↢ ❆ Macayla ❆ ↣

•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:•☾☼☽•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:•

Being the Emperor’s daughter meant belonging to Rome before you belonged to yourself.

Nobody ever said that outright, of course. They dressed it differently. Duty. Legacy. Honour. They spoke in polished language and careful smiles, but eventually every conversation returned to the same truth. Your life was not yours. You existed to strengthen alliances, to represent stability, to appear beside your father during celebrations and disappear again when decisions were made. Senators asked what books you liked before discussing marriage proposals in front of you. Noblewomen praised your intelligence before reminding you that intelligent daughters made intelligent mothers.

Every compliment seemed to carry instructions inside it. Every kindness seemed to expect something in return. People bowed when you entered rooms and stopped speaking when you approached and waited for your opinions only so they could agree with them. It made conversations feel strange. Artificial. Like everyone was performing a version of themselves and hoping you would reward them for it.

Which was why, despite every expectation and every raised eyebrow from your attendants, you occasionally came to the arena.

Not publicly.

Public attendance meant ceremony and silk and sitting beside your father while officials watched your reactions more closely than the actual games. Today had been different. Your father had spent the afternoon with generals and provincial representatives and had dismissed you with absent affection and instructions to remain in the palace.

Instead, you had ended up here, hidden in the imperial balcony above the arena where carved marble screens allowed you to see everything while remaining mostly unseen yourself. The servant accompanying you stood respectfully behind your chair with her hands folded together, and she had been trying for the better part of an hour to determine whether asking to leave would be inappropriate.

Below you, Rome moved and shouted and lived without restraint. Tens of thousands of people crowded the seats. Sun reflected off jewellery and helmets and polished stone until the whole arena seemed to glow. The air smelled dry and hot, layered with dust and oil and bodies and something metallic beneath it all. You rested your forearms against the stone railing and watched two men circle each other below while the audience reacted to every movement as though they personally held stakes in the outcome.

One man slipped. The crowd surged immediately. People stood. Voices crashed together. A section somewhere to your left started yelling for blood before the fighter had even hit the ground properly. The servant behind you shifted her weight and quietly said, “My lady… we may leave whenever you wish.” You looked back at her briefly.

She seemed hesitant to even suggest it, which made you almost smile. “I’m not offended,” you said. “You don’t have to look like you’ve insulted my ancestors.” She relaxed slightly and admitted, “I just thought… you never seem to enjoy this part.” Your eyes returned to the arena.

One fighter had surrendered. The victor stood over him waiting for judgement while thousands of people demanded different outcomes all at once. You watched for another few moments before saying honestly, “I don’t.” The servant frowned. “Then why come?” You considered it.

It would have been easy to say curiosity. Or boredom. Instead you said, “Because nobody pretends here.” She looked confused enough that you elaborated. “At the palace, people say one thing and mean another. Here people cheer if they want violence. They cheer if they want mercy. Nobody acts ashamed of wanting things.” You looked across the rows of citizens and nobles packed together in the heat. “I don’t think the arena is honest because it’s good. I think it’s honest because nobody cares if it’s ugly.”

Before she could answer, a horn sounded across the arena and the current match ended. Workers immediately spilled onto the sand, moving quickly to reset the space with a level of efficiency that felt unsettling. Blood disappeared beneath fresh sand. Equipment was carried out. Gates opened and closed. The crowd shifted restlessly. You leaned back slightly and expected another ordinary match to begin—until something changed.

Not louder. Stranger. A ripple moved through the audience before anything had actually happened. People started standing. Men who had been mid-conversation stopped talking. Entire sections turned toward one particular gate. Then voices began joining together until individual words disappeared and became rhythm. You frowned and looked down as the sound grew.

“Astra.”

Again.

“Astra. Astra. Astra.”

Thousands of voices. Not chanting for violence. Not chanting for blood. Calling for someone.

The servant behind you made a quiet noise under her breath and you glanced at her. She looked uncomfortable in a way she hadn’t all afternoon.

You turned back.

“…Who is Astra?”

Her eyes returned to the gate.

She lowered her voice.

“A gladiator.”

You looked at her. She hesitated. Then added quietly— “The Emperor’s favourite.”

And suddenly you understood why everyone was standing. The gate began to open. It opened slowly, like opening it too fast would either scare the audience or the supposed fierce gladiator behind the iron bars.

You expected spectacle.

The crowd’s reaction suggested spectacle. You expected gold armour or dramatic entrances or some enormous fighter built to look impressive from the highest rows. You expected someone who played to the audience. Someone who raised their arms and soaked in the attention like a senator giving speeches.

Instead—

a woman walked into the arena.

No fanfare. No flourish.

She stepped into the sunlight carrying a helmet beneath one arm and a sword in the other hand as though both weighed nothing. Her armour looked expensive but not decorative—dark leather beneath worn metal plates, practical and repaired in places instead of polished smooth. There was no exposed skin designed to impress crowds, no unnecessary ornaments except for one narrow strip of crimson fabric tied around her upper arm. Her fiery auburn hair had been pulled back carelessly, enough to keep it out of her face and nothing more. She wasn’t towering or broad in the way you’d imagined. She was lean. Controlled. Every movement economical. She crossed the sand without rushing and without slowing, like she’d already decided exactly where she was going before stepping through the gate.

The crowd lost its mind.

“ASTRA!”

The chant crashed around the arena.

“ASTRA! ASTRA! ASTRA!”

People stood. Men shouted themselves hoarse. Someone below threw flowers. Someone else held up betting tablets. Entire sections erupted as she passed.

She did not look at them.

Your eyes narrowed.

“…That’s her?”

The servant looked surprised by the question. “Yes.”

You looked back.

“That’s the Emperor’s favourite?”

Your servant hesitated. “People say she reminds him of Rome.”

You blinked.

You looked at the woman again.

Nothing about her seemed particularly Roman.

She didn’t walk with arrogance.

She didn’t acknowledge the applause.

She wasn’t smiling.

She reached the centre of the arena and stopped while the announcer raised both arms.

“Astra! Victor of seventeen consecutive matches! Champion of the eastern games! Beloved of the people!”

The crowd screamed again.

The woman remained completely still.

You stared.

“She doesn’t look happy.”

Your servant glanced at you oddly.

“My lady?”

You nodded slightly toward the arena.

“She won.”

You looked at the audience.

“They’re chanting for her.” You looked back.

“She looks bored.”

The servant opened her mouth slightly, then closed it again.

Down below, Astra finally moved.

The announcer stepped toward her with all the theatrical confidence of a man who knew people wanted to hear him speak.

“Champion! The people welcome you!”

Astra turned her head. Just enough. Looked at him. Then looked away. The crowd somehow screamed louder.

Your servant quietly said, “…People like that.”

You frowned.

“Like what?”

Her expression became careful.

“She acts like she doesn’t need them.”

You looked down again.

That you understood.

Not because you related to her.

You absolutely did not.

But because you recognised something.

People always wanted the attention of people who didn’t seem to want attention.

The announcer finally introduced the opponent.

A larger man entered carrying a heavy shield and spear. The crowd booed immediately—not because they disliked him but because they wanted Astra to win. He played into it, raising his arms and grinning at the noise while pointing dramatically toward his opponent.

Astra looked at him.

Then adjusted her grip.

That was all.

No taunting.

No reaction.

The horn sounded.

The man moved first.

Fast.

Much faster than his size should have allowed.

The spear came forward immediately and several people gasped because it should have landed—but Astra moved before you properly registered it. Not dramatically. No spinning. No impossible acrobatics. She simply wasn’t where she had been a second ago. The spear passed empty air. She stepped to the side and struck once.

Not hard. Not flashy.

The man stumbled. The entire crowd roared. You leaned forward before realising you were doing it.

The fight continued. Three exchanges. That was all.

Every movement felt strange to watch because Astra never looked rushed. Her opponent fought emotionally. Aggressively. She fought like she’d already seen the next ten seconds and was waiting for them to catch up.

Then the man overcommitted.

Astra moved behind him.

Her sword stopped at his throat.

Silence.

The whole arena held its breath.

The man froze.

The crowd exploded.

Your eyes widened slightly.

That was it?

No blood?

No dramatic finish?

She stepped back.

Lowered her weapon.

Waited.

The crowd began chanting again.

Not for her.

For judgement.

The defeated gladiator dropped to one knee.

Everyone looked upward. Toward the imperial seats. Toward where your father usually sat.

You slowly realised there was nobody there.

The announcer looked uncertain. People started murmuring. Then unexpectedly Astra looked up too.

Not generally.

Not toward the imperial section.

Higher.

Toward your balcony.

Your breath caught.

You couldn’t see her expression clearly from this distance.

But you knew, without understanding how, she had seen movement behind the marble screens.

Her gaze stayed there for one second. Two.

Then she lowered her eyes.

Turned.

And raised her hand.

Not to the crowd.

Not dramatically.

A small bow.

Brief.

Controlled.

Your servant inhaled sharply.

“My lady—”

You looked at her. She looked pale. Then she whispered—

“She never does that.”

The arena always sounded different from underneath.

From the imperial balconies, everything became one enormous thing. Noise blurred into noise until individual people disappeared and the crowd became something almost animal. Thousands of voices merged together and became Rome itself—loud and impossible to ignore. But beneath the arena, behind the heavy gates and long stone corridors, the sound fractured apart again. You could hear pieces of it. A burst of cheering. A chant continuing somewhere above. The scrape of wheels carrying equipment. Voices becoming normal voices again.

Natasha preferred underneath.

She handed her sword over to an attendant without stopping. Someone nearby said, “Three exchanges today. You’re getting lazy, Astra.” Another laughed and answered before she could, “No, she’s getting efficient.” Somebody else reached to clap her shoulder and thought better of it halfway through.

Natasha ignored all of them.

Popularity in the arena meant almost nothing. It changed the way people looked at you but not the shape of your day. You still woke up where you woke up. You still trained until your muscles hurt. You still belonged to whoever held your contract. Winning just meant more people knew your face while they cheered for things happening to your body.

By the time she reached the baths, the sweat beneath her armour had become uncomfortable. The baths beneath the arena weren’t ugly exactly, but they weren’t designed to impress. Long stone pool. Steam rising lazily into the air. Benches against the walls. A few narrow windows high above that let in strips of afternoon light. Some gladiators were already inside—one washing blood from his arms, another sitting silently with his eyes closed, somebody arguing quietly about betting money. Nobody paid much attention to anybody else. That part Natasha liked.

She set her things down and began removing her armour piece by piece. The routine never changed. Bracers first. Then the shoulder pieces. Belt. Tunic. She rolled her shoulder once and felt the dull ache where the spear had clipped her. Not injured. Just sore. Around her, people moved normally. Nobody stared. Nobody cared. Bodies stopped being remarkable in places where everyone had scars.

She stepped into the heated water and lowered herself carefully until the warmth covered her shoulders. Heat settled into bruises and loosened muscles she hadn’t realised were tight. She closed her eyes.

Then the room changed.

Not dramatically.

Just enough.

Conversations stopped halfway through. Water shifted. Somebody stood too quickly.

Natasha opened her eyes.

There were footsteps.

Not many.

But they echoed differently.

Then a voice said quietly, respectfully—

“My lady.”

Her entire body went still.

The Emperor’s daughter did not come here.

Not to the gladiator baths.

Not after matches.

Not without reason.

Natasha lowered her eyes immediately.

Not out of fear exactly.

Habit.

You did not look directly at imperial women. You especially did not look directly at the Emperor’s daughter while half-submerged in a bath after a fight. That sounded like exactly the kind of thing that became a story told in warning to other people.

Around the room, everyone had stood. Nobody spoke. There was a pause.

Then your voice. Closer than she expected.

“…Do people usually do this?” Nobody answered. You sounded genuinely confused. You asked again, quieter this time. “The standing?”

One servant answered carefully. “My lady, it is respectful.”

You were silent for a second.

Then said—

“…Please sit down.”

Nobody moved. You looked around. Your expression shifted slightly.

“That wasn’t an order to test loyalty. I mean it.”

One older gladiator slowly sat. Then another. Then everyone followed.

Natasha stayed where she was.

Still looking downward.

There was quiet movement across the room. Not rushed. Not ceremonial.

Then footsteps approached and stopped nearby—not close enough to invade space, but close enough to make conversation possible.

You spoke.

“You’re Astra.”

Natasha answered without lifting her eyes.

“Yes.”

Your tone stayed thoughtful.

“That isn’t your real name.”

It wasn’t phrased like a challenge.

More like an observation.

Natasha looked up briefly before catching herself.

You weren’t dressed for court. Simpler clothing. Still expensive enough that nobody could mistake your status, but less… imperial than she expected.

She answered carefully. “No.”

You nodded. “What is it?”

The room became immediately uncomfortable. People looked away. Natasha stared for a second. People didn’t ask that. The crowd didn’t. Owners didn’t. Even other fighters mostly used arena names.

She said after a pause—

“…Natasha.”

You repeated it once. Quietly. Not testing it. Not making it dramatic. “Natasha.” Then nodded. “That’s prettier.”

She blinked. That was unexpected.

You looked at her shoulder.

“The spear hit you.”

Natasha looked down.

“It wasn’t serious.”

You frowned slightly. “That wasn’t what I asked.”

She looked back at you. You looked completely serious. So she answered. “It hurt.”

Your expression immediately softened. Not pity. Just acknowledgement. You nodded once.

“Right.”

Then after a second—

“I thought it probably did.”

Natasha stared. Nobody asked questions like that. People asked if she’d won. People asked how she moved. People asked if she’d fight again. Nobody looked at a gladiator and seemed surprised they could hurt.

You looked around the room. Then back at her. “…Do people talk to you after matches?”

Natasha frowned slightly.

“What?”

You clarified.“Normally.”

She looked confused. “They congratulate me.”

You shook your head. “No.” You thought for a second. “Like a person.”

That actually caught her off guard.She stared.

You seemed to realise how that sounded and immediately looked embarrassed.

“I didn’t mean— I know people talk to you. I just meant…”

You looked frustrated with yourself.

Then admitted — “Everyone was chanting your name and nobody looked at you.” The room was silent. You looked at the water. Then said quietly— “You looked unhappy.”

Natasha looked at you for a long second. Nobody had said that either. Not once. Eventually she answered honestly. “…I was tired.”

You nodded immediately. Like that made complete sense. Like she hadn’t just admitted something embarrassing. Then you smiled slightly. Small. Private. And said “That makes more sense.”

You stepped back.

Your servant looked relieved.

Before leaving, you looked at Natasha one last time and said “Rest your shoulder, Natasha.”

Not Astra. Natasha. Then you left.

And Natasha sat in warm water while people slowly started speaking again around her and realised, with growing annoyance she was probably going to remember that conversation for a very long time.

Two days after the fight, the arena looked almost unfamiliar.

Without the crowds, there was nothing to distract from how enormous it actually was. The stone seats climbed upward in endless rows until they blurred in the afternoon light, and the open sky above made the whole structure feel less like entertainment and more like something ancient and severe. Sand covered the floor in smooth pale stretches interrupted only by footprints, old drag marks and training equipment left where workers had finished with it. Somewhere beneath the seating, people moved through corridors and storage rooms, their voices occasionally carrying upward before disappearing again. But out here, in the centre, it felt strangely empty.

Natasha preferred it that way.

She stood near one of the training posts with a weighted wooden sword in her hand and worked through the same movements she’d repeated for years. The palus in front of her was little more than a thick upright post fixed into the ground, darkened and split in places from years of practice. Gladiators trained against them because wood didn’t hesitate and didn’t forgive mistakes. The practice weapons were deliberately heavier than real ones, and after enough repetitions the body learned to move properly before the mind had time to interfere. Strike. Recover. Step. Adjust grip. Again. Her shoulder pulled faintly every time she raised the sword above a certain angle, not enough to matter but enough to notice. She ignored it. Most things stopped hurting if you stopped treating them like they deserved attention.

She brought the sword down again and glanced upward without thinking.

The imperial balcony wasn’t difficult to spot. Even empty it looked expensive. Draped cloth softened the harsh stone, and carved screens cast patterned shadows across the seats. Someone stood there.

You.

Natasha recognised you immediately and immediately looked away.

You were alone.

No officials. No guards arranged dramatically around you. No sign of your father. You leaned slightly against the railing and looked downward—not generally across the arena, but specifically toward where she stood. Natasha frowned slightly and adjusted her grip on the practice sword. Fine. People watched training sometimes. It meant nothing. She resumed. Strike. Recover. Step. Again. She didn’t look up for several minutes. When she eventually did, the balcony was empty again.

Her expression tightened slightly.

That was fine too.

She rolled her shoulder once and raised the sword again.

Then she heard footsteps.

Not rushed. Not hidden.

She turned.

You stood several feet away.

For one strange second she genuinely thought she had imagined you.

You weren’t dressed formally. You still looked expensive in the effortless way people from the palace always did, but not ceremonial. Light fabric suited for the heat. Jewellery kept practical. One servant remained behind you at a respectful distance, close enough to intervene if needed and far enough to pretend she wasn’t listening. You looked around the arena briefly before your eyes settled on her and your expression shifted into something faintly pleased, like you’d found what you’d come for.

Natasha lowered her head immediately. “My lady.”

You looked mildly surprised by the formality. “You know, if you keep doing that, I’m going to start thinking I’m difficult to talk to.” Natasha looked up slightly before stopping herself. “You are the Emperor’s daughter.” You considered that for a second and said, “That’s not actually an answer.” Her mouth almost moved. Almost. You looked at the wooden sword instead and tilted your head.

“Your shoulder.” Natasha blinked. You nodded toward it. “I came to ask about your shoulder.” There was enough straightforward concern in your voice that she stared for half a second before answering automatically. “It’s alright.” You looked at her. Waited. Then said, “That sounded exactly like somebody whose shoulder isn’t alright.” Natasha looked at the training post instead. “…It hurts.” Your face immediately softened—not dramatically, not with pity, just with recognition. “Right.” You nodded once like she’d confirmed something important. “That makes sense.”

You walked closer to the palus, circling it slowly. Up close, the wood looked rough and damaged, packed with years of strikes. You touched one of the grooves with your fingertips and frowned. “This is what you train against?” Natasha nodded. You pressed your thumb against the wood experimentally before immediately pulling it away. “…That hurts.” Natasha looked at the post. Then at you. “Yes.”

You looked offended on behalf of the concept. “No, I mean touching it hurts. Why is it like this?” Natasha answered because she had to. Then realised she didn’t mind answering. “Harder than people.” You turned back to her. “That feels backwards.” She looked at the practice sword in her hand. “If training is harder, fighting feels easier.” You looked between the sword and the post and said with complete sincerity, “That sounds miserable.” Natasha shrugged. “It works.” You stared at her for a second before saying quietly, “You keep saying things like they don’t bother you.” She looked at you properly for the first time since you arrived. You looked back immediately instead of away. “Do they?”

She should have ended the conversation there.

Instead she looked out across the empty arena and said, “…Sometimes.” You nodded immediately like she’d given a normal answer instead of something she hadn’t intended to admit. You looked up at the seats around you. Empty. Silent. Then said, “I think I like it better empty.” Natasha frowned slightly. “The arena?” You nodded. “When people are here, nobody actually sees anything.” You looked back at her and added, “They were chanting for you and nobody noticed your shoulder hurt.” Natasha looked at you for a long moment. You didn’t seem to realise that wasn’t a normal observation to make.

You looked thoughtful instead. Then you asked, quieter this time, “Do you actually like fighting?” Natasha expected questions about victories. About fame. About winning. She looked at the wooden sword in her hand and thought about it properly before answering. “…I like being good at something.” You looked at her and said softly, “That wasn’t what I asked.” Natasha looked back. You smiled faintly and added, “But I think I understand.” There was no judgement in it. Somehow that made answering feel easier. She looked back across the arena and admitted, “No. I don’t think I do.” You nodded once and looked strangely relieved. Then after a second you smiled slightly and said, “I’m glad your shoulder’s alright anyway.”

And Natasha realised with immediate irritation that she had stopped training fifteen minutes ago.

Natasha expected the request to feel like an order, because everything in Rome that came from power usually did, even when it was dressed up as politeness.

So when you appeared again at the edge of the arena later that day, walking straight through the sand with your servant hovering at a distance and your expression entirely too calm for someone about to ask a gladiator to dine with an emperor, she tightened her grip on the wooden sword instinctively and waited for the hook in the sentence that would turn it into a command.

Instead, you just stopped a few steps away and said, almost casually, “My father’s requested you at dinner tonight,” like you were passing on information about weather rather than rearranging someone’s entire evening.

Natasha stared at you for a moment before responding flatly, “Your father requests a lot of things. I am usually not one of them.” You blinked once, then tilted your head slightly as if considering how to explain something obvious to someone who was being deliberately difficult, and replied, “He specifically asked for you. Astra. Or… Natasha, I suppose, depending on which version of you he expects.”

That made her expression tighten, because it meant her name had been spoken in rooms she had never entered, and she lowered the wooden sword slightly as she said, “That is not a good thing,” in a tone that suggested she already knew the answer. You, however, just shrugged lightly and said, “It might not be a bad thing either,” like both outcomes were equally possible and neither particularly dramatic.

The walk to the palace later felt like stepping into a different version of the same city, one where everything had been cleaned, adjusted, and arranged to be looked at from specific angles. Natasha followed a step behind you through corridors of pale stone and soft light, hearing the subtle shift in her own footsteps compared to the controlled silence of the palace staff.

At one point she muttered under her breath, “It is very quiet for somewhere built to house so many people,” and you glanced back at her immediately with something almost like amusement, replying, “It’s not quiet. It’s just organised,” as if that explained everything. Natasha raised an eyebrow slightly and said, “That sounds like the same thing rich people say about chaos,” which earned a brief, unexpected laugh from you, small but real, and you responded, “That’s because rich people are usually talking about things they’ve never been inside.”

When you reached the dining hall, Natasha stopped instinctively at the threshold because the room was still set for more people than were present, long table stretching out under soft lighting, places marked with unnecessary precision, servants positioned at the edges like statues waiting for instruction. Her shoulders tightened slightly as she muttered, “This looks like a political problem,” and you glanced at the arrangement and answered, “It is supposed to be dinner,” with a faint frown that suggested you had expected something different too.

Before Natasha could say anything else, you turned toward a servant and asked, “Where is my father?” in a tone that was polite but direct enough that it made the question feel heavier than it should have been. The answer came after a pause that lingered just a fraction too long: “The Emperor is… unavailable this evening, my lady,” delivered carefully in the way people spoke when they had been told to avoid specifics.

You exhaled softly through your nose, not angry, just resigned, and turned back to Natasha with a look that said this was not unusual. “He’s unavailable,” you repeated, and then added, almost conversationally, “which usually means he’s doing something that will make tomorrow’s senate meeting unpleasant.”

