#natfic!

"I love you," Natalia says into your hair. Then again, in Russian. The breeze moves the rushes of the date palms like dancer's fingers against the sky. Her arm, where it is slung around your shoulder, hasn't shifted since you pulled it around you.

 Σ’ αγαπώ. You mouth it at the slow wind, let the breath leave your lips and tumble off in the river of the world around you. Your eyes track a woman walking the path with her baby slung to her chest. She is singing, only quietly, but you can hear her. You can hear everything.

The thud of Natalia's heart in her carotid artery is the loudest. Slow, unreasonably steady, just like yours. You'd be able to find it from the end of the world. You already have - it mirrors yours. Imitates you. Your hand goes to your shoulder where her hand hangs free, and you trace the lines of her fingers. You imagine you can see the bones, where each knuckle is bound and wrapped with muscle and cartilage. Gun callus on the inside of her thumb.

Each touch you keep as light as air.

Eventually she pulls away - only to tug you to your feet - and insists you walk.

"This is what people do at parks," she says, hands in both of yours, that infuriatingly familiar teasing light in her eyes. The sun catches her face, throwing her attention from you.

"I'm not an idiot," you grunt, and you loop her arm around your shoulder once more. "I know what parks are for." You glance at her. "I've studied urban form," you add, for good measure. Her slight smile fades somewhat.

"Sure," she says. "Haven't we all."

"You should. It will allow you to recognise the-"

"I know what parks are for, too, you know."

You raise your eyebrows. "Ambulation, exercise and socialisation?"

The odd look she throws you is practically amusement. "You're messing with me."

"You started it," you say.

"Oh, good. We've reverted to our twelve-year old selves."

"I'll snap your neck if you snap mine." It's almost in poor taste, so it surprises you when she laughs, mouth-open-head-back kind of laugh. The hair she's pushed behind her ear falls forward over her face and you have a sudden, incomprehensible and almost irresistible urge to take it in your fingers. You already know how soft it is.

Disappointingly, she tucks it away.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

"We're going to dinner," she says. You pause with a piece of honey-dripping toast halfway to your mouth. You place the toast down.

"What if I say no?"

Natalia blinks once, slowly. The smallest of smiles curls at the edge of her mouth. "I'll persuade you," she says. She seats herself in the chair across from you. "It doesn't have to be a restaurant. It can be street food, souvlaki, anything." She tilts her head at you. "Pretty please? I promise it's a normal person thing to do."

"As if you would know," you say, eyes still fixed on her mouth. She touches your shin with the tip of her foot beneath the table.

"That's mean. I'm perfectly well-adjusted."

"In this room, maybe." You drag your gaze up to hers and shrug lightly. "Go on, then." You practically see her swell with delight, even though she doesn't move a muscle. You can't help but smile. "Persuade me."

Natalia slumps and sighs, exaggerated. "Devil," she says. The afternoon sun on her face gleams on the tiny little scar above her eyebrow, one that you've kissed a hundred thousand times before.

"Of the worst kind," you agree. You reach across and touch her lightly on the nose. "Okay. I give in." She laughs. Your chest clenches and you know, without a doubt, you'd commit atrocities to hear it again. Murders.

But you don't need to.

Dizzying thing, desire.

Tell her, you urge yourself. Tell her you want to make her laugh. Tell her what she means to you. You'd never be able to put it into words.

So instead, you let her take you out to dinner. She buys you a mountain of food and watches with delight as you devour it all. In an afterglow of satisfaction and evening-cooled streets, you play poker on the balcony and lose to her drastically, on purpose.

You can't help but notice that her bluff face is real. It's one you've seen through the scope of a long-range rifle, or across the green expanse of a casino table with your heart in your throat.

It's almost easy to forget how fucked up she is, too.

"I lose," you say, and her face makes the shift. Practically imperceptible. Smallest of smiles. You spread your hands. "Come and take your prize."

Now her face splits in a grin, and she leans across the card table to kiss you. "Loser," she mumbles against your lips. "You know what happens to losers?"

You open your eyes to see her filling the whole world. Beautiful, impossibly so. "I think I'm going to find out," you say. Fuck me against the railing, you don't say.

Somewhere in the city, a dog howls, so lonely in its grief. But you don't hear it. Her hand is up beyond the hem of your dress and she is against you, all warmth and that glorious wave of red hair.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

"We're going to the library. Expanding horizons and all that."

"Are we going to learn about urban forms?"

"We're going to learn about whether or not you can keep quiet when I tell you to." Her gaze rakes you like a laser, suggestive.

You think it's a joke. It forces you to flush anyway. She laughs.

"Heart on your sleeve, huh?"

You slap at her shoulder. "You're incorrigible."

"Do you love me, though?"

It takes you by surprise. She's been doing that a lot lately, alongside all the things you anticipate.

"Yes," you say, with barely a moment's hesitation. You tip your head to the ceiling and let loose a crazed little laugh. "You dug me out, Nata. What a stupid question." I have loved you so long I don't remember not loving you.

Say it. Say it.

You fix your eyes on hers and force yourself not to move. "I have loved you," you say, everything in you trembling, "so long that I don't remember not loving you."

What a thing to say on the couch, on a Saturday morning.

"Good," Natalia says. "I-I thought so." It can't be the first time you've ever heard her stumble over a word, but it feels like it must be. You're so new. Everything is the first time. It's glorious.

requests | masterlist

taglist: @when-wolves-howl @fayhar @maggieromanov @waitingroom-pb @romanoffscottage @blackxwidowsxwife @lizlil @screechcat @maddess @natsaffection @haeva @diaryoflife @natashasilverfox @vicmc624  @strangegardentaco  @phantomvael @lorsstar1st  @blckrwidow @ima-gi--na-tion @paryl @aan-myouim @smalls-words @lainjupi  @d1s0nym @meimei-a @the-v01d @kqmui @s1ut4nat @btay3115   @idkjustliving2 @lokisjuicyass @mmmmokdok  @silentwolfsstuff  @olicity-boo @iliketozoneouteout

You can hear the music going outside: a slow, low tune. Yelena has left and it’s just you now, with your flower stems encased in your sweaty palms, your face ashy in the mirror.

It’s stupid that you’re nervous. Ridiculous. You close your eyes to banish your terrified reflection and think of Nat, picture her in her suit with flowers in her hair and that lopsided little grin on her face as she watches you walk towards her. All that stands between you and the rest of your life is a quarter-open door, where the sunlight is flooding in.

When you open your eyes, there’s a figure behind you in the mirror. The shock hits you before your thoughts can, and you open your mouth to scr

You blink sluggishly. The floor is pressed to your face, the nice white plush carpet. So soft. You could just sink into it, fall asleep. 

Arms loop under your arms and heave you up, as easily as if you were made of paper. Your head droops. There’s a pain starting at the back of your skull, dull and throbbing. The world wheels this way and that and settles on the mirror. Through half-closed eyelids you see a thick face, a square jaw. A man, dragging you backwards across the floor.

The fear hits. You try to kick out, to stand, but your legs won’t move. You tighten your shoulder and slam your elbow back and up into the man’s jaw. He grunts and drops you and you hit the floor, burning your hands on the carpet. You try to scramble for the door but your body gives up and you tilt sideways, hands clawing. Your head hits the floor and you pass out.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

It’s the rumble of the engine that wakes you, and the unpleasant sensation of a tire jack sticking into your thigh. Your head aches harshly as you open your eyes, your vision a burst of blue and grey, so you shut them again. 

You’ve been stuffed unceremoniously into the trunk of a car, your legs and arms at odd, painful angles. The car goes over a bump, jolting you up and whacking your head against the lid of the trunk,

“Ow!” you complain, shoving a hand out blindly and bracing yourself against the wall. You try to shift into a more comfortable position and your dress tugs, but doesn’t give. They’ve shut it in the mechanism, the morons.

Your head gives a particularly sharp ache and you moan wearily, half in pain and half in sympathy for the beautiful train of your dress, which must now be crumpled and smeared beyond recognition. The headache is splitting now. The man must really have hit you hard.

You dare to open your eyes again as the pain begins to recede, and see the dim red backglow of the tail lights, nothing else. You can smell that new-car smell, crisp in the carpet, fresh paint and lacquer.

You begin to search the interior with fumbling, shaking hands, but there’s nothing around except for you and that damn tire jack. You try to kick it away but you only succeed in bruising your foot. They haven’t bound your hands or legs. Maybe when they open the trunk you can leap up and bludgeon one of them to death with it. You’re certainly angry enough now that the realisation of what they’ve done to your dress and your wedding day has hit you, but the idea fades quickly. Your hands are heavy and clumsy with shock and pins and needles. Besides, Nat’s the one who does the bludgeoning, not you.

Nat. She’ll come. She’s probably on her way right now, incandescent with fury that some idiot in a nice new car has kidnapped her fiancee right before you were about to walk down the aisle. You imagine her perfect, beautiful face and the strong curves of her legs in her battle suit as she kicks down a door or bursts through a window and it makes you feel a little better. She really will be furious.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

The trunk lid lifts an eternity later, flooding your dark little prison with daylight. You scowl up, your eyes adjusting.

“You two, get her out,” someone says, and two pairs of hands reach in, grip you by the arms and legs and haul you painfully from  the trunk. Your muscles cramped long ago, so you don’t put up a fight: you just wince and allow yourself to be lifted. A shoulder lands none too gently in your stomach and you’re draped like a sack, the concrete-laden ground swaying beneath you.

“Ow,” you protest halfheartedly. It’s more of a wheeze, and the shoulder beneath you refuses to acknowledge it.

You crane your neck up to look around. They must have been driving for ages - the low evening light glows over an abandoned parking lot surrounded by wispy fields and patches of barren earth. Middle of nowhere. Fucking great.

Following you are two more people, a woman with blonde hair scraped back into a low bun, and the thick-faced man, a blue bruise flung across his jaw. You remember him from the mirror, remember your elbow flying up to crack into his jawbone, and feel a little bloom of triumph. The shoulder beneath you, or the person belonging to the shoulder, lumps you a little more securely onto them. The movement jolts your diaphragm and you glare vaguely at the two following. Thye both ignore you.

The shadow of a doorway passes over you like a cloud. The concrete is intterupted by a thin plank of wood, a doorstep, and the floor becomes dirty, gap-toothed planks.

A few more steps in, echoing now in the building, and then you’re dumped down onto a hard plastic chair. Your wrists are grabbed by the blonde woman and cuffed behind you, the link passed between the chair legs. Your shoulders are tugged cruelly down and begin to ache almost immediately.

There are four people in the room: the three who pulled you from the trunk and a man in a three piece suit, talking urgently and quietly into his phone. The building is narrow and tall and grey with the dusk, and you hear a pigeon hoot softly up in the dim rafters.

Finally, the fear begins to seep in. So far the shock and the headache have been keeping it easily at bay, but now that you can see properly and these rough and angry people in their dark bulky clothing are eyeing you up and you’re really, completely helpless, there’s no way you can temper down your panic. You don’t know where you are. You don’t have your phone. What if Nat doesn’t find you? What if they kill you before she gets here? 

A panicked sob climbs your throat and you gulp it back, your shoulders jarring with the effort. The handcuffs clank and one of the men shoots you a sharp look. Tears begin to fill your eyes.

The man in the suit ends his call, stows his phone away and looks over at you. His eyes are dark and wide, almost guileless. His expression settles.

“Easiest way to get her here is to bait her,” he says, and you know he’s not talking to you, even though his eyes remain fixed to yours. A single tear dribbles down your cheek. He hands his phone to the thick-faced man. “Serena, rough her up a little.” Those words hit you like a punch to the gut. You whip around to look at the blonde woman.

“Wait-” you say.

“Like how?” she asks, cutting you off. She studies you critically.

“I don’t care,” says the man. “Just don’t make her unrecognizable. And she’ll need to speak, to say the address.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” you say, the words hitting the air one after the other. They are your only protest, your only form of defence as you strain against the handcuffs. “Please don’t, please don’t-”

“Doesn’t matter too much,” the man adds. They’re all ignoring you. “We’ll kill her before Romanoff gets here. Hurry up.”

