Nervous, Will Bite.

You could see the Moonwall bridge from here, not paying much attention to the old metal structure. Other things were on your mind, but now that you had to scale the slopes of mossy rocks to get back to civilization, you could do nothing but ignore them, hoping against all hope that Sheriff Rogers wouldn’t hit this end of town on his usual night rounds.

More than once, he had rounded up the teenagers in town and brought them back to their homes, tipsy and terrified of consequence. He walked them up to their doors and shook the hands of their fathers and apologized to their mothers for causing them more worry than necessary.

When his grandfather was sheriff, the term ‘Rogers Roundup’ was coined and had never left the sleepy town of Mercer’s Cross. You had never been caught there yourself, and had prided yourself on being a good student. You had been a passive observer for most of your life, keeping to taking photos for the yearbook, always at the sidelines, never in front of the lens. That suited you just fine.

But now, you stood on the side of the road, trying to catch your breath under the tall structure of a bridge that you’d taken a field trip to in the late 90’s. Barefoot, exhausted, fucking pissed because Natasha hadn’t even given you the dignity of keeping your shoes.

“I’m going to kick her ass,” You snarled into the open air, not quite believing the words yourself. But like most things, your spite fueled your quick steps towards town. Forgetting about Steve and his squad car, and the squelch of your soaked socks with each step.

Natasha’s bar was located a few miles outside of town, nestled in the foliage just enough to be a dive that locals frequented. The Hourglass had the same old neon sign that it always had, buzzing and attracting moths. It flipped, the little vivid grains of sand swishing from one compartment to another. It mocked you in a way, lighting up your path.

The original carpets were the same, littered with stars and abstract shapes. She hadn’t made much of an effort to renovate, but no one seemed to care as long as there was good alcohol and a working jukebox. The radiators created a stiff, toxic scent, and the bell above the door carried the metallic clang that reminded you of your father's horrible drinking habit.

The atmosphere shifts noticeably with your presence, a Panthers game playing on the television with the sound turned low. A man you had only known by the name of Drunken Jack was at his usual place at the end of the bar, polishing off his second pitcher of piss-warm beer. He lined up a row of peanuts from smallest to largest, methodically working his way through them.

Natasha was behind the bar, her usual nest of evil. She was cutting lemons, moving with a fluidity that rivaled a professional chef. Damp hair fell around her shoulders, copper in color and effortlessly beautiful. An Icy green gaze pickpocketed your breath but did nothing to quell the rage that was lit in the center of your chest.

“I thought I told you to stay out of my bar, baby.” She glanced back at her task, sliding the blade through the skin and pulp of the fruit. “You survived all four bullets, huh?”

“You shot me five times and stole my shoes.”

She made a small noise in the back of her throat, giving you a little aloof shrug. “Can’t even tell. You look fantastic.”

The only solace was your pension for ruining her carpet. You saddled up to the counter, pressing your fingertips into the woodgrain, whispering through clenched teeth. “Give me my boots, you dick.”

“Why are we whispering?” Natasha matched your tone. “Jack is deaf.”

“Oh! A thief, a murderer, and an ableist.”

“It’s not ableist; it’s a fact. He lost his hearing in Iraq, and you would know that if you ever bothered to talk to him. And I’m keeping the boots. Consider it a consolation prize.”

You huffed at her, secretly grateful for the warm air bringing life back into your veins. Your eyes flicked to the television behind her. Buffalo had run the ball across the field, and the shot moved across the crowd. TOUCHDOWN flashed in red and blue at the bottom of the screen, but everything was less saturated in color on the shit electronic.

“They’re doing well this season.”

Natasha barely batted an eye when you plopped down onto the nearest barstool with a soggy sound. She pushed the slaughtered lemons into a ramekin and moved about her business. Drunken Jack curled his lip up in a growl when she swapped the last froth of beer with a glass of ice water instead. Then, she poured you a glass of whiskey. Top Shelf stuff that she only brought out when she felt guilty for what she had done.

She would never say it; you’d learned that early on. In all the years you had known her, those two words had never slipped past her perfect lips. You told yourself it would make it that much more meaningful when, if, she ever did say sorry. Tonight hadn’t been the first time she’d done this, and it wouldn’t be the last either.

You took a small sip of the drink, letting the acid extinguish the hatred in your throat. Natasha turned her back to you, leaning on the counter and staring up at the television. The screen was snowy, and the longer you dried off, the more uncomfortable you were. Five times. Five times, and you had felt every single scrape of molten lead as it ripped through flesh and bone.

It wasn’t a hard choice, reaching over the counter and snatching up the pairing knife she’d used to cut the lemon. Juice dripped over your cuticle, a wound that was slow to heal and constantly picked at. Natasha had gotten rusty, turning her back on you so soon after her little tantrum by the river. So when you swiped, she didn’t have much time to react.

You’d gotten her with the tip of the blade, but she kept it sharp, and you aimed in the perfect spot to clip an artery. Blood soaked into the sticky linoleum behind the counter and spurted onto her hands as she brought them up to the wound. There was a look of pure annoyance in her eyes and a mix of disbelief at your brazenness.