Natasha glanced around the room once before stepping further inside and saying dryly, “So I am here for a dinner that is not happening.” You looked at her, expression brightening slightly, and replied, “Well, technically it is happening. Just… incorrectly.” That earned another small look from her, and she said, “That is not reassuring,” while sitting down at the table in a way that kept her posture alert, hands resting loosely but ready if needed.

The first few moments of the meal were awkward in a way neither of you acknowledged, mostly because the absence of the Emperor made the space feel both too large and too intimate at the same time. You broke it first by gesturing vaguely at the food and saying, “They always overdo it when he’s supposed to be here. As if he’s going to be impressed by the shape of a roasted bird,” which made Natasha glance at the plates before replying, “He probably has people who tell him what shape things should be impressed by.” You looked at her for a second and then said, “That’s probably accurate, yes,” before taking a bite and adding, “Do gladiators get told what shapes to be impressed by?” Natasha leaned back slightly and answered, “Only when they are being sold,” which made you go quiet for a moment before you said, more softly, “That is a very bad system.”

Natasha watched you as she spoke, noticing the way you didn’t recoil from what she said, didn’t try to soften it or turn it into something poetic or distant. Instead, you just frowned slightly and asked, “Does it ever get boring?” and when she raised an eyebrow you clarified, “The arena. The fighting. The crowd chanting the same name over and over like they think it belongs to them.”

Natasha let out a small breath that might have been a laugh if it had more warmth in it and said, “They don’t think it belongs to them. They think I do,” and you immediately replied, “That’s worse,” without hesitation.

At some point the conversation stopped feeling like questions and answers and started feeling like a rhythm. Natasha found herself leaning into sarcasm without meaning to, watching your reactions with more attention than she was comfortable admitting even internally.

When you asked, “Do you ever get tired of hitting people for entertainment?” she answered, “Only when they are bad at dying,” which made you pause mid-drink before you laughed properly this time, sharper and more surprised, saying, “That is not what I expected you to say,” and she replied, “You will find most expectations are wrong,” which made you grin slightly and say, “That is a very gladiator thing to say.”

The longer the meal went on, the more Natasha noticed how different you were when you weren’t performing your position for anyone else. You were still composed, still clearly aware of yourself in the space, but you didn’t behave like someone constantly adjusting to invisible eyes.

You leaned forward when you spoke, occasionally interrupted your own thoughts to change direction mid-sentence, and once, when a servant approached too quietly behind you, you startled slightly and muttered, “You need to stop appearing like that,” which made Natasha glance at you with faint surprise before you added, “It’s unsettling even when you’re not trying to be dramatic.” Natasha responded dryly, “Most people prefer servants not to be dramatic,” and you immediately said, “Most people have never been surprised in the middle of eating,” like that explained everything.

At one point, Natasha caught herself looking at you differently than she had intended to. Not as the Emperor’s daughter sitting at the head of a political structure, but as someone who kept accidentally making the room feel less formal just by existing in it incorrectly.

You were speaking about something trivial—whether the arena sand ever got reused for anything else—and you were gesturing slightly with your hand when you talked, and Natasha realised, with something faint and irritating, that you were not only easy to talk to, but also genuinely pleasant to look at in a way that didn’t feel engineered. Not like the polished beauty she had seen in noblewomen at a distance. Something more natural. Unintentional. She looked away before that thought could settle properly and said, “You ask strange questions,” which made you smile and reply, “Nobody answers them properly unless I do.”

When the meal finally ended, neither of you addressed the fact that it had only been the two of you, or that the Emperor had never appeared at all. You stood first, brushing your hands lightly as if dismissing the formality of the entire evening, and said, “Well, that went better than expected,” to which Natasha replied, “Your expectations seem low,” earning a quick grin from you as you answered, “You would be surprised.”

She followed you out of the room a step behind, as she had earlier, but this time the silence between you didn’t feel empty, and when you glanced back once before parting ways and said, “We will probably do this again,” Natasha found herself answering before thinking, “That depends on how many more dinners your father forgets,” and only after you laughed quietly and walked away did she realise she had meant it less like a warning and more like a hope she didn’t want to examine yet.

It started in a way Natasha didn’t plan for, which was usually how things became dangerous in Rome.

She had not gone looking for you.

That was the part she would have repeated later if anyone had accused her of anything, because it mattered, even if only to her. She had returned to training as usual, the arena still mostly empty in the late afternoon heat, the sand softer underfoot than it ever felt during matches, and she had been working through drills against the palus with a kind of controlled focus that kept her thoughts from drifting too far into anything resembling the previous evening. The dinner had been strange enough that it sat in her mind like an object she couldn’t quite place, not unpleasant, not exactly welcome either, just… unresolved. That was the word that annoyed her the most. Unresolved implied continuation. Implied repetition. Implied that it would happen again without her permission.

She struck the wooden post harder than necessary, felt the vibration travel up her arm, reset her stance, and told herself firmly that it didn’t matter. Then she looked up without meaning to.

You were already there.

Not in the arena this time, but in the imperial seating again, slightly shifted from where you had been the day before, one hand resting against the marble railing as you leaned forward in a way that suggested you had been watching for a while. Natasha stopped mid-movement, the wooden sword still raised, and for a brief second the entire arena felt too quiet even though nothing had actually changed.

You lifted your hand in a small, informal gesture that didn’t resemble anything official, more like acknowledgment than greeting, and called down, “You’re going to break that thing before you learn anything new with it,” as if commenting on something ordinary rather than standing above a gladiator training alone in a place where most people would never have dared speak out loud.

Natasha frowned slightly, lowered the sword, and called back, “It is designed to be broken,” which made you tilt your head and reply, “That sounds like a bad design philosophy,” before sitting down properly on the edge of the balcony like you had no intention of maintaining distance just for appearance’s sake.

She looked away again, forced herself to resume her stance, and told herself she was imagining the fact that she had started paying attention to where you were positioned in the seating rather than ignoring it like she should have been doing. Strike. Step. Reset. Except now there was a presence above her rhythm that didn’t belong to the training routine.

Eventually, she stopped again, exhaling through her nose, and looked up properly. “Are you always here when I train?” she called out, the question sharper than she intended, and you leaned forward slightly as if considering it before answering, “No. Sometimes I arrive early. Sometimes I arrive late. Today I was curious whether you always hit things that look like they owe you money,” which earned a brief, reluctant pause from her before she replied, “They do not owe me money,” and you immediately said, “You hit them like they do.”

There was something frustratingly easy about the way you spoke to her, like there was no hierarchy built into the sentences unless she added it herself, and Natasha found herself walking a few steps closer to the centre of the arena without fully deciding to.

“You should not be down here,” she said after a moment, more out of habit than concern, and you responded without hesitation, “I was down here yesterday,” as if repetition made it acceptable. Natasha narrowed her eyes slightly. “That does not make it better.” You shrugged lightly and said, “It makes it familiar,” and then, after a pause that felt slightly more deliberate, added, “Besides, I wanted to ask you something.” That made her stop properly, wooden sword lowering just slightly, because questions from you were never simple and never predictable.

“Ask,” she said carefully, and you hesitated for a fraction longer than usual before looking down at her instead of the arena and saying, “When you fight… do you ever stop and think about anything else?” Natasha almost answered immediately with something defensive, something clean and closed, but the way you were looking at her made it harder than it should have been. Not intense. Not demanding. Just present. So she exhaled slowly and said, “If I do, I lose,” which made you nod like you had expected something like that, though your expression tightened slightly anyway.

“That is what I thought,” you said quietly, and there was something in your voice that made her look up more fully. You leaned forward on the railing again, closer this time than before, watching her in a way that didn’t feel like ownership or curiosity or performance. Just attention. “It seems unfair,” you added after a moment, “that you are only allowed to exist properly when you are winning something.”

Natasha let out a short breath that almost became a laugh, because it was easier than responding to the actual meaning of what you said. “Everything in Rome is unfair,” she replied, and you immediately said, “Yes, but you say it like you have accepted it,” which made the air between you shift slightly in a way she couldn’t immediately name.

She took a step closer again without thinking, now close enough that your voice carried more clearly down into the arena instead of needing to be called. “Acceptance is useful,” she said, and you shook your head slightly. “No,” you replied, softer now, “it is just quieter.” That made her pause, because it was not an argument she could win in the usual way. The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable, but it felt heavier than before, like something had been placed carefully between you that neither of you had named yet.

Natasha adjusted her grip on the wooden sword, then looked up properly again. “You ask too many questions,” she said, and for a moment she thought you might deflect again, but instead you smiled slightly and answered, “Nobody else answers them properly.” There was a beat where neither of you moved, and the distance between the balcony and the arena suddenly felt less like height and more like something thinner, something that could be crossed if either of you stopped treating it like it was fixed.

Natasha should have stepped back.

She didn’t.

Instead she said, “You should leave before someone decides you are not supposed to be here.” It was practical. It was correct. It was exactly what she should have said. You didn’t move immediately. You just looked at her for a moment longer than necessary, then said, “You always say things like that,” and when she frowned slightly, you clarified, “Like you are waiting for me to disappear.”

That landed differently.

Natasha’s jaw tightened slightly, and for the first time in the conversation she didn’t answer right away. You watched her carefully now, no humour in your expression, just something quieter and more uncertain. “I am not going to disappear,” you added after a moment, almost as if you were reminding yourself as much as her. Natasha finally looked away first, down at the sand, and said, “In Rome, people like you usually do.”

There was a pause.

Then your voice, softer than before. “What do people like me do?” Natasha hesitated, because the honest answer was not something she should say, and definitely not something she should say to you. But the space between you felt too open to leave empty, so she said carefully, “They are present. And then they are not. And everyone pretends they were always meant to be gone.” She heard your breath shift slightly at that, but when she looked up again you were still there, still leaning on the railing, still watching her in a way that felt uncomfortably steady.

After a moment you said, “That sounds like a very exhausting way to exist,” and Natasha almost responded with something sharp, almost pushed the conversation away the way she usually would, but instead she found herself saying, quieter than before, “It is normal.” That made you smile slightly, not amused, but almost sad, and you replied, “I do not think I like normal very much,” before standing up straighter again as if forcing the weight of the conversation back into place.

When she spoke next, it was instinct more than decision. “You should go,” Natasha said again, but this time it didn’t sound like a warning. It sounded like something else she didn’t have a name for yet. You nodded slowly, then looked at her for one more second longer than necessary and said, “You should stop looking like you are waiting for something to end,” before turning away from the balcony and finally leaving the arena.

Natasha stood still long after you were gone, the wooden sword hanging loosely in her hand, the training post forgotten behind her, and realised with quiet irritation that the part of her that had expected you to disappear had not actually been convinced yet.

The arena had changed without you in it, and Natasha noticed it in a way that irritated her more than she expected.

At first it was small things—empty stands that stayed empty longer than they should have, the imperial balcony remaining untouched through training hours, the absence of footsteps where she had started subconsciously expecting them. Then it became something harder to ignore, like the space above the sand had stopped carrying a particular weight. No quiet presence leaning forward. No voice drifting down mid-drill. No interruption that felt like it should have been annoying but somehow wasn’t. The arena was just the arena again. Stone, sand, heat, repetition. Controlled. Predictable.

Natasha told herself that was better.

She said it while tightening her grip on the wooden sword, while striking the palus harder than necessary, while resetting her stance until her shoulder ached in a familiar, uncomplicated way. Better meant stable. Better meant nothing shifting when it wasn’t supposed to. Better meant no imperial daughter appearing in places she had no reason to be and asking questions like the world was built to answer them. Better meant focus returning fully to training, to survival, to what actually mattered.

Except focus didn’t return cleanly.

It kept slipping.

Not in dramatic ways. Not in distraction she could name and correct. It was quieter than that. A pause before impact. A glance upward that lasted half a breath too long. The instinct to expect something that didn’t arrive. The arena felt slightly wrong in its correctness, like a rhythm missing a single note that most people wouldn’t notice unless they had heard it before.

That was what bothered her most.

Not that you were gone.

But that she had started noticing when you were there.

She realised it fully on the third day.

She had finished training early, sweat cooling against her skin as she walked back through the lower corridors of the arena, hearing the usual background noise of workers and distant movement, and found herself looking up automatically toward the imperial balcony before she even consciously thought about doing it. It was empty. Of course it was empty. It had been empty every time she checked since you stopped appearing. And still, something in her chest tightened with a reaction she didn’t want to examine too closely.

Natasha stopped walking for a moment in the corridor where light cut in from high stone slits, dust floating through it like suspended ash. She told herself it was irrelevant. She told herself she had experienced emptiness far more complete than this. She told herself she had trained alone, fought alone, lived alone in ways that made absence meaningless. That was the truth she understood. That was the truth that kept things manageable.

And yet this absence felt structured.

Deliberate.

Like something had been placed in her routine and then removed without explanation, leaving the rest of it still functioning but subtly wrong.

When she returned to the gladiator quarters, the others were the same as always. Voices, arguments, laughter that didn’t reach eyes, people talking about fights she had already stopped thinking about. Someone slapped her shoulder in passing and said something about her next match, and she responded in the way she always did—short, precise, detached—but even that felt slightly misaligned, like she was speaking from a version of herself that hadn’t fully caught up yet.

That night, she lay awake longer than usual.

The room was dark except for thin strips of light from the corridor outside. Other fighters slept around her, breathing heavy and uneven in the exhaustion of routine. Somewhere further away, someone laughed too loudly at something she couldn’t hear. Natasha stared at the ceiling and listened to the building settle.

She told herself, again, that nothing had changed.

Except the problem wasn’t change.

It was removal.

You had not slowly become part of her day in a way she could adjust to. You had appeared like an interruption in a system she had spent years keeping predictable, and then you had stopped appearing at all without warning. No gradual fading. No explanation. Just gone from the balcony. Gone from training. Gone from the space above the arena where her attention had started drifting without permission.

And she hated how quickly her mind supplied the possibility that this was normal.

That people like you didn’t stay.

That she should have expected it.

That she should not have—

She stopped that thought before it finished.

Rolled onto her side.

Closed her eyes.

Did not sleep.

By the time morning came, the decision had already formed, not as something she had chosen in words, but as something her body had accepted before her mind agreed. She waited until the quarters were loud enough that movement wouldn’t be noticed, until attention was elsewhere, until the world outside was busy enough to hide a single absence, and then she left without announcing anything to anyone. There was no plan beyond getting out. No justification she would have admitted out loud. Just the same unsettling absence pressing at the back of her thoughts, refusing to settle.

The palace walls rose above the city like something designed to be impossible to cross, smooth stone catching pale morning light, guards distant enough to become shapes rather than individuals. Natasha moved through shadowed routes and service paths she had learned over time without meaning to, avoiding attention not because she was afraid of being seen but because being seen would turn this into something else—something she would have to explain. When she reached the outer wall, she stopped for a moment at its base, looking up at it the way she had looked at opponents before fights, measuring distance without emotion.

“This is stupid,” she muttered quietly to herself, because it was, and the honesty of that didn’t stop her from stepping forward anyway.

The climb came later in fragments she would not have described as thoughts so much as movement. Stone rough under her fingers. Gaps between light and shadow. The sound of her own breathing controlled and steady in a way it only ever became when there was no audience. Above her, the palace shifted from exterior structure to something more private, windows becoming fewer, surfaces becoming quieter, until she reached a place where everything felt closer than it should have.

She paused there.

Not because she was tired.

Because for the first time since she had made the decision, she became aware of what she was actually doing.

The palace at night was not the arena.

It did not belong to crowds.

It belonged to individuals.

And somewhere beyond the wall she had just crossed, you were sleeping in a room that was not meant to be entered like this.

Natasha stayed still for a moment longer than necessary, hand braced against stone, listening to the quiet of a place that did not expect her presence, and felt something uncomfortable settle in her chest that had nothing to do with fear and nothing to do with duty and everything to do with the fact that she had been fine without you—

until she wasn’t.

The window was higher than expected, but not impossible, and she climbed with the same controlled efficiency she used in training, fingers finding carved grooves in the palace stone that were decorative rather than functional, boots pressing against narrow ledges never intended to support anything heavier than architecture. From outside, the room beyond was dimly lit by a single oil lamp, its light warm against pale fabric and polished surfaces, casting soft movement across curtains that shifted slightly with air she could not feel yet. She paused just outside the opening for a moment longer than necessary, and for the first time since leaving the gladiator quarters, she felt something like hesitation—not fear of being caught, not even fear of consequence, but awareness that crossing this particular threshold had no precedent in anything she understood about her own life.

Inside, your room was quieter than she had imagined in a way that made her immediately aware of how much noise she had been carrying without noticing it. It was not grand in the way ceremonial halls were grand; there was no attempt to impress unseen audiences here. Instead, everything felt lived in without being messy, arranged without being performative, as if the space belonged to someone who did not expect to be judged for existing within it. Natasha moved through the opening carefully, dropping into the room with minimal sound, landing lightly on stone flooring that was warmer than expected beneath her feet. She straightened slowly, eyes adjusting to the dim light, and only then realised she was actually inside your space rather than outside it.

You were asleep.

Not dramatically. Not staged. Just there, half turned in the bedding, one arm resting loosely against the edge of the sheets, your face partially lit by the low lamp on the far side of the room. Without the presence of court, without the structure of attention or expectation, you looked younger in a way Natasha could not immediately reconcile with the version of you she knew from the arena and dining hall. There was no distance here. No performance. Just stillness that did not require witnesses. Natasha froze again, this time for a different reason, and for a moment she simply stood there in the dim light, her mind refusing to attach language to what she was seeing because language implied interpretation, and interpretation implied she understood why she had come at all.

Her gaze dropped almost immediately, instinctively, because that was what survival taught you in unfamiliar territory, but even looking away did not remove the fact that she was standing in your room in the middle of the night without permission, fully aware that this alone would be enough to end her life if anyone chose to interpret it in the wrong way. She could already imagine the sentence being spoken aloud in a court voice, calm and final: gladiator enters imperial daughter’s private chambers. There would be no context that survived that phrasing. No explanation that mattered. Natasha swallowed once, slowly, and found that her body was not preparing to leave.

Instead, she remained still near the edge of the room, listening to the faint sounds of your breathing, to the subtle shift of fabric when you moved slightly in sleep, to the distant hush of the palace outside continuing without either of you. The wooden practice of training, of fighting, of existing within rules that made sense, suddenly felt very far away. Here there were no rules she understood, only proximity, silence, and the strange, heavy fact that she had crossed an entire city not to fight, not to win, not to be seen—but to confirm that something that had stopped appearing still existed somewhere she could reach.

And that was the part she did not let herself think about for too long, because if she did, she might have had to admit that standing in your room like this was not about the palace, or danger, or even curiosity anymore, but about something far more difficult to justify, something that sat uncomfortably close to wanting.

You woke slowly, not all at once but in fragments—the kind of waking where the room arrives before your thoughts do, where light becomes shape before meaning. The lamp was still burning low, but something about the air felt different, heavier in a way that didn’t belong to sleep. At first you assumed it was just the palace doing what it always did at night, shifting and settling, until you noticed the silence wasn’t quite the same silence you fell asleep in. This one had edges.

When you turned your head slightly, still half caught between dreams and awareness, you saw her.

Natasha.

Standing where the room’s shadow broke against the faint light, as if she had been carved there rather than placed. Completely still. Watching the space more than watching you, like she wasn’t sure whether she was allowed to exist in the same moment you were waking up in. For a second your mind tried to make it normal—guards, attendants, someone with a message—but none of those explanations survived the way she was holding herself. Controlled, yes, but not relaxed. Not distant. Something tighter underneath it.

You pushed yourself up slightly, voice rough with sleep as you said, “You’re very committed to the idea of entering rooms uninvited.” Natasha’s head snapped up immediately at your voice, like she hadn’t allowed herself to expect you waking would be real until it happened, and for a second she didn’t answer at all. Her expression shifted—just slightly, but enough that it didn’t match the version of her you were used to seeing in daylight. Less composed. Less filtered.

“You weren’t there,” she said finally.

You blinked, still not fully awake. “I’m… here.”

Natasha let out a quiet breath through her nose, almost a laugh but not quite, except it had no humour in it. “No. You weren’t.” She stepped forward one pace, then stopped like she’d caught herself doing it. “For weeks. The stands. The balcony. Training. Nothing.” Her voice stayed steady, but there was something underneath it that didn’t belong to it, something sharper and unguarded. “You just stopped.”

You sat up a little more properly now, rubbing your eyes once as reality settled in, and frowned slightly. “I didn’t stop anything. I was just—” you gestured vaguely, like the answer was obvious, “busy.”

Natasha’s expression tightened immediately. “Busy.”

You nodded like that explained everything. “Yes. Palace things. Meetings. Dresses. People telling me things are important that are not actually important. You know. Normal imperial women stuff.”

There was a pause after that where Natasha just looked at you, and for the first time since you had met her, she didn’t look like she was filtering what she showed you. It wasn’t anger exactly, but it was something closer to frustration that had nowhere to go. “Normal,” she repeated, flatly. “You disappeared for weeks and you call it normal.”

You frowned slightly now, more awake, sitting properly against the bed as the situation fully registered. “I didn’t disappear,” you corrected gently, as if this was a misunderstanding she was exaggerating. “I’m not… gone. I’m literally in a palace. I just—wasn’t here.”

Natasha stared at you for a moment longer, and then something in her expression shifted, subtle but unmistakable, like a line she had been holding finally gave way. When she spoke again her voice was quieter, but heavier. “I thought you had left.”

That made you stop completely.

“Left?” you echoed.

Natasha’s jaw tightened slightly, like she regretted saying it the moment it left her mouth, but she didn’t take it back. “Yes,” she said, more controlled now, but not fully back to her usual distance. “That is what people do. They appear. They watch. They leave.” Her eyes flicked briefly away from you, then back again. “You stopped coming. So I assumed you were done.”

There was a silence after that that didn’t feel empty, just dense. Like the room had become smaller without either of you moving.

You looked at her properly now, really properly, and something about your expression softened in a way that didn’t feel like politics or position. “Natasha…” you started, then paused, like you were choosing words carefully for once. “I didn’t leave.”

She gave a short, almost bitter exhale. “You weren’t there.”

“I was busy,” you repeated, but this time it sounded less like dismissal and more like explanation. Then you added, a little more quietly, “I didn’t think it meant that.”

That landed differently.

Natasha looked at you for a long moment without speaking, and whatever she had been holding together loosened slightly at the edges. “It did,” she said simply. “To me.”

That was the closest thing to honesty she had offered you without armour around it, and it made something in your chest tighten in a way you didn’t immediately understand how to place. You shifted slightly on the bed, suddenly very aware of how close she was, how the room felt too still around the two of you, like it was waiting for something neither of you had agreed to name.

“You came here,” you said softly.

Natasha’s gaze dropped briefly before returning to you. “Yes.”

“Why?”

There was a pause.

Not long.

But real.

Then she answered, quieter than before, “Because you stopped being there, and I didn’t like what that did to everything else.”