“What?” you say, alarmed. Serena circles you like a shark. The tears are coming freely now. You’ve never been hit before, but you know it’ll hurt. It’ll hurt. “Please-” you try, and Serena backhands you across the mouth. Your head whips to the side. Pain explodes over your lip like a burst balloon and you grunt from the force. She’s wearing a ring. Your head hanging sideways, you taste blood, your own tears creeping into the corners of your mouth.

Serena grabs your chin and yanks your head forwards. Your ears ring. Your mouth stings. She pulls a pistol from beneath her jacket and slams the butt of it into your cheekbone. You cry out, her hand keeping you from flying backwards, the pain blinding you.

When you blink away the fuzz of tears, she’s surveying you from above. “Give it a second for the bruises to come in,” she says. Your lip is split. There’s snot in your nose and you sniff messily. The third man, the one who’d slung you over his shoulder, is scribbling something down on a notebook balanced on his knee. The man in the suit is outside, his shadow slanting through the open doorway.

The thick-faced man raises the phone. “You done, Billy?”

“One second,” says Billy, the man with the notebook. He scribbles a couple more words, then rises and flips the notebook to face you. It’s covered in large lettering, but you still have to squint through your tears to read it. “Here are your cues,” he says, grinning. The first page says CRY LIKE YOU MEAN IT. You try to glare at him.

“Alright,” says the thick-faced man. The phone camera points at you like the barrel of a gun. Soon enough the barrel of a real gun is going to be staring you down, unless they choose to beat you to death. You imagine your body still tied to the chair, shot clean through the face, imagine Nat finding you like that, and you have the sudden, rising urge to throw up. Bile stings in the back of your throat and you start to cry properly.

“Good girl,” says Billy. “Lights, camera, action.” He flips to the next page. You hear the click of a video recording starting on the phone. You try to clear your vision. You’re no use to Nat if you’re just sobbing uncontrollably. 

On the page is written an address. You stumble through it, your voice wavering, tears dripping from your chin and into your lap. Billy flips the page.

BEG HER TO SAVE YOU

Your face crumples, and the tears take over again, the panic rising until it’s clouding your mind, all you sense, all you know. They’re going to kill you. They’re not even going to give her a chance to save you. You are a throwaway. You don’t matter, not after this moment. 

Serena cuffs you round the back of the head and you rock forward, your shoulders heaving. The ground is rough with dust under your heels. Strangely, it’s this that grounds you.

“Nat,” you say to the ground. Your voice is thick. “Please. Please come and get me.”

“To the camera,” grunts the man holding the phone. You raise your head. You must look awful. Billy flips another page.

FIVE MINUTES, STARTING NOW

“They said-” you try, and tears fill your eyes once more. “They said you have five minutes.” You take a breath that catches in your throat. Stalling will worsen it. Will give her less time. You close your eyes. “Starting now,” you say. A click. The recording has ended. 

“Sent,” says the thick faced man. You stare dismally at the floor.

“Alright, timer’s on,” says Serena. 

The next five minutes are the longest of your life.

You think about Natasha, your thoughts a constant stream of her. Yesterday evening when she kissed you goodnight. The first time you met. The second time you held hands and you could feel her gun callouses on her palms and you struck the little voice from your head that whispered is this a good idea? The wash of red hair down her bare back, and following the scar down her spine with the tip of your finger, listening to the unsteady hitch of her breathing.

You dredge up every memory of her, of her voice and laugh and the spark of her eyes and you clutch them tight and close your eyes, swaying in your seat. 

Your head hurts.

An alarm tone goes, snapping you out of your thoughts. Your memories scatter like a thin cloud on a windy day. The thick-faced man switches it off with the press of him thumb. “Billy,” he says, and he tucks the phone away. 

Billy pulls a gun from under his jacket. You want to cry: you should be begging right now, or screaming at them, grasping at some last words. But your head hurts. It hurts so much because it’s full of Nat. Because she takes up so much space, all that joy, all those memories, the fact that you’d almost had everything you’d ever wanted with her.

The gun is dark and matte and reflects no light. Serena steps away from you and you’re sitting there in the chair but really, you’re tied to a wire, swinging free in the air, straining to reach the ground. The fear turns everything white. You breathe and breathe and breathe, except it can’t have been that long, they would have shot you by now.

Billy is staring over his shoulder with a quizzical look on his face.

“Billy-” says Serena-

The man in the suit comes flying through the open door and hits the opposite wall. The gun goes off with a bang and you scream before you even realise that you’ve opened your mouth. The entire east wall explodes, shard of wood, dust ploughing the air. You feel the impact, feel it lift your feet from where they’re brushing the ground, and the chair tips and you fall backwards. 

Even unconsciously, you brace for impact, for the crack of your skull on the floor. It never comes.

You open your eyes.

Nat hovers above you, one hand out gripping the back of the chair behind your head. Her lip is split and her hair washes across her forehead.

“Hey, baby,” she says. She sets the chair back on all four legs and pulls out a tiny blade to fiddle with your handcuffs. The dust is still everywhere, blinding you, but you can hear the whine and blast of Tony’s repulsors, the hiss of Sam’s wings and the thud of Clint’s arrows, even Yelena grunting somewhere, the shadow of her kicks rising up and up again. 

The cuffs give and your arms swing down to your sides. You wince at the pain, even as Nat’s sliding an arm around your shoulders and under your knees, and hoisting you into the air. “Hold tight,” she says, warm in your ear, and she runs. Right through where the east wall used to be. You flinch, but instead of slamming into hard wood, the two of you emerge into the sunlight, and you hear Natasha’s feet hit the grass. You can tell she’s trying hard not to jog you around.

“You can put me down,” you say, watching your dust-coated dress trail flutter in the wind.

“I’ll put you down in the car,” Nat argues, obstinately.

“Okay,” you say, and you rest your head on her shoulder. When she reaches the car, she sets you down carefully in the passenger seat, and then, horror of horros, tries to pull away. You grab at her, fingers finding a collar: and that’s when you realise she’s still in her wedding suit. “Oh,” you say. There’s something about the blood on her lip and the strands of hair wild and loose from her braid and the flower, dust-covered but still perfectly arranged in her buttonhole that’s making your mouth water. What a ridiculous thing to be thinking, when you can still hear the sound of Tony beating a man into the ground with his metal fist not five metres away. “Don’t you look dashing,” you say. Nat grins, that sideways grin that’s on the verge of preening.

“And you look beautiful as always,” she says. You smile, and then your jaw twinges and you flinch at the pain and realise you really must look awful. Tears color your eyes again. 

“I don’t really,” you say. Your eyes drift away from her morosely. “God, we’ll have to postpone for a bit, so I don’t look like John Wick on a bad day, won’t we?” 

Nat grabs your face between her palms and twists your face gently towards hers. “I’d marry you if you were wearing a trash bag and had lost all your teeth,” she promises. “I’d marry you whatever you looked like. However many bruises.” She adds a perfunctory, “Don’t be so stupid.”

You sniff your tears back. “That’s an image,” you say, a smile appearing uncertain on your face. “Love you too.”

“Love you more.” 

You smile at her idiotically.

And then you see him - the man in the suit, holding his jaw, staggering up behind her. Nat’s eyes flick to the wing mirror.

“Nat, look-” you say, but she’s already turned. He lunges at her and she blocks his punch with a forearm and slams the side of her hand into his throat. The man drops. His body hits the gravel with a heavy crunch.

“Let’s go,” Nat says. She closes your door gently, kicks the man aside and marches around to get in herself. Once she’s in and the door’s shut and the engine’s up, her hand settles on your knee, like she’s reminding herself that you really are there. Her face is stormy. 

“Nat,” you say. She turns to you and her expression relaxes. “I’m okay,” you say.

“Good,” she replies. “I’m still going to kill him slowly, you know.” She squeezes your leg. You decide not to argue.

“I didn’t think the others were going to come,” you say, as the car moves off. Nat looks over at you for a quick second and you grin at her. “I know you could’ve taken all of them at once,” you say. She sits up a touch straighter in her seat and directs her smile through the windshield.

“Yeah. I could’ve.” Right turn, her hands crossing over on the wheel. The noise of the gravel vanishes, replaced by the relief of the silent tarmac road. “Everyone was coming, but they got there the quickest. I think I heard a sonic boom the second I told the others over the phone, actually.”

“When do you think we can get married again?” you ask, closing your eyes and setting your head back against the seat. You feel Nat shrug.

“Right now, if you want. I’ll marry you anywhere.”

So you marry in the courthouse of Austin, Pennsylvania, and the judge casts his aspersions on your bruises but Nat is holding your hand the whole way through, grinning like she’ll never stop, so you don’t care.

“You’re my wife now,” Nat says, when you step back out into the sunny air, her face still splitting with that dopey grin.

“No, you’re my wife,” you say, and the two of you bicker over it all the way to the car. Your smiles don’t drop.

requests | masterlist

notes: tried to make it a tiny bit silly and goofy UNLIKE tends to stick around which will hopefully have a heartbreaking 2nd part sometime soon. also i don’t know how people get married in courthouses leave me alone

The apartment is dark when you open the door. You scan for any signs of Natasha, a plate on the drying rack or her jacket thrown over the back of the couch: nothing. But your tired eyes skim right over the takeout box on the coffee table, and you stumble into the bathroom down the hall without noticing it.

You discard your ruined shirt on the edge of the bathtub without bothering to close the door, and begin to rifle through the medicine cabinet. Painkillers, cough syrup, even damn hand sanitizer, anything you can find just to take the edge off the pain in your side.

You can't bear to look at the wound yet, but even in the dim light, you can see your stomach is slick and wet with blood.

You shake three paracetamol into your palm and take them dry with a desperate swallow and a wince. Then you sink down onto the toilet lid, slowly, slowly to avoid agitating the pain, and rest your head back against the tank with a clunk.

You touch the wound tentatively. The light brush of your fingers sends a sting through your ribs and you suck your bottom lip in past your teeth, bite down hard so as not to make a sound. You're stiff, your head swimming. God, if you'd just dodged the idiot, this wouldn't be happening.

With every movement sluggish and careful, you slit open the first aid kit and try to clean yourself up. You wet a cloth with water and drip it down your side, ignoring the pink puddles it makes on the bathroom floor. Then you blot the cloth with antiseptic, take a deep breath, and press it all up against the wound.

The pain is instant like a burn. You whimper into your teeth. Thank God Nat isn't here, thank God she's not going to see you like this and worry and panic-

"You okay?" comes a voice, from just down the hall - Natasha's voice, low and rough with sleep. You freeze, your side stinging like a bitch. Her feet thud closer, purposefully noisy, and she calls your name as she emerges from the hall. You react, slamming the door closed with your foot, and you hear her stumble backwards. "Um..." she says.

"I'm naked," you blurt. You smack yourself in the head. I'm naked? Seriously?

Predictably, Natasha laughs. "Okay, babe. What are you actually doing in there?"

"Cocaine," you reply acidly, fumbling for a bandage. She tests the door handle and you push your heel more securely against the door.

She says your name again, worry creeping into her voice.

"I'm fine," you reply.

"So let me in."

"I'm having a bath."

"I didn't hear the water running."

With the bandage now in your teeth, you can't reply, and she then she says your full name, her voice tinged with urgency.

Uh-oh.

"Let me in," she says. No room for argument. You thump your head against the toilet tank and glare at the ceiling. Then you release your foot from the door.

It swings open torturously slowly. She stands in the doorway, head tilted, surveying the mess you've made. And when she speaks, her voice is tight. "What the hell happened to you?" she says. Rhetorical question. Her face is carefully, casually blank. She's angry.

And she's right to be. You'd only recently been shot in the shoulder by an asshole with a sawn-off shotgun, and after that she'd made you promise you wouldn't go picking fights by yourself. Promises mean too much to her in your opinion, but you really had intended to keep this one.

"Knife," you say, in between your short breaths. "Nat-"

"Don't," she says shortly. Ice cold. Sharp as a blade. You shut your mouth. You'd been about to apologise.

She steps in, avoid the smears of blood on the floor, and kneels next to you. She pulls your hands from the wound impatiently. Were she less pissed, she'd be scolding you for not cleaning it properly, but now there's just thick, freezing silence between the two of you.

She cleans you up, stitches you closed and bandages the whole thing in clean, methodical movements, her touch gentle and her face hard as stone. You watch her hands move and wait for your chance to speak, a lump in your throat. You never want to scare her. Never.

