#!fic

a/n: i think i remember how to do this. cheers.

Natasha Romanoff is grumpy when you meet her (and sporting a week’s worth of insomnia under her eyes and wearing a tee that’s a little too tight, too, but as appealing as both of those are neither endears you as much as her furrowed brow and little frown).

Two weeks later you’re on recon with her, some assignment dropped into your lap an hour before wheels were expected to be up.

“You’re going into the field, rookie,” Stark told you, and, “Romanoff will babysit you, but if you’re as good as your resume claims you shouldn’t need her.”

Recon only. No engagement unless necessary.

The two of you post up in a slimy cave high in the mountains, half a mile above the entrance to a long forgotten mine that may or may not be the newest hideout of one of Stark’s most-wanted. It’s a stupid assignment, Stark could have sent drones, but you reckon he just wants to see how well you do with bullshit assignments, last minute takeoffs, and taking orders.

“Could be fun,” Natasha says, dangling a flask in front of your face.

“Is this a test?”

She smiles.

An hour later you’re tipsy and breaking a protein bar in half to split for dinner.

“I know this is bullshit,” she says, and to her credit she does sound apologetic, “but Tony likes to test people. He wants to see you prove yourself, you know, make it known that you’re as competent as you are on paper.”

You can’t say that’s not fair. This is, after all, no nine-to-five, but, “How am I supposed to prove myself when there’s fuck-all to do?”

Natasha laughs.

An hour later Natasha’s her own stoic version of piss drunk, you’re far worse off, and you’re staring at each other with a vigor that would scare the hell out of you even if she weren’t your immediate supervisor.

But you’ve always liked fear.

You make the first move: you crawl onto her lap, sink down against toned thighs, and tuck in. Her lips are warm, softer than you’re used to, and she doesn’t protest. She licks into your mouth and clamps her hands around your thighs and though you’ve never crossed a boundary like this before, you can’t see yourself ever going back.

Natasha makes the first move next time.

When she asks you out for drinks the week after you return you assume the address she sends you will be a bar.

It’s her apartment.

Bold.

She answers the door in black fatigues and a tank top and takes you right to her bedroom, sinks down on the edge of the California king, and puts you on her lap. She likes you there, where she can reach all of you, where your chest presses up against hers, and your mouth is right there for the taking. She’s gentle until you push your hands through her hair and tell her, “You don’t have to be so nice, you know.”

She’s never gentle after that.

She likes throwing you around, and likes that you can take it, knows it makes your heart flutter and your cheeks flush when she reminds you time and again how much stronger than you she is. On your back is how she likes you best, with your legs spread open and your knees pushed back as close to your chest as they’ll go.

Sometimes she’ll clamp a hand around your throat and dig her nails into the soft skin beneath your jaw until you can’t breath and you’re clawing at her arm and your vision’s starting to go. Sometimes she won’t let go at all, not until you slip away and your body slackens and she’s left fucking a fake cock into your helpless cunt.

You don’t know what she does to you when you’re out cold until she starts to film it.

Filthy fucking videos, those are, full of her laughter and your inability to protest while she does things like stuff her fist into your sloppy hole or perform a full pelvic exam wherein she dons rubber gloves and leaves you gaping around a speculum far longer than any licensed practitioner ever would.

“Look at you,” she’ll say later after she slaps you back to consciousness and queues up her newest video, “you’re so easy to break.”

It’s easier when you come back to with your mouth empty; when she brings you back and you’ve still got your own panties stuffed into your mouth she never lets you pull them out to catch your breath until she’s had her fun holding you down while you struggle to regain your hold on the world.

Sometimes you wake back up on your own while she’s in the middle of things. You either love or hate those times the most, but you’re never sure which.

“...doesn’t matter if you don’t want it,” she’s saying this time, and she’s blurry above you (and there are three of her and three sets of nails carving jagged red lines down your torso, but you know there will only be one of each in a minute or two), “gonna fuck your whore pussy anyway and you’re going—to—take—it.”

“—Nat—”

“Look who’s awake.”

You can hear the smirk in her voice, can see the bright white glare of her cell camera, and you’re sure you look like hell and that she’s going to give you shit for that later, but that’s the least of your worries.

“Stark should fire you,” she says. “Maybe he will once he finds out you’ve been getting your stupid hole stuffed on camera for months. Or maybe he’d like your little videos. Maybe he’d even want a turn with you, huh? Would you like that?”

No, but only because by her rules you're not allowed to think about anyone else like that.

But you can't say that, not unless you want her to go and make it happen. You learned long ago that Natasha Romanoff is nothing if not genuine in her threats.

“Maybe I would,” you say, low and hoarse, and it almost sounds like a growl.

She finds a pressure point and digs in, and, “Don’t you dare fucking lie to me,” she says, and you’re out again.

The next morning you wake up to the sun cutting through the window and warming your bare back, waking with you the memories of the night before and bringing it all to a boil in your belly. You want to relive them. You want her to fuck you again, to stuff you full and flood you with desperation and desire.

