The compound at night always feels different. During the day it is loud in that chaotic, comfortable way that comes with too many strong personalities sharing the same building. Someone is always sparring in the training room, someone is always arguing in the kitchen, and Tony’s lab is always humming like the walls themselves are alive. But when the night settles in, the noise disappears until the place feels cavernous and hollow, long corridors lit only by dim strips of light along the floor and the quiet ventilation system whispering through the walls.
At the end of one of those corridors, a thin line of light slips beneath a bedroom door that should have been dark hours ago. Inside the room, Wanda sits curled slightly forward on the edge of her bed, her laptop balanced on her thighs and casting a pale glow over her face. Her hair is messy, falling around her shoulders in dark waves, and she hasn’t noticed how long she’s been sitting there. The video on the screen reflects in her eyes while she watches with a stillness that borders on unnatural focus, the kind of attention someone gives when they are afraid to blink and miss something.
On the screen, it’s you.
The footage is clearly recorded from a distance, the frame slightly shaky like the phone had been held carefully but not perfectly steady. You’re in the training room, standing in front of the heavy punching bag with your hair pulled back and your shirt damp with sweat from a long session. Every strike you throw makes the chain above the bag creak softly, and the force of your hits sends the bag swinging away before snapping back toward you again. Your breathing is heavy but controlled, shoulders tense with effort as you reset your stance and throw another punch.
Wanda doesn’t move.
Her eyes track every movement you make, every shift of your body, every small habit you probably don’t even realize you have. The way you roll your shoulders when your muscles tighten. The way you wipe sweat from your brow with the back of your wrist instead of stopping to grab a towel. The way your jaw tightens slightly when you get frustrated with yourself.
She has watched this exact video so many times she could probably recreate every frame from memory.
Still, she drags the cursor back to the beginning and presses play again.
Your first punch lands again with the same dull thud, and Wanda leans slightly closer to the screen without even noticing she’s doing it. Her fingers rest lightly against the laptop near the edge of the frame, almost close enough to touch the image of you frozen in motion when she pauses it for a moment. Her lips part just slightly while she studies your face on the screen, her eyes moving slowly across the shape of it like she’s committing it to memory again even though she already knows it better than she should.
“You look even better angry,” she murmurs quietly to herself, her voice soft and almost breathless in the empty room. The words aren’t ashamed or hesitant, just thoughtful in the way someone might admire a painting they’ve seen a hundred times but still can’t stop looking at. Her fingers tap lightly against the trackpad before the video begins moving again, and her gaze sharpens with the same intensity it always does whenever you’re on the screen.
Her laptop is full of these videos.
Not just one or two.
Dozens.
Clips she recorded without you ever noticing. Moments she caught when no one else was paying attention. Little fragments of your life inside the compound that she collected slowly over weeks until the folder filled itself without her even realizing how much she had gathered.
There’s one of you asleep on the couch in the common room during movie night, your head tipped back slightly and your arm hanging lazily over the edge while everyone else argued about what film to watch next. There’s another where you’re sitting at the kitchen island early in the morning, half-awake while you drink coffee and stare blankly at nothing like your brain hasn’t fully started working yet. There’s a clip from a mission where you’re shouting instructions over the chaos while civilians run behind you, your voice calm and steady in the middle of absolute disaster.
Wanda opens that one next.
The street in the video is loud and messy with dust and smoke curling through the air, distant sirens wailing somewhere behind the buildings. The camera angle is high up from a rooftop where she had been standing earlier that day, far enough away that no one noticed she had pulled her phone out for a moment. She watches the footage with the same quiet intensity while your figure runs into frame below, your boots splashing through a shallow puddle as you move toward the fight with your weapon in hand.
“You didn’t even hesitate,” she says softly, almost admiringly, as the video continues playing in front of her. Her thumb traces lightly along the edge of the screen while she watches you crouch behind a car and shout something toward Steve across the street. Your expression is sharp and focused, your attention completely locked on the mission like the chaos around you barely even registers.
That was the moment she started recording you more often.
Because she realized something then.
She realized she could watch you whenever she wanted.
All she had to do was keep the moments.
Her laptop shifts slightly when she moves it closer, the glow of the screen lighting up the dark room while she scrolls through the folder again. Each file name is meaningless and random, but she knows exactly what each one contains without needing to check. Her memory for anything related to you is perfect in a way that almost surprises her sometimes.
She clicks another video.
The common room appears this time, warm lighting filling the space while the team relaxes after a long day. Sam is sprawled across the floor with snacks scattered around him, Clint is half-asleep in an armchair, and someone is talking loudly near the kitchen entrance about something that clearly isn’t important.
But Wanda barely notices any of them.
Because you’re sitting on the couch.
And next to you is Natasha.
Wanda’s gaze sharpens immediately, her attention locking onto the screen with an intensity that makes her shoulders tense slightly. The video had been recorded casually like the others, her phone angled from the hallway where she had been standing unnoticed while everyone relaxed inside the room.
You’re laughing at something Natasha says, leaning back against the couch cushions while you shove her shoulder lightly in playful protest. Natasha smiles in that small knowing way she has, her body turning slightly toward you as the conversation continues.
Wanda’s fingers tighten against the laptop.
She watches carefully.
Every second.
Every small shift of your posture.
Natasha leans closer to say something quieter.
And then you kiss her.
It’s quick. Soft. Casual in a way that makes it clear it wasn’t the first time.
But it’s enough.
The moment it happens, Wanda goes completely still.
Her breathing stops.
Her eyes lock onto the screen like the image might change if she stares hard enough.
The video keeps playing, but she isn’t hearing the voices anymore. The only thing she can see is the way Natasha smiles against your lips before you pull away, the two of you continuing to talk like the kiss meant nothing at all.
Wanda’s chest tightens in a sharp, sudden way that makes something inside her snap.
The laptop slams shut.
The sound echoes sharply through the room.
For a single second the silence hangs heavy in the air.
Then the room erupts.
Scarlet energy bursts from Wanda in a violent wave that rattles the walls, the desk across the room lifting into the air before smashing sideways into the wall hard enough to splinter the wood. Papers scatter everywhere as the lamp shatters against the floor, glass exploding across the carpet in glittering shards.
Her breathing becomes uneven as another pulse of power ripples through the room, sending a chair flying into the door with a
heavy metallic bang that dents the surface.
“She doesn’t get to touch you,” Wanda says under her breath, her voice low and shaking with something darker than anger. The red glow around her hands flickers violently while the mirror above her dresser cracks straight down the center, splintering outward into jagged lines.
“You don’t even look at me,” she mutters, almost like she’s thinking the words out loud rather than saying them intentionally. Her gaze drifts toward the fallen laptop on the floor across the room, her chest rising and falling sharply while the faint scarlet glow around her fingers continues pulsing with restless energy.
Another surge of power rattles the walls again before finally beginning to fade, the red light slowly dimming until the room falls back into silence. The destruction left behind is scattered everywhere, broken furniture and glass littering the floor while Wanda kneels in the middle of the wreckage with her hands resting loosely against her thighs.
Her eyes stay fixed on the laptop.
Because it still has the video on it.
The moment with you.
The moment that should have been hers.
And then—
There’s a knock on the door.
The sound freezes her instantly.
“…Wanda?” your voice calls gently from the other side, muffled through the metal but unmistakable.
Her heart slams violently against her ribs.
“I heard something crash,” you continue, concern threading through your voice as your hand touches the handle. “Are you okay in there?”
Wanda doesn’t move.
Her gaze drifts slowly toward the door.
Because you’re standing right outside it.
And suddenly the distance that had always existed between you—the safety of watching from hallways, from rooftops, from the glow of a laptop screen—is gone.
Now you’re here.
Only a door between you.
And Wanda has been watching you for far too long to pretend she doesn’t want it opened.
✧❁❁❁✧✿✿✿✧❁❁❁✧
Masterlist
A/N: My favourite song rn is Hysteria, and I just thought about Emo Wanda having that obsession over something she can’t have, and I also thought that emo Wanda would love Muse in general (Her best era fr)
but when you’re with her you’re thinking of me, aren’t you?
wanda x f!reader
Each time your fling touches you, it barely registers—until Wanda crosses your mind. You and Wanda are on a break, but she’s still the only one who actually gets a reaction out of you.
details: smut, college au, situationship/flings, situationship to together, top wanda, bottom reader, fingering/oral/strap in v, very very slight hurt/comfort, maybe shitty writing bc im very tired.
The break had been your idea. Or maybe hers first, and you’d agreed too quickly out of pride. Either way, neither of you had called it a breakup. That distinction mattered more than you liked to admit.
You were still technically "together." Just “taking space.” Time to think.
There hadn’t been rules, exactly.
Neither of you asked the obvious questions because you both already knew the answers would hurt. So the line stayed blurry on purpose. If something happened with someone else during the break… it wouldn’t really count. At least, that was the understanding.
And honestly, you didn’t feel guilty about the woman you’d been seeing.
It wasn’t serious. You’d made that clear from the start. A few dates, late-night drinks, her knee pressed against yours in restaurant booths. Easy company. Temporary, probably. But she was pretty, attentive, and most importantly, she made you feel wanted again instead of analyzed.
Tonight, she’d pulled you into a picture before either of you left the bar. Her arm looped loosely around your waist, your lipstick-smudged smile turned toward her instead of the camera.
You posted it without thinking too hard about it.
That was a lie. You thought about it the entire time.
About who would see it. About whether your situationship would pause when it came across her feed. Whether she’d zoom in close enough to notice how comfortable the touch looked. Whether she’d care at all.
You told yourself you didn’t care. Still, an hour later, you were lying awake in the dark with your phone inches from your face, checking her socials again.
So no, it wasn’t wrong what you were doing. At least, you told yourself that often enough for it to almost sound true.
The new woman wasn’t even your fling. Barely even that, honestly. A few dates turning into nights together, lingering touches, texts that came in past midnight. She was easy to want. Funny enough to make you forget yourself for a while. Pretty enough to distract you completely when she had you under her.
You didn’t not like her.
She made you laugh over drinks until your stomach hurt. Made you see stars every time you ended up tangled together in her sheets. Made you feel desired in a way that felt effortless instead of complicated.
But every time afterward, eventually, you’d open your eyes and see her face beside you. And your heart would drop anyway. Not because you regretted sleeping with her. Not because you wanted your ex back, exactly.
It was just the awful realization that no matter how good someone else was, they still weren’t her.
Every time she kissed you, every touch against your skin, you waited for something to happen. Some spark. Some feeling strong enough to drown everything else out.
But there was nothing until your mind wandered to Wanda.
Only then did the heat come rushing in. Suddenly her hands burned against your skin, every kiss became something you chased desperately, your breath catching as you pulled her closer. But it wasn’t her you were reacting to. Never really her.