Drunken Jack was right there, and his eyes were watching the scene with a muted form of hazy horror. He wouldn’t remember this, a mix of old age and alcoholism, though you settled on the idea of paying his tab off before you had even reached for the knife.

Natasha made a choking noise, hands coated in the viscous red. She leaned on the countertop, trying to keep her balance about her but stumbling anyway. You took another swallow of your bourbon, plunging the tip of the knife into the freshly cleaned wood with enough force to split it.

“That…” she gritted out, a healthy heaping of blood staining her teeth. “Is redwood, you dick.”

She hit the floor before you finished the rest of your drink. It was nice, rye-heavy with just the right amount of bite. You rounded the bar top, avoiding the slow spread of the strawberry puddle that was drifting toward the fridges. She had draped your boots against the radiator to dry, a sure fire hazard. Still, you sighed in contentment when you wiggled into them. This time, letting the blood barely touch the worn rubber soles.

You needed a cigarette, and Natasha had some squirreled away in one of the drawers, conveniently next to a book of matches from the Moonwall Inn, another tourism staple that brought thrill-seekers to town. It was supposedly haunted, though you never spent much time within its walls to find out.  It was a means to an end, and as you stepped over Natasha’s frame, you lit the end of the Marlboro and gave old Drunken Jack the most passive of nods.

Spring 1999

Kate Bishop didn’t look up from her layout when she heard the soft click of the darkroom door, and the shifting clunk of the lock. She was trying too hard not to breathe, and you were finding too much amusement in her hunched state, squinting despite the glasses on her face.

“You heading out?”

She would ask this every night, and every night you would tell her that you were. Five o’clock on the dot, home by six with enough time to throw a pizza in the oven and wait for your father to get home. It was usually past eleven, or not at all. If the food you’d left in the microwave had coagulated in the microwave, you knew he never stumbled his way in.

“Be careful,” Kate mumbled, using the forceps in her hand to nudge the text for the senior photos over a smidge.

“Go home, Katie.”

She would grunt and wave you off, and spend much too long in the classroom, usually forgetting to eat dinner altogether and eating something from the vending machine instead. You’d seen the proof in the cellophane wrappers. There was no stopping Kate when it came to the yearbook. This was finally her year, and everything had to be absolutely perfect.

You were on autopilot, slipping into the front seat of your car and delicately pulling out of the parking lot. The engine of the orange Pinto sputtered, begging to be put out of its misery. You often mumbled, running your hand over the steering wheel, ‘If you die, I’m going with you,’ and most of the time, you didn’t mean it.

You parked in the same spot each time, far-right, under a large oak tree that was slowly starting to regain its foliage. Soon it would bloom entirely, feeding off the land. The decay just under the surface of the grass seeped into each stretching tree. Dozens of bodies, you assumed, had contributed to its tough bark.

The bench you occupied was empty at this hour. With the air warming up, the cool stone felt like relief as it soaked through the fabric of your jeans. During the winter months, when the sun dipped low around this time, you could only stand so much before acquiescing and going back to your car.  But tonight, it was tepid, and your shoulders felt heavier than normal.

The sky was an electric blue, always brighter at dusk than the grey overcast of these transitional days. You could smell the sharp metal of the nearby river, hear the way it swept over moss-covered rocks. You imagined her next to you, the warmth of her, the way she smelled of something soft and clean, and grounding. The phantom weight of her hand on your knee.

“I ordered my chords today.” You said to no one. To everyone. It was easier to stare at the grass than it was to look at the name etched into granite across from you. “I think they’re silly, you know? Some people have three or four, and I don’t understand what they all mean. Red is for journalism, I guess. And I know you’re laughing right now because we both know all I ever want to do is take photos.”

You sniffed, blaming the watery snot at the edge of your nose on the slightly frigid breeze. You could feel pressure in your chest, in your throat, behind your eyes. It took a moment for you to swallow past the heavy feeling.

“You always said that you would make it to my graduation, and I believed you. I wanted to believe you, anyway. But I guess things don’t work out like that in the real world. I still wanted…” You paused again, breathed in, “I still wanted you there, which is selfish, I guess. You had bigger things to worry about, Mom. I’m sure you still do.”

A wet chuckle slipped past your lips. You lowered yourself clunkily off the bench and onto the grass, still stiff from winter. Regardless, you dug your hands into the soil, felt something dislodge within you. It made you feel closer to her. “Like Dad. I’m sure you see how he is. Not well, and he doesn’t listen to me as he listened to you. He’s at the Hourglass a lot. Chett lets him sleep on a cot in the stockroom when he’s too sloshed to come home, which is a lot.

“And he’s grieving, I know. But I don’t see him much anymore. I think maybe… I think he sees too much of you in me? He just looks so sad when we’re in the same room together. It feels like disappointment. Like he’s devastated that it’s me at the kitchen table and not you.

“Anyway,” You sniffed again, shaking your head, “graduation. It’s just a few months from now, and we’re scrambling with the yearbook. Well, Kate is scrambling. Plenty of people want to be front and center their senior year. I have no shortage of photos.”

