Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Everything happens so fast.

Wanda can’t even remember what they are doing before they hear gunshots fired and run, thinking Hydra has finally caught up to them, only to find themselves in the middle of a fight. And then Pietro takes a hit because Wanda fails to protect him. She must have screamed because, out of nowhere, a man holding a bow with a quiver full of arrows shows up, kneeling beside them.

“I can help.”

Wanda shouldn’t trust him. She shouldn’t— doesn’t trust anyone besides Pietro, but Pietro is lying on the ground, bleeding profusely and breathing raggedly, and Wanda doesn’t know what to do. All she can think about is that she is losing the only family she has left. And she can’t go through that, not again. She won’t survive.

So she accepts the offer.

She boards a jet with her brother, the man who nearly killed him, and the woman he had been trying to kill, but ends up saving for some reason. It looks like he doesn’t understand his assignment very well, but she doesn’t care. She doesn’t care about anything but her brother’s safety.

She needs him to be okay.

“I’m sorry,” the man—Clint, he introduces himself after he offers to help, keeps whispering, looking sorrowfully at Pietro’s prone form.

They got caught in the crossfire between him and the woman, and her powers weren’t enough to protect them. She tries so hard to hate Clint and blame him for their current predicament, but the truth is that she has no one to blame but herself. Every single fucked up thing they have gone through has been her fault.

“He is all I have,” Wanda murmurs, fingers interlaced firmly against his to make sure he is still there, still warm, still breathing. “I cannot lose him.”

“You won’t,” Clint promises, but Wanda has been on the receiving end of too many empty promises to believe him.

//

They arrive somewhere Wanda doesn’t recognize after several, agonizingly long hours.

She looks around, trying to get her bearings, but it looks like they are in the middle of nowhere, and she can feel the air starting to close in on her. She thought they would be getting help, not end up in the wilderness, and be left to die. She looks at Pietro, getting paler by the minute, and her guilt starts to coil up inside her chest to try and choke her.

It’s all her fault.

After all, it was her idea to stay under the debris after the explosion until they were found by the authorities and sent off to a ramshackle orphanage. It was her idea to flee and join the radicalized groups that shouted words of freedom, and he followed her not-so-righteous anger. It was her idea to sign up for Hydra’s experimentation program, where everything has scaled so out of her control, faster than she could properly process it and turned them into… whatever they are now.

And throughout all that, Pietro has been right by her side, keeping her close and safe. But she has failed to do the same for him.

“Prosti menya, pozhaluysta,” she sobs, tears running unimpeded down her face. “It was all my fault.”

Strong hands clamp around her shoulders, startling her, causing the red wisps of energy bubbling under her skin to burst out in warning, and Clint curses under his breath.

“Sorry,” he quickly retrieves his hands, holding them up in surrender. “But we need to get him inside, so my wife can help me stitch him up.”

His… wife? So they are not alone? They have help?

Outside, Wanda can make out over the open doors, there is a house with its porch lights on, and a woman making her way toward them.

Help.

It looks like they aren’t going to die just yet. She hasn’t failed Pietro. They are going to be okay.

//

“Hey.”

Wanda startles when a voice speaks from behind her, but thankfully no energy comes bursting out of her. She has been sitting by Pietro’s bedside, losing track of time, forgoing food, showering, and focusing instead on the steady way his stitched-up chest rises and falls.

Breathing.

Alive.

“Wanda, right?” The voice is soft, and Wanda knows it belongs to Clint’s wife. “My name is—”

“Laura,” Wanda supplies. “I remember.”

When her face comes into view, Laura is smiling gently at her. It reminds Wanda of her mom, how she would always keep a smile on her face even as war raged outside their dingy apartment. Wanda’s heart aches at the reminder, so she shifts her focus back to her brother.

“Clint is downstairs, making dinner,” Laura continues, seemingly unbothered by her lack of a response. “I brought you some change of clothes in case you wanted to shower before eating.”

She wants to, knows she should; they haven’t showered since leaving Hydra, and her clothes are torn and dirty, a nasty mixture of soot and blood ruining them beyond repair. But she can’t bring herself to leave Pietro’s side.

“I’ll stay with him,” Laura promises as if she is the one who can read minds. “Bathroom is down the hall, on your right.”

Wanda hesitates for a moment longer before getting up, nodding. She knows Pietro would want her to take care of herself.

“Thank you,” she croaks out, taking the offered clothes and towel before heading to the bathroom.

She can’t remember the last time she has properly showered, let alone with hot water, so Wanda takes a moment to just stay under the stream and let everything out.

For the first time since the explosion, she is able to stop and just catch up on all that has happened — and not in a good way. It hits a little too close to home, memories of her parents disappearing right before her eyes mixing with her brother getting thrown against the debris despite her best efforts to stop it with her magic.

She was so angry, the first time. She was angry at Stark’s industries for developing the mortar shell that took everything away from her; she was angry at the government, for waging a pointless war, uncaring about any of its collateral damage; she was angry at herself, for not being able to do anything to stop it.

And her anger has almost killed her brother. The only family she has left.

Her fear was overwhelming, then. It’s even worse now. She can’t fathom losing Pietro. It will leave her as nothing but a hollow shell of a person, and whatever gets left will just be poisoned by grief, driving her mad. She can’t do it. She won’t survive. She won’t want to—

“Wanda?”

When Wanda opens her eyes again, she is shivering under the now cold water, red wisps of energy enveloping her body and casting an eerie glow on the bathroom. Shit. She didn’t mean to do that.

“Wanda?” they call again, and this time she recognizes Clint’s voice. “Dinner is ready.”

“I’m—” she coughs, her rough voice echoing against the bathroom tiles. “I am almost done. Sorry.”

“It’s okay, take your time.” Clint’s voice isn’t judging, and she can hear his shuffling strides walking away.

Taking a deep breath, Wanda gets up and quickly washes herself, not bothered by the almost freezing water. She has lived with worse. And given that she now has clean, running water, clothes that almost fit her, and food waiting for her, she knows that everything is okay, they are okay.

By the time she walks downstairs, quickly checking in with Pietro (breathing, alive, just sleeping) before she does, she feels more or less like herself.

Whatever Clint has cooked smells amazing, Wanda’s stomach reminding her of how long it has been since she has last had a proper meal. She stops dead in her tracks on her way to the table, though, once she spots Clint balancing a chubby little baby on his knees.

“You’re here.” He smiles at her, one hand wrapped safely around the child, the other one holding a spoon with orange goo on it. “Food’s on the stove, you should get it while it’s still warm.”

Wanda knows she should, but she can’t tear her eyes away from the child gurgling happily on his lap. She hasn’t seen a baby in so long; the lady who lived down the hall from them had one, and she sometimes saw families with a baby or two down at the market her mom took her to on the weekends. They always made her feel at peace; they don’t judge, don’t care who you are or where you come from, they only care about whose warm lap they will get to nap in next. 

It’s difficult for Wanda to conciliate the man she has met, stone-faced, eagle-eyed, bow and arrow in hand, trying to hunt down a woman, with the man softly cradling a child in his lap, smiling as he attempts to feed them. He looks so at peace, reminding Wanda of simpler times, and for a moment she can swear she is back in Sokovia, in their dimly lit apartment, with her father teaching them how to play chess as her mother cooks dinner.

“Oh sorry,” Clint says, looking up from the baby to where Wanda is still rooted to her spot. “This is my daughter, Lila.”

“You have a daughter?” Wanda hasn’t meant to sound so surprised, but she can’t help herself.

“And a son.” There is no mistaking the pride coloring his words. “Cooper. He’s having a sleepover with his grandparents.”

Wanda nods, finally moving over to the stove and grabbing some forkfuls of spaghetti and meatballs. The food on her plate feels stolen, but she manages to eat it and keep it down, sneaking glances at Clint and his daughter as she eats. There are so many things she wants to say, to ask, but she doesn’t even know where to begin.

“Do you and your brother have a place to go?” Clint asks when she’s just pushing some leftover sauce around, saving her from having to initiate something herself.

“Are you kicking us out?”

“No,” he laughs, gently flipping Lila over his shoulder to burp her. “But if you have someplace to go, I can give you guys a ride.”

Wanda thinks back to the remains that used to be her parents’ tiny apartment and her even tinier Hydra cell and almost laughs; they haven’t had a place to go in over a decade.

“We don’t,” she eventually says, trying to ignore the way her stomach churns unpleasantly at the thought.

She doesn’t elaborate and Clint doesn’t ask, so she says nothing about Hydra. It’s probably for the best. He might actually kick them out if he knew. But he might, probably, understand too. He has, after all, rescued all of them when he could have left them to die.

“Why…” she stops herself, but Clint looks at her, urging her to go on. “Why did you save us? And that woman?”

He seems to ponder her question before shrugging, mindful of the baby asleep in his arms. “Everybody deserves second chances. She asked for one, and so did you. So I helped.”

“We didn’t ask for anything.” Wanda frowns. “We—”

“—escaped somewhere,” he interrupts her knowingly, and Wanda wonders if maybe he’s aware, has an idea of where they come from, and why they are running away. “That’s just as good as a cry for help.”

If that is true, Wanda thinks, then it’s a good thing they have found someone who has listened to them.

//

It’s late when Pietro finally wakes up.

Wanda has no idea how late, she just knows it’s hours after dinner, pitch dark outside and the house is silent. She has been tossing and turning, unable to fully rest on the tiny mattress Laura set up for her, despite how tired she was. She hears him cough and is by his side in a second.

“Piet?” she asks, holding her breath until her brother’s drowsy eyes are staring back at her.

“Hey,” he coughs and winces, trying to move. “Ouch.”

Wanda’s unable to hold in her tears, lunging herself in Pietro’s arms, squeezing him tight, and ignoring his protest. “Shut up. You are here.”

“I might not stay for long if you keep squeezing me like a lemon.” She squeezes him one more time for good measure, then punches his arm. “Ow! Stop hitting me, I am blown up!”

She rolls her eyes at his dramatics, sniffling. “You are not blown up.” You’re alive.

She doesn’t say it, but she doesn’t need to say anything to him; she never has. She wipes her tears and helps him sit up on his bed, giving him the glass of water Laura has left on the bedside table.

“Where are we?” Pietro asks, looking around in interest. His eyes linger on the other bed at the far end of the room, where the woman Clint has also saved is asleep.

Wanda twists her thumb ring, eyes lingering over the woman as well. “America.”

There’s a beat, and Wanda knows he is trying to determine whether she’s lying or not. But he also knows she’s never been good at that.

Pietro hums, a frown scrunching up his face as he looks out the window. “Weird. I thought it would be louder.”

Wanda laughs because, of course, that’s what he chooses to focus on, not on the fact that they almost died, or that they’re in a completely foreign country with no place to stay. Pietro’s frown deepens when his stomach grumbles, and he pouts.

“I’m hungry,” he whines.

“Clint made spaghetti and meatballs,” she says, already up before Pietro can beg to have some.

She hesitates briefly before leaving because she’s sure she can see the woman on the other side of the room awake, and she wants to offer her some food too. But when she looks again, the woman is breathing steadily with her eyes closed, so she leaves.

Her brother is alive. He’s alive and is back to his normal self, which should bring Wanda some relief, and yet she can’t shake off the feeling of cold, spider-like fingers running up her spine and squeezing her neck. He’s alive, and they’re well, but what now? What are they supposed to do, where are they supposed to go?

She tries to suppress these thoughts as she finds bowls on the drying rack and decides to grab two, just in case. She heats up the leftovers in the microwave, wincing at the noise it makes, before grabbing forks and going back to the room. She puts one bowl on the bedside table next to the woman, and hands Pietro the other.

She tries to ignore the sense of impending doom seizing up in her chest as she recalls what’s happened to Pietro, only then realizing how little attention she has paid to everything. All she can recall is the feeling—the overwhelming fear of being completely alone in the world.

Pietro notices, because he always does, and places the empty bowl on his bedside before reaching for her, scooting over in bed to make space. She wastes no time, lying next to him and nestling close to the crook of his neck.

“We are going to be okay, sestryonka,” he promises her.

She doesn’t believe him but falls asleep feeling his heart beating under the palm of her hand anyway. 

//

Wanda spends the next couple of days roaming around the farm, trying to figure out their next move.

Pietro’s recovery is faster than they expected, super healing one of the perks of his super speed, apparently, but the woman—Natasha, she’s learned, is still looking worse for the wear, so they’re allowed to stay a little longer. Laura doesn’t seem to mind, seems to even enjoy their presence, teaching Wanda how to make pie and digging through their closet to give her and Pietro more clothes to wear.

Pietro enjoys the attention, the food, and showing off his powers once he fully heals, making Lila shriek in delight whenever she sees blue strikes as he passes by. Clint doesn’t seem to mind their presence either, though he spends a lot of time out in the barn, talking on the phone. Wanda wonders to whom, but is afraid to ask.

No, scratch that, she’s afraid of what his answer might be; is he talking to someone who’s going to turn them back in? Imprison them again? She’s not sure, and the worry gnaws her away.

Spending time in the room with Natasha is no better. She’s like a robot, not showcasing any emotions besides angrily shooting daggers at everyone who looks her way. It’s scary, especially because Wanda knows she must be in a tremendous amount of pain, yet her face shows no sign of it. 

From what she’s overheard from Clint and Laura’s conversations, she’s a Black Widow assassin; even though she has no idea what that means, she knows enough that people aren’t called assassins for nothing. She knows how easy it must be for her to kill and just slip away like it’s nothing, making it even more unnerving to be around her.

Wanda doesn’t know where they’re going to go from there, she just hopes it’s somewhere far away from Natasha.

//

Clint comes to them with a solution a couple of days later.

Wanda’s in the living room with Pietro, where they’re ostensibly babysitting Lila, but are actually playing Slapjack, when Clint comes downstairs followed by a limping Natasha. She’s rarely out of the room if not to go to the bathroom, so the fact she’s downstairs at random causes Wanda’s stomach to bottom out on her.

He waits until they’re all seated at the table before clearing his throat.

“I have a proposition for you,” Clint says, presenting them with a folder. “All of you.”

Wanda blanches when she sees the file in front of her, tensing up all her muscles and clenching her fists, trying with all her might to not let the magic brimming in her veins explode.

“I am not working for S.H.I.E.L.D,” Wanda cuts him off before he can go on, glaring at the logo printed on the folder. “I am not; I don’t...”

She looks at Pietro pleadingly, unable to properly articulate all the thoughts running a mile a minute in her head: they have just escaped Hydra, and getting on S.H.I.E.L.D’s payroll would feel like they are going right back, and nothing is worth that. She would rather go back to starving on the streets than give a part of herself to any agency like that ever again. 

“We are not doing that.” Pietro nods decisively; Wanda can feel both Clint and Natasha’s eyes on them, but she keeps looking straight at her brother, finding strength in his unwavering stare.

“It’s not S.H.I.E.L.D,” Clint promises, opening the folder. “Not just S.H.I.E.L.D,” he amends at Wanda’s head tilt. “It’s something else.”

Avengers Initiative , the paper reads.

Wanda, who has always been better at reading, takes a look at the offer in front of them. A response team comprised of the most remarkable individuals in humankind, to face extraordinary threats . Her father had seen enough smuggled James Bond movies for her to know what that means: superspies to save the world from unspeakable evils. They are being asked to join a team of superheroes to help protect the Earth.

Are they considered heroes? Or is this just because they have acquired powers after Hydra’s experiments on them? If they don’t agree to it, what will happen to them?

She takes a look at the members’ list, each person illustrated by an official-looking picture.

Carol Danvers — Captain Marvel

Steve Rogers  —  Captain America

Clint Barton  —  Hawkeye

Bruce Banner  —  The Hulk

Tony Stark  —  Iron Man

Wanda’s breath gets caught in her throat when she finds herself staring at the man who is responsible for destroying her life. She turns to look at Pietro’s clenched jaw, knowing he is probably feeling the same way she is. 

