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Nastya would like to say that she'd been better, happier, alive before this, but that would be a terrific lie. She had always been sad, always stressed and depressed and sick, and her only hope had always been an escape. She had gotten that escape and it had changed absolutely nothing.
Physically she had changed but she was still the same Nastya, annoying, sad, dejected, with a dead stare and an unreasonable unwillingness to be happy. Nastya was unreasonable, but that was her and she'd accepted that in the hundreds of years she'd been alive and not really at the same time. Nastya had lived a long, terrible life of murder and cruelty, and yet, she was as dead inside as she had been when she was an angry teenager.
Sometimes she felt like it was mockery of anyone truly hurt by the lifestyle of assassination they'd all been thrust into, because she wasn't terribly hurt, or maybe she was, she was no psychologist. But she didn't feel like she was. She just felt nothing.
That was all before she met Piper.
Piper was cute. She was young, in college, a dork and a mess, and Piper was cute. She was pretty too in that way regular people are pretty and not in the outrageous celebrity way.
Nastya was celebrity pretty and she kind of hated that, because she hadn't been.
She met Piper on a train as the younger girl dropped her open backpack with a loud squeak and scrambled around to collect her stuff. Nastya noticed a unicorn themed pencil case and a Captain America notebook.
Nerd, Nastya thought to herself, and crouched down to help the poor girl.
Said poor girl stared at her in awe for a second and Nastya could count the freckles scattered on her face.
"Thank you so much, " the girl stuttered, clenching her backpack in her dainty fingers with short nails painted black.
"You're okay, sugar, " Nastya smiled, tucking her escaping blonde strand behind her own ear. The movement was closely followed by wide brown eyes and then a blush spread across freckled cheeks.
"Maybe this is strange, but could I possibly get you coffee, for saving me while looking so badass, " the girl braved, looking horribly determined, and then deflated at Nastya's bewildered expression. "I'm Piper, by the way, and you? If you don't mind?"
"Anastasia, " she answered, saying it the way Americans do, instead of the way she was used to. "I'd love a latte right now. "
"Cool, " Piper said, all blushy and wide-eyed, and Nastya laughed, feeling like cupping her chin and leaning on a school table like she did as a kid. "Are you free now? After you get off the train? Where do you get off the train?"
"The next stop, " Nastya lied easily, and Piper beamed at her.
"Me too, dude, that's so cool. Do you live around here?"
Nastya shook her head with a benevolent smile and Piper pouted. For a century-old assassin, Anastasiya Morozova was a bit too soft for cute nerdy college girls. But who could blame her, she was on the run, she could be as rebellious as she wanted to.
"I have a friend who lives around here, " she conceded, technically telling the truth, but not quite.
When off the train, Nastya let the stranger lead her without a trace of doubt, and she didn't know if it was out of stupidity or sheer lack of care for her own safety. Piper, though, was harmless. She bought Nastya a latte and a cappuccino for herself and complained about how they were the same and just had fancy names. Nastya laughed at that, thinking of how many people would be outraged by that, and nudged the younger girl with her elbow.
"Do you buy fancy coffees for strange train girls very often, Piper?"
"I, in fact, do not, Anastasia, " Piper said very formally, as they sat on a park bench, looking drastically different. Nastya was wearing a dull gray suit with her bright blonde hair in a messy updo, while Piper was stylishly disheveled with her curly brown hair and bare minimum makeup, in her pink t-shirt and jean overalls. "Only for kindly, beautiful ladies who smile like you do. "
"Like I do?"
"Like you do. "
"You flirt, " Nastya chided, narrowing her eyes playfully, before the ever-present anxiety of being found reared its head again and her heart clenched in fear of losing this feeling she'd acquired just now. "I should probably go home. I have work tomorrow. "
"Oh, of course, sure, of course, you're an adult, " Piper rambled, looking so put out by the prospect that Nastya laughed again.
"Piper, are you not?" she questioned giddily, knowing for sure that Piper was, in fact, an adult.
"I'm not what?"
"An adult. "
"Of course I am, I'm 21, " she said with a hint of pride and a lot of defensiveness.
"Ooh, you grandma, I thought I'd ask for your number, but you're far too old for me. "
"Stop that, " Piper whined, and Nastya felt a bit like Cinderella. 'So this is love' played in her head, as she unlocked her phone and gave it to the other girl. She got a number back with the name Piper Parker on it and she called that number just to be sure. Piper's face lit up for an unfathomable reason.
"Anastasia Frost, " Anastasiya Morozova said, feeling stupid for translating her own name, but Piper hummed in a weird way. "You can call me Annie, if Anastasia is much. "
"You're more of a sunny summer princess than a Frost, " Piper said, looking like she regretted it after a second. Nastya gave her a wistful smile.
"You think so?" she said, and Piper nodded.
"Yeah, your smile, so full of life, it's a bit unreal."
Strange. Nastya did feel full of life. Oh. This wasn't love... But maybe it could be.