When she's finished, she stands to wash her hands without looking at you. You sit slumped on the toilet lid, blood crusting and drying on your skin and clothes.

Natasha stoops to pick up your ruined shirt and leaves silently. You let her go. You hear her pedal open the kitchen bin and drop the shirt in amongst the trash.

Natasha's never forceful when she's angry, never loud or abrasive, never emotional. She's silent, viciously so, which is somehow worse. She'll speak softly - you know she hates to get mad, especially at you. And you know her well enough to recognise all the signs.

She doesn't talk to you when you limp out of the bathroom, your side aching. You avoid her eyes.

Until she's turning to walk away, and you realise she's put pants and a jacket on, and she's about to walk out.

"Nat, wait," you say. She halts, reaching for the door handle. Her shoulders are tight, her knuckles pale as she grips the handle. You search for words to fill the silence. "Where are you going?" you ask. They fall flat in front of you.

"Out," Natasha replies. She offers your bandaged ribs a cursory glance over her shoulder. "I'll be back to redress that."

"Can you just-" you say, your throat thickening. "I'm sorry. Please stay." Useless right now. She wants to be alone. But you can tell she's reluctant to leave.

She releases the door handle, and clenches her hands by her sides instead. "You promised me you'd be careful," she says. Her voice is not cool and vicious anymore: now, the vowels shake and her shoulders are tight as she gets the words out.

"I'm fine," you insist. "It was a mistake. Just one mistake." She turns to face you, but she doesn't look at you. Her eyes are rimmed angrily red. "Nat?"

"If I can't trust you, of all people, to keep your damn promises," she says, and she takes a large breath that seems to catch in her chest. Her eyes drag painfully up to yours and narrow. "Then who can I trust?" And she turns, yanks the door open and is gone.

The jamb clicks. You can't hear her footsteps receding.

Fuck.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

You're sprawled across the couch when Natasha gets back, your eyes closed and a frown resting like a stone between your eyebrows. She closes the door quietly. Waits. Watches.

She regrets arguing and growling and leaving. She regrets that she didn't really explain anything at all.

You wake slowly, sensing a shift in the room. You turn left, right, and your eyes slide right over her before you double take and snap back.

"Nat," you say, your voice slurred with sleep.

She twists her hands into the front of her shirt. I'm sorry. So easy to say, two words, three syllables. "How are you feeling?" she asks instead.

You blink at her, still registering her presence. Relief rising: she came back, she's not so angry that she wants to leave you hanging off a hook like a guilty idiot who took the bait. "You're back," you say. Your breath rushes out of you and your side twinges and you wince back from the pain. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry-"

"No, it's okay," Natasha says, and she crosses the room and pushes your hair off your face. She kisses your cheek. "It's okay. I'm sorry." She traces a pillow crease down the side of your jaw. You frown at her. "I should have explained. I should have trusted you. I know you can take care of yourself." The sentences come piling out of her mouth, each one eager behind the other, like three bullets in a wall. You grip her wrist.

"You were so angry," you say sadly. But she shakes her head.

"I wasn't angry, I wasn't. I was upset. I was - I was scared. I shouldn't have taken it out on you." She doesn't seem able to keep your gaze.

"Okay," you say. You press your lips to the inside of her wrist, feel the tendons relax. "I'm sorry I got my ass beat."

Above you, she snorts. Her fingers play over your skin and you lean into her hand.

"Stay tonight," you mumble, your eyes closing. Her other hand drifts through your hair.

"I will. I'm sorry."

"And stop apologising." You know what she feels, even if she still hasn't explained. She cares far more for you than she ever has for anyone before: it's a terrifying thing. But losing this is even more terrifying. You grip her arm and tug her down to kiss her.

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"So who asked out who?" Clint asks, settling further into his seat. He shoves a pizza crust into his mouth and dusts off his hands. Across the room, Kate Bishop is licking her fingers clean, eyes glued to you. She hasn't looked away since she first stepped in the door: whether with wariness or curiosity, you don't know.

"She pinned me to the floor when we were fourteen," Natalia replies. "Does that count?"

Clint nods. "Oh yeah, the good ol' sexual tension sparring."

"Fourteen, you creep," Natalia says. She chucks a piece of pepperoni at him and he catches it in his mouth, grinning.

The TV is on with subtitles, muted in the corner. It's darkening outside, the sweet humid nine o'clock of a summer evening.

You miss Greece. You miss the quiet of your apartment, hung so far above the street that the cars and shouts and trains were distant to the ear. You miss the heat. The solitude with Natalia, knowing she's only ever a few metres away.

But New York is fine. New York is pizza and Clint's playstation (that you're really damn good at) and Clint's humour and Clint's dog, who is currently lain half across your lap, blinking up at you morosely as you chew.

You pet the dog's head and Kate shifts in her seat. She's nervous.

Fair enough.

"Okay but like actually," Clint says after a pause. Natalia cuts him off with a groan, her head tipping back against the cushions of the couch. You allow yourself to trace the column of her throat with your eyes, the bob of muscle as she swallows. A little more overt than you should be, perhaps.

"Shut up," Natalia says.

"I wanna know," Clint protests.

"Fuck off."

"Nata asked me out first," you say. Natalia blinks at you.

"Right," Clint says, a grin growing. "Was this before or after you recovered from the brainwashing?"

"After," you say. You open your mouth to continue.

"I was nice to you before," Natalia cuts in. "Don't you dare say I wasn't."

"I wasn't going to," you say. She narrows her eyes at you and you smile, sweetly.

"Aw, Nat, you romantic," Clint says. Natalia launches a cushion at him and he allows it to hit him square in the face as he laughs.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

"You're squashing me," you say, shoving Natalia half-heartedly. "My leg."

"It's not my fault this bed is two feet wide," Natalia grumbles. She shifts, and her elbow sinks into your stomach.

"My stomach," you complain.

"It'll be your lungs next if you don't shut up," she says.

"Fuck you."

"Fuck you," Natalia counters. She pokes your cheek. "I love you. Even when both your knees are halfway up my ass."

"I know where my knees are. I've found the stick you've got lodged up there, too," you say. You press your face against hers and try to kiss her, but she rears back, almost falling off the bed.

"Someone's found her attitude," she says. "Couldn't you tell me you love me once in a while?"

"I hate you."

She laughs.

You fall silent again. The curtains are rustling in the light breeze. A car honks below the window and you jump at the sound, your muscles tightening for a second.

Natalia's hand flattens over your stomach. "Hey," she says. "It's okay."

You shove your head against her shoulder, your heartbeat slowing. How stupid. You're like a spooked horse.

"Fuck," you say. "I don't like it here." You're voice is muffled against her shoulder. She winds an arm around you and strokes the length of your spine, slowly.

"I know," she says. She waits a beat. Then, "I didn't really come on to you first." You frown against her skin at the change of subject.

"Yes, you did," you say.

"Discounting everything before," she says, and her voice is matter of fact. She's been thinking about this. "I didn't."

"You can't just discount fifteen years," you say.

"Come on. You kissed me first."

You think about it. It hadn't really been a kiss. You'd probably intended for it to be a punch. "I definitely didn't," you decide.

"You were literally all over me," Natalia replies. She's teasing you.

"Shut up."

"You love me."

"That is a lie," you protest, and you reach around her and pinch her leg. She kicks at you, her foot tangling in the blanket. "I barely even like you."

"So if I kissed you right now..."

"I'd drop you out that window," you say. She tugs on your hair, none too gently, coaxing your face up to hers. You pretend to try and squirm away, but she's fast and she kisses you before you've made it an inch across the mattress. You make a gagging sound, and she giggles and kisses you again. Again. Again. "Stop," you complain, as she presses kisses to your cheeks, your chin, the tip of your nose. "Let me sleep."

Natalia tucks her face into your neck and blows a raspberry. You squeal, laughing, and push her away.

requests | masterlist

notes: emotionally stunted IDIOTS

taglist: @when-wolves-howl @fayhar  @maggieromanov  @transbi-spidey @romanoffscottage @blackxwidowsxwife @lizlil @screechcat @maddess @mellxa @haeva @diaryoflife @natashasilverfox @vicmc624  @strangegardentaco  @phantomvael @lorsstar1st  @rysnwilder  

"You look incredible." The words are out of your mouth before they've even reached the forefront of your mind.

Thankfully, Natasha smiles at you: not the blinding, graceful blessing she saves for the cameras. No, this is a grin, hidden half behind her glass. "I know," she says. "Tony knows how to pick a color." And a cut, you think, and thankfully this time your thoughts don’t get ahead of you. Her dress is royal blue, the neckline daring and the decoration tastefully extravagant. Her hair is curled and swept and pinned to one side, leaving half her throat bare and white under the brilliant lights.

You look at your feet.

“Not too bad yourself,” she says, and your head snaps up. “You pull off that suit much better than the hundred and one other men wearing the exact same thing.”

“Shut up,” you say, a smile latching careful beginnings on your face. You tug your left sleeve sharply down and her eyes follow your movement. Her glass is nearly empty. “Refill?”

She looks at her glass. “Oh. Yes, please.” She holds it out between delicate fingers and you take it dutifully, already moving off even before your eyes have found the bar.

Tony made it an open bar: you’d say he was an idiot for it, but you guess even the combined efforts of a dozen or so superheroes on the alcohol supply wouldn’t make even the smallest of dents in his fortune.

As the bartender takes your glass for a refill, you feel someone step up beside you.

“Glass of red when you’re done,” they say: deep voice, cracking hard on the low consonants. Grainy and almost unpleasant. You turn to look and find a man with a face that matches his voice: thin and sallow and pale and observing you with great interest. “Hello.” He holds out his hand to shake and you take it cautiously. “John Vermont,” he says, and you drop his hand almost instantly.

John Vermont, the journalist who’s recently made a name for himself digging up things about Tony, and where Rhodes was born, and what Steve’s mother did for a living and generally being quite spiteful about what he manages to find. You’ve never met him face to face, and never wanted to. You’re not really in the mood to be one of his next targets, although with how waterproof your identity is, you’d truly be suprised (and grudgingly impressed) if he ever did find anything worth writing about.

You introduce yourself coldly and his eyes gleam. 

“Pleasure,” he says, his voice dripping with something belying rudeness. “Another of Miss Romanoff’s handlers, are you? Or perhaps the latest...date for the evening?”

So he’s after Natasha. You can’t help the way your shoulders tighten, but you can disguise it by reaching for the glass the bartender hands you. Vermont watches your arm move at the shoulder interestedly.

You know what he’s implying.

“No,” you reply stiffly. “And no.” 

And before you can come up with a cutting rebuke, from somewhere over your shoulder - “He’s actually my boyfriend.” An arm slips through yours, pale and edged at the shoulder with that damn royal blue dress. You blink hard at the glass in your hand, registering the words very slowly. A flush begins to form at your ears and you pass Natasha her glass whilst directing Vermont a cold smile. Her fingers pass over yours.

Your ears are ringing. You vaguely register Natasha giving Vermont a few sweet, carefully chosen words. Oh, God, you have to pull yourself together. She looks over at you, and she’s chosen a pretty smile showing white teeth and a position that makes the extent of that neckline very visible to you. To save your eyes from wandering and perhaps your throat from subsequently being slit, you look back up at Vermont, who is eyeing the pair of you with great interest in his slate eyes, once again. You see his fingers itching for his pocket.

“...so if you don’t mind, we’d like to go and dance,” Natasha is saying, and she squeezes your elbow. You take the hint and wheel around, then dive into the crowd with Natasha clinging to your arm. You can feel Vermont’s eyes hot on the back of your head as the dancers close in around you. “Slow down!” Natasha insists, hiking her dress up and stumbling after you. “I’m wearing seven inch fucking heels, for Christ’s sake.”

“So that’s why I can finally look you in the eye - sorry, the forehead,” you say, earning yourself a slap on the arm. It stings. “Ouch.” You slow as a couple whirls past you, and Natasha steps on the back of your shoe. She circles you and positions herself in front of you, hands held up. Her glass has disappeared somewhere along the journey into the crowd. “Um,” you say. You squint at her.

Natasha rolls her eyes monstrously. “We’re dancing, Мудак.” She settles her arms over your shoulders, links them around the back of your neck, and looks you seriously in the eye. “Now dance. You can dance, can’t you?”