You stared at her.

“That’s not an answer,” you said gently.

“It is the only one I have,” she replied immediately, then stopped as if surprised by her own honesty.

The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable. It was just… close.

Natasha took one step closer, then another, slower this time, like she was making a decision she didn’t fully trust but couldn’t stop herself from completing. You didn’t move away. That seemed to matter to her more than anything else in the room. When she finally stopped beside the bed, she looked down at you for a moment that felt too long to be casual and not long enough to be anything else, and said quietly, almost like a warning to herself, “You confuse things.”

You tilted your head slightly. “I think you were already confused.”

That made something flicker in her expression—something almost like a smile, but too restrained to fully become one. “You talk too much,” she said.

“You broke into my room,” you replied.

“That is not relevant.”

“It feels relevant.”

Natasha huffed quietly, then shook her head once like she was trying to clear something out of it. “You were gone,” she said again, softer now, less accusation and more truth she didn’t like holding. “And I didn’t know what that meant.”

Your expression shifted slightly at that, and for once you didn’t answer immediately. When you did, your voice was quieter too. “I didn’t mean for it to mean anything.”

Natasha looked at you then in a way that wasn’t guarded anymore, not fully. Just present. “It did anyway,” she said.

And then she leaned down.

It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t rushed. It didn’t feel like the arena or anything that had ever been performed for an audience. It was careful in a way that almost suggested she was checking whether it was real as she did it, like she expected the moment to disappear if she moved too quickly. Her hand didn’t grab you. It barely touched the bed beside you for balance, and when her lips met yours it was brief and soft and uncertain in a way that somehow made it more intense, like it mattered precisely because it wasn’t trying to become anything bigger than it was.

When she pulled back, she didn’t move away immediately. Just stayed close enough that the space between you felt different than it had before.

Neither of you spoke for a moment.

Then Natasha exhaled slowly and said, almost quietly, “Don’t do that again.”

You blinked. “Do what?”

“Disappear,” she said, and there was no sarcasm in it now at all.

You looked at her for a second, then answered softly, “I didn’t realise I was allowed to matter enough for that to be a problem.”

That made her pause.

Properly.

And for once, Natasha didn’t respond with distance or control. She just looked at you, something unreadable but steady in her expression, then said, “You are.”

The night didn’t become anything else after that in words.

Only presence.

Eventually, she stayed.

Not in explanation. Not in permission. Just in the quiet that followed like it had decided it belonged there too.

And when the palace began to shift toward morning, when light slowly started to soften the edges of the room and the world outside began pretending it had always been ordered and awake, Natasha left the way she had come—quiet, controlled, careful not to disturb what was still sleeping.

The window was colder at dawn. The climb was the same. But something about it felt different as she moved back into the world she understood.

Behind her, the room stayed warm.

And she didn’t look back until she was already gone.

Over the next few months, the pattern of your lives stopped feeling like an accident and started feeling like something carefully maintained, even if neither of you would have described it that way out loud. It never became public, never became a story, never became anything that could be pointed at and named without consequences following immediately behind it. Instead, it became fragments of time stolen from everything else—small, hidden spaces where the world outside did not exist in the same way.

Sometimes it was your bedroom in the dead of night, where Natasha would arrive through the window like she had the first time, except now she moved with less hesitation, landing more quietly, as if her body had started remembering the shape of the room. You would already be awake more often than not, sitting half-wrapped in blankets, whispering something like “You’re late,” even though there was no real expectation of timing, and she would reply dryly, “I wasn’t late. You just waited wrong,” before sitting beside you like it was the most normal thing in the world for a gladiator to exist in imperial silk shadows. In those moments, conversation was softer, less structured, drifting between small complaints about the palace, absurd rumours from the arena, and Natasha occasionally saying things like, “Someone tried to bet on whether I would lose my next match,” which would make you laugh quietly into your sleeve and answer, “Did you lose?” and she would look at you and say, “No,” like the question itself was insulting.

Other times it was the stables after everything had gone quiet, when the palace horses had settled and the stable boys had gone home, leaving only the smell of hay and wood and the occasional shifting sound of animals resting in the dark. You would sit on stacked hay bales while Natasha leaned against a wooden beam, arms loosely folded, still carrying traces of the arena in the way she stood even when she was relaxed. You would talk about nothing important—what food was better outside the palace, whether horses ever got bored of being important animals—and Natasha would answer in that slightly sarcastic tone that had become familiar now, saying things like, “I think everything here is bored of being important except you,” which would make you nudge her lightly with your shoulder and say, “That’s not true. I am extremely entertaining,” to which she would respond, “Debatable,” without looking at you.

There were also moments in the gladiator quarters, though those were rarer and more careful, usually late at night when most of the building had settled into exhausted silence. Natasha’s room was not impressive—stone, simple bedding, weapons resting in familiar places—but it was hers in a way nothing in the palace fully was, and you would sit on the edge of her cot while she cleaned her gear or tended to small injuries without acknowledging how often those injuries were now less severe. Sometimes she would glance at you mid-task and say, “You know you are not supposed to be here,” and you would answer immediately, “Neither are you,” which would make her pause just long enough for something unspoken to pass between you before she returned to what she was doing.

Once, it was a small picnic by the river outside the city, somewhere neither of you were officially meant to be. The grass was uneven, the water moving steadily beside you, and for a while neither of you spoke much at all. Natasha lay back on the ground with one arm behind her head, eyes half-closed against the light, and you picked at food absentmindedly before saying, “If anyone saw us, they’d probably assume I’ve been kidnapped,” which made her open one eye and reply, “You’re doing a very bad job of looking kidnapped,” to which you smiled and said, “I can try screaming if it helps,” and she finally laughed properly, short and quiet, like she wasn’t used to letting it happen in open air.

It never stopped being hidden. It never stopped being careful. But it did start to feel continuous, like something that existed even when you weren’t together, stretching invisibly between meetings like a thread neither of you acknowledged but both of you would have noticed if it disappeared.

And then there was the sunrise.

It was early, earlier than most of the city had decided to wake, when the sky was still holding onto its darker colours and the horizon was only just beginning to soften. You were both sitting high enough above the city that the roofs stretched endlessly below you, the palace behind you still quiet, still unaware of itself in the way buildings always were before people filled them. Natasha sat slightly behind you, one arm resting loosely on her knee, posture relaxed in a way she almost never allowed herself anywhere else. You leaned back slightly against her shoulder without thinking about it, and for a while neither of you spoke, just watched the light change slowly as if it belonged to you for a few minutes before it belonged to everyone else again.

When you finally broke the silence, your voice was quieter than usual, less playful, more uncertain in a way you didn’t often let show. “Do you ever wish we didn’t have to hide from everyone?” you asked, eyes still on the horizon. Natasha didn’t answer immediately. She didn’t move away either. For a moment, she just stayed still, watching the way the light spread across the city like it was something she was trying not to interrupt.

“Yes,” she said finally.

It wasn’t dramatic.

It wasn’t softened.

Just honest.

A pause followed, heavy but not uncomfortable, and when Natasha spoke again her voice was lower. “But wishing doesn’t change it.”

You nodded slightly, like you already knew that, like you just needed to hear her say it out loud anyway. The silence returned, but it felt different now—less like absence, more like something being shared.

Natasha shifted behind you, just enough to close the small space between you, and for a moment she rested her forehead lightly against your temple, brief and quiet and careful in a way that said more than either of you were willing to put into words. When she pulled back, she didn’t linger.

Instead, she stood.

The movement was familiar now—controlled, practiced, the kind of leaving that had been learned rather than decided. You turned slightly as she stepped back toward the edge, already knowing what came next even before she said anything.

“I have to go,” she murmured, not as an apology but as a fact.

You gave a small nod. “I know.”

Natasha looked at you for a second longer than necessary, something soft and unreadable in her expression now that the sun was starting to catch the edges of her face, and then she leaned down to kiss you again—short, gentle, unperformed, like something that wasn’t meant to be witnessed even when no one was there to see it. When she pulled away, she didn’t hesitate this time. She just turned toward the palace wall, already becoming something else again as she moved.

You watched her go until she reached the edge and began to climb down, disappearing gradually into stone and shadow and the returning structure of the world.

And when she was gone, the sunrise no longer felt like it belonged to just the two of you at all.

Later that same day, the palace felt different in a way you couldn’t immediately explain, though at first you tried to convince yourself it was just your imagination reacting to a lack of sleep and the leftover warmth of the morning. You moved through the corridors as usual, attendants stepping aside, distant conversations folding themselves neatly out of your path, marble floors reflecting light in the same controlled way they always did. Nothing looked wrong. Nothing sounded wrong. And yet the structure of it all felt slightly tighter, like the building itself had been adjusted by a hand you hadn’t seen.

It was only when you turned into the quieter wing near your father’s private audience rooms that you heard voices you weren’t meant to hear.

Not because they were loud.

Because they were calm.

Your father’s voice carried first, measured and precise in the way it always was when decisions had already been made before speech. There was no anger in it, no debate, just conclusion being processed into instruction. “It cannot become public,” he was saying, as if continuing a conversation already underway long before you arrived, and you slowed instinctively before the corner fully revealed you, your body stopping before your mind had decided to.

A guard’s voice followed, lower, careful. “The gladiator, my lord?”

A pause.

Then your father again, quieter this time, more deliberate. “Yes. Natasha.”

The name hit the air differently than anything else in the conversation, and for a moment you forgot to breathe properly, because hearing it spoken like that—clean, detached, reduced to something that could be handled—did not belong in the same world as the way she had said your name at sunrise.

You stepped closer without meaning to.

Your father continued, as though discussing logistics rather than a person. “She has become visible. That is the problem.” Then, after a brief pause, he added, “Someone has reported sightings. More than one. The palace is not blind.” Another pause followed, shorter this time, before he said, “They saw them together.”

The guard hesitated. “Together, my lord?”

And your father answered, with the same calm tone he would use to sign off on trade routes or troop movements, “The Emperor’s daughter and a gladiator do not exist together in any version of Rome that remains stable.”

Your fingers tightened slightly against the edge of the stone wall without you noticing.

Then the guard spoke again, more carefully now. “What would you have us do?”

There was a silence after that, not uncertain, just considered. When your father spoke again, it was quieter, almost conversational, which somehow made it worse. “She will be arrested tomorrow. Quietly. No spectacle.” A small pause. “Public execution is not an option. It would invite questions.”

Another voice, hesitant. “And the gladiator’s standing, my lord? The crowd favours her.”

That earned a faint exhale from your father, not quite impatience, more like inconvenience being acknowledged. “Then it must not appear as punishment. It must appear as removal. Clean. Without narrative.”

Your chest tightened in a way that had nothing to do with breathing.

Then came the part that made the world tilt.

“And your daughter?” the guard asked, more carefully this time.

A pause.

Longer.

Measured.

When your father answered, it was with the same certainty he used for everything else. “She will be secured.”

Another pause, then clarification, as if speaking to someone slower than him. “She is not to leave the palace unaccompanied. Her movements will be restricted immediately. Inform her that arrangements for marriage are being prepared. Suitable alliance. Controlled outcome.”

There was a brief silence in which no one spoke, as though even the guards were adjusting to the simplicity of the sentence.

Then your father added, almost absently, “This will resolve itself. It always does.”

Something inside you went very still.

Not fear first.

Understanding.

Then disbelief.

Then a sharp, rising clarity that made the corridor feel suddenly too narrow to contain you.

You stepped back from the corner slowly, carefully, as if any sudden movement might make the conversation turn around and notice you standing there. Your mind tried to attach order to what you had heard—political stability, reputation, damage control—but none of those words fully reached what was sitting underneath them. Natasha’s name repeated itself in your head, not as an announcement anymore but as something already being handled.

Arrested.

Tomorrow.

Quietly.

You didn’t realise your hand had pressed against your own mouth until you lowered it again, breathing shallowly through your nose as you turned away from the corridor. The palace continued moving around you exactly as it always had, servants passing without noticing the shift in your posture, distant footsteps echoing in controlled rhythms, sunlight falling across stone in the same indifferent way it always did.

But nothing inside you matched it anymore.

And as you walked away from the corridor, carefully keeping your pace steady so no one would question you, one thought settled into place with uncomfortable certainty, heavier than everything else you had just heard:

Natasha had finally stopped being hidden.

And now the palace was going to make sure she stopped existing at all.

You didn’t remember deciding to run. You just remembered movement.

The palace corridors blurred as you walked faster than you should have been allowed to, forcing your expression into something neutral enough not to draw attention, even as everything inside you was already collapsing into a single direction. Servants passed. Voices echoed. Doors opened and closed with the same controlled rhythm they always did, but none of it registered properly anymore. Natasha’s name kept repeating in your head in the same calm tone your father had used, like it had already been reduced to something that could be processed without consequence.

By the time you reached the gladiator quarters, you weren’t thinking in full sentences anymore.

The building hit you differently—darker, louder, more real. The smell of sweat and metal and sand clung to the walls, the usual noise of fighters and guards filling the space in overlapping fragments. Someone laughed too loudly nearby. Someone else argued over equipment. Life continuing exactly as it always had, unaware that it was already out of time.

Natasha was not hard to find.

She was where she usually was, half-leaning near her space with weapons within reach, posture relaxed in the way only people who were never truly relaxed could manage. She looked up the moment you entered, not startled, just observant in that immediate way she always had when it came to you. Her eyes tracked your face first, then your breathing, then the fact that you weren’t trying to pretend anything was normal.

That alone made her straighten.

“You’re here early,” she said, voice even.

You didn’t slow down. “They’re coming for you.”

That stopped everything.

Not dramatically. Not outwardly. Just a stillness that spread through her expression like something had been placed down carefully inside her and left there.

Natasha didn’t ask who immediately. She didn’t need to. Instead she studied your face for a moment longer than usual, then asked quietly, “When?”

“Tomorrow,” you said. Then, because saying it once wasn’t enough for your own mind to accept, you added, “They’re going to arrest you tomorrow. Quietly. And—” your voice caught slightly before you forced it steady again, “they plan to execute you privately.”

There was a pause.

Around you, the quarters kept moving. Metal clinking. Voices continuing. Life refusing to understand urgency unless it was shouted directly at it.

Natasha exhaled slowly through her nose. It wasn’t panic. It wasn’t shock in the way people usually expected. It was something flatter. Sharper. Like she was already calculating distance before she had fully acknowledged emotion.

“Of course they are,” she said finally, almost to herself.

You stared at her. “That’s it?”

Her gaze flicked to yours. “What do you want me to do? Argue with an emperor’s decision?” A pause. “That’s not how this ends.”

Your hands tightened at your sides. “It doesn’t have to end.”

That made her look at you more directly.

For a second, something softer almost appeared there. Almost.

Then she stepped closer, lowering her voice slightly so it didn’t carry. “Listen to me,” she said, controlled again but not distant. “If they come for me here, there are too many variables. Guards, witnesses, delays. I don’t survive that.” A beat. “Not cleanly.”

You swallowed. “So what do we do?”

Natasha held your gaze for a long moment, then glanced briefly toward the exit, already shifting into decision rather than reaction. “We leave.”

It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t hesitation. Just fact.

You blinked once. “Leave… Rome?”

“Yes.”

Another pause.

Then she added, quieter, “Now would be better.”

Something in your chest tightened, but you nodded before doubt could fully form. “Okay.”

That single word seemed to settle something between you.

Natasha moved first.

No announcement. No explanation. Just immediate efficiency, grabbing what mattered without hesitation. You followed without needing instruction, the two of you slipping through the gladiator quarters as if you had always known where the blind spots were meant to be. The world around you continued as usual—laughter, shouting, routine—but it started to feel distant, like something happening behind glass.

The stables were quieter, the air heavier with hay and animal warmth, the structure dimly lit by low lamps that cast long shadows across wooden beams. Horses shifted softly in their stalls, unaware of urgency, breathing slow and steady in a way that made everything outside feel even more unstable by contrast.

Natasha didn’t waste time choosing.

One horse. Strong, fast, already saddled.

“Just one?” you whispered.

“It’s less obvious,” she replied immediately, already adjusting the tack with practiced hands.

You didn’t argue.

Moments later, the horse was moving, hooves striking the ground with controlled urgency as it left the stables and slipped into the outer paths beyond the palace. No grand escape. No spectacle. Just disappearance through motion.

Natasha rode in front, steady and focused, guiding the horse with the kind of control that came from knowing exactly how much force was necessary and nothing more. You sat behind her, close enough to feel the shift of her movements through the ride, close enough that there was no space left for hesitation. The city began to fall away behind you in fragments—stone walls, distant lights, the outline of Rome shrinking into something that felt less like a place and more like something being left behind.

At some point, without needing to speak, you leaned forward and wrapped your arms around her waist.

Natasha didn’t react outwardly, but her posture adjusted slightly—subtle, instinctive, making space without breaking focus. The wind cut across you as the horse moved faster, and you buried your face against the back of her shoulder blades, the world narrowing to motion, warmth, and the steady reality of her in front of you.

Neither of you spoke.

There was nothing to say that would have fit the speed of what was happening.

Behind you, Rome disappeared.

Ahead of you, nothing was defined yet.

Only movement.

The shelter was not meant for anything alive.

It had probably once been part of a traveller’s structure—half-collapsed stone walls, a broken roofline held together more by stubbornness than design, and an open side that looked out over empty land that stretched too far in every direction to feel safe. The horse stood tied just outside, shifting occasionally, snorting softly into the cold air as if even it understood that they had left the world behind and entered something quieter but no less dangerous. Inside, the ground was uneven, scattered with old straw and dust that rose slightly every time either of you moved, catching faint moonlight that slipped through cracks in the stone.

Natasha sat with her back against one of the remaining walls, arms resting loosely over her knees, posture relaxed in the way she only ever allowed when there was no immediate threat. You were beside her, close enough that your shoulder brushed hers when either of you shifted, both of you still breathing slightly unevenly from the ride, the motion of it still lingering in your bodies like a memory that hadn’t fully settled. For a long time, neither of you spoke. Not because there was nothing to say, but because everything that mattered felt too large for the quiet space you had ended up in.

Eventually, you broke it first, voice softer than usual as you looked out at the dark horizon and said, “Do you think somewhere exists where this doesn’t happen?” Natasha glanced at you briefly, then followed your gaze outward, expression unreadable for a moment before she answered, “People like to believe that. It helps them sleep.” You frowned slightly. “That’s not an answer.” She let out a quiet breath through her nose, almost a laugh, but not quite. “It is the only honest one,” she replied, then after a pause added, “Rome is not special. It is just louder about it.”

You shifted slightly closer, knees drawn up now as you hugged them loosely, and said quietly, “If we had left earlier… before all of this… do you think it would have been different?” Natasha didn’t answer immediately, which in itself felt like an answer. When she did speak, her voice was lower. “Yes,” she said simply. Then, more carefully, “But not in the way you think.” You turned your head slightly toward her. “What way then?” She hesitated, eyes still on the darkness outside. “We would have found something else trying to take it from us.”

That made silence settle again, but it wasn’t empty. It was full in a way that felt almost heavy enough to touch.

A while passed before Natasha spoke again, quieter this time, almost like she was admitting something she had kept folded away for too long. “I didn’t think I was allowed to want anything that wasn’t temporary,” she said. You looked at her properly now, and she didn’t look back immediately, as if saying it into the space between you was safer than meeting your eyes. “And then you showed up and made it… inconvenient.”

That pulled a faint, tired smile from you. “I’m very good at being inconvenient,” you murmured.

Natasha finally looked at you then.

Properly.

Not as a problem, not as a variable, not as something positioned above her life, but as something that had somehow ended up inside it. “Yes,” she said quietly. “You are.”

The words hung there for a moment, and then you leaned your head slightly against her shoulder, careful but certain, like it had become instinct rather than decision. Natasha didn’t move away. Instead, after a brief pause, she adjusted slightly so you could stay there more comfortably, her hand resting loosely near your arm without quite touching in a way that felt like restraint and permission at the same time.

“I think I love you,” you said suddenly, softly, like the thought had slipped out before you could decide whether it was allowed.

Natasha didn’t react immediately. Not because she didn’t hear you, but because the weight of it seemed to settle before she responded. When she did, her voice was quieter than anything she had said all night. “That is a dangerous thing to say,” she replied.

You let out a small breath that might have been a laugh if it had more energy. “Everything about this is dangerous.”

That earned the faintest shift in her expression, something almost like acceptance, almost like surrender to something she had already been losing control of for a while. “Yes,” she said. Then, after a pause that felt longer than it was, she added, “I know.”

The rest of the night didn’t become anything more defined than that. Just closeness. Just silence that no longer felt like absence. Just the kind of stillness that only exists when two people stop pretending they are separate from what is happening between them.

And then morning arrived without warning.

Not slowly.

Not gently.

Just light breaking too sharply across the horizon, turning the land from grey to visible in seconds. Natasha was awake first, as she always was, her body reacting before thought fully formed, posture changing instantly as her attention snapped outward. Something about the air had shifted—subtle at first, then undeniable. Not birds. Not wind. Not distant movement of animals.

Hooves.

Many.

Too many.

The sound came again, closer now, not scattered but coordinated, the kind of rhythm that belonged to purpose rather than chance. Natasha was already moving by the time your eyes opened fully, her hand near where her weapon would have been if there had been time to prepare it properly.

“Get up,” she said immediately, voice low but sharp.

You sat up fast, disoriented for half a second before the sound reached you properly and understanding hit all at once. “That’s—” you started, but didn’t finish it, because there was no need.

Natasha was already looking outward through the broken wall.

And then she saw them.

Shapes emerging over the rise of land, spreading out in a formation that did not belong to accident or coincidence. Armoured riders. Too many to miscount. The palace colours unmistakable even at distance.

Your breath caught slightly as you followed her gaze.

“No,” you whispered, but it wasn’t a refusal. It was recognition.

Natasha didn’t look at you yet. Her entire focus was forward, calculating in a way that was almost automatic now, but there was something in her posture that had changed—something that understood this was not a fight she had chosen and not a fight she could win in the usual way.

“They found us,” she said quietly.

The first arrows came before either of you had finished moving.

Not a warning shot.

Not negotiation.

Just impact cutting through the morning air with sudden, final precision.

Natasha turned sharply toward you at the exact moment your body reacted, her movement fast enough that she was already closer than she had been a second before, but there was no space left to close, no time left to do anything except reach.

You fell together, not separately, the world collapsing in fragments of sound and motion that stopped making sense almost immediately. The horse outside startled and pulled against its tether, distant shouting beginning to rise, but all of it felt far away already, like something happening to another version of the world.

Natasha caught you as you dropped, her arms around you immediately, pulling you in with instinct rather than thought, as if holding you could still change the outcome of something already decided. You reached for her without fully seeing her anymore, your hand finding her arm as everything else started to blur into distance and noise.

“Hey,” she said, voice suddenly different, no longer controlled, no longer distant. “Stay with me.”

