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Wanda's never liked the smell of a new car. The mix between leather and faint gasoline always gives her a weird feeling.
So when she takes a deep breath in, and the smell of Natasha’s lavender perfume fills her senses, a wave of comfort rushes over her entire body. The brunette’s eyes locked in on the car in front of hers. Wanda wonders how many hours it’s been since the trip started, calculating how much time there was left until she’d be meeting one of the most important people in Natasha’s life.
“What if she doesn’t like me?” Wanda’s voice is hoarse, the nerves getting the best of her. Her eyes slightly widen at the sound and she quickly reaches to her left for the pink water bottle occupying one of the cup holders on the center console, right next to Natasha’s dark gray one.
Natasha’s eyes don’t leave the road, but there’s a slight smirk on her lips, “Who?”.
“What do you mean who? Who else are we meeting? Oh my god, are your parents also going to be there?” Wanda’s mind starts racing at the thought of meeting her fiancée’s parents. Non biological as they are, they’re still important to Nat.
Natasha chuckles at the younger woman’s increasingly panicked voice, but is fast to clear any doubts. “Wands, chill. It’s just going to be Lena, I don’t think Melina and Alexei will be around, don’t worry about that,” her gaze shifts from the road to the passenger side, sending Wanda a warm smile, “plus, I’ll be right there with you”.
Wanda huffs at Natasha’s slightly teasing tone, but the sincerity in the last words warms her heart.
The brunette knows Yelena’s story from what Nat has told her. She knows about her time in the Red Room, their rekindling before Thanos, and the fact that Yelena, just like Wamda, had been blipped, and by consequence, forced to miss five years of her life. Five years Natasha spent working day and night to bring them back, to bring everyone back.
Natasha reaches over the console and softly places her hand on top of Wanda’s leg, giving her a reassuring squeeze and a loving smile. Wanda’s eyes are still locked on the road in front of them but her shoulders relax at the feeling. The next couple of minutes are spent in a comfortable silence, the soft music coming from the radio being the only sound filling the car.
“Why am I even doing this?” Wanda softly mumbles to herself.
Natasha’s eyes once again snap from the road to look at the brunette, “Hey! We are going to Ohio for my birthday, and you’re meeting Lena because she’s cool and I know she’ll love you just as much as I do.” The redhead’s words hold nothing but love for both girls, but there’s an ever present smirk on her lips, “Okay maybe not as much, because I’d have to fight her if she did,” Wanda’s lips twitch at the playful tone and she lets out a small laugh as she rolls her eyes, “ buuut , I told her a lot about you, and she knows how much you mean to me, she’ll be on her best behavior, I made sure of it”.
The thought of Natasha telling her sister about her makes Wanda feel giddy. She doesn’t think she’s ever loved anyone the way she loves Nat, and she’s sure she’d never been loved that way either before she met Natasha. For a moment she wonders what Pietro’s reaction would’ve been to her and Natasha becoming girlfriends. The older Maximoff twin had always been very protective of her, and with time so grew Natasha. She thinks they would’ve liked each other, as annoying as Pietro could be at times, he was an undeniably charming guy, and she’s sure Nat would’ve found it amusing.
The sun has already started setting and the sky is a mix of colors, the clouds seem to part just for them as the redhead’s car approaches a dirt lookout on the side of the road, and Wanda can’t seem to take her eyes off of it.
As if Natasha was able to read her mind, the car slowly gets off the road and onto the viewpoint. The view of the seemingly never ending trees beneath the orange sky grasps Wanda’s attention as her mind starts to wander.
“What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?” Natasha’s soft voice has never failed to make Wanda’s insides feel fuzzy and warm, there’s so much love in everything Nat does. Wanda wonders if the rest of the world is too focused on the Black Widow persona to see this side of her.
“Just thinking”, the brunette’s voice is just as quiet, as if speaking up would burst the bubble they’ve immersed themselves in.
Natasha smiles at the girl’s vagueness, “About?”.
“You”, sometimes Wanda’s convinced that’s all she’s able to think about.
A comfortable silence falls upon them and Wanda can’t help but think about how the sunlight always seems to hit Natasha just right. How it always accentuates the slight curve of her cheeks and the green in her eyes. Her mind circles back to her earlier thoughts and she thinks that even if she combined every nice word she knows in English and Sokovian, she wouldn’t be able to explain the love she feels for Natasha. So she looks at her instead, hoping her eyes are expressive enough to let the redhead feel everything she can’t say to her.
Natasha’s voice matches the soft look in her eyes, she knows, “I love you”.
“I love you so, so much”, Wanda’s voice betrays her as it breaks.
Natasha, once again, reaches over the console to wipe the tears away from Wanda’s cheeks, who closes her eyes at the feeling, “I’m here,” her voice barely above a whisper, “I’ve got you, I’m right here”. Her left hand lowering to hold the brunette’s warm one as she rests their foreheads together.
The way the world seems to stop spinning just for them makes Wanda wonder if this is the feeling that the movies she’s seen have tried to replicate. Her fingers curl around the wedding band on the redhead’s ring finger, she twists it and pulls.
Wanda can almost feel Nat’s soft breaths on her slightly parted lips, her eyes shut tight.
“You, Wanda Maximoff, are the love of my-“
Wanda’s eyes snap open at the sound of her phone vibrating. She takes a moment to recompose herself before she’s reaching to her right and grabbing her phone from the remaining cup holder in the center console, next to her water bottle. She lifts it slightly, only to see Clint’s name in the caller ID. She closes her eyes and slumps down on her seat, the phone still vibrating in her hand, and she lets out a deep sigh before silencing it. The ring between her fingers feels cold, she quickly looks down at the familiar silver band and puts it back on.
Her eyes drift to the empty passenger side as she lifts her hands to grip at the steering wheel and she finally allows her tears to flow freely down her face. She lets her head fall on it, she thinks her forehead stings from the impact but the pain in her heart screams for her attention so loud she can’t hear anything else. No matter how much she tries to go back to Natasha, she can’t.
Her phone dings and she knows Clint must’ve sent her a text. The message is long, and when Natasha’s name catches her eye, she quickly deletes the notification, a reminder to meet Yelena quickly replacing it.
With a final deep breath Wanda opens the door, she’s greeted by the familiar smell of grass and a cold breeze that makes her adjust her coat. Her feet walk mindlessly through the path she’s gotten acquainted with, for a second she wonders if she’s even going in the right direction, but the sight of a cherry blossom tree confirms she is. A few feet in front of it stands a blonde with a long black coat, facing away from her.
Wanda stops walking when she sees the gravestone, the all too familiar feeling of grief surrounding her, pulling at her heart, and making her sick to her stomach. At the bottom of it sit the words “daughter, sister, avenger”, she doesn’t need to get closer to recognize them, the image haunts her every thought, and engraved at the top, right above an hourglass symbol, in black slim letters sits Natasha Romanoff’s name.