“You’re being mean,” you complain. Your hands settle uncertainly on her waist. She tilts her head.

“You like it when I’m mean.”

You lead her into a box waltz and she raises a perfect arc of an eyebrow at you. “Don’t be mean,” you insist.

“You’re the only one who’s got the balls to come back with something,” Natasha replies. She steps purposefully on your foot.

“I just had those shoes polished.” She’s warm under your hands, but not so warm as the back of your neck is, not so warm as your chest as your heart throws itself desperately against your ribs with a panicked, fast beat.

You need to calm the hell down. You’re only touching her. Holding her. Holding her by the waist and waltzing her in slow circles as her eyes follow the room lazily and her fingers play with the back of your collar. You’ve seen Tony dance with her hundreds of times, the two of them touching each other naturally, and you know that’s never meant anything because Tony’s gayer than the day is long and-

Natasha sighs as the music changes and shifts against you, looping her arms further around your neck and pressing her chin into your shoulder. “Your heart’s going very fast,” she notes casually, and you almost grind to a halt and run right there and then. You don’t, because you’re not stupid and not a coward and you’d never be able to face her again if you did. You let a few steps pass before you reply, your voice low and easy.

“Vermont’s got a face like a mad rat. It’s the adrenaline: I keep thinking he’s gonna spring up on us.”

She laughs against your ear - why?? Is she trying to kill you? You almost miss a step. “God, this is dull.”

Your heart droops like a wilting puppy. “Sorry to bore you,” you say, careful to keep the acid from your voice.

“Oh, you’re not dull, don’t worry.” She pulls back from you and studies your face thoughtfully for a second. With great effort, you raise your eyebrows at her and keep your expression otherwise neutral. “Wanna get out of here?” Fuck. What does she think she’s doing to you? “I need a couch or something. Someplace I can take off these fucking shoes.”

“Yeah, I need to bin this tie,” you say, and it’s true: your collar is uncomfortably tight. Since when was the room this hot? You distract yourself by searching for an exit.

Predictably, Natasha finds one before you do. She grabs your wrist and propels you hurriedly towards it, easily dipping between couples and groups talking and dancing until the door is looming at you and she’s leading you through it. You grab at the knot of your tie and winch it open, then pull the entire thing off over your head and drop it in a passing trash can as Natasha bears you onwards in her search for a couch. The place is all white walls and tasteful art prints in tasteful frames and indoor pot plants (not the plastic kind, not for Tony Stark) and before long Natasha finds what looks like an ante room: leather couches and soft-seated wooden chairs and a long glass coffee table.

She sinks into a seat and works her heels off with a soft groan. 

You avoid looking at her and drop down onto the couch, lie back, slipping open your top two buttons and letting out a sigh. The party’s only been going for an hour and a half and you’re already exhausted. One arm droops over the side of the couch to brush the floor. The ceiling is cream and smooth, the lights a warm yellow.

It’s silent in here save for the rustling of Natasha’s dress, the music and chatter distant beyond the walls.

When you do look up, she’s got her chin in one palm and she’s staring at you. One leg is crossed over the other: there’s a slit in her skirt and it’s falling away to reveal her thigh, tight with muscle. You turn your gaze back to the ceiling and try to count to ten in your head.

You have to swallow before you can speak again. “How are your feet?”

“They’re fine.” It’s an uncharacteristically blank reply. You can still feel her eyes on you. Unsettling.

“What are you looking at me for?” you ask.

“Well, I can’t help it, you’re just so devastatingly handsome,” she replies, and this time her voice is biting with sarcasm. But when you look up at her she might not have said it at all. Her eyes are on your shirt buttons.

She rises from her seat restlessly, tests her toes out on the carpet, and then she paces the length of the room and back, arriving at the arm of your couch by your feet. She plops herself down on it with a sigh.

She looks at you and looks at you. You’re instantly all too aware of your rumpled shirt and ruffled hair and your arm thrown back behind your head and you shift uncomfortably. Her hand descends on your knee and you freeze. “No, don’t move,” she says. “You look like...” and she trails off. She’s not one for pretty words. You know all these things about her.

Natasha slips off the arm of the couch and you expect her to walk away but she doesn’t, she keeps going down and your heartbeat keeps rising. 

All those months of stealing looks at her, of trading sharp remarks softened with amused grins, of having her back and knowing she’s right beside you. You even knew, maybe unconsciously, that she’d be right there to save you from Vermont at the crucial point.

Now the crucial point is this, is her sinking to her knees and shifting up beside your head to brush her fingertips over your hair and down the side of your face. You’re sure your lungs don’t work. All you can do is keep your eyes on hers. You’d never dared to hope. Never let yourself want.

What if she just gets up and walks away?

Natasha dips her head towards you and like a dance, like you’ve choreographed this moment, you raise yourself to meet her and she kisses you, tender like her fingers at the back of your collar on the dance floor. You can taste wine on her lips. You can taste her. You can taste your own ecstasy rushing through you as you lie prone on a couch like some lamenting Greek hero and you kiss Natasha Romanoff and she kisses you back. Soft, a hand ghosting over the side of your face.

requests | masterlist

notes: I am so doing an nsfw part two

It’s not often that you look out your break room window and see the Avengers getting their super-asses kicked by an army of robots in the street below. Right by your favourite convenience store, too. How inconsiderate.

You’re not exactly the avenging, famous, skintight-suit hero type. Which is exactly what’s going through your mind as you tug your mask on and slip out the window onto the fire escape. You’re a vigilante, and not one with a fantastic set of morals.

“This is stupid, this is stupid, this is stupid,” you mutter, stomping up the fire escape stairs with a set of sonorous clangs. Fifty metres below you, Captain America goes sprawling, ripping up chunks of road and slamming headfirst into a car, denting the hood substantially. You grimace. He doesn’t get up.

Somewhere above you as you climb onto the roof, in a cloud of ozone and dust, you can hear Iron Man getting thrown about like a toy in a dog’s mouth, clangs of metal, the blast of repulsors. 

“I’m gonna die,” you say, as you draw your baton from your belt. You take a deep breath. Surely this is Spider-Man’s job, right? There’s a clump of robots converging on Captain America’s prone body, moving fast with their gross little legs skittering over the uneven ground. “This is stupid,” you breathe once more, under your breath.

You feel the static in the air around you, the faint dregs of electricity leftover from a thunderstorm a couple of nights ago. You draw on it and sparks gather at your fingertips, in your hair beneath your hood, racing down your legs to your feet. You channel it until you can feel the heat and crackle racing down your arms, until you can feel your feet leave the surface of the roof and your baton begin to flash. You’ve done this a million times before.

Except for this time, there’s only a couple of feet between those robots and Captain America’s head, and you’re tired because you couldn’t sleep last night and a hundred other things– You narrow your eyes, fling your arms forward, and fire a stream of electricity right towards the crowd of robots. The energy hits the ground in front of them and the impact sends them all flying backwards. You shield your eyes from the bright flash and when you can see again, they’re all lying crispy and fried on the floor, some legs weakly twitching in the air. You step to the edge of the building and hover there for a second, scanning the ground for Captain America.

He’s gone.

An idiot panic grips your throat for a second as you wheel through possibilities – you vaporised him. Oh, God, you vaporised Captain America – nope. He’s right there, starfished out on the hood of the car. Your blast must have thrown him up.

You drop off the edge of the building and fall, hands by your sides, the air stripping past your masked face. You catch yourself with a cloud of energy a foot from the concrete sidewalk, almost tipping forwards onto your face. You catch yourself with one hand against the ground and get to your feet.

You advance on the car, checking left and right for any more robots. As you pass the puddle of crackling, overworked robots, you step carefully around them.

You’re almost to the car when Captain America raises his head. You stop dead. Well, alright then. Job done.

He raises a bloodied hand to his ear, eyes narrowing as he takes you in.

“We have a hostile in the field,” he says. “Enhanced. Engage on sight.” You open your mouth to correct him, but of course, he can’t see it beneath the mask: and that’s when he launches his shield full force at your face.

You’re not nearly fast enough. It hits you just as you turn to the side and crashes right into your cheekbone.

You’re not sure what happens next. You’re sure of a blinding, colossal pain in your face, of the ruined concrete road harsh against your side and your temple. Not much else. For a second, you panic vaguely, utterly sure that you’ve lost all sight in your left eye, your vision black and grey.

You can hear yourself making little terrified grunts through heaving breaths. Your head would be delightfully, dizzily light and airy were it not for that immense pain. There’s something warm and damp beneath your nose.

Footsteps are hitting the ground, slow, almost drunken. Unsteady and hard, and you can feel them through your face. Oh, God, your face. Oh, Jesus, it hurts.

The footsteps are getting closer, closer. You’ve got to get up: there’s a certainty that you have to move, making itself known in the back of your mind. But you’d like to just lay here forever - if you move, the pain will intensify until it’s too much to bear.

No. No, you have to get up. You curl one hand into a fist and punch it into the ground, levering yourself up, your head hanging down.

“Ow, ow, ow,” you whimper to yourself. “That was so not fair.” Your face gives a particularly painful twinge and you groan. You get to your knees, to one knee. 

Captain America looms out of nowhere and you have nothing, no baton in your hand, no energy to throw. You launch yourself sideways with a yell as his fist comes soaring towards you. He misses. You crash to the ground and roll away like a fish on a boat deck.

You swallow blood: wouldn’t do to have to wash your mask for the billionth time. You were only trying to help, dammit. Maybe if you fry a couple more robots, he’ll stop trying to kill you. 

You struggle to your feet, hands on your thighs. You can see him staggering towards you out of the corner of your eye, in his stupid dusty blue suit that’s probably bulletproof, with his shield slung back onto his arm. You hold up your hands, palms up.

“I come…in peace,” you wheeze. Your face stings with the words. “Didn’t mean to electrify you.”

“Kinda gave me the wrong impression,” Captain America says. His hands curl into fists.

“Please don’t kill me.”

“Converge on 2nd Avenue,” Captain America says, into his wrist.

“I’m trying to help,” you say desperately. You can hear the click of robot legs, the whir of robot wings.

“Got ‘em,” someone says, directly above you, a mechanical voice. A shadow sluices over you. You fling yourself into a sideways roll just as Iron Man slams right into the spot you’d just been standing. You skid along the gritty ground, palms skidding on the concrete. Oh, you’re gonna feel that later. “Not got ‘em,” says Iron Man, standing up and brushing himself off with a scrape of metal on metal. He turns to you and starts to walk. You hear his repulsors build up. “C’mere, let me finish you off.”

“No thanks,” you say, getting to your feet. You try to walk, dizzy, your feet out of time, ankles crossing over each other. You almost trip and right yourself. “Jesus Christ, you guys pack a big punch, huh?” You back away as Iron Man advances, the sunlight gleaming off his dusty metal shoulders. Maybe you should run now. You should definitely run now.

“Tony, robot!” Captain America says, and you turn to see one of those damn metal bastards leaping for your face. Without thinking, you drop into a crouch and it flies over your head right into Iron Man’s chest. He grabs it by a leg and flings it at you like a frisbee: you raise both hands and blast it, hard as you can. 

When the light fades, Captain America has his hands over his eyes and the robot is nothing more than a sad, crispy bit of circuit board on the floor.

You turn and bolt before they have time to get their shit together. You leap over a ripped-up section of concrete, the ground tilting nauseatingly beneath you, and it’s a second before you’re aware that your feet haven’t touched the floor. Your jacket is pinched around your ribs, tight, and you look up to see one of those goddamn robots gripping you by the back of your suit, bearing you up into the sky like a bird of prey.

You choke on curses and swipe at it, wishing for your baton. It’s too dangerous to try pulling a gun on this thing, swinging precariously up in the air. The two of you fly higher and higher, windows and balconies flashing past. It’s probably going to get you high enough that when it drops you, you’ll hit the ground dead. What a lovely way to go. You take another swing at it, fingers crackling with energy, and the electricity must throw off its circuits or something because it lists dramatically to the left, throwing you hard against the edge of the roof of your building. The air rushes out of you like you’ve taken a punch to the sternum: you fold, hands flying out to grab at the rooftop. 

The robot, drunken and swaying, releases you and tumbles down onto the rooftop, its little legs whirring beneath it. You start to slide backwards, off the edge of the roof, and you grab at the ledge, your feet slithering against the wall, trying to find purchase.

