flip it open. Suture packs and bandages and single-use ice packs stare back at you. This is useless. You can barely lift your head.

But you manage it. It takes you hours. You clean Natasha’s wounds, slather her bruises in arnica, stitch her up, all the while keeping an eye on her sleeping face. She doesn’t so much as twitch, not even when your hand cramps in the middle of a loop through the knife wound on her ribs. Deep sleeper, you think, and you want to slap yourself for noticing anything about her. She’s not your friend.

So why is she unconscious on your bathroom floor? Why did you crawl through a hundred metres of rock to rescue her?

“Fuck you,” you say. Her body doesn’t reply. You don’t want to feel like this, panic sitting perpetually in your throat like a stone lodged there. You shouldn’t have gone. You should have let the Avengers fend for their damn selves, like Natasha was so adamant that they would. You rest your head against the lip of the bath again, and your eyes glaze over. You mustn’t sleep, though: sleep means dark.

The pain reaches you late. Something aside from the grazes and bruises and blood still sitting heavy in your nose. At first you think it’s a remnant of the knot in your throat, of the tide of adrenaline receding slowly and sadly and leaving you on the brink of useless, useless tears as you stare at Natasha’s stone-still face. But it’s not.

It becomes a burn, a sting in your side first, then a flare that becomes impossible to ignore. You unzip your jacket, letting gravity pull your heavy hand downwards.

You’re bleeding. You register this slowly, the soaked and half-dry patch of your dark top, the wetness uncomfortable on your hip. “Ow,” you say, to the empty room. You poke, and the pain intensifies, fades back to ground state. You hiss in through your teeth as you roll your shirt slowly up.

It’s a long gash down your side, the edges of the wound pink and raw like a burn, steadily seeping blood. The gun. The shot. The burst of energy from your eyes. The bullet must have grazed your side, deep. “Ow,” you say, and it drops from your lip as a whimper. With fresh blood on your fingers, you fumble for the first aid kit and drag it towards you, searching one-handed for gauze to soak up the blood. Your shirt keeps slipping down. Frustrated, you pull the shirt up and grab it with your teeth, then press the gauze hard to your side. It hurts, burns, and you grunt through your teeth, tongue against the roof of your mouth. Your eyes flicker sideways to check that Natasha is still sleeping.

The stitches are torturous, dipping in through your ragged skin and drawing the sides of the wound together as you pinch with one hand, your eyes watering and tears spilling onto your cheeks. Your stomach is a mess of blood and water that you’ve splashed on to clean yourself, your pants soaked with it. You swear into your top, damp with saliva. You feel filthy, your nails black with dirt, snot and blood welling in your nostrils. You finish the last knot and think desperately of a shower.

But you should wake Natasha, before she chokes on her own vomit in her sleep or something. You can’t leave her unconscious on your bathroom floor.

You strip your ruined shirt off and tie it around your face, trying to ignore the stink of blood in your nose. You don’t know why you bother to hide at this point, but something about the covering makes you feel safer, surer of yourself. You don’t bother with your hair.

You take Natasha by the shoulders and shake her, once, twice.

“Natasha,” you say, your voice slightly muffled by the shirt. “Natasha!” Louder. Nothing. You grab your phone from where you’ve discarded it on the edge of your bloodied sink and search for an alarm sound: the most annoying, repetitive ring on there. You press play. It rings. And rings.

Natasha’s eyebrows move, shift into a frown. Her eyes open into slits. You don’t turn the alarm off, not yet. The ringing becomes louder, more insistent, and she blinks twice, lips parting, tongue passing over them. Her eyes slide to you, a little unfocused.

“Asshole,” she says, her mouth barely moving.

“Huh?” you say, playing it up.

“Turn that the fuck off.”

“You’re welcome,” you reply sharply, and you cut the alarm off. Natasha says nothing for a few seconds. She licks her lips again, stares glassily up at the ceiling. You wait, ignoring your pounding, anxious, traitor heart.

“It’s bright,” she observes.

“Your knee is dislocated,” you say. “I would’ve put it back, but I didn’t think that would be a pleasant wake-up.” Her eyes shift back to you. You try to ignore them, how brilliantly green they are, how keen and observant even in their half-focused state. Impossible.

“Why are you still wearing that?” she asks. Her voice is rough. Your fingers touch the shirt over your face.

“Who was the kid?” you counter. Natasha sighs. She digs her elbows into the floor and shoves herself up into what looks like a painful sitting position. She notices the blood and water and stitches and bruises and perhaps the fact that she’s in her underwear.

“Oh,” she says. Her fingers drift across the line of stitches over her ribs. You might be imagining it, but you think you see her shudder.

“I have a paramedic certificate,” you say. “And like - a shit ton of experience. I go to a lot of protests as a medic.”