It was Wanda. Wanda’s mouth you imagined against yours. Wanda’s fingers deep inside you. Wanda’s voice slipping into the spaces between breaths. And the worst part was how easily your body responded once you let yourself picture her instead.
After each time, you’d lie there breathless beside your fling, her arm thrown lazily across your stomach while the emotions settled in slow and heavy. You were screwed.
The party was already loud by the time you got there. Music shaking the walls of your friend’s cramped off-campus house, cheap alcohol spilling across countertops, bodies packed shoulder-to-shoulder beneath dim colored lights. Skirts worn that would’ve gotten others sent out of lecture halls in seconds, tops hanging off shoulders like they were daring somebody to say something. You weren’t exactly dressed modestly either.
Your eyes met Wanda’s from across the room for the first time in months, and it hit you all at once how badly photos had failed to capture her. You’d stared at those eyes through screens often enough to memorize them, scrolling through old posts late at night like some pathetic ritual. But seeing them now, really seeing them, felt completely different.
It made you hold on tighter to your sanity.
You told yourself you could handle it. That seeing her wouldn’t undo you the way it used to. That months of distance, of silence, of pretending you were fine, had finally built something solid in you. But it didn’t feel solid when she finally approached you.
Wanda didn’t rush it. She never did. Just appeared at your side like she’d always belonged there, like months hadn’t passed in between. The conversation started easy enough, careful. Small updates. Polite smiles. The kind of normal people use when they’re trying not to acknowledge what’s still unresolved.
And then it shifted.
Your back pressed against the wall, the noise of the party reduced to a distant, muffled pulse. Light from the living room barely reached here, leaving everything dim, almost suspended. Trying to make its way up the staircase. Wanda was close, her body pressed against yours.
Your focus narrowed to the space between breaths, to the way she exhaled softly against your mouth before pulling you back in again. Every thought you’d been holding onto loosened at the edges, slipping away one by one until there was nothing left except the pressure of her against you and the sound of your own breathing trying to keep up.
You could feel the heat radiating from her, her body barely an inch away from yours. Her hand found its way to your hip, her fingers digging into the soft flesh, pulling you even closer. You could feel her breath, hot and ragged, against your neck, her lips brushing against your skin, leaving a trail of fire in their wake.
"You've been avoiding me," she whispered, her voice low, her tone accusing. You could feel the truth of her words, the months of distance, the silence that had grown between you. You had been avoiding her, trying to forget the intensity of your last encounter, trying to move on.
But now, with her body pressed against yours, her lips on your skin, her fingers digging into your hip, you realized that you hadn't moved on. You hadn't forgotten. You had just been delaying the inevitable.
"I've been busy... we've... been on break," you lied, your voice barely audible over the pounding of your heart. Wanda chuckled, a low, sultry sound that sent a jolt of desire through you. She knew you were lying, she could see right through you, she always could.
"Busy with what?" she asked, her voice mocking, her eyes gleaming with amusement. "With your new fling? The one you were clinging to earlier?"
You could feel your face flushing at the mention of your new partner, your body betraying you, your desire for Wanda growing with each word she spoke. She knew she had you, she knew she had the upper hand, and she was enjoying it.
"And we're on break, not on two different sides of a chasm."
"Wanda," you whispered, a plea, a warning, a surrender. You didn't know what you were asking for, what you were giving in to. All you knew was that you needed her, you needed her touch, her kiss, her body on top of yours.
"What do you want, baby?" she asked, her voice low, her eyes locked with yours. "Tell me what you want."
You hesitated, your body aching with need, your mind filled with images of her, of you, of the two of you together. You wanted her, you wanted her touch, her kiss, her body on top of yours.
"I want you to kiss me," you said, your voice steady, your eyes challenging.
She kissed you, her lips soft, her tongue demanding, her body pressing against yours. She was intense, she was passionate, she was everything you needed. She was giving you what you wanted, but she was also taking, taking control, taking your breath away, taking your heart. She guided you back into some room, shutting the door behind the two of you.
You could feel your body responding, your heart pounding, your breath coming in short gasps. You could feel your desire growing, your need for her increasing with each passing moment. You wanted more, you wanted everything.
You deepened the kiss, your tongue tangling with hers, your hands exploring her body, your fingers digging into her flesh. She moaned, her body pressing against yours, her hands reaching for you, her fingers finding the hem of your shirt, pulling it up, exposing your skin. You could feel her touch, hot and urgent, her fingers tracing the curve of your body, her hands cupping your breasts.
You gasped, your body arching into her touch, your mind filled with images of her, of you, of the two of you together. She seemed to sense your desire, her hands moving faster, her touch becoming more insistent, more demanding. She was undressing you, her hands pushing your shirt up, her fingers unhooking your bra, her hands cupping your breasts, her thumbs rubbing against your nipples.
You could feel your body responding, your nipples hardening, your breath coming in short gasps, your body aching with need.
And then, suddenly, she stopped. Her hands left your body, her touch disappearing, her lips leaving yours. You could feel the loss, your body aching with need, your mind filled with questions, with confusion.
"Why did you stop?" you asked, your voice barely audible, your eyes locked with hers. She smiled, a slow, wicked smile that promised more pleasure than you could bear.
"Because I want to hear you beg," she whispered, her voice low. "I want to hear you say it."
You hesitated, your body aching with need, your mind filled with images of her, of you, of the two of you together. You wanted her, you wanted her touch, her kiss, her body on top of yours.
"I want you to fuck me," you said, your voice steady, your eyes challenging. Wanda's eyes widened in surprise, her body tensing against yours. She hadn't been expecting that, hadn't been expecting you to take control.
But she recovered quickly, her eyes gleaming with excitement, her lips curving into a smile. "Mmm," she murmured, her hand reaching between your legs, her fingers finding your clit, her touch sending waves of pleasure through you.
Her touch was electric, her fingers expertly stroking you, her thumb circling your clit with just the right amount of pressure. You could feel your body responding, your hips bucking, your breath coming in short gasps. You were so close, so ready, your body aching for release.
"I want you to lick me," you said, breathy, in betwen gasps. "I want your tongue on me, your mouth on me, your face between my legs."
Her fingers find the edge of your panties, pulling them aside. She looked up at you, her eyes locked with yours, her breath hot against your core. And then she licked you, her tongue flat against your clit, her touch sending waves of pleasure through you. You moaned, your body arching into her touch, your hands finding her hair, your fingers tangling in the soft strands.
She started to move, her tongue circling your clit, her fingers slipping inside you, her touch sending you closer and closer to the edge. You could feel your orgasm building, your body tensing, your breath coming in short gasps. As your body trembled with the aftershocks, Wanda pulled away, her touch leaving you bereft. You whimpered, your body aching for more, your mind filled with thoughts of her, of you, of the two of you together. You wanted more, you needed more. You've been craving her for months.
Wanda seemed to sense your desire, her lips curving into a smile. She reached down, her hand moving between her legs, her fingers unbuckling something. You heard a rustling sound, and then you saw it - a strap-on harness, a thick, silicone cock attached to it.
Your eyes widened in surprise.
"Is this what you want, baby?" she asked, her voice low, her eyes locked with yours. You could only nod, your body aching with need, your mind filled with images of her, of you, of the two of you together.
She stood up, her body towering over yours, her hand guiding the cock to your entrance. She pressed the tip against you, her eyes never leaving yours, her breath hot against your face. "Tell me you want it," she whispered, her voice demanding, her eyes challenging.
"I want it," you said, your voice steady, your eyes locked with hers. "I want you to fuck me with it, Wanda. I want you to fill me up...."
Wanda hums in some sort of approval, her hands gasping at you to flip you onto your stomach. Her body moving forward, the cock sliding inside you. You moaned, your body arching into her touch, your hands reaching for her, your fingers digging into her flesh. Filling you up, giving you exactly what you begged for.
She grabbed your hips, her fingers digging into the soft flesh, her body slamming against yours. She was fucking you hard, her hips thrusting forward, her cock sliding in and out of you. You could feel every inch of her, filling you up, stretching you, sending waves of pleasure through you. Gasps of her name and nothingness come bumbling out from between your lips.
You could feel your orgasm building again, your body tensing, your breath coming in short gasps. You were so close, so ready, your body aching for release. And then, suddenly, she stopped again. Her body moved away from yours, her touch disappearing. You whimpered at the loss, your body aching with need, your mind filled with confusion, with frustration.
"I want to look at you while I make you come," she whispered. She turned you around, her hands guiding you onto your back, her body moving between your legs. Your knees pressed so tightly against you, her body coming down on top, almost pressing you into this position.
She pressed the tip of the cock against your sopping entrance again, her eyes locked with yours, her body moving forward. She slid inside you, her cock filling you up, her body moving slowly, sensuously, her eyes never leaving yours.
She was fucking you slowly, her hips moving in a steady rhythm, her cock sliding in and out of you. She was looking at you, her eyes filled with desire, with love, with obsession. She was fucking you, she was making love to you, she was giving you everything you wanted, everything you needed.
You could feel your orgasm building again, your body tensing, your breath coming in short gasps. You were so close, so ready, your body aching for release. And then, suddenly, it hit you. Your orgasm crashed over you, your body convulsing, your eyes rolling back, your mouth opening in a silent scream.
Wanda stayed with you, her body moving slowly, sensuously, her cock sliding in and out of you, her eyes locked with yours. She was looking at you, she was with you, she was giving you everything you needed, everything you wanted.
And as you came down from your high, your body sated, your mind filled with thoughts of Wanda, you knew one thing for sure. You had her, you had her touch, her kiss, her body on top of yours. And you would never let her go again.
notes: very last minute fic, and I fell asleep pretty much writing at the end so ignore if it's like shitty as hell. i know it is, im too tired to do anything about it atm. later i'll go over it.
Serial Killer Wanda laughing as she pins you down, leaning her full body weight into you and moaning as she feels your heart pounding in your chest.
"Oh, baby, are you scared of me? Don't be, I'm going to make you feel really good. You can trust me, darling."
Her teeth nip at your ear, sending jolts of pain (definitely not pleasure) down your spine as you struggle (not as much as you could have).
"Maybe if you're good for me, I'll even let you live.... Oh, you like that idea, hm? What if I made you my permanent pet... You liked that idea too, didn't you?"
Wanda slowly trailing her fingers down your stomach after she's tied you up, chuckling when she finds your soaked boxers, her fingers easily slipping inside you.
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were enjoying this, slut."
And of course, her knife is almost always pressed against you somehow. Trailing up your body as your pupils dilate in fear (and arousal, but you hope Wanda doesn't notice) (she totally notices), and pressing the dull side into your throat when you're about to cum.
"Don't you dare cum without my permission. I own you now."