“You would get to live at our base, in New York,” Clint says, filling their heavy silence with his sales pitch. “We have food, housing, a training facility. And the team… we’re more than just that. We’re family.”

“You live there?” Natasha asks, speaking for the first time since they went downstairs.

“I used to,” Clint shrugs, glancing over at Laura, cooking something on the stove. “Not anymore. I go there for missions and stuff, but I keep my private life private.”

“But now we know about it,” Pietro frowns, eyes dropping to Lila sleeping peacefully in her bassinet nearby.

“And I trust you’ll be able to keep this secret.” Clint winks at them with a smirk.

He trusts them. For some reason, he trusts them to not only know about his family but to become part of his second one. To keep his secrets. But…

“If we do not accept?” she asks, wanting to feel like she has some control over her choices; she will go nowhere she will have to give that up, not again.

“Officially, we’d go looking for you,” Clint shrugs. “But someone might send the team on wild goose chases, keep them off your backs, so you can go do your thing.” He pauses, eyes turning stern for a moment. “As long as you’re not doing anything too bad or something.”

He trusts them enough to let them go and cover for them if they don’t accept his offer. It’s a staggering thought. She can sense all the fight leaving Pietro’s body, knowing he is about to agree, but she needs more time to think.

“Do you need an answer right now?” Clint shakes his head, gathering the files back into the folder.

“No, you guys should sleep on it,” he says, getting up. “Dinner’s gonna take a little more to get finished, I’ll call when it’s ready.”

Natasha all but bolts from the table, out the front door in record time, to where Wanda has no clue. Pietro tugs at her hand, nodding upstairs to where he will undoubtedly want to talk about it.

“You don’t want to go,” he says as soon as she closes the door behind them.

“And you do.” Both statements carry no judgment, and Wanda holds his stare for a moment longer before sighing. “Why?”

“We deserve the rest, no?” He gives her one of his lopsided smirks. “We will get somewhere to sleep and to eat and—”

“Under Tony Stark?” she cuts him off, crossing her arms, watching him work his jaw again. “Piet, we can’t…”

“Why not?” he challenges her. “After everything he stole from us, we deserve to freeload him.”

Wanda can’t help but laugh at his words; he has a point. They will be in a team with a man they don’t have the best track record with, but they will have somewhere to stay. Someplace safe, something they haven’t had in a long time.

Last time Wanda allowed her anger to lead them, they ended up as guinea pigs for a paramilitary terrorist organization bent on world domination and her brother had almost died trying to protect her. And she knows that, if she asks, he will do it all over again, for her.

She can’t do that to him a second time. If at first, she had been angry, right now she only feels a deep, suffocating fear as images of Pietro’s prone and bloody body jump to the forefront of her mind. They deserve some peace and quiet. She owes that safety to him.

“I don’t want to fight,” she whispers, feeling the bed dip as Pietro sits next to her.

“We will not do anything we do not want,” he promises her, as earnestly as she only knows him to be. “Our rules, remember?”

“You think it will be that easy?”

“You think I will let anyone hurt you again?” he counters, a smirk curling his lips upwards. “Come on, sestryonka. Trust me.”

She does. She trusts him with her life. She will go to the end of the world and back if he promises he has her back. And she knows he always will have.

“Okay. Let’s do it.”

Chapter Text

“You’ll break them. You are made of marble.”

“What if I fail?”

“You never fail.”

Natasha knows those words are wrong. She has known all along and, yet, she has tried — tried to be her, the ruthless assassin she was training to be, the talented spy, able to topple regimes from within then disappear without a trace, the General’s favorite. 

But ever since they gave her a family — a lie, just a fabricated ruse, but a family nonetheless — Natasha knew she could never be her, not truly.

“Your pain only makes you stronger.”

“Don’t let them take your heart.”

Those hushed whispers have burrowed into her brain much more than Madame B’s cruel taunts ever have, and Natasha knows it’s only because of them that she’s still there, still alive. No amount of psychological conditioning has been able to wipe Melina’s final plea from her heart.

She keeps those words stashed neatly away in little boxes in her mind, being Natalia when she needs to be and Natasha — the blue-haired little girl riding her bike down warm suburban streets, stomach full of peanut butter sandwiches and a heart full of love — when she wants to be.

Want. Such a dangerous thing to feel. To want, to hope, to love — all weak, useless emotions that she shouldn’t have.

Natalia doesn’t, but Natasha does.

Natasha’s wants, hopes, and loves are so loud that they threaten to suffocate Natalia sometimes. She strangles them and buries them deep beneath her marble walls, but if there’s one thing she’s learned during those three years in Ohio is that no layer of marble or iron is enough to keep those feelings away.

One day, she allows them to overcome her.

Natasha’s just as fierce as Natalia, if not more, because she uses her emotions as assets. Natalia takes over again, but they’re free now. They’re free to feel, to choose, to live, but that’s not something they are ever taught how to do in the Red Room.

In a moment of weakness, she asks for help, but this time someone listens before everything fades to black.

//

When Natasha wakes up, she doesn’t know where she is.

For a brief, delusional moment, she thinks she’s back in Ohio and that any moment now Melina is going to open her door, turn on her fairy lights, and offer her a cup of tea, stroking her forehead and humming a lullaby so she can relax and go back to sleep.

But it’s not Melina who opens the door, it’s the man that has been hunting her for the better part of the last five months. He’s holding a steaming bowl and looks surprised to see her awake.

“Hey,” he says cautiously, as if he’s afraid she is going to use the spoon he brought along to attack him. She can, but her limbs don’t seem to be working properly. “This is for you.”

She doesn’t trust it. Doesn’t trust him. He seems to pick up on that, because he shoves a spoonful in his mouth, swallowing before handing her the bowl. She begrudgingly reaches for it, but only because her stomach betrays her by rumbling loudly.

“You’re pretty hurt,” he says when she begins to eat. “You’ve been out for a while.”

“How long?” she eats small, careful bites despite how much her body wants her to dig into it.

“Three days.”

She grabs the spoon more forcefully, willing herself not to outward anything. She has already shown too much vulnerability around him, like a weak, pathetic—

“What’s your name?” he asks, and Natasha exhales slowly, trying to ignore the harsh words rattling around her brain.

“Natasha,” she says, hesitating briefly before adding, “Romanoff.”

Natasha, Natalia mocks her. She ignores her.

“I’m Clint. Barton,” Natasha nods, making a mental note to look him up before turning her attention back to her food.

“You’re in my house,” he informs her, saving her from the mortifying ordeal of having to ask. She’s surprised by his answer. “My wife, Laura, she’s been helping me take care of you. There’s a fresh pair of towels, and clothes, on the bedside table,” Natasha eyes the items, deep navy blue towels, and a mismatched pair of sweatshirts and pants.

Barton takes the now empty bowl from her, turning on his heel towards the door. He is almost out when Natasha speaks up.

“Thank you,” she says, causing him to shoot her a lopsided smirk.

“You’re welcome.”

//

Natasha later finds out she is not the only one who Barton has rescued.

She vaguely recalls a scream that wasn’t her own before she fainted, and whispering voices when she woke up in the middle of the night, still a little feverish and out of it. But she is still having a hard time processing everything, and then the bedroom door opens with a bang and Natasha finds herself reaching for the nearest item — a water bottle — to haul at the intruders.

It never makes it to the target because one of them has red, glowing magic shooting out of their hands and stops the bottle before it hits them. She looks up to see it’s the girl, and the boy is just staring at her, wide-eyed.

Her stomach churns unpleasantly upon meeting them — siblings. Family. It makes her think about forest stars, and being upside down, and guilt has her clenching her bruised hands until the pain grounds her.

They remind her of her failures. She hates it.

Against her better judgment, Natasha finds herself surreptitiously watching the siblings; paying close attention to the way they always circle each other, always on the lookout, protecting one another. There’s no clear cut about where one of them ends and the other starts, they’re always together.

They are a unit, they stand their ground and make demands together, backing one another’s decisions without hesitation.

They feel like they have a choice, and they probably do.

Natasha knows very well that she doesn’t. Barton’s offer may have been presented as such, but she knows better. She hasn’t had a choice since she was four years old.

S.H.I.E.L.D. or the KGB, it all feels the same for her. For Natalia, at least. Natasha sees it differently — she knows that a place that doesn’t rely on psychological conditioning has to be better than what she is used to.

The Avengers. None of it matters because she doesn’t have anywhere else to go.

Barton offers them an out, but Natasha knows she is not going to take it, no matter what Wanda and Pietro decide. Not that she thinks it’s an actual, valid offer for her, but because she knows S.H.I.E.L.D. will give her better agency to find who she is looking for.

So she accepts his offer, not for herself, but for Yelena.

It’s always for Yelena.

//

Barton brings them to New York and Natasha hates it.

She hates how loud the city is, all bright lights and tall buildings. She hates that she’s overwhelmed by all the sounds, people, and smells. She especially hates how the people aren’t aware that they have everything in the palm of their hands, a million chances that they never take.

The lavishness of the Avengers Tower makes her think of Yelena, of all the things she now has access to but can’t offer to her like she’s always promised, making her stomach sinks with guilt, and she hates it.

She hates that she allows herself to get caught in a moment of vulnerability. Hates that she chose life over death like a coward, so afraid of dying she takes the easy way out. Barton saves her instead of killing her, and she hates it.

She doesn’t deserve to be alive.

She doesn’t deserve to be here, alive, free, when she doesn’t even know where her little sister is. When she has failed to protect her, then runs away like a coward, leaving her behind.

She’s a failure, and she hates herself for it, hates how everything reminds her of that.

She hates it.

//

Upon arrival, they meet all the Avengers but one — apparently the only woman they have on their team is currently busy with many threats galaxies away.

Natasha stores that information away, gathering intel on her new teammates a second nature she can’t seem to shake off. Not that they’re very good at keeping things to themselves anyway.

Stark actually introduces himself as a genius, billionaire, playboy, and philanthropist, adding what he probably believes is a charming wink on top of it, and Natasha wants to strangle him. Rogers is no better, all 6’1” of patriotism and righteousness, making Natasha’s skin prickle uncomfortably. She doesn’t trust anyone who pledges themselves to blindly fight for a country like that. She doesn’t see much of Banner outside his lab, but she has researched his alternative persona enough to know that it was for the best. 

Barton throws her off, though; she can’t profile him. He’s a skilled marksman, almost as good as her, something she will never admit. But he’s also, oddly… human.

It’s something she can’t fathom; how does a person carry so much ruthlessness within themselves while also giving so much of themselves to others? He not only has a family, but two — a wife, kids, and teammates who he cares for, fights tooth, nails, bow, and arrows to keep safe. How does the conflict not tear him apart? How is he still standing and not crushed under the weight of feeling so much?

How does he keep his heart?

Those questions spin around in Natasha’s mind as she goes through the motions of signing herself over to the other side, beginning her journey to wipe the red off her ledger. It won’t be easy, and she won’t ever be able to truly tip the scale in her favor, but at least she is going to try. She knows that that’s what her family would have wanted her to do.

Everything Natasha does, she does it for them — Yelena, Melina, and even Alexei, to some extent. They gave her something to hold onto all those years ago, and she is going to use it now to change her story once again. To try and make them proud.

It’s all she can do not to crumble.

//

Natasha knows her new teammates fear her.

They try to pretend they don’t, especially Rogers and the Maximoff boy, but they’re not very subtle about the way they react to her. They follow her every move when she’s around, shoulders tense and spine straight when she handles her cutlery or any other kind of sharp object as if preparing for an attack that, if she wanted to, they would never see it coming.

Stark tries to test her boundaries, but he backs off as soon as she glares at him, running away like a scaredy cat. Barton doesn’t seem to fear her, but he does keep his distance, eyeing her from afar the same way he had when he was sent down to kill her. She doesn’t know if that is better or worse.

Wanda is downright terrified of her and makes no attempts to try and hide that. She flees the room whenever Natasha is around or hides away behind her brother or Rogers. Natalia finds it sadistically amusing, but Natasha doesn’t enjoy it all that much. But maybe it is better that they avoid her.

Makes it easier to hide the parts she doesn’t want them to see.

They don’t need to see how overwhelmed she is by the sheer amount of food she has at her disposal now, so she ends up eating scraps of bread with peanut butter on them and calling it a day. Sometimes it’s carrots, sometimes it’s just a spoonful, but it’s always peanut butter.

She discovers peanut butter protein bars and starts keeping boxes of them in her room, in her bag, and always has at least one in her pockets. It’s all she eats and it makes her think of Ohio, and she has to fight against all the emotions it elicits within her.

They don’t need to hear how she wakes up every night with a nightmare, thinking she’s back in the Red Room, and the only way she can make herself go back to sleep is by handcuffing herself to the bed. She loathes doing it, so more often than not she ends up in the training room, punching bags and pushing weights until she regains her sense of self.

They don’t need to know she would rather stitch herself up without any painkillers because being in a medical wing makes her think of the Red Room and all the experiments they did on her — syringes full of unknown serums injected into her bloodstream without caring about the consequences, an involuntary hysterectomy with barely any sedation.

And yet, when it came to patching them up after missions, they would rather let them bleed and fight infections on their own. Only the strong ones survive.

She doesn’t need their pity, so she takes their fear.

They’re better off not knowing.

//

It’s late at night when Natasha finds herself down in the kitchen by herself.

Everyone has already gone to sleep, but her brain is too loud to allow her to rest, and her body is too tired to go and train. None of that matters in the Red Room, but Natasha knows that if she wants to do better, she has to fight against those instincts to push herself to her limit and beyond.

She takes a leaf out of Melina’s book, thinking back about how she would always brew herself a cup of tea before bed, perhaps with the same intentions Natasha has now. To ground herself, to try and be more than what they made them out to be. More than just a trained killer.

She hears footsteps approaching and by now she knows exactly who they belong to, every noise and mannerism from her teammates stacked away in neat little folders in her head.

Wanda.

She hears how she stops at the doorway, spotting Natasha, and she knows she will probably flee. Natalia doesn’t mind, but Natasha is trying to be better. So she speaks up.

“I am making tea,” she says, not expecting an answer.

She pours herself a cup, hesitating briefly before reaching for the cabinet and grabbing another one. She doesn’t say anything else as she leaves with her cup in hand, passing by Wanda in the doorway on her way to her bedroom.

She makes it to her room before she hears Wanda’s soft strides still in the kitchen, a clinking sound indicating she was probably going to drink something too. Natasha doesn’t know if it’s her tea or not, and she doesn’t sneak back to check.

But she has tried to do something.

That’s progress.

Chapter Text

Wanda doesn’t know how to be part of a team.

She knows what it’s like to have a family — her whole life, she’s had her parents and her brother. Even after everything that happens, Wanda knows what it’s like to have people in your corner who will do anything to protect you, be it from the world outside or from your own inner monster.

Pietro has been with her for better and worse, and that is all she has ever known. They are a team, a unit, a family. But it has always been just the two of them. He still sticks to her side even now that it’s not just the two of them anymore, and she knows it’s because he doesn’t know how to be a part of a team either.

They try, but it’s a little awkward. Surprisingly, Wanda notices she’s better at it than Pietro. It’s funny because, for once, he is not the one who is branching out of their connection to befriend others, and he’s very grumpy over the fact she has taken a quick liking to Steve.

She can’t help it; he is a calm, solid presence, never judging Wanda for not understanding a reference or a social cue because, most of the time, he doesn’t understand them either, and she finds that comforting.

She finds herself learning a lot from and with him, about pop culture, combat training, and, surprisingly, baking; it’s one of the most effortless friendships she’s had outside of her family, and she has come to cherish it dearly.

“Well, I have a new best friend too,” Pietro glowers when Wanda tells him about the movie she has watched with Steve the night before, gesturing vaguely towards Clint’s figure hunched over his breakfast bagel. “Clint.”

“I—okay,” she stares confusedly at the sullen way he’s shoving spoonfuls of cereal in his mouth.