“You shouldn’t have done that while I was asleep,” she says.

“I don’t have any anaesthesia,” you reply, slightly irritated. A thank you would be nice. But Natasha doesn’t thank you. She rises fast, face clenched in pain, flips up your toilet lid and retches into it. Her spine curves, the vertebrae showing starkly under her pale skin. Muscles roll as she convulses again, but you don’t hear the splatter of vomit. She must be dry-heaving - by the look of the bruises on her stomach, that will hurt.

She stills eventually, panting into your toilet bowl. Her hair snakes down her back, the nape of her neck damp with sweat.

“Do you want some water?” you ask.

“No.”

“Okay.” You wipe your hands on your ruined bathmats. “Do you want a shower?”

“Leave me alone,” Natasha says. Her voice echoes in the toilet, but is somehow still incredibly small. You frown at her curved back, heat rushing to your face. How can she make you feel this stupid in your own home?

“Fine,” you say. The bathroom is far too small for two people. Too cramped, too bright, too hot. You get unsteadily to your feet and leave, shutting the door hard behind you. She slumps to the floor with a rustle, and you walk away before you can hear anymore.

You wash off in the sink, your ruined shirt discarded in the kitchen bin. The water lands cold on your feet and you don’t care, can’t bring yourself to care. The world is bright beyond your window, even this late at night, the glitter of street lamps and windows and billboards. Maybe even the orange glow of fire. This is where your effort to become a meaningful part of that world has landed you. Splashing yourself with cold water in the kitchen sink, banished from your own bathroom and bleeding like an idiot.

You turn the tap off and pat yourself dry with a tea towel that ends up in the bin as well, smeared with blood. You fetch a towel from your room, lay it over the couch and lower yourself gingerly onto it, rest your head back. The room is well lit, warm now. You won’t sleep. You want to, but you know it won’t come. You probably won’t sleep easy for the next week.

Inevitably, as you gaze out of the window from your seat, your thoughts return to the idiot woman hacking up blood and nothing in your bathroom. You can’t hear her, so she’s not showering, not throwing up. You have a sudden awful vision of her lying passed out on the blood-soaked bathmats, frothing red at the mouth, and you have to stop yourself from getting up to check on her.

You sit there as the sun comes up. Natasha doesn’t come out, even as the hours drip past, and eventually you make up your mind to talk to her. You pull your mask back on, grimacing at the dried blood and smell of sweat in it, and you walk to the bathroom door on unsteady legs.

“Natasha?” you say, tentatively. No answer.

Then, just as you’re about to call again; “Yeah,” she says, from within the bathroom. You hesitate, trawling for what to say next.

“You can have a shower if you want.”

“You can come in if you want,” she replies dryly. You take that as an invitation and open the door to find her sitting with her back to the wall, head tipped back. Her face is still ashen. You expect her to say something, an apology maybe, but instead she sits there with her damn wounded pride and stares you down.

“Nice mask,” she says. You seriously consider kicking her out at that moment, but the feeling fades just as quickly as it comes on. Because her eyes drop almost shamefully and her fists curl in her lap. It’s not an apology, not a thank you, nowhere near to anything you’d accept for either of those things, but for some fucking reason you can read those movements like words on a page and it softens your resolve to be harsh with her.

“Shower,” you say shortly. “You stink.”

“You stink,” she fires back at you. You turn and leave again before you can snap at her.

You hear the shower switch on as you’re eating an apple and glaring aimlessly through the kitchen window. Natasha doesn’t shower for very long. You’re only halfway through your apple when you hear the water shut off again. You stay where you are, hear her climb out of the bathtub, feet squeaking on the ceramic.

She calls your name. You take a large bite of the apple and toss it into the trash can. You take your time walking to the bathroom, and when you open the door she’s wrapped herself in the shower curtain and is scowling up at you from her seat on the edge of the bathtub.

“What?” you say, your voice faltering from the anger you’d meant to inject. Her eyes are large and her lashes are wet and her bare, pale shoulders are scattered with freckles and small wounds and you rip your eyes away from her.

“I didn’t want to use your towel,” she says. She shifts, and the curtain rustles around her.

You roll your eyes and turn to leave. You pull a towel from the hall cupboard and throw it through the door at her: she catches it before it hits her face, with a wince.

She clutches it to her chest and you raise your eyebrows at her.

“Anything else, your majesty?”

“Why are you so angry with me?” Natasha asks, and that heat, that hatred with yourself that you’ve lain your thoughts out before her, rises again from your stomach.

“You-” you say, but your throat is thick with emotion now and you know you can’t explain it.

Natasha tilts her head at you. “I didn’t ask you to do any of this,” she says.

“What?” you exclaim. “Are you serious?!”