Southern Farmer Wanda.. who has a ranch, vegetable patches, a meadow and animals. She grows you sunflowers and tulips every year and makes you the best homemade meals. She loves cuddling in front of the fire after a long day and tells you all about the rare plants she’s growing :,)
That's the thing about loving someone with a body that wages war against itself—you learn to read the signs before they surface. She wakes up some mornings and just knows, the same way she knows when a storm is coming before the clouds gather. Something in the air around you is different. Heavier. The stillness of someone who opened their eyes and immediately understood that today was going to be one of those days.
She doesn't say anything right away. She just reaches over and touches your face, gentle, the backs of her fingers against your cheek. Taking stock. Reading you.
"Okay," she says softly. One word. It means: I see you. I've got you. We're not doing anything today except getting through this together.
She's already planning.
The first thing she does is make the room right.
You don't have to ask. You don't have to explain that the light is too much, that the noise from outside feels like it's coming from inside your skull, that everything is already too before the day has even properly started. She already knows.
The curtains close with a soft rustle, her magic drawing them together until the light is dim and gold and gentle—not dark enough to feel like being buried, just soft enough to stop hurting. The overhead light never gets turned on. She uses the lamp on the far side of the room instead, angled away from you, warm enough to see by but not enough to aggravate.
The window goes down another inch to cut the street noise. The TV stays off unless you want it, and even then she'll find something quiet—a documentary with the volume low, something slow and undemanding that you can drift in and out of without missing anything.
She turns the ceiling fan on if you run hot. Off and replaced with blankets if you're cold.
She thinks of everything before you have to find the words for it, because she knows how exhausting it is to have to ask for things when your body is already working so hard just to exist.
For the fatigue, she gives you permission.
There is a particular guilt that lives in the bones of people with chronic illness. The guilt of cancelled plans and rescheduled days and the way your limitations ripple outward and affect the people you love. You carry it even when you can barely carry yourself.
Wanda does not allow it. Not in her presence. Not on her watch.
"You don't have to do anything today," she tells you, and the way she says it leaves no room for argument. It is a simple, immovable fact. "Your only job is to rest. That's it. That's enough."
She means it. Wholeheartedly.
On the worst fatigue days—the ones where even blinking feels like effort, where your arms are made of wet concrete and your thoughts move through syrup—she takes over completely. She brings food to you. She manages your medications. She reads to you when looking at your phone becomes too much, her voice low and even, something soft in Sokovian sometimes when she thinks you're close to sleep.
She doesn't try to fix the fatigue. She's learned that lesson, and she holds it carefully: some things cannot be fixed, only witnessed. So she witnesses. She sits with you in the heaviness of it and does not look away.
When you apologize, she stops you with the same quiet firmness every time.
"You're not inconveniencing me." A pause. Her thumb tracing slow circles on the back of your hand. "I want to be here. There is nowhere else I would rather be."
For the joint pain, she uses her hands.
Wanda is not a massage therapist. She does not pretend otherwise. But she has learned the geography of your pain the way she's learned everything about you—carefully, over time, paying attention. She knows which joints swell first. Knows that your hands ache differently in the morning than in the afternoon. Knows that your knees need warmth more than pressure and that your shoulders need the opposite.
She'll sit at the foot of the bed and take your feet into her lap without asking, her thumbs working slowly over the arches, the ankles, the places where the inflammation pools. The pressure is deliberate and careful—not too deep, not too light. She's asked you enough times is this okay, is this too much that she knows your body's responses almost as well as you do now.
Her magic helps here in ways that nothing else quite can. A gentle warmth that seeps into aching joints from the inside. It’s not heat like a heating pad, which sits on the surface, but something deeper. Something that feels like being warmed all the way through. She keeps it subtle because she knows you don't always want to be reminded of what she can do, that sometimes it highlights the unfairness of the situation in ways that sting.
But on the bad days she offers it, and you take it, and she never makes it a thing.
For your hands specifically—swollen-knuckled, stiff, reluctant—she'll hold them between both of hers. Just holding. Warmth passing between your palms. Her fingers gentle around yours like she is cradling something she doesn't want to break.
"I've got you," she says quietly.
She props pillows under your knees when your joints need elevation. She fetches the heating pad and the ice pack and understands instinctively which one you need at which point in the day. She doesn't wince when you wince, because she's learned that you watch her face when you're hurting, looking for signs that your pain is becoming a burden, and she has trained herself out of the flinching.
You are not a burden.
She needs you to know it in her face as much as her words.
For the nausea, she is endlessly patient.
She keeps the room cool, because heat makes everything worse and you've told her that and she has never once forgotten. She cracks the window even in winter, just enough for a thread of fresh air to cut through. The fan stays on low. These are your terms, established on the first bad nausea day she witnessed, and she has honored them without fail since.
Food becomes a negotiation and she is a good negotiator. She doesn't push. She doesn't suggest things that will make it worse. She knows your safe list—the things that sometimes, on the very worst days, manage to stay down. Crackers. Plain toast. Certain flavors of popsicle that she keeps stocked in the freezer now, always, because they cost nothing and you might need them.
"Can you try a few crackers?" she'll ask, and it is always a question, never a demand. She holds them out on a small plate like they're something precious. Because they are, when your body will only accept so little.
She rubs your back when it gets bad. Slow, even circles, anchoring you to the room and the present and her hands when your stomach is trying to turn itself inside out. She holds your hair. She doesn't make it awkward or uncomfortable. She just stays, her hand steady on your back, murmuring soft reassurances that have nothing to do with the nausea specifically and everything to do with you're not alone in this, I'm right here, you're doing so well.
Afterwards she brings you water—small sips, she reminds you gently, not because you don't know but because sometimes being reminded in her voice is its own kind of medicine—and she wipes your face with a cool damp cloth and holds you against her chest until the worst of it passes.
She does not make you feel fragile for needing this. She does not treat it as a kindness she is performing. She treats it as the most natural thing in the world, caring for you like this, like it is simply what love looks like made practical.
For the sensory sensitivity, she becomes very, very quiet.
Wanda is not a loud person by nature, but on your bad sensory days she becomes something softer still. She moves through the room like water, without friction, her footsteps barely audible. She texts instead of talks when she needs to communicate something. She doesn't play music. She doesn't start the dishwasher or run the washing machine or do any of the small but loud domestic things that fill a normal day.
The world shrinks down to the two of you and the soft dim room and the quiet.
She asks before she touches you, on the days when touch is difficult—a light brush of her fingers against your wrist first, a silent question, waiting for your small nod before she settles beside you. She understands that the same hands that feel like relief on a joint-pain day can feel like too much on a sensory-overload day, and she does not take it personally. She has never once taken it personally.
If you can tolerate being held, she holds you. If you can't, she just stays close—near enough that you can feel her warmth, far enough that nothing is pressing on hypersensitive skin. This distance, she has learned, is its own form of comfort.
She puts your softest things within reach. The blanket that doesn't scratch. The pillow with the specific case you can't sleep without. She dimmed the room already but she'll check: too much light still? do you need the sleep mask? Small adjustments, no drama, just attention.
Her magic goes very still on these days. She keeps it close to herself instead of letting it drift the way it sometimes does, a habit she didn't even know she had until you told her, gently, that the faint crackle of it at the edges of the room was sometimes a lot. She reined it in immediately and has never let it loose near you since without permission.
That's the thing about Wanda that you've come to understand slowly, over many hard days and many quiet ones: she listens. She listens and she files it away and she changes accordingly, without complaint, without making you feel like a set of instructions to be followed rather than a person to be loved.
The middle of a bad day looks like this:
You, in bed, against a mountain of pillows arranged exactly as you need them. The curtains drawn soft. The room cool or warm as required. A bottle of water on the nightstand beside your medications and your phone and whatever small comfort she's placed there—a book you might not read, a candle that isn't lit but smells like something good, whatever small thing she knows belongs in your orbit on days like this.
Wanda, beside you or nearby. Sometimes reading, her legs folded beneath her, silent and present. Sometimes just lying with you, her head near yours, one hand resting close enough to take if you want it. Sometimes across the room doing something quiet with her hands while you sleep, close enough to hear if you need her.
She doesn't fill the silence with words. She has learned that silence, done right, is not emptiness but held space. It is the absence of demand. And you need that, on bad days, more than almost anything else. To not be needed, to not be expected to perform okayness, to just exist in the difficulty of the day without having to manage anyone else's feelings about it.
She does not need you to be okay. She only needs you to be here.
When the guilt creeps in anyway:
She catches it. She always catches it. Something shifts in your face or your breathing or the way you go quiet in a specific way that is different from restful quiet, and she knows.
She doesn't let it fester.
"Hey." She turns toward you, finds your eyes. "Whatever you're thinking right now—stop."
You try to explain anyway, because it feels important, because the guilt has its own logic and it wants to be heard, and she lets you say it. She listens. She doesn't interrupt.
And then:
"You are not too much. You are not a burden. You did not choose this, and I chose you knowing all of it." A pause, her thumb brushing your knuckles. "Those two things are both true and they always will be."
She says it like a fact. Like gravity. Like something that has always been true and will continue to be true regardless of how many bad days there are or how long they last or how little you are able to give on the days your body takes everything.
You believe her because she makes it easy to believe her.
By evening, if it's been a hard day, she'll draw you a bath if you can manage it, the water exactly right, her magic keeping it warm longer than it should stay. She'll sit on the edge and talk to you about nothing—small things, easy things, things that require no response except the occasional hum or soft laugh. She washes your hair if you want her to, her fingers gentle on your scalp, and she rinses it carefully so nothing runs into your eyes.
She gets you back into bed like it's the most natural thing in the world. Clean clothes, soft ones, the ones you've told her are easiest on bad skin days. She brushes your hair if it needs it—slowly, patiently, working through tangles without pulling. She tucks you in with the thoroughness of someone who has decided that tucking you in is something worth doing well.
She lies down beside you in the dark.
"You did good today," she tells you quietly, and you know she means it even though all you did was survive it, even though survival felt like all you had, because Wanda has always understood that surviving is its own form of strength and she will not let you minimize it.
Her arm finds you in the dark and pulls you gently against her side.
"Rest," she says. "I'll be here when you wake up."
And she will be.
She always is.
A/N: really wanted to get this done quickly. Chronic illness can be devastating in ways people can’t even begin to recognize. Chronic fatigue, especially, can be debilitating. But you are not alone, and you are not behind, and you are loved how you are. You aren’t being dramatic, and you are not being lazy. You’re so loved ❤️
Also I don’t remember how I formatted the old rambles 😭
Mommy Wanda who helps heal your childhood trauma by remaking all the fun experiences you should have had. Silly blanket forts, messy picnics, berry picking, paper crowns, dressing up, making daisy chains <3
Wanda 100%. Especially mommy Wanda, because she’s freaky and possessive and would love the mating press. Though I think Agatha would be down for anything if suggested hahaha :,)
Thinking about Nat and puppy playing together and Nat playfully calls your tail a “rat tail”. You immediately get super upset and defensive because it’s your biggest insecurity.