Knowing someone their whole life has certain perks, and Wanda doesn’t even need to read his mind before understanding dawns on her, and she tilts her head to the side, an amused smile coloring her features.

“Are you jealous?”

“What?” Pietro sputters, causing a little bit of milk to dribble down his chin. “No! I’m not jealous!”

“He’s jealous,” Clint says without looking up from his phone.

“I am not!” Pietro glares at his him. “Jealous of what? Star-spangled men, who try to steal my sister away from me?”

A snort echoes through the kitchen, joining Wanda and Clint’s peal of laughter. Wanda’s shocked to see it comes from Natasha — she hasn’t even heard her come into the kitchen.

“Definitely jealous.” She’s also smirking, which is definitely a first, and Wanda can’t help but gawk at the sight.

Is Natasha actually interacting with them? About something that isn’t mission related? It’s such an odd thing that even Pietro and Clint look surprised, staring at her and forgetting all about the teasing. Natasha doesn’t seem to like the attention, twisting her face back to the scowl Wanda’s more used to, and leaves the room without another word.

Her usual move.

Natasha doesn’t know how to work with a team either, Wanda has noticed, but in an even worse way than she and Pietro.

She often drifts off in missions, trying to take on as many things as she can by herself; she has no regard for her safety or rules or communicating what she’s doing and where she’s going through the comms, and her ruthlessness and single-mindedness make her scarily efficient.

The difference between her and Wanda is that Wanda’s at least trying to fit in and adjust to life as a part of a larger group now; Natasha gives the impression of being just fine with doing her own thing, always by herself and never joining when they ask her to join in other activities that aren’t mission related.

Maybe she never will, because it’s not like she cares about any of them. This is just a job for her, a way to avoid getting hunted down again by the American government. Maybe she’s just waiting for the perfect moment to slip away to never be seen again.

Maybe that’s better for everyone involved.

//

Wanda’s perspective changes drastically one night, during a mission.

She is still very reluctant about fighting, but with Steve and Clint’s gentle support, and Pietro’s promise to always be by her side on the missions she gets assigned to go on, Wanda finds herself gaining more confidence in her skill to help the team. She slowly stops thinking about every mission as a suicide one, trusting in her teammates’ abilities to save her, if the need arises.

Needless to say, the only one she doesn’t trust is Natasha.

She doesn’t even seem aware of Wanda’s discomfort or, if she is, it doesn’t look like she cares.  But it doesn’t matter, because she has Pietro, Steve, and Clint in her corner, so she’s fine.

She tries to think about that when things go haywire. She tries to think about that when she finds herself getting thrown against a wall and busting her arm, separating her from the rest of the team. She tries to think about that when she registers she’s stuck in an unmarked room, with a jammed door and an unreachable vent.

It’s hard to remain positive, though.

She tries to focus and tries to remember Steve’s words (ground yourself, assess your surroundings, breathe), but it’s hard when her left arm is useless, and she is very much trapped in a windowless room with no way out.

It triggers a very unpleasant memory from her time in a Hydra cell.

“Wanda!” Pietro frantically screams through her earpiece, his voice cracking. “Where are you?!”

“I don’t know!” she tries not to sound hysterical but knows she probably fails. “I am stuck somep—”

She lets out a yelp when the vent grates suddenly drop next to her and Natasha lands next to her, catlike, her mission-serious face — not much different from her usual serious face — covered in soot and dust, but she looks unaffected otherwise.

“I got it,” she touches the earpiece to inform them, then disconnects it before crouching next to Wanda.

She disconnects Wanda’s too, and Pietro’s choppy words cease in her ear. She watches wide-eyed, breaths labored, as Natasha’s piercing gaze assesses her situation; she knows it looks bad. She knows from the way she can barely move her arm without pain blinding her senses, and how she feels too panicked she can’t even form proper words, let alone help herself.

Then those eyes turn to look straight into Wanda’s and, for a moment, the world seems to stop and all she can focus on is Natasha’s steady gaze. Weirdly, it helps her heartbeat to slow down a little.

“Does it hurt?” she asks Wanda, who blinks a couple of times before she’s able to respond.

“Yes,” she croaks out, bewildered by the fact that Natasha’s tone is so soft and gentle, so unlike her usual curtness.

“It’s dislocated,” Natasha informs her, eyes drifting to her shoulder before staring back at her. “I can pop it back.”

Wanda just gawks at her for a moment, unsure of what that means, but she nods slowly anyway. Only then does Natasha press her hands on Wanda’s shoulder, her zephyr-like touch not enough to keep her from whining at the discomfort. 

“It’s going to hurt,” Natasha grimaces in what could only be called sympathy, but Wanda knows better.

She sucks in a deep breath, trying to brace herself before Natasha does what she needs to do, and still, gets the wind knocked out of her once her shoulder is back in place.

“Sorry,” Natasha says, and this time there is no mistaking the caring tilt in her voice.

It’s odd and, just as fast as it appears, it’s gone again after she finishes tying a makeshift sling over Wanda’s neck with the remnants of her ripped-up overcoat. She is back to being the Natasha Wanda is used to knowing, but something feels different.

“Five guys out there,” she tells Wanda in her business-like tone, not a hint of sympathy or warmth in it, like there has never been any in the first place. “Stay here, I’ll clear the coast for us.”

“I—” she stops herself because she’s unsure of what to say, “Thank you,” it’s what she settles on.

She sees Natasha clench her jaw before shooting her a blank stare. “Don’t. Seriously, it’s fine.”

“But—”

“Stay,” she cuts her off, staring her down until Wanda nods in agreement. “And tell your whiny brother we’re on the seventh floor, we’ll be right down.”

With that, she closes the door behind her, leaving Wanda alone in her confusion.

//

Wanda spends the entire ride back to the compound surreptitiously watching Natasha, as Pietro fusses over her and Clint checks Natasha’s work on her shoulder, deeming it good enough to leave as it is.

She watches as she takes care of her own injuries, ignoring Clint when he offers to help, most likely so she can skip going to medical when they get to the compound. Wanda can’t recall a single time she has seen Natasha go to medical after a mission, even though Steve and Tony have both said it’s mandatory. She doesn’t mind it, but Natasha goes out of her way to not go.

Normally, she would notice things like that but let them go; but Natasha’s saved her life when she didn’t have to. Well, she guesses she had to, they are a team, after all, but she could have not. And from what she has seen of her so far, the latter was a much higher probability than the former.

And yet, there Wanda stands, shoulder hurting, but okay, safe, and all because of Natasha. She can’t just ignore that.

True to Wanda’s conjectures, when they arrive at the compound, Natasha sneaks off before someone can remind her she needs to go to the medical wing and Wanda finds herself sneaking off behind her before she can think about it.

She stops dead in her tracks, wide-eyed when Natasha turns to look at her. “What are you doing?”

“I’m—” Wanda hates how her voice wavers under her stare-down, but she doesn’t back away, “I’m just not injured, thanks to you, so…”

“So you’re just following me?”

She can hear just enough teasing in Natasha’s tone to make her scowl. “No.”

Natasha doesn’t say anything else, just keeps looking at her expectantly, so Wanda decides to simply bite the bullet and say what she wants to say.

“I just, well—we’ve been working together for months now, and I feel like I—like we barely know each other so maybe we could—”

Once again, Natasha interrupts her. “Bond?” she smirks, but there’s a hint of something Wanda can’t quite place in her voice. “It’s nothing personal, Maximoff, but I’ll pass.”

“Talk,” Wanda mumbles, feeling her cheeks burn in embarrassment. “I was going to say talk.”

Natasha seems to regard her for a moment before she turns on her feet. “I’ll also pass.”

“Well, then,” she’s aware she is sounding like a petulant child, but she doesn’t care. “I guess I can do all the talking.”

She talks about what happened during the mission, how she got separated from the others and stuck where Natasha found her; she talks about how nervous she still feels in the field, and how hard it is to focus when things go wrong. She talks about how Clint has complimented her patching-up techniques, and all she has to do now is shower and get a new sling for her arm.

They reach Natasha’s room, and she unceremoniously gets in and shuts the door in her face, but Wanda catches the ghost of an amused smile curling up her lips and smiles triumphantly herself.

Progress.

//

It’s something Wanda starts doing every time they get back from a mission.

Natasha still doesn’t go to medical, so Wanda will either rush her way through her check-up or skip it altogether — she always goes back after showering, though, guilt coiling up in her stomach — to catch Natasha halfway up to her room, and she just talks.

At first, she just talks about mission stuff because that’s all she knows Natasha talks about — stats, reports, debriefing her on everything she probably missed while she did her own thing — but eventually, she starts talking about whatever comes to her mind.

She talks about how cold she was at the stakeout until Pietro got her some hot chocolate from the café across the street they were watching; talks about how hungry she gets after she has to use her powers and how she ends up always eating her way through Steve’s drawer of chips; and talks about the stupid jokes Pietro’s always telling, or something Steve has said, or how Clint has shown her pictures of Cooper and Lila and how big they’ve gotten.

Sometimes Wanda just sits outside of Natasha’s door just to wait for her to return from a mission she’s gone off with just Clint or Steve or anything that doesn’t include her. Pietro thinks she’s crazy.

“She saved my life,” she tells him for the umpteenth time, stealing a chip from the family-sized bag sitting on his lap.

“What happened to ‘Pete, she scares me’ and ‘Pete, she hates you.’ twin bond?” his question is muffled by the number of chips he just stuffed into his mouth. “We hate the same people.”

“And look where that got us last time.”

She knows she has struck a nerve when he doesn’t have a comeback for her, just clenches his jaw and hooves down more chips. Wanda sighs, opening the bag of peanut M&M’s she’s been hiding from him, and offers them up as a peace offering.

“Look,” she says, looking for the right words, “Barton said we’re supposed to be a family. So why is everyone good with that and working on that, but she just… leaves. And we let her.”

“Because she’s mean!” he says it like an enthusiastic fourth-grader, making her roll her eyes and steal the bag of chips from him.

“Wrong answer.”

She knows she’s right. And she is going to prove to all of them, her brother included, that there is more to Natasha than what she lets them see.

Chapter Text

Natasha doesn’t get attached.

It’s one of the few things in common she shares with Natalia still, a lesson she has learned the hard way. Getting attached only leads to bad things, like losing everything you’ve ever loved and ending up as nothing but a hollow shell of a person; with just a gaping, infected wound in her chest that once housed the three people she used to call her family.

Never again, Natasha promises herself. She will never open up to that kind of pain ever again.

Your pain only makes you stronger, Melina’s words whisper in her ears, but they only serve as a reminder of what she’s lost. So this time she tries to bury them deep within her until they go away, so she can keep whatever good she has managed to hold onto, safe.

But even with Natasha and Natalia’s combined efforts to protect themselves against any future heartbreak, someone still manages to sneak past their marbled defenses and make themselves at home in their heart.

So much for not getting attached.

//

It’s very unsettling when Natasha first realizes what’s happened.

Not unlike the wild mushroom that sprouted in the very back of Melina’s garden, Wanda grows on her, adapting to the less-than-ideal conditions of Natasha’s friendship and somehow filling out the shady spots previously empty in her heart.

It’s unsettling because she does it so effortlessly; the same Wanda that once fled whenever Natasha walked into a room now sought her out — sits next to her during debriefing and on their way back from missions, offers to help stitch her up and hands her ice packs and bandages without Natasha asking for them.

And she talks.

Not on and on and on, in an annoying way like her brother often does. Or in a self-centered, I-am-the-center-of-the-universe-and-this-conversation way like Stark does.

And she doesn’t act like Natasha is not there, or like she isn’t listening — even if she isn’t, too focused on compartmentalizing every emotion trying to burst out of her.

Wanda just… talks.

And she has a nice, soothing voice, her accent making some words sound funny even as it fades away slowly the longer she spends around Rogers and Barton. She frowns when she can’t remember a word in English, and explains what she means in an amusing, roundabout way that reminds Natasha a little bit of Yelena.

She sits in the window seat in the living room, curling up with a book and soaking up the sun while Natasha reads a debrief on a chair on the other side of the room and it’s… nice. In a way that Natalia loathes, but Natasha has come to appreciate.

Something she will never admit out loud, though.

//

On a Thursday, Natasha comes back from a mission with Barton, but Wanda isn’t at her door waiting.

She frowns and thinks maybe she’s gone on a mission of her own, but that can’t be true because all of the Quinjets are there. Natasha goes through the motions, like she always does after she returns, but something doesn’t sit right with her.

She goes looking for Wanda, munching on a protein bar as she searches all common areas, to no avail. She finally finds her up on the roof, lying on the grassy patch next to where Banner grows his plants. She’s just… lying there, playing with her magic absentmindedly, looking at the stars.

She looks sad, and Natasha shifts awkwardly before clearing her throat. “Hey.”

Wanda jumps and sits up quickly, looking for whoever has disturbed her. Her eyes are red-rimmed when she looks at Natasha.

“Jesus, Natasha, you scared me,” she mutters, dropping her gaze when their eyes meet.

“Watching your six is good practice,” she says, but Wanda doesn’t reply, just lies back down and goes back to staring up at the sky.

It’s so different than what Natasha’s gotten accustomed to. Natalia tells her to turn back and leave, that she’s better off, but Natasha ignores her. She sits next to Wanda instead.

“You weren’t at my door today,” she says quietly when Wanda doesn’t say anything else like she usually does.

“Sorry,” Wanda sighs, “I’m not having a good day today.”

Natasha notices the way she harshly bites her bottom lip, as if trying to hold in her emotions; her tear-stained, splotchy face tells her she has already spent some time crying, and maybe is trying to avoid doing it again.

She doesn’t know what to do. This is not something she has even been trained to do — to help, to be friendly, to comfort. Assassins don’t need that in their skillset. She knows how to dispatch her targets without needing to be near them, how to infiltrate and destabilize governments from within and disappear without a trace. But she has no idea how to make someone feel better when they’re sad.

Images of Yelena falling down on her knees and crying for Melina while Natasha just stood there, powerless to help her, fill her mind; she curls her fists into tight balls to will those images away. Her voice is strained when she speaks up.

“I’ve…” she starts, cursing how weak and pathetically unsure she sounds, “I never—” she swallows and meets Wanda’s curious gaze with a frown, “Friends weren’t really allowed in the Red Room.”

She is hoping Wanda will interrupt her, take over talking, and spare Natasha from having to say anything else, but she doesn’t. She just continues looking curiously at her, head tilted to the side, so Natasha swallows down her nerves and keeps going.

“It’s hard keeping them when you might have to kill them or they might have to kill you,” she looks away from Wanda, too ashamed of the words she is going to say next, “I guess what I’m trying to say is… I don’t know what to do with yours.”

When she finds the courage to look back at Wanda, she is just smiling gently, and the tight knot that has been sitting in Natasha’s chest since she got back from her mission finally starts to dissipate.

“Well, you don’t have to worry about me killing you,” Natasha snorts at that, an amused smile of her own curling her lips upwards.

“You couldn’t even if you tried.”

Their shared laughter eventually quiets down, and Natasha finds herself lying next to Wanda, staring at New York’s surprisingly starry sky. Nothing but the irregular sounds of whooshing wind blowing the leaves around disrupts their silence, until Wanda speaks up again.

“Friends sit next to friends when they’re sad,” her voice is just a whisper, but Natasha hears it anyway.

“Okay.”

“And they listen,” she adds, like an afterthought, making Natasha turn to look at her.

“I listen,” she assures her seriously because she wants Wanda to know.

She doesn’t want to say it out loud, but she doesn’t want her to think Natasha has just been ignoring her all those times she spent making an effort to talk to her.

“I know,” Wanda’s smiling when she turns to look at her.

Natasha shoots her an inquiring look, trying to fight her instinctual need to question what exactly Wanda means about that, when she explains.

“Maybe it’s because you let your guard down in the tower or something, but it’s very noticeable when you are actually listening and when you are thinking of other things.”