Wind rushed through the surrounding trees, pushing a chill into your bones and jostling the leaves. Some flipped over, revealing their soft white underbellies. Your mother used to say that it was a sign of an impending storm, nature rolling over in submission. In reality, the winds had shifted.

The two of you used to sit on the covered porch and watch the storm clouds rush across the sky. The air would become heavy with electricity, and the smell of the earth waiting to accept the rain clung to every part of you. Neither of you made a move to find shelter then, and the same was true now. You sat in near-silence with the ghost of your mother, the pads of your fingers running over rough grass.

You were too tired to cry, but your chest ached all the same. You sat with your knees to your chest and your forehead against them until numbness spread through your limbs.

“You’re going to catch your death out here.”

The voice was distinct, so recognizable even though you heard it from across the cafeteria and in hushed whispers during class. It was a wild rasp, with the slightest hint of an accent you couldn’t pin down. It made her elusive, an anomaly. The south had tinged her sayings but not her conjecture.

You lifted your head, blinking at Natasha Romanoff, half sleepy, and half annoyed. “Really?”

She winced, sucked in air through her clenched teeth. “Yeah, sorry, that was… poor wording. Why are you on the ground?”

“Comfier than the bench.”

Natasha Romanoff had all of the ingredients of an outcast in the small town of Mercer’s Cross. Her family owned the only operating funeral home in a 100-mile radius and maintained the cemetery. It was always pristine and comfortable, and for that reason, the family was well respected instead of labeled macabre.  

On top of that, Natasha was always just likeable. She was the type of girl that you wanted to hate, but just couldn’t. It never excused the company she kept, though. At least, not in your book. You’d never shared a conversation with her this long. Not in the twelve years you’d gone to school together.

Your relationship with her group, with her, boiled down to one thing: Point and click.

She was undeniably stunning, and that made for good yearbook photos, according to Kate. ‘Take as many pictures of them as you can. They’re going to want to remember the year they peaked.’ And you had laughed at her cynicism, but wondered distantly if that were true. If there was nothing for Steve Rogers and his group of assholes past this institution.

Even now, Natasha Romanoff was stunning. She held a shovel, her hands engulfed in gardening gloves with a healthy coating of mud streaking her jeans and flannel. Her hair was brushed back from her face, but stubborn strands still fell into a stare that you’d always found ghostly, but never haunted.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt. The storm is supposed to be bad, and I don’t want you to get caught out here.”

You nodded, but didn’t make any effort to move. You figured she would just walk away and continue with her task. But once again, she shocked you by sitting on the ground close enough for your knees to bump. She was staring at the headstone that you had memorized. You tried to ignore her soft bergamot scent despite her state of being.

Thunder rolled above, your eyes shooting up to the darkened clouds. It had dropped a few degrees, but something stubborn in you wanted her to leave first. But where you were stubborn, Natasha Romanoff was determined. So you steeled your jaw and finally cast a glance her way.

“What do you think happens after you die?” She looked at you, baffled that you had asked, so you added, “Being around this stuff, I figured you’ve seen a lot. Made up your mind about the afterlife.”

“I don’t think about it a lot. Which is stupid, I know. But my parents taught me that no matter what, you have to be respectful. So when someone dies, it doesn’t matter what I think, or what you think, or what God thinks. What matters is remembering the life that people left behind.”

You must have frowned because she let out a humorous breath, shaking her head. That was something you’d taken from your mom, the little annoyed scrunch of your nose when you’d heard something you didn’t quite agree with. Natasha kept going, then. Maybe to appease you.

“But if I had to pick what happened after death, I like to believe that our energy exists somewhere. It can’t just be destroyed.”

“Like a ghost?”

“Mm, maybe. But higher than that.” She shrugged her shoulders, turned to face you completely. Her sudden scrutiny nearly unmoored you, but in that moment, you were content to stare at her forever. Up close like this, she sports a smattering of freckles from her time in the sun, her lips slightly chapped. “Or maybe we all turn into rats until we’re worthy to be people again. Who knows.”

Thunder rolled through another round of silence before you burst out laughing. It was genuine, low in your chest, and Natasha seemed quite proud of the fact. She was grinning at you, a smudge of dirt on the perfect round of her cheek. You stood to keep wiping it away.

It didn’t stop you from reaching down and offering a hand to her, but the moment she slotted her hand into your own, the storm hit in full force, almost as if the world around you was noticing something neither of you ever could imagine. The rain was icy, and stung your skin like buckshot. In an instant, you couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t feel anything but the pounding of the rain on your skin.

Natasha screamed something that you couldn’t pick up on; the oak tree above you creaked and groaned. You recognized the sound of its limbs splitting. You’d broken an arm when you were six, and the same primal fear clawed at you now as it swept down and landed with a deafening thud.

You had crouched to cover your head, but it grazed you all the same. Natasha had yanked your hand, pulling you in a direction unknown. But you followed; you had no other choice. Mud was sloshing under your boots, and water was collecting around the faint outlines of the stones you could make out.

Something hard and concrete hit your knee, knocking the wind out of you as she seemed to maneuver expertly. A string of profanities that didn’t put you in the best light was shouted above the rush of rain. You had lost all sense of space until you were pulled into what you assumed was a shed.