“It is NOT a rat tail,” you shout, scrambling away from her and back into mama’s lap on the couch. You curl up against her chest, tucking your tail underneath you. “Mama, tell Natty it’s not a rat tail. It’s a puppy tail. Right mama?”
Wanda kisses your head and wraps her arms around you, stroking up and down your back while carefully avoiding your tail. “Of course it’s a puppy tail! It’s a very very handsome puppy tail.”
You sniffle, pressing your forehead into her neck. “And… and it’s your most favoritest, right mama?”
“Mhm,” she hums. “It’s mama’s favorite tail in the whole world. And guess what? I bet it’s Natty’s favorite tail too.” She drops her voice to a faux whisper. “I even bet she’s just jealous cause she wishes she had a tail like yours too. But she can’t cause it’s only for very special puppies like you.”
You turn around and look at Natasha. Tears are still rolling down your cheeks as you stick your tongue out at her. “Mama likes my tail more than yours.”
Natasha climbs up on the couch next to you and Wanda, softly petting your hair. “Aw, man,” she pouts. “Maybe one day my tail will be as handsome as yours.”
“Nuh uh,” you taunt. “My tail is only for special puppies.”
Natasha gives an overdramatic sigh. “Fine. I guess you’ll always be your mama’s most favorite puppy.”
Summary: Only Wanda can make your worst days better.
Warnings: Just hurt/comfort and fluff :)
Word count: 1.8k
Beta read by @yesbutmakeitgay <3
The pressure of the awful week you’d had weighed heavily on your shoulders as your feet dragged up the steps to your home. Your legs felt a minute away from giving up completely, causing you to slow down even more. Things had never felt this bad before, and you currently doubted it would ever be good again.
The keys fumbled in your hands, fingers having barely enough energy to pick out the right one to push into the lock. When you managed to get inside the sanctuary of your house, the strength you had been desperately hanging onto left completely. A noise escaped your lips, a mix between a sigh and a sob. You heard a distant rush of footsteps approaching.
“Honey?” Wanda was wiping her damp hands on a kitchen towel when she saw you sink to the ground. Her eyes widened, rushing forward to catch you by your waist. “Baby, open your eyes, mama’s here.” Her voice immediately softened into the tone you loved so dearly. Like she was consoling a small child. You opened your eyes, having not realised they had temporarily closed. “That’s it, well done.” She smiled, praising you for such a simple task.
She helped support you while guiding you towards the couch, stopping a few times to make sure she wasn’t going too fast. Wanda used one hand to grab a cushion to place against the arm of the couch so you could lie down completely in comfort. You whimpered quietly when she let go of you to be able to pull the blanket that was always kept nearby.
“My little love.” Wanda whispered, kneeling in front of you so she was at your level, stroking your cheek gently. You automatically curled towards her, seeking comfort with weak grabby hands.
She chuckled softly, holding both your hands in her own. Wanda’s hands were always warm and gentle. One of your favourite things to do was playing with her rings or running your fingertips along her smooth, red, manicured nails; exactly what you were trying to do now.
Wanda let you relax for a while until she spoke up, voice velvety smooth. “Do you think you can tell me what has been going on today?” You hesitated before shaking your head ‘no’. She smiled in understanding, never wanting to push you into doing something you didn’t want to. “I’m going to make you a drink and snack.”
Your eyes immediately widened, gripping onto her fingers without much strength. “Mama—“ Wanda’s chest fluttered at both hearing your small voice and the name.
“I won’t be long, I promise.” Wanda pointed to the kitchen that was in view from the couch. “You can watch me the whole time, hm?” She kissed your palm before sliding off one of her rings, your favourite one of hers. It was a silver band with a small and very delicate pattern. “You can wear mama’s ring.” She carefully fitted it on your finger, making your lips twitch into a tiny smile. You looked at the new addition to your index finger, running a thumb across the grooves. A small sigh filled your lungs, finally feeling your tensed shoulder loosen a bit. Wanda pressed a light kiss on your forehead before walking to the kitchen, glancing at you a few times before starting to make a mug of hot cocoa.
Her heart ached for you. The week had been too difficult and overwhelming, and today had obviously pushed you over the edgel. Wanda knew it was only a matter of time before you slipped, and she had been waiting with open arms to catch you. Looking at you now, she couldn’t stop the lump growing in her throat. She wished she could protect you all day, every day. Maternal love was second nature for Wanda, perhaps even first nature, so that made her love for you even deeper when you were struggling.
The cocoa was almost ready so she took the time to cut an apple up in equal sizes, eight perfect pieces. Preparing your food in your exact way was the least she could do. It had taken a while to learn your preferences and what particularly stressed you, but after just a month she knew you perfectly. She would do anything you wanted; anything for her little love.
When everything was finished she returned to you. Your eyes brightened up because your mama was back. She set the plate and mug down on the small table close by. “Can I sit beside you?” You shuffled to the side so Wanda could sit down, then turned so your head rested in her lap. She looked down at you, heart melting at the way you looked at her as if she was your whole world.
“Hi.” You whispered, looking up at her. She chuckled softly, cupping your cheek in adoration.
“Hi, baby.” Wanda pinched your cheek lightly, coaxing a giggle out of you. “There’s that precious smile!”
You whined, covering your face with your hands. “No, mama.” She wasn’t going to let you deny the fact your smile was a beam of sunshine.
“Yes, darling.” She tilted your face back towards her, about to shower you with affectionate words when you suddenly started to talk about your day.
“My boss told me off because I spent too much time with a customer. And that meanie Daniel stole my sandwich, I even caught him this time! He said I was too sensitive.” Your breaths were heavy as you explained all of the events. “Then a car beeped at me when I was crossing the street when he was the one who was zooming so fast illegally! And— and I was so tired I was gonna sleep on the floor, and I just wanted to be at home with mama. And the stinky bus driver didn’t even say hello back to me.” You huffed, crossing your arms, a crease in between your eyebrows. That wasn’t all of the things that had affected you, they were just the easiest to talk about right now.
Wanda had kept silent the whole way through, letting you rant, knowing you needed to say it all. When you were done, she stroked your cheek again, maintaining the small repetitive movement. “That sounds like such a difficult day. However, did you manage to be so brave? I’m so proud of you.” Your chin trembled as you held back tears. This was exactly why you wanted Wanda there all the time.
“I’m going to have a talk with Daniel, he shouldn’t be stealing your lunches, not when I packed it especially for my Angel.” You were ready to protest, not wanting to make your coworker dislike you even more, but Wanda wouldn’t have that. She wasn’t going to let someone be so rude to her precious love. “The car and bus driver were very inconsiderate. Sometimes people let their inside-feelings show on the outside in a not very nice way.”
You huffed in agreement, fiddling with the ring she had given you. “Stupid people.” Wanda laughed quietly, her body vibrating slightly under your head.
“Now, time for your snack.” Wanda helped you sit on her lap properly so she could rest the plate on the arm of the couch, the drink in your hands. “Open up, sweetheart.” She pointed to your mouth while picking up a slice of apple. “So clever.” The praise had you squirming in pride. The apple made a definite ’crunch’ as you ate, keeping you content and satisfied until it was all finished.
The cocoa was now at a perfect temperature as you drank it, Wanda having to remind you to slow down so you wouldn’t get hiccups like last time. “Such a good baby for mama.” She rubbed small shapes on your back, watching you intently.
You let out a loud ‘ah’ as you finished the last sip. Energy had been restored, it seemed. “Can we cuddle please? I wanna feel mama.” You gestured to Wanda’s chest with wide, hopeful eyes. Wanda would never say no, it was one of her favourite things to do too.
She made sure the plate and mug were safely set on the table before scooping you up in her strong arms and carrying you up to bed. Wanda laid you down, helping you shimmy out of your shirt and pants until you were clad in underwear.
“Perfect.” She kissed your cheek before taking off her clothes too, leaving them in a neat pile on the carpet. You reached out, silently begging her to get in quickly. Wanda did exactly that, sliding under the covers.
Within seconds you were clinging onto her, your head against her chest, feeling the warmth of her breasts against your cheek, having to briefly move her gemstone heart necklace to the side. A long, contented sigh escaped your lips. “I love you mama.” Tears formed in your eyes. “I wish I was with you all the time and I didn’t ever have to do anything alone.”
Wanda kissed the top of your head sympathetically. “I know, honey, I know.” Looking down at you now, she couldn’t even fathom letting you go out into the big wide world alone. You should be wrapped up in her arms forever, where she could protect you. However life wasn’t that merciful. And, Wanda knew you needed some independence, even if it was hard. She would never forgive herself if you missed out on life opportunities and experiences just because of her.
“Maybe you can take a break from everything for a month or two. You do need a break.” Wanda thought out loud. She could easily support you both financially; her work-at-home job paid very well thanks to making contacts in the right places many years ago. She was very grateful for that now, now that she had someone to care for— something she had craved for such a long time.
You sniffled, pressing yourself as close as possible to Wanda, wanting to meld into her body and stay there forever. “I really, really want that.”
After a long while of comfortable silence, Wanda spoke softly. “You know I would do anything for you, right?” She wanted to make sure you knew that, because sometimes your self doubt and wavering self esteem made you forget that people cared about you, especially Wanda.
You hesitated, mind beginning to think of reasons against her words, but laying here cuddled in the safety and warmth of Wanda, there was no rationality behind any of those worries. “Yes, mama.”
She smiled to herself, eyes drooping slightly. Before you had come home she had been preparing a cookie dough for you both to bake later, and she had been so excited to show you. Now that seemed so far away. Being with you would always come first, before any fun activity. After all, how could anyone really enjoy making cookies if they were as exhausted and low as you were?
You both drifted into a comfortable sleep, breathing almost in sync. It was quiet as you subconsciously realised this house wasn’t your home, Wanda was.
Natasha and her group of semi-legal riders live a life of horses and the open road ahead. They come through a town on a Wednesday in the heat, horses needing water, and Natasha ends up at the bar of the town saloon where a green-eyed woman named Wanda has worked all her life and has no complaints about it. First time through it's a fine evening. Second time it becomes something else.
Wild West AU
18+, NSFW oneshot | 9.4k words
ao3
The land west of Jacksboro ran flat and mean for forty miles, and it didn't apologize for either.
Natasha had ridden worse. She'd ridden better too, but she'd stopped keeping score of that somewhere around her third year in the saddle, when she'd figured out that the road wasn't a thing you measured. It just was. You were on it or you weren't, and that was about the whole of the philosophy.