“I told you to leave,” she fires back. “It’s not my fault you’ve got a hero complex like all the rest of them-”

“Hero complex?” you spit. “You’re the one who ran alone into an explosion to save a baby! Let me have this, you said that! Hero complex my fucking ass.” Natasha opens her mouth again and you step back and slam the door on her, your heart trembling in your chest with rage.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

She doesn’t emerge from the bathroom after that until you swallow as much of your pride as you can and hand her sweats and a t-shirt without looking her in the eye. You feel like she’s trying to catch you off guard, constantly now, and you half expect her to drop her towel or something just to shock you, make fun of you. But she doesn’t. She takes the clothes and waits until you’ve left, and then she wanders out of the bathroom in her borrowed clothes, limping on her bad knee. You look over at her from the couch, where you’re spooning cereal into your mouth under your mask.

You frown. “Your knee,” you say before you can stop yourself. She looks surprised like she expects you to snap at her again.

“I put it back,” she replies, with a shrug. Like it’s nothing. You gape at her for a second, then pull yourself together when you realise she can’t see your expression.

Shower. Dress. You’re still practically half-naked and you’re cold now, and you suddenly don’t want to be the only one undressed. You set your cereal down and move past her to the bathroom.

“Ice in the freezer,” you say, and you shut the door behind you. You pull the mask off and wipe with relief at the condensation on your face.

The shower is glorious, warm, and the pressure harsh on your shoulders. It’s freezing at first, which makes you jump and curse - Natasha must have taken her shower cold. You spend as long as you dare under the spray, ever conscious of running up your water bill for no real reason. When you step out, you see that Natasha has left her towel folded on the window sill. Her ruined suit is nowhere to be seen until you pedal open the bin and you see the suit, the ruined bathmats and a length of bloodied bandage.

“Huh,” you say to yourself, quietly, without meaning to. You pull on a jumper that won’t rub your stitches and loose shorts, and you step out of the bathroom. The steam follows you out like a cloud. Natasha is slumped in your armchair with your frozen bag of peas on her knee, the early morning sunlight glowing across her face. Her eyes are closed.

You pull open your fridge and reach for a beer.

“I feel like it’s a bad idea to drink right now,” she says.

You look over. She still hasn’t opened her eyes. “Shut up,” you say. You flick the cap off on your counter and drink deeply.

Natasha shifts in her seat, to face you. That’s when you realise you forgot to put your mask back on. You freeze. Your stomach lurches.

Natasha stares at you for a second too long, her mouth moving like she’d been about to say something. Then her eyes flick away, almost guiltily. In the silence that follows, you both try hard not to acknowledge it. But your face feels cold and bare, under the stare that lingers even as Natasha sets her eyes firmly on the arm of the couch.

Your heart thunders like a drum.

“Thank you,” Natasha says, almost too quiet to hear.

“What?” you say, shock reflexes taking over even as the words register. Natasha looks at you again, eyes narrowed, like she thinks you’re messing with her. And sure. It would be easier to mess with her, draw it out of her again and again and revel in your victory but-

-you don’t want to. You don’t even know what she’s thanking you for: some idiot, pretentious part of you could imagine she’s thanking you for the honour of seeing your face - as if she ever would. Maybe the stitches, the clothes, the shower, maybe she’s thanking you for dragging her out of that hot, damp hell-hole on trembling legs.

“You’re welcome,” you say, and you take a long sip so you don’t have to see her face change.

More silence, thick as a wall between the two of you. You don’t want to think of her shaking and trembling against you, how determined you’d felt right then in the dark, but the images come anyway.

“What happened to you?” she asks, and she nods at your side, where the deep graze and the stitches are. You look down. You remember all the questions you have for her, that’s she’s so adamant not to answer.

“Bullet,” you say. “Grazed me. Some idiot in a hood.”

“You don’t know who it was?”

“I was a little too preoccupied to ID them,” you reply, a bite in your voice. You’re not angry. You’re just thinking real hard about how heavy Natasha had felt against you. Like a corpse. You tilt your head at her. “They wanted to know where that baby was. You feel like filling me in?”

Her face closes off. “No,” she says.

“Right. So I got shot for nothing.”

“Did you blast them?” Natasha asks, ignoring your comment.

“They’re dead,” you reply, dully. You look at the floor. She’s fallen silent. “I didn’t mean to, I just-”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

You can’t look at her. “Hawkeye will have found them by now.” She rustles the bag of peas, rearranges them. “What did they want with the kid, Natasha?” Now that she can hear you, is awake and looking you right in the eye, or attempting to, her name feels naked coming from your mouth. Raw and too personal.

“Doesn’t concern you,” she says.

“It does,” you say. You wait for anger, but your body’s too tired for it. “Please just tell me what’s going on.”

She shifts again, and pain materialises on her face with the movement, for just a second. You rest a hand on the countertop and wait it out.

