Natasha Romanoff usually shrugged in the face of death. It was like seeing an old friend: from time to time death randomly returned into her life, saw how she was doing, they flirted a little bit, sometimes even stayed a while, but each time they eventually went their separate ways. She had never been afraid of death, after so many years of acquaintance it would only be fair if at some point death came for her and decided to stay with her forever.

It changed violently when death, leaving her alone for once, started flirting with her loved ones instead. She couldn't shrug anymore. In fact, she was left unable to blink when Maria Hill died in her arms.

She wanted to shout at the top of her lungs “How dare you” and “You were supposed to come for me first” and “Not her, not her, not her”.

Things had never been quite the same since then, even after she was successfully saved by S.H.I.E.L.D.'s doctors. Maria didn't get the sudden distance, but she never cornered Natasha about it. Theirs wasn't that kind of friendship, they settled their agreements silently and never spoke of important matters out loud, because what sort of healthy relationship kind of bullshit was that. Besides, what would she tell her, even if she could? “I care if you live or die” was expected and “I can only live if you don't die” was unspeakable. She tried not to think too much about what it meant, about what she felt, about how that fear of losing Maria grasped her throat and didn't seem to want to let go anytime soon.

She did what she did best, and carried on.

Then Natasha almost died. And she stood there bleeding out and it was just like any other time until it wasn't anymore. It was like she'd heard in stories. As she was yet again staring death in the face, she found herself thinking “She will never know, I'll die here and she won't ever think twice about what we could have had, the life I saw for us, she'll never know a single fraction of my feelings' depth”.

She returned home on borrowed time from her old friend. She'd been borrowing for years, but death never came to collect her debt.

Maria came home to find a super spy sitting on her couch and without asking for an explanation she poured them drinks and sat down beside her.

Natasha was ready to say it all. She was ready to tell her how life seemed dull and boring away from her and how she couldn't let another day go by without saying to her everything she meant and everything she felt for her. She planned a grand speech to tell her how she thought of her when she thought she would die and how unwilling she was to go without making sure Maria knew how deep and how long Natasha had been in love with her. And if by any chance Maria happened to be the one who died first, Natasha was sure she couldn't live with herself and all the missed chances to just speak up and say something. It was suddenly more than vital to her that Maria was undoubtedly sure about Natasha's feelings towards her.

She waited for Maria in that apartment and had a speech ready and took a breath and looked up and – it was all gone.

She stared into Maria's curious blue eyes and she felt peace.

Maria would have known.

If something were to happen to her, Maria would have known. Because, the way Natasha saw it, there where only two paths they could go from there. One, Maria didn't love her back and they would be condemned to an awkward friendship for the foreseeable future. Two, Maria loved her back. Or even worse, Maria wanted to be with her. And what kind of life would that have been for Maria? So, Natasha smiled, took the glass, and let her chance slip by.

//

Natasha wasn't really that surprised when Death came to collect her debt. The time she had been borrowing wasn't spent wisely. It almost felt to her like her old friend was telling her “I come visit and every time you ask for a little more time. Every time you ask for a little longer to muster up the courage to tell her. But now you've decided you never will. So you know what I've got to do.”

Natasha Romanoff was probably the only person in the entire planet who could put off a deal with Death for so long before Death came to collect.

So she sat with her back on the half-crumbled wall, she pressed her right hand on her wound and pulled her phone out with her left. She dialed the number and waited.

Maybe she had been right in her assessment that Maria would somehow know. That maybe she knew already. That Clint would have blabbed everything out to her while crying as soon as Natasha was a goner. But now the thought she might have been wrong was too unbearable.

“Romanoff, where the hell are you?”

“East wing, second floor. My safe comm has been hijacked and I have three shot wounds,” she could hear Maria giving orders and people starting to move. “It's useless. Don't send them, it's dangerous here.”

“That's why I'm sending them, they have to get you out.”

“Hill. I have three shot wounds,” she repeated. “I'm not going to make it.”

“That's bullshit, Natasha. I'm- I'm coming myself.”

“It's too dangerous and I'm dying.”

“Than why did you call for backup?”

She could hear Maria's desperation slightly peek into her voice and she almost wanted to laugh at the obvious answer to that question. At how Maria Hill, agent extraordinaire, couldn't phantom what kind of call it was. It was hilarious, wasn't it? No, it wasn't, it was probably the adrenaline. Dying could do that to you, occasionally, Natasha had learned in time.

“This is not a mayday. This is a goodbye call.”

“And you didn't call Clint or Fury or-”

“No, Maria. I don't have a lot of time so just let me say this,” she could feel the words forming harder in her brain and taking longer to reach her mouth.

“Okay.”

“I-” deep breath “-have never-” deep breath “-met anyone-” another breath “-as utterly annoying and infuriating as you are.”

“This is the last thing you want to say before you die? I'm going to save you just so I can fucking murder you.”

“And I have never met anyone-” another very deep breath “-as effortlessly stunning and brave and fierce and beautiful. I thought I wasn't capable of this type of love, but you forced me to learn how to love like this. Because life's too miserable and lonely and short, to meet someone as spectacular as you and not fall in love.”