Today she was on it, and it was hot as the devil's front porch.
They were strung out loose across the trail the way they rode when nobody was in a hurry. Which they weren't, at least not today. Clint had gotten out front the way he always did, like the road might do something unexpected if he didn't get to it first. Steve rode at her left with that map of his unfolded across the pommel, squinting at it the way he squinted at it every afternoon, even on trails that only went one direction. Beside her and slightly back, Buck rode quiet as he did everything—hat pulled low, one hand loose on the reins, that rifle across his thighs like it had grown there. His left arm caught the light where the shirt hung different over it, the muscle not quite sitting the way muscle was supposed to sit. He'd taken a buckshot charge in an ambush three years back, kept the arm, lost most of the use of it. Retrained his right hand to do what the left used to. He was twice as dangerous as before, which Natasha suspected had irritated the man who'd shot him to no end.
Buck didn't talk much. He never had, but he talked less now. Mostly he rode and watched, and occasionally inclined his head in a direction—look there—and you looked, and were usually glad you had.
The morning had been fine. Wind at their backs and the sky that deep blue it only got out this far—wide and still, so enormous that a person could feel real small under it without minding. Natasha had lost her hat twice to sudden gusts, clapping her hand down over the brim both times, and Clint had hollered something from up ahead that she hadn't caught and hadn't needed to. She'd ridden with her face turned up into the wind and thought that there were considerably worse ways to spend a Wednesday.
Then the wind quit and the heat moved in, and the Wednesday got reconsidered.
It settled on everything. On the scrub brush gone silver in the dry, on the cracked red dirt, on the backs of their necks and the points of their shoulders. The horses had gone quiet with it. Even Clint had dropped back into line and pulled his hat down and stopped making conversation. Steve folded his map. Buck, who had been quiet to begin with, remained quiet with additional emphasis.
Natasha pushed her hat back and looked east, where heat shimmer sat on the horizon like a standing pool of water that had no intention of being there when you arrived.
"How far?" she asked.
Steve reached for his map.
"Steve," she said. "You're killin' me."
"Eight miles or so," Steve laughed, shaking his head enough to make his hat tilt.
"Eight miles," Clint said, from somewhere ahead, without turning around. "I'm dyin'."
"You're not dyin'," Natasha threw out, rolling her eyes.
"I'm well on my way."
"You've been well on your way since Abilene. You're still here. Reckon that makes us unlucky."
He turned around in his saddle to make a face at her, which was the level of engagement she'd expected. Buck said nothing. Somewhere ahead, a jackrabbit bolted from a clump of brush and Clint's horse shied two steps sideways. Clint swore, fluent and creative, and Natasha allowed herself a quiet smile.
"Eight miles," she said again, to her horse, who had begun the particular slow reduction of enthusiasm that meant he knew it was hot and wanted someone to acknowledge it. She laid a hand on his neck. "Trough at the end of it. I give you my word."
He walked on. She took that as trust.
The town came out of the shimmer piece by piece—a church steeple first, then rooftops, then the full length of a proper main street with its wooden storefronts and the lazy drift of smoke from a chimney at the far end. Bigger than the map's dot had suggested. There was a livery near the road's edge with a trough out front that made the horses' pace pick up without anyone asking them to, and Natasha let hers have his head for the last hundred yards.
He drank for a long, contented time.
She stood beside him and let him, hand at his neck, and read the street the way she read every new street—exits, roof lines, the temper of the place in how many people were on the boardwalks and how they were standing. Nothing concerning. A working town, middle of its afternoon, going about its business. There was a general store with barrels out front. A barbershop with the pole turning slow. A two-story building up the way that was likely the inn. Dogs in the dust, a woman hanging laundry from an upstairs window, a small boy chasing something between the wheels of a parked wagon.
And on the south side of the street, with lamplight already warm in the windows even at this hour, a sign that had seen some weather but still read clearly:
FORT GRIFFIN SALOON.
"I'll sort the rooms," Steve said, from behind her.
"Much obliged," she said.
"I want a bath," Clint said. "I want a bath and a meal and a bed and then a woman, in that order, and I don't want to have a conversation with anyone about anything until mornin'."
"Then by all means," Natasha said pleasantly, "don't let me keep you."
He tipped his hat at her, which she chose to read as affectionate. Buck was already heading for the livery, which meant the horses would be seen to properly, which was all she'd required of the rest of the afternoon.
The saloon doors swung easy—hung right, balanced on good hinges—and she stepped into the cool dim of it and let her eyes settle.
Lord, it was better in here.
The air was cool by comparison to outside, thick with the smell of sawdust, old whiskey, and the faint sweetness of a wood fire that had burned down to coals earlier in the day. Oil lamps burned along the bar and on the tables, their light falling in warm overlapping circles that made the room feel smaller than it was, more contained. The floorboards were old and pale in the center from years of feet. A moth was making its committed way around the nearest lamp glass. In the back corner, a fiddle player was working through a reel with more confidence than precision, though he was improving.
Six, seven men at the tables—working hands, mostly, the end-of-day kind who sat with their shoulders dropped and their hats off and their drinks going slowly because they weren't in a hurry. A couple playing cards by the window. Nobody looking at her sideways, which was the best thing a new room could offer.
She crossed to the bar and took the stool at the far end.
There was a woman behind it.
She was moving along the bar the way people moved in rooms they'd stopped having to think about—quick and light, a damp cloth in her hand, wiping down a surface that was already clean out of habit more than need. She had dirty blonde hair pinned up at the back of her neck with strands gone loose at her temples from the warmth of the room. A dark dress, practical, white apron over it, boots below the hem that were the boots of somebody who stood all day and had made peace with it. She was maybe Natasha's age or a year either side, and she had a face that rested in the direction of a smile before anything worth smiling at had happened, the kind of face that made a room feel like it had been expecting you.
She looked up, and her eyes were green.
Green straight through, the color of creek water over clean rock, catching the lamplight and holding it. Natasha noticed them the way you noticed a thing that deserved noticing.
"Evenin'," the woman said.
"Evenin', ma'am." Natasha set her hat on the bar and pushed her hair back. "Long ride."
"How long?"
"Three days out of Jacksboro." She folded her hands on the bar, felt the cool of the wood. "Before that, Abilene. I'd be real grateful for somethin' cold if you've got it."
The woman had already turned for the pitcher sitting in a bucket of ice chips before Natasha'd finished the sentence. She poured, set the glass down, slid it across with the ease of somebody who'd done that motion ten thousand times.
Natasha caught it and drank.
The cold of it hit her throat and ran all the way down and she closed her eyes for one moment—just one—at the pure relief of it. When she opened them the woman was watching her with that almost-smile turned up a notch.
"Better?" she said.
"Ma'am," Natasha said, with full sincerity, "that is the best thing that has happened to me in three days, and I've been keepin' track."
The almost-smile became an actual one. It started in those green eyes before it got anywhere near her mouth, and it was a real fine smile when it arrived. "Glad to be of service," she said. "You come up the east road?"
"More or less. How'd you tell?"
"Red clay on your boots. East road's the only one with that color." She went back to wiping down the bar, moving along at her easy pace. "You passin' through or stayin' a spell?"
"Few days, dependin' on the town." Natasha turned the cold glass on the bar. "So far the town is makin' a favorable impression."
A sideways glance. The smile still there.
"Glad to hear it." She set her cloth down and offered a hand across the bar, which Natasha hadn't expected but liked. "Wanda."
She shook it. "Natasha."
"Natasha." Wanda turned the name over. "Don't hear that one often."
"No ma'am, you don't."
Wanda tilted her head slightly—slightly, considering something. Then she went back to her work, and after a moment she said, conversational as anything, "You ridin' alone?"
"Three others. They're sortin' the rooms." Natasha watched the lamplight catch in Wanda's hair as she moved, the loose pieces of it curling slightly at her temples from the room's warmth. "We've been riding together goin' on six years, Clint and me. Steve joined up the second year, Buck somewhere after that."
"Six years is a long while to keep the same company."
"If it's the right company, it ain't long at all." Natasha tapped her fingers against the bar once, idle, in time with the fiddle. "Steve's the one who keeps us pointed the right direction. Clint is the reason we need pointing." She paused. "Buck don't say much. But he sees everything, and there have been a number of occasions where that has saved my life, so I think kindly of him."
Wanda laughed at that—bright and quick, surprised out of her, a light sound that the room seemed to like the sound of, because a couple of the men near the window looked over without meaning to. "Sounds like a balanced arrangement," she said.
"We manage." Natasha settled more comfortably on the stool. "What about you? You been here long?"
"My whole life," Wanda said. "My daddy built this place. I grew up in the back room when he worked late, me and my brother Pietro both, sleepin' on a cot or pretendin' we were." She was quiet a moment, moving along the bar. "Pietro's gone north now. Got himself a homestead out near Laramie. And Daddy passed a few years back. So it's mostly mine now, in every way that counts."
"You don't mind it," Natasha said, pointing out her observation. "Stayin'."
"Never did." Wanda said it easy, like it was a thing she'd answered before, as if it were an answer she'd settled with. "I know every family in this county and half the cattle brands in the territory. I know when it's gonna rain by the way old Mr. Callahan's knee is botherin' him. I know when the Johnson boy is finally gonna ask after Mary Parker." She glanced over, and those eyes were bright with something that was enjoying itself. "Been waitin' on that for goin' on eight months now."
"You reckon he'll get there?"
"Lord willin' and the creek don't rise." She propped her hip against the back counter. "Travelin' folks bring me new things to know for a night or two, and then they carry on. I find that suits me considerable."
Natasha looked at her steadily for a moment.
"That ain't a small life," she said.
Wanda looked back, direct and unhurried.
"No," she said. "It ain't."
The evening came on around them. The fiddle player found his footing and the music got better, loose and cheerful, and a couple of the hands at the back table picked up enough of the rhythm to make some noise about it. Wanda moved through her work—refilling here, wiping down there, stopping at a table of hands who'd ridden in off the afternoon trail and leaning down to hear what they wanted with that easy warm smile of hers, the one that was friendly clear through and knew exactly where its edges were.
Natasha watched the room, drank her drink, and was in no particular hurry about any of it.
Wanda came back behind the bar, and she was barely back before she was refilling Natasha's glass without being asked, which was a thing Natasha was beginning to notice she did by instinct.
"What kind of work?" Wanda asked, picking up their conversation from somewhere ten minutes back like no time had passed.
"Varied." The corner of her mouth moved. "Mostly legal."
A beat. Those green eyes, considering. "Mostly."
"A woman's got to eat, Wanda."
Wanda laughed again—that light sound, genuine, before she'd had a chance to decide about it—and shook her head.
"Fair enough," she said. "Fair enough."