“Fine,” she says eventually. “Sit down. You’re dead on your feet.” That irks you, for a reason you can’t decode.

“I’m fine.”

“Sit down.”

“Jesus Christ.” You move to the couch and throw yourself down, glaring at her. “Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” she says dryly. She molds the bag of peas to her knee and begins to explain.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

She falls asleep on the armchair to let you digest what the hell you’ve just heard, and the sun comes up through the window like a torchbeam. You call into work at eight, holding your nose closed, and tell your manager you have a shitty cold. He answers with a grunt and hangs up. Easy enough. You toss the phone onto the cushions beside you.

The silence coating your apartment seems to buffer the noise of the outside world, of car horns and voices. Natasha sleeps fitfully, half-woken every few minutes by the sunlight on her face, but you’re too exhausted to get up and close the curtains. You finish your bottle and set it down on the coffee table, where it sweats condensation.

You don’t know when you fall asleep, but you wake with your heart in your mouth and your hands fisted in the couch cushions. You suck in breaths through trembling jaws. Visions of tight tunnels and blood under your nails and Natasha’s ashen face fade as you blink them away.

The armchair is empty when you come to your senses. Something overcomes you: a wave of disappointment maybe, or regret - and then you hear the toilet flush and you feel monumentally stupid. You’d missed her for a second there. What right did you have to miss her? Why should she make you feel that way?

Natasha emerges from the bathroom, drying her hands. “It’s midday,” she tells you, and your heart lurches in shock. “You don’t sleep very well.” She leans a hip on the kitchen counter and pushes a hand through her hair, observing you through quarter-closed eyes.

“Neither do you,” you say. Her eyes narrow. “Can you get me a drink?”

She turns away, turns on the sink faucet and fills a glass with water. She rounds the edge of the counter and hands it to you.

“You know what I meant,” you say, but you take it anyway.

“You’ll get a beer belly,” she says, her voice flat. She must be tired if she’s too exhausted to tease you properly. You pull your sweatshirt up and poke at the muscle on your stomach.

“I think I’m okay,” you say. You raise your head to take a sip of water and Natasha’s eyes move from your stomach to your face. She looks awkward standing there: and that’s not a word you’d ever think to use to describe Black Widow. But she doesn’t look like Black Widow right now - she looks like a woman barely scraping five foot six in a t-shirt way too big for her, and the sun is turning her hair copper-gold through the window. She looks normal.

“Stop staring at me,” she says.

“You first.”

She breaks the eye contact.

“What are-” you don’t know what you intended to ask. You stare down at your water and collect your thoughts. “Do they know where you are?” you say eventually.

She raises one eyebrow at you. Your heart does awful, traitorous things in your chest and you hold her gaze for as long as you can. “You mean the Avengers? I don’t let them track me.”

“Okay,” you say. “You know, you can sit down if you want.” Your stomach growls. The corner of her mouth twitches up. “I’m hungry,” you say. “Sue me.”

“So eat.”

“Too tired.”

“God, you are pathetic.”

That should piss you off. It doesn’t. You give her a lazy grin and secretly wonder to yourself how the hell all this happened to you.

Natasha smooths down a loose thread on the seam of her (your) sweatpants. They’re rolled up twice at the waist. “Thank you,” she says. “For coming back for me.”

“Choose a better way to die next time,” you say, instead of something nice or gracious or meaningful.

Natasha sighs. “I don’t know why I bother with you,” she says, sinking onto the arm of the couch, above you.

“I’m irresistible.”

“You’re an idiot.”

You think about calling for pizza, a half-smile on your face. You wipe it off quickly, but not before she sees.

“I wouldn’t have left you there,” you say. Her eyes drift away. Makes you think about who else left her behind before. You don’t think promises mean much to her: they’re only words. Like threats. Blackmail. You don’t think words get under her skin as much as they do yours. “Swear.”

“I know.” She looks down at her hands. “I tried to stay awake. I thought you weren’t coming, in the end.”

You have this stupid, terrible urge to reach out and take her by the hand and tell her - what? What would you tell her that would mean anything?

It doesn’t subside. The moment passes. You slump into the couch.

“You know, you didn’t have to hide your face,” Natasha says. “When we got back.” She’s stumbling over words.

“Yeah, you already knew what I looked like,” you reply. You shrug. “It just felt better, having it on.”

“I didn’t know what you looked like. You know, you’re not too bad at the whole secret identity thing.”

You frown. “Then how did you find me the first time?”

“I followed you,” Natasha says casually. “You were bleeding everywhere. You weren’t moving very fast. I guessed which apartment was yours.”

“You guessed?” you echo. You imagine Natasha turning up in Nadia Henstridge’s apartment next door: the woman is verging on ninety - seeing Natasha in her boots and leather jacket sitting in the dark would probably send her headfirst into a heart attack.