Natalia’s hackles raise when they realize Wanda is right, Natasha has been getting more sloppy, irresponsible—comfortable around the Tower, breathing a little easier and toying with the idea of starting to wind down. Maybe make an effort to get to know her team instead of studying them like targets she’s supposed to keep an eye on. Join them for whatever activity they like to do after dinner, like Wanda’s been subtly trying to get her to do for weeks now.

What surprises her the most isn’t that this has happened, but that Wanda has noticed. Apparently, she’s been paying as much attention to Natasha as she has, and Natalia respects that. She settles down.

Natasha does too, turning back to look at the stars again.

Maybe this friends thing isn’t as hard as she has thought. Maybe she is going to be able to do it.

Maybe.

//

When Wanda starts trying to befriend Natasha, she starts to talk about things she liked to do in her childhood.

It’s a sore topic for Natasha, but Wanda’s entire face lights up when she talks about her parents and Sokovia, about how chocolate was such a rare commodity for them, usually a birthday or Hanukkah present, and how she always imagined what it would be like to eat all those American treats she would see on her beloved sitcoms — Pop-Tarts, Hershey’s bars, Skittles.

Silly things she never got the chance to try.

The second time she has to scour the compound in search of Wanda, Natasha makes a pitstop back in her quarters before going up on the roof, where she, surely enough, finds Wanda lying on a blanket, staring up at the clear, starry sky unblinkingly.

Without saying anything, Natasha sits next to her and produces a pack of Skittles from her pocket, handing them over to Wanda. She just looks bewildered at her, like it’s the first time she’s realizing Natasha has actually listened to what she’s said all those times before, despite her reassurances last time.

Wanda sits up to take it gently, looking at Natasha and then back to the package in her hand as if she can’t believe where it came from. Natasha shifts uncomfortably, turning her gaze away from Wanda, but staying, against her better judgment.

“I used to like the green ones,” she tells her in a suggestion, anything to get her to move and stop staring at her.

She sees Wanda nod and open the package out of the corner of her eyes, surreptitiously watching as she tries one by one, then hands all the green ones to Natasha when she’s done. This time, she is the one who shoots Wanda an inquisitive, bewildered look.

“Friends share,” Wanda shrugs, still holding the package for her to take.

Natasha bites the inside of her cheeks so hard it almost draws blood but manages to keep her hands from shaking when she reaches for the bag and starts to slowly eat all the green candies.

Wanda smiles at her as if she has just done something brilliant, like saving the world or curing cancer. It’s weird.

Having friends is weird.

//

They find their way to each other on the roof more often than not.

It becomes their safe place, away from prying teammates and eyepatch-wearing bosses, somewhere they can just… be, and not worry about anything else. They don’t dwell on past mistakes or bad feelings up there. They sit, or lie down, under the blanket of stars that stretch into infinity and beyond, and they allow those feelings to exist until they become nothing again, lost amongst the starry boundlessness.

Maybe it’s the open space, with no suffocating walls trying to keep her in, that makes Natasha breathe easily even after hard missions; or how small she feels when she’s got the entire expanse of space staring back at her, reminding her she is part of a larger, infinite whole, and that her mistakes aren’t as world-ending as they seem; or, maybe, it’s the fact that she has Wanda by her side, who manages to slowly, but surely, bring Natasha out of her shell, and into a place where she can, for the first time, actually be herself.

No judgments.

Even when she makes bad attempts at humor.

Wanda’s pointing at the stars, trying to figure out which one of them is Sirius — Natasha is having too much fun to let her know that can only happen in winter, and they’re currently in mid-July — and rambling on stories about her mother — Natasha’s stomach clenches, she ignores it — where she would guide herself home — home; mama, you’re silly, we just left home — using the Canis Major.

She ends her story with a laugh and turns to look at Natasha, clearly expecting her to join. Knowing she can’t, not genuinely — and she refuses to be anything but, at least with Wanda, at least up in the roof — Natasha searches her brain for a different memory, something that can ground her back to the moment, and has to hold in a smirk when she finds it.

“Do you know why the Dog Star didn’t laugh at that joke?” she asks casually, watching Wanda’s already wide grin broaden impossibly.

“No, why?”

“Because it was too Sirius.”

She manages to hold her own serious face for a beat longer before she joins in Wanda’s laughter, a sense of pride brimming within her for eliciting such a powerful reaction out of her, a good one for a change. It’s a foreign feeling, but something Natasha welcomes anyway.

“Romanoff’s got jokes, huh?” Wanda teases her, eyes twinkling.

She tries to school her face back into a scowl or a frown, but her body seems to be set on being honest, for a change; her smile turns shy instead.

“Sometimes.”

The stars might still be shining brightly over them, but Natasha is sure that Wanda’s eyes are giving them a run for their money.

Maybe having friends really isn’t so bad. Natasha’s glad she is giving it a shot.

Chapter Text

Out of her and Pietro, Wanda has always been more adept at reading between the lines.

She has always preferred to blend into the background, something Pietro’s conspicuous nature never allows him to do, making it easy for her to pay attention to everything going on around her. Whereas Pietro sees everything as black and white and acts accordingly, Wanda takes her time to try and figure out what’s actually going on, taking context clues from the situation, and making sure she has listened to all sides of the story before forming an opinion.

It’s not always easy, and sometimes her emotions get the best of her, but she tries. She knows it’s a good skill to have.

It comes especially handy when further exploring her friendship with Natasha.

She doesn’t talk much and rarely says exactly what she means; she’s careful about her actions and words, making it difficult to get to know her. But the more she starts getting used to Wanda’s presence, the more she starts to let her guard down around her, and Wanda’s able to start piecing together all the little things that help her paint a picture of a three-dimensional human — like little clues that help her unfold the mystery that is Natasha Romanoff.

She learns that she only eats what she has cooked herself, and eats pre-packed snacks when she can’t; that she boxes before bed when her mind is tired, but her body is not, and shoots targets when it’s the other way around; and that even when she drifts off from the team during a mission, she’s always paying attention, coming to their aid when needed.

The first time she manages to convince her to go get stitched up at the medical wing instead of having Wanda do it, she learns that she won’t take anything to numb herself aside from vodka. She’s clinging tightly to the bottle with one hand, the other curled into a fist, and glares at the nurse when she presses too hard on her wound.

“How are you feeling?” Steve asks, still wearing his suit and helmet, holding an ice pack to his eye.

Natasha just stares at him blankly. “I’m sure you’ve been stabbed before, Rogers.”

He rolls his eyes, then hisses in pain, making Wanda laugh. She turns when she hears a soft, “Ow,” coming from Natasha, and sees the nurse holding some disinfectant to her wound.

She’s shocked because she doesn’t think she has ever heard Natasha express any kind of pain; she must have been really hurting just to lose control like that. Without even thinking about it, she reaches for her hand and lets her magic course through their conjoined fingers until she sees Natasha visibly relax, letting out the breath she has been holding.

“Thanks,” she murmurs and doesn’t let go of her hand.

//

On a Wednesday, they’re debriefed on a new mission that will take place over the weekend.

They are planning an attack on the Ten Rings ship, going undercover as SEAL team members. Steve and Pietro would be going in, and Wanda would standby in case something happens and the team needs an extraction. She doesn’t like it, but she knows that Steve always does his best not to engage in conflict unless it’s necessary.

The same can’t be said about Pietro.

It’s when he gets to Natasha’s assignment that Wanda notices something changing in the atmosphere.

“Romanoff,” Fury calls, his gaze shifting to Natasha’s impassive, mission-ready face. “You’re bait.”

Wanda frowns, not liking the sound of that, but Natasha simply tilts her head to the side, focusing her gaze on Fury. If Wanda weren’t looking at her, she wouldn’t have noticed the way her shoulders tense before she nods.

“Bait?” Wanda asks, confused. “What do you mean, bait?”

“Four guards stand post on the port.” Fury points to the places marked with a big, red X on his map. “Romanoff will distract them, then both of you are going in, to backup Maximoff and Rogers.”

Everyone nods in agreement, but Wanda can’t help but notice Natasha’s spine has straightened as if she’s being graded on it, and she’s clenching her jaw. Wanda wants to reach out and ask what’s wrong, but she knows Natasha won’t say anything in front of everybody. She leaves before Wanda can call for her.

“That was weird, right?” she asks Pietro instead, who just opened a big bag of sour worms.

“Whaf was?” he speaks through his mouthful.

“Natasha. The way she just bolted and left.” She just stares at where Natasha has disappeared to. “Weird, right?”

“She’s weird,” Pietro shrugs, causing Wanda to pinch his covered arm. “Ow!”

He glares at her with watery eyes, and she glares right back.

“Maybe if you weren’t such an ass, she would be nicer to you.” She stomps away after Natasha, ignoring Pietro’s calls after her.

She has more pressing matters to deal with.

//

She finds Natasha up on the roof, sitting down on the grassy patch Wanda likes to lie in.

She’s hugging her legs and lying her head on her knees, but her spine is still as straight as a die. She doesn’t react when Wanda sits next to her, opening a bag of pork scratchings, and placing it between them.

“I don’t like the crazy-fatty bits,” she says, fishing for one.

She goes off on a tangent, comparing it to the beef jerky Clint introduced her to a couple of weeks before, noticing how Natasha starts to relax as she rants on. She doesn’t reach for one, so Wanda polishes everything off herself, but she does, eventually, turn to look at her, jaw unclenched — Wanda heaves a sigh of relief at the sight.

Something crosses her eyes though, and she turns back to stare at the horizon before Wanda can fully see it.

“Did you know it’s a myth that black widow spiders kill their male partners after they mate?” Natasha says, speaking up for the first time since the briefing.

Wanda makes a face, furrowing her brows. “What?” But Natasha doesn’t look back.

“The most dangerous thing the male deals with is trying to reach the female’s web because they struggle to navigate in the dark,” she goes on, tone even. Too even. Wanda’s on high alert immediately. “Most never make it to her web.”

Wanda doesn’t know what to make of her words, doesn’t even know how to go about asking for clarification. She’s usually better at knowing what Natasha means, but this time she’s stumped.

Her befuddlement clears up when Natasha finally turns to look at her a second time. She can see the worry behind her haunted eyes, the silent plea for her to decode the secret message behind her unspoken words. 

She doesn’t want this. This isn’t her.

They just stare at each other for a couple of beats before Wanda just nods because she understands what Natasha’s trying to tell her. And she wants to, she needs to do something about it. Natasha seems satisfied with her answer, her neutral expression shifting into a more relaxed one before she gets up.

“I have to go,” she says, as out of the blue as her previous statement. “I’m training with Barton today.”

Wanda looks up at her, tilting her head to the side, and squinting at the sun. “With arrows?”

“No,” Natasha smirks, “With actual weapons.”

Wanda giggles, but not even Natasha’s attempt at humor manages to ease the tension building up inside her. She doesn’t know what to do, or how to help Natasha. But she needs to try.

“Natasha,” she calls, even though she doesn’t know what words to say, how to express what she’s feeling.

“Yes?”

Wanda’s afraid her face conveys her internal turmoil instead of the confidence she is trying to project, but Natasha doesn’t seem bothered by it. Instead, she shoots her one of her rare real smiles, the one Wanda has come to associate with late nights sharing an ice cream tub and happy memories. It’s comforting.

“A male black widow spider’s biggest threat is another male,” she says, as if trying to assuage her worries. “They’re all following each other’s trail just to get to her.”

And then she’s gone, leaving Wanda even more confused than before. What does that even mean?

She can’t do this by herself. She needs help.

//

She finds Steve in the kitchen, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. He’s thankfully alone, so Wanda marches up to him, fidgeting with her thumb ring.

“Wanda, hey,” he greets warmly when he spots her. “Coffee?”

She shakes her head, taking a deep breath before speaking up. “Did you know it’s a myth that black widow spiders kill their male partners after they mate?”

She goes to the point as straight as Natasha has, and she can’t blame him for twisting his face into a confused frown.

“What?”

Wanda feels like screaming; she wants so badly to help Natasha, but it feels like she’s running out of time and she can’t form any coherent thoughts; so she just tells him everything Natasha has told her, verbatim.

It doesn’t help her case.

“Okay,” Steve says hesitantly, “That’s… interesting.” Wanda curls her hands into a fist, trying very hard not to grab him by his shirt and shake him until he understands her. “Where did you learn that?”

“Natasha told me,” she bites her lip, feeling the telltale sign of tears forming in her eyes. “After the briefing.”

She watches as understanding dawns on him the same it has with her a couple of minutes ago. He crosses his arm, standing up straight, and looking at her for confirmation.

“She doesn’t want to do it,” he says as she nods. “She wants out.”

“Of this arrangement that Fury set up for her,” Wanda agrees, starting to feel a little nauseous.

To think that someone who is supposed to protect them approves something like that as a valid mission tactic makes her want to throw things, preferably at Fury, and whoever else plans on using Natasha like that.

The fact it’s something she has done before just makes it even worse.

“Pretty unlikely she’s just listing spider facts,” he heaves a sigh.

“Clint said—” Wanda gulps, thinking back to the week they have spent at his farm, how welcomed he and Laura made them feel “—that we’re supposed to be family. Family protects each other.”

When Steve remains silent, she turns desperate.

“It’s four men, Steve,” she pleads, aware she’s one step away from losing her cool.

“She says she can do it,” he argues back weakly.

Wanda almost growls and can feel her magic brimming dangerously close beneath her skin. From how Steve’s eyes widen, she knows her eyes have just flashed red. She takes a deep breath, trying to compose herself.

“She can,” she stresses, crossing her arms against her chest. “But she’s not comfortable with it. She doesn’t want to do it.”

That’s enough for her to call off the entire mission, and she knows it’s enough for Steve. They just have to make sure it’s enough for everyone else.

Wanda won’t rest until it is.

“I’ll talk to Fury,” he promises, his expression earnest in a way Pietro has mocked several times before.

But this is no laughing matter, and Wanda nods appreciatively, her own expression deadly serious. She can’t, won’t let him send Natasha on a mission she doesn’t want to go. She and Pietro have been given a choice, to go only when they are comfortable going, and it’s only fair Natasha can do the same.

She’s of few words with most people, but Wanda is finding Natasha is a little more open with her and she cherishes that fact. Protects it.

She doesn’t ask for much, and Wanda isn’t about to ignore it when she does.

//

When they go talk to Fury, he’s debriefing Natasha on the mission.

To an outsider, it looks like she is just listening intently to what he’s saying. But Wanda has spent the last couple of weeks hanging out with Natasha in their spare time, studying her profile under starlight, the soft glow of the television as they watch old sitcoms, and the warm glint of the oven light after everyone else has gone to bed.

She knows how easily Natasha’s lips quirk into a smirk when she hears something she finds amusing — usually at Pietro or Stark’s expense; how hungrily she digs into everything that she can pair up with peanut butter — Wanda’s shocked the first time she sees Natasha eat almost an entire jar with carrots after a mission; how she tilts her head to the side slightly, denoting she’s paying attention to what’s being said, even when she’s not looking or doing something else.

Right now, for example, Natasha’s arms are crossed over her chest, and her lips are pressed in a thin line as she stares at Fury. She never fidgets, but it’s very noticeable — if you’re looking — the way she clenches her jaw when something upsets her.

Wanda wants to leap across the room to rescue Natasha from Fury, take her up to the roof with a bag of peanut butter fudge she had Pietro go out and buy for her, so they can lie down and talk until Natasha starts to shoot her those amused smirks that make her stomach flutter.

She doesn’t realize she’s about to do just that until Steve places a hand on her shoulder. They walk into the room together, making both Fury and Natasha turn to look at them.

“Can I help you, Rogers?” Fury asks, arching an eyebrow up at them. “Maximoff?”

“We want to talk to you,” Steve says before Wanda can say anything.

Which, considering how she is feeling right now, it’s probably for the best.

“I’m in the middle of something,” he gestures toward Natasha, making her flinch slightly.

Wanda can’t take it anymore. She knows that authority figures are mostly treacherous people, and she’s done trying to find someone to help protect her and those she cares about. She is taking matters into her own hands now. 