They went on like that through the dinner hour and beyond, the conversation finding its own pace, easy as water. Natasha told her about the canyon country up north, the walls going deep orange and purple at sundown like something that ought to be painted, and about a river crossing four days back that had gone sideways when Clint—and she wanted to be very clear that this was Clint's doing and not the river's—had misjudged the current and the resulting chaos had involved three men, two ropes, one horse with strongly held opinions about the whole situation, and a quantity of river water that should not have ended up inside Steve's hat.
"How'd his hat take it?" Wanda said.
"Steve was philosophical about the hat," Natasha said. "Steve was less philosophical about the map."
"Was the map—"
"The map was inside the hat."
Wanda put both hands over her mouth and her shoulders went, and Natasha sat with the quiet satisfaction of a woman who had waited two weeks to deliver that story to the right audience.
It went on. Wanda told her about the flood of '73 that had taken out the south side of Main Street, about the time a cattle drive had come through and the lead steer had gotten spooked on Main Street itself and the resulting twenty minutes had become a story that was still being told in this county six years on. She told it with the particular pleasure of someone who had seen it and had been savin' it, and Natasha laughed until her eyes watered.
Somewhere in the middle of all this, big Steve appeared at her shoulder—she'd heard his boots on the boards before he got there, knew his walk by now the same as she knew his voice—and stood there with his hat in his hands and that expression on his face, the diplomatic one he put on when he had thoughts about something and was measuring whether they were wanted.
"Rooms are set," he said.
"Much obliged, Steve," she said, without turning.
A pause. "It's gettin' on."
"I know what time it is."
Another pause. She could feel him thinking. He was a good man, Steve—probably the best one she'd known in the course of a life that had given her reason to form opinions on the subject—and that goodness made him careful, and his carefulness sometimes made him a touch slow to accept that a situation was what it looked like.
"Evenin', ma'am," he said to Wanda, with a courtesy that was genuine and slightly defeated.
"Evenin'," Wanda said, warm as anything.
His boots retreated. The doors swung.
Wanda looked at Natasha with those green eyes and that expression—the one that was all the way done holding itself back from smiling—and said not one single word.
"He means well," Natasha said.
"I expect he does," Wanda said.
The room wound down slow and sweet the way saloon rooms did—the loud table first, then the card players, then the regulars one by one, old Mr. Jameson who left every Tuesday at nine by some internal clock she'd never once seen him miss. A woman named Agatha who'd been working the far end of the bar untied her apron, said her good nights, and let herself out the back. The fiddle player packed up his instrument with the reverence of a man for whom it was the dearest thing he owned, and slipped out quiet.
Just the two of them now. The lamps burning low. The moth, faithful, still at it.
Wanda was moving through her closing work, unhurried, and Natasha had her elbow on the bar with her chin in her hand watching her, and she was aware that she had not moved to go and was not of a mind to.
"You ride out in the mornin'?" Wanda asked.
"Day after, most likely." She watched the lamplight on Wanda's hair. "No fixed schedule."
"Hm." Wanda came back to stand across the bar, closer now, forearms resting on the wood. Close enough that Natasha could see the fine freckles across her nose the lamplight brought out, the curl of hair at her left temple. Those green eyes at close range were doing something to her focus that she thought was worth noting.
"You got somewhere you need to be?" Wanda asked. It had more in it than the words.
"Not just at present," Natasha said.
The quiet between them sat easy. Not asking anything of itself.
When Natasha finally stood, it was late enough that the street outside had gone dark and still and silver with moonlight. She counted out what she owed and laid it on the bar, added some more, and picked up her hat. She turned it once in her hands.
"I'm real grateful for your company this evenin', Wanda," she said. "More than the drink, and the drink was very fine."
Wanda's expression did something soft. "Anytime you're passin' through Fort Griffin," she said. "You know where to find me."
Natasha settled her hat on her head and worked the brim until it sat right. Then—looking at Wanda all the while—she tilted it. Just slightly. Just that smallest deliberate dip.
"Ma'am," she said.
She walked out. The night was all stars and cool air, the sharp drop in temperature the desert did like it was making a point. She stood on the boardwalk with her hands in her jacket pockets and looked up at the scatter of it all.
"Hm," she said, to nobody, which was about all she had.
(-)
Two weeks went by.
They went the way weeks went in Fort Griffin, which was to say steady and without drama, full of the small reliable texture of days that Wanda had never found anything to complain about. She worked. She listened to people's news and their troubles and their occasional moments of genuine joy, which were her favorite, though she kept that to herself. She swept the step every afternoon and wiped down the bar so many times in the course of a day that the wood had gone pale in the center, worn smooth by years of her hands and her father's before them.
She thought about Natasha sometimes. More than sometimes, if she was being honest, which she generally was with herself.
She thought of Natasha in the way a song stayed in your head after a single hearing, playing in the back of your mind while your hands were busy with other things, rising up at odd moments without apology. Natasha's laugh, which had come fast and easy and real. The way she'd sat at that bar like she'd sat at a hundred of them and had decided this was her favorite. That hat-tip. Ma'am. The warmth in her voice when she'd said I'm real grateful for your company, plain and meaning it entirely.
Wanda smiled when it surfaced. She didn't see any earthly reason not to.
On a Tuesday afternoon with the heat pressing down so thick you could near about hold it in your hands, she was restocking the back shelf when she heard the doors.
She'd been reading those doors for two years. She knew their language. The fast slap was urgency, and it meant someone was dying of thirst or bleeding out. The slow cautious push was someone unsure of their welcome. The easy double-swing, the one that came from somebody who'd walked through a hundred such doors and thought nothing of it, was her favorite because that was always someone interesting.
This one? This one was easy.
She turned around.
Natasha stood inside the entrance with the late afternoon sun at her back, hat pushed up off her forehead, fresh trail dust on her jacket, and the grin of a woman who had made a bet on something and come out right. She'd gotten some sun in the two weeks—her nose was properly burned now, that particular red that came from days in the saddle with the sky open overhead—and her braid was looser than last time, road-fresh, the red of her hair catching the light from the windows.
She found Wanda's eyes across the room and the grin got a little wider.
"Told you I'd come back," she said.
Wanda set down the bottle she was holding. "So you did."
"I keep my word, ma’am."
"Evidently." She was already reaching for a glass. "You look like the road had opinions about today."
"The road has opinions every day." Natasha crossed to the bar and dropped onto her stool—the same one, the end one, which made Wanda's chest do something small and warm. "I'd be much obliged, sweetheart."
The endearment landed light and easy, like it was natural as breathing, like it had been sitting in her mouth for weeks waiting to come out. Wanda poured cold and slid the glass across.
Natasha caught it and drank, eyes closing for that brief grateful moment.
"Better?" Wanda said.
"Considerably." She set the glass down and looked at Wanda with those green eyes, easy and warm. "I thought about this, you know."
"The drink?"
"The drink." A pause, and there was that corner-of-the-mouth thing. "Among other things."
Warmth moved through Wanda's chest and settled in to stay.
They fell back into conversation like there'd been no gap in it, which was one of the better feelings Wanda knew—the kind of person you could set down and pick back up and find no ground had been lost. Natasha had a story about a mining town they'd passed through where the whiskey tasted like something you'd use on a wound, and she told it with the dry patience of a woman who had been saving it for the right listener.
"How bad?" Wanda asked.
"I've had worse," Natasha said, "but I had to go some years back to remember when." She turned her glass on the bar. "Clint drank three of 'em."
"Lord."
"He thought they were fine. That tells you somethin' about Clint."
"And the others?"
"Steve nursed one with the expression of a man doin' his civic duty." She tilted her head. "Buck didn't touch his. Buck, in my experience, has excellent judgment in most things. I should have followed his lead."
"This Buck," Wanda said, and she was genuinely curious now, "the quiet one."
"That's him." Something fond and careful moved across Natasha's face. "Lost the full use of his left arm couple years back. Buckshot, out of an ambush." She said it plain, not dramatizing it. "Kept the arm, which the doctor said was a miracle, and retrained his right, which was just Buck bein' stubborn. He's the best shot I've ridden with, right-handed, one-armed, and mostly silent."
Wanda leaned her elbows on the bar. "And the man who shot him?"
Natasha's expression was mild. "Did not have a good week."
Wanda decided she did not need more detail than that and was correct.
As the afternoon turned toward evening and the saloon filled with its familiar crowd, Wanda moved through her work—pouring, wiping down, stopping at tables, reading the room the way she'd been reading it for years. She stopped at the table of hands who'd come in an hour ago, three of them, young and road-dusty and feeling their oats a little.
"Another round, gentlemen?" She used the voice she used for this—warm, easy, friendly clear through and not one inch further. The smile that said I am pleasant to you because that is the nature of this arrangement and you are going to be pleasant back.
They were. They always were, with that smile aimed right.
She came back behind the bar. Natasha was watching her with something that was more than amusement, an expression that was paying real attention.
"You're good at that," she said, quiet.
"At what?"
"Managin' the room." She turned her glass once. "Keepin' folks comfortable. Knowin' which one needs the soft word and which one needs the straight one."
"It's the work," Wanda said.
"It's more than the work." She held her gaze, and those green eyes were direct. "Some folks have the knack and some don't. You've got it considerable."
Wanda looked at her for a moment. "You're observant."
"Pays to be," Natasha said, and the echo of Wanda's own words from two weeks prior sat deliberate and warm between them, and Wanda felt the warm thing in her chest again, deeper this time and making no apology for it.
The crowd thinned out as evening went to night. Steve came and went again—appeared at Natasha's shoulder, got the diplomatic expression, said his good evenin' to Wanda with genuine courtesy, and was sent along. Wanda thought, privately, that Steve was probably a very good man and also that she appreciated Natasha's approach to the situation. Agatha untied her apron and called her good nights. The fiddle player packed his fiddle. The last regular paid his tab and touched his hat and let himself out into the night.
Just the two of them. The lamps burning soft and low.
"You said a few days," Wanda said.
"That's right."
"Horses still restin'?"
"More or less." There was something in her voice that was walking real careful near to amusement. "Clint's convinced he left somethin' at the last post."
"Did he?"
"He did not." The corner of her mouth. "He'll work that out by tomorrow. I ain't in any hurry to rush him along."
Wanda set her cloth down on the bar flat and did not pick it back up.
"I've got a horse you haven't met," Natasha said, after a moment.
Wanda looked at her.
"That ain't a line, ma’am," Natasha said, laughing low and easy. "He's at the livery. Name’s Alexei. Behaved himself today, near as I can tell, which puts him ahead for the week." She held Wanda's gaze, easy and warm. "I thought you might want to make his acquaintance. If you weren't too tired."
"I am not," Wanda said. "Not even a little bit tired."
Natasha's smile came in slow and real, and Lord, it was something.
