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Once in a while, Matt and Nat like to get together and act normal. Today was one of those days.
"Come on," Matt said breezily, his walking stick clattering cheerfully along the pavement as he led Natasha toward the church. "You're gonna love it."
"Church?" Natasha grumbled. "There isn't even a mass on."
"Yeah, exactly," he said, and even behind his red glasses he managed to give her a teasing look. "I know you don't do crowds and congregations."
"So, what's here to love?"
"Stained glass," Matt answered as they mounted the steps to the open double doors and walked inside. The church was indeed empty, but for a couple of people on the pews and a janitor sweeping in the corners.
Natasha followed him, "Um, Matt, you can't see stained glass."
"But we're here so you can see them," was all he said.
She stared at him, unable to fathom how anybody could be so sweet.
He caught her looking, "What?"
"You're awfully cheery," she said.
Matt just smiled, a small smile that said enough without giving away everything. "Yeah. Weird, right? Considering all the shit I've been through lately." He continued to lead her toward the stained glass windows, "But I'm spending the day with you, so of course I'm cheery."
Natasha wasn't sure whose idea it had been initially, but it seemed to be good for both of them-- for one day every few months or so, the devil and the widow would meet up, catch up, hang out and forget who they were for a while. It functioned like therapy, disguised as a casual date, often confused with an excuse to be like normal people, but more often or not it was a way for Natasha to heal from her latest wounds with a kindred spirit. A tradition that kept the torches they held for each other still burning, even when life would allow no more than that.
Matt pointed up. "If memory serves, this is the mostly green window, yeah?"
Natasha looked up. Light spilled through the stained glass, illuminating their surroundings. She felt like she was standing in a forest because of the emerald light.
"Yeah, how do you know?"
"I came here a lot with my dad when I was a kid. Before the accident," Matt said. "I remember the windows the most. Green, yellow, red, blue, orange, purple. And different colors of light sometimes feel different on my skin." He held a palm up to the light, and Natasha could see the scars and bruises on them. The only indication that Matt was ever spending his nights chasing criminals in Hell's Kitchen.
"They're patterned after 18th-century styles," he told her. "But no images, just shapes."
"Last I checked," Natasha quipped, "you were the blind one."
Matt grinned, "All right, I'll leave you alone."
They walked under the yellow-colored one. Natasha noticed the geometric patterns changed with every color, yet still adhering to a fixed symmetry. The windows were not that wide, but arced at the top in a curved lindel. She lingered for a bit as Matt walked on, then went to follow him to the next window.
Natasha stopped to examine it. The light spilling all around her was red, the floor was red, the pews directly in front were red, and her shoes and her shirt were stained with the bloody light. It took Natasha back, to her training, to the crimson walls of the room she was raised in. She tilted her palms up, and they were stained red too. They always were, she realized, and they always would be.
She looked up, breath hitching, letting the sunbeams paint red across her face, and she closed her eyes in resignation, in surrender, because she could just never wipe it out, and her past was just never going to let her go.
As if from far away, she heard Matt call her name: "Nat!"
The gentle, sing-song tone rang across the empty church as he doubled back, reached out and tugged on her arm. Natasha opened her eyes.
"Come on," he said, amused, "there's more. Well, I think there's more."
He pulled her to the left, out of the shade of the red-stained windows and under the cool light of soft blue ones. This time when she looked down, the floor looked like the bottom of the ocean, her hands the tint of a vast and fearless sky. With Matt standing tall and steady behind her and the sun pouring a calming shade of sapphire over them, she found herself able to breathe normally again.
From the strength of his pull Natasha was already standing very close to Matt, but she moved until she was pressed right up against his chest. With a chuckle, he slipped one arm around her waist. "What is it?"
"Nothing," she mumbled.
"If you say so," he replied, still humored, and kept her close to him as they moved from the blue window to the purple and orange-dominated ones.
"You like it?" He finally asked her as they reached the altar and turned around.
"They're all beautiful," Natasha said.
"You spent an awful lot of time under the red one."
"Yeah," Natasha replied. "But you know what? I think the blue one was actually my favorite."
She stopped, realizing they were about to walk down the aisle, down a long carpet that was, once again, red. But Matt kept right on walking, so she walked with him.
When they reached the end and stepped out of the open church door Natasha couldn't help but wonder what it would feel like to do that again, to walk down that aisle and out of the church arm-in-arm with Matt under better, happier, normal circumstances, maybe in a white dress and not a black one. She watched him tilt his chin up and inhale deeply.
"Wow, the air is waaaaaaayyy too stuffy in there," he commented. "Old stone and velvet and candle wax and years and years of forgiveness and mercy."
"Yeah, I guess," Natasha said, glancing back at the church.
"You really liked the blue one?" Matt said.
She nodded with a small smile. "It's not really my color, but I did like it." She squeezed his hand. "Matt?"
"Yes, dear."
Natasha's heart nearly goddamn melted. He shouldn't have called her that. It made it harder for her to say the next words.
"Thank you for showing me here."
He met her eyes with that wide grin she loved but didn't always get to see, "Hey, my pleasure."
She sighed, "Just...don't call me dear."
"Why not."
"Because you know we aren't-- we can't-- we could never--" Natasha wasn't sure what she wanted to say, but he immediately knew what she meant.
"Yeah I know that," Matt said, "but we can pretend, can't we?" He squeezed her hand back, "even if I really mean it."
She sighed again, and let him-- let both of them-- have this.
"All right, then," Natasha said. She leaned her head against his shoulder. "As long as you mean it."
"Of course I do," he murmured. He planted a kiss in her hair. "I do, dear."
"Matt!" she exclaimed in protest, only to be met with a chuckle and some more kisses, even as they started walking back down the street.
"I do, dear," Matt said, over and over in between kisses, "Dear, dear, dear, my dear."
Natasha decided not to fight it anymore. Barely able to hide her grin, she wrapped her arms around him and let him fuss over her all the way down the street.