You tried to answer, but it came out uneven, breath unsteady, words failing halfway into shape.

Natasha’s grip tightened slightly, forehead lowering briefly toward yours as if refusing to let the space between you grow any larger than it already had. “No,” she said quietly, not to you, but to everything else. “No, no—”

You managed something like her name, barely formed, and her attention snapped back to you immediately.

“I’ve got you,” she said quickly, urgently now, as if saying it was the same as making it true. “I’ve got you. Look at me.”

You did.

For a moment, everything else stopped mattering in the only way it ever had.

Natasha’s expression wasn’t the controlled one the world knew. It wasn’t the gladiator. It wasn’t the legend. It was something unguarded and raw and entirely human in a way that no arena had ever been allowed to see.

And then, slowly, that part of the world began to fade too.

The noise softened.

The movement outside became distant.

The morning light stopped feeling like it belonged to anything beyond the space between you.

Natasha stayed with you until there was no distance left to hold at all, and when the world finally stopped being something either of you could hold onto, it did not feel like an ending that belonged to Rome.

Only something that belonged to the two of you.

☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆*･ﾟ:⠀ *⋆.*:･ﾟ .: ⋆*･ﾟ: .⋆

Natasha existed in this life the same way she always had: sharp, efficient, observant. SHIELD operative. Avenger. Someone who moved through high-level briefings and global crises with the kind of calm that made other people trust her instincts even when they didn’t understand them.

She didn’t remember anything before this life.

Not the arena.

Not the crown.

Not you in any conscious, nameable way.

Only something she could never quite place.

A pull she had learned to stop questioning.

And it was there again now.

The meeting room hummed with controlled impatience. Screens were active. Files were open. The Avengers were already halfway through the usual pre-brief chaos—Tony talking over himself, Sam arguing about logistics, Steve trying to keep the structure from collapsing into personality contests.

Natasha sat back in her chair, relaxed in the way that always made it look like she wasn’t paying attention even though she was tracking every detail in the room at once. Her posture was easy, one arm resting along the table, expression neutral with just enough edge to suggest she could interrupt anything if she chose to.

Tony gestured at the empty seat at the head of the table. “So, are we doing the classic government thing where the important person arrives exactly after we’ve already solved the problem without them, or are we getting the full experience today?”

Sam didn’t look up. “They’re late.”

Tony nodded. “Yes. That is the tradition.”

Natasha let a faint breath of amusement pass through her nose, not quite a smile. “You sound personally offended by punctuality.”

“I am,” Tony said immediately.

The door opened.

Everything shifted slightly—not in alarm, not in surprise, but in attention. The room adjusted the way it always did when authority entered it.

But it wasn’t the senator.

It was you.

Natasha didn’t move at first.

Not because she was slow to react.

Because something in her reacted before thought did.

You stepped into the room with composed certainty, like you belonged in spaces where decisions were made about the world. Calm. Controlled. Familiar in a way that had no source she could identify, no memory to attach to it, just an immediate, irrational sense that the room had changed shape around your presence.

Natasha’s gaze locked onto you instantly.

And stopped there.

The noise in the room continued, but it fell slightly out of focus, like it had shifted one step away from something important it didn’t realise it was missing.

You looked up.

Met her eyes.

And for a fraction of a second—too brief to explain, too sharp to ignore—everything else dropped away.

Not memory.

Not recognition.

Something deeper than either, and less defined.

Like a pressure in the air between you that had always been there, finally becoming noticeable.

Natasha’s expression didn’t change outwardly. But something in her attention tightened, like her focus had been pulled into a single point it couldn’t leave.

You held the moment for only a heartbeat longer than politeness allowed.

Then you spoke, voice steady, controlled, professional.

“My apologies,” you said. “My father was delayed. I’ll be presenting in his place.”

The room responded—chairs shifting, small acknowledgements, the rebalancing of roles. Tony said something under his breath about government scheduling being a myth. Steve straightened slightly. Sam muttered something about “surprise upgrade to the meeting.”

Natasha didn’t look away from you.

Not even when she spoke lightly to the room, tone calm, almost teasing, as if nothing unusual was happening at all.

“Well,” she said, “this should be interesting.”

A few people reacted to that. Tony definitely did.

But Natasha’s attention stayed exactly where it was.

On you.

And you, after a second too long, finally broke the gaze—returning to the briefing, continuing the role you were here to play.

The meeting carried on.

Words were spoken. Plans were made. The world kept turning in its structured, controlled way.

But neither of you fully returned to it.

Because whatever had just passed between you didn’t have a name that belonged in this life.

Only a feeling that neither of you understood—

like something impossibly old had just recognised itself again.

•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:•☾☼☽•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:•

Masterlist

The new Avengers Compound still doesn’t quite feel lived in yet.

The building itself is enormous, gleaming glass and steel rising out of the countryside like something pulled straight from a science fiction film, but there are still boxes in hallways, equipment waiting to be unpacked, and entire sections of the facility that remain eerily quiet. The team is settling in, finding routines, claiming rooms, learning which elevators are the fastest and which kitchens are stocked with the good coffee. For the first time in a long time, things feel almost peaceful.

Outside, the late afternoon sun paints the grass in shades of gold.

Tony sits on a blanket spread across one of the open lawns surrounding the compound, watching Morgan run through the grass with the endless energy only a child seems capable of possessing. She laughs as she chases a butterfly, tiny sneakers kicking up dirt behind her while Tony pretends not to be smiling.

“You know,” he calls out, leaning back on his hands, “I personally think that butterfly is cheating.”

Morgan gasps dramatically. “Daddy! Butterflies don’t cheat!”

“Says who?”

“Says science.”

Tony snorts. “I’ve made a career out of arguing with science.”

The little girl simply sticks her tongue out before continuing her pursuit.

For a while, everything is normal.

Peaceful.

Quiet.

The forest bordering the compound sways gently in the breeze, leaves rustling softly overhead. Birds sing somewhere beyond the tree line. The distant sounds of construction and moving equipment drift from the compound itself.

Then Tony’s phone buzzes.

One of the technicians inside needs a security code.

“One minute,” he tells Morgan, standing up. “Don’t go anywhere.”

She nods absentmindedly, completely focused on the insect she’s following.

Tony walks inside.

It should take less than sixty seconds.

Back in the forest, far beyond the compound’s sensors and surveillance systems, you move silently through the undergrowth.

The woods belong to your pack.

Humans rarely come this deep into the territory, and when they do, they almost never notice the wolves watching from the shadows. Your kind has survived that way for generations. Hidden. Careful. Unseen.

The breeze shifts.

Your ears twitch.

A strange scent drifts through the trees.

Human.

Several humans.

You pause.

The scent isn’t unfamiliar anymore. Ever since the massive compound appeared on the edge of the forest months ago, humans have become a constant presence. Loud machines, strange smells, bright lights.

Usually, you stay away. Today should be no different.

Then another scent reaches you.

Predator. Your head immediately lifts. Bear. Large. Close.

Far too close to the humans.

You break into a run.

Back at the compound, Morgan finally notices the silence. The butterfly has disappeared. The breeze has changed. Something feels wrong. Slowly, she turns. The enormous brown bear stands at the edge of the lawn.

For a moment, neither moves.

Morgan freezes.

The bear stares.

Then the little girl screams.

The sound rips through the countryside.

Inside the compound, Tony’s heart nearly stops.

He drops everything and sprints.

Outside, the bear begins moving forward. Not charging. Not attacking. Just advancing.

But to a frightened child, the difference means nothing.

Morgan stumbles backward.

Tears immediately spring into her eyes.

The bear huffs.

And then a brown blur explodes from the forest.

You hit the animal with enough force to throw both of you sideways across the grass.

The bear roars.

Morgan gasps.

The lawn erupts into chaos.

You land on your feet first, placing yourself directly between the predator and the child. Fur bristles along your spine as a deep growl tears from your chest.

The bear answers with one of its own.

Neither backs down.

The size difference is obvious.

The bear is massive.

But you don’t move.

Behind you, Morgan cries.

The sound only hardens your resolve.

The bear lunges. You dodge.

Teeth snap inches from your face.

You retaliate instantly, slamming into its shoulder hard enough to stagger it. The two of you crash across the lawn, tearing up grass and dirt as claws and teeth flash.

The bear recovers first.

A powerful paw swings.

You try to evade.

Almost.

The claws rake across your side.

Agony explodes through your body. A strangled yelp escapes before you can stop it. Warm blood immediately begins soaking into your fur.

The smell fills the air.

But you remain standing.

The bear advances again.

You bare every tooth you have - growling, threatening. Refusing to yield. The predator hesitates.

You take one step forward. Then another. Ignoring the blood. Ignoring the pain. Ignoring the way your legs are beginning to shake beneath you.

Something changes.

The bear decides you aren’t worth it.

With one final warning growl, it begins backing away.

Then it turns.

Then it disappears into the forest.

Only then do you allow yourself to breathe. Tony bursts out of the compound.

“Morgan!”

He reaches her in seconds, dropping to his knees and pulling her against his chest. She immediately buries her face against him, sobbing as he frantically checks for injuries.

“Dad—dad—the wolf—”

“I’m here,” he says quickly. “You’re okay. You’re okay.” Only then does he finally look up.

And see you.

The wolf standing twenty feet away.

Covered in blood. Swaying unsteadily. Your breathing is ragged. Your legs threaten to buckle beneath you.

For a second, Tony simply stares. Because wolves don’t protect humans. They certainly don’t throw themselves at bears for them.

And then, right before his eyes, your body finally gives out. You collapse into the grass. And everything goes black.

Consciousness returns slowly, surfacing through layers of exhaustion and pain that seem determined to drag you back under every time you try to fight your way awake. Your entire body feels heavy, your limbs sluggish and weak, and the deep burning ache radiating from your side makes it painfully obvious that whatever happened before you blacked out was not some strange dream.

The first thing you notice is the smell. Sterile. Artificial. Clean in a way no forest ever is. Beneath it are dozens of other scents layered together—metal, electronics, unfamiliar cleaning products, coffee, humans. Lots of humans. Your eyes slowly open and immediately narrow against the bright overhead lighting. White ceiling. White walls. Medical equipment. Panic sparks through your chest almost instantly.

You try to sit up only to discover something restraining you. Thick rope is looped securely around your torso and forelegs, keeping you anchored to a reinforced medical bed, while an uncomfortable muzzle wraps around your snout. A low sound rumbles in your throat before you can stop it. The movement pulls painfully at your injured side and your gaze drops to find your entire flank wrapped beneath layers of thick bandages. Even through them, you can smell dried blood.

Across the room, three men stand talking. One of them you recognise immediately from countless distant observations near the compound’s perimeter. Tony. Beside him stands the broad-shouldered blond man you’ve seen training outside before, and another dark-haired man wearing glasses.

None of them notice you’re awake at first, too focused on their conversation. “I’m serious,” Tony is saying, arms folded tightly across his chest. “We’re putting up fencing. Big fencing. Electric fencing if we have to. I step inside for sixty seconds and a bear shows up. A bear. Do you know how insane that sounds?” The blond man sighs. “Tony, wildlife exists. We built this place practically next to a forest.”

“Great. Then wildlife can stay in the wildlife section and my daughter can stay in the not-being-eaten-by-bears section.” The man with glasses pinches the bridge of his nose. “Morgan wasn’t hurt. That’s the important thing.” “Because of her,” Tony immediately replies, pointing directly at you. “Or him. Her. Whatever. The wolf. If that animal hadn’t intervened…” His voice trails off slightly, and for the first time you hear genuine gratitude beneath the protective frustration. “Morgan keeps asking if the wolf is okay.”

The movement of your head finally catches Steve’s attention. His posture immediately straightens and his eyes widen slightly. “Guys.” Tony and Bruce turn at the same time. For several seconds none of them say anything as they realise you’re conscious and staring directly back at them.

The room becomes strangely quiet. You can practically smell their uncertainty. Tony takes a cautious step forward first, not fearful exactly, but wary in the way anyone would be standing this close to a predator. “Well, hey there.” His voice softens unexpectedly. “Good to see you’re still with us.” You stare back without blinking.

The muzzle makes it impossible to communicate anything beyond a low frustrated huff. Bruce glances between you and the restraints. “She’s calmer than I expected.” “She just woke up,” Steve points out. “Give it a minute.” Tony studies you for a long moment before exhaling. “So what exactly do we do now?” Nobody answers immediately because they all know it’s a complicated question. In every practical sense, you’re a wild animal. An unusually large wild animal, but a wild animal nonetheless. Wild animals belong in the wild. That’s the obvious answer. The problem is that every single person in the room knows what would happen if they released you right now.

You can barely move without pain. The deep claw wounds across your side would leave you vulnerable to infection, other predators, or simply collapsing somewhere in the forest where nobody would find you. Steve seems to reach the conclusion first. “We can’t release her like this.” Bruce nods almost immediately. “Agreed. Medically speaking, she’s nowhere near healed enough.” Tony looks at you again, meeting your gaze directly. “And considering she basically saved my kid’s life, dumping her back into the woods half-dead feels like a pretty terrible thank you.” He rubs a hand over his face before letting out a long breath. “Alright. Fine. We keep her here. Temporary arrangement. We treat the injuries, make sure she’s recovered, then we release her back into the forest when she’s healthy enough to survive on her own.”

Steve folds his arms. “You realise you’re talking about keeping a wolf inside the Avengers Compound.” “Trust me,” Tony mutters, looking directly at you. “I am painfully aware of how ridiculous that sounds.” Despite the conversation being about you, none of them notice the strange intelligence lingering behind your eyes as you watch every word, every movement, every decision being made. Because as far as the Avengers know, lying restrained in that medical bed is nothing more than an injured wolf.

The discussion about your future inside the compound is interrupted by the sudden crackle of a radio sitting on one of the nearby counters. The burst of static immediately draws everyone’s attention before a familiar female voice comes through the speaker. “Control, this is Romanoff. Requesting clearance to land.” Steve reaches over without hesitation, pressing the response button. “You’re clear. Pad’s open.” A brief pause follows before Natasha’s amused voice returns. “Good. Because we’re landing whether it’s clear or not.”

The transmission clicks off, earning a tired sigh from Steve and an eye roll from Tony. “She’s been spending too much time around you,” Steve comments. “Excuse you,” Tony replies. “That level of confidence is a gift.” Despite the conversation, your ears have already perked up. Two unfamiliar scents drift faintly through the building, carried in through ventilation systems and opening doors. Human. Female. One carrying traces of smoke, leather and gunpowder. The other carrying something warmer. Something strange. Something that almost reminds you of standing in sunlight during winter. Before you can properly identify it, distant engines rumble somewhere outside the compound. Even through the walls you can hear the unmistakable sound of a Quinjet settling onto the landing platform.

Several minutes later the medbay doors slide open and both women walk inside. The first thing you notice is that every scent in the room immediately changes. The dark-haired woman enters first, dressed in a partially damaged tactical suit with several shallow cuts visible along her arms and one across her cheek. Nothing serious from the smell of it, but enough to explain the dried blood. Beside her walks the redhead. Unlike the other woman, she appears mostly unharmed apart from a split lip and a few smudges of dirt lingering across her uniform.

The moment your eyes land on them, something strange happens. Your tail immediately begins thumping lightly against the medical bed. Once. Twice. Then continuously. You don’t even realise you’re doing it at first. Every instinct in your body suddenly seems focused on the two newcomers.

They are, quite simply, the prettiest women you have ever seen. The dark-haired one carries herself with effortless confidence while the redhead seems to possess an almost unnatural kind of beauty that makes it difficult to look away. Your tail continues its rhythmic tapping against the mattress despite the pain in your side. Natasha notices first. “Well that’s either adorable or concerning.” Tony turns. “Oh great. Now she’s happy.” “Maybe she’s happy to see me,” Natasha says with a grin. “Most creatures are.” “Most creatures don’t have teeth the size of steak knives.”

Bruce immediately shifts into doctor mode the second he spots the cuts on Natasha’s arms. “Sit.” Natasha glances at the medical bed beside yours. “You know, every mission I come back from, you somehow find a way to make this place look more ridiculous.” Bruce points firmly at the bed. “Sit.” “Bossy.” “Natasha.” “Fine.”

She drops onto the mattress with exaggerated suffering while Bruce begins gathering supplies. Wanda remains standing instead, her attention entirely focused on you. Unlike the others, she isn’t studying you with caution. She’s simply watching. Curious. Interested. Your tail somehow starts wagging harder under her gaze.

The movement finally draws a laugh from Steve. “See? That’s what I mean.” Natasha glances between you and Wanda before smirking. “Looks like somebody has a favourite already.” Wanda doesn’t respond immediately. Her eyes remain fixed on you, lingering on the muzzle wrapped around your snout, the ropes binding you to the bed and the thick bandages covering your side.

Something about the sight clearly bothers her. “What happened?” she finally asks. Tony launches into the story while Bruce works on Natasha’s injuries. By the time he’s finished explaining the bear attack, Morgan’s involvement and the rescue, both women are staring at you with entirely different expressions than when they entered. Natasha looks impressed. Wanda looks heartbroken. “Poor thing,” Wanda murmurs softly. “She saved Morgan?” Steve nods. “Pretty much.” “And now she’s tied to a bed.” “Because she’s still a wolf,” Tony immediately replies. “A very large wolf. A very injured wolf. But still a wolf.”

The conversation continues for several minutes as the men explain the situation. They explain how releasing you would almost certainly be a death sentence in your current condition. They explain how keeping you permanently isn’t realistic either. They explain that despite everything you’ve done, you’re still a wild animal and they can’t simply start treating you like a domesticated pet.

Wanda listens quietly throughout the explanation, though it’s obvious she dislikes almost every part of it. “She’s scared,” Wanda says at one point. “Anybody would be scared.” Tony gestures toward the muzzle. “Anybody with those teeth gets the muzzle until further notice.” Natasha snorts. “Fair.” Despite the teasing, even she seems reluctant to argue with the precautions.

Eventually the discussion reaches the same conclusion Steve, Bruce and Tony had already reached earlier. You stay. You heal. Then you’re released once you’re healthy enough to survive. Bruce finishes patching Natasha up, Steve gets called away to deal with something involving training schedules, and Tony leaves shortly afterwards after reminding everyone at least twice that he intends to install enough fencing to make the compound look like a small country. Before long the room falls quiet again. Bruce eventually departs as well, leaving only two occupants besides yourself.

Natasha leans back against her bed while Wanda slowly pulls a chair over beside yours. Neither woman seems in any particular hurry to leave. The silence that settles over the room feels strangely comfortable. Your tail has finally slowed, though it still occasionally taps against the mattress whenever either of them looks your way. Wanda reaches forward carefully, stopping her hand several inches from your head. Giving you the choice. Giving you space. “Hi there,” she says softly. Her voice is warm enough to make your ears immediately tilt forward.

Natasha watches the interaction with an amused expression. “That’s it. You’ve adopted the giant wolf already.” Wanda doesn’t look away from you. “I haven’t adopted her.” “You’ve got the voice on.” “I do not have a voice.” “You absolutely have a voice.” For the first time since waking up, something almost resembling contentment settles through your chest. You’re still injured. Still restrained. Still trapped inside a building full of humans. But as Wanda continues speaking softly to you while Natasha teases her from across the room, you find yourself thinking that maybe staying here until you heal won’t be quite as terrible as you first imagined.

By the end of the evening, Tony has somehow managed to do what only Tony Stark could accomplish. Instead of simply discussing solutions, he has apparently purchased an entire reinforced animal enclosure online, paid an obscene amount of money for immediate delivery, and had it assembled inside the common room before dinner. Nobody is entirely sure how he managed it so quickly. Nobody is particularly surprised either. The temporary enclosure occupies one corner of the large living space, significantly bigger than any normal dog crate but still undeniably a cage. Thick metal bars form the walls while several blankets have been piled inside alongside a large padded bed that Bruce insisted on providing.

You were less than thrilled when they moved you from the medbay. The journey had pulled painfully at your injuries, and despite everyone’s best intentions, being carried through hallways and elevators by a collection of superheroes had done very little to improve your mood. Still, once settled inside the enclosure, you had begrudgingly accepted that this arrangement was better than being tied to a medical bed.

The common room itself is enormous. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlook the darkening forest beyond the compound, soft lighting illuminates the space, and several large couches surround a television that currently occupies most of the room’s attention. The rest of the team drifts in and out throughout the evening, some stopping to stare at the giant wolf now living in their headquarters, others barely reacting at all because after alien invasions, killer robots and Norse gods, an injured wolf somehow doesn’t seem that strange. Eventually, however, most of them disappear to their own rooms, leaving the common area quieter and considerably more peaceful.

Natasha and Wanda remain. Apparently, post-mission takeaway has become a sacred tradition between them, one neither injury nor exhaustion is allowed to interrupt. Several containers are spread across the coffee table while a movie plays on the television. Natasha has already changed into comfortable clothes and sits stretched out across one end of the couch. Wanda occupies the other, though only briefly before Natasha hooks an arm around her waist and effortlessly pulls her closer. Wanda rolls her eyes but doesn’t resist for even a second, immediately settling against her side with the kind of casual familiarity that only comes from years together.

From inside your enclosure, you watch the interaction with far more interest than the film currently playing. Earlier, after what felt like an unfair amount of debate from the men, Wanda had finally convinced them to remove the muzzle. More specifically, she had waited until Tony left the room, spent twenty minutes researching what wolves could safely eat, then used her powers to float a plate through the bars while giving everybody a look that clearly dared them to argue.

The meal itself sits mostly untouched beside you now. You’d eaten enough to stop Wanda worrying, but your appetite remains limited by pain, exhaustion and confusion. Your head rests against the cool metal bars instead, chin propped between two of them as you quietly observe the women across the room. The scent of food fills the air alongside the steady rhythm of their conversation, occasional laughter and the comforting knowledge that neither of them seems remotely bothered by your presence.

You tell yourself you’re watching because they’re interesting. Humans are fascinating creatures, after all. These particular humans even more so. They possess extraordinary abilities, live inside a futuristic fortress, and somehow spend their evenings arguing about which takeaway restaurant is superior. That should be enough to justify your attention.

Unfortunately, even you know that’s not entirely true. The reality is significantly more embarrassing. You simply can’t stop looking at them. Every time Natasha presses a kiss against Wanda’s temple while pretending to focus on the movie, your ears twitch. Every time Wanda unconsciously leans closer to Natasha while reaching for food, your eyes follow the movement. They fit together so naturally it almost seems effortless. Comfortable. Safe. Familiar. The sort of bond most people spend their entire lives searching for. A small, unhappy feeling settles somewhere in your chest.

You don’t fully understand it. Maybe it’s loneliness. Maybe it’s homesickness. Maybe it’s simply the knowledge that while they sit together surrounded by warmth and companionship, you’re currently occupying a cage in the corner of the room. Whatever the reason, you find yourself lowering your head further onto the bars and staring quietly at the pair.