She pulls the sheets from your body and flips you onto your back, coasting a hand up your shin as she settles at the foot of the bed.

“Show me your pussy,” she says, soft, mocking, like she’s requesting the easiest thing in the world from the dumbest little thing she’s ever met.

Your knees part, legs falling open without thought, and you can tell the slick between your thighs from the night before is still there.

She lifts her brows and looks.

“You look sloppy,” she says, pulling your lips apart and dragging a nail over your clit. “Let me make it worse.” She slaps you before you have time to think and though it hurts it’s the lingering sting that pulls a cry from your throat. It’s been a while since she’s hit you like this, between the thighs, where the shame hurts worse than anything else.

The next time you see it coming, but you don’t stop her. You don’t even bother to keep your legs from trying to clamp shut when she slaps your cunt for the second time, you just screw your eyes shut and force your legs open again because for that you know she won’t stop until you’re crying and begging her to do something—anything—to get you off.

It takes you a minute to focus up when she’s done, to familiarize yourself with the steady throb between your legs and the warm pressure of Natasha pushing something into you.

She’s kneeling between your legs, hands clamped around your thighs to keep them apart as she lazily fucks into you with a cock as thick as your forearm.

“Look at that,” she says with a little laugh. “Even when you’re looser than a ten-cent hooker I can still find something to stretch you out with.”

You've been dating Shiro--Takashi Shirogane but he really does prefer Shiro--for almost a year when he's assigned to the Kerberos mission. Pluto's fourth moon, you can't even see the thing from the telescope you've dragged up onto the Garrison's flat roof. The fact that it's too cloudy to make out even Mars doesn't help, but Shiro smiles at your attempts anyway.

"Hey," He says as you plop down beside him, frustrated, "It's only for a year." He reaches up to run his fingers through your hair, rubbing your shoulder as you lean against him. "I'll be back before you know it."

"A year's a long time, Takashi." You say in response, the rare use of his given name turning his smile wry. He pulls you in closer until you're almost smushed together, the pulse in his neck strong beneath your ear.

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder." You can hear him grin, sure and confident. You love that about him. Barely graduated with last year's class and already taking a science team to the outer reaches of the system. Sure, it's just a science mission and they'll be back within a year, but it's not just any prodigy that gets chosen for this. "Though you're pretty fond of me already."

"Oh," You laugh, "I'll show you fond!"

There's a certain heat to the kiss, a certain heat that pools in your belly every time he kisses you like this, and you run your fingers through his short cropped hair to pull him close, his hands on your back to do the same. You kiss until you're both breathless, flushed and leaning on one another. Below, the Garrison calls for lights out in ten minutes. You sigh against his shoulder, but he pulls away to look at you. His eyes are warm, filled with love that makes your heart grow in size. He puts his hand on your cheek.

"Hey." He kisses your forehead, your nose. "I'll come back. I promise."

----

He lied. He doesn't come back.

----

Life goes on like it always has after he's gone. The Garrison has a moment of silence, both for Shiro and the Holts, but nothing changes. Classes, assignments, internships and training...it's all the same. Only the color's been leeched out, you think to yourself, drained through the Shiro-shaped hole in your chest. He was gone for so long that his dorm was already long cold, his scent faded. His things are boxed in your dorm where he asked you to keep them, clothes and accolades and personal effects. There's no next of kin, family long gone and buried. There was just you, Shiro, and Keith.

Keith, who gets himself kicked from the Garrison within a month of Shiro's death. Shiro was his anchor, his best friend, his reason to be better, and now Shiro is gone. There is just you and Keith now, and you're not an anchor. Not the kind he needs, anyway. You spend what free time you have with Keith, trying to keep him from collapsing in on himself like the star you and Shiro knew he could be, even if in the desert the only thing that'll come down is the ramshackle hut he calls home. You don't talk much--the only connection you had was Shiro--but you think he appreciates you being there anyway.

"Do you think he's out there?" He asks you one late night, when everything is pitch dark except for the moon and stars. Trying to find Kerberos through the viewfinder of a telescope, you don't look up even as your heart skips a beat and your stomach knots itself up again. You know who he's talking about, know the Shiro-shaped hole in your chest with its still throbbing edges.

He has one, too.

You sigh, sitting back on your hands. Stars glimmer overhead, as they always have. As they always will. Shiro's hands ghost through your hair, grown out since the last time you saw him. Everything's the same, everything's changed. You swallow hard.

"...I don't know, Keith," You say, unable to voice the words you know to be true. That Shiro really is dead and gone, not just trapped somewhere like in those novels you used to laugh over together. "I don't know." ---

Months pass. A year since Shiro left comes and goes without fanfare, without mention. Classes are ongoing, graduation for your year next month. Cadets wash in, cadets wash out. Life continues as it always has.

Until, one night, it doesn't. Keith calls you in the dead of night, the hour so late it's early. He tells you to come to the shack, that he needs your eyes. He never calls, not without a good reason, and so you go. He picks you up at the edge of the Garrison property, hoverbike eating up the desert like it's so much paved road. The shack stands, his notes and diagrams and charts pinned to the wall. You've been out here doing this before, helping him look for whatever calls him to those cliffs and canyons, but there's more to work with now.