But the floor was slick, and Natasha was on her back, tugging you down with her. Whatever air you were holding onto was forced out of your lungs when her knee slammed just below your ribs, sprawled on top of her, soaking wet and filled with adrenaline. You coughed, rolling onto your back and staring up at a ceiling that wasn’t the wood of a shed at all.

In fact, it was stone, and it canceled out the noise of the storm, only amplifying Natasha’s attempts to catch her breath, mixing with your own. “Is this a crypt?”

“Uh-huh,” She struggled to voice, “Didn’t have too many options.”

“No, no, it’s… nice.”

Natasha squinted, a look of confusion on her face as she propped herself up on her elbows. “This isn’t right. This has been sealed since, fuck, before my family bought it. I was just trying to get us some cover. I must have leaned against the door.”

Shakily, you stood, whimpering when you realized you couldn’t put weight on your right knee. But you quickly traded your hurt for curiosity. The crypt wasn’t very big, six cemented slots on either side with long dead flowers in small vases. Candles were molded to the floor with once-warm wax, and the sweet scent of potpourri needled at you.

“There are no cobwebs.” Natasha dragged herself into a standing position, favoring one foot over the other. Blood was running from a cut at her hairline, diluting as it mixed with the water on her face. She was pale, shaking, and you figured you weren’t faring much better.

“Maybe spiders couldn’t get in?”

“They can. No mausoleum is fully sealed; that would trap dead air in here and speed up the process of decay.”

Your stomach lurched as you pinned her down with a look of disbelief. She shrugged, as if to say sorry, or maybe even ‘it is what it is’. Either way, you didn’t like the way she was unnerved. It was clear that death didn’t bother her, but something about this place did.

It went back further, you realized when a crack of lightning lit up a two-paneled stained glass window. Your hand shot out to steady Natasha, or perhaps, the other way around. She’d jumped nearly as high as you did. In the center of the second room was a podium, and though you hadn’t gotten a good glance at what was on it, you knew that something was there.

She took a step towards it, your hand tightening on the damp fabric of her shirt. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to go look at it.”

“Why would you do that? Have you never seen a horror movie? Like… ever?”

“Come on. My parents will be so pissed that I’m even out here during a storm. I’ll never get a chance to see the inside of this place again. Aren’t you a reporter? You’re supposed to be interested in this sort of thing.”

You clenched your jaw, looked back at the doors that were sealed shut now, but still straining against the hurricane-force winds outside. And you’d be damned if you ever admitted that it was the excited fern of Natasha’s eyes that finally got you to cave. There was no story here. Just an old crypt with old sentimental objects strewn about.

The moment her foot crossed the threshold, your blood ran cold, all the hair on the back of your neck becoming pin straight. Your arm tightened around the crook of her elbow, tugging her closer. This near stranger was all you had in this place other than the corpses behind the slabs. She folded her hand over yours, a blast of much-wanted warmth.

Sound snapped through the space like gas igniting. Instead, there were torches attached to the walls. And while you wanted desperately to be thankful for some heat to combat the effects of the storm, this was too much. The tweak in your knee flared up and shot to your hip.

“What the fuck?”

“Maybe it’s motion-sensor?”

“Yeah, I’m done.” You tried to untangle yourself from her, but her grip just tightened. There was pleading in her stare, something that nearly cracked you in two. “Or… not.”

Her nails were digging half-crescents into your skin, but something was slowly ticking through you. It wasn’t curiosity, but it had all the same pull as wanting to know. The air was thick with dust, and now that you could actually see, it was hard to miss the large book in the center of the podium.

Its leather was cracked in places of wear, with beveled pages. The stench of age clung to it, mixing with something metallic. Your body was thrumming with something akin to adrenaline, but it didn’t run as deep. From the shaken look on Natasha’s face, you figured it was much the same for her.

“We really shouldn’t open that,” You rasped.

“No, we shouldn’t.”

Neither of you moved back. Instead, you found yourself in front of the podium. The pages were yellowed, matted in dust, but nothing stopped you from opening it, listening to the impossible creak of its spine. The words inside were an amalgamation of symbols at first, your head still rocked from getting trapped in the storm. But the faded handwritten words became easier to read within moments.

“We shouldn’t read this,” Natasha whispered.

“No, we shouldn’t.” You ran your finger down the page, feeling the indentations of the written word, much too long ago. Electricity buzzed up the length of your arm; you shivered and set your jaw. “Filiae Aurorae Sine Fine.” You butchered the pronunciation, trying to hit each syllable and cringing inward instead. The words felt wrong in your mouth.

“That’s Latin.” She placed her finger next to yours on the parchment, moving slowly against each word. “Children in forever hold.” You looked at her with your mouth slightly agape. She frowned at the pages, nearly pressing her nose to it. “No, wait it’s, shit, I haven’t done this since I was a kid. It says Daughters of an Endless Dusk. What the hell does that mean?”