The livery at this hour was warm shadow and the soft sounds of resting horses, three other animals drowsy in their stalls, one making the slow rhythmic breathing of deep sleep. A single lantern burned on a hook near the entrance and threw gold across the wood and hay and dust. The smell of the place was sweet and thick—horse and hay and old leather and a faint undertone of the summer heat that had baked into the wood all day and was only just starting to think about letting go.
It was quiet. Peaceable. The kind of quiet you could settle into.
Natasha led her to the third stall, and introduced her to the horse with a gravity suggesting the introduction was a matter of some importance.
He was enormous. A black stallion built big through the chest and shoulder, coat dark enough to blur into the shadow of the stall except where the lanternlight caught his flank and turned it deep brown. He had a broad, handsome face, wide dark eyes, and the expression of an animal who had recently been thinking about something and had strong feelings about it.
He pushed his nose against the stall door.
Wanda offered her hand, palm-up the way her father had taught her. Alexei sniffed it with tremendous seriousness. He took his time about it, like he was a judge rendering a verdict, and then pressed his nose into her palm and allowed it, warm and velvet-soft.
"He likes you," Natasha said.
She was leaning back against the adjacent stall, arms crossed, one boot propped up on the low rail. Jacket off and hung on the stall door behind her, sleeves rolled to the elbow. She'd let her braid fully loose while Wanda was watching the horse, and her hair was down around her shoulders now, red and a little wild from the road. She was something to look at, was the plain fact of it. Lean and sun-dark, a line of old scar along the inside of her left wrist gone silver with years, those green eyes open in the lanternlight. She had the kind of face that had been outdoors a long time and worn the weather well, and something about the way she stood there made Wanda's chest do the warm thing again.
"He's beautiful," Wanda said.
"He's got considerably more feeling than sense," Natasha said, fond, "but he's never let me down when it mattered, and I've asked a good deal of him." She pushed off the stall and came to stand beside Wanda, close enough that the warmth of her was a thing Wanda was aware of. Cedar and horse and road came off her, and something underneath that was just her own.
Alexei, sensing the redistribution of attention, stretched his neck and took hold of Natasha's hair.
"Alexei," she said, flat as a board.
He let go. He did not appear to feel he'd done anything wrong.
"Does he do that often?" Wanda asked, covering her mouth as she giggled.
"Every chance the Lord provides." She glanced sideways at Wanda—close, the lanternlight between them warm and still.
"I've been thinkin'," she said.
Wanda tilted her head to match, still smiling. "Have you?"
"Since I left here last." Natasha said it plain, looking at her. "Don't generally think much on places I've ridden from. Never found it a useful habit. But I found myself thinkin' on this one. On you, to be direct about it."
Wanda's heart did something full and unhurried.
She turned to face her. Natasha was watching her with those steady green eyes, patient, the question clear and not asking to be answered any way but honestly.
"I'd like to kiss you, ma’am," Natasha said. Quiet. Even. "If you're willin'."
Wanda lifted her hand and laid it against the line of Natasha's jaw—felt her go still under the touch, felt the warm of her skin.
"I am very willin'," she said.
Natasha leaned in and kissed her, and it was soft at first the way first kisses between people who have been thinking about it tend to be—careful, learning. Natasha's hand came to her waist and rested there, not pulling, just saying here. Wanda's fingers found her collar and held. Then the soft deepened into something more certain, and Natasha's other hand came up to her face, cradling her jaw with a gentleness that had some intention underneath it, and Wanda pressed in closer and felt the lean warmth of her all along her front.
Alexei found something in his hay worth investigating. The lantern burned. The moth arrived from somewhere and began its round.
When they came apart, both of them a little uneven about the breathing, Natasha's thumb was at the corner of Wanda's jaw, moving slow.
"Your eyes," she said, quiet, like she'd started the sentence before she'd decided to finish it.
"What about 'em?" Wanda asked.
Natasha looked at her a moment—that open expression, the one she wore when she wasn't working at being anything particular. Something shifted across her face. Then she said, slow and plain as anything, "Reckon a person could get lost in 'em. Wouldn't mind the trouble one bit."
Warmth moved through Wanda from somewhere deep, nothing quick about it.
She kissed her again—initiated this one herself, stepping in and pulling Natasha toward her by the front of her shirt—and felt Natasha make a low sound in her throat, pleased and a little surprised. When they surfaced, Natasha's eyes had gone darker and her breathing had changed.
"There's an empty stall," she said, with a glance across the way. "Got clean hay laid."
She looked at Wanda. Asking, not assuming.
"I'd like you. Properly. If you'd have me, ma'am."
Wanda looked to the stall, another laugh bubbling in her chest.
"I'd certainly have you, Natasha."
Something broke open in Natasha's face—open and wanting, not trying to be anything else. She offered her hand, and Wanda took it.
The hay was, it must be said, somewhat uncomfortable.
"It’s a little—" Wanda started.
"I know," Natasha said, approximately one inch away, her fingers already at the buttons of Wanda's bodice, working them one at a time with the patience of a woman who was not in a hurry and had decided that thoroughly.
"For the record."
"Noted, sweetheart." She pressed her lips to the bit of skin the first button had freed, warm and deliberate, and Wanda forgot what she'd been noting.
She was thorough about it—Lord, she was thorough. Unhurried with every button, following each with her mouth: the hollow of Wanda's throat, the ridge of her collarbone, the soft stretch of skin along her shoulder. She found the place just below Wanda's ear and stayed there long enough to make her breath go short, and Natasha made a small satisfied sound against her skin.
"Found somethin'," she said, against Wanda's neck.
"Hush, you," Wanda managed.
She felt Natasha smile.
Natasha drew back to look at her—the way she looked at things she was giving her full attention, serious and warm at once—and whatever she found made her expression go soft in a way that had no defense in it.
"You're real pretty," she said, quiet and plain. "Has anyone told you that enough?"
Wanda felt her face go warm.
"You ain't so bad yourself," she said, which was a spectacular understatement, from a close range, in that light, with Natasha's hair loose around her shoulders and her eyes dark and her expression entirely unguarded. But Natasha seemed to find it sufficient because she kissed her again, fond, her hands moving to Wanda's shoulders, her back, spanning the line of it. Learning. Wanda pressed closer and felt the warmth of her all the way down and Natasha's hands traced down her sides, over the curve of her waist, slow enough to be felt.
"This alright?" she said, fingers pulling slightly at Wanda's skirts.
"More than," Wanda said.
She worked the skirts up by degrees, patient about it, her hands warm on Wanda's legs as she went—fingers trailing up her calves, the inside of her knee, the soft skin of her inner thigh, no rush to any of it, like she was content to be wherever her hands were and move at whatever pace she chose. By the time she got to the top of Wanda's thigh Wanda's breathing was already something different than it had been.
"Here's good?" Natasha said, her hand stilled patient just shy of where Wanda wanted it.
"Here," Wanda said, "is very good."
Natasha's fingers pressed to the center of her, through the thin cotton of her drawers, and Wanda's hips lifted toward the touch before she'd had a chance to decide about it.
"Easy," Natasha murmured—soft, not reproving, the tone you'd use for something tender you were taking care with. Her other hand came to rest flat and warm at Wanda's hip. "I've got you. No need to rush."
"Easy yourself," Wanda said.
Natasha laughed against her cheek, low and warm. "Fair enough."
She rubbed slow circles over the cotton, unhurried, the thin fabric doing nothing to soften the press of it. She learned what she was working with. She stayed longest where Wanda's breath changed the most, eased off just before it tipped into too much and came back again after, patient and considerate. The maddening thing about it was that she was so calm, so easy in herself, like she had nowhere else to be and was content to be right here doing exactly this for as long as it took.
Wanda made a sound she hadn't planned on. Natasha said there low and soft, like she'd confirmed something she'd been waiting on.
"That where you want me?" she asked.
"Yes," Wanda said. "Lord, yes."
"Good." And she stayed there—pressure building, circles tightening—her thumb working firm and slow over Wanda's clit through the cotton, back and forth and back, and Wanda's fingers dug into her shoulder and her hips started moving without being asked.
"Natasha—"
"I hear you, darlin'." She pressed a kiss to Wanda's temple. Her cheek. The corner of her jaw. "You can make some noise. Ain't nobody out here but Alexei."
"He's right there—"
"He's seen worse. I promise you." Another kiss, slower. "Trust me."
She worked the cotton aside, and the cool air of the livery hit bare skin for just a moment before Natasha's hand was there—warm and sure—and the difference between through fabric and this was considerable enough that Wanda heard herself make a sound she was not going to claim.
"There she is," Natasha said, quiet, to herself more than anything.
She stroked her slowly at first—two fingers moving in long, easy passes over Wanda's clit, learning the shape of it, the weight of her touch, figuring out what she was working with with the focused patience of a woman who did things properly. Her fingers gathered slick heat on each pass and used it, the friction softening into something smooth and deliberate. Wanda's hips rolled toward her on instinct, chasing, and Natasha moved with her rather than steadying her, let her set some of the pace, worked with it.
"That's it," she said. Low, warm, pleased. "Right there."
She circled her clit with the pads of two fingers—slow rotations, learning the pressure that got Wanda's breath going—then shifted to rubbing back and forth across it, then back to circles, varying it just enough to keep Wanda's whole attention on the hand and nothing else. With her free hand she traced up Wanda's side, her ribs, the curve of her, slow and proprietary like she was enjoying it for its own sake. She pressed a kiss to Wanda's jaw. Her throat. The soft place below her ear she'd found before, which she returned to with an accuracy that suggested she'd committed it to memory, and Wanda's whole body went tight at the press of her mouth there and her fingers there and the warm low sound Natasha made against her skin like she'd found something worth finding.
"Please," Wanda said, when she couldn't be quiet about it any longer. "Inside, Natasha. Please."
"Yes ma'am," Natasha said, which in different circumstances might have been funny, and pressed one finger carefully inside her.
Wanda exhaled hard.
Natasha held there—felt her, waited, watching her face the whole time—then pressed deeper, slow, and drew back, and pressed again. The slow drag of her finger, in and out, was its own thing entirely, and when she curled her finger on the deeper stroke and found the place inside that made Wanda's back try to arch clean off the hay, she stopped moving for one moment.
"There?" she said.
"Yes—"
"Alright then." Natasha curled her finger there again, and again, working that spot with the same patient thoroughness she'd brought to everything else, and her thumb came to rest on Wanda's clit and started its slow circles while her finger kept its rhythm, and the combination of both at once—the fullness and the curl inside and the steady work of her thumb outside—made thinking in any ordered way more or less impossible.
Wanda stopped trying to be quiet.
She pressed her face into Natasha's neck and made sounds that were honest and unmanaged, and Natasha held her close with one arm while the other hand kept its rhythm—there, right there, that's it—and she worked her open and steady and with absolute attention, like Wanda was the only thing in the room worth attending to.
