This is my writing side blog, mostly about Natasha Romanoff and sapphic ships with her in it. Feel free to send an ask about my writing! Or if you just wanna say hi, that's cool, too!
Currently accepting requests/prompts, though it might take me longer than usual to get to them. I now have a TrackBear page if you're curious about the projects I'm working on.
Lessons in Healing (#LiH): An ongoing series of interconnected Blackhill stories. Canon divergent after CA:CW, where the team gets back together and the Accords are amended.
In Our Bones (#IoB): Part of the LiH series; current ongoing multichapter fic. (For the first time in Natasha's life, things are finally falling into place. She should've known that nothing is ever that simple, especially when her long-dead past comes calling.)
Darkness There and Nothing More (#cosmic horror au): Post-Endgame. (Natasha comes back, and Maria notices something is a little bit off.)
#Softball AU (Tumblr exclusive): Not canon-compliant. (Maria is the leader and pitcher of a professional softball team, while Natasha is a newly-recruited prodigy shortstop who isn't exactly a team player.)
Fandom: Marvel (MCU)
Pairing: Blackhill (Maria Hill/Natasha Romanov)
Words: 890
Tags: blood, injury, hurt/comfort
For @flashfictionfridayofficial's weekly prompt #365: Blood on Your Hands
[AO3 Link]
Bad intel.
That's what it always comes down to when these missions go off the rails.
Maria Hill has seen it all too often on the other side of the screen and has even dealt with the fallout herself, but never before has she been on the receiving end of a mistake made by someone else. Someone who's supposed to be on the same side, no less.
She coughs, wet and painful, and it trails off into a wheeze. She doesn't know how long she's been lying in this filthy alleyway—and if she doesn't die from blood loss, it'll be from one of the many diseases seeping into her bloodstream.
It feels like it's been seconds. It feels like a lifetime.
At some point between her fleeting moments of consciousness, a presence appears at her side. They're saying something nonsensical to her addled brain, but the tone of the words is calm. Steady. Something she can hold onto.
Not an enemy.
There are hands pressing into the place where the bullet shredded through her stomach, and she gasps when sudden pressure spikes her pain to a thousand, instantly clearing the fog.
"Where's the target?" Maria forces through gritted teeth, trying to turn her head, but all she sees are alley walls now darkened in shadow.
Then, her gaze drifts up to meet piercing green eyes.
The Black Widow. SHIELD's newest recruit. After reading about all the things she's done and all the headaches she's caused SHIELD, Maria had serious reservations about letting her into their ranks.
But Nick Fury didn't agree.
And now, that same woman is holding Maria's life in her hands and doesn't seem to be letting go any time soon.
"Gone," the Widow says, as casually as discussing the weather.
"What?" Maria tries to smack away the hands holding her insides together, but her attempts glance off ungracefully, slippery with blood, and her arms flop back onto the concrete. "What are you doing? Go after him."
Of all the circumstances Maria imagined her blood staining the Black Widow's hands, she admits this hadn't even made the list. She winces as the pressure increases, and a groan tears through her lips.
"Quit moving, Hill. I'm trying to save your life."
In hindsight, she blames the blood loss. Or the frustration at being rendered fundamentally useless. Or just her stupid brain, which thought it would be a good idea to reply, "Why? Got tired of taking them?"
It startles the other woman, which manifests as a tiny twitch of a finger that Maria wouldn't have noticed if those hands weren't pressing into her.
The answer that follows catches Maria equally off-guard.
"Yes," says the Widow.
Natasha, Maria's mind provides. She heard Barton call her that in the mess hall when they stole a table for themselves in the corner, away from all the other agents who didn't want anything to do with them. Maria remembers the subtle softening of her eyes when he used it—Natasha—like the woman wasn't used to letting anyone close enough to hear a diminutive of her own name.
"Extraction in five," Natasha supplies, quirking an eyebrow. "Try not to die before then."
Maria coughs. "Why didn't I think of that?"