There was no answer. Nothing. Maria had nothing to say to that. Natasha had told herself so many times that it didn't matter if Maria didn't feel the same, but right then and there, she felt like nothing else in the world mattered but that.

She was about to add something when the noise of a door busting open somewhere distracted her. A tall figure was standing beside her. Then, there were arms around her and she was being lift off the floor.

“You can't say all of that and then not make it, Romanoff. Keep your eyes open and keep talking to me, I'm getting you out.”

“I kinda,” her eyes just started drifting. Maria was so warm and her arms were so comfortable and she was so tired. “I kinda said everything I had to.”

“Well I didn't. I have so many things to say to you and you're going to have to listen, so just keep those gorgeous eyes open and talk to me.”

Natasha smiled a little. “See? I told her. It wasn't wasted time, I told her.”

“What? Who are you talking to?”

“An old friend,” Natasha murmured. Then, everything went black.

//

When Natasha opened her eyes again, Maria was sitting beside her bed, holding her hand. As soon as Natasha started to stir, she pressed the button to call for medical help, then turned her attention to Natasha.

“Hi, there. How are you feeling?”

“Like I was shot three times.”

Maria almost, almost smiled at that.

“I love you too, idiot.”

Natasha smirked. “Good.”

AU: Maria Hill receives a mission to go undercover with Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow. Somehow the mission has been compromised and now they are on the run. 

part 1 part 2 part 3

Maria sighed, while locking up her car and walked to the restaurant entrance, smoothing out the fabric of her elegant black jumpsuit. She largely despised the slight nervousness that settled in her stomach while she was making her way through the parking lot. It wasn't like she didn't feel confident, but she hadn't done something like that in a long time. After S.H.I.E.L.D. collapsed she started working for Stark, not to mention the occasional world wide emergency every other week that kept her quite busy, so she hadn't been able to actually do something similar in a while.

She went in and a waiter immediately approached her.

“Hello, I'm supposed to meet someone, there should be a reservation under the name Hayes?” of course she wasn't making a reservation under her real name nor was she giving it to a date on their first night out.

“Yes, the other person hasn't arrived yet, but I can escort you to your table” he offered with a smile and led the way.

She sat down, then took out her phone to text Sharon a simple 'Don't make me regret this'. The almost instant answer was 'Next time you can be the one to set me up'. Maria sighed and locked the screen to check her reflection on the black mirror it offered, making sure her make up and her hair were still good, then shifting it a little to use it to spot the guy at the cashier behind her. He was talking to a man with a suit whose attitude instantly made every nerve on her body stand on alert.

“Here you go ma'am, the Hayes table for two” she heard the waiter, so she put her phone away and turned to the approaching woman. She noted as she stood up that she was slightly shorter than herself, despite the fact that they were both wearing heels. The woman was wearing a green dress that fitted her perfectly and matched her eyes. She had short blond hair and fair skin.

“You must be Maria, I'm Nicole” she said with the cutest smile Maria had ever seen. She offered a hand and Maria promptly shook it, then smiled back. The woman before her ducked her head and fixed her glasses, trying to hide a nervous chuckle. “I'm sorry, I was a little nervous, you can never know if you'll be meeting a serial killer.”

Maria laughed a little and they sat down at the table, the waiter watching them closely and smiling to himself. She wanted to point out that actually only 0.2% of serial killer were women killing their female lovers, but she didn't think it would be an appropriate conversational topic.

“Can I bring you something to drink?”

“Wine?” Maria proposed.

“Sure, I usually prefer red.”

Maria nodded with a smile and watched as the woman ducked her head while smiling again and brought her hand up to push back the bridge of her glasses as she tapped on it twice.

“Red wine, then” the waiter smiled and left, as they both picked the menu up.

“So, Nicole, I reckon Susan mentioned you're a journalist?”

“I am, I work in a weekly magazine. And Steve said you're a lawyer.”

Maria was a little taken aback by Steve's real name, but then again, nobody knew he was Captain America and she didn't mention a surname. “Quite the boring job, lately” Maria half smiled. “I think I'll have the lasagna” she changed topic. “I make a pretty good one myself actually, I know my way around the” she cleared her voice “kitchen.”

“Really?” she smiled again and Maria felt her lips curl too at the cute sight. She pushed her glasses back again, tapping them once. “I'm a total disaster, I can't cook to save my life.”

The waiter came back and took their order, leaving them alone again after he wrote it down.

“It's weird, I feel the need to ask you questions but they're all either silly or really private ones, so I don't really know what to talk about” Nicole told her, chuckling a little.

Maria smiled at her. “Well, it's been a while since I've been on an actual date, I might be a little rusty 'cause I can't think about anything to talk about either.”

Nicole just looked at her for a moment, obviously surprised. “That's hard to believe. You seem nice, you're polite, a lawyer and really gorgeous. And yet haven't been on a date for a while? Maybe you really are a serial killer, after all.”

Maria chuckled at that. “Well, I want to say that I'm really not, but that's what a serial killer would probably say. Are you from New York?” she changed the subject with the first thing she could think of.