“Call off the mission,” she moves into the room to stand protectively in front of Natasha, “Now.”

“Excuse me?”

“Wanda…” Steve sighs, walking in behind her.

She notices how he also stands right in front of Natasha, forming a human shield to physically separate her from Fury. She’s thankful for that.

“I mean it.” She ignores him. “She doesn’t want to do it.”

Something wraps around her forearm tightly, and it takes her a hot second to realize it’s Natasha’s hand. At first, she thinks she is going to push them aside, say she can do it, and make them leave. But Natasha just keeps holding her in place, fueling Wanda’s protective stance.

“She doesn’t want to do it?” Fury asks with an almost amused smile on his lips.

Wanda’s free hand twitches menacingly, scrambling all the papers on the table and throwing them on the floor. She hasn’t meant to do it, but it serves its purpose, making Fury’s smirk drop as he eyes her curiously.

“She doesn’t want to do it,” she repeats herself slowly, her voice just a tone away from outright murderous. “She’s not comfortable with it.”

Fury tries to look at Natasha over Wanda’s shoulder, “She says she’s comfortable with anything.”

“She’s not!” she raises her voice in protest. “Steve, tell him!”

Steve takes over, bringing Fury up to speed with what Wanda has told him, so she turns her attention fully back to Natasha. She crouches next to her, taking notice of how her eyes seem unfocused, and how labored her breathing is.

“Hey, Nat,” she whispers, gently putting a stray lock behind Natasha’s ear to try and get her to look at her. “Let’s go, come on.”

Natasha follows her, but her movements aren’t steady, and she’s leaning heavily against Wanda. She doesn’t think she can take them up to the roof like that, so she takes her to the place closest to where they are — her room.

She places Natasha on her bed, crawls in next to her, and turns on the TV with a flick of her hand. Bewitched is on because she has been watching it until she falls asleep for the past week. She settles against her many pillows, breath hitching when Natasha huddles closer than she ever has; she lays her head on Wanda’s shoulder, as stiff as a board.

Wanda takes a deep breath before she starts talking, pointing out her favorite things from the episodes they’re watching, both things she remembers from watching it as a child and things she has researched as she got older.

“I’m trying to copy some of her moves,” she says, after the notorious jingling sound when Samatha uses her powers. “Not the nose thing,” she frowns, crinkling her own nose, “But how she uses her fingers, for little things.”

She laughs and is startled when Natasha lets out a little laugh herself. She is glad to notice she has mellowed out, secretly pleased her head is still lying on Wanda’s shoulder. They watch another episode before a knock sounds on the door, and Wanda doesn’t miss Natasha’s smirk when she opens it with a flick of her hand.

Steve is on the other side of the door, and he waits until Wanda nods to step in. He looks uncomfortable, hovering awkwardly over them. Natasha’s breath gets caught in her throat, but Wanda holds her hand until she lets it out slowly.

“Pietro told me to bring you this,” he hands her the bag she recognizes as the fudge she’s ordered. “And we want to know if you guys are joining us for dinner?”

“What’s for dinner?” she asks, her stomach grumbling a little at the reminder she hasn’t eaten anything but pork scratchings after breakfast.

“Pizza.”

Instead of answering, she turns to look at Natasha questioningly, who shakes her head almost imperceptively. She looks back at Steve.

“Maybe later?” she tells him with an apologetic smile. “Save us some.”

“I’ll try,” the corner of his lips turn up, “Might have to wrestle Pietro and Clint for it.”

Wanda scowls. “You better.”

His expression shifts back into a more serious one before he speaks up again.

“S.H.I.E.L.D’s going to come up with a different approach for the mission,” he informs them. “Barton and Stark are coming with, and you guys are to stay back here. Alert, but not engaging unless necessary.”

Wanda is glad they’re sitting down because she feels her legs giving out in relief. Her eyes are watery when she smiles at him.

“Thank you.”

“I got you,” he puffs out his chest, “We all do. Have a good night, ladies.”

It’s only after she leaves that Wanda remembers about the package sitting on her lap. She opens it and hands it out to Natasha.

“I asked Pietro to pick these up earlier,” she says, turning the bag so they can read the label. “It’s homemade peanut butter fudge.”

Natasha tentatively reaches for the bag, picking a square of fudge. “Thank you,” she whispers before taking a bite.

Wanda knows she’s thankful for more than just the sweet, and places a kiss on her head before settling back and unpausing the show.

“You’re welcome.”

Chapter Text

Natasha is a good judge of character.

You don’t survive and make it out of a place like the Red Room without sharpening your abilities to assess others and their intentions. Which, she has learned in the worst possible way, are often harmful.

Men, twice her size, trying to take advantage of the fact that she’s a woman; exerting their power over her like she is nothing but a toy that can be played with and then left broken and forgotten behind. Girls, just like her, trying to trick her into failing and meeting her demise, so they can come out on top as she becomes a part of the dirt they walk on.  Some of them, Natasha tries to assuage Natalia’s murderous thoughts, were just doing what they had to — were just trying to survive; but none of that matters when it’s either you or them.

None of it matters when the only place you can call a home is the one place that takes all your biggest fears and beats you hollow with them, over and over again until you condition yourself not to fear it anymore — not to feel at all.

The good thing about it is that Natasha knows how to be around bad people. She knows how to play and manipulate them to guarantee she always gets her way, and that she always gets her out. A lot of harm, very little foul. That’s what she knows.

Or that is what she used to know, until she met the Avengers.

Natalia seethes at the thought; displaying kindness and concern for others is a weakness, something she despises. A disadvantage that causes the Red Room’s ugliest head to rise. Being kind, and caring, makes you defective and Natalia will never be flawed.

Natasha knows she’s wrong about that — the love she feels for her family doesn’t feel like a flaw. It’s a weak spot, sure, a fracture in an otherwise smooth marble fortress. But it doesn’t make her vulnerable like the nagging voice in her head keeps hissing, it just makes her want to protect herself and those she cares about even more.

The thing about caring, though — which is something Natasha knows she could never argue against Natalia — is that, the more powerful it feels, the deeper it hurts.

And not in a fast and brutal way; that would be something Natasha knows how to fight back, how to cope. Caring is something that sneaks up on you, when you’re not careful, when you let your weakest emotions take hold of you; and it eats you up slowly, like paper-thin cuts serving as constant reminders that you are no longer in control of your emotions.

Natasha certainly doesn’t feel in control anymore when she is around this aggravating, troublesome, ragtag team of so-called superheroes.

They’re different from what she is used to — they are good, hopeful people who seem to believe life is something worth fighting for, not only for themselves but for others as well. Especially for others.

And they expect something out of her.

Usually, she wouldn’t care about their expectations; it’s not her obligation to uphold whatever standard they think she should meet. But then there’s Wanda.

Try as they might, neither Natasha nor Natalia are able to fight the way Wanda makes them feel.

Wanda, who doesn’t seem to care where Natalia ends and Natasha begins, so long as she gets to sit next to her and share little pieces of herself like it’s nothing.

Wanda, who shares everything with Natasha and the others like it’s the most natural thing in the world; like it doesn’t take a monumental effort to remain as good and optimistic as she does even when she shares the not-so-good things.

Wanda, who doesn’t say she expects good, or better from Natasha, but makes her want to try anyway. She makes her wish to be more than just the trained killer the Red Room has turned her into.

She makes both Natasha and Natalia just want to be, as if that isn’t the most dangerous thing; as if their peace of mind and right to exist isn’t a daily battle you have to win or else you’ll lose everything.

//

Another day, another mission.

Sometimes it feels like Natasha’s life is just an endless string of various operations, each more mind-numbing than the last. She stays focused and does her best to fulfill them, knowing they’re a crucial part of her current survival mode; but sometimes she wishes it weren’t so similar to her life in the Red Room.

Then she thinks about Wanda and knows that no matter what she does now, it’s never going to be like the Red Room. She would never let herself become that person again, even if it’s a fine line to walk.

Missions without Wanda, however, cause Natasha to toe the line further down than she should — something her current partner doesn’t ever let her forget.

“What are you doing, Maximoff?” she turns to glare at Pietro, who’s been firmly planted in her six since they entered the warehouse.

Usually, it would be either Wanda, Rogers, or Barton doing that job. But Steve got paired with their newest recruit — an ex-military guy with mechanical wings strapped to his back named Sam — and Natasha got stuck with the annoying part of the twin set. He sulks behind her like a grumpy guard dog, looking as unhappy to be in her presence as she is, and doing a poor job at hiding it.

“Guarding your six,” he mumbles, and she just stares at him.

His answer is so jarring to her — out of all their team members, Pietro is the one who doesn’t have any qualms about letting Natasha know how much he disapproves of her. He hates that she is cold and distant, and prefers to do her own thing than to work in a group. He hates her mission-oriented self — admittedly, the only part of herself she allows others to see — so the fact he is sticking to her side, no questions asked, is disconcerting.

“I’m fine,” she says instead, in an attempt to stir him off into a different position.

Pietro sighs, shifting his gaze to glare back at her. “If I let you get hurt on my watch, my sister will kill me.”

Natasha smirks at his reply; of course, he’s doing it for Wanda. It’s his one motivation that she understands because it’s what fuels her as well. Pathetic, Natalia wants to say, weak. But Natasha finds it too amusing to mock.

“I can protect myself,” she assures him, a hint of cockiness in her tone, then settles back in her position.

They’re supposed to wait for Rogers’ signal until they swarm the place to get what they need, but she’s getting antsy. She can see the hostages from her point of view — women and children, predictably — and she knows they are about to get tortured.

She will burn the entire place down before she will let that happen. She shifts, feeling Pietro do the same a moment later, adjusting to her new position.

“I know,” he says, and something in his tone causes his spine to stiffen. “But you don’t have to do it alone.”

Natasha’s grip around her weapon tightens, and it takes all her trained stoicism to remain in place, not moving a muscle. She knows he means well, but his words trigger something within her; it’s because of who he reminds her of.

No. She can’t be thinking about her long-lost family right now (preferably, not at all). So she tries to focus back on the mission at hand.

//

As it turns out, Pietro is the one who ends up needing to be saved.

He still has a hard time with hand-to-hand combat — like brother like sister — and gets a nasty stab in his arm from one of the human traffickers they’re facing off. Natasha pulls him aside to check his injury.

“What are you doing?” he wheezes, looking wide-eyed as she rips off his shirt to stop the bleeding.

She doesn’t bother with an answer; they have a mission to finish, but she can’t leave a teammate injured behind for the sake of it. This is not the Red Room, she repeats it like a mantra as she wraps up Pietro’s arm as quickly as she can.

When she’s done, she gives him a hard look before saying, “Stay,” and then rushing after the remaining bad guy.

She should have known he wouldn’t listen to her.

She catches up to the guy, and he predictably tries to fight. Natalia smiles; she loves a good fight. She especially loves letting abusive scum think they have the upper hand over her. But what really makes it worth her while is watching as hope drains from their eyes when they realize they can’t escape her; she always wins.

And they always beg for forgiveness.

Natasha silences his pleas with a single bullet between his eyes and watches with vague disinterest as he falls down with a thud. She collects what she needs, then turns to make her way back to Pietro, then out of the warehouse.

But Pietro is right there waiting for her, frozen in place and looking at the scene behind her clutching his injured arm, and eyes impossibly wide.

She tries to pretend that the look on his face — shock, horror, disgust — doesn’t affect her, but that isn’t what the truth looks like. His expressions remind her of the two people she would least like to disappoint — consequently, the two people she feels like she has let down the most — causing shame to burn deep within her lower stomach. 

“Come on, we have to go,” she tells him, extending a hand to help him out.

He ignores it, making her scowl as she walks off, feeling his blazing gaze setting her on fire as he follows her.

//

Natasha spends the entire flight back to the compound in silence, avoiding them.

It’s nothing new, and she hates that she has let herself get used to Wanda’s presence, checking on her and sitting closer each day: enough to miss it on days like these. She hates it even more because she knows she is about to lose it.

How could she not?

She knows Pietro is going to tell her, and the entire team; they’re already weary of her, so it’s not like they are going to look at her any differently. But Wanda will. She will look at her differently, maybe even worse than she used to, and it makes Natasha hate herself.

She tries to hate only Natalia, only the messed up part she has no other choice but to embrace, but it’s to no use. After all, if she hadn’t allowed Natalia to surface, Natasha knows she would have done the same thing herself. They’re not that different.

She hates herself all through the flight back, and she selfishly lets Wanda check her over for any injuries, fretting over her like she does over Pietro. She hates herself as she skips medical, avoiding everyone as she goes hide in her bedroom. She hates herself as she ignores Wanda calling her name, walking faster, and locking her door so no one can barge in.

Not that she thinks they would, but the action calms her a little anyway.

She goes through the motions of putting everything away and then washing the mission away from her, but nothing makes her feel better. Maybe you don’t deserve to feel better, Natalia whispers haughtily. Marble is not supposed to feel at all.

Natasha tries to ignore her, but the only thing that shuts her up is to cuff herself to bed. She sleeps fretfully, not resting, but she is used to it.

Monsters don’t deserve to rest.

//

By her next mission, she thinks she’s ready.

She has to be.

Beyond everything, she is marble; hard and cold, polished so smoothly that nothing can make it through her defenses. Wanda joins them this time, but it doesn’t matter. Natal—Natasha doesn’t need anyone but herself to do what has to be done.

At least, that’s what she thinks.

The truth is, that she sacrifices herself when she sees they are getting compromised, anyway. Old habits die hard, and she would rather get hurt than let any of them, even if they hate her, stay in harm’s way.

She hates how easy it is for her to do it.

She stares blankly at her teammates once they find her standing over the bloody corpse of one of the bad guys, and steels herself for their anger and judgment. For their horror.

She can take it.

//

The ride back is uncomfortable. They all avoid her — Wanda looks, for a moment, like she is going to sit next to Natasha, before her brother tugs her arm and sits her next to him, wrapping his arm protectively over her shoulders.

It’s better this way, Natalia whispers, but it makes something sting in Natasha’s chest, anyway.

She goes straight to her quarters once they arrive, hoping to wash away this mission with vigorous brushes and scalding water. Her skin feels raw and exposed when she gets out, doing nothing to make her feel better.

She doubts something will.

Regardless, she is going to try; she opens the door, ready to go down to the shooting range, only to find Wanda with her fist raised up, wide-eyed.

“Uh, hi,” she exhales shakily, and Natasha can practically see how fast her heart is racing with the way her neck is throbbing.

“Hi.”

“I brought snacks,” she produces a bag of jerky and a box of Gobstopper from her hoodie’s pocket. She looks fresh out of a shower too, with her wet hair combed neatly and dripping down her chest; but, unlike Natasha, she looks well. “Roof?”

Wanda tilts her head to the side, looking at her expectantly.

Natalia screams a negative in her head, so loud it makes Natasha flinch; she tightens her fists, digging her fingernails into her palms to ground herself. She knows what she needs — to go down to the shooting range and gun down targets until her fingers go numb, until Natalia can be placated and Natasha can get some peace and quiet.

But Natasha doesn’t want to go.

Natalia can scream and kick all she wants, but Natasha wants to take Wanda up on her offer and go to the roof to decompress the way she’s gotten used to over the last couple of months. She wants to lie there and listen to Wanda ramble on about whatever is on her mind, sharing snacks and feeling like there might be more to life than just fighting and doing what she’s told.

It takes a lot of effort, but Natasha manages to gain some control over herself long enough to agree.

“Sure,” she says slowly, closing the door behind her as she steps out, staring blankly at Wanda’s answering smile.

She trails behind Wanda like a lost soul, her mellifluous words the only thing Natasha can focus on. She keeps having flashbacks, her mind blurring together moments from the mission with the time she spent in the Red Room, and it becomes harder and harder to breathe.