"Shut up."
Through the haze, Maria takes note of the tight press of Natasha's lips and the crease between her eyebrows, bordering something close to worry. She always assumed the Black Widow wasn't capable of such things; words like heartless and cruel come to mind, a blackened stain on the woman's image that all SHIELD agents seem to share.
Of course, Maria has never been afraid to admit when she's wrong.
"Thank you."
Natasha's eyes widen, only slightly and just for a split second, before it's gone. The sigh she releases is almost fond, her lips twitching in amusement. "What did I just say?"
"I know, I know." Maria swallows down all the pain and the nausea, bracing herself through the agony of another breath. But she needs to drive this point home, and she refuses to look away when her lips form around the words, "Thank you anyway."
It feels like a lifetime, the way they stare into each other's eyes.
Natasha's hands are still tight on her stomach, sealing in her lifeblood. Maria thinks of the other things those hands are capable of—how they could reach inside her wound and finish the job with the kind of ruthlessness detailed in those Black Widow reports, or how they could let go entirely and witness the last breaths Maria would ever take.
They do neither of those things.
This is the closest they've ever been, and Maria can count the freckles across her cheeks and over the bridge of her nose, speckled like stars in the night sky. Or fireflies, like the forest behind her grandmother's house on those warm summer nights.
Maria reaches out to touch, but she barely manages a twitch before her hand slumps back down.
"Don't. Move."
"M'not," Maria mumbles.
"Liar."
Her vision begins to go dark, and there's shouting and hurried footsteps at the entrance to the alley.
But even with all the chaos and the noise and the panic of her fading consciousness, a softer voice cuts through, flooding her with relief. "Don't worry," Natasha murmurs, as calming as a lullaby. "I've got you."
I highly doubt this will see the light of day on ao3, mostly because it's incomplete and I don't have the motivation to return to it, but have another excerpt below from my blackhill teacher au.
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Lastly, there’s Maria, who looks like she’d rather be anywhere but here, and an empty seat beside her.
That’ll be her cue.
She moves to the other end of the table, steeling herself for their potential night ahead. She notes that Maria’s hair is out of its usual tight bun, instead it falls in soft waves, the ends brushing the top of her shoulders. It makes her look softer, under the warm light of the restaurant.
“Hi,” Natasha says, slotting into the empty seat. Maria’s eyes flick up from her half-drunk beer bottle, her expression unreadable.
“Hi,” she says back, and Natasha counts that as a win.
Sam and Bucky also wave at her as she sits down, and suddenly the evening doesn’t seem as bad as it did a few minutes ago.
“Did I miss much?” Natasha asks in a whisper. She steals an unopened beer from the middle of the table. There’s no bottle opener in sight, so she angles it against the side of the table, slamming down the palm of her hand. The cap comes off with a clean pop.
Maria’s silent for a moment as she eyes her party trick, and out of the corner of her eye, Nat’s sure she sees the other woman smirk.
“Not much, unless you include the overwhelming amount of testosterone in the room.”
Natasha smiles at the jab, taking a sip of her beer.
“It’s not usually like this,” she says, with a shrug. “Wanda and Darcy are a lot of fun.” When they’re here, lingers on her tongue. She plasters on a smile, “At least we’ll have four of us now. But the boys, they’re not so bad after a while.”
Maria merely hums, looking unconvinced. Natasha doesn’t blame her, the men are loud, almost obnoxiously so tonight. She’s glad to be at the other end of the table.
The waitstaff come around and take their orders shortly after this, almost as if they’d come to the same conclusion.
“Steve mentioned you studied at the University of Chicago?” Nat inquires, while they wait for their food.
“I did,” Maria answers curtly. It’s a clear shutdown of the conversation, but Natasha who’s never been a fan of uncomfortable silences, continues to probe.
“History major, right?” Nat asks, to which Maria nods. “What was your focus?”
Maria sighs softly, and levels Nat with a look that says do you really want to get into this?Natasha leans forward, resting her head in her hand, and finds that she surprisingly does.