“Born and raised here, in Manhattan. You?”

“Chicago, then all over the place. But I like New York, it feels like home. I actually think I might stick around.”

Nicole was looking at her with a smile on her lips that made Maria lose focus for a second. Those green, bright eyes, there was something in them that made her want to lose herself, to forget everything else. The rest of the world just seemed less important when she looked at that soft smile on the other woman's lips.

She was quickly distracted from her thoughts when the waiter came back with their orders. Maria hadn't been to that restaurant in a while, but she loved their lasagna and she was looking forward to it. But as soon as the waiter walked away and she picked up her fork, her cellphone made an high pitched short noise. She paused with the fork midway to her mouth with her first taste of lasagna and looked down.

A text from Sharon. 'Go now.'

She sighed and lowered her fork, rolling her eyes. She looked at Nicole, the woman paused as well when she heard the noise coming from Maria's phone. Maria nodded slightly and they both got up and headed straight for the kitchen door. Maria reached into her purse while she saw the other woman going for the gun hostler on her leg. They walked into the kitchen and everyone there turned to look at them, a couple of employees even tried to stop them, but they just ignored them and headed for the door at the end of the room, the only other exit there was.

“Nice touch mentioning you know how to cook to let me know they came into the kitchen.”

“Thanks, and tapping your glasses to let me know you got it was smart.”

“Yeah, but I'm a spy” the woman retorted while kicking down the door in front of them.

“Do I really need to remind you” Maria started to argue, while five unarmed men came towards them. She punched the first one in the face, while ducking and decking and then decking another one. “That I used to be your boss, Romanoff? And wait until I get back at Sharon for not telling me you were the other agent who was going to show up for the blind date.”

When she got up again and turned around, Natasha had already taken down the other three and wasn't even breathing hard.

“Sharon knows I'd have to murder her if she ever sets you up with anyone else but me on a date, work related or not. And on this note, let's talk about that 'I haven't been on a date in a while' dig you made out there” Natasha quipped while they handcuffed the men and proceeded into the next room.

“Well, it's true isn't it?” Maria countered.

“I've been a little busy saving the world” Natasha pointed out, scolding her a little, while they proceeded to clear the other room and took out the other four bodyguards and then handcuffed the two men involved in an illegal transaction.

“True, but it's still been a while since we went out.”

“We see each other every night at home, Maria” Natasha murmured, rolling her eyes while handcuffing the last man, in the meantime Maria was texting Sharon they were secured and ready for the extraction team.

“Also true, but still doesn't mean it hasn't been a while since we went on a date” she pointed out, then looked around. “Well, this was fun. Maybe I'll let Sharon and Steve do the set up again next time and we can kick some ass together again.”

“Sure, but as soon as they get here we're taking the rest of the night off to go on an actual date. Your lasagna will be cold at this point and the restaurant will probably be shut down, but we can go somewhere else.”

Maria chuckled. “Really?”

“Well, we're already dressed” Natasha shrugged and smirked.

“So an actual date following a fake blind date? I'm in” Maria smirked back.

Natasha smiled, stepping closer to Maria and entering her personal space. “Does this mean you like me?”

Maria just rolled her eyes, but a smile formed on her lips despite herself.

“Natasha, we've been together for years.”

“So you're saying that you really like me” was the only thing Natasha had to say to that.

Hill was pretty sure she had busted a rib.

It came with the job, and all things considered it could have gone a lot worse.

Like Natasha who had caught 2 handgun rounds in the chest, and was now loudly complaining about having to go to the medbay to have them removed.

 Honestly the most stressed person in the medbay seemed to be agent Simmons, who was responsible for doing their check-up.

Not that her work was lacking, she was just clearly unused to operating on conscious, and very swear-y Russian superspies.

Or maybe it was trying to keep her girlfriend agent Johnson, from asking for Maria’s autograph that kept her on her toes. (Maria could spot agents having romantic relations across a crowded helicarrier, and Johnson-Simmons were not that subtle).

 “Director Hill, if I may, where do those scars come from.” Jemma asked, pointing at the array of old, oddly shaped scars  that marred the directors back.

“Weren’t you supposed to be good at this agent Simmons, you tell me.” The shorter brunette made a short gasp that was equal parts excitement and shock, before rushing off to gather a collection of encyclopedias and instruments.

 What followed were 25 minutes of Jemma growing increasingly frustrated, as she came with more and more obscure suggestion. “I hate to disappoint agent Simmons, but no, I did not slide barebacked along an Alaskan runway. The explanation is much simpler than that.

It didn’t help that Daisy came with a bunch of absurd explanations from the sidelines. “Sorry to say agent Johnson, but I have never had to fight off mutant sharks with a fire-axe.”

 The Black Widow just got smugger with every wrong answer, until. “Can I tell them Hill?”

“Go ahead, it’s not a secret.” The tall brunette answered

“They’re marks from a belt buckle Simmons, they’re hard to recognize because Hill has grown a lot since getting them, making the scar tissue stretch in weird ways.” The doctor made a surprised “oh”, while inwardly praising her loving family.

Daisy just glared suspiciously at the Black Widow “How do you know?”