She added a second finger, gradual, asking with the slowness of it, and Wanda answered by pressing down to meet her. The stretch of both of them together, the curl on each inward stroke, the press of Natasha's thumb circling her clit—it built in waves, each one cresting a little higher, pulling back a little less. Wanda's free hand found the hay and gripped. Her hips chased the rhythm and Natasha moved with her, steady and present, steady and there, not letting up, her mouth against Wanda's temple saying quiet warm things that Wanda felt more than heard.
"I've got you," she said. "Go on, darlin'. I've got you."
Wanda came hard and rolling, her face pressed to Natasha's neck, a sound coming out of her that she wasn't managing at all, her whole body pulling tight and then releasing in long shuddering waves that went on longer than she'd expected and left her loose and slow and entirely wrung out. Natasha held her through every bit of it—fingers working her through the waves, arm around her solid and sure—and only eased away when the last tremor had passed and Wanda had gone still.
A long quiet moment.
"There you are," Natasha said, soft.
Wanda laughed. It came out helpless and low, a little overwhelmed, and she felt Natasha's mouth curve against her hair—warm, pleased, fond.
She lay still a good while, the hay shifting under them, one of the other horses making a drowsy sound down the row. Natasha's hand moved in slow arcs along her side, easy and unhurried, and after a moment her other hand came up and brushed the damp hair back from Wanda's brow with a single gentle stroke—then pressed the backs of her cool fingers briefly to her forehead, soft and deliberate, a gesture so quiet and tender and entirely unannounced that something in Wanda's chest turned over.
"You alright?" Natasha asked.
"I am," Wanda said. "Very much alright."
"Good." A kiss to her hair. Natasha settled back, easy.
Wanda let her breathing even out. Then she looked over at Natasha beside her—hat on the hay somewhere nearby, shirt half-untucked, her red hair loose and spread, those green eyes finding Wanda's immediately and staying there—and felt something clear and warm and entirely decided settle in her chest.
She sat up and smoothed her skirts with great composure. Looked at Natasha with a considered and deliberate intention.
Natasha read it immediately—that quick intelligence of hers, the attention she gave everything—and something in her expression went from composed to considerably less so.
"Well," she said. "You're looking like you've got somethin' you want to do."
"I believe," Wanda said slowly, a smile creeping up on her face, "that you are not the only one in this livery who knows how to ride."
Natasha stared at her.
Then she dropped her head back into the hay and laughed—low, bright, and fully delighted—and said, "Lord have mercy," to the rafters.
"I'll take that as a yes," Wanda said, as she moved over her.
Natasha looked up at her with those dark eyes and something fully open in her face, and Wanda thought: well. If I'm doin' this, I'm doin' it right.
She reached back and worked the laces of her bodice the rest of the way loose—Natasha had gotten most of the buttons already—and shrugged it off her shoulders. The chemise hit mid-thigh and she left it. Natasha watched without a word, gaze steady, the quality of a woman who was somewhere on purpose.
Wanda looked down at her. "Your turn."
Natasha sat up and pulled her shirt over her head without ceremony, dropped it in the hay. Lean and sun-dark where the skin had seen weather, pale below the collar line where it hadn't. The scar at her wrist caught the lanternlight. A couple more on her ribs that Wanda filed away without comment.
She started on the trouser buttons herself and Wanda helped pull them free. Natasha's mouth curved.
"You've done this before," she said.
"I have managed," Wanda said. "On occasion."
Natasha laughed low. Then she looked up at her—all that dark attention aimed straight—and said, easy as anything, "Come here, sweetheart. Up here."
Her hands gestured meaningfully upward. Toward herself, toward her own mouth.
Wanda understood her. Heat moved through her chest and lower.
"That so?"
"If you're willin'." Same words as before, same even patience, only now Natasha was flat on her back in the hay with her voice rougher than it'd been all evening and her eyes very dark.
Wanda moved up over her, settling her knees on either side of Natasha's head, the chemise pooling soft around them both. Hay prickled at her shins. The lanternlight made everything gold. She braced one hand on the stall wall and looked down.
Natasha looked back up the length of her with that expression—the deeply, thoroughly satisfied one—and pressed a single kiss to the inside of Wanda's thigh. Then the other thigh. Her hands curved at Wanda's hips and drew her down, and Wanda went, and Natasha's mouth found her and did not proceed lightly.
There was no easing into it. No patient mapping of territory the way there'd been the first time. This was Natasha with something decided, and what she'd decided was hungry and entirely without ceremony. She ate like she'd been thinking about it, like the slowness earlier had been a courtesy and this was the truth underneath, her tongue working Wanda's clit in hard circles, pulling sounds out of her that Wanda had no time to think about managing.
"Natasha—" Wanda's free hand grabbed the top rail of the stall.
Natasha's only response was to tighten her grip at Wanda's hips and pull her down harder.
The stall rail held. Wanda held onto it. That was about the extent of her available options.
She found her rhythm, hips rolling forward to meet Natasha's mouth, rocking back, rolling forward again. Learning what worked, what made Natasha's grip tighten, what pulled those low sounds up through her. And Natasha worked with her, stayed exactly where Wanda needed her, tongue moving in those hard circles that narrowed Wanda's whole world down to one very specific point.
Wanda rocked forward. Natasha pulled her down harder.
"Lord—" Wanda managed, which came out in pieces.
She felt Natasha smile against her. The audacity of it.
Wanda moved faster. Natasha matched her without missing a beat, hands firm at Wanda's hips, keeping her exactly where she wanted her—not directing so much as anchoring, letting Wanda set the pace and holding her steady enough to keep it. When Wanda's rhythm stuttered, Natasha sucked at her clit and Wanda's hips snapped forward and she grabbed the rail with both hands because there was nothing else to hold onto.
Then Natasha's right hand slid from Wanda's hip and did not return.
Wanda felt it before she understood it—a change in Natasha's breathing, the quality of the sounds she was making shifting into something rougher and private. She looked down, but the chemise had fallen forward around Natasha's face, a curtain of cotton and shadow. She couldn't see her expression. Couldn't see anything but the shape of her, the cant of her hips rising off the hay.
Natasha had moved her hand between her own thighs. Her hips were punching upward, urgent and rhythmic, chasing her own fingers while her mouth kept its rhythm on Wanda. Working herself at the same pace she was setting with her tongue. Both of them winding toward the same place, Natasha taking what she wanted in the dark underneath Wanda's chemise, not performing any of it for anyone.
The sounds she made vibrated against Wanda, prompting Wanda to grip the rail harder and move her hips faster and stop thinking about anything at all.
Natasha brought her free hand down hard against Wanda's backside as encouragement, and Wanda made a sound she absolutely was not going to account for and rolled her hips forward again with considerably more intention.
Natasha did it again.
The pace built between them—Wanda riding Natasha's mouth, Natasha working herself beneath her, both of them loud and graceless and past caring about either. The stall filled with the sound of it: the creak of the rail, Wanda's breathing gone rough, the low urgent sounds Natasha was making into her. The heat that had been building all day in the wide flat country outside had nothing on the heat in here, in this, right now.
Natasha's hips lifted hard and held. A rough sound tore out of her against Wanda, muffled by the chemise, her whole body shuddering through it. Her left hand gripped Wanda's hip hard enough to bruise.
She didn't stop.
She worked herself through every second of her own finish and kept her mouth exactly where Wanda needed it, and the feeling of Natasha coming apart underneath her—shaking and still going—was what tipped Wanda over entirely.
She came with her forehead dropped against the stall wall, a cry muffled into her own forearm, her hips grinding down into Natasha's mouth and Natasha holding her there, riding it out, not releasing her until the very last tremor had passed and Wanda had gone limp and done.
Silence.
Just the two of them breathing. The lantern. The hay. The warm dark.
Wanda lifted herself off Natasha and came down beside her in the hay. She lay on her back and looked at the livery rafters and concentrated on the matter of breathing for a good long while. Natasha lay beside her doing the same. Their hands found each other without either of them looking, fingers lacing together loose in the hay between them.
"Well," Natasha said eventually.
"Well," Wanda agreed.
Natasha turned her head. Wanda turned hers. There was hay in Natasha's hair, her mouth still flushed, eyes soft and entirely spent. She was the finest thing Wanda had seen in all her years. Natasha seemed to receive that through the look alone and said nothing about it, which was its own kind of grace.
After a while Natasha tugged her over and Wanda settled against her chest without argument. Natasha's arm came around her and her hand found Wanda's hair, moving in those slow strokes she seemed to do without thinking—the same rhythm she used on her horse, patient and meaning every stroke of it.
The lanternlight burned low. The horses breathed.
Outside, the light coming through the slats had been going while they weren't paying attention. What had been gold when they walked in had gone amber, then red, and now it was gone entirely—the last of the sun pulled down behind the ridge to the west, the sky in its wake burning a final orange at the edges before it faded to deep blue, then dark. The first stars were coming up pale and tentative in the east, and the air pushing through the gaps in the livery walls had changed: the brutal press of the afternoon heat gone soft, the night carrying the smell of dry grass and the distant sweetness of something blooming far out on the flats, cool enough now that Wanda felt it on her bare arms and was glad for the warmth of Natasha against her back.
One of the horses in the far stall shifted and exhaled, long and slow, the sound of something fully content. Alexei made a low sound of his own. Not wanting anything. Just noting that things were in order.
Then, from somewhere out across the open land, a coyote called.
The long rising note of it lifted into the dark, an animal calling because the night had come and that was what you did when the night came out here. It held, fell away. Then, from a different direction, another answered. Then a third from further still, until there were four voices weaving across the distance, crossing and recrossing each other in the dark. That sound the plains made at day's end. Lonesome and full at the same time. The sound of something about the size of the country.
The coyotes went on a while, then trailed off one by one until there was only the insects and the wind through the grass outside, that wide open sound, nothing stopping it for miles. The moth reappeared at the gap in the livery door and made its determined way toward the lantern.
Natasha's hand moved slow in Wanda's hair. Wanda felt her breathing begin to change—the long deepening of it, the arm around her going heavier by degrees. She pressed her lips once to Natasha's collarbone, felt the press of the old scar under her thumb where their hands were laced together, and let her eyes close.
The hay was still somewhat uncomfortable.
The lantern burned down to almost nothing, a small warm point in the dark. Outside, the last orange had gone from the sky. The stars were all the way out now, the whole scatter of them, the kind you only got this far from anywhere—more stars than sky, more sky than a person could hold. The wind moved through it all. The grass. The dark.
Wanda closed her eyes.
In his stall, Alexei turned his great head once, regarded what could be seen of the adjacent stall through the slats, and looked elsewhere. Found his hay. Attended to it.
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