She inhales, and she sees The General’s leering smirk towering over her, dirty hands reaching out to touch her. She puffs out a shaky breath, and then his smirk turns into today’s henchman — he is taller and leaner, smells like ashes and cheap liquor, not expensive perfume; but the way he had grabbed her by the neck and forcefully pushed her thighs apart was the same. Natalia reminds her how satisfactory it had been to break his bones with her bare hands and pull the trigger to end his pathetic life.

She inhales sharply once again.

Natasha clenches her jaw, curling her hands into tight fists; anything to try and get a grip back on reality. But, what manages to get her attention and pull her out of her head is Wanda’s hand in hers, gently tugging, so they can sit on the floor. She does as asked, but keeps enough space between them, so they can place the snacks in.

She accepts the food Wanda offers her, though she only plays with the unopened package.

“Ow,” Wanda says after trying to bite her candy, “I thought candy was supposed to be soft.”

The sound ceases a panic in Natasha’s chest, and it takes her a wild moment to come down from her flight or fight response. She turns to look at Wanda, trying to focus on her scrunched-up, displeased face, and not on the way her anxiety still brimmed just underneath her surface.

“They’re called jawbreakers,” her voice is steady, and so foreign to her ringing ears. “You’re supposed to suck on them.”

“Oh.”

She watches as Wanda’s features soften as she starts sucking on the candy, but her brows remain furrowed, as if she’s pondering over something. Knowing her, Natasha just waits for the question she knows it’s coming.

“How are you?” It’s what she finally asks after a couple more seconds.

The question throws Natasha for a loop — Wanda must know the answer to that already. She notices things, even when they’re subtle, and the bruise that’s starting to form around Natasha’s neck is anything but. She must have noticed how she hasn’t eaten a thing since they got up there, because the thought of it makes her unsettled stomach twist so painfully that her mouth tastes bad; she must have noticed how exhausted Natasha looks, and yet she’s choosing to dance around the subject.

If she’s not going to ask what she wants to know, then Natasha is not going to dignify her with an honest answer.

“I’m fine.”

Code for; everything’s shit and I don’t feel well right now and, from the way Wanda sighs and turns to look at her, Natasha knows that she knows and is deciding whether to bite the bullet or not.

“When…” she starts again, “Nat, the mission we just finished. Did—” she hesitates, like she’s looking for the right words, and Natasha just stares impassively at her. “Did he—”

“I’m fine,” Natasha says again, trying to warn Wanda not to go down that path. No such luck.

“Natasha…”

It’s Natasha’s turn to sigh. “Comes with the territory,” she says flatly, almost robotically.

She can see that Wanda is at a loss for words, with too many emotions running rampant across her face, so she keeps going, trying to make sense of her own mess of feelings.

“You know how I told you the most dangerous thing for a male spider is the other male spiders?” Wanda nods, her crestfallen face twisted in a sad grimace. “We needed a distraction. I took care of it.”

“Female spiders can still kill males. It happens. Female black widow spiders are much bigger than their male counterparts, so sometimes… they get squashed in the act.”

“So you killed him,” Wanda whispers, sounding a little breathless.

Natasha doesn’t respond to that; she doesn’t need to. They all saw the aftermath. They all saw and drew their own conclusions about her motivation, and Wanda was the only one who came after her, wanting to know. Natasha may not need to respond, but she has something else she wants to say to Wanda.

“I’m sorry,” she says, startled when Wanda turns to look at her sharply.

“You’re sorry? Nat…”

“I forget what it’s like to care,” the words are hard to say, but Natasha feels so much better after saying them, it’s odd. “That it bothers other people.”

Wanda clenches her jaw, twisting her lips, and Natasha is unsettled to notice she wants to reach out and stroke it until she relaxes. “I just wish there was something I could do to help.”

At that, Natasha smirks. “There is.”

//

“This is not what I had in mind.”

Natasha’s lips curl up in amusement, placing a vodka bottle and a med kit on her bed before sitting. “You said you wanted to help.”

Wanda glares at her, but it lacks any actual bite. “I meant with—”

“Please?”

She doesn’t want to talk anymore; she is all talked out, and she has finally quietened Natalia enough, so she can go back to focusing on herself. And she selfishly wants Wanda’s hands on her, doing something she can easily do alone.

Something warm coils up around her chest when Wanda sighs and sits next to her, reaching for the kit as Natasha reaches for the vodka.

“You shouldn’t stitch yourself while drunk,” she grumbles, gently disinfecting Natasha’s back.

She snorts, gulping down a big drink before starting on a cut on her upper thigh. “I don’t get drunk.”

“Like Steve?”

“No, like Russians.”

Wanda laughs, and the warmth in Natasha’s chest spreads all the way down to her stomach. “That does not make any sense.”

Natasha’s mind flashes back to many nights in Ohio, with her not-enhanced mother keeping up with her supersoldier father shot to shot. Maybe one day she would tell Wanda about that.

“Yes, it does.”

Chapter Text

One thing Wanda always remembers her mother saying is how she was the heart of the family.

“You are our heart, zaychik,” she would whisper every night while putting her to bed. “Don’t ever forget that.”

It’s something she can still hear to this day in her mother’s voice, and she cherishes it, even if she doesn’t quite understand what it means. She never did. Her mother used to say it with such awe and reverence, as if that was a good thing. But given everything her emotions have led her to do, Wanda isn’t so sure she agrees.

She sees a lot more heart in Pietro if she is being honest — her loud, bold, brave brother, who has no qualms about saying what he thinks and doing what he wants. He is someone who goes in, head first, into everything; something that has always terrified Wanda, who freezes a lot more often than she acts.

She doesn’t understand how almost crumbling under the sheer weight of her feelings can be a good thing. She wants, hopes, and works hard to learn how to change that, how to turn her emotions into an asset that moves her forward; like Pietro, like Steve, like Clint. She knows their motivation and their drive, and she tries to study them, to see how they use their feelings to fuel their actions.

When Steve’s jaw clenches just so, she knows he is about to lead them down a righteous path and follows without a question. When Pietro grins mischievously, with a sparkle in his eye that reminds Wanda of their father, she knows he is going to do something that is bound to make everyone around him a little happier, and she lets that sensation wrap around her until it lifts her spirits. When Clint’s look turns hawklike, Wanda knows she can trust him no matter what, because he has got everything covered. She’s safe.

But nothing makes her feel safer than Natasha’s presence.

She might still be a mystery to Wanda — she doesn’t truly know what her drive actually is, but what she observes, what Natasha allows her to see, is more than enough for her to know that Natasha is worth it.

She is worthy of her trust, of her friendship, of everything Wanda gives her, and more; because she can see now that, underneath the layers and layers of all the hurt the world has put her through, Natasha has the biggest heart of them all. She knows it, she can see it — especially when Natasha truly lets her guard down, which she has been doing more and more often around Wanda.

She sees it, she cherishes it, and loves it; every single detail of the person she has come to know as Natasha Romanoff.

//

“I think that the most human of us was taught not to be at all,” Wanda says to Steve one day.

She says it just as they’re about to go on an undercover mission at some rich guy’s party. The place is so big that Wanda’s afraid she will get lost at every turn, or worse, break or stain one of those expensive-looking things staring back at her. It’s a recon mission — they’re not supposed to engage with anything or anyone, just blend in and gather as much information as possible.

Somehow, those missions are more nerve-wracking to Wanda than action-packed ones. She worries about laying low, worries about doing the right and remembering everything Natasha and Steve have been trying to teach her.

She doesn’t want to disappoint them.

“What do you mean?” he frowns.

Tony has just made an offhand remark about how at home Natasha seems on these missions, not even realizing how her eyes glaze over and her spine straightens even more; it makes Wanda’s blood boil, and she feels dangerous swirls of red brimming under her fingertips.

It annoys her the fact she is the only one who can see Natasha feels more than she lets on; she doesn’t think it’s fair that they let her keep concealing herself instead of trying to get to know her. However, she knows it’s not her place to say anything.

So she doesn’t.

They arrive at the party just as it starts, and circle the place as inconspicuously as possible. She can sense her teammates around, hear the faint sounds of talking around them, and see them across the room, spread around in fancy clothes; she smiles at the way Pietro fidgets with his bowtie, his usually windswept hair combed back neatly. Steve and Clint aren’t as twitchy, but the way Steve’s back is arched unswervingly and Clint’s stone-eagle eyes denote they’re not as comfortable as they usually are.

Their focus is both rattling and reassuring.

She finds Natasha by the window, a champagne glass in hand, smiling demurely at the man next to her.

She looks gorgeous.

Wanda’s breath gets caught in her throat, and warmth spreads all the way down to her stomach at the sight; she is wearing a sleek black dress that clings to her curves but also surreptitiously conceals the weapons Wanda knows are hidden beneath her clothes.

Always be prepared, she tells Wanda often, but she honestly doesn’t know if she would be able to walk around as naturally as Natasha does, hiding all the things she keeps tucked away.

Literally and metaphorically.

“Beautiful, isn’t she?” Wanda is startled by someone close to her.

Too close. Her senses immediately go into high gear, and she has to quickly try and hide the swirls of red sparkling on her fingertips.

“What?” her voice raises an octave, and she notices how Natasha’s eyes immediately turn to her.

“The view,” the man has an ingratiating smile, and his eyes linger over Natasha for a moment, then turn to Wanda and wink. “Truly… marvelous.”

Wanda manages to smile, even as her stomach churns and her heart makes a valiant attempt to leap from her chest. The way this man presents himself, the way he speaks, and even his perfume remind Wanda of a time she wishes she could take back.

The man — Gustav Fiers, he presents himself, with a lingering touch on her bare arm and a kiss on her hand — talks at length about several key events in world history, like he had been there; but not in the excited way her father used to talk about watching the Olympics on his father’s second-hand TV, or the hushed reverence Steve talks about his past.

Gustav talks about it with a strong contempt for humanity, as if considering the vast majority of the world to be wastes of space, incapable of having any real impact on anyone or anything.

It reminds Wanda so much of her handlers in Hydra that she heaves a massive sigh of relief when Gustav seemingly gets bored of her and walks away. She startles again when another person comes closer but relaxes immediately when she sees it’s Natasha.

“Are you okay?” her voice is so low that if she weren’t standing so close, Wanda would not be able to hear her.

“Yeah.”

“Did he say anything?” Natasha’s face is still so serious, more than Wanda is used to seeing; something isn’t right, but she has no idea what it is.

“Nothing useful,” Wanda tries to reassure her, “He was very boring.”

She thinks that is going to get at least a smirk out of Natasha, but she remains straight-faced, still staring after Gustav, long before he has left their sight.

Before she can ask Natasha about it, Steve surreptitiously signals that the mission is over. They’re leaving — first Steve, then Clint and Pietro, Sam, then Natasha and Wanda.

Talking can wait until they get back.

//

Natasha, however, seems to have other plans.

She doesn’t stop to talk to anyone (typical) and skips medical (expected). Still, she is also actively avoiding Wanda, not looking her in the eyes even after Wanda runs after her and stands between her and the door.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she expects Natasha to huff, to sound annoyed, but she is stock-still. Wanda knows she’s lying. “I’m fine.”

Wanda narrows her eyes at her.

“Natasha,” she says, almost pleadingly. “Come on. We can…”

Wanda stops herself from saying anything else; even though she and Natasha have been hanging out a lot, it’s not something they have acknowledged out loud. She fidgets with her thumb ring.

“I didn’t have an injury. I’m fine,” Natasha’s dismissal hurts more than the punches she throws Wanda’s way in the training room. “Don’t you have training with Steve or something?”

Natasha knows she doesn’t. Wanda sees her suggestion for what it truly is — a clear sign to leave her alone. Usually, it wouldn’t bother her, but today it does. She stomps away with a huff, no longer wanting to look at Natasha.

She doesn’t go to the roof, though, her usual place; their usual place, lately. Wanda wipes her tears furiously.

Pietro is about to get an earful.

//

Wanda has a terrible night’s sleep, which doesn’t help diminish her anger at Natasha. 

Natasha seems even worse the next day, and it all comes crashing down during debriefing. Steve is furious, which is a first for Wanda, and confronts Natasha in front of everyone, slapping down a picture of a bloodied corpse in a very expensive-looking bathroom. The news showcasing behind him shows the same image.

Wanda’s stomach churns because even under the battered pulp, she still manages to recognize who he is. It’s Gustav Fiers.

“Why did you do it?” Steve’s tone is harsh, and it makes Wanda wince.

Natasha simply arches an eyebrow at him. “You’re making an assumption it was me, Rogers.”

“Natasha.”

“What?” she challenges, a dangerous tone in her voice that leaves Wanda even more on edge than before.

Steve frowns, his usual friendly blue eyes taking on an icy glare. “You don’t get to just kill for sport.”

Natasha clenches her jaw, crossing her arms, “It wasn’t.”

So she did kill him, is what Wanda understands. She wishes Natasha would tell them why. Contrary to her teammates, though, she doesn’t wish to put Natasha on the spot for the answers.

“So then why?” Steve presses.

“I don’t see how that’s your concern,” Natasha takes on the posture she used to take in the beginning, as if purposefully trying to get under their skin; it just worries Wanda even more about how she is actually feeling.

“I’m the captain of this team!”

She is picking a fight with him so clearly, that Wanda just wants to know the reason behind it all. It’s not like Natasha — well, the Natasha she has come to know and befriend — to act so impulsively, with no logic. She always thinks straight, and all her actions are warranted.

Something horrible, that none of them are aware of, must have happened for her to act like this.

“You’re not my boss, captain,” Natasha doesn’t bother with hiding her contempt.

The tension in the room is so palpable Wanda can almost taste it, and it doesn’t get any better when Tony pipes up.

“Did you also hack into my mainframe, Romanoff?” his tone is a mix of disbelief and disdain that gets under Wanda’s skin in a really unpleasant way.

If possible, Natasha’s tone drops to an even more sarcastic tone. “Computer hacking isn’t my calling.”

“That’s a violat—”

He doesn’t get to finish, because Natasha just gets up and leaves without another word, leaving everyone behind her flabbergasted.

They start talking about breaches of confidence, punishments, and retaliations; but Wanda can’t listen to a word they’re saying. All she can think about is that she needs to find Natasha because, whatever they’re feeling, she is feeling it ten times worse.

Somehow, she knows exactly where to go.

She finds Natasha up on their—on the roof and, sure enough, she is checking what looks like a bunch of security cameras and boxes, with information up on the screens Wanda can’t see what they are. But it looks like Tony was right, after all.

“What do you want, Wanda?” Natasha sounds tired, and it breaks Wanda’s heart a little to hear her like this.

“So you did hack into Tony’s mainframe?” she asks, trying to keep all the judgment and worry from her tone, lest Natasha blows up at her too.

 “Just the cameras.”

“Why?”

Natasha just sighs, not looking up from the screen. Wanda tries again.

“Natasha…”

“Just...” Wanda can see how much she is struggling to get words out. “Keeping everyone safe.”

“From what?” Natasha’s silence only serves to make Wanda even more frustrated. “If you do not say anything, we cannot help you.”

“I do not need your help,” Natasha hisses, as menacingly as Wanda has never known her to be.

Her already raw and open wound tears her heart to irreparable shreds.

“Fine,” Wanda tries but is unable to keep her simmering hurt from her tone. “I’ll be in my room.”

She leaves before Natasha can hear her cry.

//

It’s late at night when Wanda hears her bedroom door open and close.

She stays with her eyes closed because, if it’s Pietro, she won’t want to wake up — she can yell at him in the morning. But then the delicate fragrance of pepper and bergamot engulfs her, and her heart starts to race.

It’s not Pietro. It’s Natasha.

“What do you want, Nat?” she mumbles, her eyes still closed. She refuses to lose her precious sleep, even for Natasha.

“He just got under my skin and I want to keep everyone safe,” her answer makes Wanda sigh, and she rolls over to finally look up at her.

Natasha looks as distraught as Wanda has ever seen her — which, admittedly, isn’t much, but it’s a glimpse of the woman she has come to know and… well. But it doesn’t serve to diminish Wanda’s frustration with the way Natasha has been acting and with the fact she still hasn’t offered any real explanation for her actions.