Natasha grins. “I’m a very good guesser.”

“Sure,” you say. More silence: you hate the silence. You don’t want to hear your own heartbeat, or Natasha’s breathing. “The mask made me feel safer,” you say. I didn’t want you to be disappointed, you don’t say.

Natasha looks down at you. She reaches out and touches your cheek, softly with the pads of her fingers. You stare at her, your heart in your ears, drowning out everything. “You look better without it,” she says.

You want to kiss her. You realise that, what that stupid, burning heat in your chest is. Once you’ve found that urge, you can’t stop thinking about it, even as she withdraws her hand and looks away.

Do something, you scream at yourself. All this inward thinking is driving you insane. Say something.

You reach for her hand, and you intend to tug her round to look at you, but you pull too hard and she overbalances, sliding off the arm of the couch and onto the seat beside you with a surprised yelp.

“What the hell?” Natasha exclaims. Her bright green eyes are narrowed, cheeks flushed - God, she looks incredible.

“Um,” you say. You can’t do it. You can’t do it.

“Um,” Natasha says, mocking you, and she slides a hand into your hair and pulls you in to kiss her.

It’s easier than you’d thought it would be. Her face fits right to yours. Her lips are warm. You can feel where it’s split, taste the blood. You kiss her back, one hand wrapped around hers, one settled on her knee. Your chest tightens, loosens, excitement firing like sparks in your brain.

She pulls away from you. You take a second to open your eyes.

“Idiot,” she says. You frown at her. “I’m gonna kiss you again,” she says. You make an agreeable noise and she pulls you in, hand on the back of your neck. She steals your breath. She kisses your bottom lip, the corner of your mouth, and your fist curls in the fabric of your sweatpants.

The two of you surface, still centimetres apart, and you suck in a breath. “Thank you for coming back for me,” she says, against your mouth. Her hand loosens in yours.

“Always,” you say.

“You have really nice abs.”

You laugh, a crazed little giggle. She grins at you. You kiss her again, mouths half-open, smiles half-formed.

The next time you pull apart, she runs her thumb down the column of your throat.

“I’m still hungry,” you say, to distract yourself from the feel of her skin on yours.

“I’ll buy you pizza,” Natasha says.

“To thank me for saving your life.”

“No, this is to thank you for saving my life.” She tilts her head sideways and kisses your neck, and a gasp of surprise falls from your open mouth. She laughs, sending vibrations through your skin, into your bones.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

She orders pepperoni. You accuse her of playing it safe and she swats you with a pillow, and the two of you eat out on the fire escape and watch the day roll past. You rest your head on her shoulder.

“This is fucking good,” Natasha mumbles around a mouthful. She wipes her fingers on the pizza box and reaches for another slice. She crams half of it into her mouth at once.

“You eat a lot for such a small person,” you observe. Natasha throws you a playful look of disgust.

“You’re like, an inch taller than me.”

“An inch can make all the difference,” you joke. She slaps your shoulder halfheartedly. A truck horn goes off in the distance. There are three wisps of cloud in the sky, and the metal of the fire escape is warm beneath you. Natasha’s clean hand winds its way into yours.

“I like you a lot,” she admits, quiet. Your heart swells instantly.

“I like you too,” you say. You squeeze her hand. Silence, once again. You know what you’re both thinking. Natasha words it first.

“They’ll be looking for me,” she says.

“I know. You should go.”

She sighs, and her breath ruffles your hair. “I will. I don’t want them coming after you.”

“I thought you said you don’t let them track you,” you say. A little, helpless worm of fear squirms into your words. You try to squash it.

“Hawkeye can find me,” Natasha says. “If he tries really hard.” She snorts to herself.

“Where will you go?” you ask. “I’ll give you some shoes.”

“Manhattan,” Natasha says, almost dismally. “I’ll come back, though.” She looks at you. She presses her face to your hair. “Promise.” You smile at the sun, eyes half-shut. You hope she catches it.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

You lend her sneakers and help her into a coat and you swallow jealousy when you open the door for her. They have her all the time, see her smile and hear her talk: why don’t you get a little more time?

You kiss her hard, so she’ll remember, so she will come back, even though you know she will. Her hands curl into your shirt, and she grins against your mouth. When you separate, she licks her lips.

“I wanted a good one,” you say. She tugs on a lock of your hair.

“I’ll come back for you,” she says, in earnest.

“I believe you.”