Across the room, Wanda notices first. Her expression immediately softens. “She’s not eating much.” Natasha glances over. “She’s eaten enough.” “She looks sad.” “She’s a wolf.” “She still looks sad.” Natasha studies you for several seconds before shrugging. “Okay. Slightly sad wolf.”

Wanda’s attention remains fixed on you long after the conversation ends. Every few minutes you catch her looking over. Not out of caution. Not out of concern that you’ll suddenly become aggressive. Just checking on you. Making sure you’re comfortable. Making sure you’re okay.

It’s a level of care you’re entirely unprepared for. Back home, your pack looks after one another because you’re family. Protection is expected. Support is expected. Here, however, these people owe you nothing. They barely know you exist beyond being the wolf that saved Morgan. Yet Wanda still worries when you don’t finish your dinner. Natasha still casually points out that your water bowl needs refilling before getting up to do it herself. The entire situation feels bizarre. The movie continues playing in the background while darkness settles fully beyond the windows.

Eventually Natasha stretches, pulling Wanda even closer until the redhead is practically curled against her side. “You know,” Natasha says, glancing toward your enclosure again, “for something that’s technically a giant predator, she’s ridiculously well behaved.” Wanda smiles faintly. “Maybe she knows we’re helping her.”

You lower your gaze before either woman can notice how intently you’ve been watching them. The truth is that you don’t know what tomorrow will bring. You don’t know how long your injuries will take to heal. You don’t know how you’re supposed to eventually explain being a werewolf when that particular problem inevitably arrives.

Right now, however, none of that feels especially important. The television flickers softly across the room, the compound remains peaceful around you, and for the first time since waking up inside a building full of strangers, you slowly close your eyes and begin drifting toward sleep while listening to Wanda and Natasha quietly talking on the couch.

The movie eventually ends sometime after midnight. The takeaway containers are cleared away, the television is switched off, and the compound gradually settles into the quiet stillness that only arrives when dozens of people finally go to sleep.

Before leaving, Wanda kneels beside your enclosure one last time. Her expression softens as she studies you resting amongst the blankets, though she still reaches for caution over sentiment. With a small wave of her hand, red magic surrounds the muzzle resting nearby and gently secures it back around your snout. You immediately huff your displeasure.

Wanda offers an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, detka. Just for tonight.” Natasha snorts from behind her. “The giant predator is judging you.” “I know.” “Harshly.” Wanda reaches through the bars to scratch lightly behind one of your ears before standing. “Goodnight.”

The simple word shouldn’t matter. Humans tell each other goodnight all the time. Yet somehow, as you watch the two women disappear toward the elevators together, the common room immediately feels emptier than before. Much emptier. Soon the sound of their footsteps disappears entirely, leaving only silence, distant ventilation systems and the occasional hum of electronics somewhere deeper within the compound.

For a while you remain curled amongst the blankets, trying to settle back down. You close your eyes. Open them again. Shift positions. Try another position. Nothing helps. The common room is comfortable enough. You’re safe. Warm. Fed. Your injuries are being treated. Rationally, there is absolutely no reason for the uncomfortable feeling sitting heavily inside your chest. Yet it refuses to go away.

Several hours pass before the loneliness finally wins. It begins with a small sound escaping your throat. Barely noticeable. A quiet whine. Then another. Then another. You don’t entirely understand why you’re making the noise. Back home, wolves are rarely alone. Pack members sleep together, hunt together, exist together. Solitude is unusual. Wrong, almost. The compound is filled with people, yet none of them are here. The common room feels too large. Too quiet. Too empty. Before long, soft whining begins slipping from your muzzle every few minutes despite your best efforts to stop.

Unfortunately, the architects responsible for designing the compound made one critical mistake. Directly above the common room sits Wanda and Natasha’s bedroom. Every single sound carries upward with remarkable efficiency. Upstairs, Natasha is the first to recognise what she’s hearing. She groans into her pillow. “Ignore it.” Beside her, Wanda lifts her head immediately. “She’s upset.” “She’s a wolf.” “She’s whining.” “She’s dramatic.” Another muffled whine drifts through the floorboards. Wanda’s eyes narrow.

Natasha immediately recognises the expression. “No.” “Natasha.” “No.” “What if she’s scared?” “What if she wants attention?” Wanda pulls the blankets aside. “Then she’s getting attention.” Natasha falls backwards onto the mattress with all the suffering of somebody deeply wronged by the universe. “This is how it starts. One minute you’re checking on the wolf. Next minute she’s paying rent.”

By the time the elevator doors open, Wanda is already halfway across the common room wearing oversized pyjamas and fluffy socks. Natasha follows several steps behind, muttering complaints she clearly doesn’t mean. The moment you spot them emerging into view, the change is immediate. Your ears perk up. The whining stops entirely. Your tail begins thumping against the blankets.

Wanda pauses beside the enclosure and immediately points triumphantly toward you. “See?” Natasha folds her arms. “Traitor.” Wanda crouches beside the bars. “Were you lonely?” The question is ridiculous. You cannot answer. Yet your tail somehow starts wagging even harder. Natasha notices.

“Don’t encourage her.” “Look at her.” “I am looking at her.” “She’s sad.” “She was sad.” Wanda studies you for another few moments before standing again. A thoughtful expression appears on her face. Natasha immediately looks concerned. “Don’t.” “What?” “Whatever you’re thinking.” “I’m not thinking anything.” “Wanda.” The redhead glances between you and the elevator. Then back to Natasha. Then back to you. “She can come upstairs.”

Natasha stares at her. “Absolutely not.” “Why?” “Because she’s a giant wolf.” “She’s injured.” “She’s still a giant wolf.” “Natasha.” “No.” Wanda doesn’t even argue. Instead, red energy immediately begins surrounding your enclosure. Natasha closes her eyes. “You’re not listening to me.” “I listened.” “You ignored me.” “That’s different.”

The journey upstairs is probably one of the strangest experiences of your life. One moment you’re inside a cage in the common room. The next you’re floating through hallways suspended in glowing red magic while several night-shift agents openly stare. Wanda ignores them entirely. Natasha follows behind carrying armfuls of blankets while continuing her entirely unsuccessful campaign against the idea.

When you finally arrive at their bedroom, you discover it is significantly less intimidating than expected. Large bed. Soft lighting. Bookshelves. Personal photographs. Comfortable furniture. It feels lived in. Safe. Familiar. Wanda immediately directs your enclosure toward an empty corner of the room before finally lowering it onto the floor.

Natasha drops the blankets beside it with a dramatic sigh. “This is ridiculous.” “You’re helping.” “I’m helping because if you’re doing this, we’re doing it safely.” Despite her complaints, she begins arranging the blankets anyway.

Within minutes she has constructed what can only be described as a wolf-sized nest. Additional blankets line the floor. Extra cushions are added for comfort. Water is placed nearby. Then comes the final precaution. Natasha disappears briefly before returning with a length of sturdy rope from one of the room’s drawers (😏). “There.” She secures it carefully to create a boundary between your corner and their bed. “Perfect.”

Wanda raises an eyebrow. “Really?” Natasha points directly at you. “That wolf could probably bite through steel if she wanted to. The last thing I need is waking up to discover she’s decided two in the morning is cuddle time.” Wanda laughs despite herself. “She’s not going to maul us.” “You don’t know that.” “I do.” “You absolutely do not.” The argument continues as they prepare for bed, but it grows softer with each passing minute.

Eventually both women settle beneath the blankets. The room darkens. Silence returns. This time, however, it feels entirely different. Because instead of being alone several floors below them, you’re only a few metres away. You can hear Natasha turning pages of a book. You can hear Wanda quietly speaking to her. You can smell both of them nearby. The loneliness that had twisted uncomfortably in your chest earlier disappears almost instantly.

As sleep finally begins pulling at your consciousness once more, you curl deeper into the blanket nest Natasha built for you and listen to the gentle sound of the women talking until their voices gradually fade and the room falls completely silent.

The arrangement that began that night somehow became permanent. Not officially, at least not at first, but nobody seems capable of stopping it. Your injuries heal steadily over the following weeks. The angry wounds across your side gradually close. The bandages disappear. The limp fades. Bruce declares you healthy enough to return to the wild on at least three separate occasions. Unfortunately, nobody ever accounted for the fact that you had absolutely no intention of cooperating.

Somewhere along the way, the blanket nest in Wanda and Natasha’s room becomes your blanket nest. The common room enclosure is quietly dismantled and removed. The muzzle disappears entirely after several weeks without a single incident, much to the visible horror of the male members of the team.

Tony claims it is reckless. Clint claims they’re all going to die. Sam insists he wants written documentation proving the decision wasn’t his idea. Wanda ignores all of them. Natasha occasionally joins in solely because she enjoys watching them suffer.

You, meanwhile, spend most of your days following the two women around the compound with the determination of a particularly oversized shadow. Training room? You’re there. Kitchen? There. Movie night? There. If Wanda gets up to refill her coffee, you immediately lift your head to make sure she’s coming back. If Natasha disappears for a mission briefing, you’re waiting outside the room by the time she emerges.

Steve attempts to bond with you several times. Bruce brings treats. Clint tries bribery. Thor enthusiastically declares you a warrior beast worthy of Asgard. None of it works. The only people you consistently choose are Wanda and Natasha. It becomes such an established fact that nobody even questions it anymore.

Morgan, however, quickly becomes a special exception. The young girl absolutely adores you. Every time she visits the compound, she immediately seeks you out. It starts with cautious petting and nervous excitement but rapidly develops into complete confidence. She sits beside you during movie nights, reads stories aloud while leaning against your side, and occasionally attempts conversations that make absolutely no sense whatsoever.

One afternoon she discovers that you enjoy licking the cheese powder from her fingers after she’s been eating Cheetos. From that moment onward, the behaviour becomes a tradition. Tony nearly has an aneurysm the first time he witnesses it. “Morgan!” he practically shouts. “Stop feeding the giant wolf your fingers.” “She’s not eating my fingers.” “That’s not the point.” “She likes the Cheeto dust.”

You do, in fact, like the Cheeto dust. Morgan giggles every time your tongue cleans the orange powder from her hands while Tony watches with the exhausted expression of a father who has long since accepted that nobody listens to him. Wanda finds the entire thing adorable. Natasha takes photographs specifically to annoy Tony later. Life settles into a comfortable routine. A surprisingly normal one considering it involves superheroes and a wolf living inside a high-security compound. For the first time since being dragged from the forest, everything feels stable.

Naturally, that is precisely when Secretary Ross arrives to ruin it. The disruption begins on an otherwise ordinary afternoon when a government vehicle pulls up outside the compound. Nobody is particularly happy to see him.

Ross spends the first fifteen minutes arguing with Tony, the second fifteen arguing with Steve, and then somehow finds time to annoy everybody else as well. You pay little attention until your name—or rather, your species—enters the conversation.

The moment the word wolf reaches your ears, you immediately become interested. Unfortunately, the news is not encouraging. According to Ross, there are laws regarding wildlife. Lots of laws. Apparently keeping a wolf inside an Avengers facility falls into several extremely complicated legal categories.

Tony argues that they didn’t capture you. Bruce argues that they rescued you. Steve argues that releasing you while injured would have been irresponsible. Ross agrees with all of them. Unfortunately, the law does not particularly care. The solution seems obvious at first. Release the wolf. End of discussion.

The team actually attempts it. Once. Bruce drives you back toward the forest. Steve walks you to the tree line. Everybody says their goodbyes. You wait until they’re halfway back to the compound before sprinting directly past them and returning home. The second attempt lasts even less time. The third attempt ends with you somehow arriving back before Bruce’s vehicle does. By then even Ross appears irritated.

Several days of phone calls, paperwork and governmental nonsense follow. Eventually a compromise is reached. A legal exception. A special permit. Some absurd mountain of documents that only bureaucrats could create.

The conclusion is simple enough. You may remain at the compound. However, somebody must legally assume responsibility for you. Any damage, incidents or accidents become that person’s liability. Technically the responsibility could belong to anyone.

Practically speaking, everybody already knows how the vote would go. You spend approximately ninety percent of your time attached to either Wanda or Natasha. Nobody else even comes close. “This is ridiculous,” Sam says during the discussion. “The wolf already chose.” Clint nods. “She’s basically their kid at this point.” Natasha immediately points at him. “Don’t call her our kid.” “Your giant wolf daughter.” “Clint.” “Furry daughter.” Wanda is trying very hard not to laugh.

By the end of the meeting, the paperwork is signed. Wanda signs. Natasha signs. Just like that, they become your official owners in the eyes of the government. The entire concept feels deeply insulting from your perspective. You are a werewolf. A member of a pack. A fully capable person. Yet all anybody else sees is a very large animal. Still, there is something unexpectedly comforting about the way neither woman hesitates before accepting responsibility.

A few days later, Wanda and Natasha return from town carrying several shopping bags. The moment they enter the compound, you immediately investigate. Natasha attempts to stop you. You ignore her. Wanda laughs. Inside one of the bags is a collar. Not the cheap kind found in ordinary pet stores.

This one is clearly custom-made. Thick padded leather. Soft lining. Durable metal fittings. It smells new. Expensive. Natasha holds it while Wanda kneels beside you. “Before you get offended,” Natasha says, as though you can somehow understand every word, “this was not my idea.” “You helped choose it,” Wanda immediately points out. “I helped stop you buying the one covered in stars.” “The stars were pretty.” “The stars were ridiculous.”

While they argue, Wanda carefully fastens the collar around your neck. It fits perfectly. Not restrictive. Not uncomfortable. Just secure enough to stay in place. Hanging from the front is a custom metal tag. On one side is Wanda’s symbol. On the other is Natasha’s. The metal catches the light as it settles against your chest.

For several seconds, neither woman says anything. Then Wanda reaches forward to smooth the fur beneath it. Natasha scratches behind one of your ears. “There,” Natasha says quietly. “Official.” You should probably hate it. You should definitely hate the entire concept. Instead, standing between the two women while they admire the collar they’d chosen together, you find yourself doing something deeply embarrassing. Your tail starts wagging.

The collar somehow marks the beginning of an entirely new phase of your life at the compound. Once the novelty wears off and everybody accepts that you are, apparently, staying forever, the team gradually stops treating you like a rescued animal and starts treating you like part of the household. It begins innocently enough.

Wanda teaches you basic commands, mostly because she thinks it’s funny. Sit. Stay. Come here. Spin. The first time she asks you to shake her hand, you stare at her in complete disbelief. You are a werewolf. A hunter. A member of an ancient pack. Yet five minutes later you’re placing your paw into her hand because the look of excitement on her face makes refusing impossible.

Natasha finds the entire thing hilarious. She begins inventing increasingly ridiculous tricks solely to see if you’ll do them. Bruce walks into the common room one afternoon to discover you balancing a biscuit on your nose while Wanda counts down dramatically. Sam nearly falls over laughing. Clint records the entire thing.

The problem is that you’re embarrassingly good at all of it. You understand what they want almost immediately. Your intelligence is significantly higher than any normal wolf’s, and years of pack communication have made interpreting body language second nature. Within a matter of weeks you’ve mastered every trick either woman can think of.

Eventually Natasha narrows her eyes at you one evening after watching you flawlessly follow a complicated chain of commands. “Okay,” she says. “I have an idea.” Wanda immediately looks concerned. “That’s never good.” Natasha ignores her. “I wonder if she can do tactical commands.”

What begins as curiosity rapidly evolves into training. Real training. Natasha starts small. She hides objects around the compound and teaches you to locate them. Then she begins using volunteers. Usually Clint. Sometimes Sam. Once Tony, who spends the entire exercise loudly protesting that billionaires shouldn’t be hunted for sport.

Natasha teaches you hand signals. Silent directions. Ways to circle around a target without being noticed. Methods for steering people exactly where you want them without ever physically touching them. The first time she points toward a fleeing agent during a training exercise and signals for you to intercept, you understand instantly.

Instead of tackling him, you cut off every escape route until he unknowingly moves exactly where Natasha wants him. The look on her face afterwards is almost alarming. “Oh no,” Clint says from nearby. “Don’t make that face.” “What face?” Natasha asks. “The face that means you’ve discovered something.” “I’ve discovered something.” Clint groans.

Over the following weeks the exercises become more advanced. Tracking scents through forests. Locating hidden individuals. Moving quietly through difficult terrain. Working alongside Wanda’s powers. The entire thing feels so natural that it barely registers as training. You’ve hunted with a pack your entire life. Coordinating movements. Anticipating teammates. Understanding positioning. Reading body language. None of it is new. The only difference is that your packmates now happen to be a telekinetic witch and one of the deadliest spies on the planet.

Eventually Natasha decides there’s only one way to find out if the training works. “Absolutely not,” Steve says the moment she suggests it. “Absolutely yes,” Natasha replies. “She’s not going on a mission.” “She’s more qualified than half the people Clint recruits.” Clint immediately points at her. “Leave me out of this.”

The argument somehow continues for three days. Tony sides with Steve. Wanda sides with Natasha. Bruce attempts neutrality. Thor enthusiastically supports bringing the giant wolf warrior into battle. Nobody is surprised. In the end Natasha wins, mostly because the mission in question is relatively straightforward.

A small HYDRA facility operating deep within a remote forest. Limited personnel. Minimal risk. The objective is simple. Get inside. Gather intelligence. Shut the operation down from the inside. The plan relies heavily on stealth, tracking and coordinated movement.

In other words, exactly the things you’ve been doing for months. Even so, the atmosphere inside the Quinjet feels different on the day of the mission. Steve looks like he’s preparing for disaster. Tony keeps finding reasons to repeat safety instructions. Wanda spends most of the flight scratching behind your ears while Natasha reviews the operation for the tenth time. “She’s going to be fine,” Natasha eventually says. “You don’t know that,” Steve replies. Natasha gestures toward you. “Look at her.” Everyone does. You’re currently asleep.

The mission itself begins just after nightfall. The HYDRA facility sits hidden amongst dense woodland, isolated from nearby towns and protected by layers of security designed to detect approaching humans. Humans being the important word.

You move through the trees almost effortlessly. Every scent. Every sound. Every vibration beneath your paws paints a picture of the environment around you. Long before the others spot the first patrol, you’ve already identified three separate guard routes and two concealed entrances. Wanda and Natasha follow close behind while communicating through earpieces.

The coordination feels effortless. Familiar. Comfortable. Natasha gives a silent signal and immediately you move. One guard notices movement in the trees and leaves his assigned position to investigate. Exactly as intended. Another follows. Then another. By the time they realise something is wrong, Natasha has already guided them directly into an ambush.

Further inside the facility the pattern repeats. Guards are distracted. Patrols separated. Escape routes quietly eliminated. Whenever Natasha points, you understand. Whenever Wanda shifts position, you adjust automatically. The three of you move through the operation with a level of coordination that surprises even yourselves. At one point Wanda glances toward Natasha after watching you flawlessly herd two fleeing agents directly into her line of sight. “You trained her too well.” Natasha looks entirely too pleased with herself. “I know.”

By the time the facility finally falls, most of the fighting is already over. SHIELD teams move in to secure prisoners while agents begin collecting intelligence. The mission is declared an overwhelming success. Steve congratulates everybody over the comms. Tony reluctantly admits the operation went smoothly. Natasha spends the entire return flight looking unbearably smug. You curl up on the floor of the Quinjet, exhausted but content, while Wanda absentmindedly runs her fingers through the fur around your collar.

For the first time since arriving at the compound, it truly feels like you’ve found your place. Not as a rescued animal. Not as a guest. Not even as Wanda and Natasha’s oversized shadow. Out there in the forest, moving beside them through the darkness, working together without needing words, everything had felt instinctive. Natural. Like slipping back into a role you’d been born for. The only difference was that this pack looked very different from the one you’d left behind.

For a while after the HYDRA mission, everything seems perfect. The team’s concerns about bringing a giant wolf into active operations disappear almost overnight after seeing how effectively you work alongside Wanda and Natasha. Training becomes less about teaching you and more about refining what already comes naturally.

You spend mornings following Natasha through obstacle courses and afternoons stretched across the common room floor while Wanda reads with her feet resting against your side. Life settles back into its familiar rhythm.

On the afternoon everything changes, the team has gathered outside to enjoy one of the rare warm days where nobody is actively saving the world. Someone has produced a baseball bat. Someone else has produced enough enthusiasm to convince half the team to participate.

Natasha is currently standing in the middle of the makeshift field arguing with Clint about rules that neither of them are actually following. Sam is laughing. Steve is trying unsuccessfully to keep things organised. Tony is insisting that technology should be allowed in sports. Morgan is cheering for whichever team happens to be winning at any given moment.

You lie comfortably in the grass nearby with your head resting across Wanda’s lap while her fingers move absentmindedly through the fur around your neck. The collar sits comfortably against your throat now, so familiar you barely notice it anymore. Every now and then Wanda scratches behind your ears and you find yourself leaning into it without thinking.

Across the field Natasha glances over and catches the sight. “Spoiled,” she calls. Wanda doesn’t even look up from her book. “She’s earned it.” You close your eyes, content to simply enjoy the moment. The smell of freshly cut grass fills the air. Laughter drifts across the compound grounds. Everything feels peaceful.

Then the wind changes.

Your eyes snap open instantly.

The scent hits you before anything else.

Wolf.

Not one.

Many.

Every muscle in your body immediately locks.

Wanda notices the change at once. Her hand stills against your fur. “Detka?” she asks quietly. Across the field Natasha turns as well. Years of experience make her notice danger the same way you do. The laughter gradually dies as the team picks up on the tension spreading through both of you.

The bushes bordering the compound begin to shake. Once. Twice. Then violently. Steve straightens immediately. Natasha lowers the baseball bat. Wanda stands. For several long seconds, nobody moves.

Then figures begin emerging from the tree line. One after another. And another. And another. Some appear fully human. Others remain in wolf form. Every single one carries themselves with the same confidence as an apex predator. They are large. Powerful. Scarred by years of survival. Several of the wolves are nearly your size. One is larger. The atmosphere changes instantly. Even the Avengers look unsettled.

The newcomers don’t appear frightened by the heavily armed superheroes standing between them and the compound. If anything, they barely seem interested. Their eyes pass over the team entirely. Their focus settles on only one person. You.

By now you’ve already risen to your feet. Your tail is rigid. Your ears flattened. A low growl vibrates through your chest. The wolves spread slightly as they approach. Not threatening the Avengers. Not even acknowledging them. Their attention remains fixed entirely on you.

The first voice comes from a broad-shouldered man standing at the front of the group. “There you are.” The words immediately freeze half the team. Because wolves aren’t supposed to talk. Behind him, a woman folds her arms and openly scoffs. “Unbelievable.” Her gaze drifts over your collar. Over Wanda. Over Natasha. Disgust twists across her face. “Look at you.” Nobody says anything. Even Tony appears too stunned to interrupt. The man steps closer. “We’ve been looking for months.” Your growl deepens. “And this is what we find?” another pack member asks. “Living with humans?” “Wearing a collar?” “Sleeping in their house?”

