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Maria’s new to a lot of things, now that she’s in the field. One of those things is having a surprising amount of down time. After her job in her logistics, going to another country and getting shot for a couple days in exchange for a week in that same country doing paperwork is a luxury.
“I love Spain,” Natasha Romanov says, looking at the street scene over designer glasses and sipping at a beer. “So peaceful.”
“We were just in a firefight,” Maria points out. “Only a couple days ago.”
“Well,” Romanov says. “It’s peaceful now.”
Romanov is new too, Maria’s new partner. Romanov is cool and collected, and Romanov is used to being away from home in a way that Maria won’t ever be, with her parents’ house being cared for by her neighbour.
They’ve been in Spain for three weeks now, and their hotel room doesn’t feel any more cramped than it did at the beginning of their mission, save the acquisition of books on Maria’s part. Romanov doesn’t like to read. That’s one thing Maria has learned about Romanov on their various missions together.
Romanov doesn’t like pronouns either.
“So, did you want me to use they and them?” Maria asked cautiously on their second mission.
“No,” Romanov responded, and little more was said on the subject.
Maria finds that they complement each other, she and Romanov. They think in different ways, an asset in the field, and conversation is more rounded between them. Maria has a tiny crush on Romanov which, over the past few months, has turned into fullblown admiration. She hopes Romanov doesn’t notice.
Natasha remembers a time when gender was taught the same way the operation of a handgun. It was one of the things Natasha jettisoned the moment there was any possibility of agency. Natasha crosses out all the gender values on the forms that SHIELD hands out. Fury doesn’t even react at this point; he files the reports just the same without this piece of arbitrary information.
Pronouns are hard. Natasha finds herself slipping into her and she, sometimes, and lets it happen for at most a week. Usually such lapses coincide with a cover, which are rarely anything other than a young woman who’s never thought about her gender in her life. One time she got to play a man. She likes acting sometimes, especially on missions.
Especially with Maria, who works with her more and more often, who studiously skips pronouns until Natasha tells her it’s all right. Maria, who’s so earnest and new to this job, wasn’t born into it, has a couple of cats at her home that she looks after.
Natasha thinks about getting cats. Or maybe helping Maria raise her cats. Natasha would like to be with Maria after and before missions as well.
Natasha sees the way Maria glances. Maybe she’ll notice Natasha glances the same way too.
“Call me Tasha.”
They’re watching the ocean fly under them, and Tasha has an arm in a sling. Maria nods.
“Tasha. Okay,” she says.
“And take me to dinner, when we’re stateside,” Tasha says. “Or coffee. Whichever you prefer.”
“Coffee. Coffee’s good,” Maria says, eyes widening. Tasha has to laugh. “Unless you’re fucking with me?”
“I’m not fucking with you,” Tasha says. “You’re just adorable.”
“Okay,” Maria says. “I’ve… I haven’t dated a lot of people.”
“Me neither,” Tasha says. “But I want to date you.”
Maria nods, stops herself before she says ‘okay’ again, because seriously Maria? Don’t blow this. Tasha resumes watching the water below, but creeps a hand over Maria’s.
Tasha gets a haircut on their second or third date, and Maria loves the way that red hair curls when it’s short enough, likes touching it when it’s still salon-soft. Tasha leans into that touch in a way Maria isn’t familiar with, but cherishes.
Tasha loves funnel cake, topped with soft serve ice cream and caramel when it’s available. Maria suggests a little bit of sea salt with the drizzled caramel, and Tasha looks at her like she’s fallen off the turnip truck.
“You can’t put something salty with something sweet,” Tasha says. “That’s just… wrong.”
“Have you never had chocolate covered pretzels?” Maria says, and Tasha’s eyebrows raise up to the hairline. “Tasha, you need to try it, at least once.”
“No, thank you,” Tasha says decisively. “The only sweet and salty I like is you.”
Maria turns an impressive shade of red, and Tasha’s mouth quirks.
“I didn’t mean an innuendo. English is my second language,” Tasha says flatly, before laughing. “Maria, why don’t we go home?”
Maria’s cats look up disinterested at the two before going back to what they were doing, namely sleeping. Tasha is a couple of inches shorter than Maria and those little red curls tickle Maria’s nose. Everything seems supremely funny to Maria, supremely wonderful.
They kiss a while, then get to cuddling for syndicated episodes of Saturday Night Live on Maria’s cruddy television, and everything is right.
“Want to bet on who gets paged for a mission first?” Tasha mumbles, scratching the ears of Maria’s tabby, Angel. Maria shakes her head.
“I know it’s going to be me,” she says. “Hill and Maria are both first alphabetically.”
“But Fury likes me better,” Tasha says.
“Even more of a reason why I’ll get called first,” Maria says. “He doesn’t want to spoil your evening.”
Just then, Tasha’s pager goes off. The shit-eating grin that follows is almost unbearable.
“I have to go,” Tasha says, and kisses Maria’s cheek. Then Tasha looks at Angel, who is just starting to go to sleep again. “I’ll wake up the sleeping kitty.”
“Angel could fall asleep on anything,” Maria says. “Don’t stay on her account.”
“Then what about your account?” Tasha says. “What if I just page Fury and tell him that you’ve fallen asleep on me too?”
“Tempting,” Maria smiles.
It’s actually fairly easy to fall asleep on Tasha. Tasha is softer than she thought.