And you watch her walk away, until she’s all the way out of sight down the corridor.

requests | masterlist

taglist: @when-wolves-howl @fayhar  @maggieromanov  @transbi-spidey @romanoffscottage @blackxwidowsxwife @lizli @screechcat @maddess @mellxa @haeva @diaryoflife @natashasilverfox @vicmc624 @strangegardentaco @phantomvael @lorsstar1st  @rysnwilder  @ima-gi--na-tion @paryl @picnicmic   @smallestavenger @lainjupi   @d1s0nym @simpforflorencepugh1 @the-v01d @kqmui @s1ut4nat @btay3115 @emril-osvigne

You hear Natalia switch the shower on, the water thundering through the pipes, and you slip out of bed and pad down the corridor to the bathroom. Still no lock on the door: you push it open with your fingertips and inhale the steam that billows out. You step in and shut the door with a click behind you: Natalia’s shadow twists in the shower.

“Hey,” she says, from behind the half-drawn shower curtain. “You scared me.”

You pull your clothes off, let them crumple in a pile next to hers, and tie your hair back.

“I’m not scary,” you say. You lift a leg over the lip of the bath and step into the spray: it’s hot and forceful. Natalia reaches for you, grabs your elbows and pulls you closer. She kisses you, her face warm and wet. Her hair is soaked down, soap bubbles drifting off her shoulders - you reach out and smooth them away with your palm.

“No,” she says. She runs her fingers over your eyebrows, dripping water into your eyes.  “You’re not. You’re cute.”

You pull an awful face at her, but you don’t draw away. Eventually, she smiles at you, kisses you again with that smile still on her face.

“Want me to wash your hair?” she asks, palms flat against your sternum. 

“Yes,” you say. You push your forehead against the strong bridge of her nose. She presses her lips to the space between your eyebrows. “Let me sit down. It’s early.” She laughs.

“Okay.” She presses lightly on your shoulders and you go willingly, sinking to the floor of the bathtub. You trace her thighs with your fingers as you drop, and then you twist so your back is to her, your knees up to your chest. The spray of water is rapidly wetting your hair. Natalia tugs it gently out of its hair tie and digs her fingers into it, sorting through the snarls and knots. Then she sits behind you, lays her legs out alongside yours, and starts the wash.

Her hands are strong and steady, lulling you back into a steady doze. You lay against her chest, allowing her to enclose you, less like a cage and more like a shield against the wide white wall behind the two of you.

Each cycle of the wash is gentle and thorough. You must sit there for at least an hour, but she doesn’t complain of wasting the day or sitting in discomfort in half an inch of warm water. This intimacy is strange, close and naked but not sexual, easy in a way that makes you want to sink into her, crack her open and climb inside. You grip her legs to ground yourself from those images.

Natalia’s hands paused in your hair. “You good?” she asks. The spray beats down on your shoulders

“Good,” you say. You squeeze her knees playfully and in retaliation, she smears bubbles over your cheeks.

“Idiot,” she says, affectionately. You lay your head back on her shoulder and she grins down at you.

“You’re dripping soap in my eye,” you say, blinking rapidly. Your eye begins to burn.

“Oh, God,” Natalia says, sticking her hands into the shower stream quickly to rinse them off. “Sorry, sorry-” She cups her palms and splashes water over your face, too much, and it goes spilling into your mouth and up your nostrils. You splutter, scrambling up into a sitting position and scrubbing at your face. Behind you, Natalia begins to giggle in between her apologies. You twist and spit a stream of water in her face.

When the two of you step out, washed and scrubbed pink and breathing hard from your little water fight, Natalia grabs her towel. You tug it out of her hands. She raises her eyebrows at you quizzically.

The words almost stick in your throat. “Let me,” you say. Natalia hesitates - hesitates like she never does - and you grip the towel, so fearful of her withdrawal.

“Okay,” she says. You nod.

You dry her, feet first, then shins and strong calves and thighs, and as you progress, she watches you carefully. Observes you like she’s learning. You dry her stomach, her ribs, her spine, pausing to touch the rise of muscle beneath her skin. You keep your touch deliberately gentle. Her shoulders lose their tension when you wipe the water from her collarbones.

“Done,” you say, and you fold the towel over the rail and step away. She’s watching you still, hands in fists by her side. She seems to shiver, and you crouch to pick up her fresh clothes and offer them to her. She takes them, but doesn’t put them on, rather holds them out in front of her as if she’s afraid they contain a spider or a venomous snake. “Nata,” you say. Her eyes are wet. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” she says faintly. “I-” she cuts off her words and stares down quickly at her feet. “Nothing’s wrong. That was sweet. That’s all.”

Those words break your odd little trance, shrugging off the moment like a gossamer layer. You grab your t-shirt and pull it on over your head, your hair dampening the collar.

“Do you want cereal?” you ask, moving past her out of the bathroom door. 

It seems an age before she answers. “Yes,” she replies, her voice soft, frail like an icicle.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● 

You fix her cereal for her and by the time she’s dressed and wandered through the door of the kitchen, your hair has dried in tangles down your back. She surveys it instead of your face.