Don’t look down. Don’t look down.

You look down and suck in a painful breath, squeeze your eyes shut. The ground is very very very far away, Captain America impossibly tiny beneath your hanging feet. You’ve been on so many rooftops: maybe it’s the broken face and possible broken ribs and definitely sprained shoulder that makes it a little scarier.

You haul yourself up, inch by torturous inch, teeth gritted so hard they creak like they might crack. Wouldn’t make much of a difference. You’re pretty sure that shield took half of them out anyway. You get your belly on the ledge and shove yourself harshly forwards, squirming onto the roof with your knees and bleeding palms. 

Bad day. Just a bad day.

You don’t think Daredevil ever got punched by Captain America. You flop onto your back, breathing shallow to alleviate the pain in your ribs. “Is it the mask?” you ask the sky. “Should I add some colour?”

“Not sure you should be lamenting your design choices right now,” someone says, and you scramble upwards into a sitting position. More blood pools in your mouth. There’s an arrow aimed at your face: an arrow, for Christ’s sake. Someone needs to get these superheroes some better tech. Hawkeye raises an eyebrow at you.

“Nice tights,” you say. The side of Hawkeye’s mouth twitches up. “You can shoot me if you want. Not sure I’ve got it in me to kick your ass, too.” You sway to the side: the robot is upside down, an arrow sticking out from its belly. It’s not moving. “Damn,” you say. “Kinda liked that little guy.”

“Get facedown,” he says. “Arms out to the sides, cross your ankles over.”

“I’m not really in the mood to get arrested,” you say. You can feel the blood on your lips now. You crack your knuckles, and Hawkeye’s draw arm twitches threateningly. “Bye,” you say, and you fling your arms out in front of you, drawing energy from your last reserves. The stream catches Hawkeye right in the chest and blasts both of you backwards. You cut it off before he tumbles over the edge of the roof, but then your foot catches on the ledge and you trip, staggering backwards into nothing.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

You drag yourself into your apartment through the window, the one above a sheer drop of wall that you leave unlocked so that your neighbours don’t see you staggering in through your front door dressed like a shitty Comic-Con version of Batman.

It’s always a challenge, but with broken ribs and the way your power is sputtering in your palms, it’s even worse – you have to haul yourself up to the windowsill with your fingertips. You’re going to get a lot of questions at work tomorrow.

You pull your boots off sitting on the windowsill, and brush the mud out of the grooves in the sole, holding them over the street below. Then you set your feet down on the floor inside and pull the sash down. Finally, home.

“You look rough,” says the dark interior of your tiny living room. Unthinking, instinctively, you draw your gun and point it in the vague direction of the voice. Your heart thunders in your ears. God, not today. Not right now.

“What the fuck do you want?” you ask. You fumble for the light switch and flick it on, and the room floods a dim yellow. There’s a woman in your armchair.

Normally, you’d be thrilled.

She’s got one leg crossed over the other, hands flat on the armrests, and she’s dressed down a little. Jacket over a hoodie. Jeans and combat boots. She looks tired, and you wonder where you’ve seen her before. Red hair, back in a braid. She gives you the slightest of smiles.

“For fuck’s sake,” you say. You didn’t mean to. Just slipped out. It’s been a long day, and suddenly it’s getting even longer. You weren’t exactly expecting to come home and find the Black Widow of all people sitting in your armchair. You don’t lower the gun, but you do correct yourself. “Sorry.” Your mother would kick your ass if she heard you speak like that. “What do you want? Did I kill your best friend? Totally an accident.”

“I don’t have a best friend,” she replies. “And if you did kill him, you’d already be dead.”

“We’re talking about the same person, right?” you ask, incredulously. “Hawkeye?”

“Regrettably. He’s fine. Complains of a concussion, but that’s nothing new.”

“Okay,” you say. You hadn’t exactly asked for his medical history. “So is there a reason you were lurking in my apartment in the dark? The dramatic flair? You scared the sh- you scared me.”

“You’re the one holding me at gunpoint. Where’d you even get that?” She sounds annoyingly patronising. It’s also super weird that she’s talking to you like you’ve met before. But you’ve heard stories about her – you know she likes to play with her food. Your grip tightens on the gun. If it comes down to it, and you fight, she’ll win: the only reason you’re still alive after eight months of blasting muggers into next week is that you can shoot electricity from your hands and you can run pretty fast. 

“A Target in South Carolina,” you say. “Don’t worry, I have a permit. You’re not a cop, right?” 

If you didn’t know better, you’d say she was holding back a smile. To be honest, you don’t really know better, in any sense of the words.

“No.” She shifts in her seat and raises an eyebrow at you. “But I am about to hurt you if you don’t stop wisecracking and start talking.” Her tone has flipped from teasing to ice-cold in half a second. You swallow the iron taste of blood.

“I was trying to help,” you say. “Not my fault you’re all so damn reactive.”

“You almost killed Captain America.”

“Did not,” you snort. “He’s fine. He was about to be eaten by those robots, or whatever the hell they were trying to accomplish. I fried them into next week.” You pause. She doesn’t look particularly impressed. “You’re welcome.”

“Well,” she says. “You’re certainly not the criminal mastermind type.” You stiffen with indignance at the stress she puts on those words, then wince in pain.

“I could be,” you say. She gives a gentle, aggravating little snort.

“How’d you break your ribs?”

“A robot hit me with a building,” you say. “Also some guy punched me in the stomach like…an hour ago.”

She tilts her head. “Why?”

“I tried to pull him off this girl. I think he was trying to stab her. Messy dynamics,” you say earnestly. 

“How heroic of you,” says the Black Widow, her voice utterly dry.

“I do my best,” you say. “Anyway, not to be rude or anything, but you’ve kinda overstayed your welcome.” Your gaze drifts downwards. “Also, this is a no-shoes apartment.” She looks down at her feet, then back up at you.

“My bad,” she says, not sounding particularly sorry. “Why’d you…” she gives a vague wave of her hand, “...step in? With the robots.”

“You guys were getting your asses handed to you.”

“You didn’t exactly help much.”

“Yeah, I figure it’s more Spider-Man’s area of expertise, but apparently he’s on vacation. Maybe he went to lay some eggs, I don’t know. Never can tell with superheroes.” You shrug.

“Says the girl who can shoot electricity out of her hands,” Black Widow says. 

“Um,” you say, searching for a clever response and finding none. You scowl at her accusingly, knowing she can’t see it. “How’d you find out where I live? You have a habit of breaking and entering?”

“It’s my job,” she says coolly. “To answer both your questions.”

“Does that mean you know everything about me?”

“Can you please put the gun down?” she asks, wearily, as if she’s talking to an idiot. You hadn’t even realised you were still holding it, and your arms are beginning to ache. You lower it, but you don’t holster it.

“Wasn’t planning on putting holes in my furniture anyways,” you reply. You pause. “God, are you still here?”

“I’m not done evaluating the threat,” she says, in such a casual tone. A chill hovers guardedly at the back of your neck and for a second you wonder if you shut the window properly.

“D’you want to hurry up about it?” you ask. You shift a little too suddenly and your ribs twinge. Your hand shoots up to cradle your side. Black Widow’s eyes follow it.

“Why? You want to go lick your wounds?” She licks her bottom lip, and it’s distracting. Annoyingly. “You don’t look too good.”

“Thanks, Captain Obvious,” you reply, sourly. “I got hit in the face with twelve pounds of vibranium, what d’you expect?”

“What do you expect when you go charging in on a fight that has nothing to do with you?” she answers. Her voice has returned to that cool, vicious tone. “Have you ever even had any training?”

“I do kickboxing,” you say, attempting to keep the injured tone from your voice.

“You’re out of your league,” she replies. Her gaze is sharp, her words cutting.

“Could you have got to that point ten minutes ago?” you snap back. You shove the gun back into its holster and stalk away from her, into the kitchen. Maybe not the smartest move, turning your back on the Black Widow, but you’re pissed now. You don’t break into someone’s apartment, threaten them with violence and then lecture them for no good reason after they’ve just saved Captain America’s life.

You yank open the fridge door and grab a bottle without bothering to look at the label. You flick the cap off on the scratched-up counter, lift your mask to shove the bottle under and take a long, cool sip. Beer, bitter and stale, floods your mouth. It tastes like shit, but it’s something, at least. Maybe paired with aspirin it’ll help.

“Are you in a frat?” Black Widow asks, and you spin around to see her leaning against your kitchen counter, a thin smile on her face as she surveys your empty fridge shelves.

“No,” you say. You kick the fridge door shut. “I’m just broke. Stop following me.” You long to take your mask off and breathe heavy breaths and chug the entire bottle in one go, but that’s not happening in front of her. Even if she already knows where you live. 

How the hell did she find out where you live? You were so careful.

“You know,” she says, after a short period of silence wherein you gulp your single sip of beer down and glare at her over the lip of the bottle, “I’m letting you off easy right now.”

You snort with derisive laughter: you can’t help it. “Saintly of you,” you say. She raises one eyebrow.

“I’m being serious. You want me to knock you out and drag you down to Manhattan? That’s what I’m supposed to be doing here.”

“Oh, so you’re putting your neck on the line for me?” you drawl. “That’s so sweet. I don’t care.”

“You’re aggravating,” she says, utterly calmly.

“You’re the one who broke into my apartment!” you reply. You manage to keep your voice down, but only just. She just tilts her head again, a tiny frown appearing between her eyebrows.

“I did not break anything,” she replies. She nods to your ribs. “You should really see a doctor.”

“A doctor?” you exclaim. “What is this, Sweden?”

She plants her palms on the counter and leans forwards, her face falling to seriousness. “They’re not happy, kid. Rogers especially. They think you’re some new villain on the scene, and you bet your ass you don’t want them coming after you.” 

You wish she’d stop jumping topics. Her constant switch of tone is giving you emotional whiplash: maybe that’s one of her tactics. Her Black Widow Tactics.

You honestly can’t believe this is happening. How did this happen to you, of all people? “I’m not a kid,” you tell her. “I’m twenty-five.”

“I’m eighty-eight,” she replies, with not even a hint of sarcasm. “I don’t care how old you are, you’re nothing compared to me. And you’d better hope you’re listening to me right now because this is the only grace you’re going to get.” Her voice is tight and angry now. You wonder if you’ve actually pissed her off, and you blink at her, wide-eyed.

“That’s pretty old,” you manage, weakly.

“Hm.”

“What’s your skincare routine like–” She moves faster than you can see and has you by the throat in a second, shoving you hard up against the counter. You make a choked sound as your ribs stitch with pain, one palm sliding against the edge of the sink, the other hand gripping the neck of your bottle so tight you think the glass might crack. “Ow,” you gasp.

Her face is close to yours, carved with anger, half-flooded with light from your living room, half in shadow. “Do not test me more than this,” she says. Her voice is utterly, terrifyingly calm, like a frozen moment in a hurricane. You feel her breath on your neck, hot and slow. Her fingers dig into your pulse point, and you know she can feel your heartbeat thundering under your skin.

“Okay,” you whisper. “I’m…sorry. Please let me go.”

She releases you. You fall back against the counter, gasping, blinking hard as your vision swims.

“Jesus Christ,” you splutter, wiping your lips free of saliva.

“I’ll get them off your back this time,” Black Widow says. She wipes her hand on her jacket, and you’re indignant until you see that some of your blood has rubbed off onto her skin. “But you’d better stay in your lane from now on. Friendly neighbourhood–” she gestures vaguely at you– “whatever. Alright?”

“Uh-huh,” you say, massaging your bruised throat. “Thanks for dropping by. Really appreciate it.” For a moment, she looks like she wants to throttle you again. Then she turns her back on you and leaves.

You hear your front door open and close, and you sag against the sink, tug your mask off and press the cool, damp beer bottle to your aching face.

What a day.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

You’ve been different ever since you got your powers. Everything seems to thrum with colour and vibrancy. You’re stronger, not much, but noticeably. You heal faster, you can hear high tones wavering in frequencies normal people can’t reach, and your bruises fade quickly. 

So your rib bones knit back together in mere days once you’ve set them properly, and the ache in your face recedes with time. Luckily, you hadn’t lost any teeth, and the road rash all down your side is gone soon enough. 