There had to be more. But the page became marred by a splatter of blood, soaking into something that could rest in the Smithsonian if the right people got their hands on it. Your first instinct was to look at Natasha, to check the cut on her forehead, but her calloused hand was already on your chin, tilting it to one side.

“Fuck, your nose, let me-”

You both froze, then, at the long line of syrupy crimson that hit the page next to the mess you’d already made. For a long moment, all eyes were locked on the two drops. You had just ruined a priceless artifact with a nosebleed, and that was mortifying. But beyond that, the drops began to quiver.

The surface tension broke, almost like something large and unwelcome was stomping with all its might. And it did this until the two droplets joined in the center of the page, seemingly coerced by something. Natasha’s blood was darker than yours by just a hue or two, but when they mixed, leaving small trails behind them, it was impossible to tell.

Your hand was against the base of your nose, a healthy heaping of blood gushing over the side. “Was that motion-sensored too?”

“Sh,” Natasha pried gently, using the heel of her palm to swipe away some of the russet color on her face. She leaned closer to the book. “Aeternitas dolens. That’s painful immortality; what do you think-”

Natasha snapped her jaw shut, her eyes meeting yours. The color in her face was draining, leaving something destitute behind. Something was off. You couldn’t blame it on the storm. When you glanced down at your shirt, it was soaked with a fresh layer of blood. Too much blood for a person to lose.

The unsteadiness hit you all at once,  moving your wrist from the spigot of your nose. It wasn’t helping anyway. A puddle so dark it was nearly black was garlanding your feet, and by the time you looked back up, you pitched forward. Natasha caught you as well as she could, lowering you to your knees. She was shaking under your titan grip.

“Natasha,” You gargled, an unmatched metallic heat sliding down your chin. You were bleeding to death in a near-stranger's arms, and all you wanted to do was close your eyes. “S’hurts”

“No, no, no.” She was supporting your full weight at this point. “Come on, it’ll be fine. You’re fine. We’ll get out of here and-” she whispered more to herself than to you. “Shit, how do you have that much blood-”

It wasn’t painful, not like the book implied it to be. But you were suddenly freezing. The type of cold where you believed that you’d never feel warm again. You longed for the sensation, couldn’t even feel the press of Natasha’s fingers where they lay. But she was crying; you could hear her crying in a dizzying shock.

You wanted to comfort her, to hold her like she was holding you. She sat back on her ankles, ran a soothing hand over your back. It was the stance of someone who knew that there was nothing she could do to save you, and in a way, that was a relief. You could stop fighting.

And as your eyes closed, your chest slowly filling with dregs of blood, you caught a final glimpse of the face you would remember forever. Of a face that had a single bloodied tear slipping down its cheek.

The pounding in your head could have been a vicious side effect of the bourbon, or the five bullets that Natasha had fired into you from close range. It hadn’t been buckshot, and that was a small mercy, but your head pounded viciously all the same. One drink or twenty, your body stitching itself back together always made you exhausted to the point of illness.

But someone was knocking loudly on your door; the sun flitting through the living room windows cut across your eyes like a guillotine. You hadn’t made it any further than the couch before plopping face first onto it. Drool had dried to the side of your face, and your clothes had grown stiff with swamp water.

Your boots were toed off by the door, neatly arranged with the rest of the shoes. It could have been an ungodly time in the morning, or it could have sloughed by to the afternoon. You just needed the knocking to stop. And when you pulled it open, the blast of damp winter air made you want to shrink into yourself.

The wind chimes tacked to the porch screamed in your shared misery. Sheriff Rogers had his fist raised, clearly in the middle of demanding entry, but embarrassment quickly colored his cheeks, and he took half a step back. He had brought backup, which wasn’t common. Deputy Parker had been a few years behind your graduating class, but in his uniform he looked like a kid trying to play dress-up. Everything hung awkwardly on his frame.

“Sheriff.” You leaned against the edge of your doorframe, crossing your arms over your chest. “Deputy. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

His hand was on his sidearm, a nervous habit or protocol; you didn’t know. He saw your eyes dart down to the holster and back up to his stare. You’d talked to Steve before, graduated with him. He ran with a crowd that you never let yourself get familiar with. Not willingly, at least.

Recently you had shared light-hearted conversations with him at the farmers market while selling bushels of produce at Wanda’s stand. He wore a smile and a big button that said ‘A vote for Rogers is a vote for Reform,’ and you shook his hand politely, assured him that you’d take a look at his campaign.

“Mornin’, ma’am. I hate to bother you like this, but we’ve had some… odd reports and wanted to perform a welfare check.”

“On me?” You quirked an eyebrow.

“No, no. On your wife. This is a little awkward, but Jackson Randolph reported seeing something a bit strange at the Hourglass last night. So we just wanted to check in, make sure everything is alright.” he scanned your figure, assessing the muddied clothes and the worn look on your face. You hugged the doorframe tighter, slightly unmoored by his gaze. “Everything is alright, isn’t it?”

“Course it is.”

Your answer was automatic, and too rushed for your liking. Even to your own ears, it sounded off. You hadn’t heard Natasha come back in last night, but you were dead to the world at that point. Had you taken off your boots? She was in the habit of unlacing them and pulling them from your feet.