The accusations come one after another. Natasha slowly moves toward your side. Wanda does the same. Neither woman takes their eyes off the strangers. “Care to explain what’s happening?” Natasha asks quietly. You can’t answer. Not without revealing everything.

Unfortunately, the pack has no such concerns. The broad-shouldered man laughs harshly. “You didn’t tell them?” Wanda’s expression shifts. “Tell us what?” The woman beside him gestures directly toward you. “That she’s one of us.” Silence falls across the field. You feel it immediately. The confusion. The disbelief. Wanda’s gaze snaps toward you. Natasha’s follows a second later. “One of you?” Steve asks carefully. The man smirks. “A werewolf.” The word lands like a grenade.

For several seconds nobody moves. Nobody speaks. Then all at once the carefully controlled situation collapses. “You’re kidding,” Tony says. “You’re not kidding.” Clint looks personally offended. “The wolf was a person this entire time?” “Technically,” Sam mutters. Natasha still hasn’t looked away from you. Neither has Wanda. The emotions flickering across their faces are impossible to ignore. Confusion. Shock. Hurt.

Not because you’re a werewolf. Because you’ve apparently been capable of understanding everything for months without ever being able to tell them. The pack continues speaking. “You abandoned us.” “For them.” “You traded your pack for humans.” “For a collar.”

The last comment finally snaps something inside you. Before anyone can react, you’re moving. The nearest wolf barely has time to dodge before you slam into him. The impact sends both of you tumbling through the grass. Another pack member lunges. You meet her head-on.

The fight erupts instantly. Growls tear through the air. Teeth flash. Bodies collide. Years of resentment and frustration explode all at once. The Avengers start forward. Steve shouts something. Natasha curses. Wanda’s eyes begin glowing red. None of it matters. Not until one particularly large wolf crashes into you and the two of you roll dangerously close to Morgan’s position. That is the moment Wanda finally intervenes.

Chaos simply stops.

Scarlet energy erupts across the field.

Every werewolf is ripped apart from the fight and suspended in midair before they can react. You included. One moment you’re snarling at a pack member. The next you’re floating several feet above the ground, completely immobilised by Wanda’s magic.

The field falls silent except for heavy breathing. Wanda stands in the centre of it all. Her eyes glow brightly. Her expression is impossible to read. Natasha steps forward beside her. Neither woman looks angry. Somehow that makes it worse.

They look hurt. Genuinely hurt. Wanda’s gaze settles on you first. Then on the collar around your neck. Then back to your eyes. “You understood us,” she says quietly. It isn’t really a question. Natasha folds her arms. “Months.” The word hangs heavily in the air.

Around you, the rest of your pack remains trapped in scarlet energy while the Avengers stare in stunned silence. Nobody seems entirely sure what to do next. Least of all you. Because for the first time since arriving at the compound, there is no hiding behind being a wolf. No pretending. No misunderstandings. The truth has finally arrived. And judging by the expressions on Wanda and Natasha’s faces, it may have cost far more than you ever intended.

Nobody says anything for a long time after Wanda stops the fight.

The field remains frozen in an uncomfortable silence broken only by heavy breathing and the distant rustling of leaves. Scarlet energy still glows around every member of your pack, holding them suspended several feet above the ground. The anger that had fuelled the confrontation has long since faded, leaving behind something much worse. Embarrassment. Regret. Uncertainty.

You remain trapped amongst Wanda’s magic as her gaze moves across the assembled werewolves. Some glare back defiantly. Others avoid her eyes entirely. The sheer power radiating from her is impossible to ignore. Even your pack seems to understand that pushing things further would be a very bad idea. Eventually Wanda takes a slow breath and lowers her hands slightly.

One by one, every member of your pack is released. Boots hit grass. Paws hit dirt. Nobody immediately moves. For several tense seconds it seems like another fight might break out. Then the broad-shouldered man who had spoken first glances toward you. His expression softens slightly, though not by much. “Come on,” he says quietly to the others. The woman beside him gives one final look toward the compound before turning away.

Gradually the rest of the pack follows. Human forms disappear back toward the tree line. Wolves melt into the shadows between the trees. Within moments the forest begins swallowing them once more. They leave without another word. Without another accusation. Without looking back. Everyone is released except you. Scarlet magic continues holding you motionless above the grass while Wanda watches the last traces of your former life disappear into the woods.

The moment the final pack member vanishes from sight, Wanda’s attention returns entirely to you. Natasha’s does too. Somehow that feels significantly more intimidating. Neither woman appears angry. You almost wish they were. Anger would be easier. Simpler. Instead they simply look at you. Really look at you. As though they’re trying to reconcile the wolf they’ve spent months caring for with the person they now know has been hiding behind those golden eyes the entire time.

Natasha’s expression remains unreadable, though the hurt is obvious if you know where to look. Wanda doesn’t even attempt to hide hers. Confusion flickers across her face. Questions. Doubt. She opens her mouth as if to say something. Then closes it again. Whatever words she had don’t seem sufficient. For several more seconds nobody moves.

Then, without warning, the magic disappears. You drop back onto all four paws. The impact barely registers. Your attention remains fixed entirely on the two women standing before you. Wanda studies you one final time before turning away. No dramatic speech. No confrontation. No shouting. She simply turns and begins walking toward the compound. Natasha hesitates slightly longer. For a brief moment it almost looks like she wants to say something. Instead she follows Wanda. Together they disappear through the glass doors and leave you standing alone on the lawn.

One by one, the others eventually follow. Steve offers you a sympathetic look before heading inside. Bruce looks concerned. Clint awkwardly pretends not to be staring. Sam gives a small nod before leaving as well. Nobody knows what to say. How could they?

The wolf they’ve been living with for months apparently isn’t a wolf at all. Eventually the field empties entirely. The baseball game is forgotten. The equipment remains scattered across the grass. The afternoon sunlight gradually shifts toward evening. Through it all, you don’t move. You simply stand there.

The compound’s enormous glass walls make it impossible to avoid looking inside. Every room seems brighter now. More distant. More unreachable. Occasionally you catch glimpses of Wanda moving through the common room. Natasha appears beside her. Sometimes they’re talking. Sometimes they’re simply sitting together. Every so often one of them glances toward the window. Toward you.

The looks aren’t angry. That’s what hurts the most. They aren’t glaring. They aren’t avoiding you. They just look thoughtful. Processing. Trying to understand. Hours pass this way. The sun sinks lower. Shadows stretch across the grounds. Inside, life continues. Outside, you remain exactly where they left you.

As darkness begins creeping across the compound, a strange realisation slowly settles over you. You have spent months building a life here. Months becoming part of something. You learned routines. Earned trust. Found a place within a new pack. Yet standing alone in the grass, watching the people you care about through a wall of glass, you’ve never felt further away from them.

The truth is finally out. The secret you’ve carried since the day you collapsed outside the compound no longer exists. And somehow everything feels worse now than it did when nobody knew.

Your eyes find Wanda one final time. She’s sitting beside Natasha on the couch. Neither woman is looking outside at the moment. For the first time all day, you finally break your stare away from the compound. Slowly, you turn around. The forest waits silently beyond the edge of the property. Familiar. Dark. Home. Or at least it used to be.

You take a step toward it. Then another. Nobody notices. Nobody stops you. The grass gives way to dirt beneath your paws. Trees begin surrounding you once again. Within minutes the compound is hidden behind trunks and leaves. The lights disappear. The voices vanish. Soon there is nothing left except the forest stretching endlessly ahead. And without allowing yourself a chance to look back, you continue walking deeper into the darkness.

The compound feels wrong that night.

Not quieter. Not emptier. Wrong.

The difference is subtle enough that neither Wanda nor Natasha notices it immediately. After everything that happened outside, after the pack, the revelations, the fight and the silence that followed, neither woman has much energy left for analysing why the atmosphere feels off. They simply move through the evening together.

Natasha makes coffee she never drinks. Wanda spends almost an hour staring at a book without turning a single page. Neither brings up you. Neither brings up the fact that the wolf they’ve spent months caring for apparently understood every conversation, every argument and every embarrassing nickname they’d ever used around you. Neither mentions the look on your face when you realised they were hurt.

Eventually exhaustion wins over confusion and they make their way upstairs. The routine is automatic by now. Natasha brushes her teeth. Wanda changes into pyjamas. Lights are switched off. Curtains are drawn. The bedroom settles into darkness.

For a few moments both women simply stand there staring at their bed. The bed that suddenly seems much larger than it did yesterday. Wanda climbs in first, pulling the blankets over herself before instinctively leaving a gap near the foot of the mattress. Natasha notices immediately. Neither comments on it.

A few seconds later Natasha slides beneath the covers as well. Silence settles between them. The room should feel familiar. Comfortable. Safe. Instead there is a strange absence hanging over everything. An absence both women are becoming increasingly aware of.

Wanda is the first to suffer from it. Sleep refuses to come. She shifts onto one side. Then the other. Pulls the blankets higher. Kicks them lower. Every position feels wrong. More than once her foot drifts toward the bottom of the bed without conscious thought, searching for a familiar bundle of fur that should be curled there.

Every single time she remembers halfway through the movement and immediately stills. The first few times it’s merely frustrating. After the fifth or sixth attempt it starts becoming painful. Beside her, Natasha remains motionless. At least outwardly. Her hands rest behind her head while she stares up at the ceiling as though it contains some secret answer she hasn’t found yet. It doesn’t. The ceiling remains spectacularly unhelpful.

Hours seem to pass with neither woman speaking. Eventually Wanda lets out a quiet huff and rolls onto her back again. “Stop looking at the ceiling.” Natasha doesn’t move. “I’m thinking.” “The ceiling isn’t helping.” “I know.” Another silence follows. Longer this time. “Do you think she left?” Wanda finally asks. Natasha closes her eyes briefly.

The question hangs heavily in the darkness. “No.” The answer comes immediately. Certain. Confident. Wanda turns her head. “You don’t?” “No.” Natasha stares upward again. “She’s stubborn.” Despite everything, a tiny smile briefly appears on Wanda’s face. It disappears just as quickly.

Eventually they both drift asleep. Not properly. Not deeply. The sort of sleep people fall into when their minds refuse to fully switch off. Every few hours one of them wakes. Sometimes it’s Natasha checking the time. Sometimes it’s Wanda reaching toward the foot of the bed before remembering why it’s empty. Neither sleeps for longer than an hour or two at a time.

By the time morning finally arrives, both women feel exhausted. The pale sunlight creeping through the curtains drags them awake properly. Neither moves for several moments. They simply lie there staring at opposite walls. Thinking. Processing. Wondering. Finally Wanda sits up. Natasha does the same. No discussion takes place. None is necessary.

One look passes between them and an entire conversation somehow happens without words. They both know exactly what the other is thinking. Whatever happened yesterday, whatever conversations need to happen later, whatever questions remain unanswered, the first thing they need to do is find you.

Wanda is already climbing out of bed by the time Natasha stands. Within minutes they’re dressed and heading downstairs together. Neither heads toward the kitchen. Neither stops for coffee. They walk straight through the compound and out onto the grounds where they’d last seen you standing.

The morning air is cool. Dew clings to the grass. The field remains exactly as it was left yesterday. A few forgotten pieces of baseball equipment still lie scattered near the edge of the lawn. Wanda scans the area immediately. Natasha does the same. Neither sees what they’re looking for.

For several seconds they continue walking forward anyway, as though expecting you to appear from behind a tree or emerge from somewhere nearby. Nothing happens. The patch of grass where you’d stood for hours is empty. Wanda’s pace slows. Natasha’s expression tightens slightly. Together they reach the edge of the property and stop. Beyond them, the forest stretches endlessly in every direction. Dense. Silent. Unfamiliar. The same forest you’d disappeared into the night before.

Wanda studies the tree line for a long moment. Then another. Then another. Eventually she lowers her gaze. Natasha follows the direction of her stare. There, pressed into the damp earth at the forest’s edge, are a set of pawprints leading away from the compound. Deep. Clear. Fresh enough that neither woman has any trouble recognising them.

Neither speaks. Neither needs to. Because for the first time since finding an injured wolf bleeding on their lawn all those months ago, there is no sign of you anywhere.

The panic begins approximately thirty seconds after Wanda and Natasha reach the tree line.

At first neither of them says the word out loud. Neither woman is particularly eager to admit that they’re worried. Wanda keeps insisting there must be a reasonable explanation. Natasha keeps insisting that if you wanted to leave permanently, you would have done so months ago. Both arguments sound increasingly hollow with every passing minute. The pawprints leading into the forest are impossible to miss. Fresh enough to follow. Clear enough to confirm exactly where you’d gone.

Before long they’re gathering supplies and heading into the woods themselves. Steve attempts to convince them to bring backup. Natasha refuses. Tony suggests drones. Wanda ignores him entirely. Within an hour they’re moving between the trees, following the trail deeper than either of them has ever travelled before. The forest surrounding the compound is enormous. Larger than most people realise. The Avengers have mapped sections closest to the facility, primarily for security purposes, but nobody has ever found much reason to venture further.

As the hours pass, even those familiar landmarks disappear. Cell signals fade. Marked routes vanish. The terrain becomes rougher and less travelled. More natural. More wild. Wanda occasionally spots broken branches or faint traces of movement through the undergrowth. Natasha finds tracks. Neither says much. Both remain focused entirely on finding you.

By the third hour of walking, even Natasha is beginning to look concerned. “How far out does this forest go?” Wanda asks quietly. Natasha studies the endless trees ahead. “Apparently further than we thought.”

Eventually the landscape begins changing. The signs are subtle at first. A narrow path that clearly didn’t form naturally. Cut logs stacked neatly beside a stream. Marks on trees. Evidence that people live here. Both women immediately become more alert.

They continue following the trail until the forest finally opens into a small clearing. Nestled amongst the trees sits a structure that looks somewhere between a cabin and a hunting lodge. Smoke curls lazily from a stone chimney. The building itself appears handmade, weathered by years of exposure.

Natasha and Wanda exchange a look. Neither says anything. They simply continue forward. A few minutes later another building appears. Then another. Then two more. Some are little more than huts. Others are larger communal structures. Children dart between them. A few wolves nap lazily beneath shaded trees.

Human voices drift through the air. The entire settlement seems to emerge naturally from the forest itself, hidden so effectively that it would be almost impossible to locate without knowing exactly where to look. “This has to be it,” Wanda murmurs. Natasha nods slowly. “Pack territory.” The words feel strange to say aloud. Until yesterday werewolves had been something neither of them believed existed. Now they’re standing in the middle of an entire village filled with them.

The pack notices them almost immediately.

Conversations gradually stop as heads turn toward the newcomers. Several adults rise from where they’d been sitting. None appear particularly alarmed. Curious, perhaps. Wary. But not hostile. Many of the faces are familiar from the confrontation outside the compound. The broad-shouldered man stands near one of the larger buildings speaking with a younger wolf. The woman who had mocked your collar the day before sits sharpening a knife near a fire pit. Several pups in wolf form immediately stop playing to stare openly at the strangers.

Natasha instinctively scans the area. Wanda does the same. Both searching for the same thing. Brown fur. Golden eyes. Any sign of you. They find neither. Instead Wanda suddenly stops walking altogether. Natasha notices immediately. “What?” Wanda doesn’t answer. She simply points.

Standing beside one of the largest huts in the settlement is a carved wooden post.

And hanging from that post is your collar.

The thick padded leather is unmistakable. Wanda recognises it instantly because she spent almost forty minutes choosing it. Natasha recognises it because she spent twenty arguing over which design looked least ridiculous. The metal tag glints softly in the sunlight. Wanda’s symbol on one side. Natasha’s on the other.

Seeing it hanging there feels strangely wrong. Too final. Too deliberate. For several seconds neither woman moves. The sight creates an uncomfortable knot somewhere deep in Wanda’s chest. Natasha’s jaw tightens slightly. The collar had become part of you. As ridiculous as that sounds. Seeing it removed and abandoned here feels like a message neither of them particularly enjoys receiving. “Well,” Natasha says carefully. “She’s definitely been here.”

“Obviously.”

“Not helping.”

Wanda doesn’t respond.

Because a much larger problem has just occurred to her.

Every werewolf in sight appears human.

Every single one.

The adults standing nearby. The children. The people moving between buildings. None of them resemble the wolf they’ve spent months living with. Not because you aren’t here.

Because they have absolutely no idea what you actually look like.

The realisation arrives simultaneously for both women.

Months.

They’ve known you for months.

They know your favourite sleeping spot. Your favourite food. The exact way your ears twitch when you’re annoyed. They know you secretly like being brushed despite pretending otherwise. They know you steal Wanda’s side of the bed whenever given the opportunity.

Yet they don’t know the simplest thing of all.

Your face.

Natasha slowly looks around the settlement again.

“Do you know which one she is?”

Wanda opens her mouth.

Then closes it.

Because she doesn’t.

Neither of them do.

Somewhere amongst the dozens of werewolves moving through the village is the person they’ve spent months caring about. And they have absolutely no idea who they’re looking for.

You catch their scent long before you actually see them.

Even amongst dozens of pack members, countless overlapping smells and the constant presence of the forest itself, their scents remain unmistakable. Wanda’s carries traces of coffee, old books and something warm that has always reminded you of home. Natasha’s carries leather, gunpowder and the faintest hint of whatever shampoo she stubbornly refuses to admit she uses.

The moment those scents reach you, every muscle in your body locks. You’d spent the entire night convincing yourself they wouldn’t come. That they’d be angry. That they’d be relieved to finally be rid of the giant wolf that had apparently lied to them for months. Yet somehow, despite all logic, they’d followed you. Followed you further into the forest than any human should reasonably be willing to travel.

Now, standing amongst your pack in a half-shifted form, you find yourself wishing you’d had more time to prepare. Thirty feet separates you from them. Thirty feet and an entire world of uncertainty. Around you, other pack members continue watching the strangers cautiously. Some are openly suspicious. Others merely curious. You barely notice any of them. Your attention remains fixed entirely on the two women standing near the central huts.

Seeing them here makes everything hurt far worse than it did yesterday. Guilt twists painfully inside your chest. Every memory seems determined to replay itself at once. Wanda sneaking you treats when Bruce said no. Natasha pretending she didn’t enjoy your company while secretly building you a blanket nest. Movie nights. Training sessions. Sleeping curled at their feet before eventually earning a place on the actual bed. You’d never meant to deceive them. Not really. Yet looking at them now, you can suddenly understand exactly why they felt betrayed.

Unfortunately, your body chooses this exact moment to completely betray you as well.

Specifically, your tail.

At first it’s only a slight movement behind you. Barely noticeable. Then Natasha shifts her weight slightly and your tail immediately starts wagging. You freeze. It freezes. Wanda turns her head and your tail starts wagging again. Mortified, you attempt to force it still. The effort lasts approximately three seconds. Because despite everything that happened yesterday, despite the guilt currently eating you alive, despite being surrounded by your actual pack, seeing them again fills you with an embarrassing amount of happiness.

Your ears flatten slightly as you realise exactly what this means. Somewhere along the way, entirely against your better judgement, you’ve become hopelessly attached. Across the clearing, Natasha’s eyes narrow. You know that look. It is the look of a predator noticing something important. The same look she gets during missions. The same look she gets whenever Clint attempts to lie.

Your tail continues wagging. “Traitor,” you mutter under your breath. The tail does not care. Natasha’s gaze moves across you carefully. Not threatening. Not judgemental. Just observant. She notices your eyes repeatedly flicking toward the collar hanging from the wooden post. She notices how quickly your attention returns to her and Wanda every time you try looking elsewhere. She notices the obvious guilt written all over your face.

Most importantly, she notices that every other werewolf in the clearing is looking at her and Wanda like outsiders. Potential threats. Strangers. You’re looking at them like you’ve just found something important that you thought you’d lost.

The problem, unfortunately, is that Natasha Romanoff is very, very good at noticing things.

“You see that?” she asks quietly.

Wanda follows her gaze.

For several seconds she doesn’t seem to understand what Natasha means.

Then she notices your tail.

A tiny, unwilling smile immediately appears before she quickly suppresses it.

“Oh.”

“Yep.”

The smile almost returns.

Meanwhile, neither woman seems particularly prepared for finally discovering what you actually look like. Back at the compound, every image they’d ever formed of you had been filtered through fur, paws and golden eyes. The reality standing before them is… different. Your half-shifted form leaves the wolf traits obvious enough. Brown ears protrude through your hair. Your tail continues its humiliating display behind you. Yet the rest of you is undeniably human. Or close enough.

Like most of the pack, your clothing consists primarily of practical materials gathered from the forest itself. Leather wraps around your waist. Woven vines and natural fibres cover your chest and shoulders. Functional. Traditional. Entirely normal by pack standards. The arrangement leaves your arms and much of your skin exposed, revealing years of hunting, climbing and surviving in the wilderness. Strong muscles shift beneath sun-bronzed skin every time you move.

Yet somehow the intimidating image is completely ruined by the fact your tail refuses to stop wagging. Natasha notices that too. In fact, she notices everything. Her expression slowly becomes more complicated with every passing second. Wanda seems equally distracted. Neither woman had expected this. Not really. They’d imagined meeting you eventually. They’d wondered about it countless times without realising it. But now that the moment has actually arrived, neither seems entirely certain what to do.

The silence stretches.

You don’t approach them.

They don’t approach you.

The distance remains exactly the same.

Yet somehow it feels far smaller than it did a few minutes ago.

Around the clearing, several pack members are beginning to notice the strange exchange taking place. The broad-shouldered man who’d confronted you outside the compound folds his arms. A few of the younger wolves openly watch with interest. One of the elders looks suspiciously amused.

You wish the ground would swallow you whole. Your tail is still wagging. Natasha is still watching. Wanda’s gaze keeps softening every time your eyes meet hers. Everything is becoming increasingly unbearable. Then, after what feels like an eternity, Wanda finally takes a small step forward. Not enough to invade your space. Not enough to force anything. Just one step. The sort of step someone takes when approaching a frightened animal. Or perhaps someone they care about.

Your tail somehow wags even harder. Natasha immediately notices. Of course she does. And for the first time since arriving at the pack grounds, a faint smirk appears on her face.

“Oh,” she says quietly.

“What?” Wanda asks.

Natasha never takes her eyes off you.

“I think we found her.”

And despite everything, your stupid tail practically confirms it for her.

The moment Natasha says it, every survival instinct you possess immediately takes over.

Run.

The command slams through your brain with enough force to make your ears flatten against your head.

You don’t wait to see what happens next. The second Wanda takes another step forward, you turn and bolt. Straight into the forest. Branches whip past as you sprint between trees, heart hammering violently against your ribs. Behind you, voices erupt from the clearing. You don’t stay long enough to hear what they’re saying. Shame burns through every inch of you. Embarrassment. Guilt. Relief. All twisted together into something impossible to untangle. You’d spent months imagining what would happen if Wanda and Natasha discovered the truth. Somehow every scenario had been less humiliating than this one.