“Do you want me to braid it?” she asks, without making eye contact. You shove her bowl towards her and she sinks into a chair, receiving it with both hands. “You remember? We used to braid-”

“I remember,” you say. “I remember most of it.” That’s not at all true. You remember gentle fingers in your hair, your own hands fumbling through soft red and black and blonde locks. You also remember the snap of a neck in your hands, the dead stare of a little girl with her hair still in braids, fresh from the night before. And you remember pain and pain and pain.

Natalia lifts her spoon to her mouth.

You chew meditatively on your toast. You want her legs around your hips again, your head on her shoulder. You want to lie against her, within her, forever. “I’d like that,” you say. 

She smiles at you, relief dawning on her face.

She sits you down on the floor in the living room and switches the TV on. The punch bag is laid underneath the window like a sedan. Then she sits behind you, knees around your shoulders with a comb and a hairbrush and bends your hair to her will.

Natalia is gentle with you: always gentle. She pulls knots apart with her fingers, brushes your temple with her knuckles. 

“I remember this,” you tell her, and her hands still in the half-done braid. The TV twitters on. “This was one of the good memories.”

“One of the only ones,” she says softly. She carries on, twists and turns, locking your hair into itself. “You really remember this?”

“Only the concept,” you say. That at least is true: the braids are your memory, not the hands that made them, not the faces they framed.

“I braided your hair,” Natalia says, after a long pause. Far too casual. “You wouldn’t let anyone else touch it. Except for Kira.”

“Except for Kira,” you echo. You don’t remember Kira. You don’t want to ask: some sickening part of you imagines broken bones and blood in the snow. Natalia finishes the plait and gathers up the rest of your hair.

She pauses.

She tugs lightly on your hair and you tip your head back obediently, until your crown is in her lap and she’s staring down at you. Your neck stretches and strains.

Natalia leans down and kisses you, a touch more like a steal. You reach as far as you can to kiss her again, but she withdraws and pushes your head back up.

Her fingers card gently through your remaining hair, gathering three strands. “You don’t have to remember if you don’t want to,” she says quietly. “God knows I’d rather be ignorant.”

“I’m not ignorant,” you reply. You watch the TV move and flicker with dazed eyes. “I remember the pain. I remember that I don’t want to go back. Anymore.” You’ve dragged yourself from the mud: no, she did. She rescued you.

“I know,” Natalia says. She strokes your cheek with her thumb and you lean into her touch. “I’m grateful for you.”

requests | masterlist

taglist: @when-wolves-howl @fayhar @maggieromanov @transbi-spidey @romanoffscottage @blackxwidowsxwife @lizlil @screechcat @maddess @mellxa @haeva @diaryoflife @natashasilverfox @vicmc624 @strangegardentaco @phantomvael @lorsstar1st @rysnwilder @ima-gi–na-tion @paryl @picnicmic  @smallestavenger @lainjupi   @d1s0nym @simpforflorencepugh1 @the-v01d @kqmui @s1ut4nat @btay3115

An easy smile came to you as Natasha entertained Nathaniel, the youngest of Clint's kids. Laura was making dinner with Clint by her side as moral support, mostly.

You observed from the couch. Laura dropped the vegetables in the pan as Clint rounded her with a steady hand on her waist and a kiss on her cheek, attending to his daughter's call about the TV that seemed to be acting up. And Natasha, she had a beautiful smile on as she tickled the smallest kid, his laughter mixing with her own.

The sight of your girlfriend made your heart drum in your ears. It's been two years, and yet, every time she glanced your way with that much adoration, it felt like you were back in that first week. Maybe that's what love is all about, no matter how long it passes, the giddiness of being loved by the person that holds your heart never goes away.

You glanced down at your hands, picking at your fingers. You could see yourself living a life like this, a peaceful one. With a farmhouse in a beautiful country side, you would happily indulge and you knew Natasha would as well. Except, not with children.

The thought has been on your mind for a while. You never wished for kids and you knew you never would. Since you were young you already knew that about yourself and it was not something you wanted to change.

Moving your eyes back up, you were met with Nat's gaze searching for yours in a silent question. You gave her a smile and lightly shook your head. You never talked about having kids with her, even if you noticed how much she liked Clint's kids. You wondered if it was something she wanted for herself.

You took a deep breath, feeling a small weight of anxiousness drop at your stomach. The last thing you wanted was to hold her back. Natasha deserved the world, and you often caught yourself wondering if you were enough to give it to her.

"Dinner's ready everyone." Laura called out and everyone rushed to the table. You were the last one to sit down and the last one to leave, remaining mostly quiet through the meal. Your thoughts were loud tonight. You did feel Natasha's eyes on you.

You went up to the guest room not long after, taking a shower and preparing yourself for a good night of sleep. Natasha was sitting on the bed when you came out of the shower, her towel and pajamas laying beside her.