“You look a little torn up, ma’am.” Deputy Parker said.

“Mind if we come in?”

Reluctantly, you stepped back, letting the door to the house creak open. It was dark aside from the light that streamed in from the large windows. Books were stacked along shelves, often thrown there haphazardly after you’d both read them, and then read them again.

Colors pooled on the kitchen floor from the large stained glass window that faced the bayou, fireworks of reds and blues and greens that morphed with the reflection of water. It was one of your favorite spots in the house, right next to the sunroom that nearly tipped into the murky water.

“You’ve fixed this place up nicely.” Steve was watching where he stepped, careful to shut the door behind him lightly as if he would break something. He turned to look at Peter, never missing an opportunity to teach. “Used to be the Kale family’s way back when. It was foreclosed on. I’m glad it got a second life.”

You nodded, biting down on your thumbnail in a nervous habit. “Would either of you like a cup of coffee?”

“No, no, we’re just fine.” Steve shook his head, finger brushing up against his sidearm. “Can I ask where you were last night?” His eyes scanned you again. “And this morning. Did something happen?”

“If by something you mean me trying to fix the siding of the house and falling into the bog, then yes. I was out back when you knocked. What exactly did Jack allege?”

Steve squeezed the center of his nose, his shoulders lowering just a smidge. He was letting his guard down, but the strings holding him together were still stitched up tight. The look on Peter’s face was unnerving, a mix of caution and questions that you didn’t even want to begin to answer.

Steve let out an exhausted chuckle. “Well, he said that he witnessed you slitting Natasha’s throat with a knife. Said that you stepped over her and walked out the front door without a damn care in the world.” He sobered up instantly. “Now, if I could just speak with Natasha, I’ll get out of your hair.”

A stillness fell over the room. You could hear the bullfrogs and cicadas hiss just past the four walls, but tension was mounting by the second. You’d, of course, acted out of emotion last night. You hadn’t given much thought to Jack, nor to the mess this created for yourself.

“I didn’t hear her come in last night.” You pressed the heel of your hand to your forehead. “Figured she got an early start.”

The air was usurped from the room, hand back protectively on his belt in near-reaching distance of his weapon. “So, you haven’t seen her this morning?”

“She works late hours. Sometimes she spends the night at the bar. We’re in counseling.” Your eyes widened, words catching up with you. “Not because we’re having any trouble. Our marriage is perfectly fine. I would never hurt her.”

Steve blinked owlishly at you, his lips parted just slightly as he took a small half-step in your direction, and you took an even bigger one back. “I think… why don’t you come down to the station? It’ll be easier to chat there?”

“What? No, absolutely not. This is ridiculous.”

“Y/n, it’s just a few questions.” He sighed, “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

You jumped when icy fingers slid against your stomach, familiar arms wrapping around your midsection. Natasha smelled like winter and laundry detergent, her chin resting on your shoulder. She gave you a tight squeeze, knowing exactly where to press to irritate the freshly healed wounds. “You’re shit out of luck, Steve. That’s all my wife is good for.”

You grumbled, masking your relief with the sound. Deputy Parker opened and closed his mouth like a fish, letting his own hands drop from his belt. Sheriff Rogers straightened, the corset of a lawman being pulled back into professionalism. Not the crackling voice and wobbly disposition.

“Anything I can help with?” Natasha chirped politely from her perch.

“I think just seein’ you is plenty.” Steve laughed. “I’m real sorry for bothering you both. Just due diligence, you know? Someone reports witnessing a murder; you’ve gotta follow up. Don’t hold anything against me.”

“Please, I could never hold anything against the Mercer’s Cross star running back.”

His cheeks heated up, a red coloring the skin under his collar as he chuckled nervously. Natasha had a way of worming into anyone’s good graces. She was polite and damn charming. That had only strengthened over time. You knew that she was close with Steve, or at least adjacent to his inner circle in high school.

“That was a long time ago. We best get out of your hair.” His eyes shifted to you. “Again, sorry for the trouble.”

“No trouble at all.”

He nodded once more and led the way out of the front door, the original wood shutting with a muted thump. The house was as quiet as it could be, the both of you frozen in place, listening to the cruiser start up and the gravel crunch under rubber tires. You could feel each inhale and exhale press close to Natasha’s ribs. She was warm, and you were still damp and freezing. Her breath sweeping across your skin made you shiver.

“You smell… really bad.”

“You’re such a charmer.” You snapped, lowering your voice after the initial surge of vitriol. “Thank you for the assist.”

“Course.” After a brief pause she dug her fingernails into the softness of your skin, not hard enough to hurt, just to remind you that she was right there, as if you could ever forget. “We even?”

“We’re even.”

Spring 1999

You’d awoken with all the grace of an open wound. Limbs flailing and a proper breath impossible to achieve. The air around you was thick with moisture. Mildew made you want to choke on your own lungs. It felt like the locker room nuzzled next to the public pool, the pointed mats making the soles of your feet ache.

“Fuck,” You groaned, letting your head fall back. You tested your luck by opening your eyes, only to be assaulted with sunlight so bright you never would have known a storm ripped through the county the day before. But there had been a storm, and a fallen tree, and a graveyard, and “Fuck!”