You suppose it’s a blessing: no awkward questions or gentle, understanding tones in aside conversations, but at the same time, there’s no recognition either. No one realises you’re out every night attempting to bust the drug trade or wipe the floor with drunk idiots who can’t keep their hands to themselves. No one will ever know you saved Captain America’s life.

It’s better this way. 

You run through that thought in your head over and over as you squat at the edge of a roof in the dark, a twenty-four story building stuffed full of offices. Below you, red tail lights swim through the blackened imprint of the road, storefront neons flicker and shut off, and sparse pedestrians make their way home, shoulders hunched beneath coats. 

The wind is chilly up here. No one can see you.

You sit there the rest of the night, shivering. You break out the hand warmers at about a quarter to two. You know if you go home you won’t sleep: you’ll ruminate about being unwanted and you’ll glare at the dark ceiling blindly until the sun comes up.

Nothing happens. Of course it doesn’t, because you deserve some luck after such a shitty day.

Well. Nothing happens until the first rosy fingers of sunlight are beginning to creep up over the harbour and the first pigeons begin to wake and the first trains begin to go, rattling like earthquakes under the ground. That’s when a truck backs out of a tiny alley off 8th Avenue, with no reversing lights and no beeper. 

You watch it progress with narrowed eyes, scanning for a number plate: none. Suspicious.

You drop to the street level and catch yourself with a crackle of energy just behind a dumpster. One of the truck’s headlights winks and flickers in the shift in electric fields, but the man waving the truck back is too preoccupied to notice and the driver looks utterly bored. You creep along the wall until you’re sliding into the tiny gap between the truck and the dirty brick wall of the building, in a half-crouch. You slip under the carriage, flat on your back, and think about the charges and forces around you. Magnetism’s gotten pretty easy over time. 

With a flick of your wrists, you shift the fields around your fingertips and toes and instantly you shoot upwards, sticking to the undercarriage of the truck with a clang. You wince, but neither of the men appears to hear you.

Suddenly it strikes you just how much of an idiot move this is: where might the truck be going? How long can you hold magnetism for at two in the morning with healing ribs and the road spinning out beneath you? But it’s too late, the truck is doing a one point turn and the big wide concrete street is now below you. You can’t drop now or you’ll be seen. You just have to hang on.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

The journey is torturous. Twice now, you’ve accidentally fallen asleep stuck to the undercarriage, and woken in a rush of terror with one hand hanging down and your shoulder and knuckles grazing the fast-moving ground, burning through your suit. 

You see the sun come up on either side of the truck’s shadow, lighting the road a bright golden grey. The wind chills you head to toe, slipping like ice down the back of your neck, and the engine fumes choke you like gas. Your muscles tremble and sear, your mind a vague whirl of survival instincts and keep hold, keep hold, keep hold.

The truck tires grind to a stop over gravel, and the undercarriage jolts to a halt with them. For a second, you can hardly believe it. The driver’s door opens and boots thump onto the grit, past your head. You release one trembling hand from the undercarriage, and you plan to go down limb by limb, but that’s when your powers give out, sensing your body’s exhaustion, and you drop to the ground, spine first. 

The wind rushes out of you and you try not to gasp and splutter, you try to keep as still as possible. The ground cuts into you from all angles. You hear the end gate of the truck swing down and hit the floor with careless force, scattering dust and pebbles. Another set of footsteps.

“That’s what we got,” says the driver. He scuffs the ground with his shoe. There’s a heavy thump as someone steps up into the body of the truck, the carriage shaking with their weight, wheels sinking against the ground. You keep every muscle locked still, listening. 

A heavy shift, like a large wooden box being shuffled to the side.

“Good,” says the person in the truck. “I’ll have them unload it. Then you get back behind the wheel and drive away, understand?”

“I get paid,” the driver corrects. “Then I drive away.” The person in the truck makes a dismissive sound. They jump, and their boots hit the ground with a plume of stones.

What the hell are you going to do? You don’t even know where you are. And you sure as hell can’t survive the journey back to New York, clinging like a spider to the underneath of the truck. The driver will move off and you’ll be left lying there in bright daylight.

You’re going to have to do something.

The second person turns sharply and begins to walk away. You wait until you hear their footsteps fade to nothing and the driver sits down on the edge of the truck gate with a hefty sigh. You might have mere minutes before the second guy returns with back-up.

You roll out from under the truck, wincing as the grit presses into your road rash. You get dizzily to your feet and the driver turns, a frown ready on his face. He sees you, clocks you, suit and mask and all. His eyes widen.

“Fuck–” he says, and you dash forward and punch him right on the jaw. Knockout button. His eyes roll up into his head and he slumps sideways. You catch him before he can hit the ground headfirst, prop him up against the wall of the truck. It’ll look like he’s having a bit of shut-eye from a distance, maybe that will throw them off. You dig quickly through his pockets and extract a wallet, a packet of candy, and the keys to the truck: you tuck it all into your pockets.

You climb into the truck, ducking under the canvas covering: it brushes your head even when you’re bent practically double. The truck is stuffed full of wooden crates with solid walls and nailed-down lids. Their sides are blank, the wood new. You pry a few nails out of one of the crate lids and rip it up, peer inside.

“Well, shit,” you say to yourself, just because you can’t help it. The contents of the crate are glowing, a very familiar purple. It looks like all that alien shit from a couple of years ago, when the sky split open above New York like something out of an H.P. Lovecraft book and started raining lizards. Lizards with glowing purple sticks that blew stuff up. You know because you almost got one to the kisser.

What to do, what to do, what to do? You fumble for your phone, conscious that any second a bunch of probably very large men are going to come climbing into the truck and you’re going to be crouched in the corner looking threatening. You don’t like your odds, and you barely even know them.

Whose number do you have that you can call? You could probably find Tony Stark’s number somewhere on the internet with a laptop and some wifi and half an hour of time. 

The crunch of footsteps outside on the gravel sounds, and you panic, panic, panic. “Hey, the driver’s down!” someone says. Deep voice. 

“There’s someone here,” says another guy. “Look in the truck, quick.” Okay, time to do something incredibly stupid. You back up against the far wall of the truck, squinting at the bright square of daylight open at the end. A big, looming shadow of a guy steps up to the gate, and you push off the wall, launch forwards, and spear-tackle him right in the gut. The two of you go flying and you’re thrown off him, into the ground, your head smacking hard against the gravel. He gets to his feet before you do and pulls a knife from nowhere, a big sharp chunk of metal – this is going badly. You stand and shake yourself off, dizzily. 

“Careful with that,” you say, nodding to the knife as the big guy advances on you. There’s another guy checking the cab of the truck, two more standing by, waiting to get in on the fight. “Might take someone’s eye out–” He stabs at you, faster than you’d expected, and you twist sideways on instinct. Too late. The blade slashes through your suit and into your skin. You feel it scrape your ribs.

He pulls it back and stabs again. This time you move, crumpling to the floor to duck, and the knife whistles over your head. You gasp and clamp your hand to your side, feel blood hot and wet through your glove. It stings, the pain muffled by a cloak of shock. You’re gonna feel it later.

The guy bears down on you again and you lunge for his legs, wrapping both your arms around his knees. In desperation, you feel a wave of electricity surge through your arms and he stiffens as he hits the ground, muscles spasming. You get wearily to your feet again as he writhes in the dust, eyes rolling back in his head.

The other two men back away from you. You turn the energy up, letting it spark and crackle in your hands, making a show of it: you don’t have the reserves to blast them right now. They turn and take off across the gravel parking lot, towards a building in the distance.

You drop your hands, and turn to slam the gate closed. There’s still a guy poking around in the cab, oblivious to the fact that his friends have left him alone. You creep up behind him and slam the door into his head when he turns. He crumples and slides out of the cab. You jump aside as he hits the ground. Nice.

You heave yourself into the driver’s seat, leaving smears of blood all over the covering. Tug the door closed, stick the keys in the ignition, start the engine. It all takes too much effort. Lucky the truck’s an automatic. You put it in drive and stomp on the accelerator.

It takes you five hours to drive back to New York, and by that time the sun is low on the horizon, hot through the windscreen and the driver’s candy has left your mouth dry. You’re still bleeding, finding it hard to stay awake with one hand on the wheel and one pressed to your side. You manage to back the truck into a grimy little parking lot a block away from your apartment, and you tumble out of the cab and lock the door behind you. You lean against the wall of the truck for a good long minute, trying to get back breath that won’t return, gasping and panting. The wound in your side is burning like someone’s taken a match to your flesh, and your entire side and half your thigh is drenched with blood.

You don’t have the capacity to plan out whatever the hell you’re going to do with the truck or think about who might be really really angry that you’ve stolen it. You stumble back to your apartment as the evening comes on, hiding in the dusk and down the backs of tiny streets where people don’t look up from their feet when they walk. You go in through your front door and collapse on the floor just inside. With the last of your energy, you kick the door closed and hear it clicks as it locks. Then you rest your head on the floor and close your eyes. Just a few minutes, you tell yourself.

You wake under a bright light, your vision swimming. You make an incoherent sound of panic, one that was probably meant to be a curse, and you try to sit up only to discover that you’re already propped up against the bathtub. You lean forwards far too quickly and smack heads with someone. Reeling, you slump backwards, blinking hard.

“Ow!” says the person. “Fuck!” Your vision clears from a smear of white and grey. Black Widow is crouched in front of you, a hand over her nose, eyes watering. She scowls at you.

“Hnng,” you say. 

“That really hurt,” she growls. 

“Don’t kill me,” you stammer, wanting to raise your hands in front of you. Your arms don’t respond and you panic further, imagining that she’s done something awful like chopped them off. Then you look down and there they are, limp by your sides. You’re in the bathroom, sitting on the cool tiles in your underwear. In your underwear. In your underwear. Black Widow undressed you in your bathroom. Your mask is still on. The bright fluorescent light is on, blindingly bright and the sky outside the window is a deep navy, lit with the glow of the city.

“I’m not trying to kill you,” Black Widow gripes. “Jesus Christ.”

“What are you– what are you doing?” you gasp. You’re lightheaded, the world rocking like a pendulum as you try to cling to reality.

“Stitching you up,” she says. She rubs her nose one more time, then reaches for something to her left: a square dressing and a roll of tape.

“Huh?” you say cleverly.

“Yeah, you were half-dead when I found you so I figured it was only polite,” she says dryly.

“How’d– why were you in my house?” you ask. She slaps the dressing onto your side and doesn’t look at you. “Have you been following me?” 

“Let’s not make accusations,” she replies, light and casual.

“You have been following me!” you say. “Could you not have been there when that idiot twice my size decided to stab me?”

“You can make better decisions, you know,” she says. She rips a length of tape off with her teeth. “Like calling the police.”

“Spider-Man doesn’t call the police,” you say.

“Is he like your idol or something?” she asks, almost explosively. “You’re not Spider-Man! You’re an idiot with a death wish.”

“That’s rude,” you say. She just huffs. 

She finishes taping your side up and squats back on her heels. “Done,” she says. She stands and flicks the sink faucet on with her elbow, sticks her bloodied hands under the stream. “That’s some road rash you got.” You look down at your shoulder, which is stinging in the cool air. It appears to have been washed. Your knuckles are bruised. 

“It’s nothing,” you say, wary of the sudden calm tone she’s using. “You should see the road.” She snorts at the mirror, then turns back to you and sits on the closed toilet lid. Rests her elbows on her knees.

“Tell me what happened,” she says. You frown at her. She raises one red eyebrow at you, elegantly. 

“I got stabbed,” you say.

“That’s not a stab. It’s barely a scratch.”

“I almost died!”

“You did not. Tell me what happened.” Her voice is straying dangerously into annoyance. You don’t want her to throttle you again, not in this state, anyway.

You sigh, heavily, then regret it when you feel your wound twinge. “There was this truck.”

“Hm,” she says. She sounds unimpressed.

“I hitchhiked. Ended up five hours away in a parking lot in the middle of nowhere. Bunch of alien shit in the back. So I stole it and brought it back.” There’s a long, uncomfortable silence. To avoid looking at what you’re sure is a glare hot enough to melt steel, you poke the dressing on your side and inspect your purple knuckles.

“What were you planning to do?” she asks. It sounds like a rageful rhetorical question.