"I've almost got it," He says to you as you tack a photo to the wall, uncaring of your eyes wanting to close and stay closed for a few hours. "I just..." He rakes both hands through his hair, the bags under his eyes thicker than before. "I...Shiro would have figured it out by now."

He's right, you think to yourself. Shiro would know what to do. But he's not here anymore. He'll never be here again.

You still can't bring yourself to say it. It's been a year, but you can't bring yourself to say he's gone. There's a new name on the marker the Garrison has, for those lost to the stars and space in the name of Progress, three new names and a small memorial ceremony the day they were revealed, but you still can't say it even to yourself.

"...Yeah," You finally whisper, smoothing wrinkled papers just to do something with your hands. "He would have."

Keith's next words die in a wash of fire. You both rush to the window as it lights up like daylight, like sunrise. Only it's not. It's a fireball. He's a step ahead of you to rush outside, heat like summer cooking the desert sand as a fireball lights the sky. You watch it go, the shape irregular, metals gleaming in the light of re-entry. It's not a meteor. It's a sort of pod, black even against the flames that chase it down. Thoughts of a missile, of an attack on the Garrison, pass through your mind before they go up in flames as the thing, whatever it is, crashes into the desert with a plume of dust, not smoke and fire. Not a missile then, but what?

Keith is on his bike before you can turn to ask, calling that he's going to check this out, and he's gone before you can react or even hope to stop him.

Again, you are alone.

You hope the Shiro-shaped hole in your chest doesn't add a Keith-sized addition to it tonight, but he has your only ride out of the desert. There is nothing to do but wait, tidying the tiny shack and stacking boxes. There's some of Shiro's things here, clothes and books that make your heart jump to your throat even though you knew they'd be here. For the thousandth time, you wish he was here, back with you, back after the mission was completed with flying colors.

For the thousandth time, he is not here.

The roar of Keith's bike jolts you away from the sadness, throaty and heavier than before, as if carrying a weight it's not meant to carry. You throw the door open, step into the desert wind, and stare. There are five on a bike meant for two at the most, Keith and three faces that you know, sort of. They're in a younger year, faces passed in the hallways and names passed in gossip. They aren't your focus. Your focus is on the man between Keith and the lanky one as they jump down, on a familiar face you thought you'd never see again.

Shiro.

Your voice has left you, heart pounding as they stumble past. It's Shiro. His face is different, cheekbones hollowed out and skin pale in a way you've never seen him before, a shock of white in his overgrown hair that was once all black. But it's him. You'd know him anywhere.

"What happened?" You ask, following them inside, though it's more of a shriek because how is this possible? He was gone and there was a memorial and there was nothing but loss and now he's here again! You want to shake Kieth for answers, but you know that he has as few as you do.

"Sedation," Keith finally grits out as he and the other boy set Shiro down on Keith's cot, the blanket folded neatly in your need to do something. "He'll wake up soon."

And then he's rounding on the others, all bluster and growling and shoving. But your focus isn't on them. It's still on Shiro as you drop to your knees beside the cot, unsure if any of this is real or just an elaborate dream. He's breathing, chest rising and falling beneath the odd black bodysuit and torn purple shirt. He's thinner than before, muscles stark lines along his tall frame, a dark scar across his nose. Slowly, you reach out to touch him. He doesn't disappear, doesn't decay or anything like you'd expect a corspe to do, and you muffle a sob behind your other hand.

He's real. He's really here. You take his hand, squeeze it hard, and don't let go.

An hour passes. Two. Three. Sunrise comes as the silence grows awkward, Keith sitting on the edge of the cot like a hound on guard. The other three huddle in the corner together, unsure and insecure, but you don't lift your gaze from Shiro's slumbering body. You wait, wondering, hoping, praying. He's home he just has to wake up and then--

And then he does. A soft noise, a blink at the ceiling, before he stiffens. His hand in yours goes sweaty, clammy, and he jerks his head to stare at you, eyes wide and face carved into something like terror. Your heart skips a beat even as Keith moves, ready to pull you back if this goes bad, but Shiro stops. Stares at you, pulse racing beneath your fingers. His breath hitches as you hold yours, daring to hope nothing's wrong and he remembers you, daring to hope that he's still Shiro, the man you loved. 

The man you still love.

The tense silence stretches. You stare at each other, his eyes meeting yours. But then, slowly, he pulls his hand from yours.

"You're..." His voice is hoarse, raspy from disuse. He stares at you, drinking you in like you're the first person he's seen in a year. Maybe you are. "...You're real?"

You smile, just a little, as your breath catches in your throat and your eyes fill with tears. He reaches up to put a hand on your cheek, gasping as he feels warmth beneath his fingers. Shiro's not a crier, has never been a crier, but in that moment you think he might start. You take his hand in yours again, feeling his pulse racing still.