“And you thought lying to Stark about that was better than telling him you were just concerned?”

Natasha’s snort lacks any kind of humor. “Yeah, tell the biggest ego in the room that he might be compromised. Sounds promising.”

She has a point, but it’s too late at night — or maybe too early in the morning, she is not going to care about semantics right now — and Wanda doesn’t have the energy to deal with gray areas.

“I’m too tired for you to be grumpy right now, Nat.”

“Sorry.”

Wanda closes her eyes again, but Natasha remains there. Sighing, Wanda undoes her blanket cocoon, leaving an open space for Natasha to take.

“Are you going to talk or sleep?” she asks when Natasha doesn’t move.

“I can’t sleep.” Of course, she can’t. Wanda isn’t surprised.

“So we’re going to talk.” Yet, Natasha keeps silent. Wanda really is too tired for this.

“Natashaaa,” she whines, and hears a genuine chuckle from Natasha. It makes her smile.

“I’ll let you sleep,” Natasha says close, too close, and Wanda’s breath gets caught in her throat when she feels soft lips pressing a kiss to her forehead.

Natasha’s lips.

Is that what waking up dreaming feels like? Wanda thinks her head is going to explode with how fast it starts to spin. 

“Good night, Maximoff,” Natasha’s voice is further away now, and she leaves Wanda’s room as quietly as she came in.

It takes Wanda a long while to fall back into a dreamless sleep.

Chapter Text

When someone says they’re okay, it can mean a number of things, Natasha has learned.

Usually, it means they are not okay and don’t want to talk about it. It’s an easy code she has cracked a long time ago. People rarely, if ever, truly mean what they say.

Being okay in the Red Room means you are nursing several broken body parts, fighting off possibly deadly infections with nothing but a prototype supersoldier serum running through your veins; but you’re still there.

Still breathing, still fighting.

Still given the chance to prove you are worth the life you never even wanted in the first place.

That, in both Natalia and Natasha’s book, means you are okay.

Being okay with the Avengers means that she gets to heal from that trauma, in some ways.

Being okay with them means that even when she’s still hearing faint gunshots in her head, Wanda cuddles close to her, sharing her warmth, and unknowingly putting back together the broken pieces of her soul. It means that when she’s down the shooting range, placating Natalia’s not-so-righteous anger, Clint might join her and they make a game out of it, trying to outshoot each other, gun versus arrows.

It’s going through Tony’s secret ice cream stash with Wanda in the middle of the night, the little act of rebellion sparking a peace offer between Natasha and Natalia. Wanda’s flushed cheeks and hushed giggles were just a bonus, softening away her edges. It’s tricking Steve into baking cherry pies to eat with said stolen ice cream because watching him whistle to himself in a star-spangled apron reminds Natasha of better times.

Reminds her of sunkissed afternoons, silly laughter, and warm hugs.

But most of all, he reminds Natasha of Alexei, who has taught her the true meaning of being okay. 

//

It happens on a Friday afternoon when Natasha has a half day at school.

Melina is out of town, chaperoning one of Yelena’s school trips, and they won’t let Natasha go without adult supervision. They call Alexei, who comes half an hour later, also taking a half day from work.

Natasha’s not surprised. For a supersoldier, he is a really good spy and plays his role of loving father to a tee. No one suspects a thing. She takes a deep, grounding breath, trying to play up the role of a loving daughter too; Melina has pointed out she often looks too tense and stressed when she isn’t supposed to and that is not good for the mission.

“Looks like it’s just us today, eh Natka?” he asks, a hint of accent always present when there’s no one around.

A weakness, Melina would surely point out. Sloppy. Not careful.

Natasha nods, looking out the window, the suburban houses passing by in a slow succession. He doesn’t seem bothered by her lack of response, just turns on the radio and starts humming along to the tune. Natasha’s focus may be somewhere else, but she recognizes the song.

It’s got a relentlessly catchy hook that has all of her classmates obsessed, singing along to the nonsensical lyrics all day long. Natalia loathes the happiness of it all but here she isn’t her — and, quite rebelliously, Natasha finds herself joining the impromptu sing-along.

Alexei pumps up his performance when he notices it, and by the time they get home, they’re both not only singing but coming up with silly dance moves to go along.

It’s sloppy, and not careful, but so terribly freeing. Natasha tries not to hang on so tightly to the feeling and fails.

They keep their dance party going when Alexei turns on the radio in the kitchen, opening up the fridge to get things for a late lunch. Natasha can’t contain her laughter as she watches his massive frame shake to Boyz II Men, Mariah Carey, and Celine Dion; he messes up the lyrics, and misses the steps, but remains undeterred in his one-man show. Natasha goes to copy him, to embrace her flaws — she should have known better than that.

When she makes a sharp turn, crooning along with Madonna, she drops the very heavy and very expensive glass casserole — the one they’re supposed to say is an heirloom from Melina’s mother’s side — and the whole world stops. The radio is still blasting its top 40, the neighborhood kids are still playing just down the street, in the park; warm, spring air is still gusting around, and yet all Natasha can feel is ice, running cold through her veins.

The glass is broken, just like her; damaged, unfixable, not worth it. She stares at it, petrified, wondering how Alexei will dispose of her. Will he dispose of her like some common garbage on the streets? Will he send her back to the Red Room, so they can do it themselves?  Or will he, maybe, give her a fighting chance, a taunt before she meets her inescapable fate? Small droplets of blood drip from the tiny cuts in her hands, and yet she curls them into fists, willing them to stop.

It doesn’t work. She just makes an even bigger mess.

“Natka?”

Alexei’s voice is all but a faint, distant memory, triggering something deep within her.

She’s fought against supersoldiers before — the General’s prized possession, branded with a metal arm and star on it to prove it. And each time, Natasha has barely scraped enough strength to get out of his chokehold; she isn’t sure she’ll be able to do the same with Alexei.

Or if she’ll want to. 

If she dies here, now, at least she will never have to go back there. She will finally be free, and the last thing she will see won’t be the General’s leery smile over her, or another little girl’s fearful gaze staring back at her. Maybe Alexei will grant her one final mercy and let her watch over the secluded path where she and Yelena like to go watch forest stars as she takes her last breath.

“Natka? Natka?” she faintly hears him call out her name, but she remains frozen to the spot. “Are you okay? Hurt?”

Natasha doesn’t want to look at him. She doesn’t want to see his anger, his disgust, or worse: his indifference. But she’s also been taught to look death in the face since she was four years old. So she straightens her spine and digs her nails even deeper into her palms, not even flinching as tiny shards lacerate her hands.

It’s not like it’s going to make any difference.

“Are you okay?” he repeats slowly as if she’s hit her head.

Natasha opens her mouth to say yes but what comes out, horrifyingly, are the gut-wrenching sobs she’d hoped to have buried deep. Once they’re out, Natasha is hopeless to stop them.

Alexei stops trying to get her to talk and, instead, wraps her up in his arms to lift her out of the mess, as if she weighs nothing to him. She briefly wonders if that is how she is going to feel when he kills her.

“Natka,” she hears him again, the cold surface against her thighs — their granite counter, she belatedly realizes — jolting her back to reality. “You are okay. See?” he shows her blood-stained hands. “This is not best,” he gently wipes her with a cold, linen cloth, and Natasha watches detachedly, how red slowly morphs into a watered-down pink. “But not worst, either.”

Looking deep into her eyes, he says the next words, and Natasha feels as though he’s scanning her soul.

“Is okay, Natka,” he reassures her, causing his words to burrow all the way down to her heart. “You are okay.”

She’s okay.

//

The thing about being okay, no matter how truthful or honest the statement, is that it will all crumble down sooner or later.

It’s about the look people get in their eyes; it sits on the tense curve of their shoulders, the way their lips press up in the thinnest of lines, and how they hold their breaths for a moment longer than usual. Their bodies tell the story that their words refuse to say out loud. For the untrained eye, it’s nothing. Or worse, it’s something not worthy of attention, so it sneaks up and takes them by surprise when the disastrous consequences come to light.

For people like Natasha, it’s like a sixth sense. She can see it coming from miles away, no matter how hard Steve tries to mask it, or Tony tries to make it exciting. She knows from the moment Fury steps foot into the debriefing meeting that this mission is going to be different, and not in a way she will like it.

Everyone else, of course, thinks she’s crazy. Or worse, they pretend not to notice it. Everyone else but…

“Hey,” Wanda shoots her a half smile, towering over her while Natasha gears up. “Good luck today.”

Somehow, Wanda always knows when Natasha needs reassurance, even when she doesn’t want to admit it. Maybe it has something to do with her powers since they seem tied to her emotions, and Wanda feels deeply for all of her teammates, against Natasha’s better judgment.

Or maybe, as Natalia’s nagging voice doesn’t get tired of pointing out, Natasha has been getting sloppy around the Avengers, and even someone as untrained as Wanda is able to pick up on it. And, because she is Wanda, she empathizes and tries to comfort her, instead of weaponizing the knowledge to hurt her instead.

(Weak. Flawed. Defective.)

Or maybe — and because that is the most terrifying out of all the options, it gets steadfastly ignored — it’s because Wanda cares deeply about Natasha specifically, and is so in sync with her emotions that she’s able to pick up even the slightest changes to it, and rushes to try and make things right.

Natasha berates herself before Natalia has a chance, disgusted that she even considers that as a possibility.

(Pathetic.)

“I don’t need luck, krasotka,” Natasha smirks when color tinges Wanda’s cheeks. “I’m good at my job.”

The first time Natasha says something akin to flirty to Wanda, it’s a mistake — she lets herself venture too far out of her armor, and it shows. But then Wanda’s neck and cheeks darken to a lovely shade of pink, and she starts averting eye contact and playing with her thumb rings. Natasha is unable to resist doing it over and over again, and every time she manages to elicit the same reactions.

It’s thrilling and dangerously close to playing with matches, but Natasha has never been one to shy away from fire.

“Fine,” Wanda huffs, but Natasha can see the corners of her mouth twisting into the smile she’s trying to hide. “But you can still have it. It will help to deal with Pietro.”

“Hey!”

“Don’t worry,” even standing to her full height, Natasha only comes up to Wanda’s chin, and has to tilt her head back to look into her eyes. “I know how to handle brats.”

Wanda’s clear peal of merry laughter drowns out Pietro’s follow-up argument, and Natasha carries that warmth inside her until they land the Quinjet in the nearby field close to where their mission is going to take place. 

But if anyone asks, she’ll deny she’s even smiling.

//

Knowing that a mission has a high probability of going sideways and actually being prepared for when it does are two completely different things.

Sure, Natasha’s senses are on even higher alert, making her see things in a way people normally don’t; and she’s already exceptionally good at her job. She knows how to hurt, but she also knows how to protect. She has broken that promise once before and has no intention of breaking it again.

The only problem is — explosions aren’t just about their catastrophic boom. They’re about everything before, after, and in between.

They’re about the people who use it — what they are willing to lose, why they don’t seem to care about collateral damage, how dangerous they are; a lot more destructive than their chosen weapon.

(A trigger.)

They’re about the shockwave that ripples out, skewering your gut and flinging your preconceptions into disarray. It’s a festival of toxic gases, energy, and matter, poisoning every last molecule in your body, like a heated argument, taking over in a matter of seconds.

(A bright flash. A loud bang.)

Natasha knows shrapnel and debris are flying everywhere because she can feel them digging into her skin, ripping it open, and they’re there because she has tackled Pietro out of the worst of the way.

Be okay. Please, be okay.

She feels more than hears his grunt as they’re thrown across the place, and despite her relief, doesn’t slacken her tight grip around his midriff. She tries to roll them away from danger, but Pietro keeps struggling against her.

“Wanda? Wanda?!”

Of course, he’s concussed. Of course, the universe is going to add insult to injury. Or perhaps, maybe, hopefully, Delirious Pietro will be easier to manage than Regular Pietro? Natasha tries to steel herself for the outcome, knowing full well that whatever it is, she is going to draw the shortest end of a very fucked-up stick.

“Look at me,” she forcefully grabs his chin and looks into his erratic eyes. “I’ll take you to your sister, but you’re gonna have to trust me. Okay?”

He whimpers, grimacing as he nods. “Promise?”

Natasha smiles despite herself, extending her finger. “Pinky promise.”

Pietro gives her a crooked smile and curls his finger with hers.

We’re okay.

//

After getting rescued and precariously patched up aboard the Quinjet, Natasha has to face a way more inconvenient task.

Someone needs to call and inform Wanda what happened with her brother.

Natasha would rather face an exploding bomb a thousand times over than watch Wanda’s face crumble in despair, like she knew it would, but she can’t let her sit and think her brother is well when he isn’t. Ignorance might be bliss, but not when it comes to being alive or dead.

She knows that better than anyone.

“Nat?” Wanda answers after one ring, as if she has been expecting a call.

Natasha wouldn’t put it past her.

“Hey,” she will never admit it, but just hearing Wanda’s voice is enough to make all the aches in her body start to melt away. “We’re heading back.”

“Oh, good,” she sounds genuinely relieved, and Natasha can just about picture the way her shoulders sag and the little satisfied smile that crosses her lips. “Pietro didn’t give you too much trouble?”

Your idiotic brother didn’t pay attention and triggered a bomb —No.

Everything is fine, we’re all good and —No.

We encountered a minor issue —No. Natasha refuses to lie for other people’s sake, especially for Wanda’s. She deserves to know the truth.

“Nat?”

“Sorry,” she coughs. “Something happened at the mission,” Wanda’s sharp intake of breath makes Natasha’s heart clutch unpleasantly. “A bomb. It exploded, but we managed to escape. Pietro has a concussion, and a  couple of broken bones.”

Wanda whimpers and Natasha can feel her phone cracking under the sheer force she’s holding it. She hates this part. She’s not good at comfort, reassuring words, or anything else people need when they’re hurting. She can only offer her broken self and her truth. She hopes they’re enough for Wanda.

“He’s alive,” she says, casting her eyes over to the stretcher where Pietro lay, breaths coming out evenly as he sleeps. “He’s okay.”

She knows Wanda is trying to gather herself, from how her ragged breaths are coming out almost evenly, and hears someone murmuring something unintelligible. She hopes it’s Steve, or even Barton, someone who can bring her the comfort Natasha can’t.

“How long until you are back?”

“Couple of hours,” Natasha glances outside, almost willing the clouds to move out of their way. “We’re being careful.”

Wanda snorts something that almost sounds like a laugh, and it makes Natasha’s own lips curl upward.

“See you soon, krasotka.”

//

By the time they land the Quinjet back at the Avengers compound, Pietro is already awake, alert, and worst of all — talking.

Natasha has tried to get him back to sleep, but she has found someone almost as bad as she is when it comes to being stubborn. Instead of processing everything quietly, like she does, Pietro babbles a mile a minute and she knows that the only reason why he is not pacing the entire length of the Quinjet is because his broken arm and bruised hipbones are hindering his mobility.

Small mercies.

When the doors open, Natasha can see that Wanda is anxiously waiting for them, Steve with a hand on her shoulder, probably, to keep her from bolting and getting hurt too. The look on her face is painfully familiar to Natasha — it reminds her of military airport strips in long, narrow islands, pink novelty ponies, and hushed whispers.

Don’t let them take your heart.

Shaking it off, she lets Wanda see Pietro first, see that he’s got a couple of bruises but the worst of it are a concussion and a broken arm, so he’s fine, he’s okay, Natasha didn’t lie about that. She never would. Steve wheels him off, leaving Natasha alone with Wanda. Trying to avoid big, doe, and inquisitive eyes, Natasha launches into an explanation of what happened.

“We’re okay,” she says because that is always going to be her main priority. “He hit his head pretty bad but he’s conscious and—”

“You... you saved him,” had Natasha been looking, she would have seen the way Wanda’s face crumbles, her furrowed brows morphing into a cow look, how she tilts her head to the side and almost subconsciously licks her lips.