She extended her hands out to you, making your body gravitate towards her. She closed her arms around your waist when you walked up to her.

You ran your fingers through her red hair, it was getting longer, starting to go way past her shoulders. Your lips tilted up in a lovesick smile.

She looked up at you from her sitting position, her chin resting on your stomach. "Are you okay? You've been quiet tonight."

You paused for a second, your hand coming to her cheek. You dismissed her worry with a smile. "I'm alright, love." You leaned down to kiss her forehead. "Now take a shower and come to bed, I want cuddles."

Natasha chuckled with your words, she got up and her hands never left your waist. She kissed your lips before gathering her things and going to the bathroom.

________

Every morning that you woke up with Natasha's arms around you felt like a dream. To be able to see her green eyes glistening in the early sunlight, her hair taking in vivid tones of orange, and her sleepy voice mumbling a good morning. To you, it was a dream.

Every morning you pulled her body impossibly closer to yours, kissing her collarbone and telling her how much you loved her as your lips grazed her skin. Because Natasha deserved nothing less.

You walked down the stairs to eat breakfast, your hand loosely holding hers. The windows were open and there was a chilly breeze coming through, making the leaves rustle outside. You could barely hear birds singing in the distance amidst the voices of the kids talking amongst themselves.

After breakfast, Lila decided she wanted to show you and Natasha a bird's nest that recently hatched its eggs. You watched amusedly as Natasha entertained the young girl's excitement, as well as returned the hug Nathaniel gave to her legs when you came back from the forest.

By lunch, the nagging thought at the back of your mind came back. And you were careless enough to let your distress show on your face, or maybe Natasha came to know you too well.

You walked inside the house to grab the rice that Laura had prepared earlier, everyone was outside enjoying the sun as Clint grilled up some steaks. You made your way to the kitchen, but a firm hand on your waist pulled you aside to one of the not-so-used corridors.

Natasha had you pinned against the wall, one of her hands resting on the wall beside your head, blocking your way out. You gulped when you saw that her eyes held no malice.

"Be honest with me, детка. Are you okay?" Her words were soft-spoken, and her eyes were searching your face in worry.

A breath left your lips and you looked down. Your hands loosely tugged at the ends of Nat's shirt to keep yourself busy. "I've just- I've been thinking about something."

You felt Natasha gently tracing your jaw with her other hand. "You can talk to me, if you want to."

You bit your lip, much to your dismay you could feel the distant sting of tears in your eyes. "I- do you want kids, Nat?" You breathed out, grimacing at the terrible way you voiced your thoughts.

Closing your eyes, you shook your head urging yourself to focus a little. "I mean, I see how much you like Clint's kids. And I can't help but wonder if that's something you want?"

You panicked when she didn't answer you right away, your mouth opening and closing. She was frowning at your words and that didn't look good. "It's just that, I don't think I can… Give that to you." Your voice became quieter, your hands were now clutching at her shirt.

"I'm sorry." You whispered to her. Natasha opened her mouth to answer you, but you talked first. "I never saw myself with kids but, I don't- I don't want to hold you back Nat. I won't be upset if you don't want to be with me anymore I-"

Natasha cut off your rambling when both her hands cupped your cheeks, her thumbs brushed away the stray tears you didn't notice had started to fall. "моя любовь, breathe." She whispered, her forehead coming to rest against yours.

You let out a trembled breath. Maybe this was bothering you more than you realized. Your hands held onto her waist more gently, pulling her closer to you.

Once Natasha felt that you had calmed down, she pulled away only to look into your eyes. "I do like them, Y/N. But that doesn't mean I want kids of my own."

Her hand brushed against your cheek tenderly, she gave a quick peck on your lips before continuing. "детка, you will always be the only family I'll ever need. If it's just you and me, that's more than enough."

Nat smiled adoringly at you, successfully melting your heart. "I don't need anyone else if I have you."

Natasha's words took your breath away, along with your ability to speak. You pulled her to you with a strong grip, pressing your lips to hers in a passionate kiss. Her hand came to the back of your head and tangled into your hair, as your tongue gently grazed her bottom lip.

Your lips moved in synch until the lack of air was too much to bear. "I love you. So much." You breathed out against her mouth, refusing to move away from her more than necessary. You felt her huge smile against you.

"The steak is gonna burn and I still don't see the rice anywhere." Clint shouted from outside, making you both giggle.

"I'm coming." You called out to him, biting your lip as you interlocked your fingers with Natasha's and pulled her towards the kitchen and then outside.

Natasha too would always be the only family you'd ever need.

—⧗—

Thank you for reading this little story. Feedback and reblogs are very much appreciated. <3

Nat’s taglist: @theperfectlovestory @blackwidowismylove

First Love / A Late Spring