Your voice was too loud for this time in the morning, and you ignored the surge of a headache in favor of figuring out where you actually were. Your arms were outstretched, clenching onto the wheel of your Pinto. It was still parked in the lot near the cemetery, which did, thankfully, show the wear and tear of a nasty typhoon.

What had happened last night? Each time you tried to pry further into the gap in your memory, your brain protested by pounding its fist against your skull. A tree had fallen, and you were oddly with Natasha Romanoff. You laughed, actually laughed, at the thought. But your heart jumped suddenly into your chest at the toned electronic ringtone of your phone.

You’d fought tooth and nail for it, eventually convincing your father that it was good for emergencies, but you often forgot about it altogether. It sat like a brick in your center console, and right now it was clawing at your ability to see straight. “Hello?”

“Dude, where the hell are you?” Kate’s voice leaked through the receiver. You winced and pulled it back from your ear. “Barton had you taking pictures of the pep rally. He’s asking where you are!”

“What time is it?”

“Almost noon. You need to get here now. I can’t cover for you with that. I forgot to take the lenscap off last time, and he turned a shade of purple that shouldn’t be humanly possible.”

“Right, yes, sorry. I’ll be there in a bit.”

You went into autopilot then, breathing in and holding it until the count of four before exhaling. You were covered in mud; it had hardened to the fabric of your clothes. You chose to ignore the red tint of it, instead putting your car into drive and heading numbly back to the school.

There were clothes in your gym locker, the room thankfully void of all signs of life. And for once, you actually relished the shared showers. The water was scalding, and scrubbing the rinds of hardened dirt from under your nails was another task that kept your mind preoccupied.

By the time you were finished, you were in oversized sweatpants that you procured from the lost and found, and a Mercer’s Cross Mackerels T-shirt. When your eyes caught a water fountain, you leaned down and started pulling in water. It was almost like you couldn’t get enough; your throat was sandpaper and your fingers aching as you pressed the button down.

“Sheesh, save some for the rest of us.” You shot up, sending a withering glare in Tony Stark's direction. He twisted a hall pass in his hands, taking in your look with an annoyingly boyish smile. “Wow, wait to show school spirit, y/l/n. I didn’t know you had it in you.” Tony took a big whiff of air, his lip snarling. “You even capture the aura of a dead fish.”

“Shouldn’t you be off somewhere sucking Steve’s dick?”

He faltered for a moment, frowning viciously at you. “You know what, freak, maybe if you’d spent more time with actual, alive people instead of crying at your mommy’s headstone like a pathetic bitch, someone would actually hang out with you.”

Something in you that had been fraying at the edges for a long time snapped. Perhaps it was his cocky grin, or maybe it was the way he brought up someone so vitally important to you. But your hands were on him, and his back was hitting the metal lockers with enough force to call attention to it. But no one else was out here. It was just the two of you.

“What did you say?”

“You heard me.” He was trying to puff out his chest, but his words faltered like a wobbly wheel. It gave you a clean burst of satisfaction.

“You’re right. I did. I hear everything you and your little friends say behind my back. But this is low, even for you, Stark. I might not have anyone alive in my corner, but at least I don’t have to buy love and attention from others. Because you would just wither away and turn to dust if all eyes weren’t on you. Huh?”

He swallowed hard. It was audible, his throat clicking. You lifted him half an inch from the wall and slammed him back down. He grunted, shocked at your strength, at your anger.

“Go ahead. What were you going to say about my mother?”

“I just-” Tony cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. For your loss.”

You breathed out again, trying to fight the headache, the rage, and by the time you released the fabric of his shirt, he was smoothing it out and shoving past you. His shoes squeaked against the linoleum, and he didn’t look back, though you both knew he wanted to.

All the fight drained out of you in a moment, shoulders dropping and exhaustion returning. You swallowed another gulp of water and sulked your way to the yearbook room. Kate was pacing back and forth in front of the length of pulled blinds, chewing on the edge of her nail bed out of nervous habit.

“Oh, thank god,” She sighed out, freezing in place. “You okay? You look like hell.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just caught a cold, or something. It’ll pass.”

You ignored the fire of her eyes on your back as you pulled your camera from the media closet. Your bones ached, your teeth were throbbing from being clenched for an impossibly long time. All of this, you shoved aside, and blaming it on the chunk of missing time that deposited you into your cramped car felt easier than pushing.

Kate dropped the subject, but her insistence on accompanying you to the pep rally was laid on thick. You could hear the rush of the music down the hallway, the uproarious crowd. You were late, but not late enough to miss an opportunity to capture the event. Both you and Kate slipped in through the side door.

The wax floor polish smelled sterile and thick, making your stomach twist immediately. The first string of football players were sitting in the center of the gym on a row of metal chairs, most of them slumped over but preening at the attention. Principal Harkness stood behind a podium, beaming at the energy in the air.

When Tony Stark caught a glance of you, his frown deepened, and he scooted further down in his chair like a pouting child. Steve nudged him, but the gentle prodding didn’t work. For creative reasons, you purposefully lifted your camera and zoomed in just enough to cut him out of the first few rounds of photos you took.