Because now they knew. They knew you understood every conversation. Every argument. Every movie night. Every time Natasha secretly let you onto the bed after pretending not to want you there. Every time Wanda called you pet names when she thought nobody was listening. And worst of all, they knew exactly how attached you’d become.

Your tail had made absolutely sure of that. You hear movement behind you. Not footsteps. Something much worse. Red magic.

“Oh come on,” you groan.

A second later scarlet energy wraps around your waist. The forest disappears beneath your feet. You immediately find yourself suspended several feet in the air.

“Really?” you call.

“Really,” Wanda’s voice replies.

The world moves alarmingly fast as the magic carries you backwards through the trees. Several branches narrowly miss your face. One doesn’t. “Ow.”

“You ran.”

“I panicked.”

“You always panic.”

“I do not always panic.”

“You literally turned around and sprinted away.”

Unfortunately, she has a point.

The clearing comes back into view moments later. Several amused pack members are openly watching the entire thing. One of the elders is laughing so hard she has tears in her eyes.

You decide you hate everyone. Especially Wanda. Mostly because she’s right. The magic finally lowers you back onto solid ground a few feet from the two women.

For a moment nobody moves. You stare at the grass. Wanda stares at you. Natasha stares at you. The silence stretches.

Then suddenly both women are moving. Before you can react, Wanda’s arms are around your shoulders. At almost the exact same moment Natasha wraps her arms around your waist. The impact nearly knocks the breath from your lungs.

“What—”

Wanda hugs tighter. Natasha somehow hugs tighter than that. The result is less a hug and more a coordinated assault.

“You idiot,” Natasha mutters.

You blink. That isn’t the response you expected.

“We thought you were gone,” Wanda says quietly.

Her voice sounds suspiciously emotional. Your confusion only deepens.

“You left.”

“You left us first.”

“I thought you hated me.”

Both women immediately pull back just enough to stare at you. The looks on their faces are almost offended.

“Hate you?” Wanda repeats.

“You lied to us,” Natasha says. “That’s not the same thing. We were confused. We were hurt. But we didn’t hate you.”

Wanda’s arms tighten again.

“If anything,” she admits quietly, “we were more upset with ourselves.”

You frown.

“What?”

The women exchange a glance. Then Natasha sighs.

“We shouldn’t have left you out there.”

Your ears twitch.

“What?”

“Yesterday,” Wanda says softly. “After the fight.”

The guilt returns immediately.

“We found out this huge secret and instead of talking to you…” Her expression falls slightly. “We just walked away.”

“You were hurt.”

“So were you.”

The simple response steals every argument from your mouth.

For several moments nobody says anything. The forest around you feels strangely distant. Eventually you lower your gaze.

“I didn’t know how to tell you.”

Wanda and Natasha remain silent. Waiting. So you continue.

“At first I couldn’t.”

Your tail lowers slightly behind you.

“Then after I healed…” You swallow. “You already thought I was a wolf.”

Natasha nods slowly.

“And every day that passed made it harder.”

You laugh weakly.

“How do you even start that conversation?”

Neither woman interrupts.

“‘Hey, thanks for rescuing me. Also I’ve secretly understood every word you’ve said for six months.’”

To your immense relief, Natasha snorts. Wanda covers her mouth. Encouraged, you continue.

“Then I got scared.”

Their expressions soften immediately.

“If I told you, everything would’ve changed.”

Your eyes finally lift to meet theirs.

“And I liked it.”

The admission leaves your mouth before you can stop it. You immediately regret it. Your tail, however, begins wagging. Traitor.

“I liked being there.”

Wanda’s eyes soften even further.

“The compound felt like home.”

Your throat tightens.

“You felt like home.”

Silence follows. A dangerous silence. The sort that makes your heart beat significantly faster. Especially when Natasha keeps looking at you like that. You try very hard not to notice. Really. You do. Unfortunately, Natasha Romanoff has spent the last several minutes finally getting a proper look at you.

A very proper look.

Your half-shifted form leaves very little to the imagination compared to the giant wolf she’d become accustomed to. Years of hunting and surviving in the wilderness are obvious in every movement. Strong muscles shift beneath sun-warmed skin. Wolf ears protrude through your hair. Your tail continues wagging with absolutely no regard for your dignity whatsoever.

Natasha notices all of it. Every single bit. You pretend not to. Desperately. The problem is that pretending becomes significantly harder when her gaze briefly drops before returning to your face. Then does it again. Your tail somehow wags harder. Mortified, you immediately focus on literally anything else. Trees. Clouds. The ground. A random squirrel. Anything.

Across from you, Natasha’s lips twitch suspiciously. Wanda notices both your tail and Natasha’s expression at the exact same moment.

“Oh my god,” Wanda says.

“What?” you ask instantly.

“Nothing.”

Natasha looks away far too quickly. Your tail continues wagging. The elder watching nearby starts laughing again. And for the first time since everything fell apart outside the compound, Wanda and Natasha are smiling.

The conversation with your pack takes far longer than expected. Not because anyone is actively trying to stop you from leaving, but because the entire settlement seems fascinated by the fact that two Avengers have wandered several hours into werewolf territory just to find you.

By the time the sun begins dipping lower through the trees, you’ve endured enough teasing to last a lifetime. The elder who had laughed at your tail earlier somehow finds even more reasons to do so. The broad-shouldered man apologises, in his own gruff way, for causing problems at the compound. Several of the younger wolves openly ask Natasha questions about fighting. Through all of it, Wanda remains close enough that her shoulder occasionally brushes yours, while Natasha hovers nearby with the casual protectiveness of somebody pretending not to be protective at all.

Eventually the topic everyone has been carefully avoiding finally comes up. “So,” Wanda says softly, glancing toward the path leading back through the forest. “Are you coming home?” The simple question immediately steals your attention. Home. Not the compound. Not the Avengers facility. Home.

Your ears twitch slightly. Natasha notices. Of course she does. “You’re not getting rid of us that easily,” she adds. “Besides.” A faint smirk appears on her face. “You’re our girl.” Heat immediately rises into your cheeks. Wanda smiles. “Our best girl.” Your tail begins wagging before you can stop it.

Around you, several pack members groan dramatically. One of them pretends to gag. You completely ignore them. Because despite everything that happened, despite the confusion and hurt and misunderstandings, the thought of returning with Wanda and Natasha fills your chest with a warmth you haven’t felt since leaving the compound. The decision becomes surprisingly easy after that.

The journey back feels very different from the journey out. Nobody is rushing this time. Nobody is desperately following tracks or searching for signs. Instead, the three of you walk together through the forest, gradually leaving the hidden settlement behind. Conversation comes slowly at first. Then more naturally. Wanda asks questions about your pack. Natasha asks questions about shifting.

You answer what you can. Some things make sense to them. Some clearly don’t. More than once Natasha has to stop herself from reaching out to touch your ears when they twitch. More than once Wanda fails entirely. By the time the compound finally comes into view through the trees, the tension that had lingered since the confrontation outside has largely disappeared.

Unfortunately, a new problem immediately presents itself. Namely: the rest of the Avengers. “Absolutely not,” Natasha says the second the building comes into view. “Absolutely not what?” you ask. “If Clint sees you first, we’re never hearing the end of it.” Wanda immediately agrees. “Or Tony.” “Definitely Tony.” “Especially Tony.” Before you can question their logic further, you’re being ushered around the side of the compound like part of some highly classified operation.

Thankfully, the boys appear distracted elsewhere. Within minutes you’ve been successfully smuggled through side corridors, up elevators and into Wanda and Natasha’s room without a single person spotting you. Natasha actually looks proud of herself afterwards. “See?” she says. “Perfect.” “We’re literally sneaking a werewolf into our bedroom,” Wanda points out. “Exactly.”

The moment the door closes behind you, however, both women suddenly seem to notice something they’d previously been too distracted to fully process. Specifically, your clothing situation. Or lack thereof, compared to normal human standards. You immediately become aware of it the second Wanda’s eyes flick downward. Then Natasha’s do. The woven vines across your chest. The leather around your waist. The practical attire of someone who grew up in the wilderness rather than modern civilisation. Perfectly normal amongst your pack. Significantly less normal standing in a high-tech Avengers compound.

“Right,” Wanda says after a moment. “We should probably fix that.” You glance down at yourself. “What’s wrong with it?” Natasha makes a small choking noise that suspiciously resembles laughter. Wanda immediately elbows her. “Nothing’s wrong with it.” “You just might be more comfortable in actual clothes.” “Actual clothes are overrated.”

Both women stare at you. “Actual clothes,” Natasha says firmly, “are happening.” Wanda disappears toward the wardrobe while Natasha remains where she is. For several moments neither speaks. Wanda begins sorting through drawers. Natasha watches her. Wanda glances back. Natasha watches her a little more. A completely silent conversation seems to pass between them.

One you’ve seen countless times over the months. Tiny expressions. Small looks. Entire discussions occurring without a single word. This one feels different somehow. More nervous. More deliberate. When Wanda finally turns back around holding a bundle of clothes, neither woman immediately moves to hand them over.

Instead, the room grows unexpectedly quiet.

You glance between them.

Then back again.

Your heart begins beating a little faster.

Natasha takes a single step forward.

Then another.

Close enough now that you can see every tiny detail in her expression. Every flicker of uncertainty. Every trace of affection she isn’t bothering to hide anymore. Her hand rises slowly, brushing lightly against your cheek. For a moment she simply looks at you. Really looks at you. Not the wolf she’d rescued months ago. Not the mystery she’d spent weeks trying to understand. Just you.

Then she leans forward.

The kiss is soft.

Gentle.

Almost hesitant.

Nothing rushed.

Nothing demanding.

Just Natasha’s lips meeting yours as though she’s trying to memorise the feeling for the first time. The contact lasts only a few seconds before she slowly pulls away again. Yet somehow those few seconds leave your heart attempting to escape your chest entirely. Your tail is wagging. Obviously. Because apparently it has completely abandoned all loyalty to your dignity. Natasha’s forehead briefly rests against yours before she finally steps back.

And then Wanda is there.

Warm fingers finding your jaw.

A smile so soft it almost hurts.

She waits just long enough for you to look at her.

Then her lips meet yours too.

The kiss is every bit as gentle as Natasha’s had been.

Careful.

Affectionate.

Like she’s been wanting to do it for far longer than she’s willing to admit.

When she finally pulls away, the three of you remain standing there for a moment in complete silence.

The clothes are still forgotten in Wanda’s hands.

Your tail refuses to stop wagging.

And neither woman seems particularly interested in pretending they don’t find that adorable.

The room remains quiet after the kisses, though it feels like an entirely different kind of silence now. Not awkward. Not uncertain. Heavy. Warm. The sort of silence that settles between people when something important has finally been acknowledged.

Wanda is still holding the clothes she’d pulled from the wardrobe, though judging by the way her fingers have gone still against the fabric, she’d completely forgotten about them. Natasha remains standing close enough that you can feel her body heat, her attention fixed entirely on you with an intensity that makes it difficult to think straight. You become painfully aware of every little thing all at once. The way your heart is hammering against your ribs. The way your tail continues sweeping behind you despite your desperate attempts to stop it. The way both women keep looking at you differently now. Not because you’ve changed. Not because you’ve suddenly become someone else.

But because for the first time there are no misunderstandings left between you. No pretending. No secrets. Just you. Standing in front of them. And somehow that feels far more exposing than running around the compound covered in fur ever did.

A faint smile tugs at Natasha’s mouth as she watches your increasingly failed attempts to force your tail still. “You know,” she says, voice lower than before, “for somebody who spent months hiding the fact she understood everything we said, you’re actually terrible at keeping secrets.” Heat immediately rushes into your cheeks. Wanda lets out a soft laugh beside her. “She really is.” You groan and look away, only for Wanda to immediately reach out and guide your attention back toward them with a gentle hand beneath your chin.

The movement isn’t forceful. If anything, it’s almost unfairly tender. “Don’t hide now,” she murmurs. Her thumb brushes lightly across your cheek as she speaks, and the simple contact nearly short-circuits your brain. Natasha notices instantly. Of course she does. You see the amusement flicker across her expression before something softer replaces it. Something that makes your stomach perform an alarming number of somersaults. “Look at her,” Natasha says quietly. “She’s still trying to run.” “I am not.” “You literally ran into a forest earlier.” “That was different.” “Was it?” Natasha asks. “Because this looks exactly the same.”

Wanda laughs again, shaking her head fondly before finally setting the clothes down somewhere behind her. The action feels oddly significant. Like she’s consciously choosing not to interrupt whatever this moment has become. You swallow hard as both women remain close. Too close to ignore.

Then Natasha’s lips connect with yours again, hungrier this time. Like she’s a starved woman. Wanda appears behind. Her arms wrap around your waist and her lips connect with the side of your neck. If it weren’t for them holding you up, you’re sure you would’ve turned into mush on the floor by now.

Natasha finally parts from you, only to sink her teeth down into the side of your neck. A whimper escaped your mouth before you can stop it. You didn’t even realise when they started pulling your clothes off, and their own, until they were pulling you back towards the bed.

Wanda moves to sit against the headboard and pulls you down into her lap, your eyes immediately find her breasts. They’re bigger than yours, fuller. Her nipples stood hardened against the cold breeze and the arousal coursing through her body. Wanda follows your gaze and a soft smirk graces her lips. “You can touch, Detka. I don’t bite.” She murmurs as her hands find yours, pulling them up to her soft mounds.

Your tail wags even harder, if that was even possible at this point, as you squeeze her. Wanda watches as literal drool forms on your lips whilst you obsess over her body like a teenage boy seeing a bare woman for the first time. Her thumb absentmindedly wipes it away, even as her chest begins to heave from your touches. Then without warning, the digit moves into your mouth and your lips wrap around it like second nature.

You’d almost forgotten about Natasha at this point. Almost being the keyword. Then her hands wrap around your neck from behind and the familiar sound of your collar buckling sounds out as she attaches the thick leather back around your neck with a sultry whisper of: “You’re ours, pretty girl”

Wanda’s thumb, the one in your mouth, moves to press down on your tongue and a little whine escapes you. Natasha’s hands move from your neck and down to your own breasts, her large hands easily cup both of them before she rolls your nipples between her fingers. A broken moan slips from around Wanda’s thumb in your mouth.

Her eyes flicker red for a brief moment, and you feel something pressing against your core that wasn’t there before. You try to look down, but unfortunately Natasha keeps your head raised.

Wanda’s free hand moves down to the dick she’s enchanted into her body, guiding it to your entrance that is soaked by now. In one movement she bottoms out, causing you to cry out. Your teeth clamp down around her thumb but she doesn’t care or at least react to it.

Natasha’s hands find your hips and start moving you to grind against Wanda’s cock. Every movement of her inside you hits deep and hard, cries turn into moans as you get used to the feeling of her. Her thumb slides out of your mouth only to rub up and down your sides, occasionally squeezing your breasts.

One of Natasha’s hands moves from your hip to press hard circles against your throbbing clit, each one making your hips buck against her hand.

“You’re doing so good, pup… so good.” The praise comes from one of the girls, you can’t exactly tell which one, too lost in the pleasure of Wanda hitting every wall inside of you.

Her eyes glow red again, you barely pick it up this time. And before you know it, Natasha is rubbing, an admittedly smaller, cock against your ass. She uses the arousal from between your legs as makeshift lubricant before pushing the cock into your ass. That completely wrecks you. You collapse against Wanda’s bare chest, hands clutching the bedsheets beneath her as both your holes are fucked by the two most attractive women you’ve ever seen.

“Breathe baby, your okay… your doing amazing.” Wanda says, now rolling her own hips up into you since you stopped when you collapsed against her. She presses a soft kiss to the top of your head and guides your lips to wrap around her nipple. You easily take the hardened bud into your mouth, the skin muffled your cries and absorbs your tears. Wanda revels in this, her baby girl crying whilst taking two cocks at one. She couldn’t be prouder honestly.

Natasha’s hand on your hip moves to wrap around your waist, her movements are a lot more juttery and uncontrolled compared to Wanda’s. She’s also a lot louder than Wanda is, soft groans leaving her as she pressed her lips between your shoulder blades.

The feeling of being so full eventually pushes you over the edge, your back arches up and toes curl against nothing. You mouth opens but no sound comes out. Then like clockwork, both of the cocks inside you begin to twitch as the women let their loads sink into each of your holes.

The room gradually settles into a comfortable silence.

Not the awkward sort.

Not the uncertain sort.

The kind of silence that only exists between people who feel completely safe around one another.

You barely have enough energy left to move. Every muscle in your body feels heavy, your thoughts pleasantly slow and fuzzy as you remain curled against Wanda’s side beneath the blankets. At some point she’d pulled you fully against her chest, one arm wrapped securely around your shoulders while her fingers drift lazily through your hair. The motion is absent-minded. Instinctive. The same way she’d stroked your fur countless times when she thought you were just a wolf. Somehow the familiarity of it makes your chest ache.

Home. The word keeps returning. Home.

Natasha eventually slips out of bed with a quiet groan, disappearing into the bathroom for a few moments before returning with a damp cloth, a glass of water and an entire armful of snacks she’d apparently stolen from somewhere. You watch her approach through half-lidded eyes, your ears twitching lazily when she sits back down beside you.

“Were those already in here?” you mumble.

“No.”

“Did you go downstairs?”

“Maybe.”

“Natasha.”

“What?”

“You robbed the kitchen.”

“It wasn’t robbery.”

Wanda doesn’t even open her eyes.

“It was absolutely robbery.”

“I live here.”

“You stole my crackers.”

“I stole our crackers.”

Wanda finally peeks one eye open.

“That isn’t better.”

Natasha looks deeply offended.

You let out a tired laugh and immediately regret it because it uses far too much energy.

“There she is,” Wanda murmurs softly.

One of her hands leaves your hair long enough to gently cup your cheek.

“You okay, Detka?”

The concern in her voice immediately melts something inside your chest. You nod. Then, after a moment’s consideration, shake your head. Then nod again. Both women laugh.

“I’m taking that as a yes.”

“It means she’s tired,” Natasha says knowingly.

“I am not.”

“You once fell asleep standing up.”

“That happened one time.”

“It happened three times.”

You glare weakly. Natasha looks entirely too pleased with herself.

The glass of water is gently pushed into your hands before you can continue arguing. Both women watch until you’ve taken several proper drinks. Only then does Natasha seem satisfied. The crackers are next. You take one mostly because refusing seems like too much effort. Then another. Then another.

“You were prepared for this,” you realise.

Natasha shrugs. “I know you.”

Wanda hums in agreement. ”She does.”

Your tail immediately thumps beneath the blankets.

Traitor.

The movement earns a smile from both women.

“You did good today, pup.”

The praise catches you completely off guard.

Your ears twitch.

Natasha reaches over and scratches lightly behind one of them.

“You came back.”

Something unexpectedly emotional tightens in your chest.

You lower your gaze. “I almost didn’t.”

The admission slips out quietly. Immediately both women go still. Wanda’s arm tightens around your shoulders. Natasha’s expression softens.

“Hey.”

You glance up. Natasha is looking directly at you now.

“You came back.”

The words are simple. Matter-of-fact. Yet somehow they hit harder than anything else could have. Because she’s right. You did. And they came looking for you. The thought settles warmly somewhere beneath your ribs.

Before the room can become too emotional, Wanda reaches for another cracker and immediately discovers Natasha has already eaten half the packet.

Her eyes narrow.

“Natasha.”

“What?”

“You ate all the cheese ones.”

“No I didn’t.”

“There are literally none left.”

Natasha glances into the packet.

“Oh.”

“Natasha.”

“I didn’t realise.”

“You absolutely realised.”

“It happened accidentally.”

“You sorted them.”

“I was organising.”

“You organised them into your mouth.”

You bury your face against Wanda’s shoulder as laughter threatens to escape.

Natasha points accusingly.

“Don’t encourage her.”

“I’m not encouraging anything.”

“You are smiling.”

“Because you’re ridiculous.”

“You love me.”

Wanda’s entire expression softens instantly.

“Unfortunately.”

“See?”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“It was close enough.”

The argument continues for another ten minutes. It isn’t really an argument. Just the familiar back-and-forth that you’ve spent months listening to from various corners of the compound. The same bickering that always ends with one of them laughing and the other pretending they aren’t.

Somewhere during it, your eyes begin drifting closed. Wanda notices first. Of course she does. Her fingers never stop moving through your hair. Natasha notices a few moments later when your head slowly slides further onto Wanda’s shoulder.

“Oh, she’s gone.”

“I’m not gone.”

“You answered that three seconds late.”

You choose not to respond. Mostly because you are, in fact, nearly asleep.

A warm blanket is pulled higher around you. Someone presses a kiss to your forehead. Then another to the top of your head. You aren’t entirely sure who does which.

By the time the girls finally stop bickering and settle down themselves, you’re practically glued to Wanda’s side, your tail loosely wrapped around both of their legs beneath the blankets.

Safe. Warm. Loved.

The last thing you hear before sleep finally wins is Natasha’s quiet voice from somewhere beside you.

“Our girl.”

Wanda immediately hums in agreement.

“Our best girl.”

Your tail gives one final sleepy wag.

Then everything fades into darkness.

:۞:••:۞:••:۞:••:۞:••:۞:

Masterlist

✧❁❁❁✧✿✿✿✧❁❁❁✧

The first time you notice it, it feels like déjà vu stretched just a little too thin.

Not the usual kind—where something is vaguely familiar, like a dream slipping through your fingers—but something sharper. Precise. The way the barista at the café smiles at you before you even speak, already reaching for the exact drink you were about to order. The way a stranger on the street sidesteps you before you even move. The way the same song hums faintly from passing cars at the exact same point in its chorus, over and over.

You brush it off at first. People do that. Your brain fills in patterns where there are none. That’s what you tell yourself.

Until you meet her.

She’s standing outside your building like she’s been waiting. Not pacing, not checking her phone—just there, still and composed, like a fixed point in everything that feels slightly off. Her eyes find yours immediately, like they’ve done it a hundred times before. Maybe they have. There’s something about the way she looks at you that makes your chest tighten, like recognition without memory.

“Hi,” she says softly, as if she’s careful not to startle you.

You hesitate. “Do I know you?”

There’s the smallest flicker across her face. Not surprise—something closer to disappointment, quickly masked. “Not yet.”

You should walk away. Every instinct tells you that this is strange, that something about her presence doesn’t line up with reality the way it should. But there’s a calmness in her voice that settles over your nerves like a weighted blanket.

She steps closer, slow enough to give you time to retreat. You don’t.

“I’m Wanda,” she says. “And you’re… stuck.”

You blink. “Stuck?”

“In a loop.” Her gaze searches yours, intense but not unkind. “Same day. It resets. Over and over.”