“Europe and its Empires,” Maria answers, a bashful looking expression appears on her face. “The Roman Empire was my ancient history focus–” she never finishes her sentence, because Natasha chooses that moment to loudly scoff.
“What?” Maria questions defensively, crossing her arms, “what’s wrong with the Roman Empire?”
Natasha smirks, before she shakes her head. There’s nothing wrong with the Roman Empire, she’s just having a hard time picturing strait-laced, practical Maria Hill devoting years to studying a time period filled with gladiators, kings and corruption.
“Nothing, I was just surprised,” Nat says, taking a large swig of her beer.
Maria continues to look at her for a moment, but it’s not with a glare like she suspected, rather there’s a look of amusement on her face.
“So, what about you? What was your major?” Maria questions.
Natasha rolls her eyes at this, “Literature, obviously.”
“Obviously,” Maria mimics, clearly teasing.
Natasha laughs, before continuing, “I focused on Russian literature, for my thesis.”
Maria hums, reflecting over her answer with a smile. It’s so different to her own reaction moments earlier, it’s as if Maria expected nothing less. Like Russian literature and Natasha make sense.
She suddenly feels flushed, but Natasha chalks it up to feeling seen. She takes another sip of her beer to try to eradicate the feeling.
“So, teaching?” Maria asks, filling the silence. She doesn’t even have to finish her train of thought for Natasha to know what she’s referring to.
Was this always the path for you? Would you have chosen differently, given the circumstances?
She knows this, because she’s asked herself these questions too.
At that moment, the waitstaff return, holding baskets full of freshly cooked shawarma. There’s a heavy aroma in the air, of paprika, cumin and the sweet tang of cinnamon. Her mouth is practically watering.
Natasha shrugs, “A story for another time, maybe.”
Different, destroying so much my past. I can feel it rising inside me. The violence. The rage. I’ve held it down, but that won’t last much longer. I can’t stay here. I need to release the killer instinct before someone gets hurt. Someone who doesn’t deserve it. Securing travel is never a problem, just need to find a location, somewhere I can unleash the monster.
yay first post on tumblr!! i entirely made this account for nat and my little blackhill universe im finally sharing with the world yippee have some old sketches
i am terminally A Sucker for characters who have a towering and generally earned ego about their own ability and absolutely no self-worth about themselves as a person at all. intoxicating combo.
the right thematic moment for a Black Widow solo movie is right after Winter Soldier. She’s blown all her covers and is counting on time to figure out a new one. She’s not joining Fury to go root out the remains of Hydra, she’s not joining Steve and Sam on their quest to save Bucky, she’s going on a selfish journey of self discovery, right after she loses more than maybe anyone else (except Fury maybe?) in the movie, leaking her whole history to the world
What needs to come next, obviously, is a story where Natasha can square this movie with her future. CA:TWS ends on a very similar note as The Avengers, with them going their separate ways but with the promise that when they’re needed, they’ll be back. How does she get to that, though? “When I joined SHIELD, I thought I was goin’ straight… but I guess I just traded in the KGB for Hydra”
This is where a solo project slots in! Natasha on her own, trying to define who she is apart from these Organizations that have shaped her. Natasha’s past finally public. We needed a nemesis here, someone she’d wronged who could only come after her now because of the file dump, someone to make her question who she is and what she should do next—something like the Edmonson/Noto run would stun here—where the end of the story is, of course, her independence from spycraft and decision to commit to the Avengers full time
Shout-out to characters who don't plan to survive their stories! Heroes who think they can only atone for their failures through sacrifice, villains who don't think they deserve to live in the world they're trying to create. Gimme that passive suicidality baby, mm-mm, delicious.
really nice gift for Specifically Me when the character has an immediate and violent panic response to being held down / physically restrained. especially if their affect is usually cheerful or relaxed or reserved and this is their one "sicko mode (wildly uncharacteristic)" button.