“I don’t know,” you say. “Hand it over to the Avengers?”

“The same Avengers who believe you tried to kill Captain America not even a week ago? Those Avengers?”

“Pretty sure there’s only one set of Avengers,” you supply helpfully. 

“You’re making this very hard for me,” Black Widow says.

“Okay, so you’d rather some massive maniacs had control of a truck full of alien gear?” you prompt. “I think I did America a favour, actually. And I’m not usually inclined to do that.”

“Where’s the truck?” Black Widow asks shortly. “I’m at the end of my rope here.”

“You’re always at the end of your fucking rope,” you say. “A block over. Parking lot next to the basketball court that no one ever uses.”

“Hm,” she says again, and she gets to her feet. She looks down at you. Nods to your dressing. “Take that off and replace it tomorrow morning,” she says.

“Thanks,” you say, injecting as much sarcasm as you can muster.

“Take an Advil,” she says, and she walks out, leaving you sitting there half-naked on your bathroom floor.

You tug your mask off and glare at the tiled wall.

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

You don’t really expect to see her again. You don’t even really think about it, besides a half-hearted Google search for her name. But then barely a week later, you’re lying on someone’s balcony with a sprained ankle and a nosebleed from some asshole who’d tried to rob a tiny little convenience store down in Queens, and you’re so far from home and you’re miserable and any moment the owner of the apartment might look out the balcony door–

“You look awful,” she says, stepping into your line of sight. She’s dressed all in black, a hood up over her hair. You can see a tuft of red hair at her collar. Natasha Romanoff.

“Where you going, a goth rave?” you ask, still out of breath. She grins at you, disarmingly.

“Do you need a hand?”

“Yes I need a fucking hand,” you grumble, and you hold out your arm. She considers you for a second. Then she reaches down, yanks you half off the ground and lifts you across her shoulders. You let out an oof as her shoulder sinks into your solar plexus. “What the hell?” you ask, grabbing at her arm, feeling horribly off-balance. “Put me down!”

“You wanna walk?” she asks you, tipping back to look up at the building.

“No,” you snarl, fingers fisted in her jacket.

“Hang on, then,” she says. She raises her hand: there’s a hiss, a clang, and the next thing you know you’re being jerked upwards, the balcony vanishing below you. It’s just half a second of nauseating vertigo, and then Natasha lands on the roof with a thump and a stumble. You groan into her ear. She kneels and sets you down on the roof. It’s damp and the wetness soaks through the ass of your suit.

“Warn a girl,” you say, shaking out your hands, which have cramped from holding on to her so tightly. 

“I wanted to get you out of sight before I assessed the situation,” she says airily. “What happened? Is it dealt with?”

“I tripped,” you say, attempting to keep the sulk out of your voice. Natasha offers you an unsympathetic look.

“How?”

“A guy punched me in the face.”

“I’m not following the chain of events,” she says blankly. You roll your eyes.

“You don’t need to. I knocked him out and called the police, alright?” You cross your arms. It’s hard to be above-it-all when you’re sitting in a dirty puddle and she’s standing above you, chin tilted up so her eyes catch the last of the evening light, hands in fists by her sides. You notice then that her knuckles are smeared in blood. “What’d you do with the truck?” you ask.

“I turned it in to SHIELD,” she says. “They were more than happy to receive it.” She looks down at you. “You know the others would have attacked you if you’d turned up with it.” It sounds almost like an apology.

“Yeah,” you say heavily.

“And if they see you anywhere around…they won’t hesitate to engage.”

“I know,” you say. You pick at a loose thread on your pants in frustration. “I just don’t know what I can do to convince them that I’m…” you trail off vaguely and shrug.

“Save some lives,” Natasha replies. She takes a seat next to you and brushes her palms off on her jacket. “You’re not above that, are you?”

You throw her a look. “Don’t be an asshole. I save lives all the time.”

“Save the President’s life.”

“Don’t like the President,” you say. “And he’s all the way in Washington, anyway.” You tip backwards and lie down, the roof cold through your jacket. “Maybe I should just give up.”

Natasha scoffs. “Right. As if you would.”

“You don’t know me,” you say, to the greying sky.

“I know more than you think I do.”

“Creepy. Are you gonna help me home, or what?” you say. You push yourself up onto your elbows. She’s looking at you intently.

“You can fly,” she says, after a second.

“I’m tired. Don’t you have a car?” You give her your best expression of desperation. When she doesn’t cave, you widen your eyes very gradually until you’re sure you look like a kid denied dessert.

She leans in close, her face impressively blank, and says, “You are a very annoying person.”

“No,” you say, “you’re mistaking annoyance for attraction.”

“Oh, baby, sweetheart, I can’t keep my eyes off you,” she says, her voice completely flat of affect. She’s very close to your face, her hand planted on the roof barely an inch from your thigh.

“Knew it,” you say, grinning up at her. “Give me a hand up.”

She helps you (drags you) down the fire escape on the opposite side of the building and bundles you into a car like she’s staging a kidnapping. You complain the whole way down, so maybe that’s why.

“This is a nice car,” you say. She slams the door closed on you and gets in on the other side. the car starts with a happy growl when she turns the key in the ignition. The seats feel like real leather, the dash inlaid with hundreds of buttons like jewels. “Je-sus,” you say. “I might be getting your seats a little damp.”

“Hmph,” Natasha says, checking her rearview mirror. She puts the car in gear - it’s a fucking manual, of course she drives a manual, she probably likes feeling above everyone else even though she’s already got a car that costs four times your apartment lease and she doesn’t need another goddamn ego boost - and backs out of her parking space. 

She drives you home in silence. At one point, you consider switching on the radio and playing some menial pop song just to piss her off, but she gives you a look like she knows exactly what you’re about to do and so you slump back into your seat with the most innocent expression you can muster. 

“Don’t try and look all cute,” Natasha says. She smoothly turns a corner. “I know you’re the devil incarnate.”

“You can’t even see my face!” you protest. “Asshole. You’re so rude.” She pulls the car into a jerky brake against the kerb, throwing you forwards against the dash.

“Oops,” she says casually, as she kills the engine. “Should’ve put a seatbelt on, hm?”

Credit where credit is due, she does at least help you up the stairs, graciously ignoring the scowls you’re shooting at her over your shoulder. The fact that she’s extraordinarily gentle with one hand on your spine to keep you balanced doesn’t help the fact that you’re attempting to be annoyed with her at all. You unlock your door, balancing on one foot with the other ankle throbbing like mad, and swear loudly when the damn key won’t stick in the damn lock. Eventually, Natasha shunts you aside and opens it herself, with one smooth twist of the key.

The door swings inwards. Your own apartment is betraying you for her.

“Get inside,” Natasha orders, checking up and down your hall. You obey, hopping forward and feeling incredibly pathetic. To your surprise, Natasha follows you inside and pulls the door closed behind her. She throws your keys at you and you catch them one-handed against your chest, and then she’s walking towards you with purpose and you try to stumble backwards, but you forget that you only have the use of one foot and you go floundering down into your couch. She stands above you, eyebrows raised. “Are you scared of me?” she asks, after a long silence. She sounds casual again, as if this is a question she asks every day. As if she expects a casual answer.

“Little bit,” you say, and you congratulate yourself internally on how unbothered you sound.

“Huh,” she snorts, and she sinks to her knees in front of you. Your brain short-circuits. She pulls a roll of tape from her pocket and you feel stupid, instantly. 

You hate how she can pluck your emotions like harp strings. 

“Take your shoe off and put your foot up on this,” she says, grabbing one of your throw cushions and laying flat on the opposite end of the couch. 

“Yes, sir,” you mutter insolently, reaching down to tug at your laces. Your head swims, throbs violently and you tip forward, losing balance. Your hands go out to catch yourself and land on Natasha’s shoulders, pushing her back: you try to let go, but you can barely find the strength to sit back up again, a headache pounding in your ears. She grabs you by the waist and shoves you, depositing you against the back of the couch. “You’re strong,” you say drunkenly, because you’re not thinking, your thoughts are moving like sludge in your head and spilling stupidly out of your mouth.

She smiles very slightly. “You’re useless,” she counters. She tugs at your laces herself and works your boot off your foot. She squints up at you and you frown, wondering what the problem is. “Nice socks,” she says. “They really flatter me.” You tip your head against the back of the couch and groan, and you can hear her start to grin. 

“You’re the worst,” is all you say. Of course today had to be the day that you wore your Avengers socks out on a mission. 

“It’s okay, I’m not judging you.” She is totally judging you. 

She grabs your leg and swings it up onto the pillow, ignoring your wince of pain, then produces her roll of tape and binds your foot to the cushion. You look down at her.

“What the hell am I supposed to do with this?” you ask. “I can’t go to work with a pillow on my foot.”

“Then take a day off,” Natasha replies. She rolls her eyes at you. “It needs rest. If you go running about on it, you’ll never heal.” She gets to her feet with her hands splayed on her thighs, and looks down at you. You glare back up at her, arms crossed. 

“Get me an ice pack,” you say.

“Your fridge is barren,” she replies. “There’s no way you have an ice pack of all things in there.”

You heave a huge sigh. “Please,” you say. “I have a bag of peas in the freezer draw.”

“Hm,” Natasha says. “Fine.” She walks around the back of the couch. The instant she’s out of your line of sight, you feel her swat you on the back of the head. Enraged, you twist and try to hit her, but she’s damn fast and she’s in the kitchen before your hand’s even finished its arc. You settle back against the arm of the couch.

She opens the fridge, pulls open the draw with a crunch of ice, and you wait until she’s surely grabbed the bag of peas before you say, “Oh, by the way, it’s open.” There’s a filthy curseword spat out and the sound of frozen peas rattling across the floor and you grin to yourself. She slams the fridge door shut. “Did you find it okay?”

“You’re going to be finding moldy peas everywhere for the next two years,” she calls back at you. “And you’ll deserve it!” You hoist yourself up on the back of the couch and crane for the open door of the kitchen to see her crouched on the floor, sweeping peas into her hand.

You snort and sit back down again.

She enters holding the bag of peas gingerly in two hands like it’s a bomb about to go off, and dumps it in your lap. Thankfully, she’s tied the top closed. A single pea bounces off your thigh and disappears under the TV stand.

“Thanks,” you say, grinning up at her. Natasha throws herself into your other chair with a discontented grunt.

She makes a lot of those little sounds.

“Aren’t you gonna go home?” you ask, slapping the peas over your ankle. The pain begins to fade almost immediately with the cold and you groan, eyes closing, and rest your head back against the armrest in relief. There’s a short silence before she replies.

“I’m resting. Making sure you don’t pass out and choke on your own vomit.”

“Charming,” you say, cracking one eye open to look at her. She’s observing you intently. “What?”

“What what?” she shoots back, in an instant. You shrug helplessly.

“I don’t know,” you say. “Can you take my other shoe off?”

With a huge sigh, she unfolds herself from the armchair, grabs your uninjured foot, and yanks your boot off without untying the laces. 

You wiggle your toes in her face. “Thanks.” She slaps your foot away from her face and tosses your boot over her shoulder.

“You’re bleeding,” she says astutely, studying you from below. You panic for a second, hands going to your ribs, your legs, checking for wounds. “From your face, idiot. It’s soaking through your mask.” You tug one glove off and press your fingers to the lower half of your mask: it’s only a dollar store masquerade mask over a bandana, but it usually stays on well enough. And soaks up all your blood. The amount of times you’ve had to wash it is honestly insane. 

Sure enough, the fabric is wet, a little crusty with blood. You probe gently at your nose, teeth gritted against the pain. It doesn’t appear to be broken, thank god.

“I’ll get you a tissue,” Natasha says unprompted, and she gets to her feet and moves off. She’s back before long, and she stuffs a length of toilet roll into your hands, before collapsing in the armchair again, facing the window away from you.

You stick the tissue up under your mask, against the flow of blood. “Thangks,” you say, slightly muffled. She looks around at you, and you stick two bloodied thumbs up at her. “I’ll be fine. You can go.”

Natasha looks a little torn for a second, only a second before it’s gone again and she shrugs, climbing out of her seat and brushing her pants off. “You’d better not go comatose,” she says warningly. She stops by the amrest where your head is and looks down at you, her face indecipherable.