“As we know, more than 50% of our first string is made up of Seniors.” The crowd erupted into boos, feet stomping on the bleachers. Principal Harkness held up a perfectly manicured hand. “I know, I know. We’ll miss these Mackerels just as much as you will. But we all trust the team captain, Steven Rodgers, to usher in the next generation of players. Today, we honor each and every one of our seniors on the team with a class ring. Mr. Rodgers, if you could come up here, please?”

Pink actually tinged Steve’s cheeks in a way that would have been endearing if he’d ever looked you in the eyes. Still, you snapped another photo, winced at the flash. But you weren’t the only one who cringed inwardly at the light. While Steve droned on about the beauty of the ring and the legacy of his family, your attention drifted to the front row of the bleachers.

The usual crowd had taken up a chunk of the middle bleachers, feet on the court itself; Wanda Maximoff clasped her hands together, staring lovingly at her high school sweetheart. Next to her were Carol Danvers and Monica Rambeau. And sitting on the other side of Wanda was Natasha Romanoff.

But it wasn’t the same peppy girl that everyone loved and admired, not from your vantage point, at least. She was hugging herself, wrapped in a sweatshirt that was much too thick for the heat in the gym. Still, she shivered. Her skin was so pale it was nearly gray, her hair thrown up into a ponytail as opposed to the usual wave of shiny, perfect strands.

“Check out the widow,” Kate whispered softly, giving your shoulder a nudge. “Maybe something is going around.”

“Maybe,”

During freshman year, Natasha had hit a sharp side of the rumor mill. Her first boyfriend, a kid who had moved to Mercer’s Cross with his military family, had torn a hamstring on the basketball court. Following that, two more athletes who dated her were injured in one way or another. You knew it was terrible luck, but she was still saddled with the nickname. It rarely came up anymore, but some still remembered her as the woman who walked away after the death of a career in sports.

When her eyes moved from the floor and met your own, they flickered away nearly immediately before snapping back up. They didn’t harden; they didn’t gloss; she was just there. Confusion was written on her features, and then something of relief. It was a speedrun that took your mind a few moments to catch up with.

Your head jumped with a swath of pain, making your vision falter. You leaned against the wall behind you, trying to blink the stars out of your eyes. Kate’s hand was at the base of your back to steady you, nothing but worry on her face. “Whoa, easy. You set your preferences?”

“Uh-huh. Point and shoot.”

“Okay.” Kate nodded, pulling the camera from around your neck, settling it in her grasp. “You need to go to the nurse's office.”

“Kate-”

“Go.”

She brought the viewfinder up to her eye, signifying the end of the conversation, and you were secretly thankful for the excuse to get out of the gym. The coolness in the hallway was enough to pull you back into yourself, at least for the time being. The longer you stood, the weaker you felt, and maybe you hadn’t gotten any sleep at all.

If you went to the nurse, what would you possibly say? Hey, I don’t remember exactly what happened last night, but I think I died. That would put you in a bathroom stall with a drug test and a call to your father that would certainly go straight to voicemail.

“Hey!”

You stopped in your tracks. There it was- that voice again, that rasp that always threatened to drive you mad and sent shivers down your spine with each raised hand or student council speech. When you turned, Natasha Romanoff was limping her way towards you with a slow gait that reflected her pain.

“Hi,”

The both of you stood toe to toe, breath twisting and combining between you. She swallowed hard. “Do you remember what happened?”

“Little pieces,” you admitted, voice a low whisper. “I woke up in my car, and… did you get me there?”

“No, I don’t think so. We were in the mausoleum. The- the storm. And I think” Natasha paused, glancing over your shoulder and then behind her own. Her fingers went nervously to the drawstrings of her sweatshirt, the small plastic bits on the end already frayed and cracked. “I think we died. God, that’s batshit to say.”

Natasha looked at you like she was trying to gauge your reaction, but you couldn’t bring yourself to have one. Up this close, seeing the freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of your nose, something clicked. Something that flooded you with a primal type of fear.

“I bled to death.” You frowned, looking deeper for some type of confirmation. “You held me.”

Natasha glanced away then, the blush on her cheeks more prominent against her pale complexion. The last thing you had meant to do was embarrass her, but there was no real way to approach a situation that was blind territory in every aspect. You reached out, ghosting your hand over her elbow. She jolted, stiffened, before meeting your gaze once more.

“Then you bled out?”

She whispered, “Yeah.”

“And no one held you?”

“No.”

You shuddered at the revelation. It made your throat tighten, made it hard to swallow. Talking right now would come out as something shattered and wrong. So instead, you opened your arms. It wasn’t by much, but it was enough. Natasha made a sound like a wounded animal. She crashed into you, letting herself cry. Letting herself mourn a life that neither of you would ever see again.

You hugged her tight, felt her ribs digging into your own. Your shoulder was damp, and you figured by now, so was hers. Her fingers wicked into the fabric of your gym shirt, silent sobs evening out to panicked breathing. All you knew was her warmth, her slightly metallic scent.