You laugh, because what else are you supposed to do with that? “Right. And you just decided to tell me that outside my building?”

“I’ve told you before,” she replies gently.

The laughter dies in your throat.

There’s no mockery in her tone. No hint that this is a joke. Just quiet certainty, like she’s stating something as obvious as the sky being blue.

“I think I’d remember that,” you say, but it comes out weaker than you intend.

Wanda tilts her head slightly, studying you. “You don’t. That’s part of it. You reset too. Your memories go with it.”

“And yours don’t?” you ask.

Her lips press together briefly. “No.”

Something in your chest tightens again. You don’t know why you believe her—but you do. Not completely, not blindly, but enough that the world feels like it’s shifted under your feet.

“If this is a joke—”

“It’s not,” she interrupts, still soft, still careful. “I can prove it.”

And she does.

She tells you what you’ll say before you say it. Finishes your sentences like she’s memorised them. Points out things that happen seconds before they do—a car honking, someone dropping their bag, the flicker of a faulty streetlight. Each time, it lands with a quiet, devastating precision.

By the time the day ends, you’re not laughing anymore.

By the time the day resets you understand.

—

It’s not immediate, the way you adjust to it.

At first, it’s panic. Every time the clock strikes midnight and the world snaps back to morning, it feels like drowning. You wake up in the same bed, the same light filtering through your curtains, the same dull hum of routine—but now you know.

Or at least, you remember until you don’t.

Because you forget.

That’s the cruelest part. You don’t get to carry it with you. Each reset strips you back to ignorance, leaves you wandering through the same day like it’s new.

Except Wanda is always there.

Always waiting.

Always remembering.

And every time you meet her, she tells you again.

At first, she keeps it simple. Gentle. She helps you navigate the confusion, grounds you when it starts to spiral. She shows you how to test the loop, how to recognise the patterns, how to hold onto the knowledge for as long as you can before it inevitably slips away.

“You’ll forget me,” she says once, her voice quieter than usual as you sit together in a quiet park, the world frozen in its endless repetition. “But I won’t forget you.”

There’s something heavy in the way she says it. Something that lingers even after the day resets and your memory wipes clean.

You don’t notice it then.

Not properly.

But something starts to shift.

—

It takes longer than it should for you to realise that Wanda isn’t just guiding you through the loop.

She’s… adjusting it.

At first, it’s subtle. Barely noticeable. A conversation that goes slightly differently. A person who isn’t where they should be. A missed moment that should have happened but didn’t.

You only catch it because, somehow, fragments stick. Not full memories—just impressions. Echoes. Like trying to recall a dream and only grasping the feeling it left behind.

And the feeling is… wrong.

You start paying attention.

Watching her.

Wanda doesn’t always approach you the same way. Sometimes she’s waiting outside your building. Sometimes she “bumps” into you at the café. Sometimes she doesn’t appear until later, like she’s testing how long it takes before you start noticing the loop on your own.

Each time, her approach is different.

Each time, you are different.

More open. More guarded. More curious. More distant.

It takes a while for the realisation to settle in, slow and sickening.

She’s experimenting.

You don’t know how many times she’s done this. You don’t know how many versions of this day have existed, how many variations of you she’s met, guided, adjusted.

But you know one thing.

None of it is accidental.

—

“Why do you always find me?” you ask one evening, the question slipping out before you can stop it.

Wanda stills.

It’s a small reaction, almost imperceptible—but you catch it.

“I told you,” she says carefully. “Because you’re stuck. And I remember.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Silence stretches between you.

There’s something different about this loop. You can feel it. The air is heavier, the space between your words more fragile. Like you’ve stepped slightly off the path she expects.

Wanda studies you, her gaze sharper now. Assessing.

“You’re not supposed to notice this early,” she murmurs.

A chill crawls up your spine. “Notice what?”

She doesn’t answer immediately.

And that’s when you know.

Something cracks open in your chest, a quiet, creeping horror that settles deep in your bones.

“How many times?” you ask, your voice unsteady. “How many times has this happened?”

Her expression shifts. Not guilt—not quite. Something more complicated. Something almost… conflicted.

“A lot,” she admits.

The simplicity of it makes your stomach drop.

“A lot?” you repeat. “That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one I have,” she says softly.

You shake your head, stepping back. “No, that’s—no. You don’t get to just—what are you doing, Wanda?”

Her eyes flicker with something intense. Desperate, almost. “I’m trying to get it right.”

“Get what right?”

A pause.

And then—

“You.”

The word lands like a blow.

You stare at her, your mind scrambling to make sense of it. “Me?”

“I’ve tried different approaches,” she continues, her voice steadier now, like she’s already said this before. Maybe she has. “Different ways of telling you. Different ways of… interacting with you. Some work better than others.”

“Work better for what?” you demand.

She hesitates.

And that hesitation tells you everything.

Your chest tightens. “No.”

Wanda steps closer. “Listen to me—”

“No, you listen,” you snap, something sharp breaking through the confusion. “You’re not just helping me. You’re—what, running trials? On me?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Then what is it like?”

Silence.

Your heart pounds.

“Say it,” you push. “Just say it.”

Her gaze locks onto yours, unflinching now. Certain.

“I’m trying to make you fall in love with me.”

The world tilts.

For a second, everything goes quiet. Like the loop itself has paused to let the weight of her words settle.

“You’re joking,” you say, but it comes out hollow.

“I’m not.”

“You’re resetting the day—over and over—just to test how to make me fall for you?”

Her jaw tightens. “It’s more complicated than that.”

“How?”

“Because you do,” she says, her voice suddenly fierce. “In some loops, you do. You choose me. You—” She cuts herself off, her expression twisting with something raw. “But it never lasts. It always resets. And then you forget.”

Your breath catches.

“And you don’t,” you whisper.

“No.”

The weight of that single word is unbearable.

“So you just… keep trying?” you ask. “Until what? Until you find the perfect version of me?”

“I’m not changing you,” she insists.

“Aren’t you?” you shoot back. “You’re changing everything else around me!”

Her silence is answer enough.

A cold, sinking realisation settles in your chest.

“How many times have I said no?” you ask quietly.

Wanda doesn’t respond.

Your throat tightens. “How many times have I rejected you?”

Still nothing.

“Wanda.”

Her voice is barely audible when she finally speaks.

“Enough.”

The word echoes in your mind, heavy and suffocating.

You take another step back, shaking your head. “That’s not okay. That’s—that’s not okay.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you still doing it?”

Because she can.

Because there are no consequences.

Because the day will reset, and none of this will matter—except to her.

Wanda looks at you like she’s memorising every detail, every reaction. Like this moment is just another variation to catalogue.

And maybe it is.

“Because I love you,” she says.

It’s not dramatic. Not loud. Just quiet, certain, immovable.

And somehow, that makes it worse.

“You don’t get to do this,” you whisper.

Her expression softens, something almost pleading slipping through. “I don’t have a choice.”

“You always have a choice.”

“Not if I want to keep you.”

The words send a sharp, icy fear down your spine.

“Keep me?” you repeat.

The air feels thinner now. Harder to breathe.

Wanda steps closer again, slow and deliberate, like approaching a frightened animal. “You don’t understand. Every time the loop resets, I lose you. Every version of you. Every—everything we build, it just disappears. I’m the only one who remembers it ever existed.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to control it,” you snap.

“I’m not controlling you.”

“You literally are!”

Her eyes flash, something dangerous flickering beneath the surface. “I’m giving us a chance.”

“At the cost of my choice?”

“You still have a choice.”

“Do I?” you challenge. “If I say no, you just reset the day until I say yes. That’s not a choice, Wanda. That’s—”

You stop, the word catching in your throat.

Manipulation.

Control.

Something darker.

Wanda’s gaze doesn’t waver.

“You’ll understand,” she says quietly.

“No,” you reply, your voice firm despite the fear curling in your chest. “I won’t.”

A beat of silence.

And then—

“Okay.”

The word is soft. Almost gentle.

Too gentle.

Something in your gut twists.

“Okay?” you repeat.

She nods slowly, her expression unreadable now. Calm. Resolved.

“We’ll try a different approach.”

Your stomach drops.

“What does that mean?”

Wanda smiles.

And there’s something about it—something just slightly off—that makes your blood run cold.

“It means,” she says, her voice smooth and certain, “this version didn’t work.”

The world flickers.

Just for a second.

But it’s enough.

Your breath catches, panic surging as the edges of reality seem to blur, like a glitch in something that’s not as stable as it should be.

“Wait—Wanda—”

But she’s already stepping back, her gaze still locked onto yours.

Memorising.

Evaluating.

Deciding.

“I’ll see you again,” she says softly.

And then—

everything resets.

—

You wake up.

Same bed. Same light. Same day.

No memory of what came before.

But across the room, standing in the doorway like she’s always been there—

Wanda watches you open your eyes.

This time, she doesn’t smile.

This time, she looks… certain.

Like she’s finally figured something out.

“Good morning,” she says gently.

And something deep inside you—something you don’t remember earning—fills with a quiet, unexplainable dread.

Because somehow—

you feel like this is the loop where she gets it right.

—

You don’t know why you trust her so quickly this time.

That’s the first thing that feels wrong.

It settles into you without resistance, like it’s always been there, like she’s always been someone you can lean on. There’s no hesitation when she explains the loop, no disbelief, no frantic questioning. Just a strange, calm acceptance that sinks into your bones like it was placed there deliberately.

Wanda notices.

Of course she does.

You can see it in the way her shoulders relax, in the way her voice softens when she speaks to you, like she’s handling something fragile but precious. Like she’s finally holding something she’s been reaching for.

“Doesn’t it scare you?” she asks at one point, her eyes searching yours carefully.

You pause, considering it.

“It should,” you admit slowly. “But… it doesn’t feel new.”

Her breath catches.

Just slightly.

And you don’t know why, but that tiny reaction sends something uneasy curling in your chest.

“What do you mean?” she asks.

You frown, trying to put it into words. “It’s like… I’ve already been through the panic part. Like I already know how this goes.”

Wanda’s gaze softens, something almost relieved flickering through it. “Maybe you do. In a way.”

You nod, accepting that answer far too easily.

That’s the second thing that’s wrong.

Because somewhere, deep down, something is screaming at you that you shouldn’t be this okay with it.

That something has been… adjusted.

You just don’t know what yet.

And Wanda—

Wanda knows exactly what she changed.

She watches you closely, tracking every reaction, every word, every subtle shift in your expression. Not with the anxious trial-and-error of before, but with quiet, careful precision. Like she’s already narrowed it down. Like she’s refining something instead of searching for it.

“Do you trust me?” she asks later, her voice softer than you’ve ever heard it.

The question lingers in the air, heavier than it should be.

And without thinking—

“Yes,” you say.

Wanda exhales, something deep and long-held loosening in her chest.

And that’s when it clicks.

Not fully. Not clearly. But enough.

A flicker of something чуж breaks through the calm in your mind, sharp and dissonant.

Too easy.

That was too easy.

Your brow furrows slightly, confusion threading through the haze. “Wait—”

Wanda’s expression shifts instantly.

Just a fraction.

But you see it.

The calculation.

The readiness.

“What is it?” she asks gently, stepping closer.

“I just—” You hesitate, the feeling slipping through your fingers like sand. “That didn’t feel like… me.”

Her gaze sharpens.

Dangerously subtle.

“What didn’t?” she presses.

“Trusting you,” you say, the words slow, uncertain. “I mean—I do, but… I don’t know why.”

Silence.

Wanda studies you, her mind moving faster than you can track.

Adjusting.

Recalculating.

Because this wasn’t supposed to happen.

Not this soon.

Not in this version.

“You’ve trusted me before,” she says carefully. “Maybe that feeling just… stayed with you.”

Maybe.

It’s a reasonable explanation.

Too reasonable.

You nod slowly, but the unease doesn’t go away this time. It lingers, faint but persistent, like a crack forming beneath the surface.

And Wanda sees it.

She always sees it.

Which means she also knows—

this loop isn’t perfect.

Not yet.

But it’s closer.

Closer than any of the others.

And she’s not going to lose it now.

Not when you’re finally looking at her the way she’s always wanted.

Not when you’re this close to staying.

So when you hesitate—

when that flicker of doubt threatens to grow—

Wanda makes a decision.

A small one.

A precise one.

Barely noticeable.

She reaches out, her fingers brushing against yours—

and the world shifts, just slightly.

Just enough.

Your thoughts settle instantly, the unease dissolving like it was never there. The tension in your chest eases, replaced with something warm. Familiar. Safe.

Wanda watches it happen in real time.

Watches you relax.

Watches you smile, soft and unguarded, like nothing was ever wrong.

And this time—

this time, you don’t question it.

You just look at her like she’s the only constant in a world that refuses to stay still.

Like she’s the only thing that makes sense.

And Wanda—

Wanda finally smiles back, something victorious and quietly possessive settling behind it as she realises—

she’s getting closer.

So, so close.

And if she has to bend reality just a little more to keep you there—

well.

You won’t remember it anyway.

The day will reset.

And she’ll try again.

And again.

And again until there’s no version of you left that could ever think to leave her. and the terrifying part is, you don’t feel trapped.

Not at first.

It’s subtle, the way it settles into you. The comfort. The ease. The way Wanda’s presence starts to feel like the only stable thing in a world that quietly resets itself over and over again. You stop questioning the repetition. Stop resisting the strange, hazy gaps in your memory. Because every time something feels like it might be wrong—like a thought just slightly out of place—she’s there.

Grounding you.

Soft voice, steady hands, eyes that hold yours just long enough to pull you back under.

“You’re okay,” she murmurs one afternoon, her thumb brushing slow, deliberate circles against your wrist. “It’s just the loop. It can make things feel… disjointed.”

You nod, even though the word doesn’t quite fit.

Disjointed implies something broken.

But this doesn’t feel broken.

It feels… guided.

That’s what it is. That’s what she’s made it.

Your days begin to blur together in a different way now—not as a chaotic spiral of confusion, but as something smoother. Curated. There are no sharp edges anymore, no moments of panic that spike too high, no lingering dread that stays long enough to take root.

Wanda doesn’t let it.

And the more time you spend with her, the more natural it becomes to follow her lead. To let her decide where you go, what you do, how the day unfolds. Because every time you don’t—every time you drift even slightly off the path she’s nudging you down—something feels off.

Not wrong.

Just… less right.

Like you’ve missed a step in something you were supposed to know by heart.

It’s easier not to fight it.

Easier to stay close to her.

Easier to let her guide you back.

—

“You’re happier like this.”

The words slip out of Wanda one evening, quiet but certain, like she’s been holding onto them for a long time.

You glance at her, a small smile already forming before you can think about it. “Like what?”

“Like this,” she repeats, her gaze soft as it traces your face. “With me.”

There’s no pressure in the statement. No demand.

Just… truth.

And that’s what makes it so easy to accept.

“I am,” you admit.

Because you are.

That’s the part that should scare you.

But it doesn’t.

Wanda’s smile deepens slightly, something satisfied flickering behind it. Not smug—never that. Just… relieved. Like she’s finally seeing something fall into place.

“I knew you would be,” she says.

Of course she did.

She always does.

—

The cracks don’t disappear.

They just… change.

Instead of loud, jarring breaks in your awareness, they become quieter things. Fleeting inconsistencies. Moments that almost slip by unnoticed if you’re not paying close enough attention.

A phrase Wanda repeats exactly the same way, down to the smallest inflection, hours apart.

A stranger who reacts to you like they’ve met you before—before quickly correcting themselves.

A song that restarts halfway through, like reality itself lost its place.

Each time, your mind brushes against it—just for a second.

Each time, Wanda is there before the thought can fully form.

“Focus on me,” she says gently, drawing your attention back, anchoring you before the unease can spread.

And you do.

You always do.

Because focusing on her feels… right.

Because every time you don’t the world feels like it might slip out from under you.

—

“You trust me, don’t you?”

It’s not the first time she’s asked.

But it feels different this time.

Heavier.

More important.

You look at her, really look this time, and for a split second—just a split second—you see something beneath the surface. Something tightly controlled. Something waiting.

Waiting for your answer.

“Yes,” you say.

And it’s true.

But this time you know it didn’t start that way.

The thought hits you like a glitch in your own mind, sharp and sudden.

It didn’t start like this.

Your breath catches.

Wanda notices instantly.

Her entire body stills, eyes locking onto yours with laser focus. “What is it?”

You shake your head slightly, the feeling already slipping, already fading. “Nothing, I just—”

No.

Not nothing.

Something is wrong.

Not with the world.

With you.

“I didn’t used to trust you,” you say slowly, the words dragging themselves into existence through resistance you don’t understand. “Did I?”

Silence.

And that silence is deafening.

Wanda doesn’t answer.

Which is an answer.

Your chest tightens. “Wanda.”

Her jaw clenches, just for a second.

Then she steps closer, her voice softer now, carefully measured. “It doesn’t matter how it started.”

“It does to me.”

“You trust me now,” she counters, like that’s the only point that should exist.

“That’s not the same thing.”

Her expression shifts, something sharper breaking through the calm. “Why does it have to be?”

Because it’s not real.

The thought slams into you, sudden and overwhelming.

Because she made it this way.

Your head spins, fragments pushing to the surface—feelings that don’t belong to this version of you. Fear. Resistance. Anger.

Rejection.

You stagger back slightly, your breathing uneven. “You changed something.”

Wanda’s eyes darken.

“Be careful,” she says quietly.

The warning sends a cold spike down your spine.

“You did,” you press, the words coming faster now, stronger, like something inside you is finally breaking through whatever she’s done. “That’s why it feels so easy now. That’s why I’m not questioning anything—you made me like this.”

“I didn’t make you anything,” she snaps, and there’s something raw in it now, something dangerously close to unraveling. “I just… helped you see what was already there.”

“No,” you shake your head, your heart pounding. “No, that’s not—this isn’t real.”

Her composure cracks.

Just a little.

But it’s enough.

“Define real,” Wanda shoots back, her voice tightening. “Because from where I’m standing, this is the most real thing either of us has.”

“You’re controlling it!”

“I’m stabilising it!”

“You’re manipulating me!”

“I’m saving us!”

The words echo between you, sharp and desperate.

Silence follows.

Heavy.

Suffocating.

Your chest rises and falls too quickly, your thoughts spiraling as the pieces start to click together in ways you can’t ignore anymore.

Every reset.

Every change.

Every version of you that ever said no.

“They’re all gone, aren’t they?” you whisper.

Wanda freezes.

“All the versions of me that didn’t want this,” you continue, your voice quieter now, but steadier. “You just… erased them.”

“I didn’t erase them,” she says quickly, but there’s a crack in her voice now. “They reset. That’s how the loop works.”

“But you chose not to keep them.”

Her silence confirms it.

Something in your chest breaks.

“I don’t even know if anything I’m feeling is mine anymore,” you admit, your voice barely above a whisper.

Wanda’s expression falters, something almost pained flashing across it. “It is.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’ve seen every version of you,” she says, stepping closer again, slower this time. Careful. “I’ve seen the ones that hate me. The ones that fear me. The ones that walk away without looking back.” Her voice tightens, emotion bleeding through despite her control. “And I’ve seen the ones that love me.”

Your breath catches.

“And this?” you ask, your voice trembling. “Which one is this?”

Wanda reaches out, her fingers hovering just inches from your face.

“This,” she says softly, “is the one that stays.”

The words settle over you like a weight.

Heavy.

Final.

And for a moment you almost believe her.

Because it would be so easy.

So easy to let go of the doubt, to sink back into the warmth she’s built around you, to let her be the constant that holds everything together.

You can feel it pulling at you.

Inviting you.

All you have to do is stop questioning.

All you have to do is let her.

But then—

a flicker.

A memory that isn’t yours.

Or maybe it is.

A version of you, standing exactly where you are now, looking at Wanda with the same fear, the same realisation—

saying no.

Your breath sharpens.

“No,” you whisper.

Wanda’s hand freezes mid-air.

“I don’t want this,” you say, louder now, the clarity cutting through everything she’s tried to smooth over. “Not like this.”

Something shatters behind Wanda’s eyes. Not surprise. Not even anger. Something worse.

Understanding.

Because she’s seen this before. Heard these words before.

Watched this version of you slip through her fingers —

again.

The air shifts.

You feel it instantly.

That subtle, unnatural distortion, like reality itself holding its breath.

“No,” Wanda says quietly.

The word is firm this time.

Unyielding.

“We’re not doing this again.”

Your stomach drops. “Wanda—”

“I got it right,” she insists, her voice tightening, something desperate creeping in. “This time, I got it right. You were happy.”

“I wasn’t free.”

“I can fix that.”

“You can’t fix this!”

Her composure cracks completely.

“I CAN!” she shouts, and the world jerks violently around you, like something just snapped under the strain.

Silence slams down after it.

Wanda’s breathing is uneven now, her control slipping in a way you’ve never seen before.

“I can make it better,” she says again, softer this time. Pleading. “I can adjust it. Just a little. You won’t even notice.”

That’s the problem.

You won’t.

And that terrifies you more than anything else.

“Or,” she continues, her voice dropping to something quieter, more dangerous, “I can reset.”

Your blood runs cold.

“Wanda—don’t—”

“It’ll be easier next time,” she says, like she’s convincing herself as much as you. “I’ll start earlier. Change less. Keep more of you intact—”

“No!” you step forward, grabbing her wrist before she can pull away. “Stop. Just—stop.”

The contact sends something sharp through both of you.

Wanda goes still.

Completely still.

Her eyes flicker down to where you’re holding her, something unreadable flashing across her face.

“You’ve never done that before,” she whispers.

Your grip tightens slightly. “Done what?”

“Stopped me.”

The weight of that settles in your chest.

Because she’s right.

Every other version of you every other loop you never got this far. You never pushed back like this. Which means this moment is new. Wanda feels it too.

You can see it in the way her expression shifts, something uncertain breaking through the desperation for the first time.

A variable she didn’t account for. A version of you she hasn’t seen yet.

And for the first time Wanda doesn’t know what happens next. The loop trembles around you, unstable, like it’s waiting for her decision.

Reset. Or don’t. Her entire world hangs on that choice. And so does yours.

Her gaze lifts back to yours, searching, conflicted, something raw and unguarded bleeding through all the control she’s been holding onto for so long.

“If I don’t reset,” she says quietly, “this is it.”

No more adjustments. No more retries. No more different versions of you. Just this one. This choice. Your heart pounds, but you don’t let go of her.

“Then let it be it,” you say.

Wanda’s breath catches.

And for the first time since you met her - since any version of you has ever met her - she hesitates.

Not calculating.

Not adjusting.

Just… feeling it.

The risk.

The uncertainty.

The possibility that this might not end the way she wants it to.

Her fingers twitch slightly in your grip.

The world flickers.

Once.

Twice.

On the edge of collapse.

And Wanda—

Wanda closes her eyes.

✧❁❁❁✧✿✿✿✧❁❁❁✧

Masterlist