“Sure won’t,” you say. You try to pretend like your headache isn’t building with every second, like you don’t wish that she’d put cool hands on your bare forehead and talk you to sleep: you know her voice could send you to sleep if she wanted it to. 

Natasha reaches out and taps your mask on the hard curved bridge of your nose with one finger. “Get some rest,” she says, inexplicably gentle. Then she cocks her head to the side. “And remember, if you stick your nose in where you’re not wanted again-”

“Yeah, yeah,” you say, rolling your eyes with difficulty. “You don’t have to say that everytime we see each other. I’ve got the message now.”

“Uh-huh,” she says dryly. 

“Leave.” You point sternly to the door. 

“Leaving,” she says, hands raised in mock surrender. She gives you one last smile, and walks out. Through your door this time. How kind of her.

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taglist:  @when-wolves-howl @fayhar @maggieromanov @transbi-spidey @romanoffscottage @blackxwidowsxwife @lizlil @screechcat @maddess @mellxa @haeva @diaryoflife @natashasilverfox @vicmc624 @strangegardentaco

The bed is empty when you wake, and you register this with your sleep-sluggish brain.

Then you hear her sneeze, in the bathroom through the door. Twice. Three times. Four.

"Nata," you say hoarsely.

"Yeah?" she replies. You see a glimpse of red hair. Her voice is thick.

"You are disturbing me."

She laughs, and you hear the rustle of tissue. "You're such a jackass."

You pull the sheets more securely over your head, blotting out the sound of her sniffs and the light from the window. "Come back to bed," you say, your arm falling over the side of the mattress to brush the floor.

"Coming." That thick sound again, like there's something stuck in her throat. You stick your head out of the covers and frown at her as she enters, ignoring the fond smile on her face.

"What's wrong with you?" you ask. She grabs your nose and you squirm out of her grasp.

"Rude."

"Why is your face like that?"

"Rude," Natalia repeats. Her nose is red. In fast, her whole face is flushed. She sits gingerly down on the edge of the bed. "You want breakfast?" she asks.

You study her. Her fingers gripping the covers, her wrists trembling. The way her chest is moving shallowly, her breaths in tight little gasps. "I'll make breakfast," you say. She raises an eyebrow at you.

"Oh, you will?"

"Yes, I will." You wave a hand vaguely in the direction of the ceiling. "That thing James said about assimilating back into the world."

She studies you critically for a second, but she doesn't appear to have the energy to protest, and you scramble out of bed, touch her shoulder and make for the kitchen.

Behind you, you hear a whoof as she collapses back onto the mattress.

Natalia only emerges when you begin to burn the food. She leans against the kitchen doorframe, barefoot. Her face is pallid now, her shoulders slumped.

"You're burning that," she says thickly.

"You really are the most observational-"

"Idiot."

You turn back to the oven with a sigh. "Sit." She pauses, then obeys, her feet making no sound against the floor. The chair scrapes and she drops heavily into it.

You serve her a watery fried egg on a piece of toast with the burnt edges cut off, and she beams at you like you've set the world on her plate, her bloodshot eyes turning up at the corners.

"Sit," Natalia says, and when you've sat down, she forks a bit of egg white up and pushes it into your mouth. She's only eaten a small square of toast when she pushes her plate away.

You touch her forehead under the guise of affection. Her skin is hot like sunwarmed stones, alarmingly so.

"You're ill," you say.

Natalia pulls away from your hand, her constant smile fading. "No," she says. "I'm not."

"Okay, so eat," you prompt. She eyes her plate reluctantly.

"I have work to do today," she says eventually, and she pushes herself up to stand. You grab her shoulders and shove her down again: it's frighteningly easy. She stares up at you.

"You're going back to bed."

"I'm not sick."

"Nata," you say, fixing her with a look. Her nose is still red, her lips cracked, her eyes half closed. You wonder if she has a headache.

Finally, she gives in. She leans forward slowly and presses her face to your stomach with a sigh. "Okay," she says, muffled. "Only if you come with me."

You scratch at her scalp, thumbs in circles just behind her ears and she melts into you with a groan. "Of course."

"My head hurts." She shivers, hard like she's been holding it back all this time. "I'm cold."

"I'll get you an Ibuprofen."

Still, she doesn't move away from you. In the end, you have to lift her up with arms around her waist, and walk her into the bedroom yourself. You lay her down amongst the tornado of sheets, draw them over her shoulders, and make for the bathroom to get the medicine. When you return, she's curled into a ball, shuddering under the covers. You switch the light off.

You set the glass of water you'd poured down on the bedside table and climb in next to her. Immediately, she loops her arms around your waist and pulls you in, shoving her face into your shoulder.

"I have pills," you say. Her knee is in your stomach, but you don't move. Natalia's hand worms into yours and finds the tablets. She swallows them dry, her face screwed up in the dark. Then she sighs against your neck and relaxes.

You draw your hands over the curve of her back, gently.

"You should tell me, next time," you say softly. "Don't hide things from me."

"We don't really talk about things, though, do we?" Natalia says. Her voice is muffled and slurred. You paint patterns against the cloth of her t shirt. "Besides, I'm used to dealing with it."

"We could." She stays silent. "We could talk about it," you say. "And you don't have to deal with it. You never made me deal with it."

No reply. Then: "I want to go to sleep."

"Okay." You hesitate. "I love you."

You feel her smile. "Love you too," she says. The shutters thump gently against the window sill. Natalia tightens her arms around your waist. "Thank you for looking after me."

You can't communicate the emotions those words surface in you. How could you? When she's cared for you so much more? When she's saved you from the brink of hell, when she's tolerated and loved you, even as cracked and abrasive as you are, all this time. You will look after her always, in any way, at any time. If this is what you can do to love her and comfort her, you will do it.

You say nothing. You let her sleep, her wet breath warming your skin and think over and over again I love you I love you I love you.

Such a shame you can't say it any other way. You'll run out of I love you some time or other.

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Scotland is engulfed in snow when you next look out of the plane window. The runway, almost invisible against the grey of the ground and the sky and the sweep of Edinburgh, looms ominously. You tuck your book away and touch the back of your head against the headrest.

Natalia will be there. It's a fact you haven't allowed yourself to dwell on the whole flight: hell, you haven't thought about it since you were choosing which suitcase to bring. Even just that single thought of her invades your mind like a storm. It has ever since you met her: but that's how everyone reacts. That's just the effect she has on people.

It's calculated and purposeful. She knows exactly what she's doing and she executes her effect with grace and ease. She's a paradox in and of herself.

And it's nothing to do with you. So you might as well stop thinking about her.

The flight attendant offers to help you with your suitcase as you approach the door, and you briefly entertain dropping it wheels down onto her foot.

"No, thank you," you say sweetly. A light Serbian accent, easy as breathing. She smiles back at you.

The air is cruelly cold the second you step out of the safety of the cabin. You've endured far worse weather. No sleet, but wind ruffles the furs around your shoulders and you pull your scarf up before it can get to your hair. You descend the plane's steps with grace, as a lady of standing would.

You're supposed to be twenty three, and rich. You're pretty sure you stand somewhere between sixteen and nineteen in actuality, but it doesn't matter, and it never has.

They've sent you a limousine to the airport and it glides up to the taxi rank like a panther under the threatening grey sky. Instantly, the chauffeur leaps from his seat and takes your suitcase from you, ushering you into the back of the car with his other hand.

The interior is luxurious. One of the more enjoyable missions: perhaps your handler was having fun spending her money. You slide the partition up and settle yourself into the seat, listening to the growl of the engine.

Not listening to the slightly too-quick thump of your heart. Not thinking about Natalia Romanov.

The hotel is expensive, too: five storeys of white stone and tall glass windows, and the interior carpeted in deep lush red. You think, briefly, about the colour of Natalia's hair. Of course she would choose this place, self-obsessed as she is. Her sense of humour. She's everywhere you look.

The handrail in the elevator is gilded wood. You tip the porter a hundred Scottish pounds when you take your case from him and he doesn't even blink as he folds it away into his pocket.

You knock on the white wood of room 45C with your gloves still on. Natalia leaves you standing there for a full minute before she opens the door, a wide smile on her face. She's in slacks and a blouse, her blazer discarded carelessly on the expansive bed behind her.

"Katya, darling," she says, in perfect, clipped West London English, and she seizes you by the elbows and kisses you on both cheeks. Then she drags you inside, endowing you with an onslaught of chatter and you barely have time to snag the handle of your case and drag it in with you before she shuts the door.

She lets you go and turns, arms out, still grinning but sleeker this time, not excited but pleased with herself. Persona dripping away.

"You're enjoying this," you tell her, switching to Russian. You begin to tug your gloves off.

"Aren't you?" She reaches out and brushes at the fur on your coat. "You look like you own half the oil in Russia."

"For this week," you reply haughtily, "I do."

"You're too good," Natalia says, still with that insufferable smile on her face. "Oh, come on." You raise an eyebrow at her. "Have some fun. For once."

"I'm here for business — not pleasure." You turn away to sit at the vanity and begin to rearrange your hair. Natalia slinks up beside you and bends to rest her chin on your shoulder. She surveys you in the mirror. Tilts her head this way and that. She seems, beneath her makeup, as young and brilliant as she really is, innocent and excited to be playing a glamorous older woman.

She's projecting what she wants to project.

Or maybe you can see right through her like no one else can.

"Your lipstick is smudged," she observes. You meet her eyes in the reflection, her contact lenses dark brown and solemn.

You bristle. "No it isn't."

"Let me fix it for you." Without waiting for an answer, she circles the chair and settles herself in your lap, like a cat on a pillow. You stiffen and look past her, refusing to meet her eye.

She can play games, but that doesn't mean you have to join in.

With an intense look of concentration on her face, Natalia leans forward and wipes her thumb gently under your bottom lip. You fixate on the twists of her braid in the mirror.

"All done," she says, looping her arms around your neck, elbows balancing on your shoulders. You finally look at her.

"Good," you say. "Get off."

A cool eyebrow is raised, undermined by the sly little smile on her face. "So you don't want me to kiss you?" She's so close you can feel her warm breaths on your nose, one after the other.

You'd be lying if you denied. Not that lying has ever, ever bothered you. But you just hold her gaze, and hold it, and hold it, like you're down seven feet of water and fighting the ocean to see who'll live the longest without air. And you break. "No," you say. "I don't." You must have leant closer without realising, because a coil of red hair is brushing your forehead and her skin is centimetres from yours. Her arms slide further forwards.

"I think you do," she teases. "We've kissed before, sweetheart. Didn't you like it?"

For missions. You've kissed for covers. And neither of you ever pressed it further.

What makes Edinburgh so different?

You narrow your eyes at her, determined to last longer. The weight of her arms and the curve of her lips in your peripheral is making this game hard. But she wouldn't have started it if she didn't find it fun in some way: and you know exactly which way that is.

You tilt your head. "You just can't help yourself, can you?" The words slide past with a bite in them.

Natalia looks at you, eyelids lowered, face blank. "I beg your pardon?" she says, in English, in that impeccable accent. You touch the side of her nose with hers, and neither of you pull back.

"Why don't you just tell me what you want, instead of tricking me into it?" you ask.

"But it's so much more fun this way," Natalia replies. Her voice is quiet now, dampened by the thrumming tension.

"So you do want to kiss me," you say, triumphant in your effort to turn the game around. Like swallowing a bubble and feeling it reappear in your lungs.

Natalia doesn't answer for a long time. The board is hers now. She can talk with all the bravado in the world, or she can kiss you. She can skip backwards out of the way, or she can kiss you.

She moves forward - she doesn't have to move far - and she does kiss you. A gentle, slow press, insistent. Her arms tighten at your neck.

It's like every time before. Your heart swallows itself with a skip. Your hands are on her thighs before you can stop yourself. And when she pulls away you try to follow her.

"Beat you at your own game," you whisper. And then you realise - this was her endgame. You walked into it like a dog at heel. She wanted to kiss you, and not only did she get what she wanted, she got you to want it, too.

"But you didn't win," she says. She's smiling. Your lips are burning. This is what you've been not thinking about: Natalia in your face, on your lap, touching you almost all over. This is what you wanted all along, too.

Maybe you should let her think she's won.

"Kiss me again," you say. You brush your nose against hers, content to let her lean in to you. "But don't stop this time."

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