But she isn’t, and alas is utterly unprepared for what comes next. “I—” she doesn’t get to finish because Wanda’s lunging at her and kissing her.

It takes Natasha a moment to fully grasp what is going on. She can’t see anything but blurry freckles too close to her face, and she doesn’t know what to do with herself; but, eventually, she settles her hands chastely on Wanda’s hips and kisses her back. She leans into the mint aftertaste of Wanda’s favored tea, into the faint cinnamon cloud from Wanda’s shampoo, and into the lingering smokiness from her candles and incense.

She takes a deep breath and realizes her whole body is shaking. Maybe it’s from the overwhelming amount of emotions coursing through her bloodstream right now, or maybe it’s from lack of oxygen. Whatever it is, though, Natasha knows she needs to get back in control before something snaps.

“Thank you,” Wanda whispers when they stop, but she doesn’t let go of Natasha’s face.

Staring at slightly unfocused green eyes helps with gathering her bearings, but also makes her tighten her grip on Wanda’s hips.

“I—”

“I didn’t do it because you saved Pietro,” Wanda interrupts her, as if she is reading Natasha’s mind.

“No?” Natasha arches an eyebrow, lips curling upwards, and Wanda stares before clearing her throat.

“Not just because of that,” she blushes, and Natasha fights a silent battle against putting a distance between them or seeing if she can make Wanda blush even harder. “I... I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, Nat.”

Oh. Of course, she has. She has done her fair share of research, both in and out of the Red Room, about how and why people are attracted to each other. In Ohio, it had been because Maddie and Susan often argued over the show Saved by the Bell and which of the male cast members they wanted as their boyfriends. 

But Natasha — and later, secretly, also Susan, she found out — always thought she wouldn’t mind if she also got to date the female lead. Melina reassured her those were normal feelings, and launched into a big science explanation on it. She also, very seriously, stated that, even though those were normal feelings to have, Natasha was also too young to act on them. She shouldn’t worry about it, just enjoy being a kid for as long as she could.

(Only years later would Natasha realize how much truth Melina’s words packed.)

The Red Room doesn’t care about things like being too young or too old, and Natasha learns a lot more than she ever wanted on the subject. For example, she learns that sharing thrilling or scary experiences is a great way to jump-start attraction, and the nagging voice in her head reminds her that is all she will ever be good for.

Attraction. Fast and disposable sexual encounters. Garbage.

It makes her think of all the ways she isn’t right, especially for someone like Wanda — her ledger is dripping red, countless faceless people just staining it, her; she still handcuffs herself to the bed to sleep, the only way she’s able to quell the voice screaming all her imperfections back at her; sometimes she sleeps on the floor because it’s more comfortable than the plush bed. After all, cold and hard are the only things she is ever supposed to feel.

How is that even close to okay? How is that something she is supposed to share with others, with Wanda?

No, she can’t.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Wanda asks, a hint of amusement mixed in her confusion.

Natasha nods, taking a deep breath before stepping away from her, finally letting go of Wanda’s hips. She hopes they’re not bruised.

She says she’s okay because, rationally, she knows she is. She’s okay — her hands aren’t shaking anymore, she’s got her grip on reality back, and she’s still there. And most importantly, so is Wanda.

Not best.

But not worst, either.

Is okay, Natka.

“Yeah,” she locks eyes with Wanda, in hopes to convey to her that there is nothing to worry about. Nothing out of the ordinary, anyway. “Okay.”

It’s only then that she retreats to her bedroom, hoping against all odds that she could, somehow, survive this.

Chapter Text

Wanda’s pacing.

She knows this — she’s aware she’s just going around in circles, turning sharp corners from one side to the other, while Steve, Pietro, and Clint stare at her in various degrees of befuddlement.

She knows she needs to give them some sort of explanation, but she doesn’t know where to start. How can she explain everything she’s feeling when she doesn’t understand half of it herself?

She just wants to scream.

Pietro might understand her better — he is her twin, after all, and has seen her through hell and back. Their connection has always been powerful, even before their powers, and everything her words can’t convey, he’s able to understand with just a single glance at her face.

But he is also terribly reactive; acts first and asks questions later, maybe never, without ever hearing the whole story. Wanda can’t be worrying about his reaction on top of everything else.

She knows Steve is clueless. For someone so heroic, he is also hopeless at reading other people’s feelings, and Wanda doesn’t have it in her to sit down and spell it out for him. 

Clint can be a solid lead, but he is the only other person who has been getting close to Natasha. Wanda doesn’t want to burden him with her questions when he could lend an ear to Natasha instead. Or maybe an arm, so Natasha can fight her way through it, since she is so against just talking about it.

Wanda almost growls. 

“Did something happen?” Steve asks tentatively, always the first one to ask, to check in, to make sure everything is alright.

She adores him, but she has to fight the powerful urge to throw him across the room with her magic.

“No.” Yes! “Maybe.”

Wanda wants to howl, to blow something up, to run upstairs and bang Natasha’s door open and demand that she talk. That is her problem. She feels like she can’t talk to them because the only person she wants to talk about it with is Natasha.

And she knows she can’t. Not right now, anyway. Natasha needs time to process everything, to sort through her feelings so she can pick and choose how and when to talk about it. That has been her process since Wanda first met her.

Wanda’s fine with that. She is. But she needs to talk about it; otherwise, she’ll go insane. Or worse, drive others mad.

“Hey!” Pietro shows up in front of her in a streak of blue light, effectively stopping her pacing. “Sit. Talk.” She arches an eyebrow at him, lips almost curling into an amused smile at his attempt at an imperious tone. “We are not going to judge.”

Coming from him, she knows it’s true. She can see it in his eyes, feel it in his heartbeat. He might not understand it, but he is giving her a safe space to express herself. Like he always does.

“Okay,” she heaves a sigh, sits down, and starts explaining everything from the beginning.

//

Natasha isn’t anywhere Wanda can find her.

She tries not to take it personally, but it’s hard not to feel hurt; she has, after all, promised Wanda that things are okay. And if things are okay, it means they can still be around each other, right? They can still talk, hang out, steal Tony’s ice cream, and eat it in secret with over pieces of Steve’s apple pie on the roof, no?

Natasha can still sneak into Wanda’s room in the middle of the night so they can talk (some form of talking that involves a lot of yawning from Wanda’s end), and they can keep going through the list of all the sitcoms Wanda has missed after losing her parents. And Wanda can even keep shoving her feelings way down deep and pretend she is not head over heels for Natasha, just so she can keep her around for longer.

She can still, even, tentatively lay her head down on Natasha’s shoulder and eventually fall asleep mid-episode, because that’s what friends do, isn’t it? So why is Natasha avoiding her like a particularly nasty plague?

It’s a question Wanda is sure she isn’t going to like the answer to.

She only sees Natasha when they’re aboard the Quinjet, on their way to a mission in Namp’o, North Korea, to investigate a possible international smuggling ring led by Skrulls. It’s a long flight, and Wanda spends a lot of it listening to Fury and Carol’s holographic face lecturing them on how to deal with Skrulls.

She should be paying them more attention, but her focus keeps slipping over to Natasha.

She’s staring silently, focusing on the folder in front of her, but her mind is clearly elsewhere. Clearly to Wanda, at least, who has come to know some of her nuances.

She wants to reach out, ground Natasha back to the present, but the couple of chairs between them feel like oceans away. Plus, she knows that any attempts at comfort, especially in front of others, will not be well received. She tries to communicate something through sheer force of will, but there’s no way of knowing if it has worked.

Wanda loses track of Natasha when they land in Namp’o. Fury wants her to use her powers when necessary, and she tries not to be nervous about that. They are supposed to observe the group at the Dockyard, and he wants her to try and read their minds. It’s not something she can control very well, which puts her on edge, but then she remembers Natasha’s words.

Don’t judge yourself on your worst mistakes, krasotka. Learn from them.

She takes a deep breath and sharpens her senses. She picks up thoughts and feelings and tries to sort out what is actually helpful, what can be useful. She’s careful about not letting them know she’s snooping around, and gains more confidence as she goes. It’s exhilarating to feel useful, to think you are doing something to make the world a better place. It’s what Wanda has always wanted.

She can almost hear Natasha’s proud words congratulating her.

Wanda…

It takes Wanda a while to realize Natasha’s voice isn’t coming up as a memory, but as a reality. She can hear her calling Wanda’s name, but not over comms. She is trying to tap into their shared bond.

Nat?

Her heart is beating so wildly she can barely hear herself think, but she’s starting to feel Natasha’s presence getting stronger within her. She tries to hold on to that.

Natasha sounds weak, like she has just finished a particularly intense workout. Or worse, endured a nasty torture session. Willing herself not to panic, Wanda focuses all her energy in tracking down where Natasha is, listens carefully to her instructions, all the while also guiding the team to their sidetracked rescue mission.

They find Natasha tied to a chair, but on her feet, standing over two men lying on the floor, bleeding profusely from their heads. She’s also bleeding, her breaths labored, and she gives them a lopsided smile when Steve charges ahead through the door.

Thank you, krasotka, she sends to Wanda right before saying, “Took you long enough.”

And then she passes out.

//

When they’re back at the compound, Natasha — predictably — refuses to go to medical. Wanda wraps one hand around her waist and loops another under her arm, and drags her away from Steve’s protest.

Wanda wants to take Natasha to her room, since it’s closer, but she knows that is not what she needs. Talking may be too much of an effort, but Wanda still hears Natasha’s silent pleas and walks the extra steps to take her to her quarters.

Natasha only extricates herself from Wanda’s hold when they get to her room, painstakingly sitting on her perfectly-made bed and, finally, exhaling. It’s not as deep as it should be, and Wanda knows it’s from the pain. It takes everything within her to turn around and look for the first aid kit in the adjoining bathroom, hoping that it will help, somehow.

It’s fruitless, unfortunately.

Flashes of what happened to Natasha — of what they did to her, what she let them … Wanda’s stomach burns a hole inside her. She hates it. She hates what happens, and she hates it even more that this isn’t the first time Natasha has gone through it.

“Is this what they did—” Wanda tentatively asks, stumbling over the words, her hands stopping their movements as she fights empathetic tears, “—to you in the Red Room?”

Natasha’s sigh is laced with tightly-contained pain.

“Don’t go there, Wanda,” her voice is nothing but a gentle warning, her eyes meeting Wanda’s before looking away. It’s the first thing she has said in hours. “You don’t want to know.”

She’s right, of course. Wanda doesn’t want to know. There is nothing Natasha can say that would sound even remotely comforting right now, but she just can’t help herself.

“Does it hurt?” It’s another stupid question, she knows.

She can see it in the way Natasha’s rigidly carrying herself, her face pinched and her breaths labored. But, worst of all, she can actually feel it every time she manages to catch Natasha’s eyes.

It’s like a thousand needles are meticulously prickling her soul, and it makes Wanda ache to help, to make it go away.

“Yeah.” Natasha’s chuckle lacks any actual mirth, making the corners of Wanda’s lips turn downward.

“I’m sorry.” She can see the struggle in Natasha’s eyes, the way she has to physically bite back her usual responses.

Wanda expects to hear, ‘I’m used to it. That’s how you survive.’ It’s what she always says. Instead, Natasha surprises her with a soft, “I’ll box it away.”

Wanda is unable to resist cupping Natasha’s jaw and sliding behind her neck, and fingers playing with the hair on Natasha’s neck; God, she wants to kiss her again.

She wants to gloss her lips over Natasha’s smooth ones, breathe her in, and pour every reassurance she can down her throat; she wants to lie down with Natasha, wrap her in her arms and sheets, and make promises she has no way of keeping. She longs to be able to just show Natasha how much she means to her, and how much she wants to make all of her pain disappear.

Not only that, but she knows she can’t. Not now, and not in the foreseeable future.

Wanda settles for resting her forehead against Natasha’s and just breathing slowly for a moment, before letting her other hand touch the middle of Natasha’s chest so she can radiate a healing warmth across her body.

“Here.” She croaks gently, smiling as Natasha finally lets out the air she’s been holding in her chest to fight the pain.

“Thanks,” she murmurs, and in a moment of weakness, Wanda presses her lips to her forehead.

“Can you do the thing tonight?” Natasha asks sheepishly when Wanda’s helping her into bed.

It’s always a silent fight, and it only serves to prove how much pain Natasha is actually in when she just lets Wanda help her, not once struggling against her as they go through her bedtime routine.

“What do you want to see?” Wanda asks instead, gently tucking Natasha into bed.

Any other time, she would have slipped in, no questions asked, under the guise of keeping an eye on Natasha through the night. But after… everything, Wanda knows she needs to give Natasha her space, otherwise, she’ll just ruin everything before they even have the chance to try.

“Anything,” if her shoulder wasn’t tightly held by Wanda’s makeshift sling, Wanda is sure Natasha would shrug.

“The team in the woods. Camping?” she offers up, remembering something Natasha has said during their midnight meet-ups in the kitchen.

She’s able to picture it so clearly: a little blue-haired girl, climbing up trees after giggles, the smell of crackling sausages on a fire lingering in the air. A fatherly laugh echoing around the clearing, the vigilant eyes of a mother making sure they were, overall, happy and safe.

From the way her lips curl up softly, Wanda knows she’s got it right. “Yeah, that… sounds nice.”

As gently as she can, Wanda taps Natasha’s temples, feeding her troubled mind images upon images of their team up somewhere; an anonymous, safe place, where Steve would set up a fire, grill up all the fish Clint would catch, and argue with Tony over the best way to make s’mores. She shows herself and Pietro, with him helping her pick berries, just like when they were kids. She lets Natasha see herself, relaxing on a hammock, laughing, and joking with the others. 

Wanda gives Natasha pleasant dreams, ones that are just fun and lightheaded, as that is all she can do.

For now.

//

Wanda doesn’t know what time it is.

She has learned over the years that trying to keep track of time will only fuel her anxiety, drowning her in a mixture of nasty feelings that will just drive her further away from sleep. She doesn’t even have a bedside table alarm clock, nor does she set one for her TV.

She also doesn’t know what has woken her up.

She does know she’s having a relatively easy sleep, mostly dreamless, and she would like to keep going. Then she hears a faint knock on her door, and realizes that the incessant noise is what rose her from her slumber. Barely cracking an eye open, Wanda goes to answer it.

“Natasha?” Her voice is even more gravelly than usual. “Wha—” she tries to stifle a yawn and rubs her eyes. “What time is it?”

“5:01 am,” Natasha shrugs.

She looks well-rested, like she has actually slept all nine, uninterrupted hours since Wanda has last seen her. Her face is unguarded, and Wanda can see all the emotions brimming across her eyes — she sees flashes of clouded anxiety, mixed with trembling dread, but also something that looks oddly like determined hope.

She doesn’t say anything else, just looks at Wanda expectantly. It’s too early, though; too early for guessing games and walking on eggshells. So Wanda turns, ready to go back to bed, leaving the door open until Natasha is ready to decide what she wants.

It’s then that she feels Natasha’s hands wrapping gently around her wrists, begging for her to turn back. She puts her hands on Wanda’s hips when she does, and walks her backward, skillfully closing the door with her foot and pressing her lips firmly over Wanda’s.

“I want to… try,” Natasha exhales, so close to her face that Wanda can taste her mouthwash. “I want to be better for… with you.”

Wanda’s heart makes a valiant attempt to leap out of her chest, and she can’t hide the growing grin that tugs her lips upwards. It’s quite possible that she’s still dreaming, that exhaustion and her powers are playing a wicked dream on her senses, warping her deepest wishes into reality. If that is the case, she’s not going to question it; not for now, anyway. Wanda thinks it’s past time to enjoy the things she wants for a change.

“Me too,” is what she settles on, beaming at the sharp relief smoothing Natasha’s face, leaving a ghost of a smile behind. “But can I sleep some more first, please?”

“Of course,” Natasha’s smile is a real one this time, and Wanda kisses it again for good measure. “I’ll be here. Good night, krasotka.”

“Good morning, Nat.”